Ripple

I think of our lives as ripples spreading out as we pass briefly through this world - interacting with other ripples, for better or worse. As the ripples spread long after we have dropped beneath the surface, we should strive to send out positive energy, love, humanity.

Dexter's Progress...

As Dexter's foster father guided him towards a code by which his psychopathic nature would not be revealed and indeed his urge to kill would be channelled into removing from society  others of his kind, is it possible that his emphasis on keeping himself separate, prevented the possibility of Dexter growing towards normalcy. After encountering a therapist albeit one who he decided merited the chop for his own crimes against humanity (though Dexter was conflicted about this act - black, black humour), Dexter is impelled to finally make passionate love to his girlfriend and Eurekah! - she does not see into his dark soul and reject him the next morning. Has his father's advice been hampering him - of course this is only fiction not the gospel psychiatric truth but Dexter continues to stimulate thought as to what it is to be human and whether psychopaths are beyond redemption. My other half has given up on the series as she finds the deception at the heart of Dexter's life too difficult to swallow - his killing "projects" upset her. What is true about many psychopaths who have been convicted of serious crimes is that they are so plausible that they have won eventual parole having been model, seemingly redemptive prisoners, only to resume their evil ways as soon as they are released. Does this put such people outside of humanity and justify Dexter's "solution"? Its a tough question. If they were imprisoned without the possibility of release, justified on the grounds that they were too "tricky" to ever judge "cured" then they need not strive to obtain release and could they then have hope of making progress as Dexter seems to be doing through trust and love. Has Dexter through learning to pretend emotion so perfectly, in fact come to be able to feel after all? Certainly he has feared the disappointment of rejection that sexual intimacy (in revealing his dark or "dead" side) might lead to and how human is that?

All I can say is that I can't wait for each week's next episode of this gripping story and hot damn! I wish I could put a story together like that!

posted by: Frewin at 04:15 | link | comments (2) |
humanist tv

Miscellaneous Progress

Pieces have been sent in by Jackal, Mafidl, Ginnygk, In my Life, and Coopergreen but its not the end of the month and I know there are more of you fingers poised over the send button...

C'mon you know you want to!

Frewin

posted by: Frewin at 18:59 | link | comments (1) |
miscellany

Discovery - Nectar of the Gods

Aaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

The English apple season is upon us - that brief period when supermarkets, however grudgingly, bring us the more commonly known varieties of the English apple season.

The start of this season is marked by one of my favourites - Discovery - a Champagne amongst wines. The skins of Discovery apples are so rosy that it is as if they cannot contain the colour for it spills into the flesh within. The flavour is sweet and slightly tart in a combination that can only be compared with champagne.

Soon there will be the Worcester which like Discovery has a very short season, there will be the commoner Cox but bringing up the rear and keeping well up to Christmas will be the Russet, as different from a Discovery as an apple can be but another equal favourite. Firm with rough brown skin and a mellow taste.

Some of you will know of my passion for bread but if I had to live on 2 things it would be bread and apples!

posted by: Frewin at 11:14 | link | comments (5) |
apples, staff of life

Come on Peeps!

OK I'm trying not to get Pushy and imPatient but I'm sitting here with creative juices Pulsing through my veins ready to design Perfect Pages and only one Person has Posted stuff to me!

Some Peeps are still a little Perplexed as to what kind of Pieces to Put in for the Miscellany so I've decided to simplify the categories - only those beginning with P!
Perhaps a Poem, or something Personal, Philosophical even Polemical or Political. Something Peripatetic, Practical or Pretty, Pristine and unPublished or Previously Posted.Pictures, ePistles, Phonograhic links, Pornographic if you must, the summer's Peregrinations Put down on Paper...

If you must write in a category that does not begin with P then I am sure I will find a Page for rebels but what ever you do,

Don't Procrastinate!

posted by: Frewin at 20:51 | link | comments (6) |
miscellany

Virtual Disease

A quote that made me laugh on the morning radio "Of course there were some differences between it (the disease) and real life such as those who became infected tended to explode after a few minutes in a puff of blood!"

The story was about how a disease introduced into an online game had gone wild and caused a pandemic which in turn revealed somethings about how diseases spread in the real world.

Of course simulations of life are not new and apparently the most downloaded game ever is the "Game of Life" invented by Conway in the 60's on graph paper and the perfect candidate for computerisation.

Its easy to figure out how to work it so...

Be warned this game is a perfect way of wasting time unless you're a mathematician in wich case you can claim to be making usefull observations of the simulations.

posted by: Frewin at 11:19 | link | comments (1) |
cyber disease

What we did with the weekend

The weather on Saturday was showery so Barbara and I went to the market in Leeds where we could dodge into the covered market in the event of rain. I took the camera as there's always plenty to see. I can't resist texture, pattern and colour so here are sme sweets and fish. The fish stall included some quite exotic species for Britain.



After doing the fruit and veg for the week, we set off home but called into Salts Mill - the world heritage site in Saltaire, Shipley. This is one of the places I took Emma to on her visit earlier in the year. Amazingly, in the 1853 Gallery on the ground floor, you are allowed to photograph whatever you like including the Hockney artwork.



There are three floors of the Hockney collection started by Jonathan Silver who salvaged and recycled the great mill built by the philanthropist and businessman Sir Titus Salt. As well as the Hockneys there are  collections of ceramics and furniture of Jonathan's.



Some bizzare items like this ancient dentist's chair.



One of the innovative features of the mill is the way the ceilings/floors were constructed to prevent fire spreading upwards - the little brick arches are covered with a foot of ash with the next floor set on top. This level of care for the workers was unprecedented as was the model village Sir Titus constructed for his workers even supplying them with a bath-house though when this did not get the expected take-up, its use was changed.
You can read more about Salts Mill here - a pretty advanced website too!



We polished off the day by watching "Babel" with Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett. Not a comfortable watch but a clever plot and lots of great acting from the unknowns in the cast as well as the Hollywood top earners. The three strands of the story are tied by a ripple of fate and though the links are as tenuous as the proverbial butterfly's wing causing a storm, the comparisons between the lifestyles ranging from high tec Japan to remote norh Africa to Mexico are stimulating and clever. There is sadness but there is some redemption too.


Sunday was working round at the house where the plasterer is nearly finished...

posted by: Frewin at 19:07 | link | comments (6) |
yorkshire

Designing for screen and print

The Miscellany is throwing up the interesting design problem of how to create something that looks good both on screen and can also be printed out and look equally attractive.

Computer monitors are of course "landscape" in aspect and although web pages can be of any "length" and scrolled down, this won't do for a page that is to be printed. As a sidenote, I use Mozilla rather than Internet Explorer for the very good reason that it will resixe pages to their width for printing whereas IE chops off the right hand edge of improperly designed pages. There is no excuse for this, designerscan make their pages 100% instead of a fixed size and they will then look and print right even in IE but you would think that Mr Gate's boys could have got IE right in this respect too after all this time. So the pages of the Miscellany will be landscape and they will be PDF's which means that they will fit the screenin their entirety from the off. Of course you can then zoom in if you want to look at the detail of a photo say or read the type at a larger size.

This zooming is another advantage over doing the page in html but the biggest advantage is that the page will appear exactly as it was designed with as many exotic typefaces as the designer wants. CSS (cascading style sheets) are an amazing invention for specifying style but they leave pages open to change by the viewer (making the type larger if you are sight impaired for example) - have a look at CSS Zen Garden to see what can be achieved varying the same text with CSS.

Microsoft have a tool called WEFT that embeds typefaces in web pages but all in all, I have decided to use pdf's to provide page perfect designs that you will be able to view as well as print out for posterity...

P.S. SUBMIT!  SUBMIT!  SUBMIT!  SUBMIT!  SUBMIT! 

The deadline is the end of August....

posted by: Frewin at 11:16 | link | comments (2) |
design, miscellany

How to submit for The Miscellany

Ok - there have been expressions of interest so now its time to put your attachments where your mouths are! For which of course you will need an email address that can take attachments.

humanist55@gmail.com

I repeat the invitation to all comers to submit  something, whether previously blogged or not.  A piece of writing,  creative, factual even political or perhaps a poem (see - aliteration!)  A photograph, or a picture of a painting or  sculpture or jewellery.  If you sell these things commercially I would like to know and include a link address for people who want to follow up.

There's no limit to how much you submit and as well as anything else, I welcome nominations for great pieces of writing on other peoples blogs who I will then  ask for permission to include.

DEADLINES!!!!
If I dont put a deadline on this then it will never happen so lets say the last day of  August.

I'm tingling with anticipation.....

Frewin

posted by: Frewin at 17:36 | link | comments (4) |

Naked Marketing

Thsoe of you who are regular readers of this page will know that I am not an enthusiastic materialist but I am going to take time for a commercial break and plug two of my favourite products.

First I have just discovered "Cutter Screw"! Whilst assembling framing for the walls in our house, I have thrown away no end of 4inch screws because they have bent one third of the way in. Using heavier guage screws necessitates pre-drilling the holes which means chopping and changing drill bits or using two drills.

Enter the Cutter Screw!

Note the shark like profile which cuts through wood like a knife though butter! Of course they cost a lot more but as William used to say "It was wurf it!"

Now one for the Ladies! Only kidding - I'm completely PC and this is for Women and Men - solid shampoo bars from Lush!

My partner and I have been using Lush products since before they were Lush - their fist incarnation was as Cosmetics to Go. They went bankrupt for about a million, resurrected themselves and even repaid their creditors. (So I believe.)

Well their solid shampoo bars are GREAT!!!! They claim 80 washes from each bar but I find they last longer than that - they come in a variety of flavours for different hair types and you need to buy one of their custom tins to keep it in. Sold as the ideal travelling soap, I use mine at all times which does away with all those bulky shampoo bottles on the bathroom shelf - and here is one of the little beauties below.

Now if that isn't naked marketing enough for you - here's where we get to the bottom line! Lush have always been innovative in their marketing - they get their customers to draw pictures for their catalogue and send them together with their enthusiastic endorsements - Rustymadgal - you would love it. Currently they are promoting their "No Packaging" philosophy in a very novel way you can find the full story here 

Now off you all go and take a cold shower. Then sit down and order your solid shampoo from Lush and have an environmentaly friendly, hot shower, hair nourishing moment....

posted by: Frewin at 11:23 | link | comments (6) |
tools / memes, unnecessary plastic objects, shampoo and screws

Death with a difference...

I have just finished watching the latest episode of Dexter - the serial about a serial killer - who's also a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police. It certainly engages one in a very visceral way right from the credits which are in themselves a little masterpiece of fleischfest.
(I think I just made that word up but isn't that the point of German portmanteau words?)
It suddenly clicked what it is that is clever about the whole dramatic concept of Dexter - its the same as the replicants in Bladerunner - a story that seems to be about non-humans actually sheds light on what it is to be human (mortal in the case of Bladerunner). In Dexter, we see the world through the eyes of a psychopath, a man who cannot feel and must constantly struggle to mimic normal emotions so as not to stand out and be caught out. It is this about Dexter including his development, aided by a unique foster father, which is the real story and not the vigilante activities to which he has applied his urge to kill.
We see psychopathic actions in so much TV drama yet this show, which though sympathetic to its "hero" and despite his meticulous code of proof for his "victims", is uncomfortable viewing - nail-biting edge of the seat if not peeking from behind the settee stuff. But I guess if you feel - you're alive....

posted by: Frewin at 21:39 | link | comments (6) |
humanist cinema, humanist tv