I’ve just come across a product called SonicNotify, and I’m wracking my brain to try to find a way to see it as a good idea.
I’m struggling.
SonicNotify. You spray red noise into your audience, and their phones become infuriating. Or something.
The world is just coming to terms with spatial advertising and services that “link” to their mobile devices. I’ve quite enjoyed playing with QR codes, but there are plenty of other
mechanisms enjoying some amount of exposure, such as Bluejacking: in the early days of Bluetooth, some advertisers experimented with devices that would push out Bluetooth
messages to anybody who strayed within range. Now that most Bluetooth devices capable of receiving such messages “switch off” Bluetooth after a couple of minutes, they need to be
coupled with a visual medium that says, for example, “turn on Bluetooth to get our business card”, or something, which is slightly less insidious.
SonicNotify works by having a smartphone app that passively listens for high-frequency sound waves, which act as carriers to the marketing message. These messages can be broadcast at
live events over existing PA systems, embedded in traditional media like radio or television, or transmitted from localised devices concealed in billboards or alongside products on
shelves. Lady Gaga tried it out in a concert, in order to – I don’t
know – distract her fans from actually listening to the music by giving them things to play with on their phones, instead.
Buy Doritos? I never would have thought of that on my own! Thanks, SonicNotify!
Let’s stop for a moment and think about everything that’s wrong with this idea:
I have to install a closed-source third-party app that runs in the background and keeps my microphone open at all times? We’ve got a name for that kind of device: a
bug.
This app would presumably need to run the whole time, reducing battery lifespan and consuming clock cycles… and for what? So that I can see more advertisements?
Thinking about the technology – I’m not convinced that mobile phone microphones are well-equipped to be able to pick up ultrasonic waves with any accuracy, especially not once
they’re muffled in a bag or trouser pocket. I can’t always even hear my phone ringing when it’s in my pocket, but it expects to be able to hear something “ringing” some distance away?
For that matter: television and radio speakers, and existing PA systems, aren’t really designed to be able to faithfully reproduce ultrasound, either. Why would they? A good
entertainment system is one which sounds best at all of the frequencies that humans can hear. Anything else is useless.
And let’s not forget that different people have different hearing ranges. Thinking back to the controversies surrounding anti-youth alarm The Mosquito: do you really want to be surrounded by sharp,
tinnitus-like noises just on the cusp of your ability to hear them?
No thank you, SonicNotify. I don’t think there’s mileage in this strange and quirky product idea.
scatmania.org in August 2003, showing off the simplistic look it had before it was deleted.
Since then, I’ve kept regular backups. A lot of the old stuff is sometimes cringeworthy (in a “did I really used to be such a dick?” way), and I’m sure that someday I’ll
look back at my blog posts from today, too, and find them shockingly un-representative of me in the future. That’s the nature of getting older.
Nostalgia’s awesome, which I choose to represent with this photo of me and my parents on a hilltop somewhere. You have permission to “aww”.
But it’s still important to me to keep all of this stuff. My blog is an extension to my diary: the public-facing side of what’s going on in my life. I back-link furiously, especially in
the nostalgia-ridden “On This Day” series of blog posts I throw out once in a while.
If you remember my blog when it used to look like this, back in the late 1990s, then you’ve been following me than longer than most folks have been on the Web at all.
The blog posts I’ve newly recovered are:
Parcel of Goodies(1st December 2003), in which I get some new jeans and announce an upcoming Chez Geek Night (the
predecessor to what eventually became Geek Night) at the Ship & Castle
AbNib & Str8Up (2nd December 2003), in which I apologise for Abnib being down and perv over hot young
queer people
The Software Engineers Behind My Alarm Clock(3rd December 2003), containing my complaints about the
engineering decisions behind my clock, which woke me up too early in the morning
Something In The Water(10th December 2003), talking about several of the new romantic releationships that have appeared
amongst my friends – of these, the one that had surprised me the most is the one that lasts to this day
Andy & Sian, the adorable couple who I declared “most surprising” of the new relationships to get underway late in 2003. The pair married in 2010.
Worst 100 Films Of All Time(10th December 2003): my observation about how many Police Academy movies made
it into the IMDb’s “bottom 100”
Gatecrashing(13th December 2003), in which I drop in uninvited on a stranger’s house party, and everything goes better than expected
Final Troma Night Of The Year(14th December 2003); a short review of 2003’s final Troma Night – at this point, we
probably had no idea that we’d have still been having Troma Nights for seven more years
This is the very definition of a first world
problem. The other week, on the recommendation of my favourite whisky shop owner, I bought a bottle of particularly spectacular whisky:
A 21-year-old Miltonduff from Douglas of Drumlanrig.
In fact, it turns out to be the best whisky I’ve ever tasted. It’s moderately smoky but with a subtle caramel-like sweetness, and it’s simply beautiful. At 46% ABV, it’s no lightweight,
but an ice cube (filtered water only, please) or two sets it right.
But there’s a problem: on closer examination of the box and bottle, it turns out that it is, this year, one of only 421 bottles produced.
tl;dr: Find best whisky ever. Discover it’s one of only 421 bottles. #firstworldproblems
Apparently the plastic coating around this cable helps to prevent 'virus noises', whatever those are. Red scribbles added by me.
Somehow, this triggered a transformation in me. You know how when Eric eats
a banana, an amazing transformation occurs? A similar thing happened to me: this horrendously-worded advertisement turned me into an old person. I wanted to write a letter
to them.
My letter... er... email to Bluemouth Interactive.
There were so many unanswered questions in my mind: what is a “virus noise” (is it a bit like the sound of somebody sneezing?)? How a polyester coating protects against them? And what
kind of viruses are transmitted down video cables, anyway?
Bluemouth's response to me. Like the other pictures, you can click it to see it in full.
Their explanation? The ‘Virus’ was transcribed from French terminology for interference. It’s not a computer virus or anything like that.
The world is full of examples of cables being over-sold, especially HDMI cables and things like “gold-plated optical cables” (do photons care about the conductivity of gold, now?).
Does anybody have enough of a familiarity with the French language to let me know if their explanation is believable?
I gather that we’re going to be deploying
surface-to-air missiles in London during the Olympic Games this year. I can’t help but feel that this could be a really bad idea.
The CAA chart for VFR restricted airspace during the Olympic Games. Basically: don't fly over London without IFR.
Do we really want to shoot down an aircraft over one of the areas of highest population density in the country? Even if you know that AirBus is exclusively filled with
evil, nasty terrorists, I’m not sure that raining burning aircraft onto the city is necessarily an improvement.
Furthermore, is the solution to terrorism in Britain really to put even more dangerous weapons into the affected area? Isn’t there a risk that these powerful
rocket-propelled explosives could be turned against our own targets?
I’m sure that somebody must know what they’re doing. I’m just not convinced that it’s the people making the decisions.
As I mentioned in my reflections on this year’s Valentine’s Day, I was recently interviewed by
a media student putting together a radio documentary as part of her Masters thesis. She’d chosen polyamory as the subject of her documentary, and I met her in a discussion on social news website Reddit. I’d originally expected that the only
help I’d be able to provide would be some tips on handling the subject – and the community – sensitively and without excessive sensationalism, but it later turned out that I’d be able
to be of more aid than I initially expected.
I rarely get the chance to talk to the media about polyamory. I’m happy to do so – I’m registered with the Polyamory Media Association and I’ll sometimes reply to the requests of the (sensible-sounding) journalists who reach out to the uk-poly mailing list. However, I’m often not a suitable candidate because my partner (Ruth) and her husband (JTA) aren’t so poly-activist-ey as me, and don’t really
want to be interviewed or photographed or to generally put into the public eye.
Logo of the Polyamory Media Association.
I respect that. It’s actually pretty damn sensible to not want your private life paraded about in front of the world. I’ve known people who, despite taking part in a perfectly
good documentary about their love lives, have faced discrimination from – for example – their neighbours, subsequently. I appreciate that, often, reporters are challenged by how
hard it is to find people who are willing to talk about their non-monogamous relationships, but it turns out that there’s a pretty-good reason for that.
From my perspective, I feel like it’s my duty to stand up and say, “I’m in an ethical, consensual, non-monogamous relationship… and I’m just another normal guy!” Jokes aside
about how I’m perhaps not the best spokesperson to represent a “normal guy”, this is important stuff: people practicing ethical non-monogamy face discrimination and misunderstanding
primarily because society often doesn’t have a reference point from which to understand that these people are (otherwise) perfectly normal. And the sooner that we can fix
that, the sooner that the world will shrug and get on with it. Gay people have been fighting a similar fight for far longer, and we’re only just getting to the point where
we’re starting to see gay role models as film and television characters for whom their sexuality isn’t the defining or most-remarkable part of their identity. There’s a
long way to go for all of us.
Emily: the media student who interviewed us.
Emily – the media student who came over to interview me – was friendly, approachable, and had clearly done her homework. Having spoken online or by telephone to journalists and authors
who’ve not had a clue about what they were talking about, this was pretty refreshing. She also took care to outline the basis for her project, and the fact that it was primarily for her
degree, and wouldn’t be adapted for broadcast without coming back and getting the permission of everybody involved.
I’m not sure which of these points “made the difference”, but Ruth (and later, JTA) surprised me be being keen to join in, sitting down with Emily and I over a bottle of wine and a big
fluffy microphone and chatting quite frankly about what does and doesn’t work for us, what it all means, how to “make it work”, and so on. I was delighted to see how much our answers –
even those to questions that we hadn’t anticipated or hadn’t really talked about between ourselves, before – aligned with one another, and how much compatibility clearly exists in our
respective ideas and ideals.
I was particularly proud of Ruth. Despite having been dropped into this at virtually no notice, and having not previously read up on “how to talk to the media about polyamory” nor
engaged in similar interviews before, she gave some wonderfully considered and concise soundbites that I’m sure will add a lot of weight and value to the final cut. Me? I keep an eye on
things (thanks, Polyamory In The News) and go out of my way to look for opportunities to practice
talking to people about my lifestyle choice. But even without that background, Ruth was a shining example of “how to do it”: the kind of poly spokesperson that I wish that we had more
of.
I hope that Emily manages to find more people to interview and gets everything that she needs to make her project a success: she’s got a quiet tact that’s refreshing in polyamory
journalism. Plus, she’s a genuinely nice person: after she took an interest in the board games collection on New Earth, we made sure to offer an open invite for her to come back for a
games night sometime. Hell: maybe there’s another documentary in there, somewhere.
This picture’s been floating around the Internet lately. I’m sure that the guy in the picture thinks he’s original, but we totally beat him to it. Back in about 2003.
The Tampon Gun
The difference is, though, that when some friends and I were messing around with about a thousand applicator tampons that had reached their use-by date, we went one step further. We
sellotaped laser pointers to the barrels of our guns, and had a laser-guided tampon battle in the car park.
It turns out that laser sights don’t actually improve the accuracy of tampon blowguns. As a weapon, they’re worse than useless, of course – tampons have actually been used to save people from
blood loss after a bullet wound. But still, it made for a more fun – if sillier – afternoon than would have been had by just throwing the damn things away, even if we did then have
to spend quite a lot of time picking them all up and binning them anyway.
Friday was the day of my dad’s funeral. If you’ve just tuned in, you might like to see my blog post about his death, and a second article about the things that have been hardest, so far, in
its aftermath. I’m not inclined to say too much, so I’ll be brief and let pictures, and a video, tell the story. As usual, you’ll find that you can click on the pictures to enlarge
them.
A convoy of buses arrive to deliver attendees to the funeral.
A remarkable number of people turned up to mark my dad’s passing on this sad occasion. I was genuinely surprised to see how many lives he’d touched (and to hear about a great many more
from people who couldn’t make it). About 350 people struggled to fit in to the cramped crematorium, and many had to stand outside where – thankfully – there were repeater speakers.
The buses with digital display boards, provided by Stagecoach, had been reprogrammed to show my dad’s name and years of life.
My sisters and I were determined that this event would be a celebration of our father’s life. So rather than focusing on his tragic and premature death, we made every effort
to commemorate his achievements and reinforce the lessons that we can all learn from his time with us. In a similar vein, we’d told everybody that we had the chance to that there was no
need to wear black for this funeral: that people should wear what’s appropriate to them for their personal act of mourning and remembrance.
In memory of my dad, I wore his old-style bus driver’s license badge, as well as wearing both socks and sandals together, as he often would.
We’d hired a former minister, Ken Howles, to provide a (thoroughly secular, under threat of non-payment!) framework for the service, but we “rolled our own” so far as possible. Seven
individual tributes and eulogies were given by people representing different aspects of my dad’s life: from my mother, from his partner, from the friend with whom he was walking on the
day he died, from the managing directors of the company he founded and the company he last worked for, from the chief executive of the charity he was fundraising for, and – finally –
from me.
(if you can’t view the YouTube video above, or if you want to share it with others, you can also view it on YouTube)
The contrast between the different tributes was stark and staggering, reflecting the huge variety in the different facets of my father’s life. From guerrilla gardening to
trainspotting, lessons learned to tyres pulled, we collectively painted a picture of the spectrum of my dad’s life. The tributes given were, in order:
My mother, Doreen (watch), who talked about their adventures together as
young adults and the roots of his career in transport
His partner, Jenny (watch), who shared the experiences they’d had together, and
mourned for those that they would not
His friend, John (watch), who let us in on the things that they’d talked about
during my dad’s final hours
Adrian, the managing director of the company my dad founded (watch), on his success in the world of transport consultancy, and working with him
A picture of the “Celebration of Life” order of service that we distributed at the funeral. Click on the picture to download the original (which includes a list of some of the
charities my dad supported) as a PDF.
Kevin, the managing director of Go North-East (watch), on the subject of my dad’s recent career and influence on British transport
Gary, chief executive of TransAid (watch), announced the future creation of the Peter Huntley Fundraising Award, and thanked my dad and his supporters on behalf of
the dozens of charities my dad helped
And finally, me (watch), contrasting all of the above by talking about what
my dad was like as a father and a friend, and the lessons we can learn from him
JTA serves butter pie, mushy peas, and hotpot – classic Lancashire comfort foods – to guests at the wake.
Afterwards, we held a wake at Grimsargh Village Hall which, on account of the sheer number of bus industry attendees,
rapidly became a micro-conference for the public transport sector! It was great to have the chance to chat to so many people who’d worked with my dad in so many different contexts.
Mourners gather near the (convenient!) bar at Grimsargh Village Hall. I’ve decided: all wakes should have a bar.
Between hot food provided by a local caterer, cold savories courtesy of
Jenny’s daugher Eppie, and a copious quantity of cakes baked by Ruth, there was an incredible superfluity
of food. These two, plus JTA, Paul, and Eppie’s
boyfriend James, provided a spectacular level of “behind-the-scenes” magic, keeping everything running smoothly and ensuring that everything happened as and when it was supposed to.
Among other things, Ruth baked biscuits in the shape of buses, decorated in the colours of the different routes that my dad rebranded during his time at Go North-East.
We set up a “memory book”, in which people could write their recollections of my dad. I haven’t had time to read much of it yet, but one of them stands out already to me as a concise
and simple explanation of what we achieved at the crematorium that day. It reads:
“Great funeral, Peter. Sorry that you missed it.”
It was certainly a great send-off for a man who did so much for so many people. Thank you so much to everybody who made it such a success, and to everybody who, in the meantime, has
donated to TransAid via my dad’s
JustGiving page (or by giving us cash or cheques at or after the funeral). You’re helping his memory live on, for everybody: thank you.
My dad didn’t teach me to drive. But he did teach me to read a bus timetable. Thanks, dad. I love you.
My dad died almost a fortnight ago when he lost his footing during a climb in the Lake District, and –
since then – it’s felt like I’ve been involuntarily transplanted out of my life and into somebody else’s. I’ve only been in and out of work, and I’m glad to have done that: it’s added a
semblance of normality to my routine. But most of my “new life” seems to consist of picking up the pieces of the jigsaw of my dad’s affairs and piecing them together into a meaningful
picture.
An endless outpouring of sympathy cards adorn shelf after shelf in my dad’s house.
The big stuff is easy. Or, at least, it’s easy thanks to the support of my sisters and my mum. The big stuff isn’t small, of course, and it takes a significant effort to make sure it’s
handled correctly: arranging a funeral and a wake, pouring over the mountains of paperwork in my dad’s files, and discussing what’s to ultimately be done with his house… those are all
big things.
But the small things: they’re tough. The little things that sneak up on you when you least expect it. Last night, Becky and I were watching television when an advertisement came on.
We were both trying to work out what it was an advertisement for – perhaps some kind of holiday company? – as we watched a scene of a family (father, mother, and two teenage daughters)
packing their bags and moving them into the hallway. The kids squeezed past their dad on the stairs and hugged their mother: “It won’t be the same, without dad,” said one.
The commercial was for life insurance, and it pulled a Sixth Sense (spoiler:
Bruce Willis is dead the entire time) on us – the girls’ father wasn’t there at all.
That we happened to see that advertisement was a little thing, in the scale of things. But it’s the little things that are the hard ones.
Funeral’s tomorrow. I’d better finish writing this eulogy.
And honestly, I’m not sure what else to say. There’s nothing else left to say. It felt like my tweet – like all tweets – said too little, too. But I didn’t want to keep anybody in the dark about this
tragic news, so… well…
As I mentioned in December, my dad had planned a sponsored expedition to the North Pole, this April, in order to raise money for
TransAid, a charity about whose work he was passionate. As part of his training, he was up on High Street, a fell in the Lake District, with his friend
John. There, he lost his footing and slipped, falling over a 200 foot precipice. He was discovered to be dead when the air ambulance arrived; almost certainly killed pretty much
instantaneously by the fall.
My dad, doing what he loved the most: taking on the world and braving the elements.
Since then, I’ve been in Preston, where my sisters, our mother, my dad’s partner, and our friends have been trying to come to terms with this tragic loss, and to make arrangements for
his funeral. We’re keeping busy, which is probably for the best, right now. I’d like to say thank you to everybody who’s sent cards, emails, or text messages: your thoughts and
sympathies are really appreciated, and I apologise that there simply hasn’t been time to reply to you all individually.
My dad died doing what he loved: exploring the outdoors, walking, climbing, and pushing his limits, in aid of a worthy cause that meant a lot to him. He was in incredible physical
fitness, and I’d always suspected that 15 years from now, with him in his 70s and I in my 40s, he’d still have been able to outpace me on a scramble up Helvellyn’s Striding Ridge.
I’m sad that that’s a theory that I’ll never be able to put to the test. I’m sad that my dad never lived long enough to see if he’d have any grandchildren. I’m sad that the world is so
cruel as to deny us all those conversations left unfinished and those mountains left unconquered. I’m even sad that I’ll never again get an out-of-the-blue call from him on some
Saturday afternoon because he can’t work out how to use his printer, or fix his Internet connection.
And I still don’t know what to say. So for now, at least, that’s all.
I mentioned back in October that I’ve returned to education
and am now studying counselling, part-time. I thought I’d share with you an update on how that’s going.
The classroom at Aylesbury College where the practical parts (and some of the theory) of my course are taught.
The short answer: it’s going well.
I’m finding myself challenged in fun and new ways, despite my
volunteering experience, which has included no small amount of work on emotional support helplines of one kind of another. For example, we’ve on two occasions now done role-play
sessions in which the “helper” (the person acting in the role of a counsellor) has been required to not ask any questions to the “helpee” (their client). Depending on your
theoretical orientation and your background, that’s either a moderately challenging or a very challenging thing – sort of like the opposite of a game of Questions, but with the added challenge
that you’re trying to pay attention to what the other participant is actually saying, rather than thinking “Don’t ask a question; don’t ask a question; don’t ask a
question…” the whole damn time.
It’s an enjoyable exercise, and works really well to help focus on sometimes-underused skills like paraphrasing and summarising, as well as of course giving you plenty of opportunity to
simply listen, attend to the helpee, and practice your empathic response. The first time I did it I was noticed (by my observer) to be visibly uncomfortable, almost “itching to ask
something”, but by the second occasion, I’d cracked it. It’s like climbing with one arm tied behind your back! But as you’d expect of such an exercise, it leaves you with far more care,
and control… and one enormous muscular arm!
Amidst all of the “fluffy” assessment, I was pleased this semester to be able to cut my teeth on some theoretical stuff, as a break. The practical side is good, but I do enjoy the
chance to get deep into some theory once in a while, and my reading list has spiraled out of control as each thing I read leads me to find two other titles that I’d probably enjoy
getting into next. I’ve recently been reading Living with ‘The Gloria Films’: A Daughter’s Memory, by Pamela J Burry, whose existence in itself
takes a little explanation:
Gloria with Carl Rogers, from the film "Three Approaches to Psychotherapy"
In 1964, three psychotherapists walked into a bar. They were Carl
Rogers, Albert Ellis and Fritz Perls. They had a few drinks, and then they had an argument about whose
approach to psychotherapy was the best.
“I respect you both deeply,” began Perls, “But surely it is clear to see that your rejection of Gestalt therapy is rooted in your attempts to pretend to be accepting of it. It is clearly the
superior approach.”
“You don’t need to get emotional over this,” said Ellis, “Let’s just go back and find the event that first inspired your prejudice against my rational emotive therapy, and re-examine it: there should be no doubt that it is the best way to
treat disorders.”
“It feels like you’re being quite cold to one another,” said Rogers, father of the humanistic approach, after a moment’s pause. “I wonder what we could do to explore this disagreement that
we’re having… and perhaps come to an answer that feels right to us all?”
And so the three agreed to a test: they would find a subject who was willing to undergo a single therapy session from all three of them, and then it’d be clear who was the winner.
They’d film the whole thing, to make sure that there could be no denying the relative successes of each approach. And the losers would each pay for all of the winner’s drinks the next
time they went out to the Rat And Bang, their local pub.
Albert Ellis wraps up at the end of his section of "Three Approaches to Psychotherapy".
Now that story is complete bullshit, but it’s far more-amusing than any true explanation as to why these three leading counsellors were filmed, each in turn, talking to a client by the
name of Gloria – a 30-year-old divorced mother of three concerned with being a good parent and how she presents herself to men. I’ll leave you to find and watch the films for yourself
if you want: they’re all available on video sharing sites around the web, and I’d particularly recommend Carl Rogers’ videos if you’re looking for something that almost everybody will find quite watchable.
Gloria died fifteen years later, but her daughter “Pammy” (whose question about sex, when she was nine years old, gave so much material to Gloria’s session with Carl Rogers) wrote a
biography of their lives together, which was published in 2008. The focus of “The Gloria Films” was on the therapeutic methodologies of the practitioners, of course. But Gloria herself
was intelligent and compelling, and I was genuinely interested to get “the rest of the story” after she left that film studio (made up to look like a psychotherapist’s office) and got
on with her life.
Hence the book.
And so hence, my example of how I keep reading (or in this case watching) things, which lead me to find more things to read, which in turn give me yet more things to read.
Ruth, JTA and I had a fabulous
Valentine’s Day evening, last night. Over the last few years
we seem to have drifted into treating Valentine’s Day as being a general celebration of love, and those we love, rather than specifically about any particular relationship, as Ruth
explained quite eloquently to the student journalist that interviewed us the previous day – more on that in a future blog post.
You can tell that it's Valentine's Day, because there are even more flowers than usual on New Earth.
It’s true. Anniversaries and our “date nights” are already an opportunity to celebrate the individual relationships between Ruth and I, and between Ruth and JTA. Meanwhile, JTA and I’s
“Greek nights” are our chance to reinforce our platonic bond (over copious quantities of beer and whisky, and generally, diversion into gossip, public transport, and philosophy – often
in that order). Valentine’s Day is one of our slightly-rarer “vee nights”: when the three of us make a deliberate effort to do something special as a threesome.
Paul‘s away this week, so we had New Earth
to ourselves, and so mushrooms were on the menu (Paul really doesn’t like mushrooms, and the rest of us do, so it’s become a special treat that we eat lots of mushrooms on nights that
we’re eating without him). We set a candlelit table, and I had a go at making a mushroom wellington, which turned out remarkably well despite the fact that I’ve cooked virtually nothing
involving pastry for over a decade. Keeping with our “food that’s rolled up” theme, Ruth had produced a fantastic black forest roulade.
“We have to split up… in case somebody better comes along!”
Either from our own real life or from popular culture and the media, we’ve all come across a statement like that. It’s rarely quite so brazen: instead, it’s sometimes concealed behind
another reason, whether tactful or simply false. But it still reeks of a lack of commitment and an unwillingness to “give it a try.”
With thanks for Flickr user "i.am.rebecca".
However, it turns out that there’s actually a solid mathematical basis for it. Let’s assume for a moment that you:
Engage exclusively in monogamous relationships. To each their own, I suppose.
Are seeking for a relationship that will last indefinitely (e.g. traditional monogamous marriage, “’til death do us part,” and all that jazz).
Can’t or won’t date your exes.
Can rate all of your relationships relative to one another (i.e. rank them all, from best to worst)?
Can reasonably estimate the number of partners that you will have the opportunity to assess over the course of your life. You can work this out by speculating on how long you’ll
live (and be dating!) for, and multiplying, though of course there are several factors that will introduce error. When making this assumption, you should assume that you break up from
any monogamous relationship that you’re currently in, and that no future monogamous relationship is allowed to last long enough that it may prevent you from exploring the next one,
until you find “the one” – the lucky winner you’re hoping to spend the rest of your life with.
Assuming that all of the above is true, what strategy should you employ in order to maximise your chance of getting yourself the best possible lover (for you)?
The derivation of the optimal policy for the secretary problem.
It turns out that clever (and probably single) mathematicians have already solved this puzzle for you. They call it the Secretary Problem, because they’d rather think about it as being a human resources exercise, rather than a
reminder of their own tragic loneliness.
A Mathematical Strategy for Monogamy
Here’s what you do:
Take the number of people you expect to be able to date over the course of your lifetime, assuming that you never “settle down” and stop dating others. For example’s sake,
let’s pick 20.
Divide that number by e – about
2.71828. You won’t get a round number, so round down. In our example, we get 7.
Date that many people – maybe you already have. Leave them all. This is important: these first few (7, in our example) aren’t “keepers”: the only reason you date them is to
give you a basis for comparison against which you rate all of your future lovers.
Keep dating: only stop when you find somebody who is better than everybody you’ve dated so far.
And there you have it! Mathematically-speaking, this strategy gives you a 37% chance of ending up with the person who – of all the people you’d have had the chance to date – is the
best. 37% doesn’t sound like much, but from a mathematical standpoint, it’s the best you can do with monogamy unless you permit yourself to date exes, or to cheat.
Or to conveniently see your current partner as being better than you would have objectively rated them otherwise. That’s what love will do for you, but that’s harder to model
mathematically.
Of course, if everybody used this technique (or even if enough people used it that you might be reasonably expected to date somebody who did, at some point in your life),
then the problem drifts into the domain of game theory. And by that
point, you’d do better to set up a dating agency, collect everybody’s details, and use a Stable Marriage problem solution to pair everybody up.
This has been a lesson in why mathematicians shouldn’t date.
The hallway whiteboard welcomes the guests. Why doesn't everybody have a hallway whiteboard in their house?
Again, the idea of the night is loosely based on Burns Night: we eat a meal of haggis, neeps, and tatties, accompanied by a dram of whisky (or Irn-Bru – Scotland’s other national
drink – in the case of Paul, who doesn’t like whisky). But instead of making readings of classic folks literature and
poetry, we put a twist on it by performing readings of really badfan fiction.
At the appointed hour - five minutes to five - the whiskies are opened and drinking commences.
We got off to a late start because Liz and Simon got caught up in the heavy snowfall that poured down across this end of the country. But that wasn’t a problem, because the rest of us –
Ruth, JTA, Paul, Matt P and I – just had longer to drink and catch up with one another’s lives while we waited.
As the snow began to fall, Ruth and I went out to make snow angels. So excited by the snow, Ruth didn't even bother to put her shoes on first.
To start the evening, Ruth – as last year’s winner – performed a reading of Garfield: King of Liberty, another Garfield-themed fanfic from “ShakespeareHemmingway“, the author of her winning piece from last year. I’m still not convinced that he’s not a troll,
but he is pretty damn funny.
Highlight:With these words Garfield and his Liberty Ladies made love of passion that sparked skies like fireworks as they rubbed their bodies liked sand on water.
Garfield delivered pleasure into their bodies like manly post office man delivering package of love explosion. Their love exploded like cannonball shots into night and went on for hours
and days.
This year's prize - a can of premixed Famous Grouse whisky and caffeine-free cola.
First among this year’s competitors was Matt, reading Misadventures Of The ‘Tragedy’
Dorm, a 20%-homoerotic, 80%-creepy attempt to bring a variety of Shakespeare’s characters into the modern age.
Highlight:Romeo having a rant about what coloured board shorts to wear. “Which colour should I weeeeaaar!” Yep. All the usual stuff.
JTA performs his reading.
Second was Simon, reading The Death Of Vince Noir, a Mighty Boosh fic, apparently (hampered by
the fact that many of his audience have little to no experience of The Mighty Boosh). I hate to spoil it for you, but the twist is that it’s all a dream.
Highlight:When Mick Jagger stepped into the strange Daulston second-hand shop he was greeted by an odd sight. Instead of the screaming trendy fan who he had
expected to meet, he was greeted by a giant ape comforting a man in the corner. Specifically, a bald man wearing last month’s leopard skin catsuit, wailing mournfully into handfuls of
raven-black hair in a puddle of his own tears. The whole thing looked freakily fucked up.
Liz tries to explain why her story makes sense, and fails. Miserably.
Third up was Liz – strange that the random order put the three “new” players first – reading the first of two chapters of PokeAccident, a first-person perspective on a long bus trip with a pokémon with a full bladder. It reads like it’s been
written by an austistic young teen with a urination fetish. And no grasp of geography.
Highlight:Charizard looked bored, and we were past Londen and into Edinbrugh, where it was raining. Now Charizard is used to rain, but he was now horrified to
see it raining, it increased his need heavily by 15%, 38% of his meter were full , Charizard really didn’t see this coming at all, he tried to ignore it, but the rain was loud, making
it hard to do so.
Ruth & JTA brace themselves for another piece of fiction.
Paul provided us with Halflife: Fulllife Consequences: the story of John, the brother of
Half-Life‘s Gordon Freeman. It’s
littered with awful spelling and abysmal grammar, all wrapped around a plot that makes no sense whatsoever.
Highlight:John Freeman had to go faster like the speed of sound and got there fast because Gordon needed him where he was. John Freeman looked at road signs and
saw “Ravenholm” with someons writing under it saying “u shudnt come here” so John Freeman almost turned around but heard screaming like Gordon so he went faster again.
Matt, Paul, and Ruth listen as I read my story.
Ruth had settled on Frosty The Snowman!, an unusual take on the classic story, featuring lots of swearing
and an Iron Man crossover, all in just over 200 words.
Highlight:With the power of magic, the snowman came to life and started to dance a bit, scaring the crap out of the children. “Hi there children! I’m Frosty the
Fuckin’ Snowman! Follow me!” He said happily as he marched down the road.
Simon & Liz listen to JTA's story. For some reason, they're not crying.
When it came to his turn, JTA has selected Legolas, now best known as “Legolas by Laura” after its author (who just
coincidentally shares her name with the main character of the story – always a good starting point for a piece of really bad fanfic). With incredible run-on sentences and a complete
disregard for any semblance of continuity, this is truly a work of epic failness.
Highlight:Mean while Legolas got to the cell where Laura is.Legolas said”Laura are you in there”and then Laura said”Oh Legolas you finally came”and then Legolas
said”are you alright”and then Laura said”no I am not alright”and then Legolas said”they bet you up and raped you also the Dark lord gave you the posion”and then Laura said”how did you
know that”.Then Legolas said”when I was your age they did the samething to me”.
An unfilled ordering/voting slip from Argh! It Burns! Night 2012.
I came last. This year, I’d chosen what is probably the only piece of fanfiction ever to be set in the universe of one of the worst video games ever made, Desert Bus. The story is Desert Bus Ride #1 – A Romance Story and for Ladies, and it makes about as much sense
as actually playing Desert Bus in the first place.
Highlight:When they arrive, boyfriend was got shot. “He am hit by bullets!” Margaret thought very loudly. “This is all because terrorists!” Mr. Oakland
punched fist into air with angry. He was angry.
Liz is awarded with her "prize".
After what turned out to be a remarkably close competition, Liz just barely beat JTA and won herself the “prize”. In accordance with the traditions of Argh! It Burns! Night, we passed
the drink around and all suffered in it together: a metaphor for the experience of the evening.
Having performed a reading of "Legolas" earlier, the winner's drink is the second-most disgusting thing JTA's had in his throat all evening.
For some reason, Simon actually enjoyed the drink, and finished the can on Liz’s behalf. Maybe he enjoyed the fanfiction, too. Maybe he’s a replicant. It’s just impossible to tell what
we know for sure about him, after a revelation like that.
Simon "enjoys" the "beverage".
All things considered, a spectacular second Argh! It Burns! Night. If you’d like to come next year, let me know and we’ll try to arrange for it. Just remember: if you don’t suffer, you
haven’t had enough fun yet.
Oh; and the following day was Matt's birthday, so we forced him to celebrate a little before he got back on the road.
While JTA was off breaking parts of his body (and showing off his injuries on Reddit) with Ruth on the second part of their honeymoon, the week before last, I too took some time off work in order to have a bit of a holiday. I’d
originally hoped to get some cheap domestic skiing in, but the weather forecast showed that Scotland was going to consist of exactly two weather conditions, depending on where you were:
Snowy, but with 55mph winds.
Not snowy.
Scotland. Snowy, but with 55mph winds. It looks like this.
This kind-of put a dampener on my plans to get some snowsports done, but I’d already taken the time off work so I re-arranged my plans into a “make it up as you go along” tour of the
highlands and lowlands of Scotland.
Highlights of my little tour included:
Renting an almost brand-new car, and – by the time I returned it – being responsible for more than half the miles on the odometer.
Visiting my family both on the way up and the way down – my dad injured his back while cycling around Italy this winter, and had originally hoped to join me in Scotland (perhaps to
get some more training in for his upcoming trek to the North
Pole). He couldn’t, as he was still recovering, but it was nice to drop by.
Being virtually the only guest at each of Glen Nevis and Glencoe youth hostels; getting an entire dormitory to myself at each.
Ben Nevis. It looks slightly less-hostile here than it did on the day of my ascent.
Exhilarating but exhausting trek up Ben Nevis. The freezing
conditions, plus the incredible wind, meant that I spent the Tower Ridge stretch clinging to a steep ice slope against the push of a gale-force blizzard. Spectacular.
Ice climbing at Ice Factor. I’ve never done ice climbing before (y’know –
scaling a glacier with crampons and ice axes), and it was spectacular. Also, very tiring, especially after just coming down off Ben Nevis a couple of hours earlier. I was pleased that
not all of the rock climbing experience I’d had, over 15 years ago, was completely forgotten, and my stamina – if not my flexibility – was better than I expected.
A climber fights to free his axe from the wall.
Veggie haggis, tatties, neeps, and a dram of whisky on Burns Night, drying myself off by the open fire in a wonderful little pub.
A reasonably-gentle walk along the lochside at Fort
William, in order to allow my knee – which I banged swinging into a wall of ice – to recover a litle.
Visiting the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s first and only
rotating boat lift. Did you know that the wheel is apparently so efficient that it costs only £10 a day in electricity to run it?
The Falkirk Wheel. Photo by Sean Mack.
Live comedy and music in Edinburgh. Also, meeting fabulous strangers and hanging out with them drinking whisky and singing along to bawdy Scottish folk songs until past midnight.
Returning to Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel to find it full of
Spanish sports fans. Sharing pizza with them, and conversations in broken English.
Visiting the Wallace Monument and learning all of
the bits of 13th Century Scottish history that they don’t teach you in Braveheart.
It’s far cooler, yet much much bloodier, than you’d be made to believe.
The Wallace Monument, photographed by Finlay McWalter.
Geocache-maintenance expedition with Kit, along with the opportunity to dress up in invisibility jackets and hang about near roundabouts and road signs.
Chinese buffet with Kit & Fi, two of my favourite people to go to a Chinese buffet with. Surprisingly impressive
selection of veggie-friendly foods, which is
something I look for, these days.
All in all, a delightful little tour, particularly impressive considering that it was launched into with the minimum possible amount of planning.
