This post turned out longer than I expected. The first part is about comedy, whisky tasting, and a museum full of money. The second
part is about how we were “outed” as being in a nonmonogamous relationship, and how it went really well. Click either link to jump to that section, or just start reading to get the
whole thing.
Another Day Of Edinburgh
Our sixth day at Edinburgh was perhaps the booziest. Realising that we still had a significant amount of wine that we bought earlier in the week that we hadn’t yet consumed, we started
early: Ruth and I poured our first glasses at a hair before 11am, to go with our breakfast.
The set of Eight Worldly Winds.
Our first show of the day was Sam Brady and the Eight Worldly
Winds, a beautiful and subtle piece of observational comedy based on the life of the comedian, a “failed Buddhist monk”, thrice married, interspersed with “mildly adapted” readings
of 11th century Chinese poetry. It was sedate and relaxing, as comedy shows go, but still funny and enjoyable, and I could have happily have listened to him for longer.
JTA and Ruth head along the path to the Mus£um On The Mound. Don’t be fooled by the glorious sunshine: it was drizzling again only a few hours later.
We had a little while before the next item on our schedule, and we opted to divert from our original plan to waste half an hour in a bar to instead explore the Mus£um On The Mound. This museum chronicles the history of money and banking, with a special focus on Scotland,
and it’s remarkably interesting. We learned about early banking computers, quality assurance processes in banknote printing, and the evolution of the Building Society. If you think that
all sounds terribly dull, then screw you.
JTA mints coinage. The lady in front of him jumped when he struck the trussell (that’s the bit you hit), as if she somehow expected that when she told him to “hit it as hard as he
could” that he’d perhaps be more gentle than that.
JTA tried his hand at striking faces onto metal disks to make his own coins in the way that coinsmiths used to
before about the 16th century, and I used a remarkably modern-looking computer to issue myself a remarkably old-style life insurance certificate (covering me for everything except death
by duelling, suicide, or execution by the state).
My new life insurance policy form. I put my occupation down as “landowner”, because apparently “web application developer” wasn’t a valid choice 150 years ago, and put down that I’d
lost an arm as a preexisting medical condition, because I felt like that field ought to be used (I hadn’t made much use of the name field, after all).
Next, we made our way back to the Whiski Rooms for our second whisky tasting session of the week (our
first was on day two). This time around we were drinking Jura (10 year old and 16 year old, and Superstition –
one of my favourites) and Dalmore (12, 15, and 18 year old). We learned a lot about the different production processes for each, caskings and recaskings and still shapes and all kinds
of things. We also tried the Dalmore 15 with some orange chocolate that complemented one another very well, and tried our hand at identifying different refined flavours by smell, from a
set of numbered vials.
JTA and I drinking one of the selection of whiskies we’ve been offered the chance to taste. Fun fact for those of you reading all of the captions: American brewing laws disallow the
reuse of wooden casks; this is part of the reason that second-hand bourbon casks are so popular in the Scotch whisky industry – the Scottish, always looking for a bargain – can get
them cheaply.
Next up, we watched The German Comedian (exactly what it says on the tin!), followed by You Are
Being Lied To, by David Mulholland. The former provided a hilariously funny (and somewhat racist, although only in a very tongue-in-cheek and mostly in a self-deprecating way)
commentary on European relations, world travel, and cultural differences in a brilliant and compelling way. The latter – by a comic who was formerly a journalist for the Wall Street
Journal – ran a show with a far more serious message, about how media like The Daily Mail, The Sun, and The Telegraph (in particular) spin stories in a way that the kernel of truth in
them is just about impossible to find. It was amusing enough, especially to hear him read, in a serious voice, genuine headlines and snippets of stories from those publications, and let
us spot the bullshit.
Polyamory Comes To The Fringe
Me with a chap called Daniel, who grabbed me outside the show and asked me a string of questions about my relationship structure.
The other thing that was remarkable about these two comedians is that they both independently asked about Ruth, JTA and I’s relationship structure. And what’s
most remarkable about this is that it took so long before it happened. We’ve been here six days, at dozens of different comedy shows, and virtually always sat at the
front. But today was the first day that the topic came up, and it came up twice in a row. What are the odds?
Polyamory is both your girlfriends ganging up on you. Just when you thought it was safe to look at the Internet again, LOLCats are back.
The first comedian had asked if Ruth and JTA were a couple, and, upon getting an affirmative (which would usually be as far as the conversation would go: we’re not in the business of
hijacking comedy shows with our relationships, I’d hasten to add), he asked “What’s the relationship between you two?”, gesturing to Ruth and I. So we answered. He asked for
clarification a number of times, looking quite stumped and lost for words the whole period, but he was fluffy about it in general, which was nice.
The second really did just walk into it when he asked Ruth “So which of these two men are you with? Or is it both?” “Yes, both,” she replied, and, in the period of silence
while the comedian was still trying to comprehend what she’d said, added, “We’re polyamorous.”
I was so very proud of her in that moment.
For me, adopting the out and proud approach of the gay community is an important part of “poly activism”: it almost feels like it’s my duty to make sure that people can see
that we’re just another group of people in just another relationship, completely normal except for the fact that there are three of us instead of two. Talking openly and frankly about
this stuff is the only way to normalise it and break the taboo, so I feel like my mini-activism helps all people in nonmonogamous relationships, even if just a little bit.
There’s the woman I love. And I’m ever-so proud of her.
Ruth, however, is more-reserved, and less-inclined to put herself in the public spotlight by putting the fact that she’s got a “bonus” partner “out there”. So to see her take the lead
in saying, effectively, “Yes; I have two partners. Here they are. Yes, really. Is that okay?” – especially when she was sat sandwiched between a room full of strangers and a comedian (a
very precarious place, as anybody who’s been picked on by a comic knows) – made my heart swell.
Later, a man called Daniel asked me some reasonably well-thought-out questions about “how it works”, and Ruth and JTA were approached by a woman who mentioned a similar arrangement in
her own life. People in the same position are often delighted to “come out”, but only if somebody else does so first.
Had it been me that each comedian had spoken to first, instead of Ruth, I’d have certainly been as bold. But I might not have simultaneously been so frank and straightforward, so
clearly-honest and approachable as Ruth managed in this, one of the most brave acts of poly-advocacy I’ve ever seen.
After our attempt at a relaxing day off, which resulted in us
getting pretty-much soaked and exhausted, we returned on day five of our holiday to the comedy scene for more fun and laughter.
Ruth, JTA, Matt and Hannah-Mae outside the Canons’ Gait. Do I win a prize for being the first Abnibber to publish a photo of Matt’s new girlfriend?
After failing to get into Richard Wiseman‘s Psychobabble, which attracted a huge queue
long before we got to the venue, Ruth, JTA and I
instead went to RomComCon: a two-woman show telling the story of how they road-tested all of the top romantic
comedy “boy meets girl” cliché situations, to see if they actually worked in real life. It was sweet, even where it wasn’t funny, and it was confidently-performed, even where
it wasn’t perfectly-scripted. The mixture of media (slides, video, audience participation, and good old-fashioned storytelling) was refreshing enough to help me overlook the
sometimes-stilted jumps in dialogue. I’ll admit: I cried a little, but then I sometimes do that during actual RomComs, too. Although I did have to say “Well d’uh!” when
the conclusion of the presentation was that to get into a great relationship, you have to be open and honest and willing to experiment and not to give up hope that you’ll find one. You
know: the kinds of things I’ve been saying for years.
Ruth & JTA in the Voodoo Rooms, waiting for Owen Niblock’s “Codemaker” to start.Ruth & JTA in the Voodoo Rooms, waiting for Owen Niblock’s “Codemaker” to start.
We met up with Matt and his new girlfriend, Hannah-Mae, who turns out to be a lovely, friendly, and
dryly-sarcastic young woman who makes a wonderful match for our Matt. Then, after a drink together, parted ways to see different shows; promising to meet up again later in the day.
“Codemaker” Owen Niblock presents Google Image Search pictures that come up when the search engine is presented with a picture of his wife. The audience member who’s half-standing
didn’t laugh throughout the entire performance: this might not have been the right show for him.
We watched Owen Niblock‘s Codemaker, and were pleased to discover that it was everything
that Computer Programmer Extraordinaire (which we saw on day two)
failed to be. Codemaker was genuinely geeky (Owen would put up code segments and then explain why they were interesting), funny (everything from the
five-months-a-year beard story to his relationship Service Level Agreement with his wife was fabulously-crafted), and moving. In some ways I’m sad that he isn’t attracting a larger
audience – we three represented about a quarter to a fifth of those in attendance, at the end – but on the other hand, his computer-centric humour (full of graphs and pictures of old
computers) is rather niche and perhaps wouldn’t appeal to the mainstream. Highly recommended to the geeks among you, though!
Ruth discovers a police box on the way back to the flat and is inordinately excited. Apparently she’d somehow managed to never see one before.
Back at the flat, we drank gin and played Ca$h ‘n’ Gun$ with Matt and
Hannah-Mae. JTA won three consecutive games, the jammy sod, despite the efforts of the rest of us (Matt or I with a hand grenade, Ruth or I as The Kid, or even Hannah-Mae once she had a
gun in each hand), and all the way along every single time insisted that he was losing. Sneaky bugger.
Hannah-Mae, Matt, JTA and I with Richard Wiseman. JTA was aware that a photo was going to be taken at some point, but was distracted by talking to another comedian, off-camera.
We all reconvened at the afternoon repeat of Richard Wiseman’s show, where he demonstrated (in a very fun and engaging way) a series of psychological, mathematical, and slight-of-hand
tricks behind the “mind-reading” and illusion effects used by various professional entertainers. I’ve clearly studied this stuff far too much, because I didn’t end up learning anything
new, but I did enjoy his patter and the way he makes his material interesting, and it’s well-worth a look. Later, Ruth and I would try to develop a mathematical formula for the smallest
possible sum totals possible for integer magic squares of a given order (Wiseman’s
final trick involved the high-speed construction of a perfect magic square to a sum total provided by a member of the audience: a simple problem: if anybody wants me to demonstrate how
it’s done, it’s quite fun).
Thom Tuck wants to be where the people are. He wants to see… wants to see them, dancing. Walking around on those… what’s what word again? Seriously: what’s that word again?
Finally, we all went to see Thom Tuck again. Matt, JTA and I had seen him earlier in the week, but we’d insisted that Hannah-Mae and Ruth get the chance to see his fantastic
show, too (as well as giving ourselves an excuse to see it again ourselves, of course). He wasn’t quite so impressive the second time around, but it was great to see that his knowledge
of straight-to-DVD Disney movies really is just-about as encyclopaedic as he claims, when we gave us new material we hadn’t heard on his previous show (and omitted some that we had), as
well as adapting to suggestions of films shouted out by the audience. Straight-To-DVD remains for me a chilling and hilarious show and perhaps the most-enjoyable thing
I’ve ever seen on the Fringe.
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.
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.
You may remember the long-running story of my letters to the Office of National Statistics, and the more-concentrated effort by another blogger, in regard to the automatic
“correction” of supposedly-“erroneous” data in the 2011 census,
like somebody having multiple partners or identifying as neither gender. You don’t? Well here’s a reminder: part one, part two, part three, part four.
Well: we’ve finally had some success. A response has been received from the ONS, including – at last – segments of business logic from their “correction” code.
It’s hard to tell for certain what the result of the correction will be, but one thing’s for sure – Ruth, JTA and I’s census data won’t have passed their validation! Their
relationship validations BP2, BP2a, and BP2b state that it is logically-impossible for a person to have a spouse and a partner living with them in the same household.
I should invite them around for dinner sometime, and they can see for themselves that this isn’t true.
I also note that they consider it invalid for anybody to tick both or neither of the (two) gender option boxes, although again, it’s not clear from the data they’ve provided how the
automatic correction occurs. Increasingly, I’m coming to suspect that this might actually be a manual process, in which case I’m wondering what guidelines there are for their operators?
One good piece of news from this FoI request, though: the ONS has confirmed that the original census data – the filled-in paper forms, which unlike the online version
doesn’t enforce its validation upon you – is not adjusted. So in a hundred years time, people will be able to look back at the actual forms filled in by poly, trans, and other
non-standard households around the UK, and generate actual statistics on the frequency with which these occur. It’s not much, but it’s something.
Following up on my earlier blog posts about how data on polyamorous households is recorded in the census (see parts one, two, and three), as well as subsequent queries by Zoe O’Connell on this and related topics (how the census records data on other relationships, such as marriage between same-gender partners and civil
partnerships between opposite-gender partners), there’s finally been some progress!
No; that’s a lie, I’m afraid. We’re still left wading around in the same muddy puddle. Zoe’s Freedom of Information Act request, which basically said “Okay, so you treat this kind of
data as erroneous. How often does this happen?” got a response. And that response basically said, “We can’t tell you that, because we don’t have the information
and it’d cost too much to work it out.” Back to square one.
Still: it looks like she’s not keen to be beaten, as she’s sent
a fresh FoI request to instead ask “So what’s the algorithm
you’re using to detect this erroneous data?” I was pleased to see that she went on to add, effectively, “I don’t need an explanation: send me the code if you need
to,” which makes it harder for them to fall behind the “It’s too expensive!” excuse yet again.
Anyway: it’s one to watch. And needless to say, I’ll keep you all posted when anything changes…
Polygamous marriages are not legally recognised in the UK and therefore any data received from a questionnaire that appeared to show polygamous relationship in the manner that you
suggest would be read as an error. It is recognised that the majority of respondents recording themselves as being in a polygamous relationship in a UK census do so erroneously, for
example, ticking the wrong box for one household member on the relationships question.
Therefore, the data to be used for statistical purposes would be adjusted by changing one or more of these relationships, so that each respondent is in a relationship with no more
than one person. This is consistent with all previous UK censuses, and others around the world.
A copy of the original questionnaire would be retained as part of the historical record which would show such relationships as they were recorded. We do not attempt to amend the
original record.
Any mismatches between the indicated sex and marital status of respondents will be resolved using a probabilistic statistical system which will not necessarily deal with each case
in the same way. The system will look at other responses for each person, including those for the Household relationships, and will alter one or more variables to make the response
consistent. In the example that you propose, it would either change the sex of one individual, or change the marital status to “Same-sex civil partnership”, depending on which is
considered statistically more likely to be correct.
Honestly, I’m not particularly impressed. They’ve committed to maintaining a historical record of the original, “uncorrected” data, so that future statisticians can get a true picture
of the answers given, but this is about the only positive point in this response. Treating unusual data as erroneous is akin to pretending that a societal change doesn’t exist, and that
this approach is “consistent with previous censuses” neglects to entertain the possibility that this data has value that it might not have had previously.
Yes, there will be erroneous data: people who accidentally said that they had two husbands when they only have one, for example. And yes, this can probably (although they don’t state
how they know to recognise this) be assumed to be more common that genuine cases where somebody meant to put that on their census (although there will also be an error
rate amongst these people, too). But taking the broad brush approach of assuming that every case can be treated as an error reeks of the same narrow-mindedness as the (alleged;
almost-certainly an urban legend) statement by Queen Victoria that lesbianism “didn’t exist.”
“Fixing” the data using probabilities just results in a regression towards the mean: “Hmm; this couple of men say they’re married: they could be civil partners, or it could be a
mistake… but they’re in a county with statistically-few few gay people, so we’ll assume the latter.” Really: what?
I’m not impressed, ONS.
Update: a second FoI request now
aims to determine how many “corrections” have been made on censuses, historically. One to watch.
It’s was a busy weekend; the first of several, I’m sure. Mostly – put briefly – it’s been spent thusly:
Democracy: I’ll be voting “Yes” on Thursday’s referendum, and you should too (unless you’ve already been
persuaded or are even helping with the fight). And while I’ve not had as
much opportunity to help get this message out as Ruth and JTA have, I’ve tried to do my bit by joining them for a spot of leafleting over the weekend. I’m not entirely in favour of some of the campaign
tactics being used (like the separate “Labour Yes” and “Conservative Yes” campaigns which act as if one another don’t exist: to me, whether or not we adopt AV has nothing to do with parties or
candidates and everything to do with it just being a better way of representing the opinion of the voters), but I guess that they’re necessary to get the point across to
some folks. And this slight spindoctoring quickly pales in the light of some of the lies that the no-to-AV campaigners are telling.
Injury: Not to me, this time, but to my
father, who came off his bike while cycling around Scotland this weekend. I’ve not had the chance to talk to him since they pushed back his surgery (he’s broken parts of himself and
they want to turn him into a cyborg put a metal plate in him, or something) until later this week. Right now, then, he’s confined to
hospital, which I can’t imagine he’s enjoying very much. If they’ve hooked you up with Internet access, dad – get well soon.
Packing: Oh, so much packing. I got started on boxing up all of the board games, the other day, only to find out that there were quite a few more of them
than I remembered. I’ve also started on my collection of cables and computer knick-knacks, and discovered that I have no fewer than five male-to-male VGA cables. Why? I’ve no idea. I’ve
been gradually cutting down on my spare supplies (do I really need three spare floppy drive cables when I don’t use any floppy disks?), but it’s hard: the very next day after I
throw them out, you can guarantee that’ll be the moment I need one of my many AT-to-PS2 keyboard adapters.
Friendship: A couple of weeks ago I met Adrian, an international student from the USA who’s been in Oxford for a year or so for the final year of zer* study.
Ze and I ‘clicked’ and formed an immediate connection, instantly getting along remarkably well. We spent a little of this weekend together, and for a moment there, it seemed like there
might be the potential for a romantic connection, too. But sadly, by the time we got into gear ze had only two days left in the UK before jetting off back home to the States… and 3,900
miles is a long, long way. We both agreed that we should have met a year ago, but c’est la vie: the world is smaller, these days, thanks to the Internet, so
there’s every chance of building an online friendship, punctuated those rare occasions when we happen to be in one another’s country.
I don't have any pictures to-hand from this weekend at all, shockingly. So here's a picture of a strange-looking insect, having just shed its skin (left), on Adrian's hat.
* It’s a gender-neutral pronoun, if you haven’t come across one before (and as I usually only find
myself using them in the context of BiCon, you’d be forgiven). Aside from their linguistic benefits in politically-correct
society, they’re often favoured by those whose gender identity is
neither male nor female.
However, in the meantime somebody’s one-upped me and has put in a Freedom of Information request, which – of course – the law mandates that they respond to. I should’a
thought of that. Anyway, you can read the request here, and there’s options to follow it by RSS and/or email if you want updates.
Update (27th April 2011):Still no word in response to the FoI
request.
I’ve just sent a letter to the Office of National
Statistics, about the 2011 census. In case you’re interested,
or if you’d like to send a similar letter to ensure that your own living arrangements will be correctly recorded, you’re welcome to use it as a template. My letter reads:
Census Customer Services
ONS
Segensworth Road
Titchfield
Fareham
Hampshire
PO15 5RR
10th March 2011
Dear Sir or Madam,
Re: Households containing people with multiple romantic relationships in the 2011 census
I write to you to ensure that the data that will be provided by my household for the 2011 census will be properly recorded and processed. I am a supporter of the census and understand
its importance, but I am concerned that my response, and the response of others in my position, is at risk of being misunderstood or misinterpreted as a mistake.
I live with my partner and her husband in a three-way committed relationship. We have attempted to express this on the census form: my partner has checked the “husband or wife” box in
reference to her relationship to her husband, and she had checked the “partner” box in reference to her relationship with me. Like many people in this kind of relationship, our family
is the victim of unfair discrimination, and it’s important to us that we can be counted so that future lawmakers, armed with the statistical evidence, can pass policy that is fair to
all: including those who choose to be romantically-involved with multiple people at the same time.
Please give me your assurances that our data will be correctly recorded. If this is not possible, please advise me to whom I should write to put the case that this should be changed.
Yours sincerely,
Dan Q
If the census isn’t the time for a little Poly-activism, then I don’t know when is. I’ll keep
you posted if I get a response.
Hang around on any polyamory-themed newsgroups, forums, or mailing lists, and – before long –
you’ll see a reasonable number of topics like this:
My girlfriend just “came out” to me as polyamorous.
I don’t feel comfortable being tied down to one person. Am I poly?
My husband is seeing somebody who identifies as mono.
What do all of these topics have in common? In each case, they involve at least one person who defines themselves, or others, as being “polyamorous” or “monoamorous/monogamous”.
That’s a perfectly popular mindset – there are plenty of folks who claim that
we’re
all hard-wired for mono- or poly-, just like we are for our sexual orientation – but it’s not one that I can get my head around. For me, polyamory is not an identity.
It’s not something I am, but something I do. The difference is important: I am not polyamorous (although I’m in a relationship that is), just as I was not
monoamorous (when I was last in a relationship that was).
I’m not alone in this belief, although I’m perhaps
in a minority. It’s evidently the case for many practitioners of polyamorous relationships that they are “poly”, just like they might be gay, straight, or bisexual (among other
sexualities).
It’s Complicated. For you, perhaps.
We attach a great deal of significance to
our personal identity: I suppose that’s one explanation for why people get so attached to the idea that they are something. It’s very easy to claim an identity based on
your race, your sexual orientation, your religion, or your political affiliation. It’s clear from these examples that an identity does not have to be something genetic or biological,
but can be the result of a choice. However, this still doesn’t “fix” things for me: it still doesn’t feel as though my relationship choices are part of me so much as they are part of my
circumstances.
The difference, for me, is one of activity. One can have a sexual orientation without having sexual activity, can have a religious belief without engaging in a religious
ceremony; can have a political stance without voting (although I know people who’d throw back at me a No true Scotsman argument about those last two). But I can’t fathom a way that one can “be” polyamorous without having a
relationship!
I wonder if, perhaps, those people who identify as “being”
polyamorous would claim that they could not possibly be happy if they were somehow confined to exactly one or fewer romantic relationships? That’s the only way that I can
conceive that one could justify a polyamorous self-definition. Anything less would seem to be putting the cart before the horse: if it’s not essential to you, then how is it part of
you?
And maybe there are some people would answer that question affirmatively; people for whom having a second (or third, or more) romantic relationship is critical to their happiness. In
fact, I’m sure there are. Maybe these are the truly “polyamorous” people – the nonmonogamy equivalent of what in sexuality would be a Kinsey 6 (or 0: I haven’t yet decided which way this scale should go).
I can conceive of the existence of these people: I’ve probably even met some. They’re not so dissimilar to those “monogamous” people who are incapable of being happy when they’re
single. I’ll admit that the society we live in is horribly biased towards couples, and that we’re culturally stunted in that we’re trained to think of those who are single as somehow
“failing”, but I just can’t quite get my head around it. I’ve been perfectly happy at various points of being in intimate relationships with zero, one, or more partners, and I almost
never go “out of my way” to seek out a potential mate.
Perhaps I’m the outlier: it certainly sounds like it, in the face of overwhelming evidence. But for me, that’s certainly the most comfortable choice to find happiness regardless of how
my relationships happen to be laid out. And for that reason, polyamorous relationships are, when the occur, simply a rational choice for me – not some drive to “hoard” more lovers nor
(as is commonly stated by some poly practitioners) a way to have your needs by more than a single person. To me, engaging in an open, polyamorous relationship – where possible – just
makes logical sense, and for those capable of it, there seems no reason not to use that kind of relationship as a starting point. Everything else can be bolted on top.
Something I’ve been thinking about, recently; presented in three parts, for clarity:
Part One – Polyamory and Negotiations
There’s a widely-understood guideline in nonmonogamous relationships that you should always be willing to ask for what you want, not what you think you can get away with.
To me, it feels to be a particularly valuable maxim. Like the majority of suggestions touted by the polyamorous community, it’s a tip that holds value for both monogamous and
nonmonogamous relationships… but is naturally of more importance to those which are nonmonogamous because these have a tendency to depend more-heavily on honest and open negotiation.
I’m sure I don’t have to spell out to you why asking for what you want (rather than what you think you can get away with) is important. But just in case I do, here’s the three top
reasons, as far as I see it:
When you ask for what you want, there’s a chance that you’ll get it. When you ask for anything else, getting what you want is a lucky coincidence. Don’t you want the chance of
getting what you want?
Being honest about what you want and how important it is to you – and listening to what’s your partners want and how important those things are to them – you’re in the best possible
position to come to the fairest possible compromise, if the things that you want are not completely compatible. Don’t you want the best for you, your partner(s), and your
relationship(s)?
Being open about what you’re looking for is an important part of being honest. Don’t you want to be honest with your lover?
Polyamory networks can grow quite large, and the management of this requires honest, open communication even more than a monogamous relationship does.
There are times that it’s okay not to ask for what you want, too, though. Sometimes it’s hard to be sure what you want; and it’s fine to say you need time to think about it. Sometimes
we change our minds (shocking, I know!), and it’s more-admirable to be honest than consistent. Sometimes there are more important things to deal with. There’s no rush.
But it works. The more specific you can be – even to the point of “too much information” – the better this kind of communication can work, because the better your partner understands
you, the better you both can negotiate. As ‘dirty surface’ writes, “I’d like to get my butt caned by a professional Dom while you watch once
every six months or so” represents a very different commitment of time, money and emotional energy than what someone might picture when you say “Let’s hire and share a sex worker
regularly.”
Part Two – The Anchoring Effect
There’s a known psychological phenomenon called the
anchoring effect. In order to demonstrate it, I’m going to plagiarise an example used in this article – if you want
to see the effect in action; don’t click that link yet! Just follow the instructions below:
Now: without checking – do you think that Venezuela has a higher or a lower population than that country?
Finally, in millions, what do you estimate that the population of Venezuela is?
You’ll get the answer a little further down the page. But first, it’s time to come clean about something: when you clicked that link to WolframAlpha, you’ll have gone to one of two
different pages. There’s a 50% chance that you’ll have found yourself looking at the population data of the United Kingdom (about 62 million), and a 50% chance that you’ll have found
yourself looking at the population data of Switzerland (about 7½ million).
If you originally saw the United Kingdom and you guessed lower, or you originally saw Switzerland and guessed higher, you were right: the population of Venezuela
is somewhere between the two. But if we took all of the guesses by all of the people who correctly guessed lower than the United Kingdom, and all the people who correctly
guessed higher than Switzerland, then – statistically speaking – we’d probably see that the people who looked at the United Kingdom first would make higher guesses as to
the population of Venezuela than those people who looked at Switzerland first.
The population of Venezuela’s about 29 million people. What did you guess? And what country were you shown first, when you clicked the link? Leave me a comment and let me know…
The anchoring effect is explored in detail by Ariely, Loewenstein, and Prelec 2004, in which studies are performed on groups of people who are told a (randomly-determined) price for some
goods, and then asked to state how much they’d be willing to pay for them: those people who are given higher random values will consistently offer more money for the goods than those
who were told a lower value.
It’s not a new idea. For hundreds of years, at least, salespeople have practiced the not-dissimilar door-in-the-face technique (sort-of the opposite of the more well-known foot-in-the-door technique), in which an
unsatisfactory offer is made first in order to make the second offer – which is actually what the salesperson wants to sell – seem more desirable than it actually is.
Part Three – Hey, But That Means…
Taking the two previous parts of this article at face value can quickly lead to an unwelcome conclusion: we’re more likely to get what we want when we ask for more than what we
want – and then back down to a false compromise position. A greedy but carefully-deployed “salesman” approach has been shown to work wonders when you’re negotiating for a pay rise,
selling a product, motivating volunteers, or getting people to under- or over-estimate the value of goods and services. Surely it’d work when negotiating in a relationship, too?
“Hey, honey: it’d really mean a lot to me if I could could have a threesome with you and your mother…”
“What? No way! That’s disgusting.”
“Okay, okay, then… I suppose I could make do with having sex with your sister.”
Despite the extremity of the example above, the answer is that for the individual, this strategy can work: I’ve known people who’ve fallen victim to exactly this
kind of con. Worse yet, I suspect that there are perpetrators of this kind of strategy who don’t even realise that they’re doing it: they’re just responding in the Pavlovian style to
the “rewards” that they’re getting by continuing to act in what it – let’s face it – an unscrupulous and unethical manner.
Does it work, then? Yes, more’s the pity. But everything it gets for you is something that it’s taking away from your partner, or from your relationship. And maybe that’s the kind of
strain that the relationship can take, but there are always limits.
Me? I’ll stick to what I believe in: so far as I can, putting my hand on the table and saying, “Here’s what I’m playing with: what’ve you got?” It’s a trusting and diplomatic
strategy, but it’s the best solution to finding the best middle-ground for everyone. There are those who find that it makes them feel too vulnerable – at too much risk of their openness
being used against them – to try to say what they want so openly. And to them, I say: if you don’t trust your lover with the way that you feel, then working on that
trust that should be your first priority.
On this day in 2009 I’d just announced that Claire and I had broken up after our
seven year relationship. I attacked Virgil‘s omnia vincit amor (love
conquers all), countering that our love for one another was not sufficient to prevent the difficulties we’d been having. That the breakup was among the most structured,
carefully-negotiated, and amicable of I’ve ever heard detracted only a little from the pain of the ending of the romantic part of our relationship.
You’ll note that I’ve always been careful not to say that our relationship ended, because it didn’t. It changed: we transitioned (bumpily, and with difficulty) from a romantic
relationship to a friendly relationship. You’ll also notice that I don’t use the term “just” friends unless that clarification is absolutely necessary (after all, why are friends “just”
friends: what’s wrong with friends? – I’ve another blog post on this very topic under construction).
Looking Forward
It’s gotten easier, over this last year, to deal with the breakup: but it’s still hard. We had a huge place in one another’s lives, and that doesn’t simply evaporate. From my
perspective, at least, I still feel at least a little bit “derailed”: like, if you asked me 18 months ago about where I’d be living now, or what I’d be doing, then I wouldn’t be able to
say with any certainty that it would be this life I now have. That’s not to say I’m not happy: I’m enjoying what I’m doing now (although a little more free time wouldn’t go amiss!).
It’s merely that I haven’t yet fully got used to the fact that I’m not quite living in accordance with the same plans that I used to have.
There are folks who’ve criticised our breakup, saying that we’d both have recovered from it better had we tried harder not to keep in contact, not to remain friendly,
etc. I don’t know whether I agree or not – but I dispute that it would have necessarily been better. One thing that’s actually been really helpful over the last year (for me, at least,
and I’d guess for Claire too) is that we’ve been able to get support from one another. That’s a remarkable and unusual thing: but then, we were a remarkable and unusual couple.
And isn’t supporting one another what friends do?
Getting better all the time. Sorry to mope.
This blog post is part of the On This Day series, in which Dan periodically looks back on
years gone by.
It may come as a surprise to you that the stuff I write about on my blog – whether about technology, dreams, food, film, games, relationships, or my life in general – isn’t actually
always written off-the-cuff. To the contrary, sometimes a post is edited and re-edited over the course of weeks or months before it finally makes it onto the web. When I wrote late last
year about some of my controversial ideas about the ethics (or lack thereof) associated with telling children about Santa Claus, I’m sure that it looked like it had been inspired by the run-up to Christmas. In actual fact, I’d begun writing it six
months earlier, as summer began, and had routinely visited and revisited it from time to time until I was happy with it, which luckily coincided with the Christmas season.
As an inevitable result of this process, it’s sometimes the case that a blog post is written or partially-written and then waits forever to be finished. These forever-unready,
never-published articles are destined to sit forever in my drafts folder, gathering virtual dust. These aren’t the posts which were completed but left unpublished – the ones where it’s
only upon finishing writing that it became self-evident that this was not for general consumption – no, the posts I’m talking about are those which honestly had a chance but just didn’t
quite make it to completion.
Well, today is their day! I’ve decided to call an amnesty on my incomplete blog posts, at long last giving them a chance to see the light of day. If you’ve heard mention of declaring
inbox bankruptcy, this is a similar concept: I’m
sick of seeing some of these blog articles which will never be ready cluttering up my drafts folder: it’s time to make some space! Let the spring cleaning begin:
Title: Typically Busy Unpublished since: March 2004
Unpublished because: Better-expressed by another post, abandoned
In this post, I talk about how busy my life is feeling, and how this is pretty much par for the course. It’s understandable that I was feeling so pressured: at the time we were having
one of our particularly frenetic periods at SmartData, I was fighting to finish my dissertation, and I was trying to find time to train for my upcoming cycle tour of Malawi.
The ideas I was trying to express later appeared in a post entitled I’m Still In Aber. Yay, in a much more-optimistic form.
Title: Idloes, Where Art Thou? Unpublished since: June 2004
Unpublished because: Got distracted by rebuilding the web server on which my blog is hosted, after a technical fault
In anticipation of my trip to Malawi, I was prescribed an anti-malarial drug, Lariam, which – in accordance with the directions – I began taking daily doses of several weeks before travelling.
It seemed silly in the long run; I never even saw a single mosquito while I was over there, but better safe than sorry I suppose. In any case, common side-effects of Lariam include
delusions, paranoia, strange dreams, hallucinations, and other psychological
effects. I had them in spades, and especiallytheweirdtrippydreams.
This blog post described what could have been one of those dreams… or, I suppose, could have just been the regular variety of somewhat-strange dream that isn’t uncommon for me. In the
dream I was living back in Idloes, a tall Aberystwyth townhouse where I’d rented a room during 2002/2003. In the dream, the house caught fire one night, and my landlady, Anne, was
killed. Apparently the fire was started by her electric blanket.
Title: Are We Alone In The Universe? Unpublished since: March 2006
Unpublished because: Never finished, beaten to the punchline
Here’s an example of an article that I went back to, refining and improving time and time again over a period of years, but still never finished. I was quite pleased with the
direction it was going, but I just wasn’t able to give it as much time as it needed to reach completion.
The Drake Equation
In the article, I examine the infamous Drake Equation, which estimates the likelihood of
there being intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy (more specifically, it attempts to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations “out there”). Which is all well and good, but
the only way to put the formula into practice is to effectively pull unknowable numbers out of the air and stuff them into the equation to get, in the end, whatever answer you like. The
only objective factors in the entire equation are those relating to the number of stars in the galaxy, and everything else is pure conjecture: who honestly thinks that they can estimate
the probability of any given species reaching sentience?
The post never got finished, and I’ve since seen other articles, journals, and even stand-up comedians take apart the Drake Equation in a similar way to that which I intended, so I
guess I’ve missed the boat, now. If you want to see the kind of thing I was working on, here it is
but better-written. I wonder what the probability is that a blog post will never end up being published to the world?
Title: Why Old People Should Be Grumpy Unpublished since: October 2006
Unpublished because: Never finished, possibly bullshit
In this post, I put forward a theory that grumpy old people are a positive sign that a nation is making just enough change to not be stagnant: something about the value of
keeping older people around crossed with the importance of taking what they say with a pinch of salt, because it’s not them that has to live in the world of tomorrow. I can’t even
remember what the point was that I was trying to make, and my notes are scanty, but I’m sure it was a little bit of a one-sided argument for social change with an underdeveloped
counter-argument for social stability.
In any case, I left it for years and eventually gave up on it.
Title: The Games That Didn’t Make The List Unpublished since: July 2007
Unpublished because: I could have kept refining it forever and still never finish it
After my immensely popular list of 10 Computer Games That
Stole My Life, I received a great deal of feedback – either as direct feedback in the form of comments or indirectly in other people’s blogs. Reading through this feedback got me
thinking about computer games that had stolen my life which I hadn’t mentioned. Not wanting to leave them out, I put together a list of “games that didn’t make the list”: i.e.
games which could also have been said to steal my life, but which I didn’t think of when I wrote my original top ten. They included:
Castles and Castles 2
The original Castles was one of the first non-free PC computer games I ever
owned (after Alley Cat, that golf game, and the space
command/exploration game whose name I’ve been perpetually unable to recall). It was a lot of fun; a well-designed game of strategy and conquest. Later, I got a copy of Castles 2 – an early CD-ROM title, back before developers knew quite what to
do with all that space – which was even better: the same castle-building awesomeness but with great new diplomacy and resource-management exercises, as well as siege engines and the
ability to launch your own offensives. In the end, getting Civilization later in the same year meant that it stole more of my time, but I still sometimes dig out Castles 2 and
have a quick game, from time to time.
Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates!
Early during the development of Three Rings, I came across an existing company with the name Three Rings Design, based in the
US. Their major product is a game called Yohoho! Puzzle
Pirates, an MMOG in which players –
as pirates – play puzzle games in order to compete at various tasks (you know, piratey tasks: like sailing, drinking, and swordfighting). Claire and I both got quite deeply involved during the beta, and played extensively, even forming our own crew, The Dastardly Dragons, at one point,
and met some fascinating folks from around the world. When the beta came to an end we both took advantage of a “tester’s bonus” chance to buy lifetime subscriptions, which we both
barely used. Despite the fact that I’ve almost never played the game since then, it still “stole my life” in a quite remarkable way for some time, and my experience with this (as well
as with the Ultima Online beta, which I participated in many years earlier) has
shown me that I should never get too deeply involved with MMORPGs again, lest they take over my life.
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
As a Civilization fan, I leapt on the chance to get myself a copy of Alpha
Centauri, and it was awesome. I actually pirated my first copy of the game, copying it from a friend who I studied with, and loved it so much that I wrapped up the cash value of
the game in an envelope and sent it directly to the development team, asking them to use it as a “beer fund” and have a round on me. Later, when I lost my pirated copy, I bought a
legitimate copy, and, later still, when I damaged the disk, bought another copy, including the (spectacular) add-on pack. Alpha Centauri is the only game I’ve ever loved so
much that I’ve paid for it three times over, despite having stolen it, and it was worth every penny. Despite its age, I still sometimes dig it out and have a game.
Wii Sports Tennis – Target Training
Perhaps the most recent game in the list, this particular part of the Wii
Sports package stole my life for weeks on end while I worked up to achieving a coveted platinum medal at it, over the course of several weeks. I still play it once in a while:
it’s good to put on some dance music and leap around the living room swinging a Wiimote to the beat.
Rollercoaster Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon 2
In the comments to my original post, Rory reminded me of these games which stole my life during my
first couple of years at University (and his, too!). RCT2, in
particular, ate my time for years and still gets an occassional play out of me – but was pipped to the post by OpenTTD, of course.
X-COM series
Another series of games which hooked me while I was young and stayed with me as I grew, the X-COM series (by which – of course – I mean Enemy Unknown, Terror From The Deep, and Apocolypse; not Interceptor and certainly not that
modern travesty, Aftermath). Extremely difficult, each of them took me months or years before I completed them, and I’ve still never finished Apocalypse on anything higher that the
lowest-two difficulty settings.
I wanted to write more and include more games, but by the time I’d made as much progress as I had, above, the moment felt like it had passed, so I quietly dropped the post. I suppose
I’ve now shared what I was thinking, anyway.
Title: Rational Human Interaction Unpublished since: September 2007
Unpublished because: Too pretentious, even for me; never completed
I had some ideas about how humans behave and how their rationality and their emotions can conflict, and what this can mean. And then I tried to write it down and I couldn’t find a happy
medium between being profound and insightful and being obvious and condescending. Later, I realised that I was tending towards the latter and, besides, much of what I was writing was
too self-evident to justify a blog post, so I dropped it.
Title: Long Weekend Unpublished since: April 2008
Unpublished because: Too long, too wordy, and by the time it was nearing completion it was completely out of date
This post was supposed to be just an update about what was going on in my life and in and around Aber at the time. But as anybody who’s neglected their blog for more than a little while
before may know, it can be far too easy to write about everything that’s happened in the interim, and as a result end up writing a blog post that’s so long that it’ll never be
finished. Or maybe that’s just me.
In any case, the highlights of the post – which is all that it should have consisted of, ultimately – were as follows:
It was the Easter weekend on 2008, and town had gone (predictably) quiet, as many of my friends took the opportunity to visit family elsewhere, and there was a particular absence of
tourists this year. Between Matt being in Cornwall, Sarah being out-of-town, and Ruth, JTA, Gareth and Penny off skiing (none of them wrote anything about it, so no
post links there), it felt a little empty at our Easter Troma Night, which was rebranded a Troma Ultralite as it had only two of the requisite four people present: not even the three
needed for a Troma Lite! Similarly, our Geek Night only had four attendees (but that did include Paul, unusually).
Claire and I took a dig through her wardrobe about found that of the skirts and dresses that she famously never
wears, she owns over two dozen of them. Seriously.
I played and reviewed Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty, which turned out to be a second-rate
first-person shooter with a reasonably clever alternate history slant. I’m a fan of alternate histories in video games, so this did a good job of keeping me amused over the long bank
holiday weekend.
Paul and I were arranging for a beach-fire-barbeque with Ruth and JTA when they got back, to which we even anticipated attendence from the often-absent not-gay-Gareth.
And finally, I had something to say about Jimmy‘s recent experiences in Thailand, but that’s as far as my draft went and I don’t
remember what I had planned to say…
Title: Confused And Disoriented Unpublished since: April 2008
Unpublished because: Never finished; abandoned
Having received mixed feedback about my more-unusual dreams over the years, I’ve taken to blogging about a great number
of them in order to spread the insanity and let others comment on quite how strange my subconscious really is. This was to be one of those posts, and it catalogued two such unusual
dreams.
In the first, I was at my grandma’s funeral (my grandma had died
about two years earlier). A eulogy was given by both my mum and – confusingly – by Andy R. Afterwards,
the crowd present booed them.
In the second, I revisited a place that I’ve dreamed of many times before, and which I think is a reference to some place that I found as a young child, but have never been
able to determine the location of since. In this recurring theme I crawl through a tunnel (possibly of rock, as in a ruined castle) to reach a plateau (again, ruined castle-like), from
which I am able to shuffle around to a hidden ledge. I have such vivid and strong memories of this place, but my faith in my own memory is shaken by the very “dreamlike” aspects of the
event: the tunnel, the “secret place”, as well as the fact that it has appeared in my dreams time and time again for over 15 years. Perhaps it never existed at all: memory is a fragile
and malleable thing, and it’s possible that I made it up entirely.
Some parts of it are less dream-like. For example, I’m aware that I’ve visited this place a number of times at different ages, and that I found it harder to fit through the tunnel to
re-visit my secret childhood hiding place when I was older and larger.
A few years ago, I spoke to my mum about this dream, and described the location in great detail and asked where it might be, and she couldn’t think of anywhere. It’s strange to have
such a strong and profound memory that I can’t justify through the experience of anybody else, and which consistently acts as if it were always just a dream. Maybe it’s real, and maybe
it isn’t… but it’s beginning to sound like I’ll never know for sure.
Title: The Code In The School Unpublished since:May 2008
Unpublished because: Never finished; abandoned
Another dream, right after Troma Night 219, where it seems that the combination of the beer and the trippy nature of the films we watched inspired my brain to run off on a tangent of
it’s own:
In the dream, I was visiting a school as an industrialist (similarly to how I had previously visited Gregynog on behalf of the Computer Science department at Aberystwyth University in 2005,
2006 and 2007). While
there, I was given a challenge by one of the other industrialists to decipher a code represented by a number of coloured squares. A basic frequency analysis proved of no value because
the data set was too small, but I was given a hint that the squares might represent words (sort of like early maritime signal flags). During mock interviews with the students, I used the challenge as a test, to see if I
could get one of them to do it for me, without success. Later in the dream I cracked the message, but I’m afraid I didn’t make a record of how I did so or what the result was.
A particularly famous message represented in maritime signal flags (click for bigger version)
Title: Absence
Unpublished since: May 2008
Unpublished because: Forgotten about; abandoned
At the beginning of the long, hot summer of 2008, I wrote about the immenent exodus of former students (and other hangers-on) from Aberystwyth, paying particular attention to Matt P and to Ele, who left for good at
about this time. And then I forgot that I was writing about it. But Matt
wrote about leaving and Ele wrote about being away, anyway, so I guess my post rapidly became redundant, anyway.
Title: =o( Unpublished since: June 2008
Unpublished because: Too negative; unfinished
I don’t even know what I was complaining about, but essentially this post was making an excuse to mope for a little while before I pull myself together and get things fixed. And that’s
all that remains. It’s possible that it had something to do with this blog post,
but without context I’ve no idea what that one was about, too. Sounds like it was about an argument, and so I’m happier just letting it go, whatever it was, anyway.
Title: Spicy Yellow Split Pea Soup Unpublished since: November 2008 Unpublished because: Got lazy; unfinished
I came up with a recipe for a delicious spicy yellow split pea soup, and wanted to share it with you, so I made myself the stub of a blog entry to remind myself to do so. And then I
didn’t do so. Now I don’t even remember the recipe. Whoops!
In any case, the moral is that pulses make great soup, as well as being cheap and really good for you, and are especially tasty as the days get shorter and winter tightens it’s icy
grip. Also that you shouldn’t leave just a title for a blog post for yourself and expect to fill it in afterwards, because you won’t.
Title: (untitled) Unpublished since: December 2008
Unpublished because: Too busy building, configuring, and working on my new PC, ironically
December is, according to Rory, the season for hardware failures, and given that alongside his troubles, Ruth’s laptop died and Paul’s computer started overheating, all at the same time, perhaps he’s
right. So that’s when my long-serving desktop computer, Dualitoo, decided to kick the bucket as well. This was a particularly awkward time, as I was due to spend a weekend
working my arse off towards a Three Rings deadline. Thankfully, with the help of friends
and family, I was able to pull forward my plans to upgrade anyway and build myself a new box, Nena (which I continue to use to this day).
I began to write a blog post about my experience of building a computer using only local shops (I was too busy to be able to spare the time to do mail order, as I usually would), but I
was unfortunately too busy building and then using – in an attempt, ultimately successful, to meet my deadline – my new computer to be able to spare time to blogging.
But I did learn some valuable things about buying components and building a mid-to-high spec computer, in Aberystwyth, all in one afternoon:
Daton Computers are pretty much useless. Actual exchange:
“Hi, I need to buy [name of component], or another [type of component] with [specification of component].”
“Well, you’ll need to bring your computer in for us to have a look at.”
“Umm; no – I’m building a computer right now: I have [other components], but I really need a [name of component] or something compatible – can you help?”
“Well, not without looking at the PC first.”
“WTF??? Why do you need to look at my PC before you can sell me a [type of component]?”
“So we can tell what’s wrong.”
“But I know what’s wrong! I only took the shrink-wrap off the [other components] this morning: all I need is a [type of component], because I don’t have one! Now can
you sell one to me or not?”
“Well, not without -”
/Dan exits/
Crosswood Computers are pretty much awesome. Actual exchange:
“Hi, remember me? I was in here this morning.”
“Yeah: how’s the rebuild going?”
“Not bad, but I’ve realised that I’m short by a [type of cable]: do you sell them?”
“We’re out of stock right now, but I’ve got some left-over ones in the back; you can have one for free.”
/Dan wins/
It’s possible to do this, but not recommended. The local stores, and in particular Crosswood, are great, but when time allows it’s still preferable to do your component-shopping
online.
I later went on to write more about Nena, when I had the time.
Title: Child Porn Unpublished since: April 2009
Unpublished because: Never finished; too much work in writing this article
I had planned to write an article about the history of child pornography, starting well before Operation Ore and leading up to the present day, and to talk about the vilification of paedophiles (they’re the new terrorists!) – to
the point where evidence is no longer as important as the severity of the alleged crime (for particularly awful examples of this kind of thinking, I recommend this article). I’m all in favour of the
criminalisation of child abuse, of course, but I think it’s important that people understand the difference between the producers and the consumers of child porn, as far as a
demonstrable intent to cause harm is concerned.
Anyway, the more I read around the subject, the more I realised that nothing I could write would do justice to the topic, and that others were already saying better what I was thinking,
so I abandoned the post.
Title: 50 Days On An EeePC 1000 Unpublished since: May 2009
Unpublished because: By the time I was making progress, it had been more like 150 days
Earlier in the year, I’d promised that I’d write a review of
my new notebook, an Asus EeePC 1000. I thought that a fun and engaging way
to do that would be to write about the experience of my first 50 days using it (starting, of course, with reformatting it and installing a better operating system than the one provided
with it).
Of course, by the time I’d made any real progress on the article, it was already well-past
50 days (in fact, I’d already changed the title of the post twice, from “30 Days…” to “40 Days…” and then again to “50 Days…”). It’s still a great laptop, although I’ve used it less
than I expected over the last nine months or so (part of my original thinking was to allow me to allow Claire to feel like she’d reclaimed the living room, which was being taken over by
Three Rings) and in some ways it’s been very-recently superceded by my awesome mobile phone.
Title: El De-arr Unpublished since: September 2009
Unpublished because: Too waffley; couldn’t be bothered to finish it; somewhat thrown by breaking up with Claire
Over the years I’ve tried a handful of long-distance romantic relationships, and a reasonable number of short-distance ones, and, in general, I’ve been awful at the former and far
better at the latter. In this blog post I wrote about my experience so far of having a long-distance relationship with Ruth and what was making it work (and what was challenging).
I’m not sure where I was going with it in the first place, but by the time Claire and I broke
up I didn’t have the heart to go back into it and correct all of the references to her and I, so I dropped it.
Title: Knowing What I’m Talking About Unpublished since: October 2009
Unpublished because: Never finished; got distracted by breaking up with Claire
On the tenth anniversary since I started doing volunteer work for emotional support helplines (starting with a Nightline, and most recently for Samaritans), I wrote about a talk I gave at BiCon 2009 on the subject of “Listening Skills for Supporting Others”. It was a little under-attended but
it went well, and there was some great feedback at the end of it. I’d helped out with a workshop entitled “Different Approaches to Polyamory” alongside fire_kitten, but strangely it was this, the workshop whose topic should be that which I have the greater
amount of experience in, that made me nervous.
This blog post was supposed to be an exploration of my personal development over the previous decade and an examination of what was different about giving this talk to giving
countless presentations at helpline training sessions for years that made me apprehensive. I think it could have been pretty good, actually. Unfortunately a lot of blog posts started
around this time never ended up finished as I had other concerns on my plate, but I might come back to this topic if I give a similar presentation at a future conference.
So there we have it: a big cleanse on my perpetually unfinished blog posts. I’ve still got about eight drafts open, so there’s a reasonable chance that I might finish some of them, some
day: but failing that, I’ll wait until another decade or so of blogging is up and I’ll “purge” them all again, then.
And if you had the patience to read all of these – these “17 blog posts in one” – well, thanks! This was more about me than about you, so I don’t mind that plenty of you will have just
scrolled down to the bottom and read this one sentence, too.
