2014 — 25 October: Saturday
The fiction that BBC Radio 3 listeners are such free spirits that they can drop whatever they're doing1 at a moment's notice has just driven me back into the audio arms of Brian Matthew and his "Sounds of the Sixties" in time to catch a trio of good tracks suggested three weeks ago by a listener in Eastleigh. That's more like it.
Meanwhile...
... there is nothing to report yet. Beyond my morning cuppa — who needs to hear about that? And a thankfully-minor criminal assault on one of my former Lab Directors (I assume) over in Italy. See why I'm a stick-at-home?
I always make time to read Richard Preston. He has a longish piece in the 'New Yorker' on Ebola. Recommended. (Link.) And who would have guessed that "Great Expectations" changed Anne Rice's life? (Link.)
On the more local 'infection' front, I also faced down another attempt last night by my latest AMD graphics driver upgrade to push some of its 'gaming experience' feedback and contact sh1t back on to BlackBeast. Beware the "launchurl.bat" nonsense. Thanks, AVG.
A philanthropic dash...
... out on a small-scale goodies local delivery shows me that weekend drivers aren't (always) as mad, or bad, as dear ol' Dad used to claim. [Pause] Meanwhile, I never cease to be gob-smacked at the financial shenanigans regularly brought into the light on Money Box. It's amazing how hard so many smooth-talking people are prepared to work to separate other people from their money and/or savings while legislation such as the fourth money-laundering directive can end up impacting the 12-year-old daughter of a peer. The BBC should consider rebranding this programme as a comedy, surely?
I've just perfected...
... the perfect snack food (until, that is, I perfect the next one, of course). It's a judicious / delicious blend of honey-roasted cashews, large blanched peanuts, redskin peanuts, and jumbo flame raisins. What's not to like? It's an idea I've been working on for what? Two minutes? Three, maybe :-)
I'm annoyed...
... to discover that the BBC's surround-sound version of "Under Milk Wood" streams perfectly via IE 11 (and, I suspect, under Chrome) but not via Firefox, dagnabbit. So now I have to read about Web Audio API, it seems. Not to mention "convolution engines" that can render it binaurally, though only with Chrome, I gather. Been here before, methinks. Whatever happened to all that UHJ matrix surround experimentation, I wonder? Not to mention Ambisonics? (More here.)
When not...
... finishing "The Mentalist" season #6 (an excellent reboot of the show, by the way) or the third part of Lev Grossman's "Magicians" trilogy (like adult Narnia on steroids) or my evening meal I've been trying to login to my external 'molehole' web server over in Texas from my Android SHIELD Tablet PC. (Merely step #1 of my next grand master plan.) But it seems not to like my attempts to define a new SFTP server under Android using ESFileExplorer, and keeps trying to tell me it can't find the blasted thing. And, yes, I've triple-checked my server address and login credentials. Indeed, they're working just fine from Win8.1 using WinSCP as the interface.
It's starting to irritate me, so I'd better make another cuppa and do something completely different for a while. [Pause] I settled for an old episode of "Jeeves and Wooster", which meant I missed the first act of the new opera (if that's what it is) by Philip Glass based on Kafka's "The Trial". [Pause] And now I see that Jack Bruce (of 'Cream') has died.