Posts Tagged ‘leisure’
Rare geekery
Term has finally been winding down at school this week; we finished at lunchtime and spent the morning of history lessons watching relevant videos. So for yesterday and tonight I decided to do some alternative activities to school work due to not having much to do, and in order to have a change. I will be commencing my holiday homework tomorrow if all goes to plan, and then of course it is on to revision. I also intend to try and catch up on my e-mails and other related activities but I fear already this is not going to happen. Really, I should have spent this time doing that rather than this.
I have opted to yet again redesign my website, seanwhitton.com – I think this is about version five. While this blog is presently as it has been for some time due to the comparative difficulty I will have trying to convert the blog’s complex template to the new layout, the new site didn’t take me too long to re-layout and I am pleased with the result. I did a direct transfer of the old site to the new by simply replacing the old template with my new code and this means that not all pages look quite as they should. Since I now have a site map on the home page, I was tempted to add some more pages to the listing and thus I have some things to fill in. It seems I naturally have site content now without having to work too hard to make it up which is a good thing. This blog has always been my main source of writing and so I aim to transfer this over eventually. It will be far from easy, however. My new design is supposed to be easy to use, simple and clean, so I would appreciate any feedback on whether it is this.
About a week and a half ago I decided to purchase a ‘slug’ or what is actually called a Linksys NSLU2. It is a device designed to serve files with a built-in FTP and web server, that can easily be mounted on network machines. The idea is to add storage to a smallish network that can easily be accessed. However, since the thing is based on Linux anyway is has been hacked somewhat by fans and is now officially supported by Debian – in other words, I now have a mini-server with low power consumption that I can run useful things off and leave on all the time. It took me some time to get it working because my router was feeding it false information meaning it couldn’t properly connect to the Debian mirrors to get hold of the operating system files (I had to open another shell and edit /etc/resolv.conf manually). Getting the router to forward web, SSH and FTP ports was not easy either. Now it is running, with its cute 120GB WD Passport Drive, absolutely fine and you can see a picture here. I am very happy with this purchase.
I have decided to actually be a proper unix geek and learn how to use vi(m) efficiently. In general I use it on SilentFlame only because nano isn’t installed, but I realise that I am wasting keystrokes and vim is a good idea. I just need to work through vimtutor methodically and try to use the different methods presented where they are going to speed me up most. I need to get used to editing my site and other such things in SSH as it is a lot easier. Eventually I could of course set up Wikipedia to use vim for all editing, but this may be a bit far. Not sure at this stage – still trying to absorb.
An intellectual evening
On Thursday evening the Sheffield round of the Institute of Ideas’ (formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party, wahey) Debating Matters competition was held at Silverdale. Despite not being part of the debating teams for Silverdale, I went and took part from the floor. The whole atmosphere of an evening of debating in that way means a lot to me: the challenging of assumptions, the examination of arguments. The cut and thrust of arguments and attacks and defences. There should be so much more of it in our society. Unfortunately the format of this particular debating competition doesn’t allow so much for the cut and thrust and in many ways was not as competitive as the sort of style we have been practising with. In terms of style, most of the other teams were a complete walk over for Silverdale’s teams – many were reading straight off a sheet and none of them stood up! In our debates people are shot down in flames if they remain seated and are shouted at until they stand. Silverdale did not however do well in all areas. There were times when arguments had holes in and speeches did not go entirely to plan. Some of the other teams were also skilled and managed to blow apart aspects of Silverdale’s arguments. But they did well overall. In the end Silverdale did win and we are through the next round in Birmingham (regional).
This particular format places great emphasis on questioning and speeches are relatively short and so the audience play a pivotal role – in some debates they really can dominate. So much is this considered vital that an award is given to the audience member who makes the best contributions from the floor – I received this in conjunction with another, which I was congratulated for. However, the issue with all this is that questions are ‘collected’ for the team to answer together. I really don’t like this because what ends up happening is that it breaks down and a two-way conversations at least partially ensues. I think the reasoning behind it is to give people a chance to think up a response but they are too busy scribbling down questions to be able to do this. In any case, the event was a success and I am pleased that I was there.
Time is a lot more valuable than it used to be
I have long accepted and understand that the sixth form can and should be a lot more work than before as the level of study is significantly higher. That has finally become apparent at school in terms of difficulty where things are taking a step up (although due to personal skew and paranoia this is not apparent in history) at last. I am happy to be challenged and to question and to explore, however PC that may sound. However, sheer quantity of work has been proving a problem lately as I am not finding time for a lot else, as described in my previous post. This can’t be good – I should be doing things other than homework in an evening and could do with a longer weekend. It has been suggested that the initial burst will level off once teachers are satisfied that pupils (or ‘students’…) have got the message about what the sixth form is, and it does seem to me that things are getting a little less, but it is hard to tell if this is just me getting used to it. It is meaning that I am having to make changes to the things I do.
On an aside here, I am not always one hundred percent sure that I am doing the right work. I do things very throughly, wanting to do well and to get as much into my head now so that revision is a lot easier. But often for history I have reams of notes I am told to make and I don’t know if I am ramming too much detail down and wasting my efforts. I plan to speak a teacher about what I should be doing ideally.
For starters, I am unable to do little things on top of what I already do when they would normally be easy to accomodate. For example, there is a club starting at school for a board game called ‘Diplomacy’ or some such – I would love to go, but I really can’t devote another evening to an activity such as this. Another example of this problem is the National Cipher Challenge. I am on a team for that (we are actually doing rather well; will post on it when the competition gets serious and those in it for a laugh are eliminated from the ‘everything right so far’ group) but it is interfering with things already. This isn’t a major issue, really, because all it does is inconvenience me when I have the afternoon of the day the challenge is released off. But the point stands that I am having difficulty fitting small projects or events around what I do any more. Having to say no to constructive activities is not something that I am used to. Another example of this issue is the distinct lack of progress on the new SilentFlame website.
The above makes sense during term time but my involvement in my online projects, Wikimedia and freenode, has also been suffering. Wikimedia works a great deal over the medium of mailing lists, which we find very practical for discussion as they work with all sorts of configurations, assuming people use plaintext e-mails, which they do. I am subscribed to a lot of these lists but have them filtered in three directions: labels called wmfe for external and public lists, wmfi for internal, closed-subscriptions things I am involved in (not strictly true – I have at least one list on there that is not mainstream but that I do need to keep up to date on everything that passes through) and wmwp, which is for project-based lists such as for Wikipedia itself, rather than the parent organisation Wikipedia. Out of these, only wmfi actually arrives in my inbox where the rest get auto-archived. This is because I couldn’t and wouldn’t particularly want to keep up with all of those lists, so I have the important ones coming into my front view. The problem is now that even with this reduced quantity of lists, I simply do not have enough time to read everything that goes through. Or if I do, I am not reading efficiently enough. Even though I find most of the things on the lists fascinating and worth reading, I find that sometimes I have just had enough of the threads and am reading for the sake of reading. This is a waste of time – but what do I do? I do need to know what is going on within Wikimedia.
My specific jobs with Wikimedia are a different matter. I am ensuring that individual responsibilities will always be completed as I have been entrusted with them, and I have no problem getting them done. However, as with real life situations as described above, I cannot take part in smaller events and discussions if I wish to as I must focus on certain tasks. It makes things a lot less fun than they used to be where I could really get into my work. With freenode I am simply not doing as much work – this is fine as I do have a reasonably excuse, but it doesn’t help keep our image of availability of staff very strong because I am not around as much. However, I am still involved in the community there. Despite this I have had to give up one job, that is the verifying of group registration contact information, which is a shame. On this note, swhitton@freenode.net is no longer a valid e-mail address for me, so please do not try to use it if you are one of the few people who does. It was for group registration, so I do not need it anymore.
Throughout this I am always so thankful that I have my hosted Gmail account set up. Gmail is wonderful for keeping things organised and being patient when I don’t read my mail there 
I don’t think I would manage without it and so I am so grateful for the service from Google and the fact that they recently increased my 2GB limit (it does not go up continuously as it does on @gmail.com traditional Gmail. The conversation grouping, labels and filters do it for me.
It has been suggested that I don’t actually use my time as well as I could, and this is something that I have considered. It could be argued that by engaging in small-scale activities I am wastingtime, but I try to be consistently productive in choosing what to do. However I often dither between activities and become rather distracted and messy while not focussed on an activity, which is a really bad thing as I allow time to slip away. This I need to sort out – if I am not doing something, I should be reading e-mails or some such. I need to force myself into more productive habits, but it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. I will keep trying.
Trip to Cambridge, on go the exams & first tower grab
During the holiday I was taken to Cambridge by my grandfather to take a look at the city. He has a big thing about it and its university (which takes up most of it, it seems) in thinking that they are dramatically different from every other place and by comparison with Oxford which he believes is just like any other city. I would like to go to Oxbridge if they’ll have me (it’s worth a try) and right now Cambridge sounds like a better choice than the other. Plus they have a lot of ringing going on there. It’ll also be a chance to debate lots (although Oxford is a bigger place for that from what I can tell) and also cross verbal blades with the so-called upper classes, a term which I ignore the presence of as often as I can. In these ways, it would be nice to go.
On the trip we did a lot of wandering around although we couldn’t go in a lot of the colleges as they were shut off for exams. The most impressive bits were those that could be contrasted with Sheffield, and I realise how backwater it has become up here, namely the Botanical Gardens, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the general atmosphere on the streets. The excellent bookshop (although libraries are better, they wouldn’t let us in the library proper) Heffers stocked the Guardian at a significantly reduced price, making it even more worthwhile to go.
The darker side is of course the elitism and the like, which is a considerable argument I seem to face regularly. However, it’s a challenge: let them come and fall at my sword. I’m not saying I’d automatically win but I’m not bad at debate in general, despite the fact they may well have practice from private schools. The other issue is the money. It’s huge and is only going to get bigger when the cap on tuition fees comes off. However, I do not believe that it is unreasonable to take advantage of upbringing and parents in this way because the good one can do with a better education from one of these universities outweighs the capitalist nature of modern higher education. Please do get in touch if you disagree here.
On return I got straight back into revision, which as of this week has got a lot easier because the exams are a lot lighter in the second of the two main weeks. After Friday I only have two others with about six days to revise for them, which is great. So far they have been going generally quite well, the only real issue being History and perhaps English as I’m not sure I planned my time that well. However, it’s great to know that Biology and English are over forever! On the flipside, I’m very dissapointed with Maths. For the first I was expecting a challenge and (yes, I’m sad, but that’s okay) was really excited the night before. However, it was as I put it insultingly easy. Rosie made the astute observation that the difference between A* and A is how many silly mistakes you make rather than the true mathematical skill which can usually be shown on the last few questions. I was told by Maths teachers and others that when the first paper is easy then the second is usually much more of a challenge, but again I was dissapointed today with only the odd question where I had to think with any depth, and even then it wasn’t anything very exciting.
I keep being asked when I intend to do with the very long summer holiday that I have stretching ahead of me now, and one thing that I aim to do is push ringing hard. This is because my bell handling needs a lot of work and if I can solve this with simply lots of ringing very regularly I can make better use of limited weekly practices back during term time. My mother says I’ll get bored of it but other ringers say it’s definately a good idea as learning at the Cathedral has the disadvantage of not getting many turns, with the advantage being that you have an advanced band of strong ringers to help you. By going to other places I aim to make better use of being at the Cathedral.
So, tonight I went to the tower I have planned for Monday (I have options for every night of the week, Cathedral and possibly Walkley on a Sunday and possibly weddings at the Cathedral on Saturday) which is Walkley, recently hung for ringing and with a lot of Cathedral ringers up there; I was introduced as “a[nother] Cathedral ringer” to the others that I didn’t know. It’s a nice downhill walk from Crookes but a bit of a slog back. This was my first tower grab or ringing visit, something integral to the ringing culture it seems. It went quite well but the bells had some major differences from the Cathedral. They were much deeper set which means to pull off requires a lot more strength than at the Cathedral. Indeed, when trying the 5th (I rung 4th 5th 2nd and treble in that order to simple call changes) I could barely pull it off at all :S
The other thing I did that wasn’t so great (I got used to the bells after a while) was ring the treble badly and therefore mess up leading (which I only learnt last week but which I can do reasonably well). At one point in those call changes all the bells were sounding at once which I think was at least partially my fault. Ah well.
The place itself is a nice enough church, and as I say I knew most of the people there. It’s a lot smaller and while at the Cathedral because there are twelve bells altogether ringing on six requires a virtual straight line whereas at Walkley you can very easily see everyone. I’m told it should be easier to ring on six because the Cathedral is tweaked and lined up etc. for twelve primarily, whereas Walkley will only ring on six (or possibly five). In terms of sound, it’s no where near as nice as the Cathedral. So, I will push my ringing this summer by going to lots of different towers.