Pennies down the well has moved to robphippen.blogspot.com

I don't plan to post any more on this version of Pennies Down the Well. All new posts will be on robphippen.blogspot.com

The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What an exceptional book! I have to agree with others that this (and the 'Quantum Thief' before it) require you to hold on tight and trust the author. But that trust is handsomely rewarded. We are led through some truly dazzling technological marvels, dealt with genuine panache.

For me, what sets this book apart is the feeling that the author really loves his characters. Despite the relentless oddity of their circumstances, I found myself empathizing with each one. This is such a rarity in real, proper, hard SF as to be almost unique.

Finally - where next? If you love this book, you might also like Charles Stross's Accelerando, or John Clute's Appleseed which, of all the SF I have read, is the only book that comes close to it for sheer bonkers technology.




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Losing a Bike

Buried at the bottom of my last post is a personal challenge that I may well find tougher than cycling a hundred miles. I keep drooling over gorgeous lightweight titanium and carbon fibre bikes, but then weighing myself and thinking that my cheapest route to a 'lighter bike' is to make myself a lighter rider.

To that end my new challenge to myself is to lose weight equal to that of my bike. Then it will 'weigh nothing', which seems impressive.

Rounding only slightly, my unladen bike weighs 10Kg, which is 22Lb and one ounce. With 17 weeks to go to Christmas, I wonder if I can make it by then... or indeed ever. We'll see.

Preparing for a century: Week 9 of 16... and why I'll get to week 13 this year

Week 9!

A status report on my drive towards cycling 100 miles in a day. The eagle eyed amongst you wil realise that an awful lot more than 4 weeks have passed since my last posting (on week 5 of 16) and now.

I am cycling a lot more than I was. I'm doing 3-4 commutes to work each week, and usually a couple of them are hack home via the hilliest 14 mile ride locally available (over Farley Mount, to Kings Somborne, then over the ridge back to Braishfield and Romsey). I've also done a regular ride each Saturday or Sunday morning, cranking my way up to a 45-mile, brisk ride - out at around 7:30am, and back before 11.

...and so to week 13

So: raising the miles further is now in prospect, and I'm enlisting the tandem, and the company of Janice, and hardcore cycling heroes Hannah and Andy to spin out a couple of 'metric century' (100k) rides over the next couple of months, culminating the the fabulous 'Gridiron' audax event on 9th October. That will get me figuratively to 'week 13', but I am somewhat gutted to admit that the shortening daylight hours are going to put the ultimate goal of 100 miles out of sight this year.

Next Spring, I'll be back on the pursuit of this goal, and will be looking for a 150Km audax event (93 miles) that I can add 7 miles to.

A new goal

I now have a whole new 'Winter' goal... to lose weight equivalent to the weight of my bike.

Aiming for a Century: Week 5 of 16

Something interesting happened this weekend. I realised that, for the very first time, I had just done a bike ride where the prime purpose was training. I've cycled thousands of miles, but always for some other reason - like doing a cycle tour, or commuting to work, or just for fun. The rides on my little training programme had, up until that point, not called for anything more than my usual 'recreational' riding style. Now I'm being asked to up the pace, which involves pushing myself a bit. To my great surprise this turns out to be a lot of fun. Today was the first time I applied the 'brisk' pace to my commute. It certainly helps getting home more quickly. One rather nice side effect of tracking all this on mapmyride is the discovery that I've burnt over 10000 calories this month. Sadly, this has not yet translated into lost pounds. More on this topic later...

Aiming for a Century: Week 1 of 16

I thought I'd do my mid-life crisis quietly: I've decided to start training for a 'Century' bike ride: one hundred miles in a day. I've done the metric century - 100K, or 61 miles - a fair number of times, and have done 75 by mistake once, but the century eludes me. Some of my cycling buddies can trot off a 100 mile ride without a second thought, but I know for sure that right now I would have very severe trouble.

I'm going to follow a training programme from the rather ancient and now possibly out of print 'Richard's Cycling for Fitness', which has a reasonable graded approach over 16 weeks, which takes me to 29th August. Many cycle training books assume what seems to me an lunatic rate of ramping up the miles. Right now, I'm doing around 70 miles in a week - about half the final weekly target in the last couple of weeks in preparation for the century.

In addition to miles, I need to get my pace up to a solid 15 Mph over the full distance. Once I'm properly back in the saddle, I'm planning on going out with the Sotonia crew on their weekly 40 mile rides.

One tiny difficulty is that officially organised rides in the UK tend to be measured in Kilometres. Audax UK has rides of 150Km (93 Miles - not quite enough) and 200Km (124 Miles - too much!). I'm not going to worry about that too much right now.

Of course, the road to not cycling is paved with good intentions, so you can monitor my actual progress on mapmyride.

My Musical Mappa Mundi

This is really just a collection of web links, but for some reason I find the graphical layout rather pleasing. This is a growing map of my musical horizons...

Battie Delights...

Our recent tour around New England was one of our best holidays for years. While we enjoyed the whole thing, there were a few elements that really 'made' the holiday. Our stay in Maine, at the Mount Battie motel near Camden, was one of those.

Mount Battie Motel

From 2010-08-30

First of all, there is the Mount Battie Motel itself, run by the wonderful Christine and Ed. There is no question that they gave us the warmest welcome of all of the places we stayed in New England, and I am having trouble thinking of a hotel or motel anywhere else that comes close in this regard. They went out of their way to help us find some good things to do during our short stay in the region, of which they are clearly and justifiably proud. It is clear that Ed and Christine have made themselves firmly part of the local community - on our very first night Ed picked up the phone to book us a table at a local restaurant, saying 'Hi, it's Ed...'. The good things don't stop with the welcome; breakfast is a delicious and ample buffet of excellent home baking. We ate our breakfast each morning outdoors, on the verandah overlooking the sea. The accommodation is spacious and comfortable, and there is an admirable attention to detail everywhere - such as the plants and flowers all kept pristine. Do I recommend it? I certainly do.

Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse

From 2010-08-28

On the first day - we were a bit frazzled from solid city tourism in Boston, so chilled on the little local beach for a while, then had a potter to the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. We came across the local swimming club on our walk along the breakwater, doing a long distance race.

Mount Megunticook

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With just a couple of days -we had great walk up and around Mount Megunticook in the Camden Hills state park - a solid hill walk (about 6 miles, and ~1200 feet of ascent) a wooded trail leading up to a smooth granite ledge, with some amazing views over the Penobscot Bay.

From New England August 2010

Pursuing the elusive tone

I have fallen in love with playing the flute. After a few months of daily practice, I find myself thinking about it a lot of the time. On those few occasions when everything comes together, the sound is utterly beautiful. There seems to be a myterious chemistry that makes things come together; a combination of mood, posture, concentration and luck. It's a much more fickle relationship than with playing the whistle, where What you Play is What you get. With the flute it's more like a negotiation; you have to persuade the thing to do your bidding.

We're not talking about a shiny nickel-plated instrument; this is an elegant, tapered two foot six rosewood pipe with holes in. It even smells lovely.

Journey's End

In the last couple of months I have had an extraordinary number of business trips to do; Manchester, Frankfurt, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Phoenix. By the end of this list, I was beginning to feel pretty grumpy about just being away from home. Thankfully, I think that this high density travel is over for a while. Hardcore travellers would sneer at my mention of Manchester and Frankfurt, which involved flights but were just day trips. All three of the others were, each in their own way, tremendous fun. Even so, a little less airborne life for a while will be welcome.

Vegas

I am embarrassed to say that I liked Las Vegas and look forward to going there again. There is something so extreme about the degree of tackiness that it is somehow endearing. The MGM Grand, where I stayed, was so enormous that it took me fifteen minutes solid walk to get from my room to the conference in another part of the Hotel.

My introduction to the Red Square Vodka Bar in Las Vegas was interesting. When we asked the way there, one person said "that's a very cool place" and looked at me and the other two brits I was with as though he thought we were too square to enter. Since trying pepper Vodka at least twenty years ago and hating it, I don't think I have had vodka at all until walking into that bar, and so it was a pleasant surprise to find that one of the two I tried was really very nice. By the way - the guy who told us the way was right - a very cool place. For example, they have an ice bar and yes, that means that the bar is made out of ice.

On the way out of Las Vegas on my flight back to Heathrow, I got some lovely shots of the desert;

Phoenix

Another desert destination, where I stayed in the most lovely hotel - the Arizona Biltmore - designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

There was time for a little fun and relaxation this time, plus a walk in the desert, which was chiefly interesting for the moment when one of our party backed into a cactus, which speared him with several needles - each of which has a tiny barb on the end of it. Our guide spent some moments tugging them out, first with tweezers, and when he got fed up with doing that, he started using a comb, which was rather more effective.

My New Bike

Ooh. Lovely. I have just been out for a little spin on the new machine. Very nice.

Seagull at Bristol Docks

We had a day trip to Bristol over the Easter weekend, braving forecasts of snow. As a teenager living in Taunton, Bristol was the big city where everything must be happening, and I always loved visiting it. Even earlier, when I was little, I got taken to visit the Bristol Museum, and remembered pleasurably tired feet at the end of. So, we set off on the train from Romsey to Bristol - standing room only - for the wallet-stinging sum of £85, surrounded by an amiable crowd of rugby fans off to watch the game in Bath. Bristol didn't disappoint; it has a nice slightly off-beat feel about it, and Tess reliably told me it has lots of cool shops. We even went to the Bristol Museum, which sparked some old memories. For me, the museum itself is as interesting as the things inside it - even the display cases are antiques in their own right. We stopped to eat at a little cafe on the docks, and there was this cloud of seagulls flying into the wind, keeping station right outside of the window while someone threw bread to them.

A fine day for a tandem ride

I woke up, drank too much coffee, and ran around prepping the tandem, then Janice and I set off on a lovely ride through Broughton to Nether Wallop, then back past Danebury ring - not forgetting a stop for a Danish in Stockbridge. Along the way, we saw a white bird a bit like a heron standing in some water - but heron's aren't white. Hmm. I had forgotten that this part of the Test Valley must be millionaire country; lots of very nicely done up cottages, and joggers who greet you by saying 'helleau'... Anyhow; here's the route we took.

A fine stinker

For days, I had been wandering around the house muttering 'I can smell something'. It had become an obsession. I first suspected the drains, then Sam's trainers, then my own BO. I finally noticed that the smell seemed strongest in our utility room, so I went to investigate. At last the light dawned: there, inside the fridge, in its box, wrapped in grease-proof paper, wrapped in a plastic bag and then placed inside another box, was a fine slab of Pont L'Eveque, the first strike weapon of the French cheese armaments division. The insidious pong had penetrated its five containment barriers. Without further ado, we did the only sensible thing, and had it for lunch. What a fine cheese! One funny thing though. I am a lover of the stinky, runny french cheese, but I have never found anything that they go with (apart from bread and crackers). I am left with the conclusion that they are a thoroughbred: meant to be savoured in solitary splendour.

Vienna Market

We found this exceptional market in Vienna - live fish, and enough wasabi nuts to satisfy even the keenest green horseradish fanatic.

Too much of a good thing

This sight of petrified feminine bounty greeted me each morning as I looked out of the window from the Vienna Marriott. All very nice, but there's something about the endless repetition that is somewhat disquieting...

Folk Sessions Calendar

Ode to my Belly

Myself and a couple of other slightly gravitationally challenged persons (who shall remain nameless to spare their blushes) are planning a post-summer-holiday diet. I felt the need to celebrate my current manly (at least around the wiast) figure;

Ode to my Belly

Sing "Ho!" for the waist of Rob P.
It's girth maidens oft' swoon to see.
When offered a pud'n,
He'd chomp like like a good'n
'til full, zatch to guggle, was he.

Views from a train

I took these after a nice visit down to see Dad and Mary on the train. I have a suspicion that the other passengers thought they had a loony on their hands as I snapped away. I am going to have to make guesses as two where each of these were Approach to Dawlish Warren Just past Dawlish Warren Exeter Hopefully this is self evident

Whistle Practice

I thought that an audio diary of my fumbling attempts to improve my whistling might be a good idea. The results are here