and here i am in 2020

years later I decide to write another post

Finished reading the golden fleece book by Apollonius. Moved on from reading about greek demi-gods and devinities and such (cf. metamorphoses, the illiad) and now looking at 5th century BC stuff. 

The Golden bough / Fleece

hmm. Seems that ... the original golden bough myth written up by Apollonius (3rd Century BC) which predates the Aeneid...

Posted by Alex Beston on Thursday, 31 December 2015

State pensions

Gradually emerging into my daily consciousness is the issue of pensions - I will be an OAP one day, and the days of extended student-life are receding over the horizon, so I ought to take it all very seriously - those days of wondering around aimlessly at the age of 70 will need to be paid for.

So - if you are the same as me and have realised the importance of state pensions, try at the pension forecast site at directgov, to begin your research into the matter.

Btw - discovered that you have 30 years of work to cover to qualify. but what if for some reason you dont make the 30 years? say youve worked x years, then you get x/30-ths of your state pension. Other things like child benefit add to your qualifying years if you are a carer - housewifes / house husbands get a pension even if they've never worked, but have cared after a dependant.

So I need to work out how many years I am on record as having worked. Its a little akin to knowing your credit rating is it not?

mail notifier

wrote a little app today which lets me know if i have mail even if i dont open the browser (chrome has an extension that lets you know if you have mail (after all, if youre on your machine youre probably using a browser, right?) so thats ok, and suits most of the time, but what if youre not?)

desktop notifier! yay!

low tech solution: created a file with the filename as the number of messages and the file is the new messages. neat?

Kidnapping of Anne Sluti: Taken in Broad Daylight

Watched the "Taken in Broad Daylight" on the BBC4 site this evening and I thought it
quite a good film on the usual kidnapping line since the kinappee, Anne Sluti of Nebraska, thought on her feet. This happened back in April 2001 and the ordeal lasted 6 days. You have the feeling that a lot of victims are so paralysed with fear that that are unable to cope; I certainly know that paralysing feeling and how you lose all your mental faculties. Apparently got through it all and since then gone on to graduate as a biomedical engineer.

Watched "Social Network", discussed at Wagamama's

Very enjoyable film, discussed it at length with wife at Wagamama's. had no. 36, very filling. According to the menu (ofcourse online), no. 36 is:

chicken kare lomen
a spicy soup made from lemongrass, coconut milk, shrimp
paste, red chillies, fresh ginger and galangal. served with ramen
noodles and garnished with a marinated and grilled chicken breast,
beansprouts, cucumber, fresh coriander and a wedge of lime

I think I prefered no 37:

chicken itame
stir-fried chicken breast with bok choi, red and spring onions,
red peppers, chilli and beansprouts. served with rice noodles in
a spicy coconut and green chilli soup. garnished with coriander,
mint and a wedge of lime

Milder, less powerful, more subtler flavours. Will try next time, and oh there will be a next time.

So, back to the film.

The director had made se7en, so there was alot of expectation and it kinda delivered (rotten tomatoes has a very high grade), where the most emotional side actually was in the private legal meetings (depositions). The back turned to the meeting by one of the protagonists was interesting. That man is in this forbes list I found this evening, and also written about by Larry Cheng, and has a profile in forbes, so it was all worth the fuss he made in the film, which was called fiction by the CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I just love the use of the phrase "tent-pole events" used in this critical review, also at forbes (no I'm not promoting them just seems to be alot of quality at hand at that venue). The reviewer, Chiang, tells us that the film isnt from the tent pole events of facebooks first year but actually from a book by Ben Mezrich, the accidential biilionaires, who said it was "big juicy fun", and writes about clever young men. His books all have "purchase" tags next to the blurb, which rather put me off him, and his expression on his page, i.e. one of sharpness; cant authors just smile?

Anyway, all these "clever rich young men" just made me feel stoopid. I'm not the only one :

None come younger, richer or geekier than Mark Zuckerberg, the brilliant Harvard student who founded Facebook in 2004 aged 19, and is now the world’s youngest billionaire, an ascent chronicled in The Social Network, a riveting, era-defining picture that is guaranteed to make you feel very stupid in comparison and very very poor.

I comfort myself that perhaps they cant play like this. Hang on, Hold up! isnt all their value tied up in stocks? i know its high valuation, but will anyone buy $1.3 billion worth of shares?

get another sites content

This is deltatraffic.co.uk

Below is an iframe with content from another site:

content models

http://www.clevegibbon.com/contentmanagement/2009/06/18/crossing-great-content-model-divide/#more-143

new project

graphviz & twitter project going forward well

oh heavens its time to pack in deltatraffic

2001 - 2010. goodbye and all that.

Scared? You should be - its the beeb!

Job Title: Software Engineer
Department: BBC FM&T Scotland

A job specification is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job indicating duties, responsibilities, the degree of authority of the function, and the required knowledge, experience and personal attributes of the post holder.

AIMS OF THE JOB
To work closely with the Technical Project Managers, Designers, Developers and Producers, to develop and build high quality new media services for the BBC.

ORGANISATION
The post holder will report to the Technical Project Manager / Team Leader, Scotland.

CONTEXT
BBC Future Media and Technology (FM&T) is responsible for delivering a wide range of interactive services to license payers on all the main digital platforms including the internet, mobile and interactive television.

BBC Scotland is responsible for local and national output across Scotland on TV, Radio and Online. New Media services include amongst many others: T in the Park, BBC Sport Scotland Online, and a large range of television and radio websites – e.g. River City. The Glasgow based FM&T team provides the design and technical resources to support and develop all new media activity across BBC Scotland, working closely with the production teams around the country.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
To support the work of the Designers, Producers and Developers through the provision of high quality, reliable coding.
To manipulate and re-purpose code/functions.
To liaise with other production and online teams on technical issues.
To contribute to design and development ideas for Websites.
To liaise with Producers and Designers to contribute to the look, feel and functionality of interactive concepts.
To support Producers by accurately planning and estimating the time and resources required to produce commissions.
To liaise with other technical online staff in the other BBC centres to keep abreast of new developments and share experience and expertise.
To ensure that all work is carried out in line with the BBC’s Future Media Standards & Guidelines.
To document code projects to agreed standards.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE
Substantial professional experience of web development and a thorough understanding of the structure and function of Websites.
Thorough understanding of XML and XSLT, with regard to transforming XML to HTML or other text-based formats.
Thorough understanding of at least one high level object orientated programming language such as Perl or PHP.
A good working knowledge of MySQL databases, with regard to storing, organising and retrieving data from within Perl/PHP.
A good working knowledge of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, including frames and tables.
A good working knowledge of CSS and how best to separate content and layout for the Web.
Knowledge of relevant key issues - e.g. layout variations caused by browsers, screen resolution, colours, etc.
Broad knowledge of BBC output across all media and an insight into how Online services can augment existing services.

DESIRABLE KNOWLEDGE
Experience of templating systems such as perl’s HTML::Template.
Experience of using or developing for a Content Management System.
A working knowledge of Flash 9 / ActionScript 3.
Experience of using Apache’s XSSI functions and htaccess files.
A good working knowledge of cross-browser Javascript.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

Ability to work with a team of project managers, producers and designers and to apply structured creative and practical thinking to the resolution of problems in a highly professional environment.
Ability to meet challenging deadlines.
Flexible approach to both individual and team working.
Ability to express technical ideas in an accessible manner.
Good time-management in order to plan and organise the delivery of projects to deadline.

KEY COMPETENCIES
Analytical thinking - able to simplify complex problems, processes or projects into component parts explore and evaluate them systematically.

Influencing and persuading - able to present sound and well reasoned arguments to convince others. Can draw from a range of strategies to persuade people in a way that results in agreement or behaviour change.

Managing relationships and team working - able to build and maintain effective working relationships with a range of people. Works co-operatively with others to be part of a team, as opposed to working separately or competitively.

Flexibility - adapts and works effectively with a variety of situations, individuals or groups. Able to understand and appreciate different and opposing perspectives on an issue, to adapt an approach as the requirements of a situation change, and to change or easily accept changes in one’s own organisation or job requirements.

Communication - able to get one’s message understood clearly by adopting a range of styles, tools and techniques appropriate to the audience and the nature of the information.

Resilience - manages personal effectiveness by managing emotions in the face of pressure, set backs or when dealing with provocative situations. Demonstrates an approach to work that is characterised by commitment, motivation and energy.

project-1st-paper

1st
Paper-notes

Scheduling

1. 1^st
   May – end of research

2. 1^st
   August – end of implementation & testing.

Assumptions

1. We can assume that
   there is a sensor for every square foot of area of the flat / house.
   if not, then it is inferred from the times, entrances & exits to
   other adjacent areas to the unknown. There should be a minimum of
   unknowns since inference will become ambiguous.

   
   

2. The sensors are
   not moved and are always working.
   

   
   

3. Someone will be
   periodically reviewing the data whether there is a warning /
   emergency or not plus someone to check system viability.

   
   

4. Emergency systems to pick up critical events
   would be handled by the specialised system, instant warning. May or
   not use same sensors. This system is designed for care
   providers to have more information to provide suitable
   care rather than be an hour by hour detection / alarm system.
   Some conditions if met could produce a warning after 30 mins; some
   after 6 hours; some, 2 or more days would create a warning, see
   trending below.

   
   

5. Each house is different, and will have
   differing numbers of sensors and qualities.

   
   

6. External doors & windows are higher
   priority than internal ones.

Benefits
/ Features

1. 
   The system will work with any number of sensors and the minimum, 1.
   This flexibility is essential as people have differing access to
   resources.
   

   
   

2. 
   Diagrams are deliver the message quicker than text, visual
   informational aids.

3. The semantic of the living space is plotted with activity plot overlain.
4. Trending can be observed over hours or weeks or months, perhaps its true benefit is on the long term scale.

Limitations

1. Life threatening conditions - what level of
   support? eg, heart attacks, strokes, falls etc. This system probably wont help with acute medical conditions, more spot the trend of a developing

   chronic complaints.

   
   

2. Conditions which are non-life threatening but
   which need care. Dementia, incontinence, onset of deafness /
   blindness, mental health issues, and so forth - 3^rd
   generation
   

Interviews

1. What are
   the common problems faced by the elderly & disabled? Who would
   know this? Nurses? Care providers. 1^st step is to find
   out how to get to the people who know. This is to create template
   rules to assist the system with the 80% or majority of cases.

   
   

2. Current 3^rd
   generation systems providers.
   

Methodology - collecting the data.

1. Divide the flat
   into logical units - a schematic will be helpful for this.
   e.g.
   unmonitored_outside | entrance1 | kitchen | corridor | living room |
   hall | study | bedroom | bathroom | entrance2 | unmonitored_outside

   
   

2. Then show each
   unit's typical activities - monitorable states - like tap on / off,
   door open / ajar / closed / locked / unlocked

   
   

3. The unit ought to
   be thought of as a cell to which there are entry & exit times,
   duration occupied, name, list of possible activities, detected
   activity and duration, came from, going to.

   
   

4. The unit will have
   totals for a single period: total time occupying the cell (hr/day),
   total no of entrances, no of exits, activities, total no of change
   of states (tap/door)

   
   

5. The above data is collected from the sensors
   for a 24 hr period starting at 12 noon / midnight.

   
   

   
   

Learning the behavioural patterns

1. "Learning"
   is fancy way of saying there are record minimums and maxima, ie most
   number of this type of activity. Learning here is taken to mean
   finding the parameters of behaviour; for instance, goes to the
   toilet between 3 and 6 times a day. but usually 4 times.

   
   

2. How should
   abnormal behaviour be dealt with? ie a "spike". This is a
   problem. It should be labeled as abnormal and not used in parameters
   of normal behaviour.

   
   

3. Once running, it
   has a list of max/minimas for each cell; if on a monitoring session,
   a record is exceeded for the period, this is logged / warning sent.
   shorter periods - say 12hrs could be used as well.
   

   
   

4. Trending in the
   data can be used to track the changes in behaviour, a slope in the
   graph, two or more de/increases, significant jumps; these trends can
   be used to send warnings, stay in same position (one not designated
   as a seating or sleeping area) for more than certain units of time.
   1 unit can be 20 mins or 30 mins, adjusted to the necessary factors,
   like type of client.

   
   

5. Can have labels
   attached to cells with a green tick - "OK" or a circle
   with line through "STOP"

   
   

6. Some kind of
   knowledge of chronobiology
   - science of body clocks, and what is normal for the age of the
   client. This can be used as offset.

   
   

7. Templates can be used to help with inference
   - some built in rules, if these conditions are met and / or with
   certain detected patterns, can be used as a warning. E.G. pacing is
   detected & telephone not used for a certain period, can be
   symptom of dementia.
   

   
   

8. Ideas of the “routine” and
   non-routine – avoid false positives; a lot of activity in
   kitchen, exceeding maxima; too many of these perception that system
   is flawed, too many false negatives and system isn't doing its job.

   
   

9. Visitor problem. Differentiation of home
   dweller and outside; unlikely to stop owner's cat from being allowed in the residence. Use tags? Best to determine that there are two or more present and set a condition based on that time. And what if there are 2 residents?

   
   

Ethical issues involved in collecting data,
assurances to privacy

1. Like being in front of the doctor. All
   personnel involved are vetted. Without webcams cant provide 100%
   protection, more false positives, image isn't always need, location
   

   
   

To Investigate

1. Some study of the
   conditions of being disabled /elderly - what are the common
   problems? Which things can this system not solve? Which things are
   better left to 1st & 2nd generation systems?

   
   

2. Statistical modelling - k-means, EM
   algorythim, cluster analysis.

   
   

3. Rule based
   reasoning, jess.

   
   

Contentment

... I think mainly comes from acceptance. Cant change it? Whats there thats good?

oh yeah

well I will have this blog until my gmail account expires so if that goes this goes and all goes with it - the notes, search history, the analytics, everything