Tuttle Cracked?

I'm a few days behind on this, but it seems that the poor people of CentOS, a Linux distribution, have been experiencing a free and frank exchange of views over a misconfigured web server which almost had the FBI called in to investigate. *sigh* Well, at least it yields a good story and a load of publicity for CentOS.

To The Batcave!

Now, this is cool. You want a bookcase that hides a secret passageway, or stairs that can hide a dragon? Well, for a few grand your dreams can come true. I think the dragon may cost extra though.

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for bringing this onto my radar. As Bruce says, "Who cares about the security properties? I want one."

Word From On High

Some time ago I exchanged emails with the Home Office regarding ID cards. More recently I received an email from them with the content...

Please see letter from the Home Office attached.

...followed by the usual stuff about intended recipients and virus scans. The attachment was an MS Word document which, on this occasion, could be opened and basically said that the HO had commissioned a Customer Satisfaction survey and I would shortly receive another email about taking part.

Now, I generally feel that it is rude and lazy to email information (like this letter) in attachments when it can be easily be included in the body of the email, and that it is poor form to use proprietory formats for exchanging data, particularly with people outside of your organisation, when alternatives exist. Others have written at some length on the subject, though I am not as militant as some. So I sent an email back to the HO, raising some of my concerns and, for good measure, I sent a copy to my MP, Ed Vaizey, too.

I quickly received an email from my Vaizey's PA, asking for more information, which I provided, and this was followed by another email saying that if it was OK by me, Vaizey would contact me once he had heard back from the Home Office. A few days later I had an email from the Home Office, acknowledging that I had made good points and that they would do better in future. A week or so after that I received a real, honest to goodness letter from Vaizey's PA, enclosing a copy of a longer letter from the HO, which was similar in tone and content to the email I had received. OK, so I didn't get a personal letter from my MP this time, but I'm quite happy with the outcome overall. (I tried contacting my constituency's previous MP, Robert Jackson, once but never heard anything from him, so my 2-for-2 with the new guy is a definite improvement.)

Of course, if the Home Office send me a Word document again I'll be a bit annoyed, but that will be a good excuse to have a bit more fun with them.

Holy Harmonica Batman!

I've been trying to learn to play harmonica for about 2 months now, with some small amount of success — I still suck, but sometimes it is now through the right hole. Poking around the net it is possible to find some great examples of harp playing to inspire me onwards. And then there are things like this mp3 which just make me want to give up in dispair. One man (Richard Hunter), one harmonica, playing acoustically. Awesome.

High Cross Squeak

Funny things, harmonicas. For the last month or so I've been steadily working through my tuition book, doing the exercises and practice tunes, and steadily improving. Even <3 has been complimentary on a couple of occasions.

The thing is that there are 3 octaves on a standard diatonic harmonica, though there are notes missing in the top and bottom octaves. I am learning blues style playing, which is most often played in "second position" (also known as "cross harp"), which means that the starting note for scales is on the "2 draw" rather than the "1 blow". This means that my C-harmonica, for example, is played in the key of G, and has 2 octaves, with a few extra notes top and bottom. (Actually, it's not truly in the key of G as there is no F# available without some clever techniques, but don't worry about that.) Following so far?

So far the exercises I have been doing have been based on the lower of these two G octaves, plus some adjacent notes. This has been going OK, though sounding the 2 draw was initially tricky due to a well documented quirk of harmonica physics, and both notes in the 1 hole are awkward because they are right at the end of the harp and my lips keep falling off the instrument. With practice, I learned ways around these problems. But then I reached some exercises based on the upper G octave, and all of a sudden I could barely make the damn thing squeak, let alone play nice, clear notes!

It would seem this is common, and new players often have difficulty playing the high holes due to puckering up too much and restricting air flow to the holes. The solution is, apparently, to make sure the mouth is well relaxed and ensure the air is breathed up from the diaphragm. Easier said than done, but I am slowly... very slowly getting there. If I can get through this section the next few exercises should be a bit easier.