Here or There

So further to my previous post, I've been thinking about some of the advantages and disadvantages of London and Cape Town. Just as a matter of interest, really - I'm not planning on making any decisions based on this, I'll be here for a couple of years still, but it's interesting to consder since you tend to take things for granted wherever you happen to be at the time.

Here, there's places to go and ways to get there (locally and further afield, like Europe). There, there's my parents, my sister, my nieces, my dog.

Here, there's earning good money and good career opportunities. There, there's the sea and the mountain and Kirstenbosch.

Here, there's cheap and fast internet. There, there's familiarity and knowing how things work.

Here, there's a rented flat that never feels fully yours (short term) or impossibly expensive house prices (long term). There, there's crime and not feeling 100% safe even at home.

Here, there's insane politicians. There, there's insane politicians who don't seem to know how to run a country, and are more interested in their own profit than the good of the country.

I guess it's a tie.

More thoughts:

Here, there's you pay effectively no bank charges; there, people have a sense of personal space.

Here, it's crowded and noisy and dirty and busy. There, there's peace and quiet and space and trees and plants and room to see to the horizon.

There, there are birds, and animals, and pets. Here, there are very few mosquitos and other insects.

Here, even I can't get sunburned. There, I know where to go to the dentist, have my hair cut, buy whatever I need.

Here, paying for utilities is incredibly complex - insurance gets paid for a year upfront; other things are paid monthly, but only over 9 months in a year; gas and electricity is paid every month, but on an estimate basis and you only get a bill every 3 months. There, things make a lot more sense.

There, you get Niknaks, biltong, droewors, koeksisters, Steers, and decent steaks. Here, you get Green & Blacks chocolate, icecream and hot chocolate (although: when I went back for a visit, I did see Green & Blacks chocolate... so maybe they'll be getting the icecream and the hot chocolate too!).

There, I got to wear jeans to work.

There, my bathroom actually had a bath.

Here, there's waaay more TV channels. But then, there's a higher proportion of rubbish, so it about cancels out.

Soundtrack

So here's the latest in the 'songs that could be a soundtrack for my life' series: Starlight, by Muse, definitely; and parts of Talk and The Hardest Part by Coldplay.

Probably some others, but those are the three that I've particularly noticed lately.

Of course, if there was a song with lyrics going something like, "why I can't just go to sleep on a Sunday night so that I'm wide awake for work when I have to get up early on Monday rather than sitting in bed writing silly blog posts", that would be a good contender for the number 1 slot.

Other songs I like at the moment, that aren't particularly relevant: Chasing Cars, by Snow Patrol; Dani California (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), When You Were Young (The Killers), Naive, and She Moves In Her Own Way (The Kooks)... oh, and America, by Razorlight; and both Fill My Little World, and Never Be Lonely, by The Feeling. Really cool music, that I'd probably never have heard in SA.

Six Word Stories

Some really, really short stories - there's more at Wired, but these are my favourites:

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

Batman Sues Batsignal: Demands Trademark Royalties.
- Cory Doctorow

Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
- David Brin

Visiting Home

Well, not quite yet - still a couple of weeks to go, then I'm off back to SA for 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to it, although I'm trying not to think about it too much yet - it seems silly to spend a month waiting for something that's only two weeks long. On the other hand, maybe all that anticipation draws it out into something longer than just two weeks.

I enjoy being in London - I'm certainly glad I came, and I've experienced a ton of stuff that I'd never have done back in Cape Town. But it does get lonely, and I miss my family, especially at times like now when I should be getting to sleep so that I can be all bright-eyed and awake for work tomorrow. Thanks to my T-Mobile flext plan and YourCall, I speak to them pretty much every day (which is almost embarrassing to admit, but hey, why not use the technology we have?), but it's different to being able to visit and see them whenever I like. Particularly my nieces, who have grown such a lot since the last time I saw them. They should invent faster, cheaper planes so that it's easier to go home just for a few days, rather than being a once-a-year event - that would make life much easier!

So I'm looking forward to going home, and I think it will be difficult to come back - although, of course, there are advantages to living in London, and (almost) all of the reasons I came over in the first place are still true.

In a way, though, I don't so much want to go back to a place as to a time... back to when I was working at ATC and everything was fun, or back to when I was at varsity and the future seemed to be all sorted. Or even back to when I was a kid and didn't have any responsibilities - sure, you still worry about stuff when you're a kid, but you get tucked in at night and looked after when you're sick and don't have to do your own washing and ironing :) Obviously that's not going to happen, but the time and the place tend to get mixed up in your mind, and maybe this trip home will help to break that link.

In a way, by moving to London I've set myself up to always be missing somewhere - the plan was to come over for a year, then when I got a really good job, that got extended to 2 or 3 years. I still don't plan to live here the rest of my life, but I know I'll miss it when I go back to SA. But while I'm here, I miss SA. It's odd, thinking back to when I was at varsity and thinking how I thought I had everything planned out and knew how the rest of my life would be - and was happy to know that it was all settled. Since then, I've learned not to count on anything specific happening, and I've actually come to dread the thought of my entire life, settled, stretching out in front of me... not that that's an issue, since I don't have any plans for my life. I know I don't want to stay here for more than a few years; I don't see myself staying in SA for the rest of my life either. Each place has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. I guess the solution is to move back to SA (in time - certainly not yet, I'm not done here yet!), find a great job doing lots of coding, with people I can become friends with (like at ATC, although I suspect that only happens once in a lifetime, if you're lucky), earn a ton of money, with lots of leave, and then travel to the UK and Europe and the US every year on holiday :-) It's still a bit scary, thinking of your whole life stretching out before you... I know, I think too much; I worry too much about the future, and get too nostalgic about the past. But still, it would be nice to have someone to face this stretching-out-before-me future with, someone who would be a part of it. I suspect that's how most people get through it (and not thinking too much, of course). But, there's not much prospect of that, and I've (mostly) learned that I'm (mostly) totally capable of doing it alone.

Anyway, this is turning into a terribly introspective and sad-ish post, and one that's probably a bit too personal for a blog that anyone and everyone can (but doesn't) read, but I feel better for having said it. I blame it on being tired, and a bit lonely, and having been off sick for most of the past week. I don't think it's because winter's starting and the weather's getting miserable - I do miss the sun, and I never thought I'd say this, but I miss getting sunburned! - but the weather can be pretty bad in winter in Cape Town too, and I managed there fine. And most of the time I'm at work, anyway, where you don't even notice whether it's sunny or raining. So while it will be nice to get some sun on my holiday, I don't think winter should be too depressing here.

Hmm, let's end of on a more upbeat note... I'm thinking of going to the MCM Expo next Saturday, which should be fun. And the week after, I'm going to Cadbury World - hmmm, yummy. And I'm doing some shopping, buying presents to take home, which is always fun. Some London-y tourist stuff, just to prove I was here; some London-y goodies, like Green & Blacks (the best chocolate ever!); birthday presents for the two birthdays around the time I'll be there; and of course, Christmas presents for all. And I plan to do some shopping there, since my money will be worth about 14 times it's value here - clothes, goodies (biltong and droewors! and I better not get started on NikNaks); and I want to bring back some stuff that I couldn't fit in my suitcase when I came over - like my buckwheat husk pillow, which is really comfortable and which I really miss! Hmm, maybe even a teddy bear, if I have some spare room... I do miss my Harley Davidson bear :-)

Campaign For Real Beauty

One thing I appreciate about advertising here in the UK is that some companies - most notably Dove - are trying to use realistic models rather than these idealised women who, lets face it, don't look like anyone I know. The more people (and kids, especially) see these super-thing, super-beautiful women on TV, on billboards, and in general advertising, the more it becomes accepted that that is women are supposed to look like, and it doesn't do much good to the self-esteem of those of us who don't (i.e., 99% of everyone!).

So the Campaign For Real Beauty is something that I fully believe in. BoingBoing has a post about a video by Dove on how an ordinary, plain woman is transformed into a gorgeous model, and goes to show how (and why) our perceptions of beauty have become incredibly warped into something totally unrealistic. It's definitely worth watching; I've seen these before and after type photos before, but this video shows the step-by-step process, and it's absolutely unbelievable.



There's a flash version, and now a quicktime version as well. And learn more about the Campaign for Real Beauty (US and UK versions)

How Private is Private?

Okay, there's a lot of things that that title might refer to, but this post is about the most boring interpretation :-)

I came across an odd line of code the other day, and after doing some investigating I found out something about private members that I never knew. This is in C#, but I would assume it applies in C++, Java, and any other object oriented language as well.

This is what I discovered: any instance of a class can access the private members of any other instance of that class! In other words, this code is fine:

public class MyClass
{
 private int myVar;

 public void accessPrivate(MyClass instance2)
 {
    instance2 = 42;
 }
}

Thinking about it, it does make sense (I almost said, on reflection :-) - the access modifier applies on the class level, not the instance level. And it could come in useful, for example when overriding .Equals - but I still find it somewhat disturbing. And I suspect that with intellisense, people may be using this feature without even realising it - you see the private member in the drop-down list, and select it, without stopping to think that you shouldn't even be able to see it (yet another reason that intellisense sometimes makes life too easy).

Doing some googling, I found several discussions about this - in summary, though, someone posts saying "isn't this odd", someone else posts saying "yes, but it's useful", and someone else posts saying "it's data-hiding, not security".

A Day Off

I took the day off work today - I had to have a gas safety and maintenance inspection done, which of course they don't do after working hours, so since I had to take at least half a day off work for that I figured I might as well just take the whole day off.

It was really nice - I think I need a holiday, actually. The only time I've had off during the last 6 or 7 months was when I moved to London and was looking for a job; when I moved to Wimbledon; and a day or two when I was off sick and spent the entire day asleep. So it was nice to have a day off - the weekend doesn't count - to do whatever I liked (provided I didn't actually leave the house, since I had to wait for the inspection guy).

So I spent most of the day on the net, and watching TV. I got some things sorted that I've been meaning to do for ages (like organising my photos), and got to watch some mildly amusing tv shows that I don't normally get to see. And I got to chat to some of my friends via msn/googletalk, which I don't normally get to do since I'm not allowed to use instant messaging at work :-(

Admittedly, I'm starting get a little bit bored and feeling a little bit disconnected from the world by now (especially since there isn't anything to watch on tv any more, and no-one's online to chat to), but it was a nice peaceful day. Of course, now I don't feel like going to work tomorrow...

This Is Cinerama... or not.

Yesterday I went out to Bradford to watch This Is Cinerama as described in Bill Bryson's 'Notes From a Small Island'. I didn't really realise how far away it is from London until after I'd booked my train tickets, but I thought it would be a fun trip anyway. Which it was, but... I'm really going through a bad luck phase. I couldn't believe it, but after watching the first half of This Is Cinerama, one of the projectors broke down! I mean, I know it's an old film and old equipment, but one of the women who works with it said she's been there for 6 months and they've never had a problem. The day I spend 3 hours on a train to get there to watch this one movie, the equipment breaks down. Unbelievable!

The first half was pretty good, though - the rollercoaster in the beginning was absolutely awesome, and I'd really recommend that anyone in the area goes to watch it. But I have to agree with Bill Bryson about Bradford - it's incredibly confusing and easy to get lost. The roads themselves are bad enough, and the map from the NMPFT website isn't very useful. And the signs to the museum point to... I don't know, but not the way you need to go to get to the museum! And then of course you have the pedestrian subways - you really feel isolated down there, and of course you have no way to get your bearings and figure out where you're trying to go! I got there fairly easily, but got a bit coming lost since I came out of a different door that I went in.

The museum itself is small but really cool - they have the original sets from The Wrong Trousers (Wallace & Gromit), and the 1997 version of the Wombles, and, best of all, the original set from Morph! I remember watching that when I was a kid, and it was so cool to see the actual set. I was amazed by how small it is. They have a bunch of other stuff at the museum, and it's well worth going to see (it's even free to get in).

So after wandering around the museum for a while, I went to the Pictureville Cinema for This Is Cinerama, and enjoyed the little bit that we actually went to see. The curved screen is really effective, and it's a very nice theatre. There were only about 10 people there, and when the projector broke and they offered to show The Queen instead, everyone but me and one other person left! I only stayed because otherwise I'd have had to wander around for the three hours before my train, and I couldn't face that. It was okay, although not really my type of movie, and nowhere as good as the rest of This Is Cinerama would have been :-(

No Bike

After struggling for a month to get my bike brought over, a friend of a friend of the guy I was buying it from brought it over on Friday night.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the battery not only was flat but wasn't holding a charge... which means that I would have had to find a replacement battery, then replace the battery (and while I ride bikes, I know nothing about working on them). And it just raised issues about what else may be wrong with the bike... and after waiting so long for it, and being messed around (this was the 5th time I was told it would be delivered, only for it not to arrive) than I was just sick of it. So I phoned up the guy I was buying it from and told him that I wasn't going to buy it.

It's very disappointing - it's a great bike, and I would have loved it, but I was just so sick of the entire thing by then. I've been stressed out for the last month because of that bike, and I was starting to hate the thought of it. It was supposed to be a fun and exciting thing, buying a bike, and it just turned into a miserable, stressful experience.

Anyway, so that's the end of that story. I missed the last of the good weather, I think, as well. So while I'm still determined to get a bike, I think I'll wait until summer and then get a newer bike from a reputable dealer. Maybe one of the 2006 model CBF500's, since the 2007 models will be out and there should be more 2nd hand 2006 ones floating around.

So I'm very disappointed, and still miss having a bike; but on the other hand, I'm relieved that it's all over at least.

Brilliant Anti-DRM music video

In keeping with yesterday being anti-DRM day, here's a brilliant music video: Futuristic Sex robotz - F**K The MPAA (RIAA & BSA). It's available on YouTube, as an mp3, and here's the original post about it on BoingBoing.

Lots of swearing, so don't watch it if you're easily offended.

Bikes and Internet - More Trouble Than They're Worth

So, I'm still bike-less - it was supposed to be coming today, and it seemed very definite this time. But at the last minute (again) it was postponed until tomorrow.

And my internet connection is.... problematic, again. It connects, it says it's connected and that the signal's excellent, but it's as if the DNS server is down because I can't go anywhere or sign in to msn or googletalk. This is how it started last week, and I've only just got that resolved! It's yo-yoing tonight, though - it'll be fine, then down, then up, then down. Even had a problem connecting via the cable, although it seems stable-ish now. I just wish I knew where the problem was - router, wireless, isp, other people connecting to my network and stealing my bandwidth? (Shouldn't be the last one - I do have security in place, although nothing's foolproof. But it's as good an explanation as any). I just hate having an unreliable connection. And there's no reason for it being unreliable, it's not like it's new unproven technology!

I dunno, I'm not even angry about it all tonight. I'm just getting so used to it, I'm more resigned than anything else. Which is kinda sad, in itself.

On a more positive note, today is anti-DRM day, so go out there and don't support DRM!

Saving Visual Studio Settings

I always customize my Visual Studio settings - colours, keyboard shortcuts, window positions, and all that. It's always been difficult to backup those settings, though, either just to keep them safe, or for if you need to reinstall VS, or if you want to copy those same settings to another installation on another PC. After doing that a lot of times, you tend to start only customizing the major things and leaving the rest as default, which is a bit sad.

I know VS 2005 has the facility to save and restore settings, which is great but not so useful for those of us still using 2003. Which is why I went looking - again - for a way to save settings, and this time I actually found something! Basically it amounts to exporting a couple of registry settings, and copying a couple of files in your app settings directory - the full details are here on SteveHarman.net.

Haven't tried it yet - I backed up the settings on Friday, and will try a restore with my fresh install of VS on Monday. Looks like it should work though.