Ransen's Blog

Would you miss the blog? I've noticed that a large proportion of "viewers" are actually automated system trying to get me to click back to see where the link is coming from. So I have even fewer viewers than I imagined. This blog is a good way for me to put down ideas and experiences, but if nobody is out there I may as well just talk to myself. Talking to myself I can be more honest about some things... So, leave a comment if you would like me to carry on writing.

I used to work for a company that designed and made graphics cards. In those days, the 1980s, there was a lot of competition. When you bought a PC you would, if you wanted to use play the latest games or use "high end" CAD, choose a better than standard graphics card. There were maybe 30 makers of graphics cards all competing on speed and price. And magazines, like PC World and Your PC, and so on would run benchmark tests on graphics cards to see which were the fastest, which had the most colors, which cost the least and so on. But above all, which graphics cards were the fastest. The results would be published in explicit tables of glory and shame. In these days of high frame rate 3d animation it seems ridiculous. But in those days the speed of a graphics card it was important. It was what made your screen zip along and allowed you to work faster. We could not understand how a competitor could always be rated fastest in one of the magazine's tests. We

I like Sam Harris's books. He's an aethistic neuroscientist/philospher who writes plainly and clearly. I was curious about Tim Ferriss's podcasts. I did not know that the two were slightly connected. In one of the Ferris podcasts Sam Harris mentions that he wishes he could do all or some of the stuff recommended in "The Four Hour Work Week". This connection seems strange to me... One of Tim Ferris's ways of working less (according to Ferriss himself) was to set up a brain supplement selling site. The supplement is called BrainQuicken. Hmm. There have been no tests which proved it work. Ferriss claims to have made $40,000 a month from it. Those claims have been disputed. So, Sam Harris support of Ferriss is a sort of testimonial. A testimonial of a person who claims to make money selling worthless pills. Is it worse or better that he makes $40,000 a month? Because if it is true then he is taking $480,000 a year from the gullible, some of wh

...I stopped planning my own funeral. (And listened, with a smile on my face, to Andy Narell's "Tatoom".)

I went for a walk the other morning, quite early, and had another of those "moments". The straight town road was in front of me, and at the end of it a cloudy horizon. Above me the sky was clear, slowly brightening. And behind me at about 40° elevation, a nearly full moon. The road ran East-West. There was a scattering of small long clouds just above the denser ones on the horizon. And there was Venus, above and to the right of where I imagined the sun would rise shortly. The light from the hidden (to me) sun hitting the moon's surface. The moment that I had was that if we were not used to such sights (if we would not take them for granted), it would feel as if we were living on "another planet", or in a science fiction film maybe. And inside that moment was another feeling of what I was really looking at. From space, and not to scale, it was this: From space, and more to scale, this: (I don't know

When I can't sleep I listen out for dogs barking in the night.  I don't know why but it makes me feel good.   The train line from Gallarate to Milano is close by, and I listen out for trains too. The idea of mysterious voyages in the night can make me fall asleep. This is linked to Toranomon Station when I lived in Tokyo. It means "Tiger Gate". Romantic. Planes are almost as good as trains, flying passed the Moon maybe. Flying through the night as I lie in bed. If those fail, then reciting poems I'm learning by heart can sometimes do it. And Death Shall Have No Dominion . Out Revels Now Are Over . She Walks In Beauty Like The Night . The Eagle . I Met A Traveller ...

Sometimes, when studying for my A-levels years ago, in Bigglsewade, I'd go to the cemetery over the hedge. The hedge was at the end of our back garden. An unofficial path ran along that hedge, passed all the back gardens, to the small road which ran through the cemetery. The road was (is?) only opened for funerals. In the center of the cemetery is a building which looks like a small church, but I don't think ever was. It is a sort of storehouse for the grave diggers and gardeners. In my last year of school, I'd go into the cemetery and study Physics or Eng. Lit. sitting on one of the benches, near evergreen trees under a blue sky. It was a pleasant place to stay, though not really very good for serious study. Too relaxing and the curved surface of the bench would make setting the books down and writing awkward. In Yokohama, Japan, about eight years later, my teacher Hideko Imai Sensei took me to the British Commonwealth Cemetery.  If is ful