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30th August

Saw Stones In Their Pockets at the Rep. Very good two hander in which the actors played multiple characters very convincingly - something which I always appreciate. It was well received by the audience, with spontaneous applause in several places. The play is set in Ireland, where a film company have come to make a hollywood movie set in Ireland. The locals (+ an incomer) get to play the part of the oppressed peasants, while gawping at the stars (and, more importantly, getting \xA340 a day). Good, funny, light (mostly) .

26th August

Amongst other things, I am currently reading The Code Book by Simon Singh, which is excellent. In it he discusses the Beale Ciphers.

25th August

Some of the earliest writing in the world: http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/4/4.4/441.html#3008 Including Cuneiform Writing and a very rare example of Linear A text with Arcadian style pictures.

Read some of the writings of Herodotus Of Hallicarnassus. Original text at:
http://www.herodotuswebsite.co.uk/Text/extext.htm
and commentary/summary at:
http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/herodotus01.htm

24th August

There's a lot of strange things live in caves: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/tnhc/.www/biospeleology/explore.htm

23rd August

Saw comedians Nick Wilty and Junior Simpson, fresh back from Edinburgh.

21st August There are a vast number of posters for the "Default" 1st Birthday bash around Moseley at the moment. Headlining is Brothomstates from Finland. I'm thinking of going, and found that you can download a full album and live sets (including one from March 2002) at:

http://www.brothomstates.com/

Having had a bit of a listen, I'd describe them as pleasent, tuneful, and generally "soft" electronic music - there is one live track where the "drumming" is a bit relentless for my tastes, but the other tracks are much less "banging" and more relaxed.

19th August

Finished http://www.miniclip.com/acno/acno.htm - I haven't been playing it continuously since the 13th though! Boulderdash / Miner'49 / Dig Dug games are a kind of "programming game" in that you have to solve a puzzle by doing a very specific sequence of actions in a particular order. Often, the puzzles seem impossible initially, but by using the small repetoire of actions you have available, in the correct combination, they become easy.

Lemmings is the classic "programming game" to me, with the Lemmings acting like little Turing Machines transforming their environment. I'm not really that into most computer games - things like Doom leave me cold.

Both Lemmings and Boulderdash games follow a teaching pattern, in which initially, the simple actions are demonstrated individually, then in simple combinations, more complex combinations and finally present puzzles which require the use of obscure side-effects.

16th August 2002

Went to Klub Catusi at the Medicine Bar - but somehow it didn't seem very Catusi-esque. Different crowd, and different music.

13th August 2002

Play good Boulderbash clone, Acno's Energiser, at: http://www.miniclip.com/acno/acno.htm Level 20 was the 1st hard one!

11th August 2002

Hear The Good Companions by John Boynton Priestley on Radio Four. Go to A Spelendid Afternoon at the Custard Factory / Medicine Bar, see MistysBigAdventure and a load of other bands.

4th August 2002

Finally got my Psion 5mx working with my mobile - so now I can surf the net from anywhere! One of the problems I was having was the psion modem settings. For anyone who finds this, the modem init string for a T68 phone is just "ATZ", leave the data and fax init strings empty.

3rd August 2002

Read an interesting article on eels, eel pie shops and eel cookery ( http://www.gastronomica.org/gastro/pages/sample2.2.html )

2nd August 2002

Hear new (1st) CD from Special Needs - very good. It's captured their live performance style very well.

1st August 2002

Saw Dog Food at the Fiddle And Bone - the pub's music licence is currently under threat as residents of newly build luxury flats nearby have complained about the noise. Dog Food were great - but unfortunately, the volume of the vocals was too low!

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