typical midwinter scene of bumble bees and blossom

I glanced out of the window yesterday and saw bumble bees buzzing around the cherry tree and collecting nectar.

No, I thought, I'm imagining it. So today I took a picture. Look carefully and you can see the tree lights.

the weather strikes back

And far, far away on Channel 5, Luke out for a really stellar weather report.

spaced

I didn't see the televised live launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome yesterday, although I watched the docking of the capsule with the International Space Station at around 8pm UK time - at which point there were also various replays of the day's events.

The starmen then had a photo opportunity and phone calls home.

You could sense they were both exuberant but also shattered, having just done what used to be a two or three day sequence compressed into around six hours, culminating with the manual (instead of automated) docking of their capsule with the space station.

I guess this mission has better UK media coverage because of Tim Peake (pictured above), the British astronaut/cosmonaut on the journey. The sight of a Soyuz rocket at take off is striking if somehow retro - I think the original design is from the 1960s and it still somehow looks like 60's futurism. The American rocket designs are more like utility vehicles whilst the Russian designs are more sports-car.

I've been to NASA at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy and the various UK-based space exhibits. It was striking how some of the components looked so primitive, with mechanical relays and switch controls that look like they were repurposed from old gas cookers. That's not to say that systems like the Soyuz aren't reliable. Soyuz has been launching rockets at the rate of 12 per year every year since 1997.

It's interesting to note that there's another two space launches today, PSLV - TeLEOS 1 at 1230 GMT from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India carrying five satellites. Then there's Long March 2D - DAMPE from Jiuquan, China which is launching the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, a satellite designed to measure high-energy particles in space.

Then on the 17th December there's another Soyuz, this time from the Guiana Space Center in South America and carrying two satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation constellation. After that there's a couple of days gap before a SpaceX Falcon 9 carries Orbcomm OG2 on the 20th December at 0125-0425 GMT launched from Cape Canaveral.

Then it's back to Baikonor Cosmodrome for another Soyuz - Progress 62P which lifts off at 0844 GMT carrying the 62nd cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station.

There's another 4 launches after that before the end of December, so I guess it's a busy month. That's before another 14 launches in January and February 2016. So, even if it doesn't always feel like it, we really are in the early space age.

No, not to scale

random music predictions?

I decided to try that 'Year in Music' thing to see what it reckoned I'd been listening to this year.

Very strange.

It picked my summer season favourite as 'The Beach Boys', which seems to me to be a wild and inaccurate guess rather than anything I'd play in quantity. Then it picked my top artist as James Bay (nice enough bloke but not sure I'd put him 'top') and my top track as Dreamer by Isbells. I can't say that I recollect that last track.

At all.

So I've just listened to it on youtube, to check. I still don't remember it, even if shows as part of the soundtrack of 2007's 'Into the Wild', which was that true story movie about a guy road-tripping to the Yukon, where he accidentally ate poisoned seeds.

I usually play my 'owned' tracks with iTunes so that explains some of the skew in the results. Plus the car, which has its own iPod, which I hardly ever re-dock with the main system. 6,000 minutes a year hardly supports needing a Spotify subscription, so that's a bit of a blooper too.

Although, for part of the year, I tried that Apple Music thing before abandoning it. I still prefer Spotify for discovering new tracks and setting a mood.

Just not the one that 'year in music' has illustrated.

ableton push button delivery of alligators into swamp

Another test track (Alligators) created using the Push 2. This one is a slide guitar, drums, bass and some horns. Theoretically it is clickable on Splice, but I'm not sure if you need to be a member or if I need to release it (which I haven't). Anyway, I've included a click-through link in the picture above.

Below is another short video of me creating it, using a few quick samples dropped into the Push 2 and then played back live. The samples are all warped loops on Ableton Live 9.5 and I'm just using the keys on Push to trigger the relevant pieces, which are set to around 120 beats per minutes.

I know it doesn't sound much like a normal synth session, but it's sometimes fun to just mess around. The video is a few of the worst clips from the camera on my phone.

Next I'll have to try something that sounds more like a synthesiser.

test triggering Ableton Push 2

Any excuse really.

All those synth tracks in Mr Robot has made me think about programming some new stuff and then seeing Rita Ora on TFI Friday doing synth-laden 90s pop. It must be okay again.

Fortunately the replacement Ableton Push device arrived. I did that thing where you can exchange the old device and it goes to a children's music charity.

I briefly compared the Push and the Push 2, but it should be obvious that there's a whole lot more screen read-outs in the higher resolution screen on the new one. Less obvious is the highly increased sensitivity of the pads, and the ease of navigating through sample directories.

A short test live mix below in session view. I was going to put it up as sound only, but I'd deleted my usual hosting directory. It's more guitar-based than synths, although I'm only testing it at the moment.

You get to see me dragging in and triggering a few samples - before I get down to any proper programming. I'd better call Christina Nott.

where is my mind?

"You knew all along, didn't you?"

Bo Hai Dumpling Town

I've been continuing with my bike riding, but moved to the turbo, using a quite gentle 0% gradient setting since I've tipped over the 4,000 miles mark this year (4,110 today). It's giving me a chance to watch a box set or two and the latest on the screen has been the cyber thriller Mr.Robot.

Set in today's world, seen through the eyes of an often hoodied and raddled hacker, it includes a 'grand scheme' plot line.

The setting has some of the edginess of Fight Club, flitting between dingy New York alleys and ultra bright corporate blocks. We've big cyber security businesses doing their thing and plenty of computer talk about IP addresses, distributed denial of service and spoofing. They do use some improbably high IP addresses: 172.258.62.296 anyone? It kind of breaks the octal.

It's still a step beyond normal IT-speak in the scripting, without quite reducing the language to dog.

There's a big plot about breaking something - using a wired-in Raspberry Pi as the hack to make it all work. I haven't seen whether they are successful or not yet, even assuming everything is what it seems to be.

If some of that sounds nerdy, then it's because the lead character Elliot (Rami Malek) is a jaded uber-geek. He operates as a morphine dependent psychotic and we get jittery camerawork around him when he's explaining himself to his imaginary friend, which is us, the viewer.

The series uses digital and social connectivity to illustrate that we can all be just a few clicks away from being found out.

I've also been fascinated by some of the filming, with framing to drive isolation, disconnection and occasionally a convergence. There's an often synth-led soundtrack breaking us through to the world of digital. We can sense the parallel digital world at every twist and turn. Evvvven the glitches.

I'm enjoying the series. There's a few pieces I deliberately overlook and which are offset every so often with some scripting gems as the characters step it up a level. They haven't used "the root (kit) of all Evil" yet, but I can sense it's hovering there somewhere..

To prove a quick point I even found Elliot's home address next to the Chinese restaurant on Broadway. Check out the food reviews.

edge games for energy tariffs

At the start of 2014, four years after they started a Retail Market Review, Ofgem forced UK energy suppliers to introduce a new tariff structure for retail customers. It was claimed to create a simpler and clearer market, removing confusing and complex tariffs to help rebuild consumer trust.

It was built around suppliers offering just four tariffs per customer for both electricity and gas and to help customers get the best deal.

It makes a great example of the law of unintended consequences.

Take my current well-known supplier as an example. If I forget to switch to their new tariff at the end of the one year period, instead of being put onto their new 'best for me' tariff, I automatically get switched onto their worst tariff.

That's about £350 per year worse than the previous tariff. Of course, they don't call it 'worst' tariff because that would alert me. No, they call it their 'standard' tariff, which somehow implies it is what they give to a lot of, well, standard people.

A well-organised person might arrange to pre-switch to the next best tariff, but I bet there's plenty of consumers who don't take any notice and through inertia (aka accidental loyalty) get moved to the lazy and expensive tariff. I calculate it charges about the equivalent of a Netflix plus a Spotify plus an Amazon Prime annual subscription extra, per annum.

The number of tariffs hasn't tracked to the number of years either. I notice we are already up to 16 variants of electricity and a further 16 variants of gas billing since the new rules came in back in January 2014.

The Ofgem principle was about 'Treating customers fairly and profit was not an entitlement'. Although Ofgem has taken some steps in the right direction, the utility suppliers have still been pretty good at playing the edges.

I notice in the 2015 Which report about energy companies that the most well-known names are all in the bottom half of the satisfaction survey. I'm not sure that 50% happy is anything to be proud of.

the pink and blue hippos and elephants are slightly early this year

Some would say it it still early to be putting up the Christmas lights and hanging things from the tree.

Not us. We've already started our festive season. It's meant the annual trip to a couple of shops to get special fillers for party bags, accessory hats and enough miscellany for a pretty large pass the parcel.

Some years it's been Hamleys for the bits and pieces; I think it's the 4th floor that is particularly useful for small items to be used as stocking fillers. Another time it's been Harrods although they are not usually cheesy enough. My secret weapon for finding small spinning tops and tabletop basketball games is a combination of Tiger as well as Hawkin's Bazaar. Whether it's small neon monkey erasers, butterfly hair accessories, crystal tops, microphones for pretend karaoke or even clockwork swimming hippos and elephants (4 for £1.49) the two shops between them will always provide the answer.

Just stay clear *cough* of the rather dubious Secret Santa items...

more zig-zagging around the highways

A midweek visit to a shopping centre.

The area has been successfully blockaded by roadworks originally planned for completion by November 2015. The new finish is now March 2016. I looked up the project plan and all the dates have been changed, so if you didn't remember the old date you might be none the wiser. Nicely done - although I'm bemused that the cost seems to have remained the same?
I expect the newly constructed John Lewis and Waitrose which requires access from the incomplete road system will be delighted. They have managed to open their newly built store in time for the Christmas season, to now see that roads in the area have various 'please avoid' notices applied to them by highways england (Yes they do spell england with a lower case 'E').

Despite the road system being downgraded to single lane whilst they finish their half hamburger roundabout, the main shopping car park was still filled. Perhaps the cars are trapped inside?

I guess I've got spoilt by shopping outlets like Westfield, which have lanes with signs that tell you the way to the empty parking spaces and include counts of the number of spaces available.

Inside this centre's multi-level car park there is just a complex maze of largely unmarked routes, sometimes blockaded by those plastic barriers. I decided to try for an upper floor but they had even managed to hide the ramps to go upwards. Not a pleasant experience.

However, once I'd eventually found a place to park, I was able to burst out into the bustling mall, which had what I'd describe as a busy Saturday shoppers' profile. All ages, all buying.

I wondered if I somehow missed the memo about this week being an emergency shopping week?

The Man in the High Castle

Around by Bank station in central London there's a golden grasshopper which flies over the top of the Royal Exchange. It's one of those things that I've 'always' known although probably most people going about their business in that part of London are blissfully unaware. I like to think it talks to the golden dragon that flies half way along Cheapside.

I mention it by way of a reference to 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' which is inscribed on the reels of film in Amazon's TV series reinterpretation of Philip K. Dick's novel 'The Man in the High Castle'.

I've found it compelling and disturbing viewing and it feels more like watching a series of movies, rather than a typical TV show.

It describes an oppressive parallel version of 1962 in which the Nazis and the Japanese have won World War II and taken over much of the United States with a buffer zone running along the Rocky mountains.

There's several main plot lines underpinned with the central one about a series of films depicting another version of the future. The future shown on the films appears to be reportage footage of the version of events that we, the audience, know.

The tv show depicts America under German and Japanese rule as consequence of losing World War II after the Germans dropped an H-Bomb on Washington. A subsequent US civil war led to their surrender to the Axis forces. The Germans have ruthlessly eradicated everyone they don't agree with including much of the African subcontinent. They've subjugated many to slavery whilst keeping a veneer of normality towards those they consider to be Arians.

The Japanese have established a strong-arm rule over the Americans on the West Coast, but are fearful of the larger German presence in the east and the more advanced industrialisation of the Germans with their Heisenberg bomb and rockets. It's another form of Cold War, with the Americans as losers squashed between two grimly dark superpowers.

The highly sought cans of film represent some form of resistance token - its not completely clear how they achieve this, but I'll live with the artifice.

They are a difference from the original Philip K. Dick novel, which used a book whose story about the grasshopper showed the possibilities of an alternative future and was itself rooted in aspects of I Ching. The reels of film present a more definitive view of the alternative future based upon the footage.

In the novel, many of the central characters had copies of the easier to reproduce (though illegal to own) book, whereas the rare film's content is only slowly released. Resistance people in the east and west are trying to track down these reels of film although most don't know what they contain.

As well as I Ching there's also a '12.5' in the mix. Is it a time check? No, it's that bit of Ecclesiastes that references fear of heights, terrors in the road, the blossom of an almond tree, a grasshopper dragging itself along and desire failing. Kind of gloomy references to the fleeting actions of man, and a proper theme in the Philip K. Dick novel.

I'll say that some of the novel's plot elements survive into this TV-show retelling, but although we see the Japanese Trade Minister uses his yarrow sticks to create hexagrams, the I Ching is not so overtly linked into the TV adaptation. If we see the Trade Minister making notes from his readings he draws three straight lines for the outer trigram (force and heaven), but we never see them combined to create a full hexagram and I Ching meaning. I guess it would all get rather complicated to explain in tv narrative? Having said that, I believe I glimpsed a few complete trigrams scattered on walls, so maybe there is some attempt to use them more indirectly?

That's where the novel and a tv show have to take different paths. The novel is altogether more cerebral than a popular tv show can present. I'll happily live with both.

There's been plenty of styling in the tv series. The chilling versions of the alternative reality are convincing. Some parts of this 1962 languish in the 1940s whilst monorails and supersonic jets appear like artefacts from Tomorrowland. There's rockets too, but they don't seem to go to Mars in the tv version. And no Elvis Presley, obviously. Some of the uses of German abbreviations and iconography looked wrong to me, but I guess that's movie shorthand at work.

There's extremely Bladerunner-esque scenes included, and other sections that reflect straightforward 40s noir. A whole character turns up looking like a hat-tip to the Cowboy in Mulholland Drive and there's a direct reference to a character named Deckard. That's just a smattering of the movie references to spot as the series runs along.

The lead characters are mainly strong, with some clever and sharp dialogue which I guess comes from the original novel. Occasionally it fades and I'm guessing that it is an effect of taking the original story and chopping it into episodes where there are occasional commercial needs (like well-timed cliffhangers).

There's also several different stories to watch. Want resistance stories? check. How about a spy? check. Art forgeries? check. A political power struggle? check. An assassination plot? check. And mainly it doesn't get too soapy and includes enough jump cuts around to keep up the interest without losing continuity. No mean feat with something so complex. Oh yes, in this tv version the main women get purposeful roles too.

The scripting works well and assists the creation of monsters like the family-man Obergruppenführer John Smith (played by Rufus Sewell) who demonstrates a particularly advanced form of passive aggressive behaviour. The normalisation of ruthless traits in him and others applied to this parallel world sends cold shivers down the spine. In many movie tropes there are parts where you'd be expected to feel sorry for him. Not me. And then when we meet his boss Oberst-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich (one of the most despicable men in real modern history) we see the same type of behaviour again, only even more pronounced.

We also get various cultural clashes, some of which work and others seem odd. What does come through is a horrendous matter-of-factness to some the terrible practices which are allowed to persist in this new parallel world. On the other hand, I've worked with plenty of Germans and even amongst themselves there is still a kind of formality which didn't quite come through in some of the screenplay American interactions. I could partly understand if the Americans had won and the German culture was being subjugated, but this is the other way around yet we have American informality.

I suspect something similar would apply with the female American white face working at the Nippon Embassy - formality and prejudice which is somehow reduced in the television mix. I guess this is all very sensitive. Even Amazon's New York subway wraps advertising the show had to be pulled - I guess even this small taste of what it could be like is too much in real life.

But my detail comments are really me nit-picking.

Overall I've enjoyed and been terrified by this thought-provoking series - which I will watch again to extract more from some of the scenes. I'm intrigued at where it has left off too, because it seems to be going along a different path to my hazy recollection of the original novel. I like the idea that the tv show is now playing with the parallel futures and maybe introducing yet another one.

I've just ordered it the novel again on Kindle - as well as a separate PKD omnibus of short stories which was on sale for 47p.

Trailer below (Zoom to full screen - worth it)