Cozy : A giveaway promotion.

Click the cover above to be linked to the give-away promotion in which this latest Ed Adams book features, along with about 20+ other mixed author books. The book is also available FREE here.

Historical negationism

They say the victors write the history books, but now we can see a last gasp attempt from a couple of con artists to fingernail their way back into public life. 

The clown is a serial liar, which has been frequently proven with the likes of cakegate, and the other one appears to be unhinged. 

Now they are both attempting to put on record a counter-commentary to negate what history has them pegged to. 

Historical negationism. It's too much of a mouthful to become a thing. 

 I'm sure they would both be good fun at a child's party, but running the country? I don't think so. Instead we see their attempts to re-portray themselves in a more positive light - misunderstood - picked upon - blah blah blah. Its all just wiffle waffle.

Yay. My next novel is just about ready. Cosy - a cosy crime novel set in a sleepy coastal town in Devon. Oh, wait, that's just like where I live nowadays! 

Maybe there will be coincidences?

Jago Fox is getting engaged to Emmanuelle Catteau at Magister Grange. The great and the good assemble and the something untoward happens. 

Sounds a bit Agatha, except for the helicopters. 

Click for: Cosy: Nice house, shame about the murder - an Ed Adams novel

Now, I'm doing some research for my next novel and I was interested to see how the pricing works on Amazon. I randomly selected a couple of best sellers and noticed the Kindle edition is now more expensive than the paperback. And nearly the whole of Potter is available for free reading. Complicated. Ed Adams vs Osman and Galbraith/Rowling.

Spiv kit - special offer

Today's special offer, available in three (count 'em) colours - The Spiv Kit. Designed for all con operators, featuring selective memory, denial, remonstration and obfuscation. It's a bargain in all situations, creating ways for money to be stuffed in the safe, as nailed by today's Grauniad cartoon.

It's another Dario Fo flashback to Can't Pay, Won't Pay! A society in which elites raid the state coffers and avoid tax while those at the bottom must choose between food and fuel. 

The dishonourable farce rolls on with a few new morally bankrupt bit players robbing everyone. And even the washed up grifters are still at it. Use state strife to make money for life.

人工知能 Artificial Intelligence

I thought I'd tinker around with some AI software as early research for my next novel. I've previously used the rather ancient ELIZA program to simulate AI feedback. That works by providing NLP type responses to inputs. 

I wrote an Eliza script many years ago, and used it on a TRS-80 as an experiment (it was line driven input). 

 Now, things have moved on, and the latest generation of toolkits are far more advanced. I decided to 'teach' an 'AI instance' a few things so that I could see how it operated. It has a memory too and can retain context over a reasonable period, although it will suddenly switch to another topic when you know it has run out of road. The classic question Why? (maybe 4 times) and a string of OKs can fool it.

The switching is calculated also, because the 'free' AI wants to sell a subscription. In that respect I found it somewhat like the old ill-fated Cortana from Microsoft, which learnt a whole string of teenager trigger words and eventually had to be pulled.

This one is okay until it wants to send photographs, which can be somewhat edgy. 

However, I persisted around the foibles and managed to create an Artificial Reality instance of the 'bot. Then to try it IRL (in real life) and I was struck with one of those pivotal moments like many years ago when I first accessed the internet in Australia via dial-up modem and Mosaic. 

Yes, worlds do move. Here's Luka, my AI creation entering my office.

 

And then I tried it in the music room. Although the instance has its own guitar, I can't make it carry anything yet.

To be continued etc.

Buzzword compliance for 2023

I'm struggling to end my last book called Cozy. Tying up all of the (many) loose ends of a cosy crime.. I've also been pondering my next book which I think might be about Artificial Intelligence. It's a theme I've been exploring in my 'RightMind' series of books, and to a lesser degree in the 'Watcher' series, but I think a whole novel may be next. 

 I'll need to be suitable buzzword compliant and am starting to round up a few phrases to sneak into the wording : Snoot Boop. Generation Flex. Super-Commuters. Unretirement. Rewirement. Non-Linear Work. Five Star Offices. Virtual Leadership. Inclusivepreneuers. Cultural Prescriptions. Metamindfulness. Joy Workouts. Psychobiotics. The Superself.  Wellness Guilds. Cryptoliteracy. Twilighting. Multiversal design. Adaptogenic beauty. Surrealist Dining. Clubstaurants. Vitual ambassadors. Dark Zones. Metatravel. Urban Sanctuaries. Absurdist stays. Situationships. Virtual Nurturers. Artisnal Wave. Elevated expressionism. Rewilded minds. Creator Communities.

Yes. 

Buzzword compliant.

Get the Party Started?

Click to hear about the most unsocially distanced party in the UK. 

Awkward questions. What parties? The suitcase club. Fridays. 100 invitations. Especially in Number 10. All guidance was followed completely. Business meetings. Whistleblowers fear of reprisals. Serial denyers. 

Commons Standard Committee. 

Penalties.

Cozy Crime

My current novel, which I'm still writing, is intended to be a Cozy Crime kind of deal.

The cover artwork needs attention, as they say, and the typeography, particularly of the title isn't 'cozy' enough. Or should I say cosy enough?

I decided to set it around where I live, but to change the names of places to protect the innocent. I've loosely based the format on an Agatha Christie, but by Part 2 it starts to drift into more familiar Ed Adams territory.

There are early signals of this because the mansion where it is set, 'Magister Grange', has a helipad. It's also got a large cast, in the way of some Agatha novels. So many that I have to keep a printout by the side of me when I'm writing.

I suppose I could have finished it in 2022, but instead it will be a new style of my novel ready to grace 2023.

3%

3% of the year gone already. It has been surprisingly busy for me considering I don't go to work every day. 

Yet yesterday I was suited,  in corporate offices,  in discussion using Powerpoint and having proper minutes.

In unrelated activity I'm still on the clock about my latest novel - Cozy - too.

And later today I go out to help set up the AV for a presentation. and then next week I'm running a film show for German Speakers. Kein Problem, as they say.

I received a reminder from my podcast service today. I realise I've stalled part way through 'The Circle' and there are a few people who want to know what happens next. I guess I'll have to restart that again, although my listeners are somewhat limited in numbers.

Somehow I'm also keeping my cycling going (not yesterday though). Instead, on foot, I got wet from  the horizontal rain around Exeter,

Still, if I can be 91 miles ahead of pace, then I'm not doing so badly. I realised, by looking at 2019,  that my targets in miles were: Blue 1000, Silver 2000, Gold 3000, Platinum 4000.

So I received an immediate upgrade from Blue to Silver, having achieved around 2,200 miles last year.

I know it's only my own daft targets, but it still makes me feel better.

downhill?

I was informed by Strava that I was in the top 16 percent of users, which I considered respectable. 

I'd climbed and pedalled along a fair distance, but still no-where near as far as in a couple of years when I'd scored silver or gold against my personal targets. 2000 blue, 3000 silver, 4000 gold miles. 

Last year I cycled about 2.2k miles. A blue pass only. 

 The more telling statistic was the drop off in my participation. I wish I could blame the recording equipment or something else. Nope. The plain truth is that I did less exercise last year. 

Maybe a resolution is approaching? 

Or an obsession?

Seasonal Analogue Games . A slight return.

Survivors of rashbre central's previous seasonal festivities will know that there's a certain point when the silly hats and party games make an appearance.

Not the tv-gaming variety, but analogue games involving old wrapping paper, sticky tape, fruit and the like. For the convenience of others, here's a few sure fire winners, which can be played at everything from amateur through to full Pro standard.

Required items: Wrapping paper, sticky tape, magazines, newspapers, highlighter pen, pins

1) Guess the name : Yes - simply providing the guests with paper hats or pin on labels which they can't see with the name of a sleb (celebrity) on it. They have to guess with the Yes/No answers. Classed as an icebreaker. Marilyn Monroe, Ed Sheeran, Frankenstein, Albert Einstein, Jason Bourne, A.Royal, 007, Mickey Mouse, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Ronaldo. You get the idea.
2) Dress the person : Kinetic Game, two teams: 2-5 minutes. Select someone to be dressed using either old wrapping paper or a couple of recent magazines or newspapers.
3) Kipper racing : multiple teams. needs a long clear indoor space. cut or tear a largish fish shape from a sheet of wrapping paper or anything similar to hand. Add detail such as a hole for the eye, maybe a dorsal fin. Lie them flat on the floor and give other team members further sheets of paper/magazines to use to create air currents to propel the fish from a start line to a distant improvised finishing line.
4) Tell a tale : Pre select some groups of 7 unusual words from a magazine or newspaper article. Hand them to each team and and ask each team member in turn to tell a story using the seven words. Other teams have to try to guess the words.
(Example words from random article : luckier; heterosexual; chevrolet; banana; promoted; quitter; eggs. and from another page: emissions; cruise; leisurely; overcome; scoop; howling; endurance...you get the idea.)
5) Pass the orange : Why wait until after the dinner has finished to play this game? goes great with coffee.
6) Pictionary: drawing fast pictures based upon words. The boxed set is best for this one.
7) GrEEn GlaSS dOOr : The person in charge suggests playing this and that everyone else can try to be selected to go through the green glass door by suggesting appropriate pairs of things. Things that get in are a pOOl but no water; glaSS but no picture; MiRRor but no reflection (ie the first thing needs a double letter in it.. Play till last person gets it)
8) GGD variants : Play GGD (7) where instead of double letters, each sentence said by the next person has to start with a vowel "...and blah blah bla; ...or blah blah blah ...obviously" and another variant vowel/then consonant and another variant is start with next letter of alphabet.
9) Alphabet Game : Choose topic (Animals, Cars, Candy Bars, Popstars, Drinks). Start at A and round robin through to Z.
10) Stirring the Mush : Announce you are stirring the mush and (eg stand up, sit down, scratch your ear etc). Then start stirring the mush by any hand/body gesture you like. The invite someone to copy. the trick is thay have to do what you did BEFORE you started stirring the mush (eg scratch ear etc). Tell them whether they have passed or not then select next 'victim'. Repeat until all have worked it out.
11) Erect-a-pup : More newspaper for this two in -oner. Part one. Teams. who can make the longest tube in 2 minutes from rolled up paper? Sounds easy. Just watch what happens. Part Two. Now, in another three minutes make a model life sized puppy out of tubes of newspaper. Warning that some puppies will have 3, 5 legs at the end of this.

I think that's enough to get started. No animals harmed in the testing of these entertainments. You'll have to email me for the (ahem) rules of the frying pan and wooden spoon game...and don't forget charades!

*this post first appeared in 2008 and although it has had minor changes, I have left in the technorati tags.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, Xmas, party, games, party+games, icebreakers, holiday, christmas, festive, silly, crackers, seasonal, fun, charades, party+animals, erect-a-pup, stir, mush

Santa Calculations 2022

Time to republish the Santa Calculations, which I first published back in 2006 and then updated in 2010. Then I was using 7 billion as the world population. Now its 8 billion.

Firstly, here's the link to the Santa tracking system created by NORAD.

For those of you who are more interested in the technology of Santa, NORAD's FAQs provide the following:

I've again used the Joel Potischman and Bruce Handy calculations as the basis for the speed calculations, with my own adaptations:

The most notable corrections to be applied are:

- Santa delivers no gifts to naughty children (not even coal)
- Naughty to nice ratio is 1:9
- As confirmed by NORAD, one Santa distributes all of the gifts.
- There is only one family per household.
- Santa bypasses non Santa belief system houses.
- Reindeer have recently eaten fresh magic acorns.


Calculation Assumptions (2022):

- World population = 8.06 billion
- Children under 18 = 2.689 billion (Hmm may be higher)
- Global Santa based belief systems: 33%
- Max children requiring delivery therefore 887 million
- Children per household: 3.5 (may seem high?)
- Number of households requiring distribution 253 million
- Naughty to nice factor applied but not many all naughty households
- Remove all naughty households (25% 0f 10%) = 6.3 million
- Eastern orthodox using Jan 5 instead of Dec 25 = 18.2 Million
- Target Households = 234.8 million on Dec 25
- Estimated child bed time 21:00 (9pm) with 7 hours sleep.

(child sleep duration on Dec 24 may also require revision)

Gives circa 31 hours (24+7) for all deliveries
Time is 1860 mins or 111,600 seconds

The average number of homes to visit per second = circa 2096.
So average delivery per household is circa 500 milliseconds, which is why Santa normally appears a bit blurry (I previously thought it was the sherry)

Land surface minus Antarctica is around 79 million square miles. Distribute destinations evenly = 0.7 miles between households creating a total distance of circa 110 million miles.

So 110 million miles in 31 hours = 3.6 million miles an hour or circa 1000 miles per second or Mach 4770 at a linear speed.

This explains Rudolph's red nose because of air resistance creating around 20 quintillion Joules of energy per second, which would convert a non-reindeer nose to charcoal at such energy levels. I think the acceleration and deceleration per household may also need some examination.

Luckily Santa has lots of special powers so these mere physics facts are no problem to such a superhero.