Arcoarena

I have recently reclaimed my life after the Medic’s RAG Fashion Show. This does of course mean I have Graphics coursework to finish (rendering my Face in 3D using openGL) and Digital IC Design to get started (not to mention the Fuzzy Logic coursework I have yet to do and the Synthesis of Digital Architectures stuff). The fun begins

The medics thing was cool though. It was a new experience for everyone). Lots of truss in unusual configurations and an interesting challenge to light. It was a little annoying because there weren’t any points to hang lights on at the front of the hall and so the first half of the catwalk was dark looking from the back. Also had there been more time I would have used Fresnels rather than Parcans to light it and that would’ve been better. Ah well it was an experience. The stagescans worked well and it appears other people like the look of the lighting. Gary took some photos of the event. During the set-up and strike we also borrowed one of STOIC’s cameras and put it on time lapse so we have a very cool video of the event from a Dramsoc Crew point of view.

That was very probably my last Great Hall Show, certainly from a ’show’ point of view rather than lighting a dance floor. It’s a bit sad really. I don’t know how I’ll get the opportunity to do that kind of thing later. The same goes for union carnivals. Anyway things change. I won’t be Dramsoc President by next Tuesday. I won’t miss it that much, not that it wasn’t good, it’s just that I’ll miss all the other stuff more. More on the AGM later hopefully

All I have to do now is grapple with my Graphics coursework. It shouldn’t even be hard. I’m obviously being stooopid. It’s quite frustrating though.

Also the SCO vs The World court case appears to be getting a lot of publicity recently and the BOFH sums things up quite well. Of course all of the world by now has realised that once SCO release the details of the code it claims infringes its intellectual property every Linux geek in the world will be working to re-write it (with help from IBM). Meanwhile certain articles appear to be missing the point. SCO can run Linux as it claims to own the IP, anyone else (allegedly) cannot as they don’t have a license, it would be a bit like Microsoft (N.B. that isn’t Micro$oft or even Microshaft) needing licenses for its own employees to run Windows.

Since Gary’s site won’t let me submit this I’ll put it here for now.

dB’s

The Rig in dB’s consists of :

• 2 x High End / Light Research Technobeams
• 4 x High End Trackspots
• 2 x Strobes
• 2 x Mad Lighting IMR 250 Scans
• 1 x Mirror ball for funky disco lighting
• Shedloads x Parcans

The parcans are controlled from the Masterpiece in the DJ booth (The top right hand faders) via Analogue so the isn’t much we can do about them.

Into the back of the Masterpiece is the DMX that controls the Strobes, MadScans and Technobeams. A second DMX line goes into the back of the unit attached to the bench below the Masterpiece to control the Trackspots. From here on in I shall assume the Technobeams et al are connected to universe A and the trackspots are connected to B.

The DMX addesses are as follows, with personality name for the pearl in square brackets:

Universe A

• 001 - Technobeam 1 (far end of the stage, closer to the bar) [HE_TechbmHi]
• 019 - Technobeam 2 (the one nearer the entrance)
• 037 - MadScan 1 (nearer the entrance) [MAD_ITMSCN]
• 043 - Mad Scan 2 (the bar end of the room)
• 053 - Strobe 1 (nearer the entrance)
• 054 - Strobe 2 (nearer the bar)

Universe B
In order from the bar to the entrance ends of the room

• 037- Trackspot 1[HE_Trkspot2 (I think - whatever it is on the disk)]
• 048 - Trackspot 2
• 055 - Trackspot 3
• 066 - Trackspot 4

The pearl disk attached has the following preset focuses:

Colours

• 1 - Open White
• 2 - Red
• 4- Yellow
• 5 - Green
• 6 - Turquoise
• 7 - Blue
• 10 - Pink

Gobos:

• 11 - None
• 12 - Ring
• 13 - Bar
• 14 - Spiral
• 15 - Blue Triangle (Technobeam only)
• 16 - Red & White thing (Technobeam only)
• 17 + Some more gobos
• 30 - Gobo Rotate

Positions (i.e. Pan and Tilt)

• 31 - On Stage
• 32 - On Floor
• 33- Crossed beams on stage
• 34 - Crossed beams on floor
• 35 - On back wall (of stage)
• 36 - Line of trackspots on floor
• 36 - Line of trackspots on stage

Programmed on to page 1 of the roller is the following:

• A - Static (mainly) scenes - all recorded by fixture
• B - Movement, mostly with shapes
• C - Effects, strobe & colour effects (they be a bit broken)
• D+ a few more - for each type of light and combinations

The zip file attached contains, this description as a text file and the pearl files (both personality and show) from band night in dBs. This zip for the floppy disk is here

The avolites website has the cache builder for the pearl and lots of other stuff, it also has quite a useful fixture library.

Well, I got a phone call today at around 10am (what kind of a time to call students is that? admittedly I was by the union minibuses as Gary and I were about to depart to pick up some truss from Outback Rigging for the Medics Fashion show, but that’s by the by). Having had my one and only interview they have decided they can’t decide.
The good news is that they can’t decide between one other guy and myself. A contention ratio of 2:1 isn’t bad chances. I have to go back for a second interview and I just need to convince them I would really like the job. So far I’ve lacked experience in system design - barring the stuff I did at GCSE and in Sixth form most of the things I’ve done have been software based. I’ll have to go and give it my best shot.

Why is it, despite having evolved as a culture to develop some very subtle forms of comedy, that the most inane things in the world make us laugh the most. Whether that be the stupid hand movement made by Humpty-Dumpty in the Medic’s version of Alice in Wonderland or, my personal favorite, google.

That might need a little explanation. Google is amazing, it will some really useful stuff, and how many people do you know that don’t use google to find things out? Perhaps google’s most admirable feature is the internationalization it does. I can look at google in French, Russian and many more languages that I can’t even identify the characters for let alone the words, not to mention Klingon. My favourite language to set google though has to be ‘Bork, Bork, Bork’ otherwise known as that wierd kind of dialect the Sweedish chef off the muppets uses whilst cooking singing vegeatables. Elmer Fudd is also a good choice but for some reason the Swedish chef wins hands down. Try it

Why do I get the feeling that should have been preceded by ‘Stephen could you please talk for one minute of the subject of something or other without hesitation, deviation or repetition’? I just felt like I wanted to share that jem of wisdom with you all

Mike’s back. With the same content management system as me. I’m sure he’ll find it’s limitations/bugs soon - not that it’s bad, I think it’s cool, it saved me writing anything.

Following a very heated (Ameet swearing at people) and to be perfectly honest, long and boring “discussion” (for discussion read slanging match - ahhh, Live! returns to it’s roots) I visited Political Compass.org and found that I’m -
Economic Left/Right: -4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21
Meaning I’m somewhere in the Nelson Mandela/Dalia Lama area - cool.

Well again it’s been a while so time for another exceptionally long post (maybe).

Firstly I’ve had an interview at Xyratex. They seemed interested. They asked me stuff like ‘if you got the job when would you be able to start?’ etc. There was a technical content to the interview, much like at the last interview (whose name I’d not going to mention as my site gets a scary number of hits from people searching for them). This one went better as it was a bit more hands on - i.e. they gave me a circuit board pointed to a component and pointed to a component as said ‘what’s that for?’. They also showed me some circuit diagrams and asked me to answer some questions which I mostly got right. They’re one concern was that most of my activities have been software and VHDL rather than hardware systems design so I think I’ll be able to use that as an excuse if I don’t get the job. The people in the interview seemed quite nice and friendly it’s quite a small place (compared to someone like Shell say) so the HR doesn’t seem to interfere with normal work too much. The office seemed quite nice and they’ve got some good lab facilities as all the prototypes are made on site. It also seems that if they need a piece of equipment (or a training course) they get it and don’t have to bodge it like at some other companies. Havant (where they are based) seems quite a lot like Workington, just down south. It’s close to Portsmouth though so it shouldn’t be too bad. We’ll have to see. Apparently they’re making they’re choices next week so I should hear quite soon.

Also in other news:
I went to see the medic’s do their own version of Alice In Wonderland - I might have to read the book sometime..

I also did a Band night (or two to be more specific) in dBs. We got the Pearl out and played with their lights. I hope it looked ok when MTV filmed it. Gary and Ant took pictures which are here and here respectivly. - More later hopefully.