Finally got to experience the new terminal last night. Not impressed.

- Security is set up so that *everything*, even roller bags, has to go in a try. The trays cycle back via an under-counter conveyor belt. This was insufficiently stocked, so people had to wait until more trays cycled back.

- the *noise* is incredible. Heathrow (in fact, all British airports) is always hot and noisy, and the new terminal, though spacious, does nothing to improve on that. The worst was waiting at the gate to board. There is a big space with a lont line of gates and waiting areas (we were leaving from A5). Each gate has a giant flat-screen tV, each of which was tuned to the same channel. Each TV echoed through the long space, so that you are assailed by a continuous pulsing wave of TV sound.

- T1 is actually more human these days. Plus, I can use the Star Alliance lounge, but that's not a fair comparison.

wg

Back in 1972, when I was 18, I went out to a party after a concert - probably John Roberts and Tony Barrand - run by the Cornell Folk Song Club. The party involved a lot of singing, a lot of cats, and a raccoon named Marshmallow, but that's not the point. The point is that this guy drove me home that night, we sat talking in his car until 5am, and he's been a friend ever since: Bill Steele.

One of the things I learned pretty early about Bill was that he loved Pete Seeger, he'd written a song called Garbage!, and one of the proudest things that had happened to him was that Pete Seeger had recorded his song.

The song is 40 years old this year and, sadly, is as true now as it ever was.

But still: happy birthday, Garbage!

wg

I've been wanting to go to www.ebertfest.com for years, and this year is it.

Back on the 28th. On email for sure, Twitter probably, while I'm gone.

wg

We were talking over dinner tonight about search engines (as you do), and one of my guests commented that the percentage of Google (or ) users who ad exclusionary terms to their search terms is tiny. It occurred to me that Google could increase this with an interface change such that as a user types terms into the search box a second list is created onscreen with a tick box next to each term with a caption like "tick box to exclude"). The training wheels would teach users the function was available, and you'd have the option of turning them off.

Of course, it may not really matter to Google how efficiently people search.

wg

Well, off to Edinburgh for the weekend; Sunday is my gig at the Royal Oak's Wee Folk Club. Pls to ignore the 37yo pic they posted on the site, and also the mention of concertina, since I'll be bringing the banjo instead.

Onward!

wg

Around the time the iPhone was announced I decided on a Palm Treo 680. It synchs with Ecco (cut loose in 1994, but you know, it still works). It turns out that the significant flaw in the 680 is (not any of the things that you might think of first) a the 2.5mm jack you're supposed to use for headphones. It transpires that there's a teeny switch in there and when you plug in the headphones the switch directs the sound to the headphones and when you unplug them it directs the sound to the speaker. Which would be fine except teeny switch vs headphone plug, you know the teeny switch is going to lose, eventually. It took about six months for the switch to break.

Seidio makes a workaround for about $10. This thing plugs into the port for the hotsync/recharger cable; there's a standard 3.5mm headphone jack in the other end. Fine. So I bought two of those, and got a little free routine called "Headcold" that you use to tell the Treo whether you want sound through speaker or sound through headphones. Only to discover after a couple of months that plugging in either Seidio intermittently sets off an attempted Hotsync. For some things, that's really annoying.

Time moves on.The Treo has Bluetooth, and Softick now makes a bit of software that gives the Treo A2DP compatibility, and you can get a tiny thing you can hang around your neck to plug ordinary headphones into - Jabra makes them, but the one I got is a Motorola Sound Pilot. So - your favorite headphones, now paired to the Treo via Bluetooth.

I don't think this is remotely ideal - I'm not a fan of using something that requires battery power and radio waves to do a job that is perfectly well done by sticking a plug into a hole to make the connection. It's more to carry, more to go wrong, more to fuss with, and more battery life to worry about. Still, it buys me time to consider the underlying problem, which is:

Palm OS is going away. It's the only thing Ecco will sync with. Major upheaval portends. When the Treo dies, what next?

wg

I must set things up so the Twitter feed appears here magically; there are limits to how many things I can post to...

Anyway: discussion today of film industry piracy on BBC Radio Scotland's The Film Cafe at 13:15. In which I shall attempt to be moderate, reasonable, and well-informed. Hah!

wg

Ended just now - 5pm to 11:30pm. What fun. Fortunately, most of it was taken up with going into town, going to a meeting, and traveling back; then I took my house guest and barged over to a friend's house and demanded tea and snacks. Got home just as the power came back on.

Annoying as it was, it's hard to complain given the much colder places people have been without power for much longer.

wg

It's 9:30 am on January 3, a Saturday morning when anyone might reasonably be expected to be asleep. And the doorbell rings.

I throw on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt and go and answer it. A middle-aged (say 60s) are standing outside. She is clutching a book that looks unmistakeably like a Bible. He is the one who's rung the bell.

"How are you today?" he asks. Not *too* cheerful or energetic, but firm.

"It's a bit early," I say.

"Is it?" he asks unpertiurbed. "Perhaps another time, then." I close and relock the door. My friends upstairs, who live here, seem to have slept through the whole thing.

What struck me about this couple who I assume were here to spread "the Good News", is how completely bland and righteous they were, and how set in their conviction that they were doing a good thing. No apology for waking people up on a holiday Saturday, which would be the normal human reaction. I think it's that smooth, undentable exterior that makes them seem like aliens - or robots. Very strange.

wg

The king of souffles, probably the king of all desserts.

I couldn't exactly find the recipe tonight - it originally came to a friend of mine on a little leaflet strung around the neck of the Grand Marnier bottle. I have it at home. But here's what I cobbled together from the recipes around the Net, many of which add lemon juice/peel, vanilla, or marmelade, thereby polluting the King of Desserts. Keep it simple. It needs no elaboration beyond a little whipped cream to melt over it.

Prepare a souffle dish by greasing it with butter and sprinkling with powdered sugar. Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt a half stick (4T = 2oz) of butter and blend with
1/4 cup flour to make a roux

Still over heat:
Add 1 1/3 cups of milk and blend until smooth and thick
Stir in 1/2 cup of sugar
and 1/8 t salt
Add, one at a time, stirring constantly, six egg yolks

The mixture should be thick and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier

Beat six egg whites with 1/2t cream of tartar until they form soft peaks

Fold some of the whites into the milk/egg yolk mixture to lighten it, and then folk the whole thing into the egg whites.

Pour into souffle dish and bake for c. half an hour, until the sides above the dish look dry and the puffed top of the souffle is golden.

Remove and eat immediately.

Serves three or four.

wg

...and many more.

wg

Social media, schmocial schmdia. The Net used to be more social when you could actually talk interactively. IRC, Usenet, cix conferencing, the WELL - all media where people just talked to each other. The problem with blogs and comments is one person sets the agenda. The problem with Twitter is that it's real-time but it's not conversational: you can *have* conversations, but the interface discourages more than one or two backs and forths. The pr4oblem with Facebook is it's so damn clunky; so are Web boards. The problem with IM is it's one-on-one.

I miss going online to read and participate. Still say Usenet had the best interface of the lot.

wg

They say: List the towns or cities where you spent at least a night away from
home during 2008. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive
stays.

Well. This is like saying "Come get me, see how much energy I waste."

Scarborough
Shiremanstown, PA*
New Haven, CT
New York City*
San Francisco
Lafayette, CA
Sunnyvale, CA*
Burbank, CA
Tucson, AZ
Phoenix, AZ
San Diego, CA

Nowhere new.

wg

Courtesy of alobar, who had it from nebris. Clearly one must have this:

http://hogmalion.com/shop.cfm?Action=Det&ID=54

wg

Overheard last night, on the plane, spoken by an apparently adult male voice into his cellphone, discussing the annoucnement that Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg) would like to take the NY Senate seat Hillary Rodham Clinton is vacating:

"Caroline Kennedy...she's Ted Kennedy's daughter, right?"

wg

12/15/08 US729 -> PHL
1/12/09 US 728 (arr +1) .> LHR

Online as usual, of course.

wg

OK, it's a day late. But still.

wg

Anyone in Edinburgh who hypothesizes they'd like to hear me sing, there's yer chance.

wg

I went to LA for three days without a car. People react like you've invented relativity when you say this, but in fact it's quiet simple: just be prepared to spend some time traveling the Metro. The buses are average, but the subway is really nice - it is, after all, relatively new. It's a little odd in that hardly any white people use any pat of the Metro, and when they do they're almost certainly from out of town; a very clear economic distinction.

Anyway, on the bus there was, next to a section of bus timetables, a large number of copies of this leaflet: How to Recognize Suspicious Activity, written in English and Spanish.

"Suspicious activity usually begins with people being in unauthorized areas, being dressed in a manner that is inappropriate to the weather (i.e. wearing a heavy coat in summer) or leaving packages unattended. It's best to report such activity immediately.

Be aware of anyone who is:

>In an unauthorized or restricted area.

>Clearly in the wrong place or appears to be lost.

>Loitering, staring or watching employees and passengers.

>Quickly leaving an area after abandoning a package.

>Taking photos or videos of equipment and secure areas."

Well, that's the foreign tourists, the trainspotters, the MIT student hackers, and the photographers gotten rid of.

wg
(And the people with bad circulation who are cold in summer, of course)

So there I was, taking a quick shower before going to bed, probably around 11pm but it felt like 1am. Everyone else had vanished into their bedrooms to go to sleep, anyway, and the house was quiet.

There are some things you learn when you're a professional guest. How to decode the logic behind everyone's kitchen storage habits when you cook dinner for them. How to stick in medium-term mental storage details like how they like the toilet lids left, where the towels are, which recycling bin is for what sort of material, like that. One of these details is the way the taps function in strange showers. I'm usually pretty good at remembering which direction is off for the duration of a shower, but for some reason this particular shower is one I've always had trouble with (I've stayed in this house many times). And on this occasion I just got completely tangled up in which way was off (do the taps go the same way or the opposite way?). It doesn't help that there's a lag in changing temperature when you twist one tap...

...none of which might have mattered very much except that while I was trying to turn them off the hot faucet *came out of the wall*.

Mmoment of movie horror: I've broken their HOUSE!

At least I knew which way I'd been turning it when it came off. So I kept trying to shove it back in and turn it in the opposite direction and get the threads to catch. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, do I need to shout for help while I'm crouched here naked being blasted with hot water? I can't get out of the tub, because the water will go everywhere, won't it?

Around the time the bastard caught and I got it screwed back in again, I realized that given that the tub had a shower screen instead of a curtain I could in fact get out of the tub and wrap myself in a towel and keep the water pretty much contained. But by then the crisis was over.

Came out of the bathroom, and a couple of minutes later one of my hosts came down the hall. "That was a little scary," I said, and recounted the story: the faucet came out of the wall! Hot water everywhere! "They're not supposed to do that," he said.

wg