Showing posts with label Numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Numbers. Show all posts

Friday 27 January 2023

A Numerical Experiment


This blog is now a sort of diary and I am not sure if I will hit 20 posts this year. I had not posted in a month and in December 2022 I have about six thousand visits (I wish I got that many reads on my Vocal site which actually does make me money with about fifteen hundred reads per month.

However, when I posted this month for one day I got four thousand visits, so this is a test to see whether dropping a post in here will give me another boost, this month is standing at twelve thousand visits.

I am still reading World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer and it is a little formulaic but I will persist with it as he is a good writer.

I recently found out that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not others. C'est La Vie.

The music is "Three Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough 


Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

  1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
  2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
  3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
  4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
  5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
  6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
  7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Wednesday 25 March 2020

2222


Yes , this is post number 2222 , probably the next significant number will be 2345, but this is one of the goals I mentioned in a recent post. I have now got 98 positive reviews on Discogs so still two off the century there. I added a few more CDs one of which was a BEF box set with is going for around fifty mounds so it must be quite rare, but I am never going to play it again so I can make some room.

I'm slightly worried that the lockdown will hamper my walking although I have kept up my steps so far and likely to be ok for March , but April may be a different kettle of fish. I have been out and am surprised at the number of people who seem to go out of their way to stop social distancing, managing to take up the width of a Supermarket aisle on their own, so it just means finding another way round.

So it is quite late on this Wednesday , so I doubt anyone will read this, but given our current situations here's another one for it, "Clampdown" by The Clash.

Thank you and good night.


Thursday 20 February 2020

220020022020


This is post 2200 on 20/02/2020 . I didn't plan it, it just happened, though I could have planned it, but I didn't. That's a lot of twos and zeroes and no other digits. Numbers can be both fascinating and boring, it just depends on your frame of mind.

Today I dropped into Windows and was tempted by reasonable priced vinyl , a Best of Bowie , "Diamond Dogs" and "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac . I have all these on digital and to be quite honest now I tend to buy vinyl for the sleeve as well as the music. The whole lot would have cost £35. Oh I forgot , there was also Deep Purple "In Rock" , one of my earliest metal album and still, in my opinion , a classic with a great cover, but really my space for vinyl is sort of full.

I believe that you should play music, not just have it. I think I bought a lot to support the artist, especially on CD, but I cannot play my CD collection which is why a chunk of it is on Discogs.

I took delivery of a reconditioned Google Pixel 2XL today and I am still relearning it and setting up apps on it. I need to get a protective cover and load some music onto it but I've got the basic apps on it and am well impressed with my buy from Music Magpie, but still slightly miffed that my Google Pixel would be fine if the charging port worked. Still c'est la vie.

So on this numerically coming together I am thinking of the Cat Stevens album "Numbers" which I do have on vinyl, which is beautifully put together and the music is good as well. A definitely worthy part of my collection so I'll share the opening "Whistlestar".

Sunday 9 February 2020

Quietjin


For some reason I either dreamed or thought that "Quietjin" was a solution to a scrabble word, but it's not , just a deactivated twitter account and there are various results from Google and DuckDuckGo and there is Quietjin1 on twitter. Quietgin was another option although Quieting is a valid word. There are some weird words or letter combination that online Scrabble allows and some oddities it does not allow. Words like XI , XU , QI , ZA , ZO which I am sure you would get questioned on in real life Scrabble.

I find Scrabble more like Tetris in that you are trying to fit words into spaces which get harder as the game progresses. It's more about observation than literacy. Anagrams are easy enough to solve, but once you have the solution you have to find somewhere on the board to fit it in. Usually when I play a word I work out what my next play will be and hope my opponent doesn't take my place.

It's similar when people say that you need to be good at maths to do Sudoku , it's just again about observation except Sudoku gets easier as you progress through the puzzle. Although generally Sudoku uses numbers you could use any symbols at all, although when you see one that doesn't use numbers you get slightly disorientated because you are used to using numbers.

I used to play with about ten people on Facebook Scrabble and that is generally the main reason I stayed on Facebook , but it's down to two of the first people I started playing with. Others have dropped off and when I have tried to start a new game  the game has not been reciprocated although according to Scrabble these folk are actually playing.

The visits to the blog have dropped significantly and it's down to a more realistic one hundred a day, though I may just hit half a million by the end of February, so that is not an impossibility, and if not February I will hit it in March.

This Sunday morning is grey and rainy, not the most inspiring, but I have lots to do today while also trying to relax before what will be a very intense week at work, but that does make the days fly by, there is nothing worse than having nothing to do, and I do love having problems to solve, hence the enjoyment of problem solving puzzles such as Scrabble and Sudoku.

So a fairly obvious song is "Games People Play" by Joe South (although it's been very widely covered) , but enjoy your Sunday everyone. The melody was appropriated by eurotrash poppers Dan The Banjo Man in the seventies (listen on th elink.


Wednesday 8 August 2018

I Wonder


After yesterday going on about Roman Numerals I thought what is the Roman Numeral for Zero? It turns out there isn't one, but medieval scholars used the word "nulla" to signify zero. In IT we used to be familiar with the concept of "null" (and those who know what they are talking about still are).

Zero is the numeric representation of no items, as in "I have zero pounds in my bank account", but it is a numeric value, it is one less than one or one more than minus one, though this summation could be done with any numbers. The formula:

x - x = 0

is always true, though mayb Stephen Hawking, Andrew Wiles or someone else could possibly dispute that successfully with me.

Null on the other hand is a complese absence, it cannot be used in computation whereas zero can, and will often cause systems to crash if returned as an answer. Null is the bane of any programmer's life, in that it is often valid but you can't actually do anything with it, and no doubt I will come across it in some calculation today.

I'm still feeling absolutely shattered and  despite have nine hours in bed last night after watching Black Sails and Nightcrawler, I didn't feel up to walking into work, so though this would be the first time in a long time that I walked into work having done less that a thousand steps.

Then I decided to get off the bus at the BBC and walk down Barrack Road from there thus giving me a couple of thousand steps.

I thought I'd include "Countdown" by Lindsey Buckingham from his album "Out of the Cradle" as I love the song and it's vaguely numerically themed.

The sun is shining so it should be a good day.


Tuesday 7 August 2018

III II


Well this is my second attempt of trying to do three posts in a day, and today I have at least started, so that means that I am probably on course for #August50. I could stop writing here, but I thought using Roman Numerals for the title was and interesting departure.

I am so glad that we didn't stay with Roman Numeration and went for the decimal Arabic number system, although you do become used to whatever you grow up with. I someone want was brought up with Octal or Hexadecimal instead of Decimal that would be a fine number system for them.

Talking all this Roman stuff (and I watched four hours of  documentaries by Mary Beard on the genesis of Rome last Friday) reminds me of the WH Auden poem "Soldier on the Wall" that was turned into a song by Alex Harvey,  which I used as a soundtrack for some film I took of Vindolanda so I will share that with you.

Tonight I am feeling absolutely drained again, so there won't be any more writing today. I'm not even up to mowing the lawn, but maybe that's a good thing given the lack of rain.

Sleep well my friends.

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine With Numbers #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #1


I've been listening to a few albums recently and tonight I put "Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine" by The Cosmic Rough Riders on the player. I've written about this album before and while it is not super consistent it does contain some excellent gems of songs. If you buy the super deluxe download you get forty songs for less than eight pounds which is great value for your money.

From the opening pastoral "Brothers Gather Round" which may not have been out of place in "The Wicker Man" apart from it's not as unnerving before hitting you with the beautiful but disturbing "This Gun Isn't Loaded" before returning to the soporific mood with the excellent "Glastonbury Revisited".

The album continues in this vein hitting highs with "Revolution(In The Summertime?)" but it's that opening triumvirate of songs that really nails it for me. I've also been nomintedfor another #TenAlbumsInTenDays by my friend Asher so this will be the first one on this list. I'm going to have to be careful not to repeat my album or people nominations.

Anyway, I am still doing the 340K steps a month to ensure a million steps every quarter but was wonderfingwhy as I got towards the end of the month I could hit my monthly target witout hitting my daily target of say 11.5K a day. It's simply that I often surpas the daily requirement and thhe surplus build up of steps means I have to do less to maintain the daily average. Hardly a perfect explanation but I have ten more days walking, 87K steps to hit 340K for the month, so 8.7K a day will do it. Of course I will try to maintain my 11.5K a day so should end up with a healthy surplus at the end of the month.

So I will leave you with the excellent "Revolution(In The Summertime?)" before I hit the sack. Enjoy your Thursday tomorrow my friends.


Sunday 30 July 2017

Numbers and Men In Skirts


As a kid I used to wonder why we had to learn our "times tables". Learning things parrot fashion , is not useful, especially when you are talking mathematics. Fast forwrd to "some time later"  and I find I don't have to look up , work out , or use a calculator to work out this simple multiplications, I just know them. And applying thouse concepts I'm pretty quick on working out the product of any pair of two digit numbers, but up to twelve I just know them, so actually learning the "times tables" benefitted me.

I am learning quite a lot about mathematics and number from my latest book feast, "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg which is just going through the differences between large and small sampling operations which has thown a lot of interesting concepts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the month so this week has been a rest from walking though I have still hit more that 7K each day so I am not being average, and from Tuesday I will attempt to do 340K steps in August and repeat that each month.

The last two days I have felt incredibly drained, and really not up to actually walking , and today I had the added extras of changing the bedding, mowing the lawn , and refilling the bird feeders. Added to that I think my phone is going through one of it's phases of not recording steps (a couple of normally 1K walks clocked at 200 steps), but I still hit 9K today and am 70K over the million for the last quarter.

Yesterday I was totally drained but I got myself over to The Doll at The Black Bull to catch Woment In Revolt (they are the ones in skirts) and you can see the video evidence here from a great night, but I was done by ten o'clock. I came home went to post the video online and managed to screw my computer by plugging in a USB cable. It then took an hour to do a restore, but all is good now and all seems to be working well. I've just had a look at the demographics of my audience for youtube and only 20% are female, I am not sure why that should be, but you could say  "C'est La Vie" as Chuck Berry once said , and we got the Pulp Fiction Twist scene featuring John Travolta and Uma Thurman for you to enjoy.

So the weekend is over and Monday is upon us, I hope to feel a lot more energised tomorrow, so I am going to get some sleep. 

Sunday 20 November 2016

Running AMOK in The Age Of Stella - #ALifeInNumbers #58


While I am writing this I am listening to my friend Juli's show AMOK  on Pride Radio so you can time this at 7pm on Sunday night.

It is one of the non 6Music shows where I am certain to hear something I haven't heard before, as well as being fun to listen to. That's another benefit of the internet the sheer choice of listening and watching options. The only problem this gives me is that the amount of time I have is still the same, but the amount of choice I am given increases exponentially almost daily.

Internet radio can be brilliant as AMOK proves, go and give it a listen and release you inner Industrial Goth.

Number 58 has been awkward to track down a song for, I have a couple in my collection that would have done but decide to look a little further afield and came across "58" by The Age of Stella and found this live take from The Maze in Nottingham. These are a band I have never heard of but I am well impressed with their stuff.

This is the penultimate post in this sequence, and I may actually hit the 120K hits by the end of number 59 which is a brilliant one to end #ALifeInNumebrs on.

Enjoy you Sunday evening my friends.




Sunday 23 October 2016

In 78 Everyone Born In 45 will be 33⅓ - #ALifeInNumbers #33



Pure Pop
"In 78 Everyone Born In 45 will be 33⅓" was a very clever tagline for a Stiff Records compilation "A Bunch of Stiffs" . For  those who need an explanation singles play at 45 rpm and LPs play at 33⅓ rpm and the album was a compilation of singles released in 1978. That got me thinking again about numbers and measures, how inconsistent they are in certain areas . Imperial weight you have 16 ounces to a pound , 14 pounds in a stone, a hundredweight is 8 stone (112 pounds) , then a ton is twenty hundredweight.






For vinyl playing speeds we have 16 (usually for spoken word), 33⅓ for long playing albums , 45 rpm for singles and 78 rpm for singles prior to the seven inch and made out of shellac rather than the more durable vinyl.

I know it's #33 but I am choosing "33⅓" by Jesus and Mary Chain because every time I get the chance to include one of my favourite bands I will take the opportunity, and it gives you more decent music to listen to.

Sunday 16 October 2016

How Many Numbers - #ALifeInNumbers #24


There are a hell of a lot of songs that feature the number "24" but there was only ever one contender for this. I often wonder about our temporal and up to 1970 monetary number collections.

Before we went decimal it was 2 farthings to a halfpenny , two halfpennies to a penny , then you had a threepenny coin and a sixpence and twelve pennies made up a shilling, known as a bob.  Then you had a florin (two shillings) a half crown (two shillings and sixpence), a crown (five shillings) before hitting the ten shilling note (today's fifty pence piece)  going up to the pond (twenty shillings) and the guinea (21 shillings, work that one out). I've probably missed out lots of other coins and number collections.

Then we come into time. Sixty seconds in a minute, then sixty minutes in an hour , that's all good and consistent. Then we have 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week , 28 to 31 days a month, 12 calendar or 13 lunar months in a years or 52 weeks or 365.25 days in a year, that seems a little inconsistent. I seldom speak of my employers, but when I was at Littlewoods time was tracked in deci-days, that is  one tenth of the seven hours and 24 minutes that made up the actual working day which works out at 44 minutes and 24 seconds per unit. It's one of those things where someone tries to merge two systems that are at odds with each other. Malcolm McLaren's "House Of Blue Danube" is an impressive musical example merging 4/4 rock / dance time with 3/4 waltz time featuring Bootsy Collins, Jeff Beck and the music of Strauss.


Half Man
Anyway back to my 24 choice . It's "24 Hour Garage People" by Half Man Half Biscuit from the album "Trouble Over Bridgewater" and while you can get the original version by clicking on the title , the definitive version was broadcast on Andy Kershaw's Radio 3 program in 2002  live from the Brampton festival and is available for download free here along with lots of other sessions and broadcasts.

This song about the drudgeries of a twenty four garage , and the fun you can have with people behind the perspex screen when they decide to be miserable narks , although working in a garage would send me into dark places I think especially if you got annoying customers, but really everybody has to play ball and work together to get the best of things out of situations.

Anyway enjoy "24 Hour Garage People" and if that's not enough check out "House of Blue Danube" before enjoying the rest of your Sunday.

Saturday 10 September 2016

256



I've just got to page 256 in Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" and again with my recent semi obsession with numbers he's just on about the story and completion on Quadrophenia , the lead single from that being 5:15 . 256 stick out because it's just the number two to the power eight , that is multiplied by itself eight times. If you do the same with one it's still one. One never changes, multiply it by itself or divide it by itself and it's still one. If you go up to 3 then the powers create much bigger numbers 2^8 = 256 but 3^8 is 6,561 , I doubt I will ever read a book with that many pages.

Yesterday the new Nick Cave album Skeleton Tree was released, and it's great that people are still producing things I want to hear, I love the new single and am sure I will love the album when it turns up.

The Vertigo Swirl In Action

I ordered a copy of Rod Stewart's Gasoline Alley album and Black Sabbath's Paranoid single as I wanted some vinyl with the original hypnotic Vertigo Swirl label. I do like the look of vinyl playing and the Vertigo Swirl does look good. I got a copy of Split Enz "History Never Repeats"  on laser etched vinyl which you can see here.

Anyway it's Saturday and I am going to get back to watching Casino Royale , which is enjoyable. You all have a great Saturday everybody.

I just found this unaccompanied performance by Rod, absolutely brilliant.

Saturday 3 September 2016

15


I called this 15 because my last post was 1111 . 1111 in binary is 15 . Some people are obsessed with numbers and lets face it life is very much affected my numbers in one way or another. Almost everything we do to fit into society is affected in one way or another by numbers.

I'm not a fan of money but it allows me to live as I need to, and science needs numbers too. We always need to measure one thing or another.

The computer you are reading this on (yes it may be a phone) , whan it gets down to basic still talks in binary. Without the concept of numbers we probably wouldn't be able to communicate like we can today.

Numbers provide a framework to allow us to actually enjoy life. If we smile at, hug , laugh with , socialise with someone we love or like , outside of that numbers are lurking somewhere. You may need to catch a bus , need your bus fare , money again. Numbers each the mundane things in life allowing us to concentrate on the good.

The post probably sounds pretentious but it's just meandering and thoughts about numbers giving me an excuse to call this post 15 even though it's post number 1,112 , one thousand one hundred and twelve.

Numbers are in music , numbers are used to let us see how time is measured, and lots of other things.
Once in a Blue Moon

Yesterday I put a bet on at ridiculous odds of 66/1 which gave me nearly £30 back for a 70p bet. See numbers and money again. I doubt that will ever happen again but it was a nice surprise from Ladbrokes  would have been really happy because the 1/5 favourite bombed.

Anyway it's almost time for tea so maybe an appropriate song will be "Away From The Numbers" by The Jam from their debut album "In The City".

Have a good night everybody and stay wonderfully positive.


Saturday 20 August 2016

Psychiatrists, Avalanches and Frank Sinatra


I really want to go to bed. But I feel I should have written something today, so I have decided to write something now. I may not even get to a hundred words, but then again I might. I remember seeing if I could write two thousand words without having a game plan and I did that.

The human mind , when used correctly is capable of great things. Yes, some people are better than others but we are all capable of doing something that WE think is remarkable because it makes us feel good.

I have learned not to seek others approval or commendations because I know it's unlikely I will get it, and in a country like ours you are only setting yourself up to be shot down/

Luckily the friends I've managed to make do not fall into that group , they see positives and live positively , as well as caring for others , far more than I do.

This is post 1101 and I am just wondering if I will notice post 1,111 as it goes by. I marked post 1,000 and 1,100 so the chances are I will not miss it, because like everyone I do sometimes notice things , as do you. Having said that there have been times when I have nearly missed a bus because I have been looking at something on my phone , or maybe missed my stop because Ive been watching something , reading or sleeping.

Wildflower
Anyway I have managed to write something , it's about nothing in particular and the great thing about writing a blog is no one will tell you to shut up. You can say what you want , which is an enormous freedom. Well the thing is I said I would be lucky to write 100 words but I have hit 400 , so I am great at spouting rubbish , though I suppose everyone has it in themselves to write.









Anyway I have gone on a bit, the weekend is half over, we have Sunday to enjoy and I am going the pick Frank Sinatra by The Avalanches because I love the song and love the video and love the album Wildflower too. I think you should check it out too. This also made me think of Frontier Psychiatrist another favourite of mine so I thought I would include that as well.

Well I am going to hit my bed, I am having a weekend of rest and recuperation and will be totally charged up for next week. Enjoy your Sunday my friends.

Monday 8 August 2016

Numbers Time Krautrock and The Old Fox


Last week I didn't post much for various reasons (see here) and then got to thinking what is a normal rate of posting things. Almost everybody on Facebook posts something everyday , often several times a day , and often it's just reposting something they have seen and liked. So I post more on Facebook than I do on here.

Usually Facebook is about being in the moment , it's what's happening at the time, and then things get lost and forgotten. People often use it to let off steam or moan about things, and too be quite honest a lot  those sort of things I just ignore, though if someone is having I bad time I will contact them and see if can help.

Anyway , in my first year of blogging I posted 6 items , that's an average of 1 post every 2 months (60 days) , here is my first post which I hadn't a clue why I was doing this. The next post was about Krautrock but I had just lifted from a music section on my Song of The Salesman site but then decided not to go further with but I thought the piece had some merit.

I then wrote nothing until I went on holiday to Dublin and decided this would be a travel blog , hence the name. But that didn't take.

Anyway the following year I posted 46 times , almost once a week , and really that should be what I am aiming for and since that time (2008) I have written fairly consistently, about absolutely anything. In 2013 I posted 244 times that's two posts every three days , which is a lot of writing. This year I have posted 66 times and expect to maybe do 100 posts by the end of the year.

Last year I posted my thousandth post (here) which was in the middle in the middle of my Oddysey58 project which was a song for every year of my life which I do intend to somehow turn into an ebook, combining it with another book project I have started but not finished.


Shev and Friend at The Old Fox

My posts tend to get 50-50 views though the biggest one has had over 900 views but is a rubbish post (here) though my most read post ever is on my Spoongig blog about the reopening of The Old Fox in Felling with over 1,100 views.

I chose "In The Meantime" by Spacehog because they had a song called "Millions" but I couldn't find it but I love In The Meantime with it's motif lifeted from The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Telephone and A Rubber Band. 


Anyway this morning started out very grey , but it's now sun shining but very windy, so it's the start to another week and if the weather is anything to go by , it's going to be a good one.

Enjoy my wonderful friends

Tuesday 28 July 2015

The Numbers Game , Pirates and Burgers



I stated that I wanted to hit a thousand blog posts and a hundred thousand hits by New Year's Eve 2015. That's not likely to happen although combined views for both my blogs are over 100K now and the combined number of posts is up to 970 , so if I add the two together , then both the targets are achievable.

Jack Sparrow .. Well Burger Me!
At the weekend I attended the rather excellent PKD Festival (see here for my review) and met a pirate at one of the burger vans . One the odd things was that there were lots of variations on meat sandwiches involving Aberdeen Angus Steaks ,Sausages , Chicken, and the like , and then you had salad!  You can't have a salad roll , although that was your only option if you were a vegetarian.





A Classy Tricycle
Anyway apart from the music , there were pirates , big guns a small fairground , bike and cars , something for everyone , and I think they sold a lot of food on the day. Oh and they had a doughnut stand as well , but I'm not a huge fan so I gave it a miss.

Anyway this is just a short post about what I'd like to do and what I enjoyed doing at the weekend, so all of you have a good night and enjoy whatever you are doing tomorrow.

Although essentially this post was meant to be about numbers and I've always loved this Bob Doroug song so I thought I'd put it in.

OK Good night

Monday 14 April 2014

Numbers and Neighbours



I've posted over seven hundred times in this blog and had over sixty four thousand page views. It started seven years ago (apparently seven is the worlds favourite number) so that's roughly nine thousand page views per year 750 views per month on average, although last month I had two and a half thousand page views. The highest numbers come from the USA although maybe some are robots followed by the UK and then Australia.

I'm not bragging (the numbers are quite small), and lot's of bloggers have many more subscribers that I do, although I am sometimes surprised by the people who actually visit my blog. Still sometimes it's quite amazing how the numbers stack up, and if I can entertain someone or make them think or improve someones life in some way then it makes it all worthwhile.

I also use it to record things that interest me, so that I can go back on it , just like a diary, and it means that I can back track and find things whereas before I had the blog I would probably have lost the item in question. I do try to encourage others to start and maintain blogs and it's great to see what people are up to and how they interact with others and they often point me in good directions and set me off on interesting trails.

I've included "Whistlestar" from Cat Stevens'  "Numbers" album that I remember being a fairly expensive package when it came out with lots of extras , and not a little fine music. After he converted to Islam he became Yusuf Islam and is still producing excellent music.

So not my normal blog post, but just something I thought of. This adds to my online history and gives you a little more into your insight about me. I hope your day has been good and tomorrow will be even better,  and I'm already thinking about my next post, which I'm counting on you reading and enjoying. Did you see what I did there? Have a great day.

Oh by they way I've not got my World Book Night Books yet, as the deliveries have been delayed. I'm awaiting an email for them but may get one of my neighbours to pick them up for me. It's brilliant that I know and have excellent neighbours from three houses in each direction. I'm not sure many people can say that these days.