andrewducker

You can find more info on my userinfo page - but this is just here to say that I'm very happy to be friended by anyone that wants to read me. I rarely post friends-only, and that only tends to be about things that mention work, so if I don't friend you back you're not actually missing much...

If you do friend me, this would be a good place to leave a comment introducing yourself, and letting me know how you found me!

I'm sending out wedding invites at the moment, which is making me aware of all sorts of in-built biases in the conventions surrounding how we address people. I'm skipping over a lot of it by using first names for everyone, but even then there's a question of order. For older people I'm largely going with Male Partner, Female Partner, Children in order of age, but reversing the male/female order when the email address is for the woman of the house. For people nearer my own age I'm going with "Partner I know best->Partner I know less well, Children in order of age". Lesbians go in the order that I'm used to people putting them.

The whole invitation thing has been more stressful than I thought, largely because the venue has space for 80, and it turns out that Julie and I have 57 family members between us, so there are only 23 spaces for friends. This means that we've had to cut some cousins I haven't seen in 20 years, and restrict a few people to not having +1s if we're going to fit in even the people that we see/chat to on a regular basis, and a couple of really old friends. And the reception can take 30 more, but that still left us with 57 people that we don't have space for. I just hope people understand.

Ok, so I got some awesome responses from great people yesterday on the friending frenzy, and now that people have gone on there and chatted a bit, it's worth going back to here (LJ) and here(DW) and seeing whether anyone there takes your fancy.

Personally, if someone looks interesting to me I just add them. If they have a post at the top of their journal asking for introductions then I say hi (or respond to a comment if we've been chatting), but I've never had anyone tell me they'd rather not be friended. So get out there and make friends!

I assume this is a delivery for some very lucky squirrel parents


Remembrance


both via e_apraksina

Last night I dashed out of work at 4:15, bought tickets for The Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Show...Live* and then threw myself onto a train to Glasgow to see a Newsnight Scotland special.

I then walked through the rain to Central Station and caught a local train to the SECC, which felt weird because (a)two of the characters in Halting State make the same journey** and (b) walking past the entrance gave me flashbacks to bumping into Charlie Stross in a kilt after the Hugo Awards ceremony at the 2005 Worldcon.

I then discovered that Google Maps is completely missing the footbridge from the SECC to the BBC Scotland headquarters as it tried to send me round the wrong way, but I managed to find it from memory, and avoid being run over by two cyclists on the way.

Once there I checked in, found a seat, admired the architecture and cool sliding glass security panels, and then waited about two hours for filming to start. Despite advising us that we needed to arrive early to avoid problems we were basically left milling around in the foyer, so I mostly watched the TV screens set up there and finished reading Halting State. We got let in around ten to nine, which was cutting it fine as the show was being broadcast at 10:30. They then took us through some basic information, did a warm-up question, and then just recorded the whole show live in one take. It's easy to be dismissive of politicians, etc. when they're doing interviews or appearing on TV, but I was very aware that in a similar situation I'd be terrified of messing things up,forgetting an important point or just fumbling my lines.

I remain fairly unimpressed with the pro-union arguments, the best of which was that if we had separate tax systems in Scotland and the rest of the UK then there's be competition rather than cooperation over business rates. But I can't see Scotland suddenly pulling a significant proportion of business out of England, so it doesn't feel like a major issue to me. And I felt that we spent too long talking about the issues of legality around the referendum rather than about the actual case for Independence/Union. But I'm still glad I went - not something to do often, but definitely worth doing once.

In any case, you can see the show on iPlayer here, and in case it's not available in your country here's a photo with me in it to keep you warm on the dark winter's night***

- cheers to Gary on FB for screencapping it!


*With original cast members! I feel like such a fanboy!
**Although I wasn't going to a MMORPG business convention.
***Those people in the antipodes should wait five months before using this photo.

via skreidle



via darkoshi

From

via my brother Hugh.

Has apparently been around for a bit, but I somehow missed it.