Yeah, you read right.
I wasn't aware of this until Sunday.
I've been running a long time and I've never really looked back (bu-boom) and sure I've had the odd red patch here and there, sore toes and calluses and perennially bare inner thighs but never really full blown chaffage.
It's the rain you see is supposed to be the cause but I must have run in the rain before. All that cross country and teen angst remedial running at school. It was certainly raining on Saturday. Buckets and cats and dogs and gulls in the Thames on bouys.
It was a relief to get home and I hadn't really noticed any tell-tale signs, no soreness really. Then I stepped into the shower and my nipples felt like they were ablaze, burning, set alight, scorched, scalded, hot like chilli sauce...
Nipple chaffage: the worst kind.
Tuesday 19 January 2010
Work today: an e-mail to Westminster Council
Dear ----,
Many thanks for your time on the phone just now and sorry I couldn’t hold it together. This is honestly something our clients in Japan are interested in.
As I mentioned, I work for a Japanese TV Production company (www.------------) based in London. We research and coordinate filming in the UK and Europe on behalf of Japanese broadcasters.
Right now we’re doing a bit of research about Westminster bridge, with a view to possibly filming it at the end of January (depending of course on permission and weather). Here’s a link to the photos we have found:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=52983
As you can see, the likeness is undeniable. However, we’re keen to find out if this is real, or if it has been photo-shopped as some of the forum participants seem to think. Has anyone ever contacted Westminster City Council about this before… (for example, a complaint, letter of praise or someone else from the media)?
Secondly, as I mentioned on the phone, we’re trying to find out whether or not this design was part of the recent renovation work to Westminster bridge (as detailed here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/3465.aspx).
Do you know who was contracted to do this work, or anyone I could approach about this? If possible, we’d like to know who chose the design, whether they are aware of this curious phenomenon and why they chose this design.
Thirdly, Japan has asked us to find out when the phallic sunshine striking the ground is longest and when it is shortest… would anyone at Westminster Council know about this?
Lastly, we’d also like to possibly interview a representative about the renovation work – is there anyone at Westminster Council who could do this?
Thank you in advance for all of your help about concerning this, and for taking it seriously.
Kind regards,
Guy Taylor
Production Assistant
--------------- Ltd.
-------------------------------
London ------, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 8--- ----
Fax: +44 (0)20 8--- ----
www.--------------
Ref: 2010-12
Many thanks for your time on the phone just now and sorry I couldn’t hold it together. This is honestly something our clients in Japan are interested in.
As I mentioned, I work for a Japanese TV Production company (www.------------) based in London. We research and coordinate filming in the UK and Europe on behalf of Japanese broadcasters.
Right now we’re doing a bit of research about Westminster bridge, with a view to possibly filming it at the end of January (depending of course on permission and weather). Here’s a link to the photos we have found:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=52983
As you can see, the likeness is undeniable. However, we’re keen to find out if this is real, or if it has been photo-shopped as some of the forum participants seem to think. Has anyone ever contacted Westminster City Council about this before… (for example, a complaint, letter of praise or someone else from the media)?
Secondly, as I mentioned on the phone, we’re trying to find out whether or not this design was part of the recent renovation work to Westminster bridge (as detailed here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/3465.aspx).
Do you know who was contracted to do this work, or anyone I could approach about this? If possible, we’d like to know who chose the design, whether they are aware of this curious phenomenon and why they chose this design.
Thirdly, Japan has asked us to find out when the phallic sunshine striking the ground is longest and when it is shortest… would anyone at Westminster Council know about this?
Lastly, we’d also like to possibly interview a representative about the renovation work – is there anyone at Westminster Council who could do this?
Thank you in advance for all of your help about concerning this, and for taking it seriously.
Kind regards,
Guy Taylor
Production Assistant
--------------- Ltd.
-------------------------------
London ------, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 8--- ----
Fax: +44 (0)20 8--- ----
www.--------------
Ref: 2010-12
Thursday 14 January 2010
From Edge: "How is the internet changing the way you think?" 1/3
NASSIM N. TALEB
Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU-Poly; Principal, Universa Investments; Author, The Black Swan
THE DEGRADATION OF PREDICTABILITY — AND KNOWLEDGE
I used to think that the problem of information is that it turns homo sapiens into fools — we gain disproportionately in confidence, particularly in domains where information is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epidemiology, genetics, economics, etc.). So we end up thinking that we know more than we do, which, in economic life, causes foolish risk taking. When I started trading, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clarity. I also saw how people built too many theories based on sterile news, the fooled by randomness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addition, the supply and spread of information turns the world into Extremistan (a world I describe as one in which random variables are dominated by extremes, with Black Swans playing a large role in them). The Internet, by spreading information, causes an increase in interdependence, the exacerbation of fads (bestsellers like Harry Potter and runs on the banks become planetary). Such world is more "complex", more moody, much less predictable.
So consider the explosive situation: more information (particularly thanks to the Internet) causes more confidence and illusions of knowledge while degrading predictability.
Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU-Poly; Principal, Universa Investments; Author, The Black Swan
THE DEGRADATION OF PREDICTABILITY — AND KNOWLEDGE
I used to think that the problem of information is that it turns homo sapiens into fools — we gain disproportionately in confidence, particularly in domains where information is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epidemiology, genetics, economics, etc.). So we end up thinking that we know more than we do, which, in economic life, causes foolish risk taking. When I started trading, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clarity. I also saw how people built too many theories based on sterile news, the fooled by randomness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addition, the supply and spread of information turns the world into Extremistan (a world I describe as one in which random variables are dominated by extremes, with Black Swans playing a large role in them). The Internet, by spreading information, causes an increase in interdependence, the exacerbation of fads (bestsellers like Harry Potter and runs on the banks become planetary). Such world is more "complex", more moody, much less predictable.
So consider the explosive situation: more information (particularly thanks to the Internet) causes more confidence and illusions of knowledge while degrading predictability.
From Edge: "How is the internet changing the way you think?" 2/3
RICHARD DAWKINS
Evolutionary Biologist; Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford; Author, The Greatest Show on Earth
NET GAIN
The post-Berners-Lee world of 2009, if we could have imagined it forty years ago, would have seemed shattering. Anybody with a cheap laptop computer, and an averagely fast WiFi connection, can enjoy the illusion of bouncing dizzily around the world in full colour, from a beach Webcam in Portugal to a chess match in Vladivostok, and Google Earth actually lets you fly the full length of the intervening landscape as if on a magic carpet. You can drop in for a chat at a virtual pub, in a virtual town whose geographical location is so irrelevant as to be literally non-existent (and the content of whose LOL-punctuated conversation, alas, is likely to be of a drivelling fatuity that insults the technology that mediates it).
'Pearls before swine' over-estimates the average chat-room conversation, but it is the pearls of hardware and software that inspire me: the Internet itself and the World Wide Web, succinctly defined by Wikipedia as "a system of interlinked hypertext documents contained on the Internet." The Web is a work of genius, one of the highest achievements of the human species, whose most remarkable quality is that it was not constructed by one individual genius like Tim Berners-Lee or Steve Wozniak or Alan Kay, nor by a top-down company like Sony or IBM, but by an anarchistic confederation of largely anonymous units located (irrelevantly) all over the world. It is Project MAC writ large. Suprahumanly large. Moreover, there is not one massive central computer with lots of satellites, as in Project MAC, but a distributed network of computers of different sizes, speeds and manufacturers, a network that nobody, literally nobody, ever designed or put together, but which grew, haphazardly, organically, in a way that is not just biological but specifically ecological.
Of course there are negative aspects, but they are easily forgiven. I've already referred to the lamentable content of many chat room conversations without editorial control. The tendency to flaming rudeness is fostered by the convention — whose sociological provenance we might discuss one day — of anonymity. Insults and obscenities, to which you would not dream of signing your real name, flow gleefully from the keyboard when you are masquerading online as 'TinkyWinky' or 'FlubPoodle' or 'ArchWeasel'.
Evolutionary Biologist; Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford; Author, The Greatest Show on Earth
NET GAIN
The post-Berners-Lee world of 2009, if we could have imagined it forty years ago, would have seemed shattering. Anybody with a cheap laptop computer, and an averagely fast WiFi connection, can enjoy the illusion of bouncing dizzily around the world in full colour, from a beach Webcam in Portugal to a chess match in Vladivostok, and Google Earth actually lets you fly the full length of the intervening landscape as if on a magic carpet. You can drop in for a chat at a virtual pub, in a virtual town whose geographical location is so irrelevant as to be literally non-existent (and the content of whose LOL-punctuated conversation, alas, is likely to be of a drivelling fatuity that insults the technology that mediates it).
'Pearls before swine' over-estimates the average chat-room conversation, but it is the pearls of hardware and software that inspire me: the Internet itself and the World Wide Web, succinctly defined by Wikipedia as "a system of interlinked hypertext documents contained on the Internet." The Web is a work of genius, one of the highest achievements of the human species, whose most remarkable quality is that it was not constructed by one individual genius like Tim Berners-Lee or Steve Wozniak or Alan Kay, nor by a top-down company like Sony or IBM, but by an anarchistic confederation of largely anonymous units located (irrelevantly) all over the world. It is Project MAC writ large. Suprahumanly large. Moreover, there is not one massive central computer with lots of satellites, as in Project MAC, but a distributed network of computers of different sizes, speeds and manufacturers, a network that nobody, literally nobody, ever designed or put together, but which grew, haphazardly, organically, in a way that is not just biological but specifically ecological.
Of course there are negative aspects, but they are easily forgiven. I've already referred to the lamentable content of many chat room conversations without editorial control. The tendency to flaming rudeness is fostered by the convention — whose sociological provenance we might discuss one day — of anonymity. Insults and obscenities, to which you would not dream of signing your real name, flow gleefully from the keyboard when you are masquerading online as 'TinkyWinky' or 'FlubPoodle' or 'ArchWeasel'.
From Edge: "How is the internet changing the way you think?" 3/3
CLAY SHIRKY
Social & Technology Network Topology Researcher; Adjunct Professor, NYU Graduate School of Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP); Author, Here Comes Everybody
THE SHOCK OF INCLUSION
To make a historical analogy with the last major increase in the written word, you could earn a living in 1500 simply by knowing how to read and write. The spread of those abilities in the subsequent century had the curious property of making literacy both more essential and less professional; literacy became critical at the same time as the scribes lost their jobs.
The same thing is happening with publishing; in the 20th century, the mere fact of owning the apparatus to make something public, whether a printing press or a TV tower, made you a person of considerable importance. Today, though, publishing, in its sense of making things public, is becoming similarly de-professionalized; YouTube is now in the position of having to stop 8 year olds from becoming global publishers of video. The mere fact of being able to publish to a global audience is the new literacy, formerly valuable, now so widely available that you can't make any money with the basic capability any more.
This shock of inclusion, where professional media gives way to participation by two billion amateurs (a threshold we will cross this year) means that average quality of public thought has collapsed; when anyone can say anything any time, how could it not? If all that happens from this influx of amateurs is the destruction of existing models for producing high-quality material, we would be at the beginning of another Dark Ages.
So it falls to us to make sure that isn't all that happens.
Social & Technology Network Topology Researcher; Adjunct Professor, NYU Graduate School of Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP); Author, Here Comes Everybody
THE SHOCK OF INCLUSION
To make a historical analogy with the last major increase in the written word, you could earn a living in 1500 simply by knowing how to read and write. The spread of those abilities in the subsequent century had the curious property of making literacy both more essential and less professional; literacy became critical at the same time as the scribes lost their jobs.
The same thing is happening with publishing; in the 20th century, the mere fact of owning the apparatus to make something public, whether a printing press or a TV tower, made you a person of considerable importance. Today, though, publishing, in its sense of making things public, is becoming similarly de-professionalized; YouTube is now in the position of having to stop 8 year olds from becoming global publishers of video. The mere fact of being able to publish to a global audience is the new literacy, formerly valuable, now so widely available that you can't make any money with the basic capability any more.
This shock of inclusion, where professional media gives way to participation by two billion amateurs (a threshold we will cross this year) means that average quality of public thought has collapsed; when anyone can say anything any time, how could it not? If all that happens from this influx of amateurs is the destruction of existing models for producing high-quality material, we would be at the beginning of another Dark Ages.
So it falls to us to make sure that isn't all that happens.
Thursday 7 January 2010
Wednesday 6 January 2010
BOh
What a wonderful way to start the year and step-off a tough December, surrounded by old friends and fireworks smoke, hailing a new moon and necking 1 euro red wine stubbies as torn red firecracker paper gathered in cracks all across the city but mostly right there, right there in Nieuwenmarkt.
Coming back to Amsterdam 4 and a half years after leaving it behind was like stumbling on an old time capsule box full of memories and tucked under the stairs and away until you could get a spade to dig a hole to put the thing in except you never did and there it was all along under the stairs and discovered by you some years later and not, as you had hoped, by alien excavateurs after the demise of Man.
There were so many things I had forgotten, little things behind streets, tagged onto bars and cafes, memories frozen in the canals as they ice over and stolen from the bottom of a bulb-ended Kwak beer glass. Each memory unwound another and another part of the city leapt out from the corner of that little Tardis time capsule and another and another 'til you couldn't believe such a tiny thing could hold so much.
I love Dutch people and Belgian beer, that pre-prepared stamppot in the Albert Heijn and riding two to a bike on the back or the frame for a gammy wheel all wobbly on the back, flat round Turkish bread, nights at the Bimhuis and the simple pleasure of riding a bicycle at leisure through a beautiful city. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is and I want to go back.
Coming back to Amsterdam 4 and a half years after leaving it behind was like stumbling on an old time capsule box full of memories and tucked under the stairs and away until you could get a spade to dig a hole to put the thing in except you never did and there it was all along under the stairs and discovered by you some years later and not, as you had hoped, by alien excavateurs after the demise of Man.
There were so many things I had forgotten, little things behind streets, tagged onto bars and cafes, memories frozen in the canals as they ice over and stolen from the bottom of a bulb-ended Kwak beer glass. Each memory unwound another and another part of the city leapt out from the corner of that little Tardis time capsule and another and another 'til you couldn't believe such a tiny thing could hold so much.
I love Dutch people and Belgian beer, that pre-prepared stamppot in the Albert Heijn and riding two to a bike on the back or the frame for a gammy wheel all wobbly on the back, flat round Turkish bread, nights at the Bimhuis and the simple pleasure of riding a bicycle at leisure through a beautiful city. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is and I want to go back.
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