Who is Lyra Belacqua?

The answer: Lyra Belacqua is the main character in Philip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials", of which the first book is now on screen as "The Golden Compass" (my copy says "Northern Lights" on the front cover).

To those who know me, the following may come as a surprise, as I am more of a realist than a fan of fantasy literature. However, when my cousin Peder gave me the full trilogy, I would be disrespectful not to show appreciation and read the books--no matter how sceptical I was towards fantasy. Working my way through the pages, I learned to know Lyra beyond her capabilities to succeed with everything she engages in, and I soon devoured the full trilogy.

This was a few years ago.

Today, I saw the first part of the trilogy on screen. Preparing for the motion picture, I freshened my memory and read the first book once more--this time with even greater joy than before, and although a bit sceptical I looked forward to the movie. I even read a couple of reviews and was mentally prepared for an intense two hours with action and special effects following special effects and action...

What I was not prepared for, was the movie's failure to portray Lyra. Yes, it shows Lyra as a clever and strong girl, who is not afraid of nothing (double negation is used extensively in the dialogue...). But the story jumps from one thing to the other, and you don't get to know her beyond being a child running around sorting things out--and barely that, as you really have no idea what to expect before it happens. Faced with this, missing and shuffled scenes doesn't really matter. Even the misplaced emphasis on massive battle-scenes become secondary to the lack of insight into Lyra's being and her drive to pursue what she believes in.

The one quality that makes the movie worth seeing, set aside the special effects, is the brilliant play by Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra) and Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter). Just too bad that the script and direction don't make their talents work the story...

Is walking more polluting than driving?

On August 4, The Times quoted UK parliamentary candidate Chris Goodall who claims that walking 3 miles (4.8 km) adds four times more CO2 to the atmosphere than driving the distance in "a typical UK car". The calculating behind this statement assumes that a person has to eat about 100g of beef to power the walk, and beef production is polluting. The question that jumps to mind is, what about the car's fuel? Where did that come from?

Here are another few questions that might balance the statement a little (I don't know the answers to them, so maybe they don't add any balance whatsoever. And although thinking requires energy and thus adds to my emission of CO2 today, I find them both amusing and worthwhile to ask):

• Who lives solely on beef? I don't question that meat production requires a lot of energy--I recall having heard already in secondary school (about 20 years ago) that producing one kilo of meat consumes 10 kilos of fodder. The problem is that I can't think of anyone who only eats meat--perhaps with the exception of people who follows the Atkins diet...
• How much CO2 does the walking person emit directly into the atmosphere, not considering that she (or he) have to eat in order to walk? This is probably an over-simplified way of ruling out the cost of producing and transporting petrol, but nevertheless an interesting way of putting things into perspective...
• Or what if we start off from the beginning, and compare 1) how much energy and emission it takes to raise a human being ("a typical UK citizen") with 2) the energy and emission it takes to produce "a typical UK car"-- including putting shoes and clothes on the human being, and mining and transporting metals for the car, etc...?
• And finally: How much energy and emission does it take to bring the person back to nature (the concept of "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust") compared to decomposing the car (no similar expression for the car, as nobody have yet witnessed a car become earth, ashes or dust--without help from mind-bending amounts of energy).

Of course, nobody can give definite answers to any of the questions above, with perhaps the last being the exception. However, it wouldn't hurt if journalists spent two extra calories to ask questions that might help people (like me) to better understand what is actually going on.

Or maybe not, as it would require extra energy, contributing to even more emissions of CO2...?

Update:
Even more alarming than the journalists lack of questions is the teeny-weeny white-paper beef.pdf that is supposed to support Mr. Goodall's statement--it clearly says that the question about where the car's fuel comes from is in fact not at all taken into consideration...

But it gets even better, as the document actually says that "we have gradually become aware of the huge amounts of grain needed to feed our animals". I don't know the definition of "gradually", but someone actually thought this out and delivered the message to me and a lot of other kids some twenty years ago...

The one good point in the document is that sharing a car is still good, although with an incredible argument: "if there are two of you, and you share the car, then walking would be eight times as bad for the climate". In other words, although we've known it all the time, it is good to share a car-ride, but now because it would be twice as bad (for the climate) to walk! Go figure.

All these negative comments aside, there is in fact one underlying positive message in Mr. Goodall's statements: Modern food production is very energy-consuming, with the brute example being prefabricated food conserved in refrigerators. So the moral is: grown your own food, or buy it fresh from your neighbour.

Bon appétit!

Re-ripping my CD's in FLAC with Easy CD-DA Extractor

I guess the title says it all: after discovering that Easy CD-DA Extractor embeds album art (or CD-cover pictures) into FLAC music files, I am now using it to rip my CD-collection in lossless FLAC format.

Actually, I stumbled across this fact somewhat accidentally today when I used CD-DA Extractor to rip a new CD and then updated the music index on my Sonos player (a techie way of saying that I added the CD to my Sonos). The CD-cover showed up on the Sonos screen as if I'd used iTunes to rip, despite the fact that there was no "folder.jpg" file alongside the FLAC files--based on lengthy discussions in the Sonos forums, I believed the "folder.jpg" approach to be the sole way to show album art for FLAC music files. Somewhat surprised by this discovery, I started digging in the FLAC format documentation and found that the format can hold quite a few pictures as metadata in each music file.

So, to repeat myself once more: I am now ripping my CD-collection all over, but this time in lossless, open FLAC format. Geeky, you say...? ;-)

An Online Photo Frame for Grandma?

I take digital pictures, and so does the rest of my family. I would like to show some of these picture to grandma, but that is difficult unless I print them or bring my laptop computer to her. However, printing is expensive, and I can't really leave my laptop at her place--not even if she'd manage to use it. In addition, and I regret this a bit, I don't stop by her often enough and the result is a large number of new pictures between every visit.

This is where a digital photo frame might come in handy. A digital photo frame is simply a small monitor with a picture-like frame around it and a small computer behind it, usually including some amount of storage for pictures and controls for flipping through them.

A photo frame for grandma should be easy to use, preferably with big, easy-to-read physical buttons on the front so that she can easily navigate between pictures, and get tactile feedback as she does. The photo frame should also run on batteries so that she could bring it around the house--although quite vigorous for her age, she doesn't run around her house anymore. Thus, the frame should be small and lightweight rather than big and heavy. In addition to these qualities, the perfect photo frame would be online and automatically download the latest pictures from a pool to which I and the rest of her family can upload pictures.

Philips 9" PhotoFrame

Finding a digital photo frame that meets all the requirements above has proven to be very difficult. Philips has quite a few models, all of which runs on batteries (for about one hour), but none of which has wireless network capabilities, nor buttons on the front.

NT-700 with visible buttons

Digital Spectrum, on the other hand, has both wireless frames and one frame with buttons on the front, but none with both WiFi and batteries (their NT-700 has the buttons and battery, and although the buttons aren't physical it is the only frame I've found with any controls visible from the front). And this is how it is all over: after considering a dozen or so, I haven't found a WiFi-enabled photo frame that runs on batteries, and only one (the NT-700 from Digital Spectrum) with visible buttons on the front.

In the end, I guess it all comes down to visiting a store and have a look at a real life product. Maybe a digital photo frame for grandma doesn't have to run on batteries? Or maybe it doesn't have to be online? The only dilemma remaining now is where to go: to an electronics market or a photo shop?