Louisa Parry » geek

Biography/map project – all the places I’ve spent the night

louisa — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:28:42 +0000

A few weeks ago, in those crazy moments between turning off the light and actually falling asleep, I had an idea to make this map as a way of preserving memories: a map of everywhere I’ve spent the night in the UK.

View Places I’ve spent the night in a larger map

I’ll call it an ongoing project because a) I’m not dead yet and will (hopefully) spend the night in other places in my life, and b) I might remember some things I’ve forgotten thus far, but I think it’s pretty complete. (The one major exception at the moment is the location in Wales where I spent my first birthday – got to find our roughly where that was. I suspect there also might be a few more around Merseyside – mum & dad’s friends/family – from when I was very small.)

The pinpoints with a dot in them are precise, the ones without a dot are not as precise either because it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly where it was (such as camping at a festival) or for privacy reasons (nearly all private houses are dropped at the nearest cross-roads). The only one that is inaccurate because I can’t remember exactly where it was is the one in dropped in Hexham – we got a lift from Hexham station to a nearby village, and I don’t think I ever knew what that was called.

The colour of the pins represent how many nights I spent in the location in a nice spectrum- light turquoise-y blue is 1-2 nights, mid-blue is 2-4 nights, deep blue is 5-10 nights, pinky-purple is more than 10 nights and red, a home of less than a year. Long term homes (a year plus) break the nice getting-redder colour sequence and are in green.

From the map, it appears I have never spent a night in Lancashire proper, including Greater Manchester (unusual given the clusters on either side of it), or in Wales apart from when I was very small.

On the off-chance I’ve spent a night at your house, or spent a night with you somewhere I’ve forgotten, do please let me know so I can add it to the map. Either leave a comment or email me.

I very much like the idea of making a hard copy version of this from a big map and a whole lot of coloured pushpins. One day…

My life so far in video games – in a venn diagram

louisa — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:12:20 +0000

After doing the last ones, I just had to do it for this too.

And it was almost as fun as playing the games ;)

(Click to enlarge, naturally.)

My life so far, in video games

louisa — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:49:04 +0000

Age 5-10:
Platform: ZX Spectrum, ZX Spectrum +2, ZX Spectrum +3
Games of note: Horace Goes Skiing, a Scooby Doo game, some adventure game where I couldn’t get passed the fourth screen no matter how hard I tried, Mailstrom, Paperboy

Age 9-11:
Platform: Commodore 64
Games of note: Snare, Football Manager, Split Personalities, Skool Daze, a Bubble Bobble game, Daly Thompson’s Decathlon,

Age 12-14:
Platform: NES
Game of note: Super Mario Bros 3 (far eclipsing all others to the point that they’re not worth mentioning)

Age 15-19:
Platform: a 286 PC
Games of note: Moria, Monkey Island 2, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Pinball Fantasies (many keys broken), Chemquiz (which is why I know the periodic table and all the elements now)

Age 18-19:
Platform: D’s brother’s PC in Bradford
Game of note: Transport Tycoon Deluxe (my first very antisocial addiction!)

Age 19-21:
Platform: our PC in Liverpool
Games of note: Civilisation 2/Civ 2 Test of Time, Tropico, Age of Empires & Age of Empires 2 (played over the LAN with Alex), The Sims, Shadow Warrior (not the actual game, just the level editor)

Age 21-23:
Platform: Yahoo Games while bored at work
Games of note: Literati (*cough*Scrabble*cough*), Chinese Checkers,

Age 22:
Platform: PSOne at Dan’s and at ours
Game of note: (ours) Tekken 2 & something Tony Hawk-y and (Dan’s) Bustamove 2 (many hours spent putting the world to rights)

Age 23:
Platform: laptop running Debian
Games of note: Five or more, (what is now) Swell Foop

Age 23-26:
Platform: XBox
Games of note: Psychonauts, Fable, something in the Tony Hawk series, Super Mario Bros 3 on an emulator, Soul Calibre 2

Age 25:
Platform: PC
Game of note: World of Warcraft, oh yes.

Age 27-onwards:
Platform: laptop running Ubuntu
Game of note: OpenTTD (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe)

Age 28:
Platform: Nintendo DS
Game of note: Harvest Moon DS (gardening and keeping chickens before I could in real life)

Age 28-onwards:
Platform: Nintendo DS
Game of note: Scrabble DS, Zookeeper

Age 29-onwards:
Platform: On ubuntu under WINE
Games of note: Age of Empires/AoE 2, Theme Hospital, Tropico

Age 29-30:
Platform: XBox 360
Games of note: Fable 2, Hexic

Age 30:
Platform: PC
Game of note: World of Warcraft, oh yes again.

Five favourite games overall (in no particular order):

Super Mario Bros 3
World of Warcraft
OpenTTD
Tropico
Psychonauts

Housekeeping post

louisa — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:05:58 +0000

Shiny new blog design, ooooh. I’m taking the opportunity to move some stuff around too.

The biggest changes:

The front page of louisaparry.co.uk is now my blog. The About Me has moved to the About Louisa page.
I’ve moved all my Three Beautiful Things (3BT) posts to their own blog as they were rather overwhelming this one: http://3bt.louisaparry.co.uk/. Update your bookmarks/feedreaders, pretty people :)
The addition of columns on the right there -> means I can now have navigation on my blog, oooh!
More excitingly than that, I can also have an auto-updated list of all the stuff I’m doing and updating – this blog, my 3BT blog, my Twitter account, Recycle This & its Twitter feed and my brand new blog, The Really Good Life & its Twitter feed. More will be added as needed but already it’s a good way to keep up with everything I’m writing/updating regularly.
My photos are still stuck in the old theme and not clickable from the new theme. They can be found here for the time being – http://www.louisaparry.co.uk/Photos/ – and I’ll move them to a new gallery thing soon. Photos viewable now – click the tab at the top, then select the album/gallery.

10 goals for 2010 – progress update

louisa — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 10:57:11 +0000

Right, we’re a quarter of the way through the year – am I a quarter of the way through my goals? Nope.

1. To make a meal using only ingredients I’ve grown, raised, caught or killed myself.
This feels like it’s moving on a bit now as the sun is shiny and there are potatoes chitting, seeds in pots of soil and many more seeds to meet their soil this weekend. Plus, there is more wild food about now – I “caught” some wild garlic the other day and have plans for the nettle shoots springing up everywhere (and maybe even try the cleavers).

2. To travel to a place on my “top ten places to go before I die” list.
The only places I’ve travelled to this month have been Liverpool and Bingley. So, not got any further with this one.

3. Finish writing my second novel.
Thought about it this month than I did last month. Have yet to apply pen to paper. Sigh.

4. Learn how to make sausages – wet English style ones and cured ones too.
We unfortunately couldn’t make the wonderful course at Old Sleningford Farm last month but are trying to organise going on another one with them, maybe later this month. Still can’t wait – was gutted about having to miss the last one.

5. Spend at least a day fishing out on the North Sea.
There has been preliminary talk of a week in a cottage on the coast in May-ish – my fishing may coincide with this.

6. Finally finish learning how to drive.
Nothing happened with this. Buses from Bingley still frustrating but I’m now passing the time crocheting & listening to TTC lectures — much more productive than if I drove.

7. Make a full outfit’s worth of clothing for myself – including spinning any wool used.
I’ve pretty much stopped playing WoW again for now so I’m crafting more. Working on a (dog) blanket at the moment but I’m determined to start something clothes-y soon.

8. Learn how to program and make a mini-game/application using Ruby.
My progress has slowed with this but I’m still doing bits. My book suddenly got less usable though so I’m looking for other resources.

9. Climb a mountain or at least a jolly big hill.
Last month, I alluded to something happening that would make this goal a lot easier to accomplish – the arrival of Lily. We’ve walked so much this month! Actually, it’s lessened a bit over the last week or so – the initial excitement of her new environs has worn off and she’s happy to run about everywhere off-lead while we dawdle a shorter route behind. Still, way more exercise than we used to do.

10. Participate more in the real world – plan/run a real life green event or scheme.
Getting out and about more with the dog has made me a) talk to more local people (albeit just doggie small talk so far) and b) see more of the area. The brain cogs keep turning.

3BT – thump thump thump, purr, not lost

louisa — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:00:32 +0000

1. The rhythm of our life has changed – we’re getting up earlier, going to bed earlier and exercising far more – and it’s got its own percussive beat too: the thump thump thump of Lily’s happy tail banging against everything.

2. Carla knows the dog is there – she’s seen her, she’s definitely seen her – but the strip of sun across the living room floor is too inviting. She stretches out and rolls around, her belly warm and red in the light. I can hear her purring across the room.

3. The relief when I see my keys locked in the porch – much better there than lost on our walk.

3BT – snow day, elastic, killing is fun, same soup

louisa — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:00:07 +0000

1. Even without my glasses or raising my head from the pillows, I can tell the world’s gone white again. Our plans are abandoned and we give ourselves a snow day of relaxation.

2. The cheese stretches between my teeth and the toasted bread shell.

3. I rarely play PvP battlegrounds and forgot how much fun killing other people can be. Fighting NPCs is rarely as exhilarating – it’s often just a case of going through the motions – but my half-hour in Warsung Gulch is electrifying.

4. Katherine & I discover we’re having the same soup for dinner. Katherine types “smiling now” and I am too. For all our differences, we’re so alike.

Ukepedia – our fun! new! project

louisa — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:34:05 +0000

Back in August, I had earache. Otitis Media to be specific.

After I got back from having it checked out by my doctor, I wrote a Twitter about it. John was playing on his ukelele and looking over my shoulder at the time so sang the Twitter as I wrote it.

Then I went over to Wikipedia to read all about Otitis Media, and as I read, John sang. As it turned out, the Otitis Media article worked beautifully as a song.

So we made it into a song. And we put the song on a website. And a fun new project was born.

Like with ELER, after an initial flurry of action, we’ve been a bit slow on it of late – but other members of the Church of the Ukelele have been stepping up and the collection of videos is slowly growing.

If you can play the uke – or any other instrument – and fancy joining the cool kids club, there are full instructions on the site.

There are only about 2,576,419 articles to go – so hurry!

Navigating the fictional but real world

louisa — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:08:53 +0000

In Liverpool in 1998, I bought a book from a publisher clearance style bookshop called ‘The Breeders Box‘.

It’s set, primarily, in New York, around Greenwich Village – where I have never been – and for the first four, five times I read it, I had to imagine what the area looked like, how the streets fitted together and where things were in relation to each other.

The last time I read it – a couple of years ago – I realised I could look up the area on Google Maps and I could navigate all around, looking at the positions of stuff and blurry satellite photos of the tops of buildings.

This time I read it, I went back onto Google Maps, looked up the area then clicked for the street view – I could see the shapes for all the buildings in the area then plonk my little guy down where, say, the fictional eponymous club was on Spring St and look at the street itself, both sides and moving back and forth along the road.

I wonder how I’ll be able to interact with the real version of the fictional world in another ten years time.

Open Street Map: micro-mapping party

louisa — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:58:19 +0000

We held our first WYLUG(ish) Open Street Map micro-mapping event on Sunday and it went well.

Six of us – me, John, Paul, Tim, Simon and Rob – went out mapping and then we went back to Dave’s afterwards to start turning the traces into maps.

It was the first OSM event I’ve organised but I had some advice from Tim (aka chippy) about timings etc and I think it worked out ok. We met for about half an hour to decide where we were all going and we decided on filling in some blank spots around East Leeds. I’d printed out maps and highlighted areas I thought needed attention, and once we’d double-checked no other speedy Leeds-er had filled in our selected spots between me printing the maps out in the early hours of Saturday and us meeting on Sunday afternoon, we headed out.

We headed out in pairs – John & I were in his car, the rest on foot – and traced for about two hours (including travelling there and back) before heading to Dave’s for the mapping part. As I mentioned the other day, the mapping software JOSM is rather hard to learn how to use so the hour-ish of mapping with experienced users Tim and Dave was really useful. I don’t think I’m an expert user now by any means but at least I can confidently do the most basic stuff like adding nodes and turning them into named, categorised ways without wanting to tear my hair out.

(The pics of the bits we’ve added from Sunday’s session so far, using the Osmarender view – click through for it on OSM.)

Lessons learned/Things to remember for next time

The printed maps worked really well. I did some area overview ones and some more zoomed ones around the particular area that needed mapping. I think next time I’ll do some hyper-zoomed in ones for scribbling all over too instead of just using blank bits of paper. (Clipboards would be helpful for doing this.)
Paul managed to lose his traces some how but could pretty much reconstruct them because he took waypoints (which didn’t delete) at every intersection. Our hacked TomTom is a pain for marking waypoints and so easy waypoint making is something I’ll definitely look out for if I buy a dedicated GPS unit.
It was useful to have internet access at the initial meet session for double-checking the printed map data and it was essential to have internet access at the post-tracing session to download map data from OSM and to be able to access the reference parts of the Wiki.
It was more time consuming to trace than I thought it would be – what with having to write down street names and everything – and the traces-to-maps is taking longer than I thought (although that’s because of JOSM problems and because I’ve been busy on other stuff since then, hello Oscars). Tim says we should allow about an hour for mapping time for every hour of tracing – and looking at the amount we did and the amount that’s already done of Leeds, I have to commend the people that have contributed before we got here. Thanks for doing so much already, lovely people :)
Simon came over from Manchester after reading about it on a blog of a blog of a WYLUGer or something which made me realise if we organise another event – particularly the summer seaside day trips I’ve mentioned – we should publicise it more widely as people may be willing to travel for a hour for a day-long event. (Incidentally Rob came from Dewsbury and Paul from outside Huddersfield so thanks to all three for coming to contribute to evil Leeds’ map ;) )
I should really have gone for a wee before I set off. Or not drunk a big glass of coke in the pub. Or taken some sort of receptacle.
And on other forgotten human functions, we were all pretty hungry and thirsty by the time we finished too.
We had a general WYLUG social afterwards (although it turned out to just be the mapping party plus people who had intended to map but couldn’t for whatever reason – Dave, Tom and Geoff) and we kept coming back to mapping issues amongst the general geeky talk – and I thought this review time was useful and interesting.