January 7, 2013 by bpwilliams72

The natural world art of Svetlana Ivanchenko

The pictures below blew me away. Blogger Spooky, on the site Oddity Central, gives a brief biography:

Svetlana Ivanchenko is a talented Ukrainian artist who uses overlooked natural materials like sand, seashells, quartz, tree roots and tree bark to create wonderful mosaics that look almost painted by hand.

Born and raised in Yalta, on the shores of the Black Sea, Ivanchenko was always fascinated by the abundance of natural materials that surrounded her. She studied at the Crimean Art School, under the supervision of renowned artist Sergei Bokaeva, and later graduated from the Glukhivskiy Pedagogical Institute. The artist currently based in the city of Dnepropetrovsk uses a variety of sand, shells, quartz and tree parts to create amazing works of art inspired by her place of birth and the warmth of the female body. It’s hard to believe, but every little piece of material used to create the artworks is placed by hand, and no coloring other than that of the composing elements is used.

As Pinar from My Modern Metropolis notes, Svetlana “merges the various textures and colors brilliantly, making it difficult to imagine the frames being made of anything else.” Her natural masterpieces have been exhibited in international galleries, and many of them reside in the private collections of connaisseurs in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Estonia and the Dominican Republic.

Enjoy them.

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January 7, 2013 by bpwilliams72

Delusion, denial and diabetes

It seems so counter-intuitive. That the food you eat is killing you, more or less quickly.

How is that?

How is it that the bread I make, very simply, from a basic recipe handed down in the family, each of us varying it a little over the years, and which fills the house with such an amazing smell as it bakes, is actually shortening my life, even as it sustains me? I celebrated that bread-making in one of my earliest blog posts. Surely it’s mad to think of it as effectively a poison, especially when people have eaten bread for millennia?

The last few days, recognising that this chest infection is still clinging on five weeks after I first had it, have been something of a wake-up call. Ironically, it may even be unrelated to my condition.

It should have come before now, really. There were plenty of moments when I could have woken up and “got it”.

The unquenchable thirst that plagued me in Germany back in 2008 (was it then that I was diagnosed?) which I tried to sate with pints of real Coca-Cola should have given it away. (Yes I know, I was a bloody idiot, but I didn’t suspect diabetes at the time, even though a year earlier I’d had a close shave with 7.0 in a blood test). The lactic acid build-up on that same holiday, which brought me literally to my knees in a Franconian valley, out of range of mobile signal (and beer) and with several hundred metres of steep valley to climb after a twelve mile hike. The tiredness. The diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. The nurse encouraging me to cope with understanding the implications. The doctor telling me that if I didn’t make drastic changes to my lifestyle the condition will kill me.

All should have prompted me to action.

And yet. And yet. It is like living every day in a beautiful house and not noticing the deterioration and decay because, to you, every day the house still looks the same. You don’t notice the minor changes in you, so slight, so subtle, so insubstantial as to be dismissed as merely a blip – a very minor wrong that will right itself soon enough.

Such is the capacity for denial and self-delusion.

But then there are things that start to gnaw away at you in quieter moments. The cut that takes longer to heal, the blood not coagulating quite as it used to. The skin taking longer to heal. The sudden tiredness that can descend from nowhere. The peculiar light-headedness after a fresh croissant.

But can it really be that what I eat is doing this?

So many of our personal stories are written around food. The dinner party with friends. The Sunday roast with family. The romantic meal with a lover. The quick bite at the late night van after a gig. The fish and chips on the sea front. The snatched sandwich in a meeting. The wedding breakfast. The thrill of tasting strange cuisine in new, exotic places. The popcorn and sweets munched at the cinema. The microwave meal cooked alone after a long day.

The list is endless but it is often the people and events and places that are recalled, not the food that graced plate and table. The food may enhance or detract from the experience, but it is rarely the thing talked of, except in passing. Yet in the making of the moment its role is central and it is enjoyed with surprise and delight, a treat for the senses to be enjoyed not meditated upon.

And perhaps in the thoughtlessness of it lie the seeds of what has happened since.

Perhaps if I had been more aware of what I was eating, the quantity of foods that I know now are fast carbohydrates, if I was less concerned with taste and the immediacy of the desire to sate hunger, but rather more concerned with what that food was really doing to me, I might have a different tale to tell. Perhaps if I had been less in denial about what I already knew about those foods then that tale might have been different.

I think now on the meals I enjoyed, thinking at the time I was writing different stories, and can see that each was a line in this particular story. My eighteenth birthday. My boozy dinners at work and Conference. The way I gave up cooking when I was alone again. The lazy detours via the chip shop or the garage. The Sunday teas with grandparents. The bread cooked optimistically on a Saturday morning, uplifted by the smell and the prospect of sharing it with friends.

All have helped lead me here.

Type 2 diabetes is estimated to be present in 2.9 million people – or 4.5% of the population. Diabetes UK predict that this number will rise to 4 million by 2025.

I am, in theory, on at least three doses of two different medications for the rest of my life, assuming, optimistically, that it doesn’t deteriorate. That is estimated to cost £300 to £370 per year. yes, I have paid my taxes and far more than that. But is that really what I was paying them for?

Diabetes UK report that the total cost of Type 2 care to the NHS in 2010 was estimated to be £11.718 billion. That doesn’t account for the costs of treating complications arising from diabetes medication:

The cost of diabetes to the NHS is over £1.5m an hour or 10% of the NHS budget for England and Wales. This equates to over £25,000 being spent on diabetes every minute.

In total, an estimated £14 billion pounds is spent a year on treating diabetes and its complications, with the cost of treating complications representing the much higher cost.

What’s more, its prevalence can lead to a casualness which denies the severity of Type 2 if it is not treated properly. To talk of the severest consequences is to sound melodramatic and so we tend to roll our eyes and shrug and say “Yeah, I’m diabetic”, a certain resignation in the way we say it, as if it is a condition of society that is beyond our control, an inevitable consequence of our 24/7, hurly-burly existence.

I had taken a cavalier pride in the knowledge that whilst my blood sugars seemed to remain out of control, the other symptoms – blood pressure, tiredness, nerve and organ damage – were absent. I thought perhaps somehow I was different, like I was defying the usual trajectory of this condition. I felt a measure of defiance – which fed the capacity for delusion. And denial. Then last year’s optical check, which had been clear for two years, showed I had suffered very minor retinal damage. Nothing to be concerned about, nothing that would affect my vision, but something that, untreated, could lead to considerable damage to my sight and potentially blindness.

No-one else is responsible for making the necessary changes other than me. I need to eat more of some things and less of others. I need to do more, physically, and give myself the best chance of living as long as possible without becoming a burden.

And if I don’t? The reality of Type 2, not properly managed, are potential health consequences and associated complications:

Body and Organs

Diabetic Nephropathy

Diabetic Neuropathy

Autonomic Neuropathy

Motor Neuropathy

Sensory Neuropathy

Diabetic Nerve Pain

Fatty Liver Disease

Gastroparesis

Heart Disease

Hypertension

Irritable Bowel Disease

Ketonuria

Mental Health

Proteinuria

Stroke

Urinary Incontinence

Complications

Alzheimer’s Disease

Coeliac Disease

Constipation

High Cholesterol

Cushing’s Syndrome

Diarrhoea

Deep Vein Thrombosis

Erectile Dysfunction

Fibromyalgia

Memory Loss

Nocturia

Peripheral Arterial Disease

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Urinary Tract Infections

Yeast Infections

Short Term Complications

Dead in Bed Syndrome

Diabetic Coma

Diabetic Ketoacidosis

Hyperglycemic Hyperosmolar Nonketotic Coma

Hyperosmolar Hyperglycemic Nonketotic Syndrome

Cancer

Bladder Cancer

Colon Cancer

Eating Disorders

Binge Eating

Diabulimia

Eyes and Vision

Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic Retinopathy Symptoms

Diabetic Retinopathy Treatment

Diabetic Maculopathy

Cataracts

Eye Disease

Glaucoma

Visual Impairment

Foot, Bone and Skin Care

Acanthosis Nigricans

Amputation

Charcot Foot

A cheery list, but one I have been too dismissive of to date. I still believe I am invincible. And I am not.

The fact that I cannot even recall the year I was diagnosed shows you something has been wrong in my attitude towards my diabetes.

Red, in the film Shawshank Redemption, makes an observation in the closing moments: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” It’s really not that hard. As my friend Lou posted on her Facebook, in one of those nuggets of wisdom that are shared worldwide and are often trite but occasionally to the point: “Are you happy? Yes? Keep going. No? Change something.” We really do over-complicate things sometimes.

I won’t give up bread – or making it. But I should eat much less of it.

And generally eat very differently. And exercise more.

I can’t keep pretending I don’t need to make a choice.

January 7, 2013 by bpwilliams72

Man attaches camera to trombone: funny and fascinating

The GoPro is marketed as the world’s most versatile camera.

It’s certainly led me to put five words together in a sentence that, until today, had never occurred to me could possibly belong together: man attaches camera to trombone.

Go on. Take a look.

And I want one, please. A GoPro, that is. Not a trombone. Not that I have the foggiest idea what I would do with it.

Attach it to the cat and see where he disappears to in the day? Now there’s an idea…

January 6, 2013 by bpwilliams72

Poem: Hands, Fingers and Seasons

I wrote this a couple of years ago in memory of my Grandfather, a farmer. I used to spend a lot of time at the farm, seeing the land change from the barren dark of fallow fields to heaving with its bounty of grain, roots and grass, cattle trooping into the parlour for milking. Something reminded me of him today and I thought to dig this out.

Hands, Fingers and Seasons

Thick, strong hands, they were, that lifted me to

The battlements of my straw castles,

Roughened by the scratch of twine and scrape of Summer’s bale.

A worker’s loyal touch it was, that raised the song of Harvest home,

Fingers thick with bean soot and the dusty flours of wheat and barley grain.

Worn, safe hands, they were, that made a man of me

In black-earth fields of buried treasure, and

Toughened by the bite of frost and soak of Autumn’s mists.

A lover’s gentle touch it was, that held a wife and the bounty of a quiet faith,

Fingers rich with tenderness and friendship’s honest clasp.

Torn, scarred hands they were, that told the story of his days,

Shaped by tractor’s diesel roar and

Sweet-spiced carolling of Winter’s lamp-lit song.

A servant’s kindly clasp it was, that welcomed friend and stranger,

Fingers which turned both page and slide, and, in deeper reverence, praised.

Wise, weathered hands they were, that counted out our seasons,

Ploughing fields and scattering seed, and

Carefully coaxing out Spring’s calf to startled breaths.

A musician’s chords of Eventide it was, the easier, ebony press of old, familiar hymns,

Fingers that broke Heaven’s morning in gentle smiles of knowing kindness.

Yearly sown –

All now safely gathered in.

January 6, 2013 by bpwilliams72

A mobile life

I’ve always been a techno-junky, at least as long as I can remember. It’s taken the rest of the world a long time to catch up, but thankfully Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Rajesh are showing the world just how cool us über-nerds are. (That’s The Big Bang Theory for anyone who spent 2012 living on Mars.)

It was Star Trek that did it, I think. Between the communicator, the tricorder and the universal translator there was never much chance for an inquisitive sort like me, who was convinced that aliens were waiting to land, if not here already. (I never bought the theory that the planet was being run by giant lizards. That seemed a little silly. Like David Icke – who I foggily remember for his sports commentary on Grandstand, not the Illuminati.) And for interest, How Stuff Works has a a fascinating article on the 100 Star Trek technologies that have come into being

I remember the first mobile phone I had.

It was Dad’s phone that he passed over to me when I started work. It was a Nokia, a 2140 on the Orange network – the only phone available on Orange when the network launched in 1994. Those of you who had one may remember the retractable antenna. I remember how cool it felt when several people, a lot older than me, and a lot more important, needed to make phone calls whilst we were stuck in a meeting. Their surprise when I pulled out a cell phone (!) was very gratifying in a geeky, nerdy kind of way.

After that there was no stopping me. Mobile phones and mini-computing became technological areas of fascination and over the years I acquired a series of mobile phones, mini-computers and tablets.

This morning, in the cab on the way to church, a guy on Radio 5 was talking about wearable computers the size of a stud earring that he thinks will be the norm by 2040, which will contain more computing power than every device in the average home today. He was saying, quite straight-forwardly, than in 15-20 years we will have electronic circuitry printed directly onto our skin and that transaction by reading this circuitry will be quite normal. The stud earrings will create local networks to allow off-grid information exchange, ostensibly to protect privacy.

If that sounds insane, you should know that the EES (Electrical Epidermal System) is already here, designed two years ago by engineers John Rogers and Todd Coleman to collect information on your vital organs and transmit it back wirelessly to a computer.

I wonder if the sense of incredulity I felt was anything like that of those who shook their heads and wondered why on earth I thought I needed a phone in my pocket? Perhaps such imprints and implants will indeed be the norm, even in my lifetime, and we will dispense with our mobiles and games consoles.

In the meantime, here is a gallery of the phones and associated gizmos that, over the years, have led to technology becoming hard-wired into my social and professional life.

Oh… And a small legacy of one of my favourite phones, the Nokia N70 – the picture of Portreath at the top of the blog was taken on it, a good few years ago now.

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January 5, 2013 by bpwilliams72

Outrage at Californian rapist’s appeal secured on an arcane legal anomaly

The phrase “The law is an ass” was coined in a play entitled “Revenge for Honour” that was probably written by Henry Glapthorne and published by (and frequently mistakenly attributed to) George Chapman in 1654.

Both the title and the wrangle over identity are bitterly ironic, following the decision of the Los Angeles-based 2nd District Court of Appeal to overturn a three-year sentence for rape on the basis of an arcane legal anomaly dating back to 1872.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Court of Appeal has interpreted the statute thus:

A man who impersonates someone in order to have sexual intercourse may be guilty of rape only if the victim was married and the man was pretending to be her husband.

You can read the full opinion of The People v. Julio Morales here, where a picture is painted of a young woman (identified only as “Jane Doe”) enjoying a night out with friends, going home, deciding not to have sex with her boyfriend as they had no condoms – and then being raped by a man pretending to be her boyfriend. It is quite clear that in any right-thinking understanding of the concept of rape, Julio Morales is guilty without question. Indeed, reading the judgement, the prosecution contend that he admitted his guilt. Yet, because she was unmarried, and he was impersonating a boyfriend, not a husband, he is apparently not guilty of rape.

So what the hell sort of legal system allows this sort of specious contention to come between a young woman, whose life has been wrecked, and justice?

As a non-lawyer, who could scarcely believe what he was hearing on the radio this morning, I can only think that it is a legal system in which the moral compass of those who interpret the law is subordinated to the irrelevant technicalities of archaic legislation, almost certainly written by men, to benefit men, at a time when General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was chasing Indians back across Lost River in the Modoc War. Had you heard of General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby? I hadn’t until I started looking at this case and what else was going on in California in 1872. I doubt that “Jane Doe” had either.

Take time to read the opinion.

And forget the technicalities for a moment. Think about those involved as merely people. The victim. The lawyers. The perpetrator. Think about them as merely people in a civilised society. Think about the purpose of the law in that civilised society. Think about its purpose in a modern, socially-aware Western democracy that contends it is working to make its communities secure places in which everyone, regardless of gender, can live, love, play and work safely. Contrast that purpose with what we can only imagine its nascent role to be in the early 1870s, four years before the last stand of George Armstrong Custer and the Sioux Nation at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.

Which of those lawyers behind the appeal could possibly look that woman in the eye and say that the in 21st Century Los Angeles of today they were acting in all good conscience, believing that their client did not actually rape her?

So there we have it. A young woman in 2012 is brutalised and subsequently denied justice because legislators and lawyers derive their basis for legal decision from a past that is completely irrelevant to her life experience today.

Yes, the Court of Appeal urged legislators to act. Yes, legislators have agreed to act.

And yes. The law is an ass.

I hope the retrial of Julio Morales proves otherwise – and provides a measure of justice for “Jane Doe”.

January 5, 2013 by bpwilliams72

Poem: January

January

I dislike you, January, with your
Mornings veiled in wet mist and your
Sodden fields that have stolen
The cracked and frozen earth that should
Lie in frost under crisp, blue skies.

I resent you, January, with your
Mornings steeped in damp gloom and your
Dragging hours that will bury
The well-intended hopes of New Year’s
Revels in bleak and cloying days.

I disown you, January, with your
Mornings lost in sad thought and your
Hungering for Summer’s laze –
And my feint of a single, red-stemmed glass
Filled with evening’s bold ambition.

January 4, 2013 by bpwilliams72

When gaming and amateur film-making cross over

I’ve long been a gamer, ever since I first laid my sticky mitts on a ZX81 and dived into Mazogs:

My favourite games these days are MMOs, usually fantasy-based, like EQ and EQ2. I have also had a sneaking fondness for FPS games, like Unreal Tournament. The game I am playing most at the moment is Battlefield 3. Up to 32 players on each side, from across the world, play as either US or Russian forces in various forms of battle on various maps, small and large. My liking for this sort of thing is probably a throwback to watching films like Where Eagles Dare as a kid, though there is also a real and peculiar sense of camaraderie when four of you are locked down in the same squad, all communicating by Team Speak, buildings blowing up around you and ammo running low. It is also remarkably cathartic after a frustrating day.

We are so used to seeing computer graphics in films these days, like the magnificent CGI tiger in Life Of Pi, that we can barely distinguish them from the real thing. Conversely, the graphics in many modern games, like BF3, are so realistic, and the models so controllable, that artistic sorts around the world are creating films using exclusively in-game footage.

This effort from Fierce Eagles, a team of gamers in Pakistan, and ultra-violent as it is being based on BF3, is quite something else.

Take a look at Mazogs above.

And then check out the video below to see how scarily gaming technology has advanced in the thirty years since Mazogs was published by Bug Byte in 1982. (Warning: there is a lot of shooting and killing.)

Where will full-immersion 3D, more powerful processors and even higher definitions take us in the next thirty years?