Decoding Amanda, more gyrations.

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived. Mr Jameson just asked Amanda to dance, despite her interest in a mathematics problem. The set over, Amanda wants to return to her usual pursuits when her mother stops her. Amanda has just said a biting remark about the mysterious Mr Jameson, and her friend Louisa wonders why she is so sour.


Amanda asked him, “What college are you with?”
“New college, why?”
“That’s where my Freddy is,” Louisa almost shouted; she added, quietly, “Though he’s not quite my Freddy.”
Amanda noticed her father, bludgeoning his way through the crowd to join her.
Once he arrived within hailing reach, he said, “There you are lass; I thought you’d enjoy the evening, despite those megrims.”
Amanda said, “Yes, you are right, as usual,” She paused, unsure of precedence, and then introduced her companions, “Louisa you know. This is Mr Jameson.”
“I saw you dancing with my lass; hope she didn’t disappoint, she gets so little practice.”
Mr Jameson nodded to him, “It was my pleasure.”
Amanda continued, “and this is Miss Mapleton – Are you with Mrs Hudson’s academy as well?”
Alice replied, “I’m a governess there.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

We had the power go out last night in Atlanta’s “Snowmaggedon II – the blizzard strikes back.”  No big deal in itself – this time the roads didn’t freeze so people weren’t stuck – and it’s already back on.  It was a decidedly cold and dark evening, although not more than a one dog night.

It raises the question, “How did you keep clean, when like most people, you couldn’t have a hot bath or shower?”

The answer turns out to be a mixture of techniques. One, quite obviously, is to use a cold wet cloth to wash the “pits and smelly bits.” That works, but isn’t actually how people usually cleaned themselves – or at least the rest of themselves. Dry linen cloths are surprisingly good at absorbing oils and grime. Through the end of the Victorian time – when geysers (a temperamental point source of hot water that used gas) and soap  were introduced (or in the case of soap re-introduced, Boudica and her merry gang of blue woaded Briton’s used it) – people dry-toweled themselves with scraps of linen.  I haven’t tried this, but have it on good authority that it works.

Hair, however, is a different story. A regency gentleman’s father had it easy – shave his head and wear a wig. By the early 1800’s this wasn’t an option for men, and it had never really been one for women. Hair powder and brushing served the needs. Somewhat imperfectly. You would dust your hair with an absorbent powder and brush it out.  The iniquitous tax on hair powder to help pay for the war may have lead to a change in style – moving from powdered and massive constructions to more natural looks, but the basic techniques survived until late in the 1800’s. There is a reason Regency Heroines spend so much time having their maids brush their hair.  Shampoo is much faster.

Of course, if these fail, there’s always perfume.

In fairness, I should point out that soap and soap-like compositions were highly caustic until the later years of Queen Victoria (1870’s). They’d have eaten your skin and dissolved your hair much like drain cleaner does today. So there’s a reason that soap wasn’t used for cleaning people.

This snippet continues formal connection to the previous book in the series (the art of deception).  Mrs Hudson’s academy doesn’t just teach deportment and other social skills.


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Decoding Amanda Continued.

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived. Mr Jameson just asked Amanda to dance, despite her interest in a mathematics problem. The set over, Amanda wants to return to her usual pursuits when her mother stops her. Amanda has just said a biting remark about the mysterious Mr Jameson, and her friend Louisa wonders why she is so sour.


Beyond them, the orchestra struck the final chords of the dance; Amanda nodded to Louisa, “Time to join the throng for refreshments.”

What a crush.”

Mr Jameson slipped in beside them, “It is; Do you mind if we join you in the queue?”

Despite her professed bad temper, Amanda found herself smiling, “Please … Mr Jameson, this is my dear friend Louisa Phillips.”

Mr Jameson bowed, slightly, exactly the correct amount that manners required, “Enchanted Miss Phillips;” he gestured to the woman he had been dancing with, “May I present Alice … Alice.”

The woman said, “Alice Mapleton, Miss Mapleton.”

Amanda said to Mr Jameson, “My friend, Miss Phillips tells me that you’re the chaplain at Mrs Hudson’s academy and on leave from Oxford.”

After glancing quickly at Miss Mapleton, Mr Jameson replied, “News travels quickly in these parts, doesn’t it? Yes, I’m on leave from Oxford and acting as chaplain at that august institution.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

The Chinese reportedly have a curse, “May you live in exciting times.” I’m not sure if that’s true, but the last months have been interesting to say the least. Any road, I’m back.

This snippet introduces the first formal connection to the previous book in the series (the art of deception). While I doubt they had academies for female spies, the British were remarkably organized during the Napoleonic wars. I can heartily recommend Roger Knight’s “Britain against Napoleon” if you’re interested in the real story. Much of the jobbery, nepotism, and blatant incompetence that allowed us Yanks to achieve our independence went by the wayside during this existential struggle. Not all, the army was crippled by cronyism until near the end of the war. It lead to various unrealistic – and costly – expeditions such as the invasion of Holland (the Walcheren expedition in 1809 is a great example).

 

 

 


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Decoding Amanda, the story formerly known as the Divinity School.

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived. Mr Jameson just asked Amanda to dance, despite her interest in a mathematics problem. The set over, Amanda wants to return to her usual pursuits when her mother stops her. Amanda has just said a biting remark about the mysterious Mr Jameson.


“That is unkind of you.”

Amanda blinked, and watched the figures on the floor; then she replied, “Yes … You’re right; I shouldn’t have said that Louisa – I don’t know why I’m in such a way.”

Louisa frowned, “It’s all those books … you used to be so sweet.”

“Was I? I apologize Louisa; my mother took the book I was reading … it was a present from Freddy.”

Louisa brightened at the name, “Freddy; how is he?”

“Well, I suppose; he hasn’t been sent down from Oxford … yet.”

“He won’t be … I hope,” Louisa blushed.

Amanda sighed, “He didn’t mention any females in his last letter.” How could he … Mother reads them first.


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

 

Amanda’s mother reading her letters is nothing out of the ordinary – the same thing happens to the heroines in Jane Austen’s books (the end of Northanger Abbey excepted).

Not much history this time. I’ve had a bit of a family emergency which is settling into a more routine situation.

 

 


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Treadco’s first product. Intelligent Image Sharpening.

Recently we announced Treadco – bespoke machine learning.

It looks like software in general will be our product.

Before processing
After processing
The difference (x10) between the images

My … collaborator has a rather rough way of expressing himself. It made me blush, but he said it was time to pull something out of somewhere. As I said, he’s coarse and uncouth.

Anyway, our first open source teaser product will sharpen images. We’ve discovered the joys of numpy and python – Fourier transforms that use the GPU and handle normalization like a breeze. It means we can easily, in something like 30 lines of code, implement a regularized Jacobi solver to find the image and point spread function that provides an optimal sharpening for a degraded image.

The application we’re looking at is in cryo-EM, but my collaborator mutters about stupid biologists and confocal microscopy. (I’ll have to get him drunk and find out what he’s pissed about. It must be something – he’s usually straightforward about these things.)

For those of us who remember our numerical analysis (a rapidly vanishing group of computer scientists) Jacobi iterations are an easy way to solve large matrix problems. It’s not quite as efficient as Gauss-Siedel and SOR, but it can be implemented with the Fourier transform. Technically, regularization is a successive under-relaxation rather than over-relaxation.  Most importantly, it’s a block iteration and can be implemented with high efficiency on all sorts of computer hardware. Careful regularization of the iterations, using noise levels in the image (the noise estimates don’t have to be stationary) results in an excellent and stable sharpening of the image. Without all that dangerous messing about with unsharp masks and inverse filters.

Anyway, Treadco has opened a github repository (empty for the moment) and is starting to produce.

By the way, there is no connection, none, absolutely none, with any Georgia State University resources.

The Divinity School 7(?)

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived. Mr Jameson just asked Amanda to dance, despite her interest in a mathematics problem. The set over, Amanda wants to return to her usual pursuits when her mother stops her.


Amanda reached for her reticule; to retrieve her notes, when her mother snapped, “Leave that; we should be sociable; you may play with your figures some other time.”

“I don’t know anyone.”

“Surely you do,” Mrs Bentley waved to another woman with her daughter, “You can’t have forgotten Louisa.”

“More hair than wit,” Amanda muttered under her breath.

“Don’t be so snobby, you know that’s not true; she’s a delightful chit and you used to be such friends; come,” Mrs Bentley took her daughter’s hand and dragged her around the outside of the room.

Louisa bounced as she said to Amanda, “I saw you dancing with that handsome Mr Jameson; did you know he’s the chaplain at Mrs Hudson’s academy?”

Amanda said, “A chaplain?”

“Yes,” Louisa bounced, “He is a divinity student … Oxford I think … on leave from exhaustion.”

“Exhaustion; from what – too many compline services?”

 


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

My coauthor received a hint that our titles are not quite right for the genre. (Thank you for it. There’s nothing like a Friday deadline and a hurricane to put one behind.)

Though not full of hot Gypsy lust, this is a romance.  Albeit one with spies, secrets, and the occasional murder. You wouldn’t know it from the title – which sounds like a theological treatise. (As will eventually be revealed ‘the Divinity School’ is the cover name for a code-breaking establishment.)

So we were wondering about other titles. Such as:

Amanda Breaks the Code (sounds too Hardy-Girlish)

Decrypted Secrets.

Secrets Revealed.

I think we have a great deal of work to do. None of these are much better.

 


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.

The Divinity School 6

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived. Mr Jameson just asked Amanda to dance, despite her interest in a mathematics problem.


“Yes, but I’m not skilled.”

“Then let me be your tutor.”

Amanda joined him in the line on the floor; the orchestra played the opening chords of a country-dance and the crowd began to move through the figures.

After a few moments Mr Jameson said, “It is customary to converse during the dance.”

“I’m counting my steps,” Amanda watched her feet on the floor.

When they reached a pause in the figure, he said, “Look at me while you dance.”

Amanda looked up and he smiled at her; he continued, “It’s easier if you watch your partner.”

It was their turn to move, circling around another couple; Amanda relaxed with the practice; she said to Mr Jameson, “I should dance more often.”

“Yes … you should, with me.”

“Not two sets in a row; I’m not fast.”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

The featured image shows dancing at Almack’s. Actually it shows Beau Brummel giving his critical opinion about the dancing.  Something tells me he was not amused.

Despite Mr Darcy’s comments to the contrary, dancing was a critical social skill.  Amanda, living on the outskirts of the polite world, is doing her best to stay in step. At least she’s aware that dancing with the same man too often would have consequences.


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.

Aarhus

More field research. Aarhus is hosting a summer school in crystallography and I tagged along as an ex-crystallographer. It was refreshing, especially compared to my dear university. GSU is in the first circle of hell for academics.

Aarhus itself is a fairly modern city, with nominally friendly Danes. Most of them speak English because my Danish is non-extant. Danish itself is interesting, because the roots or the words are clearly evident when written, and almost impossible to hear when spoken. A large part of English comes from old Norse, with the word endings, conjugations, and declensions stripped away.


This shows a section through the old town. A half-timbered building and a bicyclist.
Beware of bicyclists; they will run you down and they ride in dense packs, big dense packs, big dense fast packs. At least most of the time they follow the traffic rules.

One difference between Danish and English buildings is the use of pastel colours.

Right now they’re having a big music and beer beer, festival. Danish popular music is an acquired taste. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “smoke gets in your eyes” in Danish. The (white) singer had Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice down pat. We left when he started in on “It’s a beautiful world.” Danish rap is best left to the imagination.

The featured image shows the aftermath of an M32 sailing race in the harbour. The water on this part of the Baltic is flat. I suspect that’s not always the case, but right now I could use a sail canoe on it without problems.

Lyon

Lyon is an interesting city. Contrary to the French stereotype, the people are friendly and we’ve had no trouble with our limited French. There is a dearth of air conditioning which is problematic in 33-34 degree weather, but it does cool down at night.

The architecture reminds me of California and Italy, with the exception of the Hotel d’Ville (city hall) which clearly inspired city hall in Philadelphia. I say inspired, but less charitably could say plagiarized.

The Metro system is a marvel. It is fast, moderately clean (there is a smell), and reminds me of a cross between the London tube and Marta. It uses paper tickets the way the Tube used to (before Oyster cards). e5.50 per day.

We explored the Roman, alright Gallo-Romain ruins above the old city (Vielle Lyon). (Using the Funicular railway). Then we descended to Vielle Lyon for a Glace (ice cream, dashed good chocolate ice cream, with dashed good chocolate sauce and heaps of Chantilly (whipped cream).

For those of you who are Three Musketeer fans – Henry IV married Mary de Medici in the Cathedral de Sant Jean in Vielle Lyon.

Field Research

I’ve been writing, at least when i’m writing regency stories, from the English or British viewpoint. You know, where the French are devil incarnate. While Napoleon, who his own soldiers called “le Chapeau” (the hat) which is vaguely – more than vaguely rude, really was a despicable character, the majority of the French were not.

So I’m tagging along on a trip where my co-author is talking about Restricted Boltzmann Machines. He’ll be occupied with computer stuff and I’ll look around for culture, ambiance and (one hopes) good food.

The Divinity School 5

wewriwa
Welcome to weekend writing warriors. Many fine authors, and me, contribute short snippets for your delectation.

Since it seems that our Regency spy romance is much more popular than our science fiction, this post introduces the sequel to The Art of Deception. Amanda’s reading was interrupted by a summons to attend on her mother. Amanda’s mother made it clear that she must attend the assembly. After a short carriage journey, it only being six or so miles between Coalpit Heath and Chipping Sodbury, they have arrived.


The young man, who stood next to her father, said, “I should like the honour of the next dance, if I may?”

Amanda blushed, “Yes,” She rose to curtsey to him; her notes lying, unbidden on the table.

Mr Jameson glanced at them; then he reached over and folded them, neatly, and gave them to her, “Don’t forget your work.”

Amanda curtseyed and blushed again, “Thank you,” she took the paper and replaced it in her reticule.

He said, “It looked important.”

“Just some scratchings – a problem from Dr Hutton’s book.”

“His course in mathematics? I’ve been told it’s an excellent work.”

The orchestra reached the end of the 2/3; the final chords echoed through the room and interrupted Amanda’s reply; a pause in the music preceded the introduction of the next set.

Mr Jameson inclined his head, “Would you care to dance?”


My sincere apologies for abusing semi-colons.

There’s a revolution in transportation that is underway during the time frame of this story. Canals would connect large parts of the UK withing ten-fifteen years.  The Kennett and Avon Canal was finished in 1810. The featured image shows the canal in Bath. Jane Austen would have been familiar with it, although it was a rough place in her time.

This bridge, in the middle of farmland, and almost literally in the middle of nowhere shows Regency decorations. It feels as if it were Mr Darcy’s moonshot, and in some what that’s true.


This lock, in Bradford on Avon, would have been there while Amanda worked on her math problems.

As would this, the Avoncliff Aqueduct. It’s next to the Cross Guns which is an elegant pub – though that doesn’t stop the chavs from decorating the path with technicolour yawns (I know that’s Australian).

The last locks to be finished, in 1810, were the Devizes steps. They make for an exhausting day, even with modern canal boats.

If you’re a yank and want to try a canal trip, the trick is to go directly to the UK sites. The US ones tend to double the price.


I’ve put up a couple of things on instafreebie. The first is a short story, To Court a Dragon.

The second is the start of a science fiction story in the same universe as Cynthia the Invincible, but set in 1893 Dartmoor, The Curious Case of Miss James. It’s available on Amazon.

The Art of Deception, first in a series of late Georgian/early Regency spy novels is now up.. You can get the first part here.

You can find my, well our, works here.