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Everyone in image processing knows her face, but until today I could only speculate about what lay below the shoulder-line.

Lena is a standard test image used in image processing books, papers, and software tools. It’s good for its mix of highly detailed areas, smooth areas, and sharp edges. She’s also much more pleasant to look at than zone plates (argh! My eyes hurt again!), mandlebrot sets, or pictures of buildings. And as it turns out she’s a Playboy model from the 70s who had no idea of her fame until she was invited to a computer graphics conference. I’ll never look at test images quite the same way again.

Full story and details here.

The Dyfi Enduro was on May 6th and, as usual, it was awesome. The last outing for my knees before the operation, and there is no better even to ride your mountain bike at.

It’s based in Machynlleth which, in Glyndwr’s day, was once the capital of Wales. Nowadays, it’s the alternative capital of Wales in another sense with the Centre for Alternative Technology, a great bike shop, and a hippy cafe. And then there are the trails of the Dyfi Forest where long fire-road climbs go up and rocks, roots, mud, and steepness go down.

The Dyfi Enduro takes the laid-back attitude and the in-your-face trails, and puts them together to make the most fun enduro of them all. Then to cap it all, they throw in random spot prizes, home-made flapjack, and weirdness. What weirdness? Well, after the first long climb has nicely separated the field, the sound of a band can be heard on the wind. Yes they have a rock band in the middle of no-where. Round another corner, and now there are cheerleaders. Now you’re just spoiling us, and we haven’t even ridden down any hills yet.

You only need to look at the grins in the photos to know it’s great. And ask yourself what you want to see at the top of a hill, angry XC guys in Lycra or this lass…

Doctor’s orders… Must be idle this weekend.

The arthroscopy on my knee is done. They didn’t find anything wrong, which is good because it means my knee’s not just going to fail. But it’s kinda bad because it cost a lot of money to get no solid conclusion about what’s wrong. Once the recovery from surgery is over, it might just have got better by itself. Hmm.

Anyway, rain, enforced sofa time, and an impending adventure mean I’m back on blogging.

Can’t go cold turkey from riding without it, so another Friday night spent ploughing up and down in the pool. Next week it’s time to see the doctor and get this knee checked out.

In the meantime, I can sit back and remember happy childhood days where my mum used to take my sister and me out swimming. We always loved to swim, and we’d come back to dad cooking dad-food: steak, stir-fry, and buttered mushrooms. The chlorine soaked skin, the hot and noisy kitchen and the juicy food well-earned. Mmmm….

Loads.

I don’t recognise the body where muscles are turning to fat. The body that constantly feels tired and wants to be fed junk. I refuse to recognise the listless and apathetic mind that no longer feels uncomfortable, no longer feels challenged. From this beige perspective, the summer feels like a happy dream. The memory of it burns under the same jealous eyes that watch people going about day-to-day on their bikes. Swimming just doesn’t do it. No adrenaline, no anaerobic test of strength, no smell of the moist earth, no speed, no distance, no solitude, no camaraderie… and a timetable… a bloody timetable! Oh, so I can only exercise after 20.45 on a Monday, 20.30 Wednesday, 20.00 Friday? No wonder so many people don’t bother.

It’s no big trial. It’s not a disability. It’s just a mental man-cold but it really does suck.

Crunching knees all the way to work today. Running is the tool of the devil and it seems to have pulped my knees so badly that gnashing swearing pain travelled with me on the morning and evening commute. Who would know that running 10km having not run in years would hurt no matter how much cycling you’re used to? Who would know that going on a 4 hour ride the next day would be bad? And then 100km the next weekend. And then 120km the weekend after. I probably deserve trashed knees.

So it’s time to put on the sensible hat and stop riding my bike for a while. Welcome to Surlyville, but not in the good way. On the plus side, after a summer of tipping the scales for the physical, it might be time to let them swing to the intellectual. The Turner Prize is back; Soweto Kinch has a great new album to get stuck into; and it’s finally time to grab a hold of Irish History.

I came across a fragment of this poem in An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan. The full text speaks (volumes) for itself.

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

W.B. Yeats

100km races are getting kinda routine now, but the Builth Wells round of the Merida 100 was something else. 30+ degrees C, lots of climbing and a decision to ride more aggressive than I had at Rhyader would have made for a tough day out. As it was the organisers advised that we were only riding 84km and that there would be food+water at approx 20km, 40km, 60km. That turned out to be a lie and we rode 100km with food+water at 20km, 40km, and 85km. I can’t really describe what that middle 45km was like. To begin with I was looking at my watch and thinking that I must be putting in a slower pace. Then, struggling across the baked dry and exposed hills, I reasoned that there couldn’t be far to go before more water so I tried to drink more and stay hydrated. As it became apparent that I could make no assumption on how far the next stop was, it was time to start walking up the hills because I couldn’t afford to sweat up them pulling my one gear. Riders nearby in granny gears gave me a bit of heart as they moved at little more than walking pace. After riding more than double the distance I had expected, since the last stop 4 cups of energy drink and 3L of water in my pack powered me over the hill back to Builth. It felt like the toughest 100km I’ve done, and the 7hr time (compared to 6:30 in the mud) confirmed it. Yes it’s an enduro, and no-one said it was going to be easy but getting the distances so far wrong is just awful.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve had a slack week on the bike following that and the search for inspiration continues. 3 hours in the Chilterns felt like a gentle stroll and it was really boredom rather than tiredness that made me call it a day. Must find inspiration before the Selkirk 100km, followed by a week in the Scottish Border, follower by Trans-Wales. Maybe those should be inspiration enough.

More random Linux stuff… I got me an iPod Nano and it works great with mepis Linux. Downloaded an Ubuntu deb of ipodslave. Install with dpkg, fix dependencies with “apt-get -f” and then, as promised, Amarok supports it well. Ace. That means I can download…

Ignite and Neurosis – more splurging on new music. Since Ignite are playing London next Sunday it seemed like getting their new album would be the decent thing to do. They’re still doing good. Bands that do straightup punk have got to be good or be dull, and Ignite are good so they fit into the small collection that is “punk CDs worth having”. Neurosis albums take time but the signs are good so fingers crossed.