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Arabesk
By Jon Courtenay Grimwood
A three volume book made up of Pashazade, Effendi and Felaheen.
Madhatter loaned me this. Combining the three books into one makes for a joined up narrative, but I suspect I'd have enjoyed it more if I had read it as three separate books. Nothing to stop me doing that, but once I've started...
The books were very evocative of the Arab world I've holidayed in - Grimwood has done a good job of bringing the culture and experience to life, as far as I can tell, anyway. This would be a great series to read while in Tunisia, or Marrakech, or even one of the Gulf states. The story weaves near future sci-fi believably, with genetic technology being an underlying theme, as well, as the use and abuse of power and how people adapt to the future. The protagonist is a little *too* competent for me - genetically engineered or not, he was just a little too capable. Grimwood did a good job of making him believably, but there were still points in the book where the only reason he failed was to further the narrative. He did a good job of weaving most of the threads together, however.
I think I've figured out the ending, but I'm not sure!

Posted at: 07:38:45 13 Nov 2008 [/books] permanent link

Ubuntu on my Macbook
So a few weeks previous, running low on space on the 120GB drive I'd got with my core 2 duo black macbook, I bought a larger hard disk for it (first from Dabs, which was a mistake, because apparently there are two types of 2.5" disk, one larger than the other. and the Macbook takes the smaller, naturally. I then went to macupgrades.co.uk, and got a 320GB drive for not much more, which fitted perfectly. Restore was easy with Superduper!. A week or so later, I was reading about the Ubuntu 8.10 release, and came across the Ubuntu Community page for installing on Macbooks.
It showed that using BootCamp, I could partition my drive without losing data, and install Ubuntu. So I did. The page also covered the setup for the hardware, which, apart from the iSight, worked out of the box. I even got multi touch button clicking working, which is needed on the Macbooks, and damn cool!
I can't honestly say what I did to get the iSight working, but the instructions were most of it. I think the issue is that you need to power cycle, not just reboot, after copying over the firmware, otherwise it doesn't detect the camera properly. Took me til 2am sat night to discover that, though.. The things I'll do to get Cheese working..

I'm impressed with the hardware detection - the Ubuntu article is pretty comprehensive, but I could have used 90% of the kit out of the box.
I liked the fact that it mounted the HFS+ partition (albeit read-only) so I could copy files over.
In fact, with the aid of the iTunes and Rhythmbox Ratings script and site, I was able to import all the items in my iTunes library into RhythmBox, and then import all the ratings. As I've spent hours rating most of my library, and have playlists that select on ratings, last played etc, all of which I can replicate in RhythmBox, being able to import all of this was very helpful and rather cool. A tip for anyone else trying this, as mentioned in the comments on the site, you need to make sure that the songs have a rating first before running the script, or it can't adjust the ratings correctly. I simply marked all my songs as 1 star, then reran the script. Power saving works flawlessly, not something I've had good experiences with on Linux.

On the downside, I've noticed the laptop runs hotter, although I suspect I can adjust the fan speeds until I get the coolness I'm used to. Also, Network Manager, while being fine and all that, does still lose its mind from time to time and not connect the wireless networks I use.

I'm very tempted to move over. I've ported my RSS feeds from NetNewsWire to Google Reader, and bought an app for the iPhone that syncs with it. Google reader, using Gears, can be used offline, so I've not lost any functionality, and have found it faster than NNW, although not quite as much of a pleasure to use. The iPhone. Therein lies the sticking point. I can reformat my iPod to FAT32 and use it with RhythmBox - I can even install RocketBox and play Ogg files, but the iPhone itself I may not be abe to manage or sync. I've jailbroken it, and I know people have got it working, but its flaky.
Will I keep booting into MacosX to sync the iPhone, or will I change it to another device? I'm not sure. Podcast syncing and tethering are 'just around the corner' for the iPhone, which would greatly reduce the need to sync it, as that's what I listen to the most. Also, what alternatives are there? The N95/6 is a great phone, Symbian etc, but reportedly hard to get to work with Linux. I had high hopes for the Android phone, but I don't like the hardware - at least I can change the headphones on the iPhone!

Posted at: 22:39:25 6 Nov 2008 [/gadgets] permanent link

The Doubtful Guest
I've a picture of the stage before they started (and before I saw the sign saying photography forbidden, oh well) up on flikr - check the sidebar.
A. saw this and bought tickets for us. Its an adaption of the Edward Gorey book of the same name. As surreal and weird as the original book, this was some of the best theatre I've seen, and pretty much defies description. I think the show has ended now, but if it hasn't, head along to the Cambridge Arts Theatre and see it. You may even get a Q&A with the cast, as we did.

Posted at: 21:58:03 19 Oct 2008 [/live] permanent link

Some nifty command line stuff
So after reading in the Halloween countdown pages at the Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft blog that Mary Shelley's book 'The Last Man' was available as a free audiobook, I thought I'd download it and listen to it as a series of podcasts (thanks to podcastamatic) but when I got to the page, the low quality mp3's were mixed in with the high quality ones. I've addressed the multiple mp3 download issue before, but this time I thought I could come up with something that got what I wanted. One last night command line sesson, and lo;

for i in `~/perl/mp3grep.pl thelastman.html | grep -v _64k` ; do filename=`echo $i | cut -d '/' -f 6 `;curl -C - -L -o $filename $i; done

Posted at: 21:53:34 19 Oct 2008 [/code] permanent link

Japanese Banking Crisis
We have learned from reliable sources that the Japanese banking crisis shows no signs of improvement. If anything, it is worsening.
Following last week's announcement that Origami Bank had folded, we have received more breaking news ... According to our sources, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank is preparing to cut back some of its branches.
Karaoke Bank is up for sale and is going for a song! Furthermore, shares in Kamikaze Bank have taken a nose-dive and 500 back-office staff at Karate Bank got the chop.
Analysts report there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank and staff there fear they may be in for a raw deal.
Stay tuned ...

Sorry, sorry, email circular and I couldn't resist..

Posted at: 16:25:59 10 Oct 2008 [] permanent link

Chariots Of Fire 2008
I trained for months for this, up to three times a week, and managed in a very respectable 11:24. Similar to previous times, I found after I checked this blog, which was disappointing, but much better than the times I was getting running the test route near work (12:45 often). Our team came 87th, maintaining similar position we had last year - not bad considering over 450 teams! Of course, one of my (younger!) students ran it in 10:something..

As I ran with my new GPS, I have Tracklogs of
test run and the the race itself
or if you have google earth, you can use these for test run and race itself

Posted at: 08:16:01 4 Oct 2008 [] permanent link

Cambs County Council and the Geospatial web!
I'm looking for new halls for my Tai Chi (and hopefully Kickboxing!) classes, due to issues with my previous one, which is turning out to be fairly tricky to find. On a whim, I phoned the council, and asked the receptionist if they had a list of halls for hire, expecting to get passed onto another department. "Oh, yes" she said, "would you like me to email you the link?". Sure enough, a few mins later, I was looking at this. Browsing it, I realised what I wanted was it overlaid onto a map, so I could see where would be appropriate. Looking at the source, it was in nested HTML tables, and inconsistent formats, so I gave up the idea of writing a web scraper, and mailed the site admins on a handy link, asking if they had the info in a CSV that I could use in a google maps overlay.
A day later the reply came back; "Oh, we've done it! put "Halls for Hire" in the Search For box (including the double quote marks) and put the village/town you are thinking of moving to in the Location box leave the Show Results on a Map box ticked then click on the Search Cambs.net button.

Live Earth rather than Google maps, and in a tiny window, but otherwise superb - great job Cambridge County Council, and completely unexpectedly competent and on the button!

Posted at: 07:59:24 4 Oct 2008 [/martialarts] permanent link

Just upgraded my Macbook's hard disk
Remarkably painless. The most difficult part was ordering the right hard drive (not all 2.5" drives are the same size, apparently. Yes, I know.). So poor marks to Dabs, which took a week to ship my order ("usually ships in 24 hours!"), and only decided to when I complained, and full marks to macupgrades.co.uk, which, for 30 more than I was going to pay at dabs for a smaller disk, sold me the right sized disk - and one thats 320GB!
You'll need a Phillips #0 Screwdriver and a Torx T8 Screwdriver - which was the hardest for me, I ended up using one at work, so must buy some v. small torx.
Using SuperDuper! I made a bootable clone of my current 120GB disk (which as its part of my normal backup routine, took 15 mins to update the image), swapped out the drive in its caddy, booted into disk utility from an OSX install CD, formatted the disk, and selected restore from the USB disk. Took about 3 hours, all told. Now I can start creating and using the assorted Virtual machines I need!

Now to buy a USB caddy for the old disk, and partition the huge USB dsk into Time Machine and 320GB clone for my new disk!

Posted at: 07:49:40 4 Oct 2008 [/gadgets] permanent link

How To Make The Perfect Cup Of Coffee
I was pointed to this podcast by Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing. Its very well presented, and very engaging - recommended for anyone who likes thier coffee. Maybe I'll get the expresso machine down from the loft, and buy that French Press after all! I already ground my own beans, but Dr Mark Miodownik's talk shows me how much more I could do to make the perfect cup of coffee.

Update Resonance FM have a hard to navigate site, but I did find this intro to the podcast;

What elements are involved in the making of a simple beverage. The Director of the Materials Library and Head of the Materials Research Group at King’s College London provides an audibly practical demonstration of the answer.
Visit http://www.materialslibrary.org.uk

Posted at: 21:32:50 20 Sep 2008 [/cooking] permanent link

The Kings Gold
By Arturo Perez-Reverte
The latest in the Captain Alatriste series. This one started slow, and I found my attention wandering. I persevered, and it really cranks up the pace in the last third. While I enjoyed it, I got the feeling he wasn't really making an effort. Inigo, on the other hand, continues to develop, while Alatriste become slight more cardboard, or a caricature of himself.
Talking to a spanish salesman at work, I was gratified to find that dropping the authors name got me some respect and a decent car conversation as I dropped him off at his hotel.
Books, what can't they do..

Posted at: 21:16:24 8 Sep 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Edge Of Reason
By Melinda Snodgrass
Bought in hardback, amoung much fanfare by the likes of Walter Jon Williams and Tor books, in time to go on holiday, I read this on the last day and on the plane back. Frankly, a bit nonplussed. Many people have said that this will poke the atheist and diest alike. Well, maybe, if they're easily offended and stupid. The plot is basic, and the characters only just two dimensional. The ideas floated in the book are simply nonsense, and wouldn't offend any person of faith with more than two brain cells, IMHO.
A moderm world with magic book, it has has the cental concept that Magic is the tool of the Old ones, and reason, the tool of those fighting them. All well and good so far, interesting start with the police officer and the sorceress, but fails to carry it off. Every time I read something like this, it reminds me how well Jim Butcher does the same genre.
Snodgrass (you'd change your name, surely? I mean..) is part of the same writing circle as Williams, which I fear, has something to explain moth books medoicre impact on me.

Posted at: 21:49:45 24 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Yiddish Policemen's Union
By Michael Chabon
Now this is Literature, with a capital L! By far the best book I read on holiday, the use of language is just wonderful - up there with Tolstoy, Susanna Clarke and Gibson in the ranks of authors who use language so cleverly it delights, amazes and amuses. The book is in turns witty, poignant, insightful and suspenseful - I didn't see several of the plot twists coming.
Thw world that Chabon has created is believable and enthralling, as are his characters - not one rings anything but true, and one of them especially, Zimbalist, the boundary maven, is something that Gibson could have created - a character, and role, so believable and yet fantastic that it could only exist in fiction. As Gibson said, 'the street finds its own uses for things'. Although, I have a suspicion that the role may actually exist - I may have to ask my Jewish friends..
Simply fantastic. I'm looking forward to reading more of his work. If not for Tolstoy, by Book Of The Year so far.

Posted at: 21:49:21 24 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

Implied Spaces
By Walter Jon Williams
Billed by the author, as a follow on, in spirit to 'Voice Of The Whirlwind', I was hugely looking forward to this. It didn't live up to my expectations, but I think thats as much my expectations as the author's writing. I was expecting a martial arts book, and yes, it features one, but, in no way is this reflected in the plot or affects the actions of the protagonist.
Williams has loads of good ideas - wormhole worlds created as live action rpg's, as fuel sources, as places to put spare populations, massive benign AI's, one of which accompanies the protagonist in avatar form as a cat, a wormhole sword, biomimetic plagues, and so on, it all goes rather space opera towards the end, and blows what little suspension of belief I had..
The author is part of a writing circle, and while the work has no glaring complaints, its not standing out in anyway. Williams fails to being to life the main protagonist, who is damn near immortal, has some funky superpowers, and responsible in part, for the creation of the world as they know it. Frankly, Williams did elements of this better in his 'Aristoi', and Zelany did MUCH better in 'Lord Of Light'.

Posted at: 22:29:56 23 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

New Amsterdam
By Elizabeth Bear
The second of the lady's works I've read, not counting her short stories, and another worthy title. More polished than 'Dust', I was initiall distracted by the format, finding it a little disjointed, as its a series of stories. Its only when A read it and remarked how authentic it was to the style of the period - think the novellettes of Conan Doyle, that I realised how well it had been put together.
A lot more to be bought by Eizabeth Bear, I think.

Posted at: 22:04:31 23 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

Google Maps Hacks
By Rich Gibson & Schuyler Erle
I actually bought this by mistake, hurredly, before the start of our holiday, thinking it was 'Mapping Hacks', intending to get more to grips with the Garmin eTrex I'd been bought. It was an interesting set of read anyway, although my lack of knowledge of Javascript means I'll get less use our of it than I might otherwise.. I'll be revisiting bits, hopefully soon to integrate the photot's I took with the GPS track I was recording at the same time. You never know, I may have a location based travelogue up at some point!

Posted at: 21:59:54 23 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Last Days of Old Beijing
By Michael Meyer
I bought this because, for some reason, it came up n the new books list on the book depository, and I remembered his name from the TV tour of China that Paul Merton did..
The book is a documentation of the author's time spent living in the old neighborhoods of Beijing, before they were razed for the Olympics. Its part travel guide, part urban and rural planning, part cultural treatise, part history, part exposition on modern living.
Meyer definitely has an agenda, but you can't fault him - he's lived in the area for years, in the communities, speaking and living the culture. A very interesting read. I bought it as an 'intelligent' even worthy, book to read on holiday, but it never felt like I was slogging through, and it never seemed repetitive - there's always the danger that the description of the third hutong will be the same as the second, but Meyer does a good job avoiding this, and discussion how the communities provide social communities, and showing the benefits without shying away from the detractions. Thought provoking stuff.

Posted at: 21:56:09 23 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Blade Itself
By Joe Abercrombie
Another recommendation from Whatever's 'Big Idea', this is non-heroic fantasy, quite the antidote to the optimistic highjinks of 'The Name Of The Wind'. Its a nasty, cynical book full of anti-heroes. The main characters are a vain dandy, a psychopath and a torturer. Well written - its 515 pages, but cracks along. I found myself really getting under the skin of the protagonists, and just when you are getting used to how shallow, or amoral they are, the author develops them, and changes your view slightly.
Obviously part of a series, I'm looking forward to the sequels. Some great understated magic, and some potentially fine villains - a ruthless power mad norse style king, a mad wizard who is teaching his followers to eat human flesh to gain magical power, and others. Is the First Of The Magi as benevolent as he appears? Who is The Maker, and why did the Magi have to destroy him?
The second book, "Before They are Hanged : Book Two of the First Law" is already out in paperback, and the third is coming out soon. I'll have to interleave them with other books, because the cynicism and bloodshed can be a little wearing, but some good reading set for the future, I feel!

Posted at: 11:24:19 3 Aug 2008 [/books] permanent link

My Name Is Legend - the film
A and I saw this last night on DVD. Its a better retelling than 'The Omega Man', but hollywood couldn't leave it alone - semi happy ending, and what's with all this 'god told me' rubbish? Quite offensive to the spirit of the book, I felt, which was all rationalism. Some good acting by Will Smith, though. Some plot holes you could drive a bus through, but no more so than in the original novel.

Posted at: 11:15:34 3 Aug 2008 [] permanent link

The Winters Tale
Another live outdoor shakespeare performance. This time, it rather broke the mold as the weather was lovely. As it was in Kings, it was fairly well attended - perhaps 50 people all told? Still not a great audience for the price and experience but more respectable than others we've seen.
The performance was OK - nothing outstanding, but for me it had a lot of nostalgia value, as I studied 'The Winters Tale' at A Level, the closest I've come to proper lit. crit. analysis. There were a few masterfully understated moments, though - at the end, when the faithful widow who has kep the king on the straight and narrow until his wife can be returned to him, is rewarded by the hand in marriage of the faithful assistant, the played this as kind of 'er. great. Thanks, King. I think. Who are you again?' rather than the 'all's well that ends well, with all injuries redressed, as is normal in the comedies.

Posted at: 11:12:04 3 Aug 2008 [/live] permanent link

The Name of The Wind
by Patrick Rotherfus
Hmm. This is the third time I've tried to write this before the Mac has wiped it in creative ways - seems like it doesn't want this review written. Well, the truth must be told!
The Truth is that this is one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long while. Patrick has a plot, characters, and a believable world. The magic system is constructed along sympathetic magic and scientific lines, and the only niggle I'd have is that the hero, Kvothe, is just TOO damn good at everything, and that for a kid, he's pretty bloody precocious and worldly wise. The author works this into the plot, and does a good job, but it does stretch credibility at times. The way he most does this is by reminding the reader that he, Kvothe, knows nothing about women, but let me tell you, I was never that smooth at 15. Hormonal, yes, smooth, not so much.
Another slight niggle is that with the scientific understanding they seem to have, along with the interworking of magic, would imply to me that they'd have a greater technological basis than they do. There may be reasons for this revealed later, and its not enough of a niggle to interrupt the verisimilitude.
Patrick has some genuine laugh out loud conversations in the book, and generally writes dialogue well. Its a big book, and at times I felt it could have been trimmed, but never enough that I felt it suffered overmuch from it.
I'll definitely be buying the next volume when it comes out - had it been possible, I'd have bought it right now, but it looks like I have to wait a few months.
If memory serves, I found this in Waterstones, on one of those pleasurable browsing sessions that turn up a load of books you'd like to read - increasingly rare in the mainstream bookshops, I'm finding.

Posted at: 09:23:35 26 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

Richard III
The Yates, A and I went to see this in Downing College Gardens last week. I'll have photo's of the grounds to upload when I pay my Flikr subscription.. A superb performance as always, with the usually irremediably evil Richard played with sardonic humour and evil leers to the audience beautifully by (goodness, I don't remember his name, and none of the actors appear on the website - how odd!). Still irremediably evil, of course, but... Having seen this many, many years ago at the Arts Theatre, I was expecting a worthy play, not an enjoyable one but I was forgetting that;
A) Shakespeare's quite good actually..
B) The Shakespeare festival always manage to delight

So I really enjoyed it. Not sure I'd go and see it twice in one year, as we did (slightly by mistake) with Macbeth (the scottish play? ;-) last year..
oh, and for Madhatter and anyone else interested, I looked up the play when we got home, and the famous line (no, the other one, about the nail), is just a line, and the entire verse about the kingdom being lost wasn't in the play. Damned where I heard it though...
Anyway, if you haven't been to any, please go and support them. We're turning up without booking tickets these days, with no problem - this performance had more audience than actors, but not by even 100%, which given the performance standard, is a crying shame.

Posted at: 09:10:44 26 Jul 2008 [/live] permanent link

Digital Music from Play.com
I bought Bellowhead's first album from Play.com following the their toe tapping performance on the folk Proms last Sunday (I'm not jealous that several of them can play the Violin while jumping up and down in time, no not at all..), and it was a thoroughly pleasant experience. Cheaper than iTunes, and in 320kps mp3, my only complaint would be that album art wasn't included, not was a digital booklet of the album slip cover, and that the track number wasn't encoded into each file, so I had to add it manually. iTunes added the cover art fine, as will Banshee on my Linux box, I expect, so no worries there. I'll be using them more!

Posted at: 09:10:16 26 Jul 2008 [/music] permanent link

Ode To Joy
Ode Indeed...

Posted at: 22:17:03 24 Jul 2008 [/music] permanent link

Defender of The Favicon
Is your blog's Favicon a little boring? Why not have it run a game instead
Amazing what can be done in such a small space..

Posted at: 09:52:20 19 Jul 2008 [] permanent link

Unbreakable Fighting Umbrella - for the very British Mrtial Artist..
Saw this on BoingBoing, redirected to Wired.
Can't find a place to buy it, and am not sure I'd want to spend ~£100 on a umbrella, but I do so want one.. How can anyone resist the chosen weapon of the Philipino Secret Service!

Wait, no, you can buy it at this rather scary shop..
Still, £100..

Posted at: 09:38:05 19 Jul 2008 [/gadgets] permanent link

Neal Stephenson talk, redux.
Apparently it was video'd;

Posted at: 21:05:18 14 Jul 2008 [/live] permanent link

Dust
By Elizabeth Bear
A. bought this, via an amazon wishlist she'd had success with in the past, unaware that I'd been considering picking up some of her work after reading Shadow Unit, the collaborative (and excellent x-files like short fiction, nto to mention the two wonderful short stories by her read out on Escape Pod and (I think) Starship Sofa. "And the deep blue sea" is one of my all-time favorite short fiction podcasts..
Dust is a hard science fiction novel, in that it takes binary stars, colony ships, nanotechnology, genetic (and social) engineering, and extrapolates a 'what if'. I'm not usually a fan of such fiction - the last one I read (Blindsight by Peter Watts), was technically good but had no soul or decent characterisation. Dust doesn't have this problem - its definately character driven, with mostly-believable protagonists. Some of the sexual politics in the book were just odd - Bear doesn't seem to have made up her mind how she wants to portray certain characters - or perhaps thats her way of conveying the confusion within them. I liked the way that the background and such of the world were not laid out, but enough hinted that you could work some out, and wonder about others. It carries, like all of her work, an underlying theme of redemption (English Lit essay; all of Bear's work address redemption in some form or other, discuss.). Overall, it wasn't as engrossing as some of her other work - A thinks its an earlier work, and later work (Like "New Amsterdam", which I'm keen on getting) would be more polished. Well, it was published first in 2007, so maybe - she certainly seems a more prolific author than I thought.
I'll be purchasing more of her work, for certain.

Posted at: 10:16:00 13 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Website is down
Warning, requires flash.
I'd like to think this doesn't conjure up a sense of familarity, but... the website is down

Posted at: 21:38:24 7 Jul 2008 [/work] permanent link

I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson
The book that inspired both 'The Omega Man' and the film of the same name, but don't hold that against it. Matheson is allegedly an early influence on Stephen King and it shows. The book is a gripping post apocalyptic tale about...well, I'll leave you to read it and find out. I've not seen the Will Smith film, but I can assure you the book's nothing like the Charlton Heston flick.
The book shows its sixties roots, but not in a bad way. A combination of Horror and Sci-Fi, its good plot, characterisation and a cracking pace. I read it in one day. I'll have to check out more work by him. But I might leave it a bit. I might also leave the light on. Is that movement outside..?

Posted at: 21:51:46 5 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

Riddle Of The Seven Realms
By Lyndon Hardy
I finally found a copy of the last of Hardy's books in the Amnesty International bookshop on mill road. I probably could have bought it via the internet before hand, if I'd tried, but had never really thought to look.
Hardy's style is applying psuedo-scientific principles and method to fantasy magic. His characters are never particular developed, and the plot revolves around the macguffin, but they're intriguing takes on the fantasy magic angle. Not the best of his works - the 'Master Of The Five Magics' is by the far his best book, as the style is new to the reader, and there is a semblance of charcterisation.
I enjoyed it somewhat anyway, good nostalgia for the fantasy & sci-fi of my youth, when all the books I read came from second hand stores!

Posted at: 21:46:05 5 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

Dr Horrible's Sing-along blog
What hath the Writers Strike of America wraught? this

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Posted at: 19:27:39 1 Jul 2008 [/tv] permanent link

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain
By John O'Farrel
I borrowed this from A - I'm not much of a history buff, but the Temeraire books and 'In Our Time' program have whetted my interest somewhat, so I thought he'd be an entertaining narrator. As indeed he is! Its a thick book - 551 pages, but I read it fairly quickly and feel I've retained some. its got O'Farrel's trademark laconic wit, which makes what could be dry reading quite enjoyable. the middle ages gets a little slow going, but then, its not the dark ages for nothing, I guess..

Posted at: 19:16:55 1 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

The Intruders
By Michael Marshal
I bought this cheap in Asda - I thought it was the next in his horror/thriller series, but in truth its more of a blend of the more outre of the thriller, and the weirder of his speculative fantasy. I found it a little too immersed in conspiracy theory and so forth - more the ramblings of an internet nutter as a backdrop, but Marshal does take that and weave it into a story. Not sure about the ending though - he hints at it throughout the book, true, but it still feels wrong as it happens. Anyway, I'll be looking to get his next book in paperback when its out for sure.

Posted at: 19:13:30 1 Jul 2008 [/books] permanent link

D&D 4th Ed
I gave in (failed my saving throw you might say), and bought the latest edition of Dungeons and Dragons recently. Almost all my thoughts - including why I bought the slipcase edition of all three major books from Amazon, desipte having an FLGS in relatively close proximity (St Ives - well, close to work, anyway) that could probably do with the business, are better summed up by John Kavolik in his post on the same subject. For those interested in what 4e is like, the comments also do a good job of summing up the thinking. I'm worried by the 'video agme'-iness of it, seemingly, but then, if I'd have wanted Ars Magica, I'd have got that out wouldn't I..

Posted at: 16:00:28 15 Jun 2008 [] permanent link

Empire Of Ivory
By Naomi Novik
The fourth book in the Temeraire series, I thought this was one of her best yet - the plot cracks along, and there are several developments I didn't foresee. Novik handles the slave trade rather well, I thought, highlighting the effect (and the prevailing British attitudes of the time) well, without bludging you over the head with the moral message (like, say, Pratchet would do), but achieving a more thoughtful effect.
I genuinely don't know where the books will go after this one - several developments are left hanging in best cliffhanger style. Bravo, madam!

Posted at: 19:28:57 14 Jun 2008 [/books] permanent link

Electric Violin Stuff

Call me naive, but I'd not put two and two together, and realised you could do stuff like this..  
Call me old, but he's also responsible for the sound that I liked in New Model Army's 'Impurity' album..

Ah, the internet.  Is there anything from your youth you *can't* dig up?

Posted at: 22:03:50 11 Jun 2008 [/music] permanent link

Using your Blackberry as a Bluetooth modem under MACOSX
I'm running ther latest version, if that matters (10.5.3)..
I found some excelent instructions at Fibble.org Which inclue a chat script. The documentation is for an 8100 (Pearl), but worked fine with my 83100 (Curve).

Posted at: 13:28:05 1 Jun 2008 [/gadgets] permanent link

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
A. and I saw this last weekend. I enjoyed it, but found it rather long. We both agreed that little was done with the potential of all the good actors they'd got. The recreations of 50's america etc were good, as were the special effects. The plot was a little silly, and not very well developed, but it was pulp, after all.
Was it a good follow-up? Probably not - I'll watch the Indy films again, but won't be quite so keen to do this one. Film makers, let me say this clearly - special effects are NOT THE MOVIE. That is all. Thank you.

Posted at: 15:46:52 31 May 2008 [] permanent link

Little Brother
By Cory Doctorow

Being firmly embedded into Doctorows promotional stream via BoingBoing and his podcasts, I'd been anticipating this for a while, and got it via The Book Depository, since I no longer trust Amazon's pre-order service.
I enjoyed the book - its probably his best work (although I still say "After The Siege" is his best, at least in my memory), as it ties together his interests, activism and even has an ending that doesn't feel like an afterthought! The word on the street is that he's writing a sequel - "Big Brother", but it probably won't be released until 2010.

The books been on my mind for a bit, which shows that its got under my skin more than his other works (again "After the Siege" not withstanding). I can't decide if its a book or not. I mean, it pushes all of my buttons, and I enjoyed reading it, but there were times where his laying out the details of how to accomplish the particular hack, or discussing civil liberties got in the way of the narrative - a bit like the way Neal Stephenson can come across as saying 'see my research'. Not bad company, I know.. I found the stuff early in the book with the DHS didn't quite ring true - not that they wouldn't do that - hah! - but more that his reaction didn't seem quite right somehow. I'm looking forward to going back and re-reading it, later and taking stock - I pretty much gulped it down, so a more measured read (like I'm doing again at the moment, inspired by this book, with Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon'). I can't say whether I thought the character would react differently, or that I was over-identifying with him, and thinking I'd react differently, I don't know (Like I'd ever been that rebellious!). The timeline bothered me slightly, as well - its clearly in the future (he references tech not currently available), but not much (next year? Within 5?), and some things he writes about are here and now, rather than in the future, so it gave me a mixed message.