Something like a warning

Living with the crazies (RANT)

2009-12-08T22:20:28Z

So I've been reading the ABC web site news a bit lately - mostly procrastinating at work. Which means I tend to trawl through all the comment threads. I really have to stop doing that, it's depressing.

This whole "Right vs Left" thing not only has aspects of a holy war, but the "definitions" of the two terms are so rubbery as to be useless. Anyone calling Rudd's government "leftie" is in need of a serious reality check. Is Australia really dying to sign itself up for a religious, fascist regime? There sure as hell seems to be a slow but inexorable slide in that direction.

On top of that, the AGW denialist crowd are usually the same caustic, rabid arseholes that worship Howard, Abbott and their ilk. I suppose that's because in a two-party system such as we have, the "choice" is essentially arbitrary when taken across a range of topics.
I've tried looking into the science. But it is science after all - I can't follow it in depth. There's so damned much of it: Glacial studies, tree-ring studies, weather, geology, chemistry, astrophysics... It's totally unreasonable to expect the average person to make a truly "informed" decision based on work spread across many fields over many years. That's why we need trusted third parties to boil it down for us.
Sadly though, that makes it easy for the denialists to just attack our doubts and uncertainties. Which they do, frequently without response from the other side. They're always vague, non-specific attacks which makes them hard to respond to in any meaningful way. I feel this urge to follow up with a mass of references, but I know how those conversations go on the internet.

In the end, for me, it comes down to this. If there is AGW and we do nothing, things are going to get very fucked up. If there isn't AGW and we expend effort in reducing our emissions and reducing our energy usage, we'll at least have gained efficiency and reduced pollution. The latter seems like the sane risk to take.

Abbott's cabinet reads like a whos-who of scarey and crazy. Yet people will vote for that bunch at the next election. Seriously, I can't even begin to fathom the thinking behind that decision. I'm also afraid to research the thinking behind it for fear I'll be tainted by what I find.

This always happens when I start getting too involved in politics. I suppose, in that, is the answer as to why so many people refuse to engage with what should be important issues to everyone. It involves taking a swim in the darkest, foulest waters any of us can imagine: the thoughts of people we can't understand. I'm not talking anything as cliche as the Hollywood carricature of a serial killer or psychopath either but the jumble of complex contradictions, confusions, insecurities and sheer normality that lurks in everyone.
*shudder*

"SUUUUSSAAANN! Ooh, I just scared myself! That is scary! "

Sci-fi cravings

2009-11-23T05:11:34Z

Suffering severe cravings for some hard sci-fi. I've had a gutful of soft drama driven sci-fi/fantasy like Stargate or BSG or Star Trek. B5 had it's meatier parts, but mostly because of well developed drama and some decent military-style action. In fact, a bit of military sci-fi wouldn't go astray either.

I've tried resorting to documentaries but even the bloody documentaries I find these days are either so science light as to be insulting, or given completely over to speculative rubbish.

I'm after spacecraft, stars, nebulae, planets, astronomy, physics. Any kind of format/media. Just gimme some sci-fi dammit.

Any suggestions?

Medieval fayre and recovery

2009-11-08T22:23:53Z

Went to the Melbourne Medieval Fayre and Tourney on Saturday.
Much smaller than either of the Brisbane equivalents (BMFAT and Abbey Medieval Festival) but that's a plus in terms of not having so many people to plow through. Mind you, it also means the re-enactment groups are much smaller too.
We arrived at 9:20ish which is apparently far too early even in semi-rural Victoria ;) They were still setting up and arriving. Though, it meant we had a nice meander about the camps and stalls that were set up whilst it was still a little cool. Once the heat kicked in (and boy, did it ever) I basically camped in the shade and watched the events.
I reached the conclusion that whilst i have a vague interest in things both medieval and martial, it doesn't extend to spending a hot day in armour entertaining crowds. That counts that out as a passtime.

I'm impressed that I managed to spend 4+ hours largely in the sun and didn't get sunburnt. Huzzah!
By the time we left though I was distinctly heat-addled. Consequently, Sunday was spent at home despite having other activities planned. The sun and I, we do not get on.

Loved the Fayre though and will be headed back next year.

My father always promised me that we would live in France...

2009-11-04T05:47:31Z

I wonder if this song had a subconscious effect on my decision to learn French.
Since I adore this rendition of the song, and France is a central theme. Along with a hefty dose of sentimentality.

I've always fancied that some songs, particular performances, just seep right into you.

Mind you, I've never really had an urge to learn to dance, so maybe I'm just making shit up. I love the song though :)

(Note: My father never promised me that we'd live in France)

NaNoWriMo

2009-10-20T02:43:44Z

I'm giving it another bash this year. Wish me luck but don't expect to ever read what may come of it :)

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Run Silent, 20 years on

2009-10-15T22:14:03Z

Synchronicity finally managed to align desire to have a copy of this song with the opportunity to do something about it. It took 20 years.

My love of the song hasn't waned one little bit. We'll see if 8 hours on repeat fixes that ;)

Update: I've officially lost count of repeats now :) The juxtaposition of their two voices is even better than I remember.

Update 2: Oh WOW there's this really cool Sitar-type sound in ther that I never noticed before. *bopittybop*

Update 3: Damned meetings inerrupted my binge. I'm back on repeat and still bopping along. I'm also still finding new things to listen to in the song too. Woot! Happy day :)

Update 4: OK, I may be enjoying this just a little TOO much :) *bopbop*

Update 5: Sweet! I love the way the guitar supports the sitar-sound. Hell, the only guitar I'd noticed before now was the bass (which, by the way, is awesome).

Update 6: At this rate I have zero chance of getting any work done. Unless I can find some programming to do. Programming and music just *work* together.

Update 7: Dammit. Need coffee but that means putting the music on hold. Damn. Caffeine or tunes - how do I decide!?

Update 8: For the record - heading home and still on repeat :)

Superheroes, comics and Heroes

2009-10-09T00:11:31Z

We've been watching Heroes Season 3, which has reminded me how much I love Heroes.

A lot of people didn't like Heroes much and I have a theory :)

I've always had a soft-spot for the Superhero genre. Something to do with the blithe disregard for natural limitations Quixotically supported by scientific principles. It gets into my head and stokes up the Ideas Engine. So I jumped on Heroes when I first heard about it on TV.

Hated it. Too damned slow; the plot crawled like molasses and jumped around like an ADHD bumblebee. Then, on a whim, we got the whole first series and watched it back-to-back over about 4 nights. I got more hooked than I have on just about any other series. Watching them in a one big glut really brought out the plot, the characters and the sheer potential of the genre.

See, the fantasy genre shares the same broad potential but it's hidden under a layer of poorly understood (from the reader/viewer's perspective) mechanics of the magic and social "systems" that are in play. With the superhero genre you start from a well known base of pop-science and society; it's like a launchpad for pondering alternatives.

Despite loving superheroes, I don't collect comics. I've tried, so I have a few, but I hate the tiny dribs and drabs of story they represent. Too slow, too long a wait between fixes.
Until I bought some of the big anthologies of back-issues (X-Men, as it happens). I ate them up, I think for the same reason. Big dose in one go.

So, yeah. There's my half-baked theory. If you hated Heroes on TV, try it in a bigger dose.

US IT spending dashboard

2009-08-25T03:28:34Z

The USA has put up an IT spending dashboard. It presents an interactive overview of all IT investments across the American government.

I know I'm a bit behind here, but what a huge undertaking that must have been! Assuming it's not entirely made-up (and that's a bit too tin-foil-hat-brigade for me), the sheer political will required to extract even partly accurate information at that level and then expose that to the world is just mind boggling. Hell, a lot of organisations wouldn't even allow it to be widely published internally.

I'm usually a bit leary of IT "dashboards" because they're typically the pet project of an IT manager with an over developed sense of importance and a need to micro-manage. But opening it up to all and sundry really speaks to a level of openess and honesty that's all too rare.

I'm genuinely impressed. The US hasn't genuinely impressed me in a long, long time.

falling down the curve of strangeness

2009-08-13T03:32:36Z

Here are four simple steps towards having a strange day:

Get a little distracted early in the morning and read the The Thing Roleplaying Game

Have a hideously potent organic coffee for morning tea so that you may as well be on a less legal stimulant

Watch the 4 episodes of the The Thing II fan film in your lunch break

Attempt to proceed with mundane work tasks all the while feeling that things are decidedly strange

From the "you fucking what?" dimension

2009-08-12T03:13:07Z

Sam Raimi to direct Warcraft movie

After some deep thought, I deem this awesome news.
Warcraft as slapstick horror would be worth paying good money for, especially if Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi make appearances (cameo from Lucy Lawless maybe).

General update

2009-07-19T23:02:17Z

Saw Transformers 2 last week. Despite having lowered my expectations to those of a mindless action film, I was very disappointed. In fact, I almost fell asleep a number of times. Too long, too much gutter humour, too much desperate American teen sex obsession, and too much people crap in my giant robot movie. Demoting Megatron to some kind of Lucassian sith lord apprentice made me ANGRY. It is crap, wait for it on TV.

Also, changing jobs always throws a wrench in the tax works. Expecting a $1500 bill this year :(

This half of the year is shaping up to be crazy at work. I'm managing a big project, herding a major vendor managed SAN hardware implementation and possibly managing the establishment of automated server install/audit. All this in competition with two very major corporate projects driven from the highest level of the company. Fun fun fun.

Also, trying to drag myself away from WOW somewhat to get some reading and maybe some writing done. Have what I think is a neat idea but my time keeps sinking into. WOW.

Lastly, afterlooking at what is required for a house deposit on even a very modest inner-ish city home, we've decided to run screaming from the Aussue Dream. On the plus side, this means a European holiday is within our grasp next year. Now we just need to decide where!

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Lj via iPhone continued...

2009-06-21T23:24:31Z

Going for a very minimalist LJ scheme has helped, though I'd most like to get rid of the left/right side nav bar. It means I have to pinch to start reading, Which slows me down. Might have to delve into the CSS to get rid of that altogether though.
Still, I've improved the load speed of my friends page a lot. A good start.

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Terminator Salvation

2009-06-19T04:27:34Z

Oh boy do I have some spoiler filled opinions about this one.

I'm a massive fan of post apocalypsic settings, and Terminator Salvation delivers that very well indeed. Everything from wasteland, to ruined cities, to evidence of man almost entirely concealed by nature's return. The look and feel was quite authentic (and a little bit Fallout, truth be told).

I also rather like my nasty robots going on a rampage. Got a fair bit of that too.

What I didn't get was an original contribution to the story. Or believable characters. Or any kind of plot twists. Or an ending (since it lacked any kind of tale to end). It didn't even really have obvious hooks into a sequel - resting entirely on the first film to establish any potential for sequels.

There are two developed characters in this film. Worthington's human/terminator hybrid and Moon Bloodgood's very human resistance fighter. The latter was essentailly cast aside when her character and significance to the theme was made apparent.
Yes, I said theme. There was an attempt at a theme of humans becoming like the machines, but the characters and the plot make these half-hearted efforts at demonstrating that theme, then John Connor makes a speech to make it all so obvious I wanted to scream, then it just gets dropped. Wasted opportunity.
Bloodgood's character understood and showed that she knew what it was to stay human, stay loyal to humanity, but she drops out of the film. Huh? She should be beside Connor from that point on as someone he can trust to keep him, and others, human. Not to mention keep the theme alive in the film.

There's no real tension. You know Worthington is some kind of double-agent right from the opening scene. Even the tension of waiting for him to stab them in the back is dissipated when he just rips out his "controller" chip and pokes his tongue at Skynet (well, not literally).
Whilse we're at that point - VILLIANS LIKE SKYNET DO NOT NEED A HUMAN FACE. For fuck's sake! Trust me when I say a relentless, inhuman, omnipresent but invisible all powerful opponent is a lot more scary than Helena Bonham Carter. It's not even a competition. I had very unpleasant flashbacks the the "reveal" of the "Borg collective" leader in First Contact. It made me angry.

I loved that they threw in the Arnie look-alike/CGI sequence. Then the Arnie terminator goes all "gonna just chuck you around until you die, not terminate you where you stand like I should". WTF? Lame! Then they take the "homages" to the first film way too far by reconstructing scenes. It was more like flashbacks, which was disconcerting. Does Hollywood hire different people to direct the action scenes? So often character and plot are cast out the window in the face of drawn-out, stupid "action" sequences that serve no purpose but to slow the film and stretch believability at the same time.

oh, and plot holes. Skynet knows Kyle Reese is Connor's father? So why doesn't the terminator in the first film just go after him instead of Sarah? Takes two to tango, as the saying goes. Killing either one takes John Connor out of the picture. Of course if you drop that plot hole, the entire plot (such as it is) unravels completely.

Personally, I think a more poignant ending would have been John Connor with a mechanical heart.

I love the first film because it _is_ a simple story. Even with the time travel it makes a tigh, closed loop that requires a bit of thought to find holes in (that require speculation about how time travel might work anyway). The second film was mostly rubbish, but had some nice details. Sarah Connor's new character, snippets of the future, and the realisation that the terminator was as much fatehr to skynet as Reese was to Connor. And then there was 3 and it all goes to shit.

I still think I could do it all better. At least in terms of general plot.

Mother, mother, mother. Where has all the time gone?

2009-06-17T03:34:11Z

Between being out and about in Melbourne, trying hard to be more professional in my work and trying to get enough escapeism time at home to stay sane, I'm not finding much time to update my journal.

This is not to say I've not had anything to say - been fit to burst at times on all kinds of subjects - it's just a matter of finding TIME. This isn't to say I'm a hideously busy person, I'm not. I do require a lot of self time though, or the threads start to fray. Feeling pretty frayed lately.

I had planned to use my iPhone to do livejournal updates but the interface is just too clunky. Wonder if I can find another way to update, or another blog service that's better (any suggestions?). Email works fine on the iPhone, but the way it tries to render web pages like it's a real computer is just...dumb. It's a bit like switching you monitor to display 480x320, then running 1km away and trying to read it with binoculars.

So if you're someone I care about and you're wondering what I've been up to - I'm not dead, there's lots going on, I'm just not, ah, telling you. Sorry. Chances are next time we talk I'll forget most of it too. Oh well, you're most likely used to it.
If you're not someone I care about...whay are you here? Go do something useful with yourself.

Avenue Q

2009-06-13T12:54:59Z

I'm pretty sure I've met the Bad Idea Bears before.

Avenue Q was very good. Much better than Sesame Street ;)

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New Docs

2009-06-11T22:55:32Z

So, where's the best place to buy Doc Martens in Melbourne?

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Too much distraction

2009-05-22T06:45:21Z

In a shocking example of late-Friday work distraction gone wrong, I've just had a terrifying run-in with a deeper understanding of the artistic value behind "Blue Poles" (you know, that idiotic painting of random shite that's worth millions).

I always knew my burgeoning desire to figure out exactly why I've never really "gotten" art would one day lead me to some ugly places. This just isn't one I forsaw.

I feel dirty. And not in the good way.

(All this thanks to another Wikipedia curiosity virus. "Electra" lead to "Electra complex" then I jumped to "Christian Death", "Rozz Williams", "Dada" and finally "Blue Poles". I think the massive dose of coffe may have been a factor in the mental acrobatics necessary for that last leap. Wikipedia is evil. It takes a curious mind and leads it to all kinds of squiffy places without warning. Like art. Wikipedia is art. Take that and think on it.)

(P.S. Reading back over that lot, the next person to tell me caffeine isn't a drug has an earful coming their way. "one large flat white, please" is analogous to "man, I need a hit". Fliffle.)

(P.P.S. And we both thought I was done. Ha! I think I've just had the "artistic comprehension" equivalent of the kind of panic you have when you think, just for a millisecond, that you're going to drown or fall. Blame Rozz Williams.)

(P.P.P.S. I know I've said it before, but "Catastrophe Ballet" rocks, lots.)

(P.P.P.P.S. TOO MUCH COFFEE)

Star Trek 11

2009-05-18T04:01:15Z

Now that I've seen it, my take on Star Trek 11 behind the cut.

I was originally not going to see it. Star Trek movies have been, on the whole, utter rubbish ("Wrath of Khan" is one of my favourite films, "The Voyage Home" and "First Contact" I'll sit in front of, the rest I avoid). Talk of a "reboot" was broad and similar enough to smack of marketing hype, and J J Abrams has been involved with enough truly awful rubbish (Lost, Armageddon, Cloverfield) that my initial reaction was to run, screaming. In the end, my OCD need for Sci-Fi and a desire to encourage the genre dragged me out to see it. In all reality, any loyalty I had for the Star Trek franchise died around about the advent of Voyager (though not because of it).

In broad strokes, I think ST11:

is a fantastic projection of the Star Trek Original Series characters back to their youth.

is a story of roughly the same (lack of) quality as the majority of the Star Trek films

was directed with all the subtlety of an angry two year old

is more proof that temporal contraception of George Lucas would do us all a favour

And now in more detail:

The characters were true to how I envisioned Kirk et. al. to have been a few years prior to the original series. Kirk is your typical reckless kid with a chip on his shoulder and just enough smarts to pull it off without dying. He shows all the tenacity (or stupidity) that was the defining feature of the character, and is portrayed well enough in most respects. Pike's reasoning for elevating Kirk to his position as Captain is vaguely plausible (and certainly one of the few scenarios that could see such a hot-head in such a position).
Spock is also well acted. I especially like that he is more emotional and rebellious than in the original series; it goes a long way to defining some common ground that his friendship with Kirk can be built on (very well illustrated in the final stages of the film).
Bones and Sulu are also well done, though Bones' role takes a back seat to the film plot which I think undervalues his friendship with Kirk.
Checkov's accent was awful, apparently as a homage. I think it was even MORE overdone and distracting, which was a shame. If you're going to "update" the franchise then ditch the dumb accent.
Simon Pegg's Scotty didn't quite ring true to me - too ADHD. Funny, but not quite what I'd expected. He was, however, essential in that he gave the film some funny moments that weren't a direct result of the awful plot and stupid "science".

The story? Some time-travelling loonatic is hell-bent on repeated use of an ultimate weapon in pursuit of a personal vendetta and only our heroes can stop him. YAWN!!! "Wrath of Khan" did it so much better it's tough to draw the comparison. At least in Khan, the writer acknowledged that a plot like that is about the characters, not the plot. ST11 is plot driven and so all the emotion is drained away to oblivion, leaving Eric Bana's character looking like a cartoon character.
It seems to me the time-travelling aspect of it all was simply there as a cheap excuse to ignore all the previous continuity work and to have Leonard Nimoy make an appearance - a cheap attempt to link it to the series they're trying hard to divorce themselves from. In the end, that just leaves what should be a major aspect of the story merely a footnote.
The writing suffers from the same kind of lazy ignorance of what's gone before that plagues long-running franchises. Why is a Romulan mining ship bristling with weaponry? Why does it look nothing like any previous depictions of Romulan ships? Why do the "black holes" just vanish once they've achieved their plot-defined amount of destruction? Why is Spock so happy to leave the time-lines fucked up when it means his homeworld is gone, his best friend lost his father without ever having met him, and he's stranded in the "wrong" timeline?
I know there are comics. Don't get me started on using cheap, off-hand comic series to explain away easily rectified plot holes.

The direction was just bad. The use of heavy handed (and we're talking dwarf-star alloy heavy handed) music at key plot point was just funny. I literally laughed out loud when Kirks father valiantly sacrificed his life to save hundereds of others - that's not right. When the villain receives his just deserts, I just wanted the damned film to end. I mean really, choral music? May as well play Amazing Grace every time Wile E Coyote buys the farm. All of the shots were cluttered and claustrophobic, making the Enterprise seem tiny. Which is going to make things rough on it's upcoming "5 year mission".

George fucking Lucas has much to answer for as the apparent source of inspiration for much of the space and alien scenes. Too many "cantina" alien flashbacks, too many cluttered and claustrophobic space battles, and yet another irrelevant sequence of crappy CGI predators eating each other and yet failing to eat any characters.
The Enterprise looked like a tinker-toy next to the ridiculous looking Romulan mining vessel. All the ships liked to siddle right up next to each other, because space isn't big or anything. Every ship cut loose with 15 billion guns firing in all directions. Functional alien devices had superfluous "spikey bits" or un-railed platforms that made no sense.
Fuck you, George Lucas, and the horse you rode in on.

The short version:
If my love of Star Trek hadn't already been utterly betrayed and compromised by years of abuse, this film would have left me a frothing lunatic with a penchant for murder. As it is I'll just settle for continuing my search for sci-fi that doesn't suck.

Funny comments

2009-05-04T03:45:57Z

Funny source code comments

Some of my favourites:
/**
* For the brave souls who get this far: You are the chosen ones,
* the valiant knights of programming who toil away, without rest,
* fixing our most awful code. To you, true saviors, kings of men,
* I say this: never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down,
* never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry,
* never gonna say goodbye. Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
*/

//
// Dear maintainer:
//
// Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine,
// and have realized what a terrible mistake that was,
// please increment the following counter as a warning
// to the next guy:
//
// total_hours_wasted_here = 16
//

/**
* This method leverages collective synergy to drive "outside of the box" thinking and formulate key
* objectives into a win-win game plan with a quality-driven approach that focuses on empowering key players
* to drive-up their core competencies and increase expectations with an all-around initiative to drive down
* the bottom-line. I really wanted to work the word "mandrolic" in there, but that word always makes me
* want to punch myself in the face.
*/

But even more amusing is the top line of that site after NoScript is done with it:
"Stack Overflow works best with JavaScript enabled"
Damned right it does - that's why I use NoScript.

Fuck off Sol

2009-05-04T01:35:26Z

The Australian gives Sol Trujillo a fairly merciless reaming in their article about who will get his job.

Big surprise; he turned out to be all smoke and mirrors. Wasn't he one of Little Johnny's rat buddies?

P.S. This song is so trite it hurts. Belongs on Speak And Spell, or as a C64 game soundtrack. Or both, that whole album sounds like a bad computer game.

Space 1999 Eagle restoration

2009-04-30T04:35:39Z

By no means recent or new, but still a worthwhile read if you love the Eagle ship design, or are just interested in how they did spacecraft for TV, old school.

Eagle One: A Complete Restoration by David M. Sisson

To paraphrase Gir from Invader Zim: "The nostalgia, it fills me! It is neat."

Dear software vendors

2009-04-28T00:18:55Z

"customized out-of-the-box solution" is an oxymoron.
If we have to customize it, it's no longer out-of-the-box and we have to constantly check that patches and upgrades don't break the customisations.
We're not fooled by your amateurish attempt to justify the outright lies you told us during the sales pitch.
You suck.

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Professional blog

2009-04-21T02:35:25Z

So I'm thinking of starting a professional blog. Mostly for my own benefit but if it became a discussion that wouldn''t suck.

So where's a good place to start such a thing? Anyone care to suggest a blog provider worth the effort (and preferably free but without annoying ads) ?

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Gary Numan

2009-03-07T13:09:47Z

Fucking awesome.
:)

Past due for an update

2009-03-03T08:39:51Z

So. The thesis is finished, printed and delivered. I know it wasn't my thesis but we've both been living with the beast so long it kinda feels that way. I learned more about biochemistry and plain old chemistry than I ever did at school.
Anyway, so now we're laying plans of having lives again. There's so much coming up - Gary Numan, food festival, comedy festival, friends visiting. We still have almost all of Melbourne to see and all the bits we can get to from Melbourne. It's a bit overwhelming really.
If anyone has suggestions regarding whats worth seeing/doing they will be well received :)

On the work front I've managed to get myself embroiled in a personality clash between two other people - one of which I get on with, the other of which I have to work with closely to do my job. Talk about awkward. Me being me I of course blundered right into the situation before I had any idea. Now I have to find some way to extricate myself without offending either person. Fun.

I've also been battling with my confidence. I know I got the job because I wanted to be expanding my skills and getting away from only doing the things I already knew. And I know they gave me the job knowing that I wasn't bringing a truckload of experience in the actual position. But the current economic situation just makes me acutely aware of how well I do everything, and nervous about how it's received. Oh well, I'll get over it I'll get the arse I guess :)
I'm still wrapping my head around the private sector thinking of money before clients. At Uni they generally carry equal weight but where I am now, it's about money and those things that give you money. What were they again? Popple? Pepple? Something like that.

P.S. Except for the awful fires and the weather that caused them, loving it here in Melbourne.