A Voyage to the Edge of Madness
(With sincere apologies to H. P. Lovecraft.)
It was in the depths of drear winter when I first sought to acquire that dark magic known only through fragments of ancient, incomprehensible legend as Veepee Enn. It is a dread name, and initiates speak of the thousandfold paths to attainment of its secrets, hinting often at some deep unknowable hierarchy through chains of characters concocted to discourage all but the most determined seeker. Lines of impenetrable seeming-nonsense serve to keep the novice from approaching the level of those who control the communications of a galaxy of possibilities, and unless the elect can decipher the meanings of the names of entities such as “The eight-hundred-and-seventy-seventh W, Gee Eee, K the Ninth,” he should abandon any wish he may have to attain true greatness.
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0 comments 2008-03-26 22:45 Categories: Computers, Geek Stuff, Rage
I really like snow. A decent covering of proper snow, delivered overnight, preferably with a howling gale, deep enough to prevent anyone going off and doing boring things like work or school, and of the correct consistency for snowmen and sledging, is one of the very best things known to mankind. Obviously it would be unpleasant to contend with these conditions on a regular basis, and I don’t particularly envy those people who happen to live in perennially snowy climes and who probably get a bit sick of having to excavate half a tonne of frozen water every few days in order to get to the shops. But the occasional blizzard in a normally temperate climate is a wonderful thing, and we definitely used to have them here in the UK, and I think they were marvellous.
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2 comments 2008-03-24 17:12 Categories: Personal
I found this my third attempt at Villette considerably easier going after reading Jane Eyre. Things start slowly but the tale gathers momentum once we reach the city of the title, and whilst the story never reaches the Gothic heights of its more famous sibling, it has own more subtle appeal that many readers will find preferable. The main attraction is the narrator, Lucy Snowe, a more interesting character than Jane Eyre, sharper and less idealised, occasionally given to vicious sarcasm and very single-minded. Villette is reputedly semi-autobiographical, and if the narrator’s character reflects the author’s then it must have been a rewarding and entertaining experience to incur her displeasure. One imagines afternoon tea punctuated by pithy remarks scathing enough to curdle the currant buns.
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2 comments 2008-03-20 19:09 Categories: Books, Reviews
We got here by train, an interesting experience, if not one that I can wholeheartedly recommend: sleeper trains could perhaps be more accurately designated shallow-and-fitful-dozer trains, and the facilities for waiting passengers at Bruxelles-Midi are somewhat spartan, so I arrived in Berlin running at rather less than full capacity.
Not feeling up to anything more demanding, we spent the first day strolling along and around Unter den Linden, looking at landmarks and monuments and memorials. Sightseeing in central Berlin seems to tend towards the serious and sobering, you can barely turn a corner without encountering some reminder of grim events past. A visit to the zoo might be in order at some point, I think, by way of contrast.
Full Berlin photoset.
0 comments 2008-03-09 16:43 Categories: Personal
The Register is currently running a poll to determine the best science fiction movie quote of all time. Now, one doesn’t expect scientific precision from online polls. It would be unwise to base any real decisions on the outcome of a survey like this. It is accepted that a certain amount of friendly hacking could easily skew the results beyond any sensible measure of accuracy, so one should never take these things seriously. At the very minimum, however, one expects to be able to actually register a vote for one’s choice. It’s the one basic prerequisite of web-gimmicks like this that a vote, once cast, should be counted, but this poll is clearly a great big fat fraud, because no matter how often I try to make the obvious choice for the best quote in that list by a mile*, nothing happens. Indeed, the dissipated hacks at The Register must have something specific against Back To The Future, because they’re only letting it register two (2) votes in total, and it’s languishing at the very bottom of this fraudulent list of lies, beneath such classics as the Jay Leno cameo in Contact. Bah. And where, pray tell, is the button for “1.21 gigawatts!?”
*Not sure what’s going on with the music there, but this was the best clip I could find of Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need… roads.
0 comments 2008-03-03 22:24 Categories: Film, Geek Stuff, Rage
In response to a previously related incident involving the security of our postal delivery arrangements, I recently invested in a Y-Cam Black. I have had suspicions regarding the moral integrity of some of the regular users of the footpath that runs past our house for a while now, but the theft of sixteen Chuck Ds worth of train tickets confirmed them. In an effort to thwart any further attempts at stealing my possessions via this particular method, I moved our postbox inside our front porch, and affixed the Y-Cam Black in a suitable position to monitor both the box and any parcels placed on the floor inside. Triggered by the motion activation feature built into the camera, it uploads still pictures to an FTP server whenever anyone enters the porch. This arrangement allows me to see any activity related to postal deliveries to my property, and, potentially, any criminal efforts on the part of the mentally subnormal, mail-bothering yokels that frequent our lane.
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2 comments 2008-03-01 22:00 Categories: Computers, Consumerism, Geek Stuff, Reviews
Because there’s not much to do in the evenings deep in darkest Yorkshire, I have been entertaining myself recently by installing Debian GNU Linux on a Thecus N2100 NAS box. I used these excellent instructions as a starting point, but there are a few configuration issues left unresolved after following them which can actually be fixed. The contents of this post will mean nothing to just about everyone, but I’m posting it on the off-chance that there might be at least one other individual in the world who might want to use the information contained herein. I’m also quite pleased that I managed to figure it out.
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0 comments 2008-02-22 20:54 Categories: Computers, Geek Stuff
Oh dear. Someone at Warner Brothers has obviously been taking lessons from George Lucas on how to really annoy geeks. They’re trying to beat their personal record for dreadful nerd-films by attempting a live action version of Akira. Set in “New Manhattan”. Starring Leonardo Di Caprio. I wish I was joking.
There is a sliver of hope to be taken from the fact that Otomo is being retained as an executive producer, but even he is unlikely to be able to salvage this total non-starter of a project. I predict that this film will redefine the boundaries of celluloid awfulness. I sincerely hope it bombs, because if by some miraculous fluke it succeeds we’ll have a decade or two of even more appalling copycats to endure.
1 comment 2008-02-21 13:34 Categories: Animation, Film, Geek Stuff, Rage
Warning: the following tale contains unsolicited, forthright praise for a large corporate public transport operator. Some readers may experience feelings of dizziness. Do not adjust your browser settings, there is nothing wrong with your computer.
Last weekend an opportunistic individual, I know not whom, somehow managed to abstract a number of envelopes from the locked steel postbox that was until recently bolted to a stake outside our front gate. Said envelopes contained various train tickets for a holiday we had just booked, most of which were tied to specific trains and seat reservations, and were therefore useless to anyone other than me or my wife. One set of tickets, however, booked with National Express East Coast, were valid for use on any off-peak train for a month after the initial booking date. At some point on Saturday morning a helpful passerby found our holiday travel documents scattered around about our gate, gathered them up and replaced them in our postbox, all except the £158.80-worth of open returns to London, which I can only presume are now in the possession of some thieving, Royal Mail-molesting northern pissbiscuit.
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6 comments 2008-02-15 18:22 Categories: Personal, Rage
Jane Eyre is another one of those classics that I should have read before now. It is an entertaining novel of great depth, and worthy of its status. It is also one of those books about which literal acres have been written, so I’m not going to attempt to say anything new about it.
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2 comments 2008-02-14 21:10 Categories: Books, Reviews
