Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 27, 2009
I've been a huge fan of Douglas Adams as long as I can remember – possibly even longer than that. Ever since I started watching the BBC TV series in Primary School and then consequently reading the Hitchiker's "trilogy" in secondary school, I thought Douglas Adams was the very best writer in the history of the universe. Hell, when I broke my wrist and had to have the bones reset, I refused to be wheeled into the operating theatre until an episode of the TV series I had been watching on the ward's TV had finished.
So imagine my delight that a journalist by the name of Neil Gaiman had come along and wrote a biography of Douglas and his work which came out in 1993 (shortly after I had finished secondary school and was enrolled in college). The book was called Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it gave accounts from the people involved in bringing Hitchhiker's to the many mediums for which it has appeared. It is also one of the funniest books I've ever read.
I decided to revisit the book this week, and still find it extremely funny, entertaining and altogether one of the best factual/biographical books I've come across. It is genuinely laugh-out-loud in places – especially the chapter on Letters. And yet, it is also a poignant reminder that Douglas has gone – so has Geoffrey Perkins – and we are not likely to ever see their like ever again.
That said, Stephen Fry (who is also closely associated with Douglas Adams) is currently undertaking a TV series of Last Chance to See which was originally a radio series presented by Douglas and Mark Carwardine.
It would be nice to see Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy updated with everything (the good and the bad) that has happened since 1993, including the film (which I enjoyed very much, to my surprise) which Douglas had been working on for well over a decade. There is always, however, the Salmon of Doubt which continues the story of Douglas Adams a little bit further..
Douglas Adams is still my favourite author of all time – his work is infinitely re-readable (although I did struggle through Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency initially), and will continue to remain so.
Note: Back in secondary school, I theorized that Slartibartfast probably had a brother. His name would have been WankyFuckBollocks (I blame Ben Elton and Alexi Sayle who were heavy influences on me through their shows on TV at the time) and was the less popular son of the family. The thought was dismissed immediately by my peers, and I could see their point.
Update: You can play an enhanced version of the text adventure game, with graphics supplied by Rod Lord (whom I graciously had the chance to talk to back in my days at MPC as he was working on the MINT TV adverts with MPC doing some of the post-production stuff) over at the BBC's Hitchhiker's mini-site. When asked, "who is Douglas Adams?", the game replied: "That's not a person!".
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 26, 2009
I'm currently evaluating Virtualbox, a project being managed by Sun Microsystems, that offers free and open source enterprise-level virtualisation.
While I love VMware Fusion, I am looking to go back to Windows (as I should be getting a Windows-based laptop from work to do various projects on – all of which I can't mention, but am very excited about) and having just seen the prices of VMware Workstation and comparing that against Fusion, I can safely rule out running Workstation as it is far too costly. Yes, there is VMWare Player and a way of generating the VMX config files, but there are features in Workstation that are nice to have.
So today I've been trying out Windows Vista, 64-bit, under Virtualbox on my Macbook. I have to say it runs exceedingly well, enough for it to replace Fusion and also enough for me to use during SquirrelSave tests. I will be able to copy the VM images over to Windows as need be and not pay for an expensive VM license.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 25, 2009
I'm getting highly irritated by pizza companies who use mobile phone numbers of customers phoning in to order pizzas to then spam text offers. Especially when said spam text does not contain a valid reply number to unsubscribe to:
Current culprits are:
Perfect Pizza, Woking
Milano's Pizza, Knaphill
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 24, 2009
Unfortunately the ZyXEL router (provided by AAISP) rebooted itself three times last night, after starting a BitTorrent which got to about two-thirds of the transfer before the router rebooted itself, and continued to do so in 30 minute increments until we went to bed. I pray the 660HW doesn't have a connection tables problem like the dreadful Thomson Speedtouch 585 supplied by Be, as iPlayer was constantly causing that to reboot.
Jennifer is NOT impressed with me, or AAISP so far. She has made it quite clear on her opinions and now I need to re-assure her that I've done the right thing. Which may not be easy.
Update: There seems to be an issue with the P660HW router's bandwidth management feature that can cause the router to reboot when certain wireless devices are in play. AAISP remotely disabled this for me (they've seen this happen before, apparently) and now everything is now peachy. They sorted this out within a few hours of submitting the ticket by email (to be fair – I did submit the ticket around 6:30am!).
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 22, 2009
I admire Ron D. Moore very much. He has taken a campy 1970's sci-fi show and turned it into a work of dramatic genius. I've been hooked since around season two first aired, when I decided to watch the mini-series to see what all the fuss was all about. I had been a bit nervous of BSG until I started watching the re-imagining because when I was a small child I had a very freakish nightmare one Christmas Eve when Cylons started coming out of my Battlestar Galactica curtains and started singing Christmas carols, necessitating getting my mother to destroy all BSG merchandise – bedspreads, curtains, etc., the next morning.
The series finale to BSG was nothing short of absolute brilliance. It reveals enough to answer the important questions, but then set-ups new mysteries which may or may not be resolved in the forthcoming Cyclon-centric one-off drama, The Plan, or in the spin-off series about the creation of the Cylons: Caprica.
I was shocked to find myself bawling like a baby when Roslin slipped away after dying of cancer, and when Adama slipped his wedding ring onto her hand when he discovered she had gone. The floodgates also opened when Baltar and Caprica Six were about to set off for their new life as farmers.
The show is very much centered around spirituality, and the "head people" play a very important role in this finale – not least right at the end when they appear in modern day New York discussing the possibility of whether the same events that played out on Kobol, the 13 colonies (including Earth Mk I) would once again occur. Were they Gods, the devil and God, or angels? Who knows. But whatever or whoever they were – they're old. And definitely not Cylon or human.
As to Kara Thrace – just what she was will remain a mystery. But that's what I love about this show – the storyteller doesn't (and shouldn't) need to spell everything out.
There is room for the viewer to fill in the gaps themselves. They don't spoon feed everything to you. There's enough imagination to go around.
Thank you, Ron Moore, David Eick and everyone else involved in the production of Battlestar Galactica. It's been a hell of a ride. And special thanks to the visual effects team – if you guys don't win award for this one, I'll be eating hats. Absolutely spectacular stuff.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 19, 2009
For the latter part of the day, it seems a LOT of people have been looking up their homes, and the homes of friends and colleagues on Google's new UK Streeview service. So far I've found all my old homes (Barkingside and Norwich) as well as the places that Jennifer and I have lived (Peckham and Kingston-upon-Thames).
This service reminds me so much of the BBC Doomsday Project which involved putting photographs and information, including the census and everything else in-between, on laser disc.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 10, 2009
.. and it was rather good. In fact, technically, this was one of the best films I've seen for a long time. The visual effects are outstanding, the stunts and physical effects even more so. The acting and direction extremely impressive.
But.
It's pacing is all wrong.
I realise that this is a complex story to tell – having to set-up exposition of the characters and events, etc. But even so this is going into so much detail that by the end of the film you don't really give two hoots (ha!) about the characters you've just seen. I think the problem is that while Snyder and his team have been trying to faithfully adapt the graphic novel, they're forgetting that this is a film. Sure, they make changes to make the novel fit the medium of film – but ultimately it's essentially the entire graphic novel shoved into a film shaped hole. Which does not work out too well.
The film is dark and violent, and impressively so in places. It actually shocked me just how graphic the blood and guts got at some points and you could hear the younger members of the audience (i.e. anybody less than 30) whoop with delight as various characters splatter across the screen, or as bones break and arms rip open. It both impressed and horrified me in equal measure.
The soundtrack is simply wonderful. One to listen to over and over again. Made up from classic songs from the 80's and beyond, along with a highly original score, this is something the film can rightly be proud of. The music was part of this film's identity right from when the trailers hit the 'net.
It has been said the people who have not read the graphic novel will be left confused. Not so. I am one such person and managed to keep track of everything that was going on, despite the pacing of the storylines. Ultimately this is a film that you will most definitely want to read the source material to.
Watchmen is by no means perfect, but it is a film that Zack Snyder and his production team, as well as Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures and Dave Gibbons can be proud of.
And well done my former employers, MPC, for making Night Owl's flying ship look utterly convincing and wonderful. And for the other VFX guys that breathed life into Dr. Manhattan – an excellent achievement in digital character effects work.
A good 8/10.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 10, 2009
Given the current media fascination with Twitter, it was inevitable that excitable journalists would start writing articles about "celebrities" and their tweeting habits. All fine and dandy for the most part.
What has disturbed me has been that auxiliary services such as Twitpic appear to have been abused by journalists and their paymasters to distort the copyright owner of the original material posted to said service. In the case of Twitpic, a service for uploading photos for public viewing and sharing on Twitter, this seems to be carte blanche for the Daily Mail to nab whatever photos they like from the service to fill in the blanks for their non-stories about Twitter. And change the copyright on the photo in the process.
According to Twitpic's terms of service (PDF version):
By uploading your photos to Twitpic you give Twitpic permission to use or distribute your photos on Twitpic.com or affiliated sites
All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners
Therefore if you upload one of your own photos to Twitpic, you still retain full copyright ownership of your photo, but it may be used by one of Twitpic's affiliated sites. I'm pretty damn sure that doesn't give Twitpic or ANYBODY else the right to change the actual copyright on the photo itself as seen from the following examples on the Daily Mail web site.
To date, Twitpic has not responded to my queries relating to who their affiliated sites are.
Here are some examples of copyright switcheroos happening on the Daily Mail's web site:
- Stephen Fry, stuck in lift (PDF version)
- Lilly Allen's Party (PDF version)
This one suggests Twitter themselves hold copyright to the photo:
- Tom Felton in Harry Potter (PDF version)
Even if Stephen Fry, Lilly Allen, Tom Felton or their agents have approved the papers for the using these images – why is there no proper copyright attribution for these photos? The copyright belongs to Stephen Fry, Lilly Allen, Tom Felton or whoever took those photos in the first place. NOT with Twitpic or Twitter.
The Daily Mail have failed to respond to my queries when I asked them about this issue. Contacting the Press Complaints Commission resulted in a reply that states that because it's a legal matter of ownership of the photo, they're unable to investigate any complaint relating to this issue.
Is this becoming a case where newspapers are resorting to the mantra "If it's on the Internet, it must be free", which was the excuse I was given by one of my former employers after I discovered they had lifted one of our photos (taken by Jennifer) and used it in a national print campaign for an advert in .Net magazine.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 9, 2009
Off to the local Ambassadors Cinema in Woking this evening to watch the evening performance of the human equivalent of Confuse-A-Cat. Having never read the original graphic novel, this is going to be interesting…
Posted by
Martyn Drake – March 5, 2009
I'm getting a little tired of Be and as such, am actively investigating migrating over to Andrews & Arnold who seem to be a proper ISP.
There are limits in place for peak and off-peak usage, but ultimately I don't think this will affect us greatly. They also offer a PROPER wireless router unlike the heap of crap that is the Thomson SpeedTouch that is provided by Be.
