Posts on A Mind @ Play

Pipeline Poetry

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, I found myself hacking chunks out of a monolithic Python repo to break out a few generic reusable packages. Splitting out the libraries had a number of benefits beyond being able to reuse the code in other places: it gave a much clearer picture of the test coverage, provided a chance to ditch some vestigial code, as well as some impetus to pay off roll over some old technical debt. But one area that gave me a few headaches was getting the packages to play nicely with existing CI/CD pipelines.

Other People’s Money: Masters of the Universe or Servants of the People?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone.’ That supposed shibboleth of the turn-of-the-century captains of finance, whose unrestrained pursuit of profits led western economies to the brink of collapse less than two decades ago, provides a suitable refrain to this review of the financial services industry.

2022 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So 2022 was the end of the plague. After two years of monotony and drudgery, this was the year that the virus lost its potency, and people gave over caring. The virus is here to stay, joining the other collection of seasonal ailments that fill beds in the wintertime. While many countries have dropped all restrictions altogether, in Germany the regulations have become less transparent, with the occasional strange restriction still in place seemingly for the sake of it. So while masks remain compulsory on public transport, the word compulsory has evolved to mean ‘suggested’.

2021 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Another year of the plague behind us, another 365 days of solitude. It’s hardly Marquez, but it certainly feels like life has been chugging along in neutral after so many heady years in first gear. The year was mostly dominated by work, with little in the way of holiday breaks, social activities or other diversions to break up the monotony.

So joining the yearly roundups from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, here’s looking back over the second year of the plague, 2021.

Lightroom Crashing on Import

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Argh! One of those maddening adventures down the digital rabbit hole later, and the solution turned out to be quite simple. Every time I clicked to import files into Lightroom 5.7 (because yes I’m that old) the program crashed without so much as a smell you later. After checking plug-ins, corrupted preferences files and databases, and avoiding various people suggesting I needed to re-install Windows, the solution turned out to be rather straightforward:

Windows 10 Home/Pro

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I recently gave my machine a long overdue brain transplant, but stupidly didn’t consider what would happen to my Windows 10 licence after making a major change to the hardware. Of course, upon booting back up I was greeted with the friendly warning that my OS installation had not yet been activated.

While it is possible to reactivate Windows after a hardware change, this relies on you having linked the licence to your Microsoft account, which I hadn’t done beforehand. Various attempts to troubleshoot the problem just had me going around in circles navigating the same help pages from different angles (“have you tried turning it off and on again?”) And as tempting as it sounded to spend another evening elbow-deep in transistors restoring the status quo ante, there’d be no guarantee that my copy would be activated again with the original hardware in place (anyone know if this is the case?)

2020 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This year has been anything if not interesting. At the start, a lot of people around me seemed to answering the call for change, with numerous friends choosing to up sticks, start new careers, move houses, or meet new partners.

While little changed for me beyond shifting to working from home, one difference was saying goodbye to a forum I’d been running for nearly two decades. As no one had posted anything in nearly twelve months, and its use had been dwindling for some years already, it seemed the time had come to save some computing cycles and lay the bits to rest.

Hubris

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

One of the key ways we know how genes work is to look at what happens when they go wrong. We do this deliberately in experimental animals, precisely or randomly disrupting genes to see what happens. For obvious reasons, we don’t do that in people, but the equivalent is to study the genetics of disease and disorders.

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford

Unknown Anecdote

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A linguistics professor was addressing his class one day, and made the following remark: “In some languages, like in English, a double negative will make a positive. In some other languages, such as Russian, the double negative will remain a negative. Yet there is no language on the planet in which a double positive becomes a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room popped up, “Yeah, right.”

2019 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Another year, and time again to look back over 12 months of consumed media. Following on from 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, here’s another summary of what I’ve been reading, watching and playing over the past year.

Commenting memoQ Light Resources

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Editing memoQ’s light resources can be a painful experience, with somewhat clunky interfaces, intimidating lists, small default window sizes, and the inability to add comments to rules written with regular expressions. Anyone who’s tried to pin down an error in a list of dozens of autotranslatable rules will know the maddening experience of trying to wade through to reams of similar-looking rules to find the culprit, especially as any edited rules are automatically re-added to the bottom of the list, so any initial effort at structuring rules according to their purpose gradually falls apart over time.

Brexit in Germany

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

You almost have to feel sorry for Greg Hands, sitting as a guest on Anne Will’s show, trying to defend Tory policy. Invited to a five-to-one Brexit bashing, it’s a debate of the ilk where the quacks aren’t invited in the name of ‘balance’. From the off, and as if to distance himself from the madness he’s supporting, Hands immediately claims to have been anti-Brexit, to have been anti-Boris during the leadership change. But not one to let principles get in the way, he’s supporting both of them because ‘democracy’. What follows is a virtuoso display of logical acrobatics skills as he attempts to defend his position: the shittiness of Britain’s democracy (being old is apparently a compliment?); that the referendum somehow showed clarity of purpose; that Boris threatening to ignore the law to push through a no-deal Brexit is democracy in action; that proroguing parliament is standard procedure and clearly shouldn’t be reconsidered at such a crucial juncture; that an election could show what the people want, but a second referendum would be undemocratic. If he weren’t sitting there looking like a naughty schoolboy called to the headmaster’s office, his mind-bending mental tricks might have earned some applause.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Jimmy Aldaoud

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1159297993780203520

As Thomas Hobbes once fathered the phrase, life before the central state was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. In Jimmy Aldaoud’s eyes, life with the United States wasn’t much better. Aldaoud was victim to the kind of cretinous bureaucracy touched by a sprinkling of laughable xenophobia. Not that there’s anything funny about the result. A man died as a direct consequence of the kind of senseless and callous rule-making that surely the gobbiest semi-democracy in the world ought to be a little ashamed of.

6 Ways of Breaking the Brexit Deadlock

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If at first you don’t succeed, you fail.

GLaDOS, Portal

Ardent Remexiteer Theresa May managed to spend the latter half of her illustrious spell as prime minister trying to ram her deal through the Commons like a skipping needle on a strong and stable turntable. Now she’s abandoning ship, the sycophants and navel-gazers are lining up around the block to be the next hero to try to pull the sword from the stone. Unfortunately, with yon parliament rejecting the deal, and selfsame parliament rejecting no deal, the likelihood of the next helmsman managing to successfully navigate this particular brown waterway looks slim. And with the public still split down the middle, even a new referendum would probably only turn back the clock as far as 23rd June 2016.

The Poisonous Thought of Plastic

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s interesting to watch the ways in which the current crusade against plastics manifests itself. The basic message – plastic is poison – gets through to everyone, but the reactions sometimes resemble a Chinese smithy melting down his tools to increase steel quotas during the Great Leap Awkward.

After a number of do-gooders complained, our company canteen recently replaced its plastic containers with cardboard packaging, for all those people too busy to sit down with a knife and fork. The move was celebrated as a great boon for the planet, maybe a potential way to minimise that already minuscule proportion of plastic waste that leaks out of European rivers.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Surveying today’s political landscape, it’s easy to suppose we’re approaching a precipice. Passionate intransigence divides societies into blocks which, even where decidedly secular, are rallied around with religious fetishism. It seems that ideological boundaries are increasingly hardening, poisoning the political dialogue, preventing constructive discourse and contributing to almost maddening levels of senseless blustering.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt investigates the concept of morality and shows how differing political groups can reach such disparate conclusions from the same starting point. Gradually building up his argument, Haidt succinctly retreads a lot of territory covered elsewhere in more detail, but which is vital to understanding his standpoint.

America Tikdem!

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s good to see American politicians taking inspiration from Africa. Maybe their derg won’t be so funereal.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Cybercrime and the DarkNet

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As society tries to catch up with the overwhelming advancements in technology of the past few decades, it is unsurprising that governments and legislators find themselves plugging the gaps where criminality can flourish. Developments in encryption, obfuscation, distribution and anonymisation give criminals and privacy activists alike a broad toolkit for conducting their activities away from prying eyes. In Cybercrime and the Dark Net, Cath Senker offers a brief and easily digested overview of this bewildering digital landscape. The book is essentially a collection of short vignettes covering a wide variety of different forms of cybercrime, with an essentially separate second section surveying the dark net.

Migrating phpBB to NodeBB

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I recently set about migrating an aging phpBB forum to NodeBB and ran into enough problems that I considered cancelling the whole project.

The phpBB exporter script has been updated various times, and I managed to find a fork which appears to work with phpBB 3.2. Unfortunately, it refused to install itself correctly and appeared to land in the wrong directory, so I had to manually clone the Github project into the expected subdirectory.

2018 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

To keep up an ancient tradition, I figured I’ll keep up my review of the past twelve months in consumed media goods. So following on from 2015, 2016 and 2017, the first wrap-up on the new forums! (I normally draught these things and write them over a series of days, but since this software doesn’t seem to offer draughts, I’ve penned this in one sitting and it’s probably riddled with typos. :) )

A Pleb by Any Other Name

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A German-British dual national changed her name by deed poll to give herself the name Silia Valentina Mariella Gräfin von Fürstenstein. Armed with a passport and presumably enough ancillary documentation to cosh an elephant (or at least a German bureaucrat), the woman attempted to have her decision acknowledged back in Germany. She was rebuffed, however, on the grounds that the surname contained an aristocratic moniker, and this decision has now been upheld by the German Federal Court.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Brexit Bullshit

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the UK for a while watching the Brexit bullshit slowly roll from one stagnant puddle to the next, occasionally spattered by the shrill wailing tweetarrhia from Trump’s cot, it’s sometimes tempting to imagine we are really all lying inert, plugged into machines while hackers play pong on the Matrix. Is there an infectious disease going around causing collective cerebral atrophy? Maybe a race of bodysnatchers seeding the populace with cretins wondering how long it will take us to twig? Or are we just watching the unfolding of H. L. Mencken’s prophecy and the glorious consummation of democracy and technology?

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

German Melancholy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 15 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Watching Stefan Raab punch the air with a full-blown Yank whoop and vainglorious ‘Yes!’, it’s easy to forget for a second that this is RTL. At least until he loses the subsequent round, punctuated with a fat Teutonic ‘NEIN!’

German is a sad language. To express moments of joy, Germans prefer to fall back on English. People stand around singing ‘Häppi Bersday’, send one another cards congratulating them when ‘It’s a boy!’, drive off from the church to the clatter of cans and a creamy white ‘Just married’ in the rear windscreen. But only the native language is good enough for the morose. Surveying the greetings cards, there are no English options for sharing your Beileid or showing your Anteilnahme.

Captchivating, or Why I’m Doubting My Humanity

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, I failed a human test. Quarter of an hour clicking on random pictures trying to prove I’m flesh and blood to a machine. But the sad thing is: a machine would’ve done a better job.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Converting Olympus Share GPS Logs

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Up until now I’ve been using Olympus’ handy little Android app (OI.Share) to create a GPS log for photos taken when going walkabout. It’s easy to hook the device up to the camera afterwards via WiFi and automatically tag any photos taken during that time.

As idiot-proof as that is, the logs remain useless for anything else. The app ignores any videos taken, and there’s no straightforward way to tag photos taken by another camera. Fortunately, the solution is simple enough. You can grab the log file (i.e. ‘share’ it via one of many services) and use the converter available at GPS Visualizer to transform it into a more widely-supported GPX format.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife’s Head for a Hat

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

What happens when we are no longer able to recognise objects, but there’s nothing wrong with our ability to see? When we lose our sense of self and no longer feel the body we’re in? When the concept of ‘leftness’ is severed from our reality?

Oliver Sacks describes cases involving all these issues and more in a classic survey of ‘losses’ and ‘excesses’ in the human brain. The patients are a fascinating array of characters each suffering from such unusual problems that the symptoms seem almost comical. The eponymous man who failed to identify his wife’s head suffered from a form of visual agnosia, leaving him incapable of identifying objects, although his visual acuity was not impaired. Another sufferer had lost all ability to form new memories, and indeed was stuck at some point in his past, incapable of progressing past that point.

Arena

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 05 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Maths is a powerful tool, but in the wrong hands it can be pointless at best, dangerous at worst. Unfortunately, most human beings are a wrong pair of hands. We weren’t designed for handling numbers of any complexity, and tend to be out of our depths once they go beyond single digits. But a basic knowledge of numbers makes us overconfident and keen to interpret figures and statistics we don’t really understand as if they were cold hard facts. You only need to watch someone trying to work out which packet of washing powder presents the better deal when the supermarkets add a few percentages to the labels, or our reactions to opinion polls or the latest cancer-scare headlines.

Wesley: The Story of a Remarkable Owl

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Doubtless recommended to me because I enjoyed Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal, this story was at first somewhat disappointing in the sense that it is to a greater extent a personal memoir rather than an investigation of animal intelligence. I had been expecting a heavier, more science-laden account of their relationship, but once I’d adjusted to the style and tone of the book, I found plenty here to enjoy.

Bremain Battle Bus

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

One and a half years and two tins of paint over budget, the Bremain campaign’s battle bus gets under way.

Return to Monolingualism

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 27 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Over the years I’ve run through a number of plugins on this blog, many just for fun, adding non-essential little features for giggles or purely for show. Often the plugins run their course within a few years, going through a period of rising popularity with improvements, additions and occasional feature bloat, before ultimately overwhelming the poor one-man development band who subsequently goes silent and drops all support for their once pet project. Sometimes the functionality is superseded by happenings elsewhere – another plugin, an external service offering their own widgets, added functionality in the core – but othertimes the plugin just slumbers by the wayside and it falls to the community to pick up the pieces and carry on the torch.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Freedom Next Time

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

What you need to know about humans is that they are dicks. And if you give them any power their dickness prevails over everything else.

That beautifully succinct phrase comes from a review on Good Reads and is an understandable frame of mind to find yourself in after reading this book. Reading it ten years after publication, it’s almost surreal how little has changed in the intervening period, how the wheels of progress continue to grind on the gears of conservatism. In Freedom Next Time John Pilger surveys the state of peoples suffering under the weight of ignorance, ill-will, apathy and condescension in various theatres of the world, turning the spotlight in turn on Palestine, India, Afghanistan, South Africa and the Chagos Islands.

2017 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Why not make a habit? The forum hasn’t exactly seen much use over the past twelve months, but as there’s nowhere else I’d post this, following on from 2015 and 2016, here’s a short wrap up of the past twelve months, of no particular interest to anyone!

Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I’m clearly getting too old for blockbusters. Seriously, I walk out the cinema wondering what it was the scriptwriters wanted to show me in their cobbled together action flick, and search in vain among the sea of beaming faces for someone who shares my lack of enthusiasm. ‘It was entertaining,’ is what most of them defensively tell me, usually suffixed with ‘but I’m not a Star Wars fan,’ presumably when I don’t respond the same way, as if fearing I’ll proceed to bombard them under a geeky tirade of lore and canon.

The Jobs Effect

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Steve Jobs is not a monster. He is an all-American maverick and a world-class marketing genius. But until a man or woman as powerful as he is arrives at Apple (over his dead body), who is determined to break the cycle he has indulged in for so many years, Apple will remain merely an icon of awe. It will not become a company of the size that truly could (and should) “bury” monsters like IBM.

Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich

The Ridge

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Gorgeous short video of an inspiring ride in a beautiful part of the world, backed with the delicious sounds of Martyn Bennett’s Blackbird.

Reading Roundup

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Some years ago (last decade!) I decided to do a brief round-up of some recent reads. Sadly I don’t find make the time to gather my thoughts and sum up my opinions, so in no particular order, I thought I’d write a few words on some of the books that have graced my bedside table over the past few weeks.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 13 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

memoQ and XSLT: Fun with Namespaces

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 03 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Using memoQ to translate standard XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format) files can be made that bit more user friendly when you take advantage of the built-in feature to use XSLT transformations. Since I can’t get my head around namespaces, my simple transformation ended up strewn with unreadable references to local-name() nodes. As ever, there is an easier way.

Take a standard XLIFF file along the lines of:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xliff version="1.0" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
 <file source-language="en" datatype="plaintext" original="Project">
 <header/>
 <body>
 <trans-unit id="string">
 <source>This is the source content.</source>
 </trans-unit>
 </body>
 </file>
</xliff>

We can identify the nodes in the source using standard XPath syntax having defined the namespaces in the header:

memoQ QA Check Tweak

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

memoQ has a handy little feature as part of its QA check which warns you whenever you double up a word in the target language. I’ve had it catch numerous little and ands and to tos which slip into my work on occasion. However certain combinations of doubled up words are fairly commonplace, which can lead to this feature producing lots of unnecessary false errors. A classic example in English might be two hads in a sentence like ‘I had had enough,’ but that pales in comparison to a language like French, which sees plenty of doubled up words in pronominal verbs (nous nous lavons, vous vous souvenez etc.)

On Lady Mondegreen’s Eggcorns

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Imperfection is part and parcel of how we communicate, and one of the beautiful things about the evolution of language is how little imperfections can create entirely new constructs, as words and phrases are misheard, misunderstood, misinterpreted and misstated. One of my favourite examples in this regard is the ‘mondegreen’, a term normally used to denote a misheard song lyric, although it originated with a line of poetry:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, And Lady Mondegreen.Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

Language Weirdness

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the weird and wonderful world of words, which world of words is the weirdest? And if we replace ‘weird’ with ‘hard’, we find one of those eternal questions facing language learners: which language is more difficult?

2016 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Twelve months down the line, I thought I’d post another year in review. Again, this post won’t be of any interest to anyone, but here’s a summary of some of the media I’ve consumed over the past year.

The Blind Watchmaker

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 25 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

What is it about the theory of evolution which makes it so difficult to comprehend? Why does it require a leap of faith for many people to understand? And why do they feel they need to believe in evolution in a way they never would with, say, gravity?

Having finally got around to reading The Blind Watchmaker this year, one remark really stuck in my mind, when Dawkins turned to describing the human experience in terms of units. The way we perceive the world around us is intrinsically bound to the way we encounter it. We consider time, for instance, within a fairly specific range. Once we go beyond that range, our natural, indeed evolutionary faculties are incapable of perceiving the world outside those bounds with any degree of accuracy. That’s not to say we hit a brick wall when we step beyond that range. We’re still perfectly capable of contemplating the meaning of extremely long or short timescales, for example. We can measure them, compare them, calculate them; we can analogise and use metaphors. But we are far from being able to really grok what they mean.

High Velocity Aerial Filming

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Some pretty impressive stabilised photography at 300 knots.

Captain Europe

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 14 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If only Europe had a magic shield… On second thoughts, perhaps it’s fortunate we can borrow the Americans’.

Doc Brown – My Proper Tea

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A genius tune made all the more palatable with some fab animations. An anthem for the important things in life.

La bise

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Nicely made video from an English comedian showing us just why can’t get on board with European greetings (and how to get around it!).

CPU Throttling

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a niggling suspicion that my machine was running slowly. Things felt a little sluggish, sites were less responsive, switching between applications took longer than usual. My machine was showing signs of ageing, despite its relative youth.

Then I tried launching Heroes of the Storm, a game I hadn’t played for a few weeks and which had been updated in the meantime. After getting through the menus and starting a game, the performance gradually plummeted, with the frames per second dropping from around 20 at launch to just 1 when there were a few moving characters on screen at once.

2015 in Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Statistics! They’re everywhere… and I seem to have collected a lot of my own. This post isn’t of any interest to anyone, but I just thought I’d write up what media I’ve been consuming over the past twelve months.

Marie’s Dictionary

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Stirring story of Marie Wilcox, last surviving speaker of Wukchumni, who took it upon herself to document the language she spoke as a child and attempt to keep it alive for future generations. The short documentary film tells of her compiling a dictionary, including oral recordings of traditional parable tales to preserve the memory of the culture, and make it easier for new learners.

Julio Geordio

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Meet Roberto Scousia.

Thermonuclear Art

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Fascinating images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

North America 4K

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Gorgeous time-lapse movie from across North America.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Making the World a More Meaningless Place

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Back during my school years, one popular run of jokes revolved around the failed inventions that Ireland had attempted to contribute to modern society, things like concrete dinghies, chocolate teapots, fluorescent black paint. Architect Katerina Kamprani has produced a wonderful selection of objects reminding me of those old jokes, the kind of objects which immediately invoke the kind of frustration experienced by anyone trying to use a wrong-handed tin opener. Listed together in a collection which she calls The Uncomf ortable, I can definitely see there being a market for these as a kind of novelty gift.

Nichts verschieben

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

„Nein!“ sagte sie, die leicht ironische Empörung in ihrer Stimme unverkennbar. „Verschieben Sie nichts!“

So wollte uns die Frau davon abbringen, unsere Urlaubspläne auf die lange Bank zu schieben. Denn sie hätte zusammen mit ihrem Mann allzu oft solche Worte von sich gegeben. „Das machen wir später, wenn die Kinder älter sind. Wenn wir mehr Zeit haben, mehr Geld. Wenn wir in Rente gehen.“

Doch später wurde immer später. Die Kinder wurden erwachsen und zogen aus. Ihr Mann arbeitete sehr gerne und weit nach dem üblichen Renteneintrittsalter. In ihrem Lebensabend hatten sie noch viel vor. Aber sie taten es. Alle paar Wochen, alle paar Monate, zogen sie durch die Landschaft auf ein neues Abenteuer. Ein Wochenende in dieser Stadt, ein kurzer Ausflug in jene. Nach all den Jahren hatten sie es sich verdient, und trotzdem sie nicht mehr die jüngsten waren, ließen sie sich nicht abschrecken.

RIP Ozzy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

You soldiered on when the others were gradually taken from us, you persevered after an accident left you crippled. Now it was your turn to leave us. Farewell Ozzy.

The Cameron Prophecy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

https://twitter.com/sarahoconnor_/status/616282747200479232

And so it begins.

Freedom of Speech for Dickheads

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

An interesting segment in Private Eye recently about a Tory councillor whose list of apparent ‘gaffes’ included a remark favourable of Hitler. Heaven forbid! We’re all for freedom of speech, but be sure to stay away from espousing any opinions on the blacklist. I can’t help imagining he’d have any easier run of things as a devil worshipper, than as someone who once had the gall to cast a positive light on anything of the Führer’s beyond his death.

Dubai Flow Motion

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

One fairly staggering piece of time-lapse photographic work by Rob Whitworth.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Airport Syndrome

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Gathered in the departure lounge, with the noise of the bustling airport drowning out the sound of their jitters, the passengers wait. Each of them attempts to show their strength of character, but underneath that calm veneer, the majority of them are unmistakably nervous. Unable to find anywhere comfortable to keep them, a woman at the front leafs through the documents in her hands. Passports, check. Boarding cards, check. Departure gate and boarding time, all as they should be. She fidgets in her seat, making sure her children are still fully dressed and haven’t in the meantime wandered off to see if there’s another plane they can board. Over by the windows, a man looks at his watch for the third time in as many minutes; he’s confused by the fact that the plane seems to be ready to board, but there’s no sign of activity around the gate.

’ave it ’ovis

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Bolton’s finest breadmakers with a tongue-in-cheek take for the smartphone generation.

Key Literacy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sitting at the table one morning, hands cradling a warm mug, that rich smell of coffee hanging in the air. The sun is shining down on a brand new day, only the chittering of birds offering their choral backdrop to an otherwise blank canvas. Then a vibration on the windowsill accompanied by a tinny melody. Dad’s calling.

‘The battery in my car key’s dead,’ he tells me, apparently standing in front of his locked car on the car park, desperately pressing the transponder. ‘Can you find the number to call the AA? I can’t get in the car.’

American Contrast

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Cartoon by Manu Cornet.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

V for Varoufakis

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The only thing that gives the Jerries the willies these days is apparently the Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis (who appears to have done a bit of consultancy work for Valve on the side).

Rhubarb Barbara

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

What do you call Barbs who works at the beer bar where the beard barber for the barbarians who eat rhubarb pie at Barbara’s bar drinks beer? Why Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel of course!

Lazarus on Firefox

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Lazarus may be risen from the dead, but it looks like he’s now been lain to rest again once and for all. This handy plug-in for Firefox, which stores what you write in input fields and staves off the frustrations of having your work lost should your browser crash, seems to have been abandoned by its author and hasn’t been updated for some time. Each progressive new version of Firefox leaves it a little more broken, to the point where I’ve sadly been left with a button that does nothing more than say ‘Loading…’ in the latest version.

Popnography

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We live in an age where being a slave to our impatience and short attention spans is almost a virtue, where watching television has made room for channel hopping, where listening to music involves skipping to choruses and jumping between tracks, where our attentions are constantly being pulled in a thousand different directions by our internetworked world.

It comes then as little surprise that one road to success is to cash in on our restlessness. Take a year’s worth of successful tunes, juice them, dissect them, distil their catchiness, then splice, blend and sew together a Frankenstein of audial goodies. That’s what you get with Daniel Kim’s Pop Danthologies: a highly concentrated concoction of successful pop anthems, a luxurious blend of first flush leaves, condensed and refined, the scion of sonic addiction grafted onto the stock of all that is pop.

Fox News: A little funny business

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Just a couple of funny tweets I thought I’d share.

https://twitter.com/sazza_jay/status/554404341743099904

https://twitter.com/TheRedRag/status/554425541529702401

The Numerati: How they’ll get my number and yours

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Recent springs and bounds in technology have opened the floodgates to a wealth of information that once required millions of man-hours to collect, collate, evaluate and assess, if indeed it ever happened at all. Now all of that can be handled, stored and processed by computers, constantly being fed by millions of users who are often happy to give up snippets of their information for the tiniest of benefits. But what hidden potentials lie waiting among those mountains of bits and bytes? And who are the people forging the algorithms to find those golden nuggets?

Smoking Bishop

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“A Merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a bowl of Smoking Bishop, Bob!”

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

You’re in a Johnny Cab!

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Obviously the technology is making leaps and bounds, but it’ll probably still be some time before the wheels of bureaucracy allow self-driving cars on our roads.

RIP Phantom

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Yet another victim, killed on the roads yesterday.

Kindle 4 WiFi Frustrations

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Just had a maddening time trying to work out why a Kindle 4, which was to replace a Kindle 3, refused to connect to the family wireless. After trying all of the obvious – resetting devices, checking passwords – it was off to scour the web for a solution. All kinds of suggestions cropped up, relating to passwords or SSIDs with special characters, or wireless networks using channel 13, but none of them applied to our situation. Finally I hit upon a post which hinted that the Kindle 4, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t support WPA2 with AES encryption. Switching the router over to accept WPA/TKIP and WPA2/AES together didn’t make a difference, but the device finally logged in when I turned AES connections off altogether!

Whose Syndrome is it Anyway? Apostrophes in Disease Names

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In recent years the media enjoyed regaling us with the search for the Higgs boson, but I’m sure many people wondered what was so special about Mr Higg’s boson that we should all be so interested in him finding it again, let alone curious about how he lost it in the first place. Postulate a new thesis or make a new discovery and you’re liable to have your name enter the vernacular. Found a company associated with a new invention, and the name may even become standard for the innovation. Yet at what point does it all stop being yours? We all learn about Newton’s laws of gravitation in the classroom, whilst some go on to read up on Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Archimedes’ buoyancy principle, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion – it all seems so predictable, until it comes unstuck with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Not the laws of physics, the laws of English.

Real(ly Tacky) Tek Driver Update

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Argh, you’re kidding me. Did the Realtek HD Audio Drivers 6.0.1.7245 really just copy everything it found in the folder with the setup file over to the Program Files directory? Not the files in the executable .zip file, not the files in a list, no, everything it could get its grubby digital hands on. So a quick driver update ended up copying 40 GB of crud between two hard drives. Reminder to self: clean out the TEMP folder more often!

Autocue My Life

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes a little punctuation goes a long way.

On Self-Reflection

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am a child, and the world is my crib, and everything within it is a toy, to be twisted and pulled, played with and tasted, and bitten, before finally being thrown out of the cot.

CAT Calls: Searching for Translation Software

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been translating on the side for some time, but have only recently decided to make this a steadier form of income. As part of that, I wanted to investigate some of the CAT tools currently on the market. Aside from tinkering with the open source offering OmegaT some years ago, until now I hadn’t tried any of the tools listed.

As with many software niches there are a lot of options in this market, and not many straightforward answers. It sometimes seems that the smaller the niche, the more choices there are. On my list to try out were SDL Trados Studio 2011, memoQ 2013, Wordfast Anywhere, OmegaT, Déjà Vu X2 Professional and Across Personal Edition ¹. In this post I look at the market leader’s offering SDL Trados Studio 2011.

Eine Anekdote über das britische Klassensystem

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Neulich habe ich eine tolle Anekdote gehört, die ich mitteilen wollte. Sie stammt von einem britischen Komiker, einem Londoner, der mit seinem breiten „Cockney“ Akzent sehr deutlich seinen Arbeiterklassenhintergrund betont. Allerdings ist er laut dieser Geschichte mit einer Frau aus der Mittelschicht verheiratet, ein klassisches Beispiel dafür, wie man so schön sagt, dass der Schlüssel zu der Liebe im Humor liegt. Im Übrigen zeigt die Geschichte das reine Genie des Komikers, und verkörpert die typische gegenseitige Verspottung der Arbeiter- und Mittelschichten.

Bigger and better, like

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This post is also available in English.

Kleine Randbemerkung. In meiner Zeit als Sprachdozent habe ich oft den Fehler bei den Steigerungsformen gehört, wobei der Deutsche die Präposition ‘als’ durch ein ähnlich klingendes englisches Wort ersetzt:

Die Grünen sind beliebter als die SPD.

The Green Party is more popular as the SPD.

Jedoch wo man eine andere Komparativform verwendet, ob umgangsprachlich oder als Dialektform, führt dies zu anderen Fehlübersetzungen in dem Englischen:

The Artful Photographer

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Britain’s European Policy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 28 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it’s worked so well?

James Hacker: That’s all ancient history, surely.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it’s just like old times.

James Hacker: Surely we’re all committed to the European ideal.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Really, Minister.

[laughs]

James Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, for the same reason. It’s just like the United Nations, in fact. The more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.

James Hacker: What appalling cynicism.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes. We call it diplomacy, Minister.

Yes, Minister: The Writing on the Wall (1980)

Digital Eggs

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Do any of us really keep more than one basket these days?

Learning a Second Foreign

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

When learning foreign in earnest for the first time, I noticed that whilst making progress in the language itself, my brain also found ways of hemming in my thoughts. It was as if my mind’s vocabulary was labelled and categorised, such that I often instinctively knew before opening my mouth whether I knew how to say what I wanted to ‘in foreign’. Knowing the word for tree bark was as important as knowing that I know the word for tree bark. Interestingly, this made trying to use languages from school more difficult: when travelling in France, a language I’ve barely used in the past decade or so, I often found myself trying to say things my mind believed me capable of saying. It would have me starting sentences, confident in the knowledge that I knew the word or phrase ‘in foreign’, only which foreign wasn’t mentioned. It seems actually knowing what to say plays second fiddle to knowing what one is able to say.

In Scheißgewittern: A shitstorm in the dictionary

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

https://twitter.com/cryptopix/status/166513079880912896

So it’s come this far. After winning the dubious award of Anglizismus des Jahres 2011, der Shitstorm has become salonfähig everyday vocabulary. According to the jury:

Shitstorm füllt eine Lücke im deutschen Wortschatz, die sich durch Veränderungen in der öffentlichen Diskussionskultur aufgetan hat. Es hat sich im Laufe des letzten Jahres von der Netzgemeinde aus auf den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch ausgebreitet und gut in die Struktur des Deutschen eingefügt.

Anglizismus des Jahres 2011

Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion and Jazz

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Uncommon People is a collection of Eric Hobsbawm’s essays spanning the majority of his long career, from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. It brings together a wide range of topics, collected under four headings: The Radical Tradition, Country People, Contemporary History and Jazz.

Under “The Radical Tradition”, there are essays addressing Thomas Paine, the Luddites, the radicalism of shoemakers, the difference between labour traditions in France and Britain, the development of a distinctive working class culture, the skilled manual wage worker in Victorian moral frameworks, the iconography of male and female representations in labour movements, the origins and history of May Day as a working class celebration, the relationship between socialism and the avant-garde, and Labour Party stalwart Harold Laski.

Don’t make ‘em like they used to

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Sparks of a move to label products according to their expected life spans

It’s a situation many of us are familiar with. The milk turns sour, the yoghurt has curdled, and there are patches of water on the kitchen tiles. At fault in this tale is the refrigerator, which, barely three years old, has started to gurgle and appears to be reaching the end of its useful life. And like the DVD player, vacuum cleaner and coffee machine before it, the warranty has expired and the costs of repair far outweigh those of buying afresh. Yet according to a new survey, these failures might just be deliberate.

Lord of the Rings: The Dead Marshes

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing the Shadows of Mirkwood saga, The Dead Marshes adventure pack is the fifth in the cycle, and finds the heroes trying to corner and capture the creature Gollum in the treacherous mires, before he escapes for good. It has a difficulty rating of 5, putting it roughly in the middle of all of the scenarios thus far in the series.

Lord of the Rings: The Hills of Emyn Muil

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Hills of Emyn Muil is the fourth adventure in the Shadows of Mirkwood series of adventure packs which expand The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The story pits the heroes exploring these barren and dangerous hills, avoiding pitfalls, and continuing their quest to track down the creature Gollum.

Lord of the Rings: A Journey to Rhosgobel

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re playing the Shadows of Mirkwood series of adventure packs in order, A Journey to Rhosgobel is the third stage, coming after the brutal Conflict at the Carrock. The story has our heroes encounter a wounded eagle, which needs taking to see Radagast at Rhosgobel to be treated with the medicinal herb Athelas before it is too late.

Language as a Window

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steven Pinker explains how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings, looking at cursing, metaphors and the issue of common knowledge. This video is only part of the full talk, brilliantly animated by RSA.¹

Talking with Your Mouth Full: German food idioms

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Every man is a poet. At least he would be, if you were to judge him by his knowledge of idioms. Our languages are riddled with examples of metaphors and similes, word combinations that take on a meaning beyond the sum of their parts. Interestingly, however, the origins of these phrases are often mysterious or disputed. Inspired by this short post series over on the World Text blog, I thought I’d take a look at a handful of German idioms relating to food.

Lord of the Rings: Conflict at the Carrock

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Second in the Shadows of Mirkwood series of adventure packs, Conflict at the Carrock packs a serious punch, with a difficulty rating of 7 (the same as the final adventure in the original set). Where The Hunt for Gollum sees players dealing with a very location-heavy deck, this time round the focus is very much on the fighting, culminating in a tense battle, as four trolls challenge the heroes.

Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Hunt for Gollum is the first adventure pack in the Shadows of Mirkwood series for the base game The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. As with all of these adventure packs, it includes a new hero, extra player cards and a new scenario replete with enemies, locations and treachery cards for the players to face.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re interested in cooperative games, Lord of the Rings: LCG is an involving card-based game designed for 2 players, but also playable solo or with up to four. This core set includes all you need for two players to get started, with three adventures of increasing difficulty for the players to overcome. The term ’living card game’ basically means that the story continues in various expansion sets, so this game has plenty of longevity if you enjoy it.

For those not familiar with this type of game, the fundamentals are fairly simple. Each player chooses up to 3 heroes to play with from a selection, and builds themselves a deck out of the appropriate cards (preset decks are suggested for the first time out). During the game, the heroes generate ‘resources’ with which to pay for bringing cards from their decks into the game, such as extra allies to fight with, weapons and armour for their heroes, or beneficial event cards. Meanwhile, the adventure also comprises a deck of cards, which contains enemies for the heroes to fight, locations for them to explore, and nasty events which can bring tears to their eyes. In each round, players may gain resources, pay for cards from their hands, tackle the adventure, travel to a new location, parry attacks from enemies, and retaliate.

Spring Cleaning

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hmm… it’s been some time since I posted with any regularity here. In fact, it was something of a resolution of mine for 2012 that went rather pear-shaped, but better late than never.

Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The period in German history following the Second World War is probably one of the most neglected in terms of popular history, far overshadowed by the war itself and frequently overlooked as a mere footnote to the origins of the Cold War. Yet the fascinating question remains as to why the peace following the First World War contributed to the beginnings of the Second, whilst the policies following the latter led to one of the longest periods of peace on the continent.

Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In Selling Hitler Robert Harris has provided an enthralling, blow-by-blow account of one of the most infamous hoaxes in history, the alleged discovery of the Hitler diaries. A potentially convoluted plot with many actors, Harris has done a remarkable job in organising the story in a comprehensible manner, and in so doing has simultaneously written a turn-paging piece of investigative journalism, full of interesting nuggets and occasionally humourous asides.

Nightfall One

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

As one of the world’s most prolific authors, and one of the true giants of science fiction, it can be difficult to know where to start with Asimov. As a child I read a few stories and was soon hooked, but perusing his oeuvre takes some time. For anyone interested in wetting their fingers with this master of science fiction, however, the Nightfall anthology is a great place to start.

Nightfall Two

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Female Eunuch

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Reading The Female Eunuch now feels to a certain extent like reading a pamphlet from the Suffragist movement; the arguments are clear, but the backdrop is somehow distant and faded. How much that changed backdrop is a result of the efforts of people like Germaine Greer is for the historians to say, but this book clearly earns its place on the bookshelf as one of the most important works in the women’s liberation movement.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This was definitely a case of judging a book by its cover. Although I’ve devoured a number of Bryson’s other books, the title and topic of this one just didn’t appeal to me. But when a thumbed copy turned up in my household, I decided to have a read of the first couple of pages, and found myself only putting it down again half-way through.

The Time Traveler's Wife

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The gimmick in this book is deliciously simple. The lives of two lovers, Henry and Clare, and bound together by destiny. They meet, fall in love, get married, have a child… so far so normal. The interesting bit lies in the opening of the book describing their first meeting: she first meets him in her parents’ garden when she is 6 years old; but he first meets her in a library when she is 20.

A Passage to India

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In a world far removed from the one in which Forster was writing, is there any place for a novel like A Passage to India other than as an idle curiosity of a bygone era? Written based on first hand experience of the British Raj, this open critique of colonialism caricatures the Anglo-Indian in his element, questioning the morality and justification of the British presence in the subcontinent.

Aspects of the Novel

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

There is something unerringly endearing about Forster’s way of expressing himself that makes this series of lectures on the makeup of the novel so easy to read. His disarming admission of his own unscholarly nature (“True scholarship is incommunicable, true scholars rare. There are a few scholars, actual or potential, in the audience today, but only a few, and there is certainly none on the platform.”) puts him firmly on a par with the reader, and his conversational, nay chatty style, opens this little book to anyone who appreciates a good read.

The Dinner

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Told through the eyes of a decidedly unreliable narrator, The Dinner is an elegantly simple novel served up over five courses. From the casual opening aperitif to the grittier, questionable digestif, the book layers on the story over a meal in a swanky restaurant.

The Ministry of Fear: An Entertainment

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Graham Greene originally divided his works into novels and ’entertainments’, separating his popular work from those he wished his literary career to be remembered for. In later life, this distinction would be blurred until it was dropped entirely. The Ministry of Fear is one of these earlier works labelled an entertainment. Made a year later into a film directed by Fritz Lang, it was written in the middle of wartime, and on the surface is a typical espionage thriller in the tradition of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, dealing with a Nazi spy ring operating in London during the blitz. On its own, the plot is gripping enough to carry the book through to the end, and those bits we can regard as ’entertainment’ made their way into the film.

Atlas Shrugged

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps the most significant book in post-war American literature, one which has regained popularity since the start of the economic crisis, Altas Shrugged is the embodiment of an ideal society, the ultimate vehicle for Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism. Weighing in at over 1,000 pages of tightly-packed print, it’s also one of the longest novels in English literature. Is it any good?

Thinking, Fast and Slow

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Dieser Eintrag ist auch auf Englisch verfügbar.

Auf irgendeiner Ebene sind uns die Eigenschaften der menschlichen Natur, die „Thinking, fast and slow“ erläutert, schon bekannt. In unserer Gesellschaft wird die Vernunft und die rationalen Handlungen der Menschen gerne hervorgehoben, Attribute, durch die wir uns sehr gerne gegenüber unseren sonstigen Verwandten im Tierreich einen besonderen Standesdünkel gönnen. Doch wie in diesem Buch so meisterhaft dargestellt, gibt es eine beträchtliche Menge an Faktoren, die unsere scheinbar so vernünftigen Entscheidungen verdrehen und beeinflussen können. Laut Kahneman kann man diese zwei so unvereinbaren Aspekte unseres Wesens als getrennte Systeme betrachten: Das erste System verkörpert unsere gedankenlosen, selbstständigen, unterbewussten und reflexartigen Reaktionen, wogegen das zweite System das logisch handelnde und vernünftige Dasein vertritt, wofür wir uns Menschen eigentlich halten. Viele der Forschungsarbeiten und Ergebnisse, die in diesem Buch behandelt werden, hat Kahneman zusammen mit seinem verstorbenen Kollegen Amos Tversky selbst durchgeführt. Ihm ist das Buch auch gewidmet.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post is also available in German.

The qualities of human nature described in “Thinking, fast and slow” are already known to all of us at some level. We are all taught in society to believe in the rational, thinking human being as distinct from his animal peers, yet at this book excellently details, there are plenty of ways in which our seemingly rational decisions can be bent and perverted by various forms of bias. Daniel Kahneman details these two seemingly incongruous facets of our nature as two ‘distinct’ halves: System 1 represents our autonomous, unthinking, reflex and subconscious reactions, whereas System 2 is that logical, calculating being we consider ourselves to be. Much of the relevant research covered in this volume was pioneered and conducted by Kahneman and his late colleague Amos Tversky, to whom this volume is dedicated.

Rauschgiftwirtschaft

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Von Personalstelle zu unternehmerischer Gesellschaftsverantwortung: Verwaltungsstunden von den Drogenbaronen Mexikos

Übersetzt aus dem Englischen (Narconomics)

Juli 28. 2012 | The Economist

Narconomics

MEXIKO hat 11 Milliardäre, der Zeitschrift Forbes zufolge. Zehn werden oft bei Benefizdinners und anderen vornehmen Veranstaltungen lächelnd fotografiert. Der Elfte, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, hat ein ziemlich unähnliches Porträtfoto. Abgebildet in einem billigen Anorak sieht man ihn fröstelnd im Regen binnen der Betonmauer eines Hochsicherheitsgefängnises. Besser bekannt unter seinem Spitznamen El Chapo („der Kleine“) ist Herr Guzmán durch die vermutete $1 Milliarde, die er als Geschäftsführer des Sinaloa-Drogenkartells verdiente, ein von Lateinamerikas erfolgreichsten Exporteuren. Seitdem er 2001 versteckt in einem Wäschewagen aus dem Gefängnis ausbrach, gibt es wenige Fotos von El Chapo.

Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This entry is also available in English.

In ähnlicher Weise zu Dava Sobels Buch „Longitude“ dreht sich im „Nathaniel’s Nutmeg“ alles um die Erfahrungen eines der unsichtbarsten Protagonisten der Geschichte. Obwohl es sich um die Geschichte eines kleineren Maßstabes handelt, stimmt das Ziel des Werks überragend mit einem Zitat des Historikers E. P. Thompson überein, geschichtliche Figuren „from the enormous condescension of posterity“ zu retten. Die Hauptakteure dieses Buches werden den meisten Lesern unbekannt, sowie viele der Ereignisse, dennoch bleibt deren Auswirkung für die Gegenwart für jeden ersichtlich.

Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Dieser Eintrag ist auch auf Deutsch verfügbar.

In a similar vein to Dava Sobel’s Longitude, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg revolves around the story of one of history’s largely invisible protagonists. Whilst this isn’t history on the same scale, it sits very nicely with something E. P. Thompson said, about rescuing characters “from the enormous condescension of posterity.” The major characters in this book will be unknown to most people, as will most of the events, but their importance for the modern world will be clear to everyman.

Mouse or Rat?: Translation as Negotiation

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst I can’t claim to have had massive expectations from this book, the author’s reputation, experience, and the subject matter piqued my interest at first glance. This book is a collection of essays roughly sewn together reflecting the author’s personal experiences in the field of translation, either via conversations and experiences with translators and translations of his own works, or through translating by his own hand.

The Grapes of Wrath

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A work born of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath is surely one of the greatest, most powerful and important books in American literature. Focusing on a poor family of tenant farmers escaping the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma, Steinbeck set out with the express intention of shaming the people he held responsible for the plight of these losers of the Depression, and aimed quite simply to “rip a reader’s nerves to rags” with his tale. The Joad family sets out for California with their few remaining possessions, seeking work, land and new lives among the colourful orchards and vineyards of the western state, a veritable promised land. Instead they find further hardship, exploitation and abuse, labelled as ‘Okies’ and reds, welcome if they’re willing to work for a pittance, hounded should they try to make a living for themselves.

Citizen Soldiers: U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge, to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is the only Stephen Ambrose book I’ve read, spurred on by recently rewatching Saving Private Ryan and Band Of Brothers. A look at the American soldiers in the European theatre from D-Day to the end of the war, the book is based on oodles of research and countless memoirs, oral and written, from the people who were actually there. It doesn’t go into the actual events of the war in any detail, so it would behoove readers to have some background knowledge, but Ambrose does a decent job of sketching out the general situation.

Vollidiot: Der Roman

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Much as I enjoyed another Tommy Jaud book (Resturlaub: Das Zweitbuch), I found Vollidiot somewhat unrounded and altogether disappointing after finishing it. The story revolves around Simon Peters, a late-20s youngster in Cologne, who is fed up with his job, his friends, his being single–his life in general–and how he goes about trying to set things to rights. Essentially, of course, everything he tries to achieve goes wrong, and every action he takes has a punchline waiting around the corner.

Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons in Life

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Not normally one for autobiographies, I picked this book up on a whim as it was standing proudly on the local library shelf. It’s a pretty short, easy read with some interesting ideas and amusing anecdotes, essentially snippets hewn from Branson’s life and career with some generic advice strewn about. The autobiographical sections are probably the most interesting, though given the book’s format are often repeated or presented in a strange order.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

At its simplest level, this is merely a short novel about attitudes to love and the meanings of fidelity. The main characters approaches to love are almost diametric opposites, the surgeon Tomas, a promiscuous conqueror of women, and his wife Tereza, ashamed of her very body and unable to reconcile her husband’s habits with her view of married fidelity. While the events unfold in front of the backdrop of the Prague Spring and the difficult years that follow, this is a novel focussed on the smaller, personal image, albeit no less profound in scope.

Jeder stirbt für sich allein

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is a truly fascinating story, an insight into the lives of those who endured the excesses of the Nazi state at the height of its power. Fallada wrote this book shortly after the war in less than a month, a novel inspired by reading through Gestapo files. It was his last, but one he was very proud to have written.

At heart, the book deals with one couple’s private campaign of resistance to the Nazi regime. As Fallada wrote in an article about the novel, “Über den doch vorhandenen Widerstand der Deutschen gegen den Hitlerterror”, his writings were dedicated to their sacrifice that it not be in vain. The core of the book centres on the Quangels, a couple who lose their son during Hitler’s invasion of France, and who strive to offer a token of resistance, by way of writing postcards and letters denouncing the Nazi acts. These political flyers almost unswervingly end in the arms of the Gestapo, who catalogue this defiance and use their ruthless methods in pursuit of the perpetrators, destroying lives as they do so. This, in my opinion, is one of the book’s greatest strengths, its depth of living characters, almost reminiscent to me of a Dickensian world, each role played by a figure of flesh and blood, and not merely props for the main actors to play up against. Thus the novel details episodes in the lives of thieves and prostitutes, Jews and Gestapo inspectors, youth and the permanently unemployed.

Resturlaub: Das Zweitbuch

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Dieser Eintrag ist auch auf Deutsch verfügbar.

Ever wondered what it would be like to give in to your mid-life crisis, stick two fingers up to the world and start a fresh life? Well, Peter “Pitschi” Greulich does just that: shortly before he and his girlfriend and their other coupled friends are to depart for the umpteenth time for a holiday on Mallorca, he has a rash change of heart and perfidiously jets off instead to Buenos Aires armed with little more than the clothes on his back and his broken words of holiday Spanish.

Resturlaub: Das Zweitbuch (DE)

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post is also available in English.

Wundert man sich, wie das Leben wäre, wenn man sich seiner Midlifecrisis ergeben, der Welt den Stinkefinger zeigen und ein neues Leben anfangen würde? Genau das macht Peter „Pitschi“ Greulich: Kurz bevor er mit seiner Freundin und deren gepaarten Freunden in den üblichen Urlaub nach Mallorca fliegt, bekommt er plötzlich kalte Füße und in einem Sinneswandel düst stattdessen nach Buenos Aires davon, ausgestattet mit wenig mehr als seiner Kleidung und ein paar Brocken Urlaubsspanisch.

Kafka on the Shore

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Giving this book a three-star rating seems unjust. When reading it, I found much I liked about the work, yet having had a few days to digest it, find myself struggling to justify just exactly what I found so appealing.

To deal first of all with the good, Kafka on the Shore is on a basic level a decent page-turner. Two related stories are interwoven, chapter for chapter, and while they don’t necessarily come together in the end, the narrative is nicely paced and suitably eventful to keep the reader engaged. There are various themes on display, from the Oedipal tragedy and the journey to adulthood, together with more complex issues dealing with time and reality, and plenty of the metaphorical and surreal elements to spice things up. If you aren’t enamoured by ‘magic realism’ this will no doubt be an instant turn-off.

The Satanic Verses

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This isn’t a book that requires any introduction, at least in terms of the furore and controversy surrounding it. I’d probably heard of Rushdie before I started to read for myself, such is the reputation which precedes this book. The title has been sitting at the back of my mind for a long time, so when I saw it on a bookshelf figured it was about time to dip into it.

What Ho!: The Best of Wodehouse

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the advancing years I had up until receiving this book for Christmas never read any Wodehouse, though I had been read excerpts in my younger years. Of course, the problem with Wodehouse is that being such a prolific author, it’s difficult to know where to start. And since most Wodehouse readers have their favourites, asking for advice on what to read is a bit like asking which football team you should support.

The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

As someone only just playing around with digital photography, I picked up this book as a complement to Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure to get me started and provide some inspiration. Neither book disappointed. Where Peterson’s book is an excellent starting manual for people new to the world of photography, Freeman’s goes into much greater depth about composition techniques.

The book is divided into 6 chapters, with each chapter further divided into sections dealing with a certain aspect of photographic design. Whilst some sections make reference to others, and in particular to photographs on other pages, in general it is possible to read this book piecemeal, skipping over bits that are of no interest, or returning and dipping into others. Each section abounds with example photographs, many also exploiting instances of photographs that didn’t quite work to further highlight a point.

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In titling his book (or having his book titled?) “Is that a fish in your ear?”, David Bellos has certainly made categorising this work a difficult task. It looks and feels like it should belong firmly in the ‘popular science’ section, yet as other reviewers have pointed out, the writing sits it firmly in a half-way academic category. Still, the material covered should be of interest to a wide range of readers, with the book split into fairly short and relatively self-contained chapters, that one can really dip and choose or skip out the parts that are of little interest. The book covers a very wide range of topics, and skitters over numerous areas such as philosophy, biology, religion and of course linguistics.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post is also available in English.

Der Klappentext behauptet, dieses Buch sei „Der stumme Frühling“ des literarischen Geistes. Zwar vergleicht man hier Äpfel mit Birnen, aber im Kern gibt es in diesem Buch eine provozierende Erörterung der Auswirkung verschiedener Techniken auf die Funktionsweise des Geistes. Carrs Hauptthese, die er in seinem Artikel „Is Google making us stupid?“ schon ausführlich erklärt, ist, dass das Internet Veränderungen in unseren Hirnen auslöst, die unsere Denk- und Erinnerungsvermögen nicht unbedingt positiv verändern. Grundsätzlich spielt das Internet die Rolle eines Universums der Ablenkung, das eine unendliche Vielfalt an leichter Unterhaltung und sinnlosen Unterbrechungen einführt, wodurch wir unsere Gehirne nach einem süchtig-machenden Muster von ineffektivem Multitasking trainieren. Wir heben die neue Technik auf ein Podest, als Eingang zu einer neuen Welt des Wissens und der Kommunikation, die viele Vorteile im Rahmen von sozialer Wechselwirkung, persönlicher Freiheit und wissenschaftlicher Bemühung mit sich bringt. Carr ist jedoch der Meinung, dieses Portal sei beileibe nicht ohne Nachteile, dass diese Technik unsere Fähigkeit des tiefen Denkens und das effektive Nutzen des Gedächtnisses beeinträchtigt.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The blurb claims this book to be a “Silent Spring” for the literary mind. That is certainly comparing apples to oranges, but at the core to this book there is a thought-provoking argument about the impact of various technologies on the workings of the mind. Carr’s main thesis (to be found almost in its entirety in his article “Is Google making us stupid?”) is that the Internet is changing our minds, our ability to think and the way we use our memories, and all this not necessarily for the better. Essentially, the Internet is a universe of distractions, offering endless light entertainments and pointless interruptions that train our brains into an addictive shallow pattern of ineffectual multitasking. We hold up the new technology on a pedestal as a doorway to a new world of knowledge and communication, bringing with it benefits for social interaction, personal liberty and scientific endeavour, but Carr claims that this portal is not without its drawbacks vitiating our ability to think deeply, or use our memories effectively.

An Arbitrary Angel of Darkness

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Translated from the original German (Ein schwarzer Engel des Zufalls) By Oehmke, Philipp und Schmitter, Elke

Literature professor Manfred Schneider talks about the rationality and irrationality of killers, the paranoid psyche of western society, and its search for explanation

SPIEGEL: Herr Schneider, on 8th January 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head, and killed six other people at point blank range. And while the world agonises for an explanation, it is possible to find explained in your recent book, Das Attentat, that an assassin such as Loughner isn’t actually irrational, rather the product of hyperrationality. What do you mean by that?

Schneider: Every assassin is an acute observer and interpreter of signals and events. For him, nothing happens by chance; he scans the world for evil doings. He sees conspiracies everywhere. The result appears to us to be crazy and insane. However, at the same time it is precisely logic and reason running in overdrive, that lead to these paranoid conclusions. Paranoia isn’t a form of irrationality, but one of hyperrationality. Loughner is a typical example of this.

Nicht misszuverstehen

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Dieser Eintrag ist auch auf Deutsch verfügbar.

Another curiosity which cropped up whilst reading Kafka’s Der Prozess can be found in the following quote:

Außerdem schien es der Maler mißzuverstehen, warum K. nur am Bettrand blieb, er bat vielmehr, K. möchte es sich bequem machen und ging, da K. zögerte, selbst hin und drängte ihn tief in die Betten und Polster hinein.

Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß

Ignoring for a second changes in the use of the ß, most learners of German would assume from this sentence the word missverstehen should be a separable verb. That is to say the painter seemed misszuverstehen and not zu missverstehen. As a result, you’d be forgiven for thinking that were the painter to misunderstand something K. said, Kafka would write:

Trotzdem als Nebensatz

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Reading Kafka’s Der Prozeß recently, I came across an interesting construction that I hadn’t seen before.

Trotzdem K. gerade jetzt nicht daran gedacht hatte, sagte er sofort: “Gewiss, ich muss fortgehn. Ich bin Prokurist einer Bank, man wartet auf mich, ich bin nur hergekommen, um einem ausländischen Geschäftsfreund den Dom zu zeigen.” Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß

I’d only ever heard trotzdem used in a main sentence, and never before to form a verb-shunting Nebensatz. I figured at first this might be a mistake on the part of the publishers – my copy was of rather low-budget quality – and that the word obwohl had been intended, but the form repeated itself a number of times throughout the book.

The Spam Strikes Back

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Extravagant Spam

A topic I’ve previously written about has lately become something of a pain, to such an extent that I’ve actually decided to change my way of dealing with it. Whilst I could certainly complain that the number of spam messages on this blog far exceeded those few genuine comments (by a factor of several hundred), glancing over the list of catches once a week, it didn’t take all that long to weedle out the very occasional piece of ham incorrectly identified by Akismet as ‘spiced’.

Free Will?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Slightly confusing argument to start with, but this comic provokes enough argument for legal eagles and philosophising owls alike. Would the three go down for attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder? Would Alp get sentenced for manslaughter for being the last one out of the room and apparently the one to finally turn the key? Should Aaron take the blame for ultimately removing the water, the pre-meditated poison going unused? Did Harold commit suicide by being so dopey about sitting around in there with just a bottle of water in the first place? Could Alp get committed for being so loopy as to drill several holes in a bottle after confusing sand and water?

Keats and Chapman at the Show

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Sifting through a flurry of invitations that rained upon them with the approach of spring, Keats and Chapman eventually settled upon visiting a dear animal-lover, Geoffrey Malmouth, for what was billed to be the Greatest Cat Show in The North. Away from the blustery, biting winds sweeping in off the North Sea, what on first glimpse appeared to be nothing but a large warehouse had been converted into a true Aladdin’s cave for the cat fancier. Felines of all sizes and breeds, colours and patterns were present, and there were prizes for all manner of category, youthful and old, hirsute and bald, a veritable multitude of attractions to grab the visitor’s attention.

Ten Things I Hate About Me

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Partly inspired by Linden’s little snapshot of her life, and obviously a rip off of the film title, this is simply a mini-list of truths about myself that grate.

I write better when it’s dark

Not in the dark but when it’s dark. Whether it’s because that’s when I’m at my most lucid, or perhaps because the tiredness helps me overcome my inhibitions, the small hours have often been when I’m at my most productive. In fact, the idea for this very post was sketched at 5am one very idle night, when the neural aurorae kept me from dropping off. The ideas hop and flow and melt into one another like chocolate on a hot stove—and there’s never a pen around when you need it.

Keats and Chapman Return from the Continent

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Our eponymous heroes returned to Blighty after a short sojourn on the continent, during which time Keats had become rather enamoured with practising his high-school German. Unsure what to do with themselves after such an extended period away, they took it upon themselves to visit an old friend of theirs, who had reputedly retreated himself from high society, to take up the role of school headmaster in a quaint village on the south-west coast of Scotland.

Windows on Inactivity

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a little tip for anyone like me still using Windows Vista who’s having trouble with the system logging/locking you out after a certain period of inactivity (usually 5 or 10 minutes). The two most common culprits for this are the screensaver settings or possible power saving options, both accessible from within the Control Panel. However, what isn’t obvious and what drove me mad trying to find, is that even if you have None selected as your screensaver of choice, it appears Windows still sees fit to still log the user out after the allotted period of time. This despite the fact that the On resume, require logon checkbox is greyed out.

Changing Your phpBB3 Domain

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If like me you’ve decided at some point to move your phpBB install to a new domain or location within a domain, there are a number of little hurdles to jump before you can successfully consider the move complete. Here’s my short one-two-three guide for getting your forum moved over to a new address.

Keats and Chapman and the Sino-American War

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

One bright morning in late spring, whilst the nuclear ash was still falling over the majestic cities of the east, Keats and Chapman were sunning themselves out on the terrace with a pot of Earl Grey. The Sino-American War over Central Asia was largely over, and for gentlemen of the west it was a time of relief and contemplation. The Americans had relented to the will of the darkest minds in the forces, and the bombs falling on cities had been like raindrops splashing on a frozen pond. The winter had been a nuclear one.

Why?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Great little short film on YouTube, asking some of the age-old questions, and answering some more pertinent ones, like why I won’t be committing suicide with British Rail.

The Problem of Europe

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

President Sarkozy will not be the one to tell French schoolchildren that the borders of Europe extend to Syria and Iraq, ¹ should Turkish overtures to the EU be fully accepted. One must assume then, that he would have no problem explaining that the current borders of the EU extend to Morocco on mainland Africa, or that France itself shares borders with Brazil and Suriname. Or perhaps that under fifty years ago, its borders extended south to the Sahara Desert.

Cryptonomicon

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is a book with much promise. Neal Stephenson is a very decent writer; his prose can be both engaging and exciting, without pandering to the reader in the way many techno-thriller authors choose. Unfortunately, this is also a book that seems to have been written in an ecstasy of authorship, without enough time and consideration given to making the book a reader’s choice. My copy weighed in at over 1100 pages, which is a very long expanse for Stephenson to ultimately say very little.

The BBC Proms Pocket Guide to Great Symphonies

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I should first of all declare: I am musically illiterate. Though I do enjoy listening to classical music and have on occasion been to a concert or two, my understanding of and ability to talk about the music itself is virtually non-existent.

Which is precisely why I picked up this book when it was on offer. Purporting to be “an accessible guide” and advertising itself as “the place to start” when wishing to learn a bit more about the symphonic form, this book seemed perfect for someone like me, who would be likely to listen in to the BBC Proms but very unlikely to turn up and get his hands on the programme. In the introduction, Nicholas Kenyon explains that this book was designed to provide the information prepared for the programme notes produced for the Proms to a much wider audience of music lovers.

We the Living

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve given up, and I’m not afraid. Only there’s something I would like to understand. And I don’t think anyone can explain it. You see, I know it’s the end for me. I know it, but I can’t quite believe it, I can’t feel it. It’s so strange. There’s your life. You begin it, feeling that it’s something so precious and rare, so beautiful that it’s like a sacred treasure. Now it’s over, and it doesn’t make any difference to anyone, and it isn’t that they are indifferent, it’s just that they don’t know, they don’t know what it means, that treasure of mine, and there’s something about it that they should understand. I don’t understand it myself, but that’s something that should be understood by all of us. Only what is it, Kira? What?

Ayn Rand, We the Living

GTA: Vice City

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

GTA: Vice City

It’s good to be back!

Last week I had one of those urges that only a pregnant man can have, to step back into the shoes of Tommy Vercetti and relive the delights of Vice City. This 2003 Rockstar outing was easily one of the best games I ever played, everything about it simply oozed style and polish. It’s almost as if the developers took a standard checklist of things that get rated in a game, made sure every area got given the works, and then spent the rest of their time filling in the gaps. Because it’s exactly that which nails it for this game, the attention to detail that makes playing Vice City like stepping into the ’80s: the clothes, the music, the cars, the giant mobile phones, heck, even the intro scene features the game being loaded on a Commodore 64. Rockstar’s particular sense of humour is also here to see by the bucketload, from the tongue-in-cheek nature of some of the missions, through the fantastic dialogue and hilarious radio stations, to the small jabs and puns that little the streets of Vice City.

All of which is without even touching on the gameplay. Sitting firmly in the sandbox genre, Vice City gives you a wonderful feeling of being able to go about things your own way. Goofing around, stealing cars, running from the police, there’s plenty to do in the game when you aren’t really doing anything! But fortunately that doesn’t mean that Rockstar skimped out on the main storyline, which is by all means fantastic, and features all sorts of mission types, from starting riots, racing through the streets, to knocking off banks and delivering numerous methods of ‘persuasion’ to various denizens of the city. Aside from the main plot, there are plenty of other side missions and extras to discover, which add ample distraction to the standard mayhem generally meted out whilst driving between missions.

Wo blieben wir alle?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Meine Gedichte brauche ich dazu nicht mehr; in meinen Bücherregalen ist das alles viel besser gesagt. Aber was würde mit einem passieren, wenn das schon ein Grund wäre, etwas aufzugeben? Wo blieben wir alle? So schreibe ich weiter, doch oft genug erscheint es mir grau und papieren gegen den Abendhimmel, der jetzt über den Dächern weit und apfelfarben wird, während der violette Aschenregen der Dämmerung schon die Straße füllt.

Erich Maria Remarque, Der schwarze Obelisk

The Google Docs Server Rejected Roundabout

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It might not be particularly well featured, but Google Docs does at least provide a quick and easy way to share your documents, albeit with messed up formatting and various other caveats. Today, however, I came across a problem uploading some small files which produced the rather pallid error message “Server rejected.” Something wrong with my files? With the browser upload? With the server itself? No idea.

Fortunately there was an easy, if rather roundabout fix available: simply email the files to my Gmail account, and use the option there to open them with Google Docs. Bingo!

Knowing Your History

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

There are plenty of videos like these, usually decrying the stupidity of Americans, but as anyone who’s actually considered it knows, you could do the same anywhere in the world with similar results. Only yesterday I saw a number of Germans being interviewed, who believed that the sun revolves around the Earth, and even a couple that thought the sun is so hot because it is being shined upon by so many planets.

The WordPress 3.0 Milestone

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Although it’s only slated for release sometime in May, the first beta of the new WordPress 3.0 is already doing the rounds. Blog Oh Blog has a nice summary of the changes and additions in the new version: most of the updates are fairly innocuous, perhaps the largest mention should go to the integration of WordPress-mu, for setting up multi-user blogs and networks.

However, the announcement that really put the cat amongst the pigeons has been that the core development team may now be promoting what were formally called canonical plugins, now known as core plugins following the unpublished results of a poll in December. It appears that whilst attempting to address a genuine issue, the very idea of having plugins that stand in the limelight with an official stamp of approval has incensed many community plugin developers.

Some really excellent debate has been held which has, amongst other things, revealed that the initial go ahead for core plugins will be very limited; just three plugins, including an old, out-of-date plugin, a chunk hived off from the core, and a newly developed plugin. Nevertheless, the potential for these core plugins to have wide-reaching effects on the plugin development pool, create stagnation in the community and a greater top-down hierarchy is something that in the eyes of many developers and enthusiasts, has not been addressed.

Internet Footprint

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Internet Trail

An email arrives from a company you’ve never heard of telling you about a change to their user policy. It could very well have been spam, except that the details are actually correct for a change, and you’re not being offered a credit card, mortgage, or a million dollars from a Nigerian general. The email details alterations to a privacy policy you probably never read, particularly since the company name itself doesn’t register. You’ve just stumbled upon your Internet trail, crumbs you’ve scattered around the place registering here and there over the years.

But just how big is your Internet footprint? If you’re a conscientious user who goes out of their way to protect their information and avoid pointless trivia on the Web, it could be that you’ve only left a few grains behind you. But for the rest of us, those little titbits could very well be quite liberally scattered throughout the Internet, potentially accessible to just about anyone with the time and inclination. Whilst the content we’ve created ourselves might be relatively humble, today’s social web has ensured that all but the most camera shy can end up having their pictures online for virtually anyone to see, and references to us can be found with just a few simple searches. But our Internet footprint isn’t just limited to those relevant bits which appear when we’re Googled—which after all is as much dependent on the uniqueness of our names or the fields in which we work—but simply, how many little instances there are of us out there.

Fixing a Broken Network Printer

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

There’s one problem which was driving my parents nuts on XP for some time before we finally got around to finding a reasonable solution. For whatever reason, one of their computers insisted on automatically adding the shared network printer on the other machine as the default printer in the list. This regardless of whether we had already assigned a local default, and whether the network printer was already in the list.

Ten Reasons Valve's Steam Fails to Live Up to Standards

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Steam

I’ve been using Steam for a fair while now, in fact pretty much since the beginning, and have seen the program grow on from its fairly humble origins. There are now hundreds of titles available, including games from big-name publishers and independent game houses alike, and the usual crashes and quirks that afflicted the early releases are pretty much gone. Nevertheless, there are still a number of key areas in which Steam continues to live up to standards, at times making using the system a bit of a nightmare. This is a list of some of those issues which in my eyes prevent Steam from becoming a really top class product, delivering everything the platform really promises. Some of these issues admittedly have their origins outside of Valve’s headquarters, but the way in which they are dealt with only compounds the problems further, for both customers and clients.

Another WordPress Blank Page

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There are plenty of examples out there of WordPress installs suddenly displaying blank pages—on admin pages as well as frontend posts—after changing themes, adding/removing plugins or updating the WordPress backend. Whilst there is plenty of good information out there covering most of the usual suspects, I just came across another which was fairly difficult to track down given the lack of information, though pretty easy to solve once I’d found it. If like me you’ve at any point tried to streamline your WordPress install by cutting down on a few unnecessary services, and reducing the number of calls to the database, you may have added some lines to your wp-config.php file like so:

Intelligence² Catholic Church Debate: Transcript

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Intelligence² group hosted a debate in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, in October, considering whether the Catholic church is a force for good in the world. Speaking for the motion were Archbishop John Onaiyekan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, and the Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP and Catholic convert. Speaking against were Christopher Hitchens, writer, broadcaster and polemicist, author of the bestselling book “God is not Great”, and Stephen Fry, actor, comedian and television presenter. The debate was presented by Zeinab Badawi.

Since the new Intelligence² website appears to have done away with transcriptions, I’m publishing this one here. Please note that this is an entirely unofficial transcription, so any mistakes are my own. The full video can be found on the official site, as well as on YouTube.

	Before	After	Change
For:	678	268	-410
Against:	1102	1876	+774
Undecided:	346	34	-312

Deleting the Undeletable

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a fairly common problem with Windows. Somehow a program manages to create a file with a name containing illegal characters or otherwise outside the file system’s parameters. No matter what you try, you just can’t rid yourself of it. The file certainly isn’t in use and being locked up by another program. Trying to delete or rename the file only results in Windows telling you the file cannot be found: “This is no longer in . Verify the item’s location and try again.” Even running the Command Prompt with administrator privileges doesn’t allow you to move, rename or delete the blasted thing!

Verner’s Law: The Movie

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Does it disturb you that despite the general appliance of Grimm’s Law, there are still some words which appear to deviate from the rule? Then you’re probably already well aware of Verner’s Law, but nevertheless here’s a really cute, little summary created by Ari Hoptman and filmed at the University of Minnesota.

Cromwell and Irish Wolves

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting little book review on the Irish Times website about the role of Cromwell in the disappearance of wolves in Ireland. Kieran Hickey’s book (possibly entitled The Natural and Cultural History of Wolves in Ireland—the article makes no reference) seems to confirm the role of Cromwell’s appearance in Ireland with the hunting and eventual extinction of the Irish wolf. I’m not aware of any attempts to reintroduce wolves to Ireland, and as this post on the Blather points out, there were fears that no one had learned from history, when policies in recent years called to cull badger numbers in the hopes of combating bovine tuberculosis.

Corpsing on Infidelity

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Andrew W. K. shows us the dangers of partying too hard.

Dearly Beloved

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

No smoking. And soon, no drinking and no talking!

You have to give it to the man who wrote this. I still remember laughing at Eddie Izzard’s little piece on the smoking ban in California. Smoking bans have since then proliferated to such a state, that the Pacific island of Niue is intending to ban smoking altogether. And fair play to them. One wonders how long down the line before such a blanket ban appears in some larger nations. Smoking is essentially acceptable, despite the decades spent fighting it, and an outright ban would appear to be the only logical conclusion. Whilst opinions based on fact can cause uproarious controversy in the world of drugs, alcohol and tobacco remain relatively immune. But every step towards removing tobacco from the public light is a step towards the ban which will put tobacco in with cannabis and LSD.

Ireland’s Sons

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ireland may have been the land that saved western civilization, ¹ and certainly enjoyed a period of setting priests alongside agricultural products as the major export, but that’s not to say that nothing good came out of the experience. Their perhaps unique relationship with the Catholic church has put Irish comedians in a wonderful position, and combined with a deep love/hate relationship with the English, provides a rich source of material for us all to enjoy. Republicans, Catholics, Patriots, Atheists: here are some of my favourites of Ireland’s sons.

Back to the Fold

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Fold

Many of us are probably familiar with the idea advanced in the early days of the Internet, that most users don’t know how to scroll through a website. Today that seems pretty unbelievable. The vast majority of websites, and indeed many of the most regularly visited, not only favour scrolling but to a large extent rely on it for navigation. So have the rules of the so-called ‘fold’ changed since the Internet’s inception? And what role should it play in decisions made regarding a website’s design today?

Viewing the web can be a very personal experience. Depending on your very own choice of browser, monitor or resolution, the web can look a very different place. If you’ve ever for some reason been forced to view one of your regularly visited websites on a much lower resolution monitor, for example, you’ll know what I mean. What once appeared spacious and easy to read suddenly seems squashed and cluttered. The cute little thumbnail images now take up good chunks of room and force you to scroll around them to get at the text. And should that site employ a fixed-width design that is wider than the current resolution, even more space goes to waste with the appearance of a side scrollbar.

Profit for Free

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Dungeons & Dragons Online

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Play for free

How do you turn a free product into a profitable enterprise? That’s normally the challenging issue to be faced in today’s increasingly competitive online market. Internet giant Google continues to have issues attempting to monetise its expensively acquired YouTube daughter. Yet game developer Turbine is looking to do exactly the opposite, converting their current business model into a subscription-supported free product. But does ‘free’ pay?

It certainly appears that Turbine’s decision to offer their MMO Dungeons & Dragons Online for free has paid off. Hundreds of thousands of new players have signed up to take advantage of the new offer, and despite the ‘free’ price tag, subscriptions are up 40%. In addition, many players are taking advantage of an in-game payment mechanism to buy additional items and open up new sections of the game. Previously the game had required players to pay a one off purchase price, followed by a monthly subscription fee. Now just about anyone can download the game and be playing within half an hour, paying or otherwise. Turbine also maintain that some players are paying even more per month than the previous subscription fee alone, removing an important cap on how much individual players could pay into the game. Rather than seeing players who play without paying as freeloaders, Turbine are confident that such players bring their own benefit to the company, generating interest, advertising via word-of-mouth, and thereby generating new subscriptions and one-off payments.

Peaceful Intent

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So was Barack Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week. Cue gasps of glee, plenty of head-scratching surprise, and a profusion of controversy. Because the question on many people’s minds is quite clear: what for?

Ignoring the fact that Obama was nominated for the award only days after his inauguration, his term thus far has certainly been one of optimism and change. It would be unfair to dismiss his achievements, and plain wrong to chastise his goals. Amongst others, Obama has been responsible for: moving to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay; furthering plans for the US withdrawal from Iraq; easing tension with Russia by abrogating plans for the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe; moving to open talks with pariah states North Korea and Iran; extending a palm leaf to the Islamic world; fostering much-weakened international institutions and supporting diplomatic methods in the Middle East.

The Paper mp3

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Amazon Kindle

Reading this post recently, I found myself asking why ebooks haven’t really taken off as a medium. Certainly more recent efforts, such as Amazon’s Kindle, have helped to reignite the market after a rather dubious development period over the past decade or so, but if one compares the ubiquity of mobile phones or digital audio players, e-books are entirely missing from the landscape. ¹

In purely utilitarian terms, should the technology ever be fully and appropriately used, ebooks have a lot to offer over their paper counterparts. There are far fewer requirements and resources needed for production, and distribution is much easier. Whilst a device on which to read ebooks might outweigh a single volume, additional books add nothing, and in terms of transporting books en mass, ebooks are clearly in favour. The ability to flick through a paper volume might be lost in the electronic form, but this is clearly compensated for by vastly improved tools for search and cross-referencing. Likewise combining other forms of media such as video and audio is a perfectly reasonable conception with ebooks, that the paper variety can’t really compete with on any level. They’re also more easily manipulable, in terms of being able to zoom, highlight or simple leave your own annotations about the place. All of which is to say nothing of the potential advantages for newspapers and other periodicals.

Dick Dastardly’s DSL

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting little snippet about the current state of South African Internet services. Designed simply to show up the state of South Africa’s Internet options, the test pitted a pigeon against a connection delivered by their largest provider. The pigeon managed to deliver 4GB of data 60 miles in little over an hour, and it took the company another hour to upload the data (one can only assume they were for some reason using an old USB 1.o/1.1 connection). In this time, just 4% of the data had been transferred via ADSL. Humbling though this message might be, I really wonder if services in the UK would fare much better? At a rough estimate, in the total amount of time it took the pigeon, my own connection might have managed around 5% of the total. The average business connection would probably have achieved twice that, but either way, the pigeon method wins hands down. Having said that, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any alternative pigeon networks set up in the UK just yet. ‘Packet loss’ due to hawk attacks would be monumental.

Open Source Bridges

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Great Belt Bridge

Bridge solutions

Many of us have found ourselves in this position. Your business or group make use of an online system, such as a forum, wiki, blog etc., which you then wish to augment or combine with some other system. How you go about doing that, of course, depends entirely on your goals and the systems you’re trying to use together. Design and styling are usually the least of those worries.

The problem which consistently presents itself when attempting such a combination is what to do with the userbase. Whilst this issue can sometimes be simply ignored, in the hope that only a small number of the users of one system will need access to the second, this isn’t always the case. When it comes to one userbase requiring access to two or more systems, the first question that needs to be answered is whether the user information should be shared, enabling a unified login procedure amongst other benefits. Requiring users to sign up to various different pieces of the puzzle is a time-consuming process, and one that many will find confusing and unnecessary. And since different online systems often have conflicting requirements when it comes to usernames and passwords, for example, this can also lead to more lost password checks and work for the system administrator. However, programming such functionality oneself certainly isn’t within the realms of the abilities of all of us, and keeping such modifications functioning across various systems and versions can be a painful procedure.

Boris Johnson on the McKinnon Case

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It’s all a bit late now. Boris Johnson writes about the Gary McKinnon case in The Telegraph and points out what anyone living under a rock wearing a bag on their heads could already see. McKinnon is charged with breaking into US military computers from his 56k modem, leaving messages, deleting files and causing general mayhem. He admits to all accounts of hacking in, though denies deliberate attempts at causing damage, claiming these charges were invented to pursue extradition proceedings. Quite what the prosecutors are trying to achieve with this man are unclear, given that his crazy quest for the secrets of little green men and free energy actually provided a service to the US military authorities in pointing out their lax security. As Boris Johnson points out, they could as well be offering him consultancy fees, as trying to clap him in irons. But how long does it take before someone is willing to stand up for common sense? And given the seemingly endless machinations of the legal process, will such calls even have an affect? Aside from highlighting the blatant partiality of the US-UK Extradition Treaty, these proceedings have once more underlined the spinelessness of the UK government when it comes to rectifying gross injustice, and defending its people against what can only be described as foreign tyranny. Watching paint dry, grass grow, the wheels turn in Whitehall: the simile edges ever closer to a regular place in our vocabularies.

Swim When You're Winning

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In a multi-record breaking event, marred by controversy over the technology of the new swimsuits, the final day of the 2009 World Aquatics Championships featured a fairly typical line-up for the Men’s 4 x 100m Medley Relay. Aside from Australia replacing Canada, and Brazil in place of Italy, the event could very well have been made for the G8. A fact no less marked than that the victors had a full replacement team to the one that qualified earlier in the day. Whoever said sport and money were a bad combination?

Bucking the Trend

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Harry S Truman

President Truman famously kept a sign on his desk that said “The buck stops here”, a gift from an avid poker player. Yet whilst we might appreciate the imagery and the sentiment, should we really rely on there being a ‘buck’ to pass? Is there always a man in charge, someone with whom the ultimate responsibility lies? The public at large like to believe so. Having someone who is nominally in charge provides a feeling that there is some level of control over daily events, that there is some direction to the madness that seems to govern our lives. It isn’t particularly important whether that person you believe in is God, the president, the Führer or Chuck Norris. Nor does that responsible person need to be an individual, it can just as easily be taken as being particular position, a group of people, or an organisation.

Yet having someone to look to as the ‘Man in Charge’ also entails having someone to blame when things go wrong. In general, people are not willing to look at events as the result of complex systems of uncountable interconnected threads. Such systems lack palpability, they invoke confusion and lack obvious conclusions. Much easier to view events as the result of simple inputs and outputs, revolving around the decision-making roles of important personages. When the proverbial hits the fan, the easiest response is to find those at the helm, whether particular individuals or a group, and lay the blame as thick and fast as the cement mixers can provide it. It’s a simple and effective reaction, since any person that can be held culpable must have made decisions, and any decision can be deemed retrospectively fallacious. Ergo any individual can be made and held responsible. ¹

Recent Reads

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It’s fairly rare for me to bother reviewing anything I read on here, however since I had some spare minutes and some actual opinions on some of the books I read this last month, there seemed to be enough to say to make up at least a short post. In fact it turned out to be a bit on the long side, so scroll down the relevant review if you’re really interested—being Stephen Fry’s strange debut The Liar, J.M. Coetzee’s rather aggravating Slow Man, Isabel Allende’s book for children City of Beasts, Zadie Smith’s impressive opener White Teeth and Murray Walker’s charming little autobiography Unless I’m Very Much Mistaken.

All Tourists are Potential Terrorists

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

At least, so you could be forgiven for believing. Taking photos of buses can get you in some trouble these days. Perhaps now the British government would think twice about stepping in to prevent their own tourists from suffering judicial heavy-handedness. Even snapping a bobby in London could land you up to 10 years, under Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. You can see how important that “Counter” part in the title was felt to be; if they’d left it out you’d never be quite sure which way to interpret the act. Fortunately there are still some people willing to stand up for common sense. Nevertheless, the UK government policy seems clear. Whilst UK citizens have to accept being the people most spied upon by their government, the latter is taking every advantage to make sure the cameras only point one way. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Left 4 Dead Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Left 4 Dead

For whatever reason, Valve deemed last weekend to be worthy of celebration, and in addition to offering a welcome discount, offered a free trial for their action-packed zombie fest Left 4 Dead. Never one to pass up on such offers, and having a few friends who’d already bought the game, I spent a fair few hours last weekend testing the game out, enough so to have convinced me to actually buy the thing!

Whilst Left 4 Dead sits firmly in the survival horror genre, it is without a doubt a shooter through and through. Whilst the genre may have its early origins with games like Alone in the Dark, Left 4 Dead is to that what 28 Days Later is to Night of the Living Dead. It’s a high-energy bloodbath, which is well and truly the game’s essence. Forget setting, plot or character development, the game boils down to an assault course for four, through levels strewn with zombies to some method of escape, with occasional safe points along the way.

That might not sound particularly novel, but the game’s central tenet is its co-operative side. Whilst there are plenty of games past that have featured zombies in one way or another, none have quite provided the experiences associated with the stereotypical zombie genre. Left 4 Dead clearly owes a lot to the zombie movie, from the opening intro to the closing credit sequences, and the gaming world has been truly aching for such a game. Mods such as Zombie Panic! or Zombie Master filled a gap, but Left 4 Dead has made full use of the Source engine to create a movie experience built for four.

The Repeatables

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This isn’t meant to be a list of classic films. In fact, many classics would find it difficult to creep on to this list. These films don’t have to have bemusing screenplays, flawless acting, blood-pumping soundtracks, or brilliant cinematography. But they are all linked by that special je ne sais quoi which makes me able to watch them time and time again. That isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of great movies that share this rather dubious accolade. I could and would watch many of them again, but the experience is always be somewhat diminished from that initial viewing.

The films on this list, however, have something special that gives them enduring longevity. It’s not the film itself but the film experience that counts. With the intricacies of the plot laid bare, the twists, turns, shocks and surprises all blunted by experience, what’s left is whatever ethos the film can conjure up. Which is precisely what some cult classics manage so successfully. Umberto Eco once wrote that “Casablanca became a cult movie because it is not one movie. It is “movies”.” ¹ His point was that the film itself wasn’t any particular gem, but it encapsulated what movie-goers expected to see. The lines were famous before they were spoken, perhaps the most famous line of all being the one that wasn’t even in it (“Play it again, Sam”). But films that are able to do that go on to be remembered long after they’re made, irrespective of their individual merits and the quality of their cinematography, acting or screenplay.

This is simply a list of films that qualify merely on account of springing to mind first when considering what makes a film rewatchable. They’re mostly quite mainstream, with a heavy slant on the action side, no doubt in part because drama is a singularly poor trait for repeat value. But they are foremost a very personal example, and I doubt whether others will share even a portion of their number.

Reliving an Old Gaming Experience

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Casablanca and Doom

Classics of their medium, but which will have a harder time in the future?

In comparison to a medium like cinema, computer games suffer from a particularly poor level of longevity. The vast majority of films can still happily be viewed today, often in an updated format, though keeping to the original production. That isn’t to suggest that films do not become dated, nor that more than just distribution formats are updated in later productions. Only recently I had the privilege of watching a once lost silent Polish film, A Strong Man (Mocny Człowiek), rediscovered in 1997. As there were no hints as to what musical accompaniment was meant to be played with the film, the DVD was released with a modern ambient style, that took a short while to get used to, but actually fit the film’s plot and style rather beautifully. On the whole, however, a film produced fifty years ago can be viewed with much the same clarity today as on the day it was released.

Worms under DOSBox

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had one of those urges to dig up an old classic and relive some memories when we had a guest over to stay. Worms was one of those games we’d both played when it was new and became instantly hooked. Amazing to think that it was released over a decade ago. At the time of its release, most games needed a bit of memory tinkering to work properly, and although I don’t remember now whether Worms was one of them, getting the game to run under a modern operating system was similarly tricky. To that end I thought I’d write a little guide showing how we managed it.

Longitude

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Longitude

Longitude is a short tale of an individual from an indistinct background and minimal education, striving to solve one of the most difficult conundrums of his day, through patience, diligence and a monumental attention to detail, combined with the exertions of half a century of labour. The story has plot twists and setbacks, rivals and allies, and if one wishes to stretch the imagination a little, even a villain. And of course, it’s all true.

Playing with the WordPress Database

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After initially solving my database character encoding problems by ignoring the specific strings in the wp-config.php file, I was finally forced to alter the characters in the database during a recent reshuffle. Whilst there are two automated solutions available via plugin, namely g30rg3x’s UTF-8 Database Converter and the Modified UTF8 Sanitize Plugin, sadly neither worked in my particular instance, and indeed the former is no longer supported for current versions of WordPress, though reports on the WordPress support forum suggest there should be no issues.

Fortunately, an excellent guide was available on Alex King’s blog. For more information and follow-up comments, you should definitely read the full post, but here’s a summary of the method that worked for me.

The Infected German Language

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This post is nothing more than the idle musings of a person entirely unqualified to judge upon the vagaries of the German language. Certainly being no linguist, nor even having control over anything stronger than a tiny smattering of Denglish, I can only claim to comment as an outsider looking in, and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. ¹ Regardless, here a couple of thoughts that my contact with German has provoked.

Phantoms in the Brain

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Phantoms in the Brain

In Phantoms in the Brain, V. S. Ramachandran has attempted to emulate the forebears he cites in the Preface, who inspired him to write science that is both informative and interesting to the general reading public. In this he has certainly succeeded, his style is highly approachable, and the content not only comprises interesting titbits, but wholly thought-provoking suggestions and analyses. I picked up Phantoms in the Brain on the basis of a recommendation from a friend more involved in the scientific fold than I am, yet found the book to be readily accessible to these with even only a meagre understanding of the way our brains function.

The book is for the most part concerned with the fundamental inner workings of the brain revealed to us through curiously specific medical conditions, often brought about by severe physical traumas such as strokes. Some of the findings are, perhaps, fairly well known by now, yet I’ve no doubt that many will still be quite shocking to most readers. However, Ramachandran keeps the presentation of both old and new findings fresh, in his natural inquisitive approach to each individual problem. His curiosity and novel attitude in dealing with many of these strange rarities of medical science at times remind one of the naïve questioning of a young child, who by approaching problems from altogether unexpected angles can come up with profound thoughts and solutions that would not normally strike an adult.

To tat, or not tattoo

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Tattoos are a fashion. Whilst I’m sure many may feel personally insulted by that statement, it would take a blind man not to see that it is true. But allow me to qualify that statement. The act of tattooing itself is nothing new, and as Ötzi recently proved, is probably an older custom than we once assumed. People have been doing it for millennia, and will continue to do so into the future, but there will always be a significant social layer to its existence. The social dimension of tattoos is an important factor in their prevalence and popularity, as a result they become a part of what we can call ‘fashion’. Which is no bad thing—social customs, styles, modes of intercourse, even our language evolves—and the rise of tattoos to their level of prominence today is merely a reflection of a society in natural motion. There may be clashes between old and young generations, between those who dominate society and those who will inherit it, over the acceptability of tattoos, but every generation must go through that process, and in turn the wheel may eventually turn full circle. Tattoos today can make employment in certain instances more difficult, for example, and can bring condescension from that generation which associates inking with particular classes or groups (e.g. the stereotypical trio of bikers, convicts and sailors). But in time those particular stereotypes will fade, those social values will die out, and today’s crop of fashionable, tattoo-sporting youngsters will inherit their place and complain about the next generation’s taste in bad music and disgraceful fashions.

So what exactly do I dislike in this state of affairs?

Web Design for Dummies

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst I normally steer clear of this kind of book, I saw it in a local library and thought I’d have a look, thinking there might at least be a few useful tips. Unfortunately, I was not only disappointed on the tips front, but in the general presentation of this book. Like a previous viewer, I was left rather perplexed as to exactly who the book is aimed at. The blurb suggests it is designed for people planning to build professional, rather than personal websites, and yet the content never quite seems to match up. At once Lopuck suggests that when providing designs for clients you should delegate to members of your team (also dummies, presumably?) so that the designs reflect different interpretations of the requirements, and a few pages later, something as mundane as copying and pasting images will be covered.

IBU Biathlon World Championship Under Way

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Kati Wilhelm

The Biathlon World Championship got underway this weekend in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and what an eventful start it’s been. The weekend began with the news that three members of the Russian team had been banned following failed drugs tests, two from the women’s and one from the men’s events, all very strong contenders. In addition, the track had to be entirely covered with artificial snow to make the event even possible, after warm weather had melted all of the natural covering, leading not only to speculation that the later men’s event would be even more difficult to undertake, but also complaints from competitors and team managers that the snow covering was unsuitable. As if the problem of snow wasn’t sufficient, the track’s location near a wind farm was indication enough of the rather difficult atmospheric conditions for shooting, but as the weekend unfolded it became clear that the adverse conditions would only play a supporting role to the actions of the competitors.

Beware the Squiggly Red Line

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Our language is constantly evolving. That’s almost a tautology for any language that hasn’t been officially pronounced dead. Whilst the rate of change often appears virtually imperceptible to us, a quick flick through a dictionary containing word etymologies, or a glance at the literature from bygone centuries soon proves the point. Words arise and mutate, they spontaneously alter their usage and change their position in a sentence, they crop up in unusual scenarios through metaphor, and before long appear to us in an entirely new guise from their original form. Whilst we occasionally borrow words from foreign languages, and typically for the moment derive new words for new technologies, the main source of new words in our language comes from the current stock. Each of us has an inbuilt sense of how words should be used and formed, and through repetition and popularity, a new word (or an old one with new stripes) can worm its way into one of those revered tomes we like to call dictionaries.

In Store for the New Year

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After spending time this last month trying to sort out the increasingly lengthy drafts list on this blog, I’ve come to the conclusion that some things will just never be ready, and trying to chisel readable posts out of the draft mountain only produces a mountain of chiselled drafts. Unfortunately they’ll have to remain unfinished, as this January will see me moving to Germany, and I don’t expect there to be much opportunity for keeping this blog updated, at least initially. On the other hand, I’ll be making more time for writing with good old-fashioned pen and ink, and I’ve no doubt there’ll be plenty in the Bundesrepublik to spark my appetite.

Zoo of Untrue

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thought I’d post this little selection, sadly missing from its original home, before it gets lost in that tangled salad of Internet pipes. Also an excuse to try out WordPress’ gallery function without putting any effort whatsoever into creating pretty pictures.

WordPress 2.8 Roadmap

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With the latest 2.7 release barely out of the door, the WordPress team are already looking to set out the roadmap for 2.8. The recent update had an impressive mix of tweaks, fixes, features and a nice interface overhaul, and their little survey has a list of tasks to prioritise for the next release. Unfortunately, however, the one thing I should really like to see doesn’t make an appearance, that being some simpler ways to create a multilingual blog built into the core. At the moment there are a number of plugins out there that offer to do just that, and whilst they may do exactly as they say on the tin, the potential for a plugin to become outdated and fall behind the current WordPress release could create a lot of work sometime in the future, not to mention the fact that each plugin goes about creating a multilingual environment in its own unique way. Whilst I’m not alone in calling for at least some standardised framework, I can’t see any progress being made in the near future.

Power Grid

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Power Grid

Power Grid is a simple, business game for two to six players, in which participants compete to buy power plants, the fuels to run them, and then build networks to sell their generated electricity over. In turn, the profits from electricity sales are used to build newer, improved plants, supplying more electricity, stockpile resources, earning greater profits, with a winner eventually determined on who supplies the most consumers.

The gaming elements are simple enough that the rule booklet, which is clearly written, can be read through and understood virtually in its entirety immediately before play. Each turn of the game runs through four phases. Firstly, power plants are bought at auction, each player proffering an available plant in turn, with the plant going to the highest bidder. Purchased plants are replaced from a visible ‘futures market’, allowing players to plan ahead with their bids. The second stage involves buying raw materials from the market. Each plant produces energy from one of five sources: coal, oil, garbage, nuclear or renewable. The latter plants require no raw materials at all and are oft hardest fought over at auction. The other fuels become increasingly expensive as supply dwindles, forcing players to either diversify their sources, or stockpile for future shortages. The third phase has players building an electricity network to supply power to their consumers. The network costs are based on proximity, and as players can only initially build in unoccupied cities, good initial placement can be a crucial factor. The final phase of the game is called the ‘bureaucracy’ phase, dealing with the supply of electricity (and thus generating profits), and various bits of setup to keep the game flowing.

1001 Books To Read Before You Die

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is one the larger circulars out there, of a fairly arbitrary list of books to read. The source is a title of the same name that appeared in print, edited by Peter Boxall. It’s not a particularly bad selection, and with any such list it would be impossible to please everybody, but I think it is fair to say that the more recent decades were rather over-represented (in particular 70 books from the 2000s, despite the book only being published in 2006). However, the list does make a good starting point, and it’s nice to see Miss Rowling’s works were conspicuous only by their absence — just such a shame that the price to pay was that of excluding all children’s literature.

As for getting through the list, I doubt very much if I’ll even read 1001 books before I die, let alone fiction books, or the particular ones from this list. However, I have ticked off a few titles already, and no doubt as many of them coincide with titles on my reading list I’ll be able to whittle the list down a little further. Titles I’ve read to date are in bold.

Last update: 19th August 2026

Wireless for the Masses

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In the last year, I heard how Dublin City Council had given up on plans to run a free, city-wide wireless Internet programme on the grounds that it was against EU regulations, anti-competitive and bad for the consumer. As Ireland currently has some of the slowest and most expensive broadband options available in Europe, it seems obvious how the consumer will benefit from having to continue paying for their poor services. But there could be a nicer alternative to centralised WiFi. In a post much earlier this year, Bruce Schneier generated a lot of debate when he claimed he leaves his wireless network open and unprotected for just about anyone to use. This he considers a common courtesy, and whilst acknowledging the risks, considers them to be largely inflated. As many of the people commenting on his article or reporting about it elsewhere point out, there are risks involved, and as far as many of the people in authority are concerned, his common courtesy leaves him much more culpable. Many ISPs stipulate that sharing a connection in this manner would be a breach of contract, and from a legal perspective infringements undertaken by someone piggybacking the network could result in a rather unwelcome investigation for the owner.

Playing the Game

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Risk

It’s about coming up to another one of those birthday events soon, the kind where you get together with a few close friends, have a meal, a few beers, perhaps watch a movie, before whiling away the rest of evening playing a board game. And as it’s in the UK, you only need a few guesses before you’ll stumble upon which game that will be.

Now I don’t claim to be any kind of expert in the field of board games, but that serious lack of diversity in most UK households makes most games evenings feel like you’re stuck in the same old rut again. Take a look at Wikipedia’s list of popular games, and you might see what I mean. Ignoring those that aren’t easily or commonly played in groups, there’s Cluedo, Monopoly, Risk, and Trivial Pursuit. And let’s face it, if a household has anything, it’s probably one of those. Of course, there’s plenty of fun to be had there, but to be honest there just isn’t enough variety in what’s usually available.

Return to Team Fortress

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Team Fortress 2

After playing Valve’s last flagship multiplayer game, Team Fortress 2, on and off over the past year, I’ve had some of my initial thoughts change since my post earlier this year. A raft of modifications, patches and packs have tweaked the game’s dynamics and bolstered its features such that the game now exudes a certain amount more polish than previously. My earlier speculation that Valve would not have the time (or eventually the inclination) to produce ‘service packs’ for that other classes in the game, after the length of time the original Medic pack took to be released, seems to have been disproved, with two further releases in the intervening period. These packs not only added achievements and unlockable weapons to two further classes, the Pyro and the Heavy, but also added extra game modes and maps.

I had originally written this post, long lingering in the limbo of the drafts bin, pointing out a number of weaknesses with the game as it stood. The most recent patch has done much to address those problems, and is a welcome and rather unexpected update, given Valve had denied there would be any releases for Team Fortress 2 until 2009 on account of the amount of work going into their latest release, Left 4 Dead. I’ve gone through and added some comments or changes where necessary, to reflect the recent update, though on the whole this post retains its original state.

WordPress 2.7 Update

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

True to form, the WordPress team have brought out another much-improved version of their popular blogging software. Having just updated the blog, it’s clear to see the amount of work which has gone into this release, and how many feature enhancements and bug fixes have been rolled out over the course of last year. Whilst it’s normally difficult from an end-user perspective to see how much work has been done on the backend, this release provides such a clean, intuitive and flexible interface that it’s easy to see how WordPress can now move forward with other things. All of the project members and contributors should be rightly proud of their achievement.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

The Future of File-Sharing

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Moses and the Eleventh Commandment

The war against file-sharing that currently rages primarily over the Internet will ultimately be lost. That’s my prediction. I can’t support this argument with any authority, being no expert in the fields of law, politics or technology, but instead make my statement on the basis of many years’ observation from the wilderness. But the trends all point to this being the case. File-sharing has become a mainstay of this new generation, a fact which has forced most corporations and organisations to rethink their strategies and come up with ways to stem the tide. We have already seen many changes in this direction, such as the explosion of digital content that is now available online from legitimate sources. But in addition to this carrot, the war is also being waged with a stick, as organisations set out to have legislation passed to clamp down on file-sharing activities, and new technologies are created to lock down digital content and prevent its spread. So what will the future bring?

New Domain Name

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After more than two years at a temporary location, and in part to celebrate breaking the hundred post barrier (albeit almost unnoticed), this blog has ‘moved’ to a new location. Whilst the hosting remains the same, the blog can now be found under the new domain name amindatplay.eu. There may be a few broken links around the place, but everything seems to be working well so far. With the amount of work being done to release WordPress 2.7 in November, it might also be time for a bit of a clean before winter hibernation, so perhaps expect a few tweaks and perhaps an experimental new layout or two in the next few of weeks.

Juice on Vista

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst installing the latest version of Juice, a cross-platform podcast receiver on Windows Vista, I came across a rather simple error that prevented the program from functioning correctly on the first load, and then from loading thereafter. The error log generated the following output (where xxx indicates the username):

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "gui.py", line 4, in ?
File "iPodderGui.pyc", line 3573, in main
File "ipodder\configuration.pyc", line 468, in __init__
File "os.pyc", line 154, in makedirs
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:\\Users\\xxx\\My Documents\\My Received Podcasts'

Fortunately the fix seems to be quite simple and pain free (though a bit of a hassle to implement manually), found courtesy of Randall’s Life.

Support for Renewables

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve had a pellet boiler installed at these premises for a number of years, and whilst generally pretty efficient and reliable, recently there were some problems which couldn’t be solved with the usual panache of just hitting it and telling it to work. The boiler, a 15 kW Künzel PL15, had got stuck in a de-ashing cycle and would only intermittently fire up before returning to this cycle. Unfortunately, the firm which installed the boiler had in the meantime gone out of business, and our only option was to send for an engineer from a neighbouring county, which took several days, before the unit could be looked at. It turned out to be a problem with the microprocessor controller, the piece of kit which maintains the boiler’s high efficiency, though obviously beyond our capabilities to solve without sufficient technical knowledge (even the engineer who appeared on site had to call back to base for instructions that weren’t included in his handbook).

Rise and Fall of the Blogosphere

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A recent Wired article has certainly provoked some controversy amongst bloggers. Claiming that blogs are history, and that Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are the future, the post’s author Paul Boutin recommends that anyone who’s thinking of starting a blog should stop, and anyone already writing one should pack it in.

Whilst I wouldn’t normally comment on a post of this ilk (given my feelings about bloggers who blog about blogging) it seems pretty clear that unless Boutin is giving us a tongue-in-cheek excuse for a debate on web trends, he’s essentially wrong in his assessment. After all, it comes as no surprise that Boutin proclaims the fall of the blogosphere from the comfort of a blog entry, nor indeed that he rails against his own ilk in decrying the “tsunami of paid bilge” that ranks highest on the Technorati charts. The idea that blogs should be abandoned on account of the fact that personal blogs rarely garner any extended readership or popularity calls into question why authors set up their blogs in the first place, and why indeed they should switch to other means if popularity is their main objective. Boutin upbraids blogs for being text-only affairs, a charge which I daresay isn’t especially accurate, particularly since it is easily possible these days to integrate precisely those services that are supposed to supercede blogs, such as Flickr or Youtube.

Capital for the Third World

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

logoleafy3

I recently came across a wonderful idea for providing peer-to-peer lending to entrepreneurs in developing countries. The idea seems akin to the principles of the Grameen Bank, providing microcredit in this case primarily as a form of aid. The system allows people with spare cash to browse potential applicants and offer them money in the form of a loan. Kiva works with what they term experienced ‘field partners’ to provide the loans, these bodies being established and recognised sources of finance (which may charge interest on the money to the borrower). Eventually the loans are repaid and the money can be withdrawn, redistributed or donated to Kiva to help cover their organisation’s costs. Of course the levels of finance are fairly miniscule on the larger scale, a far cry yet from providing the many milliards needed to create the level of sustainability needed in many parts of the developing world, through stability, infrastructure, education etc. Yet Kiva has plenty of room to expand, and importantly the principle behind the organisation is sound, in trying to create a direct link between people in the developing world who need capital (and know what they want to do with it) and those with the money and the conscience to try and help. Time will tell how effective Kiva’s mission will be.

Ubuntu Grub Installation Errors

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I recently installed Ubuntu on a system with a slightly irregular hard drive configuration. Two SATA drives were running Windows on a mirrored (fake) RAID array, and a third SATA drive was ready to have linux installed. The Ubuntu installer recognised the drive as the third hard drive, and installed itself as expected, with Grub installed in the MBR of this drive, being first in the BIOS’ boot queue. However, all references in Grub’s menu.lst for the Ubuntu installation pointed to (hd2,0), which resulted in an “Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition.” message from Grub. The solution was simply to edit the entries to read (hd0,0) for (hd2,0) as Grub now recognised the third drive as the first on account of its place in the boot order.

Don't Extradite Gary McKinnon

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Free Gary McKinnon Campaign

This isn’t a case I’ve been following with any particular enthusiasm, but it would appear that Gary McKinnon is losing his battle against the extradition charges laid by the USA. Technically McKinnon was already arrested and prosecuted by the UK authorities prior to these extradition charges. In addition, the calls are made on the basis of a UK-US Extradition Treaty that was ratified after the events (and original prosecutions) and as such is being enforced retrospectively, allowing that the USA is not obliged to provide prima facie evidence for their claims. Whilst there are numerous issues regarding the Treaty that should already provoke concern, McKinnon’s case is clearly too small to spark a debate on the issue, and won’t involve politicians to the extent that extradition charges over a figure like Pinochet in previous years managed. Which of course, shouldn’t come as much surprise, since a man charged with torture of foreign nationals and assassination clearly has more to offer than a Weegie who crazily hacked into poorly protected foreign government computers on some wild conspiracy theory pursuing evidence of alien technologies and the secrets of ‘free energy’. It is therefore refreshing to see a campaign (see link above) organised to prevent the extradition proceedings, and guarantee McKinnon a trial on home soil. Unfortunately, the case looks liable to fail, however it can only be hoped that this failure will not prevent others from campaigning to stand up for those who lack the energies, finances and know-how to represent themselves and make an issue of their plights against large government and corporate bodies.

The Cost of Reading

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Costly pile

As an avid reader, it often occurs to me just how second-hand book retailers manage to turn a profit. Even assuming the raw stock can be acquired at very little cost, the vast majority of books can go unsold almost indefinitely, all the while occupying shelf or storage space that costs money to maintain. I read somewhere that on average a second-hand bookseller can expect a third of his stock to be sold within six months, another third to be sold on an indefinite timescale, and the final third to simply go unsold. Obviously this has a knockon effect where turnover is slow. On a recent trip to Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town, I came across plenty of bookstores that clearly have to elevate prices to remain profitable. No doubt in their case, the annual book festival and holiday season are a major source of revenue that would otherwise cause most to close their doors in an otherwise small and overcrowded market ecosystem.

Dealing with Spam

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Spam

If there’s one jargon term that every user new to the Internet soon becomes acquainted with, spam must near the top of the list. Its prevalence and virtual ubiquity through many forms of online communication have generated miniature industries devoted to dealing with it, and the science of spam detection, prevention and treatment almost resembles the tactical skirmishes of biological immune systems.

Spam exists in many forms, from bogus guestbook entries to elaborate instant messaging robots, but the variety which prompted this post was that classic form - unsolicited email. The level of penetration of spam illustrates itself in the number of systems put in place to combat it as standard on the vast majority of websites, including of course authentication emails and the ever evolving captcha. I use a small combination of plugins on this blog to block out most of the spam, and given the extreme sparcity of genuine comments, the potential for inconvenient ‘false positives’ is rather slim. Nevertheless, even the cursory inspection I tend to make over Akismet’s latest haul becomes tiresome for all the size of this blog - spam comments to date outnumber genuine ones by a factor of almost 500 (and that only counts those caught and tallied by Akismet). Quite how larger, more popular blogs deal with searching for false positives, I don’t know, but the task must be fairly time-consuming.

Mapped Drives in Windows XP

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Having recently set up some network storage, I came across a rather irritating problem mapping network drives in Windows XP. The basic setup procedure, as outlined here, worked perfectly on some systems, but failed to retain the stored username/password for network attached drives requiring alternative login details. The solution found, courtesy of this blog, is to map the drives using the following command (replacing U with the drive letter, and NETHOME\LOCID with the relevant UNC network location):

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Indiana Jones saga was complete. He had trumped the Nazis, saved his father’s life, solved one of the greatest archaeological mysteries, and ridden off into the sunset with his companions. At least, until now. The recent spate of late-coming sequels and series restarts no doubt to a large extent prompted Indy’s return to the silver screen, and whilst this is no bad thing by itself, it does however spoil the rather nice ending to the previous series finale Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. Although Sean Connery declined to come out of retirement for the film, the late Denholm Elliott sadly missed, and there being no part for John Rhys-Davies, the film’s still alluring combination of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Williams and Harrison Ford will no doubt kick this film to the top of the box office. The problem is that the potential for disappointment runs almost as high as it did for Lucas’ own Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and one imagines that The Crystal Skull will only suffer as a result.

Assaulting the Team Fortress

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Valve’s Team Fortress 2 is already over six months old, so now might seem like an odd time to write a post on the games merits, but with the recent release of the Medic Achievement pack, and the rather surprising (though not unwelcome) news that Valve intends to integrate some of its popular features and improvements into the ageing Day of Defeat: Source, I decided I’d jot down a few of my impressions.

The release of Team Fortress 2 came as something of a surprise, after so little news about its development, with virtually nothing concrete after the initial revelations in 1999. The finished version bears absolutely no relation to those initial screenshots, instead maintaining much stronger links to the original modification Team Fortress Classic, with a strong glossy coat of The Incredibles style graphics and an uncut, Columbian-strength injection of humour.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

In Preparation for the Bionilympics

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Oscar Pistorius

Hard to believe that Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter, has won his appeal to trial for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a ban imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations, after the latter said his carbon fibre blades give him a mechanical advantage. Essentially the ruling rests on the fact that the IAAF did not prove sufficiently that Pistorius gains an advantage from the “Cheetah Flex-Foot” artificial limbs. Of course, Pistorius is allowed to compete in the Paralympics, and currently holds the world record in the 100m, 200m and 400m events. It would appear that he is looking for a chance to compete at a higher level, and many support his case as inspirational.

All Quiet on the Western Front

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those classics more often referred to and talked about than read. It’s one of those books which doesn’t require reading to know the plot, and skimming through the book it almost feels like familiar territory. The book is eminently readable, and despite its brevity, deals with a wide variety of aspects of wartime life, both specific to the Great War and in general. Despite its age, the book has lost none of its meaning, and whilst it proves to be an important work historically, in dealing with everyday German experiences in the Great War and reactions to it during the Weimar years, it is also an enjoyable read and one that should certainly be read more often. It is a simple story told through the eyes of a lad only nineteen years old, pressured into signing up by a jingoistic schoolmaster, who is hardened, desensitised and churned up by the horrors of trench warfare in the Great War.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Strange Mouse Cursor Issues

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine was having a strange problem with her Dell XPS system, whereby the active area of the mouse cursor would move with apparent randomness, occasionally being located as it should be at the arrow’s point, sometimes at its middle, other times half an inch below. This post led us to the solution that a simple graphics driver update was required, coincidentally for the same ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card.

African Ingenuity

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Came across this rather useful little mobile phone hack on AfriGadget some while ago. Nice to see ideas from the end-user finally working their way into the manufactured product. Whilst there are dual-SIM phones now available, hopefully such ingenuity may find its way into the mainstream. With the benefit of being able to seamlessly switch between two (or more) SIM cards for better price tariffs etc., and until such time as there is a true European provider, it would be rather nice to be able to use a ’local’ number on one’s travels without having to carry about a collection of assorted SIMs that have to be swapped and changed every time you cross a border.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Relying on Plugins

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

WordPress

Plugins can be a major boon. They can add variety to a site, integrate third party software, collect feedback, improve navigation, or add features. Occasionally they may become integral to the way a blog is run. But they can also become a burden or a major stumbling point. The recent WordPress 2.5 release made a large of plugins for the software incompatible, and outright broke a few. In those cases where plugins simply provide some added extraneous functionality, such breakages might not be a problem, but where they form an integral part of a blog the potential changes can bring a site to a halt.

Mała anegdota

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kiedy byłem w Polsce pierwszy raz, mieszkałem z przyjaciółką w Olsztynie. Rano matka mojej przyjaciółki zapytała mnie, czy chciałbym kawę lub herbatę. Wtedy jeszcze prawie wcale nie rozumiałem po polsku, tylko piąte przez dziesiąte - “dziękuję”, “proszę”, “przepraszam”, “nie rozumiem” - ale dlatego, że jestem z Wielkiej Brytanii, oczywiście chciałem herbatę! Odpowiedziałem po prostu “proszę”, ale jak już napisałem, tylko trochę mówiłem po polsku, tak więc naprawdę powiedziałem “prosię”.

- “Czy chcesz kawę albo herbatę?” - “Tak, prosię!”

Pursuing the Fabled Maximum

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Spotting the pink

The World Snooker Championship this year has certainly been entertaining. Newcomer Liang Wenbo’s marathon 13-12 victory over Joe Swail proved to be a tense finish after the youngster made a number of rash errors (deserved of his “Kamikaze Kid” nickname) to allow Joe Swail to creep back from 12-8. Should he win the competition he may vie with Stephen Hendry for the title of youngest player to win the title, though it seems unlikely that he will overcome his erratic and gung-ho moments in time. Hendry, however, certainly seems to have found some new form of late. He currently leads comfortably over Ryan Day in the quarter finals, and would face either Liang Wenbo or Ronnie O’Sullivan in the semis, currently level at 4 frames apiece. Nevertheless, yesterday O’Sullivan pulled out a maximum break to set the competition alight, his record ninth career maximum, and third at the Crucible.

Conversations with Stalin

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ranković, Tito and Đilas

It’s probably about time I got around to finally writing about some of the books that I read, a little in the vein of the 52-in-52 meme. This probably won’t start a trend, but Milovan Đilas’ Conversations with Stalin is full of sufficient tidbits to make it worth writing about, albeit unfortunately a little on the short side.

Đilas (pictured, right) was one of the key figures in the Yugoslavian Partisan movement during the Second World War, and maintained an influential position in the post-war government alongside Josip Broz Tito (centre), Aleksandar Ranković (on the left), and Edvard Kardelj. He started to write his memoirs in the mid-50s and decided to set his encounters with Stalin aside for separate treatment, but his outspoken criticism of the Yugoslav system resulted in his arrest and imprisonment in 1956. He restarted this work in 1961, which eventually brought about his re-internment.

Gołota Back on Form

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

andrzejgolota

Caught a replay of Andrzej Gołota’s title fight with Mike Mollo from back in January last night on Eurosport. The derby (both boxers Chicago residents) went the distance, with Gołota taking some punishment from Mollo’s right hand leaving him with an eye that always looked like it could cause the fight to end. Nevertheless, Mollo looked to have blown it towards the end, being twelve years Gołota’s junior his game plan clearly relied on the fight not going the distance. After 12 rounds Goota was awarded a unanimous decision, and the WBA Fedelatin heavyweight title, yet appears not to want to take this opportunity to retire. Indeed as Geoffrey Ciani reports, Gołota looks set for a match with Shannon Briggs, another aging veteran, though both with the potential for a crack at the title, something which has evaded the Polish emigré despite his technical abilities. Given the two boxers’ varied styles, perhaps another hare versus tortoise race awaits in the near future.

Krystyna Janda in Dublin

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Krystyna Janda

On Saturday I went to a meeting with Krystyna Janda presented by The National Creativity Centre Foundation, in the National Gallery in Dublin. The meeting principally took the form of a questions and answers session, conducted by the famous Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, ahead of the Irish première of Krystyna Janda’s monologue adaptation of Vedrana Rudan’s Ear, Throat, Knife.

Whilst the interview was pretty interesting, given Janda’s extremely busy and varied career, the translating at the event was a little under par. The predominance of Polish speakers in the audience meant that the poor translator didn’t always get a say until after a few questions had been asked or answered, and her pretty difficult task of translating her own shorthand wasn’t helped by Mr Zanussi interrupting occasionally to demonstrate his own knowledge of English, and I was frankly embarrassed for the poor translator. Most questions focused dealt with Janda’s career in acting, both on stage and on the silver screen, from her early roles in films such as Andrzej Wajda’s Człowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble) or working alongside Klaus Maria Brandauer in Mephisto, to her more recent work with the Polonia Theatre in Warsaw. Many of the audience’s questions focused on her family life, work in politics and music, and just where she finds the energy to keep it all going. Not sure if she answered that sufficiently, but she did suggest that there would be more going on in her blog in the future.

О ком?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just a little character development from a recent Russian class:

Лет 30 назад он пользовался уважением, и это несмотря на то, что он был низким и хрупким. Он сверкал харизмой и его глаза светились силой молодости, его ум работал замечательно когда он красноречиво и убедительно представлял свои страсти и мечты: воплощение юношеского идеализма.

Сегодня, та же самая фигура почти вызывает жалость, или даже гнев. Его иссохшое и морщинистое лицо скрывает ум извращенный заблуждениями. Его маленькие, чёрные глаза все ещё искрятся, но и самой малейший проблеск надежды давно уже изчезнул. Тот голос, когда-то сильный и уверенный, сейчас перерывистый и пустой. Тонкие усы, имеющие нездоровое сходство на усы Гитлера, вызывают осмеяние.

Words from the Page

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Courtesy of Caro, here’s my contributory few lines from The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg, page 123, three sentences from the fifth one on:

And, indeed, the coda of the first movement, with its slippery, chromatic bass and the awesome moans above it, remains a paralyzing experience. That is the way the world ends. It is absolute music, but it clearly represents struggle, and it is hard to hear so monumentally anguished a cry without reading something into it. The trouble is that face with such music, all of us tend to become sentimentalists, reading into it the wrong message.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Windows Vista User Profile Issues

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Windows Vista

It seems that occasionally, Windows Vista users can encounter a rather nasty bug which leaves them unable to log in to their system. If this is their only user profile, this can leave for a very distressing moment, particularly if the user is unfamiliar with Windows’ Safe Mode or various options available on the Vista DVD. The user is confronted with an error message such as the following:

Another Day, Another Plugin

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Wordpress

WordPress Plugins

With the news that WordPress Photo Album plugin potentially contains a security vulnerability, I decided it was probably time that I took stock of my increasingly long plugins list and removed some of the outdated and superfluous items. One of the greatest improvements to WordPress of late has been the automatic update checks provided for plugins listed on the official site, which whilst by no means universal does at least mean that updates for many popular plugins will automatically be reported without the need to check up on each one manually. This little list of what remains represents some of the better plugins I’ve encountered.

Weak Six Nations

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Three games in and this is looking to be one of the worse Six Nations competitions of recent years. Wales’ table position is rather flattering, and with France and Ireland yet to play the big games are still ahead for them. And once again Scotland will be vying for the wooden spoon with Italy. But all is not lost. England’s performances have provoked some of the finest examples of impartial commentating from the BBC, including this ‘special’ moment from Brian Moore.

Katyń

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Caught Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń this week as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and have to say I was fairly impressed. It will probably be the only film I’ll see since the prices go up at this time of year, and indeed I was quite lucky to catch this one since the first showing sold out with over a week to go, no doubt in large part due to the significant number of Polish people living in Dublin. Sadly, being sat right at the front didn’t give a particularly good vantage point for flicking between the pictures and the subtitles, and this is one film I’ll have to watch again on DVD before I can fully make up my mind, but the screenplay was well written and easy to follow despite the amalgam of different plotlines. Unfortunately, some of the character portrayals were rather wooden and to some extent detracted from the film’s message, if there is one beyond the plain Rankean historical analysis.

Daily Links

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A handful of random links discovered on the interwebs.

Late Resolutions

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Although it may be customary for resolutions to start after New Year’s, most things surrounding this blog and its author work in a slightly different time zone to everything else. Nevertheless, it was my intention to make an effort to post more on this blog, partly since it might otherwise fall into disuse, partly in order to stretch these fingers more and let a little blood into parts of my brain that are getting a little dusty. The content will be much the same—i.e. as random as ever—but the aim is to post something once a week, albeit supplemented occasionally by interesting links and silly YouTube videos. That might also include some crazy literary wonderings. We’ll see.

Government Verbal Backing for Nuclear

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Finally some sense from the government on Britain’s energy problems. Of course, I’m a complete cynic when it comes to discussing ‘carbon footprints’ and ‘global warming’, but there can be little denying the potential problems facing Britain’s energy industry if nothing is planned to replace the current collection of ageing and decommissioned nuclear facilities. Many cite the inherent dangers of nuclear energy and point to the potential for a repeat of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, and the issue of dealing with the radioactive waste materials. But since these issues affect the entire planet, it seems a rather moot point to debate whether nuclear energy is ‘safe’ to be used in Britain, since its nearest neighbour is a predominantly nuclear powered nation. Aside from promoting micro-generation and energy efficiency in the home, the idea of building a green energy economy principally based on wind power seems frankly absurd.

Market Games

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Supermarket

There are very few today who would deny that the quality of our food has dropped, partly as a result of the change embodied by the death of the local shop and the rise of the supermarket. Where once the only change was that our food was pre-grown, now we find it has been pre-grown, pre-made, pre-cooked, pre-packaged, pre-distributed, and often find our purchases are precluded by lack of choice for good measure. Of course, supermarkets are the just one example of today’s monopolies, that much should be clear. Enter the store at one end, and you can start your purchases with your baby food at one end, and walk all the way through life till you need find a buy-one-get-one-free headstone and a “Value” lawyer to deal with your wills and probate. Plus the stores are so big these days that you might in fact need the coffin by the time you finally leave.

Universally Challenged

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

University Challenge

A confused Paxman

Another blunder on the prestigious UK quiz show University Challenge yesterday, as Birmingham took on Magdalen College, Oxford in a very close contest. The question went something like this:

Jeremy Paxman: “Which hydrated ferrous salt used to be known as green vitriol?”

Answer: “Iron sulphate.”

Jeremy Paxman: “No, just sulphate.”

That’s akin to asking who composed Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and rejecting the answer “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” because the card read “Just Mozart.” Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and it should be no surprise that the question master makes a few given the breadth of subjects on display, but Paxman’s general manner makes it difficult to forgive him on this account. Paxman quite happily berates students for not knowing things in his particular field, or indeed for having any knowledge of popular culture, God forbid. In addition, as most people know, the show is filmed and edited in one continuous performance, and might last an hour rather than the televised half an hour. Plenty of time for someone to prevent such rediculous answers from being aired. As someone has already commented, this isn’t the first time such a poor mistake has been made, and no doubt neither will it be the last, until someone finally stands up for themselves or Paxman is brought down a peg.

Ideas for the Web2.0 Generation

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

foods_1.jpg

This idea is one which keeps popping up from time to time, normally on those occasions when it would actually come in useful, only to be thrown on the backburner for another time or a more talented author. Well this time I’ve decided just to throw the idea down on electronic paper for anyone with the skills and the time to make it work have a go. Of course, it’s quite likely that such a website already exists and that I just haven’t yet been able to find it, but if anyone knows of such a place, let me know!

Ostensibly the website is aimed at those allegedly few remaining people who cook, though it would appear equally useful to people planning dinner parties, students looking for something to go with their pasta, or just about anyone curious enough to experiment with a few different ingredients. In its essence, the website would be nothing more than a large recipe repository, with everything from snacks and sandwiches to stews and casseroles, with anything in between. Recipes would be submitted by users, moderated and standardised, but the slightly clever part is that these recipes would not be displayed as flat text files—it’s 2007 after all—but would be cross-referenced in such a way as to make the whole collection completely accessible.

Domesticating Zebras

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Zebras

Noble—but undomesticable?

How do you domesticate a zebra? You can’t, or at least that’s the justification put forward by Jared Diamond in his Guns, Germs and Steel for why these wild beasts were never used as draught animals or cavalry in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of what Diamond writes has a logical ring to it, and whilst the evidence is sparse and in places contradictory, his conclusions fit the necessarily teleological approach. Others have accused him of too much geographical determinism, and perhaps they have a point, but the one thing which struck me as being peculiarly out of place in Diamond’s writing was his treatment of Africa’s wild animals as being unsuitable for domestication. He argued that it was only by chance that Eurasia benefited from having suitable species such as goats, sheep, cattle and horses, and that the native varieties of these animals in sub-Saharan Africa were inherintly unsuitable.

Company of Heroes Review

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Company of Heroes

With some of the highest scores awarded for a real-time strategy, being one of the Top 20 Metacritic All-Time High Scores, Company of Heroes ended up being one of those games I had little excuse not to try out, given that my PC could (just about) run it. Admittedly I’m unable to comment on the graphical splendour which seems to have charmed so many gamers’ hearts, as every setting on my screen reads either ’low’ or ‘off’, but I’ve played a fair few strategy games over the years, and despite my early cynicism, Company of Heroes has warmed to me after a little experience on the online battlefields.

Whenever a game is released with a major historical theme, such as the ever popular World War II era, cries go up about the loss of realism to the gaming gods. Such and such would never happen, this and that never existed. Of course, many strategy games don’t even attempt to pander to the pedants of realism, and have been all the more successful for it (take the recent Supreme Commander, or any in the Command and Conquer series). Company of Heroes is no saint in this regard either, but its efforts to create a game at once realistic and fun have to be admired. There will always be players who complain about how developers could have stayed truer to real life, but Relic have done a good job in creating a game which at least seems realistic enough, and in ways which make the game fun to play. Shells fired at tanks have a chance of only glancing off the armour, and depending on the situation might even miss altogether; units under heavy fire become surpressed, limiting their movements and actions, or even pinned, leaving them helpless unless pulled out or relieved; and the variety of weapons and vehicles keep the tactics fresh and varied.

Finding Space for the Public in Transport

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is one of those posts which makes it to the draught stage and never any further, but as I was tidying up my WordPress install, I decided with a bit of reworking it’s something I still feel strongly about. The original title had referred to British public transport in particular, but in truth there is very little specific to the British experience.

virgin_train

Virgin Trains

Before I start my rant, let me plainly state that I am great supporter of the principles of public transport. That is not to say that I don’t see the use or take advantage of private transport, merely that I feel the balance in society is generally wrong, particularly in the first world, or whatever the preferred term is these days. These societies should be perfectly capable of providing for the vast majority of man’s annual miles, with our regular combinations of buses, trams, trains etc. and private transport being available to fill in the gaps where required. Being able to pack your bags, grab the kids and hit the road for a weekend away seems like a reasonable thing to do, but where is the logic of moving a ton of metal to work and back five days a week?

The Settlers of Catan: First thoughts

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Settlers of Catan

Occasionally there’s no better way to spend an evening than sitting down around a table with friends and family, having a few drinks and playing a board game. That stands particularly true when the game is something new. Every player goes into the game trying to learn, meaning everyone is that little bit more focused, that little bit more bewildered, and tactics have to be picked up along the way. Although I wouldn’t call any of us board game connaisseurs, this wasn’t the first time we’d learnt a game from scratch of an evening, nor presumably the last time we’ll be up past midnight trying to play one out!

The Settlers of Catan advertises that it can be picked up in fifteen minutes, and with a bit of concentration there really is nothing too complicated about it. The object of the game is to score 10 victory points, which can be gathered in a number of ways, but the key to all of them stems from the same basic root. The island of Catan is divided into various regions or ‘hexes’, each representing a type of landscape which will produce a certain variety of good. Precisely which of these regions will bear fruit on any one turn is determined by the throw of the dice, adding that little element of luck which thankfully doesn’t marr any feeling of player involvement in this game. Placing your settlements and roads wisely should ensure a decent windfall of the produce from the dice throws, and it isn’t necessary to be in control of the dice in order to profit from a roll. Using various combinations of goods produced, a player can expand his network, building more settlements and roads, and creep towards that victory point tally.

Fishing the planet dry, by saving the dolphins

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Dolphins

Feeding the dolphins

There are some pretty banal programmes on television at times, such is the role it plays, but Animal Park - Wild on the West Coast really caught my eye today. It served up the job of a nature programme from California, but it was a real eye opener to some of the ludicrous crap that gets spewed out, and of course funded, in the name of environmentalism. One segment showed how they looked after a sealion with some neurological disease, to the extent of giving the animal an MRI scan, ascertaining it wasn’t going to survive, and then putting it down. If anyone could explain the point of all that to me, I’d be impressed.

Skype for Oldies

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

There are times when I wonder how I ever survived without Knoppix as a tool for fixing PC problems on the fly. And give someone a CD and some basic instructions, and you can soon have a live terminal up ready to fix a whole host of problems. Yet I find being able to talk to the person on the other end often vital for solving problems, and more importantly, it can be a reassurance for when you make a cock up!

Quiet Moments

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a full month since I last posted anything, which is a little too infrequent even for my liking. A combination of holidays, downtime and general idleness is to blame, but there are a few posts in the draft box which never quite got finished, and maybe one or two new things will crop up in the coming days. Also going to give the WPPA plugin a bigger trial and add a few more photos from around and abouts.

To Blog, or Not to Blog

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

WordPress

That is the question; as the well known soliloquy roughly goes. A Mind @ Play is now a year old, and not a day wiser, as far its author is concerned. Courtesy of GeneralStats, I can see that in the past year (excluding this post) there’ve been 57 posts, 18 comments/trackbacks, together a total of 31,400 words, and over 8,000 spam comments caught by Akismet. But to what end?

This isn’t intended to be another one of those ‘blogging about blogging’ posts, but occasionally one has to ask why we blog at all. I wouldn’t claim to be anything near an expert on the subject, but it would appear that the more successful blogs do just that: ‘blog about blogging’. Nor should that sound derogatory, some of them do an exceedingly good job of it, but there are only so many times you can read the ’top 10 ways to get more readers’ et al. But then these people tend to come from the professional end of the blogging community, those who aim to earn something through their work. There were and are no such intentions with this blog, and if there are any advertisements on this site I can only say they are unintentional.

BT and the Cost of Money

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Cash - An Expensive Commodity

How much does it cost to pay? That might appear to be an odd question, but it is a seldom acknowledged hidden attribute of the market economy. Paying costs. If one only imagines the contingencies required to handle the coin money which filters through any system of minor payments, such as a road toll booth, a system of parking meters or a public transport system, it becomes clear that dealing in such currency requires some not inconsiderable expenditure on the part of the service provider.

Life as an Individual

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wondered what it’s like to see life through someone else’s eyes? We go through life as individuals, and whilst we might try to empathise with the people we meet in our lives, we can never truly see outside of the confines of our own identity. Of course, our identity changes as we develop, and that change gives us some ability to imagine how others are feeling. In particular, we believe it empowers us to imagine what those younger than us must feel. But just how true is that?

Sarah's Law is no Megan's Law

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the British government’s scheme to tackle sex offenders, Home Secretary John Reid is introducing a raft of new measures for the further protection of children from known paedophiles. Dubbed “Sarah’s Law”, after Sarah Payne who was murdered in 2000 by a repeat offender. Fears that the law would provide powers akin to those in the United States guaranteed by “Megan’s Law”, which had the potential to drive sex offenders underground, have been assuaged by the limited scope of its provisions. The new measures include a voluntary drug treatment, often cited as ‘chemical sterilisation’ in the media, as well as allowing parents to register their concern with the police should anyone be in a position to have unsupervised access to their children.

WordPress 2.2 Database Character Sets

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For those upgrading their WordPress powered blogs to 2.2, just a word of warning regarding the new character encoding options available in the wp-config.php file.

The standard file should have a section which reads:

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', dbname// The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'dbuser'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'dbpassword'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://www.yourblog.com/');
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://www.yourblog.com/');
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', 'utf8');

Note the new options added at the bottom regarding the codepage used in the blog’s database. If these are set incorrectly they may make your blog unreadable, else prevent special characters from appearing correctly. I personally found that commenting these two lines out left the blog functioning as before, but for people wishing to change the codepage of their database, WordPress has a rough guide available, originally written for the beta testers.

Nichts als die Wahrheit

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Boys from Brazil

I recently caught a TV screening of The Boys from Brazil, a film adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel, concerning the nefarious actions of Dr. Josef Mengele in South America, and his pursuit by a Nazi-hunter presumably modelled on Simon Wiesenthal. Certainly a rather motley cast, with Laurence Olivier showing why he is so often cited as amongst the highest echelons of English-speaking acting, whilst James Mason poorly attempts to cover up his stiff accent. Still not entirely sure what to make of Peck’s performance.

Will Anyone say 'No' to the 'No Smoking' Ban?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

They all roll over. What else can they do in the dictatocracy? Smoking is bad for you. It kills! And according to recent adverts on British television, passive smoking is even worse, since the smoke comes from the ‘bad’ end of the cigarette. Is it any wonder the state becomes nanny when society acts so wimpish?

But society’s seemingly burgeoning fear of death isn’t the issue here, at least not to me. That issue is freedom of choice. The ban on smoking in public places perhaps has a right to be enforced; there is no choice about which train or bus station you use, after all. But when it comes down to banning smoking in all bars, pubs and restaurants, one has to ask why we are no longer allowed to choose. Are we so incapable of rational thought? For a long time now, many restaurants have had exclusive smoking sections, and many bars too have proven capable of sectioning off areas for different clientele. One might question therefore, the need for a blanket ban.

Spine Reading

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Book spines

Ever wondered why the spines on your books and DVDs aren’t all oriented the same way? Why some read top-to-bottom and others read bottom-to-top? Admittedly, this phenomenon is rare with books printed in the Anglophone world, where the top-to-bottom approach is preferable, but take a look at a bookshelf in continental Europe and you’ll probably find the titles read the other way (or both, according to Wikipedia).

Problem Installing Altiris SVS

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After reading a review over at freewaregenius.com, I thought I’d check out this neat little program, free for personal use. It offers a way to install programs as a ’layer’ on your system, transparently noting all changes and additions made in the installation, and enabling you to turn this layer on or off, or seamlessly delete it without worry. Although not limited to creating layers for installations, this would seem the perfect solution for people who wish to try out different versions of a software package without them interfering with one another, or simply test out some software without the hastle of worrying if its installer left anything behind.

Telescreens Hit the Streets

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As if holding the title for most spied upon nation weren’t enough, CCTV cameras in England are to be updated to add something of a bark, according to the BBC. Arguing the new cameras remonstrating with petty offenders will help to prevent problems before they really start and reduce bureaucracy (by magic presumably), Home Secretary John Reid also mentioned that competitions would be run in schools in local areas to provide a voice for the cameras, which if it is true would presumably mean that the ’talking’ ability would be limited to a choice of pre-set phrases. We can only hope that whilst these competitions are being carried out, it will be noticed how effectively such vocal coercion works in the classroom, without even a whiff of potential punishment to follow it up. After all, is that not where the problems of anti-social behaviour which these measures are designed to counteract originate?

Airport Security

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Airport Security

If there’s one thing that makes travelling by airplane an ordeal, it’s airport security. The fact that this is as oxymoronic as ‘British Intelligence’ is only half of the story, for that part of your journey which entails walking through the little arch that goes “bing” largely accounts for all the rest of the misery surrounding airports.

Now I can of course only pretend that this is a real ‘pet hate’—for starters, it is a pretty universal sentiment—since it serves its purpose pretty well. That of protecting innocent people? Oh no, there is no security at the airport per se! If you want to set off a bomb or open a phial of some contagious disease, in an area as crowded as the city centre, feel free. There are even bins provided for your convenience. But to make everyone feel safer about boarding the big bricks with wings, and of course for the protection of those big bricks with wings, passengers must arrive early, hand up their luggage for inspection, and file through security like cattle. Oh, and these days, of course you should throw away anything over 100ml!

Language Switcher Widget

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This certainly isn’t my area of expertise, but I’ve been trying to figure out a way to integrate the Language Switcher plugin with a widget-enabled theme. As this hasn’t yet been implemented, I copied wrote the simplest of Widgets which will list the available languages on your blog in the sidebar.

There really isn’t anything special here, but for people even more hesitant with code than I am, pop this file into the wp-content/plugins/ folder of your WordPress installation, and then enable it via the Plugins admin page. You should then find the Widget available in the Presentation -> Sidebar Widgets admin page. At the moment, the Widget will display your available languages listed only by name. I’m still learning how to allow this to be changed from within the Sidebar Widgets page.

Language Switcher Widget v1.01

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After a little more research and experimentation, I’ve updated the little Language Switcher widget to enable the user to choose whether to display flags and/or names for the available languages when setting up the widget, and change the heading in the sidebar if required.

Click here to download Language Switcher Widget v1.01.

A Few Funky Firefox Plugins

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Happily, one of the best things about the Mozilla Foundation’s flagship browser Firefox, is the sheer breadth of additional functionality provided by an active development community in the form of addons or plugins. There’s a great range in terms of ease-of-use, function and stability, some which are so useful as to almost warrant standard inclusion, others merely worth playing with from time to time. It should be noted of course that adding plugins can cause problems with Firefox’s stability and security, though many of those listed are fairly mature projects and should not pose much of a risk. Here are a few I’ve dabbled with from time to time:

Adblock or Adblock Plus - There’s fair advertising, and then there’s frankly unreasonable advertising. I can see the merits of allowing sites to earn funding through the placement of adverts related to their products, whether they come from Google or elsewhere, but some web adverts go too far. The popup plague of yesteryear might have been largely beaten back, but that doesn’t prevent wiley coders from placing wholly obtrusive flash adverts in every nook they can find. Unfortunately their actions can only serve to give web advertising a bad reputation, and drive people to finding ways of blocking adverts wholesale, obtrusive or otherwise. Of course there will always be a small minority of web users who cannot stand to see web adverts in any form, but for their purposes, and the folks seeking refuge from the advertising bombardment, Adblock/Adblock Plus will fulfil their every need.

To tell the truth, the history of these two projects confuses me, save to say that at one time or another one or both of these plugins has been under development. As I understand the current situation, Adblock Plus is the more highly recommended, as it’s more heavily featured, comes with some default filters to subscribe to which can get rid of most adverts with the minimum of fuss for the end user, and has a much reduced resource footprint to boot (pardon the pun).

Will Anyone Beat Australia?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Matthew Hayden

That might just be a taster of the final to come. And if it is, what a treat that will be! Australia met South Africa for dominance of Group A, both teams already through to the Super 8s round, with the points from this game carrying through to that stage of the competition.

Australia opened the batting and immediately made it clear they meant business, clearing 50 inside 5 overs. Matthew Hayden looked to be on stellar form as he scored the fastest century in World Cup Cricket, off just 66 balls, a dangerous omen for the other Super 8 sides. Despite immediately thereafter succumbing, for a total of 101, Hayden’s tally was bolstered by near centuries from Michael Clarke (92) and Ricky Ponting (91) as well as a sound 42 from opening partner Adam Gilchrist, for a total of 377 for 6.

Super 8s Stage Approaching

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

With only a few more games to play in each of the four qualifying groups, the Super 8 stage of the Cricket World Cup is almost here. In some cases, positions are already decided, and New Zealand for example can already guarantee taking 2 points through to the next stage.

Having seen most of the teams of the tournament in action, it would appear to me that there is as yet no clear favourite. The Super 8s stage of the tournament requires each team to play all of the other qualifying teams, apart from the qualifier from their group (the result of this match is carried forward into the Super 8s stage). This means some of the important matches have already been played. Tomorrow South Africa and Australia will face each other in their final group games, having both been eased into the competition with perfunctory matches against the Netherlands and Scotland, a big game which might even be a preview of the final.

Ireland Joins the Developed World

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Where else would you find a sign like this in a major airport? (Excuse the blur)

escalators.jpg

Audiobook Showcase

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Another site for those lovers of audiobooks. Podiobooks offers a way for authors to showcase their talent for free, parcelling up their work into episodes which can be delivered via podcast or downloaded manually from the website. Whilst listening to the books is free, the website recommends users to donate, as 75% of donations goes straight to the authors themselves, which they regard as a much more equitable way for authors to market their abilities. It also offers something of a return to the serialisation of novels so popular in the past; subscribe to the book(s) of your choice via RSS and listen to the podcast via your favourite media player, or upload to an mp3 player to listen on the move.

Biofuels: Oil for Votes?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Biofuels

Where your next tankload is coming from?

Just where is the EU going with its agricultural policy? With the European Commission endorsing a plan to up the previous goal of a 5.75% market share for biofuels in the overall transport fuel supply by 2012, to 10% by 2020, one has to wonder which part of the EU’s goals is being pushed hardest. From the EU website:

France Crowned Again on Six Nations Super Saturday—Probably!

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

RBS Six Nations Trophy

Ireland denied once again on points difference from their first Six Nations championship, and on St Patrick’s Day to boot, as France took the challenge set by Ireland in their 8 try victory over the Azzurri. With the unlikely Italian victory out of the picture, the French set to work against Scotland in Paris, with a target of 24 points. Although England playing in Cardiff would have a mathematical chance to clinch the title, a championship victory for them would be an incredible feat. The title was France’s to lose, and Scotland’s to deny.

Latest from the West Indies

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Herschelle Gibbs

In typical fashion, England underwhelmed in their first game of the tournament losing to a solid New Zealand performance. A major hiccough during their innings in which England lost 4 wickets for 5 runs left the Kiwis with an mediocre target of 210 to reach. Despite the new ball putting New Zealand in a precarious position on 19 for 3, an excellent partnership by Scott Styris and Jacob Oram saw them through to what was ultimately a tidy victory. The result puts New Zealand in a strong position to progress through the group, and leaves England needing results against both Canada and Kenya in their last two games.

Moving Your WordPress Blog

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As I found recently, if you’re planning on moving your WordPress blog around on your server or domain there are a few things to be aware of. Most importantly, do not move the blog before setting up the WordPress for the new location!

Go to the admin section of your blog, select and find the Options > General panel.
Change the WordPress address and Blog address entries to reflect the new location of your blog.
Update your blog, and do not worry if there appear to be problems, simply log out.
Delete the wp-content/cache folder from your WordPress installation (if it exists).
Move the WordPress files to their new location, including all subdirectories.
If you use Permalinks, update them via the Options > Permalinks panel.
Update the settings for any plugins which require addresses which have changed.
Navigate to your new blog address and check everything is working.

Whilst this should update most of your settings to reflect the blog’s new location, some problems might arise with links and images, particularly relative links if you have changed the blog’s location within a single domain. If this is the case it would be easiest to edit the links en mass via the SQL database, however if this affects only a small number of posts it could prove simpler to edit these manually.

The Global Warming Debate Heats Up

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Global warming has become something of a fashion. To gainsay it is a political cyanide pill akin to older variants of the likes of ‘abolitionism’ or ‘free trade’. The climate is changing, and it’s all our fault. One need only look at the success of a film like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to see how this basic principle has become an accepted fact. Recent films like The Day After Tomorrow illustrate how mainstream such ideas are. It’s a big issue, it’s an important issue, and it’s politically and financially loaded. Which is why it is all the more important it isn’t swallowed wholesale. A recent Channel 4 production hoped to show just how deceptive the issue can be.

globalwarming_1.jpg

Unfortunately, it is very easy in this ‘information age’ for facts to become distorted and blown out of proportion, particularly by the mainstream media. On a daily basis, news programmes bring us the latest breakthroughs from the cutting edge of science. In Britain this is concomitant with a constant tugging on our heart strings to force the NHS to accept the latest miracle cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s or any other myriad diseases. Of course, the problem is that breakthroughs at the cutting edge of science have a tendency to go wrong, the results of surveys tend to be disproved by later surveys, and false conclusions tentatively fed to the public with phrases like ‘scientists believe’ and ‘recent surveys have shown’ in fact get swallowed as gospel fact.

Cricket World Cup 2007 Gets Underway

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Rory McGrath

Glenn McGrath

The World Cup is truly underway now in the West Indies, with the hosts hopefully recovered from their opening win against Pakistan. Yesterday the defending champions Australia took on minnows Scotland in a one-sided game which showed a return to form for Ricky Ponting’s side, whilst later the 2003 semi-finalists Kenya took on Canada.

The Scots played admirably against their determined opponents, although a few fielding errors cost them the initiative in the opening stages, and they were unable to do anything against Australia’s last gasp efforts in the dying overs to bring their tally to 334 for 6. Australia then proceeded to show how it’s done, punishing a jittery Scotland in the early stages of their innings, Glenn McGrath showing why he’s the best in the business at World Cup level, taking 3 for 14. The Scots can certainly feel proud about their performance, and Majid Haq looks to be a promising all-rounder for the side, despite his unnecessary run out in the early stages.

France Flooded, Ireland Crowned, Italy Arrive, Wales Go Back to School

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Wales v Italy

Another busy weekend for the Rugby Six Nations which saw Ireland win the Triple Crown for the third time in four years after beating Scotland 19-18 in a stiffly fought match which left Ireland’s points scorer Ronan O’Gara breathless. Some tremendous tackles from the likes of Sean Lamont prevented the scoreline really opening up, and a few flare ups on the pitch illustrated the tension between the teams. A flat Irish performance kept their championship hopes alive, whilst Scotland’s comeback after such a downheartening result against Italy a fortnight ago illustrates the importance of Chris Paterson to the side (statistically the best kicker in the world at the moment).

Violence of the Lambs

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For anyone who recently enjoyed Hot Fuzz, this new film looks like it will carry the torch where Shaun of the Dead previously led the way. 28 Days Later meets Dog Soldiers?

WordPress 2.1.1 Vulnerability

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

No doubt this news will be all over before the day is out, but it is worth spreading this announcement all the same.

Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

Whilst the news is that the hacked changes were installed after the 2.1.1 release, since the new version includes an unrelated security patch it is probably worth everyone upgrading their WordPress files to 2.1.2 regardless. A sad occasion for WordPress, but the exact details are as yet unknown, and hopefully this release will be dilligently applied to prevent any serious damage being done.

New Ways to Read

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Books

Amongst the plethora of new and interesting websites which crop up every month, there were a few which caught my eye recently that weren’t related to the usual photos, videos and blogs. Instead they were related to books, and whilst no doubt most of the websites won’t take off, there were some interesting ideas among them.

British Library - Alright, so the first link isn’t exactly a new idea, but the British Library have recently unveiled their new website, with a particular emphasis on its new search capabilities to retrieve results from its increasing online resources.

Ferra Cuppa Char?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As a pacific type, I like to feel that there are few things that can get me enraged. Whilst I may oft quote the remark attributed to Voltaire, ¹ “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” you’d have to be saying something pretty damn meaningful. Indeed, being brought up as an Englishman, not only am I likely to stand and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I’m liable to apologise for getting in the way of said arrows, and offer them back at the end for good measure!

Yet over the years I’ve discovered a couple of things in life that I’d be willing to bear arms for. The British Isles are not renowned for their cuisine, but some things have been honed to an art there. One of these is the pie. Now quite how the humble pie could come to be threatened is quite a stretch of the imagination. If something so base could be in danger of disappearing, then there are probably problems for its basic ingredients, in which case there are much greater issues to be worrying about. Yet the prospect of a pie tax or some other form of rationing has me sharpening blades in preparation for the event, a veritable cataclysm by any standards! But this is nought compared to my second item.

The UN Peacekeepers of Animal Farm

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Six Nations Triple-Decker

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Six Nations 2007

Hell of a day for rugby fans, as all of the Six Nations sides saw action, and what action there was to behold! An historic victory in an historic venue, as Ireland romped over England 43-13 at Croke Park. Meanwhile earlier in the day, Italy celebrated their first Six Nations away win with a decisive result against Scotland at Murrayfield 17-37. Finally, France came from behind to keep their Grand Slam hopes alive with a 23-14 victory over Wales. The results leave the competition open, with plenty to play for in the final two games, France will be looking to retain the title, and Ireland will surely want to finally make their mark on the Six Nations Trophy. Today, with a total of sixteen tries across the three games, there was a true feast for the neutral spectator, and plenty for the passionate fans of three nations to celebrate besides!

Deletion ext3dents

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Talk about learning the hard way! Accidentally deleting files on an ext3 partition is not quite so the reversible process it was on ext2, as explained here.

The Indian Finnegans Wake

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

All About H. Hatterr

It’s difficult to know what to make of G. V. Desani’s ludicrous autobiography, All About H. Hatterr. As a pure work of literature, the confusing employment of language has led to its comparison to Joyce, and as an author Desani has been compared to the likes of Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov for his use of English instead of a maternal tongue. Yet it is also a work of continued interest to the post-colonialist in its epitome of cultural interchange, Desani being described erroneously as a métèque author.

Québecois Prepare to Fight for their Independence

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In den Schwarzwald

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Morgen fliege ich nach Karlsruhe-Baden. Es wird mein erster Besuch in Deutschland seit der Wiedervereinigung sein. Letzes Mal habe ich noch vor der Berliner Mauer gestanden und mein Reisepass trug einen Stempel der DDR. Die Zeiten haben sich geändert!

Ich werde dort bei meiner wunderschönen Freundin in Freiburg bleiben, so dass dieser Blog Eintrag für einige Zeit der letzte sein wird.

Failte go dti an tAontas Eorpach

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

EU Flag

The EU

On January 1st of this year, under the continuing enlargement plans, Romania and Bulgaria acceded to the European Union. At the same time, the number of official EU languages was enlarged to 23, now including Romanian, Bulgarian - and Irish. The inclusion of the latter might seem to come at an odd time, given that the Republic of Ireland has been a member since January 1st, 1973, and Irish is its official language. Yet it was through English that the Republic handled its application to the Union.

To take some basic figures, Irish is spoken by less than half of the Republic’s population, whilst it is in daily use by only 5% ¹. To put this in some perspective, there may be more than twice as many Welsh speakers, while both of these Celtic tongues pale in comparison to Catalan, for example, with more than 7 million speakers. Ireland’s European commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, insists that Irish is central to Irish cultural identity, and its acceptance into the European fold has prompted calls for the inclusion of other minority languages ².

When Is a Student Not a Student? When There’s Money Involved!

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Student Card

Example student card

How do you identify a student? Sounds like the opening to a joke, and in many ways this isn’t far from the truth. A great number of services and products come with discounts to students, and discerning who is eligible therefore requires a little more care and attention than simply looking out for tousled hair, hangovers, piercings and berets. Most higher education institutions produce student identification cards, which might double as library cards, security cards and/or university credit cards, amongst other things. However, the vast range of designs and stamps means that identifying a student card could prove as difficult as trying to identify a student by the first glance rule.

Advertising Takes The Logical Next Step

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Zool

Zool: An early example of in-game advertising

We should be clear about one thing. In-game advertising isn’t new. And not just the self-effacing, tongue-in-cheek form of advertising epitomised by the Loom™-toting pirate in LucasArts’ The Secret of Monkey Island. Anyone who remembers Zool from the early 1990s might recall the Chupa Chups sponsorship deal, and the FIFA series has been using advertising on their billboards for many years, though what with ‘image rights’ being big money for clubs and players alike, the football genre could be said to have entrenched itself in the realm of ‘reverse’ advertising.

Nevertheless, the presence of advertising in games has been pretty low key, considering the industry’s growth over the past decade or so. Advertising is not usually so slow to find its way into new forms of media entertainment, Internet advertising being the biggest example of recent times. So the news that in-game advertising rights for Counter-Strike (the ‘big one’ as far as non-MMORPGs is concerned) have been sold to IGA should only come as expected. Previously adverts for Valve’s flagship had been reserved for brief loading screens, an idea which apparently never took hold. Where Internet advertising has had much reaction to the point where many people block out adverts as a matter of course, this will be more difficult to achieve in such a gaming environment, and should it succeed, might result in future games featuring truly hard-coded advertising avenues.

Forest of Dennis

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Forest

A forest. Not Dennis'

A programme on the beeb yesterday dealing with Britain’s economy, entitled What’s Britain Worth? and hosted by Peter Snow and his son, featured a short interview with one of the nation’s wealthiest men, Felix Dennis. Aside from the rather astute observation he made about the wealthiest members of society (“They’re all shits!”), Dennis talked about the creation of his legacy, the self-named “Forest of Dennis”.

Hogmanay 2006-7

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

That seasonal reminder that time waits for no one and you’re only growing older has been again. At least this year was a little different. The family left early to plan their various parties and nights out, leaving me to think up some bold plans for enjoying the evening, when the winds whipping in over the Irish Sea knocked out the electricity in the region just before sun down. And there’s no better time to find out that the stove in the lounge really was only installed for ornamental purposes than on a cold, blustery evening.

Casino Royale: Back to basics?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Casino Royale

So they’re silly. So they’ve been going since the ’60s. So this is the twenty-first (official) outting of the sixth incarnation of a spy who has survived promotion, demotion and the Cold War. It’s a Bond film, and one purporting to go ‘back to basics’ with a new face and a general overhaul for the series. As one of those heretics who preferred the slightly heightened realism of the Timothy Dalton era, this film showed plenty of promise with a conspicuous absence gadgets, a somewhere near realistic plot, and nary a nuclear device in sight.

It’s been compared to the series reboot that Batman Begins provided, and for all its grittiness and mortality of the main character, has been lauded by the critics, whilst simultaneously pleasing fans for remaining true to the Bond brand. Daniel Craig proved to be a controversial choice, but from his experience behind the lines in Archangel and some technical bomb-making expertise in Munich, he came well prepared to play the UK’s most dangerous export.

Warning, possible spoilers after the break!

Ireland Avoids the Burdens of Public Transport

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend a radio talk show in Ireland was lamenting the state of the Irish road network, in particular focusing on the state of her road signs. Anyone that has driven through the country will understand how this seemingly trivial matter could be focus for an entire discussion. The cause of the problem was perceived to be the decentralised system of transport regulation, the result being a wide disparity between different parts of the country, and a generally poor system compared to European standards. The show received numerous SMS messages and emails highlighting more extreme examples, from road signs incorrectly directing traffic, through long stretches of road with nary a road-sign or indication of turnings, to the example of sections of road with conflicting speed limits, no doubt compounded by some complications in the changeover from miles to kilometres per hour.

Yet what was only mentioned in passing was that government initiatives to improve the transport network in the country can only be spent once, and ultimately further improvements to the road network must necessarily mean public transport receives less funding. One of the interesting statistics cited was that in Dublin, the only large urban centre, around 70% of commuters travel to work by private transport. Although unduly unfair, for the sake of comparison just consider the figures for the centre of London, which show the figure to be as low as 10%. Is Ireland’s public transport system underperforming?

Investment Opportunity

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Although its development has been in no small part prompted by the awful rampancy of HIV in Africa, the product exhibited in this cheeky little advert could soon be found on sale in chemists worldwide if the makers get the right offers. If this company floats, you know where to put your boats.

And for you smart cookies out there, that’s right, Jacob is meant to represent a certain Mr Zuma.

Whose National Trust is it Anyway?

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

A visit to Threave Gardens near Castle Douglas in Dumfriesshire, one of the National Trust for Scotland’s many well-kept properties in the south of Scotland. Beautiful weather, the height of the summer, and the chance to explore a well-kept garden and the fully restored Threave House. As the NTS website even offers:

Visit the Countryside Centre to find out more about the estate’s wildlife and conservation work before setting off to explore, perhaps to Threave Castle or the bird hides overlooking the River Dee and Black Park Marsh, a Special Protection Area for breeding waders and wintering wildfowl. If you’re lucky you may even see otters and osprey fishing in the river. Just make sure you leave enough time for a cup of tea and a slice of home-made cake.

Travels in the Shadow of the Curtain

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Despite it feeling like almost yesterday, a fortnight has already passed since I returned from this year’s travels. With the jet-set revolution in full swing, and RyanAir’s European footprint under continuous eastward expansion, I took the opportunity this year to expand my own carbon footprint and head to the east. Armed with a smattering of Russian, an able German companion and a small roll of banknotes, this year’s travels took me to Riga, third largest industrial city of Imperial Russia, and capital of one of the more vibrant economies in Europe today. After five days in a bed & breakfast there, it was followed by a stay in probably the most famous cultural and historical city in Poland: Krakow.

Back to the Blog

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since the last post, but the holidays are over, even if the summer months seem adamant to stay. Expect a post (or two) on my recent trip to Latvia and southern Poland in the coming days, and hopefully some more time to keep active over the coming months.

Tony Benn: Interviewing the Interviewers

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This cute little programme appeared on Channel 4 television on Saturday evening, featuring Benn posing a short number of questions to TV and radio noteables John Humphrys, Jon Snow, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Paxman. Whilst it probably didn’t receive the kind of attention it deserved, and no doubt was shorter than Tony Benn would have liked, the programme elicited some interesting points of view from the various high profile interviewers.

Red Orchestra: Fun While it Lasted

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Red Orchestra Box

Red Orchestra

Well the Steam trial of Red Orchestra’s standalone game is over now, it’s time to take stock and wonder if it’s worth buying. And what’s the first word which springs to mind when reviewing this game? It’s ‘different’. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is difficult to decide. The pointed devotion to realism in the game generally outweighs anything we’ve seen before, perhaps going so far as to outweight Bohemia Interactive’s Operation Flashpoint of old, the game which brought us a realistic portrayal of the speed of sound. But certain problems with the game engine, and the way the ‘realism’ factor affects players’ approach to the game at times detract from what the game’s authors have been trying to achieve.

AC Milan to Play in Champions League

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As everyone is no doubt aware, the investigation into match fixing allegations in Italy’s Serie A led to the punishment of the top four clubs, Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio and AC Milan, with the league title being given instead to Inter Milan. The punishments for the clubs varied, from Juventus’ severe reprimand of 2 previous league titles, demotion to Serie B and a 30-point deduction in the upcoming season, to AC Milan’s 15-point penalty and ban from the UEFA Champions’ League. However, following the various clubs’ appeals, some reduction in penalties have been awarded, with AC Milan not only having their penalty slashed to 8 points, but also being reinstated in the Champions’ League. If the BBC are watching closely, in line with their generous resurrection of previous cult classics a la Doctor Who, perhaps they should consider a resurrection of another famous ’70s Saturday evening show: Silvio’ll Fix It?

Bureaucrats Legislate for the Fun of It

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Zandros

Reliable old DEFRA have managed to do it again. As related in a previous post, anyone hoping to export an animal to Russia will find that the government has failed to maintain a recognised agreement with their Russian opposites (Министерство сельского хозяйства), and as a result all import agreements need to be made on an individual basis. So when Korshki Bengals arranged for an import permit to Russia, it came as some surprise that it was DEFRA which threw a cog in the works. After all, they didn’t even have an agreement with the Russians in the first place, and a glance at their official documentation for the export of animals to the country illustrates a refined degree of incompetence, with seemingly no ability to reproduce Cyrillic script, nor any understanding that cats are rarely brought down with African swine fever.

LCD Monitor Lifespan Saved by Customer Services

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

iiyama ProLite E435S-B

Searching the Internet for a comparison of CRT and LCD monitors will soon find numerous assertions that the lifespan of an LCD monitor exceeds that of a CRT. Just take one such example from Matrox Graphics’ website:

Longer monitor lifespan: Generally, LCD monitors last longer than CRTs. A typical LCD lifespan is 50,000 hours of use compared to 15,000 to 25,000 for a CRT. A longer monitor lifespan can provide a better return on investment.

C&C Generals: A Late Appraisal

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Generals Deluxe Box Cover

Generals Deluxe

Obviously C&C Generals and her Zero Hour expansion pack are neither new nor even current titles, so this review comes rather late in the day. Nevertheless, with the next generation of titles in the pipeline from EA (in the guise of C&C3) and Chris Taylor’s Supreme Commander (spiritual successor to Total Annihilation), it might be worth highlighting a few of the problems with this older incarnation of the RTS genre. Whilst the genre was built on the single-player campaigns of the original C&C and co., it lends itself beautifully to the world of multiplayer, and this is where the focus of this little review lies. First of all, it is only fair to point out that EA have managed to create an untypically balanced game out of the three very varied factions. When one counters in the major differences attributable to the ‘Generals’ of the game’s expansion pack, it is surprising that, at least to a mediocre standard of play, the game offers twelve competitive teams and therefore plenty of diversity in tactics, as teams try to exploit one another’s weaknesses. Of course, this is not to say that certain combinations of opponents do not bias the outcome of the game, and at the top level of the game it should not normally be possible, for example, that a China Infantry team will beat a GLA Toxin enemy. Yet simply by looking at the daily win percentages produced on the game’s online service, one can see that although one or two teams generally have a slight advantage statistically, in general the spread between the twelve factions in terms of victories is very close.

It should be pointed out that these observations take into account only a low-to-medium standard of play. Naturally at the top end of the game, the rules change almost beyond comparison. But the basic point is that C&C Generals still has regular players of all standards, and as a result, gamers can expect a wide variety of different tactics being produced on the field. The closer one gets to the top, of course, the more emphasis on the ‘real-time’ strategy elements of the genre, i.e. time management - the rush. Getting troops onto the field, micromanaging them, and using them to the greatest effect is the essence of the game, and new players will often find a number of variants in this line being used against them. But to make comparison with WarCraft 3, where nearly every game for the beginner will end in a high-level undead hero and an army of crypt fiends storming into their base, whilst they are yet fighting some local creeps, new C&C Generals/Zero Hour players can expect to at least put up a fight, even where this may sometimes feel to be completely ineffectual.

Skype’s Revealing Customer Policy

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently, getting what you paid for isn’t necessarily the name of the game any more. Although I was well aware of it at the time of purchase, no niggly smallprint or obligatory T&C which no one reads hid this caveat, it still comes as something of a surprise to be informed that something I paid for disappeared if I don’t use it. In my personal experience, Skype hasn’t done itself many favours in terms of maintaining a decent service. Certainly, it ‘does what it says on the tin’ the majority of the time, indeed it was only as I decided to test Skype’s SkypeOut feature (which worked handsomely, to the company’s credit) that I came across this email. This quote, in particular, amused:

"Revolutionary" Cornershot

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This new weapon developed jointly by the Israelis and Americans purports to be a revolutionary new idea, but firearms afficianados will no doubt remember the “Krummer Lauf” modification to the German Sturmgewehr 44 of some sixty years previous. With seemingly questionable construction, the weapon would suit only the most specialised of tasks, and without decent training and experienced handling could easily result in costly errors, which the weapon is designed to avoid.

Italy Triumph: But Something Ails Our Beautiful Game

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Italy

The Italian team celebrate victory

So Italy have taken the title for a fourth time, bringing their tally to four, edging them out as the best in Europe, and ending what should be acknowledged as one of the worst tournaments in recent memory. For the second time in its history, the final was settled on a penalty shoot-out, the feeling of the fans towards the end soured by a red card for Zinedine Zidane for headbutting Marco Materazzi.

There can be little doubt that the tournament was marred by some dire games, poor refereeing decisions, strange FIFA interference, and a generally lack-lustre performance from many of the teams, particularly towards the end of the tournament. Can any blame be apportioned for this? Or was it simply the luck of the draw that this tournament was destined to be poor viewing for the spectators? Of course, credit should be apportioned where it is due, and both the hosts and the fans did an excellent job in ensuring the tournament was shrouded in a carnival atmosphere, and the focus for the media could be left to the football.

Football Fever

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Portugal v England

Ricardo saves a penalty

As is perhaps to be expected in this day and age, everywhere you look at the moment there’s football, football, football. The World Cup is more than just a spectacle, it’s a regular event and therefore presents an opportunity. An advert which doesn’t in some way link the Beautiful Game to washing powder, mortgages or anti-wrinkle cream is almost refreshing. Of course, the World Cup would not be so all-pervasive without the weight of corporate advertising and media on the bandwagon, but there are some underlying psychological effects, which are being harnessed as only corporate business knows how.

Just think how many millions view the games, particurlarly of the home nation; viewing figures suggest around 19 million households tuned in to watch the England v Portugal match, and that number masks the people watching with friends, at home or in public. Of course, cutting away the naturally avid football fans leaves a significant number simply watching to support their national side, but how does this turn into something of a fever? The rampant nationalism provoked at times staggers belief, and often goes far beyond the football itself. Finding sensible criticism of England’s performance at the World Cup is some achievement, whilst in the immediate aftermath of England’s exit, jingoistic slurs against Portuguese players and Argentine referees were on the tip of many tongues.

DEFRA Defers to Popular Policing

fips@amindatplay.eu (Fips) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The recent furor over Avian Flu has no doubt led many of us to believe that a dangerous worldwide pandemic looms on the horizon. There is little doubt in the scientific community that should the H5N1 strain of the virus mutate into a form easily communicable between humans, the virus will show much greater potency than current pathogenic influenza viruses, owing to the lack of immunity within the population of this new ‘avian’ form.

Yet just what can governments and scientific bodies do to allay fears and combat the disease? In the latter regard, there is precious little which can be done beyond monitoring the condition in the bird populations. So why then is the disease so readily in the popular news? Are we seeing the same variety of overhyped scare-mongering that accompanied the BSE/vCJD crisis of the previous decade? In 2000, the BBC used the headline CJD deaths ‘quadrupled since 1995’ to illustrate a meagre rise in the real term numbers of cases (unfortunately the page can no longer be found on the BBC website, the link uses Google’s cache). Of course, given the way that particular disease manifested itself there was every chance that should an epidemic result, the clock would already be ticking for a vast section of the population.