thargol

So that was 2012

2013-01-19T18:19:51Z

Another year end review while we're still in the first month of the
following year. Clearly I'm getting good at this :-)

In the studio

Hanging Doll — "The sacred and profane"
Triaxis — "Rage and retribution"
Meden Agan — "Everos aenaos"
Stuka Squadron — "Tales of the ost"
Iron Savior — "Megatropolis"
Astral Doors — "Jerusalem"
Seven — "Freedom call"
Amoral — "Beneath"
Pain — "Psalms of extinction"
Orden Ogan — "To the end"
Ultravox — "Brilliant"
Ross The Boss — "New metal leader"
Nightvision — "Consequence of sin"
Sarah Jezebel Deva — "The corruption of mercy"
Axel Rudi Pell — "The crest"
Sinocense — "Scar obscura"

I couldn't separate the Triaxis and Hanging Doll albums. They're different
styles, but I love them both, and both bands should be very proud. Triaxis
had long been a great live band, but had struggled to reproduce that sound
in the studio. They've well and truly got over that problem with this album.
The Hanging Doll album, on the other hand, took a while to get into. I didn't
think it was a bad album, but initially it didn't grab me with the same
immediacy that the first album had done. But with repeated listens, it's
really grown on me to the point where I now prefer it to the first album.

I'm once more including albums that were released in previous years but
that I didn't get to hear until 2012, and Meden Agan's "Everos aenaos"
is a perfect example of that. In other years, this might have been vying
for the album of the year slot, but here I've put it third. There have
been many bands that have been compared to Nightwish over the years, but
Meden Agan are probably the closest I've found, yet at the same time, they
have their own sound. I'd seen several decent Stuka Squadron performances,
but they really seem to come into their own in the studio, and "Tales of
the ost" is a significantly better album than I was expecting. Iron Savior
and Astral Doors both produced solid, if not outstanding albums. Seven,
Amoral and Sinocense were all bands that I discovered as support acts to
other bands I'd gone to see. Ultravox's comeback album was in some ways
a disappointment in that it's too safe, but it's a reasonable enough
album anyway.

On the stage

As before, these are the shows that I rated 4/5 or better in 2012.
There are significantly fewer than there have been in previous years.
Let's hope that's just a temporary blip.

Judas Priest, Hammersmith Apollo
Dio Disciples, Bloodstock
Rammstein, The O2 Arena
Triaxis, NQ Live
Queen + Adam Lambert, Hammersmith Apollo
Gonoreas, Bloodstock
Megadeth, The Electric Ballroom
Alice Cooper, Bloodstock
Evergrey, The Underworld
Delain, Islington Academy
Hanging Doll, NQ Live
Triaxis, The Unicorn
Merciless Fail, Bloodstock
Astral Doors, The Underworld
Triaxis, Face Bar
Hanging Doll, The Underworld
Freedom Call, Bloodstock
Testament, Bloodstock
Saxon, Hammersmith Apollo
Axel Rudi Pell, The Underworld
Freedom Call, Islington Academy
Mono Inc, The Underworld
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, The Underworld

The arrival of Richie Faulkner has breathed new life into Priest, and
this was the best I've ever seen them. Dio Disciples have never let me
down, and Bloodstock was no exception. Equally, I've never seen a bad
Rammstein show. One of my few regrets in life is not seeing Queen with
Freddie Mercury. I'd avoided their live shows without him largely because
I didn't feel Paul Rodgers was the right man for the job. Having seen a
few videos online, I had strong reservations about Adam Lambert as well.
But I decided to give it a go anyway and I'm glad I did. He's not Freddie
but actually his voice works very well. As with their studio output,
Triaxis and Hanging Doll both featured heavily in my best live shows
of 2012. A very weak Bloodstock nonetheless still produced some strong
performances from several bands. Megadeth were doing a one off intimate show
after their Download appearance, and I was glad to see they were just as strong as
when I last saw them several years earlier. Good to see Evergrey return
to these shores again, too. A special mention goes to Motherload. I only
gave them a rating of 3½, but they're definitely one to keep an
eye on in the future.

On the screen

Tinker tailor soldier spy (1979)
I remember this being on as a child, but I wasn't really old enough
to have any interest in it. Classic cold was intrigue.

Smokey and the bandit (1977)
In my head, I always have this down as a mass market dumbed down
attempt to jump on the CB movie bandwagon. But as it turns out,
this actually predates "Convoy". Still, what's not to like?

Ocean's eleven (2001)
Ocean's twelve (2004)
Ocean's thirteen (2007)
The first one's pretty good. The second two are poor attempts to
cash in on the success of the first.

Inglorious basterds (2009)
Has its high points. Perhaps not as good as some of his other work.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law make a good pairing for the lead
characters and Guy Ritchie's directing works well.

Sherlock Holmes (2010)
Two films with the same name and almost identical cover art, released
within a year of each other. This one is directly attempting to ride
on the coat tails of Ritchie's big budget Hollywood version. Syder
actually makes for a reasonable Holmes, albeit a very different one
from Downey Jr's portrayal, and Garath David-Lloyd does well as Watson.
OK, so the low budget makes for a different experience, but where this
version really falls down is the dreadful plot.

Sherlock Holmes (Season 1)
Three Sherlock Holmes in two years? This one's a BBC TV series, rather
than a film, and it's by far the best of the bunch. That's in part due
to the excellent Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role, but that alone
wouldn't be enough without some excellent scripts from Doctor Who writers
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Setting it in the modern era works
surprisingly well. I look forward to future series.

Dragon hunter (2009)
Very low budget fantasy film, but a perfect example of how to make a
good film without much money. I loved this.

Krull (1983)
I'd loved this back in the day, so I enjoy rewatching it. It's not a
great film, but it worked for me. Notable for featuring a very young
Lysette Anthony, although they overdubbed her voice.

Bunraku (2010)
Dreadful. Someone's let too many arty humanities students near a
budget and has allowed them to make a film with it. I want those 2
hours of my life back.

Snow White and the huntsman (2012)
I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to.

Prometheus (2012)
Oh dear. Ridley Scott loses the plot. Literally, as far as I can tell.
This one had holes big enough to fly a spaceship through. But he decided
to go ahead and film it anyway. It had none of what made the original
"Alien" good.

Rock of ages (2012)
Can't fault the soundtrack, and the film is a vague plot tacked on
to fit in with that. Tom Cruise works far better in this that I would
have thought.

St. Trinians (2007)
A new take on an old classic. Did it need remaking? No. But actually
it's not that bad.

The fall guy (Season 1)
We didn't have a television in the late '70s, so although I was aware
of its existence, I never got to watch "The six million dollar man".
Thus this was my first exposure to Lee Majors. It's typical Glen A.
Larson output, and Heather Thomas is very easy on the eye...

Dollhouse (Season 2)
Promising Joss Whedon series gets cancelled by the network. There's
a surprise.

Farscape (Season 3)
It gets a bit more gritty this time around. But also, there were
a few episodes where the writers were clearly on drugs, like the
cartoon one.

The printed page

A poor showing this year, with me making it through noticably fewer books than previous years.

Brent Weeks - "Shadow's edge"
Brent Weeks - "Beyond the shadows"
The concluding parts of the Night Angel trilogy. Well worth reading for
those that like fantasy.

AE Moorat — "Queen Victoria: demon hunter"
A nice little offbeat book about an alternate history where Queen
Victoria hunts demons. Later copied by Seth Grahame-Smith in the
form of "Abraham Lincoln: vampire hunter". Naturally, Hollywood
picked the copy, not the original.

Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith — "Pride and prejudice and zombies"
Grahame-Smith has also taken it upon himself to rework Jane Austen's
now out of copyright "Pride and prejudice" to include zombies. It's hard
to say how much of it was due Austen's original writing and how much was
Grahame-Smith's additions, but I didn't enjoy this at all. In truth, I
suspect both parties are at fault.

Anne McCaffrey — "Freedom's landing"
Anne McCaffrey — "Freedom's choice"
Unlike her dragon books, these were almost totally lacking in redeeming
features. An uninspiring plot and mediocre writing. I'd picked up the
pair for 50p each, and dutifully read through both of them because I'd
got both. I can't see me reading the third or fourth books.

JRR Tolkien — "The hobbit"
JRR Tolkien — "The silmarillion"
Not a lot to say about these really. Tolkien is my favroute author of
all time, and I felt it was about time to reread both of them. I found
"The silmarillion" to be much easier going than I'd remembered. But then
I did first read it when I was relatively young.

Cy Dethan & Stephen Downey — "Slaughterman's creed"
Excellent. I'm not a comics geek, but I do like some. This sees Dethan
and Downey reunited after the success of "Cancertown". Stephen's art has
improved since then, and Cy's story is much more compelling. This is what
comics should be like. More of the same, please.

James Barclay — "Dawnthief"
James Barclay — "Noonshade"
James Barclay — "Nightchild"
When I first started reading these, I gave up after the first chapter of
the first book. I just didn't like them at all. But I had a feeling that
was just me not being in the right mood, rather than anything being wrong
with the books. Sure enough, I tried again last year after a gap of several
years later and I really enjoyed them. The premise for "Noonshade" seemed
a bit contrived, but enjoyable reading nonetheless, and I look forward to
finding out more of the Raven's exploits.

Peter Shotwell — "Go! More than a game"
James Davies — "Tesuji"
I'd started playing Go, and it seemed worthwhile to try and learn a
bit more about it. Shotwell's book was sadly dreadful. Very poorly
written with explanations about gameplay that just didn't make sense.
Davies' book, on the other hand, was much, much better and I learned
a lot from it.

Janny Wurts — "The master of Whitestorm"
So so. As I've mentioned before, I struggle with books that contain
characters with large doses of self-loathing. I just can't relate to
them at all.

Robert Holdstock — "Ancient echoes"
Robert Holdstock — "Celtika"
I'd read some of Holdstock's Arthurian books before, and quite enjoyed them.
"Ancient echoes" follows a similar pattern. Modern day man finds himself
interacting with the past. "Celtika" has some of the same, but less so and
in a vastly different way, and I found myself enjoying it a lot. It's by far
the best of Holdstock's work that I've read to date.

Martin H Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes (Ed) — "A girl's guide to guns and monsters"
A compilation of short stories about girls, guns and monsters. Some better
than others, as is the case with most such collections.

Steven Erikson — "Gardens of the moon"
Steven Erikson — "Deadhouse gates"
The first two books of the "Malazan book of the fallen" series. I loved
the first one. The second was interesting, but for me was lacking much of
what made the first one work. Still, good enough that I'll be pressing on
with the rest of the series.

Patrick Rothfuss — "A wise man's fear"
The sequel to "The name of the wind". Some have claimed this is a much
lesser book, but to me it feels just as good.

Elizabeth Moon — "Remnant population"
Not bad, but I think Moon's handling of a first contact novel isn't great,
and she's much better writing out and out military SF.

Frank Herbert — "Dune"
Time to reread one of my favourite SF books. It's still as good as I
remembered it.

Hal Stern — "Managing NFS and NIS"
Wow. I hadn't expected this book to show its age so much, but it
predates things like /etc/nsswitch.conf. Still, much of
the information it contains is still valid and relevant, even if
the precise details of how to configure some things no longer
applies.

The UpGoerFive text editor

2013-01-19T17:09:24Z

From major_clanger via bibliogirl:

Can you descrive your job using only the 1000 most common words in the English language? The Up Goer Five XKCD comic inspired the Up-Goer Five text editor, which tells you if you've entered allowed words. Here's my attempt (it's not exactly right, but it's not too far off):

I tell computers how to let people place money on which team they think will lose a match before it ends, or how many times the ball will cross one of two lines and go between two bits of wood. I take some of that money for helping them out. I tell computers how to decide which team will lose a match. Other people don't agree with that. I take their money. Also, I tell computers how to place money on both teams in a way that lets me make money no matter which team loses or how many times the ball crosses the line.

Oh to live in a free country

2012-10-08T09:03:11Z

This is *extremely* worrying. I don't care how offensive his joke may have been. He should be able to say what he wants. The USA has a corrupt society with many, many problems. But right now, I am extremely jealous of their written constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-19863228

Hysterical literature

2012-09-30T16:25:49Z

Apparently there's a part four: Stormy

<JWZ>Previously...</JWZ>

Buying music

2012-09-19T13:09:19Z

The music industry isn't what it used to be. It's increasingly hard to sell albums, and bands are becoming more and more reliant on selling merch at live shows. There are some upsides to this. I'll leave out T-shirts for now and just talk about CDs. The most obvious upside one is that the band gets a much higher percentage of the sale than if the customer had bought the same CD in a shop or online. I don't know the exact figures these days, but it used to be that a band would get maybe £2 (and that's an optimistic figure) from a CD sale, of which half went to the songwriter(s) and half went to the artist(s). However, when selling a CD at a gig, there is no distributor to pay, no retailer to take a cut and so on, so the band directly get the sale price, less whatever it cost to make the CD (or buy it at trade price from the record label).

So, it's in the band's financial interest to maximize the number of in person sales at shows. I have personal experience of this in a slightly different field, selling Ferret's book. We discount it 25% when selling in person, because it encourages sales and we still make more than when people buy it through other channels (retailers and distributors typically only pay 50% of RRP or less)[1]. So I find it baffling when I look at bands' pricing of CDs. Last night, for example, Ensiferum were selling their latest album for £20. Huh? I can buy the same album (including the bonus DVD) for £10 online, including free shipping. Why would I pay you twice as much for the privilege of buying it in person? I'm happy to buy in person as doing so supports the band and makes it more likely that they'll make more music in the future. But doubling the price? Seriously? If you'd priced it at £8, I'd have bought one and you'd still have made significantly more than you'll get when I buy it online. Hell, I'd probably have bought it at £12, and you'd almost certainly have sold many more copies. I just don't understand the logic behind the pricing here.

[1] That's not strictly true. We make the most when people buy through Amazon, but only because we're exploiting a loophole in the process. We're making the most of it while it lasts, but I'm sure they'll close the loophole at some point.

Hysterical literature

2012-09-15T21:37:20Z

An interesting experiment. What happens when you get a woman to read literature while an assistant applies a Hitachi magic wand to her nether regions under the table? Clayton Cubit did just that. It seems you get porn, without any actual porn. It's NSFW for the prudish.

Session 1: Stoya:

Session 2: Alicia:

Session 3: Danielle:

Stoya gives her thoughts on the experience.

Republicans

2012-09-03T20:22:19Z

I wish the US Republican party were the one Clint Eastwood seems to think it is. They'd be quite electable were that true. I worry that they'll be electable given the current state of the party anyway...

The Washington Post

2012-08-13T22:34:10Z

Today I learned that The Washington Post is so called because it's published in Washington, not Washington. In hindsight, it was obvious. But that's not the association my brain first made when I heard about the paper, and I guess it stuck. FWIW, I made exactly the same incorrect association when it came to the Washington Redskins.

On the merits of redundancy

2012-07-12T12:07:28Z

Some people think I'm paranoid. I wouldn't say so. It's just that I pay more attention to the potential worst case outcome that some. So when it comes to storage, I have a mirrored RAID array in my home server. The contents are backed up to a separate disk in the same machine. I also have an offsite backup in a datacentre.

My offsite backup machine died, and is now sat at home waiting for me to rebuild it. So it was somewhat alarming when my backup drive also died. Uncomfortable about running with less redundancy than normal, I immediately went out and bought a replacement drive. When checking the drives in the machine to see which one I needed to pull out, I noticed that one of the mirrored drives had also failed and the array was running in degraded state. Eeeek! Of my four levels of redundancy, three had failed. If I'd had fewer, I'd be screwed right now!

I'm not sure why I wasn't notified about the RAID failure. Normally I automatically get an email when the array enters a degraded state. That's something I need to look into. For now, the array is rebuilding. I'll fit the new backup drive when I get home this evening.

Weather

2012-06-27T17:36:30Z

I'm starting to wonder if I've made a mistake planning to go to Italy. The current weather forecast says 37 degrees on the day I arrive. I'm going to die.

My weekend

2012-06-25T07:54:31Z

I'm shattered after the weekend, but finally I made it to the top step of the podium. That win also leaves me leading the championship. Pretty great weekend all in all :-)

Heimdal, 1998-2012

2012-03-26T13:36:13Z

And then there were five :-(

http://pics.astradyne.co.uk/heimdal/

Overheard on a train today

2012-03-07T21:29:18Z

Two people were looking up directions on an online map via a smartphone. One read out to the other "it's a 500ft walk from the station". The other replied "Feet? That's a bit archaic, isn't it? How far's that? Why don't they use standard units?"

This pleases me. The country was just starting the transition to metric units when I was born, so I've grown up with metric units. I embraced metric units wholeheartedly, but many of my generation (probably in part due to parental influence) didn't. But time passes, and now it seems that imperial units are seen as archaic. About time too.

Mozilla

2012-02-06T00:54:26Z

Dear Mozilla developers. I know you're a bunch of incompetent morons, but would it really be so hard to change that and release a decent product? Please?

So that was 2011

2012-01-31T01:52:13Z

This time around, I'm less than a month late! A year end overview in January. Who'd have thought it?

In the studio

Powerwolf — "Bible of the beast"
Poisonblack — "Of rust and bones"
Poisonblack — "Drive"
Wolf — "Legions of bastards"
Rhombus — "Open the sky"
Delain — "April rain"
Dyonisis — "Intoxicated"
Van Canto — "Hero"
Pretentious, Moi? — "Pretentious, moi?"
Megadeth — "Endgame"
Sanguine — "Live consume drive EP"
Crimfall — "The writ of the sword"
Rise To Addiction — "Some other truth"

On balance, 2011 was a very weak year for music, at least as far as my personal tastes go. As before, I'm not limiting myself to music released in 2011, but am including albums that I first heard last year. My album of the year (by a large margin) is a perfect example of that. Powerwolf were outstanding at Bloodstock in 2010, but it wasn't until over a year later that I got around to listening to their 2009 album "Bible of the beast". Amazing album. I love it.

Poisonblack had a couple of solid albums that grew on me over time, and I was lucky to get "Drive" at all, as it hasn't been released in the UK and the import prices are extortionate. Fortunately, I happened to spot it in a second hand record shop in Soho. But that apart, it really was a year of everyone failing to live up to their previous high standards, with Wolf, Megadeth, Rise To Addiction and to a lesser extent Dyonisis all falling well short of where I'd hoped and expected.

Rhombus were a nice surprise, with a decent if not earth shattering album. Pretentious, Moi? were much the same, although I'm still baffled at how Tim has such a different singing voice to his normal everyday speaking voice. I do feel the album is lacking Rachel's vocals, which worked very well live. Hopefully the next album will remedy that (assuming we don't have to wait another decade for that album!). Crimfall are another band that came over better on stage than in the studio. That just leaves Sanguine, of whom more later. I really shouldn't like them. But I do.

So, 2011 wasn't a great year musically. The only caveat is that I have a rather large stack of albums that I haven't got around to listening to yet. Maybe there are some gems there that would have raised the overall level. I guess we'll see when I get to do my summary of 2012!

On the stage

Manowar, Birmingham O2 Academy
Dio Disciples, Download
Sabaton, Koko
Dio Disciples, Islington Academy
Mötley Crüe, Wembley Arena
Blaze Bayley, The Underworld
WASP, Bloodstock
The Sisters Of Mercy, The Roundhouse
Tigertailz, The Underworld
Hanging Doll, MFVF
Therion, Bloodstock
Rock Sugar, Download
Epica, The Scala
Triaxis, The Unicorn
Blaze Bayley, Monto Water Rats
Brezno, Bloodstock
Delain, Islington Academy
Doro, MFVF
Twisted Sister, Download
Diabulus In Musica, MFVF
Poisonblack, Bloodstock
Tristania, Islington Academy
Turisas, Islington Academy
Roger Waters, The O2 Arena
Primitai, The Underworld
Within Temptation, Brixton Academy
Hell, Bloodstock
Grave Digger, Bloodstock
Wolf, Bloodstock
Alice Cooper, Download
Lacuna Coil, ULU
Therion, MFVF
Battlelore, MFVF
Amaranthe, Bloodstock
Blake, Bloodstock
Amaranthe, MFVF
Primitai, Bloodstock
Kreator, Bloodstock
Beholder, Bloodstock
Primitai, The Purple Turtle
Manowar, Brixton Academy

So, 17 years after Manowar last played the UK and 12 years after the last time I saw them, Manowar finally returned to English shores. Was it worth it? Oh yes. Although their massively inappropriate venue choices for the followup tour were almost comical. Brixton wasn't even close to full. In contrast to studio albums, 2011 was another relatively strong year for live performances. The combination of Twisted Sister and Alice Cooper was enough to tempt me to Download for the first time, and although both put on decent performances, they were upstaged by Dio Disciples, who impressed again at their own headline show. On paper, Ripper shouldn't be a good fit, and nor should Toby Jepson. But it works.

2011 was my favourite Bloodstock for a very long time, and certainly the best of the outdoor era. A strong lineup was enough to tempt me to Belgium for MFVF for the first time, and I wasn't disappointed there either. Tigertailz were on top form at The Underworld, and it had to happen sooner or later that The Sisters Of Mercy put on another good show, and The Roundhouse provided the venue for that show.

Roger Waters put on an impressive show, but for me not quite the gig of the century that some were making it out to be. Admittedly I didn't go on the night where he had Gilmour guesting. Lacuna Coil's set list is still criminal in its omission of their early material, but the new album sounds very promising indeed and their ULU show was something of a return to form. I don't understand why they aren't playing bigger venues, though. The same accusation can't be levelled at Within Temptation who are now huge and sold out Brixton Academy. Last years underground band that are making big waves were undoubtedly Primitai. The list is every band I saw where I rated the performance 4 stars or higher. Sanguine aren't on the list (I gave them a 3.5), but deserve an honourable mention anyway. I saw them at Bloodstock, having never heard of them before. I came away from the stage unable to describe what I'd just heard. A rare thing indeed. With the bizarre mix of clean and extreme vocals, on paper I really shouldn't have enjoyed them. But sometimes logic goes out of the window when it comes to taste, and this is one such time.

On the screen

Dog Soldiers (2002)
Somehow I'd managed to avoid seeing this at release. A low budget British horror film that works better than most.
Timeline (2003)
A waste of a good story. The book was significantly better.
Convoy (1978)
A classic. You can't go wrong with this film.
The Full Monty (1997)
Low budget British comedy. I'm not sure why this became such a big hit. It's OK, but for me it's very definitely filler rather than something I'd go out of my way to watch.
The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
What's not to like?
Stardust (2007)
I'd never have watched it if I'd known it was Gaiman's story. I'm not a fan. But I loved this film.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Mildly amusing.
Bill Bailey: Part Troll (2004)
Mostly unamusing. He's better than this.
The Animatrix (2003)
Weak. A selection of short cartoons, but only a couple capture the feel of the original film.
Valhalla Rising (2009)
Terrible. How did this film ever get made?
Edge Of Darkness (2010)
Not as good as the TV series. But not as bad as I was expecting.
Ghost Town (2008)
Meh.
Black Death (2010)
I quite enjoyed this one. A medium budget British medieval history/fantasy film. With Sean Bean.
Dollhouse (Series 1)
So far, Joss Whedon hasn't managed to make anything I haven't liked. Dollhouse continues that trend.
Doctor Who (Series 4)
I'm not keen on Donna as a companion. At all. But nonetheless, series 4 seems to work pretty well.
24 (Series 1)
Annoyingly skips time where there would have been adverts on American television, so not actually 24 hours. Also riddled with "but they wouldn't have done that" moments. Still enjoyable. But...
Farscape (Series 2)
I'm intrigued to see where they go with this.
Babylon 5 (Series 1)
When this was initially aired, my commute was such that I couldn't get home in time to see it. Consequently, I'd only seen a couple of episodes of this series. Much better than I'd remembered. I'd thought the first series was quite dull. But I was wrong.
True Blood (Series 1)
More "but they wouldn't do that" moments. But otherwise enjoyable.

The printed page

Jim Butcher — "White night"
Jim Butcher — "Small favour"
Jim Butcher — "Turn coat"
Jim Butcher — "Changes"
Jim Butcher — "Side jobs"
Still treading a fine line, but staying just the right side of getting too repetative for me. A bit of a cliffhanger at the end of "Changes". Will have to wait and see what happens next.
John Scalzi — "Old man's war"
I liked this. It's reminiscent of "The forever war". But it has the feel of being a one hit wonder. I'll look into his other work anyway, in case I'm wrong about that.
George RR Martin — "A storm of swords 1: Of steel and snow"
George RR Martin — "A storm of swords 2: Blood and gold"
George RR Martin — "A feast for crows"
After a slow start, this series is really starting to pick up by these books. It's going to be a long, long wait until "A dance with dragons" is released in a sensible sized paperback, though.
Robert Ulichney — "Digital halftoning"
Rereading this one just to refresh my memory. As Pozkanzer says, it really is the only book you'll need on the subject.
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Thieves' world"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Shadows of Sanctuary"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Storm season"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "The face of chaos"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Wings of omen"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "The dead of winter"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Soul of the city"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Blood ties"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Aftermath"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Uneasy alliances"
Robert Asprin (Ed) — "Stealers' sky"
A shared world fantasy series. Started out reasonably well, but the later books are a definite departure in style, being a single narrative with different authors writing each chapter, rather than the collection of vaguely interlinked short stories found in the earlier books.
Yasunari Kawabata — "The master of go"
A dramatic retelling of a famous Go game. An interesting insight into the mind of a Go master, but not very entertaining.
Patrick Rothfuss — "The name of the wind"
A very accomplished début novel. I'm looking forward to reading the next part.
Elizabeth Moon — "Hunting party"
Not bad, but not in the same league as her "Vatta's war" series.
Brent Weeks — "The way of shadows"
Another excellent début novel. I love his writing style.
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "The imperial stars"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "Stranglers' moon"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "The clockwork traitor"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "Getaway world"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "The Bloodstar conspiracy"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "The purity plot"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "Planet of treachery"
EE Doc Smith & Stephen Goldin — "Revolt of the galaxy"
Although I didn't know it when I started reading them, only the first book in the series was written by Smith. The rest were all by Goldin, but set in the same universe. You wouldn't know it, though. He has an amazing knack of mimicing Smith's writing style. As you'd expect, this is pure space opera.

thargol @ 2012-01-20T13:49:00

2012-01-20T13:46:38Z

A paperboard Red Bull RB7:

Very impressive.

20 years ago today

2011-11-24T12:09:31Z

The greatest frontman there has ever been, and probably ever will be. I doubt we'll see his like again.

(From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADh8Fs3YdU)

On coding

2011-11-14T21:14:39Z

Object orientation and code readability are mostly mutually exclusive.

Air Space

2011-11-09T10:24:57Z

A trip through an airport detention centre.

Lasers kill cameras :-(

2011-10-26T09:28:03Z

I've just returned from a weekend in Belgium. I brought back with me two things; a stinking cold and a broken camera. The former's an annoyance, but I'm sure I'll get over it in a few days. The latter has really pissed me off, though. I was there for the annual Metal Female Voices Festival. Among the lighting effects were a couple of lasers at the back of the stage:

So far, so good. But part way through Deadlock's set, the laser happened to change direction and swing down to catch my camera head on. I wouldn't normally expect this to be a problem, but it seems to have fried the CCD. The LCD on the back of the camera now shows this:

Pictures taken with the camera now look like this (I've enlarged a section of the noise on the left hand side):

They're not always the same, but they're always mostly white with some noise on the left and right sides of the image. Now I accept that it could be complete coincidence, and that the camera could have happened to break at the precise moment that the laser swung down, but it seems a bit suspicious. On the other hand, a lighting laser that's being shone into the crowd really shouldn't have enough power to do damage like that. Oh well. Whatever the cause, I've now got a dead camera :-(

The myth of the ethical vegan

2011-10-25T16:06:10Z

Interesting reading. It's a shame it's spoiled by gratuitously incorrect figures about the cost of a pound of venison. But it does highlight the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand by vegans and vegetarians that most refuse to admit are there.

The perils of progress

2011-09-21T14:23:08Z

Ever increasing storage capacity is making me lazy. In years gone by, when resources were more limited, a full filesystem would be cause for investigation, to find out why it had become full, and what could be done about it. These days, the easy option is to just extend the volume a bit more and grow the filesystem. I'm running a bit low on free PV space, so last week I didn't grow my home filesystem by as much as I normally would when it filled up. But even so, I was a little surprised to find out that within a couple of days it was already full again. That's not normal. It turned out that a single log file was continually growing and had taken up nearly a third of the total space on that filesystem. But because the default assumption is that I have more disk space than I'll be able to use, I hadn't been keeping an eye on what was taking up the space. D'oh! So a single rm has taken me back to having loads of free space.

She's got a date at midnight...

2011-09-16T23:32:57Z

With Nosferatu.

Promoting your band: is it really that hard?

2011-08-29T23:17:25Z

In the past fortnight, I've seen live performances from over 80 bands. Of those, somewhere around 50 were support bands that I'd never heard of before. So why is it that of those 50, only one did it right? Is it really that hard? Surely all it takes is a tiny amount of common sense? What you have to ask yourself is what are you trying to achieve as a band? Given the state of the music industry, fame and fortune is probably even more out of the question these days than it was in the past. But it's reasonable to assume that bands would like people to know about them and their music. What can you do to achieve that?

Few people going to a gig will check the list of support bands beforehand. They're there for the headliners. The chances are, they won't know your band name. It doesn't matter if you put on a storming performance. Unless the audience know who you are, they're never going to check out the band on facebook/myspace/reverbnation/whatever. So my #1 tip is: tell people who you are! I mean make it absolutely clear to the audience who you are. A banner to hang behind the drummer costs 30 quid. A vertical banner and stand to put at the side of the stage is maybe double that. If that's too steep for you, get a bed sheet and paint your logo on it yourself. It'll still be better than nothing at all. 30 minutes of staring at the band name behind the drummer rams it home much better than a muffled "We're Houston And The Problems and we're from Cleethorpes" through a crappy PA that no one can hear.

Secondly, be prepared. What could go wrong on stage, and what can you do about it? You can't hope to cover every eventuality, but there are common problems that can be easily worked around with a little advance preparation. 20 years ago, a friend of mine was doing a gig at a local pub and I was horrified that he hadn't taken a spare set of guitar strings with him. Had a string broken in the first song, he'd have been screwed for the rest of the show. And bands are still making the same mistakes. Guitar leads are hooked through the strap so that if they get caught or stood on, they don't pull the plug out of the guitar. Yet several of the bands I saw didn't bother and just plugged them straight into the guitar. One did indeed put it trhough the strap but left the loop long enough that he stood on it and pulled the lead out anyway. D'oh! If your wireless setup breaks, have a spare lead ready. You'll lose a bit of mobility on stage, but you'll be able to finish the show. Have a copy of your backing track on your phone or MP3 player, so if your Mac laptop breaks, you can still get by. A quote from one of the bands I saw at the weekend: "Are there any drummers in the audience? Could we borrow a drumstick?" Really? You've turned up at a gig with only a single pair of sticks? What were you thinking?

So you've done your set, the crowd loved it. Now what? My #3 tip is give them something to buy or at the very least, some means of finding out more about the band. Have some CDs for sale. Get some T-shirts printed up. If you don't have a professionally mastered CD, burn an EP yourself and give it away at the end of the show. Throw some out into the crowd. It costs you pennies. But it all helps to get your music out to a wider audience. Which presumably is the point of the exercise.

Why don't more bands see that a little bit of preparation and self promotion can make a massive difference to how you come across? FWIW, the one band that got it right? Silverbox. They weren't really my thing. But they were the only ones with a banner. They had people handing out flyers in the audience with details of the band and their next show, they were taking names for a mailing list, the works. I just don't understand why more bands don't do it.

RIP Formula 1

2011-07-29T11:10:23Z

Utterly disgusted by the bastards at FOM who have sold their souls to Murdoch. I guess there's no F1 coverage for me from next year, then :-(