It's Just My Blog

I was actually thinking of buying tickets for the Singapore Grand Prix, but have been put off, first by the outrageous prices they want to charge just for watching cars go by very very fast, and second by the disgraceful remarks by Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone, the F1 rights holder, has just been quoted as saying that Hitler was alright really because he got things done, or words to that effect [see http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jul/04/bernie-ecclestone-interview-hitler-saddam]. Never mind genocide and world war, Hitler got the autobahns moving for sure. Mr Ecclestone, you are clearly a complete political fool. When you put the delightful Ecclestone next to the F1 President Max Mosley (son of fomer leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, no less), it seems that this particular branch of motorsport is actually in the hands of crypto-fascist perverts; I still haven't forgotten Mosley junior's romp with a bunch of hookers dressed up in Nazi uniforms. Mind you, the British upper class in general seem to have issues on that front - step forward, Prince Harry. It's enough to make me a republican if I start thinking about it.

Anyone who plays videogames knows what I'm talking about; when you hit that stage of the game where skill doesn't matter because the game design is so poor. Wonky camera angles (or worse, a camera that you suddenly have no control over), inconsistent environmental behaviours (surfaces cause damage that didn't before), unresponsive controls that previously worked fine, introduction of a new vehicle or weapon that performs in a way that is inconsistent with the 'feel' of the rest of the game, and so on. You've invested many hours, perhaps days or even weeks (months?) of time to get to this point, and now the game designers have screwed it up for you. The frustration is enormous.

Anyhow, this is where I detail some of my pet hates, most recent first.

1. Prince of Persia Rival Swords [PSP]. The second stage of the final boss battle is a mess. It suffers from virtually all of the faults above. All of a sudden you can't control the camera independently, so you are being hit by moving objects coming from off screen that you have no way of seeing in advance. You can't line up your jumps correctly either; you run along walls instead of up them. Pressing the attack button if you do manage to run up the wall to jump towards the boss doesn't trigger the attack sequence, and when you land it is usually in the path of one of the moving objects you can't avoid. Now a boss fight at the end of any game should be a challenge, and you don't expect to win at the first attempt. But when you've had a couple of dozen attempts and you still can't manage it, the problem is clearly not you but the game. After all, if you can make it all the way to the end, you should really have enough skill to finish the game. But this is a disgraceful mess, made worse by the fact that if you die you have to complete the first stage of the fight again (which I can do no problem, taking virtually no damage, but it's utterly tiresome to be forced to repeat myself). I don't know if I'll bother to finish this now as it's getting so annoying. Caning across the bare buttocks is too good for the developers who coded this crappy sequence.

2. Marvel Ultimate Alliance [PSP]. The sequence in Murderworld where you have to play an emulated 8-bit videogame to escape. I was playing this on the plane and the controls were so poor that I actually bit my PSP in frustration. The tooth marks are still on the screen protector. Normally I'd scream and swear but I didn't want to alarm the other 200 people in economy with my gaming rage. I did manage to complete the game but I still have nightmares about trying to jump over crocodiles and repeatedly falling into the pool and drowing. Whoever programmed this sequence should be made to play it all day, every day for a year.

3. Drake's Fortune [PS3]. The sequence where you have to drive a jetski upstream through rocks while being shot at. Being shot at I can cope with; trying to drive a jetski with controls so leaden that a hibernating squirrel would be more responsive was harder. I wanted to throw the controller at the screen, and only the fact that I'd spent a four-figure sum on the TV restrained me. My wife was appalled at the howls of frustration that this produced and it was only the thought of divorce that made me reign in my anger. I did complete the game in the end but this part lingers in my memory as an utterly terrible effort. Once again, the developers should be made to eat their own dog food for at least 12 months.

4. Mafia [PC]. The racing sequence where you drive an old-fashioned racing car. I had to get through it on easy level in the end. Other than that, this is one of the best PC games ever, and I finished the whole thing, but I still remember the misery this inflicted.

5. GTA III: San Andreas [PC]. The wretched remote control planes. These were so hard to fly that I more or less lost interest in the game after that point despite being around 2/3 of the way through it.

I'm sure others will spring to mind, so do feel free to contribute your own suggestions. And if you think I'm exaggerating about any of the ones I've mentioned, have a look on the net; you'll find I'm only one of many who have suffered the irritations described above. Gaming is meant to be fun and a challenge; it isn't meant to be a frustrating and repetitive chore that means you give up trying to finish the story.

I've been running it now for about 3 months and after getting over the initial 'where did they put that?' phase in which you can't find things in the places you're used to (the Start menu shortcuts were a particular pain for a while as they are save in two different locations), I actually prefer it to XP. It looks nicer (admittedly a subjective judgment), boots faster (totally objective), and doesn't suffer from the same hardware limitations (if you run the 64-bit version). It may have been a dog when it came out but I learnt my lesson years ago and never upgrade to a new Microsoft operating system until there has been at least one service pack. I didn't get onto XP until service pack 2, by which time all was peachy, and moving to Vista 64 has been about as painless as it could have been. You can't blame Microsoft for the limitations of 32-bit operating systems, after all; I am actually rather impressed how much 32-bit stuff will run seamlessly in a 64-bit environment.

Only a handful of applications have misbehaved. Winamp was the one I miss most, but it's not like there are no other free mp3 players out there. Google desktop I also miss; I'm very surprised an organization of Google's size can't muster 64-bit support for a popular application like that. And I don't think Zone Alarm firewall yet exists in 64-bit form. Otherwise, I could transfer everything from my old XP installation. Virtually all my hardware (printer, scanner, joypad, USB phone, card reader etc.) also worked flawlessly; the only thing I had to retire was a webcam and it was some Taiwanese OEM product. Gaming is also generally not a problem; I have had issues with the new Riddick game and Galactic Civilizations, but I am not at all sure these are due to Vista itself. The most annoying thing has been the well-documented issues with user access control, which is best left turned off if you feel confident with your computing.

Windows 7 is well on the way but I see no need to change my current policy of waiting for at least one service pack before upgrading. I'm now very happy on Vista. I don't know what it was like when it first came out (though I can imagine; I did try the XP beta, one of the reasons I decided to leave it alone for a long time afterward), but now it's very usable, and it's almost a shame that it's acquired such a bad reputation.

Apparently a 32-year old German woman has jumped into a polar bear's enclosure at a zoo and swum towards them during feeding time. I am both intrigued and bemused by the state of mind that this act suggests. Does she find them so cuddly and adorable that she positively has to get next to these charming aquatic predators? But in this case, does she not know that feeding time is a signal that the bears are likely to be hungry and may not appreciate the distraction? Or perhaps she was feeling tired of life and felt that death by ursus maritimus would be a merciful release? Either way, the results were predictable; one of the bears decided to sample this unaccustomed dietary supplement and the woman in question is very lucky to now be recovering in hospital.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/apr/12/animals-germany?picture=345847068]

Another triumph of the rule of law that I cannot forbear to report: a 75-year old woman has been sentenced to 40 lashes because two unrelated men were found in her house.

[See http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/09/Elderly-Saudi-woman-sentenced-to-lashings/UPI-39751236597845/]

Finally someone is taking a stand against these lustful old harlots. I have always been appalled by their wanton and licentious behaviour, and my hair positively stands on end at the thought of this wicked, wicked woman being in the same room with two males who are not members of her family. I am quite sure that the Almighty will be delighted at the prospect of seeing her punished in this manner, which will probably be the death of her. After all, she thoroughly deserves it. Hurrah for Saudi justice, the last beacon of decent moral order in a corrupt world.

First product review for a while. In the last few months I've developed a liking for swimming, and I've had an ipod for listening to mp3s on for years. But until recently I didn't know you could put the two together; after all, if I got into the pool with my ipod in its usual condition, my enjoyment of the music would be short-lived, water and electronics not being a great mix and all that. But there is a company (and they may well not be the only ones that make them) that sell waterproof armbands and headphones which allow you to do just this.

But does it work? When I told someone I'd bought the H20 Audio Amphibex Armband and the H3 headphones, they grinned and said 'Are you going to trust that?' I must confess I gulped and said, after a slight pause, 'Er...yeah?' in a rather uncertain tone. Well, I did ten lengths of the condo pool yesterday, and I have to report that my ipod is still fully functional. H20 Audio guarantee usability down to ten feet, so you could conceivably do a little light scuba diving with it even. You could certainly surf, waterski, play water polo, go canoeing, or whatever with it.

The one major downside (based on this single initial test) is that if you don't get an absolutely watertight seal between your ear and the headphones, when the water gets into your ears the sound becomes muffled and is sometimes even (literally) drowned out altogether. But maybe it's possible to get the very pointy rubber earbuds that they supply deeper into your ear canal than I managed to do when I first tried to use them. Still, even hearing a muffled sound in your ears is an amazing thing when you are swimming underwater; it definitely transforms the experience for the better. I swam for longer than I normally would but noticed the effort less, though this may be down to the novelty factor.

The only other gripe is that the cord from the armband to the headphones is a trifle short, and I'm not the tallest of people either, so you may find there's a slightly irritating pulling between them from time to time unless you keep the armband very high on your arm. But it has a strap with very strong velcro that does keep it in place pretty effectively (though I was only swimming a steady breast stroke and not really making any violent movements), and I have to say you don't really notice it when you're actually swimming; it feels a bit bulky out of the pool but once you're in, you hardly feel it. Certainly worth considering if you like music and water but have never been able to bring the two together before.

For a course I've designed on 'politics and visual culture' I've been trying to catch up on my political movies. I've watched films by Sergei Eisenstein and Leni Riefenstahl, and the latest was by Oliver Stone. JFK left me absolutely convinced that there was a conspiracy to kill the President and that Lee Harvey Oswald (played very well by Gary Oldman) was a 'patsy', as he put it.

If even a fraction of Stone's narrative is correct then it is very worrying indeed. Here are some, though by no means all, of the claims it contains. With regard to Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) himself, he was an army officer who had visited Russia, defected, then returned to the USA with a Russian wife. It was, to say the least, hard to arrange this during the cold war era of the 1960s unless one had official connections.

Nitrate tests on LHO suggested he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination, and testing on the supposed assassination weapon (the rifle left in the book depository on the 6th floor) was not carried out on the day of the shooting. Stone's narrative suggests that there were 3 separate teams of gunmen so that a triangular crossfire could be constructed around the motorcade, and that LHO did not belong to them; in fact, he had tried to warn of the plot and was deliberately ignored.

Witnesses to the Warren commission that officially endorsed the theory LHO had been acting alone and had fired only 3 shots claimed their statements had been altered. The actual shot LHO was supposed to have made was almost impossible to achieve and he would have had to fire 3 times in less than 6 seconds, a rate which made accuracy almost superhuman. A far easier shot was available from another window looking onto the street the motorcade came down before turning into Elm St but Elm St allowed a crossfire to be set up.

Several witnesses in otherwise good health died suddenly in the course of Garrison's investigation. Garrison was told by a former chief of special ops that he was posted to the South Pole with no warning while working on JFK's plan to withdraw from Vietnam by the end of 1965. He was on the way back in New Zealand when he heard of the killing but newspapers there already had full details of LHO's role before he had even been charged in Dallas. Had he been in the USA he would have had charge of JFK's security, which was inexplicably absent from the scene on the day of the shooting. The entire USA cabinet was also abroad and phones in Washington went down for about an hour at the time of the assassination.

JFK's body was then illegally moved from Texas to Washington for an autopsy attended by senior military officers who would not normally be present and who intimidated the medical personnel. The autopsy did not dissect the track of the bullet that would indicate the direction from which he had been shot, and his brain also later disappeared. Johnson ordered the limo in which he had been travelling to be washed and the clothes of others in the car to be sent to the cleaners. Untraced alleged secret service agents and railroad hobos were spotted and photographed at the scene but never subsequently identifiedl; the hobos were arrested but released without charge and no notes were kept.

Nor were any notes kept of the interviews with LHO himself after his arrest. No-one saw LHO on the 6th floor (though he was seen on the second), and he was in no hurry when he left presumably after he heard of the shooting. The circumstances of his arrest at a movie theatre were also suspicious; his behaviour suggests he was attending a pre-arranged meeting and that the authorities thus knew where he would be.

Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw failed, but it did emerge in 1979 that he had in fact been a CIA agent. In 1979 a Congressional investigation did find a probably conspiracy and recommended that the Justice Department pursue the findings but nothing was ever done. Stone's film, however, did pesuade Congress to order a review of the files in 1992. Stone's ultimate suggestion is that the financial losses that would have resulted from JFK's decision to end the war were the ultimate reason for his death. That is, the military, the intelligence communmity, and the arms industry colluded to have him killed in the knowledge that Johnson, who took over, was far more receptive to the idea of continuing the war. So far, no-one has disproved this theory.

Clearly I'm going through a lists phase. What prompts this one is that whenever I heard questions like 'who do you most admire' or 'who's your hero?' I always found them impossible to answer. There are so many amazing human beings to choose from, after all. But if I had to compose a list from the twentieth century that reflected personal prejudice it might look something like this. Entries are in no particular order; just as they occurred to me. My historical list would probably be completely different, but that's another story.

1. Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist, for writing The Master and Margarita.

2. Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist, for founding the art of aikido.

3. Nick Cave, Australian musician, for taking rock in directions no-one else has.

4. Philippe Petit, French wire-walker, for performing on a wire 450m up between the twin towers with no safety gear.

5. Joern Utzon, Danish architect, for designing the Sydney Opera House without knowing if it could be built.

6. George Lucas, American film director, for the first Star Wars movie. Shame about the new ones.

7. Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist, for (repeatedly) revolutionizing painting.

8. Stan Lee, American comic-book writer, for creating the Amazing Spider-man.

9. Eric Cantona, French footballer, for that first title win in 26 years.

10. Michael Oakeshott, English philosopher, for writing that spurs you to think for yourself.

There are loads of these types of posts on the net, but what the hell, here's mine. It's not particularly technical; if you run Linux or OSX or whatever, bully for you. These are just some suggestions for the average user who would like to make Windows (in particular XP) more liveable. In its favour, it is based on many years (c.10) of living with Windows, from when I was still on 3.1 at work and Win98 at home. I've tried them all and they all work well for me.

If you're interested in trying any of the apps I mention below, Google, as they say, is your friend when it comes to download links; I may fill them in later if I get time. Many of these apps also have pro versions that are paid-for, but the basic versions have all the essential functionality you need. Of course, there are also plenty of alternatives; these are just the ones that work for me. Again, if you're happier with something else, lovely; this is for anyone who might not know about the options.

1. Open Office. If you haven't tried this, and for any reason you want an alternative to Microsoft Office, you really should. It's a complete Office suite (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more) and it's totally free. It's just reached version 3.0 so it's increasingly mature, and although it isn't as slick as Office 2007 (which tempted me back to Microsoft after a couple of quite happy years as an Oo user), it's the next best thing, and will save all your documents in Microsoft-compatible formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.)

2. VLC. Video Lan Client is a very flexible free media player that can work over networks or just on your PC.

3. TVersity. A media server that will send your music and video files over your home network to a variety of devices including your Playstation 3 and your Xbox 360, but will also work with mobile devices for remote access.

4. Logmein. Remote access to your PC over the web from anywhere.

5. Winamp. A very full-featured audio player that will deal with your iPod or other mp3 player, rip CDs to mp3, and can also do video, internet radio, is fully skinnable, etc.

6. Zone Alarm. A software firewall that gives you much more control over what applications are connecting in from and out to the internet than the default Windows option.

7. AVG anti-virus. Not the only free AV client out there, and it has returned a few false positives in the last 12 months, but they get fixed extremely quickly (< 24 hours) and it is updated more or less daily.

8. Free Commander. A replacement for Windows Explorer as a file manager. I really couldn't live without it.

9. Alt-tab replacement. If you use this key combo to switch between open applications (as you should, as it's really far quicker than reaching for the mouse and clicking) this makes the experience far more enlightening; you get a thumbnail of the window you're switching to. Actually one of Microsoft's powertoys.

10. FastStone image viewer. A great free image manager if you have lots of digital photographs etc. It has basic editing functionality as well, though if you want something more fully featured, try The Gimp, a good imitation of photoshop and also free.

11. Bulk Rename Utility. If you manage lots of files and want to change default names, extensions, etc., this is a godsend; it can save you literally hours of work.

12. Firefox. A great replacement for Internet Explorer as your web browser from the Mozilla foundation. Hard to believe anyone doesn't already know about it as like Oo it also at 3.0 but if you haven't heard of it, give it a try; there are lots of free extensions for it. It's what I'm typing in right now.

13. Thunderbird. The email client from the Mozilla foundation and a good replacement for Windows Mail/Outlook Express. I've been on it for about 5 years and I'm still going strong.

14. MozBackup. As the name suggests, a backup tool for your web and email settings. Save them somewhere save and never lose your crucial stuff again.

15. CCleaner. A system maintenance utility that will safely delete unused files and keep the Windows registry in good order, as well as much else besides.

16. SharpReader. An aggregator for RSS news feeds. Subscribe to feeds from different sites and centralise your news reading.

17. µTorrent. A bittorrent client. There are many, but this one seems to support the most features.

18. Google Earth. Google make a lot of great software in addition to their search engine - their desktop search is very handy, and Chrome is also a neat browser - but if I had to pick one thing that they do, it would be this satellite-image based mapping software.

19. Skype. Not exactly free if you want to make calls to landlines, but PC to PC is free, plus it's a good chat client. I actually do use it for calls overseas as its so cheap - and the call quality seems to be improving.

20. mp3tag. Very useful if you have a collection of mp3 audio files that you are struggling to keep in order.

21. CD art display. An add-on for winamp that will show the cover art of the CD you are now playing if you have it saved on your computer, or will search for it if you don't.

22. AT Notes. Now no longer in development, but a nice free yellow sticky notes application nevertheless.

23. Winkey. Ditto - was made by Copernic, and makes the Windows key on your keyboard actually useful (I set Winkey + X for my file manager ['explorer'], Winkey + W for Word, etc.]

24. TClockX. Again, maybe now a bit hard to find, but a very good clock extension with popup calendar for WinXp. Works best if you use the Win98 style gui, which I do.

25. FLV player. For viewing flash videos downloaded from the web and stored locally on your PC.

26. Daemon tools. The best emulator for CD and DVD rom drives; allows you to mount images and for your computer to think you've inserted physical media.

27. Teracopy. A far superior tool for file copying to the one built in to Windows.

28. Unlocker. For when Windows explorer won't let go even when you've told it to.

29. Quick SFV. A tool for verifying the integrity of downloaded files that include an .sfv file.

30. CD Display. Not to be confused with CD art display. This is for reading comic books (in .cbz or .cbr format) on your PC.

31. Secunia PSI. A 'personal software inspector' that makes sure all your applications are up to date and gives you download links to any needed updates. A very handy security tool that forms an essential complete to Windows/Microsoft updates.

Now go and try some of them out. You might only be interested in a few of them but they are all good!

I can't take any credit for the following: it was forwarded to me by a colleague at work. But I thought it was so good that I just had to post it and give it more permanent form.

"The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY 'A'"