The New Sleaze

Observing the Silence

2005-07-14T11:28:00.000Z

Observing the Silence

Fittingly enough, I was on a bus to observe today's two-minute silence in memory of those killed on the bombings that struck London on the 7th of July. Unfortunately, when the clock struck 12 the bus was in the middle of the cross roads at Holborn so I and my fellow passengers couldn't get out to join our fellow Londoners and tourists (Londoners by osmosis) who had stopped whatever they were doing and come out into the streets to mark the events of a week ago. It was actually quite stunning to see. Office workers huddled around the entrance to their place of employment, people who had been walking along stopping to participate. It was as if someone had momentarily replaced London with a still photograph of itself. And when the two minutes passed we all went on our way and got back to work, or whatever it was we were doing. Because this is London, getting on with life and with living.

About the London bombs...

2005-07-11T16:31:00.000Z

About the London bombings.

Not sure what I should say here. Probably worthwhile giving out the standard reply I’ve given to all the emails and phone calls I’ve received recently: Yes, I’m still alive.

Like most Londoners, I was using the tube to get to work on the morning of July 7th. In was waiting for a Piccadilly Line train that had been blown up half a mile or so up the track from where I was standing in wait for it. I made it to work, calling home when I first heard a hint of the explosions from London Underground Staff. I called home to confirm what I was hearing with the all-wise oracle that is BBC News 24. I then got on a bus and made my way onwards to work. I worked, got a bus home, and, perhaps most importantly, went to the pub. With the Police wisely asking for central London drinking establishments to refrain from opening in an attempt to guide Londoners out of the West End and The City, Thursday evening became the night of the local as Londoners first went home to check in with their loved ones and then went to the pub for a much desired drink. I went to the pub across the road with all the housemates and an adopted waif who had been on one of the trains that was hit. We had Pizza and pints. I’m still not sure how appropriate our responses were, but there seemed to be a shared conviction that if we stayed at home and failed to go to the pub, we would have let terrorists win. Fighting terror with hedonism.

London is a tough old city. People have been attacking it for at least 2000 years. It’s been burned and bombed and nothing has stopped it. And neither will a few more bombs.

Hubble trouble

2005-04-26T13:02:00.000Z

Hubble trouble

With The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) celebrating it’s 15th anniversary of capturing stunning images of the cosmos, far in advance of anything possible by earth-bound telescopes, it seems an even greater shame that it could soon be scrapped as part of cost cutting measures. Hopefully, a last minute reprieve might be possible …

Doctor Who

2005-03-28T23:04:00.000Z

Doctor Who is Baaaaaaaaaack!

Whoooooohoooooooo. Not only is that the opening notes of the Doctor Who theme music, it is also the sound I made while watching the first episode. In fact, I was so excited about the return of Doctor Who that I downloaded the leaked version of the first episode two weeks before its first official broadcast. I watched that too, and the programme’s repeat on BBC3 the following day.

It’s as good as we had any right to expect. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t going to please everyone but it was fun and made me want to see the next episode immediately. OK so I wasn’t exactly a hard sell – I loved Doctor Who as a kid, and my interest in it probably peaked at the moment the series was cancelled, thus ensuring that it would always live on in my imagination. But still, I’m glad it is back.

The miracle of art

2005-03-24T01:02:00.000Z

I love film. I love well-made, distinctive films. But somehow film will always be a secondary love in my life compared to comics… Oh yeah, I’m sure people also figure in a list of loves of my life too, but that’s different…

Anyway, film. While watching a documentary on the making of the legendary British horror film The Wicker Man and the various trials and tribulations it faced in the making and more in the post-production, it again occurred to me how miraculous it is that well-made distinctive films ever get made at all. It should be remembered that, although greatly acclaimed today, the management at British Lion, the studio that had produced the film, derided it. It subsequently appears that the self same management were angling to make money by selling British Lion off to EMI rather than by making and distributing films. The Wicker Man was cut to shreds, but was eventually released, albeit as a supporting feature to that other miracle of a film Don’t Look Now…

In more recent years The Wicker Man has finally found the audience it deserves, thanks mainly to TV broadcasts and versions released on video and DVD, but it was so nearly lost and the cut that survives was not the full version the director intended. There are similar stories behind the creation of a wide variety of comics – Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s magnificent adaptation of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy remained out of print for nearly a decade before finding a new publisher. It all goes to hammer home the simple fact that the success or failure of a film or comic, the miracle of it all, is not how much money it makes, but that it gets made at all; that it is actually available for the public to discover…

During my research...

2005-03-21T15:48:00.000Z

So, yeah, during my research into various guns for an article I am writing, I came across a banner advert for the military channel bearing the legend 'there are no national monuments to billionaire's apprentices'. The implication supposedly being that billionaire's apprentices do not on the whole commit acts of bravery like members of the armed services. However, I couldn't help but thinking that billionaire's apprentices tend to be quite well off and usually situated many thousands of miles away from the dangers of any armed conflict. But then again the slogan 'millionaire apprentices: better paid and safer than a career in the military' is hardly going to boost recruitment...

2005-03-14T12:56:00.000Z

There are times when I miss smoking. Not many of them, but those moments are there.
Perhaps surprisingly, these moments don’t strike when I am out with friends in the pub, but when I am sat in front of my computer, when I have work or don’t have work , when I need to write and when I can’t. This craving has very little to do with actual smoking, a taste that I have very much lost. It is more of a desire for some kind of idealized calming process that isn’t Tea of Yoga. So yes, when I say I miss smoking, it is a bit of a lie, but I am missing something…

2005-03-10T23:46:00.000Z

Worrying news from NASA… hot on the heels of the news that Hubble is going to be scraped early it looks like funding for the continuing mission of the Voyager probes is under threat.

While the probes’ continuing cost, around $4.2 million per year for the next 15-20 years, seem enormous it must be balanced against the uncharted territory the probes are currently traversing. At some point over the next 15 years it is predicted that these probes will finally exceed the limits of the Sun’s influence and enter the space between the stars, true interstellar space. They will be the first Earth built objects to do so. To simply turn off the probes before they can chart the end of the Sun’s influence to save a little money (and in US budget terms $4.2 million is a not a lot of money) seems somehow… willfully perverse. If the calculations are accurate, it will have taken about 42 years for these probes to get to the fringes of interstellar space, surely they have gone too face, both literally and figuratively, to have the plug pulled on them now.

2005-03-10T14:06:00.000Z

Looking back at the Dot.com bubble

Apparently, this week marks the fifth anniversary of the bursting of the Dot.com bubble. It was a significant moment when venture capitalists around the globe finally woke up and smelled the coffee dragging them out of their dreams of avarice made possible by new technology. The Guardian has a pretty interesting piece on the whole event. I’d link to it, but couldn’t find it on the website. Old media may not win the war ultimately, but it is still winning the battle, it seems.

Upon reading the article two things struck me – firstly how ridiculous overambitious so many of these companies now seem when faced with the stark reality of the comparatively low level of technology most people were using to connect to the web with back in the year 2000. Yes, that flash animation that you’ve been working on all week might look lovely and wizzy and make your website look hipper than your competitors' – but you designed it on the fastest best computers available and tested it on a high-speed DSL line. Meanwhile the best your potential customers are like to have is a 56k modem if they are lucky… Oh yes, and some of them will be using browsers other than Internet Explorer and might even be using *gasp* Apple Macs… Surely a website intent on selling something. Even if it that thing is just eyeballs, it needs to be accessible to a wide a variety of people around the globe as possible – not just your mates in other Hoxton base-offices – that way Nathan Barley lies...

The second thing that struck me was that the people interviewed who ‘lost’ money when the bubble burst seem to be doing quite nicely in new web-based ventures. The bubble also rises.

2005-03-08T01:14:00.000Z

I've started using del.icio.us as a means of collecting links i'm using in my research and turning them into an RSS feed...

One day, I might actually find out what it's really for...

2005-02-28T23:39:00.000Z

A pleasant evening spent out with friends this evening, a direct inversion of the equally pleasant night spent with friends last night, which descended into madness when I forgot to leave the pub after the Rugby. It kind of went downhill from there…

I must go for not-drinks more often…

2005-02-25T00:53:00.000Z

Following on from my recent post, Iranian blogger jailed for 14 years on charges of spying and aiding foreign counter-revolutionaries.

2005-02-24T14:03:00.000Z

And now for something completely different…

Links to websites about demolition robots:

Aqua energy’s Concrete Demolition Robot takes the hard work out of concrete demolition. The robot has an onboard computer that can be programmed, the robot also comes with a remote control enabling an operator to control the robot from a distance.
Brokk is the world's leading supplier of remote controlled demolition robots. Browse our website and find out how Brokk can help you do your job quicker, safer, more economically and a lot more user friendly.
The American TV show Robot Rivals set teams from two universities against each other in a challenge to built competition demolition robots.
Robotic hydrodemolition equipment helps speed the renewal of the A1M

2005-02-23T10:11:00.000Z

Question of the day...

So, why does the cover of O'Reilly's Running Mac OS X Panther have a picture of an Alsatian on the cover? Wouldn't a Panther be more logical?

2005-02-22T23:34:00.000Z

Or to put it another way...

2005-02-22T22:28:00.000Z

OK, in terms of blogging, I'm a pretty bad blogger. My blog is not particularly well designed, seldom updated and occasionally afflicted with spelling and gramatical errors. Yet, however imperfect I might be as a blogger I do want to add my voice to those all around the blogsphere calling for the release of Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad, just two of the many Iranian bloggers imprisoned by the Iranian authorities, seemingly because of what they wrote on their blogs.

So, with about 30 minutes left in the day I'd like to celebrate "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"...

2005-02-02T18:43:00.000Z

G.I. Joe captured!

OK, technically speaking this isn't a story about G.I. Joe, but his rather less well known cousin Special Ops Cody, nevertheless, if decapitating action figure becomes a terrorist offense then Guantanamo is going to need an extensive nursery section. And I think a vast tranch of the Western world will also be wanted for similar war crimes...

2005-01-24T15:44:00.000Z

Still very little comment from me the stories I highlighted in my last post... Instead, I give you this: the ultimate in iBook anti-theft devices. So your iBook will be safe from burgulars but considerably less safe from housemates throwing out old pizza boxes...

2005-01-19T02:23:00.000Z

I know, I know - I don't talk, I don't write... Well, I'm here now...

Well, Its been a hectic few months for space news. The two biggest things, both of which I want to write about at some length but may never get round to publishing, are Europe's plan to launch the Galileo satelite navigation system as a rival to the US GPS system and the spectacular results from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan.

2004-11-27T11:47:00.000Z

Out of curiosity, I've just been taking a dive through my blog archives. I've been blogging close to five years now and the main reason it doesn't feel that long yet is because of my painfully regular lack of updates. Unfortunately, what is plainly apparent from my past posts is my ‘refreshingly relaxed’ approach to the rules of spelling and grammar…

2004-11-27T11:18:00.000Z

'You're my favourite waste of time'

This week I have been mostly playing Newton's Nightmare, a terribly addictive flash game. Worse, I have tried to justify playing the game to myself on the grounds that its about fruit, and thus healthy. Pathetic, I know, but it feels sooooooo good.

2004-11-09T14:25:00.000Z

Not quite as it appears -

Apparently recorded while G.W. Bush was a govenor – not after his recent second term victory, here is somempg footage of President Bush's one finger victory salute.

First person to film the President wiping his ass with the Bill of Rights wins a prize...

2004-11-07T20:41:00.000Z

Grey November days are with us again... with evenings that start at 4pm. Roll on next spring.

2004-10-31T18:35:00.000Z

One day to go before the US election…

It seems strange when you say it like that – it feels like we’ve been counting down till Tuesday for a very long while, we’ve had a lot of time to imagine what our hopes and fears on what the outcome might bring…

The depth of coverage on various issues, both foreign and domestic from newspapers across the globe has left observers around the world as informed and sometimes even better informed, than many voters actually in the US. And no, I don’t think that this is necessarily a particularly controversial or biased view. It is simply a reflection of the huge interest around the world in this particular election. And although there is likely to be a higher turnout of voters than is usual, there will still be many potential voters who have refused to follow the coverage and will fail to cast their ballot. The fact that I had to add a couple of explanatory sentences there to make plain why I do not see first sentence in this paragraph as particularly controversial underlines just how bitter and divisive this year’s campaign has been.

Families across America are split. But they are split, I think, for a good reason. The stakes are high in this election, perhaps higher than they have ever been before. The reasons this is an important election probably vary depending on your political opinions, but I can tell you this much I’ve been having election-based nightmares for weeks now. Opinion polls are evenly split within their margins of error. It is not even clear if these polls accurately reflect all the newly registered voters who, for whatever reason, do not usually turn up at the polling stations.

I have my own convictions about who must win this election if freedom and liberty are to survive in America and across the globe. It is my fear that should my hopes be crushed (and worse crushed in a clash of lawyers and judges) I will look back on these passed months of campaigning like the frieze on Keat’s Grecian Urn, as a period where is was possible to hope. Remember that old curse? ‘May you live in interesting times’? On Tuesday, and further on in to Wednesday and after we are set to discover just how interesting things can get.

2004-10-22T14:19:00.000Z

The BBC news-ticker announces:

DR Congo accuses Belgian minister of behaving like cartoon character Tintin. story here...

It’s an interesting story about how certain Congolese politicians are claiming that the former colonial power, Belgium is treating the Democratic Republic of the Congo with condescending racist attitude of the type some have claimed is present in the characterization of non-Europeans in the famously Belgian Tintin comics.

But am I really alone in thinking that DR Congo sounds like a brilliant name for an outlandish comic-book villain of the type never seen in Tintin comics.