Planet Jedimoose

Those of you with geek leanings, and possibly some of you who aren’t, will have experienced the problem – you have a great idea for a new project/product/business/etc and you’ve come up with a name for it and it’s beginning to come together, and then you go to buy the domain, only to discover that .com, .net and .org are all taken. And suddenly you have to decide – do you go for a marginally more obscure ending – .co.uk, org.uk, .info, .me – or do you change the name of the project?

The happened for me with both linkpot.net and fosstr.org (both of which I handed over to a friend when I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to maintain them). In both of those, I took the option to choose a new name and get a ‘decent’ domain. However, it’s happened to me again, and, in light of the recent hubbub from ReadWriteWeb which seems to indicate that a significant proportion of the web use Google rather than actually type in addresses, am I better off keeping the name I like and having a longer TLD, or is there still value in having a short TLD?

Thoughts welcome (although let’s not have a discussion about whether someone in the UK should be using .***.uk rather than a US TLD )

mrBen

Railman won’t be ready for Monday.  Ruthy hasn’t been well and has been in quarantine for most of the day and Aurora isn’t all that well at the moment either.

If it’s tidy enough for early in the week I’ll release it then.

Sorry for the delay.

- Alistair

Here’s the promo for Season 2. Download it, share it, spread the news! The Yak IS Back!

(Also available in Ogg and Wav formats as required)

Here's the promo for Season 2. Download it, share it, spread the news! The Yak IS Back! (Also available in Ogg and Wav formats as required)

Words About Whiteinch is getting very real now.  It’s odd, but as the first story of mine that’ll actually be in ACTUAL PRINT, I’m getting really really excited…

But the anthology is here on Amazon Uk.

Mwah ha ha ahahahahahahahaha…

*ahem*

Sorry about that. 

Now I have to get the next few scenes of Railman out the way and work on other short stories, see if I can get them closer to publish standard.  (of course, it’ll keep me away from the outstanding housework…)

- Alistair

OK – it’s not really new any more – been here for more than 3 months. But I promised Félim that I would blog about it

I started work on Nov 16th at Central with the job title of ‘Junior Developer’. The extra hour in bed in the mornings is wonderful, as is getting home a good 45 minutes earlier at night. I’ve been able to help out with the kids in the morning and evening, which I (hope/think) is a bit of relief for Heather.

I’m doing a stack of Python, which is great, and working on a product that I genuinely think is brilliant. (More on that when it gets formally released ). I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.

All in all, it was definitely the right move to make.

mrBen

Here’s a belated part five of The Railman.  It’s been a hectic week or two with much that has got in the way of regular updates.  But I’m back on track now.

As usual all comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome and if you know anyone who might like the story, don’t hesitate to spread the word!

-Alistair

The kitchen in Pascoe Glyn was anything but spartan.  There was a wide range, with hobs, grills and ovens, which although unused were always kept in perfect condition by Gordon, the village’s stalwart cook.  The kitchen was far larger than was required for the current population of the village.  On hooks suspended from the low ceiling were a variety of pots and pans, some never used yet by Gordon in the eight years since his return to the village.  He had insisted on being called a chef when he arrived, much to the amusement of the other villagers and although he was well aware that his contribution to the culinary experience of the world in which he lived was the preparation of the most basic fare, there was only so much he could do with the meagre selection of ingredients available to him.

Recent years had seen the increase in the consumption of soup.  Surely he was better than that?

That morning he was working though the current inventory of goods the village had to hand, trying to create something that was even remotely inventive.  His heavy shoulders sagged as he sighed deeply.  Looks like it would be soup again, he thought, and again for dinner.  It was a shame for the coming of age ceremonies that he didn’t have anything better to offer them.  If he could get his hands on some meat he might try for a nice thick stew but meat was rare.  Pigs were the easiest to get hold of, anything else was a pipe dream.  He remembered once seeing a cow and even tasting milk.  It was this promise of exotic tastes that had inspired his wish to become a chef.

Peru was in in the kitchen with him and was yapping away as he tried in vain to cobble some kind of recipe together on an old notepad.  She hadn’t been well and was going on about it.  He was sympathetic but medical fears made him queasy.  Gordon didn’t want her lingering in the kitchen too long.  He tuned back in to her prattle.

‘…the well,’ she said, ‘but it should be fine.’

‘I’m sorry?’ he grumbled.  He looked around to see Peru leaning against a worktop, idly chewing on a carrot.  She was like a giant in the low-celinged kitchen, tall but now emaciated from her illness.  On the lower levels Peru would walk with a stoop, long used to keeping her head from clashing with door frames.  Her eyes had misted over.  ‘Peru?’ he asked and waved a hand in front of her eyes, ‘are you okay?’

‘Hmm?’ she grumbled.  She blinked rapidly and looked over at Gordon, life returning to her eyes and a sly smile playing over her lips  For a moment her face, framed with greying curls, lit up.’

‘You were saying something about the well.  I drifted away for a moment,’ he admitted.

‘I said, I think it’s time.’

‘Time?’  He ran a hand through his own thinning hair, moving it aside to see Peru easier.  The illness had changed her, it was true and Gordon kicked himself for not paying more attention.

‘For me to go down the well.’  She smiled at him sweetly and looked down at the counter top.  She traced a pattern on the surface with her finger while Gordon fought for something to say.

‘Ah,’ he began hesitantly, ‘I’m sure you have plenty to keep going for.’  Inside he cringed at the glibness of the remark.  ‘I mean, I’m sure things aren’t that bad.’  Again he winced.  ‘What I meant was…’

Peru reached over and rested her hand on his bare arm to stop him.  Her fingers looked skeletal next to his thick arms.

‘It’s okay, Gordon,’ she said softly.  ‘You’ve never been comfortable with this part of the journey.  You’re a sensitive man.  That’s nothing to be ashamed of.’  He looked down at his feet not knowing what else to say.  ‘It’s okay Gordon, your secret is safe with me.’  She patted him on the shoulder and started walking slowly towards the door.

‘You’re not going to do it now?’ he cried in alarm.

‘Of course not, son.  There’ll have to be a ceremony, and you know how they like their ceremonies.’  He rushed after his mother but was blocked by Donovan, the Elder.

‘Gordon,’ he spoke in hushed tones, looking around for eavesdroppers, ‘we need to talk.’

You may remember my New Year’s Resolutions. You may not. Anyhow, I figured I should give an update, since I am stuck in an airport, waiting for a delayed flight, and since an update can count as part of keeping one of the resolutions. So here goes…

My first resolution was that I would read my Bible every day. I also said that would be the hardest! It’s easy to do when I am not busy, and not tired, but when I get busy or tired, guess what goes out of the window first? You guessed it! This needs some work.

There’s not a great deal I can do about the second resolution yet, so I’ll leave it at that.

Third: learning a new language. Haven’t done much about it yet, but I am going to Norway in May, so it would be good to start that. I still intend on brushing up on my French and Italian though. I have tested myself and was surprised by how much I remembered!

Fourth: reading twenty books (and books of the Bible don’t count). Ambitious. Failing miserably. Must do better, like even picking one up…

Fifth: posting on my website more. Hmm. Could do better, eh? To be fair, I am currently working on two new sites, so thois has rather eaten into this time. It will improve…

Sixth: personal best in a 10k race. Well, that won’t happen for a while yet. We’re looking at late summer / early autumn for 10k races, but when it comes round, I’m confident.

Seventh: trying out a new sport. I have joined an American Football team to play in competitively, and fully intend to give curling a go. Good progress.

Eighth: driving test. Let’s not talk about that.

Ninth: new territory on my racing bike. Well, I have gone through Rutherglen, Parkhead, Cambuslang and Garelochhead, so there has been some progress, but it would be good to branch out more too.

Tenth: Of course I am as witty, dark and cutting as ever. I’ve even been told. It’s natural. Why waste a gift?

So there you go. And my plane is still nowhere near.

In another special show to whet your appetite for the upcoming Season 2, Classic Yak present even more outtakes for your amusement.

All outtakes are taken from episodes 1 and 8.

Promo for Jen and Dave’s Oscar competition which could net you a Classic Yak T-shirt (among other fantastic prizes).

Additional Audio Credits

• From Saint Denis by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale
• Tribute to the kings by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale

Send your feedback to show@classicyak.org, post it on the forums or Bebo, or MySpace, join the Facebook group, or leave a plain old voicemail on +44 (0)845 867 6316.

*new* You can now also grab us on Twitter – twitter.com/classicyak

In another special show to whet your appetite for the upcoming Season 2, Classic Yak present even more outtakes for your amusement. All outtakes are taken from episodes 1 and 8. Promo for Jen and Dave's Oscar competition which could net you a Classic Yak T-shirt (among other fantastic prizes). Additional Audio Credits From Saint Denis by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale Tribute to the kings by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale Send your feedback to show@classicyak.org, post it on the forums or Bebo, or MySpace, join the Facebook group, or leave a plain old voicemail on +44 (0)845 867 6316. *new* You can now also grab us on Twitter - twitter.com/classicyak

…was on Valentine’s Day! Isn’t that so lovely!

Mira painted and glittered the card and I cut out the hearts for a tree to decorate the hall.

It was a really great day with everyone exept my brother in law, who was learning to save lives with crampons etc on icy mountains, so we’ll let him off!

I am quite sad it is over, but have great memories…

I have been in the happy position of really enjoying my maternity leave with the little ones, not that I haven’t had my wobbly moments, indeed there have been three this week, but they have so been surrounded by laughter and love and creativity that I feel very blessed!

I have been meditating on the breaking free of enclosure, the rising from the ashes, the soaring burst of colour, the wings flexing, beak opening in song, shining…

Painted using acrylics, irridescents and glitter on canvas. You can’t really see the shimmer in this photo but the colour is good.

Mira of course got her hands plastered with paint, but I’m going to turn her work into heart shapes to hang on a valentine tree, and bring it to Jamie’s dedication on Sunday.

She is also learning some basic cooking skills like grating, spreading, tearing herbs, flouring and rolling out…

This is the tomato spirals recipe from the CBeebies website!

Part Five here guys.  Still some scene setting going on.  Things are moving in a direction I didn’t expect.  let’s hope it pans out.  As usual all comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome.

- Alistair

Alice sat patiently in the cab, fixed her harness tightly over her shoulders, and waited for the first trucks of the day to arrive.  The straps cut into her and she cursed again.  The padding for her back, neck and shoulders was still in the docker’s office.  She would get it at her next break.

She preferred to get there just before dawn to perform the usual equipment checks.  A blank panel, framed with lights and switches, sat dormant in front of her.  She ignored them; their use and history had never been explained to her.  Alice tested the crane’s controls.  It performed two full circuits of the dome and she drew it back and forth from the platforms to the silo low on the deck.

She had her daydreams for company at this time of the morning.  The sunlight played through the small but numerous gaps in the far wall of the dome.  Rays reflected off the beams and, as usual, her imagination picked a rail and followed it out the dome and far away.  She had heard conversations around the docks over the years and in her mind the rail led her to glittering cities with spires piercing the cloud cover and reaching up to the infinite.  She saw cities that took days, or weeks, to cross by foot with docks that were hundreds of feet high, managing dozens of rails and just as many cranes.

She leaned back in the cracked and molded plastic of the cabin’s seat with her eyes closed and arms crossed.  She sighed.

In her mind’s eye she saw cargo ships larger than the village and villages that moved from place to place.  She even visualized land, although not knowing anything more than the soil shipments that very occasionally came though, she could only imagine it laid out on wooden boards like a slab.

She dreamed of travelling along a line, hitching a lift with a cargo hauler and just going wherever the line led, all the way to the cities and beyond, even out to the end of the line and seeing what was left.  To look out at skyscape that didn’t have any distractions, or anything to blemish its beauty, was where she always ended up.

Suddenly she was distracted, brought out of her serenity abruptly and back into the cab.  Before her, a solitary light was blinking on the console.  She panicked and froze, her hand close to the console and just for a moment she didn’t know if it was something that she had caused.  Then, after brief seconds had passed, the light blinked out but Alice remained unmoving.

Then the dawn bell rang and it shook her back into life.  She saw the dockers in their office and thought of telling Braddock later.

Yeah, she thought, I’ll tell Braddock.  He always knows what to do.

The first of February’s Railman posts.  I’m aware there should have been one on Friday and this should have been it.  Oh well.

Feel free to leave a comment, criticism or suggestion.

- Alistair

The morning’s work was underway.  The first of the cargo carriers had arrived bringing the crates and grain; the dockers grappled the heavy goods with their gauntlets, using them to lift many times their own weight, and the crane driver began transferring the grain to the silo.  Braddock stood on the platform beside the carrier talking to the driver, a short man stripped to the waist for the rising heat of the morning.  His torso was deeply tanned from years of riding on top the carrier, with a generous belly hanging over his work belt.  Driving was a well paid (and well fed) but dangerous profession; pirates were known to be rife on the rails.  It was the only time Ryan ever saw someone who was so large.  Village life was spartan for the most part, coin and feed being hoarded to ensure the village’s survival though dark days.  And the last few years had been very dark.  To see someone of a ‘comfortable’ shape was still a curiosity.

Ryan missed the spectacle; he was still fast asleep on the bench in the chapel.  Heterozygous was resting beside him sipping quietly from an old chipped mug filled with coffee.  Normally he wouldn’t risk it.  Anyone could pass by the chapel entrance and smell the bitter, earthy aroma but he was beyond caring.  He knew the heavy penalties for hoarding rare goods but coffee was sacred to him and a risk he was willing to take.  Casually he looked up and saw Alice in the crane’s cab looking down at him.  He guessed she was smiling.  Alice waved and he raised his mug as a greeting.  She was the only person, other than Ryan, who was aware of Heterozygous’ secret coffee habit.  The Reverend didn’t mind; they could both keep a secret and were good company.  He couldn’t ask for more than that.

Beside him Ryan stirred.  Heterozygous guessed the reasons why.  Ryan was a Reader.  Sure, everyone in the village could read and a few enjoyed it more than most but Ryan wasn’t just a reader, he was a Reader.  He would pour over his studies, such as they were in a backwater like Pascoe Glyn, and would sneak back into the classroom after hours and take to his books time and time again until the light was too low to make out the text.  The Elders did nothing to encourage his enthusiasm; if he was a Reader then that was his calling.  There was little they would do to dissuade him.  And the village’s two remaining Readers seemed ancient to Ryan and they didn’t have the eyesight for it like they used to.  It was important to have someone who knew the way of things.  While the Elders maintained the veneer of omniscience, and a thin veneer at that, they relied on the Readers to keep then right on matters of Law, History and anything else that might come under the expertise of the Reader.

Ryan was left to his own devices and Heterozygous did what he could to get the Ministry to send anything that would help broaden Ryan’s perspective.

Reverend Heterozygous stood and stretched.  The morning was advancing and soon it would be time for the Eleven Ceremony traditionally held at noon, rather than eleven o’clock which would have made more sense to Heterozygous, but it would be a while before anyone arrived.  He still had time to think, enjoy his coffee and take in the morning.  Heterozygous was in charge of the village’s spiritual health.  Most settlements over a certain size had a minister sent to them and Pascoe Glyn, although small, was no exception.  The previous minister, so Heterozygous had heard, was of the Fire and Brimstone school but his own technique was more relaxed, much more liberal.  Perhaps, he thought, that was why attendance had dwindled to practically nothing.

He heard a groan and looked down at blue eyes gazing hungrily up at the coffee mug.  Ryan was awake.

Just looked at th date of my last post and am slightly horrified. I am afraid my flirtation with facebook has been catastrophic for the blogging… but I have not been idle!

Here are some of my facebook thoughts:

velvety baby giggles

my favourite form of punctuation is the ellipsis… and in second place is the dash -

bramble schnapps, battenburg cake and liquorice allsorts

canned heat – ice cream – aint no mountain – the time is now – don’t give up…

My boys!

Back in December 2007 I tried a bit of cycle commuting on a borrowed mountain bike. I stopped when I realised that it wasn’t really saving me any money, and because I thought I was about to move to a job closer to home, whereupon I would start again. Sadly, the job never materialised, and I never started up cycling again, despite having done over 200 miles at that point.

Fast-forward to 2009, where I got 2 offers – a new job at Central and a new (to me) bike via an online friend. He had been given an old 10-speed road-bike, but wasn’t allowed by his wife to keep it, so I said I would take it.

I took delivery of an old Peugeot Carbolite 103 (actually the name of the frame, the model is an obscure number on a sticker near the bottom bracket that is a bit torn ) in November, but sadly there is no such thing as a free bike. New tyres were a good start, but when I went for my first serious test ride, the chain broke. A new chain then enabled me to see that the saddle was woefully uncomfortable, so a new saddle arrived for Christmas. I’m still in need of some mud guards, and I suspect a rack at some point, and some additional cycling clothes, etc, etc, etc. You get the picture

Me collecting the bike:

A few alterations later:

Of course, then there are the alterations that need doing. The brakes are shoddy and need a bit more work, if not replacing. The brake levers have been moved, but need moved a lot more to make the drops anything more than decoration. I have bar tape to fit (matching the saddle…). Plus it now needs a good clean and oiling.

However, I’ve done 100 miles in January, having ridden every work day, and I intend to ride at least 200 work days in 2010, which would be about 1000 miles of cycling. It will also save me in the region of £400, although I would need to minus expenses off that…… now – where’s that cycling mag….

mrBen

In a special show to whet your appetite for the upcoming Season 2, Classic Yak are proud slightly embarrassed to present some outtakes for your amusement.

All outtakes are taken from episodes 5 and 6.

Additional Audio Credits

• Tribute to the Kings by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale
• Sweet Swing by Trafic de Blues on the album Fin de Cavale

Send your feedback to show@classicyak.org, post it on the forums or Bebo, or MySpace, join the Facebook group, or leave a plain old voicemail on +44 (0)845 867 6316.

*new* You can now also grab us on Twitter – twitter.com/classicyak

Two days late?  Ahem, no comment.

Oh, and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about how/where it’s going.

- Alistair

Breakfast tended to be a simple affair in Pascoe Glyn.  Porridge or toast, that was it.  According to the older villagers, who had an opinion on everything, the breakfast table was once laden with a glorious bounty.  However, villagers of a more realistic mind recalled things differently.  The memory of bacon, eggs and a whole range of ways to enhance toast, most notably jam, often reduced one of the old timers to tears.  Pigs were saved for rare celebrations and chickens were creatures of myth.

Arisia, a recent addition to the adult population of the village, was holding court with a handful of the pre-Elevens.  She had been hoping to catch Ryan’s attention but he was nowhere to be seen in the low ceilinged hall.  She sat at the head of one of the old gnarled tables, on an unbalanced stool, and squinted at her audience in the dim light, reflected down a series of pipes from mirrors set on the outer surface of the village.  She was sharing what they could expect today and even though they had seen the ceremony many times before, she was enjoying a chance to spread a bit of uncertainty, fear and doubt.

‘It’s not the Railman you have to be scared of, you see,’ she said, watching the eyes of the younger children widen with horror, their imaginations already working overtime.  Gregor, who was eight, had a slice of toast thick with butter half in his mouth and looked at Arisia with a rising panic.  And it took a lot to interrupt the normally robust Gregor in the middle of a mouthful…

‘No,’ she said, drawing uncomfortable looks from some of the nearby adults.  Donovan, who was an Elder and reckoned his wisdom far above all others, looked up momentarily over his half-moon spectacles from the well worn book in his hands and directed a scowl to an oblivious Arisia before returning to his reading.  ‘No, it’s what happens after the Railman doesn’t come is what you have to be afraid of.’

Rebecca was turning Eleven tomorrow, with Scott two days later, and she sat and methodically worked her way though her bowl of luke-warm porridge.  She expected this routine, especially from Arisia, and had no desire to hear any more of it.  Rebecca didn’t believe the stories but they were having an unwelcome effect on the others.

‘Nothing happens, as well you know,’ said Rebecca, rounding on Arisia.  ‘You’re scaring them just because you can.’

‘Dry your eyes, Becca,’ she mocked.  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten your day tomorrow.’  She leaned over and whispered in her ear.  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’  She stood up, grabbed her bowl and sneered at her audience.  ‘I’ve had it with you children,’ she snapped and marched out of the hall.

Rebecca reached across the table and took Gregor’s free hand in her own.

‘It’s okay,’ she said softly.  He resumed chewing and a smile grew on his lips.  Rebecca turned to Scott.  ‘We’d better go and find Ryan before Arisia does.  I don’t want her getting her claws into anyone else today.’

Just to keep you up-to-date with news, here are a couple of things to look out for.

Classic Yak now has a Twitter account, so you can get even more updates from the crew. Check out twitter.com/classicyak and expect to see a feed on this page too.

Tonight I started editing a short outtakes show, which should be available in the next few days. If you’ve not already got us set up in iTunes or your favourite podcatcher, now might be a good time, otherwise check back here for the release.

It’s looking likely that Season 2 Episode 1 will be released on Monday 29th March. We’d love to hear from you if you’ve got ideas for the new season, or even if you just want to tell us what you’ve been doing over the break

A day late but if you don’t tell, I won’t.  And part three will be on time.  Honest.

- Alistair

With the ringing of the dawn bell came the waking of the village of Pascoe Glyn.  The east-facing dorm rooms allowed the growing light to cast over the bodies of those who were still gently waking.  There was an Eleventh today, the first for months and the first of a few expected over the next week.  Even with the Railman’s non-appearance over the years those villagers with longer memories were still on edge.

Ryan had managed to dodge the formality of breakfast opting instead to sneak into the kitchen and steal some toast.  Gordon the cook tended to rule over his small domain with a ruthless certainty but recognising Ryan and knowing the day’s significance won Ryan some leniency.  The boy nodded his thanks and slipped out.

He passed through the warren of the under levels with the dorms, storerooms and workshops laid out in no discernible pattern, rooms being raised when and wherever the need was greatest.  The irregular wooden planks, treated over countless years to increase their strength, left little privacy for the inhabitants.  He nodded a morning greeting to anyone who looked up but kept conversation to a stifled ‘hello’.

At the nearest pipe, a vertical tube with many lengths of knotted rope suspended and kept from swaying by the weights at their end, Ryan looked down for other upwards travellers but, beyond another level, saw only the cables and the thick white clouds far below.  He reached out, swung on to a nearby rope with practised ease and worked his way a few levels up to the docks.  He leapt on to the ledge and took a moment to take it all in.

The high dome of the docks was breathtaking, especially for the younger villagers who very rarely were allowed to set foot there, and especially when contrasted to the tight confines of below decks.  The dome was massive, about 80ft. to Ryan’s young untrained eye, and it was large enough to hold a number of passenger platforms and conical hoppers and a crane, the cab set high into the side of the dome offering a full view of the docks below.  Only once had be been allowed in the cab and he remembered being awed by the sight.

And entering and leaving at various heights in the dome steel I-beams, the rails that held the village and others like it aloft, were suspended in the air waiting for the carriers and hoppers, the trams and trolleys to arrive.  The village was linked in to the underside of the four rails that crossed at this junction, a small hub in the overall network.

Ryan looked over at the dockers who had donned their gauntlets and stood by their office with the stevedore, Braddock, waiting for the first cargo of the day to come.  He regarded Ryan and nodded.  It was rare to get any kind of acknowledgement from the man but it was yet another allowance for the day.  Either Ryan would be taken from everything he knew or remain for the duty of the village, both events marking him as an adult.  That was worth a nod at least.

He walked on from the edge of the pipe keeping a wary eye out.  It wouldn’t do to have an accident today of all days.  The chapel was before him, a squat structure made from both wood and stone, the only structure like it in the village.  Ryan never knew why it was favoured with stone, a rare material, especially as it was barely used.  He stepped over the threshold and through the ornate sanctuary and into the spartan hall, lines of wooden benches leading to the low altar at the front.

Reverend Heterozygous was sitting on the floor with his back to the altar, his head tilted, eyes to the chapel’s open roof.  Ryan walked down the aisle, his soft footsteps on the wooden floor too quiet to alert the minister.  He was halfway into the room before Heterozygous turned his head to regard the boy.

‘Morning, Ryan,’ said Heterozygous quietly.  ‘I’m glad you could join me.’  He looked him up and down before returning his gaze upwards.  ‘Finally,’ he added.

‘Reverend?’ he said, leaving the question hanging.

‘They all come,’ said Reverend Heterozygous in the same soft tone as before.  ‘They all come here.  And most don’t even know why.’

‘Arisia told me she came to see you on her Eleventh.  Anton too.’

‘At least you’re honest.’  Heterozygous drew himself to his feet and stretched.  He was not dressed in his robes of office but in shirt and shorts with images Ryan couldn’t recognise.  Heterozygous looked down at the images that were causing Ryan confusion.  ‘Ah right, beach wear, I forgot.  I try not to wear it around the place,’ he said, smiling mischievously, ‘but it’s rare anyone comes here.  Especially at this time of the morning.’

‘Those images,’ Ryan began but Heterozygous cut him off.

‘Are not your concern.’  His face darkened for a moment but it passed just as quickly.  ‘It serves to remind me how long I’ve been here.  Have a seat, I’ll nick off and get something more formal.’  The Reverend gestured to the bench beside Ryan and he left by a door at the back of the chapel.  For minutes Ryan sat in the relative peace.  Despite the open roof, open to the sounds of the docks beyond, Ryan was able to relax enough in the close environment.

He had questions, all the pre-Elevens did, but he didn’t want to share them with the Reverend.  He just wanted to go through the motions today.  He was uncomfortable with the fuss and the ceremony, and with the rumours of what happened if you were chosen to leave the village but he wanted to get it far from his mind.  Ryan lay along the bench, soaking in the sounds beyond the chapel walls, and finding in its bare seclusion a sense of peace.

By the time Reverend Heterozygous returned with his traditional white robes, Ryan was fast asleep.

It’s been almost 9 months since we had any news for the Yak, but we’re finally on our way back. Things are going to be a little different, but we think you’ll still like it. Stay tuned here for the latest news, or pop over to the forums to give us some ideas for Season 2.

In an effort to balance my last doom and gloom post, here’s a list of things I’d like to spend my time on as baby and wife allow.

• The Railman, part two, is practically ready for arrival on Friday.  Got a little bit to tidy up with it but otherwise it’s good to go.  Not sure where the story is going.  It might only last three parts, or it might go on for ages.  I’ll just let it wander as it wants.  Probably for the best.  My last attempt to force a regular story was The Bandstand and that’s fallen into some kind of limbo.
• Catching up with the Writing Buddies.  These are a group of guys I met through the last two NaNoWriMo attempts.  A good bunch of guys with a range of skills and tastes.  Makes for an interesting group.  Always a joy to spend time with them.
• Get a new job.  You may have picked this up from my last post.  It’s becoming a matter of urgency now but I’m sure something pop up.  It usually does.
• Grey Knights.  I’ve almost finished painting them.  And in a colour I’m happy with.  I’m sure I can get them done by the end of the year.    There may even be photos of the great job I’ve done.
• Other general gaming.  I like gaming, it’s a passion but I spend very little time indulging in my hobby.  I’m going to try and rectify that.
• Other writing.  There are many unfinished stories and I have to do something with them.  If I can get one story published then I can get others.  I just have to persevere.
• Find a new church.  My faith is at a pretty low ebb and has been for a very… long… time.  It would be nice to find a place I can find some peace and where they can accept me for who I am.
• Summer’s End.  Providing that there is another Summer’s End prog festival this year, I’ll be there hopefully with Neil and Bruce.  Last year we had capes.  This year it might be full wizards robes…

That’s a list of things I have in my mind that’s not Ruth/Aurora centred.  I know it’ll change as time progresses and as free time deteriorates/becomes available.

- Alistair

I’ve just heard back about a job I applied for.  It was something that I had wanted to do for a while, I reckoned I had enough relative experience and got through the first round of interviews and had my second yesterday.  It seemed to go well, I didn’t stumble or fall at any of the questions asked but just before 6pm this afternoon I got the call that I didn’t get it.  Gutted.

Oh well, sometimes that’s the way it goes.  Thing is, with no current job, finances are tight.  And it looks like I’ll have to bite that old ‘follow the money’ bullet and apply for any old shit.  The thing is that I’ve done that for years and always ended up in companies that tended to treat their employees poorly (even if they didn’t think so themselves) and have hated doing the same repetitive crap for people who wouldn’t know how to manage their own shoelaces.  My last two jobs, Whiteinch Church of Scotland and Scottish Power, are prime examples of that.

So, is that just what we have to do to get by?  I know the old saying ‘you work to live not live to work’ has a lot of weight but surely if we have to do something that takes up approx. 40 of our waking hours in a week that it’s important to find something that doesn’t suck completely.

Perhaps I’m just expecting too much.  I have a beautiful wife and daughter and I love them both very much.  I have a group of very good friends who I don’t see enough of.  Perhaps doing a crappy job with disrespectful and critical assholes is just the way of it.

- Alistair

For all the controversy we’ve had in Formula 1 over the past 3 years – Spygate, Crashgate, Liegate, the mass manufacturer pull-out, double diffusers – we’ve actually had some pretty good racing too. 2007 was a fantastic fight between the McLaren drivers and Kimi Raikkonen; 2008 featured a great battle between Hamilton and Massa; 2009 was a season split virtually down the middle, with a storytale start to the season for Brawn, with McLaren and Red Bull pushing them all the way at the end of the season – but ultimately coming up short.

You could be forgiven for thinking that we must, therefore, be due a dull season this year – especially with double diffusers legal until the end of this season (thus affecting overtaking). If you thought that, you’d be wrong.

For a start, we have four teams who will be realistically expecting to mount a serious title challenge this year, all with good driver line-ups.

There’s McLaren, with current world champion Jenson Button – the most precise driver on the grid – and Lewis Hamilton, who was champion in 2008 and has more points than any other driver in the last two seasons; they were also the form team at the end of last year.

There’s Red Bull, who probably had the pick of last year’s cars, and have the mightily quick Vettel, alongside Webber who will race this year without the impediment of metal plates in one leg. When they get their heads down, both can be virtually unstoppable, but also get caught up in drama regularly when in the middle of a pack.

There’s Mercedes – formerly Brawn GP – who have Nico Rosberg, who has never quite fully realised his potential yet. In the other car, they have a mere 7-times world champion whose name must surely BE the definition of “winner” – Michael Schumacher. He may be 41, but he’s in it to win it, and he’s shown he can still do it – beating many F1 drivers in regular karting events since his retirement.

Finally, and most excitingly, there’s Ferrari, with Alonso – a 2-times world champion, and Massa, who was, in my mind at least, comfortably the pick of the drivers in 2008 (from the third race in at least), and who drove the socks out of last year’s Ferrari until he himself was socked in the head and was conked out for the season. Alonso will bring excellent and much needed technical input to Ferrari and never has an off day; Massa is, quite simply, astoundingly quick, and has got more and more consistent every year. There is nothing to suggest he won’t bounce back from last year’s awful accident.

So, who will come out on top? Until testing, we really won’t know much. However, I would hazard this much: the McLaren may well start as the car to beat, with Red Bull and Mercedes very close behind. Hamilton will beat Button. Vettel will beat Webber, and will make less mistakes, giving him a real chance this year – as long as he can learn to overtake better. Schumacher will beat Rosberg, and will, after 3 years out, be hungry to win. He won’t easily be bullied off track in a fight because he’s laid so much on the line to come back. Ferrari will likely start a little behind the others, but with Alonso in their armour, they will start to catch up. Being slower than the others won’t matter too much either – they have the strongest line-up in F1, and there are no two better drivers to extract more speed out of a slightly slower car (Hamilton excepted – possibly).

The key to F1 2010 lies with Schumacher and Ferrari. If they are both strong, we’re in for the most exciting season in living memory. Otherwise, it’ll be Hamilton v. Vettel – and Hamilton will win.

Wow – I am so behind on blog posts it’s unbelievable. I have 3 or 4 in my head at the moment. However, just a small one for now to wish all our readers a Happy New Year. Some things to look forward to posts on:

• My New Job
• My New Bike / Commute / Fitness plan for 2010
• Thoughts on PVRs
• Snow!

But for now, a few excellent links for those of you who are into cycling. My aim this year (more later) is 200 weekday commutes, so I am officially “into” cycling (again!)

• .citycycling (free monthly online cycling magazine)
• Yehuda Moon (cycling webcomic)
• Cyclogs (site for recording all your cycling stats)

L8rs…

mrBen

Here’s a little something I have been working on.  There are a few parts of it.  I’ll drop them in to the blog over a couple of days.  Let me know what you think.

- Alistair

Ryan sat on the platform behind Storehouse Number Eight and waited for the sun to rise over the distant bank of cloud.  Beneath him old timbers groaned with age, behind him the storehouse was as empty as ever, and he watched with his customary awe the start of another day.  The sky to the east was red, the dark cloud layer stained at the edges, but above it was clear with stars still shining brightly.

The Elders were hoping for rain, they always hoped for rain, but Ryan was certain they would be disappointed again.  The hydroponics were already beginning to suffer and rumours were rife of sabotage on the incoming pipes.  He had been trying to ignore them; after all, he was turning eleven today.  That was stressful enough.

Eleven was a landmark birthday, celebrating one full year after their first decade in the village.  And traditionally a date that saw the arrival of the Railman.

It was said that the Railman appeared on your eleventh birthday, took one look at you and decided if you were to leave with him or stay.  Where you went was anyone’s guess.  The few who had come back never spoke of it.  But the Railman had not been to the village for as long as Ryan was alive.  His cynical friends, expecting that the Railman wouldn’t arrive, made fun of his discomfort and secretly, in spite of their jeering bravado, they feared he might return.

The sun was starting to rise over the clouds and he breathed deeply waiting for the dawn bell.  He could see the dawn light highlighting the rails winding their trail across the sky.  Ryan could barely make out the shapes travelling along them, presumably the first of the cargo hoppers on their way, chasing the dawn.  He got to his feet slowly and rubbed his bare legs to generate some warmth.  The early morning chill demanded more than this sandals, vest and shorts but with the sun rising the temperature would get comfortable soon enough.  He walked along the platform to the rope ladder he had fashioned months before, after he found the old hatch hidden at the end of one of the abandoned corridors and subsequently the platform.  It was a place long forgotten, or so he thought, and it was somewhere he could rest away from the dorms.

The bell tolled again.  Time to get ready for work.

And for Ryan, time to prepare for the Railman.

So, happy new year!

It’s been a ‘interesting’ year, full of ups and downs.

It started well, with me riding high off the relative success of last year’s NaNoWriMo.  It was an important milestone with my writing, the first time I ever got around to actually finishing something in a short time that I even remotely liked.  So, that was Planet Of Snakes (a sequel to the unfinished Desert Of Zin) and very happy I was with it too.

(Not that it matters what’s finished and what’s not, things have changed in that quarter.  More on that in a mo.)

Then, shortly after the new year, my mother had a cancer scare.  Not good, not good at all.  But she had it removed, went for her radiotherapy and everything is currently peachy keen.  (It’s amazing how you can get all of the angst, worry and relief of a time like that and boil it down to a couple of sentences…)

Then a few months into the year amazing news arrives.  Ruth is pregnant!  I still remember how excited I was when I found out.  We had been trying for a while and finding out really was a gift.

Then we hit the summer.  And intimidation and bullying at work.  Not good seeing as I worked for the my church.  With the benefit of hindsight, and plenty of counselling, there is definitely an element of a culture of dishonour about the way some Christians act despite the ‘Culture of Honour’ that is advertised.

Anyway, it wasn’t a sudden thing.  Using the same old hindsight as before it’s clear that my self-esteem and confidence were being ground down over a long period of time.  More on that later as well.

There was a welcome break in there called Summer’s End, a progressive rock festival in the small town of Lidney, by the Forest of Dean.  Myself, The Psycho Chicken, Bruce and (when she felt like she could endure all that glorious prog) Sharla enjoyed Steve Hackett, Pallas, Pendragon and all the wonderful bands in between.

But then back to work where the situation continued to get from bad to worse…

The months of September, October and November were back to the growing depression, anxiety, stress and suicidal tendencies.  This really was the worst part of the year for me.  I was being intimidated and harrased by my line manager (who, unfortunately, was also my minister) and despite already letting people in authority know the situation he was still my line manager and still intimidating and harassing me.

Now, I understand that in the cold light of day it might not seem like much, but when your church is your work and the only feedback you get from your minister/line manager is negative and your interests and thoughts are open to ridicule, it tends to affect you poorly.

NaNoWriMo arrived in November, right at the height of how bad things were getting.  With panic attacks and ‘The Fear’ growing almost daily it was a miracle in itself that I was able to get over 24k words.

This was the ‘All-New’ Desert Of Zin story.  I felt like the existing one was going nowhere.  I had no plan or interest in keeping it going and any ideas I did have just seemed tired.  But then I thought that it might be an idea to take the core concepts I still had in mind for the story and just start afresh.  Different setting, different characters (although with the same names) and with a narrow scope, at least initially, than the original attempt.  And for the most part I’m a lot happier with it so far.  Lots of stories to tell though, which is good.  Stops me from getting too bogged down with any one story.

But it wasn’t finished in the month, so there we go.  I’ll try again with something new next year.

It was the second-last weekend in November when everything hit the fan.  Angry threats were made at work and that was the straw that broke back of it and I handed in my notice.  Better that I was unemployed and healthy than employed and suicidal.

And I haven’t really regretted it once.  It’s a no-brainer that I have not been back to Whiteinch Church of Scotland for the Sunday Celebration and I don’t think I ever will.  I do wish them well for the future but if they ever want to see this ‘Culture of Honour’ fully realised they’ll have to really look at sorting themselves out.  One thing that going though my own counselling process has shown me is that there are a good few of Whiteinch Church leadership who need counselling of their own.

But with a month of the year left, two wonderful things happened.

A story, Whiteinch In Flight, was accepted for a local anthology…

…And my daughter was born, late for Christmas, but in plenty of time for the new year.

I have big plans for 2010.  It really feels like I’ve been through a lot this year and I’m confident and a feeling a lot more prepared for what I’m planning for the year ahead.

There are books to write, a wife to keep happy and a daughter to raise.  No problem.

- Alistair

Just under 20 years ago, I resolved never to make any New Year’s Resolutions again. Of course, that year passed quite some time ago, and I have decided I’ve had enough of sticking to that, so here are a few resolutions for 2010:

1. I will read my Bible every day;
2. I will vote for [deleted - secret ballot and all that] in the General Election;
3. I will learn a new language;
4. I will read at least 20 books;
5. I will post on my website more;
6. I will set a personal best in a 10k race;
7. I will try out a new sport;
8. I will pass my driving test;
9. I will explore new territory on my racing bike;
10. I will be as witty, dark and cutting as ever.

So there you go, ten resolutions. All attainable. Many can be done to varying degrees of success, others just need done. Succeeding in 1) will be the hardest, but also the most rewarding. Succeeding in 2) just needs done, as does 8). But 3), 4), 6), 7) and 8) can all be as easy or hard as I make them.

My best time in a 10k race is just over 42 minutes. I would love to do it in under 40, although in training, I have actually managed 38 minutes. Somehow.

Learning a new language – I LOVE languages. I studied French for ten years from the age of six. I would love to be fluent in that again, but also to learn Italian, German, Gaelic and a Nordic language. Oh, I also got a 1st in New Testament Greek too..

Trying out a new sport – well, I have one in mind actually. Curling. Don’t laugh. I LOVE watching it. Why not give it a go?

So there you go, there are my top ten New Year’s Resolutions. Feel free to ask me about them. Please do, in fact. Make sure I stick to them. And if you want to, join me in them! Run with me, cycle with me, read with me, learn with me. But don’t try and vote with me. It’s secret. And don’t try and be funny. I have a monopoly on that.

So anyway, Happy New Year!

Aurora Bain was born on Sunday 27th December at 4.07 in the afternoon.

Both mother and baby are doing well and should be back home from the hospital tomorrow.

(I would have posted this yesterday but I was shattered when I finally got home…)

- Alistair

I need to make an admission: I’m not really THAT bothered about climate change. There, I’ve said it. Berate me as much as you like. I know I should care, but I just don’t. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t affect me enough. In fact, that’s exactly what it is. But anyway, I’m a leftie who doesn’t really care about climate change.

That said, knowing I really should care, it’s probably about time I had a good look for myself. Conveniently, the Met Office have released raw data from their weather stations. A perfect opportunity to have a look for myself. More on that later.

However, other people have also had a look. Iain Dale has posted up some findings found by a reader of Iain Dale’s Diary which shows that Oxford is getting cooler. The methodology? To compare the highest temperature recorded in set time periods and compare them. The result? Well, to be honest, the commentary is rather garbled and unclear. It seems to suggest that Oxford is cooler now than in 1938, but that it was warmer last year. So, on balance, it would seem to argue there’s been little difference in temperature over the last 70 years – but that’s just a guess. Like I said, it’s pretty hard to work out exactly what the argument is.

There is one major problem with this method – there is no allowance for extreme values. Extreme values skew data. You can prove anything with them – especially when looking at a complicated issue like climate.

So, here is an alternative analysis of the raw data from the Oxford weather station. It is by no means perfect. It has been done very quickly. I have not subjected it to complicated scientific tests. But it has a method. Which is as follows:

I have taken the last decade (the Noughties) and taken the maximum temperature in June of every year in that decade. I would take the mean temperature, but that data is not available. I have then totalled those ten numbers (this year’s is still provisional, but is unlikely to change significantly) and divided them by ten. This gives us – wait for it – a mean maximum temperature. So, if you take the last ten years, you have an average of what that would be in any given year. Not a fantastic measurement, I accept, but it’s the best I can do with the data available. I have then repeated the process for the first decade of the 20th Century. I have picked these BEFORE looking at the data, so you can’t say I’ve taken convenient data. I have taken it randomly. I have then taken an intermediate value between the two – the 1950s.

On the other end of the scale, I have taken the lowest recorded temperature in each December and applied the same method to achieve a mean minimum temperature. This should provide a (superficial) indication of whether winters and/or summers have got warmer over the last century. By balancing the figures over a decade each time, extraneous values in either direction should have minimal effect. So, for anyone still reading, here are the figures:

Table 1.1 – Absolute Temperatures.

	1900s	1950s	2000s
Absolute Minimum Temperature	0.6	-0.7	0.2
Absolute Maximum Temperature	24.3	23.9	27.1

Table 1.2 – Mean Temperatures

	1900s	1950s	2000s
Mean Minimum Temperature	2.09	2.45	2.98
Mean Maximum Temperature	21.83	21.59	22.54

So, what does this show? Firstly, comparing the 1900s with the 2000s shows a clear rise in the mean maximum and minimum temperatures. The 2000s, according to this (very loose) data, were warmer. However, the lower minimum temperature in the 2000s suggests there could potentially be more fluctuation in temperature now than 100 years ago. Or it could be an anomaly.

Interestingly, the 1950s featured cooler absolute values for both June and December, the mean temperature in June was the coolest of the three, and the mean for December is halfway between the two.

Verdict: Further investigation required into the 1950s. Investigate possible reasons for anomalies. Clear 2000s clearly warmer than 1900s according to this data. Further comparison of the other decades in between needed to verify this data is not an anomaly itself.

Most of all, though, we need much more detailed data – day by day data is required much more than month by month if any meaningful data is to be extracted from this exercise.

Feel free to comment – healthy (and polite) debate welcomed, but leave essays for your own sites, please. I have no agenda. I just like looking at numbers. Thanks for reading.

Well, I have had my official notification of the inclusion of Whiteinch In Flight for the Words About Whiteinch anthology!

I knew it (in a strictly unofficial sense) but it’s good to have a look at something official.  It is meant to be released in late January 2010 and I have the final edit on my desktop for my confirmation.

I have a few reversions to ask for but it seems to be all systems go!

- Alistair

Well, it has been a couple of days.  Sorry about the lack of updates.  It’s not like I don’t have the time…

Baby isn’t here yet.  Although we have a week before Ruth is induced.  We’d rather avoid that if possible but it’s not up to us; until then baby will arrive whenever he/she wants to.

There is other news which is quite exciting but I’ll probably post that tomorrow when I’m more awake…

I think it’s time for an early night with 253 by Geoff Ryman. 

- Alistair

According to the info sent out by the Department for Work and Pensions, though the wonderful people in the Job Centre, my local housing authority is the City of Westminster.  It’s a bit of a trek from Partick, I know…

Just been on to their Glasgow office, they take a very dim view of the peeps taking the initial telephone claims.  seem to think their attention can only be held for a few minutes.  And by the state of the customer information they sent out for me to confirm, that guy just might be right…

- Alistair

…stays together?

At the moment, adhering to Ruth’s new Task Centred Therapy, we are sitting at the computer table painting miniatures.

For the last few days I have been stripping the paint of a number of old Grey Knight models (Games Workshop’s finest) and have been trying to set them to the current paint scheme.  It helps that I had only ever finished six of the beggars in the old scheme, a turquoise and silver theme that isn’t particularly grey or knight-like.

But they have all been under-coated, base-coated and dry brushed with the new style (pics to follow) and I’m embarking on the details tonight.

And in a spirit of encouragement Ruth has joined me.

Ages ago I had my hands on a box of Eldar Guardians, sitting on the shelf, unbuilt and unpainted.  She had painted one in the past and decided that she didn’t want to do any more.  That’s fine.  But now she has the challenge to paint each of the figures from the box (sixteen in total) in a different style to the one before it.

Hey, at this rate most of them might even be done by the time baby arrives…

- Alistair

Wow.  It’s been over a month since my last post, and life has been hectic.

Let’s see.  What has been going on in the life of Al?

Well, NaNoWriMo started and, two and a half weeks later, stumbled and fell of the ride.  Loads of bad stuff happened, mostly from my work, and I was a basket case for the majority of the month of November.  Truth be told I was a basket case for a good few months before that and I still have a long way to go before I’m back to normal (whatever that is) and am back working on all cylinders.

25,000 words though.  That’s not bad at all.

I’m currently unemployed as I had no other choice than to leave, the sanity of both Ruth and I was more important than a part-time admin job, and it’s going to be a long haul before I have my confidence and self-esteem back to where it should be.

Anyway, all of this madness got in the way of my finishing NaNoWriMo, which is a damn shame as I was really enjoying the story I had set myself this year.  But with time on my hands before the impending birth of my first child (due date = 13th December!) I am spending some of it on Desert of Zin so I don’t totally lose the thread like I did before.

- Alistair

I’ve been away for the last few weeks.  On a wee holiday up east of Elgin at my in-laws.  The in-laws weren’t there leaving myself, Ruthy, her sister and the dog to deal with the bloomin’ awful weather.  Oh well, at least I wasn’t at work.  Small mercies and all that.

I was planning to do something for the New Writing Dundee competition.  I had two stories partly done but neither of them seemed right.  I’ll work on them in the meantime.  There’s always another competition or magazine I can send them to and I’d rather they were right than rushed.  Although they’ll wait until after this year’s NaNo I’d dare say.

As for NaNoWriMo 2009…

I’ll be writing Desert of Zin this year…

But wait, haven’t I already been writing Desert Of Zin?  Won’t working on an already existing work be against the rules?

Yeah, well.  It’s not a case of working on the original, that’s a dead duck.  I’ve been working on it for so long and it’s been going nowhere.  The story is lacklustre and I couldn’t care less for the characters.  A shame, as Planet of Snakes (last year’s NaNo) is good and worth keeping.

So I’ve started again.  A completely fresh story, with similar characters.  Something less Space Opera and something better.  Much better.

- Alistair

Today, I picked up my new toy. I say toy – it’s rather expensive for a toy. But it’s fast. I got my new racing bike, the Specialized Allez 16. I resisted the temptation to ride it back to my flat and instead walked it home so I could set it up properly.

I have, over the past few years, “owned” a number of bikes.I say “owned” – I’ve never paid so much as a penny for any of them. When I used to live in Hertfordshire, I got through a couple of second-hand bikes from All Nations Christian College (it’s ok, I didn’t steal them – I was allowed). The first, a mountain bike, got stolen from Edmonton Green during the day after I locked it up but forgot to take the keys. The second bike was a rather rusty affair, but was a much faster racing bike. It was very durable – more durable than originally intended, without doubt. Many a time I raced down gravel canal tow paths and on a couple of occasions almost befriended the canal as I cycled much faster than any bike really should on such a surface.

I also crashed it quite a few times. There was the time the chain ceased up in front of a bus. There was the time I rode into a bollard. There was the time I went flying over the handlebars having avoided an accident (right in front of a primary school, too). There was the time my clothes got caught in the bike and I slowly ground to a halt by the side of the road and gradually keeled over, unable to prise myself from the bike. Funnily enough, three of those accidents happened on the same road! Oh, and then there’s the bomb scare, and the times both brakes simulatneously failed whilst going downhill towards a “T” junction.

Anyway, I also had a couple of bikes in Glasgow. The first broke down and was written off in the cycle shop. The second still works, but it’s a mountain bike and is slow. Neither bike has been through anything mildly exciting to tell you about – much to my bemusement. Although there was the time the rear light smashed on a main road in Edinburgh. That was an exciting journey, now I think of it. And there’s a video too. Somewhere.

Anyway, living slightly out of Glasgow itself, I decided I need to invest in some decent wheels. I’d also quite like to explore some of the west coast islands, and a bike is probably the easiest way to do that. On top of that, I have for a while thought that it would be fun, one day, to try my hand at a triathlon. If I could ever learn to swim faster. So, anyway, I’m taking it out for my first ride(s) on it in the morning. Are there any speed cameras nearby? I think that’s challenge number one!

Last weekend, I was in London for the third International Series NFL game at Wembley stadium. The first game, two years ago, was between the hopeless Miami Dolphins and the eventual Superbowl-winning New York Giants. Last year, the New Orlean Saints beat the San Diego Chargers in a closely fought offensive battle.

This year, it was the turn of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and my favourite team, the New England Patriots. It didn’t turn out to be the close affair of the previous two years, but no-one really expected it to anyway. The two teams have won four of the last eight Superbowls between them – Tampa Bay in 2001; New England won in 2002, 2004 and 2005. The Patriots should have won in 2007, going 18-0 on the way to the Superbowl only to lose to the Giants in the dying seconds. Then, last year, they lost quarterback Tom Brady in the first game, fought back to an impressive 11-5 record but just missed out on the play-offs.

Going into the game on Sunday, Tampa Bay were 0-6 and New England were 4-2, having lost to the Denver Broncos (themselves 6-0) and the New York Jets. The Patiots were favourites by fourteen points and few expected Tampa to challenge for very long.

This was proved correct very quickly, as Brandon Meriweather returned an interception for a touchdown with only the fourth play of the game to give the Patriots an early lead. He then picked off a second ball later in the first quarter and returned it to almost halfway.

Once the Patriots had the lead, they didn’t look like giving it up. By half time, they were up by 21-7, and in the second half were just as dominant. In the fourth quarter, Tom Brady was replaced by Brian Hoyer, who didn’t throw a single pass, but did scramble a couple of times for some good yardage. After a dominant win against the Tennessee Titans in week 6 (59-0), the Patriots are starting to look like a team that could go to the AFC Championship game this year. However, in order to get to that, they will almost certainly have to beat one of the Broncos, the Steelers or the Colts along the way in the play-offs – all of whom seem to be marginally better at the moment. Either way, the AFC is looking a very tough conference en route to the Superbowl. The NFC, on the other hand, looks like being between the Saints and… well, themselves, really.

Anyway, some final thoughts on the Wembley game. I’ve been to all three games, and this, I would say, has been the best overall. All three games have been very well attended, and have been good games in their own right. At the first game, there was a certain element of fascination. Many of the people who were there were people who wanted to see what the NFL was all about. Last year, there was less of that, and the game was very good anyway. This year was potentially divisive – on the one hand, the New England Patriots have a good fanbase in Britain. On the other hand, they are also one of the more unpopular teams too – you either love them or hate them for their success. If you hate them, you’re not likely to buy tickets to watch them play. Despite this, the match was easily a sellout, and the people who were there stayed interested to the end.

I am excited by the possibility of having two games next year. I would go to both games without hesitation (as long as it’s not between two teams I despise, and preferably not a Jets game). Indeed, I am all for having more than two games. A franchise would be nice, but problematic, and I can’t see myself giving up on the Patriots to support a London team. However, that’s not to say I wouldn’t happily adopt them as a second team if it means I get to see more NFL action closer to home…

Last week, I had the (dubious) pleasure of watching Rangers play at home in the Champions’ League against Romanian champions Unirea Urziceni. With a prime seat right in front of the away dugout, and within easy shouting distance of the home dugout, I was looking forward to a home win. After all, the team Rangers were playing are, on paper, by far the weakest in the group, and Ibrox doesn’t tend to be an easy place to play at.

How wrong could I have been? What should have been a comfortable 3-0, 4-0 or 4-1 victory turned into a 4-1 loss to a side worth less than a tenth of the value of the Rangers bench. Rangers took the lead within 5 minutes from a corner kick as a shot from the edge of the box took a deflection and looped over the keeper’s head and into the net. Harsh, but you make your own luck. It was looking good. A strong, attacking start gave an early reward. More of the same and the ‘Gers would be fine.

Except they weren’t. They sat back, defending deep in their own half, soaking pressure up and then sitting on the ball, going nowhere. No-one rose to challenge headers, and slowly the pub team from Eastern Europe crept down the wings, through the middle and into the box. Mendes’ opening goal was cancelled out by an equaliser from Bilasco. Rangers won a penalty, which Steven Davis missed. At half time, the teams went in at 1-1. The frustration was clear, with a number of comments flying towards Ally McCoist in the Rangers dugout. Most were to do with Jerome Rothen, on loan from PSG. To say he wasn’t popular is an understatement. The mood amongst the fans was clear – send him back to PSG and put Nacho Novo on in his place.

Rangers did make one change at half time, and it was not met with appreciation in the stands. Rothen stayed on, whilst Mendes, who picked up knock in the first half, was replaced by Kyle Lafferty. Unfortunately for him, he poked the ball in his own net within five minutes, and then Lee McCulloch did the same ten minutes later. The crowd, which was subdued when the first goal went in, was stunned into pin-drop silence. At 2-1, you could have heard the players breathing in the centre circle. At 3-1, the stunned silence was replaced first by approximately 10% of the Rangers supporters making their way to the exit, and then by those left in the stands openly booing the players loudly for some considerable time. By the dugouts, the atmosphere was openly mutinous.

At 4-1… I don’t really remember that bit. I suspect all eyes were still on the dugout. Soon after, the stadium was little over half full. No-one could quite believe the ‘Gers were losing, let alone losing so badly.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like anything will change soon. The club are £30 million in debt and have no money to buy new players. They are struggling to hold on to the players they have already. At the weekend, they drew with Hibs. Earlier in the season, they player out three 0-0 draws in a row. There doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of the tunnel. How can Rangers turn around? Is it even possible, or are they finally paying the hard price of playing in a league that doesn’t provide them with enough of the competition that it required on the European stage? And, regardless of the European stage, why are they struggling so much against Scottish teams?

The current instability at board level can’t be helping, but it also can’t be the whole story.

Mira and I went to play in the autumn leaves last Friday and this is what we made – I helped with the design!

This one she did with her friend Jenny and is all her own design. I love the explosion of colour!

And I had a go too.

Back from Summer’s End.  (the title may have given that away…)

The weekend was great.  Prog Neil and I drove down on Friday, listening to 7 hours of prog to get us suitably in the mood.  35 tracks in total I think.  Heh.

Met with Bruce and Sharla, enjoyed some fine beer and went to the venue to enjoy some Steve Hackett.  Wow, he was something.  As an opener for the festival he was hard to beat.  Many albums were bought. 

There were loads of great bands on the bill, and the stand outs were Godsticks, Pallas, Karnataka and Pendragon.  All the rest were good but these guys rocked the house.

But it was good to get back to the familiar comforts of home.

And the familiar disappointments…

The Spires Of Midnight has been put on hold for the time being.  Neither Ruth or myself are totally convinced that it’s a good enough concept for the Dundee Writing Comp.  That’s fair enough but it does leave me in a bind.  But where there’s imagination there’s hope…

There is something, just in concept stages, which is where the vampire story is, that i’ve been pottering about with.  It might have the spark I’m looking for that Spires doesn’t quite have.  And I’ve got 3 weeks still before the story is due.  It should be plenty of time.

And then there’s the Whiteinch thing.  I don’t even want to go there.  Not yet anyway.  I’m still too disappointed about that one.

(Not that I’m disappointed about not getting accepted, as far as I know I’m in the book although official confirmation hasn’t come through yet, but this is something else…)

- Alistair

It’s been a while since I released any code into the public realm. Until today \o/

Sadly, the code is probably not something that many people are interested in, but I was interested and that’s enough for me

Whetstone is a small application to help you memorise verses of scripture over a period of time. Currently it only runs on Linux, although the Windows version is around the corner. Testers are welcomed

mrBen

Meant to post this a couple of months ago when I originally took it.

(Click for fullsize. Thanks to the Ubuntu UK Podcast guys, from whom I won the Canonical store vouchers that paid for the hat )

I love my daughter

mrBen

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/29/bbc-hd-encryption

I am a huge fan of the BBC, and I gladly pay my license fee in return for the oodles of quality content we get over the airwaves and internet-tubes. Tying themselves down in the way described in this article would be a monumental fail, and I would cry.

mrBen

Back in May I asked the question as to whether or not I should have two blogs, my existing Jedimoose blog (which you’re reading now) and an additional blog to cover the new work that Heather and I were beginning in the church.

After a certain amount of internal debate, I chose a rough compromise – I would have 2 blogs, but I would post regular summaries of links here to posts on the other site. This has the additional benefit that the other site will likely contain posts from multiple people involved with the project over time.

And so, at long last, I am pleased to officially announce (meaning it happened a while back, but I didn’t get around to posting before) the life`boat project. If you want to read the posts regularly, you’ll find them there, otherwise there will be summaries here every now and then when I remember (I hope to get something automagic, but haven’t found a plugin to my liking at the moment).

Summary of all previous posts from life`boat:
First post (7th July)
Ships and the sea (17th July)
Back from CLAN (26th July)
Tasks for the next couple of months (4th August)
More from CLAN (10th August)
Influences (Part 1) (13th August)
Brief Update (6th September)
Influences (Part 2) (15th September)
Influences (Part 3) (23rd September)
Balancing Act (30th September)

Comments, as ever, welcomed, although I realise this won’t be everyones cup of tea

mrBen

Working steadily away here, but time for a wee break… 

I’ve been plugging away at a project, an easier task since the re-acquisition of yWriter a wee while ago, and although I was working on Desert of Zin and an as yet unnamed vampire story (actually DoZ is being worked on steadily but just not this weekend…) I’ve a new story that has been keeping up nights.

I’m thinking of entering it for New Writing Dundee which is due on the 1st of November.  That would normally give me a month to get it done and edit it but I’ll be away for the last two weeks of the month, on holiday but working on plans for the upcoming NaNo, so I have little time to get it finished and in a state I’m happy with.

It’s called The Spires At Midnight, just a working title for now, and it may be fantasy/horror but I’ll have a better idea once it is finished.

Anyways, back to work…

- Alistair

Norman Borlaug March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009
A truly Great man, forget your Bono’s and your Sting’s etc. Here was a man that is said to have save Billions of lives, and chances are that most of you have never heard of him…….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

Someone named Back2BackJack left a comment on Youtube under a video edit from Dr Borlaug’s appearance on P & T saying “Borlaug’s work has saved more lives than those taken by Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined.” there is a legacy worth having.

Well, it’s been a busy week with work and home stuff.  Loads to do in the office with the audited accounts coming in and at home I’ve been doing more prep for the arrival of baby.  All very excited for that.

The computer desk has been jettisoned (today, thanks to Edgy) and the pc has been set up in the front room on Ruthy’s old work desk, with a new Acer 22inch widescreen TFT monitor replacing the 19″ CRT monstrosity that took up most of the space on the old desk.  And now that part of the shifting of stuff seems to have settled, I have time to dedicate to bashing more words into the various stories I have on the go.

Which nicely brings me to the point : yWriter is back on the PC!

For those who don’t know yWriter is a very nifty piece of software that helps you organise your work, by chapter and scene if neccessary, and it helped me organise things enough to get though the joys of last years NaNoWriMo.  And it’s back in time for this year.  Quality.

One thing to note though, I tried running it on Linux through Mono but it’s nowhere near as good as it is in Windoze.  Fortunately I have Xp set up in VirtualBox and it’s working very nice there, thank you very much.

Which reminds me, more work to do.  The pub beckons soon but there’s easily an hours worth of writing to get done.

- Alistair

We are currently going through the annual Party Conference season, with the Liberal Deomcrats currently finishing their conference. Whilst I personally find much of the conference season quite dull, it is a good time to see some of the policy suggestions eminating from the grassroots and seeing how much traction they gain.

I personally have been taken by a suggestion that in itself is nothing new – in fact, it has been floated around in a number of places before now – but which seems very practical and universally beneficial given the current economic situation. The proposal? To raise the Personal Tax Allowance to £10,000.

Currently, the Personal Tax Allowance for 2009-10 sits at £6,475. People do not pay income tax unless they earn over this amount in the financial year. Once they hit this marker, they start paying the basic rate of tax which, since the abolition of the 10p tax rate, sits at 20%. By raising the Personal Tax Allowance, anyone who earns more than £6,475 would be better off. Anyone earning over £10,000 a year would be, according to my calculations, £705 better off through such a tax cut.

Now, I know what some people are thinking – how would it be funded? Well, according to the Office of National Statistics, there are 28,891,000 people in employment in the United Kingdom at the moment. Assuming everyone benefits from this, and nothing else is put in place to offset this tax cut, the cost, according to my calculations, would be £20.38 billion. So, scrap Trident and I.D. cards and you go quite some way towards paying for such a tax cut. Trident has been estimated as costing anything up to £120 billion to replace over a 30-year period, thus costing up to £4 billion a year. I.D. cards themselves have been estimated to cost £18 billion, and so scrapping these two schemes would save a good deal of the money required to make such a cut work.

In order to make this work, you would, in all likelihood, need to raise taxes somewhere else. One option would be to lower the Higher Rate of tax slightly in order to re-coup the money. By reducing the Higher Rate of tax from £37,400 to £35,750, you would negate much of the impact of the tax cut on higher earners, but at the same time, avoid raising the level of income tax paid by higher earners (and also minimising the cost to the Treasury). Thus, everyone would experience a tax cut, but it would be targeted specifically at those people earning less than £35,750, and would represent a significant tax break to the very lowest earners.

I would argue this to be of particular importance given the current economic climate. Why? Because work doesn’t always pay. We hear policy after policy about taking benefits away from the unemployed, but little about truly making work pay. But it is in our interests to make work pay now. The more people we have working, the less people we have on benefits, the we pay out, the more tax we collect, the more we have to spend on real public services when money is exceptionally tight. That can’t be mad. Moreover, we provide an incentive to work. Can you bloame people on piss-poor wages for not working when working leaves them with very little extra in their pockets? I don’t. But give them a higher Personal Tax Allowance, show them they will have more money in their pockets – £60 per month – and maybe it will provide that little incentive. £13 a week doesn’t sound like much, but £705 a year soon adds up.

Footnote: I am not a tax expert, but I do have basic maths skills. My calculations make no account for Tax Credits, as I just don’t understand them well enough. But you get the idea. Let the tax boffins work out the absolute finer details of the exact numbers – they can’t be too far off.

You’d have thought that with the announcement of the outcome of the FIA World Motor Sport Council’s hearing yesterday, the Singapore controversy would die down. Instead, another potentially explosive and certainly unhelpful time-bomb has been ignited with the release of the audio tapes from the hearing.

The audio tapes reveal an unsettled bone of contention between Piquet and Symonds on who came up with the plan to crash in order to cause a safety car, although Piquet’s legal team implicate Symonds by pointing to his seniority within the team and the unlikelihood of Piquet coming up with a strategy that would in effect make him look like a fool and gift Alonso a win.

However, the real eyebrow-raiser is the unveiling in Renault’s submission of Witness X. This witness is reportedly someone who was present at discussions about the crash, who knew about the crash before it happened and who was informed about it initially by Pat Symonds. This raises a number of questions:

1. Who is this Witness X? Or, to put it another way, who might Pat Symonds tell about such a plot?
   
2. Do they still work for Renault F1?
3. Why has their identity been protected? Why exactly is this person protected above others?

If a fourth person knew about this plot and then kept quiet when it was enacted – regardless of their involvement in actually carrying the plot out – then they are surely implicated in conspiring to cover up in the aftermath of the plot. From the way the submissions are phrased, it seems that this person is still employed by Renault F1, which would mean that Renault have in their ranks an employee who has knowingly conspired in a covering up (although not actively implementing) a plot that knowingly endangered the lives of drivers and spectators, and which caused the Renault F1 team to cause a deliberate crash in order to unfairly gain his team an advantage. People like this should not be involved in F1.

The identity of Witness X has been made known to the President of the FIA and to some of the FIA’s lawyers. Speculation as to who this may be will rumble on. Many will conclude that the reason this person’s identity has been concealed is because they are of relative importance within the team. Indeed, you would think that, given the nature of such a plot, the person must be a senior, trusted member of the team – why would you divulge such dangerous details to a junior team member?

Suspicion seems to have fallen on three people – firstly, Piquet’s engineer, secondly, Fernando Alonso, and thirdly, Bob Bell, Renault’s Technical Director. Many will pin the blame on Alonso, but this seems unlikely to me. What we know is that Witness X knew of the plan, dismissed it, and was not aware that such a plot would be carried out until after it has been. The first thing Alonso remarked after the race upon seeing Flavio Briatore prior to the podium ceremony was on the good fortune of the safety car coming out when it did. If Alonso had suspicions and had distanced himself from a plot, I very much doubt he would have said anything at all. Bob Bell, the Technical Director, has been mentioned because he apparently appears prominently in a number of photographs from the Singapore Grand Prix, and is usually a man who keeps in the background. However, there does not appear to be any evidence to actually implicate him with any knowledge.

This leaves Piquet’s race engineer, who clearly seemed suspicious, raising questions about Piquet’s request over the radio to know which lap he is on – an unusual request. It may be an unusual request, but why would you consult your Executive Technical Director before responding to such a question – unless you were suspicious?

Just a thought.

Today, Renault were hauled in front of the World Motor Sports Council (WMSC) as the investigation into allegations of race-fixing at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix were wrapped up. Unfortunately, the punishment dished out bore little correlation to the seriousness of the crime, and did little to draw on the context of how previous offences have been dealt with.

The charge – just to recap very quickly – was that three members of the Renault F1 team (Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet) conspired to fix the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008 so as to gain an unfair advantage for the team’s other driver, Fernando Alonso (although without his knowledge). The claim originated from Nelson Piquet. Briatore denied the charges, Pat Symonds chose to say as little as possible to avoid incriminating himself, but did nothing to say that such a plan was not in place – an implicit admission of guilt.

The WMSC could have permanently thrown Renault out of F1 today, such was the seriousness of the crime. However, they could take little action against the three men involved as Piquet was granted immunity, and Symonds and Briatore no longer are employed by an F1 team, and so therefore technically fall outwith the jurisdiction of the body.

The penalties actually imposed were: a suspended two-year ban for the Renault F1 team. Oh, and that’s pretty much it. Apart from billing Renault F1 for the costs of the investigation, and requiring them to take part in FIA road safety campaigns (which they actually offered themselves).

As the WMSC technically couldn’t personally punish Briatore or Symonds, they have resolved to refuse to sanction any events that either of the two involve themselves in – Briatore for an indefinte period, Symonds for a period of five years.

Here is an extract of the statement from the hearing regarding the punishment imposed upon the Renault F1 team:

The World Motor Sport Council considers Renault F1’s breaches relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to be of unparalleled severity.  Renault F1’s breaches not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jr. himself.  The World Motor Sport Council considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the FIA Formula One World Championship.  However, having regard to the points in mitigation mentioned above and in particular the steps taken by Renault F1 to identify and address the failings within its team and condemn the actions of the individuals involved, the WMSC has decided to suspend Renault F1’s disqualification until the end of the 2011 season. The World Motor Sport Council will only activate this disqualification if Renault F1 is found guilty of a comparable breach during that time.

So, what’s the problem? Well, for one thing, Piquet – the guy who smashed his car into the wall, the only person with the physical capacity to enact this plan, as the driver of the car – walks away. No fine, no ban, not even so much as a slapped wrist. Of course, he won’t be employable to any self-respecting racing outfit, but still, there is no formal punishment. This is a result of the immunity agreement, which is unfortunate. If someone needs immunity to tell the truth, can they really be trusted in the first place?

The second problem is the lack of any real punishment to the Renault F1 team. Remember Schumacher taking out Villeneuve in 1997 at Jerez? He was excluded from the Championship that year. Remember when Schumacher passed Damon Hill on the parade lap at the British Grand Prix in 1994, and then ignored the black flag? He was given a straight 2-race ban. Remember in 2007 when McLaren were found guilty of possessing Ferrari documents? They were given a $100 million fine and excluded from the Constructors’ Championship.

Yet, none of these crimes were anything compared to the seriousness of a driver crashing on purpose, endangering himself, other drivers and spectators, in order for his team-mate to win a race. This was not like Schumacher instinctively trying to punt his rival off the track to win the World Championship desperately in the realisation that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get another chance. This was not like Schumacher ignoring a 5-second stop/go penalty for a trivial offence. This was not like in the case of the Spy Scandal of 2007, where a McLaren held Ferrari technical documents that meant they could potentially steal ideas to gain an unfair advantage.

No, this was a blatant attempt to steal a race relying on no technical ability, but on the fact that their driver would be certain to be at the head of the field in the event of a safety car.

And let’s remember, McLaren were punished despite the fact that the Spy Scandal had nothing to do with an institutional desire to cheat at McLaren. No, it was one individual there too, albeit not one at the top of the team.

Quite simply, Renault should have been thrown out of F1, at least for the rest of this season, possibly longer. The idea that the perpetrators of the plot in Singapore last night have left the team matters little. Yes, the team have dealt with them, but it was also the team that brought the sport into disrepute. Symonds, Briatore and Piquet all worked for Renault, and Renault have to take responsibility for the actions of their staff. They are also responsible for the power structures that existed in the team that allowed this to happen – power structures that are not replicated in any other team in the pit lane.

Now I know that many will say F1 needs Renault, we mustn’t make them run away. Rubbish. We’ve survived without them before, and we could do again. Few teams are indispensible, and Renault sure aren’t one of them. They have a place on the grid next year and as such could potentially be an attractive investment – their facilities as Enstone may not be the best, but they are solid, and the team has a history of winning (albeit with Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds).

F1 should not be subject to the whims of manufacturers. Let them come and go as they please. But if they want to stay, they should understand the rules of the game, and the punishments for breaching such rules. That didn’t happen today, and that is bad for F1.

The investigation into Nelson Piquet Jr’s crash in the Grand Prix of Singapore last year rolls on, with more details emerging every day – and, like most stories like this, with each turn, the story gets uglier.

The furore started shortly after the Hungarian Grand Prix this year, after which Nelson Piquet was sacked as Renault’s second driver. To be honest, it was a long time coming and was bot unexpected, but the revelations that followed – that Piquet was asked to purposely create a safety car situation last year in the night race in Singapore – came out of the blue and caused quite a stir.

It should be noted that questions were asked of the crash at the time. Some people had remarked that it was incredibly convenient that the crash benefited Fernando Alonso so well. Indeed, he went on to win the race – comfortably, in fact. However, it is not the details of the crash that I am interested in here. If you want more details, feel free to check out the accounts on F1 Fanatic (an awesome Formula 1 website) and on James Allen’s website.

What I am more concerned with here is the slightly concerning dribble of information slowly leaking out of how this enquiry is being dealt with. Firstly, some of the documents submitted by Nelson Piquet’s family were leaked, which was met by Renault with a writ for attempted blackmail by the Piquet family.

Then, in a move similar to that which was granted to McLaren drivers Pedro de la Rosa dn Fernando Alonso in the 2007 Spy Scandal, it transpired that Nelson Piquet Jr has been granted immunity if he promises to tell everything he knows. Martin Brundle described the 2007 case as having the feel of a witch-hunt – an accusation the FIA met with a writ themselves. However, today it transpires that Reanult’s Pat Symonds has also been granted immunity if he is willing to come clean and tell all himself. This is, apparently, because the FIA think he may not have told everything he knows (that is, assuming there is more to know).

So what is so interesting and dangerous about this? Well, the problem is that the whole case hinges on a meeting involving Piquet, Symonds and Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore. The problem? No such offer of immunity has been made to Briatore. It looks like the FIA have already decided that Renault are guilty, or, more specifically, Flavio Briatore.

Whether that is right or wrong, that is not the way to go about things. It is well known that Flavio Briatore and Max Mosley are hardly the best of friends, and the issues with FOTA, Flavio and the FIA this season have done to help that. So, is the FIA (or just Max Mosley) out to get Flavio, come what may?

It does have all the hallmarks of a witch-hunt. But, obviously, to avoid a writ from the FIA myself, I couldn’t actually come out and actually say, “by the way, it’s a bit of a witch-hunt, isn’t it?”

So I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Edit: Two links for you: firstly, a transcript of Pat Symonds’ FIA interview in Belgium, and secondly, a piece on the rights and wrongs of immunity. An interesting read.

It’s been a week since my Aspire One got delivered, so here are a few thoughts (posted from it, of course).

• Linpus Lite lasted about 10 minutes before the novelty wore off and Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) got installed
• UNR is pretty sweet – installed quickly, and I really like the launcher and maximus (the window manager that auto-maximises most applications
• The keyboard is surprisingly easy to type on
• The screen is nice – Serenity looks great
• I need to try one of the other wifi drivers – this one does seem to drop out when under high load
• Adobe Flash is somewhat slow at times – need to see if anyone else suffers from that
• Battery life is not as good as I would like, but liveable with

Overall, I’m extremely happy with my new piece of kit – it has outperformed my expectations in most areas, and I am anticipating it getting plenty of use over the next few weeks and months.

One thing I have been thinking about is storage, and whether or not to get some online storage. Dropbox has been around for a while and seems to be popular, although part of me is tempted by Ubuntu One, as a way to support Canonical. Anybody got experience of either of these, another service, or alternatively using something like space on Dreamhost for synchronising data?

mrBen

Loads to do this evening: a tasty dinner, finishing Necroscope II: Wamphyr! by Brian Lumley, starting Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, working on a bit more of Desert of Zin and the Vampire Story, looking up Space 1889 info (thanks for that The Other Big Al), thinking of old RPG projects and watching Cigarette Burns (the John Carpenter Masters of Horror episode).

A busy time indeed…

- Alistair

Muggings – a serious and not uncommon crime. Almost everyone knows someone who has been mugged at some point. I can think of a number of people I know who have been mugged in the last couple of years. It’s a crime I would like to see less of – not that there are any I would like to see more, of course!

However, staging mock muggings is not the way to do it. Have you heard such a ludicrous idea of late? The rationale goes like this: people are unwilling to interfere in muggings because they either don’t care, don’t have the confidence to take a mugger on, don’t want to get hurt or are just plain British and assume it’s not their business to interfere. Thus, staged muggings could be, err, “performed(?)”, and the public’s reaction gauged. Right?

Hmm. Strange concept. I mean, what’s going to happen when no-one interferes? Will a good ol’ copper come out and lecture everyone about how they should have wrestled the mugger to the ground in a citizen’s arrest? Or how they could have taken a photograph or video for evidence (or, more likely to put up on YouTube a “happy-slap” viral)?

It’s just not going to work. People will take no notice. Why? Because next time, they’ll just think, “oh, it’s just some staged performance”. So they won’t interfere. The same goes for anyone who would have interefered – they’ll just think, “last time was all for nothing. It wasn’t even a proper mugging. I won’t bother this time.”

And you know what else? It’s the perfect excuse for any would-be mugger.

This ludicrous proposal was put forward by the charity Witness Confident. The charity launches today. I am more than happy to provide P.R. consultancy for the going rates (that’ll be daylight robbery, ahem!)

That’s todays project:  a vampire story.

I watched the first part of Salem’s Lot last night and it was classic horror, beautifully done.  And later Ruthy and I talked vampires and horror, what makes them work and what really pisses us off.

And an idea for a story popped into the ol’ noggin.

So, I’ve been working away on this.  Hopefully I should have some thing by the end of the day!

- Alistair

The BBC have, understandably, caused quite a stir in the past few days with their announcement that the BNP may be invited to field a guest on Question Time.

The controversy is between those people who take the view that the BNP should not be allowed a voice and those who believe they should. Funnily enough, both arguments are (apparently) arguments built up from the principle of free speech.

On the one hand, you have the people who argue that whilst the BNP is – as some would put it – a scar on our country’s liberal ideals, they should not be denied a platform to speak, but instead should be encouraged to share the same platform as the mainstream parties and defeated by reason as their policies are exposed and unravelled.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that the BNP is a revolting party and so shouldn’t be given the light of day.

I have to say, I have never agreed with the latter argument – although I admit am in the minority when it comes to those on my side of the political spectrum – why does that not surprise me?  I am no fan of the BNP, let’s be clear about that. I don’t agree with very much of their policy platform. Their approach to immigration goes against the entire history of the British Isles and immigration. However, the BNP is not a banned party, they have been democratically elected and thus constitute a legitimate political voice, and, like it or not, they should be represented as such.

It really is as simple as that, no matter how deeply and personally uncomfortable that is. Yes, they may not allow people who are not “ethnically British” to join their party, and that may rest uncomfortably with people, but as it stands, such a policy is not against the law. Furthermore, no matter how much I dislike that policy, it should not be outlawed either, for that would set a dangerous precedent; for we allow black-only membership or certain organisations, we allow women-only membership of others and we allow trade-only membership of yet more. If you say that is is not acceptable to have white-only membership of a particular organisation, then where do you draw the boundaries? What do you do with the National Black Police Association? Are they racist? No-one would call that unfair. What do you do with the Women’s Institute? Is that sexist, and therefore unacceptable? Few would seriously argue that. Should churches allow non-Christians as members? It defeats the point of such an organisation or community!

I can imagine the counter-argument – these are minority organisations. However, that in itself is not a legitimate reason to disallow an organisation. All organisations have a purpose. All groups, whether we agree with them or not, have their own aims. Quite often, completely open membership is not appropriate. With community organisations, we do not have a problem with requirements for membership.

So, the question is, should it be any different for political entities? I can see that many would argue that it should – after all elected politicians are there to represent the people – and that is a fair point.

I, however, do not agree that it should be any different. Labour MP’s have to represent Conservative-voting constituents, and they manage to represent those people even though they will not always agree with their constituents. But, as a representative, you don’t need to. Your legitimacy does not derive from agreeing with everyone, but from the fact that of all the candidates who stood, you won the most votes. At this point, you have more legitimacy than any of the other candidates. That is the nature of our voting system.

That, as far as I am concerned, is a true “progressive” view. I can disagree, but still allow. I can put faith in the people to decide for themselves. I have faith in the ability of people to make up their own minds, faith in the victory of sound reasoning. Thus, as long as political entities work within the constraints of the law as it stands, they should be allowed the right to be heard on an equal platform to others. For anything that is legal under the law should be treated in other instances in the law as value-neutral. Whatever we think. Thus, when the BBC is committed to unbiased coverage, then the BNP should, as a legitimately elected party, be entitled to their moment in the spotlight to be scrutinised.

Let them have it. Let them lay their platform down. Then see how long they last.

Woo!

It arrived Wednesday morning just before 8, and it was/is a lovely lovely thing.

I had my first game of it last night with Cheezy and it’s easily as good as I remember.  Tomorrow sees a day of Space Hulking with The Edgemeister, soI’m sure much fun will be had.  I’ll give more of an update then. 

- Alistair

It’s been 13 years since I bought a whole computer for myself. But today I put in my order for an Acer Aspire One netbook, which is very exciting. Sadly, in order to pay for it, I am selling on the Nokia N800 that I won at LugRadio Live 2007, which I do with some sadness, but it is at least going on to a good home at another former LugRadio Community Hero.

So, why the change. Well, I’d been thinking about Netbooks since Asus brought out the Eee pc – I love the balance between portability and power. While my N800 has bags of power for it’s size, and was definitely portable, it basically got relegated to being an audio media player, with the odd bit of video, and playing Aisleriot (and Flight of the Amazon Queen on SCUMMVM when I first got it). Certainly the screen is lovely for video, and it fulfilled it’s function wonderfully. If I didn’t need the cash to fund the netbook, I’d keep it….

Instead, however, my media player functions will move to my phone, and the netbook will become the place for watching video and playing games. In addition, I’m hoping to use the netbook as a calendar/diary, which the N800 wasn’t ideal for (although GPE Calendar twinned with Erminig to sync with google was not bad), plus take on some additional functions that I would normally use my laptop for, like running OpenOffice.org and GnomeSword (now apparently called Xiphos, but not yet in Ubuntu…).

According to Parcelforce, it’s out for delivery today, so hopefully my next post will be done via the netbook

mrBen

I’ve a story I’m going to submit somewhere in a day or two and it has to be between 500 and 800 words.

And it’s currently sitting at 960.

And I have edited it to an inch of it’s life.  I like it, I really do, and I don’t want to hack anything else off it.

Perhaps the guy will accept something that’s a bit longer?  Let’s hope so…

- Alistair

And for $4 Million.

Wow.

I’m not entirelly sure this is a good idea but I can see the benefits.

A greater brand awareness for Marvel, there are distribution channels that Disney have they can exploit to enhance the brand, and subesquently the comics market as a whole.

And it’s not like Pixar has suffered any from their move to Disney.  Not too sure I can say the same for Muppet Studios though.

But I’m sure time will tell.  As long as they don’t have the same kind of crap that Warner Bros. do to DC Comics’ characters movie-wise, I’m sure everything will work out just fine.

Although this does mean that Dark Horse become the largest indie comic book company in operation at the moment, something that will do them good for years to come.  As long as they don’t sell out are not bought over then the world of comic books isn’t totally lost… 

- Alistair