SchnickSchnack
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Below are the 19 most recent journal entries recorded in
schnickschnackm's LiveJournal:
| Friday, April 28th, 2006 | | 12:39 pm |
| | Friday, December 30th, 2005 | | 12:36 am |
| | Sunday, November 20th, 2005 | | 5:56 pm |
Lothian Busses sponsors numerical sculptures
I really have to hand it to Lothian Busses: 1) Place new posts displaying times of busses at the exact hieght and position so that, whilst walking towards the stop, they obscure the visibility of the post showing which busses you can pick up from up from the stop, whilst also, 2) Simultaneously arranging it so that, from within the bus shelter, the post showing the bus numbers blocks the display of arrival times. These facts, along with the observation that the numbers displayed on these posts only bear any relation to expected arrival times inasmuchas they are both non-negative integers, lead me to conclude that this is an elaborate exercise in street art. | | Sunday, November 6th, 2005 | | 1:20 pm |
Vodka and Redbull
I went to The Mission last night for the first time in absolute yonks. It was not bad; we didn't arrive until 1:30-ish so not much time for a radge. However, my feet are sore enough today to make me feel like I had a good time ;-) Strangely, I have very little hangover; I must have drunk about 5 pints before arriving there. Usually this == hangover next day. However, I feel tired but pretty-much ok, perhaps 5 pints + Vodka+Redbull + an hours dancing == two aspirins? I think I may go again sometime, but it just isn't the same without the firetrap back room. Btw, I've given up on the prime thing; I just can't be arsed. | | Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 | | 10:23 am |
Pet hates
- The door buzzer going off when I'm mid-grok of something on the computer making me jump like a fool
- Putting my legs back to wrap my feet around the back of the chair thereby triggering the hieght changer which makes me go "Ooooaa", as I descend
- Go4It
| | Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 | | 10:08 am |
Schneier on Chip and Pin
Schneier is on the ball again. I just recently got a 'Chip and Pin' card from BoS, so this is now the default payment method offered to me in most shops. I have to say, it is convenient. However, most of the pin pads you see provide little, if any, blocking of what you're typing. If this is because "... Point-of-sale staff are told to look away when people put their pin number in ... " then why bother having any guards at all? These atrophied gaurds are perhaps what Schneier would call "security theater", except applied to a device; it gives the impression that some attempt has been made to provide security, but little or none is actually provided. This reminds me, I must find "Beyond Fear" and finish it. I had to leave it for a while after I had a 'jam explosion incident' in my carry-on luggage on the way back from Germany. Christ, that stuff is sticky. However, I can now easily identify all the books I had on that trip; 'jam-tagging' anyone? ;-) Technorati Tags: chip, pin, chipandpin, security | | Friday, August 26th, 2005 | | 5:02 pm |
Review: Mirrorball: Animation (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
Warning: May contain SPOILERS A mixed bag this one. I've got my prejudices, so perhaps that's why I thought some of these were a bit naff. I'm a sucker for some clean, juicy, and cute 3D animation, and about half of these were indistinct and dark. To me, this is the visual equivalent of hand-waving explanations, "oh, you know, dark and mysterious and stuff, things happen (maybe), blah blah". Having said that, a couple of the 'smudgies' stand out. One of these [Ed: I'll fill in all the band names and artists once I get a good list] featured a forest made out of hands and arms, with see-through creatures developing in their midst. This was interesting on the 'ooh, that's a bit spooky' level. Yet, I cannot for the life of me remember what the music sounded like, which is possibly a bad sign. Far better than this was the video by David O'Reilly of "Szamar Madar" by Venetian Snares . This started off with some nice classical music represented by light beams hitting a stonehenge-like arrangement and then changing logically as it got harder. Go watch the video and be surprised (hint: this one is best watched on windows at full-screen; you'll see why) Coming away from the dark side, we find " The JCB Song" (song by Nizlopi, animation by Laith Bahrani). It's really cute and effective, even though pretty simple visually. I don't think the song on its own would stand up to repeated listens, but the animation should really add to the shelf-life. I'm slightly reticent to say something good about the Shynola video for Beck, simply because they themselves came across as pretty smug and arrogant in a mirrorball mini-documentary I saw. Leaving that aside, the video is a good example of 'retro-spangliness'; you can get a lot of 3D-feel out of wire-frame just by how it moves. Finally, my fave is "I Woz Ere" by Richard Coldicott; stop-motion Graffiti war set to music by DJ Shadow. Venetian Snares was a close second, but this is cute and cool, and I like cute. Technorati Tags: animation, festival, review | | Wednesday, August 24th, 2005 | | 10:57 am |
STLFilt saves your eyes
I wish I'd had something like STLFilt back when I was coding in C++ every day. This reminds me: I always smirk at the message I once got from an Occam compiler: "Error: too many errors" Technorati Tags: cplusplus | | Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 | | 9:34 pm |
Review: The Holyrood Files (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
 I arrived late, entered in pitch-black, and missed the introductions. Had the Holyrood Parliament building been delivered on time, then perhaps the end of the film would have been seen by Donald Dewar and Enric Miralles, sitting, smiles wide, acknowledging the praise. Instead, I found a cloud of animosity still haunting this project, a year after its much-delayed completion. However, let's start with the documentary. This morning, in preparation, I was gathering my thoughts and opinions on the building itself: how impressive the details were, that it was a bit of a hodgepodge if considered from afar, and remembering my conclusion that it was more like a portfolio of ideas than a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, such architectural notes are irrelevant in working out how the project got to be in such a chronic hole. By this films reckoning, even a mildly complex project would falter in the hands of such an invasive, finger-pointing government. Yes, it is true that the grass was overly expensive, but this is all detail compared to the cost that a six-month investigation can impose. Hey, says Parliament, if they are handling that, why not have two far-ranging enquiries running concurrently? This project was crippled repeatedly, either by design or by accident. At some point during the making of this film, the director ceased to be an outsider. His wife was phoned by journalists. He saw himself on Newsnight filming others filming him filming the subjects. Now, at the end, he has to wearily ask if there are any journalists in the audience, and if so, could they please keep their questions until after the open Q and A, when he will talk to them directly.  Nevertheless, the first question was asked by a journalist. There were a few seconds of to-and-fro between him and the director, with the journalist spouting something adolescent about democracy, until an audience member turned round and told him to shut-up, supported by loud claps from scattered parts of the room. Thankfully, that was that from the 'official' questioner. The director seemed relieved. Whether you agree with this film or not, it's worthwhile seeing because it presents the events from within the process of self-destruction, and gives voice to those previously labelled, at various times, as fat-cats or fraudsters, when they may just be professionals trying to do their job. Technorati Tags: edinburgh, festival, film, holyrood, parliament, review | | Monday, August 22nd, 2005 | | 8:32 pm |
Yeah Right
I've seen this a few times on tuaw and it really must be the most blatant 'appeal to the sad lonely geek market' advert I have ever seen. I am appalled. | | 3:27 pm |
Review: The 49th Parallel (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
 Before you ask, no, this is not some sort of whacked-out uber-sequel to The 39 Steps. Maybe it's a homage to The Wizard of Oz? They certainly meet lots of wholesome people on the way. Wouldn't you know it, but aren't those Canadians just the kindest folks? All right, this is propaganda. Given that I knew this, I was a little surprised that the Germans weren't all made out to be thugs and oiks or devious ideologues. Even then, it seemed that the dogmatic nazi was to be pitied as much as feared. Along the way I learned the following: - Germans are bad at Chess but insist on playing even if it is detrimental to their safety
- In 1941, The 49th Parallel was the longest unpatrolled border in the world
- If you're after a Picasso in Canada, just ask at the nearest TeePee; you just never know
In summary, paper-thin caricatures were avoided, but this was balanced against repeated reminders of who these people really were. The message was clearly: "America: They may be humans, but they are still Nazis" Technorati Tags: edinburgh, festival, film, propaganda, review, war | | Sunday, August 21st, 2005 | | 11:34 pm |
Review: The cat leaves home (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
 I saw a cat. I saw a dog. The only emotional reaction I had was when I involuntarily groaned at the loss of an electronic device; I think this may say more about me than the film. There were lots of holds on a view down a street, whilst things happened somewhere else in the frame, some of which may have been relevant. Half of the time, it worked and you got a chuckle or some development. The rest of the time you were left wondering if you'd missed something. By the time the (rather abrupt) end came, I'd built up some idea that it was meant to be saying something about the cat natures or dog natures of the characters, but I wasn't really sure who was what. You wouldn't walk out of this film, but you may use it as an excuse for a nap. Technorati Tags: edinburgh, festival, film, review | | Saturday, August 20th, 2005 | | 12:32 am |
Review: A Driver for Vera (Voditel dlya Very) (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
 The glide of the camera up to the face from the chest, slowing for a few seconds as it passes over the neck. The view of a plane diminishing into the distance, holding uncomfortably long before cutting away. Suicide and paranoia are never too far away. I really don't see how this could be labelled a comedy-drama, but it is definitely spectacularly good. The writer and director, Pavel Chukraj, asked afterwards if the audience understood everything that was going on in the film; I don't think there was any problem there, the hunter/hunted relationships emerge clearly. He was perhaps referring to the 'creative' subtitling e.g. "corpse" instead of "corps" and "underzonked" instead of, well, gods knows what. It would be hard to ruin this film with bad subtitling since the intentions and agendas come through in the acting and cinematography. Just go see it, it's good. Technorati Tags: edinburgh, festival, film, review | | 12:32 am |
Review: KeepInTime (Edinburgh Film Festival 2005)
 Many years ago, I went to a club called The Departure Lounge. It was a Jazz sort-of place where anyone could bring along an instrument and join-in the whole live Jazz thang. Your instrument could be a guitar, your voice, a drum, or maybe even just a saucepan; it was that sort of place. It was enjoyable enough and I went along a few times. Now, keep all of this in mind, except imagine you are a sober third-party, watching it all on a screen. My friend Eireann very generously gave me some tickets to KeepInTime when he found himself unable to go. I like the idea; get the modern samplers back with the older sources and see what happens. The 10-minute movie that started it all is quite good, especially the bit near the end where Paul Humphrey recreates on the drums what Cut Chemist improvises on the decks. Bits like this sound good and you can see what they are getting at. Now, the longer film which followed, well, this is where The Departure Lounge analogy comes in. I'm sure if I had been there, I would have been jumping around or nodding my head to the beat, at least a little bit. But in a cinema? Umm, no. I can't stay excited after five minutes of the same scratching pattern, whilst sitting, immobile, in a chair. I find it hard to ignore these 'genre limits'. To break out of this, the film could have had more interviews, perhaps interspersed with bits of the concert. Maybe the bulk of the music could be split out entirely onto an album and the film left as a straight documentary? I have to admit I did occasionally find it interesting watching the DJs doing the mixing, as well as hitting random bits of the equipment (like the lid or needle arm) just to get a different noise. However, this probably took up about three minutes of a 40-odd minute film. The film was saved for me by the after-film discussion. This one benefited more than most, for all the reasons given above. For instance, the drummers were initially wary or bemused by the initial request for a meet-up; most of them had never heard of scratching, nor could imagine where it would happen. There was a smidgeon of ill-feeling from Paul Humphrey because the Beastie Boys sampled him for Root Down, and he never benefited from any of the proceeds. It was not usual for people like Paul to get any money in this way, it's just that this time there had been a chance he could have, so he was a bit miffed. This is the sort of material that, if spliced into the concert theme, could have made it a great film. It's coming out on DVD on Monday the 19th of August. Fast-forward has some good uses, and this film is one of them. Technorati Tags: edinburgh, festival, film, keepintime, review | | Friday, August 19th, 2005 | | 12:49 pm |
| | 11:38 am |
| | 11:29 am |
It's the discipline that counts
I've decided to switch to LiveJournal. I spent ages dithering about with a version of blosxom on my site, but I never got round to fully customizing it. Anyway, now that I am here, I will be semi-happily using Ecto to ensure every (non-photo) entry from now on will have a prime number of words (just for fun, kids). I am semi-happy because Ecto treats words like "non-photo" and "I'm" as separate words. I did start writing a script to do this but Ecto has problems running ruby scripts. Anyway, to stop the dithering I'll just take the Ecto word count for now (FYI: 113 words). Technorati Tags: menatwork | | 11:24 am |
Conclusion: The Great Ones and Twos Battle
It's a combination of ones and twos. Not only but also.
Normal actions on twos -- which is the bulk of our work anyway.
Fast or very smooth action on ones.
Normal spacing on twos. Far apart spacing on ones. I challenge anyone to immediately place the discipline that the above text comes from. Passages like this, along with some random pieces by Malcolm Gladwell (like the history of ketchup) give me some inkling of what it is like to listen to me waffle on about computing. Wah wah wah indeed. (It's from "The Animators Survival Kit" (Richard Williams)) | | 11:19 am |
An Ode to British Telecom
every quarter you send me an email reminder about my bill, every quarter I try to pay it immediately, every quarter you tell me I can't pay it until 5 days after I recieve a paper bill, every quarter I go ahead and try anyway, every quarter it fails and you give me a cock-and-bull story about giving the wrong switch card type, every quarter I wonder why is it so hard for me to GIVE YOU MONEY? |
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