Year: 2011

It’s been a while since I did a music post, so here goes (all links go to Youtoob) :

First up, I blame this song for giving the idea for this post 🙂 I listened to the Alisha’s Attic Illumina album yesterday and The Incidentals is the opening track. And what an opener. If anyone’s looking for that special Valentines track, look no further.

Second one is much newer, from Paramore’s latest album. It’s The Only Exception. Now in official video with decent (not a concert phone recording) sound to do it justice !

Number 3 is a classic by Seal. Come the future, may we all live in a Future Love Paradise.

Hopefully there will be a few people out there lucky enough to see The Look Of Love tonight.

Or maybe that special person is your Number 1.

Hopefully you don’t have a stalker like how Lily Allen is going in this Who’d Have Known video 🙂

Seventh is an old one from the Making Movies album. Love the video, it’s Romeo and Juliet.

Can I be someone’s Man In The Moon ? I probably talk even less 🙂

I’ve been run aground …. Oh to be washed ashore at Martha’s Harbour.

Finally (for the positives!), if you end up in the Dog House, sometimes that’s not so bad if you’re The Man Of The Hour. (Norah Jones)

On my own tonight for Valentines, like most nights for the past few years. I’ll console myself by diving into game later (Hawaii 5-O and munchies for now) where I’ll see what the guild is getting up to. Thinking of the Swedish, time to close on an Anti-Valentine 🙂

I wrote a week or so about the distinctive accent the Swedish Girls in the guild have. That’s not a negative, it’s more of a contrast to how native English people speak. Whereas the natives will slur and blur the syllables together and generally mangle the language, the Scandinavian accent introduces distinctive clipping and intonation. It’s a much purer form of English. I have an iTunes Originals collection album for The Cardigans, with the introduction to And Then You Kissed Me being read by Nina Persson. One sentence is “it builds slow and then it’s like someone creeps up behind you with an Axe”. That Swedish accent really puts bite into that Axe.

Hopefully your Valentines evenings turn out better !

Actually, I’d argue for spending the Valentines as a quiet night in with your loved one. What happens when you hit the restaurants ? They’re packed with other people doing the same ! Why be a slave to 21st century corporates telling you what you should be doing. Share your Valentines dinner with a crowd or save the night for when it can be Special. For that matter, why is this night special and not all the others ? Is it important for a reason specific to you or your’s or is it following the crowd ?

If your loved one needs a bit of TLC or some spoiling, you shouldn’t need Valentines day as an excuse. Treat ’em when they need it. A day labelled “special” shouldn’t be the only one in the year where you make someone feel special.

PS Wonder if that Scandinavian accent is why I like bands and singers like the Cardigans, Lisa Miskovsky, Bjork, Lene Marlin and ABBA. Sometimes different is not just good, it’s incredible.

I’m almost through my next book … And that’s after finishing the first in another series at the weekend.

The latest book to finish is Storm Front by Jim Butcher, which opens the series of Harry Dresden crime novels. It’s not a genre I often go for (I prefer sci-fi) but I got caught by a rather wonderful series from a few years ago.

Yep – these are the books the Dresden Files series was based on.

The central character is a Wizard, struggling to make a living as a private investigator and part time police consultant. It’s set in Chicago and we have a colourful cast in there which includes Murphy the police Lieutenant, a mob boss, sexy reporters, tenacious vampires (maybe I got confused on those last two) and all manner of fantastic creatures. The writing style, character and setting have a lot in common with the Mike Hammer shows which I watched 20 years ago, with a little bit of extra magic sewn in.

The magic is what makes these special, it opens up all sorts of possibilities that set Dresden apart from being A N Other crime series. Looks good on telly too.

What’s the difference between this and the telly series ? Firstly, the first book (Storm Front) was shown in the middle of the run of 12 episodes instead of being at the start. I guess that’s down to the scope allowed in a TV series. At 300 pages, the book can lead you in to the characters and the world of Dresden’s Chicago. That’s a bit optimistic for a 42 minute TV show. There are differences in the characters too, with Bob being a spirit of air and not a long dead sorceror.

You can recognise certain scenes from the TV series, although the scope is a bit lower to make it affordable. In a book, it’s your imagination that translates the words on the page to make them come alive. On TV, your imagination takes a back seat to the skill of the director and their pocket book … Must watch the TV series again soon.

This is another book I got through fairly quickly, with the dry humour carrying the reader along. Various threads interlace and intertwine throughout with Harry often being the fall guy. Most importantly, the narrative stays consistent with the rules that become apparent as things move forward. Sticking to rules makes the difference between you going MEH or leads you to believe in the fantasy escape. When the rules get ignored or rewritten (like in series that are well past their sell by date), that’s when the reader gets lost.

After one book, I’m looking forward to getting some more 🙂 Only a fiver each from Amazon (although I’ll be checking out bookshops in Bristol centre “soon”) which will be well worth it.

Must watch that series again soon too.

I was watching Resident Evil 4 (Afterlife) the other night, which was making me think even more about switching to 3d stuff.

It’s a bit too early for 3d yet though, as the technology is still in its early stages. Not “very early” as there are 3d displays available commercially now. Not just PC displays, those have been around for years but it’s breaking into domestic television displays now. Just one issue with them – I already wear glasses, so having to wear another set to make the 3d work is something I’m not even going to tentatively consider.

There’s light though, as 3d tellies that don’t need glasses are starting to come to the market. So, armed also with the knowledge that I’m likely to switch my blu-ray player for one that can play dvds, I felt happy to pay another £2 for the 3d version of Resi Evil Afterlife.

After the opening scenes, I was starting to drool for a 3d setup. Looks incredible and that’s backed up by the sound as well. They just keep making well watchable Resident Evil films. They’re not for everyone, as they are very action heavy and video-game silly with the T-virus science stuff but I enjoy them. And that’s what counts at the end of the day. I’m a big fan of Milla Jovovich as an actress too.

Anyway – Resi Evil Afterlife – incredible looking film that definitely took the superslomo action thing to heart. May write more about it at later date because I feel the need to watch it again.
(the 3d blu-ray has an option to play in 2d as well and refuses to play 3d unless you have 3d kit – buy now for promise of more later)

How about stuff that’s more in reach to the average person ? That would be High def vs Standard def. This isn’t nearly as clear cut as the difference between TV sound and proper cinema sound. The difference there is stunning, with £500 worth of cinema sound amp and speakers giving a mind blowing upgrade. It’s not really the bass to back up the action, it’s the clarity and placement of incidental noise that makes you feel as if you’re in the scene. On the other hand, HD vs SD is one that will be with the jury for a very long time.

I can genuinely see the difference that HD makes in blu-rays like Iron Man 2, where the scene in the greenhouse dome brings out the extra detail available. But … do you really want to pay loadsamoney to see sharp pictures of grass ? No. Didn’t think so. Most of the time with broadcast stuff, I wouldn’t know I was watching HD unless I hit the Info button that tells me I am. I have 2 examples there :

1 – cricket on Sky at the moment. Sky Sports isn’t something where I get the HD for free, I’d have to pay an extra £7 a month for it. Looking at the quality of image I do get, I can tell it’s not HD because there are the compression artifacts (blocky pixels) that follow the ball around. When the camera is moving a lot, the ground goes fuzzy and then sharpens up when the camera stops. That’s how video compression works, by cheating with giving a little less information on the bits that don’t change much.
2 – Formula 1 coverage from last year. It actually looked sharper than some HD transmissions, even though it was coming in standard.

I’m still unconvinced by HD. A lot of it depends on the quality of the transmission. The cricket and motor racing above were getting excellent transmission quality, watching not so old reruns tend to show the bad as the networks skimp on the quality. I don’t get the sport or movies in HD because I ain’t gonna pay that extra £7 a month but I do get a few other channels free. Guess what I record in given the choice ?

Yep – even though I don’t think there’s much difference between high quality SD transmission and HD signals, I still set the recorder for space hogging HD 🙂

I’ll shelve the 3d upgrade plans for now until it becomes usable and affordable but I’m glad I got the (cheap!) high def telly. I suspect it’s making some SD stuff look far better than it should do … although that could be partly down to a Cable TV box that gets more out of the signal than the satellite box did.

PS Blip count = 0 since playing 2 dvd’s on the Xbox and 1 blu-ray.

I’m usually quite loyal to the stuff I buy with the reason for that being a lot of research before I take the plunge. When the time comes to renew old or worn out stuff, I’ll usually go back to the same people. There’s usually Very Good Reasons why I’ll go away from what I know.

So what has drawn the ire this time ?

Tis the anti-virus software …

Kaspersky have an excellent reputation that’s up there with the Norton’s and McAfee’s of the application world. But … there comes a time when a reputation isn’t enough, especially when the user (and buyer) starts thinking that the company is trading on their reputation instead of Quality Product. In the case of Kaspersky, there is a long list of sins … They start with the 2009 AV product and magnify with the 2010 IS product.

I run 2 PCs at home, a desktop that’s fitted for gaming and a laptop that I use for occasional gaming (like when I’ve forgotten to do something unambitious) but mostly for music and network stuff. Both need antivirus because I use internet browsers on them. I ask only a few things of my antivirus :

No firewall – it just gets in the way and interferes
(there’s a firewall on my router)
Minimal performance impact
No weirdness*
Adequate detection rates
Must not IRRITATE

Detection rates are the most key feature. I had an incident at the start of this year where my Eve login details got stolen by a keystroke logger, with McAfee being the one on watch at the time. If your AV doesn’t spot the Nasties, what’s the point of it ?

No Firewall comes in with the No Weirdness. A domestic internet security programme typically doesn’t need a firewall, as that service is being done by the router that connects to the internet. I.e. hacking attempts are stopped before they get to the firewall in the machine. For anything that slips through, the firewall built into Windows (or other OS) is perfectly adequate.

Even worse than no firewall is a botched firewall, which is what I got with Kaspersky 2010IS. With several computers in a house, it’s very useful to have them connected together on a network. For this to work properly and the machines to see each other, there needs to be nothing getting in the way of Windows sorting itself out. This is where the issue with Kaspersky was happening, it was tagging new networks as “Public” without prompting.

What’s that mean ? You can connect to other machines (if lucky) but other machines cannot connect to you. And because there’s no prompting, the poor hapless user has no clue whatsoever as to where the problem is. That is, unless they apply Machine Logic and get lucky.

This comes after their 2009AV software being responsible for weird minicrashes on my desktop. Think 10secs fine, 1 sec stop and repeat that. Highly irritating and it cleared as soon as I switched from 2009AV to 2010IS. And there was also startup instability on my laptop, where turning the power on didn’t necessarily mean a usable laptop after it settled down. Since switching across to Avira, the laptop has been far more stable and smoother. There’s that “Minimal performance impact” thing – Internet Security products tend to do too much and slow things down.

They had an awesome reputation but I feel that it’s burned itself out due to too much keeping up with the competition. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t make it a good idea.

The latest sin is a popup … “Re register or lose protection”. It’ll wait until the machine’s been idle for 5 minutes and then when the mouse is twitched, the popup will come back. That’s just plain rude.

So – it’s away from Kaspersky now as they’ve finally burned out all their goodwill. Now it’s Avira, which has already detected 2 threats (leftover from Kaspersky) in the first scan.

Let’s see :

Dinner eaten – check
In game munchie stockpile – got plenty
In game booster stockpile – got enough
Out of game munchie stockpile – sorted by Tesco trip
Home in time to not rush – extraordinarily yes
Chair hit with hammer – yes
Drinkies – sorted
Uninterrupted time ? – hope so
Internet connection – seems fine
Tactics read – yes but I know I’ll forget before raid time

I know I’m forgetting something …

Oh – better disappear to disconnect phone from wall and turn the mobile off.

I have a few 40K books I must get around to at some point….

Scratch off another one for the A to Z 🙂

This time it was Titanicus by Dan Abnett. It’s set in the Warhammer 40k universe but whereas the others go for a mere mortal scale with flesh and bone and superhuman enhancement, this one looks into the world of the Titan. These are 80 meter tall machines along the lines of the war machines in HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. Except the War of the Worlds machines would be not fit to lace up the boots (or tighten its nuts) of one of these monsters.

And it’s not just a couple of these monster machines, the initial pages tells of 174 that have arrived on the hive world of Orestes for pillage, murder and all those other things that come with an insane army that worships evil gods of Murder, Disease, Pleasure and Change.

At 600 pages, it’s a fairly medium length book that keeps the action going through vignette engagements early on that bring home the mismatch between God Machine and mere mortal soldier. Later on, the Imperial relief forces arrive and start their Execution (campaign to take on those 174 engines). Weaved in, there is plenty here that shows the perspective of the Mechanicus (the engineers of the Imperium) and how the rest of the Imperium sees them. They all seem like good well adjusted people too, which is definitely not the impression you get from reading of the Space Marines.

We even have a little bit of intrigue coming in too, although I was left a little nonplussed by the reason for that. Seemed a bit like padding that distracted from the other heroes that grace the pages here.

I tend to judge a book by how quickly I run through it and I got through these 600 pages quite quickly. It’s good stuff and essential reading for anyone who’s interested in the Warhammer 40k universe. The action defocuses at times but then again, that also brings across a sense of how the Engine people see it as they have to cope with the imperfect conditions of the battlefield.

Will I read it again at some point ? Quite possibly, although it’s not right at the high standards of a Heinlein or Niven book.

Would I recommend it ? People who haven’t had the Warhammer 40k introduction, go for another 40k book so you’re not lost in all the Imperium, Mechanicus, Magistratum, Astartes etcetcetc terms.

If you already know what the four terms in the last paragraph mean, you need to read this book. Nuff said. Now, what’s next ?

Blip count was about 3 per Babylon 5 episode … I guess that means my neglected Xbox will be seeing some service for further troubleshooting.

(If there's blips with the Xbox, then it's the amp. No blips means I upgrade to a 3d capable blu-ray player)

Something that’s caused me a lot of frustration over the last few months is the new sound system.

Don’t get me wrong – the sound quality out of it is awesome. It’s been a massive upgrade over what I had before. There’s just one small issue – when watching dvd’s, there will at random intervals be a break in sound for about a second or so.

So – what do I know ?

Music plays back 100% fine. This comes in through an optical fibre link via network streaming. I’ll have this going for many hours at a run, which proves there’s nothing wrong with the main circuits of the amplifier. I.e. it’s not an overheating thing.
Blu ray discs (I believe) play back just fine. And they look and sound awesome. Lossless DTS Master Audio is as good as it’s going to get. The sound field makes 2d feel like 3d.

I say believe there because I can’t remember (not) hearing the audio silence blip. Much more research required there I think.

Where’s it going wrong ? I firmly believe now it’s a dvd only problem. It’s been happening over multiple discs, like several Babylon 5 dvds, Titan AE, Attack of the Clones. The list goes on and I don’t believe there’s a link as the quality of the material is both at the high end and the low end.

High end – Attack of the Clones is as high quality a dvd (in terms of production) as it’s going to get.
Low end – Babylon 5 was a decent series but the quality of transfer to dvd is very, very patchy (more below)

What have I tried lately ?

New firmware in the blu-ray drive. Firmware is the instructions that’s buried in most electronics. It’s the electronics that Make Things Go. I’d been holding off on this because I didn’t want the new firmware to cause more trouble but I’ve finally bitten the bullet.
Reset to factory settings. It’s always worth a shot.
A Plan B. This means using a different cable to take the sound. Tried it – the quality difference is noticeable though. Sound through HDMI is crystal clear, whereas sound through the old style link seems muffled somehow.
Disabling all the Clever Stuff. This is the fanciness that turns on the TV or amp with the blu-ray player. However, one possible cause is “HDMI handshake” problems, where the blu-ray player and amp have an argument over what they can both do. Result – a second or so of confusion.

Next in mind is to use my Xbox360 as a dvd player. That will send the picture & sound via HDMI, the path that doesn’t work so well with the blu-ray player. This will prove once and for all whether the problem is in the amp or the player. I reckon it’s the player having issues with dvd, seeing as I believe blu-ray discs are ok.

I’m currently testing things out by watching a few Babylon 5 episodes, which brings me back to that More Later.

The script and story quality is very good with Babylon 5. The CGI was years ahead of its time and still comes over pretty well on a High Def screen. It’s very crude by the standards of today’s telly and definitely today’s games but still looks good. What’s surprising is the quality of the live action camera scenes. Most of the scenes are sharp but there’s a few where the high def shows up a huge amount of noise in the transfer. Things like the noise turning up as background snow in the image and sound that’s “not quite right”. It’s definitely Babylon 5 because I don’t see it in anything else.

Ahhh – more research required. Which means more watching of Babylon 5 episodes, hoping that the new firmware has cleaned up the sound. If not, the next steps are :

Watching a few episodes with the lesser quality audio
Watching episodes via the Xbox
Researching which 3d capable blu-ray player to buy

I hear growling noises … Time for munchies !

PS I could comment on “blip count so far” but my superstitious side is telling me that as soon as I do, the blips will start up again.

I have a suspicion … The time I find a lady cricket nut who's idea of fun is to watch some nutter do the headless chicken thing running around the cricket field, is the day I'll be forced to quit the game for good.

Mind you, if that coincidence does happen, it might not be long !