Year: 2013

Pete said: The new Trek movies have violently divided opinion. Some people think they're a worse abomination than Office 10 or Windows 8.

It was an abomination…. [lol]

Ok – I was looking for Serenity the other day. Still not there yet but getting closer.

I could do with more uninterrupted sleep, aided by me worrying the bad bits of me a bit less. (Itch leads to scratch leads to more itch leads to no sleep) I am improving, I just have to avoid making it worse because I can make it worse much quicker than it gets better.

But I was feeling good enough yesterday evening to go hunting up at the Mall. (For more than laptops). First stop – PC World and a peek at their laptops. Not much joy here, they were ripping up their laptop area, presumably in preparation for the next ones coming in. Keeping an eye on it as there’s another week of a £100 cashback offer.

Besides – they’re not selling what I want at the moment. I’ve pretty much eliminated being interested in anyone’s laptop except Acer. We’ve had good times with Acer kit, they’ve done well for us. This one is coming up to 4 years old and is still going strong. Ok, it’s not good with the HD video but it still copes with everything else I throw at it. It could do with the keyboard being attacked with cleany stuff though.

What’s on offer ? 14 or 15″ laptops (or a Shiny 13″ ultrabook) with or without touchscreens. That’s ok – but I want more lines on my screen than these laptops have. I don’t really care about a touchscreen. Down that road leads grubby screens from fingerprints. I do care about having a proper HD screen and that’s because of apps like iTunes which don’t let you change the text size. I may have a fight with iTunes anyway because I fully intend to put an old version on because they took a leaf out of Microsoft’s book and make v11 an abomination.

So – they’re not selling what I want at the moment but there’s two more reasons why I’m not buying right now :

The old laptop is still going strong (just about)
The new laptop cost more than I want to spend.

This laptop cost £450, the touchscreen 15″ Acer costs £600 with a £100 discount. That’s a lot of cash. Perhaps it’s inflation over the 4 years I’ve owned the laptop but you know what ? Computer prices don’t really change. The specs change but the prices don’t. With the desktop bits lists I build, the “acceptable” spec changes according to the time but they always end up around the same price. Unless I play with a very silly spec, in which case I can put the price in the thousands. Yet they’re asking us to pay a lot more for laptops now than I think we should be.

Yep. I have fun sometimes with those bits lists, although they’re not as exotic as they used to be. Multiple SSD drives just isn’t the same as pricing up a second tower to contain a 7 drive SCSI array.

Ok ok – too geeky ? Maybe 🙂

But. I wasn’t seriously looking for a laptop last night, there’s just that tantalising offer there.

I was however … looking for blurays. There just happened to be a major movie release yesterday (Star Trek Into Darkness) and I’m now watching the first movie in prep for the second (not tonight, maybe tomorrow). The new Trek movies have violently divided opinion. Some people think they’re a worse abomination than Office 10 or Windows 8. Some people think they’re a fresh reimagination.

I liked what they did with the second in particular. I’m looking forward to watching it again.

I also picked up Oblivion, which was a cracker. And HMV happened to have a 4 for £10 offer on multiple formats going, so I now have copies of the music from the Olympics closing ceremony, Tori Amos’ Gold Dust, Predators and Unstoppable. They’re not the greatest of media but they were still pretty good.

And it got me out of the house for a while – never a bad thing 🙂 I’ll be back there next week for another peek at laptops but also to pick up a few things :

Iron Man 3 – yes !
Goldfrapp – Tales of Us (looking forward to more awesome)
Arctic Monkeys – AM (maybe – good but not full price good)
Doctor Who series 7 soundtrack

And there I go singing along to the Star Trek music again. It’ll be Michelle Shocked not too long after it finishes.

PS I may go to PC Specialist and get one of these (link). Shiny ! And with a superduper HD screen too. The spec I’d want is £573 though, still pricey.

There seems a dearth of stuff on telly at the moment …

(With the serenity thing, I’ll talk a little about me later)

As a scifi fan, it used to be that we’d be blessed with lots of competition for our attention when it came to new stuff on the telly. At one point, we had 3 concurrent series of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Earth Final Conflict and a bunch of other notables. Now, the only current scifi I’m watching is Falling Skies (the others are on a break).

Don’t get me wrong, Falling Skies is very high quality scifi. It keeps you guessing as to what’s going on. It has outstanding pacing for each episode. It’s consistent with itself and the rules it sets. But there used to be a lot more on. (There is – I’m ignoring Continuum now and gave Under the Dome a miss).

What we do have is an awful lot of good scifi in the cinema this year. Oblivion was a major highlight. Pacific Rim was great fun (if very silly). I’ll be getting Star Trek Into Darkness quite soon after the blu-ray comes out. I missed out on Man Of Steel. Iron Man 3 was a fitting finish to that trilogy. And the latest was Elysium, which had a lot of good things to tell about it. (I may do a mini review / major tech analysis of Elysium sometime)

What else ? Looking forward to Riddick. I’m not convinced by the plotline but Vin Diesel’s Riddick is a very watchable character. Mortal Instruments … should be a good bit of fantasy. Rush will be awesome if it’s as good as the Senna movie. The second Hunger Games movie will hopefully live up to the first. Thor should be amusing.

But at home, I’m in the strange position of running out of stuff to record. My series link list is currently :

Formula 1 Grand Prix – on BBC of course
Stargate Atlantis repeats – until end of this week
Body of Proof – this is still quite amusing
Falling Skies – catch this from the start if you can, it’s worth it
Strictly Come Dancing – I may even watch the dailies this time round too
And Castle just disappeared off it because it’s run ended.

I’ll keep myself amused by finally catching up with the various series I have on dvd that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet. This includes (don’t laugh!) things like TinTin, Ulysses 31, Dresden Files, Space Above and Beyond, Dungeons and Dragons and a good few others besides.

For now though, it’s finishing off a legend. I started watching the Firefly series just as the cricket season was starting … So I had a big break in the middle. I’ve gone back to it tonight. It only ran for 14 episodes plus 1 film but it’s quite possibly the best scifi that’s been on telly.

And that’s quite a high bar to compete with. Yep. I think this is better than Star Trek (which isn’t actually that high quality), Babylon 5, Farscape …

It’s centred around a ship. A Firefly class transport (think small junk trading ship) called Serenity, which is crewed by a truly motley bunch. It’s embedded with humour. It lives by scifi rules which always stay consistent. It makes it about the story, not the technology (which is where ST always fell down).

It’s entertainment. And I’d thoroughly recommend watching it, even if you’re not a scifi fan.

How about my own serenity ?

I think it’s getting there. I’m much more comfortable with me as myself. My head’s in a decent place. I think I’m getting more sleep … My skin’s not too impressed with me still but it’s improved since I started taking the vitamin tablets again. I can have Jaffa Cakes again !

What I need to do is let the healing happen (not as easy as it sounds). It is happening now, I just keep interfering with it. Work actually helps, as it lets me concentrate on stuff which doesn’t involve worrying my arms or legs. I have my fingers crossed that the improvement will continue this week.

We shall see !

Thank you 🙂 Bugging me about Birmingham PHO has helped bust me out of that cage …

Or at least a little start on it for now 😉

Thank you

Yep – it’s another blatant steal from Facebook :

Let’s see how many of those where people I know are suffering :

Crohn’s – aye. He’s a great guy too, been invaluable to us over the past I dunno years I’ve known him. He hides the constant pain well.
PTSD – someone I know saw something which made him very quiet for a little while after he joined us. But we listened, we helped, we let him talk through it. We treated him like one of the gang. And I think we helped him lift this. If you know someone who you think is suffering from PTSD, don’t push – just listen. Pushing can make this problem much worse if the person suffering is not yet ready to come to terms with it.

Anxiety – a very dear friend is suffering from crippling anxiety at the moment. Huge hugs.
Bipolar – this is part of my curse. I’m up, I’m down. I’ll get stuck in the down and not know how to get back out of that pit. The only thing I can say here is – enjoy the upside and remember in the downside that you have people who care about you. They want to help you out, they just may not know how.

Depression – this is the massive crippling thing of the modern age. It can be chemical, it can be situational. But – it locks you in to a negative frame of mind that is self reinforcing. What helps me out immeasurably is helping others. It’s what I live for. I get a buzz from helping others, even if it’s just seeing them smile. And that boost can help me crack my own depressive phases.

Diabetes – I know people with this. People at school had this, one of them nearly killed himself several times due to alcohol induced comas. It’s a fairly manageable condition but don’t recoil or otherwise embarass the victim when you see them having to take the medication. They’re embarassed too, they don’t need your negative reaction to make them worse. Support them instead

Cancer – I’ve had a close relative die from this and it was the inspiration for the Pink Hat cricket thing I did 2 seasons ago. It’s not a good way to go. But – it’s getting more survivable, even if the side effects are not what you’d wish on anybody.

Again. Support the person suffering. Help them own their illness/condition. It’s when the condition owns them that they have a problem, helping them understand it will help them get back in control of it. Sometimes that’s just being there and listening to what people have to say.

Let them express it in their own words. And then keep their confidence. That’s primarily what this blog is for, it lets me express my own conditions/problems/successes (and the rest) in my own words. I know I have a few regular readers, although I don’t know exactly how many. It’s only a few but the fact that you take time out to read my random witterings also helps me in my own battles.

(Yep – there’s a few patterns that appear in the hit counters and when I see them it’s “Oh wow” and a big smile breaks out)

Arthritis – hugs to Purplepixie, I can imagine how much pain you have from a) my occasional joint problems and b) how much of a statue I’d be after first practice of the year !

For me, there’s a few things tugging my mental condition back. Since I went back on the vitamin tablets last week, my mood has improved and my skin seems better able to get started on repairs. But I still am prone to inflicting even more damage on it which sets back both the healing and my own mental state. It still feels like I’m locked in, discouraging me from leaving the house. I wear dark clothes because of unsightly marks in embarassing places. The mercy is that on the outside, it’s just itchy. There’s no pain from the bad bits. Plenty of pain from damaged joints but none on the outside.

There’s a whole host of other internal problems that people are struggling to deal with. Situations cause depression as much as medical conditions. And stress on that level can then lead to medical conditions that reinforce the depression. People deserve your support. Sometimes they don’t know how to ask. Sometimes the best thing to do is just be a friend and be available to listen when they need to talk. But they would all appreciate :

Although sometimes when I offer a hug, I get the impression that the mental reaction is “AIEEE RUN !”

They make everything worthwhile don’t they ?

I’m watching the England Women play the Aussies at the moment. It’s half time and I’ve just watched Sarah “Squirt” Taylor bash the highest score by an England lady in the Twenty20 format. Oh and she just happens to be one* of the most skillful wicket keepers in the world game at the moment, that’s including the men.

*(not many players would beat James Foster of Essex’s keeping)

But more of that in a bit.

Back to work today after a long healing weekend. This weekend I started taking the vitamin tablets again in the hope that they help my skin out. I think it’s working … and I feel better (more energised) on the inside too, despite it being allergy season part 2. Let’s hope that healing continues as there’s a lot of damage to repair.

It was a random encounters day today …

I saw the Snow Queen again (I owe you a better name my dear!). It always brings out the grin seeing the Snow Queen and we’d love to steal her away from where she is right now so she can come work with us. She became the Heart of my last team due to being a little bundle of Awesome and it always adds a bit of bounce to my step when I can borrow a bit of that Awesomeness.

Even if I’m trying to avoid bouncing too much at the moment in order to help out the healing … (my skin is very delicate)

Saw Crystal today too. (It’s based on a cricketer’s nickname). We share a lot of problems me and Crystal. More than you’d think possible. We both suffer from hayfever that hits us early summer and in autumn. We’re both suffering from internal injuries that slow us down (although mine are kinda self inflicted, Crystal’s definitely aren’t). She’s a smart girl is Crystal, we were lucky to acquire her for the project when she did because she sorted out a lot of problems that had been allowed to build.

And she’s mad about cricket too. So yep. Usually I’d spend my lunch at my desk playing a card game. But I always welcome the chance to escape and have a natter with someone. Today’s lunchtime was one of the better.

I’m missing some excellent cricket !!!!!! Just seen an execution of a run out that anyone in the game of cricket would have been proud to pull out of the bag. Arran “Deadly” Brindle – take a bow. Shows that the women’s game tends to have more skill in than the men’s.

One of our Finance Angel’s has turned very dark. As if she’s seen a ghost, beaten it up and nicked all the hair colour that the ghost had stolen before.

And at the end of the day, the Judge comes looking for help. I’ll always help the Judge as she’s been very useful in the past. I think she dropped an email and ran today – I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.

We’ve been blessed to have a lot of very bright women involved with the project over the years. Women provide a different perspective to men when it comes to project work. Men tend to be inspired but scattergun (me definitely!), women tend to be organised, super professional and remember everything that needs to be done. I definitely appreciate them keeping me straight over the years. It’s kept me out of trouble.

(I better mention Ms Warpath too in case she’s peeking … at a time when we’re losing people, it’s good to know there’s someone with a good head on her shoulders keeping the ship afloat, backed up by our Apprentice on this end)

Back to the cricket …

The women don’t have the power of the men. It makes it a very different game. Instead of power hitting, we see deft touches to avoid the fielders. Instead of 90mph bowling, the fastest we see is Katherine Brunt pinging it down at 70-75mph. That’s about the pace I used to bowl at my quickest. There’s some incredible skill in the field.

We’ve already seen Sarah Taylor get the record score in an England shirt and around that was some great fielding by the Aussies (making up for indifferent bowling). Think full length diving catches. We’ve seen a smartly executed power throw run out by Arran Brindle.

Hopefully we’ll see something spectacular from behind the stumps by Sarah Taylor. I have my fingers crossed.

Today was a good day. I’m hoping tomorrow will be better. (More sleep will help – don’t believe I got much last night …)

And … while I was doing my “does this make sense ?” check, England take another wicket. Come on England ! Great job so far, looking good.

Now what was the address of that cat video streaming site …

Pete said: We have access to massive amounts of information that tell us how to do stuff, that helps us out in ways we didn't know existed 10 years ago.

It's just a pity we don't use that information to build better worlds….. rather than Facebook status updates and cat videos! [lol]

I don’t think we realise how much we’re spoiled in this modern technological age.

We have so many things that help us out. So many devices that make it easier to do things (or make it harder to concentrate on the important things like housekeeping !) and so many devices that just make it possible to do things we wouldn’t have thought possible 5 or 10 years ago.

It’s the little devices that help out most of all. 5 years ago, I used a separate satnav. It started life as a Hewlett Packard iPaq 4150 running the Tomtom software. Good little device, even though I didn’t use it much for its prime reason for being. It was a Personal Data Assistant, before phones became powerful enough to take over that job. The only problem it had was the glitches in the Tomtom software.

Even then, we’re spoiled. When I started working, satnavs were incredibly rare. We’d plan our routes on pieces of paper (big writing !) and we’d panic when we lost track of the route. Nowadays GPS takes all the fun out of getting lost because it’s an ever present thing on everything keeping us in the picture for where we are. GPS used to be a luxury reserved for the military …

I was watching the Doctor Who prom concert before moving over to the desktop, even there things have improved. Video recorders have been in the home for decades now but digital video recorders make things so much easier. No more hunting through the tape library for the right tape, just look in the list. I could watch that on a stream from the internet too if I missed it.

That’s another thing – when I started with Blueyonder, I had 512kbit/s download. Now, I have 30Mbits/s and my upload is faster than that original download.

Where did the inspiration of this post come from ?

Mostly from gaming. I’ve bought a few things from Good Old Gaming over the past year and barely played any of them. To be honest, it’s so cheap there that I’ve had my money’s worth from the goodies (soundtracks, pictures etc) they throw in with the game.

The latest attempt was to have a go at Arcanum. The concept here is awesome. It’s a Dungeons & Dragons type setup with orcs, elves, dwarves and magic crossed with technology. Kinda like D&D moved into the Industrial Age. The concept has spectacular potential, the implementation does not. It’s ok for the time but is missing things we take for granted like a big sign saying “Go Here To Progress Story”. After the intro, I literally had no clue where to go next and the game wasn’t helping.

Bit of a pity that.

A lot of the other games were like that too. They would implement more depth into the game (there’s dazzling depth possible in Neverwinter Nights, especially when enhanced with the extra character classes) but it’s also possible to get lost in the game. Same with the first person shooter games. They had multiple routes and it was possible to get lost.

A frequent complaint against modern games is that they are on rails. The term “corridor shooter” has come into gaming. This is where a game may look open but you’re shepherded (often unsubtly) down set pathways. Things like unopenable doors or sidestreets with an invisible wall. Progress is good but often comes with costs.

Another sign of progress – my laptop is currently streaming the music over the network to my hifi. In ages past, I’d be running across the room to change cds. I’d certainly not be picking from a library with 10,000 tracks. I’d definitely be tripping over the audio cables a few times 🙂

I can’t help feeling that we miss out though. I’m still in hiding mode at the moment but the modern things lead to a more Indoor life anyway. I’m not needing to venture outside for entertainment. I’m missing chatting up the barmaids at the local or propping up the popcorn stand at the cinema.

A modern life is a more lonely life ? Perhaps.

But then again, before the internet came around, I wouldn’t have had the involvement in World of Warcraft which led to me gaining lots of good friends from around the globe. Eve counts there too, although the Eve crowd is a bit more geeky than the WoW crowd if you can believe that.

Another inspiration for this post is hearing the comments about the cricketers. When I started my cricket, it was before the ultra professional era. Now, the cricketers are more in the gym than active in the game. They’re a stronger bunch, a more powerful bunch. Perhaps I’d have been a better cricketer given more gym time or more practice time ? Definitely if it was directed practice. But I doubt whether my fragility would have supported gym time.

Apologies if this has gone very scattergun ;-).

We definitely have it easier these days. We have access to massive amounts of information that tell us how to do stuff, that helps us out in ways we didn’t know existed 10 years ago. We can get cash from a hole in the wall (I vaguely remember ATMs being introduced). We can call people across the world from a device that fits in out pocket.

But perhaps we’re getting a little too reliant on the technology. I definitely think a hug is more satisfying than a win in a game.