Solitude 

There is a hill.

To most people, I imagine it is exactly that; just another hill that they pass every day. I, however, am fascinated by it.

Every curve is perfectly rounded, flowing into the next as easily as it slid out of the last. Each concavity reveals itself as a product of angle, increasing shade once approaching, disappearing as one passes. The lines are beautifully bezier; elegant yet simple.

In summer, before the harvest, long wheat blows out a wonderfully dynamic representation of the underlying hill; billowing those curves as sails.

In winter, after the harvest, short grass grows back, shivering back and forth as the cold wind pushes against it. Resolute, it stands.

I’ve never stood on the hill. In truth, I see it for 20 seconds a day, at most, yet still I admire it. Nature is a remarkable thing.

For various reasons, I’ve outgrown nntprss as my default RSS client (not least because it is sadly lacking in features due to the lapse in releases). So, I recently switched to SharpReader.

I had my first realy “holy shit, that’s cool” moment with it a few minutes ago. When subscribing to Stuart Langridge’s feed for Kryogenix, I decided to look at a few of the recent posts. SortTable is one item I posted about recently (and is still in my RSS feed).

I was shocked to see, that in the item for his feed, the full text from my piece referring to his. SharpReader knew they were connected and did some implicit comment magic. Very nice.

Sorry for the geeky gush, but it took my by surprise, and I like that.

The rather belated end of week random links post. We’ll just call this a fortnightly special (with nothing special added) and leave it at that:

• PHP and REST - A good read for those planning on setting up the Atom API,
• Ze’s page - An interesting mix of random stuff. The games and toys are good; particularly “Simple Game”,
• Multiple IE instances - How to run multiple versions of IE. Very handy for web design,
• On Search: Internationalisation - Another part of the essential On Search series. This time dealing with the problems inherent in making search work in different languages,
• Bit Rot - Data always outlives hardware. So just what lengths will people go to to get information from old systems? Probably about this far,
• Misusing Irony - A personal pet hate: the misuse of the word “Ironic” (Via Derek),
• Advanced RPS - Want to get better at Rock, Papers, Scissors? The professional guide is available,
• IE 5.5 Band Pass and IE 5.0 Band Pass - After last months mid pass filter, Tantek brings two more filters to make applying styles to particular browsers easier. He never sleeps.

And that’s it for a few days.

It is always a bold move to remake a classic cult film. Some would say it is a pointless move; trying to beat something that is loved by a dedicated group of fans is certainly an unenviable task. It was with this in mind that I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It is, in a word, laughable.

Maybe I’m overly desensitized to these things, but it wasn’t particularly scary or gruesome. It tried to be twisted, it tried to be sick, it failed on both accounts.

Not worth seeing. Find yourself a cheap copy of the original. It’s an order of magnitude better.

After failing to secure myself a seat for yesterdays opening screenings, I was forced to see the final part of the Matrix series today: The Matrix Revolutions.

With the lacklustre second installment still fresh in my mind, it was with slight trepidation that I went to see this part. I was surprised to find it was significantly better than part 2. Without wanting to spoil any of it, all the action that was missing from Reloaded had clearly been shunted into the series’ finale.

Good parts:

• Lawrence Fishburne has thankfully decided to start acting properly again, after the ham that was produced last time,
• Great action sequences,
• Some (minor) surprises,
• The sections in Zion.

Bad parts:

• A particular part near the end (saying any more would amount to a spoiler),
• The new characters being largely pointless, and many old characters being superflous,
• The ending - it was lacking, but probably how it had to be,
• The bits that weren’t explained or that just happened.

All in all, a good film. Not up to the first, but good nonetheless.

The new director’s Cut of Alien is as chilling as the original: full of bizarre organic architecture, aliens that just work, and the single greatest use of sound effects in cinematic history. The film is great. See it.

However, the particular showing I went to was not so great. About half an hour into it, the film stopped playing, the lights went up and the adverts they show during cinema dead time (usually slides) started showing. Many people were confused and annoyed. A few minutes later, it restarted; having totally killed the tension that had been building up.

Another half hour later, someone in the second row’s phone went off. He let it ring a good 6 times before answering it. By answering it, I don’t mean that he switched it off embarassedly. No, he had a bloody conversation. If he had gotten the beating that so many of his fellow audience members obviously wanted to give him for being a “twat”, he would have sorely deserved it.

I’m of the understanding that this happens on a semi-regular basis in cinemas in America, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone answer their phone here (and I go weekly - you might have noticed the reviews). Believe me, if it escalates, their will be violence.

I’m in awe at how simple and powerful Stuart Langridge’s new script is: Sortable Tables is a javascript that does exactly what it says (an attribute I like in scripts), it sorts tables.

The code is clean, fast and, from what I’ve seen, widely compatible. Nicely done.

Just before Matrix Reloaded came out, I made far too many posts about it and the rest of the Matrix universe (Animatrix, comics, propaganda etc.). After the mild disappointment of the film, I’m loathe to do it again for the third cinematic installment. I’ll be going to see it tomorrow (the day of release) but not at the first showing, as I had hoped. Oh well.

For those that don’t know (have you had your head under a rock?), Warner Bros are releasing the film simultaneously around the world; same day, same time. Thankfully, while Los Angeles will be getting it at the insane time of 6am, here in the UK it starts showing at the more reasonable 2pm.

This week’s random links:

• Sliding Doors 2 - Not content with doing the finest CSS tabs tutorial to date, a week later we get more. Does Doug Bowman sleep?,
• Keyboard Advance - Use your GameBoy Advance as a basic word processor. Clever, but only for those who want to do all that swapping melarkey,
• Unfinished Jokes - Louis Theroux (genius among men) has perfected a new comic form (” In Roman/biblical times, a chariot is being driven quickly, despite wet weather. Something about Antioch braking.”),
• eBay Pet Auction - A little depressing, but very funny (via Anil),
• QuirkMode - Work around browser bugs with this comprehensive guide,
• Analyis Of CD copy protection - Exactly what it claims to be,
• Local Feeds: Glasgow - A news feed for blogs and sites near Glasgow (other cities worldwide available, but this is the one I appear on dammit),

And we’re done.

Some were billing it as Macaulay Culkin’s comeback, it’s not that. Some said it was a work of comic genius, it’s not that. Some said… Let us just say that a lot of people have said a lot of things about Party Monster. I’m going to say very little more.

It’s not very good. By that I mean, and please excuse my use of our robust language here, it is utter shite. It’s written in such a way as to alienate the audience from the characters, making it rather difficult to care when things go wrong. Sure, there are some funny moments, but they’re only moments; seconds that die off as quickly as they arrived, leaving you just as cold to the characters.

I could say more, but I think everyone has said enough.