Solitude 

As mentioned a few days ago, I’m moving to Nottingham tomorrow. Thus there will be no updates for a while. Hopefully there will be more tech-based posts when I get back to posting. Thanks.

Sometimes a movie doesn’t really try to be brilliant, an understated elegance moving the plot along as is needed. You get the feeling that Shattered Glass is supposed to be one such film; it’s not.

The plot revolves around a well-respected writer who gets caught making up stories to further his career. I’m sorry to say that that is the whole plot. You have now effectively seen the movie. There is the vaguest hint of other plot lines - a love interest, some friction - but only in the most fleeting possible way. It really seems like no-one really researched the story at all, or that the screenwriter was passionless about his subject. No real conflict emerges, no real connection is made, not much happens.

It reminds me a lot of The Blair Witch Project:

“Nothing’s happening. Nothing’s happening. Something about a map. Nothing’s happening. It’s over. A lot of people in the audience look pissed.”

The height of mediocrity.

The last random link post for quite some time, so enjoy:

• DNS Stuff - All the DNS and pinging tools you’ll need in a single interface.
• Programming Fonts - Fonts designed especially to make programming easier. Can’t say I’ve tried them but they look pretty good.
• Eclipse Plugins - All the plugins you’ll ever need for the Eclipse environment.
• Symbol Signs - A selection of common symbols to be used as you see fit. Lots of potential for web design in there.
• Super Mario War - A very fun game multiplayer game, based on Super Mario Bros 3. Can’t wait for the networked version.
• Shocking Validator Error - Very distressing news for anyone who has followed the validator.
• Easy Snapshots With Rsync - A very interesting tutorial for making backups with the network friendly rsync tool.
• Japanese For The Western Brain - The basics of Japanese form for those more accustomed to English.
• Elements Of Style - The more tricky parts of English form for those who are not accustomed to it.
• Multilingual Applications in PHP - A solid enough guide to building unicode applications in PHP.
• PreReview - Reviews of films before the author has seen them (based on trailers). Very funny in places.
• Web Forms 2.0 - An effort to bring sane processing to the world of forms on the internet. Could be very handy, but the Javascript area is a real no.
• Stat Analysis: The Game - A Theme Park style interface to web stats. A good idea, but I wonder who would use it? Any real server admin isn’t going to go near it, and not many other people need web stats.
• Bush Game - Control Hulk Hogan, Mr. T and others on a quest to stop Bush. Really quite fun once you’re past the tediously long introduction.
• Bypass Internet Censorship - It’s possible to bypass blacklisted websites using the Akamai network. Sure someone will find this useful.
• Catching Web Standards - A mildly amusing tale of why web standards are promoted.
• Nim Games In Java - Write a game like 21 in Java. Who needs drinking buddies now?
• GZip Hassles - Sometimes GZip can be a troublesome technology (but I still use it for most things on this site).
• CodeKata - Exercises in coding. Learn how to be a stronger programmer.
• Priceclash - A reasonable price comparision service. Not too good for music though, unless you have very mainstream tastes.
• Kung Fu Mixer - A flash mixer to create your very own kung fu montage.

That’s the lot.

Now, while file-sharing networks are good and all, I still like finding legitimate sources of music on the internet. While it usually takes a bit of digging (and occassionaly using Streambox to grab streamed audio), there’s some absolute gold out there.

Take, for example, the Beggars Banquet Records. By following the various artist and audio links, I was able to get some great stuff by amazing bands like Biffy Clyro.

Now, the Beggars site is ok and all but their American counterparts at Beggar’s Group, USA have a larger selection of artists and audio. Give it a good trawl. I recommend Biffy (again), Mull Historical Society, Mclusky and Super Furry Animals. With all the free stuff available, you’ll find something of interest.

I’m going to be busy the next few days, so I’ll explain the lack of updates that will appear over the next month or so now: I’m moving to Nottingham.

I’m taking a year out of university to work for a BigCo who have offices in Nottingham. I don’t know anyone there, never lived on my own before, and can’t cook: should be interesting.

So, as of Thursday coming, updates will be sporadic at best until I can get a new computer down there. Stick around though, lots of good stuff planned.

Apple have announced an interesting new product: the Airport Express. It allows computers with wireless capability to stream music (via an iTunes variant) to remote base stations. These base stations are, in turn, connected to your hi-fi.

Now, while I like the idea and being able to listen to my music collection on my stereo would be fantastic, I’ve got one question: when I’m upstairs listening to music via said stereo, how do I control the base station?

It would be easy to create a remote control that told the base station to tell the computer to fast forward/rewind/pause etc. As far as I can tell though, there is no mention of such functionality. I see that as a fundamental flaw. Music with no control? Hmm. A pause button is a minimum requirement in my book.

It’s been a struggle for the last few months, third year has seen many casualties, but it’s finally over. My last exam was yesterday and, for the first time since October, I can stop thinking about university. It is a very good feeling.

A few days of celebrations planned before updates here return to normal. Well, they will for about a week before the bigger news (and subsequent downtime around here).

Update: Ok, so apparently the year is actually 2004, and not 2005 as the title suggests. But I won’t have exams next year, so… quiet.

Update 2: For anyone who is interested, Chris is hosting pictures from the final day celebrations.

I’m not normally one to post about stuff that has happened to me personally or to keep some kind of dream record but the sheer number and vividness of my dreams lately makes me want to quickly write about them. Interestingly, they all have one thing in common: they have films entwined in the plot.

Imagine, if you will, the basic plot of Flash Gordon (hero fights evil emperor, saves the girl, wins the day). Got it? Now set it in Glasgow, cast Matt as Ming, myself as Flash, and have a getaway chase scene on go-karts through a palace that has appeared on Buchannan street. That is the kind of dream I’ve been having.

Another? A more literal re-telling: Having just come out of seeing Eddie Izzard perform, some friends and I get lost on the subway (which is no longer underground), ultimately ending up back at the same theatre. Rather than see the genius of Izzard again, we go into the bar. I start talking to Shaft (who is being played by Samuel L. Jackson in this dream) who is telling how tired he is, having not slept in several days. A call comes in over the radio: a local gang boss has been found. Shaft, who clearly isn’t going to take any crap from anyone, decides to round up a posse.

My friends and I decide that he probably needs some help and walk along the street. By the time we get along the road, he has amassed an army of angry young men with pieces. They began crossing town to go and get the gang boss. I take a motorcycle across town to arrive first, where we find a TV crew covering the whole thing.

The rest is slightly garbled: a chase through the villians mansion, down a secret passage and out into a street straight from the 1920’s. Two security guards grab him, and I go to put the cuffs on. At that he punches one in the throat and… my alarm goes off, ending the whole thing. Dammit.

Oh well, here’s hoping tonights doesn’t disappoint.

Thanks to some more permissions problems the Syndication page and various feeds had either disappeared or stopped regenerating. All is now well. That is all.