The Flamekeblog

Taking action in Glasgow

2012-02-11T17:43:00.001Z

As I write this, dear reader, I'm sitting on the train on my way back from Glasgow where I was attending a protest against ACTA. I was not alone but the turn out was nowhere near as large as the Facebook event "going" numbers suggested it would be. I'm unsurprised, frankly.

Why would that be, Ben, you cynical misanthrope?

That'd be because I've become accustomed to the sickening apathy of my generation. Nothing poses any real, tangible threat to their ways of life on its own. However over time their liberties are being eroded and yet they are unwilling to even consider speaking out.

I have several theories as to why this might be, although I doubt it is any one thing. Something new flew into my factors today based on something I listened to some time ago.

Mobile phones.

I have no real issue with them, I've had one since I was sixteen, etc. etc.. This isn't a post to rally against them, it's more a spot of finger in the air speculation.

Prior to the ubiquity of mobile phones there were greater social consequences for not attending something. One could not call an hour before and tell someone that one would be unable to meet them. They'd already be on their way there, or at least unreachable. These days one can send a text at short notice and whilst there is still consequence one did still provide some notice, rather than none at all.

Essentially it has become a lot easier to avoid committing to social engagements. One can sit on the fence until the last moment, sometimes beyond.

The other thing I would comment on is the peer pressure social media creates. I don't see many strong opinions posted in my Facebook feed, I see mundane matters. I don't tend to hesitate about being outspoken about issues that get to me yet I find myself cautious about posting things to my Facebook feed. If I find it that difficult who is to say how difficult it must be for those who are less gregarious than myself?

Of my Facebook "friends" only one came to the protest today and he's someone I only know through politics and so would probably have attended regardless of my own actions. None of them even offered an opinion on ACTA, let alone asked to come along (or better yet, told me they'd be there).

I find this extremely disappointing yet it is also the response I expected.

What needs to happen for my generation to actually consider that these things affect them and can be changed?

Why is it that it is almost taboo to take action amongst mainstream culture?

On doing business my way

2012-02-01T03:48:00.001Z

It's the middle of the night and I'm fairly tired and yet can't sleep.

Inspired, I know. It's not my worries that are keeping me up, it's something else.

I was supposed to be going to some sort of business workshop in the morning starting at 0945 or so. Not too early for some of you, I'm sure.

However it's a bit too early for me.

I don't mean I can't be up by then, it's more a case of me having issues with other people messing with my schedule. In this case "other people" refers to the various people I'm having to deal with to keep paperwork sorted out.

I tend to get up at some time between 1000 and 1300 and then work throughout the afternoon and evening. I was sculpting until 0030 and that was an early finish by my standards.

I work best at those times for some things and not others. I'm much better at doing accounts during the day but I struggle to sit down and sculpt until the evening.

This week I had two meetings on Monday, a meeting today (well, yesterday now), and a meeting of sorts "today" (Wednesday). You know what I'd really like?

To get some bloody work done.

I've got a kit I've been working on for some time that is starting to really come together. I can only work on it at intervals on account of the curing time required by my materials. You know what interferes with that?

Frequent meetings with people who barely understand what I do for a living. Some are understanding and friendly, such as the very helpful Ann at the Job Centre (where I've had to report on occasion to ensure suitable schemes were traversed successfully).

Others are less helpful, such as the adviser I'm currently dealing with at an institute I will not mention the name of.

She is not actively unhelpful; merely aggravating. An apparent believer in truth by repetition, she reminds me of the fact that this world squeaks along on the backs of millions of barely competent office workers.

When I have someone explaining to me that the figure of 900 pounds comes from the 700 of equipment I just supplied the figures for and the 200 of cash I personally injected into the business as if it's difficult to grasp I sigh. Sometimes inwardly, sometimes audibly.

I'm 25. I have excellent GCSEs, reasonable A-levels, a decent undergraduate degree, and my own business. I can manage 7 + 2 in my head.

What I need help with is how best to process my accounts to comply with current legislation.

I could really do with someone to advise me as to why a growing business is considered "unsustainable". December aside I have made a solid profit in a fairly steep upward direction. At this rate I will be properly off the ground very soon. However the fact that I'm turning a profit at all in my first year during the worst recession in decades is a bloody miracle.

What puts a damper on this is some low level management droid demanding projections from me. It'd be fine if I had deployed most of my stock and had been in business for 6 months but I have not.

What I have done is built up a little following of friendly customers and sold much of my stock. I can project how long until I need to replace stuff, should I be so inclined.

What I can't say is how much I'm going to make from my own unique product range. The profit margins are much higher but I cannot predict demand.

This isn't catering - I can't see how another cafe is doing and how much I'm likely to make because no one knows.

Until recently it was barely possible to do these things. There's been an explosion over the last two or three years. Five years ago I was hard pressed to find anything of this sort outside of Forgeworld. These days I'm having to figure out how many third-party wheel options to offer!

On another note I was told that my profit margins are too low. I'm not going to give you an exact figure, dear reader, but my profit margins are most certainly not too low. What could do with improvement is my unit sales.

Overheads eat into profit margins, of course, that's why I basically don't have any.

My assigned drone does not seem to understand this. Hardly surprising, I suppose, given that she seems dumbfounded that someone might manage basic arithmetic without resorting to a calculator.

It's rather insulting to be this misunderstood by someone who is supposed to be able to offer advice and guidance.

I'm following my father's advice: no premises, no staff, low overheads. There's more to it than that, but the important concepts aren't difficult. Why do I take his advice?

Simple - I've watched him build a small empire on applied knowledge, pragmatic thinking, determination, and ongoing analysis and re-evaluation.

When a system is up and running he'll let it tick over for a while and do other things. Occasionally he'll check up on it, think about things, learn about other things, and then reassess the process to see if it could be done more effectively.

Some of the things I was taught at university as being cutting edge in the business world are things that my father implemented five to ten years ago.

By contrast my adviser bot seems confused and agitated when I explain to her that I'm more concerned about creative freedom and control of my company than I am about whatever monies they may choose to give me.

I am not interested in impressing them. I'm interested in running my own business my way. I'll comply with legislation where it applies but beyond that I get very cagey about organisations that have the audacity to lecture me on how to run my affairs.

It would be different if they could actually help but thus far all I've seen are off the rack things about generic business stuff.

"You should go along! It'll be good for networking!"

No. It won't. Not for this business.

Why?

Another simple one - the people I need to network with aren't there because they're spread across Europe. The people I need to know are in Lancashire, Krakow, and so on. I know this because I pay attention to the 'net and speak to people. I get to know what they're working on to see what I might stock from them. I keep track of their latest developments to see if there's things we might work together on in future. I check their sites and forum topics and talk to them and determine where to compete and where to avoid stealing their thunder.

I do these things because I know my own business and know the sector. Why?

Because it's my bleeding' job!

Sorry to rant but some things need to be said and I'm sick of dealing with incompetent morons who are baffled by the very idea of online business.

E-commerce is not some sort of bizarre curio for business to toy with, it's an actual thing. It's a very, very big actual thing. Even so these organisations act like it's 1999 and they're not sure if this whole internet thing is going to stick around.

Apparently there was a montage which they missed and suddenly the year is 2012 and the world is not the one they grew up in. I grew up in a world that changed drastically around me. These last five years have been fairly uneventful by contrast. I still have a smartphone, I still use the internet, I listen to music on my phone, and buy things online.

I shall put up with the bullshit from these people for a little longer to see if they can be convinced to give me some free money. I don't need it but I would not complain if I can get it.

In the meantime I shall have fun, play tabletop war-games, spend time online, and most shockingly of all, benefit from doing so as part of my business model!

It's almost as if I've carefully assessed which variables matter, which I have to pay for, and which I can exchange goods, services, or time for instead. As if I had a brain and an education or something equally insane.

Now I could really do with my muse back but in the meantime I shall make do with anger and intellect.

Good news, everyone!

2012-01-11T13:57:00.001Z

At long last there's been some good news for education in the UK - ICT is going away.

I was fortunate to avoid most of this boredom-inducing nightmare of a subject. However from what I've read, heard, and observed it is comparable with listening to the radio commentary at the national paint drying observance.

As I've said for a long time, repeatedly and at length (loudly too) - teaching people applications is a waste of resources. Learning to use an application by rote would be fine if the world was static, but it isn't - particularly in the field of technology.

Say you learned to use MS Office in the early 2000s. You're now ready to work in an office and can do mail merge stuff, that kind of thing?

Yeah, the user interface got a huge overhaul in 2007. Then there's the shift towards other technologies as well, of course.

Instead of teaching principals, such as how to best use a WYSIWYG environment and developing some sensible intuition in students we've ended up with a curriculum that hinders rather than helps.

Right, that's the recap over; time for some good news!

Computer science is going to be taught instead. I tried to learn to program and recall having a tiny bit of education when I was under 10. It was interesting but a bit beyond me at the time. However that's just me and as we all know, I'm a bit odd.

Putting resources towards giving students a solid grounding in computing as well as programming could well lead to great things within a decade.

If our 14/15 year olds are taught a bit of programming now in five years they could well be working on some seriously interesting stuff. Even if lots of students don't grasp all the concepts, by the numbers things are likely to get better.

Furthermore it'll be interesting to see what happens to the UK's culture. Programming is currently basically magic to most people, same with computer hardware. What will happen to the public's perception of traditionally geeky subjects?

Time will tell, I'm sure.

Sports and the Olympics

2012-01-03T17:09:00.000Z

Today's You and Yours discusses sports in the wake of the London 2012 Olympics and I found some interesting points were raised. Time to give my opinion on a matter I rarely discuss.

I'm not much of a sportsman. I went to a sporty school and did a fair bit of exercise but I never really understood sport and most certainly had very little admiration for professional athletes.

The latter is still true - I do not consider them to be of any interest. Good for them, they've made a career out of something they (hopefully) love. That does not mean I consider their opinions to be of inherent merit unless they're talking specifically about their area of expertise.

However, since leaving school I've done very little sport. Sometimes I've done a fair bit of exercise, usually through lugging large amounts of video equipment across the city, but not really much with intent.

The problem for me has been several things:

1. Interest
2. Time
3. Expense
4. Availability of facilities
5. Personal issues

So, first off...

Interest
It's taken a long time but in the last year or so I've started wanting to do some sport again. Between 2005 and 2010 or so I've had no interest in getting involved in such things.

Time
It's not that I don't have space in my schedule, it's more that mentally trying to fit in the amount of sport one needs to do to gain much benefit is, well, tricky. I do not like having fixed commitments in my routine, preferring guidelines.

Expense
With this recession money is tight. I've got enough to live relatively comfortably but it seems facilities are excessively costly. Perhaps the prices are reasonable if you're earning £40K a year but some of us most certainly are not!

Availability of Facilities
I do not enjoy football (or at least most football players that I'd have to spend time with), rugby is not my thing. I like Squash, volleyball, climbing, snowboarding, and a couple of other things probably.
I just looked up my nearest squash court and it's a fair distance and requires membership. There's a hotel with a couple of squash courts but other than that, there's nothing in central Edinburgh. Fantastic.
Snowboarding facilities exist outside of town but then expense rears its ugly head once again. Frustrating.

Personal Issues
This one is a biggy for lots of people. I'm not concerned with being bad at the game or activity, that's actually not much of a worry. I may be bad, I may not be, but I don't derive my self-esteem from that anyway so what does it matter?

However sport-based environments intimidate me. I find gyms unpleasant as I feel out of place. Not as in "look at the fatty, lol" but as in I don't know how to relate to them; they're an alien place for me that I find it difficult to get a handhold on from which to learn.

I suppose it's an element of some of my issues. In some ways I do not deal with the world in a conventional way. It's something I'm learning to deal with, of course, but it's a learning process.

Conclusion
In closing I just want to say that the Olympics are not inspiring in the least bit and never have been. I find them less entertaining than browsing paint swatches at B&Q.The reason I'm becoming more interested in sport is due to the transition from student to graduate. I run a business from home and do not wish to become horrifically out of shape due to a primarily sedentary lifestyle. It may be a while before I can get a podcast off the ground again and in the meantime I'd prefer to get a bit of definition and to earn the odd kebab!

Cream crackered, not to be confused with Harry Biscuit

2011-09-27T01:18:00.001+01:00

If you've no listened to it, go find a disc, download, or stream to enjoy Bleak Expectations. It's hilarious, ridiculous, and highly entertaining.

That's all for today for I've worked very hard over the last three days in order to get my business ready for initial orders (not the proper launch, per se, but a few test runs with friends to see what goes tits up).

Annoyingly PayPal have yet to deposit anything in my account meaning my verification has yet to occur, preventing any kind of launch. I've also applied for online banking with Lloyds TSB so we shall see what that experience ends up being like.

Amusingly I may ask my mother for technical advice in that sphere as she has years of experience with online banking for businesses. Apparently the UK banks could learn a thing or two from those of New Zealand when it comes to online stuff.

Right, time for me to sleep. More work tomorrow.

Please help me if you can, I cannot manage colour theory on my own and need to build a set of colours for the site using multiple fixed base colours, not just one. If that makes sense then perhaps you can help me.

Zzzzz...

Leaving the lodge

2011-09-23T14:33:00.001+01:00

I'm heading back up North now from Northumberland, having helped pack up the house we use there. It's an odd place, but not in a bad way, but more in the way that even with high speed internet access it still retains its feel of being a microcosm.

Whilst the rest of the world may go at one speed the house there stands in stark contrast. This is hardly a unique phenomenon but one that I felt would be diminished by access to modern amenities.

Maybe it's the bleak landscape that can be seen through every window or the way the land never feels far away. It's nice though, a welcome physical retreat from which to marshal one's thoughts and muster a renewed strength to deal with the world.

Yes, I know, I'm getting needlessly prosaic, that's too bad.

The other thing about the place is the way it has so many "ghosts" inhabiting it. Not ghosts in the traditional sense, more like in the echoes of the many, many people that have been there. Looking at the living room one can feel the huge number of people over the years who have sat around the fire after a day's hawking, picking off the odd stray louse (accursed filthy crows!) and discussing the best flights of the season.

This is particularly prominent as the last time I was there was for the barbecue, wherein a hundred or more people bustle around the place.

The house itself feels a little melancholy once everyone has gone, but more in a "I hope they'll come back soon!" way than mourning for years gone by.

It may only be properly inhabited for a few months a year but in that time a lot more living gets done than many places see in the same time.

Sleep well, house, we'll be back soon.

Staring into the gaping mawe

2011-09-22T16:49:00.001+01:00

I don't know about anyone else but when I'm talking to someone I don't know I find myself staring at their teeth whilst listening to them. Perhaps I should be making eye contact or something like that, but what I'm noticing is their teeth and lips, more than anything else.

For example, during my weekly meetings as part of my enterprise scheme thingy, my adviser always seems to wear a shade of lipstick that doesn't gel neatly with the natural shade of her lips. While she's talking I'm listening but the rest of my mind is noticing the visible line between the bright red of the makeup and the much paler shade beneath.

Similarly I notice that my own teeth, whilst healthy, are not overly neat and tend to have a more rounded quality to them which I dislike. Perhaps one day I will endure braces to have this corrected.

As I get to know someone I do this less and less, but I suppose part of me is gathering data about the expressions they make whilst talking, building their profile, as it were.

Just a little something I was thinking about.

Bob's Burgers and thoughts derived from the aforementioned starting point

2011-09-22T02:22:00.001+01:00

I really enjoy the show Bob's Burgers, as you may already know, however it's only this evening that I started considering why I'm attached to it.

I think it's the accessible nature of the show, by which I mean the lack of epicness. Episodes do not generally involve events which require a huge world to exist within. Now don't get me wrong, I love a richly populated and well developed world/universe for a book/game/film/TV show/bacon sandwich but the world of Bob's Burgers has this small-town feel to it.

Instead of taking the cast into vastly important exploits or relying on improbable deus ex machina it's mostly just feasible stuff. There's something deeply comforting about a show that doesn't leave me feeling "Oh wow, I wish things like that could happen in my life". Instead the situations presented are twisted into hilarity by wit, delivery, and the interplay of personalities.

The Simpsons used to feel more like that to me but in recent years it feels like it's getting more outlandish and not in a good way. I still enjoy the series but in a very different way.

In other news, I'm really enjoying Sons of Anarchy season 4 and Breaking Bad is quite enjoyable too.

Perhaps it seems silly that I watch many TV shows rather than living, but as it stands at the moment I'm in transition, creating a new status quo in which I operate my business. Once that's done I should be in a position to start putting together the Wooden Dice podcast, doing some work on Wooden Dice itself, learning to dance, geocaching, and the many other things I enjoy doing.

Hopefully I'll eventually have time to get back to learning to knit and play the guitar too. It may seem these things are forgotten but they really aren't, I just need to focus on some other more pressing business first.

I must say my abilities at finishing projects I start are vastly improved. There's still a way to go, but it's night and day compared with how I used to be. My Gorkamorka projects have helped massively and it's carrying over nicely into my approach to my business. My work ethic isn't as good as it was when I was 14, but it's closer to it than when I was 22, which is a relief and really helps my self-esteem.

I may have rambled but that's because this keyboard makes it so much easier to write comfortably and get my thoughts flowing.

At last, a bluetooth keyboard!

2011-09-20T18:39:00.001+01:00

I think I've finally managed to get something rather awesome working. A virtually full-size wireless keyboard for my iPhone!

It's a little clunky it seems to integrate with iOS natively after a few initial issues. The hinge could also use some love but it was significantly cheaper than the keyboards I've seen for sale online, I am simply not willing to pay forty quid for a keyboard. I can't seem to get the pound sign working, alas, even using Alt Gr, all I get is π, but I think I can live with that!

The next fun bluetooth-based project for my iPhone is to try to get my Pogo printer working with it. Celeste now exists to enable OBEX bluetooth file transfers but it seems unhappy with iOS 4.1, although I've read of a few people getting it working. Personally I've had no luck.

Bizarrely it doesn't show up in Windows, but I know my bluetooth dongle works as I was able to use this keyboard under Windows. I can print pics under Linux, of course, but it's rather infuriating, I must say!

Earlier I referred to the bluetooth file transfer project as "fun". What I meant was complex, frustrating, and in no way fun whatsoever.

This should make for some interesting blog posts though as I can now comfortably type on the move in a way I was unable to before. Nifty, eh?

One last complaint though - my question mark key is inexplicably on the other side of my right shift key. Yeah, I've got no idea why either.

Nicholas Parsons and permanence

2011-09-16T15:01:00.001+01:00

I was listening to Just A Minute today and had a good laugh at one of the panellist’s attempts at the subject “Skinny dipping”. Later I wanted to send the quote to a friend of mine and it occurred to me that not only would I have to transcribe it myself but more so that if I didn’t, no one else would.

What I mean by that is if I don’t write it down now it will not be available in text form in future. Yes, that probably sounds very mundane but it’s more interesting due to the mindset surrounding it.

Once I became an adult the world I lived in was highly connected and became more so over time. These days if there’s something that makes me chuckle I can do a quick search and find the quote written down on any number of websites making sharing it very easy. That’s the world I’ve become accustomed to and as an adult, it’s the only world I know.

Nicholas Parsons, chairman of Just A Minute has been on every episode since the show’s beginnings in 1967. He’s 87 and is still doing a remarkable job. He and the panellists did not grow up in the world I did, their words do not have the permanence I’ve come to associate with multimedia encountered through the internet.

A television show usually has subtitles available somewhere, but radio?

It’s the concept of tangibility and permanence that I found so interesting. Our daily conversations are not generally recorded or transcribed, but it is common for the media we consume to be permanent. It used to be that if one missed a television show one could wait for it to be repeated, or in later years purchase it (should it be released) on a home media format. With the advent of digital media pretty much anything can be recorded and distributed online with ease.

I’m struggling to couch this concept in text, for which I apologise. A live radio show may well be recorded, but given that it is significantly more difficult to skim through an audio-only medium (it is, trust me) there’s more freedom in the format today. The audience and performers may remember it but beyond that it floats free from anchors to history.

You there! Reword this to make more sense.

Referral traffic, eh?

2011-08-30T23:06:00.001+01:00

How interesting. According to Google Analytics my personal blog is getting some minor referral traffic from yppp.org. If you don’t know what that is, don’t ask me, I really cannot explain. I can remember it being a thing, of some description, back in the days of YourPSP.

I also recall them deciding they would be Wooden Dice’s rivals, or something?

Either way, I would imagine their forum is probably much more active these days than Wooden Dice’s, but I can’t check as one must register to even view their site and I really can’t be bothered.

The reason I say “rivals” with both uncertainty and a little disdain is simple. Wooden Dice was founded in February 2005, several years before the YourPSP community even launched. Furthermore, it was not created to be related to any given gaming community. I’m not quite sure why the YPPP fellows feel our two groups are related but it’s probably something to do with me personally, rather than the WD community.

Regardless, it’s probably just a thread of them laughing at me over something or other, it’s hard to say. Haters gonna hate and so forth, I’m still me and am enjoying it.

In terms of what the plan for Wooden Dice at this juncture is, I’ll explain a little. I intend on attempting to transition the forum to phpBB via SMF, if I can get IPB to behave on my test bed server. The idea being to move to software we can keep up to date for free and with support for extensibility.

Once that’s done I plan on implementing something like Facebook Connect and Twitter’s equivalent to make it significantly more easy to register on the site. With any luck the new software will prevent continued issues with spambots.

Now, that said, the cynical amongst us would ask “Why?” and I’ll put it simply – WD’s members have lives and it’s currently a bit of a pain in the arse to use the site and even harder to invite new people (an admin has to authorise their account personally!).

Well I’m working on putting together a new video podcast, a spiritual successor to Napier Subculture, amongst other things. I would like to use the forum as the community for it. I will also be looking to recruit some new blood from my alma mater to assist with the show.

That’s the most obvious public-facing stuff that’s happening at WD at the moment, but not the only thing. I can’t exactly discuss it in precise terms on here but there’s stuff going on under the surface and WD is far from dead. Hello, YPPP.

Gorkamorka and the spirit in which it should be played.

2011-07-29T23:57:00.001+01:00

I tend to keep an eye out for people discussing Gorkamorka online. I actually have a search alert setup with Google so when new content appears I get emailed as soon as it’s indexed.

As a result I’ve seen various people over the last few years sorting out their own campaigns and house ruling things. Sometimes I approve, but mostly it confuses me. The rules for GoMo aren’t that complicated, mostly, and the stuff that gets house ruled most often seems to be the stuff that is easiest!

A prime example and one that annoys me every time I see it is vehicle capacities. If you didn’t know Gorkamorka uses WYSIWYG vehicle capacities, meaning your vehicle needs to physically accommodate your models.

To put in in terms of Dr. Cox from Scrubs (R.I.P.):

Dr. Cox

Did you actually just page me to find out how much Tylenol to give to Mrs. Lensner?

JD

I was worried it could exacerbate the patient's…

Dr. Cox

It’s regular strength Tylenol. Here's what you do: get her to open her mouth, take a handful and throw it at her. Whatever sticks - that's the correct dosage!

Place the warriors on the vehicle. However many fit – THAT’S THE CAPACITY.

Instead I see people trying to put fixed numbers on it to “make it fair” or “for balance”.

No.

In Gorkamorka a bigger vehicle holds more warriors. It also is harder to manoeuvre, much more likely to clip things, and is far easier to board. There’s the disadvantages. Deal with it.

This is also what I think of as the “Don’t play with douchebags” rule. If you really want to win at GoMo then grab a load of Ork boyz and give them choppas. Spam the enemy and you will, statistically, win. There’s no real fun in that for anyone else though and, let’s be honest, it’s not exactly an exciting tactic.

If people want to have ridiculously huge vehicles and ruin the game, stop playing with them. They’re just going to make life miserable for you throughout the campaign in all likelihood. Play in the spirit of the game and encourage others to do the same – fun will follow.

Lastly, don’t get me started on people trying to remove flesh wounds and “Down” from the game. This isn’t 40K, stop it.

Grrr…

Dealing with the Digital Economy Act

2011-06-20T19:47:00.001+01:00

Remember the Digital Economy Act?

Yeah, that bit of dodgy legislation that the Labour government forced through during the wash-up period of the last parliament. The one which only 16 MPs bothered to show up for the reading?

Yeah, that one.

Well there’s an Early Day Motion (1913) in the works to deal with some of its more glaring issues.

That this House welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur on Free Expression, Frank de la Rue, to the Human Rights Council of United Nations; notes that he is `alarmed' by the Digital Economy Act 2010 and other three strikes disconnection laws and that he considers them to be a violation of freedom of expression; further notes the report's recommendation to repeal laws permitting disconnection of users from the internet; further notes that La Rue emphasises that web censorship should never be delegated to private entities, and that corporations should only act to block and censor with the authority of a judicial process; and calls on appropriate Parliamentary Select Committees and the Government to re-examine new website blocking proposals from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as part of the Home Office's Prevent strategy, and in sections 3 to 18 of the Digital Economy Act 2011 in the light of this report.

I’ve written to my MP, Alistair Darling, but given his position within the last government I hold little hope that it’ll do any good.

If you’d like a convenient way to do the same head over here – The Pirate Party are doing their best to make this happen.

Monetising content

2011-03-01T02:58:00.001Z

This is a subject that has been bouncing around my head for some time and I doubt I am alone in that.

I love releasing content for free, but I also like to have secure revenue streams to finance future projects, living expenses, and to throw on the pile.

At the moment I'm not really producing anything with mass appeal, but even if I was in these lean times there's not exactly lots of capital kicking around. Audio content, for example, is tricky as it requires both a delivery vector and some way to monetise that; be it through web site ads or audio ads.

Video content isn't quite as difficult but is still tricky. It takes much more time and is significantly harder to get looking professional, for not that much greater return on investment.

In general this sort of thing is stuck in my mind as I would really, really like to avoid a soul crushing desk job. I have other plans to as many of you know but the initial step is to secure funding.

This stuff always starts bugging me when I absolutely must sleep. Argh!

It's not about money... it's about sending a message.

2011-02-05T04:35:00.001Z

I recently had an argument online with someone where I found both my business experience and my university knowledge useful.

This semester I have a mandatory module on sustainability and corporate social responsibility in which more progressive business models are discussed. Certainly plenty of businesses exist that are based on the view postulated by Milton Friedman in 1970 (that businesses have no responsibility except to maximise profits) but this is no longer true of all companies. Sure, if you’re a publicly traded company chances are that’s going to be the case as you’ve got shareholders to answer to and quarterly reports to issue to them showing your short term profits, but if you’re a privately owned company that isn’t necessarily the case.

The argument fell into two levels, the first being that all business schools teach profit maximisation, and the second being that the only kind of business that exists for anything other than to maximise profits is a non-profit organisation.

Well, given that my business school has a mandatory module stressing that Friedman is full of shit, I’d say the first one was rather categorically refuted. I very much doubt my counterpart in the argument agrees with me, but given that he insulted me and was unwilling to accept this basic fact I think I shall disregard his feelings on the matter.

As for the second issue, that is also not the case. I know several businesses that were not founded on the principle of maximising profits. Making enough money to thrive and continue to exist, certainly, but it wasn’t about getting as wealthy as possible. I don’t name examples because there’s the whole privacy thing. It’s not my place to divulge the names and purposes behind these businesses, but I know for a fact they exist.

Similarly, I’ve considered business plans in the past that were created in order to ensure sufficient cash-flow to finance things I enjoy doing. For example I would love to be able to film and present video podcast for a living, at least for a while. I’d establish a business to do it and wish to make some profit, but the goal wouldn’t be how to get the most profit long term or short term. The fact that such a business could exist seems to be beyond the imagination of people fixated on Friedman’s view.

The world is changing just as it always has been and over time businesses and the theories behind them grow more complex. Perhaps in a hundred years they’ll be deserving of true academia. Maybe. In the meantime they seem to be mainly a set of different basic ideas and ideals tarted up with obfuscating language and the odd graph.

So, to those of you who feel the need to insult me, patronise me, and put words in my mouth when I disagree with you, bear in mind I am no fool and would not disagree with you sincerely if I didn’t have good reason to.

But you know, just for kicks, you know how companies are only ever interested in profit and that is their motive behind everything?

How do you think things like this get done?

Pro-tip: A certain company, led by a certain person, got together a load of other like minded people worldwide to do something good. Said company are already at the top, they do not stand to gain anything substantial and are not directly attributed to this work, but if they had been geared just for profit this would never have happened.

Friedman’s work is from 1970, at the moment it’s 2011.

If things hadn’t changed at all in over forty years wouldn’t you be worried?

Doom Fortress Syndrome

2011-01-31T00:00:00.001Z

When working on new stuff for Gorkamorka I always try to avoid what I think of as “Doom Fortress Syndrome” – creating something so ridiculously overpowered that fielding it isn’t even remotely possible.

An artist’s impression of a “Doom Fortress”

Generally we keep this sort of thing in check during our idea jams although a bit of craziness is of course welcome but most of that stuff ends up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In order to maintain the balance we try our best to follow the principles mentioned on the last page of Da Uvver Book (“Gorkamorka Designer’s Notes”). Shooting is not supposed to be particularly deadly, for example, so we try not to introduce anything that will mean that a faction can dominate the board. When we wrote the rules for the Dust Rat Long Rifle we made it expensive enough that a mob wishing to field several of them would end up forgoing much more versatile kit due to the sheer expense of the weapon, balancing its strength.

This is pretty much the reason why under normal circumstances you’ll not find us putting armour values over 10 on things – barely anything can penetrate vehicles that tough.

For this reason you won’t find us encouraging you to field battlewagons, tanks, or mega tanks for that matter. They look awesome, but the balance issues they raise risk the game turning into an arms race. Essentially it’s about trying to ensure an even playing field – no one faction should even be the obvious best choice.

It always annoys me when people say “Which side/character is best?!” for a videogame. The more sensible ones mean “Which do you think would suit someone who hasn’t played this before?” but a large number seem to be under the impression that there is one character or faction that is superior to all the others. In a well balanced game that kind of question should be gibberish!

The arms race I mentioned would mean that mobs that aren’t able to easily field powerful weapons would end up on the losing end much of the time. Sure, Orks can get hold of Rokkit launchers to try to crack the armour on a tough target, but what about Rebel Grots?

It’s a similar principle behind my opposition to Killa Kans in Gorkamorka – as a scenario component they’re fine, but as a regular mob member a Killa Kan causes problems. Gorkamorka is unique amongst the Games Workshop skirmish games (as far as I know) in that it has a mechanic known as “Da Rollin’ Road” (see page 96 of Da Uvver Book). This little set of rules means that one can have chases, races, and so on, which I think is rather awesome. Unfortunately if you cannot thrust then you are at a bit of a disadvantage – and walkers aren’t exactly known for their speed.

This is pretty much the only problem I see with the Snorta rules, but even then they can run like the Muties can which tends to help things.

To conclude I’ll say this – the ethos of a game is vitally important when crafting new rules. Just because you can add it doesn’t mean it’ll fit with how the game was intended to be played. Sometimes you’ve just got to say “well that’s pretty damn cool, but I just don’t think it’ll work in practice”. You don’t have to say it, actually, but it’s a principle I encourage you to adopt.

HTML5 and CSS3

2010-12-10T21:57:00.001Z

I’m interested in getting into CSS3 and HTML5 at the moment, a notion inspired by seeing pages like this one. At the time of writing it says “Dive Into HTML5” in a non-standard font, one I’m fairly sure I don’t have installed and I find this enthralling.

I don’t wish to create pages covered in multiple fonts, animated GIFs and assorted flash nonsense, but I really like the idea of creating a page using some sort of font to give a distinct style. At the moment I could do that by creating images using said fonts, but that’s costly both in time and bandwidth. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to have a page that was both beautiful and responsive?

From the little I’ve read about HTML5’s syntax improvements the markup of it makes much more sense, and looks like it has been designed for web pages, rather than linked documents. There’s a Nav tag, for example, which exists to define an area for navigating the page/site; better late than never, I suppose!

CSS3 is another area that I’d like to get good at, as my current CSS skills are relatively primitive. Sure, I can set a font size, but I’m not confident writing anything from scratch, a problem which I’d like to rectify.

I’m trying to find a UK seller of HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith, as I’ve heard good things about it. I’m not really looking for a comprehensive manual – I’m no developer – but something that gives me the gist of the new stuff and how to use it for basic web pages. I’m not going to be coding a CMS or anything, but being able to build something that I wouldn’t be ashamed to show people would be about right.

National debt? Financial liquidity is for losers, says the Unions.

2010-09-15T19:48:00.001+01:00

After hearing this news, I had the following to say:

The 1980s, a cultural dark age.

2010-08-22T19:30:00.001+01:00

I see it in clothes shops, I read about it in magazines, and I sometimes see it for myself - people seem to have been conned into liking things from the 1980s.

Speaking as a thing from the '80s (born in, not experienced) I feel this should be considered shameful. The fashion was dreadful, the culture corny, and then there's the way it embraced greed...

A bit of greed is good, as long as we're no talking Gordon Gecko. By that I mainly mean entrepreneurship, not just a desire for money and possessions - the desire for freedom, not the desire to pour ever increasing amounts into the bottomless pit of consumerism.

Then there's all the negativity towards Margaret Thatcher, which I may have written about before (at the moment it slips my mind, which is a little ironic in a bad taste kind of way...). I don't know which of her policies caused the most hatred, but I certainly have respect for such strong leadership. I'm actually quite satisfied with the current UK government at the moment, as it happens.

I don't have any real big party affiliation - I dislike the Tories, hate Labour, and feel relatively indifferent towards the Lib Dems (so they got my vote). Getting a Conservative government tempered by the Lib Dems seems to be quite a good arrangement, preventing excesses by both sides.

I also hear that Labour's finances are in quite a sorry state (£20m in the red according to John Prescott) which makes me very happy. The damage they've done to British agriculture is disgraceful and have soured me from ever voting for New Labour. If a new generation of Labour came along and wasn't godsawful I would at least consider them, but not New Labour.

It seems the Australians are looking at a coalition government themselves, perhaps it'll be a new trend, but that's probably too much to hope for.

I was talking about the 80s, wasn't I?

Architecture, video games, culture, at least in Britain, oh yes, what about them? All worthless, that's what!
The early nineties weren't much better I will admit, but it feels like things are slowl improving, which is of course pleasant.

Perhaps I should consider a career in politics after university.

Diaspora is progressing

2010-07-02T15:14:00.001+01:00

This morning I was greeted by a tweet from Diaspora with an update of how the work on their product has been going over the past month. In May they secured enough funding to get started and since then they’ve been working feverishly to get things up and running.

What is Diaspora? (“Dee-aspo-rah”)

From what I have read and understood it is a decentralised social network, based on federated servers, kinda like running your own email server or Wave server.

What this means is that I could run a Diaspora “seed” on my hosting server, or my home server, and create a social network, which would happily link up and communicate with any other Diaspora seeds.

Why would I want to do this?

As it would be running on my server, the data is in my hands, not the hands of some random corporation or multinational of dubious moral credentials. There’s probably other reasons too, but that’s the reason I can see being the most important.

Other things that I like about Diaspora..

Standards compliance
Open source
Encryption as part of the original design
Plugin support

Here’s a video they released recently:

Diaspora Message Propagation (pre-alpha!).

So, there you have it I guess. There’s not much more to say for now, but this looks like an interesting technology to me. I don’t like Facebook so a competitor that is significantly more technically competent appeals to me.

Why is that silly ork game so important to you, Ben?

2010-06-27T22:14:00.000+01:00

I was asked recently why I put so much effort into Gorkamorka and our ongoing project to create an expansion pack for it, something which I thought might be worth posting on here.

To explain I have to take you on a journey through a few periods of my personal history, explaining a few things along the way. If you’re not interested, turn back now, you have been warned.

Gorkamorka was my first tabletop game, having discovered it shortly before breaking my left arm in 1998. I was faced with a Summer mostly on my own with my arm in a cast. Whilst this was a little awkward, it wasn’t too devastating. In fact I barely remember it because of the great enjoyment I got out of Gorkamorka, having been given the boxed set. One thing that did upset the young me was what I was told when I visited Games Workshop, having constructed my mob; that I was not allowed to play the game in store.

Seeing as this was my first game, I was devastated, or at least quite miffed. Why would they sell it and have a whole shelf dedicated to products one was not allowed to use in their store? I don’t remember what they might have told me then, but I think a small part of me died that day. Yes, that’s absurdly melodramatic, but back then I was only 11 and considerably more sensitive than I am now.

It was that Autumn that I started a new school, my first and only boarding school, where I was thrown into an environment where we were expected to grow up quickly. Gone was the playground of the previous school, but in its place we had sport by the afternoon full. However, as I had only just had my cast removed, I was “off games” for the first half of the term, giving me lots of time on my own, which I spent working on my miniatures, one of the only bits of escapism I had in an otherwise relatively hostile environment, at least compared to my previous schools.

Despite this and a few friends interested in the hobby, I never got to properly play Gorkamorka, something which was always a source of disappointment for me. A year later I got to play Necromunda, which was great, but I had to put my desire to play Gorkamorka on hold indefinitely. That was how things were for over ten years, during which time I got into Warhammer 40,000 (3rd Edition) and Mordheim, eventually shelving my models having been mistreated by Games Workshop for the umpteenth time and deciding that enough was enough.

Then, in 2009, now firmly established in Edinburgh, I decided to see whether there were enough people in the local area to play a tabletop skirmish game with. Initially I planned to play Mordheim and took the time to finish painting my Mordheim warbands (on my to-do list since the year 2000..) and spent a little while designing and building some portable Mordheim terrain. What I discovered doing this was that not only did I still have the skills I used to have, but that I was actually significantly better at building and painting than I was when I was younger. I also found that I had much more patience with painting, making it far more tolerable, often enjoyable (when I was younger I would paint to have them painted, although not purely for functionality, I had standards).

With this knowledge I decided to try to arrange a Gorkamorka campaign amongst friends and to try out a rebel grot mob. Back in the day there were metal grots, of which I had a few, but now there were excellent, and more importantly cheap, plastic gretchin for sale. A couple of packs from somewhere like Wayland Games and my old bitz box resulted in a Rebel Grot Mob with a Big Lugga and two Cuttas.

Whilst they didn’t do too well in the tester game or two they played in, they did rekindle the hope that I might at last get to play in a Gorkamorka campaign. Fast forward a year and I find myself in a campaign with four other players and nearly twice as many mobs. It may seem silly, but this makes me incredibly happy. It may have taken over a decade, but I’m finally getting to play a game I fell in love with as a child. Every minute I spend playing, painting, writing, planning, or talking about it with other enthusiastic players makes my heart soar.

Eventually I imagine I’ll be ready to put the game to rest for another few years, at last sated, but for now at least I’m going strong. Hopefully this can adequately explain my love of Gorkamorka and all its silliness.

Is it as good as I hoped it would be?

To be honest, I can’t say I remember how I hoped it would be, all those years ago. What I can say is that it’s far better than my current self could have hoped it would be, something which makes me incredibly grateful to the friends that make it possible for me to play it.

Keeping the place tidy

2010-04-21T04:12:00.001+01:00

Recently Shot Of Jaq released an episode in which data storage and data destruction were discussed, which got me thinking.

I've seen search systems like Beagle, Spotlight, and Google Desktop Search but none of them quite satisfy what I'm looking for. You probably aren't like me and probably don't have files collected over the best part of ten years, so perhaps my solution is overly complicated. However, if you are untidy, but wish to be tidier, this might be of use.

I would like to have a desktop AI which learns my behaviour. It would require a whole host of abilities to work properly but I think we're nearing the stage where it's feasible. It would need to learn to recognise a user's preferred filing system, if one exists (I file my photos by quarter, Q1 2010, Q2, etc..).

It would also need to have simple user input - preferably through either a chat prompt or spoken words. We have the technology to build reasonable, learning chat bots after all, and it would need to be able to ask the user questions about the data.

That said, when first running it would need to observe for a week or two before acting, simply to give the user time to demonstrate things to it, importantly, when to interject with questions. I'd hate for it to be one more nagging program for the user to deal with!

Perhaps Wednesday afternoons are usually quiet for a couple of hours, a fact that could be established by monitoring user behaviour.

There are a whole load of issues relating to the concept but in general I think the idea has merit and should be explored.

I ain't dead.

2010-04-07T04:15:00.001+01:00

I've been monitoring the stats for the various websites I maintain and it occurs to me that even though this is the first time I've updated my personal blog since November, I'm still getting ~120 hits per month.

Sure, it's not a huge amount, but it is consistent.

There's several things I could blog about but it could be a while before I do so. This blog is of course not dead, after all, I've had it for quite some time and there are always times when silence descends.

My life hasn't suddenly become boring, quite the opposite.

Gorkamorka and musings on web-use.

2009-11-13T06:26:00.001Z

One thing I'd like to do, eventually, is to create a proper Gorkamorka web page. A decent one with a sensible layout, up-to-date content (or timeless) and decent explanation of the history of the game.

There's not enough going on with the game to need frequent updates so it'd be more of a collation of data that's already out there.

That said, I can't really see it happening. I simply don't spend as much time online as I used to. Sure, I use tech a lot, but these days it doesn't feel like there's as much going on. Maybe I just feel a little alienated. Facebook feels empty, Twitter quiet and that's about it.

Similarly I don't spend as much time on forums as I used to. Wooden Dice is obviously still supported and I post in bursts but many of the other posters have wandered off. This is of course what happens when people have lives and do interesting things - we don't have the time to just idle online.

It's both sad and good. I've no intention of taking down Wooden Dice, why would I?
I'm easily stubborn enough to keep it going and who knows, maybe one day we'll have a revival. We're having the first Wooden Dice meetup this month, after all!

I have heard mention from the "YourPSP Pirate Party" that they consider WD to be an off-shoot of YourPSP, like themselves. So, guys, if you read this - Wooden Dice has never been an off-shoot of anything. Especially considering WD was founded at the end of February, 2005!

Goodnight.

‘Ere we go! ‘Ere we go! ‘Ere we go!

2009-10-26T01:04:00.001Z

In between working on my Cthulhu costume, I managed to fit in a game of Gorkamorka today.

As you may be aware, Nazgrab’s Yella Deff were the laughing stock of Mektown, having a total of zero victories to their name. Despite a rescue attempt, one of their lads was still in the hands of a rapidly expanding Morker mob called Da N00bz.

There was a mob rating difference of ~40, making the mob underdogs by quite a considerable margin, but no boyz left behind, not in Da Yella Deff!

Still, in true over-compensating tradition, Nazgrab rallied his boys, including their new slaver, Grimfang, and his grot, Snik, to make another go of it.

Despite the risk of taking in their wheels, their harpoon-packing war trukk, Grin, Nazgrab thought it best to get in fast, getting him to the fort in no time, well before any of Da Noobz could get back.

The only one left to guard the captive was Milty, an ork with little interest in shootas, preferring the weight of his trusty choppa. Krukzog put him down with a single harpoon bolt, although Milty was on his feet in good time to see the rest of his mates roll up:

Hearing the roar of engines in the distance, Zagwazza had brought the trukk ‘round the back, ready for a quick exit once the lads had clambered over the walls. Nazgrab and the rest of the mob had meanwhile been getting into the fort over the wall and doing their best to cut Ardkop free, just in time to see Da N00bz arrive in force:

Nazgrab was, unsurprisingly, bricking it, looking down the barrel of at least five weapons, let alone enough cutlery to cut him and his lads into very small pieces!

A salvo of shots rang out, all aimed at the poor nob, but much to his amazement, only a single shot found its mark, clipping his shoulder. (Sid later claimed it was a round from his shoota that did the damage, earning him a free round at the brew house)

Get up yez, yer blind zoggaz!
-Nazgrab

Not too happy about being used as a distraction, Nazgrab turned around to see that Thogskin had managed to get Ardkop out of his shackles.

Seeing the look on Grimfang’s face and knowing he had to make a call on whether they stayed on to fight or hightailed it like cowardly grots, Nazgrab yelled the command:

Leggit, lads!!
-Nazgrab

A mad dash for the wall ensued and all but Snik made it over. Pushed to the back of the group, the grot was suddenly feeling very lonely on top of the wall, surrounded by snarling orks.

With similar freakish fortune, most of the shots missed their mark, although he did hit the deck when a shot clipped him in the leg, giving him a moment to consider how much nicer his shoota was than the puny slugga Horace was allowed to wield. Snik considered that whilst things were looking bad, at least his mob looked after their own.

Managing to sling himself over the wall, Snik rejoined the mob, much to his relief, even if Grimfang wasn’t looking too pleased about the wait. Better the devil you know, eh?

With an ascending whoosh of gas turbines firing up, the lads were away, yelling insults and cheering. Finally, a big one up for the good guys!

Da Viktorz

Updates across the board

2009-10-23T02:02:00.001+01:00

So, here's an entry. It's been a while and may be a while until the next one. Enjoy this one whilst it lasts.

I've been very busy over the last few months although things are going rather well. I'm still not happy, which is a shame but is partly due to my own weakness and compassion.

On the academic side I'm not doing too badly. I'm up to date on coursework and have secured SAAS funding, which is awesome. No real complaints at the moment, to be honest. I should probably work a little harder, but my last essays weren't overly slapdash.

Societally speaking, things are going quite well too. Some set backs have hit us, many due to Adobe Premiere's crippling rendering issues. Some feedback I received recently irritated me, although I'm doing my best to only respond negatively in words, responding positively in actions. I reserve the right to bitch and moan, after all.

This week's episode has some real highlights and our crews' abilties are improving my leaps and bounds, vastly improving our capabilities.

Our connections are improving too and I'm hoping we'll secure an interview with Jonathan Coulton on the 8th of November, although I'm not certain that'll work out yet. We've also spoken to various pro-skaters and got in free to pretty much everything.

I'm hoping that I can secure another Google Wave invite for Chris in order to push the NapierTV documentation project forward. Yes, I have Google Wave (and have had since a few days after the public beta opened, thanks to Alan Bell) - flamekebab@googlewave.com, I think.

On the wargame front I've got mixed news. My ork mob, the appropriately named "Nazgrab's Yella Deff", are all painted and ready for their next rumble (which they'll probably lose, the cowardly gits). I've also had some interest in a Mordheim campaign, but currently I'm not ready to run one. I hope to soon have time to play more Gorkamorka, other stuff permitting.

Costume-wise things are going well. My Cthulhu mask is starting to look excellent and I hope to make significant progress tomorrow. Photos soon!

Whilst the current situation is pleasant in many respects, I'm still not happy. I fear I may need to be stronger and stop this before it gets too far. This is, after all what I forsaw and ultimately did not want.

Damn you, the Skinny.

2009-09-22T02:59:00.001+01:00

I feel like I'm having a bit of a personal crisis. I've got enough to keep me busy but I'm just feeling a little, well, at a loose end.

Essentially, I blame the Skinny. Their student survival guide made me focus a little more long-term than I feel like thinking. It's not that there's anything bad coming up, or anything to be depressed about, I just feel a little off. It feels both saddening and ridiculous!

I'm hoping that the coming week and academia will make me feel a bit better. I guess I just wanted to complain a bit and don't feel like dedicating too much time to feeling lousy.

In terms of what's going on in my life, things are great. The society is well on track and my modules seem pretty good. I think I just want to find enough time to party hard so I don't feel like I'm missing out on stuff.

I'm also hopeful that upcoming society events will buck my spirits and the politics of further growth and advancement will reignite my spirit.

Flyers and other promo tat

2009-09-12T18:30:00.001+01:00

In the aftermath of Freshers’ Week I’ve been sorting through some of the tat that was given out at the Freshers’ Fayre. NapierTV gave out some stickers, badges and flyers, but mostly we pitched. Other stall-holders were a little more, erm, lame?

Lots of the nightclubs gave out flyers. Lots and lots of flyers. Each more garish than the next, covered in more text than anyone would ever read. Meaningless membership cards were everywhere. What’s the point in having a membership card or guestlist that is open to everyone? If you’re trying to market yourself using a degree of exclusivity it seems rather redundant to me.

It’s the flyers mostly. I’m a compulsive reader, like my father, and struggle to not read text put in front of me. These flyers made even me turn away. TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ. If these clubs are trying to appeal to students, why are their flyers walls of text with as little whitespace as possible? Why are some of them spelt wrong? How come some have clearly not even been designed for print?!

I’d post photos of some of them, but to be frank, I’ve binned the lot.

Give out memorable stuff, ladies and gentlemen. It doesn’t need to be expensive, just interesting. Napier’s Christian Union give out tins of baked beans with customised labels, for example. I’m not a fan of the CU (I’m relatively indifferent), but I admire their free tat.

Our flyers tried to be quite subdued. One side contained only a photo and a URL:

The back had some carefully worded text. Perhaps it could have been worded better, we always want to do better, but it certainly wasn’t bad.

These clubs might instead want to go for banners with some of the text they wish to give out and flyers with their name and a map. Perhaps include the price and the opening times. That is ENOUGH. Giving more is just unnecessary at the Freshers’ Fair. Information overload and short attention spans do not mix well.

That is all.

Hoist the Jolly Roger! NapierTV off the port bow!

2009-09-08T17:21:00.001+01:00

It’s been sometime since I updated last. The simple explanation is that I’ve been busy.

Not just a little busy, but very busy.

As you may know, it’s currently Freshers’ Week here at Edinburgh Napier, almost a month earlier than last year. What this has meant is frantic activity to get the society ready for prime time. Websites set up, hashtags established, publicity photos taken, flyers and promotional tat ordered, hoodies ordered and a LOT of budgeting.

On the plus side, we’ve never been in such a good position before. We know what we’re doing, we have a basis of experience, we’ve got good connections, a strong exec and big plans.

We’ve had big plans since our inception, but this time they are laid out on the calendar and should hopefully come to fruition. We’ve certainly laid the groundwork.

Right now we’re preparing to head out for the Freshers Pub Crawl 2009, with a “high seas” theme. Pirate costumes at the ready!

This is the next stage, meeting the students and trying to win them over. So far Chris and some of the team have been to one of the events and interviewed Sandi Thom, which by all accounts went very well. The NapierTV book now contains her signature and “big love!”. How about that?

Anyway, IT BEGINS!

You can have whatever you like.

2009-08-23T20:15:00.001+01:00

Whilst waiting for footage to transcode for editing, I’ve been watching a few videos on YouTube. Comments should possibly just be disabled on that site – the box says “Comment on this video” not “Prove you’re an idiot”.

In my travels I encountered the video for a T.I. song. Apparently he’s a hiphop artist of some kind. I don’t know if he’s currently popular and but apparently he’s currently serving a year behind bars. Sounds like he’s ticked most of the boxes so far for a successful rap career.

I don’t know whether I actually like the video or not, which to me at least is far more interesting. It portrays the mythical hiphop lifestyle with T.I. acting as the “sugar daddy” to the anonymous female protagonist, up to a point.

I don’t know if this is what many women want, although it doesn’t seem unbelievable sometimes. Whilst I would like vast wealth, I doubt it would make me much happier. Perhaps a little, but really what I think the desire is for glamour. Such an interesting human quirk – fame, glamour and status.

It also amuses me that the amount of money and possessions seen in the video are probably significantly more than T.I. actually owns. I may, of course, be wrong. Perhaps it’s simply that the people I’ve met who have that level of wealth rarely feel the need to splash it around or buy doodads and bling.

The other concept that interests me is the freedom the lyrics refer to. “You can have whatever you like” and “You can go wherever you like”. It’s kinda interesting that it seems to be money that is considered the hindrance to freedom. Sure, without any money it’s problematic, but one doesn’t require fictional amounts of money, unless of course what one wants is lots of money.

It makes me wonder – how often do people actually stop to consider why money is so important to them?

You and your kind, all you care about is money.

Roolaz Ov Da Skid

2009-08-23T01:23:00.001+01:00

Well, the first game of my first Gorkamorka campaign has just finished.

The result?

A resounding lose on my part.
For the first few turns there was a lot of “erm..” and “I think that’s how the rules work here..”.

I also managed to insult Chris’ father before play had even begun. Nice going, Ben.

That said, once I got the rules straight things worked out quite well. My lads careened around the board in their two vehicles, firing harpoons and shootas at Da Noobz and their boys. Dawn’s poor lad, Jeff, was not only mocked for his name, but also repeatedly pummelled by my buggy, before being clubbed out of consciousness by my spanner.

Things started to go wrong towards the end when Dawn’s lads piled onto my buggy and beat them into a smooth, green mash. A few knackered vehicles later and my lads losing their nerve and scarpering and it was stats o’clock. Oh and two of my guys were captured by Da Noobz.

All in all, it went well. A bit of terrain would have helped and I’m going to need to craft some as soon as I can. Hopefully we can get a few more games going and then I shall be bringing in my grots. FOR FREEEEEDUM!!

Thoughtful and political scribblings

2009-08-18T04:03:00.001+01:00

Many years ago I wrote a document entitled “A Note On Sleeves” and then posted it on Wooden Dice’s wiki. Time, hosting moves and server hard disk crashes have claimed it now, although I did manage to find a copy over on Archive.org. Amusingly, as it was on our wiki, the oldest version was vandalised (I’d wager it was Joyno, the cheeky git) and says:

ben fox is a litle bit gay
he has a willy like a bannana

lol.

Admittedly I’ve seen some pretty large bananas over the years so perhaps I should take the second bit as a compliment.

Back onto the more serious point, the document was about suggestions about maintaining mental and physical form, written from a perspective derived from Altered Carbon (a rather interesting trilogy of books in which a body is referred to as a sleeve, acting as a semi-permanent vessel for a digitised consciousness).

Reading through, it’s still relatively accurate and true to what I believe, even to this day. I cringed when I first opened it, mainly on general principles, but when I started reading I found that it wasn’t written in a style that is that different from how I write now. A little more detached and clinical, perhaps, but relevant nonetheless.

I’m considering posting the contents of the document here, but not tonight. I’m sure anyone with a modicum of technical expertise will be able to find a copy of it.

A healthy sleeve will be act as an excellent fall-back mechanism, catching you when your mind is struggling to hold together. If you come to realise it you will marvel at how magnificently it works, like a well-oiled machine it will carry out whatever you ask of it and more.

(Formatted roughly in the way it used to look on the WD wiki)

I’m also considering writing some more vaguely political documents and fleshing out Arbiterism, as I’m a little tired of the fact that it seems from the outside as if I’ve abandoned the concept. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. I’ve been thinking and discussing the structure with a few other arbiters and am considering how to put it into words.

One minor disadvantage of Arbiterism is that it relies on judgement a lot, much like the Swedish concept of “lagom”. Not common sense, which is actually rarely common and especially isn’t common in many of the general human population, but judgement.

I’d also eventually like to do a roll-call of arbiters, to see who is active and who should be removed from my mental register. The number is smaller than before, but I also feel we have more genuine arbiters today than we did four years ago.

Perhaps the revolution will never come, so to speak, but I’d still like to try. Currently I’m working on more short term projects for both my own enjoyment and to provide funding for myself and future projects. In order to finance the initiatives I’m throwing around the ideas for, we’ll need resources.

I also think that it’s important to make sure there are alternatives to thugs like the BNP and narrow-minded nationalists like the SNP. Perhaps if parties such as the Pirate Party have some success then there will one day be more political awareness and interest amongst the population of the UK.

I personally am tired of Labour. I’m also uninterested in the Conservatives. I can’t say I have anything to say about the Liberal Democrats either.

I want to choose something else.

Shitty filler content!

2009-08-11T03:39:00.001+01:00

I have several things I’d like to write about at the moment, including the Festival of Falconry 2009, the CLA Game Fair 2009 and Glasgow By Gaslight, but right now I’m too tired to do so. Instead

What I can be bothered to write a few lines about is something I just encountered whilst taking some tedious quiz online. One of the questions asked:

The last time you were REALLY scared, how'd it work out?

The honest answer to that question is “huh?”. I honestly cannot recall when I was last particularly scared. I’ve been vaguely nervous, a bit stressed, depressed or angry, but I can’t think when I was last actually genuinely frightened.

That said, many of their quizzes are badly worded and seem to make many assumptions that make little sense from an objective viewpoint. A question that stipulates a personality trait should have an answer option allowing for “that’s just not like me”. Perhaps it’s some sort of thing that I don’t get due to it being an American site. Their culture is very different from ours in many ways it would seem and as such many things are presumably lost on foreigners such as myself.

One of the questions I encountered made reference to music with explicit lyrics. Do people actually care that music contains vocals containing swear words?

Another stated I needed a new car. I don’t get it.. Why do I need a car precisely? I do so love paying road tax, insurance and other upkeep charges, please, allow me the opportunity to opt in. There was also one that said “What do you like best about driving?”. I like it best when I’m not the one at the wheel..

I think the site is actually aimed at girls, but many of the quizzes are gender neutral, even if they’re somewhat retarded. What can I say, I’m procrastinating. It’s either this or sleep and going to bed is so much effort..

Right, enough filler content.

Oh wait, one last thing - their “How Evil Are You?” quiz gave me the following result:

Hmmm... You don't seem to match any of our categories!

Nice.

I quite like them actually..

2009-08-02T10:47:00.001+01:00

The Matrix films get a lot of abuse but not from me. whilst the second film wasn't particularly great, I enjoyed all three of them, as well as the Animatrix and Enter The Matrix.

Yes, they're not as good as the first film, which was, at least for me, jaw-dropping. But I liked them anyway, they created a marvellous microcosm which still partly exists in my head.

I enjoyed the fact that Enter The Matrix was intertwined with the films and that characters from the Animatrix sometimes appeared as well. Yes, the game wasn't brilliant, although it was quite pretty, but it did have some memorable features.

I had once planned to have a Matrix marathon, watching all three films, the Animatrix and the cut scenes from Enter The Matrix, but given their non-linear relationship, I doubt it will ever happen.

I'd quite like to play through the game again, but only if there was a make-the-game-better mod. There was never enough ammo and some of the levels were far too repetitive. The lack of ammo was infuriating as there were so many cool bullet-time things one could do, but with so little ammo I never felt there was enough to use on such frivolity. This makes me a sad Fox.

I did try playing The Path Of Neo on my PS2 ad I think I may still have a copy, but I must say I got bored far too quickly. Maybe I'm now too old (mentally) or maybe the PS2 just has the amazing ability to sap my interest in things..

My goliath of a grot vehicle

2009-08-01T00:10:00.001+01:00

See that?

Yeah, that’s my Rebel Grots’ big lugga. Perhaps it doesn’t seem that huge but to give you a point of comparison..

My big lugga = 21cm long, 14cm wide and 20cm tall
The old Gorkamorka Ork trukk = 11cm long, 7cm wide and 4cm tall.

This thing is fucking HUGE. Admittedly the old Ork trukk was just too damn small. One could barely fit more than a couple of Orks on it, especially the modern Orks which are much bigger than the old Gorkamorka era ones.

My Grot cuttas are rather enormous too though. Hopefully some Ork vehicles will emerge that are suitably chunky to ram me. Crunch!

In terms of models I’ve now just got two drivers and a gunner. Plus my first cutta driver makes four. So, four figures to paint and three vehicles. I’ll not be painting the vehicles until I return to Edinburgh though as I’ll be damned if I’m undercoating them by hand.

I’ll be returning on either Sunday or Monday, I think. I could do with getting back soon. There’s a convention, an interview and a whole load of NapierTV stuff I need to get done. That said, I’m rather enjoying being around my parents, so I’ll miss them when I go back, you know, until my conditioning kicks back in.

Costumes at Comic-Con

2009-07-29T23:00:00.001+01:00

Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) spent Comic-Con 2009 dressed like this, handily allowing him to wander around (and apparently bumping into as many as twelve people dressed up as Adam Savage..).

On Twitter he was giving clues but not revealing his actual costume, allowing his readers to try to guess or find him at the convention.

I looked up a few other photos, about six hundred of them over at Maximum PC. I rather liked the judges from Judge Dredd, although there were countless other very impressive ones. I did wonder about some of the women, there were many in costume and most were rather attractive. Geeks can be hot too, I guess. How times change..

I think Hannah’s Pikachu costume may have been one-upped, but only because the British climate rarely supports a costume as skimpy as the one pictured, ahem..

Back on topic: looking at Adam’s costume made me feel the urge to build a Joker costume. Specifically that one. I don’t have the face for a normal Joker outfit and I cannot be bothered to acquire the relevant purple suit. Or the knives. Or the huge number of grenades..

Let’s not blow this out of proportion..

This is a relatively easy one though and doesn’t require any previous knowledge of anything to work as a costume.

A blazer, black leather gloves, trousers, shoes and a relatively mundane shirt make up the basic costume. To complete the look all that would be required would be the mask, some hair paint (and some wax, I imagine) as well as a smoke grenade replica and some purple cord or string.

If I get around to it, I’d like to build it. In the meantime I’m focusing on wargames stuff, but I thought that a bit of variety was due on here.

Silicone and stat sheets

2009-07-28T12:41:00.001+01:00

As I write this I’ve got a little lego box sitting next to me full of RTV silicone, hopefully mixed in the correct proportions (not a hope).

It’s the first part of the Ork kannon mould I’m attempting to make. I didn’t like the fact that there’s no real model for the Orky shotgun any more, there’s just a few left over Gorkamorka ones which look puny in the hands of modern Ork models. I’m getting the feeling I may have written this before, so I’ll get onto the next bit.

I want to start assembling my Gorker mob of Orks for Gorkamorka, but currently the lack of kannon models is the limiting factor. With any luck the mould will give good results and I can cast a few in resin. I’ve started on the vehicles and I’m stripping the paint from a few models. Irritatingly I seem to have lost my harpoon gun model, which is going to make the war trukk conversion that slight bit trickier unless I can un-earth it.

Then there’s my rebel grots, several of whom are currently sitting in a glass of Dettol to remove their previous paint (it wasn’t a bad paint job per se, but I’d like my models to be consistent). I was also rather pleased with myself when I tore the head off an old metal grot and replaced it with a plastic one. I’d always hated the old one and now I’m rather smug about it. Nyah.

Lastly, I’d like to share these with other Gorkamorka players out there:

Click on them to get the full size versions of them. There’s permission to photocopy them for personal use granted on them, so I think it’s probably okay to upload them like this. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got access to a printer but not a photocopier. Hopefully this isn’t illegal, but if I get contacted by Games Workshop I’ll happily take them down.

For da republik!

2009-07-24T23:29:00.004+01:00

I've been working on my rebel grots for a few days in total and so far I'm rather pleased with how it's going. Back in the day a player would require a huge number of metal grots (~£6 for two!) plus several vehicles (rare although relatively cheap). That'd be about sixty quid for a mob of them.

So far mine has cost me perhaps ten pounds and that covers my whole mob with spares. The new plastic Warhammer 40,000 grethin are great. About six quid for ten (plus an Ork who has become the gunner in my Gorker mob, but that's another story).

Plastic models are a gods send for the simple fact that they can easily be repositioned and modified. Metal models are tougher but modifications need careful cuts and green stuff. Plastic can be fused back together and rebuilt with relative ease. A scalpel, a few files and some polystyrene cement and a model can be heavily modified successfully.

Few of my models are precisely as they were when they came out of the box. Heads are swapped, weapons sliced off and changed, accessories added and limbs repositioned.

Taking this further, my grot's vehicle fleet is two-thirds complete. Two land yachts ("cuttas") and a large thingy ("big lugga") are what they're planning to field, but so far only the cuttas are done.

They're scratch built and perhaps a little large, but I think it's a little more practical to make them larger than the rather puny old Gorkamorka vehicles.

Leading on from that, my Gorkers are fielding two vehicles - a buggy and a trukk. I've not really considered precisely how to do the truck yet, but the buggy is based on an old Gorkamorka Rokkit buggy:

It's not huge, but it should hold three or four models now, a significant improvement from it's previous passenger capacity of "you're 'aving a laugh!".

Finally, I'd like to share a work in progress shot of four of my rebel grots being painted:

From left to right - my banna waver, random grot with six-shoota, my head honcho, and a random grot with a slugga and knife.

I'm particularly proud of the banna waver (or was it "wava"?). He had a club which I hollowed out and attached a banner pole from an old, erm, Gorkamorka biker? Then I used a few bits of plasticard to build a star of the revolution to complement the new pole.

The weapon is actually unique too. It's a sawn-off shoota with a new green-stuff barrel and the stock off some other random weapon.

My head honcho is much simpler, a sawn-off blunderbuss plus a sight from a bunch of plastic orks.

It's a lot harder to paint grots having got used to painting bigger greenskins. They're bloody tiny! I'm very pleased with them though and I think at this rate I'll have the whole lot polished off before I get back to civilisation, just in time to build a big lugga and an orky trukk or six. I'm probably going to be building/modifying some vehicles for Dawn and Matt, should they require them. I think I may be painting his orks too, as I know he has little to no interest in physical tokens in games.

Then there's the plans for our giant, modular Necromunda board, but I'll have to save that story for later..

XM16E1s, M16s, M16A1s and forward assists

2009-07-18T19:47:00.001+01:00

Yes, yes, it’s a lousy photo.

I’ve been sculpting again, or attempting to. I’ve got most of the basic shape down now and I’m trying to get the details right, or close enough.

Most recently I’ve been working on the ejection port cover as well as the handle, barrel near the stock, handguard and front sight.

Given that the entire model is only 38mm long, I don’t feel I’m doing too badly. I was especially pleased to discover the deal with the forward assist and the M16. Confused? Ah, well let Mr. Fox explain:

That thingy is a “forward assist”. The original M16 didn’t have it, but it was added in the XM16E1 (standardised as the M16A1 by the US Army). So, if I understand correctly, my marine lads’ weapons shouldn’t have forward-assists, if their weapons are supposed to come from 1965, 1966 or early 1967. If they are supposed to be from after that time, they should have forward assists.

Well, I think I’ll model the earlier weapon and then when I’ve cast a few I’ll make some with forward assists, others without by sculpting further on the duplicates.

I also plan on adding some extra stuff to the duplicates so I can have different variants. Varying flash suppressors, scopes, magazines, etc..

Cheaper Wargames Paint

2009-07-17T10:43:00.002+01:00

In my last entry I did a price comparison of various sites for sourcing Games Workshop miniatures. This time I’m not doing the same thing, as there’s a fairly clear winner when it comes to paint.

I used to buy Citadel paint and I can’t complain at the quality, although I didn’t have much to compare to. I’ve still got lots of it left, but it is in various states of decay and in any case, I wasn’t going to lug a drawer full of paints up to Edinburgh on the train.

Instead I asked around and discovered Vallejo paints and was directed to a source on eBay. I bought 17 pots/bottles of Vallejo paint at about £1.19 each, after the 15% discount from the seller for buying more than 16.

First off, there’s two advantages of Vallejo paints:

Firstly, the bottles contain a nozzle at the top allowing them to easily be squidged out onto a pallet, convenient.
Secondly, they come in 17ml pots, not 12ml like their citadel brethren

Despite being cheaper than the citadel ones, I was very impressed with their quality. They were a joy to w ork with and I found myself enjoying painting miniatures for the first time in years.

Gifts for Geeks sells them for £1.30 each, without a minimum order requirement to reach the price.

So, for a quick price comparison with Citadel, per ml of paint:

Citadel paints work out at approximately 18.6p per ml (£2.25 on GW online)
Vallejo paints work out at approximately 7.6p per ml (£1.30 per pot)

To give a worked example:

If I decided to buy a load of paints to paint the Orks and Rebel Grots I’m going to be fielding, I’d need perhaps 15 different colours, ideally a few more.

To buy them in a GW store would cost me £2.25 * 15, so £33.75 + postage (~£4 I’d guess).

To buy the same colours from the Vallejo range at Gifts for Geeks would cost £19.50, plus postage (again, about £4).

That’s a difference of £14.25. The Vallejo paints cost nearly half as much, but there’s an additional bonus – there’s 40% more paint in the Vallejo ones!

I’m curious how much it’d cost to make the orders the same in terms of paint quantity, so I’ve worked it out. Vallejo paints contain ~41.67% more paint (I can’t be bothered to figure out how to add the symbol to indicate a recurring decimal). So, to get an accurate figure of how much it would (in theory) cost to buy fifteen 12ml pots of Vallejo, I just take the £19.25 total and chop 41.67% off it. Boosh!

£11.23.
£22.52 cheaper than Games Workshop.

Hopefully this will help some of you get a better deal on paint and be able to afford a broader spectrum of colours!

Cheaper WH40K miniatures

2009-07-16T16:22:00.001+01:00

In between Falconry Festival stuff I’ve been thinking about how to cheaply buy miniatures for my upcoming wargames. This was prompted by this article (“Games Workshop on a Budget”).

This is by no means an exhaustive comparison and it is of course only valid as I write this, but hopefully the basic truths will hold true over the coming months.

I had a look at Gifts for Geeks, Maelstrom Games, Megaminis and Wayland games, attempting to buy the same Warhammer 40,000 models:

A box of ten Imperial Guard Catachan Jungle Fighters
A box of ten Ork Boyz
One Ork Trukk

For a baseline comparison I check the Games Workshop online store. Technically, this isn’t accurate. The GW online store prices are different from the GW retail outlets on the proverbial high street. How different? Probably not much, but I’m not about to dig up the number of GW Edinburgh and ask them to do a price check for me. Suffice to say, if you want them immediately, you’ll pay a premium.

(Click on the table to get the full size image)

In each column I’ve listed the best price in italics although for the postage column there’s a bit of an exception, see my side-notes for details.

I’ve just relented and phoned GW Edinburgh to find out today’s prices in-store:

£12 - Catachan Jungle Fighters
£12 - Ork Boyz
£18 - Ork Trukk

That’d be a total of £42. So, a total saving of about £5.17 if bought from Wayland Games, rather than in store.

To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s that worth it, unless one is buying more miniatures. Of course, if we take into account the delivery from GW it might be a marginally bigger difference, but I doubt it’d push the difference much beyond £10.

I would say that the main difference to me is a two-fold psychological difference:

I don’t like giving Games Workshop money directly. If I can support these independent retailers and get a discount, I’m all for it.
Paying £18 for a Trukk is just too much for me. They used to be about £10 and I considered that too much. £14.40 is much easier to swallow.

96p per model is considerably better than £1.20, 20% cheaper, as it happens.

That’s it for now, although I plan on adding where to buy paint in another blog entry, as that’s somewhere considerable savings can be made.

A couple of side-notes:
Firstly, I was planning on buying a box of Ork Gretchin in this test, but Megaminis only stock the old, expensive, metal ones, so it wouldn’t be a fair test.

Secondly, at the time of writing, Games Workshop’s online store is offering free postage for the whole month. I don’t know what they normally charge, but I felt a special offer shouldn’t count in the stats, hence why it isn’t rated as the best postage price.

Social turning points

2009-07-15T15:30:00.001+01:00

I doubt very much that I'm unique in remembering vividly the turning points in my relationships with people. The ones I'm talking about primarily are those which diminish the individual in my eyes nearly permanently.

Sadly, I encounter this with most people I meet, sooner, rather than later. Someone does or says something and I find myself incapable of respecting them any more. Often it's when someone snaps at me about something trivial, often it's when I'm patronised and other times it's some aspect of their behaviour that I consider idiotic.

Allergies are one thing, accepting a plate full of food with no intention of finishing it is another. Presumptuous and condescending remarks are an excellent way to permanently lose my respect and discourage me from even attempting amiability.

I try quite hard to be friendly and not to tax the patience of others, but I doubt very much whether I succeed. I'm relatively sure that I'm hard to work with and do not work well with authority. I'm pretty much conditioned to not take orders blindly and to speak up when an issue or question arises.

I guess I feel a little paranoid at the moment as many things are shifting and it would seem new alliances much be forged to compliment existing ones and replace broken ones. I also hope I'll soon have time to renew some friendships that I have felt flagging lately, but if the mood or opportunity doesn't present itself that could be tricky.

The Festival of Falconry '09. Part2.

2009-07-10T15:28:00.001+01:00

Arriving on Tuesday night, it's been an eventful few days here in Englefield. Wednesday involved the erection of two marquees, two Medieval Indian tents and Dawn's camping tent. Plenty of work and relatively pleasant, but the mood was bolstered greatly by my team, who seem to have inadvertently ended up under my command.
Thursday involved the Japanese delegation's traditional hunting lodge, far too many metres of faux-thatch and lots of swearing. We managed to get it into a finished state although as yet no one seems to have shown up to inhabit it..

In the intervening time between then and now I've got a bit of sunburn, wandered around to see what all the fuss is about and am generally in high spirits.

..and remember - falconers do it one-handed.

Skirmish games and sculpting

2009-07-07T01:36:00.001+01:00

I’ve been on a bit of a wargaming, uh, in a bit of a, well, I’ve been thinking about 28mm miniatures and the games they’re used in a lot. There we go.

I used to play Warhammer 40,000 but that was quite some time ago and these days I’ve neither the money, time or inclination to play. Especially since the rules have changed twice since I last played.

What I do have the inclination to play are Games Workshop’s “specialist games” (as they term them). So, if you follow my blog you may have seen a few of my Mordheim miniatures and portable terrain for the same. I also play Gorkamorka and Necromunda. Well, I used to play Necromunda about ten years ago and I never got to play Gorkamorka properly.

However, I may soon get the chance to run a campaign of one or more of these, as I may soon have enough players, which would be rather awesome. With this in mind I’d like to play as Rebel Grots for Gorkamorka. I’ve been considering how to scratch build some vehicles for them, given the fact that the official miniatures for them are both rarer than hens’ teeth but also cost an arm and a leg. On the plus side, one used to have to purchase metal grots at an absurd price – recently GW released plastic grots in the same style. ~£8 for a box of ten of them. Sorted.

In terms of Necromunda I’m not sure, but I’m considering playing as Vietnam Orlocks. Orlocks are just a random standard house gang in Necromunda, nothing special about them, fairly standard background. I’ve not considered the backstory (the “fluff”) for why these Vietnam War American GIs are in the wrong time period, but I’ll come up with something. Getting miniatures for the m isn’t tough – Catachan jungle fighters (Imperial Guard) are just the ticket but there is one sticking point.

The weapons.

In Necromunda warriors can be armed with all sorts of things, including the weapons of choice of Imperial Guard forces, the lasgun. What would the GIs be packing? Well, M16s, M14s and supported perhaps by an M79, M60 and a shotgun or sniper rifle.

The M14 isn’t hard to mimic, same with the M79. The M16 is a tricky one though. There don’t appear to be many 28mm scale models with anything similar and definitely not on a sprue (the few I found had far more modern variants of the rifle). Well, out with the green stuff and to work I went!

It’s not finished yet and there’s a lot of work to be done yet, but it’s coming along. Once the stock and barrel set I should be able to refine them further. The other side contains more detail although it too needs additional work. It may look a tad crude, but it should be noted that the whole weapon measures only 4cm. It’s tiny and the green stuff isn’t setting anywhere near fast enough. That said, I’m relatively confident that I’ll be able to add sufficient detail. It may not end up as detailed as the lasgun on the top left, but it won’t necessarily be too far off.

If I succeed in doing that, I intend on making a mould of it and casting several in resin so that I can equip many models and produce variants of the design.

*UPDATE*

I found a supplier of 28mm Vietnam figures that sell the weapons separately! Want to see something interesting?

That’s their M16A1. How does mine measure up, do you feel?

On the plus side, their M14 and M60 renditions are much better:

The Festival of Falconry ‘09. Part 1.

2009-07-03T23:48:00.001+01:00

There’s plenty of reasons I don’t love Thursdays, but this week that reason was a horse lorry full of gear for the upcoming Festival of Falconry. Mid-morning my mother and I set off for Englefield, outside reading, a relatively short journey, slowed considerably by the weight of the several Yurts in the back of the vehicle.

Upon arrival we were to retrieve a white “galatent” (muffled swearing) which apparently comes with no useful documentation and apparently was put away but someone daft. Why? Because we have two of these tents.

Some daft sod had mixed the two sets of equipment so we could build a roof (with spares left over!) but only had five of the wall poles. We needed at least ten. No tent for our equipment then!

Of course, it took us a few hours to properly establish this, along with a failed attempt at utilising some of the spares instead. We came to the realisation that even if we had the correct parts, we would have required a further four people to erect the blasted thing.

Considerable swearing later, we had the tent roof tied down (more swearing) and got ourselves to Englefield’s polo stables, where equipment was being stored. I’m not the strongest of guys and my mother is of retirement age (although definitely not of retirement body, she’s probably stronger than me..).

Yeah.. we were faced with the task of unloading huge chunks of heavy canvas, countless support poles (both for Yurts and our own failed tent) and of course, the many, many bits of wooden lattice used to form the yurt walls. Oh and the sun was right over head giving temperatures of 28 - 32°C. Toasty! (well, for Britain). I think we finally got the lot unloaded at around 1900 and proceeded to find somewhere to get some dinner. We’d been looking forward to dining at this wonderful little pub on the other side of Englefield. Yeah, turns out it has closed its doors permanently. Bugger. Plan B. Nearby little town, Teale. The first pub was also closed. Bugger that, we went to a nearby Indian restaurant. By 2330 we finally got back to the facility and got some rest.

It’s going to be a long week in the run-up to the Festival itself..

Miniatures and minor goals

2009-07-02T00:33:00.001+01:00

I’m starting to feel the need to play wargames again. Not one of the big ones, as in hundreds of models. I have neither the time nor the inclination for that. I would like to play Necromunda though, although I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Whilst portable Mordheim terrain is quite feasible, Necromunda is trickier. It has a far more diverse and intricate setting, leading to really beautiful terrain. Sadly it’s a bitch to store.

One day, maybe..

Anyway, I’d like to make a list of things I’d like to accomplish in the coming semester, on a mundane level:

Weekly Mordheim sessions as part of an ongoing campaign for the Wyrdstone in the city
Weekly or fortnightly GURPS sessions
More salsa dancing. I used to salsa dance and I’d like to take it back up and get better at it.
Better study habits – I found that using small exercise books to be far more manageable for arranging my notes. I’d like to keep that up.
More updates here on the Flamekeblog

In general, a bit of a routine would be good for me and I’ll have a lot of ENTV stuff on my plate and hopefully plenty of academic stuff too. I hope that by scheduling some fun stuff first it’ll be easier to slot some “work” stuff in too.

I would also like to update my blog more often than I currently do. Whilst I may blog far more often than many of the people I know, I feel that sometimes I neglect this blog. I like looking over it and seeing what I’ve been up to and the odd person finds it interesting.

“Polishing my telescope” is NOT a euphemism for anything.

2009-06-29T23:23:00.001+01:00

I’m not actually in a very steampunk mood this evening, but thought I’d share something anyway.

My father has, over the years, given me a few different curiosities. I’ve little recollection of when they appeared and often where in his travels he got them. I’m also probably not nearly grateful enough. Well, I’m going to take this opportunity to thank him for my beautiful Broadhurst & Clarkson telescope.

It has been sitting in my room for quite some time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it shiny and oiled. Well, I took a few hours on the weekend and broke out the Brasso. I’ve not much experience polishing so parts of it aren’t polished, but the main body is looking rather brilliant.

I’m not quite certain when it dates from, or whether it’s legitimate. After all it actually has BRODHURST&CLRKSON engraved on it, rather than the whole name. Perhaps that was how they did it, perhaps it’s actually just a knock-off. Who knows?

If it’s legit, I believe it dates back to around the late 1800s/early 1900s, possibly the Boer War.

I may bring it back up to Edinburgh and keep it among my many other curiosities. Soon I’m going to start making stands for them. There’s so damn many!

I think it’s supposed to have a leather case to protect it, but sadly I don’t have one. Perhaps one day I’ll make one for it, although I think I’d best improve my skills with fabric before I move onto leatherworking.

Questions to the usual address!

Playing with the iPhone 3GS camera

2009-06-28T12:09:00.001+01:00

Yes, it’s not a very interesting pic, or it’s needlessly pretentious. That’s not why I took it. I took it to test the iPhone’s automatic macro support and to see how the shallow the depth of field would end up. I’m pleased with the result, regardless. The pics are slightly higher res and the auto-focussing seems to improve the pics I’m taking no end.

I’ve also had a little play with the video recording which so far is pretty good. The ability to upload to YouTube in the field is also particularly useful (especially considering I’ve yet to figure out how to get the videos off my iPhone..). The quality of the video is pleasant although the YouTube uploads aren’t quite as good, as they’re compressed to make the upload quicker.

It’s also worth noting that 3G isn’t required to upload. It’ll take longer, but any ‘net access will do. I plan on uploading behind the scenes videos using this functionality when we’re back into our filming schedule in August.

Finally, before I get back to work on stuff for the Festival of Falconry, I’d just like to say that the NapierTV production blog has been updated again, go have a read if you’ve not already. Feedback is appreciated, but obviously not required.

Investments and iPhone Iterations

2009-06-25T15:40:00.002+01:00

I've spent the last few days doing a combination of swearing and waiting.

Why?

I've been having cash flow problems, banking problems, phone problems and sleeping problems. Firstly, waiting for my cheques so I could pay off my overdraft and other more minor debts (Sorry, Chris!).

I also wanted a new iPhone. My old one, whilst perfectly functional, didn't provide everything I wanted. The second generation iPhone (confusingly named as "the iPhone 3G") added most of what I wanted - 3G support and a better speaker. I wasn't about to upgrade at the drop of a hat though so I opted to wait until my first contract expired. Around that time a new iPhone was announced, the iPhone 3GS. It added a few features I really wanted: an autofocussing camera and video recording.

There are of course other features but the camera was the big one for me. My iPhone is my primary digicam and being able to record videos (and upload in the field) was something that appealed to me.

Of course, to get it required that I paid my bill, something that didn't quite work out smoothly due to false-positives on behalf of Lloyds TSB's fraud detection system. Woo.

Once that was sorted I had to pay my bill and wait up to 24 hours for O2 to unlock my account. This wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't for the simple fact that it was getting in the way of me signing up for a new contract with them!

I did run the numbers and found that if I chose a two year contract it would be £100 cheaper. Yeah, not worth being locked in for an additional six months!

I got the device though as I'm typing this blog post on it. A rather nice 16GB model in white. Why white? Basically because I've not seen any white iPhones in the wild. Wheels and the Captain both have black iPhones, so it prevents confusion too!

In other news, I'm sadly on my way down to Wales at the moment, hopefully I can get properly involved in the falconry festival though, preventing death by boredom.

Having a phone this capable should help offset my lack of laptop (ZD-Harriet's graphics card is toast..). Photos and video to follow, I hope!

Facebook Fatigue

2009-06-21T20:00:00.001+01:00

Phew, finding a decent Blogger template isn’t that easy. I’m not entirely satisfied with this one but it’ll do until I can be bothered building my own.

That’s not what I felt like writing about today, today’s subject is more a sort of creeping suspicion kind of thing.

A while ago I wrote about how I didn’t wish to move to Facebook but my hand was essentially being forced. I was careful to make sure I moved my content to independent sites rather than commit to Facebook entirely. Why did I do this?

Well, for a while Facebook was growing amongst the people I know, but now it’s getting to the stage where I log on and see what’s going on and there’s a resounding nothing. Perhaps it’s because my social life of late has been comical to say the least or perhaps I’m just feeling more depressive and cynical than usual.

Either way, I look at what’s in whatever Facebook are calling their users’ home page and I see the following:

Two sets of photos
A few random, relatively mundane status updates
Some status updates via Twitter
A lot of nothing where all the apps I’ve blocked were

Perhaps it didn’t used to be this lame, but I doubt it.

It feels to me as if Facebook is losing its momentum. There’s no exclusivity, nothing special about it. I think I’m getting social network fatigue.

Perhaps I’m just getting general life fatigue. I feel like I’m doing a combination of absolutely nothing and all the work. I guess I just feel generally frustrated at the moment, although I imagine it’s only temporary. My love for this city is being slowly sapped on a daily basis, which I do not like.

I guess I’m just feeling uninspired on all fronts.

Fresh from the code mines

2009-06-16T16:14:00.001+01:00

I wonder if there were any rumours of my death which could lend themselves to exaggeration. Well, regardless, I’m not bad, despite the rather depressing previous entry.

I’ve not updated my blog in a while for a number of reasons. For once it’s not just that I’ve been lazy, it’s due to the two following things:

I’ve currently got next to nothing in my bank account
I’ve been very busy working on NapierTV’s website and web-based technologies

The money issue is a simple one – I have money, but it’s currently tied up in paperwork. This has two main effects – the first being that I avoid leaving my flat so I don’t spend more money than necessary. The second is that I can’t afford to buy the many craft supplies I’d normally buy for my many building projects.

My liquid latex has solidified, so I’m going to need to buy some more before I can continue on the Cthulhu mask, for example.

Now, onto the more interesting stuff, for me at least.

NapierTV hasn’t really officially launched but until the web technologies are in place, we can’t really get off the ground. Our new channel layout requires each channel to have both its own page on our site, but also a blogger page and suitable Twitter hashtag feed support.

For those of you who don’t use Twitter/this feature, hashtags work as follows:

Strange (and cool!) to see other people using the #rocktv tag. Certainly makes field testing a lot more interesting! #entv

At the time of writing, that’s my latest tweet. In it you can see there’s a #rocktv tag and an #entv tag. Normally I’d just use a single tag, but sometimes I use more.

Twitter treats words with a hash symbol in front of them as a search category and provides an Atom and RSS feed for them, meaning we can see, in real time, whenever someone posts on a given topic, if they include a hashtag.

To see this in action, head over to http://napiertv.blogspot.com

The problem we had was that the technology to embed such a feed in a page just wasn’t widely available. There’s loads of widgets that allow any number of posts to be shown, but only by one author. They also don’t support the features we wanted, or supported stuff we didn’t want.

We needed to extract the following from the RSS feed:

Message body
Author (and Twitter account link)
Time since posted

What we didn’t need were things like the title value. Well, thanks to mgdm on #lugradio as he had a script that he kindly modified to help us do this. Once that was done we could embed it in our site, but not on Blogger.

Much swearing later and considerable intervention by Sennett and we had a working non-caching javascript version for our Blogger pages.

Hopefully now that’s up and running we can start working on the style for each of the planned channels and finding editors and correspondents for them.

If you’re interested in getting involved then your best bet is probably following us on Twitter.

There’s no use crying over spilt milk.

2009-06-06T02:23:00.001+01:00

It still hurts that Nicoletta broke up with me. Man, how sad is that? It’s now June and it happened back in mid-February.

I was looking for a photo of myself to use in a blogpost for NapierTV and I came across a couple of photos of me and her together, from when things were good. It hurts to look at them, especially because of how happy I look in those photos.

*mutters profanities*

It’s probably for the best that we’re no longer still together, but I don’t regret my time with her and I hope she doesn’t either. For a brief time, I was happy.

Microblogging services

2009-06-02T03:35:00.006+01:00

It's stupid o'clock once again and I'm unable to sleep, despite being exhausted.
I was listening to the Ubuntu UK podcast earlier and was pleased to hear they read out my email. Whilst they're recording the show they both "tweet" and "dent", meaning they post updates on both Twitter and Identica . I'm currently a member of neither but shortly I'm going to be using Twitter as a correspondent for NapierTV. That said, my principals incline me to favour Identica, being open source.

I'm attempting to find the best compromise as ideally I'd want to use a single account between the two services. It would seem Twitterific natively supports both services, which is convenient, but I'm unsure as to how to cross post and how I'd be using the service beyond my organisational involvement. Answers on a postcard!

Bonus - Ubuntu UK Podcast, S02E05 - THE LONG GAME :

Dispenser going up!

2009-06-01T17:34:00.001+01:00

The updates have been slow of late for a fairly understandable reason – I’ve had both exams and coursework. Now that those have been taken and handed in as applicable, I’m back.

During the exam period when I wasn’t studying I was playing Team Fortress 2 a game I’ve wanted for a while and simply haven’t had the finance to purchase. Conveniently it was on discount for a few days a couple of weeks ago, bringing the price down to a very acceptable £6.99. Not bad, I felt, so I now play a bit, which is generally quite enjoyable. I’m not the best, but I’m not the worst either.

I mainly play engineer although I’ve been having some success with the pyro as well, rather fitting on both accounts I felt. I couldn’t help but think “oh dear.. I’ve become Engie Benjy” and as such felt compelled to manifest that in image form. It’s quite ropey, I know, but I tried. You try working with a twisted nightmare child in photoshoop to get something vaguely right!

Generally speaking I’ve found the players quite friendly and welcoming, although there are of course exceptions where I come across total douchebags. I was on a server when there was some big football match between someone or other and Barcelona. Chris and I figured that people who enjoy football would be watching the damn game and so we could avoid them by playing TF2..

OOOOOH no. Not a hope. Some prat was playing whilst broadcasting either the radio commentary or the sound from the TV coverage of the match over his microphone. Whilst bickering with someone in the same room and vaguely attempting to engage with the TF2 game too. ARGH.

So, mic spammers aside, it’s mostly good.

I did have some more interesting things to say but I can blog about those later, when I feel more up to it. Right now I’m concerned as my left ear appears to have popped and refuses to unpop. It’s been like this since this morning and is making me worry. I like being able to hear normally!

Cthulhu eyes!

2009-05-22T19:21:00.001+01:00

For my Cthulhu mask/costume to progress I need to complete several components. One of these is the tentacles, another is the eyes. Well, until I find some surgical tubing, the tentacles are on hold. But the eyes I’ve got mostly under control.First I got hold of some Das clay, some yellow fimo clay and a polystyrene egg shape in a local art shop coming to less than ten pounds, nice.

By hacking the egg in half I was able to produce two eye shapes or something vaguely suitable for an ancient fictional monstrosity to call eyes.

Next I wrapped the polystyrene shapes in clay to create little pots. For those of you who don’t know, fimo clay needs to be baked in an oven for about half an hour to become solid. Not a problem, except that polystyrene transitions to glass at around ~95°C (if I understood Wikipedia's article correctly). So, a more hardy negative was required – clay seemed appropriate and I’ve plenty of pottery experience.

Of course, removing the foam was tricky and in retrospect perhaps I should have used something like Vaseline on the eggs to prevent them getting quite so jammed in, but m’eh. Once the moulds were sufficiently dry (which took several days) I had to remove the shapes. Polystyrene cement melts expanded polystyrene, a fact I exploited to create grabbing points on the egg shapes, sadly destroying them.

But to hell with it, there’s no point crying over melted polystyrene, so on I went, shaping half the block of fimo into a layer to fill the mould. I was going to use less than the whole block but I felt strength was probably a better idea than saving it for later. One block and two moulds later, into the oven they went.

Half an hour later, additional cooling time and a lot of swearing and chipping later and the results were out (and the moulds left in usable but mildly damaged condition). A bit of clay residue remained on them but then my intellect wandered off for lunch.

As I sat there scraping at the residue with my stubbly, unshaven face, Midnight pointed out that it might just be easier to wash them. D’oh. Somewhere along the line I forgot that unfired clay can easily be broken down using water and a tiny amount of force.

(pic taken before I actually washed them)

With the eyes done, I’ve come one step closer to completing the head. Hopefully it’ll be epic when it’s done. I’m not certain whether I’m going to drill holes in the fimo shapes or have my own eyes use separate holes in the costume but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

Aggravation At Attempting Aggregation

2009-05-22T02:40:00.001+01:00

Over the last week or so, exams aside, I’ve been trying to get the future ENTV site online. Drupal is the backbone as it’s something we at the NSS already use and is familiar both to myself and the Captain.

Drupal is, well, mostly good. There’s plenty it does quite well and plenty it utterly sucks at. For example, I can really easily add modules to it that do all sorts of things. Most of them not that well.

It does support blogs, feed aggregation and many other things, but most of them in the same way Linux supports high-end video editing. Yeah, it can be done, but it’s not easy or pleasant.

So, next comes the site construction. Thankfully it’s increasingly becoming the case that I don’t need to build things from scratch. Adobe Flash makes embedding video or audio a doddle, Feedburner and RSS feeds makes it easy to embed blogs and then there’s a few other things.

The other things are the problem. Twitter is causing me no end of headaches. I currently don’t use Twitter, although I may in future (if I ever get this bloody site working) but I can see a use for it in ENTV. Whilst I can’t imagine our viewers and society members give a rat’s arse about what Chris is having for lunch (soup, incidentally), I can see them being interested in the progress of the week’s episode or what a particular channel is up to.

In order to create Twitter feeds for any given topic we’re using “hash tags”. Any time someone “tweets” something with a hashtag in, it can be grouped and syndicated. In plainer English that means any time any of us are talking about the society in a twitter update, if we append #entv it’ll appear in the #entv hashtag feed.

So on each channel’s page One would see something like this:

Title	Twitter updates
Blog	About the segment

To put that into an example:

A Grand Day Out	#agdo twitter feed
Feed from Blogger account	Blurb about A Grand Day Out

Geddit?

The current stumbling block is the Twitter feed. What I need to achieve is as follows:

Pull the latest, say, 10 messages from Twitter’s Atom or RSS feed.
Parse the XML and grab the description text, author and time of posting
Output those three variables for each into a list in HTML

Depending on your perspective and knowledge, that might sound tough or easy. From what I understand, it should be a walk in the park for any vaguely competent coder. Well, let’s not beat about the bush – any coder brighter than a potato should be able to hack together something rough to do the job.

Sadly I’m not a coder, I simply cannot get my head around PHP, JavaScript or even CSS to anything more than a meagre degree.

Twitter provide “badges” that do a reasonable job of syndicating a user’s (*shudder*) “tweets”. Yeah, great. So why are there none for hashtags?

You see, the issue with most feed aggregation scripts I can get my hands on is this – they don’t allow me to choose which variables to output. Instead they try to be helpful by throwing away all the options I might want to tweak. Just because Apple do it doesn’t mean everyone else should.

Twitter messages are so short that both the title and description are the same text, the title simply has the addition of linking back to the original page. Given that twitter posts often contain links, this would mean our users would have to first click on the link, get taken to a different site and view the message in its natural habitat, then click the link there. Additionally, perhaps Twitter uses a non-standard “author” variable, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t. Apparently most aggregation script writers don’t care who wrote the items they’re helping the syndication of.

Feedburner was able to do a reasonable job and for a short while I was happy. Then I realised that it would only update every half hour or so, sometimes longer. Given the immediate nature of Twitter, that was of no use to me. When a message is sent it should appear. Either instantly for preference or within five minutes.

So, this leaves me trying in vain to find a coder who can bash out a script for parsing Atom/RSS into HTML. Please, someone – help me.

Cthulhu costume mini-update

2009-05-15T14:45:00.002+01:00

This is just a quick update to say - “Sorry an update is coming.”

Why would I deem to say that? Well, it’s simple, I’ve been working on the eyes for my Cthulhu costume and I’m using clay for the moulds. It’s still bloody drying! As soon as it’s dry, an update is coming, as I now have most of the required materials for the costume. Except surgical tubing.

Someone, bring me surgical tubing!

Social networking frustration

2009-05-10T18:06:00.001+01:00

It’s been a week since I last update my blog, something I feel vaguely annoyed at myself for but not massively so.

I’ve been looking over Facebook and seeing how little it varies from Bebo. I still have a Bebo account but rarely use it simply because it’s hardly in use any more. What I see when I look over the Facebook update page is just the same as Bebo though – people saying things that are barely funny, results from whatever lame quiz they’ve just taken and the odd photo.

I’m very glad that my content is hosted on independent sites as I imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before the status quo shifts away from Facebook and to something else. I’ve seen a lot of people using Twitter but, frankly, I cannot see any use for it on a personal level. In terms of as an element in a project I see plenty of uses for it, but other than that.. Well you’re just not that interesting to read about. I do plenty of interesting things but my Twitter feed would be fairly tedious to read unless it was focussed on something like working at the Falconry Festival.

The Captain insists that it’s useful for sharing links but I myself can’t see why I would do that. If I find a link I think is worth sharing I’ve usually got a very narrow audience in mind for it, so I share it with them either via MSN or by posting it on Wooden Dice.

I guess what I’m trying to express is a general frustration with current popular social networking systems as they seem to encourage those around me to do a lot of talking without saying anything. I’ve started hiding people who I don’t feel like deleting but who never say anything interesting.

A particularly tedious addition to Facebook is the fact that when one of my friends writes on someone else’s wall, it shows up as an update for me. Not a notification, but it does still clutter up my Facebook homepage. If it was directed towards me then it would have been written on MY wall, wouldn’t it?

The number of people that keep showing up as “Perhaps you know this person?” annoys me too. People I’ve not spoken to in years appear in it and sometimes add me (and then proceed to not say anything). If it’s been this many years without me speaking to them, perhaps I didn’t really want to speak to them –it’s not like it’s hard to find people in this day and age (unless they’re actively trying to stay hidden).

Finally, people on social networks still do that “in a relationship with” with friends, making the information useless. Perhaps I’m alone in thinking this is ridiculously lame, but being in the minority has rarely discouraged me in this life.

A Checklist For A Man

2009-05-03T03:11:00.002+01:00

I was considering a vague concept earlier, remembering my father playing his acoustic guitar when I was a little boy. What do I feel a man should be able to do? What kind of checklist could I write?

Either way, it wouldn’t be exhaustive, but it might be a fun little thing to bash out whilst trying to clear my head. Like now. I can’t do all these things, although I feel I should be able to. There’s much more I’d like to add but it’ll have to be a follow-up entry.

Be able to make conversation in any given scenario.
Be able to discuss the merits of any given film, theatrical production or art gallery.
Be able to dress and be comfortable in casual wear, smart casual, business wear, black tie and white tie.
Be able to tie both a necktie and a bowtie without assistance.
Be able to polish black shoes or boots to an acceptable shine.
Be able to sew to at least a basic degree and make basic repairs to garments as necessary.
Be able to play at least one instrument to a passable degree.
Be able to speak at least one language beyond his native tongue.
Be able to dance in suitable styles to suite the following scenarios - formal, casual structured and casual freestyle.
Be able to shuffle cards and know the rules to at least two kinds of poker.
Be able to paint any reasonably sized room without causing damage to its contents.
Be able to choose a wine from any given wine list to suit a scenario.
Be able to select and drink coffee, wine and whiskey.
Be able to select and drink at least two kinds of beer.
Be able to select a gift for any given recipient or price range.
Be able to cook several levels of food in order to cater to various scenarios such as dinner parties, breakfast, lunch or moderate catering duties.
Be able to write a letter of recommendation.
Be able to prepare and deliver a presentation without appearing outwardly nervous or unnerved.
Be able to admit when he has been proven wrong.
Be able to deal with problems as they arise, rather than panicking.
Be able to be seen as a positive role model.

Another one of those “I turned a Nerf Maverick into a steampunk pistol” blog posts.

2009-04-29T19:35:00.002+01:00

Well, yesterday I was talking about buying a Nerf Maverick dart pistol thingy and I was able to with the help of a friend of mine. As it turns out, out of all the Argos stores in the Edinburgh area (at least three) there was only a single pistol available. Well, it’s not now as I purchased it, woo!

Once I got my grubby mitts on it there were a few things to do before decoration could begin..

The slider on the weapon has a Picatinny rail on top of it that is the same size as those on my shotgun BB gun, as I had suspected from the photos I’d seen. My BB gun came with a reflex sight, the scope thingy you can see in the photo. It projects a red cross onto whatever is seen when looking through the eyepiece. Not overly useful but I though it’d be suitable for the intended look of the thing. I mounted it and then, uh, dropped it. End result, I had to open the sight up to realign the internals, in the process of which I cracked the casing in multiple places and broke one of the glass pieces. It survived, but was a bit beaten up, as you can imagine (it can be seen in pieces in the background of the next pic).

The other major thing to do was texturing the handle. A completely smooth handle would eliminate any chance of it looking vaguely realistic, so out came my favourite power tool.

A bit of roughing later (and a lot of plastic shavings) and I had a rough handle, ready to be primed. I also took the time to remove a few plastic tabs so the cylinder would swing out the whole way, rather than the single inch it was initially designed for. This also means the cylinder can be spun, Russian Roulette style, a pleasant bonus.

I had decided on three colours for the finished weapon – a goldy bronze, silver and black. As it turns out, de spite using a light metallic colour I still ended up with a gunmetal colour of metal, but I thought it appropriate enough. So, first painting step – spraying all the components black.

With that done it was time for me to determine the order for painting the components. First off was the slider, as it was easily detachable and to test the silver paint. The result wasn’t too atrocious but I found that it was probably best to do the imitation wood before the drybrushing, contrary to my usual painting order.

By using a blend of colours and trying to keep them badly mixed I ended up with this:

Not perfect, but it’ll do. As you can see I also drybrushed the scope after piecing it back together (I later wrapped some wire I had spare from my lightsaber build around the worst cracking with a fairly successful outcome).

Finally I had the bronze and remaining silver bits to do although I think I took a break first. Why do I mention this? Well seeing photo by photo doesn’t really give much indication of how much time was passing. The process up to this point must have taken a good four hours. Bear this in mind when painting!

The golden bronze colour was a blend of silver and gold, I didn’t want a pure gold colour as I felt it would be a little too much and wouldn’t quite fit in. As it stands I’m not certain if the result is bronze or gold, or perhaps even gronzld.

Lots of frantic drybrushing later and I had the results. If you don’t know how to drybrush – learn. It’s easy. Paint on brush, not too much, wipe off most of it, brush quickly resulting in highlighting raised areas. Never paint metal with solid colour unless you’re absolutely certain that’s the effect you want.

Finally, I mounted the scope and secured it as best I could. The result – a nice prop and terrible poses!

Yes, I know, I’m very unkempt today – I can’t look great every day!

I can has bloggles?

2009-04-28T02:39:00.004+01:00

Well, I finally got them. I have bloggles. Well, they’re actually supposed to be vaguely steam punk but I’m wearing them whilst blogging, so they’re bloggles, damnit.

The inspiration for their construction was this episode of Threadbanger, in which there’s a video version of this instructable:

I didn’t have a baseball to hand and had no intention of buying one so I chose to use the offcuts of fake leather I have lying about from the flying cap I’m building. Well, it wasn’t too easy although, frankly, it wasn’t as tough as many other projects. I’m rather pleased with the end result, although unlike the photo, the “metal” parts are now a brassy colour, following a repaint (I’ve also adjusted the central strap a little as the two sides were a bit broadly spaced).

Having seen photos of many other goggles made using the same tutorial, I’ve got to say the following..
Why can no one paint? Is it that hard? We’re not talking miniatures, here, just simple things. Perhaps I’ve just got ridiculously high standards (Even then, I feel my work is often inadequate). Perhaps I’m biased from my years of painting miniatures (although by miniature painters’ standards I’m not that good).

I’m frequently horrified to see metallic colours applied in big dollops rather than drybrushed on. Some of the things I’ve seen have had so much potential and have effectively been ruined by sloppy application. My apologies for my snobbery.

On a side note, someone who hasn’t disappointed me in painting gave me a rather spiffy gift today. You see that enormous mug in the top photo with “i can has tea” on it?

I liked my present. Ooh, the lizard/gecko is rather spiffy too, although as yet unnamed. I’m considering calling it “Sandor” though.

Back to the point, anyway – what’s next?

Well, the flying cap needs work but I hope to have it finished in a few days and I’d like to add a few more amusing steampunk elements. I’ve seen plenty of Nerf N Strike Maverick pistols used to make a variety of styles of pistols. I thought I’d have to order them over the ‘net at exorbitant prices. However, it turns out Argos is flogging them for a fiver a piece. Not bad, eh?

I’m considering two of them, with suitable holsters. I might lengthen the barrel on one of them though and add the scope I have laying about. Hmm. I’m now uncertain – would a pair be better or a single one that’s rather customised? I’m thinking the latter, but I’m not entirely sure.

Opinions?

The second chapter in the Cthulhu saga

2009-04-27T02:34:00.002+01:00

Carrying on from my previous post, I spent a little while working on my Cthulhu mask today. So far I’m rather pleased with what’s beginning to take shape, want to see?

The first thing to do was to blend the small plaster mask with the papier-mâché cranium. To achieve this I first needed mounting points so it was a case of trying it on and wiggling it into position, whilst asking the Captain “does this look straight to you?”. My wording should probably have been less setup for mockery, I know.

I used some of the plaster bandage cut into strips to blend the flatness of the mask with the distinctly unflat surface of the cranium.

Here’s glance inside the cranium, where you can see I’ve carefully removed the coils inserted in the initial build, something that was far easier than I expected. The clingfilm meant it was just a matter of taking a firm grasp of the cranium with one hand and a coil with the other and pulling. Yoink!

The photo shows, if you look carefully, where the inside of the mask has a few strips to make it attach to the paper, although I didn’t go too crazy as the stuff didn’t really stick. It needs a dry-ish surface to stick to and is soggy. Placing it on dry newspaper creates soggy newspaper, meaning a rather irritating lack of adhesion.

A bit of drying time later and I was able to start layering on papier-mâché strips to meld the two together in earnest. Whilst a little tricky to begin with, it got significantly easier with a few strips in place.

With the main structure drying it was time to start on the next feature – the snouty bit. This is eventually going to be part of the tentacles but I feel a basic framework will make attaching things much easier.It’s easy to cut bits off where necessary so even if it ends up being surplus to requirements, it’s no biggie.

To create the basic snout shape I took a bunch of surplus flyers and trimmed them, bent them to shape and then coated them with clingfilm. On with the gluey paper!

I applied a load of layers to the guide structure first – I want it to be strong enough to support further additions, after all. With that done I used a great many sizes of strips and merged it with the rest of the project. I think the basic shape has turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.

Still to do? Hmm..

Well there’s going to be a whole load of side structures – coils of different sizes and curviness. I’ve also got to find some eyes, I’m thinking bulbous clear plastic that I’ll fill with a gel or similar to get a nice gooey yellow look. Mmmmm..

Oh yeah, then there’s going to be tentacles drooping out from the snout and an ambitious paintjob. Wish me luck!

Vote for Cthulhu.

2009-04-26T00:04:00.002+01:00

I missed last Halloween due to attending my half-brother's wedding. Had I gone I'd intended to put together a Cthulhu costume:

From the Cthulhu Wikipedia page:
Cthulhu is one of the central Great Old Ones of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is often cited for the extreme descriptions given of its hideous appearance, its gargantuan size, and the abject terror that it evokes.

I happened to like these too:

So, why not a Cthulhu costume? Well, the first thing required was a base to build things on. My father's fox mask is raised on foam blocks and fits very well and this seemed a good place to start. To this end I got Midnight to smoosh a load of tinfoil onto my face to get the shape. Once that was done I got my flatmate, Matt, to lay a thin layer of plaster bandages onto the tin foil mask, creating a custom-fitted shape that would serve as the basis for the design.

Next up, the cranium. Cthulhu has a very prominent cranium and it seems vital to the costume that I replicate it. I'd previously sketched something out (sorry, no scans!) that was designed to minimise overheating - bear in mind that something like this is going to really heat up over time if not designed to be light and airy, so design it to counteract overheating I did! Will it work? Who knows?

Papier mache seemed an ideal material to work with so after a bit of recycling we had a stack of newspapers for use with our home made wheat paste. Sorted!

In order to make the ridged lines I rolled up long sheets of newspapers into quite tight coils and then had Midnight wrap them in clingfilm to make sure the papier mache wouldn’t stick to it permanently.

Taping these coils together (two big ones, four small to medium ones) at the base produced something like this:

With the coils done we proceeded to mould them around my skull, jostling my ego out of the way temporarily. A bit of tape here and there and we had the following in place:

On with the recycled newspaper!

The result that’s now drying on my kitchen table looks like a less soggy one of these:

Once it dries I’m going to start work on blending the two elements together and working on the tentacles and snout. Updates to follow unless I get sidetracked and never finish the project. Thanks for all the help, Midnight!

Let me get out my tools..

2009-04-23T03:54:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one before I head to bed.

I’m in the process of tweaking how my blog works and looks. I’ve done away with the “About Me” box, for example, although it may be replaced with something similar later. I’ve also been toying with the way posts look and the comment system. It’d been a while since I did anything under the hood and so things were a bit outdated.

Now anyone can comment and the form appears below the story, although as always you’ve got to open the story in its own page to comment on it individually.

I’ve also added some updated “Flamekeblog” buttons to the sidebar, one for Atom and one for RSS (previously I only provided an Atom feed, mainly ‘cos I didn’t know Blogger provided an RSS one).

If you don’t know what this stuff means, seriously, don’t worry. I just wanted to update my blog as I’ve seen the latest posts so many times today during editing that I just wanted something new to look at.

Ooh, shiny prop

2009-04-21T03:43:00.003+01:00

As many of you know, I adore the Fallout series. My bedroom door has a Fallout shelter sign on it (imported from the US at great expense), I have between one and four copies of every Fallout game ever made and have in the past played so much Fallout that I dreamt about playing it when I wasn’t.

I was sceptical about Fallout 3 and I’m still not entirely happy with it as the next step in the series but I will say this – subjectively it stands head and shoulders above Fallout Tactics (and obviously Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, *cough*..). It has its flaws, lots of them. It has things that feel wedged in where I feel they don’t fit, but generally speaking, it’s not bad. Bethesda could have done a lot worse.

I hope a fourth Fallout game is produced, one that fixes the damn engine and includes a little more dark humour. It feels like the world often takes itself too seriously whilst knowing that it’s supposed to have a few jokes, resulting in a few half-hearted things here and there.

What I do admire is the random promotional items associated with the game. Vault-Tec lunch boxes were produced, for example (I’m currently considering acquiring one). An item of particular note was the life-sized PipBoy 3000A prop. Whilst obviously not a fully working device, it did function as an alarm clock, I’m led to believe, even if many of them were faulty.

Well, it’s not bad but obviously rather plastic, which could be fixed if I got my mitts on one, but, to be honest, that’d probably be quite expensive given that I don’t think they were released in Europe.

The PipBoy appeared in both Fallout 1 and 2, although I’m not sure which model it was and it behaved a little differently, although I would say the devices weren’t drastically different in function.

I’m thinking that perhaps I should put together a Vault dweller outfit. Not necessarily for Halloween (I have a Cthulhu costume planned for that..) but as a general costume to wear for something. A tattered jumpsuit would be great, but I think a PipBoy would really complete the look.

Fallout 3 live action test- Pipboy 3000 from A. Joshua Hawks on Vimeo.

(This is a test to see how the pipboy looks on screen)
(sorry it's just music, my onboard mic on my camera was off and didn't pick up any sound effects.)
The Pipboy 3000- The holy grail of Fallout 3 fans seems to be a working prop, espessally after the flop of the pipboy wrist clock that no one seemed happy with. This is the first (that I have seen) real step towards making that a reality.

I've figured out the screen and the main computing aspects of the unit (as you can see in the video, I've set a few of the screens in a loop because I'm using the other hand to hold the camera). At curent moment, I'm figureing out how to fit the LEDs back on the buttons and make the dial control the screens and such. Also, I'm trying to figure out a better latch for the unit, right now I'm holding it on via gaffers tape. It's a WIP, but I should have a game acurate prop by this sumer.

Now in order to build such a thing I imagine I’d need a variety of things, including a digital photo frame, some LEDs and a friend with some electronics know-how. I’d want to map the buttons on the frame to the controls on the device too, I reckon it’d be rather swish. The PipBoy 3000A has a scroll wheel, two clicky buttons and a clicky rotating knob. Basically.

I’d also need some piping, I think, in order to create the right tube to go underneath. It’s tricky, but I reckon it could be done. Ooh and the bolts to hold it on. The device isn’t supposed to come off easily!

Typically Trite Title

2009-04-20T01:01:00.001+01:00

I’m in a bit of a quandary. A conundrum if you will.
Nothing world shattering or emotionally crippling, just, uh, tricky.

A little while ago I bought myself a PC off Gumtree. The price wasn’t bad and I’m very pleased with it. That said it does have a few issues.

It’s a Medion PC with a 2.2GHz Phenom X4, 2GB DDR2 (667MHz), nVIDIA 8400GS and 500GB RAM. Overall I’m not disappointed but I want to get more from it. I’ve already purchased a cheap monitor for it, although not a bad one, as you may have read should you read the techier bits of my blog.

I’m thinking of getting this machine, currently known only as EchoFoxtrot, a shiny nVIDIA GeForce 250GTS, some more RAM and a beefier power supply to feed it (which I hope will be sufficient, unless I’ve botched my power calculations).

My main problem is deciding which RAM to get. My motherboard and processor support up to 1066MHz RAM, 4GB of which would set me back about £40. Alternatively I could get 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 for about £32. Or I could get just 2GB of 667MHz.

My main issue is that I don’t know what makes most sense. If I get the top end stuff I won’t be able to add more the the machine as I’m led to believe my Phenom doesn’t support more than two sticks of the 1066MHz stuff. If I was to add more I’d have to push them down to 800MHz.

So far, RAM excluded I’m spending about £143. I don’t want to push that too high, obviously.

Finally. How much RAM can Windows XP actually use?

Masks

2009-04-19T15:24:00.003+01:00

Before writing this I took a moment to read over an article on maskaphobia and to consider how I feel about masks now.

I used to find them far more unpleasant than I do now, although I can’t say I’ve entirely got over it yet. They still put me a little ill at ease but only in some cases. The pig mask seen in the Saw series has helped dull my response to them, thankfully.

I believe this is the reason I find masks so creepy:

My father made this mask many years ago. I’m not sure what its original purpose was or whether it was scratch-built for a masquerade he wore it to, but either way, I still find it very impressive. It’s made with actual fox fur and is fairly sturdy, with foam padding inside and enough room to carefully sip drinks. It’s actually the basis for a Cthulhu mask I intend to build sometime soon.

Either way, when I was a lot younger I remember this mask hanging from a beam on the way down the stairs in our home in Wales. I found it so intimidating that I’d sometimes not be able to summon the courage to walk past it in order to get to the sofa to watch early-morning TV.

I’ve been meaning to get photos of this mask for some time and this time I finally remembered whilst I was in Wales. Hope you like it.

It’s a.. uh.. bracer!

2009-04-18T20:12:00.002+01:00

I was in the shower a few days ago and started thinking about what to do with some fabric off-cuts I had lying about. They weren’t really big enough to do anything particularly advanced (and even if they were, I wouldn’t have the skill to make something complex) but I thought that perhaps it would be a good place to try out another idea I had.

We had a large number of Napier Subculture badges made a while ago and there’s still a few around. I was considering turning a few into buttons for a waistcoat I was making. Well, the waistcoat is still only about 40% done and is going to remain so for the foreseeable future, unless I suddenly get a flash of motivation to finish it.

I decided that making a “bracer” might be fairly easy and would be quick enough that I could be wearing it pretty quickly. Well, I was right, mostly.

It wasn’t hard, per se, I just took a little longer than I intended as I tried a few things. The buttons were done in two different ways – the first one I drilled several holes in and stitched fabric to the back of whereas the other two I used araldyte to make a raised lump and attached the fabric to that. I would say that was the superior method but was also quite a lot messier. Argh, contact adhesive everywhere. Bastards.

That wasn’t the only thing I tried out though, the other main thing was the thread used. I found I didn’t have enough black but I did have one spindle/spool of it. I wanted red and black so I tried having one thread feed with red thread, another with black. I’ve got to say, the results were very positive! It meant in places I could put red on one layer without interrupting the other designs. Well, to put it more simply, it let me easily hide my many sewing screw-ups.

I also have never put button holes on anything. I had always assumed they were done manually. Apparently not though, there’s several settings on my sewing machine that allowed the machine to do lots of the work, even if it took three attempts before I mostly understood how it was supposed to work.

Finally, there’s a bit of elastic on the top half, I’ve never worked with it before and learnt quite a bit, although I feel I need to amend the stitching a little as it’s not quite attached enough. It’s not coming off the fabric, I mean more that it’s not bound to the fabric quite right. I have some ideas for that particular problem though, if I can ever be bothered dealing with them.

The end result isn’t perfect, but I liked it enough to wear it in public and didn’t feel like a complete turnip. Now, the next project requires scrap leather and some anime-style source material, although that makes it sound a lot more interesting that it really is.

NSS, ENTV and ENU

2009-04-16T01:16:00.002+01:00

I’ve been thinking recently about where my uni society is going in the coming months, the changes we have planned and the execution of same.

We’ve been planning to change the society name but the more I think about it, the more I feel uncertain whether it’s a sound course of action. I don’t wish us to remain exactly the same, many elements of the re-brand seem very sensible.

Napier recently became Edinburgh Napier, although it’s more like “is becoming” as it’ll take some time before it’s the new status quo. We as a society have been planning on becoming Edinburgh Napier TV, or ENTV (pronounced “NTV”). My concern with this is a simple one – who will join such a society?

Perhaps we’ll get a few AV people, maybe some journalism students, but really, we’ve existed for a few years now and haven’t heard a peep from more than a handful of people. That’s simply not enough to build a successful society on.

That said, unless we gain significant staff and skill, we can’t draw the numbers of students that we need to run the kinds of events we want to run. There’s lots we’d like to do but struggle to do simply because we find drawing a crowd so difficult. This isn’t to say it’s entirely our fault – it’s difficult to get Napier students to do anything, there’s not a strong sense of community spirit, something that I feel pained that I don’t do enough to remedy.

What I’m considering is whether it would perhaps be better to continue with the rebrand but simply retain the original society name. By that I mean “Napier Subculture Society – Home of ENTV”. By creating a degree of distance between the society and the show it might be possible to still run both. The crucial thing being that I feel if we push too far for the separation of the show and the society we will end up in a position where the society isn’t suited to be a society.

The show alone is unlikely, in my view, to be enough to encourage students to join up. I’m sure a few will, but getting enough might be tough and ultimately perhaps the show will be better suited as an NSA ongoing concern rather than a society.

Instead what could be worth doing would be the following:

Boil down society events into a few categories.
Establish a small team for each.
Schedule events as far in advance as possible.

The categories would be modelled on something like this:

Music
Performing arts/film
Napier events

So, this would mean two or three people would have the job of looking up which gigs were coming up and trying to arrange tickets.

Two or three people would have the job of finding out which drama shows, comedy shows and films are upcoming.

Finally, two or three would be charged with liaising with other clubs and societies to find out what they have planned and whether any inter-society things can be organised.

We would need this information regularly for the show regardless and so to be publicising the activities and encouraging our members to go along in groups would not be too far of a stretch.

The pitch would go something like the following:

We’re Napier’s TV show, we’re involved with everyone and keep our ears to the ground in Edinburgh. We find out what’s worth going to and make sure our friends are kept in the know. If you want a summary of what’s going on this week and a great group of people to go to stuff with, we’re your best bet.

Whilst we might organise our own events, this would mean the focus wasn’t primarily on that and our resources wouldn’t need to be stretched so thinly.

I’m interested in constructive feedback and consider this a particularly pressing issue for the society and its exec. I hope we can come to some kind of resolution that leaves us all confident for our society’s future.

Passion and Bling.

2009-04-09T18:19:00.003+01:00

Last night there was the third in a series of parties. One I had planned to attend but discovered was fairly unworkable shortly before leaving. The previous two “Passionate” nights had been on Tuesdays, this one was on a Wednesday.

Thursdays are pretty hectic for me and I don’t feel that staying out until the early hours of the morning would be a good way to survive my least favourite day of the week. In the end I missed my classes today because I slept so badly, which of course makes me wonder how much worse I would have felt if I’d been drinking heavily as well.

Anyway, the first one was awesome, the second was alright and this one, well. I just wasn’t feeling it. Perhaps it was the fact that most of my friends weren’t going to be there and I feel awkward around that many strangers where my main talents are of little use. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have anyone to go to the event “for”, so to speak or maybe it’s because the prospect of filming footage on my own that I have no real use for just didn’t fill me with glee.

That said, I did prepare a costume. In fact I put quite a lot of effort into it. The end result, as per the usual, was that I had more fun building the costume than I did on the night.

The theme was “bling”, so I thought to myself “how can I cheaply make my own, custom made stuff?”. The result? Shrinkydinks, gold paint and LOTS of cheap fake crystals.

It took some time to find a suitable design and to place all the crystals (having to cut a huge number of the square ones to actually fit the letters on the bling knuckleduster I created).

Hopefully the results are pleasing – the total cost was less than twenty pounds, I think. £2 – 3 per bag of crystals (I bought two varieties). £3.50 for the chain. £8 – 12 for the shrinkydinks (I refuse to call them by their name on the box “Shrinkles”. Euch).

Thankfully, as with many of my other props, I have plenty of uses in mind for them. I intend on throwing a suitably themed party in order to use them, an unbirthday party. I don’t expect massive attendance, I gave up that expectation many years ago.

A student mass media conference?

2009-04-08T04:14:00.001+01:00

No, this isn’t directly a post about Lugradio Live, although it’s certainly very relevant.

I’m currently president of the Napier Subculture Society, everyone’s favourite ambiguously-named, award-winning society. Well. Mine anyway. We started our podcast back in April 2007 and are coming up on our 50th episode and recently, at an exec meeting, we were discussing the planned re-brand of the show.

We’re going to be becoming NapierTV, if all goes to plan, although we’ll still be a podcast, not a TV station (admittedly the boundaries between these two things are becoming increasingly blurred in the modern world). During the meeting we spent some time looking into other student TV shows or podcasts – there aren’t as many as one would expect.

That said, we did find some, although the quality varied. Some were very technically competent but lacked good direction, others had excellent content but could do with work in other areas. The nice thing that we saw though was that we, by comparison, compare very favourably.

The Captain mentioned the idea of having a conference with these other podcasts, a concept I wandered around thinking about for a short while before having an idea (and, *cough*, thinking that I’d had the original idea.. Sorry, Chris!).

The idea being that there must be a great deal of students out there involved in student mass media. Here in Edinburgh alone we have several newspapers, an internet radio station, at least one podcast, split over several universities.

Well, what if we were to put together a student conference? An LRL-style meet-up with talks, discussions, workshops, light bulb talks and live recordings?

I’m hoping I’ll keep on with this idea as I feel it could be an amazing experience for all involved, even if it would be fairly tough to orchestrate. It would hopefully not cost too much (and hopefully we can get Napier to foot the bill..) and I would hope we have the facilities to hand already.

The basic structure I would think would work as follows:
Set over two days at Merchiston campus, probably a weekend with the union for drinks over lunch, possibly sometime in September before Freshers’ Week.

I’d like some serious feedback on the idea though and I hope to get in contact with at least some other podcasts first to see whether the idea is feasible.

A Friday morning ramble

2009-03-27T02:58:00.000Z

A slightly more pleasant mood this evening, mixed with a little regret and annoyance. The latter two simply at the fact that I didn't get anything academic done today and would have liked to. I have an overdue essay that I need to finish and am tired of not doing, combined with an overdue podcast that needs finishing. Hopefully I can make some progress on those in the morning.

It would seem one of my potential ships has sailed, at least for now, but who can truly say. Regardless, hopefully that will prevent that particular area being an issue and allow me to concentrate more on immediate priorities. There is work to be done and I know I will feel better if I achieve what I'm aiming for.

I feel apologetic for not allowing a prospect further time with me, although I feel that it was probably a sensible choice, given that I don't wish to hurt them by not being able to provide what they would like, or at least what I imagine they would like. I also can't help but think that someone else I recently encountered ought to be a prospect and how fun it would be. Perhaps another day.

It's been a fairly strange day, I've felt like I'm on something, even though I'm not. The best comparison I can make is to when I'm really drunk and have moments of clarity. My life often feels like it's made up of those with a sort of vague haze in the middle. That may be normal though. It's nice when I get a proper challenge and can achieve it.

I hope that finance won't soon become a challenge that requires my attention, perhaps after my exams though. After that it might be fun to try to arrange for some additional income, if possible. I'd really like to have some more money, although really, I think I'd rather the society have more money. I want to buy some new video cameras for the society, rather than for myself. We won best society, which is nice, but now I want to up the ante. One thing I could really do with for that though is for others to help out with the editing. I want to release an episode for example, but there's a lot of work involved with each episode and sometimes it's really quite hard to muster up the will and effort to do it. In general at the moment I'm suffering, I hope that I can pull together some strength for that though, I really do.

Boohoo, angsty rubbish.

2009-03-26T01:44:00.000Z

Well, that was a merry jaunt. By which I mean, as per the usual, I'm once again alone. I wonder what it's like to leave a club, event or ball with someone who wants you, by which I mean of the romantic variety (no offence, Chris!). Admittedly, even when I had someone I didn't feel I was leaving to go back to anything pleasant, merely that I'd wasted enough of their evening and would shortly after be ignored or forgotten. Yay, happy bunnies! Rainbows and sunshine!

Try as I might I cannot must any kind of false enthusiasm. We attended the (Edinburgh) Napier Sports and Societies Awards Ball 2009, technically it's still going on for at least another hour. Our society, my society, won best society. Rik, Chris and myself all were awarded society colours. M'eh.

Perhaps I should be in a sort of "I don't believe it!" mood, but really, I'm not. Yes, we deserved it, but I don't feel the competition was particularly stiff. Furthermore, by my own standards, we don't deserve to win. We're good but we're not good enough to win things, I don't feel. Perhaps that's cruel or belittling, but I am a man of high standards and consider our society to be in its infancy. We're getting the hang of doing things well, we're getting the hang of PR and events. We know what we're doing with the podcast although really it'd be nice if there was a better division of labour for things. Woo, yay. Yes, we're good. But we can do much better. I suppose winning the award is useful for our credibility and so on but I'm in this for the results, not the awards.

Ultimately, I want attention. That takes priority. I've little interest in winning awards if I'm alone when I'm doing so. Oh, wow, things can be arranged directly or indirectly to deliver results. Not news to me. I want to share my victories with someone, someone who loves me. Yeah, not much chance of that happening any time soon unless some woman appears out of the blue. To quote The Simpsons - Ribbons and trophies are no comfort on your deathbed. Perhaps not the most reputable source but it conveys what I feel. Of the several prospects on my radar, euch. I don't think I can even bring myself to blog about it. She had a date, she's got at least one date, she's not even here and thank gods she didn't find some time in her pathetic life to be here either. Bitter much? Of course, you guys know me. Well, no, a great deal of you don't.

I'd like to be able to be cheerful, sunny and loving and I'm not being sarcastic. Sadly what I find more appropriate and relevant is contempt, coldness and skepticism. In my experience people are lazy, unreliable, unkind and will at best abandon you or at worst actively work to undermine you. I don't tend to join things, I tend to found them. I can't rely on anyone else creating something appropriate for me, although very rarely I do encounter such things and am pleased. In order to live in a world where things exist that please me it seems I usually have to create them myself and to rely on anyone else to help with this dream is incredibly risky and only to be undertaken if someone very reliable can be found, only after testing them. Paranoid? Quite so. Justified? I feel it is.

I do some of my best and most impressive work whilst depressed and annoyingly angsty but I'm at my most kind and human when I have an equal to share my life with.
Well, being a twenty-something man I should probably be thinking about where I can get some, as it were, rather than who will make a good partner, but whilst in the extreme short term that might make me happy, ultimately it'll make me miserable (and not in a "I feel so shallow.." way).

..and yes, if I had the convenient and untraceable means, I would have him ended. Maybe he's a great guy, but subjectively he's entirely expendable.

Now available in high definition.

2009-03-19T01:07:00.001Z

I hope this snapshot does my new monitor justice, I really do. I doubt it will though as without a normal monitor next to it the difference isn’t that obvious.

What difference? This monitor is 1080P. Eh?

Yeah, it has a resolution of 1920x1080 which, as I write this, is rather high. What this means in practical terms is that the damn thing is really wide. When I’m working on an essay I can comfortably look at two pages at once, something I really like.

Furthermore, when I’m editing video or photos I have a lot of screen real estate. I don’t need to have a tiny, cramped working environment. NICE. It’s literally like having two of my laptop screens merged into one (1280x800= 1,024,000 pixels, 1920x1080= 2,073,600 pixels).

The other advantage of a screen that is 1080P is a simple one – 1080P is currently the highest "normal” consumer-grade HD resolution. Should I buy a games console at some point, even if it’s not until the next generation of consoles, this monitor should serve me well. We’ll see if it survives that long, of course, but I’ve got monitors I’ve owned since I was a teenager that are still perfectly usable, so no reason it shouldn’t still be available. Oh and it only cost £120.

In general it’s been fairly quiet on my blog recently as well as in terms of what many people have heard from me. There’s a combination of factors at work – Fallout 3, the elections, trying to film things, personal life, Fallout 3, bacon, Fallout 3. Yeah, I’ve already surpassed Chris’ play time. How scary.

It is my hope that I will quickly get things back on track as things have been drifting away from me a little these last few weeks but I feel fairly confident that I’m now in a position to actually take back control. The elections made me feel very powerless, not being able to campaign (through my own inability as well as being officially neutral) but also due to my podcasting crew all being busy.

I’ve missed a coursework deadline, I think, but I’m not hugely concerned, mainly because I’ve done the maths and it shouldn’t make much difference at all – I’m now capped at 40% of the available marks. Realistically I would have got 65% at most. Sounds like a big difference? Well, not really. You see 100% would have netted me 30% of the available marks for the module. So, had I got about 65% I would have received just under 20%. 40% will net me 12%, a fairly insignificant difference, given that the exam is worth about 50% and I far prefer exams. Oh there’s also class interaction and a presentation. Yay, marks! *sighs*

Passionate was rather enjoyable, if frustratingly confusing. Yeah, you know what I mean. Word disassociation was fun though, as was dancing to hiphop. It’s nice to get a style of music that I can vaguely appreciate in that kind of setting.

Right, wrapping up I just want to add I’m writing this using Windows Live Writer, a desktop blogging app under Windows. I’m not sure how well it works, so we’ll soon see. So far it seems fairly intuitive and I hope a similar app appears for Linux. I’m not a fan of Blogger’s lousy text box which can’t be resized. It would be fine if I only wrote a couple of lines at a time, but come on, that interface has barely changed since 2006!

Good night, my friends.

Bethesda's Fallout

2009-03-09T13:00:00.002Z

I've recently acquired a copy of Bethesda's Fallout (Yes, I know, technically it's called Fallout 3). I would have played it on my laptop but, like its predecessor, my laptop overheats when asked to do anything as strenuous as running a game. It has the grunt, just not the heat dispersal. *mutters*

So, I've been playing the rather buggy game on Matt's 360. I say buggy for two reasons - firstly I've managed to crash the game and lock-up the 360 several times, secondly because many of the in-game quests are broken, it would seem. What is it with me and doing things with games that the designers never planned for?

An example would be my first fight against a super mutant behemoth, this enormous critter that has a scripted encounter. Well, it was kinda scripted..
I've seen others play through and they met a group of Brotherhood of Steel dudes who assisted in the fight and provided a weapon to quickly defeat it (the "Fatman", presumably named after the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, 9/8/1945 and based on the M-388 Davy Crocket nuclear recoilless rifle). Well, I visited a city in the South East of the map and met a character that broke that encounter.

I had to fight the damn thing on my own and I can tell you it takes a lot of rounds to put that git down. Thankfully the building I was sheltering in made me essentially invulnerable and it was just a case of wearing him down. Still, well done on the game design there, Bethesda..

What I can say of the game is the following, in the style of PC Gamer review sum-ups.
It is:

Enjoyable
Fairly large
Pew pew pew

It's not:

Fallout
Fallout 2
Built on a game engine that doesn't suck

I can't fault it on being a good game but it lacks a lot of the things I loved about Fallout and Fallout 2. For example, there aren't any descriptions. If you examine an item the game doesn't tell you anything. Yeah, not liking that. Furthermore, the third person perspective doesn't work very well at all.

Then there's the engine, which gets its own paragraph..
The Gamebryo engine is apparently what it uses and I'll say this - it sucks. It's terrible. The collision detection is appalling, nothing has the correct weight and the characters seem to glide slightly above the surface of the floor. Maybe I've been spoilt by the engine used in GTA IV but the glaring issues with the physics annoy me. I've shot things and they've not just retained momentum, they've accelerated. I've walked into the carcass of a bus and had it jiggle and slide out of position.

Maybe it's just me but I don't think a 1950s style coach should be easily pushed out of position by a single person, not unless they're a super mutant or similarly epically strong character.
Right, back to work!

Svensk hiphop

2009-03-01T05:16:00.001Z

I thought I'd provide a bit of a less erudite post this morning, even if this one has technically been more work to provide.

Shortly before my last visit to New Zealand I got hold of a compilation of Swedish hiphop. In the past I've listened to and enjoyed The Latin Kings but I wanted to hear a selection. I can't say I adored all of the tracks but equally there weren't any I hated. I thought I'd share a few of them with you. Most are in Swedish but the last one is a Swedish rap group rapping in English:

Mange Schmidt - Giftig

Ken Ring - 2000 Talet

Petter (featuring Säkert) - Logiskt

Timbuktu - The Botten Is Nådd

Ayo - Betongdjungelboken

Ison & Fille - Lägg Ner Ditt Vapen

Finally there's one in English but I couldn't find an actual video, just a slideshow with the music:

Supersci - On The Grind

Even if it isn't of interest to anyone it's still a useful post for me. I can just look it up later if I want a few of my favourite Swedish hiphop tracks.

Off with his head!

2009-02-25T03:55:00.001Z

I'm often filled annoyed by the fact that my world feels increasingly headless. It would be nice if occasionally I didn't feel like the world needs me to do something to fix things. What I mean by that is that lots of people I meet moan about things that need someone competent to take charge and sort them out.

I don't feel I'm anywhere near competent enough lots of the time, but counter-balancing that is the fact that, at least in my experiences since leaving school, if I don't take charge, no one else will.

This isn't just true of my life on a day to day level, it's true of how I feel about the world. The only person I feel I can trust to be in control is my father. Even then, he's just one man. Who does he turn to?

The British government feels headless to me - we have no charismatic leader who projects a calm air of competence. I can't say I remember Thatcher but from what I've read she had this quality, but then again all I ever hear from people about her is the negative aspects of her
government. It wouldn't be so bad if the people doing the bitching were actually old enough to have been alive as adults during her time!
I've little knowledge of her policies but I imagine I'd probably take issue with them, just as I have done with every British government I've experienced. I think both Labour and the Tories suck.

For this reason I feel that voting is pointless. I don't want either of the realistic options. I live in what I feel is essentially a totalitarian regime without the benefits if a strong leader!

This of course extends to my personal life. I'm interested in dating a woman, not a girl. I feel like most of the women I've got to know are not in control of their lives. A scant few are and I hold them in high regard because of it. It would be nice to date someone who would actually hold together under pressure, evidently that is but a pipe dream though.

The phrasing that springs to mind is "I'm your partner, not your father". Whilst I can provide a shoulder to cry on (badly, a lack of empathy is a serious hindrance) I am not here to solve your problems, fight your battles or absorb your frustrations. Similarly I don't expect to dump my problems on you, they are mine to deal with.

I guess I want someone who is in control of their life, mentally. It doesn't matter if they surf the chaos, that's more what I want than a control freak.

I don't like having to tone down myself in order to not put pressure on someone. I am me, I have a huge ego and a deficit of care for most things. If I actually care and say so, that is a big deal. Perhaps others dole it out everywhere - I do not.

Finally-
I look for hope and positive qualities in most people I meet and I'm constantly saddened by their absence.

Let's go shopping!

2009-02-24T13:13:00.005Z

Before I went to sleep last night I was reading about Woolworths on wikipedia, one of several shops that I essentially grew up with. They vanished a month or two ago fairly permanently and it got me thinking about which other shops I remember that have disappeared and why they might have disappeared.

The first that springs to mind is the ridiculously named "Zavvi", one I did not have fond memories of. However, Zavvi was just a rebranding of the newly independent chain of Virgin Megastores. I didn't shop in them when they were open due to the offensively high prices (well, high to me) although the one on Princes Street here in Edinburgh had an uneven floor that made me feel like I was a bit drunk whenever I was in there. Can't say I liked that!

What I do remember though is wandering around a Virgin Megastore when I was in Paris back in 1999 or so. I remember Sennett buying a Simpsons Men In Black tshirt but moreover I remember being impressed by the size and architecture of the place. It had this wondrous sprawling quality to it.

As music and video retailers go though I've never bought much from Virgin but I did buy a fair few things from MVC when one opened in Carmarthen, one of my hometowns in Wales. The prices were pretty good and having a membership card lowered them further. Shame they do died out back in 2006.

Getting back to my original thoughts, I was wondering what people actually buy from a place like Woolworths?
I've not had any good reason to buy from one since I was a little boy and was entranced by all the toys. Should I want music I'll either get it from the Internet or buy discs online, same goes for video. Clothes I wouldn't buy there and their general tat was overpriced. What was their main revenue stream?

The market for physical copies for music isn't what it used to be - there's still money in it but there's not anywhere near as much. How many people do you know that carry portable CD players with them?

In terms of shopping in general, as a guy, I rarely buy anything. I buy food and drink, occasionally I buy clothes. I buy art/craft supplies and the odd game. Other than that, what shopping remains?

If I want electronics I order them over the Internet, if I want videos it's easier to just pull them from the 'net. This isn't something particularly new for me, I'm not a one man economic meltdown, it's been like this for years for me. What do normal people buy on the highstreet?

Game over, man, game over..

GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, even if I keep thinking "..the Damned". Lousy brain.

2009-02-24T00:00:00.010Z

"You're going to write about your experiences? Wouldn't that time be better spent experiencing?" - Captain Applepants

Well, maybe it would, if it wasn't for the fact that my fingers actually hurt from playing it so much. Despite having been fairly busy with stuff recently I've managed to fit in at least twenty hours of GTA IV's first episodic downloadable content on our 360. Well, Matt's 360.

Weighing in at 1600 funny monies ("MS Points") it cost about £13 and I've got to say, so far I've been impressed. I had been looking forward to the release but not been expecting much. Rockstar have indeed exceeded expectations and released an expansion that not only breathes life into GTA IV (Not that it needed it) but actually expands the scope of the world in a fun and meaningful way.

I'd make the comparison of GTA III and GTA: Liberty City Stories but it'd be unfair as The Lost and Damned isn't a shitty tech demo. This expansion is actually fun to play.

Whilst playing as Niko Bellic was great fun, I essentially avoided motorcycles and spent very little time on the third island of Liberty City (Alderney - paralleling New Jersey, I'm told). So far I've found myself exploring what feels almost like new areas and it's worth noting I've spent a great deal of time in this version of Liberty City as Niko, 72+ hours, in fact.

One of the major changes is the bikes - I can actually ride them quite well when I play as Johnny (Johnny Klebitz, protaganist of TLAD). Johnny doesn't fall off at the slightest bump but also has a much greater number of bikes available to him. I personally prefer the choppers but the Captain seems to favour plastic fantastics (a nickname the game used for them at one point). I like the mass and rumble of the choppers in the game, my current favourite being the Innovation, a bike that becomes available after hunting down all fifty hidden seagulls.

Seagulls?

Yeah, GTA IV replaced hidden packages with 200 hidden pigeons, TLAD has its own hidden collectables - 50 seagulls. Thankfully it only took a few hours with a map to hunt them all down, something I couldn't be bothered with in the original game due to the absurdly high amount of the damn things (yes, I know, not as bad as San Andreas..). I was initially disappointed with the reward for the job but after some experience with the Innovation my mind was changed. Without it I couldn't have won the game's races.

What's most concerning is the fact that once I finish the story I'll nearly have 100% completion. A frightening prospect.

What I will say for the game is that it has tougher combat. Whilst Niko faced guys that could be felled with a few carbine rounds, Johnny commonly encounters foes who are 'arder than an armour-plated triceratops. Headshots work, of course but the higher level gang wars result in countless gangsters packing serious heat making mincemeat out of anything that crosses their path. This is probably a good thing though - I found the combat in GTA IV almost too easy much of the time.

In general I would say - if you enjoyed GTA IV, get The Lost and Damned. It has new weapons, new vehicles, fun characters and a decent challenge. It's not too expensive either and hopefully if there's a decent financial response to TLAD then Rockstar will produce more top notch stuff for us to play with.

Ends and Music

2009-02-18T02:35:00.004Z

Well, it's official, I am once again single.

I should probably be upset or depressed, but I feel pretty good. It wasn't my fault and I don't think I did anything spectacularly wrong, maybe I was actually horrible or something but from what I was told I'm in the clear. There's always the possibility I was utterly lied to, of course but there's little point in losing sleep about that.

I now harbour some ill-will towards Nicoletta though, not for ending our relationship but for not replying to an email I sent her shortly after the conversation we had (I was barely given a chance to talk to her, she retreated to some other urgent commitment, real or imaginary). I don't blame her for running off, although I consider it rather unfair. What I dislike is not getting any response to what I sent her. I wanted some closure so we could get on with our lives, evidently that was a little too much to ask for. I don't imagine I'm going to receive any kind of pleasant response following this blog entry but it doesn't really matter now, does it? That ship has sailed.

Either way, when things were good between us I really enjoyed our relationship, other times it was fairly stressful. I never really got comfortable though, it always felt like she was about a minute away from cracking and losing her mind. Perhaps one day her life will be calmer and less likely to cause death by stress, either way, lots of the time it wasn't her fault but I still didn't want to be on the receiving end of that. I've been in a car with someone who's had quite a few drinks and I didn't fear that we'd get home safely. Being in a car when she's wound up is by far much scarier, especially when there's nothing I could do or say that would make things better.

Just a moment, got to turn this record over.

I'm listening to my copy of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel. I've no idea whether that's a camp choice of music or not and, to be frank, I've little interest in any negative remarks about my taste in music.

I'm specifically listening to this on vinyl for the slight crackling of the record. It's really comforting and provides a vague link to the film High Fidelity, one of my favourite films, possibly even sneaking into my top three films. I should really consider making it a top five if its going to be in there though, given the prominence of lists of five in it.

A meandering tale of the life of Rob Gordon, a record shop owner. It has many comedy elements but for me it's barely a comedy, it's an interesting story covering commitment issues, love, breakups and music.

The characters in the record shop - Rob (John Cusack), Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso) discuss music in a way I could. I wish I could hang around with people and absorb the kind of knowledge they have of music. I simply don't understand music the way they do and I really wish I did. I know they're fictional entities, but I'm sure people like them exist and I wish I could absorb some of their knowledge on music.

When I watch High Fidelity, released in 2000, I think of the many subtle but big differences between the world in the film and the world I live in. For a start, there are no mobile phones. Calls are made to and from landlines exclusively - mobile phones change the way relationship matters pan out quite considerably. If someone calls my phone they get me or they get nothing. In the film if Laura calls Rob at his store she stands a good chance of having to go through Barry or Dick. Similarly, when Rob calls Laura at work he may well speak to Liz first. There's a more public element to communication, rather than the more private nature of mobile phones. No texting either, come to that.

Another important difference is the mix tapes used in the film - if I want to give someone a mixtape, how would I go about doing it? Tapes were fairly rugged, tangible and tactile. There was enough room on the cover for some art. Our digitised music, by comparison, is far less personal. My parents had mix tapes, my sisters had mix tapes. Me, what do I have? How do I give music to someone?

It's odd watching the film - much like some sci-fi films are set "five minutes in the future" it feels like it's set five minutes in the past. In an adult world I will never experience, something I'm partly glad of but also partly mournful about. In some ways I would have liked to experience that world.

Finished portable Mordheim terrain

2009-02-15T03:02:00.005Z

I've basically finished all the portable Mordheim terrain I've had in the works now. Hell, I've even finished painting all the models I currently have to hand, something I never expected to happen.

When I was younger it was rare for me to finish a model - I'd usually find the process less enjoyable than the end result and lose interest before finishing. I don't know if these days I have a longer attention span or whether I simply paint more quickly. Either way, I've painted not only all my Skaven but all my human mercenaries too (Reiklanders). I've set them up on the table as if it were mid-game - I have played a game on the terrain but neither the terrain nor the painting was finished so I didn't bother taking photos.

First off an overview of the finished terrain (clicky to embiggen):

When flat-packed the terrain looks like this (Black Skaven provided for scale):

The whole lot can be assembled in a matter of minutes and packed away in about the same amount of time.

Some low-level shots:

The overall cost of the project has been about £10, not including paint. Foamboard, thin card from cereal boxes, some bamboo skewers and plenty of PVA glue. I'm rather pleased with the results. I'm not sure how much use it'll see but we'll see. I enjoyed building it and it can easily be packed away. The next step is to get hold of some fabric to form a play mat, doubling as a bag for the pieces. Hopefully I'll be able to find something suitable soon.

Avoiding the rush hour

2009-02-11T18:12:00.002Z

I've just finished my first lecture of the semester (no, Napier, I refuse to call it a "trimester").

Generally I'm feeling pretty positive about it, even if I was one of the three people brave enough to speak up during the class. It was as if the entire class was terrified to say anything, how bizarre. Or maybe it's not and I've just missed so many classes that I'm utterly out of touch with the norm for uni students here at Napier.

Something that also struck me as odd was that most of the class, as in, everyone except me, was wearing muted dark colours. Now normally I don't notice but in this case I was wearing my snowboarding jacket (light grey with lots of orange) over my flame shirt and flame cuffs, a veritable walking fireball. I do so love to stand out.

It's also worth mentioning that our heating has FINALLY been repaired. I woke up to the sound of it being repaired and then got up around an hour after it'd started running. The pile of dishes has already been tackled leaving only a few stragglers and the heating was on full blast until about 1400, allowing us the luxury of wandering around in shorts and tshirts whilst the snow still lay fairly thick outside. Ah, heating, how we've missed you.

I'm still working on acquiring some film for my SLR although I've some in mind over on eBay, although it's about five years out of date. I'm told that won't really matter as its not colour film, I hope the advice is sound although regardless it shouldn't cost me much and should allow me the chance to get the hang of using the hardware.

In the meantime I need to figure out all my commitments and objectives at the moment - I'm currently in a period of flux though as it's not the end of the second week and as such I'm not quite sure how busy I'm going to be. I'm doing my best to keep society work organised so it doesn't creep up on me and drag me under. Similarly I'm trying to organise social events on my calendar so I know in advance when I'm definitely busy, something I've not really done before.

I dislike when others force structure on me, usually because it's a generalised structure that doesn't work for me (such as huge numbers of "self-study" on my timetable - another way of saying that they don't want to have to actually use their staff, it seems). That said, it seems if I can set a reasonable structure with enough time left aside for freedom I should be okay. I need time to be able to relax and these kinds of periods can't be scheduled rigidly or I don't use them. Complicated, I know.

Film speed? Negatives?

2009-02-11T01:25:00.003Z

I've never been much for photography, not just because of the complexity of the jargon I've encountered either. It might be one of those things like music or poetry - I just don't quite understand the idea on some sort of fundamental level.

It should also be noted that as a teenager/adult I've never lived in a world where digital photography wasn't prevalent. I bought my first digicam when I was about 15 for something like £180, including a 16MB SmartMedia card. At the time there weren't that many other people of the same age who owned them but this changed over the next few years.

The point being that I've basically never dealt with actual film. I've always been able to see photos immediately after taking them - immediate feedback. Similarly, I've barely any idea of how much it costs to develop film.

When I was growing up as a boy my mother would take huge numbers of photos, something I'm very glad she did as we have photo-documentation of a great deal of our pasts (although it took major surgery to provide the time for my mother to finally sort them all!). She eventually moved to digital photography and has owned about as many digicams as I have (about 3, not including phones).

It's a little odd that there's a whole generation whose only exposure to film photography is in the context of art, if that. It's especially surreal as I feel I'm one of them.

That said, on a recent trip to Wales I borrowed a load of old lenses as well as a camera with the intention of putting together a DIY 35mm DoF adapter for my video camera (as mentioned in a previous post). A side effect of this is I now have my father's Nikon F-801 and a few lenses for it, a 35mm SLR camera from 1988. There's no way I'd sell it of course, it's not mine to sell, but it has been sitting gathering dust for years and in terms of IWC's photography needs it was long ago replaced by digicams.

So, I've got a camera from two decades ago, some reasonable lenses and little to no knowledge. I could ask the Captain for some pointers, but to be honest I think I prefer not knowing for now. I'd rather experiment a little and get a feel for the device before trying to properly improve.

I'm just thinking that it might be fun to get hold of some film and take some photos of my life. It'd be nice to be able to post some physical photos to my parents in New Zealand, do things a little old school, as it were.

35mm adapters and camera rails

2009-02-09T02:27:00.003Z

Apparently this is blog post number 100. How about that?
This is of course entirely subject to change as I can retroactively blog (that's how I transferred over all my old Bebo blog posts).

This evening I've been hammering away at the new intro sequence for the NSS podcast. It has some rather nifty title card things, although I'm not going to show them off just now. They may go out on this week's show, either that or next week. Soon all will be revealed!

In the meantime I'm trying to figure out how to cheaply put together the following two things:

A 35mm Depth-of-Field Adapter
A supporting rail system

The idea behind the former is to allow my video camera (Panasonic GS300) to use lenses from a 35mm camera. Why would I want to do that?
Well, the answer is pretty simple - to allow for nicer footage and shallower depth of field. You might notice how camera footage from a video camera/digicam/phone looks very different from footage in movies. One of the reasons is the depth of field.

By using a 35mm adapter I would be able to shoot footage where the background or foreground isn't in focus. This way whatever I'm focusing on stands out more prominently, giving depth of field. Voilà, much nicer looking footage.

Of course, I may be completely misunderstanding the whole matter, but this is what I've understood so far.

The problem is of course that whilst I have both a macro lens, a 35mm lens and a videocamera, I need the stuff to make them work together. I need stuff to connect them together and some ground glass (or similar translucent material). Hopefully I'll be able to find suitable stuff and make it happen.

Once I've put one together there's the next problem - supporting the damn thing. My camera is just a small thing and doesn't have the strongest of connections. Hell, half the time the damn wide-angle keeps falling off.

To fix this I need to design a system of supportive rods, something I'm still working on in my mind. The main issues being cost, materials and tools. I'm not sure what would be most cost effective and where to source it. I'm thinking perhaps curtain rails or ski poles as a basis. Not quite sure how to attach them but they could probably hold the weight.
Either that or we could butcher another tripod..

The main reason this has become a priority is because we're on the verge of releasing the fifth season of the podcast. The intro sequence is getting a fairly drastic revamp and we've added an extra crew member, bringing us up to a total of six regulars. I want to keep pushing us to be better and one thing that we can improve is our filming.

Following that I need to either buy, research or invent portable lighting solutions.

But if we do things that way it's no fun..

2009-02-06T13:58:00.003Z

Today has so far been a good day, which is why I'm blogging about it now before it all goes wahoonie-shaped.

I was up early and got bacon, hell, I didn't even have to cook it myself. Cheers, Matt.
Well, bacon roll consumed, to Craiglockhart I went. My modules for university have been somewhat of a mess for a while but I think most of the issues should now have been resolved, although there's still a few minor bugs I'm having to squish, given that I've cleared them with the relevant people but still need to get my course administrator to understand that things are fine. I persevere.

This sounds really tedious but I actually find it really enjoyable. The reason behind this is a simple one - I'm good at manipulating systems, as many of you know. When I'm dealing with uni staff I have to try to get them to understand that whilst the system is built one way, there's no reason why it has to work just in one way. This usually isn't very difficult even if it does get accompanied by "umm"s and "I'm technically not supposed to do this". Another one that often seems to come up is that SAAS (I believe that's the acronym) won't pay up if I arrange things my way. Despite my very pronounced English accent it would seem that none of them consider that I'm not a Scottish national (or long-term resident, etc..) and as such am not eligible to have my fees paid by their government!

It amused me particularly this time as when I went up to the desk with my choices I was asked my name. Upon hearing it I was greeted with a grin and a "Oh you're Ben Fox. You're like a legend!"
Yes, I have a huge ego.
Anyway, it seems it wasn't a coincidence that Patrick Hart knows me by my first name - evidently I am someone that comes up a lot, given the way I work the system to do my bidding.
She'd seen my name written down in many places and had conversed with me via email. Well, kinda.

I received an email from this new member of staff and quickly responded. After that I heard nothing. The thing being that she had in fact written a response but had ended up sending this to a member of staff rather than to me and no one had pointed out that maybe it that staff member should have sent a message back saying "Uh, who was this supposed to go to?". Either way, I never got the message. Chaos ensues.

It's fun!

Other events of note - the nearby canal has frozen over, except a small area around the bridge - end result, lots of ducks. There were eight males and six female mallards as well as a couple of moorhens. I think they were moorhens, anyway. They moved like tiny tugboats and had red beaks, I believe that's right.
Mmmm, ducks.

I miss the warmth.

2009-02-04T02:56:00.001Z

Just a short whine about the weather here. Not really a whine, even, more a sort of "damn you, Murphy".
As most of you should have realised, it's been a bit nippy recently. It's -5° outside right now (23°F for any Americans..).
That's not really the problem. The problem is that our boiler is STILL broken. Maybe, just maybe, it'll get fixed today (Wednesday). It's been at least a week. We can still shower but we've got no heating and no hot water.

Normally the dishes pile up because we procrastinate or we're busy (usually a combination thereof).
At the moment there's a load of dishes we actively want to clean but can't because of the lack of hot water. Plates, glasses and other small things aren't a problem - a few kettles full of hot water sort them out. However, bigger things like our wok are just too damn big to be quickly cleaned, a concentrated campaign would be required to eliminate the filth. Three male students and plenty of other kitchenware.. yeah, I don't see it happening either.

My room is damn chilly though, even with the triple-glazed window closed. Two exterior-facing walls are normally not much of an issue but at the moment I'm really feeling it. The Captain was in here earlier. He wore three pairs of socks and told me to get back to work. I may or may not have been mildly violent, it's all a bit of a blur.

We did make a snowman, however. I say "we", I mainly mean Tom and The Captain. I would have helped more but fingerless gloves aren't very handy for snowcraft. I helped a little and supervised.. Okay, fine, I was there, sharing in the snowman experience. There was also some other random student who was in the nearby smoking shelter (Craiglockhart) who came over and put some extra polish on John, the snowman. The poor fellow didn't last long, I hear he was victim to a snowball fight although details were sketchy. Is there a word for snowman murder? Nivicide?

On the whole though, things are going well. Society matters are on track and my module situation is resolving itself. I may even be able to progress into third year to an extent, depending which modules are available over the summer. I might even get myself back on the programme rep list. Amusingly I own a programme rep hoody but am not officially one, although I used to be. I told Yvette when she was handing them out that I was supposed to be. I was, of course, not lying. I was asked if I wanted to continue to be one and was promised the relevant details/paperwork would be sent to me, a promise that wasn't honoured. Hopefully I'll soon be able to get that official status back. So, if you're on the Business Management programme here at Napier and have any feedback, questions, comments or anything like that, I'm one of the people you can talk to about it!

I don't promise you answers, but I can easily get in touch with the relevant people. Oddly enough, despite however many hundreds of students on the programme our programme leader, Patrick Hart, recognises me immediately, going so far as to use my first name. I'm not sure whether this is because I'm easily recognisable, a compliment to his cordial disposition towards me or a token of notoriety..

If you want something to get done, give it to someone busy.

2009-02-01T21:10:00.001Z

Tomorrow is probably going to be quite a busy day, methinks, a lot is planned.
I don't imagine it'll work out and I'll probably finish the day having accomplished a fraction of what I'd like to have done, but I can at least start out with noble intentions.

On the society front we're about to launch season 5 of our podcast. Currently we're discussing improvements and changes but a few things are on the table - a new style of intro sequence for one thing, although this may mean our theme music is going to need tweaking which hopefully won't take too long. Similarly we're working on adding some new segments and presenters (in the sort of "we've got some concrete ideas now" kind of way, not the misty-eyed, hopeful way). It should be fun although it won't be easy. Ah well, an interesting challenge!

On a personal level I've got a lot to get sorted. My academic status is a bit of a mess and needs to get sorted. By the mark I got in my last piece of coursework I'm reminded that if I take a small amount of time and effort then it's easy for me to get a decent mark - all I've got to do is motivate myself to apply myself. In order to do this I'm going to see how many modules I can study as I ended up studying pretty much just one module last semester, a situation I'm not happy with. I'm falling behind for no sensible reason and it's time to rectify that. I emailed a member of staff about it a week ago and I've so far had no reply but perhaps the staff were off for a week or something. They should be back tomorrow so I'm going to have a bash then.

Ideally I'd like to be in a position to bash out a module every week or every fortnight. It's not going to happen but I'd like to see if I can at least study enough that I need to be at uni every day. I've had plenty of time to do nothing so I think it's time to get some work done. I need to be busy to get things done so busy I plan to be.

If at all possible I'd like to still fit in a Mordheim campaign too and I'm in a pretty good position to do that too, considering the terrain is now built and shortly the final models will have been painted.

Once more into the breech, methinks.

The Nerd Handbook

2009-01-27T14:52:00.003Z

The Nerd Handbook

I don't remember whether I posted this article when it was new, I may have done but it's been a long time (it was posted in November 2007). That said, it's still very relevant and explains a great deal of my behaviour, although not all of it. I was going to put an exclamation mark at the end of that last sentence but I'm a bit too depressed to bother with humour.

The article talks about some of the main behaviour of us geeks, nerds, whatever you feel like referring to us as. Personally I prefer "geek" as I see "nerd" as more of a pejorative.

Grammatical tangents aside, the article raises the following main points:

Projects
Computers and our relation to them
Control issues
Our self-built controlled environments
Toys and Puzzles
Our appetite for information

There are more and I've missed out a few, partly because I don't want to be sitting here typing all afternoon but also because I don't have anything much to say about them at this juncture.

Right, let's kick off with the first one - Projects.

I don't know about other geeks but it's certainly true of my father and myself - we constantly work on things. There might be a single huge project, many smaller ones or a combination thereof, but regardless we're always working on things. In my case it would be, right now, the NSS, Wooden Dice, making/keeping friends, Mordheim, trying to maintain a decent relationship with my girlfriend and probably a few more.

My current re-ignited interest in Mordheim can be evidenced by a quick glance over the last few blogposts I've made. If I could be bothered to take more photos there'd be even more blog posts as I've done more than I've actually posted about. Macro lenses are a pain in the arse though.

Whatever I'm currently most focused on gets a ridiculous amount of attention, so much so that I work to make sure I don't overdo things although I'm probably fighting a losing battle.

Let us move onto the next point:

Computers and our relation to them

To quote the article : He sees the world as a system which, given enough time and effort, is completely knowable.

Well, I don't know if I see the world as quite conmpletely knowable, but certainly it is my perspective. There's a great deal of things out there I know about, plenty more that I don't but generally speaking, given a bit of time I can work out most things, including most of the people I've met, for better or for worse. Perhaps I'm wrong but so far I've not found it to be completely broken even if it is somewhat traumatic and is somewhat the reason for my misanthropy.

I don't see people and things as powered by some unknown force, rather explaining the issues I have with religion. It makes me think of the Olde English sketch "Writers of Lost" - how does the world work "ooOooOoh" (accompanied by slow jazz-hands).

Moving on: Control issues

Once again I'm going to quote the article:

Your nerd is sensitive to drastic changes in his environment. Think travel. Think job changes. These types of system-redefining events force your nerd to recognize that the world is not always or entirely a knowable place, and until he reconstructs this illusion, he’s going to be frustrated and he’s going to act erratically.

It explains quite a lot of my behaviour and why the rest of the NSS exec were concerned with how I would react to changes made to the NSS Podcast whilst I was away. It's difficult to get me to agree to change without either just doing it or knowing how to deal with me. Ironically the changes they made brought it more inline with the original vision for the show as our old notes show.

It's also why it really screwed with my head to shave my beard off. I miss my beard still. It didn't look great but it was something I chose to have, something I wasn't allowed when I was younger (much like I wasn't allowed long hair when I was in school - no beards either).

Our self-built controlled environments

My controlled environment is generally my primary laptop or desktop. These days it's my laptop but the same was true when I had a desktop. It's a portable virtual environment where I call the shots without having to justify my actions to anyone. Admittedly I often call the shots and do things without answering to anyone in the real world too but that's not the point I'm trying to get to.

It contains my music, access to my video library, my photos, my bookshelf and much more. I used to keep a physicial version of this environment but it became unmanageable given how often I've moved. This does have the disadvantage that it's not necessarily visible if I like something or not. You can't glance at a rack of CDs, a row of DVDs, look at photos on the wall. Sorry.

In our flat in Edinburgh I/we attempted to establish a common space that would share many characteristics of our individual controlled environments. Our living room contains an extensive media centre, extensive gaming capabilities, reclining areas, work areas and project areas. I've currently got my laptop sitting on the kitchen counter and my Mordheim projects on the dining table. Matt has his textbooks and assignment papers around the coffee table, Chris has the latest Afro Samurai waiting for him to watch when he finds a minute.

The idea for me is to have a "safe zone" where I can relax. I can wear just a dressing gown if I want, I can retreat into myself, as it were. I find too much social contact very tiring. It was great having Elasticbandy here but it did mean that by the time she went my head was spinning - I'd barely had any down time to just be on my own and wait for my brain to recharge. It's probably why I'm depressed at the moment. I don't know whether I was a good host, whether I alienated my girlfriend, whether there's any problem at all.

This confusion also partly explains my escapism - I'm retreating to a different mental place, somewhere I understand.

Sorry, got a bit bogged down there - Toys and Puzzles

I like puzzles of a certain kind. It varies between geeks. Some love programming, some love RPGs, I like all sorts of things. I don't like puzzle games, by the way. Too artificial.

It's all part of the knowable system concept - I know when I've finished building a website, when I've finished a wiki article, when I've finished painting a miniature, when I've finished editing a podcast. I can give pretty good estimates of many things in human social terms but they're just that - judgements, estimates. It's not possible to be certain.

But when I finish something I get a little kick out of it. For example, right now I'm still rather chuffed with how the green parts of the Reiklanders I painted over the last few days turned out. I want to paint some more of them as I liked it so much.

I try to make sure I don't get too involved with projects that don't achieve anything. I like finishing video games, for example, but I recognise that in the majority of cases it's a hollow victory, an accomplishment that isn't worth anything, so I don't tend to play that many of them, even if I do enjoy them.

Right, let's carry on to the final point:

Our appetite for information

I know a great deal of random things. I'm utterly useless at pub quizzes, although I partly theorise that this is because it seems most questions are focused on people. I know the majority of Scrubs facts, storylines and characters but I don't know the names of more than three of the actors!

I don't consider the actors particularly relevant. Who plays Dr. Cox? Not a clue.

What does JD's brother bring him when their father dies? Easy. (Cake)

Off the top of my head I know that a 6Mbit connection will pull data down at a approximately 750kb/s if there's something fast enought to supply it at that speed. I also know that Hive Primus is supposed to be 10 miles tall and that FEV in the context of Fallout stands for "Forced Evolutionary Virus". The thing in common here is that none of them contain any people. Why would I bother remembering the names of people I'm never going to get to know?

I'm bad enough with names of people I've met (partly due to the way my brain prunes people, I guess). I try to remember names but it's hard - most of them I won't see again so there's no point. If they were to be killed in a horrible accident in the next few hours, it wouldn't bother me as they essentially disappeared from existence as soon as I left the social context in which I met them. If I see them several times, chances are I'll remember. I was proud of myself for remembering Graeme's name at a pub quiz I was at. I figured I'd probably meet him again so I made the effort to try and remember him (although I would spell it Graham if I hadn't seen it written down somewhere in the last few hours).

Anyway, back to the point - we like information. We have a broad knowledge of a huge number of subjects and if there's something we don't know we'll be able to find out within moments. I can remember the name of the actor that plays the Janitor. He's a comedian named Neil Flynn. I know he's very tall but off hand I could not remember how tall. It took me all of five seconds to discover he's apparently 1.96m.

With the advent of smartphones with decent internet access it's even easier. I can look things up within moments as long as there's some mobile phone signal. It rocks.

Hopefully the article gives some insight into how we geeks think and some of our odd quirks.

Zombies!!! Game Night

2009-01-25T23:09:00.002Z

Man the shotguns - Zombies!
It was a recent Friday. Hannah was here from Bangor, Rik and Steph from their flat and my girlfriend from wherever she is when she's not in the library. Oh and the three of us from our flat.

Anyways, to business!

Initial attempts to understand our new copy of HUMANS!!! came up fruitless and came close to scuttling the evening, but onwards with ZOMBIES!!! we persevered. Our attempts paid off and a truly epic game ensued. Yes, I know, maybe it's a bit geeky to spend a Friday evening playing a boardgame, but one shouldn't forget that earlier in the week we were out partying, so it seemed only right to stay in this time around.

There were drinks, there were films but there were also ravenous zombie hoards, silly photos and Chris having victory torn from under his nose. Admittedly he would only have come second, Nicoletta chose the alternative path to victory and brutally slaughtered the required 25 zombies whilst the rest of us were still trying to figure out how to get to the helipad (and how to stop all those other gits getting there first!).

The phrase "No, fuck YOUUUUUU!" certainly came up a lot, as was to be expected but it alone could not top the wonderful photo of Chris throwing a one whilst standing on the helipad's centre square. That final zombie nommed his character and that was the end of him. Poor Chris.

OH MY GOD!

2009-01-25T13:33:00.010Z

A little something I feel compelled to share:

(If the video is no longer up, go find a copy of "Bart's Inner Child", it's episode seven of the fifth series of the Simpsons - between 0:50 and 1:10)

Finally finished those ratty gits.

2009-01-19T22:34:00.004Z

Finally finished them. Seriously. I have a to-do list down in Wales written in about 2000 that contains the item "finish painting Skaven". Well, done. It's done.

More interestingly, it seems my painting has actually improved in the intervening time. I wasn't brilliant before and I'm still not that good, but I rather like the results. Below is one of my Skaven, the last one I finished. A black Skaven with fighting claws.

There's also two Skaven nightrunners weilding slings and knives but they were somewhat painted when I started out. The black Skaven was just primed and it turned out rather nicely, I think. I hope I get a chance to use them in a game of Mordheim soon, but regardless it's nice to have finally finished them. I ought to finish my Escher gang at some point too but that might take a little longer.

I've also designed a load of flat-pack terrain and much of it is done and painted but that can wait until another day. The basic idea being that it can be carried in something as small as a folder or small box in a backpack and be used to setup a playing field just about anywhere, unlike the terrain I used to build that was difficult to move at all. More on that later.

More from Mordheim

2009-01-18T01:34:00.006Z

The other day I was blogging about building terrain for a Mordheim campaign and today I received some paints and finished the first piece. My multi-storey brothel is open for business, well, no, it's closed due to some sort of giant vermin infestation. Regardless, click on the thumbnails to embiggen the pics, either that or deploy a giant lizard. One way to find out, I suppose.
The tiles are made from strips of card taken from a Stella Artois box and took a little while to chop out but I think the result is good enough, although as it has been pointed out, a little too pristine. I may fix that later, but no promises - this is supposed to be fairly simple terrain rather than artistically detailed. Oh and they were painted with a mix of red and Bestial Brown.

The floors were far easier - I removed them and sliced at them with a scalpel. Using a ruler, of course (made that mistake when I was younger, the results were hideous). However scalpel alone didn't produce a pronounced enough groove so I grabbed the little nail file thing that manufacturers build into those little nail clippers - a few strokes of that sorted them (I repeated this after painting with Vallejo's equivalent of Snakebite Leather).As for the main structure, well, that was "red gore". I could have painted to a solid colour but I rather like the washed-out drabness I achieved. Yes, in this case it was intentional!
I also started painting some of my unpainted Skaven dudes. Not quite finished the two I'm working on but they'll soon be done (I'll get the Captain to photographise those though, I'm a bit too incompetent).A quick shout-out has to go to the ebay seller I bought my paints and brushes from flagbearer101 ( and their ebay store DRUM and FLAG ) . I've never been quite as impressed before. I picked out the paints and brushes (I opted for the cheap brushes). I ordered yesterday and at ~0830 this morning there was a posty banging on the door with a package for me. Oh and they sent me their more expensive brushes. Colour me smug.

Finding independent solutions for social networking profiles

2009-01-16T02:47:00.002Z

Following my post about my unwillingness to join Facebook there was a flurry of comments on my Bebo blog both for and against, neither of which changed my mind considerably. If anything those of my friends who want me to join Facebook just made me want to dig my heels in further. Thankfully my flatmate, Matt, knows how to convince me. It helps to stop and take a moment to try to discern my reasons for taking a particular position.

Is it a practical concern? An ideological one? Or alternative number three.. sheer bloody-mindedness?

Previously my aversion to Facebook was an ideological one but the terms and conditions were eventually changed.
Currently my main activity on Bebo is blogging, I used to post photos as well but only occasionally. Bebo's blogging support is fairly crappy and doesn't support embedding videos or images. Neither does it support update-via-email (the method I'm using to post this post and used to post my Arriva Trains Wales rant from my iPhone whilst I was in transit).
What it does support is an audience. I used to use Blogger and never removed my account but I found I wasn't getting any real eyes on my words.
With Bebo declining I was getting fewer and fewer people reading my blog, so sensibly it would be better to move it to somewhere it will be seen.

So, the reasoning behind my aversion to Facebook is a combination of practicality and stubbornness.
Matt knows that trying to coax me to do something I don't want to do is usually a waste of time, it just encourages me to persevere.
Matt also knows that Blogger is a far better tool for blogging and by checking on applications for Facebook he found that it was quite possible to embed my Blogger blog in my profile, should I create one on Facebook. This would mean no sacrifices, just gains. The same eyes are looking at Facebook, meaning an audience exists, bigger than the previous one, in fact, but also that I could use far nicer tools.

I've not created a Facebook account yet, but I'm considering it.

My other major problem with moving to a new social network is time invested in Bebo. When I joined Napier it was incredibly popular, easily outweighing Facebook, so I took the time to upload content to my profile and use it. By moving to Facebook I would need to make that time commitment again and who is to say how long until Facebook is no longer the network of choice?

To solve this problem I am doing my best to determine where to host my content. My blog will be on Blogger and be syndicated into my current primary social network.
I'm not certain on where to store my photos. Flickr is very popular, for example, but I do not wish to pay to use the service (without paying I can have 200 pics online, a limit I hit long ago). I also do not like that Yahoo! own Flickr as, to be frank, I feel they're somewhat of a technological cul-de-sac, a remnant of the way the Internet used to be. Quaint, memorable, but nowhere near as good as their rivals.

I'm also considering Google's Picasa service. It currently boasts 1024MB of storage, which may well be enough. I use Picasa running in a virtual machine to store my iPhone photos (my primary camera these days) so uploading them to web albums should be easy. I'm not sure whether this is the best long-term solution though.

Video content I have (Virtually only NSS stuff) is already on YouTube and BlipTV and that just about covers it.

So, once I get my photo storage solution selection done it shouldn't be too difficult to join any other modern social networks and carry my content with me, rather than being faced with the problem that Steph is currently dealing with - having a huge number of photos in an album on a social network and not being able to easily move them elsewhere or download them in a quick and convenient manner.

I believe Picasa even has a Facebook plugin, which is somewhat of a bonus and I'm told the iPhone application is rather good too.
Either way - in order to get me to do something pleading, demanding or persisting is not the way to get it done.
I've done my best to learn how to ask people to do things in a way that will leave them inclined to comply - I don't always succeed, mind you, but there's patterns that people follow, once you can see the pattern it becomes easy to know how to work with them.

I missed foamboard

2009-01-16T01:46:00.002Z

Constructed in the space of a few hours, this five-storey Mordheim apartment block/brothel is probably unfeasible for the construction methods of the fantasy period Mordheim is set in, but one can worry about these things too much, I feel.
The whole building is easy to disassemble and reassemble, being designed for the purpose and is ideal as a centre-piece, I reckon. Painting will follow when I get hold of some paints (could, you know, help..)

Basic structure established, inter-changeable floors inserted.

Individual windows measured and cut.

Top floor firing positions, pre-apocalypse.

The building in its near-finished state. A partial roof was added later to give it a more finished look. Hopefully when it's painted it'll look even better. Mmmm, terrain making, how I've missed you..

Arriva Trains Wales

2009-01-14T18:05:00.003Z

What is it about this company?
Why are they so broken that it is unusual for one of their trains to arrive at the scheduled time?
I am literally surprised if I'm on one of their services and I arrive on time.

Worse than that are the breakdowns -in approximately 70% of the journeys I've taken between Crewe and Carmarthen don't make it. Sometimes a replacement arrives with fifteen minutes, other times it takes hours. This time on the way down the train contained no functional toilets
and then was stopped at Cardiff. On the way back up the train is delayed. Nice.

How is it that the Virgin trains I've taken are considerably nicer aesthetically but also have fairly extensive buffet cars? (the old Arriva trains contain only a food trolly and no plug sockets)

Furthermore, it's a rare event that they're late, in my personal experience. Sometimes they're even *early*!
I've never had a Virgin train break down on me either, come to that.

Perhaps Arriva can't compete by upgrading their fleet but would it kill them to publish realistic arrival times? Either that or get their engineers to have a look at their trains' flux capacitors.

So, in about half an hour I'll nearly be in Crewe, unless it has been delayed AGAIN..
*mutters*

Bite me, Facebook.

2009-01-10T00:00:00.002Z

People are abandoning Bebo at a pretty rapid rate it seems. I would join them if the "upgrade" was to something other than Facebook. Sorry, no. Not happening.

I've spent enough time uploading content here and blogging that I just don't feel like doing it all again. It takes a lot of time and effort and I'm just not up for it.
It annoys me more that when others leave they'll end up taking content with them. By deleting their account they delete their photos, many of which I'm tagged in. Fun.

I do have somewhat of an abandonment complex but that was pre-existing, rather than a product of this. Regardless it's nice to know that if I joined Facebook I'd be similarly ignored after the initial flurry of attention, being the latest novelty.

There's a few people on Facebook that I'd quite like to keep contact with, but if that means selling out my principals then I'd rather suffer. Given my past history with social networks it's fairly likely that Facebook would start to decline shortly after me joining, meaning all my effort would be for little long-term stability.

Perhaps it won't, but I'm not going to spend the resources finding out. If all others fall away then perhaps I will join as it might guarantee that I won't have to rebuild after a year, but that's a pretty big if.

As an aside, from what I've been told there is essentially no decent native blogging support. No sale, sorry. Bebo's blogging system doesn't do half the things I'd like but at least it exists properly and can generate an RSS feed.

Also, the lack of public URL for a profile is a major point of contention for me. I like that when I go to "bebo.com/Flamekebab" I get my profile. It's an easy way for me to be visible. "Find me on Facebook" just doesn't hold the same ring.

Come on, Google, buy out Facebook or market your own to the UK. Orkut might be brilliant but I'm totally in the dark about its features.

Friends will continue to abandon Bebo at a steady rate I've no doubt, it's a shame but most of them disappeared long ago anyway so it's mostly just making it official. I ought to do another cull, I guess.

So, to sum up..
I said I wouldn't join Facebook when Hatty asked me.
I said I wouldn't join Facebook when Heather pleaded with me.
If I said no to them, chances are it's a definite "no".
Yes, I'm stubborn as a mule.

Photos from Lugradio Live 2008

2008-11-06T07:04:00.001Z

The Lugradio guys, the Chinny Raccoon and the guys from the Linux Outlaws podcast.

The O'Reilly stand amused me.

I don't know if this happens every year or just the two years I've attended. Note the Ducks vs. Goats poll. Ducks won the day.

Other messages that appeared on the board included "DON'T LISTEN TO METAL".

A bit more of Q1 & 2 of 2008

2008-11-05T06:56:00.001Z

More of Q1 & 2 2008 in Pictures

2008-11-05T05:43:00.001Z

Heriot-Watt's student union

The Captain and Matt at Teviot.

This game has consumed more than three whole days of my life.

The NSS about to go to the Sports/Socs ball, 07/08

Q1 & 2 2008 in Pictures

2008-11-05T04:37:00.001Z