1 Jun 2004 (Tuesday) 

I was having tea tonight and flicking through channels, as you do, when I found 'Confessions of an IRA informer' on BBC 4. Not something I'd usually watch in the slightest - something about people being killed ? no, I think not. But it grabbed me for some reason - maybe it's because it was about someone stopping people being killed. But anyhow, I was watching this for about quarter of an hour and I'm kinda remembering some of the things - many of them were local to Kerry so for us in Peterborough the news wasn't going to reach that far, but there were bigger stories that I do remember.

One of the ones that I might remember - I remember the general gist of, but there might be quite a few similar events so my memory may be playing tricks (remember, I would have been only about 7 or 8-ish for this) was the capture of a load of weapons shipped from Boston. So they're showing some of the news footage for the time and explaining how this came about, and in the background there's a familiar instrumental playing. Starting out with just a repeated riff that's fading in and building up I was bothered that maybe I was just hearing something that I wanted to, rather then something that was really there. So I turn up the telly and try to drown out the (actually quite interesting) voice over. And yes, it is what I thought.

It's quite distinctive, really - it's an instrumental track called 'Old Artist' off 'Londinium' by Archive.

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2 Jun 2004 (Wednesday) 

Too much Civilisation (the game!) is bad for you. I've discovered this again. This is why I don't play it for months at a time. Because when I do, the game takes an age. It's not like I try the harder levels either. Every time it's a case of "I've not played this in a bit, so I'll start at the easiest". And then it takes ages. Oh well.

I think this may be the first full month in the 'new style' diary. So it's a little different to how I previously had to update it. Oh, and it's June. How'd that happen ?

A few days ago I watched Terminator 3 that Dad had bought me. What do I think ? Well. T1 was a B-movie style thing. It was cool in a dodgy sort of way. It had more to it in a number of respects than the later ones - in particular a decent story line (well such that it is), no pre-conceived ideas of its own making that it had to beat and it just is itself. T2 is polished and the story works well. T3 is lame. Not in the directly colloquial sense but in the literal sense. It limps along like it's missing something. A plot line would be nice; rather than what appears to be a number of conjoined chase scenes. Technically its clever, but the technicalities aren't much more in their execution than in T2. I'm sure they're probably cleverer and the tech people will say "but it wasn't possible to do (blah) in T2, so it's cleverer", but the effects in T2 were necessary to the story - they were an intricate part of it and so you didn't really notice them (except maybe the reforming mercury, but that was just showing off).

In T3... well, there's not much in the way of imagination. About the only thing that is imaginative is using magnets to disable the TX thing, which was interesting, but didn't really serve to show much else.

So I have to ask myself the question... was it as poor as Matrix 3 ? Well. Yes it was. It was worse, but possibly only because you had a sense of going somewhere in M3. Um. I'm not sure I mean that, because thinking back, M3 did seem to be, but they just pressed the big reset button and nothing had really changed. Again special effects were cleverer but nothing hugely special.

It's not like I'd expected much more, but I'd have liked to have been pleased with it. It's not like the twists in T3 were special. I'm not giving anything away, but the ending was interesting but not going to be anything you'd care about in the end.

The real reason I didn't like it, I think, was that after an hour of chases I looked at the time left because I was thinking to myself "ok, now comes a bit of exposition on things and we'll move on to the end." But there wasn't any let up in the chases, and nothing more happened. Another half hour of that and the film ended. I think I might have actually felt cheated if I had seen it at the cinema. Did I feel that bad about M3 ? No. M3 seemed to be more worthwhile, although I can't put my finger on why.

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3 Jun 2004 (Thursday) 

I started watching the second Invisible Man episode today, 'cos it was on Sky and I was having lunch. Now a fun series because of many things, but one thing that I missed was an asian doctor talking to Darien and Hobbes as they arrive at a hospital where and 15 doctors are laid out, dead, across the floor, having been killed by a 'Catavari'...

Please excuse the air of chaos and hopelessness. [ "The Catavari", The Invisible Man ]

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5 Jun 2004 (Saturday) 

And now he's moved my basket; I'd like to put him in a casket. I'll wear my best collar to his funeral. [ Perfect Love - Gone Wrong, from Brand New Day, by Sting ]

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6 Jun 2004 (Sunday) 

Spent too long watching telly today. About an hour watching part of Final Fantasy: The Spirits within, 'cos it's just fun, and the full Star Trek The Motion Picture. Not that it's too unexpected to be watching telly, but it was an interesting break.

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8 Jun 2004 (Tuesday) 

You make things so awkward when you're right, you know that ? [ Awkward?; Phoenix Feathers ]

Alex mentioned about listening to the Mission Icarus music this evening. Now, I remember the music as being some of the coolest I've heard for the BBC. And it was, really. But I couldn't work out how to extract the data. Obviously I sucked back then 'cos I've just extracted it this evening and I've not even seen 6502 in many years. It isn't a simple sequence of note, though; it's got a quite interesting pattern system which it employs rather neatly.

Unfortunately it sounds relatively naff when played on RISC OS because we don't have envelopes and whilst they'd be nice, I'm not going to go implement them just so that Mission Icarus sounds nice. Plus, it expects to use the noise generator as well, which we don't have.

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11 Jun 2004 (Friday) 

I've spent what feels like hours on the phone today and now I ache. Well, it felt like hours because it was. I think if I spoke to people more I'd learn to not pace whilst talking.

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12 Jun 2004 (Saturday) 

Julian gave me his copy of Time's Eye to read last weekend. And I finished it last night. And what do I think ? I'm not really sure. Beware, there may be spoilers ahead.

It's interesting, but I have this dislike of authors who try to place historical characters in a book. Plonked down in the middle of history, the chance of bumping in to any particular historical character is pretty low. Particularly with, in this case, a perspective of 2 million years to look at.

However, that's kind of the premise of the book - that these people have been selected. So I have to accept that. I don't know much about Alexander the Great, but my own reading around Genghis Kahn ties with that which was in the book, so I can only assume that differences are my own misunderstanding and that it's a pretty faithful representation of the Mongols.

The thing about Science Fiction books that makes them enjoyable, for me, is the exploration of the possible. Ok, that may be a pompous term, but it's something like that. You throw in a number of things that might, given a number of assumptions, take place and you follow it through. Now the assumptions are there - the fracturing of time and the number of timelines brought together are interesting assumption, and there is some exploration of the results of that with the moderns influencing the ancient in certain ways, but there's not much. The biggest influence the moderns give to the ancients is the introduction of Stirrups to Alexander the Great's army, and modern triage methods.

Whilst I accept that technology is a mystery to us for the most part - there's no way that I could describe the processes necessary to even get to a simple functioning loom, there are many principles that could be applied and they seem to have been glossed over. In the time that the bulk of the book covers, there may not be enough useful time to instill that in the ancients, but nonetheless there's a five year gap in the middle in which there is nothing covered. All that opportunity is wasted. There's scope for what they tried to teach; what the ancients were unable to understand because of their lack of understanding of the principles on which it stands. And conversely, the historical impressions on the moderns of the ancient cultures - there is no way that such things would be entirely one way as so much of history is lost; even just customs and mannerisms.

So I accept that's the way this book went. It basically runs... Time split, meet ancients, go somewhere to try to find the cause, fight other people, investigate why they're here. Part of the problem, for me, is that the first 4 parts of that take about 4/5 of the book. The tiny little section at the end is the actual investigation (although there is more earlier, in passing) which happens too quickly and little explanation. The book is described as the first in a series, which is ok, but the lead character is 'returned' to their original world, unfractured. Which implies that there's a cross-over where the two worlds, Mir (the fractured timeline world) and Earth (as we know it) can exist without any particular contradiction.

There's a section - well I say section, it's 2 pages - where the main character's partner is left stranded on an alien future Earth. There's no explanation of why they're left there. Just as there's no explanation of how the character comes to understand she can return to Earth. She just says she thinks she can and then she does.

So what am I to conclude then ? Was it worth reading and would I get the next in the series to find out what's going to happen, or - to be honest - what on earth is going on ? I don't know. Science Fiction, I think, is meant to present you with an idea and leave you thinking about it afterward. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what idea I'm meant to be left thinking. And I believe that all I'm left thinking is 'will this be resolved in the next book' ? If I wanted that, I might as well watch any day time soap.

That may be a little harsh; there's a lot of little interesting things in there, like the meeting of different people, their cultural differences, etc, which is fine and all that, but it's not a Big Thought I like to see. Some of the Little Thoughts, like the climactic changes brought about by the differences in the fractured sections are interesting, or the volcanic activity and atmospheric changes caused by Mir being a mixture of many timelines. I'm not sure that makes up for the lack of a central core to pull it together.

Maybe I'll feel differently about it if I chat to Julian; maybe it's just too deep for me and he can explain it. It seems a pity that with Stephen Baxter and Arthur C Clarke being very imaginative and clever writers, that this would be the result.

I'm feeling bad now that if the authors read this review they'll think I'm just being ignorant and nasty about it; which may be true - maybe it is just too deep for me. Or maybe they had a bad few months and it didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

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13 Jun 2004 (Sunday) 

I've just found out that the link element is actually used in Opera. Which is quite funky. So what I've done is update my entire movspclr site with link elements for 'next', 'previous', 'home' and 'up' which isn't by any stretch of the imagination all of them, but it's the core few that you'd expect to use. Quite cool, really.

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14 Jun 2004 (Monday) 

Last night, I was trying to remember what happened in the Cluster series by Piers Anthony. I remembered a reasonable amount, but I'm not known for my memory. So I popped over to Piers' website in the hope that it might help a little. Not overly. At least not on that subject but... but... Ivy has a sister. Which shows how far behind on Xanth that I must be. Nonetheless, apparently Ivy has a twin sister who was lost. Aww!

I'm probably going to have to read back now to find out about her - maybe I did know and I've forgotten.

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15 Jun 2004 (Tuesday) 

Both STD and VA have now stated that they're to cease deliveries of their products. Who's going to be next, do we think ?

I'm guessing that, if they're going to, MD will announce same tomorrow or the day after (Wednesday, Thursday). Whether anyone else will follow that, I couldn't say. It really depends on the positions that the companies are in. I'd guess that some would be pretty much forced to tow the line, but others will walk.

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16 Jun 2004 (Wednesday) 

Well, no MD announcement, but CTL and ROL press releases made today. Where's the fallout going to land ? Me ? Probably. Do I really care all that much ? Not really sure. Regardless, it will probably mean the 'market' will lose STD and VRPC. Maybe others. But even that depends on whether they are forced to deal with CTL or not.

Went in to Center Parcs this evening and had a swim in the pool and the whirlpool. I think that must be the first time I've been in the pool there since it was rebuilt.

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17 Jun 2004 (Thursday) 

When I went to Center Parcs last night I put my St Christopher in my shoe. I forgot to take it out and I only just noticed today when I tried to play with it - something I do when I'm thinking, like biting my nails . Anyhow, I've asked Mum to see if it's been handed to Lost Property.

So amidst all the other crap that's happened this week, the most annoying thing is losing my St Christopher. Oh well.

Through history deeds are done that should not be, in the name of vengeance, while positive and necessary things are left undone. [ Deeds; Piers Anthony; Thousandstar ]

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20 Jun 2004 (Sunday) 

Sunday's are odd. You never quite know what to do with them. Today has been incredibly productive, though. Well, pretty productive anyhow. I wrote a gadget in around 40 minutes - surprisingly less than the hour I set myelf. That makes 4 usable gadgets I've written now. Not that this one is especially useful, but it's fun nonetheless.

I've converted (most of) the application I've been working on into a Toolbox object, which is quite neat because it means that I can build and test as an application, or build as a Toolbox gadget and test in ResTest.

Mum's bought me a new St Christopher, as mine's not turned up . It's not quite the same but at least it will stop me scratching my neck. it's a pity 'cos the original one I've had since I was very small.

And I've managed to go over 24 hours without any mail directed at me, which I think must be the first time that's happened in a couple of years.

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24 Jun 2004 (Thursday) 

Well, we have a bathroom. A real bathroom. Not just a place filled with tools and bits and pieces of a bathroom, but a real, finished bathroom. It's very cool. There's not a lot else you can say about a bathroom, but it is anyhow.

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