You Don't Live Like I Do

Government Consultation on Equal Civil Marriages

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:52:24 GMT

Originally posted by strange_complex at Government Consultation on Equal Civil Marriages

In favour of equal civil marriages? Then it's ACTION TIME! The government's consultation on introducing them opens today, and it's very important for positive voices to be heard. This is not a foregone conclusion, and if we want it, we need to say so loudly and clearly.

It's About Time gives information on the consultation, tips on what sorts of things supporters might say, and a link to where to go to say them (click on 'Take Part'). Please take the time to speak up if you support this proposal. This is not just another online petition, but a direct government consultation where you can really have an influence.

Rammstein - "Stripped"

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:36:25 GMT

I cannot believe that greyeyedeve had never heard Rammstein, one of her favorite bands, covering Depeche Mode's "Stripped". In case anybody else out there has missed out on this, have a video:

(video is "privacy enhanced" - Google won't set any cookies in your browser unless you hit play. Also works without Flash with WebM-enabled browsers)

Update: Not working as an LJ embed for me. Stupid newfangled Internet fail. Have an old-fashioned link.

Blade Runout

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:05:30 GMT

At the office today, some of my coworkers were talking about the camera on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone. When I said "You Nexus, eh? I design your eyes!" they looked at me like I was weird. I worry that I might be in the wrong job.

Car Tyres - Advice Please

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:16:55 GMT

This evening I've topped up my car's cooling system with anti-freeze. I didn't get round to it during the frosty weather, but with a distinctly icy tang to the air this evening I finally managed to get it done. It's a second-hand car, so the fluid currently in the reservoir almost certainly had antifreeze in it, but it won't hurt to top up.

I also finally got round to a task my Dad had been nagging me about for a while, checking my tyre tread depths. The front tires are both fine with about 3.5mm of tread. The rear tyres are not matching; the rear right is much newer, with about 4mm tread, and the rear left is borderline, with just over the legal minimum 1.6mm tread. Obviously I need to do something about this - I'm concerned about my own safety as well as getting points on my license!

I'm not worried about spending money if I have to; it's what my car allowance from work is for, and I budgeted for repairs and replacements with that. So do I buy two replacement rear tyres, or just one for rear left and try to match the model on the rear right? I don't know how much tread a new tyre comes with and whether the rear right tyre is basically brand new.

Next thing to do is to double-check my tyre pressures and top those up if needed, but it was just too bloody cold to do that this evening!

BBC: No Change on Internet Streaming Fail

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:03:02 GMT

In June 2010 the BBC published a consultation on streaming technologies. For people like me who support open formats and eschew proprietary software such as Windows and Flash, this was a good opportunity to propose a model in which the BBC does not attempt to develop and deploy proprietary software to a necessarily limited range of devices, but instead provides open interfaces to its content using open formats, which could be used under certain license terms (such as not allowing the content to be manipulated in ways that didn't make it clear it was BBC content).

The original consultation result was supposed to be published in "early 2011" IIRC; the website for it is broken so I can't double-check that. I noticed recently that it was published in November 2011, after the provisional findings came out in January. And of course, it's grim reading. The BBC will go on developing shitty in-house software for a fraction of available platforms (seriously, have you tried using the PS3 iPlayer application? Appalling.) rather than letting the ingenuity of the Internet provide great interfaces to appropriately-denoted BBC content. There would be uproar if the BBC restricted broadcast of its content to BBC-brand single-vendor TVs that only worked in some houses but not others, but streaming to BBC-brand single-vendor proprietary software which only works on some computers but not others is apparently OK.

Along with the news that Lovefilm are switching from Flash to Silverlight, with Windows-specific DRM which excludes even GNU/Linux users able and willing to use proprietary Flash, it's a grim time for freedom lovers and Windows-eschewers to access content legitimately.

I'd love to pay content creators for the film, TV and music I consume. Not out of any legal obligation, just because I think it's the right thing to do. But there's increasingly less point in me having a TV license (since I can't watch broadcast TV), or a LoveFilm subscription (since greyeyedeve can't watch films on her laptop where she's most comfortable, particularly when her CFS is bad).

For shows that aren't broadcast in the UK at all, I've taken to torrenting them at broadcast time and just buying the DVDs when the region 2 box sets come out. Piracy doesn't just beat legal acquisition of content on price, it beats it on convenience too. Given the dearth of practical options for UK TV and movies, I may adopt this model for BBC content and movies - though then I'll end up with a bunch of DVD boxes that I need to keep somewhere!

New Commenting System

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:13:55 GMT

Why are both the people left on LiveJournal complaining about the new comment system? It looks literally identical to me - subject lines, preview button and everything.

Manchester Clock Tower Tours

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:45:15 GMT

I'm intending to tour Manchester Town Hall's clock tower at 7pm on Wednesday with some Perl people. The tour is £7.50, lasts about an hour, and presumably involves climbing lots of stairs. Anybody else interested? I want to book tickets soon...

Paid Account

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:18:43 GMT

I've just started having a paid LJ account again. Not because I'm bothered by the features, more a show of solidarity for a service I still use, and hopefully cash they can invest in more DDoS protection.

Geek Advice: Desktop Build System

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:49:04 GMT

I'm sending the below mail to Aria; anything I've forgotten? I'm basically looking for a desktop-format box with plenty of RAM and CPU to run VMs and use for word processing, DTP etc. I'd like it to be quiet most of the time, but be able to deal with multiple VMs when the occasion calls for it.

I'm wondering if you can help me. I am looking to buy a new desktop system. I have particular requirements which don't seem to be met by your pre-built systems, but I'm not confident about trying to match components for a working system. Basically, I'm looking for a desktop machine which I will be using as a sort of home server. I won't be using it for gaming. I'm a network admin and will be using virtual machines to experiment with different setups.

Mininum quad core CPU (or 2 dual-core) with hardware-accelerated virtualisation (VT)
Min. 8GB RAM, upgradeable to 16 or 32GB
No hard disks (I have these already)
Intelligent power-saving including PSU
Multiple on-board SATA 2 connectors
On-board ethernet
Intel on-board graphics
22" or 24" 1920x1080 monitor
Ergonomic keyboard (wired)
Mouse (wired)

Can you recommend a system or set of components that would meet these requirements?

Summerisle

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:34:44 GMT

Weekend less busy or productive than expected. Friday night currybeer was awesome fun. Managed to get a new friend along, who had a lovely time and said he'd return. Had more beer than usual, didn't get home until gone 1am and promptly slept for much of Saturday. greyeyedeve wasn't well enough to go out to fireworks, but we did take a trip out late-night shopping at a supermarket, such is our rock and roll lifestyle.

Spent Sunday feeling a bit crap, playing Ratchet & Clank on the PS3, and cooking tasty dinner food. I booked plane tickets to go and see wehmuth in a fortnight, and the weekend ended with Half-A-Pig, the latest addition to our household, singing songs from the Wicker Man in his reedy demi-porcine voice. Frankly I'm quite glad it's Monday...

Update: My faint dread at Half-A-Pig seems to have overshadowed this entry. I actually had quite a nice weekend. Not as busy or productive as anticipated, but still pleasant, relaxing and enjoyable.

Akira the Don - "Manga Music"

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:40:00 GMT

I've pimped the music of Akira the Don here before, as has markeris through whom I discovered him. Recently, he's brought out his new mixtape, Manga Music, sampling and referencing the films that Manga Entertainment brought us in the early 90s (and The Sisters of Mercy on Dominion Tank Police for you goffs).

As this interview with Comics Alliance points out, the stuff that Manga Entertainment brought into the UK was most of my generation's first exposure to anime, and very unlike anything we'd experienced before. It's easy and fashionable to mock the crappy dubbing, poor translation and focus on sex and explosions these days, but in those almost pre-Internet (and certainly pre-broadband) times, those VHS tapes were the best we had - and if they hadn't proved there was a mass market for anime and manga, the wide variety readily available in UK shops these days might never have happened.

So listening to the mixtape is not only an experience in great music with fine rapping and fantastic production, but also a nostalgia trip for my teenage years, and the times when I was being introduced to goth and industrial music, anime, Command and Conquer, Doom deathmatches on null-modem-linked 386s and some of my closest friends. And of course the visuals, the stories, the sex and explosions, and the soundtracks of some great anime films.

Driving Down Memory Lane

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:47:41 GMT

I'm typing this from the De Vere Venues Horsley Park, where I'm staying for two nights on work expenses. It's not quite as great as the website makes it look - at least, not when I'm not getting to mosey around the grounds before it gets dark. I'm here for a two-day training course on web application hacking, from the author of "The Web Application Hackers' Handbook". I picked up the first edition, a 700-page tome, on Friday and was expected to have read it by Monday morning; I skim read the first couple of chapters.

The drive down from Manchester last night took me nearly five hours, but that was at least partly due to the hotel not actually being anywhere near where the website map says it is, and poorly signposted, and the directions I got from the reception desk being wrong. It took me on the M6 and M40 between Manchester and Oxford, a very nostalgic journey from driving around places with inbetween_girl. Then up the M40 from Oxford to the M25, which was my old commute to work at red|hot|chilli. Finally on the road down towards Guildford, where I spent many years at school growing up. I spent most of the journey feeling a little melancholy about all this.

I'm wondering if this is part of growing up - I think a fair amount about the past, how life didn't turn out how I thought it would, and how I'm not going to achieve some of the things I wanted to do. But on the other hand, it never gets past a feeling of gentle regret. I'm quietly enjoying my life these days, I'm pretty satisfied with who I am and what I'm doing. I recognise that I can never do everything I want to in this life - there just aren't enough hours in the day. So while my younger selves might be disappointed that I'm not doing what they wanted me to be doing by this time, I think they'd be happy with how things have turned out.

Radio Silence

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:20:56 GMT

I keep trying to find odd minutes to scrabble down LJ posts, but right now between starting a new job and various non-work commitments, I'm just too busy.

I'm OK, and life is good, but when I get home of an evening I just don't have time or energy to marshal my thoughts into coherent personal writing. Hope you're all OK too.

Things should be a little less hectic towards the end of September, with any luck.

LJ Talk Problem Solved

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:41:52 GMT

I like LJ Talk. It's an instant messaging service which uses Jabber, an open protocol also known as XMPP, meaning you're not locked in to particular software like you are with MSN. Yes, I know that a lot of software has reverse-engineered the MSN, ICQ etc. protocols, but they still break when the owners change the rules. I use bitlbee to talk to people on LJ Talk; others use Pidgin, Kopete, Psi and lots of other software.

It's also tied in to your LiveJournal - your LJ friends are automatically added to your IM list. However, as an example of this lovely open protocol, LJ Talk isn't all that great. It doesn't integrate into the LJ website like Facebook Chat does (though the inability to turn FB chat off irritates the crap out of me), it's not well publicised like Google Talk is, and it seems to have gone back to being a walled garden where you can't add non-LiveJournal contacts. If you want a Jabber account to play with, I suggest jabber.org.

Recently greyeyedeve has been having real trouble with LJ Talk. It seems that the encryption certificate used for LJ Talk has the wrong hostname (www.livejournal.com rather than livejournal.com) and hence some IM clients such as Kopete will refuse to connect. Most Jabber clients will let you specify a server, and connecting to www.livejournal.com (though keeping the Jabber ID as username@livejournal.com) will fix the problem.

Debian Turns 18

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:07:32 GMT

So the Debian project, home of Debian GNU/Linux and other great software distributions, has turned 18. That's impressive for a free software project (the GNU project itself is only 27), and makes Debian the oldest extant distribution except for Slackware (which is just one month older).

Debian wasn't my first introduction to the world of free software and GNU/Linux, but it was the one that stuck. Debian was good enough for me to ditch Windows for over five years ago (after a few years of dual-booting), and it's only improved since then. Other distributions have come along since, but I've tried many and none match Debian's vast collection of high quality-assured free software.

Debian's focus on freedom is commendable, especially while still supporting people who want to use proprietary software, and avoiding the knee-jerk refusal to encourage proprietary creators towards freedom. Its support of as wide a range of architectures and kernels as possible is impressive. All this against a background of a democratic, community-driven volunteer project. For those of us interested in international community organisation, in projects pursuing ethical goals working with commercial organisations, and in co-operative enterprises where the contributors have equal say in the direction of the project, Debian stands as a great example of good practice and high-quality results.

So thanks to the entire Debian community, some of whom I'm happy to call friends, for the hard work they've put in over the last 18 years. While I've never been a Debian developer, I've spent a lot of time supporting users on IRC, and met lovely people like resiak that way. I'll go on using, supporting and advocating Debian, and look forward to the 21st birthday!

Test

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:22:22 GMT

Can't post to LJ help help.

Potential Car

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:44:07 GMT

A friend of mine is selling a 2003-vintage, 1l Vauxhall Corsa, and wants £1,500 for it. Are there Manchester drivers who can come view the car (in Manchester city centre) with me? Art reckons that £1,500 is a tad high for the car, but it might be worth it if it's in good nick and coming from a friend. I haven't arranged any viewing yet.

I've done a little research and some calculations - assuming a rise in petrol prices, driving to Macclesfield will cost me £2,000 a year insurance, £500 in running costs (based on brrm's estimates) and £1000 in petrol. That's £3,500 total. My current commute costs me about £1,500/yr, so I'd need to be earning about £4,000 more before tax to have the same post-commute income.

Free to a Good Home: DVD Player, Freeview STB

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:44:28 GMT

Basically as per subject. We've got a standalone DVD player with SCART out, and a Freeview box with ditto. They both work, but we have no need for them - the PS3 plays DVDs, and our new TV's got a built in Freeview decoder (not that we can get a signal).

Free to the first person who can collect from our place in Levenshulme (Cross-posted to manchester).

Attack the Block

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:54:00 GMT

Last weekend, greyeyedeve and I went to see Attack the Block, a movie I'd heard referred to as "Hoodies vs Aliens". It stars Nick "Simon Pegg's Mate" Frost and is written/directed by Joe Cornish, who's of the same comedy generation. This led me to expect that it would be a light-hearted, stereotype-heavy movie in the vein of Hot Fuzz. Instead, it's something more interesting and better.

Rather than go for the easy laughs, Cornish decides to play it straight - the film opens with a group of five guys in hoodies mugging a woman at knifepoint, which is far more Kidulthood than Shaun of the Dead. This works well when the predators become the prey when the aliens arrive. The most stereotypical, comic relief character is the trustafarian dim-witted posh white stoner, but even he gets to play an important part in the plot. Most of the humour comes from the disparate characters' reactions to the situation they find themselves thrown together in, and their deadpan, black humour when talking to each other.

The sci-fi elements make enough sense that they provide some motivation to the aliens, and don't get in the way of the story. The aliens themselves are very well done - neither overblown CGI nor rubber suits, but subtly menacing at a distance, and enough to make you jump once or twice. It's a reasonable horror film, with a message about taking responsibility for your actions which isn't hammered too hard, and most importantly no happy ending. It's still funny, and scary, but it's a more subtle blend than I was expecting and all the better for it.

(I should disclaim here that my knowledge of London housing estates is minimal at best, so I'm not going to make any claims that the portrayal is in any way "realistic" - just not as obviously stereotypical as I expected)

LoveFilm

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:14:04 GMT

This weekend I finally finished looking into and setting up something I'd been considering for a while - a LoveFilm account, tied to greyeyedeve's PS3. Much as we enjoy going to the cinema, it can be difficult for us to organise, and so something a bit more flexible which doesn't involve leaving the house looked like a good idea - and the online streaming for many titles means we don't even have to wait for the post office or make it out to the postbox.

First up, LoveFilm's T&Cs don't seem to be too terrible, and people's experiences (particularly after their recent takeover) seem to be mostly good. Eve checked out the list of titles and there seems to be a fair amount of the Asian horror films she likes, along with a bunch of classic sci-fi and horror films from Them! to Logan's Run. Their £10/mo package includes unlimited film streaming, plus one physical medium rented at a time. Interestingly, there's no difference in rental between DVD and Blu-Ray, so if you have a Blu-Ray player there's no reason not to rent them (as opposed to purchase, where Blu-Ray is still far more expensive).

The bigger concern I had was the requirement for a PlayStation Network account - as we all know, this service has been hacked to hell and back repeatedly over the last few months, and I didn't want to have to trust it with personal information, particularly not credit card details. But it seems you don't need to provide CC details to set up a PSN account, nor to link your PSN account to your LoveFilm account. You *do* need to provide your LoveFilm username and password, which is a shame, and does mean that an attacker might be able to get your CC details out of LoveFilm. I'd rather see something like the OAuth protocol used by Twitter to link the accounts in a more limited way, and will suggest this to LoveFilm.

The film streaming works pretty well; the UI for navigating titles is rubbish, and the first minute or so of the streamed movie seems to suffer from blocky encoding, but the "near-DVD" quality is quite watchable after that. It buffers enough to cope with the brief ADSL disconnects we frequently suffer, which was my main concern.

So anyway, I suspect we'll be actually paying for the service once our one-month trial ends, and can afford this now Eve's cancelled her eMusic account. This probably means more movie nights at our place - if there's something you particularly want to see, let us know and we can look at adding it to our queueueueueueue.

Beer and Currybeer this week

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:08:57 GMT

Just to say I might well be found at the Stockport Beer Festival on Thursday evening with a few friends, and in Rusholme on Friday night for Currybeer...

Akira the Don @ The Ruby Lounge, 26th May 2011

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:52:55 GMT

markeris introduced me to Akira the Don via ex-Boo Radleys guitarist Martin Carr's solo project, bravecaptain. Akira raps on Jerusalem from 2006's "Distractions", at the height of the second Iraq War. I've been a fan ever since - a white-boy Welsh rapper who mixes humour with wit, and scathing criticism of politicians, corporations and the media with a relentless, cheerful optimism in humanity. And comic book references a-plenty and rapping in Welsh.

(emergency shout-out to London people: he's got a launch party for his new album on Thursday near Old Street - check the details and go!)

Since then I've followed his career with interest, mostly through the regular mix tapes he makes available through is website. I picked up an album on eMusic, followed him on Twitter, pimped his stuff around the place, but never managed to make it to the gigs, guest appearances and so on that he put on in London.

On Thursday I finally go to see Akira live in Manchester. I was pretty knackered after a busy week, but meeting with friends for tasty black pudding sausages in the Bank beforehand perked me up significantly, and I knew by the time Akira took the stage that coming out to play was the right decision. German lager began to gently ease away the tensions of the week, and Akira's high-energy performance soon had the entire crowd bouncing. It was a good, interactive performance for a small crowd, lots of singing along. The occasional technical hitch with DJ Jack Nimble providing the tunes were smoothed over with good grace and humour, and Akira was joined onstage by Manc lady rapper Envy to duet "I Am Not A Robot", and later on by MC Lars on "Living In The Future". The focus was on more recent tracks from Akira's new album The Life Equation and the best-of compilation EP Living In The Future. And it was awesome, overall - a great performance, a great crowd (including about half a dozen people singing along to every word of every song - and I thought I was a fanboy!), great tunes and a great time.

I got to meet Mr Donovan later on at the merch stall, where I bought large numbers of CDs, an epic "Living In The Future" T-shirt, poster and badges. He's as lovely in person as he seems from his Internet presence, signed loads of stuff for me, took evident pride in his merch packing abilities. I asked him whether he'd made it to G&Ds in Oxford as I'd suggested on Twitter, and how he felt about strangers asking him questions like that out of the blue, and his reply really touched me - "We're not all strangers. We're all part of this shared experience." Yeah, I know, it can be trite, but of the artists out there using the internet to build a community of fans, Akira's one of the ones doing it most successfully. In fact, I'd popped to the merch stall before he came onstage, only to be told by one of the crew to come back afterwards so I could meet him.

The rest of the acts were great too - all American, all more consciously "nerdcore" than Akira, but again good entertainers who didn't have to work too hard to get the crowd moving and singing along. MC Chris is, of course, Internets famous for "Fette's 'Vette", a song about everybody's favorite Mandelorian bounty hunter and his pimped ride. His crowd banter was a bit more confrontational and antagonistic than the others', but he didn't alienate the crowd and clearly was one of the most popular acts, with more people in front of the stage than the other acts.

I'd heard a bit of Weerd Science before he took to the stage alongside MC Lars. He's a good rapper, and cute in a cubby emo way, but I don't like the misogynistic tone of the tracks I listened to. Fortunately, he was mostly rapping along with Lars to Lars' tracks, which include the Iggy Pop-sampling apparent Internet sensation Download This Song. The crowd thinned out a little after MC Chris, but what was left was jumping around and singing along and having a lovely time. Akira came onstage for one track, and became the third person during the set to stage-dive - with the crowd a bit thin, me and DJ Jack Nimble as two of the tallest in the crowd rushed forward to grab his Run DMC lounge pants and bear him to safety.

The tiredness kicked in when Lars and Weerd left stage; I sat around nursing a JD & Coke waiting for the merch stall to clear so I could get some Lars stuff, but it hadn't by the time I'd drunk up, so I headed off to get home before midnight. All in all it was a great evening, solidly entertaining, and I left feeling happy and more relaxed than I have done for a while.

"Attack the Block" Sunday Afternoon

Sat, 14 May 2011 16:21:39 GMT

greyeyedeve and I are planning on heading down to Parr's Wood (a #50 bus ride from Levenshulme) for the 3pm showing of Joe Cornish-directed aliens-vs-hoodies flick Attack the Block tomorrow (Sunday).

Let us know if you fancy coming along.

Eve Update

Mon, 02 May 2011 13:39:36 GMT

Just a quick update on greyeyedeve. She's been in hospital since Friday afternoon. The doctors still don't know exactly what's wrong with her, but she's still in a lot of pain and taking lots of morphine etc. to manage that. She's sleeping much of the time, and taking it easy, reading books and listening to music.

There's definitely something wrong with her abdomen, which is causing problems with eating, sitting up etc. but there have been no non-emergency ultrasound scans over the weekend, so we're waiting until tomorrow for a proper diagnosis. Don't get ill on a bank holiday weekend, people!

She says thanks to everybody for the texts and messages of support, which have been cheering her up. She is able to have visitors, but check with me or her beforehand because she's doped out on morphine a lot of the time.

I'm off to see her now and take a few more books along.

PSA: greyeyedeve in hospital

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 11:14:32 GMT

I don't have posting access to Eve's LJ, so if you could let people who read hers but not mine know about this, that'd be great. Posting publicly to assist with this.

tl;dr version: Eve is in hospital. She's not dying or anything, but they're not entirely sure what's wrong with her. She'll be in at least over the bank holiday weekend, until the ultrasound people are back. If you feel like popping in to say hi, please drop her a text - the ward she's on has restricted visiting hours, and she'll need to time it so she's not out of her tree on morphine.

And I would do a longer version, but I need to pack some felting supplies and books to keep Eve entertained. Maybe later, if I'm not crashed out from general exhaustion. Managed a good few hours of very deep sleep last night, so I'm catching up and managing to look after myself.

Thanks in particular to minnesattva for being an all-round star and errand-runner and generally helping me and Eve keep our shit together.