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Movie truth is better than fiction…

May 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I’ve watched 3 films over recent days, and it’s proved that although it’s necessary to take some dramatic liberties to diverge from the banality of everyday life – it doesn’t always work.

First up was Ironclad. It’s a 2011 movie starring James Purefoy, is largely based on the defense of Rochester castle by a small group supporting the Magna Carta against King John. Having grown up just the other side of the River Medway, and having had an interest in history, it was pretty disappointing to see how far reality was stretched and broken. For example, the Norman Cathedral and entire City of Rochester are invisible, and the defending force appears to have shrunk from 90+ to 20.

On the plus side, the castle itself is pretty accurate, and it did include the demolition of one corner by using pig fat, which resulted in a castle with one round tower and three earlier square towers – a fact I’ve shared countless times wandering around it. Ironclad was somewhat famous for being extremely violent and gory, which is true, but not half as sickening as the frantic motion and cutting around in every battle scene.

Next up was Ben Affleck in The Company Men. The story of 3 men who are made redundant from a large corporation, it wasn’t bad – just bland. It’s a situation probably better encapsulated by reality-based documentaries and films in a shorter format. Like Lemonade, for example, which manages to have the same effect in just a 2.17 minute Youtube trailer.

And then, saving the best till last…

The Challenger was shown on the BBC last night, and I caught up with it via the BBC iPlayer. It covers the involvement of legendary physicist Richard Feynman in the Presidential Rogers Commission which investigated the Challenger Disaster.

Great actors, fascinating subject, and handled without the bombast and show of the other two films. I’m not sure it’s enjoyable, given the subject matter, but it’s definitely the most interesting to watch, and fittingly, the most likely to lead into hours of Wikipedia and discovering more about physics and space travel.

 

Filed Under: Films Tagged With: , ,
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Interesting article on a year without the internet…

May 9, 2013 By 1 Comment

Just been reading an interesting article by Paul Miller on The Verge about spending 12 months without internet access.

It’s timely, given that I experience a far more condensed version why my router/internet connection experienced an epic fail at the start of the Bank Holiday weekend.

cut cables

The TL:DR version draws 3 main conclusions:

  • Whether or not you’re wasting time etc comes down to your choices, not internet access
  • It’s harder to keep in touch with people offline (ambient social interaction).
  • The virtual world and real world are inextricably linked. You’re still a real human interacting with the net.

Interesting and worth checking out, even if you don’t plan on a 12 month sabbatical from going online.

 

Filed Under: Life, Technology
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Motorcycle inspiration… Identifying new market opportunities

May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I find this video feature and interview interesting for a few reasons. As a biker, the motorcycles and interview are interesting, and I’m always interested in how people shoot automotive videos. Plus I do have a small role in helping out with bike site Rescogs.com, and have clients in the motorcycle and car spaces.

As a business owner, I also found it interesting to see how Cleveland CycleWerks came up with their new bikes, in terms of doing something different to the established brands. The market previously had brands like Harley-Davidson at the high end, or unknown Chinese brands at the low end – so it certainly seems like there’s a very valid gap for affordable, American motorcycles.

 

Filed Under: Business, Motorcycles Tagged With: ,
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Dealing with router issues

May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I expected this weekend to be busy due to work and family commitments, but I hadn’t banked on a technology failure playing such a big part. I’ve been using a Netgear DGND3300 Router for around 18 months, and it’s been flawless until now. I’ve also been a longtime customer of Zen Internet for broadband, due to their usually excellent customer service and support.

Saturday was the start of a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, so with a young child to entertain, I was a bit miffed to find that my net connection had dropped during the course of Friday night. One quick reconnection later and we had everything back – for about 30 minutes.

And that was the tale of the weekend – the connection dropping after between 1-30 minutes each time. So as soon as I was able to get back in front of my laptop, I started going through all the usual procedures:

  • Reboot the router
  • Disconnect everything from the router, and just connecting the laptop after rebooting everything again
  • Checking the Zen Internet Status and Outages,and BT Outages.
  • Testing alternative phone line filters
  • Testing alternative phone line cables
  • Doing a factory reset of the router itself and setting it all up again from scratch
  • Checking that the router was running the latest firmware
  • Checking online to see if there were problems with the latest firmware
  • Phoning 17070 to do a check my phone line, including a quick noise test
  • Swearing
  • Attempting to test an alternative router, until I realised that for some reason I couldn’t connect via it’s IP address. Possibly after the wrong power cable was inserted, potentially frying my old Belkin…
  • Swearing more
  • Disconnecting everything from any phone socket, and doing a master socket test by removing the cover and going directly into the test socket.
  • Crossing fingers
  • Eventually giving up and assuming it’s broken router, before going and investing in a new Netgear N600 ADSL2+ Modem Router
  • Returning to set-up the new router and finding the same problems.
  • Rebooting everything yet again.

By this point I was close to throwing everything out of the window, but with work to do, that wasn’t an option. So having rebooted once more, I quickly fired off a message to Tech Support (Frustratingly, Zen’s tech support is off during the Bank Holiday, as the helpful phone message informed me), and also posted in the Zen Support forum.

It seems like that final step did the trick. Touching wood, crossing fingers and praying to the technology Gods, it appears that the quickest way to resolve my tech issue was to publicly and privately post about it – at which point it magically rectified itself…

*facepalm*

But it was a very good reminder how much of my life requires an internet connection. Now everything is working, I’m going to retest the old Netgear again, and if it turns out it wasn’t a router issue, I’ll keep both routers to have a spare in the future…

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,
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The security paradox…

May 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Why is it that it’s seemingly easier to hack someone’s account than it is to legitimately recover a dormant online email account?

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: ,
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Magic in everyday technology…

April 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment

If you’re not familiar with Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Three Laws‘, they’re well worth knowing…

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

It’s number 3 that I was reminded about today. Of all the modern gadgets and technology I use, probably the most magical thing to me is still buying a Kindle book from Amazon.

As someone who has spent countless hours in bookstores, libraries and comic book shops it’s still very strange that I can go to Amazon.co.uk via a link from a recommendation, select 1-Click purchase, and the next time I happen to carry my Kindle anywhere near my router, that book will almost instantly appear on it, ready to read.

It’s a good reminder anytime I get jaded or cynical. And gives me a magic level to aspire to with my work…

 

Filed Under: Gadgets, Quotes, Technology Tagged With: , , ,
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Dear Flickr…

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Despite all the other image sharing sites that have launched since I originally joined Flickr, I still love it. And having been a Pro paid member for around 5 years, and uploading thousands of photos which have recorded a frankly astounding 20,000+ views, it’s an embedded part of my life.

When I’m stressed or in need of inspiration, I always surfed the ‘Most Interesting’ photos, which has since been replaced by the Recent Photos page. It’s great to see amazing photography of all types being surfaced by other users…

But it’s such a shame that you can’t filter that page for Creative Commons images only.

There’s a work around using Advanced Search to stipulate Creative Commons images, taken after a certain time, and then ordering the results by ‘Interesting’, but it’s a pain to do that each day.

And I know that Flickr has partnered with Getty Images, which brings in revenue which Creative Commons images don’t.

But it’d be a great way to surface more amazing photos which could be shared and publicised to highlight Flickr’s amazingly talented users in a way which the likes of Instagram etc would never do.

It means I can more easily find a picture of a rock wearing sunglasses and share it:

Mysterious Roving Rocks of Racetrack Playa

 

Creative Commons is good for everyone:

I’m a huge fan of CC images. They enable me to share amazing images on this blog, which doesn’t make any money and doesn’t cover the cost of images.

They also tend to be more interesting than stock images, even when you’ve got a paid-up account.

And they can lead to publicity and payment for the photographers involved where the work/need is set to require it.

Any of my public uploads is always shared under a CC license for non-commercial use, and it’s meant that a quick phone image like this one:

Robot at the British Library Science Fiction Exhibition

Has ended up illustrating two blog articles around the web and  received around 1000 views.

Compared to the great photos my father used to take which are currently in a box in his loft, that’s pretty amazing to me.

Filed Under: Copyright, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,
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My favourite Cory Doctorow books…

April 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Someone recently asked me to recommend some books I’ve been reading, and when it comes to Cory Doctorow, I’ve probably re-read my favourites several times now.

So rather than just sharing my personal picks in a private email, I figured I’d share them publicly. They’re all available as free downloads from his Craphound.com site, but whether you grab a PDF version or a Kindle file format, if you enjoy them, I’d urge you to buy a copy for friends or family, or to consider buying a copy which can be matched to a library or school which would like a copy. The whole point of artists and creative people embracing the open, sharing, Creative Commons world is to allow people to share, remix, spread the word and support their favourite artists more easily, not just to load up on freebies!

It’s been made a lot easier for me after I happened to give one book to my father as a present, and despite buying my parents a Kindle, they still love print editions, so that’s birthday’s and Christmas sorted for a while!

 

My favourite Doctorow books:

Purely personal choices – yours may, and should differ. I’d recommend that if you have the time and inclination you read everything, but I know at least one person who needs a curated selection.

I’m not going to impose the reasons I particularly like them – read them and make up your own minds. All I would say is that you should ignore the fact some of them are labelled as ‘Young Adult’ books – the difference between a teenage and adult reader is enthusiasm, not the ability to handle complex issues!

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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Back to the Furure?

April 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

FenlandCitizenTypo

Typos happen in print and on the web. Always worth a chuckle, and should always be a learning experience for those involved, not a disciplinary one…

Filed Under: All Sorts Tagged With: ,
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Cool video explains the beginning of the universe. A bit…

April 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A lot of people, particularly those with a vested interest in traditional media, have claimed that blogs are all rubbish, Twitter is just people saying what they had for breakfast, and Youtube is all skateboarding cats.

It’s a little cliched to pull out a TED video at this point, but how often can you get a CERN physicist explaining in a charming animated video the basics of how the universe appeared, and what cosmologists and particle physicists do?

 

Exactly.

Filed Under: Web Tagged With: , ,
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