2009 — 15 July: Wednesday
Right, my next photo of Christa. It's been a while since I published the original version, and I wouldn't for a minute claim the picture is exactly detailed, but it remains one of my all-time favourites. In fact, quarter of a century ago I paid quite a lot of money to have the original 35mm slide subjected to a then-new process called LaserColor and turned into a false colour print that I framed and have long kept on the wall of my study. Here's a scan of it:
It dates back to our delayed honeymoon / first real holiday in Cornwall back in September 1975. I took it at the darker end of twilight one evening, at Land's End, back when it was a lot less commercialised (aka "spoiled") by a certain tasteless1 property magnate. We were all three of us appalled by what we found there when we revisited in August 1988 for a week, staying in a tiny rented flat in Penzance, a hundred yards or so from an excellent (if a little too "New Age") secondhand bookshop. I did not know that was there when we booked, honest! But I did spend quite a lot of time in it, while Peter and Christa were in the sea.
Oddly (perhaps) I remember that was where I bought for £4 (a steal) my (rather rare) hardback copy (with original dust jacket) of the Norman Douglas limerick book, though it was a reprint of the original 1920s edition that was privately-printed in Florence. (I have a great fondness for obscure collections of limericks!) Mind you, not many of them include index entries such as:
Zug, rarely rhymes with "plug", 51.
Toy Story
No more toys for a bit, I think. Yesterday's Oppo Blu-ray player will do me very nicely for now. Interestingly, in changing from the Pioneer machine to the Oppo I had to make quite a large adjustment to the plasma screen's brightness setting (to reset the PLUGE correctly and regain my delicious black level). I would have suspected the Blu-ray test disc they supplied with the Oppo, but the need for the adjustment was confirmed by Joe Kane's "Video Essentials" DVD, too.
Oh well. Once again it's time for sleep; it somehow seems to have become 01:54 or so. How does that happen? Yawn. G'night.
Stop Press
I've just had an email from Mike (he's also bought one of the Oppo machines) confirming my initial impressions regarding black level, and some aspects of the SD performance. I suspect we will both end up getting bags under our eyes and the hardware dongle that permits region and zone switching in conjunction with the latest official level of the firmware, rather than relying on a hack of a back-level version. Again, watch this (video) space — still up, Brian?! G'night, Take 2. It's 02:19, dammit.
Sunny rain
Me again. It's now 10:30 and breakfast is being chased by a second cuppa on its way down the hatch. The feather warcast suggests we need to batten hatches down later, but I'm going out for lunch back to Milburys, possibly to drop another ice cube down the well. Only four critical security patches this month, Mr Microsoft? Are we slipping? (And just exactly why did I have to reboot the XP Media Centre machine but not the XP Home machine?) Still, at least I didn't get the XP equivalent of my iMac's panic attack yesterday. Small mercies, heh?
Having had a welcome email from a young ex-colleague, I cast my eye over the IBM pension changes whinge forum last night (this morning, depending on your viewpoint). Unfunnily enough, the word "shafted" does rather suggest itself. I would say (well, actually, I wouldn't) "I'm all right, Jack" but in fact I'm only OK until the well runs dry. But then, aren't we all?
Back, ahead of what looks like more rain, but we met only the briefest of showers. My spy tells me the well is actually 325 feet deep. It's certainly a long damn' way to fall. Our young waitress provided a small glass of ice lumps to do the Galileo thing with. It's 14:14 and there's some lovely Bach wafting out of the BBC.
Who can resist...
... yet another pointless Top 10? An arguable set of title choices here representing "The top 10 computer novels". Must be the silly season, again, already:
- The Difference Engine — yes
- The Venus Fix — no idea
- Ghost in the Shell — yes
- Home Before Dark — no idea
- Death Match — no idea
- Thinks — he's gotta be joking
- Enigma — yes, grudgingly
- A Maze of Death — no idea
- Player Piano — barely recall this
- The Machine Stops — no idea
Personally, I think there's a more interesting Top 10 to be constructed around books about computing. For example:
- Computer: bit slices from a life
- Think: the amazing story of IBM
- Cogwheel brain
- Computer Lib / Dream machines
- On principles & development of calculator
- Few good men from Univac
- LEO: world's first business computer
- Mythical Man-Month
- New Hacker's dictionary
- Soul of a new machine
But I wouldn't dream of putting these in any order, and modesty (of course) forbids the inclusion of any of my own work.
Call that a dongle?
I've just reset the new Oppo Blu-ray player back to the latest level of Beta firmware, thus turning it back into a DVD Region 1 / Blu-ray Zone A device. But there's method in my madness as, tomorrow, it's going to Winchester with me for a tiny spot of brain surgery. I want it to be both Region and Zone free. But I'd also prefer it to incorporate the latest official firmware at all times. So to the second way of skinning this particular pussycat... fit a bit of hardware inside the player. In this way (according to the game plan) we can then keep upgrading the official firmware as it gets debugged and tweaked without having to wait each time for a happy hacker somewhere to patch the software. Some details for those of you compelled to study this.
While the machine is digesting its pre-med tonight, I shall gurgle contentedly throughout this, I suspect. Oppy is as much a hero as the Oppo.
Speaking of lobotomies, how's your brain?2 Christa and I did Simon Baron-Cohen's empathising / systematising assessment a few years ago. This is an interesting piece from the Chronicle. "Autism as Academic Paradigm"? Think what David Lodge could do with that as a theme for a campus comedy.
And can one remain committed on a campus without ending up being committed? Article. (Don't overlook the comments. Example: "Just look at how many self-described college graduates in these comments are unable to spell, punctuate, and form complete sentences.")
New topic!
While not entirely "safe" for "work" — whatever that means — there are some amazing images here. Don't be put off by the rather obvious URL.
Meanwhile, the email scams I get seem to become steadily and depressingly less literate. And more stupid:
I'm somehow reminded of John Cleese, as a Roman centurion, correcting the anti-Roman graffiti in that wonderful film Life of Brian.
Later
It's 20:16 and still rather warm and sticky. Or is that the effect of my recent meal? Anyway, just when I've converted my Oppo back to a US standards machine, so this little pile slurped onto the doormat this morning:
- The House Bunny
Looks amusing. I live in hope - Dan in real life
Great cast. I live in hope - Twilight (Blu-ray)
An amazingly enjoyable film, with good writing, great performances, good effects and superb music - Charlie Bartlett
Great cast, including Kat Dennings ("Norah" of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist). I live in hope
Not that I can pretend I haven't got a other few bits 'n' bobs I could watch, including that Oppenheimer documentary.