kierandelaney.net

Piracy Revisted, Book Reviews and Picturegrid Teaser.

Posted by Kieran - 30/10/07 at 06:10:14 pm

First, i probably made my feelings on the Oink debate clear with my last post, but read this article - clear and brutal, its my kind of rant : when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

I also wrote these reviews for another site, but I’ll duplicate them here, because, well, i don’t know really. I guess this is just a flow of consciousness, and these are from my brain etc. Anyway, due to my fathers death recently, I’ve spent a lot of time travelling, and reading. Its nice in a way, because my dad was one of the best read people I’ve ever mean - someone with a book in his hand and a story to tell every minute of every day.

The Perfect Storm
Is a brilliant book - the film of the same name (very loosely) based on the book was arse and so when i was passed this book i sort of started with an attitude and low expectation. I couldn’t have been more wrong! The book doesn’t fabricate, suggest or dramatise anything that happened - instead its a completely factual and moving account of life at sea. There is great detail regarding the mechanics of ocean rescue, the mechanics of drowning (a sizable proportion of drowning victims suffocate by their larynx closing on reflex, and are found with no water in their lungs etc) and the way of life on board a sword fisher. 20 hour days for 3 weeks at a time etc.

Incredibly well written, this book kept me entertained and was pitched just right, the mix of detail and adventure, and the twist of human emotion makes for the best book I’ve read this year.

Agent Zigzag
Another book recommended, another non fiction drama - Agent ZigZag tells the story of double agent Eddie Chapman during WW2. Without giving too much away, Chapman ends up coveted by both sides o the war and at one point offers to assassinate Hitler! Another well written book, expertly drawn together from 100’s of secret service documents made available by the freedom of information act and hundreds of interviews and personal diaries.

Another entertaining read with the distinct advantage that its played out like a novel - always keeping you guessing for more, and each chapter leaves you on a cliff hanger.

Finally Making Money is the latest Terry Pratchett novel set on the Discworld. Its been a while since the last one, because in the meantime Pratchett has been busy trying to tap back into the younger readers market (the Bromliad trilogy was immensely successful and even made into a TV series) with his Discworld for kids novels. Somewhere along the line he has lost the plot. Or to be more accurate, recycled it. Making Money reads through like a carbon copy of the previous Discworld novel “Going Postal”. Same characters? Check. In fact, Lazy. Pratchett has always revisited characters, but two novels in a row around one central character is just a little bit two much. Plot structure/setting? Same. Criminal conman with heart o’ gold given chance to redeem character by saving dying institution… first its the post office, now its the bank. Moist Van Lipwigs character is so redeemed its like an Iceland voucher.

There are some nice touches, Pratchett’s illustration of the way paper money actually came about (thinly veiled satire, and if you think about it, it is pretty wacky that slips of posh paper mean so much to us) are humorous, and the scenes surrounding the bank rush are timely given Northern Rock (this book was finished before summer apparently).

Overall though, despite the biting wit and satire which are ever present on the Discworld, this novel is too short and not good enough - all of Pratchett’s previous novels have consistently delivered and so whilst this isn’t a bad book, its a case of could (and regularly does) do better.

Finally…. coming soon:

OiNK Shutdown

Posted by Kieran - 25/10/07 at 09:10:07 am

The music industry needs to learn from this. Yes OiNK was used for piracy but one of the major factors in its success was a total lack of a viable legitimate alternative. OiNK was able to offer a library far greater than its legitimate rivals in better quality with a better interface, faster downloads and above all an enthusiastic music loving community. If the music industry were spend less time prosecuting their customers and instead collaborate and create a site with the catalog, quality and convenience of OiNK i would happily pay a £20 or £30 monthly subscription, far more than i ever spent on CD’s before OiNK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oink%27s_Pink_Palace

Liberties In TV

Posted by Kieran - 20/10/07 at 01:10:54 pm

Don’t get me wrong, I love certain shows on TV - Prison Break, Heroes, 24 and even Lost when it remembers to pull its head out of its arse.

But certain things about TV, especially American shows, just need to be stopped right now. We are not all idiots! We don’t need things laid on a plate - some of us can join the dots ourselves! Also - somethings are just stupidly implausible.

For example, we recently sat down to watch the pilot episode of the Binoic Woman.

Within minutes we were introduced to the shadowy government funded military group making bionic women, the maverick genius doctor, the hardass boss of shadowy organisation, the evil (yet obviously tortured and complex) bad guy who is kept 1000 meters underground. 1000 meters undergound. Yes thats right the prison he was kept in was 1000 meters underground! How far?! 1000 meters! A point laboured so badly, its obvious no one could break out of there, not even a criminal super genius! Oh wait… here he comes plodding across the horizon, very much not 1000 meters underground. He must be super bad ass!

Theres much talk (sorry if you haven’t watched this, i don’t care) of cutting our ladies legs off because other wise she will almost certainly die blah blah blah - and then cut to her waking up. So far, take a leap of faith, supposedly believable. I mean, its not 100% against the realms of possibility that somewhere someone could, given a fiendlishly huge military budget, have created bionic legs that are so flawless no one would know the difference - especially as they’ve used nano machines to make it all good.

Anyway, so far i was drifting along, watching Sci Fi that was at least partially believable, if not a little cheesy.

And then BANG. Outside she comes, punches, kicks, spins and dances with athletic grace before almost cutting a mans head off - at which point i tipped over the edge - “what the fuck is this”, I screamed, “have they copied and pasted Kung Fucking Fu into her head?”.

And then at this point (if it wasn’t bad enough already) the episode nearly slipped away from me - What have you done to me? she asks… “we have put kung fu computer chips in your head” comes the reply.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

HimmelBar - Bad name, useful app…

Posted by Kieran - 18/10/07 at 05:10:54 pm

So on the mac laptop, we have a few applications - like Pages, Keynote or Flickr Uploadr - that we use maybe once a month, but not really often enough to warrant filling up the dock with their ugly little icons…. mhmm, minimalism.

Which is where the awfully named HimmelBar comes in - it provides an icon in the menu bar to quickly access your installed applications by scanning standard locations, its fully customisable - and a cloud in the menu bar is obviously better than 20 rarely used icons in the dock.

Heather Mills

Posted by Kieran - 16/10/07 at 01:10:33 pm

ACCORDING to the BBC website, Heather Mills has blamed the breakdown of her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney on ‘constant intrusion’ into the couple’s private life. It seems a shame that Heather objects so much to the public taking an interest in her personal business. If only she had mentioned it in one of her two published autobiographies, A Single Step and Out On A Limb, or the ‘About Heather’ section of her website www.heathermillsmccartney.com, or perhaps when she sold her life story to the News of the World in 1993. Perhaps then the public would have got the message and left her to live her life out of the constant glare of publicity. Perhaps even, if she used the dancing based reality TV show she took part in as a platform to speak out against this “public intrusion” she’d be able to get her life back on track…

Cogs!

Posted by Kieran - 13/10/07 at 01:10:20 pm

We took some photos last month when we went for a little walk…. beautiful weather, and we stumbled upon these burnt out car bits…

All Photos

6EMEIA

Posted by Kieran - 11/10/07 at 09:10:08 am

I’m a sucker for art and graffiti which doesn’t just look good, but makes a point, and makes use of its surroundings. I’m in love with the following graffiti artist, who makes use of storm drains and manhole covers to give life to his creations:

The guy above for example holding a cigarette made from a post and coughing smoke out of his drain hole mouth - attention to detail is great.

And one of Shelley’s (and my) favourites:

World City To City Internet Map

Posted by Kieran - 10/10/07 at 03:10:11 pm

I’m pretty sure this is the prettiest geeky thing I’ve seen:

Courtesy of Chris Harrison, the map above shows city to city connectivity on the internet:

I should note this is not the first time graphs like this have been created - I’ve seen dozens of variations, most being practical in nature (e.g. cable locations, bandwidth). I decided to pursue an aesthetic approach - one more visually intriguing and interesting to explore than useful. The intensity of edge contrast reflects the number of connections between the two points. No country borders or geographic features are shown. However, it should be fairly easy to orient yourself.

Based on The Dimes Project, which provides several excellent data sets that describe the structure of the Internet Chris has used their most recent city edges data (Feb 2007) and created a set of visualizations that display how cities across the globe are interconnected (by router configuration and not physical backbone). In total, there are 89,344 connections.

Check out Chris’ page for more details and maps including european cities and density of connections.

Worlds Biggest Swimming Pool

Posted by Kieran - 07/10/07 at 08:10:51 pm

I’m quite a keen swimmer - but this had me rubbing my goggles.

The worlds biggest swimming pool, San Alfonso del Mar is 1km in length and 10 times longer than the previous Guinness world record holder in Morroco. The revolutionary clear water artificial lagoon, transparent to a depth of 35 meters and unprecedented in design and construction methods, are the brainchild of Crystal Lagoons founder, biochemist and Chilean businessman Fernando Fischmann. Equivalent in size to an incredible 6,000 standard domestic pools, details of its technology are to be unveiled for the first time at Cityscape Dubai later this month.

Postsecret

Posted by Kieran - 06/10/07 at 10:10:40 am

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

Postsecret is everything that is great about the internet. What started in 2004 with a few postcards inviting people to contribute a personal secret to a community art project soon grew into an internationally popular website with more than 3 million hits a week.

We bought (this) book which is a reproduction of some of those postcards from the website - there are now four books, with a fifth due shortly.

Each of the postcards is a work of art and a glimpse into the mind of a stranger. The scope of the secrets range from childhood confession to criminal guilt, and in each of them one can discern a considerable cathartic experience. Open the book at any point and you will find something to make you laugh or think about or even cry. One reads, “I envy the willpower of anorexics.” Another, “Sometimes I put coins in people’s parking meters.” Another, “For the first time since I was a baby I am finally happy. I am 28”