kierandelaney.net

There Will Be Blood!

Posted by Kieran - 26/02/08 at 01:02:01 pm

I watch a lot of movies. I’ve seen quite a few “critically aclaimed” movies as well - and you know generally they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. I’ve seen quite a few films expecting too much, and too often I’ve been utterly dissapointed.

Regardless I’ve read the hype surrounding There Will Be Blood, based on the novel Oil!, and despite nearly everyone around me panning the film, we took a chance last night and spent £14(!!!) seeing it at the cinema.

On an aside - HOW MUCH? Seriously, I was utterly despondent at the cost, the picture and the atmosphere. I haven’t been to the cinema for a while (since last year in fact) and certainly not since we got our new TV… I was amazed at the quality on display. Blacks were off grey, definition was fuzzy and i have a sneaking suspicion that the picture was out of focus. £14? I’d rather wait until new movies come out and buy them on blu-ray for that price. The quality will be better and i won’t have a mechanical dipshit sitting in front of me obsessed with looking at my eyebrows throughout the entire movie. In fact, I’m so in love with my new TV…..

Anyway - this film right? Aside from the afformentioned dissapointment I had a brilliant time. I can see at a stroke how Day-Lewis won best actor at this years Academy Awards, with such a phenomenal display. Genuinely unhinged at times, this was probably the most compulsive absorbing character I’ve seen in film - played with real belief. Whats slightly shocking is how the film didn’t win best picture. In my mind it was infinately better than the flawed “No Country For Old Men”.

This film completely reinvents the cinema wheel. There is no dialogue for the first 20 minutes. There are no generic follow running man, cut to face, extreme close up of sweat stained brow, cut behind, cut to first person, cut to wide angle tricks here. This is a completely organic experience, something which I have not seen on screen before - ever.

I don’t want to say much more because everything happens for a reason, stylisticly, and to discuss some of the mindblowing effects would be to spoil the film.

One final nod to the guy from Radiohead, no not the “i squint to look cool” dick, whose sparse soundtrack adds to the organic feel of the film - there are points where the sound alone drives you to the edge of your seat - the film packs so much tension and atmosphere, which is amplified by the soundtrack perfectly. Again, criminally overlooked at the awards this year. Soundtrack deserved an oscar - not maybe as a standalone - but it did what it needed. No songs, no melody - just old fashioned emotive noise, which complemented the film so well i actually got lost in the screen.

Once I forgot how poor the quality of the cinema was

A Quiet Belief In Angels

Posted by Kieran - 22/02/08 at 07:02:56 am

Started on 17th Feb 2008
Finsihed on 21st Feb 2008

A beautiful book which spans 77 years across America, from the dust-bowl, across 7 states, and in the later stages New York.

I’ve not read such an engaging novel for a long time, this surely is my favourite book in the last few years - suspenseful, dark and full of twists. At times the emotional punch of this book made me feel shaky, but i never once considered putting it down, gripped as i was.

I read this book in 4 days - all i can suggest is that you buy this book, and settle down for it to enrapture you.

OMG! WTF! BFG!

Posted by Kieran - 20/02/08 at 11:02:13 am

Yeah - lets get this straight - anybody else who emails my personal email address demanding my personal attention and demanding that i help with my plugin issues will get blocked, and probably, maybe, will get struck by divine lightning.

I’m very busy at the moment, I’m working 50 hour weeks, I’m playing league squash and football - i just don’t sit around waiting for support questions. I love that people are using my plugins, I’m glad they do what you want to do, but if it doesn’t work, suck it up. I try my best, but unfortuantely, not having access to your fingers or server it can be a struggle….. comment on the blog page and i’ll try, or check the FAQ’s and other posts….

If anyone wants to donate a couple of pounds or dollars, then please do email me. If you want to say hi, feel free to email me. If you want to make a suggestion or ask a question, politely, please don’t hesitate. Its the aggresive/demanding people that are beggining to grate.

As for versions and features…. 1.3 of Simplife is on the way, i just need to iron out a few kinks, and picturegrid is indefinately parked until i get some more time to do it some justice.

Paranoia

Posted by Kieran - 17/02/08 at 11:02:41 am

Started 12th Feb 2008
Finished 17th Feb 2008

Well written and fast paced, every page demands to be turned. Straddling the “Crichton” line nicely, the science is real without being overly complicated, a book (partially) about geeks which is readily accessible by geeks and those who have know idea what an optical chip even is…

In the main though, this is a thought provoking thriller based around corporate Americas greed and dirty tricks, and with a smart sensible ending this one sticks in the mind.

Mister B. Gone

Posted by Kieran - 12/02/08 at 08:02:28 am

Started 8th Feb 2008
Finished 11th Feb 2008

History? Printing Technology? What Barker has always done best is take the macabre twist of his and wrap it around modern parables and musings on society. Set before and around the cradle of the printing industry, this book literally drips with spite at times. Intelligently written from the view point of a demon, Jakabob Botch (who is trapped within the very text of the book), the novels pace is tempered by the demon talking directly at you around and between his “story”. Thats not to say this is Barkers best, but its certainly inventive as any “secrets” within the book, and manages what most “horror” novels do not - its at times horrific, informative, historically accurate and genuinely quite chilling.

Stop With The Petrol Related Emails!

Posted by Kieran - 08/02/08 at 01:02:22 pm

I got an e-mail today, regarding petrol. Yes, the same e-mail that everyone has probably had once a month for the last 2 years. Every other month some herbert decides he’s had enough of paying over the odds for an essential product, and instead of getting really down with anarchy and blowing up a refinery, he decides to send his mates an e-mail.


> See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it.
>
> We are hitting 106.9 p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be
> faced with paying £1 .10 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:
>
> This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain
> day' campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies
> just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt
> ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us
> than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come
> up with a plan that can really work.
>
> Please read it and join in!
>
> Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us
> to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take
> aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not
> sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need
> to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come
> down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And
> we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:
>
> For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two
> biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
>
>
> If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce
> their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to
> follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of
> Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!
>
> Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... keep reading and I'll
> explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
>
> I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send i t
> to
> at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at
> least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message
> reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE
> MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to
> ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it
> goes one level further, you guessed it... ..
>
> THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
>
> Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and
> not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this
> email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION
> people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting
> together we can make a difference If this makes sense to you, please pass
> this message on.
>
> PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE
> RANGE
>
> It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your
> petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.
> boycott BP and Esso.

In August 2000, some people decided to boycott the forecourts of petrol stations up and down the country. The media got really excitable but eventually nothing happened.

The chain letter above first surfaced in Summer, 2000, after the petrol boycott. The anonymous author reasoned the failure of previous campaigns was that people just can’t go without getting petrol - even for a couple of days. It was an instant hit, but its popularity faded as gas prices stabilized in late summer. It resurfaced when petrol prices spiked again in the springs of 2001 and 2002 and in fact everytime petrol so much as fluctuates by a penny. The 2002 version is the one posted above.

Also, in 2002, the chain letter went international, with versions popping up in the US and Australia. Language, measurements, currency units and oil company names (Exxon and Mobil, instead of Esso and BP) were switched to their American or Australian equivalents, but otherwise it was the same letter.

Predictably, this nearsighted boycott e-mail surges in popularity each spring, as nature and market trends regularly contribute to a seasonal peak in prices. It reliably resurfaced in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 practically unchanged from the 2002 version - and now its 2008 and I’ve got it again…..

So, will avoiding one company’s petrol stations effectively and permanently drive prices down? No. In fact, it would likely have the opposite effect, if any at all. Petrol is a commodity. Commodity markets work on the principle of supply and demand. When supply is higher than demand, sellers lower the price until the two factors equalize again. When demand is higher than supply, sellers raise the price to curb use and stretch supplies until, once again, the two factors equalize.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say we successfully organize the Esso/BP boycott. Esso/BP loses business and lowers prices to lure you back. The other stations will follow suit and lower prices to compete, right? Not quite. To avoid Esso/BP you go to the Tescos in your town, instead. Tesco’s business increases, causing them to raise their prices to try to control demand, otherwise their supply would be quickly depleted. Their higher prices drive customers to Sainsburys across the road, who in turn raise their prices and drive customers to Jet, and so on. Eventually, supply and demand will equalize and all stations will have the same price again. Never mind where Tesco/Sainsburys and the rest of the smaller players get their petrol from. Obviously they’ll get the best deals from the biggest companies. Who are the biggest companies? Esso and BP. Oh dear - you thought this through didn’t you chaps, whilst all the while Esso and BP laugh all the way to the bank.

As consumers, we can do little to control supply, but we can control demand. However, effectively doing so means reducing demand overall, not just at one station. The reduction in demand must be as severe as possible and long-lasting. If you want to save money at the pump, slow down on the motorway, plan outings to get everything in one trip, walk more and trade in that gas-guzzling Tonka toy for an economical compact car for starters.

Historically, chain-letter boycott campaigns are almost always failures. Reaching people is different from getting them to participate. People will receive duplicates, some will dismiss it out of hand, some e-mails will never reach their recipients. It will take a lot more than “the sixth iteration” or “8 days” to get 300,000,000 supporters. But, since e-mail chain letters are easy to distribute, we do so, fooling ourselves into thinking we’re doing a good thing. Instead, we’re propagating nearly a decade’s worth of Armchair Activism based on a faulty premise.

Break this chain of e-mail stupidity. Save my inbox and stop forwarding mindless crap!

MIA

Posted by Kieran - 06/02/08 at 01:02:00 pm

So, I’ve been offline for a while, with internet downage, and life rapidly speeding up around me. And its meant that my two plugins for wordpress have hit the dirt, although not forever, just for the last two weeks, I’ve not written any “rants” and I’ve been largely off the radar.

Firstly - just how good are Macs? I tried to link my phone to my windoze PC last year and had such a torrid time I just gave up. Utter utter bollocks. Nokia’s software is slow, the cable connection was worse and i just decided my photos could stay on my phone. Anyway, I got bored last weekend and decided to see if my phone would play bluetooth with my Macbook Pro. Its so easy its ridiculous. No software, no cables - simplicity. Within minutes the photos were all uploaded and my phonebook was backed up on the laptop.

So I uploaded the photos to Flickr…

I seem to post every month that i need to get back into photography but never quite manage it. Well I finally got out with the camera and have some photos sitting waiting for an uploading session. As an aside, the new Flickr uploader is ace. Add photos to multiple sets, add descriptions etc on top of descriptions, add extra tags. Brilliant!

Anobii has recently seen my arrival - I’ll be adding my recently read stream to the lifestream and I expect I’ll see if i can lever my current read into the sidebar somewhere.

Time just goes so fast at the moment. It feels like yesterday, but it was over a month ago I turned 24. Things are beggining to take hold and I’ve lost a 12th of the year already without really doing anything I have planned. Some of its financial as well i suppose - we have decorating to do, but we can’t really afford the outlay just yet, and I’d love a new camera!

And now lunchtime has gone too.