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Thu Aug 7 12:39:40 2003

My new headphones are very poorly designed. The indicator on them detailing which is left and which is right is a raised section on the speaker-part of the earpiece, meaning if you put the mufflers on you can't work out which is which.

Well I am writing my first proper update since I went down south for my summer internship.

I'm staying in Winchester, working in Romsey - two places near Southampton, at the opposite end of the country from my home.This is probably what uni feels like to people who travel more than half an hour south from home!

IBM is an interesting place to work. I have been entrusted with a ~2.5Ghz Netvista computer to work on. The first thing I did (as I couldn't do anything else at the time) was to install debian. Without going into too much detail this wasn't easy: the netvista's network card driver isn't in the debian rescue floppy distro, and there isn't a cd burner. I ended up having to download a CD ISO using jigdo on win32 and mounting that as a loopback filesystem. That jigdo program is nice.

The place I am staying is quite nice but very expensive - 90 GBP a week. Food here is reasonably expensive but what can you expect for the south. The people I live with are pretty nice, as are the people I work with, so I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

What I work on is confidential, but I can tell you a little bit about it. I am working as part of a team to develop some test software. I am personally writing a linux kernel device driver - so lots of esoteric reading and hardcore C, lovely.

Anyway I'm enjoying it, making quite a lot of progress at work and learning some new things. Unfortunately I'm not doing much work on my disseration because I'm so busy, but I'll have to get back into the swing of that this weekend.

KSR's Mars trilogy to be made into a Sci-Fi short series, as Dune was recently. Read about it at scifi.com, zap2it, discuss it at the demimonde.

A small piece of non-news, the mysql server is back up, so the links page works again. I now have to get on and improve it!

Well despite my disclaimer, a random passer-by _did_ buy me something from my wishlist. A lad from uni accidentally ordered me a book on his friend's account (Thanks ali!). I'll get the cheque to you asap.

There will be a slight delay however, because last night someone placed a very inconvenient chair in my room.

My bed is a few feet in front of my door in my room here in durham, and I don't have a bed side lamp at the moment, so I have to turn off the lights at the wall and walk to my bed in darkness. No problem, I hear you say.

Except, someone put a hard wood chair directly in the path from my door to my bed (don't ask how I didn't notice it in the first place) which I walked into and cracked my toe on.

This morning I got up and it has swelled up loads, and REALLY hurts. I'm fairly sure its broken (the pain is not like bruise pain), and I'm going to the hospital in a bit, just as soon as I can make sure someone is in when I return. Taxi fairs to and from exams are going to cost a bomb :|

I will be replacing newsdot with my own version soon, which I will be using for my own purposes, so if the original doesn't return, fret not!

Sell-out

Thu Aug 7 12:39:40 2003

AFI Vans Old Skool Return! The Old Skool AFI Vans shoes are coming back! Head over to the VANS.com "Shop" section and place a pre-order today to make sure you get one before they sellout!

Too late! AFI already sold out!

Easter 2003

Fri Apr 25 12:27:00 2003

Well the easter holiday is over, and I am about to return to university to sit my exams. I have done an incredible wealth of things in the past four weeks, and had a wonderful time. Here's some of the things I've read/seen/listened to. More in-depth descriptions can be found here 2009 edit: the in-depth descriptions are also available below.

2009 Edit: remarkably torpor.net still exists. However, just for the sake of completion, here is the text I originally wrote there.

Books

Apocalypso - Robert Rankin

My first foray into Rankin's bizarre corner of the fantasy market. The book started off a bit slow, and the slapstick prose got on my nerves somewhat, but when the pace picked up and a story developed I enjoyed myself more.

1984 - George Orwell

I loved this book. So much is described with so little dialogue. The second half of the book was tense, disturbing and very well written. This book was all the more poignant given the events in Iraq as I was reading.

do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - PKD

As I have been told, not a lot in common with the film. The second book I have read by Philip K Dick, this one was more digestable than the previous (The man who japed); perhaps because it is newer. The elements in this book which aren't in the film are some of the most interesting, bizarrely enough.

the Cuckoo's Egg - Cliff Stoll

A very detailed account of a cracker's run through Laurence Berkeley Laboratories computer network, and Milnet. This book was easy to finish (took me one day, I couldn't put it down) which was a relief considering the technical subject matter. Provided some insight into the security problems of the day, which contrast interestingly with the ones we face at present.

Interzone - Various

Some wonderful short stuff from Interzones published throughout 2002, in particular fantasy by the Croatian author Zoran Zivkovic. His tale of a violinist's song detailing the meaning of life, and a professor attempting to convey the message in italian (the closest language he could get to a violin) to his baffled bedside attendant whilst dying was terrific.

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

A finely detailed story about a gigantic hollow cylinder-planet hurtling through the solar system. Cardboard characters, but the situation and descriptions left me with a sense of wonder.

Music

I'll not write descriptions of this stuff, for sake of brevity.

Film

1984

A good film, and a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book, but there is a huge amount of stuff missing. I watched this with my brother and my friend Daniel, neither of whom had read the book.

Saturn 3

So-so sci-fi film from the 60s, about a murderous robot and three humans on a research facility, in a communications black out. Starring Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas and another guy. My Sci-Fi encyclopaedia just says 'miss' for this films description, but it wasn't that bad. I remember watching the beginning when I was 8. The space effects are fairly shoddy, but the station itself was wall produced.

The Thing

Good special effects. Definitely a source of inspiration for resident evil. I would like to know where the literary roots come from - I'm guessing H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulu stuff, but I've never read it so I'm not sure.

Being John Malkovich

Ace film. Bizarre plot, with some very odd sex scenes. The best part was Charlie Sheen playing himself.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Clooney directorial debut. Brad Pitt cameo (I think Matt Damon cameo's too, not sure). Had a 'fight club' feel to it. Some maniac sex fiend TV producer is a CIA hitman on the side. I quite enjoyed it.

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