John's Wittering

MSN on Adium or Pidgin

2009-01-12T19:37:36Z

Apparently Microsoft has turned off an old version of their MSN protocol that a lot of Adium and Pidgin users were using (they both use libpurple, I believe).

Adium: http://adiumx.com/blog/2009/01/msn-rejecting-adium-132-connections/

http://code.google.com/p/msn-pecan/

If you're using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, you can just sudo apt-get install msn-pecan, then add your MSN account(s) again via the WLM protocol.

greatred @ 2008-12-19T10:23:00

2008-12-19T10:24:46Z

This so sounds like my experiences, I wonder if anyone else finds it very familiar: http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?p=35

Flat Internet: online!

2008-11-23T10:40:52Z

Well, after a long time without having Internet outside of work, I have it again. Blame BT for most of the delay and confusion. Ordered phone line towards the end of last month, and they delivered (as promised) on 11th November. Eclipse delivered Internet ADSL on the evening on 21st.

Sorry for not being around for ages. I feel pretty out-of-touch (although I know some of you would say that I am out-of-touch even when I do have Internet).

Also, I hate having a cold.

greatred @ 2008-10-14T10:04:00

2008-10-14T09:07:26Z

Much as I've failed to remember and post many impressions I've had on the USA, I've been struck wondering what it must be like for an American to visit the UK and to wonder what their first impressions would be. I've just come back from (sunny) California to (not so sunny) Autumnal Brighton. I'm struck by the quite tortuous and confusing one-way systems and twisty streets, and the, for the most part skyline-dominating, grimly coloured buildings, grubby pavements and rather ad-hoc traffic and pedestrian arrangements.

Hm. I wonder how that seems to a San Franciscan.

greatred @ 2008-10-13T11:42:00

2008-10-13T10:43:41Z

Yesterday I was mugged by two seagulls.

That is all.

(P.S - I'm back in Brighton now, and seem to have slept off the jetlag - huzzah!)

greatred @ 2008-09-30T07:41:00

2008-09-30T14:49:35Z

I can't help but think that most of the blame of the stock market issues (which don't seem that bad at the moment) should be placed at the feet of media. They seem to be using words like "panic" and "crash" - whilst at the same time the markets (at this moment) actually look to be coping.

I could be wrong, as I don't understand economics - but I feel like the media are one of the worst causes of the problem - causing the very problem they are speculating on.

Grr.

Little Walk

2008-09-28T03:09:08Z

Had a bit of a walk around SF today to get a look around some of the parts of the city that I'd not seen yet. Decided to head vaguely North-West towards the Golden Gate Bridge. So, headed up Columbus Avenue. It turns out that that's where all the eating places are. In any case, made it up to the North side of the city, where you can see both the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as Alcatraz (didn't realise that it would be that visible, but there you go).

Stuck around looking at the Golden Gate for a bit from a hill, as there was an interesting looking tall-ship with square rigging coming into the bay. Was a bit disappointing when it got closer as it turned out not to be old at all, but was a rather sleak looking ship.

Carried on walking past a blues concert, and down into a towny/urban area. There were some rather good kite-fliers there. One chap had maybe 12 kites wired together with long streamers behind them. It was quite a display, he'd buzz some people on the grass, but always manage to avoid hitting them - he also dropped the kites to the ground, soft as butter, then lifted straight back off the ground again before the chap next to it could touch it :)

Wandered around a domed building with columns and statue-like embellishments on it, which turned out to be attached to a place called the Exploratorium - which was something like the Science Museum. Went in there and wandered for a couple of hours or so. Turned out that it closes at 5, so didn't get to stay as long as I'd like. Anyway, wandered out, and back along Divisadero Street, ate at a diner on the intersection of that and Lombard Street - nice cheap food, and tasted good (nommy cheesecake).

Carried on along Divisadero Street, and it just keeps going uphill. You reach the end of one stretch of the hill, getting to a flat intersection, and then you realise that there's another stretch after that (possibly steeper). There was a little bit of wheezing going up there. Finally got to the top and over the other side, finding Clay Street at about 2900. My hotel is near 0 Clay Street, so I turned down this. I think I ended up climbing two more hills before the nice gentle downhill stretch to the hotel. Got asked for directions to Powell Street on the way back by a couple of New-Yorkers, who chuckled, I think, at being given directions by a Brit. Anyway, was able to give them directions easily enough as my previous hotel was on Powell Street.

Anyway, that was the day. :)

6 days in San Francisco

2008-09-27T19:39:24Z

Adjusting to SF has been rather many-pronged. I've had to adjust to an 8-hour time-zone shift, coming from London. I think that's generally been okay, although I'm still waking up at stupid AM (4-6am) so far. Although this has seemed to be getting better as the week has gone on, I still tend to wake a little early and flake out at the end of the day after work.

Otherwise, I think I've got used to the mundane activity of crossing roads - and you have to do that a lot in a city, of course. The pedestrian crossing lights are handily white "walk" and red "don't walk" symbols - and when the walk time is running out you get a countdown of how long you've got to reach the safety of the pavement (sidewalk *cough*). A lot of the roads in the city seem to be one-way, which makes road crossing somewhat easier. The lights allow for pedestrian crossing on a pretty regular cycle, so you don't generally have to hang around for too long. One thing that can be a little unnerving is that the car drivers tend to come to an abrupt halt right next to the pedestrian crossing zone, sometimes a foot over it.

The hotel I started out in is called "The Westin", It's one of those hotels that's really, really posh in the lobby, and throughout. It even has posh looking shops on the ground floor. It also has a rather nice HD TV in the room. So that's rather nice. Not all programs are in HD, but the news is - which is kinda odd - seeing news presenters in HD. I have to wonder if HD TV has put somewhat more pressure on the presenters to wear makeup.

After a few days in the Westin, I've moved out to Club Quarters, which is somewhat cheaper, and more conveniently placed for walking to work. It also seems to offer free Wifi, whereas the Westin was charging $15 or so per day - which seemed a bit much, really - ADSL lines cost about twice that for a *month*.

The city has some rather interesting views. I haven't caught sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, yet, but I think I've seen the Bay Bridge (or something) between buildings, from around the Battery Street area. I think I shall do some walking this weekend to have a look around - for now I've pretty much only covered streets between Powell St. and Battery St. - often involving those steep hills that San Francisco is so well known for *wheeze* *wheeze*.

One thing that has struck me about American car adverts is how proud they are about their fuel economy. The current high water mark seems to be 30mpg. Oh dear. Having said that, they are rather fond of their large cars, so that might explain things a bit.

Fire Engines are a fairly common background noise in the city. The first thing I thought when I heard them is that they sound like lost souls, wailing up and down the city streets. It can often be quite difficult to place what direction the sound is coming from, as often the sound is bleeding around buildings, and up more than one gridlock street to your ears.

I've ordered a camera, so that I can take pictures while I'm out here, but unfortunately I left it until Thursday (yesterday) to do so, so it's not likely to arrive until next week - so no photos from my free time this weekend. Darn :(

Still, I'll have a little look around the city to get an idea of what the place is like, and what might be worth going to see properly. Until now my evenings after work have been busy trying to find food, and subsequently getting back to my hotel and just wanting to sleep.

Long-overdue update

2008-09-24T16:33:09Z

It's been quite a while since I last updated, Just been rather out of the habit of blogging in general.

Anyway, a quick recap on the past few months. In February I got a job with a small energy consultancy company as a web developer for a few web applications that they were making for some of their customers. That was in the rather nice little town of Amersham in Buckinghamshire. In mid April I was made redundant when the company went into voluntary liquidation. Bit of a pain that. Not sure exactly what caused the company to go under, but sounded like a debt was called in, when a major customer hadn't paid up. Possibly a repercussion of the larger economic problems that were starting out just around then.

I was unemployed for about 4 months after that. I turned down two jobs that I felt would not fit with me too well. I was turned down for one or two others. Eventually moved back to my parents' house for a bit when my 6-month flat contract ran out.

BT were a bit of a pain when I disconnected from them. I knew when I signed up with them in March that it was a 12-month contract, so I wasn't surprised to be paying for months after disconnection. However, the £10.50 monthly rate "increased" by a little for the remaining time, as apparently while I had the contract I had the benefit of a discounted rate. It seems that it would (if it was possible) be cheaper to keep the contract for 12 months rather than to disconnect. I wasn't best pleased with that, and will probably be avoiding BT for some time after this (which is a pain, as I rather like the ADSL provider I was with - and I doubt I can get them on a non-BT line).

Finally in August I went through a spree of phone screenings and finally a set of face-to-face interviews with a company, and was finally offered the job and accepted in late August.

So, I've moved to Brighton to a new flat, to work for the company. It's been good fun - the people there are really nice to work with and obviously quite bright. So, after a long period of unemployment - I'm feeling a lot happier and less anxious about things in general.

After a couple of weeks' employment in Brighton I've been packed off to San Francisco to spend 3 weeks working in the company's head office. This is the first time I've been to the USA, and things are that strange mix of familiar and subtly different all over the place. I'll have to write up my early impressions of the USA and San Francisco pretty soon - which is why I'm doing this update now, to provide some context.

Currently sipping from a can of Mountain Dew - and trying to take it slowly so that I don't bounce off the walls.

I'm back

2008-03-17T21:40:42Z

I'm back. Internet in my flat etc. etc.

Not sure what to say now :)

Packed up

2008-02-08T23:01:24Z

Packed up a load of stuff now - desktop computer now in bits and I'm using the laptop for the moment. Should be quick to load my stuff onto a van when I move. Looks like the move isn't going to happen tomorrow, but early next week. Apparently one the organisation giving a reference for my guarantor for my flat is taking it's sweet time about replying.

Looks like I'm going to have little time to settle in to the town and flat before I start the job. Oh well. On the plus side I'm really looking forward to spending the weekend with a friend.

Moving, etc.

2008-02-06T16:14:03Z

So I should be moved to Amersham either this coming Saturday, or the Monday/Tuesday afterwards. I'm looking forward to being able to settle in my own space, it's been quite a while since I had a flat to myself. Hopefully I will manage to find some friends in Amersham, a nearby archery club, church etc. Looks like we'll be using a Transit to get there. We couldn't fit the mattress in Dad's car, so that kinda decided it. We should also be able to move everything I have easily in one move.

Slightly odd dream last night. Was commuting to London, and somehow the driver (or signalman) managed to get lost driving the train to London and we ended up ploughing down a dead end siding in the middle of a field and derailing. I seem to remember knowing that this was the third day in a row that this had happened on my way to work, and feeling a bit grumpy about British Rail. Well, I don't know what to make of that dream, I have one or two theories, but nothing convincing. Dream interpretations often seem pretty non-obvious anyway.

greatred @ 2008-01-14T23:34:00

2008-01-14T23:36:59Z

Not good enough, BA. I was a customer.

The court ruled that the airline can prohibit Eweida from visibly wearing the cross. It held that other types of religious symbols, such as turbans, bangles, and other religious markings, are acceptable because they cannot be concealed.

Original story

Why don't I own an iPod?

2007-12-19T00:11:21Z

I've been talking to people on IRC about freedoms and such forth, and it occurs to me that I'm probably one of the few people in my circle of friends who doesn't own an iPod, an iPhone or something akin to those devices. This seemed like a good time to justify it. It comes down to a few reasons.

First up, it would be a hassle to use with my computer setup. I don't run Windows or Mac OSX, so I wouldn't have the Apple supported methods of transferring music to the device. There are other ways of doing it, but I'm unsure of how reliable they are since they are typically relying on people reverse-engineering protocols to talk to the iPod or iPhone. So in short: practicality is a problem.

Next up, I don't feel that I would actually own the hardware that I had purchased. Sure, I'd have paid a certain amount of money for it, and it's a lump of hardware that I can then carry around with me. But what can I actually do with it that the manufacturer approves of? I probably wouldn't be able to modify or replace the on-board software to suit my own purposes without voiding some warranty or something. I'm not buying hardware any more, I'm buying the rights to use a device made by Apple, in the way that they see fit.

In short, I'm not interested in spending hard-earned money on a device that encourages or requires me to spend more money with the same company in order to get the best out of it. That's not what I call a good investment.

I have used Microsoft Windows in the past, and ultimately I became disheartened by its sheer opaqueness. I don't really know how it works, what it is doing under the hood. I don't know how to customise it (beyond the basics) to enable me to do things that Microsoft envisaged it being used for. Ultimately, it's limited to Microsoft's vision.

Go back fifty years. Many people would have the knowledge of how to maintain their cars, or would know someone who could. These days cars have become much more complex, and not publicly documented that they are beyond the reach of the average person, those not privy to the knowledge of the car manufacturing “elite”. Do you really own your car any more if you can only have it upgraded and fixed at manufacturer-approved sites? I feel that the same principle applies in the gadget industry.

I have enjoyed the freedoms of free operating systems in my work and home life for some time now, and I don't wish to lose the power of choice and freedom that that has given me. Buying into an iPhone, iPod, or any number of other closed devices would be a step away from choice and freedom for me.

This is why I'm eagerly awaiting the second release of the OpenMoko phones. The chance to be able to tinker with the internals of a device with well-documented hardware and software interfaces is something that I've seen less and less of since the early days of home computing. This enables myself and others to modify the platform beyond the original visions of the creators into something that meets my needs and interests. What's even better is that this is encouraged by the creators of this platform. I find this refreshing in a world that is increasingly locked down.

Bristol

2007-11-18T23:51:23Z

Just letting you all know that I'm moving down to Bristol tomorrow, so I won't be reachable easily for a while, except by email (I'll attempt to read that every day, albeit briefly.

Take care, y'all!

Back from PyConUK

2007-09-10T19:31:41Z

I'm back from PyConUK. It was a really good conference, and when one considers that it's the first PyConUK so far, that shows even more credit to the organisers! The talks were great, the atmosphere was really good, and there were some really interesting people there to talk to.

I'm currently busy typing up my notes that I took during the conference, while it's still fresh in my mind so that I can elaborate on the points and keep them in mind more clearly for when I present things at work. So, I'm not going to write up too much right now, but hopefully this entry will remind me to write more in the next few days. If I don't, then poke me repeatedly until I do!

Incidentally, it turns out that wearing an XKCD t-shirt (“Regular Expressions”) is a really good idea for geek conferences. I was initiated into so many conversations purely by virtue of someone commenting “Hey - good t-shirt!”. I think that happened at least 5 times, and it's helped me get into some interesting geeky conversations.

greatred @ 2007-08-23T20:34:00

2007-08-23T19:43:25Z

Warning, random thoughts ahead - nothing of great interest!

Last weekend, or thereabouts, I was letting the cat in to feed her (as usual). She's a bit nervous, so I open the back door, swing it wide open, and step back to let her come in. So she starts her cautious approach to the door, and slowly moves over the threshold and I notice that the wind has caught the door which is now swinging shut on the cat - who is clearly too preoccupied with being cautious to notice the door silently swinging shut behind her. So I do the obvious thing - I move quickly to the door and push it back open - thus avoiding decapitated cat.

Unfortunately the cat runs off and settles down outside, with a definite air of suspicion about her. So I push the door back open, and retreat a little from the door. The cat eventually makes up some courage again, and starts to come inside again. She's moving even slower this time, so the door which is now swinging shut in the breeze now has an even better window of opportunity to cut the cat in half. So again I move up and stop the door. Again, the cat scampers off.

By this stage the cat is clearly very nervous. But I don't think that once she's noticed the door closing on her, all she's seen is me rushing towards her unexpectedly as she comes in the door.

Just to make sure things go a bit better, I go outside and put a hook on the door to hold it open against the wind. I then go inside and start getting the cat's food ready.

No cat is forthcoming. So I peak outside, and the cat is sitting a little away in the dark looking at me. I try to coax her in, and put the food on the floor, inside by the door. I look back outside and the cat has vanished into the night.

I guess this is a bit typical of this cat, who is extremely nervous at the best of times. The worst part is that I was probably saving the cat from pain, injury or even from being killed (the door is quite heavy). The cat is actually not coming in at all when I open the door to her in the evenings now. I suppose this means that I'm in the bad books.

Anyway, it just puts me in mind of how this sort of thing doesn't just happen between people and animals, it also happens between people and people. Examples of this are pretty common - where someone has someone's best interests at heart, but all they get is a bloody nose, because of suspicion and a lack of understanding and trust.

No, there's nothing particularly deep in what I'm writing, it just makes me sad.

Little bit of sailing

2007-08-05T21:42:57Z

Not gonna write much as I'm tired etc. Been a bit of a long day, went out last night with my uncle and cousin, slept on my uncle's boat for the night, and got up early for a yacht race. Only the one boat to race against. We lost, but it was a nice fun day out. Nice fresh air away from London - which was ace. Got to stay on the helm quite a bit, and also got in some practice at taching. We got quite close up to the WW2 anti-air batteries in the mouth of the River Thames. I might have to pinch the pictures that were taken from my uncle and cousin, as we did get a really fairly spectacular view of them.

Anyway, glad that I brought my sun-block, there were plenty of rays out there today. I'm actually quite tanned. The reflections from the water add greatly to this, of course. Anyway... Bed soonish! I need it after a long day of sailing!

Lug Radio Live 2007

2007-07-09T16:06:12Z

Lugradio Live 2007 has drawn to a close, and I'm now back home to Essex from Wolverhampton. In short: it rocked a bit. One annoyance is that there were so many good talks on it wasn't possible to see them all, but I did see and learn about several interesting things. This shouldn't be too bad, however, as I'm planning to catch up on the other talks on-line, as soon as the recordings are released.

Rob McQueen - Telepathy

This talk particularly caught my attention. It was talking about a solution to the current mess of IM clients, protocols and capabilities we currently have on the desktop. All protocols provide text chat, some provide file transfers, still others provide voice (and sometimes video) chat, and others might provide desktop sharing and other exotic services. To chat to people we can either use specific clients for the protocol (like MSN/YIM messengers), which provide full feature-sets for their respective protocols, but that means you've got a multitude of clients running (not to mention being limited to Windows, and, to some degree, MacOS). Alternatively you could run clients like Pidgin (formally Gaim), which provide good basic capabilities on a number of protocols, but still don't provide things like video chat.

Telepathy is a move towards a more UNIX-style way of supporting all these capabilities, but not tying yourself to a single IM client. It's all done with client services for each protocol's capability running on your computer (advertising themselves and communicating via DBus). It sounds very promising and exciting. This is definitely something to watch

It strikes me that it would be neat if Skype could provide a DBus service for this framework, so that we can use our own IM client to use the Skype protocol. This is because the Skype user interface annoys me and it doesn't fit in with my desktop, plus it's another program to have running.

The Mass Debate

Careful how you pronounce that one (I imagine it was deliberate, knowing what the Lugradio lot are like).

This was an interesting discussion between representatives from the Open Rights Group, Google, Novell and Microsoft. Questions were asked from the audience about various subjects, particularly the BBC's iPlayer, and ODF versus OOXML. Nothing too conclusive from this, although it did suggest how the community who are worried about public bodies' choices of document or media format should present their arguments and criticisms.

Chris Dibona

Chris from Google presented this talk, with a brief introduction of Google's roots, and then went on to show how Google both benefits from its own use of open source technologies, as well as how they give back to open source. It was good to see a company that actually got it, with regards to open source. How by leveraging open-source technologies they do not put themselves at the mercy of any other company with regards to the software that they use, not to mention the great utility they get from being able to read and modify the source code to their own benefit.

There was also a brief mention of Goobuntu (the Ubuntu derivative that Google uses internally), and I'll confirm that Chris Dibona says that there is no intention of releasing Goobuntu outside Google (apparently it is designed for internal use, and thus won't work for anything else). Still, sounds like a fun OS to use...

Barbie - Selenium - An Introduction to Web Testing

I don't know what the name of this chap really is, and neither did Kat Goodwin who introduced his talk.

Selenium is a framework for testing websites, which appeared to me to be of use in unit-testing pages on websites, on a variety of web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Konqueror in particular). I was glad to see this demonstration, as it's a big problem in website development that it's painstaking to check every [important] web page when changes are made. I don't know how good it will be for checking rendering problems, but apparently it does cover AJAX things. So this is something to watch, for me at least.

Andy Davidson - Scaling Up For Champions

This was a very interesting talk from my perspective, as it covered many aspects of making websites scale up well, although most particularly from a system administrator perspective. I learned briefly about techniques like reverse-proxying (which I've sort-of touched upon in my own line of work), memcache (which is looking like a potentially very useful tool for the arsenal), as well as some techniques/technologies that I'd not heard of before that will have to bear some further investigation, such as Anycast for hosting largely static content topologically closer to users at different locations.

Power Management

This was a BOF-session on a subject that the speaker described as being traditionally quite dull. But I must confess to having a fascination with the progress that's being made in this field. This session was particularly focused on the power management problems and solutions in laptops.

There seems to be a lot of improvement that needs to be made, and is being made in this area, particularly in relation to two basic problems:

More correctly estimating the time remaining before the laptop's power runs out
Saving power, and thus improving laptop battery conservation (i.e you can keep your laptop switched on for longer on the train)

On the first subject, there is the problem that while the BIOS can estimate battery charge remaining, and how long it will last, it is basically stupid in its estimation. It relies on a flat or very simple discharge profile, and thus produces very inaccurate results. This is exacerbated as the battery ages and degrades.

The solution presented here was to create a profile of the battery usage under "average" usage of the system. This should lead to much more accurate estimates of remaining run-times. This profile is constantly refined by the system, so that as the battery ages, the estimation of battery time remaining remains reasonably accurate. In effect, the system "learns" the behaviour of the battery under normal working conditions, and constantly updates and re-learns.

To the second problem, there is obviously great benefit to making laptops run for, say, 3 or 4 hours, rather than 2. Whilst it might seem like a goal that is impossible (laptop hardware uses a lot of power, right?), it seems that a lot can be done to improve matters. This takes a many-pronged approach:

Tracking down problems in the kernel and user-space programs that are making unnecessary "wake-ups" on the CPU. Making improvements based upon these findings alone could produce immediate benefits.
Unfortunately I walked away from the keyboard to have dinner at this point, and forgot what I had in mind for the other points... Ah well :)

This talk was also interesting for the OLPC laptop that was present. It's really small, and a very neat piece of kit. It looks a bit like it's made by Fisher-Price, but still I can't help but want one now that I've seen it.

Really small and light-weight
Mesh and wifi networking
Small, but quite usable keyboard
Expected/hoped eventual battery life of 8 hours, due to the ARM processor and GPU being shut down entirely when nothing is happening, with a suspend/wakeup time something on the order of 15 milliseconds (suspend to RAM).
A screen that uses minimal power, and actually becomes more visible in brighter lighting conditions, without using the back-light. Although a back-light is available, for dark conditions.

The Great Lugradio Quiz

This was a great finish to the event, with much hilarity all round. I won't go into too much detail, but I did come out of that almost aching from laughter.

P.S Had a power-cut whilst I was writing this, but thanks to the fantasticalness of LiveJournal, it asked me if I wanted to restore from draft, and got back pretty much everything I'd written.

BBC News

2007-06-16T22:54:35Z

Of late I have been feeling increasingly iffy about the BBC. Whilst it's still the news source that I place the most trust in, I feel that its quality is shifting downhill. Specifically, things are stated as fact that cannot have been corroborated (such as the motivations of an angry mob). Whilst it's okay to speculate on such things, they cannot be stated as fact unless they have some mind-reading ability. Perhaps the articles to which I am particularly thinking were examples of particularly poor reporting, but it still seems like a worrying trait to see at all in a respected news source.

But then, I guess I've felt increasingly unsettled about the state of the BBC since that whole mess at the start of the Iraq war. That the UK government were able to take apart the BBC as much as they did for what increasingly seems like accurate (but inconvenient) reporting is not a good state of affairs.

I'm just worried that our traditionally accurate news source has become a puppet, and that the public's opinion is all too ready to be shaped by it, to more easily make the case for things that would otherwise seem unacceptable. So where do we get our trusted news from, now?

Linux fees

2007-06-14T19:47:47Z

Just a quick post on an opinion.

Microsoft, we do not owe you our money for using a free operating system. We do not owe you our fealty. To suggest that we do is just rude, it is also a lie. Nothing is owed you for a system to which you have not contributed.

Remember, many Linux users (myself included) are ex Windows-users, we use and contribute to Linux and other free operating systems because we prefer that way of things. You are only attacking, intimidating and insulting your own ex-customers (read: potential customers). Your actions have pushed my own favour further and further from accepting your products.

/me notes that, ironically, he's writing this on his old Microsoft keyboard.

Penumbra Overture - Episode 1

2007-06-09T20:48:31Z

Completed! Phew! I immediately have to say that the game (aside from a few flaws) is a masterpiece of indie game development. Throughout most of the game it builds a very oppressive and creepy atmosphere, with its plot line and general atmosphere.

The game itself is basically a first-person adventure/horror game, with puzzle-solving aspects. However, some of the puzzles in this game are solvable by exploiting the rather game's rather nice physics engine to arrange objects in such a fashion as to progress further in the game. This is quite a nice aspect in that some puzzles don't have a single fixed solution, so you never quite play it the same way. So that's one aspect of the playability that's good.

The other part is the atmosphere. It really does give you (well, me anyway) the jitters at times. Whilst the game has a few predictable parts, I must say that it often surprised me with a danger that I was not expecting, when I least expected it and from a quite unexpected quarter.

I'm not much of one for the horror genre, but this was nicely done. I await the second episode with both anticipation and dread.

The website for the game

A little bit of gameplay to whet your appetite.

It runs on Linux, soon to run on the Mac (apparently), as well as something called "Windows".

greatred @ 2007-06-08T20:10:00

2007-06-08T19:45:32Z

The last week in London has proved interesting, from my pedestrian perspective. A crossroads near where I work has apparently been the scene of a crack-down on cyclists who jump red lights. The past two days in a row I've walked by a cyclist pulled up by the side of a road, whilst a policeman is talking to them. To be fair, I've only nearly been knocked down by cyclists once, as a friend will tell you (he was with me at the time). So I've nothing against cyclists, but I guess they should abide by the laws of the road like everyone else. At the same time, as a pedestrian I guess I should feel guilty for crossing when the green man isn't showing - but I guess that's not quite with the style of rushing about that is so very London.

The Harbour

2007-01-21T10:14:59Z

Around the ship was a uniform dark fog, threatening to silently swallow anything that approached. No stars peeked through the sky above us, only the same fog that lay in all directions.

It was night, as it always was here. But there was still just enough light to see dull shines upon the metal fittings of our ship, and as a silhouette against the fog.

The waterline was calm against the hull, as it was as far as could be seen. There was never any wind, nor was there any disturbance of the air other than the slight condensation from our breaths. The engines of our boat were not running, which added to the oppressive silence; nor had they ever been running, but all attempts to start the engines met with failure. To all appearances the engines were in perfect condition, and the fuel tanks were not empty.

Nobody aboard could particularly remember how long we had been here.

During the constant night watches that we placed it was common for people to swear in hushed tones that they had seen a brief flicker of light through the fog. As nothing ever came of these, and that the same light was never witnessed by more than a single person, it was concluded to be no more than feature-starved eyes being fed by the imagination in desperation to see anything other than the featureless fog.

It was during a subdued and whispered conversation between watches about one of the watchmans' lights that we saw the other vessel.

The conversation stuttered to a halt in front of me, as the watchman's features registered sudden confusion and apprehension, looking into the fog over my shoulder. I turned, to see a dark shape silhouette against the darkness came closer, and resolved itself into a familiar shape. But the familiarity did nothing to reassure the two of us.

A river ferry, similar to those found in North America, had silently and without announcing its entrance crept up through the darkness.

We stood at the guardrail at the side of our own vessel, not saying a word. I felt that I should raise the others on board, yet I could not draw my eyes from the sight of the other boat. Even more than before was the pressing need for silence.

Whilst we watched the boat, I felt the incredible urge to look behind me, and check that nothing was creeping up through the fog on the other side. Briefly, I tore my unwilling eyes from the boat and looked around us. The blank emptiness was unchanged.

It could not have been more than two minutes between our first sighting of the boat, and when it finally overhauled us and passed into the fog ahead of us, leaving no discernible wake in the water.

Recounting our observation of the passing of the ferry to our shipmates did not bring disbelief as we had expected, yet neither did it bring much in the way of questions.

It was my watch, I'm ashamed to say, and I did not even see the harbour approaching. I was at the stern of the ship at the time, perhaps wary for any more ships that might come up out of the fog. So I did not see the harbour slowly emerge from the fog. It was only when I turned to walk around the deck that I faced toward the bow end of the ship and saw it.

Other boats and ships were moored at the wooden jetty, both to port and starboard of our own ship. They were of various shapes and sizes, but all of them neatly fastened bow-end to the jetty and not moving. Motionless, like ourselves.

I probably stood there in shock for minutes, or it could have been mere seconds, before creeping down below to rouse my shipmates.

No blame was directed at me for failing to spot the approach of the harbour. But then, I think we were all too subdued by the constant darkness to raise our voices to fight or to risk fragmenting our crew.

It seems strange, in retrospect, that we never noticed the line that dropped from the bow of our ship into the water. Maybe we assumed it to be a light anchor line. It was by this line that we were now held to the jetty. A pulley on part of the jetty took the line and fed it straight down into the water underneath.

All the other vessels appeared like our own. Undamaged, in good condition, but their engines would not even turn over. All over their decking everything was neatly stowed, as if it had never been used.

The vessels were indeed just like our own. But we found nobody on them, no sign of habitation, nor any bodies.

The jetty appears to go on forever. A pair of us would walk along for hours, only to find more of the same straight wooden jetty with boats neatly lined up.

It was on one of these walks that a small boat approached the jetty, pulled by a similar mechanism that was attached to every vessel here.

The boat was a small twenty-foot fishing boat, more designed for small pleasure outings than serious fishing. Quietly and slowly it approached the jetty, its guiding rope dipped gently into the water was reeled in. As it approached, the boat appeared to repel the other boats on adjacent moorings slightly, clearing its way to its eventual mooring. The rope finally pulled out of the water, leaving only small ripples from its movement, and straightened until the boat was at rest, with its bow within inches of the pulley that held it.

Fearfully, we checked the boat, but like all the others, it was empty of people.

I cannot help the feeling that we are not meant to be here, and that we are the first humans to have seen the place.

greatred @ 2007-01-13T22:10:00

2007-01-13T22:14:55Z

Just went to see Miss Potter with the parents. I have to say that I'm glad I ignored the critic's reviews. It was a beautiful film, and if you're not in love with Miss Potter by the end then I'm shocked. Renée does a fantastic job as Beatrix, and you feel for her as the story unfolds.

Anyway, interesting day. Made more interesting by the film, and going out and getting my hands dirty helping to fill some holes in a car park. It's nice to get out and stretch some muscles and do something useful once in a while :)