Author: latepaul

Ok so do you remember, oh (looks it up) last October, I mentioned that I might blog about dropping Windows and almost going back within a week? Well I never got around to blogging about it and I’ve forgotten a lot of the details now. However something similar has happened over the last two days so I’ll tell you about that instead.

OK. So what you need to know is that at work (from whence (whence? is that right?) I am writing this now) I run Suse 9.3. Which in case you don’t know is a type (or distribution, ‘distro’) of Linux OS. (Though to be fair if you don’t know that you’ll probably find this whole post boring.) If you do know something about Linux you’ll know that 9.3 is a bit long in the tooth. In fact I got this PC just under a year ago and initially installed Suse 10.0 – which I quickly uninstalled and installed 9.3 instead. But the reasons I run Suse are:

– I’ve used previous versions of Suse and liked it

– it’s RPM-based

the reason for running 9.3 are:

– it has gcc 3.3.5 (i.e. not 4.x)

– the desktop search tool, beagle, in 10.0 seemed to slow it down unnecessarily (they’ve probably fixed that in 10.1)

The RPM and gcc version things ae things that I need for work. OK, not need, but makes my life much easier. So 9.3 is a good fit, if a bit old.

Now, M. and I have been exchanging a lot of mobile phone texts lately. Which is all good and lovely and lots of fun – as any communication with M. tends to be. However I hate typing anything longer than ‘Yes’ on a phone. Predictive texting is all well and good but my typing skills on a real keyboard beat that any day. M. loves to text. And she does it fast. You should see that thumb fly. Nice for her. Not so for me.

So, thinks I, I’ll see if there’s a program for Linux I can use on the PC – to type the words on the PC but send them through the phone. And there is, it’s called ‘kmobiletools’. Kmobiletools is pretty cool. It does more than just texting – it’ll sync contacts and allow you to make and receive calls from the PC – but texting’s what I use it for. For which it works well. Sorta.

See I’ve been using it for a while and the version I use – 0.4.3.3 – is the latest ‘stable’ version. It has a couple of quirks. One is that you can’t always get it to send two texts to the same number in a row. I get around this because, for reasons I don’t know, I have two entries for M.’s mobile on my phone. One that starts 07…, the other that starts +447… (+44 is the international code for the UK). So I can alternate between the two and that seems to work ok.

Quirk number three is that it really doesn’t like me unplugging the phone. I connect via a USB cable and no matter what order I do it in (close the program, unplug the phone) I seem to get problems. In fact I get a kernel module crash which means I have to reboot the PC. This is annoying but I can live with rebooting a couple of times a day.

The most annyoing quirk, and the subject of this post (how did I write so much and only now get to my point? oops), is quirk the second – which is: it doesn’t save outgoing texts. In theory, kmobiletools uses the phone to send texts and should leave a copy in the outbox on my phone, which I can then read through kmobiletools. This is cool because I can then read incoming and outgoing together and see the full ‘conversation’. Or I could if it actually saved the texts. It doesn’t.

I suspect the problem is that my phone is newish and whilst it works, they’re using a communication protocol that’s more compatible with an older model and mine just ‘mostly works’.

Actually what it’s doing is correct because I’m using the ‘send immediate’ function which is supposed to do exactly what I’ve described – send a text right now, leaving no entry on the phone. The feature that should give me what I want is the ‘Store’ one which stores the text in the phone’s outbox, re-reads the phone’s list of texts, then offers to send the one in the outbox. Which is fine but my phone doesn’t find the text when the list is re-read. Which means it doesn’t get sent. At least it doesn’t get sent by the program but according to the phone it’s in a status of “sending”. Which can mean it never goes, gets sent twice. It’s been so unpredictable that I don’t use it. I use the send now, but sacrifice being able to see my old messages.

Does this matter? Well on one level it’s a moot point. Computers should do what we want them to. Admitting failure to a computer is one of my bug-bears and I go to great lengths to avoid it. Apart from that though it is useful. If you’ve ever carried out a conversation via texts you’ll know that you can sometimes have gaps when one of you is too busy to reply straight away. My memory’s not the greatest and working out what a text means that’s a follow on to something I said half an hour ago can be tricky.

So… long and short of it is: I want to do something, but the program doesn’t do it. I’m stuffed aren’t I?

Not quite – but it might be better if I was.

Ooops! Just saw the time. I need to catch ASDA before they close. I’ll post an “installment 2” later.

So there’s been a lotta talk, maybe too much talk*, about “Major Stuff”. Well that’s all well and good because if it hadn’t needed talking about it wouldn’t be major. I just wanted to counter that, or compliment it not sure which, with some “Good Stuff”.

Just spent a wonderful weekend with M. It was really nice. We got on really well and had fun. She’s moved closer to where I live and I went to see her in her new home. Went over for a meal Friday and ended up staying the weekend.

Oh and I deleted the playlist. Time to forget.

(*thank you Bono)

Since I can’t (well technically won’t) tell you exactly what ‘major stuff’ is, I’ve come up with this wheeze instead. Ladies and Gentlemen, here is my personal angst as expressed through my current iPod playlist:

1. “FUN”

An answering machine message suggesting it might be fun to talk. I keep it because it has warm memories associated.

2. H-A-T-R-E-D – Tonio K

A song about anger at being dumped. Gloriously over the top but essentially comic. After wishing “I hope you wind up in the ground” it ends with “but then again, maybe with the proper counseling, we can work this out”

3. Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen

There are many versions of this song (I’ve got a whole album of covers of it). The original is still the best. A melancholic and yet heart-felt cry of prayer to God.

There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

4. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Rattle ‘n’ Hum live version)

Expresses the yearning for something better, spiritually and in life generally.

It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

5. Nomah’s Land – Metisse (TV clip from Dead Like Me)

A man rails angrily at God over beautiful but sorrowful instrumental music.

6. Pardon Me For Living – Tonio K

One of Tonio K’s best and possibly my favourite song. It’s an expression of frustration at not being able to cope with life

I don’t know what you want, don’t know what you believe
I don’t know how to act anymore
or how long I can keep juggling

7. Pardon Me For Living – Tonio K

Told you it was a favourite.

Can’t I just confess and be forgiven?
Guilty of the grievous crime of human imperfection
pardon me
pardon me for living

8. Perfect World – Alias (snippet from a movie version)

Sadness at the breakup of a relationship.

In a perfect world it would never end like this

9. Perfect World – Tonio K

I’ve never had to walk away from anybody I wanted as much as you

Still hoping I don’t have to walk away.

10. You Will Go Free – Tonio K

Realistic yet hopeful.

and I know I can’t touch you now
and I don’t want to speak too soon
but when we get sprung
from out of these cages baby
God knows what we might do

So there you have it. Starts off nostalgic for a better time, moves through some anger more sadness, some blame and self-blame, some hoping/yearning/praying for something better and ends battered but still hoping.

That sums up my “major stuff”. You’ve probably got completely the wrong idea about what it actually is but, especially if you know the songs, you should at least get a flavour of the emotional content.

Or not. See ya!

P.S. I’d still walk it for you any time 😉

I’ve been thinking, as Adam never said, about fanfic.

Now I’ve always been a bit snobby about fanfic. As a reader I dipped my toe in the water and found it not very tempting. Mediocre at best is my assessment of my admittedly small sampling of the quality. As a writer, it’s more tempting, but it feels like cheating – using someone else’s already created world and characters to tell my story in. Standing on the shoulders of giants an’ all. Also, and I’m aware of how pompous this sounds, I think that if you’re going to use these characters you kind of owe it to them to do a good job, and I’m not sure if I have the skills.

That said I understand the appeal of fanfic. At a basic level it allows us more of the world that we love to play in. There do seem to be some very common specific reasons to do fanfic, namely,

– to get your favourite couple of characters together and have sex

– to ‘fix’ perceived mistakes in the actual show and then have some characters have sex

– did I mention sex?

Now I have no problem with the sex, in fact I’ve been known to write sex-having stories myself. I just don’t need to have famous characters to do it. As for fixing mistakes, a) I don’t seem to see as many of ’em as some people and b) those I do – well fixing them that way would seem like cheating again.

OK so there is one other very common reason,

– to do cross-overs with other fictional worlds (so you can get characters from Harry Potter novels having sex with those from Stargate)

Now this one is what has got me pondering. See I recently did some tapes of Dead Like Me for M. Which meant I saw a whole lot of Georgia Lass in a short period and I can’t help wondering what it would be like to get Buffy and George in the same room. In fact it’s a thought that I can’t get rid of and am seriously considering writing about. Fancy that, me lowering myself to fanfic. (That was self-deprecating sarcasm unless the subtleties of it were lost by the medium of text only)

I wrote a bit about it today in my journal, together with some glimmerings of an idea. Oh that’s right I have a journal. I resurrected an old writing book/diary to get some thoughts out over a coffee in the MacDonalds in ASDA. On paper. With a pen.

It was kinda fun. My handwriting is terrible though. I forced myself to go slow to make it slightly better. That was useful, gave me both time to think and time to relax my hand.

Anyhow, back to Xander, Mason and all that sex…

Hmm. Well there’s something up with that. The answers I clicked yes to and the ones I added comments to are correct, but some of the ones I allegedly said no to are not the ones I got when I filled it in.

A few months ago, in a plush office in BBC Wales…

“So Russell, what’ve you got planned for the season 2 finale?”

“Cybermen v the Daleks”

“Sounds big.”

“It is, we’ll have an army of 5 million cybermen.”

“Wow. How many Daleks?”

“Four”

“Four?”

“Yep. Ah but don’t worry when it comes to it, they have a box that has millions more inside.”

“A box with millions of Daleks in?”

“Yes. They’ll open it just when they need it.”

“Won’t that seem a bit convenient? A bit Deus Ex Machina?”

“Deus Ex what now?”

“It’s when you introduce something useful to the plot near the end of a story just so you can wrap it up more easily.”

“You mean like we did with the season 1 finale?”

“Er yeah. So we’ll have millions of Daleks fighting millions of Cybermen – sounds exciting, epic.”

“Well yes but they won’t actually fight.”

“Won’t fight!? Why not?”

“Well let’s face it, even with CGI we don’t have the budget, we’ll just imply the battle with a little trash talk.”

“Trash talk?”

“Yeah you know – Cyberman says ‘we’re gonna get you cos we is bad ass’, Dalek says ‘nah we’re gonna get you cos we’s badder and you guys are nuthin’ – that kind of thing.”

“…?”

“Trust me it’ll work. It’ll imply the whole big battle.”

“O-kay. So how does the Doctor finally defeat them?”

“Giant hoover.”

“Giant hoover? That’s not very Sci Fi.”

“Well I haven’t worked out the exact techno-babble yet but it’ll be something like ‘inter-dimensional breach into void-space’ or something.”

“Ri-ight.”

“Oh it’ll be very impressive. Just as the millions of new Daleks are coming out of their box they’ll all get sucked into oblivion. Daleks. Cybermen. All gone.”

“Isn’t that a bit Deus Ex… *sigh* never mind.”

“Plus it’ll be quick. Over in a few minutes, maybe less.”

“So let’s get this straight – Daleks appear, trash talk with the Cybermen…”

“…to imply the big battle…”

“…imply the battle right, then they get more Daleks from their box and the whole lot are sucked in the void – and it’s all over in a few minutes?”

“Yes”

“So what are you going to do with the rest of the episode? The other, I don’t know, 20 minutes or so?”

“We’re gonna milk the emotion. Jackie and Pete. Rose and the Doctor. Build up the cloying sentiment and milk it. Milk it until everyone up and down the land is retching with the sickly sweetness of it all. Milk it until they can’t stand it any more. And then you know what?”

“What?”

“Then we gonna milk it just a little bit more!”

“What about Rose does she die”

“‘course not.”

“Aren’t you worried people will feel you’ve cheated them by saying she dies when she doesn’t?”

“Do I look bothered? …hey that gives me a great idea for the guest star for the Christmas episode…”

M. was blue last night.

No not sad. She was blue. Something not quite right with her webcam.

It’s Easter which means it’s been a long weekend.

In more ways than one as it turned out.

Firstly M. is away so I’ve not spoken to her for what seems like ages (i.e. last Wed) and that makes things seem lonelier.

However what I’m really going to talk about here today is the re-build of my laptop.

Friday night I was frustrated at how long it was taking to download something so I experimented with Bittorrent instead. It was much faster for that particular file and so I was pleased. However, later my computer started behaving oddly. I can’t remember all the symptoms now but the screen wasn’t redrawing properly, mail kept crashing and attempting to restart and failing. So I took the decision to back up my files and re-install. I figured I’d got one of the rare cases of a Mac virus and this was one way to kill it.

Backup took a while. Actually my hard drive was pretty full and I needed to archive some of it – so I wrote about 5 or 6 DVDs. The rest – mostly mail and iTunes – I copied to my external USB hard drive. I then re-installed OS X wiping the hard drive and went to bed in the early hours leaving it running the software update overnight. It took me several hours the next day to get things the way I wanted them. It took me ages to correctly set up popfile so it could connect to my gmail account (the answer is to use version 0.96 of the perl package IO::Socket::SSL. rather than the latest available). Then when I’d got it all nearly done, I was re-installing my newsreader (tin+leafnode) and messed up the /etc/passwd file and the Accounts System menu wouldn’t work. So…

I started again. This time the thing that took longest was actually re-importing the mail. Most of my mail was still on the server so I could just re-download it. This caused popfile to classify it as ‘unclassified’. I then went in and created some “buckets” (mail categories) and manually re-classified my mail. Except that half-way through I decided I didn’t like the buckets I had, deleted my mail folders, created new buckets, allowed popfile to re-re-download the mail, then manually re-classify (did I mention there were over 1,000 messages). Finally I deleted the mail again, re-re-re-downloaded it, this time to have popfile classify it correctly. That whole process took about 4-5 hours.

Then I had to re-install other applications, Firefox, this LJ program, restore my iTunes backup (and reauthorised this computer), get tin and leafnode working (this time I didn’t mess up the account but it took me a while to realise tin wants a hostname not an ip address otherwise it fails with a SIGBUS). Oh and copied over my other backup files.

It’s now all more or less back to how I like it. More space because of the archiving I did. I need to set up my RSS feeds again.

One interesting thing about it though is that a lot of the time something like this takes is down to me wanting to have things a certain way and not being prepared to give up until I get it working that way. I don’t really need my gmail account to be downloaded to my local machine. If I do, I don’t really need it to go through popfile.

Things are better today. I still feel down, depressed, scared and anxious but I feel like it’s under control.

I watched the end of Solaris. It was slooow. Quite good but the DVD was acting weird. I had it on English dubbing but every so often it switched into Russian with English subtitles. So that was distracting. It was well shot though.

I’ve got the George Clooney/Steevn Soderbergh remake on order so I might wait until I’ve seen that and do a comparison review. (yes I’m aware I’ve still not done my two High Fidelity’s review. Thank you for not bringing it up)

Oh and the observant among you might notice I editted a recent post. I just felt, on reflection, some things are better not blogged.

Also started praying again. Feels weird but seems to help.

If you read my blog please add a comment.

(just trying to see if I’m talking to myself or not)