Musings of a Babylon Lurker

A Photo a week #10 : Musical Concentration

Sunday, October 7th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

At a local Fantasy fair The group of musicians were playing Irish inspired music.

Even if the light was rather low this image was within reach of my old DSLR, an EOS300D with the kit lens.

In particular, I like the concentration on the music that I detect in this image.

Concentrate and Play

Hugo Awards 2012

Sunday, August 5th, 2012 | awards, scifi, Uncategorized | No Comments

Last year I went to China, spending about 4 weeks on the trip – some of them will appear in my “A-Photo-a-Week” project. This left very little time to read the Hugo nominees.

This year I have stayed home – well gone to a few conventions, so I had a bit more time to read.
So – I took the supporting membership to the Chicon 7/Worldcon 2012, so I could vote.

I got a limited amount of reading done, but voted what I could :
Best Novel :
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Best Novellette :
The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell
Best Short Story :
The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu
Best Dramatic presentation, long form :
A Game of Thrones TV series
Best Dramatic presentation, short form :
Doctor Who : The Doctor’s Wife written by Neil Gaiman.

Tags: 2012, Hugo Awards

Up’s and down’s of using Mac OS X

Friday, September 16th, 2011 | technology, Uncategorized | No Comments

Having tried out Mac OS, Linux and Windows I find that they all have their advantages and disadvantages.
Linux comes with a large amount of free and quite useable software, yet can be tricky with new or exotic hardware
Mac OS is very easy to use, but the selection of programs is more limited than the two others.
Windows has as many programs as you want, yet is so commonly in use that it is a target for Virus, Trojans and other malware.

I found a neat program for making and organising notes when using linux. Zim desktop wiki easily creates linked text files in a wiki-like way, yet it is on my own machine.
The Linux version is packaged for the most common distributions There is a Windows executable, so there it is easy, too.

Enter the Mac

Mac OS X is a Unix like system, much like Linux,yet with some quirks.installing Linux programs directly is not possible, so someone has made package installers available, compiling the source code and, mostly taking care that dependencies are installed.
Macports has Zim in its repository. However the version is an ancient one that possibly will cease running in a not so far future. The version is Perl based and no longer maintained. The latest version is written in Python, and here is the thing.
Some dependencies are not readily recognised because they are not in the “expected places”.
I have been looking into it the last week, and it looks like I have found a way to get it running. I want to make sure it is reproducible, and then I intend to write in the blog how I got it running.

Update : It looks like I got the install procedure running, nor I will make an attempt to simplify the procedure.

Tags: linux, macosx, software install

Hugo Awards Quick Update

Monday, May 24th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

All short stories, novellettes, novellas and novels have been transferred to the e-reader, so reading can be done from anywhere.
I will have to check if some of the other material is transferable, but other activities have been there for the long week end.

Tags: Hugo Awards

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Turn Left’

Saturday, December 19th, 2009 | awards, Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi, Uncategorized | No Comments

Hugo Nominee 2009 Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

This is Russell T. Davies’ writing at its best, aided by Graeme Harper’s directing. With all due respect for his team reviving Doctor Who Davies’ writing has not always been the best during the new Who era – probably due to the pressure of being the show runner.

While we have seen indications of inner strength in Donne Noble, this episode pulls all that to the fore. She has a little help from a friend she did not know she had : Rose. This is, for now, the culmination of the small glimpses we have had of Rose since the beginning of the season

The story finds Donna tricked into living a version of history where she did not meet the Doctor, and it is not a pretty picture. Guided by Rose from a different reality she finds her inner strength to change history back to what we know from the third season of the 10th Doctor.

The story has a good deal of fine drama, some fine character development of Donna, and a stunning conclusion, as a prelude to the two final episodes.

I consider this episode better than the two final ones, although I find those quite good as well.

This is certainly one of my favourites of the season, mainly rivaled by the double episode ‘Silence in the Library’/'Forest of the Dead’

9/10 on the lurker’s scale.

Tags: Doctor Who, film and tv, Hugo Awards, scifi

The End of Legal Security in Europe ?

Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | general, off topic, Uncategorized | No Comments

In this SlashDot article it seems that the EU parliament passed a law new law regarding the “Three-Strikes” policy for people’s Internet access.

“…. Under the original text any restriction of an individual could only be taken following a prior judicial ruling.The new update has completely removed this, meaning that governments now have legal grounds to force Internet providers (ISPs) into disconnecting their customers from the Internet (i.e. such as when ‘suspected’ of illegal p2p file sharing).”

Mark the word SUSPECTED

Mark my words – we seem to be approaching the rule of the entertainment industry, as opposed to the rule of law.

Update : It appears thet the law was first voted on when almost everyone had left the building, and was later retracted at a fuller assembly. – but let this be a warning …. if this becomes law , everyone could have their Internet connection cut off, just due to an suspicion of doing something wrong.

Please let the lawmakers see reason.

Tags: legal security, three strikes

10th Anniversary for ISS

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | space, technology, Uncategorized | No Comments

10 years ago today, on 20th November 1998, the first module of the International Space Station, the Russian Zarya module was launched.

At the moment of writing the ISS passes above my head (nearly), and an amateur satellite listener/tracker has strong signals coming down on the S-band (2217.5 MHz).

Since then the ISS has been built up *very* slowly, mainly due to the lots of maintenance of the Space Shuttle fleet, and of course the re-entry failure of Columbia.

Right now the crews of ISS and Endeavor are busy repairing solar panels and installing living quarters for 3 more people, making the ISS ready for what should have been the normal crew of 6.

I am looking forward to seeing the ISS fully operational.

Tags: ISS

Shuttle launch

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

20 minutes to launch – problem with a door

we’ll see if they can launch in time

lots of launch related traffic via satellite (261.575 FM)

NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo ?

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I know one or two people doing the NaNoWriMo ((inter)National Novel Writing Month), attempting to write a novel of 50,000 words in the 30 days of November.

Now, that is a too big mouthful for me. However I found some people doing NaBloPoMo ((inter)National Blog Posting Month), attempting to make one blog post per month in November. Now, for me that is something i might find doable. I looked and found that I could easily find 30 subjects for posting, so I will attempt to make, on average, one blog post per day in the month of November. I have not registered but will see how it goes this year.

So please expect a few posts from me in the month of November .

I know very well that December is a *very* busy month, so do not expect to make the trick in December.

Tags: blogging

Comet hunt

Friday, October 26th, 2007 | Uncategorized | No Comments

As my luck goes : clouds – clouds – clouds