Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Turn Left’

Saturday, December 19th, 2009 | Doctor Who, Uncategorized, awards, film and tv, scifi | 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 | Uncategorized, general, off topic | 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 | Uncategorized, space, technology | 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