Hacker's Diary
A rough account of what I did with Emacs recently.
- January 28
- Poking around some family tree stuff lately. Engaging stuff!
Beat the current crop of bugs out of the Emacs lisp I use to insert IMDb references. Muttering noises
about parsing HTML using regexps go here.
- January 27
- Lots of reading this week, not much watching... Tyrannosaur is a grim but well-made
piece about quietly desperate lives. You kinda get a sense of how
it's going to be when it opens with the male lead, drunk, kicking
his dog in a rage. Tough movie, but worth watching; there's quite
a twist in it.
- January 18
- Home stretch... Epsiode 11: Boom Town brings us
back to Wales again. This is an interesting episode that brings up
the conflicted doctor again, with an opponent from a previous
episode confronting him about being a killer. Mickey shows up to
be the hapless idiot, allowing Rose to be a bit more capable, and
then to drive Rose a bit on the whole "Mickey vs. Doctor"
undercurrent. Actually, Mickey is generally a pretty hopeless
character throughout this series; it's like Rose is the side of
human nature that leaps into the unknown with gusto, while Mickey
is the side that wants to stay in watching reruns and ignoring
danger in the hope that it'll just... go away. Pacing in this
episode is pretty good, although there's still a tendency
to overegg the Moment of Peril. Captain Jack makes a few more
overt hints about the fact that he's not picky about which gender
he's attracted to, and there's a bit of useful-looking setup of
the Tardis having a core that you shouldn't necessarily look
into. This will be on the exam, I'm sure.
Episode 12: Bad Wolf
finally reveals why that phrase keeps cropping
up... fooled you, it doesn't. Reminds me of the Fast Show
tailors doing Becks commercials: "Do you want it, sir? Well,
you can't have it!" or words to that effect. This is a fun
episode as it takes a bunch of Channel 4 shows (remember, Doctor
Who is a BBC production) and roundly mocks them, using the
real-life hosts / voices from those shows as well. Oh, and the
Marquis de Carrabas from Neverwhere shows up, although I
didn't recognise him until I read the credits. Anyway, the guys
who were supposed to be all dead from a previous episode are back,
with a very handwavy explanation of why, and the progenitor of the
survivors is gone a bit wacky - although how you'd tell I'm not
wholly sure; the Doctor is clued in by the fact that DALEKS GOT
RELIGION - EXCOMMUNICATE! EXCOMMUNICATE! which I suppose is as
good a hook as any. The Doctor also gets to ponder the
consequences of his actions in a previous episode - confronting
the Doctor with consequences is something that happens again as
the new episodes roll onward after this series, but I don't think
anyone ever actually brings it to any sort of conclusion. So,
recurring themes: robotic tin cans hell bent on destroying
anything not them, and unresolved morality. Anyway. This is part
one of a series-ending two-parter, so on to...
Episode 13: The Parting
of the Ways in which the Doctor saves everyone except the
entire population of Earth in the year 200,100, the population of
Spacestation 5, the entire Dalek race (3rd iteration?) and, er,
himself (hence the title). Oh, I suppose I should say,
"spoilers!" As finales go, it's not bad, even if (once
again) the Moment of Peril (actually in this case the moment of
Peril Resolution) is again drawn out beyond the necessary. Daleks
reign supreme, trash Earth, Rose does something
stupid/genius-like, Rose's mother shines, Mickey is little more
than a tool (but in the sense of "something to get the job
done" rather than "idiot"), various bystanders are
sacrificed (did anyone actually believe that the Daleks could be
affected by mere handguns after the last round of Dalek fun?) and,
er, wait, what just happened? Oh, ok, it makes about as much sense
as the rest of the Universe, and now the Doctor's gone and
triggered his regeneration. Closing out the end of the series,
David Tennant pops into view to herald the Doctor's new look for
next season.
As a series reboot, this was pretty impressive. As noted, I've
never seen more than bits of the older series (I watched the very
first episode out of curiosity, and had an awareness of the likes
of Tom Baker and K9 at some point) so I don't have a real
background in the show, putting me squarely in the other
target market for this, viz. new viewers. It introduces a bunch of
stuff - what passes for constants in this world where canon and
continuity are frequently bent out of shape with some handwavy
excuse that somehow was never invoked before - and is generally a
whole lot of fun throughout. I think I've seen most of
what happens after this, thanks to Selene introducing me to the
show, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing the point at which Rose gets
written out of the story, and for some reason I'd convinced myself
it was during this season I've just watched, so I was waiting for
the whole "Heart of the Tardis" routine to be the
trigger for that. I guess I have to go dig out Season 2 and find
out what happens next.
In nerd news, updating a Windows laptop yesterday hampered by
Immunet (a virus scanner with woo-woo cloud features) insisting
that one of Microsoft's official updates was a virus. Snarkily,
yes, I'm sure it is, but that's Not Helping.
- January 16
- We've watched a bunch more of Doctor Who, I just haven't been
keeping up.
Episode 3: The Unquiet
Dead: the fact that this is set in Cardiff is a practical
acknowledgement of studio location versus budget. The subsequent
recurrence of distinctly Welsh accents is funnier, particularly
when the setting is moved to distinctly un-Welsh locations. Of
this episode, I'd say there's still a bit of the draggy peril
stuff going on, but it's definitely improving, and this is again
sitting somewhere in hide-behind-the-sofa territory, dealing as it
does with walking corpses.
Episode 4: Aliens of
London and Episode 5: World War Three
make up a single story of alien invasion. These aliens wear human
skins as body suits, with zippers in the forehead; that's about
the only mildly creepy bit. The fact that this is split over two
episodes seems to have completely dispelled the pacing issues, so
the story moves along at a nice pace. Various future
foreshadowings going on (if you haven't noticed the "Bad
Wolf" thing yet, go back to the first episode and start
again) but none of it overdone like, say, a recent Stephen King
novel.
Episode 6: Dalek (re)introduces the
classic Doctor Who opponent, apparently the last of its kind (but
not really; there are so many loopholes to that particular
sentiment that it's not really worth considering as any sort of
useful data at all). I hadn't realised prior to this episode that
the whole Time War thing which, to my latecomer mind, is firmly
embedded in the Doctor Who chronology (such as it is), was
something that happened offscreen in the 15 or so years of
downtime this show had, and all the dark hints of it to this point
would have been genuinely intriguing to more seasoned
followers. Anyway. For this episode, I found the ending a bit
rubbishy; even taking it at face value it disposes of an enemy
that really could have been useful to keep around (not that the
disposal actually signified the end of said enemy, of course). I
like the development of the conflicted Doctor as well, but again
that's something that is leaned upon in later series which I've
already seen.
Episode 7: The Long Game was a
bit meh. Oh look, Simon Pegg. Oh look, self-serving idiot boy from
episode 6 is being a self-serving idiot. Potential paradox averted
by ... answering machine. On the positive side, the alien in this
showed something of an improvement in the special effects, even if
they spent so much on just having the alien that they couldn't
actually have him do anything on-screen. Dragged-out peril made an
unwelcome reappearance, too.
Episode 8: Father's Day is
a dramatic upswing from the previous episode, except for the bad
guys (can I call them Langoliers?)
who look like cheap computer effects. Really cheap, in fact. So
cheap that they should have spent the money on a guy running around
in a rubber suit, duplicated as many times as needed, and
greenscreened into the shot, because it'd have looked so much
better while costing about the same (actually, I have no idea if
that's true, as I don't know what this sort of stuff actually
costs). The story, though, was awesome. Classic paradox stuff,
beautifully played by the cast. Still some traces of the pacing
issues, but not enough to make a huge difference to the
story.
Episode 9: The Empty Child
and Episode 10: The Doctor Dances
is another two-parter that takes us back to London in 1941 (would
it really hurt to kit out the Tardis with an arrivals board?) and
another creepy episode; the creep factor in this one comes from a
faceless child (more literally than you first expect) who keeps
asking for its mother. This is a generally good episode, although
the introduction of another time traveller with no surprise or
comment from the Doctor is a bit weird, and the greenscreen stuff
doesn't quite cut it (to be fair, this seems common for
small-screen viewings - it's something I've noticed with far
bigger productions that look perfectly convincing at the cinema,
while looking artificial on DVD) but aside from those minor
quibbles this story ticks along nicely. Oh, wait, the whole dancing
Doctor thing? Should have been cut. Doesn't add anything to the
story, isn't particularly funny, and ultimately it sounds like one
of those inscrutable phrases like "Silence will fall when the
question is answered" that show up as plot arcs in later
series.
- January 11
- Epsiode two, The End
of the World. Still trying to get used to Christopher
Ecclestone gurning, it's not something I'm familiar with. The
little critters in this remind me of something else - they're a
bit like the spiders in the Lost in Space movie, but that's not
quite it either - maybe they showed up in another Who episode?
This wasn't as good as the first episode, all told; I felt it was
a bit humdrum, and again the moment of peril was drawn out far
longer than it needed to be.
- January 10
- Started watching Season "1" of the modern Doctor Who,
with Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper. First episode, Rose:
- The theme, to my untutored ear, sounds very close to the
original, unlike some of the more recent amped up
versions.
- Way more humour than I expected, especially from Christopher
Ecclestone, Serious Actor™
- The peril at the end was way too drawn out. It's
clear what's going to happen, if not exactly how; Rose will
save the day by knocking the mannequin or the test tube into
the alien below. Instead of a quick scuffle we're treated to
DRAMA! CUT TO! DRAMA! CUT TO! DRAMA! for what seems like five
minutes, which is five minutes too much.
- The effects, particularly the signal beamed from the London
Eye and the explosions, are noticeably cheesier than the
current series. Budgets and technology, I guess.
- The animated mannequins were a bit creepy, in the tradition
of Dr. Who being something you watch from behind the
sofa.
So, aside from the melodramatic, er, drama, this was a pretty
good opener for a series that had been dormant, and I think
probably did a reasonable job of balancing between placating the
fans and drawing in new viewers. Onto epsiode 2!
- January 5
- Spy Game is an awesome piece of
work with none of Tony Scott's annoying visual hackery that I
found so distracting in Domino to take away from a really,
really good spy story. There are a couple of clichés, sure,
but as always, if it's done well I really don't care how hackneyed
an idea is. This has layer upon layer of cleverness, and it's a
fantastic display of a man at the end of a spying career making use
of all his experience to remain one step ahead of the people he's
sitting in a room with while they try to hang one of his agents
and, if they can manage it, him as well. I can't understand how
I've never seen this before. If you haven't seen it, go fix that
immediately.
- January 3
- While tooling around with Calibre I noticed that it
lacked a store plug-in for Eason's, an Irish book (among
other things) seller which offers eBooks for EPUB-compatible
readers. So I figured I'd have a go at writing one, which lead me
to discover what a steaming pile the Eason's search facility
is. Let me elaborate:
- Enter text in the search box. As you type, you may or may
not get completion suggestions. Clicking on completion
suggestions does not actually trigger the search, so you
click, wait, then realise, "Oh, I have to click the
suggestion and then click on the search
button. Right."
- The search page is evidently some sort of
synchronous/asynchrounous hybrid which probably sounded great
in theory. In practice, it means the first thing you get back
from your search is an empty page which says, "Your
search for '' returned results". Only when the
asynchronous part completes do you get something more
sensible, such as "Your search for 'Cretinous' returned 0
results".
- A search for a word or phrase with no matches tells you it's
displaying "1 of 0 results". Amateur hour here,
folks.
- The returned search page clears the search box. So let's say
you searched for 'Cretinous' in eBooks and got no matches (of
which more anon), your next step might be to expand your
search by going to the search selector and changing it to
— "Oh, wait. It's already changed and my search text has
been cleared. Right."
- The most damning fault, and the point at which I abandoned
the plug-in: searching for "The Hobbit" gives me 44
results, 9 of which are eBooks (I used the selectors at the
right to narrow down from general search to eBook
search). Searching for "The Hobbit" in eBooks gives
… no results. Zero. (Strangely enough, the other
category - Kids - appears to work just fine, so this seems
like it's a search index problem rather than an out-and-out
failure).
So that's why I'm not going to bother trying to provide a little
free support for this particular Irish business. Perhaps some of
their competitors have more professional offerings that I can
work with.
- January 2
- Speeding
the Net: The inside Story of Netscape & How it Challenged
Microsoft
isn't
available for the Kindle. Which seems either very wrong or
completely predictable, depending on your level of
cynicism.
- January 1
- Happy new year. Or hangover, as appropriate.
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