No matter how this is construed, I cannot see anything good coming out of this decision and therefore urge all of you who are eligible to sign this petition and to join this group on facebook, which also plays host to much important information regarding this.

Also, expect somewhat more frequent posting here sometime in the future; I currently have lots that needs to be done.

Since the iBook’s replacement by Apple, I’ve also built myself a fairly nice Linux box with the individual parts which I got for Christmas from my family. I’m happy to say that I’m running Fedora 8, although I did try out ubuntu and didn’t like it. [This advice is indispensable] With an upcoming Windows HDD for playing games [mainly in case they don't want to run under wine] so within the next month or so I’ll try and post some thoughts on both Linux and the Orange Box , and maybe several posts on the virtues of not randomly editing system config files. Using Linux is not without some caveats unfortunately, although from the limited recent experience (I used to use SuSE back at version 8.2) it does seem to have the most to offer in terms of features alone.

Well, a prosperous new year to you all- for I must go now. I hope to update with some more frequency this year.

Edit:
I also have some play-asia vouchers for $5 off of $50 which I won’t be able to use in time, so if anyone especially wants them; just leave a comment.

-Alex.

This is an even worse shame when you get to discover that the official PC based updater is a complete bastard to get working. Let alone it needing a PC to run it on. To get this tool (gratefully necessitated by the good folks at three) you should firstly download a reasonably recent version then you should install flash player with this exact link, because installing it in Firefox is fine for most functional uses of flash, but this requires an ActiveX installation of Flash- which unsurprisingly almost no-one will tell you.

Pity it didn’t fix the problems with my phone though.
Bugger.

One full time machine restore later and my mac is working again, unfortunately it’s now refusing to back up.

But now I’m looking to replace my mac with something home grown again…

But as television here goes, all I’m finding myself watching is Heroes, Spooks and QI. Without the iPlayer as the BBC have yet to release a version for OSX (or preferably an open platform based on Dirac).

I arrived at the Southampton Apple store at about 3pm and joined the queue as soon as it was set up. And I have to say that the queue was a really great social atmosphere and that everyone there was really friendly and I must thank great high wolf from macrumors forums for doing a drinks run. Also, it was really cool that the Apple store employees handed out chocolates and water- it certainly makes a change from many companies launch night arrangements. (I’m looking at you Sony)

Saturday: MacLiveExpo

Due to several thousand football fans and a line closure it took well over an hour and a half on the tubes (mostly packed) to reach the expo. There was some interesting loot to be picked up, namely some nice juggling balls from Konica Minolta- now if everyone did that I wouldn’t have been able to get home due to a vast surplus of said juggling balls. There was an interesting showing of Leopard by Apple, which would have been more interesting if I’d seen it prior to launch- but my fears that Time Machine would need a dedicated drive were put to rest. It only needs free space on a not-booted HFS+ journaled disk. There were some very good hardware deals going on at the show, and if you can pick up the early bird free tickets and get a reasonably direct train then it’s probably a good idea to buy a mac there. Unless you’re taking the tube, then it would be buying a mac for a random stranger on your train.

As for Leopard itself; the new dock (the non-3d one that is) is shiny and Mail is a lot more responsive and powerful, and is now no longer embarrassing to search for emails with.

There’s just no real way to do justice to that.

I’m gradually getting to grips with the intricacies of a gearbox and should be at least moderately competent at changing between the gears by the time I have my first driving lesson, which I would have been having a lot earlier had I applied for my driving license with adequate time to pre-book some driving lessons.

That’s my car:

^_^

Also, my iBook can’t be repaired due to a myriad of incompetence’s. Bugger. Those thinkpads are looking like a mighty fine option now. (Fedora Core 8 also)

Later,
Alex.

1. I become 17 and thus able to start learning to drive a car.
2. themak.org is retired and replaced by madebyalex.org
3. I update the code behind this whole endeavor to WordPress 2.3- which will be released on that very day. A nice birthday present, I should think.
4. I change the design of the site to resemble this (help doing so would be greatly appreciated), or use one of the shiny sandbox themes.

Until then,
Alex

Wow.

That is all.

1. Battle royale by Koushun Takami. While graphically violent, it definitely served the plot very well and proved to be a most excellent and gripping novel and was impossible to put down- the dystopian backstory certainly adds to the plot.
2. Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick, a true science-fiction masterwork; and definitely a story with several more reads in it for me. I also purchased Dr. Bloodmoney- but have misplaced that when coming back from Cornwall.
3. Python in a Nutshell from the O’Reilly press; a very fast paced book about python which Timothéus picked up for me at GUADEC for a happily reduced price.
4. Not strictly reading, but for some music I wholeheartedly recommend Peter Gabriel’s 3, 4 and Still Growing Up Live (DVD).

1. ICT: A*
2. History: A*
3. RE (short course): A*
4. German: A
5. Geography: A
6. Maths: A*
7. Biology: A
8. Chemistry:A*
9. Physics: A*
10. English: A*
11. English Literature: A
12. Statistics: A

Congratulations to all the other candidates who just received their grades, and I hope that they all acheived what they wanted. In other news:

To me, the BBC seems like the perfect institution to develop a DRM technology which is moderately open and least inconvenient to the user- although I cannot see the difference between them broadcasting an open MPEG2 stream using DVB and them broadcasting an open MPEG4 one using http.

I know that there are major legal differences between broadcasting it over the internet and over DVB, and that the files can be downloaded in faster than real time, but this does not have to be combatted by a completely opaque, utterly intrusive platform which will eventually lead to a locked down media file which can only be watched at it’s leisure and the viewers expense.

It seems to me as if the BBC is in a unique position here, where they have the chance to be able to redefine internet television with an open standard which allows all broadcasters to reach their audiences using whatever platform, whatever player. If this becomes the new distribution platform for television- then copyright law in Great Britain should recognise it as analogous to television and appreciate that it will have the same problem with copying that modern television does- which are insignificant to the BBCs DVD sales.

And I’m not the only person who would buy something I especially enjoyed on DVD, because the BBC have some really great stuff, and after all, every television owner in the country paid for it.

Anyway, to those of you unlucky enough to be using WINXP: gorge yourself on some telly.

The first two episodes of Heroes was broadcast on BBC 2 tonight, and I must say that I’m very glad that the BBC have acquired it, as it would be a shame to have it hidden away behind either adverts or a subscription to BSkyB. No spoilers here please. I know we’re amongst the last to get it here.

Last off, I’ll be away from the 29th for a fortnight in Leeds taking a Summer course in East Asian languages (Japanese and East Thai) which I’m really looking forward to.

It sucked.

With a starting point of the css tinderbox I came up with this.

I can say that this one is most certainly better.At least I think so, which is why I plan on releasing a version of this theme as CC in thanks for the cc resources that I used.

Inside the exhibition we first visited the collection of Vader heads, and then watched a film behind the scenes of the new animated series, after that we walked around the exhibition hall admiring the skill taken to create all the cool costumes and all the miniatures (but they were a bit out of league for my purchasing habits). Also the lego collection present was very cool.

Click the AT-AT to see some more photos:

In almost equally exciting news (for you perhaps, but personally I find this much more exciting) my electric guitar has recently arrived. And it is awesome. Unfortunately it did arrive a few days later than originally hoped- but otherwise Thomann have been exceptionally good value and lots of help when I ordered.