Yearly archives: 2016

Little treasures

This entry was posted in YouTube zibbet on by

For the first time in a few years, I went along to an auction earlier this week and picked up a couple of mixed lots. Yesterday, I filtered out a few of my favourite items and, as they’re all small enough, thought I’d share them on a video. The autofocus on my phone is easily confused when things are that close to it, so there are a couple of points where it struggles. I’ll look at ways of fixing that in future videos.

I can’t embed a link to my Zibbet store in the video, as they’re not yet an ‘approved’ merchandise site, but I’ve asked to have that fixed.

Rolls-Royce sails ahead with plan for remotely controlled cargo ships

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I’m sure I’ve reported on a future of remote control cargo ships before. Rolls Royce have created a good looking, if under-acted, promo video about life in the control centre for this one, though.

There’s a tale of future piracy in this, I reckon.

Massive crewless cargo ships plying the world’s oceans may sound far-fetched, but Rolls-Royce has been working on the idea for a number of years now. In fact, the company says it expects the first remotely controlled vessels to sail into operation by 2020.

Source: Rolls-Royce sails ahead with plan for remotely controlled cargo ships

Leavers don’t like irony, or equality

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There’s a petition to Parliament to re-run the referendum, but with higher requirements for a decision (60% in favour, 75% turnout). As I write this, just under 3.1 million people have signed it. It’s unlikely we’ll get another referendum (and who wants to go through that again?), but it’s an gauge of the dissatisfaction with the way it all turned out.

And, if this Facebook post is genuine, it’s hilarious that it was set up by a Leave supporter, who thinks Remainers are behaving appallingly by agreeing with the sentiments he would have been screaming out if the tables were turned.

In case the post mysteriously disappears, here’s the text of it-

Oliver Healey – English Democrats

***CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!!!***

Dear All

Re: EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum petition

This petition was created at a time (over a month ago) when it was looking unlikely that ‘leave’ were going to win, with the intention of making it harder for ‘remain’ to further shackle us to the EU. Due to the result, the petition has been hijacked by the remain campaign. Admittedly, my actions were premature however, my intentions were as stated above. THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE OF A LEAVE VICTORY AT THAT TIME!!! Having said that, if it had not been mine, it would have been orchestrated by someone on the remain campaign. However, since I am associated with the petition and before the press further associate me with it I felt the need to better clarify my position on the issue even if it looks bad. I am it’s creator, nothing more! The logistical probability of getting a turnout to be a minimum of 75% and of that, 60% of the vote must be one or the other (leave or remain) is in my opinion next to impossible without a compulsory element to the voting system.

I have been opposed to the bureaucratic and undemocratic nature of the European Union as an institution privately for many years and for all of my political career. I have openly and actively lent my support to both Vote Leave and Grassroots Out campaigns – why would I do this if I wanted to remain in the EU? I am genuinely appalled by the behaviour of some of the remain campaign, how they are conducting themselves post-referendum not just with this petition but generally. The referendum was fairly funded; democratically endorsed, every vote was weighted equally and I believe this was a true reflection of the mood of the country. To my fellow leavers, now doubting their decision please keep the faith, we will be fine just stick with it. I believe what we need to do now for the good of the country; is get behind the will of the British people, unite, issue Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon and move forward, with the process of leaving the European Union.

William Oliver Healey

Creator of EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum petition

Leave would have been truly awful and obnoxious losers. You can tell by the way they’re truly awful and obnoxious winners.

(Whilst I wrote this post, the petition went from 3.09 million signatures to 3.114 million.)

Brexit Blues

This entry was posted in Conservative David Cameron labour Michael Gove UKIP on by

Oh well, that’s us fucked, then.

In the short term, it’s possible I’ll be a tiny bit better off, because the largest single day drop in the value of sterling now makes my few American book sales worth more. Of course, that’s going to be a tiny consolation when the inevitable slash and burn budget does its best to take away what’s left of everything that’s good about this country.

Almost immediately, the Brexiteers were saying that they hadn’t really promised all those things they promised. Which is nice.

Some people who voted Leave are trying to tell the rest of us that they didn’t mean it, really, and they’d take it all back if they only could. It’s hard to be angry at such stupidity.

The section of the Labour Party that lost the last two elections think that this is a great time to get Jeremy Corbyn out of the way, so they can start work on losing the snap election they hope will be called for November.

If anyone wants to set up a Kickstarter or Patreon that will ensure David Cameron doesn’t go a week without getting at least one email or letter that’s just a picture of a pig, I will try to scrape together some money to back it.

And if any Brexiteer wants to sneer and call me a bad loser, I’ll know that, if the tables were turned, they would have spent the day throwing the biggest toddler tantrum ever, whilst claiming that MI5 had stolen the result in some pencil based conspiracy.

Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King

This entry was posted in Review on by

basscultureThe only problem with this book is that it was published in 2000, so I’m at a loss over what’s happened in the last fifteen years.

This is a fascinating wander through the roots of reggae, from the yard parties and sound systems most often playing blues and blues inspired local sounds, to the international reggae breakout of the seventies, and beyond.

It moves faster, and covers more ground per chapter, the nearer to (then) contemporary sounds it gets. The impression is that the author wasn’t impressed by the dancehall and ragga that were the dominant forms in the late nineties, and only grudgingly gave them any coverage. His tone lightens in the last chapter, as he detects a return to old-school values over sample driven pap.

From:: Ian Pattinson Goodreads reviews

Carbon capture done properly

This entry was posted in climate change Mongrels on by

Scientists in Iceland have managed to turn carbon dioxide emissions to rock, which would make true carbon capture a possibility.

Scientists working at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant near Reykjavik, Iceland, were able to pump the plant’s carbon dioxide-rich volcanic gases into deep underground basalt formations, mix them with water and chemically solidify the carbon dioxide.When basalt — a volcanic rock that makes up roughly 70 percent of the earth’s surface — is exposed to carbon dioxide and water, a chemical reaction occurs, converting the gas to a chalk-like solid material. Scientists previously thought it wasn’t possible to capture and store carbon this way because earlier studies suggested it could take thousands of years for large amounts of carbon dioxide to be converted to chalk.

Of course, the proper answer is to stop using processes that create carbon dioxide, and move over to renewables. Announcements such as this are likely to be taken up by the pollution industry as a reason for them to keep on dsestroying the planet, on the promise that a technology may come along to undo all their damage. This could be useful in many ways, but this isn’t the silver bullet that’s going to save the world by itself.

The final paragraphs conjure up some interesting visions of geoengineering projects- sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere to bring the balance back down to non climate change levels. It’s the sort of thing I imagined happening in the backstory to the Mongrels series, as the AIs bring the planet back from climate catastrophe to some sort of stability.

Source: Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Emissions to Stone | Climate Central

DARPA are planning my Pickers bikes

This entry was posted in Motorbike Pickers on by

In Pickers, one of the characters gets a two wheel drive electric motorbike, that she puts to good use all the way through the story. It seems the US military, through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is going one better, challenging manufacturers to come up with hybrid versions, with generators that can run on almost any liquid fuel to recharge the batteries.

If this sort of technology trickles down to the civilian market, I might start thinking about taking motorbike lessons.

The U.S. military has been talking about “stealth motorcycles” for years. As of this month, two tech outfits have what seem to be viable prototypes that will both be funded for another revision.

Source: The U.S. Military Is Getting Serious About ‘Stealth’ Motorcycles

A week of films

This entry was posted in B Movie Night on by

Tomorrowland: A World Beyond

This was a fun film, playing with the power of optimism and futurist visions, past and present.

Teen prodigy Casey wants to solve all the world’s problems, when no-one else seems to care. Given a mysterious pin badge that gives her visions of an incredible alternate world, she sets out to track it down. Along the way, she teams up with kid robot Athena and former child genius turned recluse Frank. I won’t give away the reasons Athena wants to recruit Casey, or why Frank- somewhat reluctantly- helps her. The journey is a big part of the joy of the film.

Highlights include a crazy fight in a memorabilia store, a character who calls himself Hugo Gernsback and some lovely retro-futurist production design. I don’t think this film did as well as it ought to in the cinema, so I recommend it if you’re looking for something that’s light and fun, but still with substance.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

You’ve gotta love a Ray Harryhausen movie. This retrospective takes you from his first garage made dinosaur films all the way through his career. With anecdotes about each movie mixed with interviews, it’s a fun trip. Nice to find I’ve seen most of his films as well.

Straight Outta Compton

The classic star story, with ioncredible talents breaking big and not coping with everything fame brings. The film focusses on Ice Cube, Easy E and Dr Dre more than the other members of NWA, framing the band’s story as being all about the trajectory of their friendships. Powerful stuff, with one hell of a soundtrack.

The Do-Over

A bit meh, if I’m honest. Sandler’s last Netflix original Ridiculous 6 wasn’t hilarious, but had some fun bits, but this one misfired for most of its length.

Sandler’s Max fakes his, and childhood friend Charlie’s, death, takes on another man’s identity and runs in loose circles until the plot gets dizzy and asks to be let off. There were a few little bits that could have been funny, and we’re not really let into Sandler’s character until far too late in the tale.

The Fog

Another John Carpenter classic, though it suffers in comparison to The Thing. Antonio Bay is celebrating its centenary, but a grim secret from its past is about to drift ashore with the fog.

This is a classic ghostly revenge story, with a little bit more gore. Unfortunately, stating early on just how many must die undercuts the tension. The events feel disconnected as well, taking place in so many different locations it sacrifices tension.

A Twitter trip to Trumpton

This entry was posted in Donald Trump Twitter US Election 2016 on by

So, Donald Judas* Trump has cleared the number of delegates needed to become the Republican nominee for US President. Which keeps Sounds of Soldiers relevant, and means it stays at 99p/99c at least until November.

To get a feeling for Trump supporters, I’ve been conducting an experiment for the last couple of weeks. I’m following the Twitter stream of one, vocal Trumpeter, highlighting bigoted tweets or retweets from him. I didn’t just pick him at random. In fact, he picked me. I have a twitter account for Garth Owen, and when I put something out on there that mentioned Trump, it got a follow from this guy. He mostly goes on about how awesome Trump is, rather than spewing almost constant racism and hate, as I’ve found others doing within one or two retweets of him. So I haven’t gone out of my way to find the worst example possible, before anyone starts accusing me of that.

What sort of stuff have I found on his timeline? Let’s see-



One remove from my test subject, I found this intelligent commentary. (Update having revisited this account, it now looks more like a parody)-



“Not one of us” What could that possibly mean?



And that’s not including the extended conversations I go into, which included gems such as-



This is just a scratch of the surface, and a few of the tweets I’ve seen this week. I’m going to keep watching, because it’s car-crash levels of compelling. It’s going to be a long, darkly comic and worrying run up to the US elections. Expect irregular trips back to Trumpton.

*What does the J stand for? I recently rewatched a lot of Red Dwarf, so sticking Judas in there is the natural reaction.

This week’s films

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Skin Trade

I suppose this is fallout from the Expendables films, giving Dolph Lundgren his career back and teaming him with a newer action star. He’s a lumbering, solid presence, and his mass seems to slow tiny, kinetic Tony Jaa down whenever they share the screen.

Dolph (I forget his character’s name) is a tough cop who busts a people smuggling ring run by Serb gangsters, with victims from Thailand. In the process, he kills one of the chief baddies sons. Retribution sees his home blown up, his wife and daughter killed, and him shot.

Busting out of the hospital, Dolph goes on a rampage, ending up in Thailand, where he first fights, then teams up with, Tony Jaa’s fast kicking cop. Lots of shooting, lots of fighting, blah, blah, blah.

The film starts with acknowledgement of Dolph’s age, as he foregoes a chase across the rooftops when chasing a suspect. Then it ignores it for the rest of the film, as he is blown up, shot, beaten and knifed, and just keeps on going.

Interstellar

Cooper was an astronaut, but now he’s grounded, raising corn- last of the blight free crops- and his two children somewhere in the Midwest. That is, until he coded gravitational signals that lead him to underground NASA, and a chance to leave the planet, and find new ones- through a wormhole.

The problem is, the further from Earth the story gets, the less interesting it gets. Particularly once the twist ending becomes blindingly obvious, and all the tension drains away. There was a more interesting, and challenging, story to be told about Cooper and family fighting climate change and a nascent anti-science fundamentalism to do a proper job of saving humanity.

Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Jones is a princess, or queen, or something, in an intergalactic empire. Or, at least, she’s the exact genetic reincarnation of one. As such, she stands to inherit Earth, and save its inhabitants. If she can survive the attention of her ‘children’.

There was one Gilliam-esque sequence, as Jupiter battled bureaucracy to claim her planet, but the rest of the film just sort of washed by in an excess of effects and explosions.

Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man

A prime slice of Polizietezza action, following the exploit of a pair of pretty boy cops in a special fast response unit. Almost as dangerous, and just as brutal, as the crooks they chase, they burn, screw and shoot their way to the big boss who had a colleague killed. Not the most tightly plotted tale, it’s enjoyable providing you can stomach some very seventies attitudes and fashions.

Things

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This week’s viewing-

Chappie

An anthropomorphised Police droid has a consciousness program uploaded onto it, is adopted by a gang of punk rock criminals and causes all hell to break loose.

Another typically stunning tale from Neill Blomkamp, tackling big questions on a human level, And with special effects that are stunning because of the way you don’t notice them. The eponymoius robot is played by long time Blomkamp collaborator Sharlto Copley, who disappears behind motion capture, delivering a fine performance in gestures and voice acting.

The Thing

John Carpenter’s top remake of the fifties’ original is a neat mix of claustrophobia and body horror. The occupants of a polar research station realise they are trapped by a snowstorm, with a shape changing creature hiding amongst them.

The pre-digital effects still look good, the creature morphing into ever more bizarre and grotesque shapes. The chest cracking scene, in particular, will always be a classic.

It’s interesting, watching the making of featurettes on The Thing and Chappie, to compare the digital trickery of today to the one-chance animatronics of the eighties.

Spooks: The Greater Good

I lost touch with Spooks, the series, some time ago. So I don’t know how many of the characters in this big screen outing came over from the TV.

Harry Pearce is still there- gruff, indestructible, and one step ahead of almost everyone- as he tries to find the traitor in MI5 who helped a terrorist escape, and may be plotting to destroy the service completely. Kit Harrington is the Jon Snow of espionage- tough and resourceful, but too decent for his world.

Low-key and brutal, just like the TV series, this was, no doubt, a disappointment to many who wanted lots of shooting and explosions.

The Return Of The Living Dead

This is supposed to be a horror comedy, but fails to deliver laughs or shocks.

With a nod to the ‘true’ story behind Night Of The Living Dead, a batch of military grade reanimation juice is released on an abandoned cemetery. The dead rise, and wreak havoc on a bunch of punks and the employees of a medical supplies company. There’s some good makeup and animatronics effects, but they’re wasted on this film. Not even the naked presence of ‘scream queen’ Linnea Quigley (wearing some sort of flesh coloured merkin, apparently) can make a difference.

Inside London Road Fire Station

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London Road Fire Station

London Road Fire Station opened its doors yesterday, as the developers showed off some of their plans for its future. I headed down to get a glimpse inside, after all these years, and take some photos.

I’ll put exterior shots into the same folder, if I ever find any that I’ve taken. I was positive I had some, but haven’t found them yet.

Tracing the family DNA

This entry was posted in Great Britain history on by

My mother was tracing the family history a few years ago. I’ll have to ask what she found.

Obviously, her research couldn’t have gone as deep as tracking genetic heritage, but I’d love to see what my DNA said about my ancient forebears.

The study analysed the DNA of over 2,000 people from rural areas of the UK, whose four grandparents were all born within 50 miles of each other. This provided the researchers with a snapshot of UK genetics in the late 19th Century before mass migration events. (It is a pity the study did not extend to the modern population of the Republic of Ireland as their genetic links to the rest of the British Isles would be fascinating to see).What it shows about the UK population is that many local communities have stayed put for almost 1,500 years – many for far longer – and that their strong sense of regional identity with their birthplace is deep in their DNA.This is most strikingly seen in the genetic split between people living in modern Cornwall and Devon where the division lies exactly along the county border along the River Tamar; the people living on either side of the river have different DNA.

(Also, note the large area of Southwest Ireland consistently named as Mumu. Home to the Justified Ancients?)

Source: Maps of Britain and Ireland’s ancient tribes, kingdoms and DNA

What I am watching now

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It’s time to try to keep a record of all the films I watch. So, on as near as possible to a weekly basis, it begins now.

How I Live Now

Tightly wound American teen Daisy is sent to spend some time in Britain with her aunt and eccentric cousins. It could be any tale of self discovery in an idyllic countryside setting, but there are hints of darkness from the off. An excessive number of soldiers patrol the airport, and the aunt is off to Geneva to a desperate sounding peace conference.

Soon, a nuclear device going off in London leaves the youngsters without adult supervision, having to fend for themselves. Love blossoms between Daisy and her hunky cousin. However, their brief, glorious freedom is curtailed by army intervention, and the boys and girls are separated.

Daisy and her cousin Piper escape the militarised suburb they’re held in, and begin a trek back to the farm. This section- discovering the heart of darkness in a suddenly threatening English countryside- was hard going, being unrelentingly grim. Somehow, however, the ending was able to redeem all the pain without being twee. Bittersweet and holding some hope as life settled into a new kind of normal.

Planting the horrors of a civil war in familiar locations is an interesting exercise. It’s never explained what’s going on, the characters threatened by events they can’t begin to understand.

Barely Lethal

The old high-school-is-a-battlefield and cute-teen-is-a-trained-killer tropes meet up and have a little fun. I’m sure it’s not the first time.

Highly trained assassin Number 83 fakes her death after a mission, and sets off to have a normal life. Calling herself Megan and posing as a Canadian exchange student, she finds herself a surrogate family and heads to the US. Obviously, her training makes fitting in tricky, and her old boss- and others- are after her.

It’s a fun film, but seems to be lacking something- the last bit of energy, or a final polish- to be a stand out. Samuel L. Jackson is his usual gruff presence, Jessica Alba is a sexually ambiguous baddy who doesn’t get enough time to develop into a plausible threat, and Sophie Turner as Number 84 makes you wish Sansa Stark wasn’t such a flat character.

Taken 3

Bryan Mills uses his particular set of skills to find out who killed his ex-wife and framed him for the murder. Fun to watch for the action scenes, which, by the law of sequels, are required to be bigger and more ludicrous than in the previous films. There’s a twist at the end that’s been coming since the first Taken, but it doesn’t really mean much. The expanded roles for Bryan’s black-ops friends were nice, though.