Neal Asher

James Nicoll has a thread about Neal Asher and comments he has made in his blog. Some of the followup comments are from people who have decided not to start reading Neal Asher because of what he says in his blog.

I had already decided to stop reading Neal Asher, whose books I rather enjoy, because of what his blog revealed about his character. The blog was mostly rather banal, but there were a few comments which made me think he is not someone I would like if I met him - worse, he is not someone to whom I want to give my money.

Update: I wrote this some time ago but never posted it.

Say no to 0870

Just discovered, rather belatedly, SayNoTo0870.com.

Most companies in the UK use non-geographic (0870,0845 and variations) for customer service and other contact numbers. While these are nominally cheaper than a long-distance call, if you have an inclusive minutes package on your landline or mobile, these numbers are usually excluded and therefore cost more than a normal number.

SayNoTo0870 is a resource for finding alternatives to the published numbers.

A great idea.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children.

A couple in Wales have been jailed for not sending their daughter to school. However it is pretty obvious why the girl didn't want to school. The family name is Haine and they appeared to have named the daughter Shlaine. While Shlaine may be a mispelling of a welsh name, it looks more likely that they went to some lengths to find a name which rhymed and which ended in the same letters. If they just wanted rhyming what was wrong with Jane or Shane.

They also called their son Caine.

Identity Crisis

I bought some foreign currency from Thomas Cook the other day, paying by debit card. Not only was I asked to provided identification in the form of a driving license or passport, they also wanted me to write my address on the card slip.

I can think of no good reason why they need this information. The counter clerk claimed it was demanded by my card issuer, but surely a card and a PIN should be sufficient proof of valid access to the funds. Another excuse I have been given in the past (although not on this occasion) is that it is anti money laundering. However, had I paid by cash no additional information would have been requested so it obviously wasn't that.

Apart from the invasion of privacy, this transaction resulted in the creation of a piece of paper containing my card details and my address - prime information for an identity thief. The clerk claimed it was in a secure environment, but I am sure that carelessness by financial services companies and staff corruption are prime sources for the identity underworld.

I am going to follow this up.

Reading List : The Illuminatus Trilogy

A classic of inspired lunacy. Difficult to read it all at once, but well worth it.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

What has microsoft ever done for us?

This post on the Oracle and Open Source blog points to a Sydney Morning Herald article bemoaning Microsoft's lack of innovation, despite the quality of their research staff and their huge R&D budget.


This reminded me of an conversation a couple of weeks ago when I was challenged to come up with something microsoft had actually invented. I failed.



Without getting into an anti-Microsoft rant, can anyone think of any?

The best I can come up with at the moment are wheel mouse and ODBC

Reading List : Update

I've not been keeping this up to date (who does), so here is a list of what I've read since the last post.

Effendi	John Courtenay Grimwood	7/10
Followup to Pashazade. Another mystery in which the here of the first book, Ashraf Bey, has to defend his fiance's father against accusations of war crimes.
Fellahen	John Courtenay Grimwood	6/10
Third book in the trilogy.
Newton's Wake	Ken Macleod	6/10
Ken's first series The Fall Revolution was brilliant. His second Engines of Light, was no more than OK. This is better but not back to his best. He has some fun with politics as usual and this must be the only SF book with a Glasgow gang as one of the dominant forces in galactic civilisation
Market Forces	Richard Morgan	2/10
To be honest, I haven't finished this. It was too unremittingly horrible and I wasn't sure where it was going. I like Richard Morgan's other stuff a lot, but I am less sure about this one. I'll need to try it again when I'm less depressed.
The Men Who Stare at Goats	John Ronson	9/10
A look at various mad new age ideas which have been investigated and used as weapons by the US army and intelligence services. Some of the stuff seems to be in current use in Iraq. (The "stare at goats" phrase was that people were being trained to kill by power of thought alone.)
The Autobiography	Monty Python	4/10
Not very interesting really. I patchwork of reminiscence of the Python days by the Python team. Above all, its NOT FUNNY.
The Algebraist	Iain M Banks	7/10
Lightweight Banks. No startlingly clever ideas, and the story is only slightly engaging. The usual good jokes and set pieces.

Creationists pushed back in Georgia

The creationist promotion of ignorance has had a setback in Georgia, where the Supreme court has decreed that their anti-evolution stickers infringe the laws on religion in schools.There is a Guardian report here.

While this is obviously good news, I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be best to let the nutters take over America and let the whole place disappear up their own fundamentalism. On the other hand, might turn out like the Taliban with nukes.

Reading List : Toast by Charles Stross

A collection of early short stories. Pretty decent, but I suspect substantially different from his novels. There is a Lovecraft homage which is a cold war leading on to war, but the weapons are Lovecraftian monsters rather than nukes. The best one is 1984 with computers.

Religious Hatred

The government intends to introduce a new category of offence based on 'religious hatred', similar to the existing 'racial hatred'. There are justified fears that the law cold be used by religious groups to suppress legitimate criticism. Now a violent mob have forced the closure of a play which is critical of Sikhism.

Is this an early indication of how the law will be used?


The original story
Cancellation of the play

Reading List : Pashazade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Not at all what I was expecting. Having read Lucifer's Dragon which was basically cyber-punk, I expected this to be similar, but it is more of an old-fashioned detective story (and there's nothing wrong with that) in a vaguely sf setting.

The setting is the near future of an alternative timeline in which the Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires have survived. The main story takes place in Alexandria (Al-Iskandria) in Egypt. The protagonist is a genetically/surgically/electronically enhanced petty criminal who has some standing in the community by virtue of being the son of the Emir of Tunis. He is invited to Egypt for an arranged marriage to thhe daughter of a nouveau-riche businessman, but a murder intervenes and he has to solve it.

The plot is fairly lightweight, but the atmosphere and setting are good and the writing runs along nicely.

7/10

Reading List : Skinner by Neal Asher

There are many good things about this book, but the thing that stands out is the eco-system. The food chain is dominated by a carnivorous 'leech' which injects a virus which makes its victims extremelly resilient. This ensures that the prey survives and regenerates and is available for further feeding.

Rating 8/10

Smith and Wesson bikes. What about Colt skateboards?

Today I saw two policemen on bikes pottering along Norwood High Street. That's unusual enough in itself, but the bikes had big Smith and Wesson stickers on them - bigger than the Police sticker.

It may be that Smith and Wesson supply the bikes as some kind of general law enforcement supply contract, but it seems very suspicious. Why is it necessary to splash the logo so large?

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

This news item is about how Wal-Mart is being sued because it sold an Evanescance record with the word "fuck" in it. I've lost count of the ways this annoys me.

Why sue? Go back to the shop and ask for your money back and an apology for god's sake..

Why ask for $74,000 damages? How do they work that out? How much damage can hearing the word fuck do?

Why is it Wal-Mart's responsibility? If you care that much what your children hear, make it your responsibility to check things out.

The laywer involved is quoted as saying "take this case national, even if that means going state by state." This isn't seeking recompense, this is a campaign.

Get your priorities right. Here are the lyrics of the song in question. As you can see, it talks about revenge, rape and murder. Does the lawsuit complain about that? No. It focuses on the word fuck.

Reading List:: How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World

How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions, by Francis Wheen.

Funny, but ultimately depressing look at how irrationality is increasing in all aspects of "modern" life.

The Only Game in Town

Its amazing what goes through your head when you wake up early. This morning :

Of all the games called football, there is only one worthy of the name. I am aware of the following "football" games.

1 Association Football
2 Rugby League
3 Rugby Union
4 American
5 Gaelic
6 Australian Rules

Of these, only two ( 1 and 5) actually use a ball (i.e. a round thing). The others seem to use some kind of melon. However, the main reason that there is only one game worthy of the name of football is that, apart from the first game, actually kicking the ball is a secondary part of all these games. Indeed, in American football kicking the ball is almost a sign of failure. Apart from the extra point after a touch down, the ball is only kicked (a punt or a field goal attempt) when a a charge fails to progress. In rugby, a match where all the points are scored by kicking is generally regarded as a poor game. Gaelic and Australian are more balanced, but kicking seems to be no more than half the game.

Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel voted for Bush.

We've all seen the maps of voting patterns in the recent presidential election showing the Red states and the Blue states, but there have been a number of more-fine grained analyses (e.g. at county level) which show that the break down was as much rural versus urban.

This confirms my mental picture of the typical Bush voter

The Red Menace affects us all

The BBC is reporting that the film of Phillip Pulman's His Dark Materials trilogy won't feature god because the production company, New Line, think it won't be commerically viable if it offends the religious right.

Considering that organised religion are the bad guys in the trilogy, the film could end up being a travesty.

The red states are reaching out to control us all.

Lies, Damned Lies and Independent Reports.

The Hutton and Butler reports have already shown what a farce the notion of an independent report is in the political world. The Register gives an example from the commercial world.

What they told us:
An independent study for the London Borough of Newham by CapGemini found that migrating from Microsoft to open-source software would cost more in the than sticking with Microsoft.

What they didn't tell us:
The study was funded by Microsoft
The study was only supposed to look at the benefits of upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows XP and was not intended to compare MS with open-source.
The only data about open-source costs was provided by Microsoft and not checked by the supposedly independent CapGemini.

The Register story has more juicy detail.

The Spaceheads

Saw The Spaceheads at the Old Hall festival.
Amazing. Drums and trumpet and some electronics producing a stunning
sound.