Despite being a bit of a fan of Watchmen, I never made it to the cinema to see the film. I finally watched it after the DVD I'd pre-ordered arrived this week. So, what's my take on Zack Snyder's opus? I guess my first comment would be that it's got a kind of fanboy feel - with the exceptions of the omission of at least one scene (the death of Nite Owl I, though I understand it's restored in the new Director's Cut) and the changes to Veidt's gran plot to end the threat of nuclear war, both of which I can understand in the context of a feature film, there's obviously been a definite attempt to stay as close to the book in visuals and script. This extends even to such minutiae as Rorschach's broken trenchcoat epaulette. As an exercise in filming a comic book, I guess it succeeded, but there's the difficulty that a filmed comic book often struggles to convince, and can often come across as rather risible.

Presumably that's why films like the original (Christopher Reeves) Superman series and the Flash Gordon film were in part or whole played for laughs. It's interesting to note the variety of styles applied to the various Batman films over the years, from the really camp 60s versions to the dark and characteristic Tim Burton vision, which gradually slipped in the succeeding films into more jokey style.

This bug report at the Ubuntu Launchpad ([i965] X freezes starting on April 3rd) seems to describe the problem I've been having over the last few weeks with my notebook running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04.  In essence, at some point, usually 2-24 hours after the last boot, the system will freeze up - the display is immobile (though the mouse pointer moves) and there appears to be no input from keyboard or trackpad buttons.  Other than that, the system is running happily, as far as I can tell from logging in remotely.

In a previous blog post (Firefox, Opera and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty), I'd thought that the problem lay with Firefos, but that turned out not to be the case.  From the bug report, it would seem to be related to the Intel graphics card the current theory being:

I entered this race with some trepidation - it would be my first outing on the F1 since the Icknield RC '25' back in May, during which there was a fatal accident.  I hadn't originally planned on riding out to Tempsford, but after doing so on the road bike last weekend to help with the finish timekeeping, I thought I'd give it a bash for this event.

After a false start occasioned by forgetting my pump, off I went at around 5.30am, and across the M1 at junction 13.  Once over Brogborough Hill, the view was one of roadworks - there's a major effort to dual the A421 from J13 to the Bedford bypass.  This meant the ride over had me a bit anxious, particularly in the coned-off sections.  In fact I didn't have much trouble.  I left the A421 at the Moggerhanger exit, and rode through Willington and Blunham on the way to Tempsford, where the race HQ was (I was 10th man off, with number 50 at 6.50am).  After signing on, I nipped over to the start and rode gently around, and had a few sips of energy drink. I was certainly well warmed up!

It's hard for me to believe that it's almost 30 years since this album was released, to huge anticipation by a few (such as my immediate circle of friends)  in May 1980. Howard Devoto had left Buzzcocks just as they were on the verge of success and formed Magazine.  Their storming first album, Real Life, was followed by Secondhand Daylight, which was (as I recall) rather unfairly labelled as being a bit Pink Floyd-like, which was a fair old insult at the time.

The Correct use of Soap blasted out of my speakers like a revelation.  Devoto's snarled and sardonic lyrics, the great Barry Adamson's bass and John McGeoch's guitar work stand out for me. The production on this album was by Martin Hannett, and boy does that show.  The overall sound is kind of sharp and precise, and as if it was recorded in a BIG space.  Of course being as how I bought this when it was released (more truthfully a year or so later), my copy is on vinyl - I recently got my mitts on a digital copy which is a 2007 remaster, with a bunch of extra tracks which is now happily ensconced on my iPod.  It's likely to be my turbo training soundtrack of choice for the nexy week or so.

Here's a weird thing.  A couple of weeks ago, my Vaio notebook that's been running sequentially updated versions of Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the last 2.5 years started playing up on me with apparently random lock-ups.  This didn't start after any specific event or software installation.  I've Googled this, looked in Ubuntu Forums (and indeed started a thread there) to find an answer.  The symptoms are:

1. Display frozen, except the mouse/trackpad pointer can be moved
2. No keyboard input
3. No trackpad buttons work
4. The ongoing processes are still running - I can login from another terminal

This always seems to happen when I'm using Firefox (I am currently on 3.5.1), which is by far my favourite web browser, though this might just reflect both the amount of activity when using that app as well as the number of times I use Firefox each day.  Often the hang occurs when I'm scrolling down a page (which I do by stroking the edge of the trackpad).

This event was originally to be run on the new Stagsden course, but was relocated to the nearby Astwood circuit because the start (or maybe finish) point in a layby was rendered inaccssible as the layby has been used to store road-mending materials.  This was a bit disappointing, as I haven't ridden that course before.  Still, of the courses we use in the club league, Astwood's probably my favourite.  The morning was really windy, and quite blustery (in a continuation of the weather patterns of late).

During the day, the wind strengthened alarmingly.  Fortunately it moderated a bit by the time we started the event.  The strong wind had a curiously variable effect out on the course.  I presume this was because it was a rather blustery wind.  Anyway, it proved quite a slog much of the time down to Chicheley, but once round the turn, things were a bit easier.  Indeed the section through the village of North Crawley, which is usually a bit tough to pick up the speed was quite brisk.

One of the more bizarre features of the Phorm business model has always been the question of why businesses would allow their webpages to be scanned by Phorm's deep packet inspection system.  My understanding of Phorm's system is that individual web users' browsing habits are monitored by kit installed within the ISP's infrstructure, and that key words are extracted from visited web pages and used to target advertisements to the user.

What's always surprised me is that companies weren't flocking to request their exclusion from this system: after all if web users are looking through my product line, why would I want them to be offered adverts from my competitors?

This morning I rode over to Tempsford to help out at the North Middx & Herts '100' - the organiser having emailed a plea for assistance.  Being a kindly soul (and having been in the position of desperately hunting for marshals and other helpers for an Association event in the past), I immediately accepted, but requested a role late in the event as I was planning to cycle over.  In the end I was asked to help the timekeeper by noting riders' numbers as they passed the finish point.

This was a novel version of the F1/100, apparently necessary because a triathlon was being held on the roads normally used for the event.  Essentially, the course used this morning had the riders doing Tempsford to Buckden three times (this being on the A1), then exiting at the Black Cat roundabout to do two laps of a finishing circuit on the A421.

A few weeks ago Tony persuaded me to enter the API/Metrow '25' on the E2/25 near Newmarket.  I bunged off an entry and unfortunately ended up in the opposite end of the start sheet from Tony, which would have meant a fair bit of hanging around for both of us.  On the day, it was really quite blustery, with a what we expected to be a strong headwind out to the turn.

We set off in good time, arriving in Newmarket with well over an hour to go before Tony's start time.   Here, our problems began.  Trying to follow the directions to the race HQ given on the start sheet proved completely impossible.  There was a total absence of riders milling about (usually a sure guide to where a race HQ is), which didn't help.  After cruising around Newmarket for a bit, Tony only had about 20 minutes to go before his scheduled start, so we drove off to the start to see what was there.  Lo and behold, some people on the start line, and down a nearby lane, some cars with riders warming up on turbos.  We stopped to ask these riders where the HQ was - turned out the start sheet was woefully inadequate.

Well, switching hosting company was pretty straightforward, though I'm not sure how quickly the "real" domain name will be active.  For the time being, the site's reachable at http://www.rsaunder.myzen.co.uk.

My new hosting company uses cpanel to administer the account, which appears to be an improvement over the previous setup.   The pages seem a bit quicker to open, though it remains to be seen whether I get 500 internal server errors.

Well, I have taken the decision to switch to a new web hosting company.  The repeated "500 internal server error" events (which included about 12h solid early this week), coupled with totally inadequate response for the "technicians" at my current hosting company have swung my decision to act.  By totally inadequate, I mean that I received a prompt "cut and paste" response on 13th July, and not a whisper since.

I'll migrate the site as soon as I can make a backup of the database and files.  Unfortunately, this probably means the site will be moribund for a few days.  This affects both the main Flies & Bikes site and the Wonderful Life blog.

It was rather wet when I set off from this house in the morning, and while the weather dried up, the rather strong wind did not moderate appreciably.  A modest field of 13 riders was possibly due to it being holiday season.  The strong wind was blowing almost directly in our faces at the start, and so made it hard on the ride up to the dual carriageway section - at times I was well below 20 mph, though having the rider in front getting closer was a bit of a carrot.  Once up on the dual carriageway, the bike was a bit twitchy at times to the turn (I was riding the Hed trispokes). 

As usual the lovely smooth surface on the new road made things easier, and in particular, the return leg was pretty quick, and I finished with 23:31, which must be one of my better times on this course.

Apologies for the intermittent service over the last 24 hours.  I appear to be having database issues, which I'm trying to rectify.  I'd expect access to the site to be a bit flaky for the next day or so until I can get this fixed.

This video on how to unpeel a banana the correct way (the method used by monkeys) has popped up on a number of atheist-inclined websites (for the explanation, see PZ Myers' blog at Pharyngula).  I can confirm that the method works, even when steering a tandem.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJV56WUDng 425x344]

One of the issues that face those of us with research interests in the biology of ageing is the selection of a model system - and how well that model reflects the biology of ageing in humans.  The two main invertebrate models (the fruit fly Drosophila and the nematode worm C. elegans) have major advantages in their powerful genetics and short lifespan, but of course do differ from vertebrates in significant aspects of their biology.  The difficulty in studying primates lies in no small part in the length of lifepan - in the case of Rhesus macaques studied here, average lifespan is 27 years, so conducting a complete experiment in this system is likely to be a career-long endeavour.

One of the much investigated interventions known to extend lifespan is caloric restriction - this has been shown to be effective in several systems.  This paper reports the results (20 years in) of a research project started in 1989 to investigate the impact of caloric restriction on the

The weather broke a few days before this event - this came as something of a relief for me, as I find the hot and humid conditions we've had recently as something of a trial.  I got a little damp riding down to work (I usually ride to club events directly from work), but the temperature was nice at around 13 degrees C, with only a gentle wind. 

This club event is the North Bucks time trial championship.  Last year I had trouble with the seat pin slipping on my Planet X frame - this year I rode the steel-framed Cougar, with its guaranteed "no-slip" aero carbon seat pin.  In fact, it's more than "no-slip", it's usually "no-budge", at least when servicing the bike.  As it turned out this was the least of my troubles.

The BBC reports (Google to launch operating system) that Google will release an operating system aimed at netbooks in 2010. I particularly like the HAL9000-like logo (see picture). There's a collection of media comments on this development, mostly commenting on the threat to Windows.

Of course, netbooks kicked off with a focus on Linux as their OS, until MS realised they'd committed a strategic blunder and moved to "suggest" to the PC manufacturers that they ought to use Windows XP, which miraculously had its lifetime extended (though this may have been in part due to the poor reception of Vista and its capacity to gobble up computer resources). So forgive me for being a little sceptical that the Chrome OS will unseat Windows in the netbook market (but I would be delighted to be proven wrong - we certainly need a more competitive OS marketplace).

In a brief article in The Guardian (Consumers will see benefits - The case for Phorm), Guy Phillipson and Nick Stringer the chief executive and head of regulatory affairs respectively at the Internet Advertising Bureau attempt to make the case for Phorm.  Of course, they are (in my opinion) slightly economical with the truth in that the objections of the "Privacy Pirates"* over at nodpi.org lies not with targeted advertising, but with the probably illegal interception of internet traffic via deep packet inspection.  The objections focus largely on privacy issues, on copyright issues (making copies of web pages without authorisation), and on legality (e.g. interception of communication).

It would seem that the EU share the objectors' concerns having repeatedly requested the UK Government to respond to their concerns about internet privacy.  Unfortunately HMG won't release their response to Commisioner Reding.  Messrs Phillipson and Stringer believe that Phorm have signed up to the AIB's principles of good practice.  But how sure can the consumer be where Phorm is concerned, given its past identity as 121media?

According to The Times (Phorm stranded as BT and Carphone pull plug on online 'spying' technology), Carphone Warehouse, who's TalkTalk subsidiary were one of the ISPs lining up to use Phorm's invasive DPI technology, have now decided to fall into line an announce they would likewise not implement it.  BT's role as the market leader is evident:

After BT's move, Charles Dunstone, head of Carphone Warehouse, said: "We were only going to do it if BT did it and if the whole industry was doing it. We were not interested enough to do it on our own."

As part of its authoritarian stance on everything the public do, the UK Government has set its sights on controlling ingress and egress across our borders, via the notorious 53 Questions that travellers will need to supply answers to before being allowed to travel.  This whole e-Borders shenanigans is projected to cost the UK Border Agency £1.3bn over the next 10 years.  And with the responsibility for collecting the data falling on the transport companies (ferry companies and airlines for example), it it likely that the traveller will have to cough up for the system, at least in part.  And of course, there is th issue that this applies to travel from the UK mainland to the Isle of Wight, making passports a requirement for internal travel.

Here's a list of the 53 pieces of information they will demand from us (courtesy of the Daily Mail)