Disaster relief

Like everyone else we were shocked by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. I don't think we know anyone involved, but our sympathies go out to anyone affected.

This is looking like the largest natural disaster I can remember. It's hard to comprehend the scale. A lot of people are going to need help in the coming months.

We'll be donating to Oxfam.

Things Can Only Get Better

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Biographies & Memoirs
Author:	John O'Farrell

A very well written, humorous account of 17 years in the political wilderness by a lifelong Labour supporter. John is a comedy writer (Spitting Image, Have I Got News for You), but also wrote material for Gordon Brown. As someone who lived through the Tory years I can imagine how he felt, even if I was not that political. A great book.

His 'The Best a Man Can Get' is a very funny piece of fiction.

Bag of Spoons

http://www.bagofspoons.net/
My personal site. It's my little playground to try out various web technology

Digital Fortress

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Mystery & Thrillers
Author:	Dan Brown

Mr Brown seems to be doing quite well these days on the back of The Da Vinci Code. I read that a while back. It's a fairly typical mainstream thriller with a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in. I then read Angels and Demons, which is a similar sort of thing, but maybe not as well written.

I was short of something to read when my dad handed this book onto me after his holiday. Now I am well into the whole encryption thing, but this book is distinctly lacking in that area. It puports that the NSA (US secret code breaking department) can crack any coded message with their massive computer. There's plenty of maths that proves that cannot be the case. Apart from that it's the usual formulaic stuff. Beautiful female cryptographer and her handsome, athletic language professor boyfriend try to save the world. Brown really likes to glamorise accademics, but the characters are too shallow and perfect for my liking.

Well I read it through to the end and I won't tell you if the good guts saved the day at the last possible moment. That would spoil the surprise.

If you want good techno thrillers then try Neal Stephenson. As for Mr Brown, he's well overrated.

Anyone want to buy some 2nd hand books?

Complicity

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

I read Iain Banks' book ages ago and didn't realise there was a film of it made in 1999. He does write some very dark stuff involving nasty deaths and this is a good example of that. A journalist finds himself too close to a series of deaths, possibly involving a conspiracy. Is he the killer?

It's a Scottish based production, but with a few English actors putting on accents. Johnnie Lee Miller is the lead and is hardly off the screen. Brian Cox is the detective.

It does feel a bit rushed, but then I think they have tried to fit most of the book in. I remembered some of the plot and worked out who did it before the end, but it was still enjoyable, if you like murder, suspense and a bit of kinky sex.

Details on IMDB

Cosmic Connection

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Science
Author:	Carl Sagan

Considering this is a 30 year old science book, it was a great read. Lots of interesting stuff about Sagan's part in planetary exploration and speculation about things like extraterestrial intelligence. He was expecting us to have sent people to other planets by now, but who would think that nobody would go outside earth orbit since the moon landings.

Crimble!

Start:

Dec 25, '04

More information on who runs Multiply

There's a story here containing parts of a mail from the founder of Multiply. He announces a few changes including a Corporate Info link on all pages and a way for people to opt out of receiving invitations. It's getting there. There have been other changes in layout recently and a new, improved photo uploader.

The Colour of Magic

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author:	Terry Pratchett

This was the first of Terry's Discworld series that first came our 21 years ago. He was taking a comic angle on the fantasy genre with wizzards (sic), heroes, gods and various creatures. I hadn't read this one before, but I have a comic book version so I knew the story. The comic doesn't convey his way with words. He's very good at describing things.

This story features a failed wizzard (sic) called Rincewind who ends up travelling the Disc with a tourist from a distant continent. The gods are dabbling in their affairs.

It's a fun book with some laugh out loud moments. The later books diverge more from the fantasy area into parodying modern times, so this one was a reminder of how it started. I may re-read the sequel 'The Light Fantastic' again soon.

Heavy Weather

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author:	Bruce Sterling

This was a nice little bit of predictive fiction, set in a near future where the world's weather had gone mad. Massive tornados sweep across the USA making large parts uninhabitable. It's based around a group who try to study and understand the storms. I wouldn't say it was a great book, but it was geeky enough for my tastes.

Currently reading The Colour of Magic. The first of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

Who is Multiply?

Here we all are, happily entering our personal information into this site, revealing our social networks, but to whom? If you look around the site you will see no real information on who runs the site or what their motivation is.

I actually mailed the support line about this and got the response:

"Multiply is owned by Peter Pezaris, formerly President of CBS SportsLine.com."

That's not telling me very much.

The privacy policy states that they will not share our information with anyone. I'm asuuming this is legally binding.

Are they making money out of it? There are a few adverts now. The Google ones make me smile when they try to match to words I've used, but I don't object to them.

This site has a lot of potential. I just hope we are not being used/abused.

Others have also wondered. And here.

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Author:	Claire Tomalin

I've been on a history kick this year, trying to catch up on all the stuff I don't know. I find the 17th century fascinating for some reason. I read James Gleick's biog of Newton (bit dry) before tackling Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (fictional, but with some historical characters).

I'd heard that this Pepys book was good. Tanya devoured it while I was still on something else. It's generally good stuff, but drags a bit in places. He was a bit of a character. It's taken me a good while to read it due to general lack of time and I didn't even read all the notes. I did in the Newton book, but it's a pain to keep jumping to the back of the book to find them, even with two bookmarks.

I'm not sure if I'll tackle the actual diaries and these are pretty long and the language can be hard work. There's a bite-size version at Pepys Diary that gives you it day by day, with notes.

Good Will Hunting

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

I know it's getting on a bit, but I hadn't seen it. I got the DVD with vouchers ages ago, but only watched it this week.

It's a very good film about a maths prodigy (Matt Damon) who has a few social problems and is working as a cleaner at MIT. He gets discovered by an ambitious prof and Robin Williams is the shrink who tries to sort him out. It's not a totally happy film, but it has some great performances. It moved me. Damon and his mate Ben Affleck wrote the script.

No extras at all on the DVD

It's in my DVD library for friends to borrow

A Knight's Tale

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

A fun and slightly silly historical action/rom-com film. A low born squire pretends to be a knight so he can compete in the jousting. He fancies a noble lady with eccentric dress sense. Nasty Rufus Sewel is out to get him. It's not meant to be serious history, just fun. Some good music too.

It's in my DVD collection. If you want to borrow it I suggest joining DVD Lender and speak to me about linking to my library.

Selfbuild

March 2003

Our new house

Vive La Revolution

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	History
Author:	Mark Steel

I'm on a bit of a history kick at the moment, trying to catch up on various parts. For some reason I'm mostly into the 17th and 18th centuries just now.

I know Mr Steel from his radio and TV lectures on various famous people. He takes a humourous, but historically accurate view on things.

This book is obviously about the French revolution. It covers the whole history and characters. He can be flippant at times, but it's a fairly easy read. There is a lot to take in and I found myself getting confused by the various factions at time, but then it was a confusing time. Tragic too.

If all history was written this way, more people would read it. It was certain more fun than Gleick's Isaac Newton.

One thing it has done is to put me off royalty even more than I was before.

Shrek 2

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Animation

Great fun film. Enough fun for the kids and lots of sight gags for the grown-ups. I lost count of the movie references. The detail is stunning. The new cast are good apart from Jonathon Ross who sounds totally wrong as the ugle sister. Jennifer Saunders does a great job. Not sure if they can sustain the standard for 3 and 4.

It's in my DVD library now for friends to borrow

So I joined Multiply

I thought I'd have a play with this site. Seems promising with 1GB of storage for photos and messages. If I can get others to join then we can use it to view each others' content, although you can restrict who sees it. I'll keep my proper web site for my experiments