Oooooooh!

Ah, yes. Gary Moore last night. One of the best guitarists in the world, still going more than 20 years after his Thin Lizzy work. The man Steve Vai chooses as his favourite lead player (full disclosure: Steve Vai is my favourite lead player). He closed with Parisienne Walkways, one of those timeless classics that everyone knows, but few know who it's by. And it was an amazing rendition.
Having said that, I'm unlikely to go out and buy more of his stuff. Nothing more recent than say, 1990. Me, I'm a rock-o-phile, and although his brand of blues (texas and chicago, more chicago in my opinion) is seriously rocked up, give me the old days of "Out in the Fields", or "Over the Hills and Far Away", "After the War", and Lizzy.

Back to my ubiquitous links. Microsoft may not be completely off the hook after all... New York and California (link to news story here) are not content with the DOJ's loosening of the judicial chains, and are set to launch their own continuing suits. Let's see how far that gets. I've been wondering about the EU's stance on all this. If the US decides not to do anything about the monopoly issue, but Europe does, does that mean Microsoft cannot distribute in Europe before they make any necessary changes? Anyone who knows, put something on The Fridge (top right).

posted by Mr Prak 9:35 AM

Monday, September 10, 2001

Ooops. If you're at all interested in freedom, copyright protections, innocent until proven guilty, etc., have a look at this. It's the mother of the DMCA, even if it's really the child of it. It's still a draft, i.e. not ready for shipping to government, and it's US, so it probably won't make it to the EU, but it's a nasty precedent. Article linked to here:New Copyright Bill Heading to DC

posted by Mr Prak 1:25 PM

I haven't mentioned this before, but I'll link to this article - "Judicial Monitoring: the Bureaucrat Blinks, Privacy Wins" - it's referring to the fact that US Judges and their staff have been complaining that their PCs were being snooped on. That means their email, documents, and records of any websites they visited, were being tracked and monitored. They complained, and won. This was an important victory, because let's face it: if the judges must be monitored, what hope for the rest of us?

The North went well, thanks for asking. We were fine aside from one or two squeaks, getting lost and ending up in very very sectarian areas for 30 seconds or so. The Giant's Causeway (linked to here, here, here, and here) was beautiful. Don't tell anyone, but I stole a piece of it, and am going to polish it and bring it around with me.

Also, I am to become a Technical Consultant for a script. I have no further details yet, and will probably be sworn to secrecy until the release date, but I'll tell you what I can when I can.

posted by Mr Prak 1:20 PM

Friday, September 07, 2001

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" has won the Hugo award. That's all.
posted by Mr Prak 4:40 PM

Not necessarily the most up-to-date link I've ever posted, but here's a classic Eurosport Headline.
posted by Mr Prak 12:58 PM

OK, it's been a week, but I have a good excuse. I think. First off, some stuff about Microsoft. The EU has launched a fresh probe into Microsoft, focussing on its dominance in the small server market. Before you turn your brain off at the mention of anything technical, that's just focussing on their sales of software to enable small to medium groups of people share files, printers, and the internet. Or even to power small websites. This investigation is nothing like the US one which was just holed below the waterline.

Also, I spent the first three days of this week in Microsoft, teaching them how to use one of their server products, ironically (ironic on two levels, as it happens - I'll leave you to figure that one. Oh, and for our american readers, irony is not the same as sarcasm, bad luck, or rain on a rainy day, a free ride when you've already paid, etc.) It's a lovely place, lovely facilities, lovely canteen, lovely people, odd training them though. A bit like talking to a wall, really. Albeit a wall with some very intelligent bricks. They just don't talk much. Another bizarre thing is that some of the attendees apparently knew more about the product in some ways than I did. Nevermind.

Finally went to see The Planet of the Apes this week. It's crap. Don't go. Bad story, bad dialogue, bad continuity, bad 2D characterisations, bad effects (pre-ST-TNG quality), improbable central ideas, etc. Call me a cynic, but if you're going to rely on technology for your story, either make it semi-accurate (e.g. Contact, Star Trek 1), or don't use many direct references to science (e.g. Alien, Pitch Black, etc.)

Oh, and some of you will have noticed the heavy news stories from Belfast this week. (note: links point to the top stories in the Irish Times from three diferent days this week) Well guess what? I'm going up North tomorrow, for the weekend. Yippee. I'm sure it won't be a problem, but my family aren't. Nor are some other friends. Oddly, the person I'm going to visit is totally nonplussed by the whole thing. Hmmmm.

posted by Mr Prak 12:45 PM

Friday, August 31, 2001

"If there are legal things to do with the tool, then you don't ban the tool and you don't ban the person who came up with the tool," said Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, an Internet civil liberties organization based in San Francisco.

Quote related to the Sklyarov case. Some guys are trying to make that law (the DMCA) illegal, by saying it's unconstitutional. How about STUPID?

posted by Mr Prak 10:16 AM

Thursday, August 30, 2001

Grrrr. Sklyarov has been indicted. It's been a while since he was arrested (I've more info below in an earlier blog), but that's it. He's down.

I've a little more news, but can't type it out right now. Grr. Busy.

posted by Mr Prak 1:31 PM

Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Tired today. I'm training some people in the gentle art of Visual Basic. Eurgh. Icky language. In fact, calling it a language is icky. But it pays the bills. Next week I'm training Microsoft in one of their own server products. Yum.

Yesterday I went for "a pint" (in the Irish sense) with an old pal. We collected a few people as the day went on, and there were about 10 people in the pub by the time I arrived. This dwindled to five, and finally four of us went for dinner in a Thai restaurant. Very very nice, I must say. Tiring, though. Nearly missed the train this morning as a result.

posted by Mr Prak 1:19 PM

Monday, August 27, 2001

I mentioned Dmitri Sklyarov before - there is a site, freesklyarov.org, that has a background and regular update of his situation. Pretty abysmal, really. This whole DMCA thing is very Orwellian. Brief summary: it is illegal to create in software any tool that allows the cracking of a computer code (tech-speak: it's illegal to break encryption). Sounds OK so far? Then why isn't it illegal to make chainsaws? They're a tool that allows the slicing and dicing of innocent people. Or cars? A tool that kills more people than anything else, except perhaps cigarettes. Oh, and what about cigarettes?

My point is simple: creating a tool should not be illegal. The illegal use of that tool should be punished. If Joe Bloggs buys a length of wood from a hardware store and uses it to beat his neighbour up, he is the criminal, not the hardware store that cut, shaped, and sold the plank.

Rant over for now. I'm tired, doing the daily coffee ritual, etc. Recovering from a weekend that was quite gentle by my younger days' standards. Friday night, went out with the new workmates, had dinner in a Belgian restaurant, lots of Belgian beer, and not enough scandal. Boring bunch, really. Saturday, drove to Leitrim (very rural relatively depopulated area in North-West Ireland), stayed in a nice cheap little hotel, played a gig to a crowd who could be realistically described as lethargic, dead, bored, or disinterested. Apparently, we went down very well. A few came up to us afterwards and said it was the best gig they'd seen in a while, we were the best band, etc. Hrmph. The others in the band thought it was a bad night. Obviously not seasoned professionals like me ;-) Sunday was simply a long winding drive home. It was a lovely day, so we stopped in a few little towns, sat by a lake, looked at boats, thought about having a weekend boating up and down the Shannon, bought Ice Cream, talked shite, and got no tan.

So how was your weekend? Oh, that reminds me. I've put up "The Fridge" (over on the right). Drop into it and leave me a note if you like.
posted by Mr Prak 10:35 AM