Rob’s blog

Adobe, the makers of the world’s best design applications, can’t...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Adobe, the makers of the world’s best design applications, can’t or won’t make Acrobat’s settings window stay roughly the same size or in the same position when switching through the tabs.

I only opened the damn thing to stop it from displaying PDFs in web views. Turns out you can’t. (You have to delete it from /Library/Internet plug-ins.)

"Elitist systems claim to be meritocracies, but in such systems almost no one gets to where they are..."

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:59:00 +0000

“Elitist systems claim to be meritocracies, but in such systems almost no one gets to where they are placed on merit, not when we are all so inherently equal.”

- Daniel Dorling — Injustice

After a few days’ break following The Call of the Weird, I’ve dived into Injustice. It’s packed full of information, which makes it slow going at times but I’ve already put a few hours into it and can’t wait to read more. It’s a bit like being in a good lecture — wholesome and enjoyable but not exactly pacey.

This bit’s taken from the chapter on education, the first chapter that focuses on the five injustices that Dorling identifies at the start, and if he treats the other four in the same way then the praise he’s got is absolutely justified.

Edit: This line from towards the end of the chapter also stood out.

We no longer view it as acceptable to make black people sit together at the back of the bus, but we still think it acceptable to sit ‘slow’ children together at the back of the class.

Endnotes: The Call of the Weird

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:18:00 +0000

Louis Theroux’s first and so far only book, published in 2005, is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long, long time. We’re talking out-loud laughs. The kind of laughs that make you not want to read it on the Tube because other people will think you’re crazy and stare at you but you can’t put it down and end up looking mental anyway.

It’s great. Really great.

Theroux goes back to the US to catch up with people that he’d interviewed in his Weird Weekends series and stand-alone documentaries, calling it a “reunion tour”.

Each fairly short, breezy chapter covers one person or group — UFO nuts, American Nazis, Ike Turner, gangsta rappers, prostitutes, and more. Each is brilliant and “just one more page” quickly becomes “just one more story”.

Half of that is the writing — done in a very similar way to Theroux’s voice-over bits in his films. It feels very human, very honest — reinforced by him being upfront about parts of his “reunion tour” that aren’t going as he’d hoped.

That’s one of the best things about the book, that he’s very open, and has changed my view of Theroux in a subtle but substantial way. He always came across as smart but also that he was putting on a persona for interviews, and behind it was sort of a cold calculation of how to get the most out of people.

But The Call of the Weird makes it clear that what you see in the documentaries is him, that he’s being genuine with his interviewees. Rather than naive-sounding questions being asked in an attempt to squeeze people for shocking or funny responses, he asks the simple questions because often they’re the best ones you can ask.

‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,’ I interrupted. ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.’

Even though there are ten chapters, I blazed through the book in about a week and couldn’t bear finishing it — I just wanted more stories. Highly recommended.

"I was running out of questions for Margold, and so, for old time’s sake, I asked to see his penis...."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:32:12 +0000

“

I was running out of questions for Margold, and so, for old time’s sake, I asked to see his penis. He stood up, pulled down his trousers and boxer shorts, and out it came, like a pork sausage. Hanging several inches lower than the end of his penis were two of the biggest, dangliest balls I’d ever seen.

We stayed like that for a moment, me looking at his genitals in the darkened room. Then I said: ‘Okay, you can put them away now.’

”

- Louis Theroux — The Call of the Weird

Netflix Roulette

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Netflix launched in Britain a week ago and I was really excited to sign up and check it out, after years of hearing how great the US service is.

Put simply, it’s a disappointment. On a technical level it’s great but that’s ruined by the gaps in its content library.

A few probing searches to see how bare its cupboard is turned into what I call Netflix Roulette — you keep searching until you get a match.

That sounds harsh, but I think the list below — my searches, but re-ordered alphabetically — shows the problem quite clearly. (There’s no particular logic behind what I searched for.)

28 Days Later? No.
Ali? No
Alien? No.
Apocalypse Now? No.
Batman Begins? No.
Blade Runner? No.
Boogie Nights? No.
The Bourne Identity? No.
Brick? No.
Burn Notice? No.
Casablanca? No.
Citizen Kane? No.
Collateral? No.
Cry-Baby? No.
CSI? No.
The Dark Knight? No.
Dawn of the Dead? No.
Deadwood? No.
The Deer Hunter? No.
Die Hard? No.
Dirty Harry? No.
Double Indemnity? No.
Dr Strangelove? No.
ER? No.
The Exorcist? No.
Friends? No.
The Godfather? No.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish one)? No.
Good Will Hunting? No.
Hairspray? No.
Heat? No.
Hill Street Blues? No.
Hitch? No.
Hot Fuzz? No.
Independence Day? No.
Juno? No.
Jurassic Park? No.
Kingdom of Heaven? No.
LA Confidential? No.
Law & Order? No.
Layer Cake? No.
Magnolia? No.
Miller’s Crossing? No.
Mission Impossible? No.
NYPD Blue? No.
Ocean’s Eleven? No.
The Passion of the Christ? No.
The Prestige? No.
Psycho? No.
Pulp Fiction? No.
Raising Arizona? No.
Rambo? No.
Rocky? No.
Shaun of the Dead? No.
The Shawshank Redemption? No.
The Shield? No.
The Shining? No.
The Silence of the Lambs? No.
Six Feet Under? No.
Sliding Doors? No.
The Sopranos? No.
Southland? No.
State of Play (TV series or film)? No.
Third Watch? No.
Toy Story? No.
True Blood? No.
Vanilla Sky? No.
The Wire? No.

The one that finally ended it was Along Came Polly, which, er, was on Five last night.

The lack of titles is so bad that if you search for anything with “the” in the name then the odds are pretty good that The Office (US) or The Inbetweeners will be in the top results. Searching for The Shawshank Redemption returns — in this order — The Office (US), Saw: The Final Chapter, and The Inbetweeners. Not good for such a popular and well-regarded film.

Nor is the lack of classics such as Casablanca, which came out 70 years ago. Or how about Citizen Kane — 71 years old and still often called the “greatest film of all time”.

As much as I want to like Netflix, I can’t justify subscribing when it’s missing so much. I’m not sure many people could, even at just £6 a month.

A handful of decent films, plenty of crap ones, some ITV dramas and lots of kids’ programmes aren’t a great sales pitch.

Resolutions

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:21:00 +0000

2560×1440! Hahaha. Aha. Ha. Hm.

Yeah that joke’s been made before.

I’m really bad at making and sticking to New Year’s resolutions. Incredibly bad. Of my original three I’ve managed to break all of them. And it’s only January 2nd.

With that in mind, there’s very little reason to believe that I’ll stick to anyone of the ones listed below but I’m going to try anyway.

Take my camera (almost) everywhere. I’m not going to aim for a photo a day — because it becomes a chore and I get really anxious about not doing it — but something close would be nice.
Run more. I haven’t been for a run since August. The guilt, the shame.
Play Psychonauts. My mate Jim’s been banging on about this for six years and I still haven’t got round to it.
Blog more. With this I’m already halway there!
Drink less. Woo! Sobriety!
Use The Beast for something more than playing games in Windows.
Read more. I have so many unread books it would take me most of a decade to read them all at my current rate. Who am I, Gatsby? “Frontin’ wit’ all dem books”?

"Usually, a Call of Duty game squats grimly atop the chart at this time of year, as the nation’s..."

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:27:38 +0000

“Usually, a Call of Duty game squats grimly atop the chart at this time of year, as the nation’s men-folk once again spend the festive season shooting lots of other men again and again and again.”

- Alec Meer — Snow > Gruff Men: Skyrim is UK Xmas #1

Sir Moanalot: Oblivion

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:30:06 +0000

Since Skyrim just came out, I thought I’d grab the previous game, Oblivion, from Steam and see if I unfairly brushed it off when I first played it a couple of years ago.

After just over 12 hours of play, I’ve put it down again. I was actually ready to uninstall it in frustration.

Maybe the problem is that I’d only put 12 hours into it. It’s meant to be this huge, epic game with countless things to do. And in 12 hours I hadn’t done that much. Explored a bit. A couple of dungeons. A bit of the main quest.

But that’s still twelve hours. In 12 hours I hadn’t managed to find the fun. Just a lot of walking, a bit of boring fighting, a bit of boring quest dialogue, and a bit of riding on a horse admiring the scenery.

No fun. In twelve hours.

The combat’s not fun (man hits you, you block, you hit man, he falls over).

The dungeons aren’t fun (you go in, kill everything and everyone for no reason, and get inferior boots as a reward).

The story’s not fun (“light the Dragonfires in the Temple of the One in the Imperial City with the Amulet of Kings else the realms of Oblivion swallow us whole”).

Even levelling up isn’t fun. Because of its complex combination of attributes and skills you can very easily end up with a weak character. And that means you’ll struggle at higher levels because, in a decision seemingly designed to undercut any feeling of being a Mighty Adventurer, all the enemies level with you.

Yep. Those bandits, highwaymen, wolves, rats and mudcrabs are going to be roughly the same difficulty at level 25 as they were at level 1.

When I play an RPG I want to feel the time and effort I’m spending is making my character stronger, better, more capable. But in Oblivion you feel weak.

I’ve pumped 12 hours into this character and yet I’m still Guybrush Inferiorboots — a distinctly unmighty pirate.

I’m going to play something fun.

"Israel says” — what an astonishing opening two words to a report on a great day for Palestinian..."

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:26:01 +0000

“Israel says” — what an astonishing opening two words to a report on a great day for Palestinian diplomacy… Why don’t we just save the license fee and let Netanyahu’s office broadcast the news instead?”

- Craig Murray: BBC Shame

Your ‘Martin O’Neill is coming back to Leicester City’ round-up, part 94

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:17:00 +0100

I swear this happens every time we sack our manager. At this point there’s only one other person more-predicted to make a glorious return.

BBC Sport:

Martin O’Neill, who successfully managed Leicester from 1995-2000, leading them into the Premier League and to two League Cup successes in 1997 and 2000, has been installed as an early favourite to succeed Eriksson.

The Guardian:

Martin O’Neill, who won two League Cups during the five years he spent in charge of Leicester from 1995 to 2000, has been installed as the early favourite to take over.

The Daily Telegraph:

Former Aston Villa and City manager O’Neill would be a popular appointment with the Foxes faithful, while there is also believed to be support for Mark Hughes and, perhaps surprisingly, Billy Davies.

The Independent:

The early favourite to replace Eriksson is Martin O’Neill, who enjoyed success at the club during five years in the post between 1995-2000.

Sun Sport:

Billy Davies and Martin O’Neill are the top tips to replace him.

Mirror Football:

Martin O’Neill, who managed Leicester for five years and led them to the Premier League as well as two League Cup triumphs, has emerged as the early favourite to succeed Eriksson.

Sky Sports — ‘O’Neill 11/8 for Foxes return’:

Martin O’Neill has been installed as the early 11/8 favourite with Sky Bet for a sensational return to Leicester after Sven Goran Eriksson was sacked on Monday.

And, originally:

Former Leicester boss Martin O’Neill will be installed as a favourite to take charge at King Power Stadium, having left a successful first spell at the club in 2000.

NBA lockout: millionaires vs billionaires?

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:08:47 +0100

NBA lockout: millionaires vs billionaires?:

Devin Dignam and Dre Alvarez at Wages of Wins:

We keep hearing the NBA lockout being described as “millionaires versus billionaires”. But most NBA players won’t become big earners like Kobe and LeBron. … Here’s a fun comparison: on average, 1600 people win a lottery of at least $1 million every year! That’s right; the lottery has produced almost twice as many millionaires in the last year as the NBA has in the last twenty years!

Also, as they point out, players retire quite young and once they do that income stops.

This also gets away from the main issue of this labour dispute: it’s a lockout, not a strike. The owners are demanding a greater share of “basketball-related income” than they did under the previous collective agreement.

Hackgate: A Triumph for the Liberal Media?

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:25:05 +0100

Hackgate: A Triumph for the Liberal Media?:

David Cromwell & David Edwards:

The “ownership of the British media” has always been a red herring. The problem is not that the media is owned by this or that corporate power, but that it is corporate power.

Britain, Qadafi and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:49:05 +0100

Britain, Qadafi and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group:

Mark Curtis:

While Bin Laden was drafting his declaration of jihad in early 1996, British intelligence was plotting with al-Qaida-associated terrorists in Libya to assassinate Colonel Qadafi. Qadafi had long challenged British interests and Western hegemony in the Middle East and Africa. The revolution that brought him to power in September 1969, recognised as ‘popular’ by British planners, overthrew the regime of eighty-year-old pro-British King Idriss, which provided a quarter of Britain’s oil and was home to £100 million worth of British oil investment. The ‘security of oil supplies must be our greatest concern’, one Foreign Office official noted a year after the revolution. However, Qadafi set about removing long-standing US and British military bases, nationalising the oil import and distribution industries and demanding vastly increased revenues from the oil-producing companies. The regime later sealed its fate as a British and US bête noire by espousing an independent militant nationalism and sponsoring various anti-Western regimes, as well as terrorist groups such as the IRA.

Flogging is too good for them

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:18:41 +0100

Flogging is too good for them:

Mark Steel:

[According to David Starkey] the riots were caused, apparently, by black culture, and we can get round the fact some rioters were white by saying they’d turned black, and get round the fact most black people don’t riot by saying they’ve turned white. You could use that logic to prove that being Welsh causes boats to capsize, or that everything alive is a penguin.

"The more that emerges about the Thameslink contract stitch-up the murkier it gets, but the bottom..."

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:24:10 +0100

“The more that emerges about the Thameslink contract stitch-up the murkier it gets, but the bottom line is that a government that says it wants to create jobs is actively trying to destroy them in Derby.”

- RMT general secretary Bob Crow — Unions want Bombardier bid answers

‘The absurd reasoning that defines the drug war’

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:25:00 +0100

‘The absurd reasoning that defines the drug war’:

Bill Conroy for Narco News:

Despite the fact that an ICE informant, Ramirez Peyro, helped to facilitate a number of the House of Death murders while working for the U.S. government, because the victims were Mexicans the U.S. government and its law enforcers did not “owe a duty of care” to them. In other words, their murders don’t count, nor is anyone in the U.S. government “negligent” for allowing those murders to occur with an ICE informant’s assistance, even if U.S. officials knew in advance that the murders were to be carried out.

And now, under this same absurd legal reasoning, which defines the drug war, that same informant has legal standing to sue the U.S. taxpayers, essentially, requiring them to make good on money ICE still allegedly owes him for his work — which, of course, includes helping to run the House of Death.

From Salt of the Earth to Scum on the Streets (Part 1)

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:48:05 +0100

From Salt of the Earth to Scum on the Streets (Part 1):

Owen Jones interviewed by Samuel Grove for the New Left Project:

The idea that ‘we’re all middle-class now’ was embraced by both New Labour and the Tories alike. For the right, the exception to this was the so-called ‘underclass’, who were believed to be the product of state dependency and behavioural problems; for influential US right-winger Charles Murray, the break-down of marriage among lower income groups was the culprit. As well as being dehumanising (who would ever want to be labelled ‘underclass’?), it’s a ridiculous concept - are the rest of us part of an ‘overclass’?

The Myth of The New York Times, in Documentary Form

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:25:05 +0100

The Myth of The New York Times, in Documentary Form:

Chris Hedges, writing about NYT documentary Page One:

The reigning corporate ideology has infected the Times as it has most other liberal institutions. Because this ideology does not challenge the status quo it is defended by these editors as evidence of the paper’s impartiality, balance and neutrality. ExxonMobil, Citibank and Goldman Sachs are treated with deference and respect. The inability to see that major centers of corporate power are criminal enterprises that are plundering the nation and destroying the ecosystem is evidence not of objectivity but moral bankruptcy.

"It seems odd that a libertarian such as Staines thinks that the state is incompetent to do almost..."

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:37:31 +0100

“It seems odd that a libertarian such as Staines thinks that the state is incompetent to do almost anything other than decide who to kill.”

- Daniel Elton, Five good reasons why the death penalty should not be reinstated

‘Extreme Dishonesty’ – The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and Venezuela

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:24:05 +0100

‘Extreme Dishonesty’ – The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and Venezuela:

The Guardian is normally happy to ignore him and his views. But when Chomsky expresses criticism of an official enemy of the West, he suddenly does exist and matter for the Guardian. That indicates what we already knew: that the liberal press is perfectly aware of the importance of Chomsky’s work. They just ignore it because it undermines the wrong interests.