walkersmith.net weblog

Three Hundred and Sixty-Five

Just some favorites from this passing year,

Favorite blogs:
plasticbag.org, Tom Coates takes first
Antipixel, Jeremy Hedley’s in the second place
Onlineblog, Guardian Online team the second runner up.

Favorite Movies:
28 Days Later, with Matrix Reloaded as runner up, and Kill Bill coming third.

Favorite CDs:
LoveBox by Groove Armada, with Blur’s Think Tank as runner up, and Radiohead's Hail to the Thief.

Favorite Books:
Evolution by Stephen Baxter, with Catch-22 by Joseph Heller as a close second, and Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson.

Favorite TV:
The Office from the BBC (I only just got to see it in Chile), followed by The Sopranos, one of the series, not sure where we are here in Chile. In third place I would put the Enterprise, but lets face it it’s not exactly STNG.

Favorite DVD:
M*A*S*H season 1,2,3,4 in all places. I cannot watch enough this series. I cannot wait to own all of them.

Favorite person:

My wife, nobody even comes close.

book: Darwinia, Robert Charles Wilson

For Darwinia (ISBN: 0812566629) take pre-world war two Europe and rip it away, don’t leave a crater, instead replace it with a new world, quite literally. Then add some super-beings - sentience – that control the universe. Then after gas mark five for 30 minutes you find out that time, in this book, is just a recording of data, one that is being infected. This about sums up the recipe that is Darwinia.

An excellent outing with Wilson, this book won lots of Science Fiction awards, so of course it’s good. If you are going to read a Wilson book you might as well start here, it’s one of his best. Chronoliths though is still a favourite.

4/5

book: Bios, Robert Charles Wilson

Bios (ISBN: 0812575741) is set in an “Aliens” corporation type future, families and trusts are his constructs, humans are trying to tame a highly poisonous planet, called Iris. The planet kills un-protected humans within minutes of exposure. A genetically, immune system boosted women is sent to the planet with a new protection suite. Somewhere along the way an Asimov’s Foundations Galaxia is partially introduced. The book did not seem to be as well put together as Wilson’s other books I had read, it just seemed a bit bitty. However, still highly readable science fiction.

3/5

book: Imperial Earth, Arthur C. Clarke

Imperial Earth (ISBN: 1588247066) was cool. I was reading it from start to finish thinking it was a new book by Clarke. Only to finish the book and find out it was written in the seventies. What does this mean? Well the book felt so fresh, so Clarke like, that yes it could have been written this year. Some of the future hints in the book, that Clarke always leaves lying around in his books; the things secondary to the story felt so relevant. For a while I believed it was actually written post-9/11, he seems to mention lightly on terrorism, it’s not a major part of the book.

All the science motifs of this book seem real, or could be made up today. The drive for the spaceships that transport the main character from a moon around Saturn to Earth is driven by a micro-black hole. Who knows, that’s the fun of science fiction. He also talks about huge multi-arrayed radio telescopes, not so many miles from here, near San Pedro, ESO along with some US agency are starting to build such telescopes, albeit with a diameter a little smaller than those in the book.

The book takes you on a trip with Duncan, from a moon around Saturn to Earth for the United States 500-year anniversary. It describes a little about Earths future. In ’76 when the book was written you can tell that Clarke really understood the Internet, well before what it has become today, he even has PDA’s, computer security. The more I think about it the more I see why Clarke is the best ever science fiction writer. I wonder what OS he uses?

The book also allows you glimpse some of the solutions to the Earth current population problem, again hints, he leaves you to fill in the gaps. It sounds like humans killed humans to cull our population, then imposing strict birth rates. I think a figure of half a billion is the world population in Clarke’s future. City lie as wastelands, humans moving out to more human landscapes – the countryside.

My hope is that Clarke still has some more books in him, co-authoring as he has done previously is good enough for me. Keep going Clarke.

4.5/5

Lights, Camera, Action

It’s getting close. The opening day of a great play, a grand piece of theatre. The actors involved are getting more used to their parts. The mother is still growing and father getting more and more stressed. Now is a time of quiet before the storm, you can feel it, the storm that now sits kicking the shit out of the insides of Andrea’s stomach. Andrea is week 33.

Throughout the pregnancy I have been so proud of my wife for dealing with – well - being pregnant. How do they do it? The other day I was watching her tummy. I could see our puppy (cachorro) moving around within her, I could imagine seeing it’s feet kicking up against her; I am sure I did see. Now if this had been a man with all these changes and things going on inside our bodies we would be down the hospital straight away. Our bodies do not change, women’s do. If men gave birth we would have hospitals just set aside for our pregnancy woes. Andrea seems to carry on valiantly.

So soon the curtains go up, we enter stage left, and the baby stage right, lights camera and action.

Happy Christmas

book: A Severed Head, Iris Murdoch

Some proper literature for a change; a real novel. I bought A Severed Head (ISBN: 0140020039) after watching the film "Iris" with my wife, a film we both thoroughly enjoyed, it inspired me you could say.

The book is dense, well it was for me. There were a couple of times I could have put it down and forgotten about it. But perseverance was at hand, and this book became quite well liked, I felt a fondness to it and the characters. It would have made a good beach book; you need lots of time for it. It's not the simple stuff you can normally find me reading. I shall be reading Murdoch in the future, the sort of books I am sure can be found in second hand bookshops.

Cloning Suns

Today I finished cloning four Sun systems. Using the following helpful commands,format, newfs, mount, ufsdump, cd, ufsrestore, vi, umount, installboot and fsck. So simple to those who know what I am talking about.

Annoying copyright and intro’s on DVD’s

I came back to watching my Star Trek TNG DVD’s of season one tonight, last night I had just finished the first season of Babylon 5, maybe this will be covered in another entry. I watched, oh I don’t know, one or two episodes a couple of months ago when it was delivered, I was not sure how many. So tonight I started with the first disk. Boy did it take a long time to get beyond firstly the copyright and then a nice, but now on retrospect, annoying montage of the actors appearing in TNG, it was of course the first episode of the second disk; copyright and intro again.

My fix for this problem is the following: Show only once the copyright and intro’s, the first time the disk is inserted, from then on in you do not get the annoying “Operation not permitted” message on trying to quickly get to the menu, it just takes you straight to the menu. How this is implemented I leave up to the more intelligent people out there.

Moving furniture

I would like to redesign this site – again. There are good reasons though: one is usability and the other is the layout and design. For a while now I have had a front-page, where the rest of the site can be accessed, I don’t think it works. Surfers may get to this front page, but they don’t go anywhere else, so what’s the point then. With this redesign this blog will be the front page to walkersmith.net, with just a simple navigation bar at the top to jump to the other major areas.

On the design front some people have hinted, no said, the light grey color thing is unreadable and well a little lame. On my iBook I would disagree, but on some CRT’s I would have to agree. Plus you have to just move the furniture around the room once in a while, ask my wife.

To wet your appetite here are the colors to be seen in the new design, my color swatch.

Under the hot weather

I am feeling a little bit below par today. Started yesterday when I woke up with a sore throat, it’s now a fully-fledged cold thing. I should really not be too troubled by a cold, but getting a cold in the heat of the Chilean summer is just down right strange. Yes I am used to colds, but those that you get in the Liverpool winter, stuff you pick up on the bus, or just getting too cold waiting for the bus. Out here in over 20 Centigrade plus temperatures getting a cold just feels so, well, un-natural.

eBooks really do work

Tonight for the first time since I started reading electronically, an eBook that is, I pick up a real book, one made out of something real; paper. eBooks have been something of a brand new experience for me over the last few weeks. So far I have read two books and currently working my way through a Science Fiction magazine.

For a while now I heard of eBooks but had never really gotten around to ever reading one. I am not the sort of person who would sit in front of my computer and read a book. You could not do this is lots of places, the toilet for example springs to mind. I like to keep my iBook away from smelly environments. I then bought a Clie UX50 from Sony, this eventually lead on to the eBooks. I do actually read them on the toilet, the Clie is small enough and not effected by smells.

eBooks have several advantages for me over real books. I can fit a lot into my Clie, although I do not parallel read books so I am not sure if this is really a great advantage, however I can imagine it being so for holidays. Being located in Chile, but still reading only in English, reading eBooks allows me to order books without the cost or wait of delivery, this has proved quite an advantage. And as yet, only needing a battery source is a disadvantage.

book: James Bond in the Man with a Red Tattoo, Raymond Benson

The Man With a Red Tattoo (ISBN: 0399148841) is a below par James Bond book in my opinion. I have over the last couple of years been reading Fleming's books, a Bond delight. I am not sure if I am an old school bond fan or new anymore. My first Bond book was by Benson, and it got me more hooked on Bond, which Brit could not be. Bond appears in this book as rather dull and flat, his character is not well portrayed, new and old Bond too well mixed into what became a dull flat cocktail; I am sure not to Bonds high standards.

If you are Bond efficianado then you have to give it a read, if not then re-read one of Flemings, and if you have never then do so immeditaley.

Happy Anniversary Darling

Bambina, thank you so much for the first year. Here’s to many more. Te Amo.

Time is a companion

Time. It changes from moment to moment; it’s our constant companion, passing by. The other day I got to thinking about what time is for me. Andrea, my wife, is pregnant. The baby is due in only ten more weeks, seventy days, 1680 hours, 6,048,000 seconds – phew.

“How many weeks are you?” I asked.

“Thirty,” she smiled at me.

This started a whole chain of processing off in the rather dull slow aging neurones in my head. Ten weeks, such a long time away. This thought stems I found out after some introspective thought from two things in my childhood.

Firstly at school, between the ages of 7 and 16 time was measured around school, it started in the morning and finished in the afternoon, if only work was so short. But more importantly were the holidays, freedom to do anything. Holidays were split by terms, the time spent at school, these invariably I seem to remember where around 5 weeks long. To a child this was an eternity. It’s true; just think how much you could learn in one term at school aged 11, all those things you did not know before.

Secondly which strictly speaking was not my childhood, but let’s not really say adulthood, maybe young adult, was at University. At University terms were ten weeks in length, the time to our babies zero birthday. Holidays were not the cool things about University like school, rather the opposite, being at University was cool, there was drink, parties, women and of the course the discovery of freedom, oh and learning.

It’s in these periods that time has been measures for me. School and University had a lasting effect on me, my internal clock.

But now things are changing. I have another way of measuring time, through the life of my unborn child. These nine months is just shooting past, faster than a speeding Intercity 125. These next ten weeks I am sure as well will even go faster, relatively speaking of course. I think when junior is born time will forever change for me. My father took me aside one time and told me he could not believe how fast his time is going. I sort of understood. Now I understand better. I will see time through my Childs eyes from now on. Measuring instead his/her landmarks, walking, swimming, exams, first partners, and marriage. He will of course measure her/his time at school, with terms, waiting for his endless holidays as I once did. Then perhaps at University discovering his freedom, waiting for his holidays to fly past waiting for term to start and for his own life to unfold. On and on, as time goes by.

Let me finish up by quoting from one of the wisest Captains in history, maybe he was quoting someone else, who knows. I rather like his thoughts on time. So I leave you with Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701D),

"Someone once told me that time is a companion who goes with us on a journey, reminds us to cherish every moment ...because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've live."

iBack book

It was quite a while without my iBook, but thanks to Uno it’s now back in my loving fingers. Strange that a computer can become important, is something precious. When it broke, well you just feel plain let down. Actually the iBook has come back with a slightly different character, it’s had a new logic board, so really it completely different, I wont let it worry me.

This is my second iBook, my wife looks after the older, first of the line. Both of them have had bad logic boards. First the older one with a firewire problem, and then this one, with problems on the display both due to buggered logic boards. They are great computers, but they are not really that durable. If you are thinking of buying, get the applecare, guarenteed working computer for the next three years is not a bad idea.

book: Red Thunder, by John Varley

This was some fantastic science fiction. It may have been called "The Famous Five Go To Mars", if only there had been five kids and it had been written by Blyton, but it wasn’t it was called Red Thunder by John Varley (ISBN: 0441010156). And disappointingly none of the characters were called Fanny (I refer to a Famous five character name which still tickles me pink today.)

The book takes you from Earth to Mars with what sounds like a few young adults, a washed up astronaut and his hyper intelligent but troubled brother, and only a million dollars or so budget and a Blue Peter make it yourself kit, oh and a new piece of science, eventually named the Squeeze drive. Varley does a marvellous job with what seems an impossible story line, his characters become quite real in the end, and I would love to see a follow up. The squeeze drive was a great science fiction idea.

Film: Kill Bill

Watched and thoroughly enjoyed Tarantinos Kill Bill. This highly stylized film was a treat, especially to people who like a) Tarentino films and b) Samurai/Japanese films. Therman plays the central role impeccably. The story appears and is simple, but the telling is clever, the action is great, and the fight scenes just over top, fueled from the post Matrix era. A must watch.

The Office

Has anybody seen The Office? You may have if you are in the UK, well I am not, being out in Chile and starved of British comedy, but forced fed American sitcoms The Office is such a welcome change in the diet.

Andrea has already taken such a great dislike to the manager, so much so she can’t watch the program anymore. "I hate him so much, I am going into the other room" she says storming out of the lounge were she goes read instead. Either the humour does not work well for Chileans or she really had a boss like him, probably a mixture of the two.

Xmas tree goes up

The Christmas tree went up today. Andrea had me down at Homebase buying Xmas decorations, she claimed I was being frugal; she said other worse words I could not repeat here.

I always thought the reason to have children was so that when they went to school they could make free Xmas decorations, I seem to remember doing this myself.

Hornitos

Moby's album Play on my iPod accompanied me this morning on my ride into
Mejillones for some extra supplies. It's around thirty clicks each way, so the album about covered the whole way. Today is our second day in Hornitos; we are staying at the Apart Hotel, really a building of departments, the second largest building there. The apartment could comfortably sleep six, we are only two point something and growing.

We left a bit before midday on Saturday, we had the place booked for two nights, although now I think we shall stay for three. Like any journey in the North of Chile this one starts out with a bit of a road trip, albeit by Chilean standards a small one, just a few clicks over eighty kilometres. On the trip we discover the air conditioning is not working, this would be fatal on longer and hotter trips. As it was I rolled down the ‘Window’ air conditioner, and got myself a nice arm tan.

On arrival we notice that the road that runs the length of the beach is now tarmacked, completely, with stop and speed signs and everything. This has completely changed the Hornitos character, but makes it better on your car suspension and shocks; I wonder why they did not do this a few years ago.

At the apart hotel the janitor greets us. A Chilean man of perhaps over forty, fifty or even sixty years old I would say, looking at his leathered face he has done quite a lot of work outside, maybe fishing. Anyway I am sure he does not speak a word of Spanish, he mutters on faster than French TGV, and slurs his words through a Kenwood mixer. It seems Andrea understands him by some miracle and I start to unload the car. It turns out Andrea the native speaker was not quite following the chap; whose name I am sure of we will never know.

The department is big, its got a big veranda at least 10x5m, with of course a view of the beach and ocean. You walk into the kitchen of only modest size and then the lounge, again modest, but it has a large glass dining table. At the back of the apartment there are three bedrooms and toilet. One bedroom with a double bed and the others sleep bunkers. Even though we are only two our stuff is spread out everywhere.

Everything seems to work! The exclamation mark is there to add my surprise at this sentence. We have rented houses before and not everything quite worked. I remember one time we flooded a house with literally a foot of water on the ground floor because of a tank problem. Toilets can also be a bit iffy as well, especially on flushing. This house does not seem to suffer. We even have emergency lamps.

Our toldo has yet to blow down and fail where others have, that'll be because we have a great one, one secured by rocks, no Dad they should not be falling on my head. The beach has proved to be a bit of a disappointment to me in two areas. Firstly it is a bit dirty either by rubish people have left or stuff getting washed up. I have yet to see a beach be washed in Chile. Secondly there is a huge amount of huge jellyfish, how I hate those critters. Other than that it's a lovely long broad sweeping beach, during the summer you have guaranteed sun.

We have of course with thanks to Andreas ever growing culinary skills been eating like royalty on this trip. Pasta, bar-b-que, salads, you name it we have eaten it. Today I think we are bar-b-que'ing chicken. I will have to make sure I go swimming all next week just to shed the pounds I put on these couple of days.

Andrea loves this beach and to see her enjoy a couple of days her before the upcoming laying of the egg is precious to me. A beach like this to a Northern Chilean is like second heaven. ‘La Player’ they say, extending the world for emphasis.

It's earlier morning and U2's All That You Can't Leave behind is the backing track, of course starting with "Beautiful Day", now I am up to "Heaven on Earth". I have a backing track to U2 too; the birds which I have never seen in such number in Hornitos and of course the Ocean, it has been a constant, with us for the last four days, forever crashing, again and again.

Last night:
"Bambino...Bambino!" Andrea hissed with an accompanying nudge.
"Wha?" I say, not really getting the word out.
"There's a funny sound"
I lie still, the fight or flight reflex says ‘do nothing’ I wait in bed. We both listen. I can catalogue the sounds, dogs, ocean, Andrea's breathing, birds and a whole lot of not much else; Andrea’s back sleeping. It takes me a while to settle down again.

There aren't many other places you experience pure darkness anymore, always the lamppost for us city dwellers. Here in Hornitos during the night we have had pure darkness. Last night for example I could not see a thing. No light leaking in from outside, no light from computer LEDs, just absence of light.

Today we are off home. It's been a great few days, getting away from it all. Cell phones off, reading, reading and reading, one of us winning at dominoes. Kisses and looks, love to my wife.