awmperry

My next DVD from Tesco DVD Rental came today; disc three of The West Wing series 6. It's still one of the best TV series around, but gah, it's exasperating.

Josh and Donna. They're the Harry and Ginny of political drama, Ross and Rachel but more obtuse. OK, so I'm a soppy old bugger. But come on, Harry and Ginny took six years, and we all thought they were dense....

<td align="right" width="35">
</td> <td class=""> </td>

SPOILERS - If you don't want to read spoilers, exercise some self-control and... well, don't read this post.

I watched Episode III earlier today on DVD. Not a bad film, and certainly the best of the Usurper Trilogy, but it definitely had its flaws.

The CGI, of course, was top-notch; a lot of the CG sets were indistinguishable from real sets, many of the characters were "invisbly CG" if that makes any sense, and they did some very impressive fluid dynamics and light-casting blob-mesh particle effects. The animation was good too, particularly the digital stunt doubles and the new "real military" mocap animations for the Clone Troopers.

The plot... well, the plot is up to Lucas' usual standard. Simple but compelling, with really dreadful dialogue... That said, the dialogue was a lot brisker and more real than in previous Star Wars films, not that that says much.

I was disappointed by the rapid switch in Anakin; whoops, he's accidentally assisted in killing Sam Jackson (told you there'd be spoilers), oh dear, can't be helped, no going back, time to swear undying fealty to the Emperor. Am I the only one who would try to sort out the Windu Situation by explaining what happened? I mean, before turning against all my principles and whatnot.

Ah well, the single-take space battle at the very beginning is spectacular, and must have brought at least a couple of huge render farms to their metaphorixal knees. Really nice work.

Threepio could have done with some more screen time, but what he had was good. Same with the other usual suspects, but I'm not sure why they even bothered waking Peter Mayhew up for the pathetic glimpse of the screen he got. Nice to see the Peter Cushing lookalike at the end, though.

Oh, and I still adore the Republic gunships. Great little beasts, like a cross between a Blackhawk, a Hind, an A-10 and something really big and shooty. The final assembly of Darth Vader is nicely done, too, but I'm getting royally sick of every franchise having a compulsory birth scene.

I would continue, but it's quarter to two in the morning and I really can't be bothered...

This morning, I hit F5 and waited for the status page to change. And there they were, those magical words:


<td align="right" width="35">
</td> <td class=""> </td>

Do we like that? Oh, yes we do....

The Violent Crime Reduction Bill will - if it's passed - do a lot of good. It'll aim to reduce excessive drinking, reduce violence, reduce football hooliganism and so on.

But it will also effectively kill the legitimate and safe sport of airsoft. Sections 30-33 prohibit the manufacture, sale and import of "realistic imitation firearms", which includes airsoft weapons. Okay, so it won't stop people playing airsoft, and it won't make our current weapons illegal, but not being able to buy the guns will in effect prohibit new players from taking part. It also means that old players won't be allowed to buy new guns, and will have to make do with their old guns as they age and deteriorate (and the guns, too).

One thing's for sure: if it looks like the bill is going to be passed unamended, a lot of players in Britain will be placing very large bulk orders from Hong Kong - certainly I will.

The main hope is that the Secretary Of State will grant an exemption for airsoft. So write to your MPs, emphasise that airsoft is a safe and well-organised sport played by responsible adults in controlled areas with all precautions taken to avoid injury to players or the public.

The full text of the bill is here.

We don't like idiot market traders selling cheap springers to teenagers either. Airsoft guns should be restricted to those who know how to use them responsibly and safely.
Oh, and before anyone suggests painting them orange... imagine wearing camo and trying hide in a bush while carrying an orange gun. Besides, then you'll get criminals painting real guns orange, as has happened in the States. That gets cops killed, because they hesitate when criminals point the gun at them.

I and a fair few other airsofters support some form of licensing scheme; not necessarily for individual guns, because that would be impractical given the number of guns that many airsofters own and the lack of proper serial numbers on most airsoft weapons, but for owners. Nothing spectacular, just a licence stating that the person has completed a course on the safe and responsible use, maintenance and storage of airsoft guns and is licenced to purchase and keep them. This could then be shown when buying or importing airsoft kit, and unscrupulous traders selling cheap guns indiscriminately can be hunted down and prosecuted.

Oh, and don't listen to Mothers Against Guns, they don't check their facts. An airsoft gun cannot, under any circumstances, be converted to fire live ammunition. You'd have to switch everything... well, switch the whole gun, in fact, for a real one.

I suppose you could keep the sling swivel.

...or so I'm told.

Bollocks.

Had a lecture yesterday, jam-packed with factual errors, linguistic errors, bad statistics...

For instance, did you know that widows used to be called "spinsters"? No, neither did I. Funny, that, here I was thinking a spinster was an unmarried woman as opposed to one who had been married but whose husband had popped his clogs. Not that misinterpreting "spinster" in sociological data as "widow" could possibly skew the data, oh no....

And would this data be at all useful?


1970s:
less than 10% of men of working age were economically inactive
40% of married women were economically inactive

1979:
1.4 million men economically inactive
5.6 million women economically inactive

1997:
2.8 million men economically inactive
4.6 million women economically inactive


No, I didn't think so. The actual population isn't given in the last two examples, so they can't be compared to each other, and neither can be compared to the first because of the different criteria. So the whole thing's bollocks.

Or how about these definitions:



Sex:
biological differences between male and female bodies

Gender:
socially constructed categories of masculine and feminine and the socially imposed
attributes and behaviours that are assigned to them’

Could that be any more smug and verbose?

Or how about a newspaper cutting with certain bits underlined? She can't just trust the students to spot the things she wants us to spot, she underlines them and then asks us if anything stands out. And she takes

Latest statistics show that nearly half of all rape victims have been drinking heavily before they are attacked.

to mean that the writer's trying to blame the women rather than the rapist. Am I the only one who, instead, reads it as "being drunk is stupid because it makes you easier to rape"?

Why did I get into this bloody stupid non-subject?


Oh, and I'm starving. Got a blood test later today, so I haven't been allowed to eat since dinner on Sunday. Must... have... food....

Yes, spammers are even thicker than that last one I printed. Here's the latest one:


Dear Sir/Madam,
I am Mr.James  Wood  one of the Directors in charge of Auditing and Accounting section of Bank of England and also Chairman of Investigating and
Auditing Department of this Bank. With due respect and regard, I have decided to contact you on a Business Transaction that will be very
beneficial to you and your  families in future.

During our Investigation and Auditing in this Bank, my department came across a very huge sum of money belonging to one Deceased Mr.Morris Thompson 61years,of Fairbanks, Alaska America
who died on January 31st 2000 with Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

You can as well confirm it by yourself through under stated Website of the incident <http://www.cnn.com/2000/us/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/> and if you want to know more about the man himself, you can check [URL snipped]

As the fund has been dormant in his account with this Bank without any claim of the fund in our custody either from his family or relation because he did not indicate any next of kin to this account incase of death such as these.

Although personally, I keep this information secret within myself and partners to enable the whole plans and idea be profitable and successful during the time of execution.The said amount is £ 20m (Twenty Million British Pounds). As it may interest you to know, I got your impressive contact from a British Website.

Meanwhile as a Senior Staff in this bank, and the Director of Auditing and Accounting, I have in my possession all the necessary information to perfect this deal by making you the
bonafide next of kin/Partner whom this money will be transferred into your account.

I need your assistance and co-operation to get this deal on. Because as a foreigner, you stand a better position to be presented through documentation as the next of kin/Partner since the
deceased is also a foreigner,this is the reason why I could not do this deal.

I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free.

Please, you have been advised to keep this "Top Secret" as we are still in service. And I assure you that this transaction will not last more than 10 working days and you confirm the
money in your account.

I will be monitoring the whole situation here in this bank until you confirm the money in your account.

All other necessary vital information will be sent to you when I hear from you.I suggest you get back to me as soon as possible stating your wish in this deal.

I am expecting your urgent reply as soon as you receive this message.

Please send your response through my email addresses and also fill this form for identification as attachment to mine  e-mail address: <jameswood44044_bankofenglandzone@yahoo.co.uk>

God bless you and your family Best Regards,
Mr James Wood.


Blimey, he's even thicker than the last one. I particularly like the way these scammers think that a Yahoo email address will make them instantly recognisable as a reputable businessman...

I'm just off to kip, but after going through my desk I found a bunch of little bits of paper on which I've jotted down random thoughts that seemed amusing, apt or suitably mad at the time. Accuracy is not necessarily a feature; at least one of them can be misinterpreted, but I left it in because it's a good pun. No prizes for guessing which one I mean.

I'm pretty sure one or two - or possibly more - of them are original, and I suspect that at least one or two are half-remembered bits I've pinched from other people. Feel free to quote me on any of them.

"The main reason we won World War Two was that, though our tanks were pants, the German ones were pantser."

"Racism is just a pigment of your imagination."

"No matter how stupid the idea, there's always some idiot who'll put it on a t-shirt."

"Four packets McCoys S&V crisps, one bottle Irn-Bru, sign up for tutorials..."


Oh, sorry, that last note wasn't supposed to be there. That's the problem with Post-Its.

At my university we have possibly the most incompetent IT department in existence, though I realise it's up for some stiff competition.

Over the summer they installed a new campus management system; after connecting our computers to the network points in our dorm rooms (or anywhere on the university network, for that matter), we are directed to a page telling us that we have to download and run a small application to scan our system to ensure that it's up to the lofty standards of this wondrous network.

So I did. And I got a bunch of error messages.

First of all, it requires Windows XP Service Pack 2, the buggiest update known to man. Then it requires McAffee anti-virus (because that's the one the department could get free), Spybot Search And Destroy anti-spam (because that's the one the department could get free), and so on.

I eventually persuaded it to accept Norton (which I use, having grown royally sick of McAffee), but it said I needed to update my virus definitions - because, though I updated them the night before, a new set had appeared that morning. But without network access, I couldn't use LiveUpdate. "No problem," ITS say helpfully, "download the definition files from the problem fix screen."

So I did. But it didn't work - and suggested I use LiveUpdate instead.

Eventually I got everything working, and used the network without any trouble for all of a fortnight. And then... the whole thing went down.

Because the campus management system requires systems to be re-scanned every 30 days. And that isn't, I found, on a per-user basis - it's system-wide. And the IT department hadn't read the campus manager's readme file, so they didn't know that 5000 computers were coming up for re-scanning on the same day, so the whole network came crashing down.

I went down to complain. I wanted to tell them what was wrong and ask them to fix it. "No problem," they said. "Send us an email."

Then, just out of interest and for the sake of system security, I asked what the scanning app looked for and how.

"We don't know."

"All right," I said, "does it leave anything resident on my system?"

"We don't know."

So the program they demand that everyone use... could be installing spyware, keyloggers, just about anything on my system, and they don't have a clue.

Great, isn't it?