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BBC iPlayer - Tie it to my licence!

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:50:00 +0100

Surely the BBC can tie an iPlayer login to my TV Licence so that I can watch the BBC from abroad?

Klaatu barada nikto

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:46:17 +0100

Klaatu barada nikto... The immortal phrase not uttered to save the world in the re-invention of the 1951 classic "The day the Earth stood still".

I was very much looking forward to the remake and have just returned from watching it at the BFI IMAX.

Warning: Spoilers...

Well, it's definitely different! Whilst the main characters are still there the story has been changed somewhat. The human race are no longer seen as a danger to other off-world civilisations, infact, the message from Klaatu is a carbon-neutral one, spouting monotonously that his race wishes to save the world as one of only a handful that support life.

Gort has endured the mandatory CG upgrade and is more impressive for it but seems to have lost something in the translation... He's not got as much presence as he had in the original (even though he is considerably larger in this installment) and doesn't make it all the way through the film. Infact he is responsible in part for killing Klaatu (yes! he dies!!) at the end of the film rather than saving his life - as he does originally.

I guess the powers that be decided something was missing in the original screenplay and made a few changes. Unfortunately (for me), from my point of view the original is fine as it is, a scene-for-scene remake of this film could have been my film of the year and maybe longer!

That said, if you can discard your hopes that it will be as good as the original and manage to appreciate it as a 'new' film, well, then I think you'll enjoy it!

Harry Patch - Update

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:11:01 +0100

The institution that is Harry Patch has recently had a poem written for him entitled 'The Five Acts of Harry Patch", well deserved and very moving, here it is for the both of you

The Five Acts of Harry Patch
'The Last Fighting Tommy'
by Andrew Motion

I.

A curve is a straight line caught bending
and this one runs under the kitchen window
where the bright eyes of your mum and dad
might flash any minute and find you down
on all fours, stomach hard to the ground,
slinking along a furrow between the potatoes
and dead set on a prospect of rich pickings,
the good apple trees and plum trees and pears,
anything sweet and juicy you might now be
able to nibble around the back and leave
hanging as though nothing were amiss,
if only it were possible to stand upright
in so much clear light and with those eyes
beady in the window and not catch a packet.

II.

Patch, Harry Patch, that's a good name,
Shakespearean, it might be one of Hal's men
at Agincourt or not far off, although in fact
it starts life and belongs in Combe Down
with your dad's trade in the canary limestone
which turns to grey and hardens when it meets
the light, perfect for Regency Bath and you too
since no one these days thinks about the danger
of playing in quarries when the workmen go,
not even of prodding and pelting with stones
the wasps' nests perched on rough ledges
or dropped from the ceiling on curious stalks
although god knows it means having to shift
tout suite and still get stung on arms and faces.

III.

First the hard facts of not wanting to fight,
and the kindness of deciding to shoot men
in the legs but no higher unless needs must,
and the liking among comrades which is truly
deep and wide as love without that particular name,
then Pilckem Ridge and Langemarck and across
the Steenbeek since none of the above can change
what comes next, which is a lad from A Company
shrapnel has ripped open from shoulder to waist
who tells you "Shoot me", but is good as dead
already, and whose final word is "Mother",
which you hear because you kneel to hold
one finger of his hand, and then remember orders
to keep pressing on, support the infantry ahead.

IV.

After the big crowd to unveil the memorial
and no puff left in the lungs to sing O valiant hearts
or say aloud the names of friends and one cousin,
the butcher and chimney sweep, a farmer, a carpenter,
work comes up the Wills Tower in Bristol and there
thunderstorms are a danger, so bad that lightning
one day hammers Great George and knocks down
the foreman who can't use his hand three weeks
later as you recall, along with the way that strike
burned all trace of oxygen from the air, it must have,
given the definite stink of sulphur and a second
or two later the gusty flap of a breeze returning
along with rooftops below, and moss, and rain
fading over the green Mendip Hills and blue Severn.

V.

You grow a moustache, check the mirror, notice
you're forty years old, then next day shave it off,
check the mirror again - and see you're seventy,
but life is like that now, suddenly and gradually
everyone you know dies and still comes to visit
or you head back to them, it's not clear which
only where it happens: a safe bedroom upstairs
by the look of things, although when you sit late
whispering with the other boys in the Lewis team,
smoking your pipe upside-down to hide the fire,
and the nurses on night duty bring folded sheets
to store in the linen cupboard opposite, all it takes
is someone switching on the light - there is that flash,
or was until you said, and the staff blacked the window.

Until 7:59pm Monday 1st December those of you here in the UK can watch the latest BBC program: Private Harry Patch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ftf6d/Private_Harry_Patch/

Jack Bauer is back...

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:03:23 +0100

And seems to be travelling with the paparazzi!

In the new season premier last night, around 66 minutes in the paparazzi found Jack before the bad guys did...

Is this my good side? Don't show my burnt ear!!

Now, who are those two black figures on the left? Oh, one guy has a still camera and the other, a video camera...

Oops!

Cut! Thats a wrap....

The last tommy...Update

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:15:05 +0100

Its the time of year where we once again pay tribute and remember those who fell in the great war. Some may remember my previous posts surrouding a certain 'Tommy' of the first world war, one Harry Patch. Well I'm glad to say that he today, at the age of 110! attended the Remembrance day ceremony in London.

I'm glad to see Harry, a real life hero is still with us, may he have many more years ahead of him.

Tuesday is remembrance day and I will, as always be observing the silence. I wonder whether we will have an official alarm at work?

Nerdier than thou...

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:11:26 +0200

Well, Nerdier than Keith anyway...

Update!:

How does my toothbrush know...

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:37:29 +0200

that the head needs replacing?

I own an Oral-B Triumph electric toothbrush. The digital display started flashing saying "Replace Head", so I took the head off, and put it back on.. the message still stayed on the display, this started me thinking.

So I found a new head, slid it onto the body and the message was no longer displayed. So, I thought to myself, will it know, now that I have cleared the message by attaching a new head, if I re-attach the old head - well, the answer here is yes. Straight away the flashing "Replace Head" message was displayed...

How does it know! How intelligent is my toothbrush? and is it happy cleaning my teeth?

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skulls

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:14:00 +0200

I'd been waiting 19 years for another installment of the Indy films. I went to see it last friday and it must be said, I wasn't expecting too much, like the new Star Wars trilogy I was just happy to have more of it!

Now, I've been pretty lucky with the sequels to other great sagas. Rocky Balboa was a great way to end the run after some ropey titles. Rambo IV was also Stallone at his best, making a film that was again, truely in keeping with the prequels.

Indiana Jones however left me with a feeling of ".....erm.....well, that was alright, not as good as Raiders or Temple, but probably better than Crusade" and that is as much of a review as I can really manage. It hasn't inspired me to write a comprehensive, evangelical review Dr Henry Jones' latest escapades.

Where was the witty dialog? Where were the Booby Traps? Where were the pits full of snakes and puzzles to solve? Oh yeah, and so historically innacurate, for a film about an archeologist/paleontologist/teacher, well, why not find out the facts first? I understand that its fiction. but if you build fiction around the real world, using real-world history ands wonders then you have to be historically accurate in the background, at least to a point.. such as getting temples from the correct civilisation (and country) in [Supposed] Peru.

That rant aside, what I did enjoy was seeing Harrison Ford as Indy, seeing him don his hat and the general nostalgia around the character.

Maybe it will be better on a second viewing, should I ever decide to do such a thing, I'll post an update.

Customize on iPod Touch 1.1.4

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:54:10 +0200

Getting the Customize app to run on your iPod/iPhone can be a real struggle if you are running 1.1.4 and following youtube videos that point to 1.1.3 compatibility patches that you can't find.

However, after a few hours poking around, I've found a solid way of getting Customize 2.0xb to install and run on 1.1.4 without compatibility patches or changing of filesystem permissions. This install uses the default repositories that come installed after a fresh jailbreak using ziPhone. No extra sources are needed.

Most of the youtube vids are outdated already, however, it is possible to find hints on why Customize.app wont run... Do you get the same symptoms as everyone else? It starts, you see the chicken icon, then its gone again... Running the app by hand from the command line will give you some hints about missing files and permissions issues, it turns out that these locations were not populated at install time due to an suid bug... For which there is a fix.

-- Note: Installing the suid library fix will also solve issues with Customize whereby system strings cannot be saved.

So. Here is the answer to your problems,

Prelude: If you already have a borked copy of customize installed, uninstall it first.

1 - Fire up the Installer.app, go to 'Tweaks 1.1.4' and select the suid library fix.
2 - Once suid fix is installed, go to 'All packages' and select 'Customize' (Version 2.0[x]b (where x is someversion number

Now, fire up Customize...and thats it! You are all good to go..

Jailbreaking the iPod touch

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:10:59 +0200

This is my first post from my new iPod touch. It took around 5 minutes and was surprisingly easy. Apple have really made a useable web browser on a pocket device!

Jailbreaking the 1.1.4 32gb iPod touch is so easy its hardly worth mentioning here. Still, I won't let that stop me.

If, like me you want to be able to ssh to and from your iPod then fear not, you are just a few steps away.

1 - google for the latest version of ziPhone
2 - restore your iPod to factory settings. Then close itunes.
3 - run ziPhone and click the jailbreak button
4 - sit back and let it do its thing
-this includes a couple of verbose reboots
5 - once the iPod has booted you will see the installer icon, start it and go to all packages. Here you
search for the vt100 terminal. Install the package. And we are all done.
6 - Go to the home screen and run the terminal.

Ssh to the iPod with username root, password: alpine

Yippee! UNIX with openssh!

All your database are belong to us

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:07:04 +0100

Sun aquires mysql! Read more here: Jonathan Schwartz's blog

Note to Self, Samsung remote code

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:04:35 +0100

This is the code for my Samsung LCD, my sky remote does not have the insert to write it down..
This code works for the LE32R41BDX and my LE32R88BDX

Hold the Sky remote away from the TV and press TV
Press Select and Red until your remote light blinks twice
Type in 646
Press Select
Then TV
Then Sky

And now, the xbox 360 universal media remote

Hold TV and OK until remote blinks
Type in 0085
Press TV to store

See http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemsetup/xbox360/accessories/universalmediaremote.htm for more info
Now, how do i get my Samsung remote to work with my sky box?

Southpark US!

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:58:52 +0200

I've been a big fan of Southpark for a while now and I hit the official website the other day to read about the new series. Found a great little flash app that allows you to create your own Southpark character. So, here's Yulye and I, each drawn by the other.

Yulye

Jonathan

Quote

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:48:37 +0200

Heard a great quote today when attending a TOI today on brandZ.

The talk covered the new Solaris branded zone functionality that allows you to run userland binaries from different operating systems within solaris. It was an lx zone allowing the execution of linux binaries and as a demo the easy comparison of the /proc filesystem between the lx zone and the solaris native OS was shown.

Quote was as follows

"As you can see, Solaris /proc contains only processes, as God and Roger Faulkner intended".

Excellent!

Lest we Forget

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Cowper-Andrewes) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:10:54 +0200

It is once again September 15th, Battle of Britain memorial day. The day on which it was announced that the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany had subsided thanks to the steely wit and dogged determination of the men and woman of the R.A.F.

Between 10th July and September 15th 1940 a fierce battle raged over the skies of England. It was to be this battle that would decide Adolf Hitlers plans to invade England. If we could hold the skies, his plan would be thwarted, lose and it would be the end of any hopes for stopping the Nazi war machine.

People who have read this blog before will know that a major interest of mine are WWI and WWII. I find it amazing that such a small island managed to hold back the gargantuan forces of Adolf Hitler against all odds.

This afternoon was spent watching footage of the fantastic Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber, it left me, as always with a feeling of awe and (strangely) nostalgia.

It may seem strange but I have always felt an affinity with the allied soldiers of the british army that defended our own and liberated mainland europe. I have no explanation for this other than I have always felt that members of our fighting forces were of a different caliber of men to what we know today.

This blog entry is simply to remind anyone who stumbles across it to take a minute to remember what these people did for us and for the rest of europe, without them we would not be the Great Britain we are today.

To all of those who fought on both sides, both alive and passed, I commend you. May the fallen rest in peace and may we never forget the battle that was fought so that we today can live in peace.

To quote Churchill,

"Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed, by so many, to so few"