jcm's blog

[ from the cool-films dept. ]

I met up with Ben, Markus and Sid to do some revision for the Advanced Computer Communications exam on Tuesday. Earlier Tom and I went to Nandos for food and discovered their frozen yoghurt. Fantastic bottomless Frozen Yoghurt.

A few of us just watched War Games as Tom has the DVD. The extra commentry is quite interesting and this is one film which I have always thought was done exceptionally well. In fact I am tracking a couple of Acoustic Couplers on Ebay with an interest in purchasing. After watching the end scene it was necessary to fire up Tomato Source Neurothello and set it against itself for some time…

The more I use Darwin, the more I like it muchly. It really is a well designed piece of well enginered software.

Jon.

[ from the second-chance dept. ]

I went to see Matrix Reloaded last night, after yet another Wagamama. This time Warner Village cinemas did not screw up completely. I reminded them that I have filed several complaints against them and that it was very much in their interest to not screw up this time. I am not a complaining little old man – I just want to watch a film peacefully.

My suspicions about Matrix Revolutions may be a little excessive since many audiences would not like the idea that either Neo and the gang are not human or are still within a Matrix within a Matrix within a…

I am reading through some DES stuff because I wish to write some PowerPC assembly routines for the John The Ripper password cracker. Mostly for fun and I will dedicate the patch to the everlasting memory of Kevin.

Last exam on Tuesday and I will do some revision for the next few days. Then I am off to York on Thursday for a random trip and detour prior to returning to Reading for a few days. I may well end up in Cambridge at some point over the weekend.

Jon.

[ from the generic-update dept. ]

I called a few local council departments and spoke to someone in the Environment department who will look in to the conduct of Warner Village Cinemas in Nottingham with regard to the incident that I mentioned before. Apparently Warner are going to have their head office contact me though I am not quite ready to drop this issue. They should learn that customers such as myself will not tollerate such a poor level of customer service.

Jon.

[ from the please-fix-the-problems dept. ]

The body of this entry contains an open letter to Warner Village cinemas concerning the farcical disgrace of their premier of Matrix Reloaded this evening. Warner Village cinemas allowed the presentation to continue while illicit drugs were being smoked and consequently filling the air throughout the auditorium. Today I will be calling the Health and Safety Executive to report this incident as well as Trading Standards and any other agency or organisation that may assist in reminding Warner Village cinemas of their duty to the paying public. I am not overreacting as this completely ruined what otherwise was an enjoyable evening. The legal issues aside, I do not expect to be subjected to any form of smoke in the confined space of a cinema auditorium. Many others were severely disturbed by this also and consequently left to attempt communication with staff.

Jon.

To whom it may concern,

I purchased a ticket to the 23:30 Matrix Reloaded presentation at the Warner Village cinema in Nottingham on Wednesday 21st May 2003. I arrived in good time to see this long anticipated film premier and was most impressed with the film itself.

While I enjoyed the content of the film, I was most distressed by a number of fundamental issues with your cinema in Nottingham on that evening, which should be immediately addressed. I may begin by noting that there was an expected high demand for this film and that adequate preparation time was available beforehand.

The cinema staff initially presented themselves as being too few in number, overworked and unable to handle the crowds to a reasonable satisfaction. The staff appeared both rude and discourtious on several occasions, although I might note that the refreshment area was well managed.

I am informed that certain safetly lighting measures are required however it may interest Warner Village to be made aware that many of the crowd were openly shouting and repeatedly calling for the lightening level to be lowered to an acceptable level of luminance. The film quality was much degraded by the intensity of the background lighting.

Although I am an open minded person on many issues, I do not believe that it is generally acceptable for Warner Village cinemas to allow patrons to actively engage in smoking illegal drugs. The legal issue aside, I certainly did not expect to notice a “spliff” being smoked during the film. Those staff who did attempt to isolate the cause were obviously unable to do so. This began approximately half way through the film and subsequently completely ruined the presentation for myself. I was unable to experience the film whilst constantly feeling anger and frustration towards Warner Village cinemas for their complete incompetence.

A number of other minor issues accentuated the disgraceful manner in which this cinema was managed on this occasion and I feel that an apology must surely be made to all of those who attended and were frustrated. I intend to draw sufficient attention to this issue as to provoke a response.

Jon Masters.
jcm@jonmasters.org

[ from the spoiler-potential dept. ]

I just returned from seeing Matrix Reloaded. While the film is visually stunning, it did not do for me what the first one did. I believe that the next film may offer the explanation that Neo is existing within a Matrix, represented as the “real world”, which itself contains “The Matrix”. Witness the repeated references to such a concept in Neo being able to control aspects of the “Real World”, of the Architect discussing the repeated anomilies, and that Zion would have to have been built several times before for continuity to work. Either this is the big twist in Matrix Revolution or these points must be addressed in some other way. Neo is not in any coma in the traditional sense.

Jon.

[ from the interesting-diversions dept. ]

I decided to play around with a few things to plug gaps in knowledge. On the one front, we have the gtk. I am going to write a few more simple apps to become more familiar with this library. Then there is also SVG to be played with muchly. I downloaded Toby’s DrawTool and Jok and I used it with netcat to send little messages to each other as per the documentation. I eventually found the Apache batik project Squiggle SVG browser to view output from svgdrawtool since it would seem PowerPC Linux users are left with Java-only viewing solutions. It complains about the version of the SVG DTD in use and dies when displaying svgdrawtool output but that can be fixed.

We are going to campus to revise for the Operating Systems exam. That happens on Saturday morning, and then one final exam of Advanced Computer Communications. Matrix tonight to see SSH exploits in widespread cinema use. Finally a serious crack with the correct tools and hopefully the correct terminology. Though it does claim “level 9″ access for those seeking traditional Hollywood technoshite. Film is at 23:30.

Investigating summer plans somewhat. Yesterday I read about working going on at Apple and have decided to dig in to Darwin a lot more when I have the time. I have also been reading more about MMIX recently. Also yesterday I read more about Java Card and other SMART Card technologies. Differential Power Analysis attacks combined with the non-garbage collecting, non-typcial Java Card environment make for some interesting theorectical attacks. Blah blah blah blah.

Jon.

[ from the please-publish-it-soon dept. ]

I have had an order for BREY – Motorola PowerPC since before the date it was due to be published. Apparently I ordered on the 23rd of February. So my question to Prentice Hall publishers is WHERE IS MY BOOK? – I want to read it now and if they could hurry up and bring it out this year then that would be greeeeaaat.

Jon.