Magheramorne Quarry is apparently getting a £100m development, to include houses and “a major cycling centre, which it is hoped will be of a standard to host televised World Cup mountain biking events.” It goes on to say, “”The project will be completed in a number of phases and the first phase will see the development of the World Cycling Centre, the first purpose designed mountain bike events facility in Ireland and one of the first in the UK.”
Tags: bikes, biking, cycling, ireland, larne, magheramorne, mountain bike, mtb, northern ireland, quarry, ulster, world cycling centre
I looked up from my dressing table. “Does my bum look big in this Joe?”
A smirk spread across his face. “It does, but you know I love that about you.” He gripped my shoulders, leaned down, and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. ” Now quit fishing for compliments; we’ll be late for the movie. The cab’s already here.” I smiled warmly and finished my makeup.
The evening ambled on, cuddling in a cinema becoming coffee in a little cafe, coffee becoming a moonlit walk by the a river. It was high summer, and the stars shone more clearly that night than I had ever seen before. Joe pointed to his home planet. “If we were there now…”
Suddenly we were surrounded by a group of young thugs. “The keys” one said to Joe.
“No way. Not mine to give.”
“The keys! Now!”. This one must have been the leader. He stepped in close, pressing a knife to Joe’s throat. The others moved in tight. No one else would have known, but I could tell Joe was afraid for both our lives. His response was still the same.
“No.”
[written for the Aliens Lacking Humanity challenge on Ficly.com]
Tags: alien, confidence, courage, ficlet, ficly, fiction, honesty, integrity, love, relationships, romance, short story, strength, violence, writing
Seems Natalie Portman is set to star in another film shot here in Northern Ireland. This isn’t long after the announcement that George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire HBO Series is to be shot here too. It’s great to see the Movie and TV market heating up here, and retaining heat.
Work like this is supposed to be worth millions to the local economy though. GRRM’s series pilot alone is supposed to be worth ~$10M. I’d love to see a break down of exactly where this sort of money goes. Paying local extras, catering, set building (joiners, electricians, etc.). Maybe some local effects and titling? Probably not. Lighting hire? Probably not. Hotel space? Definitely. But who are these joiners, electricians, and caterers? Are they small companies that need work, or the huge companies that already have million-pound contracts from government work and all?
Don’t get me wrong; it’s all good I’m sure, one way or another, and perhaps the best part is that it gives local kids a sense of opportunity — something that’s long been lacking here. But still… I’d love to hear more detail about what good it’s doing, on the ground.
Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, belfast, budget, cinema, economy, Entertainment, film, George R. R. Martin, GRRM, hbo, investment, ireland, Local, Movie, natalie portman, northern ireland, painthall, production, quarter, shoot, titanic, tv, uk, united kingdom, your highness
I’ve just been watching this Blender 2.5 tour. It starts off pretty tamely, showing just a few variations on what blender has been able to do for ages. There are some nice things, like better UI, visual tips (color coding for animated values, etc.)
However, the real gems are hidden away towards the end of the tour: blender’s UI options are now implemented in pure Python, and you can code, press a refresh key, and have new options appear in the UI straight away. This is the feature I’ve been hoping for in blender for ages now. 2.4’s roadmap included an updated UI, and I proposed something like this, so I was pretty disappointed to see that nothing much happened on the UI front. For a while there, it looked like 2.5 would be equally intransigent.
That has NOT been the case though. Now, it’s possible to write python plugins for blender, and have them be fully integrated, as if they were part of the core code. They’ve even gone a step further, and made it very nice and standardised to use; you don’t need to specify buttons for the UI, so much as specify variables and their types. The rest is done for you, via Blender’s RNA type system. Seems they’ve setup fairly rich datatypes/widgets, too.
The upshot of all this? The whole thing seems nice enough now that I’m a lot more tempted to write blender plugins. It’s occured to me now and then that blender would be much cooler with 3D audio objects — speakers, dampeners, echoers/reflectors, and microphones in the scene used to produce animated positional audio, just like it currently has lights, materials, reflectors, and cameras to produce animated video.
I expect too, that, since plugins are much more integrated now, there’ll be an exponential increase in their use and development by others.
Congrats to everyone who’s worked on 2.5. It’s been a while coming now, but 2.5 looks amazing.
Tags: 3d, animation, blender, cgi, modeling, plugins, positional audio, python, user interface
Turbogears 2.0 has finally been released!. Read the TG2 release announcement, the changelog, or just dive in with the tutorials.
I’ve been holding off on playing with TG2 too much, since it wasn’t final, but now I’m gonna have a good play. It’ll be interesting to compare this with django, cherrypy 3, etc.
Tags: Development, django, FOSS, python, turbogears, web
“Ahh, you did it that time, didn’t you Aery? What did you see?” Her grandmother was so excited that she could hardly contain herself.
Aery chose her words carefully. There were times when having a royal advisor for a grandmother was a good thing. Not when trying to keep secrets. “It’s hard to remember now — like a dream after waking.”
Her grandmother looked at her sideways. Aery tried to look back innocently. Inside, she fought a sudden urge to study the mud she had walked into the rug as she came in.
The old woman watched her wrestle with her memories for a moment. “It can be difficult”, she said. “But you must remember a strong image or two, at least. Did you reach the forest? It’s OK if you didn’t; it’s only your first time. Well… what did it feel like?”
“I saw the forest, but didn’t go there.” Aery pieced the sensations together and sorted them as best she could. She couldn’t shake off that one moment of connection. She had never felt anything like it. She smiled. “It felt.. wonderful.”
[written as a sequel to a ficlet called Beyond the Snow, by falconesse]
Tags: Creative Writing, fantasy, fiction
A bug has been filed over on launchpad, regarding the Commercialisation of Ubuntu by Canonical. It seems Shuttleworth has nailed his colors to the mast, and they’re clearly not the pretty colors we’d all hoped for.
The original bug report, by Matt Lee, founder of libre.fm, reads:
With the release of “Ubuntu One” and the news that Launchpad will not be released as free software, Canonical’s message: “Canonical is committed to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and to providing tools and support to the open source community.” is no longer true, and its continued association with Ubuntu is damaging to free software.
Canonical should decide if it wants to be committed to the development of free software or not.
Canonical employees should decide if they want to be seen to work for a proprietary software developer, whilst talking about free software.
Canonical should either release publically, all the source code for Launchpad and Ubunet, or it should update its mission statement to state their commitment to the development of proprietary software.
The Ubuntu community should decide if they want to be associated, governed and ruled by a proprietary software company, and should appoint non-Canonical people to all the key positions.
Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Canonical), has responded to it with:
Ubuntu was founded together with Canonical, they have always been (and I hope they always will be) intertwined and interdependent. There are thousands of projects and hundreds of distributions, which have various degrees of involvement between themselves and companies. Contributors already align themselves with the projects that reflect the things they are most interested in.
Personally, I think the company/project interface and interaction makes the landscape interesting. We’re all trying to figure out the future of software, and perhaps the future of the software business at the same time.
I understand the passion behind this bug report, but I don’t think it can be addressed. The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best – and that has always been the case. I suspect most people in this community are drawn here precisely because of the interdependency between project and company. And those who don’t may well be drawn to something which flows as a direct consequence of that.
There are several distributions which make a point of having no corporate backer. The people who want that, specifically, are probably already there, happily doing good work. People who want something else are wherever they think they can find that, happily doing good work. Some people may change their mind and move in either direction. But Ubuntu and Canonical were born together, with a shared mission. If that’s interesting to you, then participate in Ubuntu. If it’s not, then don’t.
Personally I think the bug report is entirely correct. Ubuntu was always a commercial venture to me; it’s always been clear that shuttleworth intended to make Ubuntu big, then profit from it. But the way he’s doing it — by going against free software while claiming to be a spokeperson in favor of it — is not only incoherent, but damaging to the community. It affects people involved in Ubuntu even more so, since (as the bug report suggests) they’re now involved with a company of questionable ethics, beliefs and practices which may not align with their own.
The most worrying parts for me were Shuttleworth’s comment that “[he] understand[s] the passion behind this bug report, but [doesn't] think it can be addressed”, his change of the bug status to “won’t fix”, and the comment that “The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best – and that has always been the case”. This last is patently false, since Ubunteros have to commit to an ethical policy. I haven’t re-read it in light of this development, but I’d be surprised if that ethical policy for Ubuntu contributors allows the kind of commercial actions that Shuttleworth himself is attempting. What I think Mark means is that he owns the company, so everyone else can either like it, or get stuffed. Hell, that’s pretty much his exact wording. Which is precisely the OPPOSITE of the ideal spirit of FOSS community participation.
I really don’t get why he’s doing it this way. It seems pretty clear that if Ubuntu creates a proprietary product good enough that Linux users want it, then FOSS developers will simply bypass his underhanded attempts at control by creating a free clone. Surely selling high-end tech support, on-site/remote admin, printed documentation, etc. would be a much more natural model for them? Then again… you can’t get quite so rich selling physical services, as you can selling automated, virtual ones, and Shuttleworth’s previous success was built on that virtual model.
Anyway… I for one am glad to say that I’ve gone back to Debian before this came out, simply because I find Debian better, for many reasons. Basically, it’s the original and best, which Ubuntu adds very little on top of, and when it does, Debian soon adds those features back. If you’re still with Ubuntu, and value free software, or don’t want to be associated with this sort of anti-community behavior, you might want to consider a switch. Certainly, I think it’s time to stop recommending Ubuntu when other distros provide equally viable but more principled alternatives.
Update:
It seems there’s also a related bug about Ubuntu One violating Ubuntu’s trademark usage guidelines:
The usage of the word Ubuntu in the context of “Ubuntu One” is inconsistent with the Trademark Policy outlined at http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy
Specifically of note are the following:
The objective of the Ubuntu trademark policy is to encourage widespread use of the Ubuntu trademarks by the Ubuntu community while controlling that use in order to avoid confusion on the part of Ubuntu users and the general public, to maintain the value of the image and reputation of the trademarks and to protect them from inappropriate or unauthorised use.
The danger of confusion among users and the general public about whether this new service is part of or associated with Ubuntu is extremely high.
there is no commercial intent behind the use
The service has clear and stated commercial intent.
what you are referring to is in fact Ubuntu. If someone is confused into thinking that what isn’t Ubuntu is in fact Ubuntu, you are probably doing something wrong
The service is not Ubuntu and has no association with Ubuntu as a product or community. It merely runs on and works with Ubuntu, on equal footing with other applications like Apache, Firefox, or an Ubuntu user’s blog.
there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Ubuntu or its related projects unless it actually has been approved by and is accountable to the Ubuntu Community Council
I am not aware of any such approval or even discussion by the Community Council at this time.
If you are producing new software which is intended for use with or on Ubuntu, you may use the Trademark in a way which indicates the intent of your product. For example, if you are developing a system management tool for Ubuntu, acceptable project titles would be “System Management for Ubuntu” or “Ubuntu Based Systems Management”. We would strongly discourage, and likely would consider to be problematic, a name such as UbuntuMan, Ubuntu Management, ManBuntu, etc. Furthermore, you may not use the Trademarks in a way which implies an endorsement where that doesn’t exist, or which attempts to unfairly or confusingly capitalise on the goodwill or brand of the project.
The service clearly falls under the latter list of examples similar to UbuntuMan, and as such is named unacceptably. Furthermore it appears to be attempting to capitalize on the brand, which is similarly explicitly prohibited.
Proposed fix
Rename the service to not include the words “UBUNTU, KUBUNTU, EDUBUNTU, and XUBUNTU” nor “any mark ending with the letters UBUNTU or BUNTU”, or in an acceptably non-ambiguous manner such as “Cloud Storage Solution for Ubuntu”.
This all seems like a clear case of Canonical violating the core principles of Ubuntu for commercial gain, which saddens me.
Tags: canonical, commercialisation, floss, FOSS, freedom, guidelines, libre.fm, linkedin, mark shuttleworth, Matt Lee, open source, proprietary, rules, trademark, ubuntu, ubuntu one
Seems that the TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones is to be shot here in Northern Ireland, during the third quarter of the year. The books are amazing, and this could easily be up there with LOTR, so that’s very cool. Bit worried that Tom McCarthy is directing since he’s directed all of two (released) movies before. I guess we can only wait and see on that though. Peter Dinklage is set to play Tyrion. That should be a good role for him; his look suits the role, and Tyrion is easily one of the strongest, most compelling, and most enjoyable characters in the books.
Tags: A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Adaptation, belfast, Cast, Director, filming, George R. R. Martin, GRRM, location, Movie, northern ireland, Peter Dinklage, Thrones, Titanic Quarter, tv, Tyrion
I saw Knowing the other day, and thought it worth posting a review, to save people endless pain.
Given the big budget and big names, I feel entirely justified in calling this the worst movie ever, relatively speaking.
Where can I start? Well, the beginning of the movie is slow and childish. It literally felt like watching a kids’ show. And not even the usual kind of kids show where there’s enough adult stuff layered in there to make it watchable for the whole family. It felt like a KID’s movie, in terms of pace, depth, storytelling, emotions, characterisations, action… terrible.
The college philosophy lecture stuff was also really basic, like he was talking to 10 year-olds about the basic idea, and expecting them to come back in a year or two with more grown up questions about it all. Except that then he broke down as if these basic concepts were enough to make a grown college professor’s world shatter.
Fast forward (if only I could have) through a whole lot more of this crap, and eventually you get to a few shockers. The one thing I liked about the whole movie was the way that the plane crash was really loud, fast-paced, and shocking compared to the rest of the movie to that point. It’s a much more realistic portrayal of a crisis than the usual “action hero running through, taking it all in his stride” sort of stuff. I also liked the 3d graphics work, but it’s far from enough to carry the movie.
Then there were the dark trenchcoat guys scaring the kids. These guys were supposed to be ominous I suppose, but mostly they’re just grungy looking, like something out of an 80s music video, or like porn shop customers. Or maybe a kid’s sci-fi show, like you’d see at 4pm or so on Children’s ITV. Could have been interesting, if they’d played on the idea that aliens can’t communicate with humans except in scary images, like The Mothman Prophecies did, but they didn’t explore that at all. In fact, the kids get literally traumatised, ripped away from their parents, dropped on another planet, only to happily skip through the meadow there as if their lives had been idyllic.
Added to that, the direction and editing just suck.
A lot of people are saying this is TOO religious for them, and have even claimed indoctrination or “Christian propaganda”. This is laughable, and tells me more about the emotional issues of those writers than about the movie. This movie barely touches on even the most basic concepts of philosophy and spirituality — barely even addresses stuff we all think about, such as life and death — much less going into a specific religion in any great detail. Yes, there’s an Adam and eve, tree of life moment there at the end, but those are as much (if not more) culturally meaningful imagery of birth and innocence for westerners, as specific religious ideas. Yes, there are angelic figures, but given that they’ve been closer to demons for most of the movie, and are represented as aliens at the end, I’d hardly consider them very angelic in a Christian sense. NOTE: I’m not a Christian, or in any way superstitious. NOTE2: I still would have preferred the movie to explore those concepts MORE, rather than spew such basic, bland, meaningless overtones.
This is really a shockingly bad movie, all ’round. Maybe, there was a good movie there once, before it got edited for mass viewing, but that’s definitely not what made it to the cinema. Do NOT see it. Unless you’re really going for a laugh, it’s really not even worth finding out how bad this is.
Tags: Alex Proyas, cinema, crap, knowing, movie review, nicolas cage, sci-fi
