I wasn’t sure what I was going to make of this book. Having previously read and loved several M.Banks books including Consider Phlebas, I was concerned that Look to Windward might be something of a less fulfilling dour introspection. How wrong can one person be?

Look to Windward is another Banks triumph. The story handles some seriously heavy subjects; terrorism, love and loss, suicide, the aftermath of war, post colonialism and empire are all addressed with immense skill. Whilst at the same time the reader is challenged to envisage some wonderful Sci-Fi dioramas such as the dirigible behemothaurs and the mighty Masaq orbital. If ever anyone wanted to hold up an example of how Science Fiction can be relevant and important to the questions that challenge the “human condition” throughout our lives, then this is the book.

The humour is still there and better than ever, and somehow Banks manages to mix this in with some profound discourse. Some of Hubs conversations with Quilan and Ziller are wonderfully poignant and thought provoking. Hubs final scene with Quilan in particular shows Banks’ talent off in superb style and is deeply emotive.

This will be one to reread along with Consider Phlebas in the future and I have no doubt that like Phlebas the second reading will only uncover more perspective and depth of understanding of the text.

I loved it.



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A friend of mine recently saw the new Hollywood movie of this book and was thoroughly impressed, saying that it was complex but utterly fantastic. This sounds like just my sort of thing then, so I purchased the book with much anticipation. Knowing that there is a lot of hype around the book had previously made me weary of it, in a sort of Twilight weary way. But due to the gushing praise of my friend and the fact that it has of course been a huge success story, I felt sure that there was clearly then something to it and I started reading with enthusiasm.

200 pages later and my enthusiasm for reading what is essentially a humongously long newspaper report was beginning to wane. There is no prose here. Just a calm, sober and balanced reporting of the facts and the facts are somewhat mechanical to say the least. This makes for easy reading, but it also makes for dull reading. Absolutely nothing happens in this book until page 265, and that’s half the blinking novel gone. OK we get the main characters introduced and have our fill of background info, develop a little empathy (and I do mean a little), but it’s very much by the numbers. The problem is that nothing in this initial marathon is learnt through juxtaposition, intrigue or cunning exposure. So the salient facts and plot devices are revealed with a dead weighted clinical exposition. Hence I found myself distractedly eyeing a newly arrived copy of George R.R. Martins – A Clash of Kings, sat enticingly on my desk and wondering how Tyrion Lanister will fair at Kings Landing, when I should have been concentrating on the book that was rapidly slipping from my fingers due to the fact that unfortunately the principle character was only interested in telling me about nothing more stimulating than his nocturnal reading material and sandwich fillings.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo herself Lisbeth Salander, poses a problem as well. What she does solves the mystery, but what she’s capable of doing could have been done by any secondary geek character. My point being that she’s not critical to the plot, she’s just the device to help solve it. And her own personal story ark, whilst harrowing is not essential to the story either. What would have saved both Salanders role in this book and indeed made Blomkvists journey more palatable would have been a shovel load of character development. Unfortunately even continental drift is faster than the character development in this novel.

If this sounds a little harsh, then maybe it is, but it’s deserved because this book is frustrating it’s construction ought to be much better. So why do people rave about this novel? Perhaps because under all the layers of finely honed and Ikea flat packed apathy there is a great story in here. Vangers plight mixed in with his leverage over Blomkvists need to confound Wennerstrom’s empire is a great set up. There are deft touches. The use of photos in revealing the truth and Blomkvists initial meeting with Salander are a couple of good examples of where Larson hits the mark perfectly. But it’s repeatedly let down by what seems to be a literary malaise. In other areas large parts of the novel feel like a first draft.

At about page 100 I was ruminating over the story so far and I made a guess at what had happened to Harriett. 400 hundred pages later and that guess turned out to be completely 100% accurate. Now that really shouldn’t happen and if more effort had been spent earlier in the novel it wouldn’t have happened. The book does hit it’s stride in the last 200 pages. It does finally come to life and there then becomes a genuine need to turn the page with pleasure as you begin to will the characters to win out, but by that point it’s not enough to redeem itself completely. It’s still not quite there. You end up wanting to give the plot itself a good slap, when in fact that is not the problem as the plot has been just as badly let down by the ambivalent construction as the reader has.

This is a good book it should get 5 stars but it simply doesn’t deserve it, due to the way it has been constructed and written. Would I recommend this book to a friend? I don’t know. I’d like to but then I would know what I’d be subjecting them to in order to extract the story from it and that would be unfair.

It’s a great story struggling to get out of a mediocre novel. It puts me in mind of a famous sketch that Eric Morecambe once did with Andre Previn, in which upon hearing Eric’s performance of Grieg’s piano concerto, Previn complained to Eric that he was playing all the wrong notes. To which Eric replied, ‘Listen mate, I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.’
The Girl with the Dragon tattoo, has a similar problem. All the right notes are in there somewhere, it is a great story, but it’s been written in completely the wrong way.

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My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely fantastic. Reading it for the second time gives new meaning to the Culture. After having read other Culture novels, most of which are told from the Cultures perspective, coming back to Consider Phlebas adds a new understanding to the incredible universe that Iain M. Banks has created.

Principally because the main protagonist is on the side of the Idirans who are at war with the Culture. It’s a refreshing perspective that answers a number of questions about the nature of the utopian society.

The scale is suitably vast and colourful and whilst we are guided through the most impressively thought out of space opera landscapes, it is the story that drives the plot rather than having a plot that exists just to service a journey through imaginative vistas.

I loved the Eaters. It’s a superb allegory to our own ignorance and a microcosm of the absurdity of the wider conflict. Banks doesn’t pull his punches with his characters either. Their own inadequacies and assumed superiority are all tested to the ultimate conclusion. He also has a canny way of using the characters foibles and persona’s to connect with the reader in a way that very unforced and beguiling.

It’s all here. Humorous drones, vast orbitals, huge General System Vehicles, tripodal aliens, incredible technology and sentient computer minds.

This is a fantastic tale, right up to its breathless conclusion.

This certainly ranks as one of my favourite Good reads.

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I ought to be there with him, stood to one side and smiling. Not doing anything significant but just being there. That would be enough.

But I wont be there and that’s a great shame, I owe cousin spewey a quiet apology for that. As is the way with life, events conspire against us and I was never able to make the wedding trip happen as much as I would love it to. Anything less than being there is no substitute at all.

None the less, I wish both him and his lovely fiancé Kelly Smith the best of luck. Although I’m sure they won’t need it.

Update

The wedding went well. Even a rain shower in paradise didn’t halt proceedings and so it shouldn’t.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs!

There are some superb photos here: http://catseyeproductions.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/a-wet-wedding-in-port-douglas/

As time has passed the world has changed and life moves on, but the promises of my youth have faded. After the Moon landings there were no trips to Mars, no Moon base, no Jet Pacs and no Air Cars. Sure the technology has advanced and science has made startling new discovery’s but the world we thought we were promised as kids has never materialised.

Last year I watched the film Blade Runner again, for the first time in many years, and something startled me. The opening credits read, “Los Angeles 2019″. It’s startling because at the time the film was made it was deemed reasonable for that date to be an acceptable time frame for the technology and level of development displayed in the film. It’s clear to all of us now that in 8 years time the world we live in will be nothing like that.

But there is something else which is equally startling.

There is nothing in my home now that belongs in the future that was promised to us by 2000AD or 2001 or Blade Runner, except for the thing that I wrote this post on.

My iPod touch.

It is an outstanding piece of technology and its presence in the world tells you all you need to know about Steve Jobs importance to technology, his contribution to the world and now sadly loss. Steve saw the future and acted on it. Whilst others stood still, he lassoed the technology industry and dragged it kicking and screaming in to the future with him. It is that drive and attention to detail, the insistence not to compromise and forethought to divine the right vision that set Steve apart from his contemporaries and has led to the creation of the only device that I have that I can truly claim to be a small piece of the future that never was.

My iPod touch belongs to the future, it belongs in the hands of David Bowman on board the Odyssey in 2001 and it belongs to the inhabitants of the colonies of Mars in Blade Runner. It belongs to the future that never was.

That is truly inspiring and for this I am very grateful to Steve Jobs.

R.I.P Steve Jobs.

The journey took a little over two hours and we used the time to discuss her stay and joked about her coming back in 2012 to take part in the Olympics. She was very widely travelled and I took the opportunity to discus this with her too. It was fascinating to hear her experiences in so many different country’s around the world and all told with such enthusiasm.
“In every country in the World”, she said, “You will always find something wonderful and unique to inspire you.”
She had certainly led an inspiring life. At one point in the journey we got held up in traffic and worrying about check in and departure times I put my foot down once on the open motorway. You have never seen such a dignified elder lady wear such a broad and excited smile whilst travelling in excess of 130MPH.

We made the check in, in time and kissed good bye with her customary all embracing hug. That was the last time I saw my Auntie Leoni, she leaves behind fond memory’s and warm thoughts, not forgotten. I remember her parting words clearly as she winked at me, “Goodbye my darling. And I do like your car!”

The following was taken from the YWCA Australia website. Link below.

Vale Leoni Durrant
YWCA Victoria and YWCA Australia extend their sympathy to the family of Leoni Durrant, former Executive Director of the YWCA of Melbourne and Member of the YWCA Australia Board, who has passed away. We celebrate Leoni’s magnificent contribution to the YWCA movement. Leoni’s two decades of service as the Executive Director of the YWCA of Melbourne (now YWCA Victoria) included the development of the Elizabeth Street Hotel, a lasting legacy for the association.

Leoni became Executive Director following the well loved, and most capable, Joyce Truelove. She brought with her a range of skills that enabled the YWCA of Melbourne to move ahead.

Leoni came in when the decision was made to move from the out-dated building in Collins Street to the site of the present Jasper Hotel in Elizabeth Street (which is still owned and managed by YWCA Victoria). With unfailing energy, Leoni oversaw the upheaval necessary to relocate and re-energise the association. The current work in upgrading Richmond House as part of YWCA Victoria’s social housing program would be most appreciated by Leoni.

In Leoni’s era, the YWCA of Melbourne oversaw strong YWCA clubs, worked with newly arrived migrants to support them, maintained housewives’ groups, and assisted the rehabilitation of recently-released prisoners as well as managing buildings.

Leoni also gave service to the national movement in so many ways. She served on the Victorian State Committee, the National Executive, attended World Councils, took part in the World International Training Institutes, and was ever-ready to help out other local associations when they were in need. Many women around Australia felt they could call on Leoni for advice. Leoni also forged bonds with other organisations and was an able advocate for women’s causes.

Leoni was yet another woman whose contribution to our Association is impossible to quantify. We farewell a good friend and honour her memory.

The original article can be found here: http://www.ywca.org.au/news/vale-leoni-durrant

It’s called the Croc Eye Cafe and it’s situated in the Village of Daintree which is at the edge of the Queensland Rain Forest just North West of Port Douglas.

Get down there and taste some Crocodile.

Here is the press release.

And the new web site has also gone live, here: www.croceyecafe.com

Check out the link above. If you are looking for the most wilfully ignorant, stupid, grossly dense and idiotic article ever written, then you wont be disappointed.

“Home working: Why can’t everyone telework?”

Well lets see….

Home working might pose a problem for..

Firemen,
Chefs,
Fishermen,
Retail Staff,
Care Workers,
Bin Men,
Farmers,
Photographers,
Construction Workers,
Security Guards,
Bus, Train and Lorry Drivers,
Life Guards,
Airline Pilots,
Marine Biologists,
Stage Actors,
Surgeons,
Dentists,
Laboratory Assistants,
Mountain Rescue Teams,
The Police,
Archaeologists,
Nuclear Plant Workers,
Coal Miners,
Oil Refinery Workers,
Ships Captains,
Tank Drivers,
Infantry,
Motorcycle Couriers,
Submariners,
Astronauts,
Dinner Ladies,
Lollipop Men /Ladies,
School Teachers,
Bakers,
Window Cleaners,
Road Resurfacing Workers,
Livestock Breeders,
Vets,
Tree Surgeons,
Meter Readers,
Television Repair Men,
Telecom Exchange Workers,
Plumbers,
Electricians,
Painters and Decorators,

etc,

etc,

etc.

The list can go on and on.

Welcome to the BBC’s world. Dumb as a rock.

There are two immediate areas that I think could easily be hugely improved though, and I don’t know why the designers have not seen this.

1] The minimise buttons have gone as they don’t fit in with the new shell way of doing things. The suggestion is that “workspaces cold be a replacement for minimization”.

That’s fine but in order to do that workspaces need to be instantly accessible, otherwise moving between maximised windows / applications becomes problematic. Specifically the problem in Gnome Shell is that I have to move the mouse to the top left and activate Activities, then move the mouse all the way to the right hand side of the screen, click on the workspace I want that has my alternate application, and then double click again on the workspace or click the application within. This means that I can’t just click between minimised and maximised applications in different workspaces as I might wish.

I suggest that a much, much easier way of achieving this would be to simply add an icon set on the bottom right of the screen that represents 4 or so workspaces as small icons. Simply clicking on one of these icons would immediately slide the required workspace into view. Clicking back to the original workspace would be just as easy and this immediateness would compliment the minimise-less way of doing things. Currently changing workspaces in the Shell is a counter intuitive bind. So I suggest that this “NEW” feature be implemented asap.

2] Now that we have a easy and fast way to use workspaces, the first thing that I want to do is launch applications in my workspaces. The dock makes this easy for a small set of applications that I have added to favourites. However I can’t add all my applications to the dock as this would be impracticable, so I have therefore to once again, slide my mouse to the top left over Activities, this brings up current workspace Windows, so I have to click on Applications and then either scroll through a mesh of huge icons representing all the applications on my system or move my mouse again to the right select a category and then scroll through more icons until I can see the application that I wish to launch.

Whilst the icons and animation of this feature are smooth and bold, it is a little too long winded a process to find an application that I just want to launch for a purpose and the graphic element and journey in travelling to this application is unnecessary for me.

I suggest that a much, much easier way of achieving this would be to simply add a menu to the top left of the screen for Applications. Simply clicking on this tab would open a drop down menu of application category’s that in turn show sub menus of the applications themselves. Hence any and every application on the system would be accessible via no more than two clicks of the mouse. I am sure that this, second “NEW” feature would be a significant improvement to the currently visually attractive but somewhat convoluted method of finding and launching a program.

Gnome Shell looks great and once these improvements and some other usability improvements have been implemented I am sure that it will be a great new desktop.

Look & Feel

Windows XP has quite a cartoony look and feel compared to the slick look of Aero Glass; this is mostly offset by the lack of strange screen artifacts caused by malfunctioning graphics code. You know, almost like static on the screen. This was a once or twice monthly occurrence on my laptop, and happened on my desktop whenever I logged in, and also whenever I played a 3D game after leaving Vista running for a couple of hours. I also miss the “orphaned windows” I got on Vista, dialog boxes that would not go away, in a sense they became part of the desktop, since you could drag a selection from within them, despite the fact that the Glass would render the selection below them. Such crazy graphics bugs appear to be a thing of the past.

Performance

Well, here there appears to be no contest. Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. Not only that, but the applications start snappily too, rather than all waiting in some “I’m still starting up the OS” queue for 30 seconds or so before all starting at once. In addition, I have noticed that when performing complex tasks such as viewing large images, or updating large spreadsheets, instead of the whole operating system locking down for several seconds, it now just locks down the application I am working on, allowing me to <gasp> Alt-Tab to another application and work on that. I am thrilled that Microsoft decided to add preemptive multitasking to their operating system, and for this reason alone I would strongly urge you to upgrade to XP. With the amount of multi-core processors around today using a multitasking operating system like XP makes a world of difference.

In addition, numerous tasks that take a long time on Vista have been greatly speeded up. File copies are snappy and responsive, and pressing the Cancel button halfway through actually cancels the copy almost immediately, as opposed to having it lock up, and sometimes lock up the PC. In addition, a lot of work has gone into making deletes far more efficient, it appears that no more does the operating system scan every file to be deleted prior to wiping it, and instead just wipes out the NTFS trees involved, a far quicker operation. On my Vista machine I would often see a dialog box from some of my video codec’s pop up when deleting, moving or copying videos. No more, now all that is involved is a byte transfer or NTFS operation.

Automatic Updates has also gone through a performance facelift in that it no longer hogs your bandwidth when you’re surfing, a nice touch.

Device Support

XP comes with some impressive device support. In fact, every peripheral I’ve collected over the years works perfectly with it. Many have the device drivers preinstalled on XP, making their installation a snap, but for the rest it was easy to find device drivers on the Web. In addition I found the drivers quick and reliable, a far cry from the buggy, slow and sparse driver support in Vista. I’m glad to see that with their new flagship OS, Windows XP, Microsoft have finally learnt from the mistakes they made with the Vista launch. In addition, support for mobile devices seems to be significantly improved.

I’ve also found that XP seems much lighter on the hardware than Vista, when it’s inactive the hard drive very rarely spins up, a major advantage for me, since I often sleep near my laptop. No longer do I have to try and ignore the continual hard drive drone, but can now sleep soundly just like my computer. I never did figure out exactly what Vista was doing with my hard drive the whole time, but I’m sure it degraded its lifespan with all that spinning.

Reliability

All I can say is “wow!” You can see that a lot of work has gone into making XP more reliable than its predecessor. The random program crashes, and hangs appear to be a thing of the past.

Internet Explorer 7 is much more reliable on XP as well, and has so far not crashed once whilst viewing GMail, when it used to do this several times a day. In addition, I can now actually close the thing down normally every time, instead of sometimes having to kill the process. Error collection seems to be far better as well. Instead of a dialog taking a minute or two to collect the information it needs, the dialog comes up and is ready to send error data almost immediately. I am sad to see the back of the Solutions tool though, it may have hardly ever delivered any valid solutions, especially for the standard random crashes, but at least you knew that something under your control was tracking that information. Please, Microsoft bring it back.

Speaking of which, I notice that the Reliability Report is also gone, again a sore loss, I really enjoyed charting the downward spiral of my Vista reliability, there were those occasional humps that got you all excited, and then the graph would continue its steady sojourn downwards. Of course, the fact that it only appeared to pay attention to a tiny fraction of the actual problems was a bit of an issue, but I’m sure they could have resolved that for the XP release. Ah well.

I also am pleased to note that Ctrl-Alt-Del does actually have an effect nowadays. Many times in Vista, I wished that they would make this more reliable so I could kill off the inevitable hanging Windows Explorer process (as a matter of fact, this is the situation I find myself in right now), in XP it actually does something as opposed to being part of the usual Vista eternal hang. Speaking of which, please excuse me for a few minutes, Windows Explorer has now been 100% hung for 5 minutes, despite my asking Vista to restart it, and despite me pushing Ctrl-Alt-Del several times over those 5 minutes. So I’m going to have to hard-reset my laptop. This process, by the way, is also something that amazingly seems to almost never be required in the clean and sparkling new XP.

Right, I’m back, thanks for being patient. I mentioned how much quicker you could start using programs from a boot in XP; I must admit that, appealing though that feature is, you won’t actually find it that useful. XP almost never appears to require a reboot, so you hardly ever take advantage of a wonderful improvement like that, which otherwise would save you at least 15-20 minutes a day.

Gaming

This is another area where Microsoft has really excelled in Windows XP. Games are significantly more responsive, get much higher frame rates, and are far more reliable than in Vista. If you’re a gamer, the upgrade to XP is mandatory. Whilst there are a few games that won’t work as well in XP than in Vista, you’ll find that on the whole XP supports almost all the games you’d want to play. In addition, it’s vastly increased reliability means you’ll spend much more time killing things than restarting, a welcome change I can assure you. You’ll also find that non-X-Fi soundcards with EAX are much improved by their support in XP, which can really add a bit of excitement to your gaming experience.

Multimedia

Multimedia support on XP is vastly better than on Vista. Whilst content-creators had insisted on all sorts of intrusive features in Vista that made the multimedia experience a living hell for Microsoft users, thankfully with XP Microsoft were able to insist that their customers’ needs came ahead of the content creators outdated business model. It’s nice to see a corporation like Microsoft stand up to the cyber bullies at the MPAA and refuse to assume that its loyal customers are criminals. In any case, the DRM built into Vista was broken shortly after its release anyway.

Conclusion

To be honest there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft has really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.

Well done Microsoft!