Irrationality, by Stuart Sutherland

Lots of people say about lots of books that 'everyone should read this!', well this is one of my must reads. Does what it says on the cover, explores irrationality in illuminating & sometimes amusing ways so that you can become a better thinker & maybe even a more successful & satisfied person.
5/5

Read: November 2007.

The Illearth War (The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Volume 2), by Stephen Donaldson

Better than the first book in the trilogy but the main character's disbelief of his adventures is so great & so often re-stated that it's difficult to care much for him (& the story) at all. The only sympathy he gets is from the fact he's a leper, which is never allowed to be forgotten. It's almost as though the author has afflicted him but then isn't quite sure what to do with him, he doesn't really develop from being a complete, & mostly useless, tool. Maybe a tacit acknowledgement of this is the way the author focuses half of this book through the eyes of other characters (a definite improvement) & almost completely leaves the main leper guy out of it. It's a shame because there are some great parts to the tale & I'm looking forward to the 3rd & last installment (when the leper should come good at last!).
4/5

Read: September 2007.

Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Volume 1), by Stephen Donaldson

Not bad but the main antagonist's misery & disbelief makes it difficult to like him & to suspend one's own disbelief enough to really get into the world created by the author. Is it all a dream like Bobby-from-Dallas in the shower...unfortunately that's how I felt when I finished. I will push on to read the next 2 but only because I have the books already (2nd hand for pence).
3/5

Read: August 2008.

The Rough Guide to The Baltic States (Rough Guide Travel Guides), by Jonathan Bousfield

Invaluable maps & guidebook when travelling through the region. Would have liked more stats & opinion on each place.
4/5

Read: August 2007.

Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction, by Ian Shaw

About Egyptology & archaeology, the study of Ancient Egypt rather than its actual history. For example it took until the last chapter for an explanation of the pyramids & other parts were quite dry & academic. Which is a pity, but is common to these Very Short Introductions.
2/5

Read: July 2007.

In Search of Lost Time: Way by Swann's Volume 1, by Marcel Proust

(Famously) takes some time getting into & through it, but so far worth the effort - only another 5 volumes after this!
4/5

Read: July 2007.

Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird, by Tony Juniper

Sometimes quite bland & scientific & as usual when contemplating man's destruction of the environment quite depressing, but the author's understated fury inspires hope & his passion raises the book to make it a good read.
3/5

Read: June 2007.

Everyman, by Philip Roth

Short & sharp deconstruction of one man's life & death; bleak but also uplifting.
4/5

Read: June 2007.

Death March, Second Edition, by Edward Yourdon

Almost too much information about too many aspects of the software lifecycle, but some useful pointers & amusing anecdotes make it worthwhile.
3/5

Read: June 2007.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers, by Christopher Cokinos

Very enjoyable book about a depressing subject - the modern extinction of a select group of birds. The author visits previous haunts & documents what he finds & feels about being denied the chance to see what was once there in abundance.
5/5

Read: Early 2007.

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, by Phillip Hoose

Gripping account of the depressing extinction of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the southern USA; pushed over the brink by man's greed (what else?).
4/5

Read: Early 2007.

Bodyline Autopsy, by David Frith

Wonderful book detailing the notorious Bodyline tour of the England cricket team in Australia. It was a hugely enjoyable, & at times moving, read which told the story of the people involved, as well as the on-pitch events during the now infamous tour.
5/5

Read: Early 2007.

2006 Books

A Year in the Merde, by Stephen Clarke


A Night at the Majestic, by Richard Davenport-Hines


Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Visual C# .NET and the .NET Framework, by Ed Tittel


Auschwitz, The Nazis & The Final Solution, by Laurence Rees


Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt


UML Distilled, by Martin Fowler


Blink, by Malcom Gladwell

12 Best Reads

My all-time dozen best reads appears as a list on Amazon.co.uk.

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Starts off great, heavy with foreboding and portent, but once the mystery assumes physical form it inevitably loses some tension and momentum in the final third. The ending is a decent one though.

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)

Interesting prequel set in historical frontier times with enough action and suspense to keep things moving along nicely. Slightly batty ending with some predictable native American mumbo-jumbo doesn''t do it any favours though.

Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004)

Mostly dull attempted shocker of a sequel, with random gratuituous self-harm and drug use scenes for the presumed teen slasher audience. Overall standard fare with a predictable ending.

Solaris (2002)

Intriguing and atmospheric film dealing with non-science fiction issues of the nature of love and its loss. Great soundtrack too.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Very entertaining installment of the Potter franchise with a satisfying big ending. Daniel Radcliffe''s best performance in the role too.

The Lives of Others (2006)

Gripping and thought-provoking story from Cold War Berlin, increasingly relevant in today''s paranoid times.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Sucked. Mostly pointless for the first half then a bunch of villains pop in and out for the last half. Spidey then asks for help to wipe them all out: bizarre - and that''s ignoring the ''bad'' Peter Parker bits.

Warning - AMD Live! Media Vault; Mediamax powered by Streamload

A quick entry to warn anyone who's thinking of using the AMD Live! Media Vault - DO NOT!!

I signed up for an initial free 25GB of storage, but I needed greater capacity to get hold of a friend's wedding photos so I decided to pay for an upgrade for a small monthly fee. I figured I could pay for a month then cancel it after I'd got the photos but how wrong I was! Once signed up, the site doesn't offer any proper way to cancel the service apart from emails which they have refused to acknowledge in any way.

So I've ended up being charged since May for a service I no longer want & can't cancel. I'm currently urging my credit card company to pursue them for what I consider to be fraud (the card company, Co-Operative Bank, has been pretty tardy at doing so, but that's another story!).

Worryingly when the bank actually did stop one set of charges from Mediamax they simply changed the name to Streamload & continued to bill me for the service! It’s still ongoing, obviously it will end at some point, I’ll get a new credit card, but I wanted to get out there what a racket this service is.

Avoid at all costs!

Chiwis Community Server Gallery Manager

I had a problem with bulk upload of my photographs to Community Server but it was sorted by using Chiwis CS Gallery Manager. This application provides a nice UI to upload as many photos as you like with the ability to give each one a title & comments as it goes. The only tricky bit I found was finding the web service (asmx) that needs to be FTPed to the hosting webserver.

Occasionally an error occurred but the photo on which it occurred was still uploaded & I could just start the process again for those photos remaining in the queue. Wonderful.

Next up is to port my whole webspace to get greater capacity for further album uploads.

Blog Mark III

Here we go again with the latest incarnation of the blog, this time due to a change of platform. It & the rest of my site now use Community Server, a free content management system for websites.

The reason for the change is that I had spent a lot of time creating a photo application but the more time I spent on it the more limited it seemed to be, or the more I wanted it to do. Then I was introduced to Community Server & it made sense to get my site using that because it does pretty much everything I had in mind for the photos & for the site as a whole. In particular I especially wanted viewers of my photos to be able to comment on them, so I might actually get some feedback & even some laughs from them.

As ever the site is a work in progress but I hope to master Community Server & stick with it for quite a while.

Update 03/12/07 - Block Mark III (b)

I've managed to successfully move the site, so this is the latest incarnation of the blog & with much the same content to start with. I'm now getting more space for less cash so I hope to realise more of the potential that Community Server can give me particularly because I had been holding off uploading more content until I moved the site as planned. I also hope to add a couple of mini-apps of my own to flesh out the site as a whole.

R.I.P. Tony H. Wilson

Sad news came last week that Manchester "Impresario" Tony H. Wilson died. He was a very important figure for Manchester, managing or being a guru to many of the city's most influential bands, Joy Division/New Order & The Happy Mondays to name but two (or three) seminal acts.

Because of this he played a huge role in establishing the 'Madchester' scene which played a part in my decision to move to Manchester to attend university there in the early nineties. I loved the place so much I stayed for 13 years! Living in London now I can appreciate more Wilson's civic pride in Manchester & I'm pleased to have memories of going to his club, The Haçienda, & of seeing him having a drink like everyone else in one of Manchester's many excellent pubs.

The Guardian have devoted a whole section to him, well worth a read.

10 Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

Intriguing & controversial discussion points even if you end up just thinking of situations that contradict the arguments.

Beliefs

After taking a quick online test, apparently these are my religious beliefs, such as they are.

Homepages

I've been playing around with iGoogle quite a lot recently & think it's the best thing I've used on the internet for ages, in fact when I first started using the web I wanted to have everything in one place & now I finally can.

As well as iGoogle there are several others each with various pros & cons: check them out.

Resurrection

**Originally posted in the now extinct WordPress version of my site.**

The blog is back. Admittedly it wasn't up to much before but it didn't deserve to be mistakenly deleted by my hosting provider! Anyway, it was backed up but I'm starting afresh; hopefully there'll be a trickle (don't want to be too ambitious) of updates from now on.