Categories
Computing

Bittorrent won’t resume!

Rather annoyingly, I cancelled a bittorrent download, and when I resumed it would not pick up on the previous download. It looked like I might be forced to restart, losing 152MB of progress. Each time I tried to select the existing directory to attach to, the file browser would navigate *into* the directory, which is not what I wanted – the contents of the torrent *is* the directory.

Hooray for command line. I located the torrent file in my `/tmp` directory and used the following command to get back on track:

`gnome-btdownload –url /tmp/myfile.torrent –saveas ~/downloads/thedir/ &`

Categories
Guidance

Inspiration

a catInspiration is like a cat. It does not come to you when you call it. If you believe that you are its master for one minute, then you are mistaken. Looking for inspiration is a follicle exercise.

In my experience, there are a few obvious mistakes that should be avoided.

If you are looking for inspiration, you should not go to the works of those who inspire you. Crazy as it seems, this will not work. Under these circumstances, all you will end up with is a pale imitation of someone else’s genius.

This has happened to me on numerous occasions, when I have written songs as a direct response to another song that I have heard. Sometimes you will forget about the original source, and things will work out fine, as your crappy imitation becomes, in the long term, what you perceive as the de facto original. More likely, however, and I speak from experience, is that for the rest of your life you will be unable to sever the connection between the original art and your shoddy ripoff, and it will remain always as no more than an embarrassment.

In my opinion, the state towards which we strive should be one of not resembling our influences. If someone asks you who your musical influences are, and you say Coldplay, and your music sounds like Coldplay, then you might as well be a Coldplay covers band – at least it would be honest. I’ve always felt that the whole “musical influences” question is a dumb one anyway. On a personal note, one of my band’s songs was once described as “The Muppet Show meets Jamiroquai” so I’ve adopted this as my standard response *(to the “musical influences” question)*, even though it is completely unsuitable for the majority of our songs.

We *(by which I mean You)* sometimes make the mistake of assuming that big inspiration can only be contained within big things. Inspiration, like a modern sleeping bag, can be compressed down into an impressively small space. Next time you seek inspiration, try looking around you at small objects – about the size of a testicle – and see what pops out of them.

At the point at which you are so desperate for inspiration that you’ve come to a blogger for advice, I’d say that you’re not in a mental state that is conducive to the task. You have to bear in mind that there are two states, the “thinking” and the “doing”, and I’d bet tuppence that you’re in the “doing” state at the moment. Admit it.

Now that you’ve admitted it, here’s what you should do. Find a rucksack. Into it, put the following items:

* Pen
* Paper
* Pork pie
* Torch *(in case you find yourself staying out late)*
* Keys
* Mobile phone *(but turn it off – it’s only for emergencies)*
* Camera
* Beer money
* Binoculars

Put on suitable clothing, and go out for a walk. City or forest, it doesn’t matter. The brain has a valve which prevents it from digesting information at the same time as creating it. In 15 minutes, your mind will get accustomed to the fact that you’re not force-feeding it self-righteous bollocks written by a blogger with absolutely no relevant qualifications whatsoever, and it will switch from “doing” mode to “thinking” mode, or, if you prefer, from “suck” mode to “blow” mode.

Because, let’s be honest, right now, you suck.

Categories
Music Original Music

He, Too, Devours Particles

I’ve thrown together another little song for you to download and listen to.

Please note that this is not my usual singing voice. I’m not even sure what my usual singing voice **is** anymore.

Listen at last.fm

Categories
Gardening Photos

Poor Snappy

Poor Snappy

I suspect that this pot is too small, and his roots aren’t deep enough to support his shoots.

I hope that it won’t hamper his reproduction too much.

Categories
Fiction

Somewhere Peaceful and Isolated

But what if there was never going to be a right time? It’s very difficult to suddenly turn round one day and say “Oh, and by the way, I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.” There needs to be some sort of catalyst, some sort of entry to the subject, before it can even be considered.

*“Dave said something really weird yesterday.”*

She was talking, but Chris wasn’t paying any attention to her. His mind was elsewhere, playing hopscotch in a sea of fantasies and desires. He pictured the two of them on a beach, or in a meadow, or somewhere else peaceful and isolated. He’d be looking deep into her eyes, and running his fingers through her hair, and maybe they’d be eating pork pies on a picnic blanket, and running barefoot through the surf.

*“He just randomly announced that he loves me. I was quite surprised.”*

Chris was snapped back into reality. A sudden intake of breath.

“Oh yes?”

*“Yeah. Can you imagine that? Spending years pretending to be my friend, and then… this!”*

Chris kept his focus firmly on the pavement. He studied the regularity of the slabs, the moss that grew in the cracks, the way that the roots from the trees were forcing the surface up and causing large bumps in the ground every few feet.

*“I think that I’m avoiding him now.”*

Chris briefly tested his mouth for moisture and stability. He didn’t want this next sentence to come out all squeaky or shaky.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. God, what a weirdo.”

Well, that answers that then.

Categories
Music Original Music

A little ditty

I’m trying something a little different here. The song is called “Sliding Gracefully Into Partially Frozen Malaise” and can be listened to at last.fm.

Categories
Displeasure

The Evolution of a Language

Howdy there, pardners.

Seeing as y’all did such a dang good job of myoo-tilatin’ that thar English lang-yoo-age, we’re a-gonna implement a few more li’l changes in the style of them that we’ve already done.

###Seasons

Since no-one seemed to bat an eyelid with the whole *Fall* thing, we’re gonna proceed with the original plan. As of now, you’ll refer to the other three seasons as *Snow*, *Flowers* and *Sun*. Yeeha.

###Clothing

Having done the whole *Pants* thing, I feel we’ve got to keep them thar dang British English speakers on their toes, y’hear? As of now, you’ll obey the following:

1. A *shirt* is now that thing that you wear on your feet to keep your toes warm.
2. A *bracelet* is one of those things that you punch through your earlobe to make you look purdy.
3. A *cummerbund* is that thing what motorcyclists wear to stop their brains getting all smashed up when they hit the ass-phalt.
4. A *shoe* is that little strip of floss what strippers wear to make themselves look purdy.

Failing to observe the above will mean you are un-American. You ain’t un-American, are you, pardner? No, I thought as not. Yeeha.

###U

Despite some initial resistance, we’ve succeeded in sneaking those pesky letter ‘u’ characters out of such words as *color*, *honor* and *flavor*. However, we’ve now got a big pile of ‘u’ characters stored up in a warehouse in Detroit, and they’re starting to smell strange. To clear the stockpile, we’ve gotta put them back in. To speed up the process, we recommend y’all throw in a few extras too. So, you can spell it *coluour*, *coluuuuuour* or *ucuuuuuoluuuuuuuouuuuur* – all these will be accepted. Yeeha.

###Stores

Continuing the vein of naming places after what they sell (I mean, what in the hell is a pharmacy supposed to be? Sheeat.) we’re a-gonna do some more of that there changing. So a bank is now a moneystore, a theatre is an actorstore, a butcher is a meatstore, and a train station is now a trainridestore.

Yeeha.

*Disclaimer: some of my best friends are American. And yes, I’m aware of the fact that [Americans didn’t invent Fall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn#Autumn_versus_Fall)*

Categories
Parenting

Sleep Deprivation

I was inspired by a post on Grayblog to say something that’s on my mind.

Someone with whom I have daily contact has a teenage son. Daily contact frequently involves some sort of joke drawn from the hat of *and you’ve got lack of sleep to look forward to in a few months* remarks.

I’m never quite sure how to respond. I could matter of factly say yes, I am aware that when I become a father in 3.5 months, there will be sleep loss of some degree. I don’t see much point in trying to fight it. Sleep loss is not something which I have a lot of experience of, so I don’t see much point in investing a lot of time worrying about it in advance. My expectations are almost certainly wrong.

I pick away at the issue like meat from a drumstick, and ultimately come to this final conclusion:

**If it wasn’t worth it, then we’d be extinct by now.**

Categories
Computing

Hacking Moto

So, if you watch my linklog, you’ll notice that I recently installed [moto4lin][] on [Ubuntu][] so that I could hack my [Razr][].

[moto4lin]: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56253&highlight=moto4lin
[ubuntu]: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
[razr]: http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details/0,,69,00.html

The primary reason for doing this was that the external screen would display my service provider’s icon. This, to me, seemed like a bit of an imposition – why should I be forced to advertise their product? I’ve already bought it – what more do they want? Blood?

So I created a 96×80 GIF image called cl.gif and uploaded it to the phone, overwriting the existing file in /a/mobile/system/ – worked a treat.

I then went to town getting rid of all the preinstalled crap that had been marked as read-only, and hence undeletable from within the phone’s menu.

Here’s where it gets interesting, because to give the user the impression that this crap isn’t taking up shedloads of space, the phone has been programmed to subtract the mass of this crap from the total space displayed when you request a memory report.

Continue reading “Hacking Moto”
Categories
Displeasure Music

Tale Of Pod

Apple Will Eat Itself

AWEI by Craig Ward used with permission.

*AKA Waiting For Podot (groan)*

Karen has a pink iPod Mini, and it’s given us problems. Periodically, it will suffer from a major identity crisis, and believe that it is a fish. Or a banana. We’re not exactly sure what it thinks that it is, but it is definitely under the impression that it belongs to a species that does not possess the ability to play music.

This came on gradually. Initial symptoms were a kind of iPod amnesia, where it was still aware of its purpose in life, but it couldn’t remember any of the songs that it had been taught. We discovered an arcane magic spell that we could work on it, a kind of vulcan nerve pinch, that was the metaphorical cartoon sledgehammer required to remind it of its past.

This then degenerated into an iComa, where even long periods on a life support machine were insufficient to awaken it. No light came from its precious little screen. So we sent it back to Apple, the iGod, if you will.

It was returned a few days later. They said that there was nothing wrong with it. However, when I slapped it in the face to rouse it, the face that looked back at me was blank. Sure, it lived in the same body, but they had done something to the little fella to change it forever. Some demonic brainwash or the like. We painstakingly began the process of teaching it everything about the world all over again.

But it did not last. Only a few weeks have passed, and it is comatose once more. I await a response from the iGod. I grow iRate. It wasn’t mean to be this way.