When the prospects of a Liberal Democrat – Conservative coalition first began to become a practical possibility, rather than a theoretical one, I was initially horrified that the paint may have been flaking of my yellow vote to reveal the blue underneath. It was a popular sentiment. When I tweeted “If the Lib-Dems do team up with the Tories, it will be like a twist in a film when you realise one of the heroes is the bad-guy.” It was rapidly picked up and re-tweeted (forwarded) around the Twittersphere by over 160 people. Clearly many like me felt betrayed, and worried that all the talk of “A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Tories” would turn out far more literally than they may have expected.

However, as time passed it became clear that options were few. While many of the left looked on at a prospect of a grand liberal coalition, the numbers would have been tight, and an already aggressive right wing press would have been attempting to destroy the coalition before parliament was even seated. It was also clear that several senior members of the Labour party were opposed to the proposition, raising the prospect that internal rebellion would seriously threaten the stability of an already precarious position.

The battle was enough to secure a key concession from the Conservatives though, matching Labours offer of AV. With that my most major opposition to the Lib-Con pact was abolished, although I hope the Liberals keep the pressure on to ensure that the changes go through. The situation wasn’t ideal, and I wasn’t about to pretend I was happy with it, but when the cards are dealt you have little choice but to play.

I still worry though. The Conservative party holds vastly more seats than its little pet bird, and I fear that they may get dragged into the fold. Sacrificing ideals for stability, for want of being heard, or for want of power. Furthermore, it is hard to deny the rightward drift of economic policy in the party over the past few years, and it seems possible that the shelter of the leafy boughs of the Conservatives will catalyse this further. Which leaves a problem, if yellow and blue become indistinguishable, either through incompetence or power-grabbing, where next?

Labour may seem an obvious choice, however their dubious record on civil liberties leaves me concerned. While a few back bench rebels still buck the authoritarian trend, the ability to vote for one of them will largely depend on which consistency I end up voting in.

The Greens are considerably to the left of most the mainstream parties, both socially and economically. However, the party occasionally allows its policies to be driven more by ideology than evidence, leaving a few dubious decisions in their science policy. Fortunately they do appear to be attempting to address these in response to criticism in response to their European Election manifesto. Additionally I can’t help but feel that some of their policies seem impractically naive, however this may just be a side effect of their considerable contrast from the mainstream parties. That said, after the election I discovered that my local Green candidate was following Ben Goldacre on twitter, something that had I realised before-hand would have likely persuaded to switch my vote to her.

So where does that leave me? If the AV vote system does get introduced, at least I will be able to vote for who I want, even if they are a minority party. I must admit I am unfamiliar with many of the other minority parties, although know I rejected the Scottish Socialist Party on the basis of their belief in an independent Scotland. (I rejected the SNP on similar principals) It also doesn’t help that most discussion of neo-liberal economics, Keynsian economics etc. just causes my brain to melt. To actually try and work out if it a) is ‘morally’ acceptable and b) will work, is sadly a bit beyond me.

And that’s that, an entry that tails of into navel gazing hand-wringing. How fucking Lib Dem of me. If you want to preach your party, you are welcome to do so in the comments. I’m genuinely interested.

(Note: First time comments will need to be approved manually. I’m not blocking, I’m just being slow.)

Of course, almost every blog in existence has some form of spam prevention, without it they’d soon be overrun. To avoid this they try and not look like spam, either by using generically applicable comments, or else by playing Consequences with key words. This can lead to some peculiar results.

I thought I’d reply to some of this spam. All comments have been cut and pasted, and usernames remain unchanged. Where appropriate URLs have been nullified to prevent the spammer getting any links, or benefit to their Google rank.

Re: On art and games [Part 3]
Matthew C. Kriner
If you’re still on the fence: grab your favorite earphones, head down to a Best Buy and ask to plug them into a Zune then an iPod and see which one sounds better to you, and which interface makes you smile more. Then you’ll know which is right for you.

Thanks Matthew! I’m not sure how you knew I was in the market for a new MP3 player, as I’m pretty sure I never mentioned it in this post. What is interesting however is that you should make you comments on a post which is considering regional differences in gaming market and culture. You may be interested to know that for example, Best Buy doesn’t exist in the United Kingdom, and, for that matter, neither does the Zune. Did it occur to you that perhaps the reason I hadn’t done the bloody obvious thing of physically comparing the Zune and the iPod was because A) The Zune isn’t availible in this country and I am not interested in the support hassles importing would cause b) Because popping down the nearest Best Buy is considerably more hassle when a plane journey was involved. Y’know, for someone with the psychic ability to know I was going to buy a new music player, you should really brush up on your ability to work out that I don’t live in the US and aren’t a total mind-numbing idiot.

Oh, and for future reference, I went for the Sony Walkman X-Series.

Re:Tim Berners-Lee Has a Blog
Plasma TV kopen
This will get some interresting comments haha

Well Plasma, you certainly had some interesting parents. Mr and Ms Kopen must have thought themselves highly original with then name Plasma. However, I’m afraid I must disagree with you sentiments. It is not often that a four year old article about a fairly non-controversial topic picks up many interesting comments. For the record, if it does, your certainly wasn’t part of that trend.

Re: This Week’s Tweets
James T.
Considerably, the article is really the greatest on this notable topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your future updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the extraordinary lucidity in your writing. I will right away grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Solid work and much success in your business dealings!

It is a page of fucking tweets! I’m not one to knock twitter, but 140 characters can hardly be called ‘extraordinary lucidity!’ What have you been reading prior to now, YouTube comments?

Re:Merry Christmas
Mireille Clinebell

Sorry? You found this page on a dishwasher?

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Wonda Lynds
Do you know if there are any natural remedies for this?

For twitter? Perhaps you are confusing it with thrush? If so, I recommend steering clear of most ‘natural remedies’ and consulting your GP.

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Elda Amstutz
How fast can someone start to see the results from using it?

Twitter? Well assuming it is not overloaded its pretty much instant? Wait… is this Wonda again?

Re:Homophobic Censorship?
New Proxy
Why would you want to wait till you are out of school to unblock mysace? You can do it easily with a myspace proxy. Its pretty handy to have around if you need to do some unmonitored surfing.

Wait. People who are out of school use Myspace?

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Georgeanna Bisges
the blanket was Kos’s nickname for so long

And you told me that because?

Re: Political Compass
Regine Siverson
Great fight! Lovely to see Penn headkick Sanchez’s forehead open

Remind me never to be alone with you Regine.

Re:This Week’s Tweets
Marcos Shinault
Sorry, I really hate to ask this but do you have any advice on stopping spam? My sites have been getting hammered lately and i’m not quite sure how to stop it.

It’s called karma. Stop spamming other blogs and you may stop receiving it.

It looked quite exciting, although admittedly it wasn’t something I was entirely sure exactly how I’d end up using. The simple benefit of a communication system which fused E-mail and chat was obvious, especially when it was also media rich, something that is becoming increasingly important in modern communication. However, at the same time I realised that Google were providing a toolset, which would quickly offer up novel uses, discovered by those who used it. Just as my twitter account has morphed over time, and is now used for far more than just simple “I am eating a sandwich” tweets, so I could picture Google Wave expanding rapidly beyond some of the uses concieved of at its exception.

Of course, the only real way to find all these uses is by using the thing, but at the moment Wave is still in its closed stages. Google have started giving out invites, although I imagine my somewhat late discovery of the application form, not to mention my admittedly limited skills in web development, have lead me to being somewhat low down on their list. Fortunately however, I managed to get hold of an “invite nomination” from Andrew Badera, whose blog I happened to stumble across by accident. Andrew was very kind to drop one my way, especially as I admitted to not being a regular on his blog, so I thought it only fair that I drop him a link in return.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the invite nomination, and should I get some invites of my own, I’ll make them available here, and via my twitter feed.

Update: I recieved my invite this morning. Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to talk to. If you have a Google Wave account, then feel free to wave at me.

Swine Flu

Jumping in first on the topic which is most likely to generate general interest, I’d once more like to point people at the post I wrote covering the H5N1 virus. Anton Vowl, over at ‘The Enemies of Reason’ also has a bit to say about the way the media are treating the incident, namely: Aaaargh! We’re all gonna die! Noooooooooooo!

Still, I suppose it makes a break from everyone being unemployed and moneyless.

New Phone

This weekend also saw me upgrading my phone, as well as spending several hours trying to convince three that I really didn’t need two accounts with them. I realise that I should probably have followed their usual upgrade protocol, but the handset I wanted wasn’t in stock, and at the time they implied that meant I’d have to choose another handset. Turns out I could have still chosen the handset I wanted; it would just have taken a bit longer to arrive. When I tried to close the old account they decided to explain all this to me, and encourage me to take the new handset back, to allow me to obtain a new, identical, handset in its place, with all the heading off to strange delivery depots that this entailed. Sure I could keep my number, but considering that I had already sent out masses of text messages giving people my new number, this no longer seemed like such a benefit. I was also unconvinced by the fantastic benefit of the loyalty points I had accumulated, when I realised that the 32p per month saving on my tariff seemed to mysteriously match up with the 2.5% reduction in VAT, which three don’t remove until the final stage of the billing process. It took me a while to convince the ‘customer retention program’ of this, and involved being on hold for an hour to an empty office. Thanks three.

The main reason I was upgrading was to take advantage of an included data-plan, without any increase in my monthly payments. The ability to access the internet on the move would be incredibly useful for things like Google maps, price checking, and of course, twitter. As an added benefit, three also offer unmetered Skype traffic, , which is bound to prove useful.

When I entered the store I was interested in looking at the INQ1, which the three brochure had advertised as the only phone on the plan. The handset looked functional enough, and felt solid in the hand, but I was a little bothered by style, which felt as though it was aimed at a market a good few years younger than me. There was also the concern that many of the features were very embedded in the phone, and although accessing facebook while on the move is a nice feature, I’m not sure that I need it tied in to the very centre of my handset.

Instead I went for the more adult looking Nokia E63. I’ve had good past experience with Nokias, and hoped that the Symbian operating system would prove a bit more flexible than the INQ1′s proprietary system. The WiFi support in the E63 will also be a nice feature to take the load off my, admittedly huge, data allowance.

I had mistakenly believed that the E63 had an inbuilt GPS reciever, after misunderstanding an entry in the menu. However, on subsequently playing with it, I have discovered that its Mobile mast triangulation system is stunningly accurate, and Google maps was able to place me at the correct corner of a crossroads.

Ch…Ch…Ch…Changes

So this leaves a bit of a stream of conciousness affair here instead. If anyone actually is reading this blog regularly, you’ll have noticed the ‘this weeks tweets’ post which appeared this Wednesday. As you may have gathered, this is an automated weekly affair and ties in with my use of Twitter. You might also have noticed the ‘lifestream’ tab, a page which summarises my activity across the web, perfect for all you stalker types.

Time and Tide

The title of this blog post refers to the weekend’s tendency to disappear. I had intended to get some food shopping done, but suddenly it was six and I hadn’t got to the supermarket. I was in the lab though, before ayone thinks I was in bed. Odly enough this is probably actually a good thing, as I had forgotten than I was heading home later this week for my Mum’s birthday. I had planned a whole week of food.

The Great Train Ticket Gamble¹

Oddly, talking of going home I had a great time playing the ‘find the cheapest train ticket’ game. It turns out that the answer was Megatrain from Edinburgh to Birmingham, and then a standard return from Birmingham to Kemble. I could have actually done it cheaper with an offpeak return, but that would have left 15 minutes to change trains in Birmingham, which is a bit tight if one of my connections suffers a delay. I’m still slightly confused at what happened to one of the tickets offered to me between Birmingham and Kemble, as it seemed to change price. This isn’t unusual for ‘advanced’ tickets, but only standard tickets were availible at that point.

And Now for Something Completely Different

This was originally going to go in On Art anf Games [Part3] but never really fitted. So I’ll stick it here instead, where is still doesn’t fit but at least its surroundings are similarly muddled.

And now, finally to football is over, sao I can start watching Being Human.

1. I almost went for the great train robbery, but the price was fairly reasonable in the end

Harm: 3.5
Fairness: 4.1
Loyalty: 1.1
Authority: 0.6
Purity: 0.3

http://www.yourmorals.org/

Its a bit odd as my ideals are completely at odds with my personality. The figures here would suggest that I was a hedonistic and rebellious person, when I am nothing of the sort. (As anyone who knows me well would attest, although I’m fully expecting a mention of Glory Holes from one of the Edinburgh folks on facebook.) But it does still make sense. I find public decency laws a bit silly, but is they were removed tomorrow I wouldn’t immediately take to running around in the nude. Similarly, when my morality is loosely aligned with what authority usually dictates, there is little need to rebel. (Plus there is the whole issue of overcoming fears, which is another matter entirely. Should I ever end up opposing authority it may be very well be while gibbering as a jellied mass in one corner.)

Now, such a request would seem as though it would be met with white faces and dread as my parents worried about financial outlay. However fortune smiled, as an unused and presumed broken Commodore 64 sat in the loft. My parents crossed their fingers, and my Dad took me for a walk as my mum set up the system. As we walked, my Dad told me about the various games that were on the system, and I became more excited. I returned home to find the system largely working, but my mum was having difficultly loading Hangman, and I didn’t get a chance to use they system that evening. But it didn’t matter, I had my first computer.

I can’t remember many games we had on the C64. Maziacs was one, and later my Dad brought a copy of a Sooty and Sweep based ‘Jet Set Willy‘ clone. I think ‘Jet Set Willy’ itself may have been the first game we actually got working, and I was greatly amused by the flapping toilet at the beginning. ‘Ant Attack‘ was another game that we got working on that second evening, and later also obtained on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, both on tape and microdrive. We never did get Hangman working, and another game ‘Bathtime’ also refused to work.

Come winter, possibly the same year, the car broke down, and we ended up heading out to a garage somewhere to get it repaired. As I played with the icicles hanging from the roof of a shed (seriously) I didn’t realise that the C64 had been left on at home and, ironically given the weather, the power supply overheated. We sent it off to a family friend, who declared it irreparable. What I don’t understand is why we didn’t just replace the power supply, as I’m sure this was where we were told the problem lay. Possibly there had also been a surge which also fried the system, but I don’t recall this being mentioned.

While I dissected the C64 to find out what it looked like on the inside we got a new system in the form of a second hand ZX Specturn, with hoards of second hand games. Among these was the re-appearance of ‘Ant Attack’ and ‘Jet Set Willy’ as well as ‘The Very Big Cave Adventure,’ a simplified version of ‘ADVENT‘ with simple graphics. My parents had previously played ‘Colossal Cave’ together, a story wich the gamer in me finds very sweet. (Apparently they found it on the server at Bath University, I’m not entirely sure what they were doing at Bath University however. I think they also had a copy on the C64.) My Dad also brought me a copy of ‘Popeye II,’ which was the first of many games that we brought for the system. Car Boot sales provided a veritable treasure trove of titles, but we also got many games in the shops. Among my favourites were ‘Knight Lore,’ ‘Spy Hunter‘ and the Dizzy series.

By the time I was eight we had gone through several Spectrum systems, due to both hardware faults and the fact that a few people seemed to farm their old systems off on us. At one point I think we have three working systems, all of slightly different variations. (The ZX Spectrum, The ZX Spectrum+ and a Dktronics keyboard.) However by this point the hardware was very dated and I had fallen for a new beast, the Commodore Amiga.

For my eighth birthday I received a ‘Commodore Amiga 600,’ still my favourite system of all time. My parents had claimed that they didn’t have enough money to afford the system, and given a couple of other large purchases they had made at the same time (Namely a television and a desk for my room. Yes, I know, but I honestly half believed them.) and that I’d just receive a box filled with a few cheap odds and ends. Upon opening my present while sat on my parents bed I was met with the bland and serious packaging of the standard kit, instead of the brightly coloured ‘Wild Weird and Wicked’ bundle which was more commonly on display in shops. While this in itself wasn’t an issue, I had never wanted the more expensive bundle, it meant that for a few moment I didn’t recognise the packaging and seriously thought my parents had filled an old box with a few cheap goodies (I saw the ’600′ and assumed, for some unfathomable reason, that it must have referred to a quantity of wine). The brief look of confused disappointment on my face must have been devastating to my parents , which was soon dispelled my my cheer of ‘YEEEES!’ and the attempt of my lower jaw to get as far away from the rest of my skull as humanly possible. The system came bundled with Lemmings and the excellent Deluxe Paint III. I proceeded to do handstands on the couch downstairs while my Dad set the system up, again disappointing my Mum that I may be disappointed, when in fact I was just a little hyperactive with excitement.

I returned upstairs to find Lemming running , and probably spent the rest of the day on the system. In ‘Magicland Dizzy’ I remember being blown away by the graphics in ‘The Chapel‘ which completely blew away the Spectrum version that I had previously been playing.

Despite what must have been a very expensive Birthday for my parents, the Amiga was still probably the best value present I have ever received. The hours and hours of use it received must have meant that the electricity to run it outstripped the initial costs several fold. I soon became familiar with ‘Deluxe Paint’ giving a creative outlet, and even played about a bit with AMOS. The Amiga also introduced me to the graphic adventure game (Or Point and Click) including ‘Monkey Island 1 and 2‘ and ‘Simon the Sorcerer.’ I still have very fond memories of the Amiga, and have instructed my parents to hang on to it until I have a place of my own where I have enough space to actually set it up again.

By the time I started secondary school the limited word processing capabilities of the Amiga were proving a bit restrictive (Although this was probably more a limitation of the software and our printer than anything else) and the system was again. Commodore had gone bust, and developers were moving away from the system. The consoles didn’t really interest me, and it seemed that a PC was the next step. However the cost was high and money trees still hadn’t been invented at that point. However eventually the family got its first PC, an AST Advantage 623, which came bundled with several titles, the only decent one of which was Worms. The system had a lowly 8MB of Ram, a Pentium 100MHz processor, 1.2GB HD, an SiS 6205 graphics card, Soundblaster Pro soundcard and Windows 95. The graphics card is probably the most significant of those specs, as initially it wasn’t Direct X compatible, and required a driver update. The only problem was I didn’t know how to update graphics drivers, and for a long time suffered compatibility problems. The first time I got a Direct X game running successfully I was ecstatic.

However the Direct X issues did give birth to one of those moments when you realise your life took a path that it may not otherwise have trodden. I had purchased a copy of ‘Broken Sword‘ from PC World, only to find graphics driver issues prevented it from running. Disappointed, my Mum managed to arrange a refund from Virgin Interactive, after lots of hassle in which no-one managed to tell us of the relatively simple process my which we could update out graphics drivers. (The DOS version also didn’t run, presumably for some unconnected reason) With my refund I purchased a game which has had quite an impact on my life since then, ‘Creatures.’ ‘Creatures’ was a surprisingly detailed artificial life program, which used simulated genetics and biochemistry to generate virtual pets known as Norns. My initial experiences with the game were disappointing, as I worried about lack of depth and longevity. However these concerns soon proved completely invalid, at the game introduced me to genetics, biochemistry, programming, modding and the joys of a vibrant online community. While I had always been intending to go into science, it is this game which caused my shift from physics to biology, and I no small way got me where I am today. I still have a great fondness for the game, although rarely play it nowadays, and the game still influences the way I think about biological systems, as well as the universe itself. I don’t have idols, but if I did, the man behind the game, Steve Grand, would be one of the few contenders for the position.

Since the AST I have had two other systems, a Quantex, and my most recent self-built system. I’ve always been a computer gamer rather than a console gamer, although have owned a PSX and a Wii. However my interest in computers extends beyond gaming to the tweaking, fiddling and even troubleshooting the benefits a PC user. While I will always bee primarily a Windows user due to my gaming, my current system is a dual-boot, and my laptop is a pur Linux system (Kubuntu). I hold a soft spot for past computers in the same way in which others are fond of past cars, although the pre-PC systems induce stronger feelings, thanks to not suffering from the ‘Janitors Broom‘ issue.

[tags]nostalgia, memories[/tags]

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A few hours!? But, but… that means I’ll actually have to work!