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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
In the velvet darkness, of the blackest sky
In the velvet darkness, of the blackest sky
All morning the skies above the Insane Asylum have been dark & brooding as we are sat under a Thunder Storm. Now this is not necessary a bad thing, OK. So my dogs are outside getting drenched, OK I will spend longer driving home at the end of the day, OK parents with their kids off school will be cursing the weather, and other Bad things I can understand.
But there is a light in the darkness of everybody’s life..
What is that positive light I hear you ask. Yes I heard you, thanks to a flashplayer plugin on this site it recorded your statement, and emailed it to me over to my iPhone. No! I will not go do that to myself. Behave!!!
Well to answer your none-rude question, The positive light is ;- I work for an ISP, which means computer, technology, things that need power to work, and since the storm keeps taking out either our electricity or our Internet connection, it means I get to spend the day sitting back, playing on the Internet via my phone. ;o)
Life Is Good!
BSG: The Final Flight of the Galactica
Adama: Starbuck, what do you hear?
Starbuck: Nothing but the rain.
Adama: Then grab your gun and bring in the cat.
Starbuck: Aye-aye, sir!
The series has come to the end of its four seasons run. And we have the 2 hour finale, where they get to tie up all the loose strings, and answer all those questions we have been left with over the run up to this grand final!… Or Not.
So the Galactica is damaged to the point it can no longer jump, its being stripped of anything usefull and everyone is moving out to the basestar, When Adama decided to send the old lady out in style with a suicide mission to take on the Cylon colony & basestars. This is the Cylon fleet that wiped out humanity, destroyed the more powerful Battlestar Pegasus with just three basestars, and been hammering the undamaged Galactica for the previous four years. And with a huge hole in its side from Boomers FTL jump.
So Galactic jumps into the place of death (Surviving the Jump) It gets the full force of a heavily armed and prepared Cylon colony’s defenses blasting away at this damaged battlestar, the whole Cylon raider fleet attacking it, Galactica on limited viper defense since stayed with the fleet (and for some reason the two best pilots were running around with guns?), the remaining raptors FTL jumped from inside the pod ripping another huge hole in Galactica. and at the end of the Battle she jumps a stupid huge jump and then her spine breaks, The Huge colony was destroyed by a couple of nukes. And this was a broken Galactica?
So.. Time for answers to the Questions we all been waiting for…The answer is “Its god!” Seriously, after four years that’s what they gave us!
Ok. Lets go.
Why does Baltar and the Six see each other in their Heads.. Oh “Head Baltar” and “Head Six” are angels who are leading the people of the course of God.
Why do some characters keep seeing an Opera House? That’s not really answered but we can only assume its a glimpse of Heaven. Well if heaven is an opera, I for one am spending the rest of my life sinning, I don’t like opera.
How come everyone has visions of Hira. We’ll ignore that one
What awoke the final five? oh a song, played by God, which happens to be a song Starbuck was taught by her dad as a young girl, and the location of new~earth.
What happened to the Cylon fleets, they were big enough to take out the 12 colonies but are now reduced to one rebel one, and the main colony which has no basestars? Errr we’ll ignore that one, even though the colonial scouts took photos of basestars by the colony but show you a flashback to Roslyn sleeping with a x-student of hers.
Are the Cylons going to stop their constant revenge against the humans now their colony was destroyed. Remember those missing basestars. Err, lets ignore that and pretend all the nasty Cyclon’s vanished since its gods will.
Why would every person on the fleet vote to give up all technology and live like savages? Come one, no one seen shipwrecked, survivor, we as a species are soft and unable to cope without our technology, and these guys are more technologically dependant than us, and they moved to strange world where they not immune from any diseases, and going to try and live with sticks and stones and native people who are trained hunter/killers.. (I give them a month survival). It would not happen. try getting everyone from the city of London to give up everything and go live on an island with just the clothes off their backs.. Answer Its Gods will.
What was the Cylon’s Plan? Err we been told about this plan all through the series, and as we reached the end, we never found out.
And The Biggest question. What was Starbuck? Now this is a biggie, after all, we know she died, possibly twice. We saw her ship explode in a vortex, we saw another viper burnt out with her dead body on it when they find earth, so that’s two deaths. So is she like head Baltar/Six an angel? Nope, cant be because everyone can see her, she fights, drinks, freks, she kills. She also sees her own Head person of piano player/her dad in the bar reteaching her the song that awoke the final five and holds the path to new earth. So are the writers saying an angel with no knowledge of being an angel is seeing angels? (My head hurts) Well that does not explain the fact she has been drawing the same picture since birth, a picture that shows the way to earth? I know. Lets not answer this hard one and show a flashback to Appolo watching a pigeon.
Ok. I got the feeling the writers had a good series, they built up lots of plots, and sub plots, and had like the Cylons A PLAN. But as the series came to the end, they gave up, decided juggling all the complicated stuff was too hard, That or they could not think of a way to answer it? so the used a deus ex machina to answer everything.. Oh it was God
That or, since it was the last ever episode, and no comebacks “i.e.. the series could not be canceled” they decided to just throw in some propaganda. Everyone there is one true god, all worship the god, robots, AI, abortions, technology bad, nature and god good…
I feel bad for the series send off, Although the fleet flying into the sun to the theme from the original series was a nice touch.
Micro$oft 0: WayneOwens 1
Tales of My delve into the world of Micro$oft repair work.
I had put out requests during the day yesterday for the parts I needed to repair my X-Box, and rectify the inherited design flaw of the system.
So I had a half dozen M4 bolts (always get more than you need in case things go wrong). Ideally they should have been about 10mm long thread, mine were about an inch and a half, but no problems that’s what hacksaws were invented for. A dozen Metal Washers, and a dozen Nylon Washers.
I had the correct tools, Thanks to the DemonP who actually owned some torx drivers, a very handy thing to own, and something I am going to get this weekend.
Step 1) Dismantle xbox to as many bits as you can… Done
Step 2) Remove the badly designed Xclamp from the back of the motherboard, and remove heat-sink… Done
Step 3) Using the m4 bolts, with washers (Remembering to use the NONE CONDUCTIVE ones next to the motherboard)
Step 4) Semi reassemble xbox, mainly to the point its safe to be plugged into the electricity supply, and making sure the DVD player is plugged in to prevent xbox live bans. Plug into power, and switch on. Leave it running for 10-15 minutes without the fan on the GPU to get it nice and hot, so the solder melts back on connection.
Step 5) Switch off and let cool down, The heat-sink will be “oww oww it burns.. .arrrggghh my fingers melted..” Hot.
Step 6) Look at the vast amount of xbox parts scattered about, scratch your head a bit, make a promise to pay more attention to the how you dismantle the next thing you take apart, and rebuild.
Step 7) Power up and Play……
Doing it Yourself
Cost: £0.00 (ok, if you don’t have the bolts that may cost you £1 maybe £2)
Time: Hour or Two tops.
Sending it off for Micro$oft to repair.
Cost: Minimum £60
Time: 3 weeks turnaround
I know which I prefer…
The Culprit
The Dreaded 1RLOD
So I have a free evening with no plans, nothing urgent requiring my attention, so have the opportunity to go a bit further on re5. Time to try and get past the heavily armed zombies who had me pinned down with their machine gun fire when I last played.
So a quick jump on the sofa, power up the X-Box and….
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now my X-Box elite is about a year and a half old, so unless it gets the full RROD (which comes under a special 3 year warranty) it is not under cover. So I have no cover for this VERY COMMON problem, that’s a stupid Micro$oft design flaw which should have been sorted many version back… (Not that I’m bitter or anything!)
So. While lying on the floor clutching the re5 boxset and crying, I had to decide what to do…
My options are: –
1) Send it off to Micro$oft and pay the ransom for getting this very common issue repaired (plus 3 week turnaround). This option also costs shipping charges, and prices start from £60 going up for how much they need to fix, and I do not trust the money grabbing *!$£^*%!£$”&.
2) Take it somewhere else to be repaired, and pay whatever they charge, and have a week or so downtime…
It was at this point a small voice at the back of my head said. “Err didn’t you spend years in university doing an electrical/electronic engineering degree? Don’t you have a shedload of electronics qualifications? Aren’t you supposed to be able to design motherboards, and build them from components upwards, even programing them?”
“Damn right, strange voice in my head! There’s nothing a Micro$oft engineer can do that in theory I can not.“
So, my plans are to collect equipment I need, and tomorrow fix my X-Box myself (And remove the design flaw at the same time preventing the issue coming up again!)
So stay tuned for my exploits delving into the insides of my X-Box, to find where all those characters live!
Wayne + shotgun + Infected = Happy
Friday the 13th saw not only the Knights Templar’s keeping a low profile, but the release of Resident Evil 5!
Saturday morning (This being first available chance since I was busy Friday evening.), I shot to my nearest town and hunted down a copy of the game. I settled for the limited edition Steelbook version, since it was only a couple of pound dearer than the basic version.
Then I raced home (At legal speeds) to boot it up for a quick game!
The game starts as most of these games do, with you weaponless just walking about to get the hang of the controls. (So far so good!). The next stage is normally where you get a weapon and learn how to use it in a small simple attack. So I find a bloke who gives me a pistol, and some ammunition and sends me out the back door of his house. (So far as expected from the game, I should get attacked by a zombie or something now). There is a cut scene, ok I see someone becoming infected, so I now should kill him and start the game. (NO!) I’m in a alley with several dozen armed zombies coming from all directions, there’s just more and more, My pistol ammunition ran out within first five minutes, I’m down to trying to hold them off with a machete, And they just keep coming……….
(This is the tutorial bit of the Game? I’m Hooked!)
Several hours later, I’m better armed with a shotgun and sniper rifle, fighting off the type of mutated creatures you’d expect from a resident evil game, all while trying to solve puzzles in a tomb raider style… This is all set to a dark backdrop, blood stained walls, deep claw marks in the floor, shadows moving, glimpses of people moving in background.
And the zombies are armed, and driving vehicles…
Add to this you have to be careful with equipment, You have 9 equipment slots, and they only hold so much ammunition. And if you are not careful you run out of space for health packs, or worse you can not pick up ammunition. I’m seriously restricted at the minute as I’m running about with pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, armour, stun stick, and 3 lots of ammunition. (one free slot, handy for mines or grenades…)
So basically, Don’t expect to hear from me for a while…
Beware Ninja Developers
All is on edge in the Techno Insane Asylum today, I think its just a coincidence that I also happen to have brought a shinai into the office.
“You took a weapon to work?” I hear you ask!
Which tells me two things :-
- You don’t know me,
- You don’t know developers.
I should also point out that MPD was due into the office for a meeting today, This is the MPD who has on several instances deleted my work. And needs to be taught a lesson. And let me tell you its very satisfying to walk into a meeting with a customer who has annoyed you carrying a shinai, and answering his quizzical look “This is for a health & safety lecture, on the dangers of deleting a developers work!“
So I start explaining it to him for the 6th or 7th time, while just looking at his code to see if there’s a problem preventing the functionality working. Then I spot a small problem, THE TOTAL LACK OF MY CODE.
He’s only gone and overwritten all my work with old copies of the files again!
So the shinai is a valid visual aid to bring into a meeting with him.
Some people seem to want me to hurt them!
“I’m not antisocial: I’m just not user friendly!“
I’m almost positive he’s doing it on purpose! In fact I am tempted to bring a shinai to the meeting tomorrow and teach the customer, not to mess with me!
I’m working on MPD‘s project. You may remember him from “Why? Oh gods, why?“. Now it was decided I was only doing the fancy backed magic that makes it all work, leaving a very boring, plane, basic front for a web designer to work his magic on.
That was the theory! only MPD has decided to do the web design himself to save money. He also plans on doing all future updates/tweaks to the code. On the whole I am in favour of the customers looking after their own sites once they are finished. As long as they know what they are doing, alas MPD has no skills in web design/programing/IT, But its all ok, He’s going to learn as he goes (and there’s a two week going live turn around on the new system)
So, I have two weeks to write a full, multi user, multi site site, all complex stuff, and while I am doing this, he is writing the style and content on the same site I’m working on. And I’m sure he’s trying to see if he can make me explode. Some examples :-
Last wednesday I turn up for work, open up his site and stare blankly as all my links, and options are gone. Nothing, blank screen. Well that should be “apparently a blank screen” for all the data was there, it was just written in white writing on a white background. So quick email to the bloke asking basically “WHY?” to which it takes several follow up emails to point out “everything’s now white?” it really did take several emails.
Last Friday, I refresh the form I’m working on only for it all to vanish. Well the labels were there, just all the data entry bits were gone. Now this time I was more prepared for it and checked, and sure enough it was there just invisible. Turns out he’s writing the style for IE and it does not work on any other browsers.
No wonder their old developers quit.
Cyborgs Work for the RAC
An interesting thing happened to me on the way to work…
I start my car and leave home heading to the Insane Asylum. I stop off at the petrol station to fill up on diesel, notice one of my tires is looking a bit deflated. After several failed attempts at humor to make it feel a bit better, I pull over to the air compressor for a “top up” only the machine is broke :o(
“No problems“. Says I, as I head on my way to work. About a half mile from the office there is a garage, so I stop there to make use of their working compressor.
Jump back into the car, turn the key, and watch as the Glow Plug light flashes on and off doing an impression of an indicator light. “Humm” I think, “that’s a bit odd“, but I try starting the car anyway. I am an optimist.
chugga chugga chugga….. chugga chugga chugga….
Nothing? No starting. nothing!
Arse!!, I open the bonnet, realise I do not know much about the modern diesel engine. But I am a man god dammit! I therefore proceed to prod about a bit in the male belief that “it cant hurt!“. Jump back into car… Nothing.
Ok, I may be male, but I do admit my limitations. Quick phone to the helpful RAC people. And caused some slight amusement. examples:-
Me: “My car wont start, the diesel light is flashing and it just doesn’t start”
RAC: “What’s the correct term for that light?”
Me: “err no idea… I call it the yellow coil light”
RAC: “There’s a proper name for it”
Me: “Hang on, I’m googling it now.”
RAC: “You said you were stuck on the side of a road?”
Me: “Got to love smart phones!”
So the emergency call was sent out, and so I just had to wait the one hour estimated turn up time. I amused myself talking to the fellow inmates at the asylum on NetIM (See reference to Jibber Jabber)
A Short While Later!!
The RAC mechanic turns up. I get out of car and explain the problem, “yellow coil light flashes, and engine no work!” (I’m good with technical wordies me!). To demonstrate my point more, I attempt to start my car.
“Hummmmm, Odd!” says the mechanic, Who pops the hood, leans on the car looks at the engine “Humm” goes to the drivers side, and starts the engine on his first go. He then proceeds to stop and start the engine several times to check its working.
“This is my second call out today” He says looking thoughtful, “And both times the car has just worked as soon as I turned up!”
The mans a Borg. the one time he touched the car he released nanobots that repaired the damage. I will be recommending the RAC to everyone now.
Chaos Seems To Follow Me
I finally gave in to peer pressure, and went to see the doctor about my eye. So a quick in/out to get it confirmed I have conjunctivitis and need eye drops, get a prescription, and sorted, all under 10 minutes. God bless the NHS!
So I’m standing outside the door to the doctors, prescription in hand with a decision to make. Do I: –
- Go to my normal Chemists (When I say normal, I’d not been there in 20 odd years) . Which means a drive to the local village, park wherever I can, walk to Chemists and collect my drops.
- Walk the 3 paces from my doctors door to the Chemists next door.
So I settle on the next door Chemists. I wander in and hand over my prescription. The chemist goes over to her terminal
<tappity> <tappity> <tappity>
Chemist 1: “You’ve never been here before!“
Me: “I never been ill before!“
So she starts to enter my details into the computer
<tappity> <tappity> <tappity>
Chemist 1: “How do you get to the next bit of the address, its wont go there?“
Chemist 2: “err you hit that button, then type there“
<tappity> <tappity> <tappity>
Chemist 3: “you just move the mouse over there!“
Chemist 1: “oh the mouse!“
So they finally get my details entered into the computer, print off the labels, and come to give me my drops.
Chemist 1: “Here you go, sorry but your address printed out wrong, and you cant really read it”
Me: “err, its ok, I know where I live!“
so. Doctors = 10 minutes, Chemists = 30 minutes
Is it just me? Or does everyone else have these same problems?
Vampire Eye
I have spent the last few weeks suffering for Conjunctivitis.
“A couple of weeks?” I hear you ask.
Well, The first week as it started getting worse I was convinced i’d just scratched my eye, making it inflamed. I was wrong, as my doctor told me withing 5 minutes of me finally going to get medical help.
Its an interesting experiance, If i close my good eye, its like I’m wandering about in my own fog of blurryness making everything look fluffier, Ok Driving has become a much more extreame sport, but you have to take the good with the bad.
The only thing left is to wait for the results of my co-workers poll, who are trying to work out if i now look more like the terminator, or an infected zombie with my one bright red eye.
