Alan Hinchcliffe

I AM Smiling

2010-03-06T15:56:39Z

I watched Black Dynamite again last night. It's still very awesome. I wasn't anywhere near as tired this time so I picked up more references and jokes than the first time I watched it. I also watched most of the behind the scenes material included on the Bluray. A very enjoyable movie indeed.

Earlier in the week I watched Stickmen. It's a New Zealand movie and was released in 2001. I somehow completely missed it until now. It was a pretty cool movie. I did spend a bit of time laughing at the NZ accent. It's been a while since I've really heard it (I don't get many chances to be exposed to it over here and neither Paul or myself have a pronounced accent any more).

I also watched Conan the Barbarian. I honestly can't remember the last time I watched it but it must be over 15 years ago easily. It's still a fun movie and very quotable. It seems the UK DVD is cut (in one obvious place at least), but it's not as bad as Commando - so I don't feel the need to import a copy from the US.

Oh. That Server Move.

2010-03-01T10:35:16Z

So, as I was heading to bed on Saturday night, I had a thought. "Wow, tomorrow is the last day of February... Wasn't there something I was supposed to do before March?". At which point I started freaking out because I had completely forgotten to finish that server move I mentioned back in December. I basically moved this site over and called it a day apparently.

To add the challenge, I was moving to a much smaller machine (500GB HDD down to 16GB storage) so I couldn't just move everything across and worry about it later (dealing with the subsequent downtime when the machine was switched off) as it simply wouldn't fit. There were a couple of big sites as well as backups and files I was storing temporarily (some from 2007, temporarily indeed) for which I needed to find a solution.

Ultimately, the solution became taking some sites offline and a judicious use of rm (and occasional sprinkling of rm -rf), but I managed to get it all moved over. I also noticed that Linode had just opened in a London datacenter. So I moved my VPS from Newark to there at the same time. It's much more responsive when working on the server now.

I watched Black Dynamite on Bluray over the weekend. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant movie. I was concerned the trailer represented the best (funniest) parts of the movie, but the whole thing was consistently hilarious. It felt like Shaft meets The Naked Gun. It's ridiculous, but that's the whole point. I also finished up my play through of Mass Effect on Insane difficulty (just a few more achievements to go!). I went out and played some pool on Friday night. On Saturday night some friends came around and played Rock Band 2. It was generally a pretty full weekend, although I definitely could have done without the server move.

age++

2010-02-24T10:12:05Z

It was my birthday yesterday. It passed fairly quietly although I still had fun. I was given a PSP Go, which is really awesome. So far I've been playing Final Fantasy VII and GTA:Liberty City Stories. It took a bit of work to get the wifi working on it (it could see the router fine but would either timeout or complain the signal was too weak), but it turned out I needed to re-enable 802.11b on my router - which I had turned off previously because we weren't using it. I got myself a book (Effective STL) and the 9 Limited Collectors Edition on Bluray. After work I ended up eating chinese food, having a couple of drinks, playing some Rock Band and watching Jaws (still a cool movie). Paul worked his bakery magic and made a very tasty cake. All told a really good day. Many thanks for all the birthday wishes.

Om nom nom

Update: As I may not have been clear, Paul actually baked the cake himself, he didn't purchase it from a shop.

Prints

2010-02-17T19:04:28Z

I've been slowly working to get the prints and lithographs I've been collecting over the past 5 or so years framed and on the wall. It's been great to finally be able to appreciate them, although I must admit a bias to some of the newer stuff I've got (mainly Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age lithographs). I can't complain too badly though, as it finally kick-started something I'd been talking about doing for a really long time. There are still quite a few I need to organise frames for, but I think this is a good start.

Dragon Age: Origins "Arch Demon" (signed, 170/350). Hanging above my monitor.

Penny Arcade Lithograph (signed, 726/1000)

My office. Showing the Penny Arcade and Arch Demon prints.

Team Fortress 2: "The Heavy" print (signed, 65/100). Hanging in the entrance to my office.

Mass Effect 2: "Citadel" (signed, 39/400). Hanging in my bedroom. I liked it too much to not put it up, but the circumstances surrounding it are frustrating. It got quite damaged during shipping and it is now sold out - so a replacement was out of the question. Bioware are being very cool about fixing the issue though.

Dragon Age: Origins "Pride Demon" (signed, 336/350). Hanging in the stairwell (on the same floor as my office).

Team Fortress 2: "Railroad". Hanging in the lounge.

This is longer than I had planned, but I don't want to spend the time reformatting the images so it'll have to do. I'm planning on doing some more framing soon. I just wish framing wasn't so damned expensive. I'm using an online place to do the framing, they seem to be pretty good (in terms of quality, price and turnaround time). You measure up what you need and they build it to order. It's been fun putting these together when I've had a few moments spare. I've created a Prints set on flickr, so you can see larger versions there if you like.

Quick Update

2010-02-08T08:23:04Z

I managed to finish Mass Effect 2. Amazing game. Looks like it's going to turn into an awesome trilogy. The art design was superb as usual. It seemed to be over too quickly though. I don't think it was actually shorter than Mass Effect 1. It was just the fact that they forcefully pull you through the story at times, which keeps the pace going, but also made me feel a bit rushed (like the pressure was on and I shouldn't be doing side missions) - cool effect, but I usually like to take my time with games like that. I should be able to ignore the pressure on any subsequent play-throughs.

I started up Battlefield: Bad Company as I'm interested in playing the sequel when it comes out next month and missed the original game when it was released. Not bad so far. I've also got BioShock 2 arriving this week which I'm reasonably excited about. All I need to do now is invent that time machine so I actually can get through all of this; lots of new releases over the coming months and not enough spare time.

I've finally got some of the prints I've been collecting over the years framed. I'll post some pictures once a few more have arrived. It's something I've been talking about doing for about 5 years and it's nice to finally have some movement there.

Slow and Steady

2010-02-03T08:06:59Z

I have been super-busy with work recently. I'm running behind schedule on a few things and it has been a challenge to keep normal hours and stay calm. I could simply increase the number of hours I do to try and get back on schedule but my productivity levels don't really seem high enough to make that worthwhile right now. Besides, I'd like to save that for nearer our deadlines. No point pushing myself hard now only to be completely useless when it really matters.

I'm playing Mass Effect 2 currently. It's really impressive. I have some complaints about some of the story choices and new gameplay mechanics, but nothing really major. I'm having a blast saving the galaxy again. The import feature is probably my favourite thing they've done, as being able to continue my story that reflects my choices is pretty amazing. It feels like I'm nearing the end though.

Recently I've watched Moon. A very nice movie - even after I had most of the major plot points spoiled. Sam Rockwell does a really good job in it (especially considering the bulk of the movie is just him and Kevin Spacey's disembodied voice). I also watched Blue Harvest and Something, Something, Something, Dark Side. I haven't really watched any Family Guy in the past, it came on after I stopped watching TV, but I really enjoyed those. I might have to pick up some of the episode box sets.

Prawn Cocktail

2010-01-25T08:22:07Z

I ended up having a very lazy weekend. Last week I was constantly struggling to stay focused on anything, so I decided resting was a good idea. It was only partially successful it seems, but I do at least feel a bit more motivated now.

I spent the bulk of the weekend preparing my Mass Effect character for import into Mass Effect 2 next weekend. I now have a level 58 Shepard who has finished all the assignments and made all the decisions I want to carry across. Unfortunately I didn't make it to level 60, but I'm not going to run through the entire game to that degree again just to do 2 more levels. After that I started a new game in order to get a few more achievements (including the level 60 achievement). I don't intend to be as rigorous with this play-through though and odds are I wont finish it before ME2 arrives. The level 58 play-through is my canonical Shepard for ME2 anyway.

My mother bought me an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas which I used to purchase a book and a couple of Blu-rays. All of which arrived last week. The book was Game Engine Architecture, which seems well written (although I've only managed to get a few pages into it). I'm not sure what it's going to teach me that I didn't already know, but at the least it should refresh my memory as to how things might go together. Hopefully I'll pick up a few new tricks along the way too.

The films were District 9 and the District 13 / District 13 - Ultimatum double pack. Yeah, apparently I had a thing for districts :). I had heard good things about District 13 and was about to buy it when I remembered the District 9 was now available, so I ended up getting both. I watched District 13 last week. It's an entertaining French film with lots of parkour and crazy stunts. It reminded me of the Taxi series, possibly because both were written by Luc Besson and filmed in French (it definitely has that Luc Besson feel though, along with The Fifth Element and The Transporter).

I watched District 9 last night. It wasn't at all what I expected. It was a good movie but about mid way through I was starting to get a bit bored. I could see it was trying to get somewhere, but I felt it was taking its time. Thankfully it picked up near the end. Definitely a well made film though. I just could have done with it being a touch shorter. D13 - Ultimatum is the sequel to D13 but I haven't watched it yet. I'm pretty happy with the purchases so far. Thanks Mum!

Projector Screen

2010-01-17T17:55:55Z

I've been in this new place for 8 months so far and yesterday I finally got my butt into gear and mounted my projector screen. The lounge had been barely used before this, so it was awesome to finally get it sorted out. To commemorate the occasion, I watched Double Team (ugh, I forgot how terrible it was :P) and Star Trek (much better on the second viewing for some reason).

Projector Screen Stowed

Project Screen Down

Projector On at Xbox 360 Dashboard

Rest of photos here.

Promenade Photos

2010-01-17T17:17:07Z

I went for walk this afternoon with the D90 down to the Douglas Promenade and took some pictures. It was nice to get out of the house after all the bad weather we've had.

Facing North towards Laxey

Facing South

The rest of the photos I took can be found in my Douglas set on Flickr.

School's Cancelled!!!

2010-01-05T09:14:19Z

Woohoo! School is cancelled! School is c... oh. that's right :(

It's actually been snowing since I took this picture, so it's even worse now. Might grab another picture later.

A New Year...

2010-01-04T10:57:32Z

Happy New Year! It's the future now, right?

I had a good new years. My 'no-drinking' policy was relaxed and a good time was had by all. I may have relaxed the policy a bit too much, as my hangover lasted until yesterday. That certainly made a mess of 3 days worth of my holiday - which was a touch annoying. The alcohol also resulted in a 2am trip to the beach, accompanied by a similarly drunk Paul attempting to embarrass me by going out of his way to say hello to everyone we walked past (a surprisingly large number given the hour). Good times! :)

My primary new years resolution is pretty much the same as last year I think (or at least the corollary to it). Get things finished. The usual resolutions were drunkenly thrown around, but the less specific ones seem to stick better in my experience (especially ones that can be applied to all aspects of life). There was only one specific idea that I liked well enough that I made sure to remember it for when I was sober.

I decided to contact some old friends I had a falling out with many years ago. I don't expect anything to come of it. In fact, I don't even expect a response - but that wasn't the goal of the exercise. It allowed me to say some things I wasn't ready to say back when I should have. Mainly revolving around the word "Sorry". Regardless of the specific circumstances surrounding each case: In some way I was at fault. At the least, had I been more mature I could have resolved the situations more amicably than I did. But that's life.

The fact of matter is that I owe so much to the people involved (whether personally or due to the situations surrounding the falling out) that not saying anything ever again would have been the real crime. Life lessons were learnt in all scenarios that no amount of training could have prepared me for. There are a multitude of clichés that apply here, but this is getting too long as it is. Suffice it to say I am grateful to these people, even if it wasn't immediately obvious.

I started a lot of things in 2009; Given that I'm usually plagued with Blank Page Syndrome or similar afflictions, that's a good thing. But some things were started and then stopped. Some were restarted too many times. Others dragged for so long they have actually caused things that were finished to become stale and I'm now forced to restart them for them to be any use. The goal for the new year is now to concentrate on finishing things - something I've historically been pretty good at doing.

So. Welcome 2010. Let's do this.

A White (week before) Christmas

2009-12-21T11:17:13Z

This is the view from my office on Saturday morning (Dec 19th). It's a touch early. Maybe we'll get the again same later this week.

Jingle-WHAT?!?

2009-12-19T14:29:29Z

Man, what a week! I haven't played anything for over a week with the exception of some Forza 3 last night with friends. I've barely had time to do any reading. Work has been keeping me really busy and if I've actually had any time spare in the evenings, I've usually spent it with friends. That means Assassin's Creed 2 has been on hold since last week. I haven't had the energy to get any reading done when I finally get into bed in favour of just going to sleep. I did manage to get some creative writing done earlier in the week, but that was admittedly business related (beginnings of a story outline for one of our projects).

I cannot believe Christmas is next week. I must have been saying Christmas is a 'still few weeks away' for over a month. I only realised how close it was on Thursday when I looked at the date. This also means I've been totally slack this year in terms of Christmas cards and presents. So I apologise for that. I'll catch up in the new year. Speaking of which, I also can't believe it is almost 2010. It doesn't seem that long ago we were celebrating the turn of the century. Having said that, I'm also looking forward to some time off.

It's going to take a while before I get used to using things like Twitter and Facebook. I'm like one someone who comes up with a good response hours after the conversation. Whenever I realise I've done something I could have thrown out there, it's well after I'm done. It doesn't feel legitimate posting everything in the past-tense on those things (and I don't want to use present-tense in case I contradict myself about what I'm doing or look like I'm slacking off). I'm sure I'll get better at it, I'm just not mindful of using them when I'm caught up in the moment of actually doing something.

There is an Xbox 360 Dev Kit sitting on the floor beside me, which looks pretty cool. It will be fun to have a look at that in the coming weeks (probably next year at this rate). I was evaluating the Boost C++ Libraries earlier in the week (might have been last weekend actually). I haven't had the need to really use it in the past (beyond standard STL), as I've generally been working with custom libraries to handle Threading and such, but I need a framework for a Rebel Brains project and it seemed like a good candidate. I threw together some stuff in about 20 minutes before breakfast on Wednesday, and I was impressed how quick it was to get up and running with it.

Anyway, that's all for now. It's been a very long week and I'm looking forward to getting away from the computer for a bit.

Patience

2009-12-05T19:51:07Z

My racing rig consists of a Playseat Race Pro with a Logitech G25. It's an awesome setup and it is usually connected to my PS3 for playing Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Dirt 2. I tend to prefer playing games on my Xbox 360 (I am a bit of a Gamerscore whore), and I was really excited when Forza 3 was released just over a month ago.

Unfortunately the G25 isn't compatible with the 360. Back in August I had pre-ordered the Porsche 911 Turbo S wheel by Fanatec in preparation for Forza 3's release. This wheel is compatible with the PC, PS3 and the Xbox 360, which is brilliant because the wheel needs to be bolted onto the frame of the racing seat so it's secure enough - this makes changing wheels painful to say the least. Ultimately they had some production problems and the wheel - that was originally scheduled to coincide with Forza 3's release - slipped by about a month and a half.

While I was waiting, Forza 3 arrived. I was keen to try it out and after initially just playing a few laps with the controller, I went through the arduous task of attaching the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel to the seat. The issue was compounded by the fact that the wheel doesn't have bolt mounts to attach it to things. The official way to attach the wheel to surfaces is to use the clamp that comes with it, but that doesn't work on the Playseat. The creators of the seat came up with a mounting "solution" using sticky velcro strips and some plates you can bolt onto the frame. The end result was sturdy enough, but pretty tacky.

Using the wheel was such a disappointment. It had been years since it had last been used and, unfortunately for it, my new frame of reference was the G25. The difference was utterly astounding. The Microsoft wheel feels like a kids toy. The force-feedback is ridiculously weak and the pedals are floppy with no real resistance at all. I'd also become used to 900 degrees lock-to-lock of turning; the MS wheel only has 270 degrees (a usable 221 according to wikipedia).

I decided that it just wasn't worth potentially ruining Forza 3 attempting to play like that. So I put it aside. That should change soon enough though, as I received confirmation on Friday that my Fanatec wheel has finally shipped! Words can't describe how excited I am to finally be able to get some quality time with Forza 3.

Server Move

2009-12-04T08:14:14Z

I'm in the process of moving to a new server. This site is the first to move. Hopefully everything still works. I have decided that after 6 years of running my own dedicated server, I just couldn't justify the price versus flexibility when I wasn't utilising the machine completely. I'm paying for overhead simply because I might need it. On the flip side, I'm also unable to upgrade whilst still being cost-effective (It's usually cheaper to replace the whole machine).

This wouldn't be as big an issue if I was co-locating and actually owned the server - which I would do if it was financially viable on the Isle of Man. I also don't see the point in co-locating when I can't easily get access to the machine, so going offshore isn't an option. Renting a server just doesn't make sense for me anymore

Instead I've decided to go with a VPS provider (Linode) for all my personal stuff. Business hosting will be a combination of Amazon Web Services and Linode, depending on the requirements. Amazon S3 will cover all my online storage (which I was using already - it'll just get used more). Thankfully, Google have been handling my email for over a year now, so server moves are less mission-critical than were in the past.

I'm liking this so far as it means I can change my server specifications depending on my requirements and I only pay for what I'm using. It's also trivial to spin up new machines if needed (and just as easy to take them offline again). Linode seem to be decent in terms of price and performance. They're not quite as flexible as Amazon EC2; but for my more permanent hosting that's not really an issue.