Well, the three Brits from Guantanamo Bay have been sent back to the UK, now, and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The arguments for the process that they've been though seem to be that there is a greater good for other people which overrides their individual rights, but the question for this blog post is simply:
If a country (Britain or the USA) imprisons people without trial (and we're talking of periods of 2/3 years), can it justifiably call itself a free country, or a Land of the Free?
As far as I can see, the argument for their treatment in this way is that the end justifies the means. Subsidiary question: is this true?
I have a feeling that deep down we all know the answers to these questions ...
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
MUD Update
This posts's at the geeky end of the spectrum, so you may wish to skip it. The MUD (see previous post) continues to plod along, if that's the right metaphor, but has got stuck (that's more appropriate).
Since it's a Java-based look-and-feel approximation to MUDOS, a famous MUD operating system, I've tried to use a lot of the MUDOS methods in it. One of these tricks is at login time the code for handling and creating the input and output streams which the game uses to chat to a player is built into each player object, so when somebody logs on, how do you chat to them before you've set up their player character? The answer is to have a dummy player which sets up I/O and gets the login details. A real player object is then set up for the player, and the dummy player is frozen, has its I/O taken over by the real player, and is then destroyed. Sounds very nasty.
What happens in practice is that the dummy player doesn't destroy itself when it should, and persists for one round, messing up the I/O. I thought I'd solved this one, but it's back. It seems to be waiting to destroy itself until it gets another round of keyboard input, which suggest two problems to me:
Either
Well, we'll see. Writing that down may have clarified my thoughts a little, and if and when the game ever gets into beta testing mode, I'll publish login details and you can all play (assuming you want to).
Now that's off my chest, the next post may be a litle less techie. I should actually be doing something else rather than blogging, so I'd better listen to my conscience and do it. Bye.
Since it's a Java-based look-and-feel approximation to MUDOS, a famous MUD operating system, I've tried to use a lot of the MUDOS methods in it. One of these tricks is at login time the code for handling and creating the input and output streams which the game uses to chat to a player is built into each player object, so when somebody logs on, how do you chat to them before you've set up their player character? The answer is to have a dummy player which sets up I/O and gets the login details. A real player object is then set up for the player, and the dummy player is frozen, has its I/O taken over by the real player, and is then destroyed. Sounds very nasty.
What happens in practice is that the dummy player doesn't destroy itself when it should, and persists for one round, messing up the I/O. I thought I'd solved this one, but it's back. It seems to be waiting to destroy itself until it gets another round of keyboard input, which suggest two problems to me:
Either
- it's hanging until it gets keyboard input
- the fact that every object in the game has its own thread of control means that it's blocking until some other object does something.
Well, we'll see. Writing that down may have clarified my thoughts a little, and if and when the game ever gets into beta testing mode, I'll publish login details and you can all play (assuming you want to).
Now that's off my chest, the next post may be a litle less techie. I should actually be doing something else rather than blogging, so I'd better listen to my conscience and do it. Bye.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Harry the Twit
Well, Prince Harry has done it now, following in the diplomatic and politically sensitive footsteps of his Grandad. They used to say that he shortest book in the world was "The Wit of Prince Philip", but his grandson has surpassed that.
I refer, of course, to Harry's jolly wheeze of attending a fancy dress party as a Nazi, just to liven things up. He's sure to have pleased everyone - the far right because they might interpret it as support, and the anti-monarchists because he's dropped the Royal Family several more notches in the popular estimation.
HRH seems not only to have shot himself in the foot, but to have taken careful aim and blown off half his leg as well.
It may well die down, but would we bet on him doing something equally awful next week, just to keep us all on our toes?
This blog offers a miniscule prize of fame for the best suggestion as to what he might do next that's as bad or even worse.
I refer, of course, to Harry's jolly wheeze of attending a fancy dress party as a Nazi, just to liven things up. He's sure to have pleased everyone - the far right because they might interpret it as support, and the anti-monarchists because he's dropped the Royal Family several more notches in the popular estimation.
HRH seems not only to have shot himself in the foot, but to have taken careful aim and blown off half his leg as well.
It may well die down, but would we bet on him doing something equally awful next week, just to keep us all on our toes?
This blog offers a miniscule prize of fame for the best suggestion as to what he might do next that's as bad or even worse.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
MUDdy ing the Waters
For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a MUD is a Multi-User Domain (originally a Multi-User Dungeon, but that has always sounded a bit dodgy to people).
It allows many people to log into the same game, as assumed characters, and to interact with each other and the environment.
It has a long history, blending ideas from the paper and pencil board game Dungeons and Dragons® invented by Gary Gygax (probably with influences from Tolkien), and the original single-user Colossal Cave Adventure game written by Will Crowther. There's now a book out by Richard Bartle on the subject, which I intend to read sometime, and which no doubt will prove to be excellent.
Players in these games originally looked for treasure and fought monsters, and in the multi-user version, fought each other sometimes as well. Offshoots from this idea have led to "gentler" games where participants cooperate to solve quests, or chat with each other, and you can find MUSHes, MOOs and all sorts of variants on the networks nowadays, including graphics version such as Everquest®.
The features provided in MUDs are useful and popular. You can have several personae, and join different guilds, such as thief, wizard, fighter and so on, which give you various skills and powers. You can pick up and drop objects, buy and sell them in shops, and trade the with other players.
Chatting and conversation is versatile: you can talk in various locations such as pubs, while sipping fake drinks (?), and the game allows you to display conversational cues on demand, such as smile, shrug, snore, etc to liven up the chat.
Some areas are safe, while in others you can be attacked by other players (if the game allows that sort of thing). The most addictive feature of all is that by performing tasks and quests, and exercising your skills, you can acquire new powers and ratings in the game.
Although the graphics versions have gained great popularity recently, the old-style purely text-based MUDs still abound, and their attraction is easy to see: a skillfully written game is rich in detail and description, and allows the player to envisage their own version of the world that they inhabit. It's like the difference between radio and television: television hands you the author's view, but radion lets you populate your imagination. (I've always thought that good radion comedy can be better than good TV comedy, Eccles). The text-based ones also tend to be free of charge.
I may rant about all this at some other time, and describe some of the (now defunct) MUDs that have given me great pleasure, but if you can't wait, a very good one at the moment can be found on the Nanvaent site.
Why am I gibbering on about this? Well, for one thing, I'm keen on both the technical and the social parts of the game: it's fascinating to see how people behave and interact in these surroundings. Also, I'm in the process of developing a game engine myself. It's written in Java, and will be freely available when it's ready (don't keep asking - it won't make it happen any faster). The purpose is to produce an engine which will then let people build there own MUDs on top of it.
However, I won't be able to resist setting up my own running MUD, just to test it thoroughly!
At the moment, we can handle locations, characters and objects, and the interaction between these is being debugged (and yes, there are bugs at present). When that's all cleaned up, development will move on to setting up a fighting mechanism (very difficult) and a mechanism that will allow guilds such as thief, wizard etc. One of the problems that has recently been solved is to list the contents of locations in a sensible way: that is, instead of "a sword, a orc, a sword" to say "two swords and an orc". It's been a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.
I'll keep you posted.
It allows many people to log into the same game, as assumed characters, and to interact with each other and the environment.
It has a long history, blending ideas from the paper and pencil board game Dungeons and Dragons® invented by Gary Gygax (probably with influences from Tolkien), and the original single-user Colossal Cave Adventure game written by Will Crowther. There's now a book out by Richard Bartle on the subject, which I intend to read sometime, and which no doubt will prove to be excellent.
Players in these games originally looked for treasure and fought monsters, and in the multi-user version, fought each other sometimes as well. Offshoots from this idea have led to "gentler" games where participants cooperate to solve quests, or chat with each other, and you can find MUSHes, MOOs and all sorts of variants on the networks nowadays, including graphics version such as Everquest®.
The features provided in MUDs are useful and popular. You can have several personae, and join different guilds, such as thief, wizard, fighter and so on, which give you various skills and powers. You can pick up and drop objects, buy and sell them in shops, and trade the with other players.
Chatting and conversation is versatile: you can talk in various locations such as pubs, while sipping fake drinks (?), and the game allows you to display conversational cues on demand, such as smile, shrug, snore, etc to liven up the chat.
Some areas are safe, while in others you can be attacked by other players (if the game allows that sort of thing). The most addictive feature of all is that by performing tasks and quests, and exercising your skills, you can acquire new powers and ratings in the game.
Although the graphics versions have gained great popularity recently, the old-style purely text-based MUDs still abound, and their attraction is easy to see: a skillfully written game is rich in detail and description, and allows the player to envisage their own version of the world that they inhabit. It's like the difference between radio and television: television hands you the author's view, but radion lets you populate your imagination. (I've always thought that good radion comedy can be better than good TV comedy, Eccles). The text-based ones also tend to be free of charge.
I may rant about all this at some other time, and describe some of the (now defunct) MUDs that have given me great pleasure, but if you can't wait, a very good one at the moment can be found on the Nanvaent site.
Why am I gibbering on about this? Well, for one thing, I'm keen on both the technical and the social parts of the game: it's fascinating to see how people behave and interact in these surroundings. Also, I'm in the process of developing a game engine myself. It's written in Java, and will be freely available when it's ready (don't keep asking - it won't make it happen any faster). The purpose is to produce an engine which will then let people build there own MUDs on top of it.
However, I won't be able to resist setting up my own running MUD, just to test it thoroughly!
At the moment, we can handle locations, characters and objects, and the interaction between these is being debugged (and yes, there are bugs at present). When that's all cleaned up, development will move on to setting up a fighting mechanism (very difficult) and a mechanism that will allow guilds such as thief, wizard etc. One of the problems that has recently been solved is to list the contents of locations in a sensible way: that is, instead of "a sword, a orc, a sword" to say "two swords and an orc". It's been a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.
I'll keep you posted.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Jerry Springer
What a strange world we live in. After Jerry Springer, The Opera had been showing in theatres for some time, the BBC decided to put it on TV, and protest exploded. Too much swearing, and some blasphemy, are the claims.
Here's the question, then: if a body of people agree that such a show offends their religion, should it be banned? Is that freedom or censorship? Is it right?
The Opera was shown yesterday on the Beeb; some little time ago, a play which was said to be insulting to the Sikh religion was dropped because of fears of violence.
Have we two standards here when we ought to have only one, and which one should it be?
I can only say that if the opera is anything like the original Springer show, then I'd rather be trapped in a lift with an incontinent hippopotamus.
Here's the question, then: if a body of people agree that such a show offends their religion, should it be banned? Is that freedom or censorship? Is it right?
The Opera was shown yesterday on the Beeb; some little time ago, a play which was said to be insulting to the Sikh religion was dropped because of fears of violence.
Have we two standards here when we ought to have only one, and which one should it be?
I can only say that if the opera is anything like the original Springer show, then I'd rather be trapped in a lift with an incontinent hippopotamus.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Woeful Words
Here's a grouse (and that word may typify just what I'm complaining about).
Are we seeing a trend for people to throw away existing nouns that we use and substitute verbs instead? For instance, what we might have called an expenditure seems to be called a spend. A demand is being called an ask, etc. (But then, where does demand come from?)
Or have we just always done this over the centuries? We've certainly messed around with trying to form verbs fron nouns: cities utterly flattened during the war were sometimes said to have been "coventrated", but this has fortunately disappeared. Perhaps they should have been "dresdened", anyway.
I'd generally take the view that where a new word (or a new usage) introduces a differentiation in meaning that wasn't there before, it should be accepted. For instance, we now have (on this side of the Atlantic) program for a set of computer instructions, and programme for a set of items to be presented (as in a concert programme). I have the feeling that a television or radio programme ought to be a set of viewing or listening items, rather than individual items, so that we ought to watch a programme of documentaries, rather than referring to each documentary as a programme. However, that one's gone long ago.
For sweet gooey fruity stuff in a jar, we use the terms jam, jelly or marmalade, which distinguish between ordinary fruity jam with the bits left in, fruity jam with all the bits strained out, and "jam" made with bitter peel as well as pulp from fruits such as orange, where the sweetness has a very bitter edge to wake up your palate at breakfast time.
Rock on, and let's hear it for finer shades of meaning!
Are we seeing a trend for people to throw away existing nouns that we use and substitute verbs instead? For instance, what we might have called an expenditure seems to be called a spend. A demand is being called an ask, etc. (But then, where does demand come from?)
Or have we just always done this over the centuries? We've certainly messed around with trying to form verbs fron nouns: cities utterly flattened during the war were sometimes said to have been "coventrated", but this has fortunately disappeared. Perhaps they should have been "dresdened", anyway.
I'd generally take the view that where a new word (or a new usage) introduces a differentiation in meaning that wasn't there before, it should be accepted. For instance, we now have (on this side of the Atlantic) program for a set of computer instructions, and programme for a set of items to be presented (as in a concert programme). I have the feeling that a television or radio programme ought to be a set of viewing or listening items, rather than individual items, so that we ought to watch a programme of documentaries, rather than referring to each documentary as a programme. However, that one's gone long ago.
For sweet gooey fruity stuff in a jar, we use the terms jam, jelly or marmalade, which distinguish between ordinary fruity jam with the bits left in, fruity jam with all the bits strained out, and "jam" made with bitter peel as well as pulp from fruits such as orange, where the sweetness has a very bitter edge to wake up your palate at breakfast time.
Rock on, and let's hear it for finer shades of meaning!
Friday, January 07, 2005
More on The Novel
I suppose that whenever anyone mentions a novel, then the obvious question is: "What's it about?". [Thanks, Alastair, for asking this one].
At this point, 90% of you (about 0.2 people) will turn to another blog, go off and do something else, or fall slowly over sideways, polaxed by the power of sheer boredom.
Roughly, it's a "whodunnit" crime novel with literary pretensions. It's set in a University, where an unpopular professor has been murdered. Strange events and hallucinogenic oddities litter the scene as a small team of academics blend their individual skills to track down the killer. Unless, of course, it's one of them...
Well, that's 5 chapters finished at about 8,000 words per chapter. I had planned 10 chapters, but the material for 5 and 6 has all just compressed itself into Chapter 5 alone, so it might turn out to be a 9 chapter book. I wonder if 72,000 words is sufficient?
Also, the discipline of getting down and writing more has made me think more about the possible ending and some of its improbabilities. There's now a cinematically dramatic ending, which may not work so well on the page, and a better tying up of loose ends. Will I ever write any more of it? Well, I hope so, as it seems to be one of the only ways to get off the job treadmill, and even then only a very low percentage of authors make it (that should probably be "makes" it, since the authors are being considered as a collective single unit).
Perhaps there are other would-be authors out there who might consider commenting on the whole process of getting work together, onto paper, and publishing it?
Anyway, back to the spiffing old teapot, as they used to say.
At this point, 90% of you (about 0.2 people) will turn to another blog, go off and do something else, or fall slowly over sideways, polaxed by the power of sheer boredom.
Roughly, it's a "whodunnit" crime novel with literary pretensions. It's set in a University, where an unpopular professor has been murdered. Strange events and hallucinogenic oddities litter the scene as a small team of academics blend their individual skills to track down the killer. Unless, of course, it's one of them...
Well, that's 5 chapters finished at about 8,000 words per chapter. I had planned 10 chapters, but the material for 5 and 6 has all just compressed itself into Chapter 5 alone, so it might turn out to be a 9 chapter book. I wonder if 72,000 words is sufficient?
Also, the discipline of getting down and writing more has made me think more about the possible ending and some of its improbabilities. There's now a cinematically dramatic ending, which may not work so well on the page, and a better tying up of loose ends. Will I ever write any more of it? Well, I hope so, as it seems to be one of the only ways to get off the job treadmill, and even then only a very low percentage of authors make it (that should probably be "makes" it, since the authors are being considered as a collective single unit).
Perhaps there are other would-be authors out there who might consider commenting on the whole process of getting work together, onto paper, and publishing it?
Anyway, back to the spiffing old teapot, as they used to say.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
And, of course, The Novel
Yes, like half the planet, I’m working on The Novel. At the moment, it has taken a very long time, largely because I don’t write chunks of it for a while. This may be the ultimate secret: if I want to get the novel written, I’ll have to keep writing it. Why did it take so long for me to work this out?
There’s a story of the novice who came to stay at a Zen monastery, and asked for enlightenment. “Have you eaten?” said the Head Monk. “Yes” replied the novice.
“Then you had better wash out your rice bowl” was the reply. At that moment the novice was enlightened.
The first three chapters of the novel have been off to famous agents (aim high) and have come back with beautifully and carefully written rejection letters. These people are business like, and have an eye to what they can sell, but also very kind.
Oh well, maybe one day…
There’s a story of the novice who came to stay at a Zen monastery, and asked for enlightenment. “Have you eaten?” said the Head Monk. “Yes” replied the novice.
“Then you had better wash out your rice bowl” was the reply. At that moment the novice was enlightened.
The first three chapters of the novel have been off to famous agents (aim high) and have come back with beautifully and carefully written rejection letters. These people are business like, and have an eye to what they can sell, but also very kind.
Oh well, maybe one day…
Sneezes and Snuffles
Not so jolly today. I'm laid up at home with a throat/snuffle/feel grotty bug which, after hanging about for weeks, has decided to come out of the woodwork at last.
What a marvellous hacking sound when I cough. It's a kind of gurgle followed by a snap as (presumably) gunk peels off the inside of the lungs, or wherever it is.
I've stepped up the ashtma reliever dose to double, and am sitting/snoozing in a warm house, waiting for the bugs to get fed up and go.
On Qi last night, Stephen Fry asked which animal in the world was the most dangerous, the answer apparently being the mosquito, which he claimed had killed half the human beings who had ever lived. Is this true?
However, these are but the ramblings of a (mildly) sick person, so don't pay too much attention. As others in the world stretch out in the sun, think of me in a kitchen in Britain on a grey, damp day that's already turning dark, and laugh your socks off. Go on - you know you'll enjoy it.
What a marvellous hacking sound when I cough. It's a kind of gurgle followed by a snap as (presumably) gunk peels off the inside of the lungs, or wherever it is.
I've stepped up the ashtma reliever dose to double, and am sitting/snoozing in a warm house, waiting for the bugs to get fed up and go.
On Qi last night, Stephen Fry asked which animal in the world was the most dangerous, the answer apparently being the mosquito, which he claimed had killed half the human beings who had ever lived. Is this true?
- I thought it was the malaria that did for them.
- I thought that man might have a good chance of being the most danerous animal
However, these are but the ramblings of a (mildly) sick person, so don't pay too much attention. As others in the world stretch out in the sun, think of me in a kitchen in Britain on a grey, damp day that's already turning dark, and laugh your socks off. Go on - you know you'll enjoy it.
Tsunami and Morality
Strewth. Now I feel guilty. We donated £50 to the appeal on the Web, and then wondered if it was enough. The answer, of course is no. Neither is £100 enough, nor £1000,000 and so on.
Yes, we did spend more on buying Christmas presents than we spent on the aid. I think I'll go and hide my head in a bucket.
It does raise a question. Given an individual's financial situation, what's an appropriate amount for them to give to the disaster fund? Should it be dependent on what they can afford, or what the fund needs? Aristotle, where are you?
Another interesting fact. As of about yesterday, the US had given to the fund about one and a half day's worth of what it's spending on the Iraq war. Hmm.... Better than nothing? Good or bad? There seem to be many moral questions here, which I don't know the answer to.
Yesterday, Newsnight (A Brit news comment programme) had the Catholic bish (or is he an archbish) Cormac Murphy O'Connor (why does he use his middle name?), a Muslim and the atheist Peter Atkins from Oxford in discussion about why a good and moral God would do something like this. (Or, if he's omniscient and omnipotent, why he would let it happen). Atkins said that if God exists, he's a worse terrorist than Bin Laden, and O'Connor waffled ineffectually. The Muslim talked off the point, and it all ended very inconclusively. It would be interesting to see a proper staged debate on such a topic.
Anyway, Happy New Year to those of you who are still alive and can stand it. What a world.
Yes, we did spend more on buying Christmas presents than we spent on the aid. I think I'll go and hide my head in a bucket.
It does raise a question. Given an individual's financial situation, what's an appropriate amount for them to give to the disaster fund? Should it be dependent on what they can afford, or what the fund needs? Aristotle, where are you?
Another interesting fact. As of about yesterday, the US had given to the fund about one and a half day's worth of what it's spending on the Iraq war. Hmm.... Better than nothing? Good or bad? There seem to be many moral questions here, which I don't know the answer to.
Yesterday, Newsnight (A Brit news comment programme) had the Catholic bish (or is he an archbish) Cormac Murphy O'Connor (why does he use his middle name?), a Muslim and the atheist Peter Atkins from Oxford in discussion about why a good and moral God would do something like this. (Or, if he's omniscient and omnipotent, why he would let it happen). Atkins said that if God exists, he's a worse terrorist than Bin Laden, and O'Connor waffled ineffectually. The Muslim talked off the point, and it all ended very inconclusively. It would be interesting to see a proper staged debate on such a topic.
Anyway, Happy New Year to those of you who are still alive and can stand it. What a world.
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