Dun-Dun-Dun - I watch Beano Star Wars again

A few of us were chatting about the galactic movie franchise that has returned to the planet over the last few days. I'll have to quietly admit that I've struggled to watch the various Star Wars films.

I always liked the idea of the first one, with space ships a bit more grimy and used than, say, something from Kubrick's or even Star Trek's version of space. I remember Star Wars as largely a comedy and that as they added episodes they had to make up a longer back-story.

We seem to have the first 3 movies in the rashbre central on-line viewing library, although I can only really remember the first one featuring the princess with the Cinnabon hairstyle. I've probably seen the one with those big four-legged robot walking things but I mainly remember seeing them at MGM Studios in Florida.

I decided to take a quick look on-line to see what it said about the second tranche of movies (in case I wanted to complete our set and give it all a proper viewing).

They are confusingly called Episodes I-III and are the so-called Prequels. Weirdly, many of the fan comments seem to be somewhat negative...These were the first few reviews on Amazon.co.uk. I've shortened them but left in the positive bits.

• Great set to own: May the Force Be With You!! Bought the whole set - prequels and all - thought the "prequels" a bit long and sometimes boring, but the original films (i.e. 4,5,6) really great - as they always were.
• The Blu-rays are pretty good if you actually like the films though: I forgot how awful Episodes I-III really were and nostalgia made me want to watch them again. Oh God was that a mistake. The Blu-rays are pretty good if you actually like the films though. *shudder*
• A flawed attempt to rekindle the magic: George Lucas made several mistakes in filming these prequels. Firstly there is an over reliance on computer graphics. Sometimes, such as the battle at the start of Revenge Of The Sith or the factory chase in Attack Of The Clones, it feels like you are watching a computer game. The star destroyer at the star of the original Star Wars still looks like a real object, even now. The CGI is particularly dated in The Phantom Menace.
• Shocking: The few good points Darth Maul while he is in it, nice seeing the Jedi Council and more use of lightsabers but way too many bad points, wooden acting especially from a miscast Hayden Christensen, Jar Jar binks totally annoying every time he is on screen, way too much CGI and a flying R2D2 laugh out loud, roll on JJ Abrams and the force awakens.
• Moderately good action let down by some terrible script directions: i like star wars like most fans do, i have good points and one massively bad gripe which really throws the films out from episode 2 and part of 3. but right now however a small opinion is that its got good action sequences with a good plot but how they went about it is rather disappointing in some sense because i was hoping for a lot more.

Maybe the Dark Side got at the Amazon reviews? The newest movie still has masterful marketing however. I saw the original cinema sting for it back in early 2014, when it already announced December 2015 as the release date. Altogether a great ramp up time for the merchandise. This week the supermarket is loaded with Star Wars products and some of last century's space toys seem to be making a comeback. Here's the Beano Part 2.

typical midwinter scene of bumble bees and blossom

I glanced out of the window yesterday and saw bumble bees buzzing around the cherry tree and collecting nectar.

No, I thought, I'm imagining it. So today I took a picture. Look carefully and you can see the tree lights.

the weather strikes back

And far, far away on Channel 5, Luke out for a really stellar weather report.

spaced

I didn't see the televised live launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome yesterday, although I watched the docking of the capsule with the International Space Station at around 8pm UK time - at which point there were also various replays of the day's events.

The starmen then had a photo opportunity and phone calls home.

You could sense they were both exuberant but also shattered, having just done what used to be a two or three day sequence compressed into around six hours, culminating with the manual (instead of automated) docking of their capsule with the space station.

I guess this mission has better UK media coverage because of Tim Peake (pictured above), the British astronaut/cosmonaut on the journey. The sight of a Soyuz rocket at take off is striking if somehow retro - I think the original design is from the 1960s and it still somehow looks like 60's futurism. The American rocket designs are more like utility vehicles whilst the Russian designs are more sports-car.

I've been to NASA at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy and the various UK-based space exhibits. It was striking how some of the components looked so primitive, with mechanical relays and switch controls that look like they were repurposed from old gas cookers. That's not to say that systems like the Soyuz aren't reliable. Soyuz has been launching rockets at the rate of 12 per year every year since 1997.

It's interesting to note that there's another two space launches today, PSLV - TeLEOS 1 at 1230 GMT from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India carrying five satellites. Then there's Long March 2D - DAMPE from Jiuquan, China which is launching the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, a satellite designed to measure high-energy particles in space.

Then on the 17th December there's another Soyuz, this time from the Guiana Space Center in South America and carrying two satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation constellation. After that there's a couple of days gap before a SpaceX Falcon 9 carries Orbcomm OG2 on the 20th December at 0125-0425 GMT launched from Cape Canaveral.

Then it's back to Baikonor Cosmodrome for another Soyuz - Progress 62P which lifts off at 0844 GMT carrying the 62nd cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station.

There's another 4 launches after that before the end of December, so I guess it's a busy month. That's before another 14 launches in January and February 2016. So, even if it doesn't always feel like it, we really are in the early space age.

No, not to scale

random music predictions?

I decided to try that 'Year in Music' thing to see what it reckoned I'd been listening to this year.

Very strange.

It picked my summer season favourite as 'The Beach Boys', which seems to me to be a wild and inaccurate guess rather than anything I'd play in quantity. Then it picked my top artist as James Bay (nice enough bloke but not sure I'd put him 'top') and my top track as Dreamer by Isbells. I can't say that I recollect that last track.

At all.

So I've just listened to it on youtube, to check. I still don't remember it, even if shows as part of the soundtrack of 2007's 'Into the Wild', which was that true story movie about a guy road-tripping to the Yukon, where he accidentally ate poisoned seeds.

I usually play my 'owned' tracks with iTunes so that explains some of the skew in the results. Plus the car, which has its own iPod, which I hardly ever re-dock with the main system. 6,000 minutes a year hardly supports needing a Spotify subscription, so that's a bit of a blooper too.

Although, for part of the year, I tried that Apple Music thing before abandoning it. I still prefer Spotify for discovering new tracks and setting a mood.

Just not the one that 'year in music' has illustrated.

ableton push button delivery of alligators into swamp

Another test track (Alligators) created using the Push 2. This one is a slide guitar, drums, bass and some horns. Theoretically it is clickable on Splice, but I'm not sure if you need to be a member or if I need to release it (which I haven't). Anyway, I've included a click-through link in the picture above.

Below is another short video of me creating it, using a few quick samples dropped into the Push 2 and then played back live. The samples are all warped loops on Ableton Live 9.5 and I'm just using the keys on Push to trigger the relevant pieces, which are set to around 120 beats per minutes.

I know it doesn't sound much like a normal synth session, but it's sometimes fun to just mess around. The video is a few of the worst clips from the camera on my phone.

Next I'll have to try something that sounds more like a synthesiser.

test triggering Ableton Push 2

Any excuse really.

All those synth tracks in Mr Robot has made me think about programming some new stuff and then seeing Rita Ora on TFI Friday doing synth-laden 90s pop. It must be okay again.

Fortunately the replacement Ableton Push device arrived. I did that thing where you can exchange the old device and it goes to a children's music charity.

I briefly compared the Push and the Push 2, but it should be obvious that there's a whole lot more screen read-outs in the higher resolution screen on the new one. Less obvious is the highly increased sensitivity of the pads, and the ease of navigating through sample directories.

A short test live mix below in session view. I was going to put it up as sound only, but I'd deleted my usual hosting directory. It's more guitar-based than synths, although I'm only testing it at the moment.

You get to see me dragging in and triggering a few samples - before I get down to any proper programming. I'd better call Christina Nott.

where is my mind?

"You knew all along, didn't you?"

Bo Hai Dumpling Town

I've been continuing with my bike riding, but moved to the turbo, using a quite gentle 0% gradient setting since I've tipped over the 4,000 miles mark this year (4,110 today). It's giving me a chance to watch a box set or two and the latest on the screen has been the cyber thriller Mr.Robot.

Set in today's world, seen through the eyes of an often hoodied and raddled hacker, it includes a 'grand scheme' plot line.

The setting has some of the edginess of Fight Club, flitting between dingy New York alleys and ultra bright corporate blocks. We've big cyber security businesses doing their thing and plenty of computer talk about IP addresses, distributed denial of service and spoofing. They do use some improbably high IP addresses: 172.258.62.296 anyone? It kind of breaks the octal.

It's still a step beyond normal IT-speak in the scripting, without quite reducing the language to dog.

There's a big plot about breaking something - using a wired-in Raspberry Pi as the hack to make it all work. I haven't seen whether they are successful or not yet, even assuming everything is what it seems to be.

If some of that sounds nerdy, then it's because the lead character Elliot (Rami Malek) is a jaded uber-geek. He operates as a morphine dependent psychotic and we get jittery camerawork around him when he's explaining himself to his imaginary friend, which is us, the viewer.

The series uses digital and social connectivity to illustrate that we can all be just a few clicks away from being found out.

I've also been fascinated by some of the filming, with framing to drive isolation, disconnection and occasionally a convergence. There's an often synth-led soundtrack breaking us through to the world of digital. We can sense the parallel digital world at every twist and turn. Evvvven the glitches.

I'm enjoying the series. There's a few pieces I deliberately overlook and which are offset every so often with some scripting gems as the characters step it up a level. They haven't used "the root (kit) of all Evil" yet, but I can sense it's hovering there somewhere..

To prove a quick point I even found Elliot's home address next to the Chinese restaurant on Broadway. Check out the food reviews.

edge games for energy tariffs

At the start of 2014, four years after they started a Retail Market Review, Ofgem forced UK energy suppliers to introduce a new tariff structure for retail customers. It was claimed to create a simpler and clearer market, removing confusing and complex tariffs to help rebuild consumer trust.

It was built around suppliers offering just four tariffs per customer for both electricity and gas and to help customers get the best deal.

It makes a great example of the law of unintended consequences.

Take my current well-known supplier as an example. If I forget to switch to their new tariff at the end of the one year period, instead of being put onto their new 'best for me' tariff, I automatically get switched onto their worst tariff.

That's about £350 per year worse than the previous tariff. Of course, they don't call it 'worst' tariff because that would alert me. No, they call it their 'standard' tariff, which somehow implies it is what they give to a lot of, well, standard people.

A well-organised person might arrange to pre-switch to the next best tariff, but I bet there's plenty of consumers who don't take any notice and through inertia (aka accidental loyalty) get moved to the lazy and expensive tariff. I calculate it charges about the equivalent of a Netflix plus a Spotify plus an Amazon Prime annual subscription extra, per annum.

The number of tariffs hasn't tracked to the number of years either. I notice we are already up to 16 variants of electricity and a further 16 variants of gas billing since the new rules came in back in January 2014.

The Ofgem principle was about 'Treating customers fairly and profit was not an entitlement'. Although Ofgem has taken some steps in the right direction, the utility suppliers have still been pretty good at playing the edges.

I notice in the 2015 Which report about energy companies that the most well-known names are all in the bottom half of the satisfaction survey. I'm not sure that 50% happy is anything to be proud of.

the pink and blue hippos and elephants are slightly early this year

Some would say it it still early to be putting up the Christmas lights and hanging things from the tree.

Not us. We've already started our festive season. It's meant the annual trip to a couple of shops to get special fillers for party bags, accessory hats and enough miscellany for a pretty large pass the parcel.

Some years it's been Hamleys for the bits and pieces; I think it's the 4th floor that is particularly useful for small items to be used as stocking fillers. Another time it's been Harrods although they are not usually cheesy enough. My secret weapon for finding small spinning tops and tabletop basketball games is a combination of Tiger as well as Hawkin's Bazaar. Whether it's small neon monkey erasers, butterfly hair accessories, crystal tops, microphones for pretend karaoke or even clockwork swimming hippos and elephants (4 for £1.49) the two shops between them will always provide the answer.

Just stay clear *cough* of the rather dubious Secret Santa items...

more zig-zagging around the highways

A midweek visit to a shopping centre.

The area has been successfully blockaded by roadworks originally planned for completion by November 2015. The new finish is now March 2016. I looked up the project plan and all the dates have been changed, so if you didn't remember the old date you might be none the wiser. Nicely done - although I'm bemused that the cost seems to have remained the same?
I expect the newly constructed John Lewis and Waitrose which requires access from the incomplete road system will be delighted. They have managed to open their newly built store in time for the Christmas season, to now see that roads in the area have various 'please avoid' notices applied to them by highways england (Yes they do spell england with a lower case 'E').

Despite the road system being downgraded to single lane whilst they finish their half hamburger roundabout, the main shopping car park was still filled. Perhaps the cars are trapped inside?

I guess I've got spoilt by shopping outlets like Westfield, which have lanes with signs that tell you the way to the empty parking spaces and include counts of the number of spaces available.

Inside this centre's multi-level car park there is just a complex maze of largely unmarked routes, sometimes blockaded by those plastic barriers. I decided to try for an upper floor but they had even managed to hide the ramps to go upwards. Not a pleasant experience.

However, once I'd eventually found a place to park, I was able to burst out into the bustling mall, which had what I'd describe as a busy Saturday shoppers' profile. All ages, all buying.

I wondered if I somehow missed the memo about this week being an emergency shopping week?