waider dot i e

June 07

After some investigation I have concluded that my GoPro camera creates files which its own built-in webserver will not deliver to a client in their entirety - the connection closes at the 2GB boundary, while the files may run somewhere past that. Tsk. (You can retrieve the rest using HTTP's Range header.)

Arrival was stonkingly good, the more so because I'd absolutely no idea what to expect so - as I presume was intended - I spent a good deal of effort trying to figure out what was going on and gradually recognising that clues had been left along the way. It's a slow movie, and nothing explodes (well, mostly) and you're probably gonna have to actually engage your brain for it, but it's definitely one to see.

June 02

Finished Season 5 of Bosch which was really good except for the very obvious hooks for Season 6, and the whole Bosch/Chief confrontation where you're wondering if Bosch didn't just copy the file he brought with him, and if not why not.

Also now working our way through Good Omens which is basically perfect, and I do like the speculation that you could've swapped Tennant and Sheen's roles without difficulty (i.e. Tennant playing Aziraphele and Sheen playing Crowley). I think Sir Terry would've been very happy with how this has turned out.

May 25

I'd seen Unbreakable long enough ago that I'd forgotten most of the details, and neither of us has seen Split, so of course we watched Glass which is a sequel to both. There were a few backreferences to the preceeding movies but nothing you couldn't figure out from context, and I don't think it'd have dramatically changed my opinion of the movie, which was "Meh". It's just sort of slow and drawn out and the twists are telegraphed and, I dunno, it winds up feeling like "Everyone's doing comic books, me too". Oh well.

May 24

The Man Who Knew Infinity was a fascinating movie about someone I'd never heard of, and somewhat unusually for a biopic it seems like it stuck pretty damned close to the real story. It's not a brilliant movie by any means, but it's interesting and well-made and was a better use of two hours than some other things I've watched.

May 21

BBC wrestling with trademarks and spelling today:

2019-05-21 03:35 Niki Lauda obituary: 'A remarkable life lived in technicolour'
2019-05-21 06:05 Niki Lauda obituary: 'A remarkable life lived in Technicolour'
2019-05-21 06:35 Niki Lauda obituary: 'A remarkable life lived in Technicolor'

You'd sort of expect something like this would have been prepared in advance, wouldn't you?

May 16

This broadcast comes to you from our new digs on the west side of Dublin, since the regular spot is undergoing a bit of surgery that will make it somewhat uninhabitable. We actually moved in here last Friday, but it's taken a while to get things sufficiently settled, and we decided tonight should be a night off from moving / packing / unpacking.

The move weekend itself was a barrel of laughs:

Friday: I spend the day moving enough stuff to facilitate at least one night at the new digs.
Saturday, 3am: We both get up and drive to Phoenix Park for Darkness into Light 5k walk; back home about 5:30am.
Saturday, 8am: I get up again and go to the no-longer-local parkrun to marshall, followed by coffee with the Sanctuary Runners who I normally run with.
Saturday afternoon: We both do some more housemoving stuff.
Sunday, 8:30am: We both get up and drive to Terenure where I'm running in the Sportsworld Terenure 5-Mile Race in the Sanctuary Runners colours (my first race in several years, and I managed just over 37 minutes)
Sunday afternoon: We both do some more housemoving stuff.
Monday: ditto.
Tuesday: I'm on housemoving duty again during the day, and we both do some more in the evening.
Wednesday I'm back at work, but we do a bit more housemoving in the evening.

So that's why we're on a night off tonight.

May 05

Windows machine insisting that files suffixed ".pdf" are of type "Chrome HTML File (pdf)". None of the obvious tricks to change this to something sane - such as, say, "PDF file" - seem to have any effect. They're definitely PDF files, though. My understanding of this is that Chrome has, very much in the fashion of every other piece of Windows software, attempted to lay claim to the Default Application space in every area it can, and has done so in a way that sneaks beneath the standard control panel. The simple act of opening Adobe Acrobat seems to have changed the default app for opening these files to Acrobat, but they're still labeled as Chrome HTML files. What a pile of junk.

May 03

Keeping, somewhat, with the recent theme of Movies About Iconic English Queens: if it hadn't been in the credits, I'd have had a hard time believing that Martin Scorsese directed The Young Victoria. I mean, nobody gets bloodily dismembered at any point (there is a shooting, but only wounding and all very much shot in a way that emphasises the drama, not the blood). The story is funny, it's cute, it's romantic, it's believable, and apparently it mostly sticks to the facts - I suspect there's probably a good deal more historical accuracy going on in the set-dressing, scenery and backgrounds than the scant bits mentioned on the IMDb Trivia page.

April 27

Hacking about with the GoPro; there's a slightly abandoned Python module for interfacing with it, and with a small amount of kicking I got it working (needs python3, also doesn't recognise my firmware as being a HERO+). Then for some reason the "gpMediaList" API call (list all media) wasn't working, so I hacked around that to fetch all the data off the camera; then the next time I connected to it the gpMediaList worked just fine. I think there's a bit of latent flakiness around this that I've also seen on the USB interface where it was unable to retrieve files from the camera using the desktop app, but was fine with the phone app. And because it's a four-year-old model I'm not expecting firmware updates to patch the glitches any time soon.

April 26

Gradually reeling in the Marvel Comic Universe: Doctor Strange is fun and thoughtful and visually mind-bending. Cumberbatch does a nice job of both arrogant surgeon and somewhat hapless accidental hero. Rachel McAdams is a bit wasted in this; her role seems to mainly to be a prop for Cumberbatch and someone for him to be dismissive of - would have been nice to see her given a little more to do with the role. But, as the movie says, it's not about you, or something. Anyway. Good flick, worth a look. We're one short of being able to watch Infinity War and I see from the BBC's coverage of Very Important Things that there's another Avengers movie to catch after that. I'm sure we'll catch up eventually.