asides Blog

One line thoughts of the day.

It’s my observation that quite a few bands who play straightforward melodic rock or classic metal with a little prog flavouring frequently describe themselves as “prog” to encourage prog fans to give them a listen. In contrast bands with a substantial amount of progressive rock in their musical DNA often play down or deny the prog tag, on the grounds that it limits their potential audience. It may be based on a limited data set, but I can see some logic in both positions.

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Tim Hall | 4 Comments

If the best software engineers working for my ISP cannot prevent my email inbox from overflowing with “male enhancement” spam, what do you think are the chances of David Cameron’s porn filters working the way we’ve all been told they will work?

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Tim Hall | 1 Comment

This week’s DRM horror story. A reminded, if you “buy” anything that’s infected with Digital Rights Management, you don’t actually own anything. All you did was pay money to someone who has the power to take away what you thought you’ve bought at any time, without warning, for any reason at all.

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

We already know that Orson Scott Card is a loathsome homophobic bigot. Now it seems he’s also into white supremacist conspiracy theories. Who could possibly have guessed that he’s also a racist?

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have finally done the right thing and expelled the sexist, racist asshat Theodore Beale (Also known under the pseudonym “Vox Day”) after he used the SFWA authors’ Twitter feed to post a link to his blog post containing an extremely racist personal attack on the author N.K.Jemisin. One wonders how the 12 Rabid Weasels will respond…

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

So, another year, another 4.1% fare rise. Britain’s privatised railway is now the most expensive railway in Europe, with operating costs per mile significantly greater than on equivalent continental European networks. Privatisation added whole new layers of overheads, and the efficiency gains from “market disclipline” turned out not to exist outside the imaginations of ivory-tower ideologues. And the Tories want to do the same to the NHS?

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

Reading a long Google+ thread about the toxic nature of rpg.net and the behaviour of some of the moderators makes me wonder if moderating a large community forum is such a thankless task that only a complete jerk who wants to power-trip would ever want the job.

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Tim Hall | 4 Comments

Smugmug, who host my photo galleries, have done a total ground-up redesign of their site. The new site is a lot more customisable and has a far more modern look, but we have lost the common look-and-feel between the blog and the photo gallery. Still some more customisation to be done, but have a look at the new version, and let me know what you think.

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

Following people on social media, reading their blogs, or even engaging with them on line should never automatically equate to an endorsement of their views. If you only ever interact with people you agree with it’s very easy to end up with an echo chamber in which your own views are never challenged. There are quite a few people who I find very valuable as Devil’s Advocates in this regard, even though I think they’ve very wrong on many issues.

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

Talk of the Dr Who and Nu-Who’s over-use of corny plot devices has made me nostalgic for Terry Nation. As the man who gave us The Daleks, Nation understood science-fiction at a gut level in a way Steven Moffat never will. As well as writing some of the best of “old Who” (Who can forget “Genesis of the Daleks”?), Terry Nation also gave us “Blake’s 7″, “Survivors” and the underrated “Star Cops”. We need a present-day Terry Nation to write the same sort of grown-up, intelligent science-fiction without an American accent for today’s audiences.

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments