By Roy Mathur, on 2021-10-23, at 23:00:00--23:55:50, for Captain Roy's Rocket Radio Show, Listen
I changed my profile name from "TheCaptain!" to "Wizard?!" because my life is stressful and I prefer comfortable slippers and a warm laboratory, to boarding ships with a dagger clenched between my teeth. Though fireballs and dragons sound rather trying too.
Wizard? When I started writing a tech column long gone, it was suggested I call myself a "Tech Guru", which is not cultural appropriation because I actually am Hindu. Holy cow! I was too modest to do this and settled on "Techie Talk". Now? Bugger modesty.
In addition to feeling burnt out and thoroughly the squishy wizard weakling, it's been days of troubles here. I'm pissed off with everything.
Every day I get up and feel like I have simultaneously achieved both something and nothing. In other words, the grind gets done, while what I want to accomplish does not. Is that Schroedinger's GTD?
What am I talking about? Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about my website, where grep can only do so much when you're fixing 12 years of blog posts. There is no script wand that I can wave to text process a million file changes, or to solve the problems of my life.
October the 10th was World Mental Health Day, with the WHO stating that, "Mental health care for all: let's make it a reality". That's a great idea, except in the UK---I know this from personal experience---it is far from a reality.
Hey, people with the budgetary purse strings! Celebrate the day, but also actually do something constructive. Don't just be complacent and give yourself a pat on the back. There's a crisis out there.
I read Special report: Campaigning for Uyghurs---Resolute pursuit of justice by the Times of Israel. It's a real eye-opener into the collusion of western companies, through forced labour, with the persecution of the Uyghur minority in China.
Later, after listening to Terry Gross interview Oscar Isaac, I came across an Australian film called Balibo (2009) that he starred in. It's set within the events of the East Timor (Timor-Leste) genocide perpetrated by the Indonesian government.
It seems like this crap never ends.
While we're on the subject of imperialism and colonialism, I found an article about the theft of Koh-i-Noor diamond that's jammed into our Queen's crown: The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond---and Why the British Won't Give It Back by Lorraine Boissoneault.
Given by what a rough time it's been lately, I was reminded of something from Doctor Who.
The twelfth Doctor says, "Be kind", before regenerating into his thirteenth incarnation in the Doctor Who 2017 Christmas Special.
William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk made into space on the 13th of October with a free ride on Jeff Bezos's rocket.
Twitter follower @Lawnie10 suggested Star Trek slingshot time travel could have catapulted Shatner back to the stone age. It didn't and Shatner lives! CRRRaSh! salutes the Shatner!
I saw the Needle in a Timestack trailer.
The title seemed so familiar. It's a short story by Robert Silverberg!
I must talk more about this brilliant writer who, along with Bob Shaw, and many authors from times past, have influenced me greatly.
Someone please adapt Bob Shaw's The Two Timers, or something else by him.
This Year's Halloween playlist at Castle Royenstein is the Fear Street Trilogy.
Screw science fiction dystopias! Too much of SF today is obsessed with disaster---by extrapolating current trends---that few authors even attempt to write the path to a better future. They, their agents, and publishers have decided misery sells, so why bother doing anything else.
If the low expectations of the outcomes of the upcoming COP26 are any indication, those in charge have given up on the entire planet too. But it doesn't mean we as authors and artists have to follow suit.
In Asimov's Foundation, the galaxy falls, but there's a plan to save it. That is idealistic utopian science fiction. As creatives, let's do more of that.
What the hell is it with Colin Farell's Penguin? Now he's an Italian American mobster? This is like cockney Penguin all over again.
Penguin's a WASP gangster; that's his uniqueness. He's a Yankee Billy Bunter with a Tommy gun. Get him right, you chumps!
There's a new Scream film in 2022. Sidney, Gale, Dewey; they're all back too.
I don't know how to feel about it. I like the original characters; last year's Halloween playlist was the entire back catalogue, but... Oh, I don't know. I'll probably see it, review it, maybe even enjoy it, but let's be honest, this, like bloody Halloween Kills, is another nostalgia cash grab.
I tried explaining to Mum why Young Frankenstein's Frau Blucher is so stupendously funny.
Even using video clips, I failed miserably to adequately describe the comedic brilliance of Cloris Leachman.
Spoilers! I got up at 03:00, couldn't sleep, watched this horror movie about a woman whoose architect husband tops himself, but leaves behind a creepy puzzle for his widow to solve.
Who was the nothing man? The devil? Death? A miscellaneous git from the other side? Well done! The nothing man cut-out effect was extremely troubling to me, and that doesn't happen often.
Ageing, ailing dancer checks herself into a care home and immediately regrets her decision, when she discovers a lethal nightmare monster stalking the frail residents.
I loved the ending, which displeased others on Twitter, but too bad.
The 2021 sequel to Halloween (2018) is yet another attempt at continuing Michael Myer's reign of terror.
It's okay, it's gory, it has something to say about taking the law into one's own hands, but after 12 films, let's let Michael stay dead and buried. Poor chap needs a bit of a lie down to rest from all the stabby stabby.
I'm also curious to see Netflix's The Midnight Club TV show, as I read the Christopher Pike novel a long time ago.
It's a good, but dark and an emotionally heavy read. I wonder how they will translate that to screen.
I watched the trailer of the upcoming season 6.
I can't wait, but I hope it ends. Things end. The universe will end. Get used to it, people.
This is a documentary by @TheDigitalOrph about an almost unheard of Speccy developer on the autism spectrum, who's life improved when he discovered home computers.
If you're into retro games, Sinclair Spectrums, and ZX Spectrums, this YouTube video is for you.
I had a blitz on old games.
I died quickly speedrunning in NetHack, Doom RL, Galaxian, Hexen, and even Sheep (my poor sheep fell).
I bought The Great Dalmuti, an old card game given the DnD treatment. I haven't played yet, but the dark, gothic fantasy art is great.
However, I wish the cards were a little bigger. They are slighter smaller than normal playing cards, which, by the way, are really hard to pick up off a linoleum floor. Ask me how I know.
A night of no sleep allowed me to discover Helen Money's distorted Hell-cello on Reddit doommetal.
I also found the slightly eccentric English band Froglord in the same thread.
I was a few minutes into the 6th of October's episode of the BBC Ouch podcast, when I trolled them on Twitter. I tweeted that, for me, the "Maladaptive Coping Strategy" they mentioned includes booze, and that I find sulking in my black hoodie both therapeutic and excellent preparation for galactic domination.
I'm still awaiting my invitation to Ouch.
Positivity? Pah!
And then he was gone again, and then he returned again. He is now, quite definitely, back and isn't going anywhere.
I'm losing my mind with testing mics in my signal chain.
The iPhone 13 and new MacBook Pro, and Pro Max are all technically brilliant machines, but money pits because of their intentional unrepairability.
Of course, Apple is far from the only company locking us out of the things we buy, belong to us, and are to do with as we see fit.
While some technical boffins have managed to delve into the guts of these devices, most of us, even the wizardy folks, are really not up to the task.
Then there's the recycling boast trotted out by Apple, but what about the energy and financial cost of constantly upgrading?
Time for a legislative change. That is going to happen because these greedy bastards will fight tooth and claw to lock us out.
So far, this year:
Inbox = 510
Sent Mail = 27
Stupid Hitachi TV. I discovered that the TV remote has a separate aspect control. Of course, the bloody thing isn't activated by the menu button. Oh no, it's actually a completely different button.
Tangent: those same buttons are so flat and similar to each other, that you can't tell what you're pressing without looking at the non-backlit remote.
I can finally watch Roku YouTube videos without bits cut off, and stop blaming both Roku and YouTube for not getting their act together and making an app that works. Hahaha! Well, if they're not responsible for that, they're responsible for so much else, so they can suck up my misplaced ire in this instance.
I'm also at the stage where almost every piece of tech I use regularly needs upgrading. If even one device dies, that's it, I go dark.
It's like staring at a clock ticking down the last few seconds until the apocalypse. Tangent: the traffic warden survives Threads. Typical.
The Doomsday Clock The Doomsday Clock from the Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is incredibly close to midnight. The planet is truly buggered.Of all my YouTube playlists, the disco mixtape is the most popular.
If you want to party like it's 1970-something, copy the URLs of the individual vids into a VLC playlist to skip the ads. This trick should still work, though it's been a few years since I tried it myself.