History being constantly reinvented by the modern internet

Lately, I've been realising how humanity is constantly reinventing history (at least in terms of what history means for the future and present). I was always aware this happened, to a degree, but had held at the back of my mind the fanciful idea that there was infact one true history and some people where telling it right and others wrong. This, I now realise, is clearly a nonsense; I'm here to explain why I believe this now nonsense:

The majority of recorded history is, infact, the story of a group of people or some idea of a person and their perspectives on events. Lets look at the item which opened my eyes to the truth, the story of the Treaty of Versailles (an unarguably important event in history) when looking at this event, the story teller (internet Historians) seek to attribute world causes to a small number of individuals who are believed to, and seen to, have huge influence. This in itself is misleading, these individuals are indeed renowned in their respective societies and beyond, but what affect they have on people is down to the people themselve who are making these people fit into their own agendas and beliefs. Putting this another way, its not the President which changes the nation but the nation which changes the President (but of course the President's actions are chosen to engadge the nation).

So, the reality is, life is complicated and diverse and there isn't one simple cause or even set of causes (though they can and do exist, they can't be said to be the cause of the larger outcome only a factor and influence). There is no "true" history beyond observing some event happened with some evidences to show that it happened; What history quickly becomes online is an oportunity for people to make bold claims, the most popular of which, that have the least objection become what is commonally regarded as historic fact.

The problem is, that all history before and after the time and event selected is speculative. As a simple example, if I go into the street and make a speech that the world should be more kind and loving and afterwards the world is generally seen to improve, was that really my doing? or was infact I just stating a truth of the age and due to that evidential truth change occured. Also, even if my inflence is massive meaning I have huge followers, its likley the reason I have huge followers is I'm many things to many people. Meaning I'm just embodying a change or set of changes already in progress.

So, what history becomes is poltitics, litterally.

So far, I've stated something but not really made anything useful out of the observation. So lets see...

How can "history" be better?

Well I would say that we can start by stopping attempting to connect massive complex changes to small numbers of influencial individuals. We can start more admitting that there isn't one true history, only human stories which help us to understand whats happened in the past as a opinion of an author. We can look at the past as events and stories told about the events. We shouldn't even hold viewpoints as to the meaning or causes of events, beyond pointing out influences and likely outcomes. Prehaps proper historians do do exactly that and its just the modern internet era which forgets because people like convinence history. A tale told which allows them to feel informed and happy about being informed without the need to think too much or research.

Stupid decisions in Firefox browser (Space IS NOT PAGE DOWN, unless your Mozilla)

I was trying to use Firefox today and had a web-game that needed me to press space. The game worked and space did what it was supposed to in game, but due to moronic decision of the Mozilla Firefox contributers (no idea which one, and I haven't the time to check) space bar automatically causes a page down. WHAT THE FUCK. WE HAVE A KEY ON THE KEYBOARD FOR PAGE DOWN!!!!! ITS A DEDICATED KEY! Space Bar is a dedicated key too! It's a key it insert a SPACE NOT FUCKING CAUSE A PAGE DOWN EVEN.

I cannot begin to explain how much this fucks me off.

There is ZERO justification for overriding normal key behaviours in the browser (at the level of the browser itself, the web page, sure can do as it likes but it shouldn't be having to fight the damn browser to get normal key behaviours).

Bethesda's games becomming pointless

A long time ago, when Bethesda released Oblivion I was awed by the game design. This was a game which is truely epic! The whole engine was amazing, and the number of possible eventuallities huge (and nearly all at player discretion and choice). It was and is a game that can be played over and over for 100's of different experiences even within the same story lines.

Roll forward, and Bethseda do it again with Fallout 3, but there is the beginnings of a distressing trend. There are several missions where the player can have zero effect on eventualities. Whilst I turn a blind eye to certain forced eventualities (the main plotline for example) in the spirit of allowing some degree of story telling (but even there its just lazy, or at best they are unwilling or unable to devote sufficient time to make it the best it can be). For example, in Oblivion it was first impossible to kill the king, then subsequently it was impossible to save his life. These both irked and irritated me. To say to a player, or explain to a player "for the best game experience don't kill the king" or "let the kind die, it leads to a better game experience" is entirely fine, but let the player choose!!!!!

What I was glad about in Oblivion is the fated King was of the more 'rare' sort or scripted eventuality. Most characters lived or died at the players offices and even to the point of it being cool that some game play isn't even available unless you rush off and save the primary character right away.

I did understand some players where frustrated that plot elements where not available due to characters required for them being dead or missing, but to me that all added to the game and meant I can still play the game today and find something new, because by fortune, luck or simply my own efforts within game a character survived that didn't in other games opening up new gameplay.

Now, recently I made the relative mistake of purchasing Bethesda's "Wolfenstien II, The New Colossus" which begins with a sceen in which an evil protaganist is forcing the player to "make a choice" between which of your comrades he executes. That's fine as a plot element. What is bullshit, is that choosing not to making any choice is not a choice! In a well written game, a player is always presented with three choices in a dialog, which should boil down to, "Yes", "No" and "Obstain". When the player is given these three choices, the action can proceed anyway it likes, but the players voice should be always heard, and where possible have effect. So even if the villan of the peiece decides to not listen to the player, the player's got to be the character they wanted to be within the story (hence good gameplay and player experience).

Now sadly, with Bethesda's "New Collosus" game, they made it junk because in the opening sceen the player has ONE choice and its really an obvious NON choice. To look to their left, or look to their right. Now, regardless of how the game needs to proceed next, this is already removing from the player their role in the game. It's ceasing to be a game and becomming a movie, with movable camera and, I argue, no gamer wants a movie with a moveable camera they want, effectively, a roll playing experience where, usually, they are the hero.. but it's their choice and the game should support them choosing to role play the villan too. What it MUST NOT DO, is force the player to be the hero, or force them to be a villian, because it ceases to be a real game and becomes and engine of control.

I have refused to play their game. I've stopped buying their games. Since it feels obvious Bethesda has gone from a group of passionate role players providing an engine for that activity (Morrowind, Oblivion etc) to being a company trying to sell 'good stories' wrapped in popular themes. As much as I do enjoy a good story, I only love it when I'm making it happen (also they have not responded to my correspondence on this matter)

I feel Bethseda, in its past games, managed to walk a good line. In Fallout 3, there where several moments of misstep, but nothing too horrendous.

Some example moments which made Fallout 3 the poorer as a game are:

1. That it is impossible to choose to save the occupants of Tenpenny Towers
2. That all children are invunerable in the game
3. That in the US Paratrooper sceen in "The Guns of Anchorage" it's not possible to attempt to save the Paratrooper (I have no issue with a scripted death sceen where it's difficult to rescue or the rescue leads to a poorer outcome plot wise, just keep it possible)
4. The invunerable Wherner in "Into the Pitt"

For all those complaints, at least Bethseda attempts to honour player choices in the majority of cases, so I'm not hating on them as a company but just the direction they are sliding. Though I presume this is as more greed enteres its operation and as it becomes focused on players as a 'money resource' instead of people passionate about role playing making a greate game.

Sick of $@#(*$ Steam and Valve

Let's talk about Valve and Steam in human terms:

Imagine if you once went into a shop, and you saw a small comic in the shop that caught your eye. Now imagine the shop keeping being very charming and telling you how amazing the comic was and how cheap you could buy it!

Imagine now you pick up the comic and goto pay. Now, the shop keeper says "Please, give me your home address, Date of Birth and Email", your still keen for the comic, so maybe you think "well, I'm sure it will be fine".

So you pay for the comic, and as you pay you receive an email advertising the next comic. You leave the shop, and on the way home you wonder why the shop keepers assistant is shadowing you all day. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting their smiling and if you ever ask him or address him he says "Enjoying your comic?". So you tune him out. You arrive home and now theres a small crowd with the shop keeper, all whispering about your journey home. Their all standing at a good distance and being sure to not bother you, but every so often one of them smiles and a note appears in your mail box about some service offered.

So, again you tune out this growing group of gawkers. You get into your house and close the door, but sitting outside just in the public area is the shop assistant. Always smiling taking notes of everything you do. You decide to take a read of your comic. Outside your house, theres a huge rush of action, people shout to one another "she's on page one!" others run away and talk and just out of earshot they are talking about every other reader of the comic on page 1.

You get used to ignoring the crowd now living permenantly just outside your door, used to the benine smiles and constant commentary and behind your back wispering regarding what you do with their comic.

Then, you find a page and you love that page, you go back to read it several times and outside theirs a quiet commotion and then emails arrive suggesting you try this and that and those representitive simile into your window at you. Meanwhile, the comic has begun to embed itself in all your other daily activities. It's already hooked into your email and now it begins to watch what you do online. The massive crowd of people peering in from outside tell you "not to worry!", "it's all so we can improve the comic!" with a vacuus smile.

So, now, your sick of all these people watching you so you go outside and vocally try to shoo them away. They make consilitory noises but make no move to go and ineed chatter futhur about your behviour. You beginning to get mad so you set your dogs on them (turn on your internet security) and, faced with that level of force they scatter.

Ahah, you think to yourself, now I can relax and enjoy my comic in privacy. So you open it  up.

Page 1: Blank.... Page 2: Blank.... your favourite page "inaccessible":.

You remember then how you made a "copy" of your comic "just incase" you lost it, so you fish that out...

The copy is completely inaccessible. Worse the people outside come into your room and begin to rearrange your furnature.

You move to complain and they say, "The comic requires us to all be sitting outside watching you when your read it". Faced with a choice, you could lose page 1 and 2 you think to yourself... but not my beloved page! You reluctantly let the people come back in and mess with all your furnature and the comic is again readable (and now not only are the people outside, but many have moved into your garage some are in your car and one is riding around on your bike).

Finally, resolved,  you accept this constant crowd of smiling snoopers outside your house, and that none of your equipment is now in your direct control (but they are all very nice and get off right awa y when you need your stuff, so nice of them). Some move in because you find the new pages of your comic you buy aren't accessible without these new house guests.

Now, they start being more forceful. You open the comic one day, and page 1 is totaly different and alot smaller. You can't read it without it changing and not in a way you want.

This is Steam and Valve and it's SICK. We live in a world of greedy vendors unwilling to produce items for sale and ownership then they can have the first without granting the second.

We NEED to change the law. Sales MUST come with ownership.

Devolution of the Internet

I honestly don't know how we let the world deteriorate digitally.

The rise of the internet brought great feedoms to the whole of humanity, but the swansong is sinsiter and pervasive.

When the internet was first formed it was:

1. Educational (lead by achedemia)
2. Inclusive (anyone could become part of its infrastructure)
3. Private (this might sound odd in the modern age, but when the internet was formed privacy was a very very real thing. There where many mechnisms to acheive totally anonimity).
4. Not owned or controlled (outside of the basic will to provide it and the benefits of sharing)

 This lead to a system with rapid adoption and jam packed with factual content, as the primary providers of information where schollars and institutions. The information was often provided free of charge, excepting a small cost to partake in the network.

Contrast this to today's internet:

1. Misinformation and propagnda - Used pervasively for misinformation and political and media propagnda
2. Exclusive (Giant corporations privatising huge chunks and applying control mechanisms to either favour their own traffic [Netflix] or to prevent contrary opionion [China]).
3. Anti-Private - Primarily used to monitor and spy on users behaviours by both legitimate and criminal organisations (worse often with user colusion, in the case of Valve).
4. Privatised - Large corporations and governments attempting to take control on the medium for political, cut-throat business and criminal aims.

 People have no rights in this new world. Attribution is weakly defended, personal information is widely distributed, large companies ring fence and drive out smaller providers.

Microsoft and enforced government approved spying

If you search on the internet you will find information regarding port 135. You will also find alot of seeming people saying "it's not harmful just block it with Windows Firewall". Then, what about theWannaCry Virus?

Let me tell you the story of Microsoft's way to ensure access to all our systems.

Some time in the past, Microsoft invented a protocol called RPC. This protocol was designed to allow code to be executed remotely and was their first attempt to enforce a model around software where-by they owned AND controlled the code users used (in order that they could enforce continuious payments for services). They introduced it first as a ""convinence"" tool to allow servers to offer software solutions to remote workers. In it's first incarnation RPC was a service attached to the network stack and could be applied to an adapter as an opt-in feature (no objections to that).

Now, bear in mind, Microsoft has one aim, to wrest money from the hands of its users in such a way that they might reasonably expect continious and continual revenue (Ideally with no additional work, aka "The Cloud").

So, people obviously didn't want this invasive technology. Firstly, people back in those times where less dumb (frankly) and where concerned about another Corporate taking software out of their control. So people generally didn't include it / install it.

People continued however to buy Microsoft products and so began the Microsoft plan to ensure reliance on them. Though, first, the problem of users not wanting to rely on their RPC solution to begin with.

So, what Microsoft did was begin to ship a lot of features which in an edge case depended on RPC for their function. At first it was sensible stuff, but increasingly they would include RPC function just to include and necessitate people to have it switched on.

Welcome, Windows Vista. Now, people where STILL turning off RPC (and most wisely given the future of Wannacry and EternalBlue). So what do Microsoft do? They make the core functions of the system depend on RPC. So things like Task Scheduler and Event Viewer. Whilst in some senses it might make sense for Event Viewer to require access to a remote machine, it does NOT make sense for it to require remote execution, it only needs to view. So, in the Vista timeline, turning off RPC still worked, it was just real hard to do. Now, arrives Windows 7; Disabling RPC in Windows 7 would frequently cause unbootable systems and even Blue Screens, leaving many people who attempted to disable it with bearly or even non-functional systems; Still worse, even if you DO lock down RPC the port 135 is HARD CODED into the RPC binary (which is signed to protect against alteration).

Meaning people where 100% forced to have RPC switched on. Which of course, served the NSA and CIA very nicely.

Why? well, what was an attempt at reliable money making has become the entry point of choice for espionage. You will find a common pattern online, some people ask how to disable it and within minutes some nameless (or real life identity-less) user has said how 'you really don't want to turn that off anyway, just block it on the firewall' which is likey NSA, CIA or possibly just general ignorance (if I give stupidity it's dues). What makes me name the earlier two bodies is that I generally find an average user is more like 'so what is RPC?' not 'I'm sure its harmless'.

The  root of the problem? Corrupted corporations (and possibly governments) who feel that everything they ever did is still 'theirs' to own and control and that a user is their staffer. Worse, laws are being formed to 'make this so'.

What can we do? Well, as much as I like MS for its usability, moving to Linux is a pretty good choice.

Now, don't get me wrong, software vendors need paying and revenue is important. The problem is that vendors like Microsoft are looking to protect revenue streams instead of seeking to create them. They see Windows as an engine for money making, not as a bought service. That is they want us to rent, not sell us houses. Instead of being smart and thinking "what will our customer base want next?" they are thinking greedy "how can we ensure we keep receiving money from our customers?".

Ripped off by "Harry Potter, Complete 8-Film Collection"

Let me start by warning anyone thinking of buying this peice of junk. IT IS NOT COMPLETE AND HAS SO MANY MISSING BITS IT SPOILS THE EXPERIENCE. I'm not taking about missing bits that wheren't filmed or not made it from the book, I accept you can't get the entire feel of the books in a movie. What is missing is so many sceens which appeared on your movie screens cut from the DVD's making the DVD's feel like a paper doll chain (when what you wanted was to read the damb paper their made out of).

So, here's the story, I finally decided I would 'invest' in a set of Harry Potter DVD's. I love the books and had watched a few of the movies at the Cinema (the first 4) before feeling a bit tired of the way they where destroying the books in the movies (destroying meaning changing them, not omitting bits). Still, it wasn't an completely awful set of movies, I did leave the cinema in animated conversation and enjoyed them overall, they had some great moments captured. So why am I here today?

Well, those great moments which made the movies a treasure, have been unceremoniously cut out of the DVD's (presumably in some act of greed to sell an 'extended' edition). What it means is, I am watching ALL THE WORST ASPECTS OF THE MOVIES because what they cut where most of the parts where the movie managed to be decently faithful to the book. Watching the first three movies I felt "wait, isn't that supposed to have happened?" but I thought to myself "maybe I'm mixing it up and thats in later movies". Then I arrived at watching "The Goblet of Fire".

So FIRST, we arrive at the Quidditch world cup without the extended wander through the tents (that I'm certain appeared in the movie) where they comment on "some wizzards not being able to not show off" next they cut out the whole business about Harry buying Ron an Omniscope and removed the sceen of Ron's very genuine feeling excitment over it. For their next offence they removed the spell casting of Sonorus that Cornelius Fudge first makes then to give his voice a loud hailer effect. It totally destroyed the atmosphere, add to that the show the Death Eaters as having burned up the camp like a scorched earth Napalm mission (which was an offence of the movie anyway) totally overbearing an importantly balanced moment (the Death Eaters where JUST beginning to come back to power, they were being adult bullies at that stage lording it over other witches and wizzards. They where all in attendance and went into disguise to carry out the chaos, so they wouldn't be damanging property because alot of it would also be theirs!).

So, anyone wanting to relive the movie they recall enjoying DONT BUY THIS CRAP.

We've all gone mad (HTTP/2)

Back in the late 1980's I was learning about the TCP/IP stack. This is a wondeful peice of engineering made during a time of paranoia and fear of war and sabotage leading to the worlds most popular and renowned (indeed the only true) internet protocol.

Now, for those who are newe to the TCP/IP stack, heres a quick reminder what it means:

1. Application Layer - aka Browser (managed final presentation to user, e.g. understanding data)
2. Presentation Layer - aka TLS/SSL encrption and security layer 
3. Session Layer - aka OS / Conversational concerns (e.g. information grouping, abstraction allowing it to appear that a single conversation is happening per use) 
4. Transport Layer - aka OS / Error Recovery and Flow Control
5. Internet Layer - aka Network Card
6. Data Link Layer - aka Router Concerns
7. Physical Network Layer - aka Network Cabling and Infrastructure concenrs

The TCP/IP stack recognises there are different operational needs and concerns as the network traffic is translated between the User understood information into a form which is optimal for transmision over the involved hardware, by employing these abstractions it makes it possible for each sub-area (as listed) to work to its own particular concerns without involving the other layers (since each layer knows how to "speak" the the layer above and the layer below.

This wondefully simple idea is the core of good design. Each element can specialise as is best for its clients and as a server for the layers below and above.

Now, most people should be able to spot the implication here, but I feel I need to call it out explicity because it very much feels like people in general don't. The implication is, efficiency is ensured by each layer dealing with the complexities to which its best suited. Let me just list what those are:

1. Application Layer - Manipulation of server data to be best visualised and understood by the user
2. Presentation Layer - Encryption, Compression
3. Session Layer - Maintains the conversational abstraction (e.g your Data vs My Data)
   
4. Transport Layer - Efficiency Based Encoding, Reliability
5. Internet Layer - Conversion, Division, Reconstruction
6. Data Link Layer - Transmission, Integrety
7. Physical Network Layer - Hardware Specific Represntation and Receipt

As you can see, the Transport layer is best suited for dealing with Encryption and Compression. Though really each layer below the application layer may want or need to re-encode or compress its data to get the best performance based on intimate knowledge of the layer below.

The core take away here is that layers 2 to 5 are the best layers at which to acheive compression and encryption for the following reasons:

• The Application layer shouldn't need to be aware of anything except the concerns of the user and passing to the Transport layer what it needs to function. The application layer has become unnecessarily complex and companies are leveraging the complexity as a means of defence of profit and control.
• The Presentation layer, being a part of the operating system ideally, is very well placed to give a consistant behaviour across the board and can be simply standardised across all the internet. Recall that the application layer is should be most concerned with the user, and the user is least concerned with how, and most concerned with things being easily understood
• When the Application layer deals with Compression and Encryption what happens very quickly is incompatibility between internet devices. Since the availability or not of some service is dependent on the tools running on the device. In this case the browser. This position has been soundly abused by large corportations to great success for profit and exclusion (ensuring their "product" is the only one suitable to access some resource).
• The application layer reducing the data sent to the transport layer is of course largely desirable, but this should be done by the simple axiom of "what is the minimum I need to send to complete my goal" and not how can I, after not having considered the prior, reduce the size of what I have sent. When the Application layer (browser or other internet client) becomes complex it decreases the ability for people to engage with the application (in other words it leads to 'owners' and 'users' rather than people, or putting that another way, it leads to a class system).

What has effectively happened is large organisations have focused souly on their goals, which I will state for the record:

• Profitability
• Reduction of Costs
• Control of Media (DRM)
• Exclusion of others, removing the potential for competition (e.g. owning the money space)
• Reliable monitoring and tracking of potential paying customers

I state publicly and for the record this is against the interest of humanity in general and supports the worst kinds of patterns of behaviour and hampers advancement.

I opinion that HTTP/2 was designed largely to meet the above 4 aims It offers little or nothing not intended in HTTP/1.1. Though it does offer alot to aid the current abuse of cookies as a tracking mechanism. For the record, cookies should be a simple short peice of data to disambiguate one user from another and also, potentially as a mechanism for the short term reliable tracking of a understanably secure transaction (e.g. money movement). What cookies have sadly become is a catch all way to store information about end users, keep a good part of that storage on the end users machine and improve the profitability of advertising (e.g. we are advertising to these people, as proved by this cookie data).

So, that is the problem. I don't know what can be done about the problem because what is needed is proper governance and what has happened since my youth is government is the new profitable business! Meaning the government is often sharing the above aims sadly.

To make this more positive, I wish to point out that it's not too late. Innovation in the Transport and below spaces is perfectly possible and in a way which is both financially and ethically profitable. So this is a call to hardware manufacturers to up the game and make the encodings and encryption in the Application layer pointless and a bit of a thing of the past only existing for very specialised cases.

One closing thought, the transport layer needs to be fairly dumb, meaning it should "just work" to the perspective of the layer above. For this reason there may always need to be some encodings or encryptions occuring in the application layer, since another function of the application layer is to be "smart" in dealing with the layers below on behalf of the user. The types of understandable encryptions and compression on the application layer and things like photo compression and video compression, which can be done far better for understanding the nature of the medium than any generalised compression which the Transport and below layers may be able to acheive (in other words lossy compression is the bread and butter of the application layer). The problem with HTTP/2 is that it looks to compress the HTTP headers, these firstly are important in Application layer routing but secondly are readily compressable by the transport layer efficiently. Therefore reencoding and encrypting of them just harms the overall operation of the internet (excepting that the Application layer manages that).

Next - a widely misunderstood movie

WARNING: Contains spolilers!! If you have not watched the movie. Really recommend watching it.

So, I'm off sick from work today feeling slightly rotten and alighted on watching Next the movie to distract me, and it was a great success!

I got to the end of the movie, extreemly satisfied with everything that occured but craving more, I thought surely this has spawned a TV series or a follow up movie! So I went online to check and was horrified at the terrible reviews from critict demonstrating the most basic misunderstanding of love and this romantic thriller with a sci-fi twist (which is what it surely is).

I was so horrified by the, frankly, dumbass conculusions draw about the movie I felt I needed to explain it to these very very clueless individuals.

Firstly, they mentioned the way the character Cage plays goes from hopeless jerk to suddend action hero and these critics act and speaks like this is some consistency mistake *eye rolls*. The main character in the movie is hiding an ability to see into the future 2 minutes at a time with 100% accuracy, the only way to possibly disguise that is to be deliberately appearing bad at things. So appearing like a somewhat hopeless magician lounge act is a cover to allow him a hope of a normal life, since when he does use his powers its perceived as part of his act and its also perceived he's hopless (which noone who knows the future would be). Now, once he's seen into the future that this cover gets blown, and its assumed he see's many possible futures and therefore explores them somewhat in theory before they happen (a theme running throughout the film) which is explainable by the fact that at a moment I may decide I don't want to go out because I notice the rain where a second before I hadn't and had a whole plan to go out (but applied to pre-congnition). So therefore there is zero inconsistancy. Secondly, his obvious prioity is this girl he feels must surely be the love of his life, and also he's hugely interested in because at the outset he cannot see their future together, but can perceive the moment they meet. Logically its obvious, that once her lifeline meets his he will get to see futher ahead as it becomes the combination of his ability to see ahead in his personal future coupled with seeing far ahead in hers (but not ahead of whatever future point he sees) making the whole movie logically consistant.

The whole plot line of the bomb was actually irrelevant to the story, which was the story of him finding and saving the love of his life. The only reason he involves himself in the whole plot is when he's absolutely forced too when every future outcome lead to the death of her partner. Even then the last attempt obviously lead to the end of the state he was in by nuclear explosion, hence the ending to the movie.

I loved this movie, it was brilliantly executed with a perfectly pitched amount of suspense. Having recently suffered the shit which is "Battle Star Galactica" reboot, this was a breath of fresh air to re-watch (I even forgot how the movie went, so it was a really good buy getting twice the enjoyment).

Just finished watching Death Cure (The Maze Runner finale)

So immediately I will say I'm going to talk about the end of the movie, and if you haven't watched it you really should because whilst I'm hugely disapointed how they ended it, it was still a really well put together movie and worthy of a good audience.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

So, what went wrong with the ending? Well several things:

1. The killed off all the main WCKD characters, when that didn't really serve any wider message (revenge and karma aside)
2. They ended it, leaving humanity to rott whilst a bunch of lucky people ended up living on an island somewhere whilst the rest of the world was obviously going to shit after they had a definite cure available.
3. Two of the best characters Teresa and Newt die. Now Newt's death was at least heart-warming and had to it some aspect of value, but it was still the wrong choice. To put it another way, it was clearly a choice made to deliberatly go against any expectations, which works only to enfuriate and annoy (as it is transparently the case).
4. They don't have any proper medically trained people on this new world and whilst Thomas's blood holds the secret to the cure, infact only Thomas is actually immune (well Thomas and the girl he saves with a blood transfusion carefully carried out by Teresa who is clearly highly trained). So basically they just migrated the problem to a new place to start bloody over, when they had the basis of the cure to hand back at WCKD labs. I get that most of the people there died in the aftermath, but what a piss poor ending.

So, whilst I did enjoy the film and I felt the actual filming, effects and casting where spot on. The story let it down wildly by obviously TRYING hard to be edgy by bucking expectations. When a film does do the unexpected, it has to be truely unexpected not just inverting the key story points where the joy of the tale come. The redemption of the hero who chooses the wrong side (e.g. Teresa) the narrow survival of the character who held them all together (e.g. Newt). Now, if they needed some surpises they could have put them in better places, like WKCD turning out actually TO be good, or the woman running WCKD turning out to be Thomas's mother (which I sort of suspected to be the case). Though I guess 'Shes your mother' has been done with the oppostite gender famously already lol. Though there was more room for surprises.

Anyway, I felt they botched the ending but due to some bloody good acting and film making it still managed to be a great film! I won't be buying the books though, because I checked online and Tereas also dies in the book (and by the sounds without the great film theatrics).

Microsoft is lying to us all

Turning off and disabling Windows Update in Windows 7 does not prevent updates being delivered!

I was horrified today, I have been a Windows 7 user for over a decade and one of the things which I liked about the product was it put the operator in control. If you disabled the Windows Update service, well updates would stop arriving.

Today, on the same system I have previously used withtout any updates, on reboot it applied updates. I was aware Microsoft has been pushing the update into the Windows Kernel space to remove choice from the user in Windows 10 but obviously they have already (before I disabled updates) pushed it to into the Windows 7 Kernel. The great lie online is that "your obviously an idiot to disable free updates which improve security" but lets look at what security is here:

"Security is deciding who gets into your system and who is able to control your system."

Since Microsoft has 100% access to change our system behind our backs if we are in ANY way connected to the internet, so does ANY hacker with the smarts to understand how they do this without any need for user choice. Worse, that we can 'seemingly' disable updates is a milk sop at best and at worst a deliberate lie to distract a gulable public (and a professional society).

So, my evidence Microsoft is lying is they have always supported disabling Windows Updates in Windows 7 but prevent you from not receiving updates. This means that the whole of the disabling is a lie.

 I would like to make a call out to all knowledgeable hackers to start digging into the kernel and find out which of these components are responsible for Windows Updates so that we can work on purging Microsoft lies from our systems.

In the mean time, it looks like its time for me to embrase Linux because Microsoft no longer deserve my support.

Microsofts profit model is to waste OUR time and not theirs

So, I work in the IT industry. I'm a developer, in C# mainly for my sins (which to be fair is a decent language with alot of good things to say for it). What annoys me is this:

Whenever you build in Visual Studio, when the compliation hits an error it cannot resolve it continues to compile. Now, this behaviour is pointless, the compiler KNOWS it's going to fail because its had a hard error. An error in compilation means that some part of the whole has failed. This, in all situations that matter, will mean the entire build failed. 

Now, there is some small advantage in continuing anyway on an error, the reasons to continue are:

1. To assertain the extent of the error (is this just an isolated error or is something seriously out of wack, like wrong toolset).
2. Collect ALL the known errors ahead of time so they can be worked on as a batch instead of individually

So next I'm going to tell  you why neither of these reasons are valid:

1. Firstly, at the point you hit an error your 100% going to have to resolve THAT error in the end anyway. Your not going to be able to look at any subsequent errors before hand realistically. 
2. Secondly, every error after the first one is increasingly unlikley to be a real error and is more likely to be the result of the first not being resolved. This is of course not 100% of the time, though usually even if you need to fix all the errors the first error's context is enough to figure out the rest.

What's the problem here? The problem here is that EVERY build Microsoft is spinning our wheels waiting for pointless compilation either telling us what we already know at worst or at best telling us about something we aren't yet concerned with.

Now, bring in distributed compilation in the form of TFS and other solutions. Everytime, as a developer, I finish my work locally I need to push it to a build server to make it production ready. Now, the build server hits an error in the first 30 seconds, so I know my build has failed. YET, it still continues to process 20 minutes of bullshit work!

Now, Microsoft have an error limit in their code, its set to 100 compile errors. The problem is, usually when submitting a build to a build server their are one to five errors, also typically their are THOUSANDS of lines of code.

In 10+ years, people have queried Microsoft about allowing this build error limit to be configured, Microsoft ignored that. Now, with the drive through of open source (and underpaid software developers) people have made their own solutions to this issue. The problem is Microsoft are deliberately not solving it because millions of customers delayed by long build encourages more investment in software and hardware to try to mitigate this simple problem.

Tron Original vs Tron Classic

I watched Tron on TV as a child in the 1980's and loved it to peices. It was the embodyment of my own dreams of a oncoming computer age. It was to me a perfect movie.

Fastfoward to the future where I have a job and enough money spare to buy the DVD's I love and I am recalled to Tron. I go out to buy a copy on DVD and by accident aquire the new Tron, but I am not upset, hurray a sequel! First though I wanted to watch the original classic, so I went out looking to find a DVD entitled just that.

Watching, I was thinking to myself "I feel like I remember this movie looking much better?" at first I worried my childish mind watching then was primary to its past visual enjoyment, but then I saw later sceens and I felt it has been messed about with?

The classic tanks, which I felt sure where the solid ploygon style of the era? where now these awful modern computer tanks and all the charm was GONE. I tried Googling around, because I did wonder if I had remembered the tanks out of the video game Tanks and misremembered them into Tron (where they would belong perfectly):

I felt the original Tron tanks looked lik the above but with just filled polygon surfaces. I still feel convined this is what I saw as a child. I found these online which report to be storyboards for the original Tron:

The tanks shown there more match my memory. Also given the film was made in 1980's where Pologon filled graphics where the pincal of CGI at the time, I suspect the tanks seen in the movie copy I hold aren't original:

 

I found this picture which is maybe an original?

It certainky feels closer to what I remember as a child, though I felt sure the whole tank was pologon with few to none rounded edges?

For me, this mismatch of memory to actual a little mared the movie, fortunately though many parts felt unchanged and like they hadn't given the "must modernise" attention to and where still lovely.

Tron is a movie which is beautifully placed in the era it was made. The Polgyon tanks and other computer sceens (was I imagining it?) made it feel totally believable for that era. Also, it recalled many fine and happy hours playing games with similar graphics and linking the movie into real life experiences.

Now, the version I watched on DVD, makes it feel stupid (or maybe I just miss the version I remember over what was?). The low grade graphics felt accurate back then for a representation of an internal computer make up. Internally a computer isn't all glossy and smart, its all bits, pixels and polygons; Sure the end result on a modern computer is a sharp, believable 3D image, but the mobie is showing the insides of a very early PC/Mainframe.

So the new graphics always pull me out of the action and make me hanker for watching the REAL original movie. Still, enjoyed it and went to the sequel.

Now Tron Legacy felt perfect, its exactly what it should be, not a remake but featuring updated CGI in a really good way to go with the theme of the movie being many years on. The movie and the soundtrack are a complete success.

I just hope that in 20 or 30 years they don't remake Tron Legacy using the latest holographic leaving confused children now adults wondering if they didn't imaginge the better movie lol.

Would sure love to hear from anyone who has pictures of a classic Tron tank, even if I was dreaming.

Telemetry equals Malware when its forced on people without choice or consent

So, I notice a pattern, when a ""respectable business"" creates a system to steal your data / information without informing you and report it back to them they refer to it as "Telemetry". When an unknown or anoymous entity does said same set of activities, it's called one of the following:

• Malware
• SpyWare
• Virus

I have the following (unasked for) "Telemetry" on my NEWLY installed system:

1. COMODO
2. Microsoft
3. Mozilla 
4. NVIDIA (shame)

 All of these big corporations feel they OWN your equipment and that your simply "renting" the use of their software.

Laws need to be passed reinforcing the rights of the buyer / consumer. We are not services of Apple, Microsoft, Google and NVIDIA to be abused like we where a distributed platform for stealing information to sell to the highest bidders and most interested parties.

The truely sad thing is so many of the younger generation completely accept being owned my Microsoft, and some even favour it. Stockholm syndrome in practice.

Google with the Android product are profiling people 24/7 and because its built into the operating system of the phone its impossible to remove and very hard to block. Probably even doing so is against the licence agreement for usage of the device.

It sickens me that such abuses are considered acceptable and completely common place. Humanity gave up its right to have privacy along with the value of ones own council.

"The Pilot" Worst Dr Who episode I've seen

So this was the single worst Dr Who I've experienced. I was even inclined to go online and see what general opinion was on episodes. I was surprised what I found, the lists mainly included episodes which I either enjoyed or where alright. So it's clear that opinion is well divided.

However, I've just watched 'The Pilot' and WOW was it BAD. The actress who was the main character did well with a very bad story and whilst I haven't taken too her as the new companion, I felt the acting was pretty good. The real problem was with the god awful plot.

It started promisingly with an idea about a sentient ship fuel or oil, leaked from a landed ship and now trying to do its task alone. This was very similar to the concept behind 'Girl in the Wardrobe' which I dearly loved (superb episode) so I felt initially there was some promise, then everything went completely silly (and not in the good Matt Smith way).

First of all this 'ship repair fluid' was able to travel anywhere in space and time. What the &#@($&.

So if it's some sort of sentient repair system, it can easily travel back to the main ship with such powers and get right along with its purpose! If it is some kind of 'rebel' sentient repair system, it doesn't make any more sense then (but at least its some kind of excuse). Next, to add silly on top of silly, when confronted with simply a new enemy, instead of the usual intelligent analysis and cunning, the very first thing the doctor does is drag his whole crew into the middle of a Darlek war-zone *face palm*. WHAT THE F#*K? The Doctor, who is a stallwart protector of his companions, who just LOST to the Quantum Shade the most love companion he had (not to mention Amy Pond, Rose and the other most loved predecessors) he goes and immediately takes his new companions from a completely unknown danger (where in fact they don't actually know their really at risk except by a squinting girl) to face or at least encounter an enemy where he certainly knows they aren't safe. WORSE the episode doesn't end, it just simply fizzles out when the new companion has a quick hand hold with the girl (and don't get me wrong, the lesbian story line is definitely something I appalaud as endaging an alternate lifestyle and audience, but come on, DrWho can be better). Adding the lesbian character is a nice touch but then immediately destroying both her immediate love interests felt really bad. Though whilst a weak way to take that plot aspect, it still had more potential than the main story.

Well I'm just two episodes into Season 10 and fully understand why the Who Hype has died down, its because David Tenant left, Matt Smith managed to push past the loss to do a really good set of seasons, then Peter Capaldi managed to bring back a little of the feel of William Hartnel as well as adding some nice freshness as well. It's just a shame that it's sunk so low.

I was rolling my eyes at all the direct lifts from Harry Potter in season 9 (for those who didn't spot them: Moving Staircases, Dementor, Naiagi, Dark Lord *eyerolls*). Seriously, Davros has a name which induces enough fear without referring to him by Harry Potter references and giving him a snake (who should have been named Nagini since they lifted the rest of the idea) as an assassin.

It's so sad how bad its got, I only hope that as I watch more of Season 10 it perks up.

ED: So I'm watching it again, trying to give it a chance in the light of the rest of season 10. Sadly my opinion is not altered, this was a terrible stumbing start for the producer. On one final note, the effects are more than a little reminisant of Waters of Mars.

Brand new Steam Game and code already registered to another account

My cousin gave me "The Orange Box" (which he had bought some years before and never got around to playing it). I opened the box, entered the CD Key into Steam to be denied installation. As you might also know, Steam doesn't allow to install the game from the DVD media on which it comes and indeed frequently it seems the game isn't even on the DVD, just some parts of the game (if your lucky) and a copy of the Steam client.

What does all this mean? Well it means I now own a heap of useless plastic!

What recourse do I have with Valve?

https://support.steampowered.com/troubleshooter.php?do=view&id=1

So venturing to that link, you find three options:

1. Go back to the original vendor for resolution (since this game was bought years back not possible)
2. Are you sure you didn't just install it already and forget >.<
3. Hey maybe this is a second hand copy? (we won't help)

The problem is that we live in a unique commercial relationship with online vendors. They, legally, can provide us with NOTHING and then make us pay them again.

I grew up in the 1980's and 1990's when vendors provided actual games on actual disks. Once you owned the disk you had the right to install and use the game on one PC. You could finish the game yourself, uninstall the game, sell it to a friend, they could then play the game themselves and this was all within your right as a consumer. Since you bought a copy of the game which you owned.

Now the law having been made into a joke, we own precisely nothing (oh, a peice of plastic with a copy of the steam client).

So, if you buy a game in the shop, better install it in the week of launch or you will lose the game and Steam will care ZERO.

I looked about online and I can see there are advertised "Steam Wallet Code Generators" which presumably randomly generate potential keys for people to type into steam and see what game they get for "free" at the expense of the future buyer of the DVD disk.