I've been watching The Invisibles, a fun little show about some retired criminals who are trying to keep a low profile but who have to keep committing various heists each week for various reasons.
Yesterday I attempted to watch the second disc only to discover that it's faulty so while I'm waiting for the replacement to arrive I've been watching Hu$tle, another fun show but it's just not the same.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Ubuntu at work part3- Maven ghost
This Maven ghost is not unique to Ubuntu . He can be seen in windows version of eclipse too.So what does he do? He just makes all maven dependencies disappear from Eclipse !!!. Deadly dangerous right?
After getting back all my plug ins , i was a happy worker. But Eclipse was not happy.So it launched maven ghost against me.One evening i see all the maven dependencies are disappeared from package explorer. The project was building fine which means all dependencies were there.But they just disappeared from the eclipse view.
I restarted Eclipse .No effect. I cleaned it so many times.No effect.I rebooted my system itself . No effect.So started to Googling about it. After one hour of search i found out that two small setting will change everything. I am sharing with you this , may be it will be useful if you come across this ghost.
For every project ,Eclipse maintains a .classpath file. Just add the following line to the .classpath file of the project in which maven dependencies are missing.
classpathentry kind="con" path="org.maven.ide.eclipse.MAVEN2_CLASSPATH_CONTAINER"
This enables the eclipse to show maven dependency folder.
That's not enough. By this setting it only some jars . If you want to see all dependencies
got to .settings folder. Then in org.maven.ide.eclipse.prefs change
includeModules=false
to
includeModules=true
Just restart the Eclipse.
Maven Dependencies are back and ghost is not here. May be he went to your place , just be aware :)
Update : This ghost is unique to Maven plug in 0.10 version. It does not appear in 0.98 version
After getting back all my plug ins , i was a happy worker. But Eclipse was not happy.So it launched maven ghost against me.One evening i see all the maven dependencies are disappeared from package explorer. The project was building fine which means all dependencies were there.But they just disappeared from the eclipse view.
I restarted Eclipse .No effect. I cleaned it so many times.No effect.I rebooted my system itself . No effect.So started to Googling about it. After one hour of search i found out that two small setting will change everything. I am sharing with you this , may be it will be useful if you come across this ghost.
For every project ,Eclipse maintains a .classpath file. Just add the following line to the .classpath file of the project in which maven dependencies are missing.
classpathentry kind="con" path="org.maven.ide.eclipse.MAVEN2_CLASSPATH_CONTAINER"
This enables the eclipse to show maven dependency folder.
That's not enough. By this setting it only some jars . If you want to see all dependencies
got to .settings folder. Then in org.maven.ide.eclipse.prefs change
includeModules=false
to
includeModules=true
Just restart the Eclipse.
Maven Dependencies are back and ghost is not here. May be he went to your place , just be aware :)
Update : This ghost is unique to Maven plug in 0.10 version. It does not appear in 0.98 version
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Ubuntu at work - Part 2 Where are the plugins
Plug-ins are the most exciting things in Eclipse. They are the one which make Eclipse so exciting as a development tool. Virtually there is an Eclipse plug-in for every java tool out there. Our product also uses a lot of plug-ins. But today I discovered a strange thing in Eclipse. Some of the plug-ins simply disappeared from the IDE window. OMG!!! it took hours to download them and now they are missing and another strange thing is that every time eclipse starts it loads different set of plug ins. This post discuss how to solve this mystery.
Eclipse to Ubuntu : Hey I want to load 2000 plug ins
Ubuntu : No dude ! You can load only 1024 of them.
No.of open files in Ubuntu
If you execute
$ulimit -a you can see the system parameters limiting the resources. In those parameters no.of open files for a given process is defined. In ubuntu its 1024 files by default. But as no.of plug-ins grow in the eclipse, this limit is inadequate. So we have to set this parameter to a higher number. But sadly there is no direct way to do this. So we have to follow the following steps to change the parameters
Step 1: Add “session required pam_limit.so” to /etc/pam.d/common-session
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/common-session
Step 2 : Un-comment same line in /etc/pam.d/su
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/su
Step 3 : Add “ * hard nofile 10000” to the /etc/security/limits.conf. Here 10,000 is the limit which we want to set for per process basis. You can choose your own limit.
$sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf
Step 4 : Reboot your system
Step 5 : Login and in terminal type
$ulimit -n 10000
Now this will set to no.of open files to 10,000.
Hurray!!! Plug ins are back again. Time to work again ...see you
Eclipse to Ubuntu : Hey I want to load 2000 plug ins
Ubuntu : No dude ! You can load only 1024 of them.
No.of open files in Ubuntu
If you execute
$ulimit -a you can see the system parameters limiting the resources. In those parameters no.of open files for a given process is defined. In ubuntu its 1024 files by default. But as no.of plug-ins grow in the eclipse, this limit is inadequate. So we have to set this parameter to a higher number. But sadly there is no direct way to do this. So we have to follow the following steps to change the parameters
Step 1: Add “session required pam_limit.so” to /etc/pam.d/common-session
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/common-session
Step 2 : Un-comment same line in /etc/pam.d/su
$sudo vi /etc/pam.d/su
Step 3 : Add “ * hard nofile 10000” to the /etc/security/limits.conf. Here 10,000 is the limit which we want to set for per process basis. You can choose your own limit.
$sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf
Step 4 : Reboot your system
Step 5 : Login and in terminal type
$ulimit -n 10000
Now this will set to no.of open files to 10,000.
Hurray!!! Plug ins are back again. Time to work again ...see you
Seven Swordsmen
I finally sat down and watched the first episode of Seven Swordsmen, it was a little slow at times but they do have to introduce characters and establish the plot so that's fine.
Based on the series trailer and the first episode I think there's going to be some rather impressive action / stunt work, much better than I would have expected in a TV series.
Visually though this is an odd series, it's a matted 4:3 picture that took a little while to get used to, I haven't seen that done for a while and to be honest it didn't look that great on my wide screen TV ( I might even watch the rest of the series on my old 4:3 TV in the bedroom ), I don't know what they shot it on but it wasn't film but then it doesn't really seem like video either so I guess it's some sort of digital format.
Most of the first episode was shot hand held with the occasional very nice crane shot, unless it's a night shot the producers don't seem too worried about lighting so I guess this was made pretty quickly, the camera operator tends to push right up into the actors faces, or shoot from close to the ground so that the viewer is looking up at the action on screen which takes a bit of getting used to since that's not typical for any TV series I've ever seen.
I terms of production value, the costumes props and sets seem to be of a very high quality although I guess they could be re-using items that were originally made for a movie project, there have been several scenes where there has been squads of men in full armour riding on horse back which I wasn't expecting to see in a TV production.
I'm hoping to watch a couple more episodes over the weekend, this is the first serious live action Chinese TV series I've seen so I think it'll be interesting to compare it to western television productions.
Real Estate Tip Number 1
Never buy a house with a pool, it doesn't matter if your wife or child thinks it's a good idea or if your real estate agent tells you it adds value to the property and if you do make sure you get in writing that they are willing to clean the damn thing other wise you'll will spend large amounts of time topping up water levels, checking the chemical balance of the water and cleaning all sorts fishing all sorts of crap out of the water.
The thing is it rarely gets used and I personally aren't into swimming at all so why is it I've got to maintain the damn thing ?
The thing is it rarely gets used and I personally aren't into swimming at all so why is it I've got to maintain the damn thing ?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Fido
It must be a couple of years now but I can recall when there seemed to be a lot of anticipation for Black Sheep and Fido, two horror comedies that were going to be released around the same time, both movies had trailers that looked like fun and I was looking forward to seeing both of them.
I saw Black Sheep on DVD around a year ago and to be honest I was pretty disappointed, it had a couple of funny moments but overall the movie just wasn't very good.
Today I was sorting through some DVDs only to discover I must have bought Fido at some point, I don't remember buying it but sure enough there was the region 2 DVD with Billy Connolly's decaying face on the cover and since I was looking for something to watch this afternoon I though that should do the trick nicely.
It was an interesting movie and I did enjoy it, Fido wasn't as funny as I'd hoped but it was a quirky little film and I liked the whole 50's vibe it had going on, I think I was expecting things to go wrong ( and they did ) and then you'd have a comedy more in line with Shaun of the Dead with moments of horrific gore along with laugh out loud moments and that didn't really happen, this was more like Stand By Me with zombies, I did expect that the Billy Connolly zombie would be revealed as the boy's dead Grandfather and that was why he / it was looking out for him but they didn't do that and upon reflection I guess that would've been a little obvious.
I enjoyed Fido and it's certainly worth a look if you haven't seen it and get the chance.
I saw Black Sheep on DVD around a year ago and to be honest I was pretty disappointed, it had a couple of funny moments but overall the movie just wasn't very good.
Today I was sorting through some DVDs only to discover I must have bought Fido at some point, I don't remember buying it but sure enough there was the region 2 DVD with Billy Connolly's decaying face on the cover and since I was looking for something to watch this afternoon I though that should do the trick nicely.
It was an interesting movie and I did enjoy it, Fido wasn't as funny as I'd hoped but it was a quirky little film and I liked the whole 50's vibe it had going on, I think I was expecting things to go wrong ( and they did ) and then you'd have a comedy more in line with Shaun of the Dead with moments of horrific gore along with laugh out loud moments and that didn't really happen, this was more like Stand By Me with zombies, I did expect that the Billy Connolly zombie would be revealed as the boy's dead Grandfather and that was why he / it was looking out for him but they didn't do that and upon reflection I guess that would've been a little obvious.
I enjoyed Fido and it's certainly worth a look if you haven't seen it and get the chance.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Dark Water
This was an OK movie, to be honest I expected more of Hideo Nakata, I worked out what was going on and why pretty early on in the film although if you think about it the opening credits pretty much give it away.
The thing that nearly spoiled this movie for me was the 10 years later epilogue, the movie should've ended on the final shot of the water tower.
I have the American remake of Dark Water somewhere so I might check that out sometime soon just to compare the two, to me this felt like a movie that was trying to appeal to an international audience and so a lot of the horror aspects were diluted in order to appeal to the broadest audience.
An OK movie with a lot of untapped potential.
The thing that nearly spoiled this movie for me was the 10 years later epilogue, the movie should've ended on the final shot of the water tower.
I have the American remake of Dark Water somewhere so I might check that out sometime soon just to compare the two, to me this felt like a movie that was trying to appeal to an international audience and so a lot of the horror aspects were diluted in order to appeal to the broadest audience.
An OK movie with a lot of untapped potential.
Colour Me Kubrick
This movie was ( loosely ) based on real life events where a con man was impersonating Stanley Kubrick, it must be said I'm a bit of a fan of Kubrick's films so I had fun spotting various references and music cues used in Colour Me Kubrick and I was aware of the man who impersonated Kubrick and some of the events around him being discovered.
A couple of years ago I saw a trailer for the film that made it look like a comedy which I thought was odd at the time but I'd eventually check out the film, Colour Me Kubrick is no comedy, it has a couple of funny moments but it's certainly no comedy, this is a movie about celebrity ( something Stanley Kubrick never wanted ) and someone who was unhappy with his life so he tried to become someone else
John Malkovich gives an outstanding performance as Alan Conway, the openly gay Stanley Kubrick impersonator who looked nothing like Kubrick and it seemed knew only the basic facts about his work but somehow still managed to convince people he was a talented movie director.
This was a bit different to the things I've been watching lately and I really enjoyed it, it's not a movie I'd buy ( well recommend buying since I did in fact buy it ) but if you can catch it on TV it's certainly worth a look.
A couple of years ago I saw a trailer for the film that made it look like a comedy which I thought was odd at the time but I'd eventually check out the film, Colour Me Kubrick is no comedy, it has a couple of funny moments but it's certainly no comedy, this is a movie about celebrity ( something Stanley Kubrick never wanted ) and someone who was unhappy with his life so he tried to become someone else
John Malkovich gives an outstanding performance as Alan Conway, the openly gay Stanley Kubrick impersonator who looked nothing like Kubrick and it seemed knew only the basic facts about his work but somehow still managed to convince people he was a talented movie director.
This was a bit different to the things I've been watching lately and I really enjoyed it, it's not a movie I'd buy ( well recommend buying since I did in fact buy it ) but if you can catch it on TV it's certainly worth a look.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The Corpse Bride
I've had the DVD for about three years but today I finally got around to watching The Corpse Bride, I was hoping that this movie would capture the magic of A Nightmare Before Christmas but honestly it didn't which isn't to say the movie was bad because it wasn't, it just wasn't anything special.
I don't know where Tim Burton would be if he wasn't making movies, The Corpse Bride like most of his movies was rather unique both in terms of story and visual style but that is to be expected of Burton.
One thing that did really impress me was the cast of voice actors that worked on this movie, especially Christopher Lee, we don't see enough of Christopher Lee in movies these days.
The Corpse Bride like all Tim Burton movies is worth seeing for yourself, it's not one of his better movies but it's nowhere near as bad as his remake of Planet of the Apes either.
I don't know where Tim Burton would be if he wasn't making movies, The Corpse Bride like most of his movies was rather unique both in terms of story and visual style but that is to be expected of Burton.
One thing that did really impress me was the cast of voice actors that worked on this movie, especially Christopher Lee, we don't see enough of Christopher Lee in movies these days.
The Corpse Bride like all Tim Burton movies is worth seeing for yourself, it's not one of his better movies but it's nowhere near as bad as his remake of Planet of the Apes either.
Today, your diary entry will read - "Took a prozzie hostage, and then got shot by three armed bastards!"
Over the last couple of days I've been re-watching the first series of Ashes to Ashes, not sure why really I just suddenly had the urge see it again, I still thinks it's a little weak for the first couple of episodes while Keeley Hawes finds her way as the series lead but as usual it's Gene Hunt that makes the series worth watching, some of his dialog in Life on Mars ( the proper original UK version ) and Ashes to Ashes is just hilarious, it's hard to believe we won't be seeing anymore of the Gene Genie.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Ubuntu at work - Part1
I am a happy user of Ubuntu from 2 years. It worked smoothly over 5 upgrades.These years I primarily used ubuntu for the academic and personal uses. But now I am out of college and working for a start up company “Zinnia Systems”. Since I am so used to ubuntu , i din’t wanted to switch to windows at work place . Luckily I am allowed to use ubuntu at work place too .So the in next series posts I will share experience of ubuntu at work
Background
Our company is a telecommunication product company . We use java stack for developing our products. So java employs “Write once, Run anywhere” policy should work on any platform, i am trying to develop the product in ubuntu when all working on the windows systems.
System
My system is dell Vostro with 2GB RAM and 320 GB hard disk . It runs ubuntu karmic kola (9.10) . Though 10.04 is the latest i dint had much time to test it, so i am using 9.10 itself.
Day 1 : Setting up the environment
Any company you work ,first requirement will be learning the working environment . So in this post i talk about how i managed to install the tools for getting started
Installing IBM RTC Express-C eclipse client
Since we use Java for development we use Eclipse for coding which is a favorite of most of java developers.We also use Rational Team Concert for source control , I have to use IBM RTC for development .
So i downloaded the IBM RTC from here ( It’s trickier to find )
https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/2.0?p=allDownloads (requires registration)
Just download the Linux version.
Button.......Don't click me!!!!!!
“ With choice comes the responsibility”
Though i download the correct version , the buttons in eclipse dint worked.After a lot of googling, I came to know that It’s a bug in 9.10. So i used to the following shell script to launch the eclipse
#!/bin/sh
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
$path to ur downloaded eclipse
This script make sure that correct GDK available to the Eclipse. After configuring this Eclipse is happily responding to the button clicks.
Installing and configuring Maven plug in to the Eclipse
This is one of the most time consuming thing in whole setup . Though maven is small plug in it has too many gotchas with the IBM RTC.
“Update sites don't make life easier “
The m2eclipse repository failed to fetch the plug in for eclipse. After many hours of googling we found that the update site http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e incompatible with the eclipse 3.4
So if you want maven plug in for Eclipse 3.4 use this repository
http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e/0.10.0.20100209-0800/
It may save you a day.
“Dependencies hell”
Though I am able to find the correct repository , it always refused to install by saying that it needs a lot of things . I tried to install all those dependencies but it wanted more . Finally i discovered that there is an easy way to do it. Just click on manage sites and check all the sites.Then it automatically downloads the all the required dependencies. Yes it is a long download ..U can take a nap and come back.
So at the end of day , I was able to get the eclipse running and maven was happy to build projects for me.
Its enough for a day.Will be back with another story .Till then happy ubunting :)
Background
Our company is a telecommunication product company . We use java stack for developing our products. So java employs “Write once, Run anywhere” policy should work on any platform, i am trying to develop the product in ubuntu when all working on the windows systems.
System
My system is dell Vostro with 2GB RAM and 320 GB hard disk . It runs ubuntu karmic kola (9.10) . Though 10.04 is the latest i dint had much time to test it, so i am using 9.10 itself.
Day 1 : Setting up the environment
Any company you work ,first requirement will be learning the working environment . So in this post i talk about how i managed to install the tools for getting started
Installing IBM RTC Express-C eclipse client
Since we use Java for development we use Eclipse for coding which is a favorite of most of java developers.We also use Rational Team Concert for source control , I have to use IBM RTC for development .
So i downloaded the IBM RTC from here ( It’s trickier to find )
https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/2.0?p=allDownloads (requires registration)
Just download the Linux version.
Button.......Don't click me!!!!!!
“ With choice comes the responsibility”
Though i download the correct version , the buttons in eclipse dint worked.After a lot of googling, I came to know that It’s a bug in 9.10. So i used to the following shell script to launch the eclipse
#!/bin/sh
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
$path to ur downloaded eclipse
This script make sure that correct GDK available to the Eclipse. After configuring this Eclipse is happily responding to the button clicks.
Installing and configuring Maven plug in to the Eclipse
This is one of the most time consuming thing in whole setup . Though maven is small plug in it has too many gotchas with the IBM RTC.
“Update sites don't make life easier “
The m2eclipse repository failed to fetch the plug in for eclipse. After many hours of googling we found that the update site http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e incompatible with the eclipse 3.4
So if you want maven plug in for Eclipse 3.4 use this repository
http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e/0.10.0.20100209-0800/
It may save you a day.
“Dependencies hell”
Though I am able to find the correct repository , it always refused to install by saying that it needs a lot of things . I tried to install all those dependencies but it wanted more . Finally i discovered that there is an easy way to do it. Just click on manage sites and check all the sites.Then it automatically downloads the all the required dependencies. Yes it is a long download ..U can take a nap and come back.
So at the end of day , I was able to get the eclipse running and maven was happy to build projects for me.
Its enough for a day.Will be back with another story .Till then happy ubunting :)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A horse with no name........
Well the man had a name but I'm pretty sure the horse didn't, I've spent a rather large part of the last two days replaying Red Dead Redemption, a recent video game release and the closest I think we'll ever come to an interactive Sergio Leone movie.
It's been ages since there has been a decent video game based on the western genre and this has been a blast, the game world is gorgeous, the game play is smooth and there are plenty of different side missions and mini games to keep the player amused.
I guess the western genre won't appeal to everyone but this is works for me, I keep expecting to see Clint Eastwood ride out of the hills and open up a can of whoop ass on the local bandits before riding off into the sunset.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Amazing Screw-On Head
Well I finally got around to watching The Amazing Screw-On Head, this was a cartoon I was interested in seeing but like so many other things I just never got around to it.
I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to see that it's running time was only around 30 minutes, for some reason I thought it had a longer running time but then according to the special features this was a pilot for an animated series, while I did enjoy the pilot I'm glad I got this DVD very cheap on eBay as I'd be really annoyed if I paid full price for this disc based on it's contents.
I've never read The Amazing Screw-On Head comic which is what this episode is based on but I think I'd like to check it out at some point, it's another quirky creation of Mike Mignola and it had the same feel as Hellboy.
The Amazing Screw-On Head isn't something that I imagine would appeal to everyone but I really liked it, it's a shame that more episodes of this series weren't produced.
I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to see that it's running time was only around 30 minutes, for some reason I thought it had a longer running time but then according to the special features this was a pilot for an animated series, while I did enjoy the pilot I'm glad I got this DVD very cheap on eBay as I'd be really annoyed if I paid full price for this disc based on it's contents.
I've never read The Amazing Screw-On Head comic which is what this episode is based on but I think I'd like to check it out at some point, it's another quirky creation of Mike Mignola and it had the same feel as Hellboy.
The Amazing Screw-On Head isn't something that I imagine would appeal to everyone but I really liked it, it's a shame that more episodes of this series weren't produced.
Friday, August 13, 2010
One of those days
My Grandfather called me today to say he wanted to buy a high definition plasma screen and he was wondering if I'd go with him to look at them, he knew pretty much what he wanted to spend and roughly what size screen he'd like and thankfully he was prepared to spend a reasonable amount of money.
We found a very nice Panasonic Plasma screen on sale so that's what we bought and took it home, then he decided he needed to reorganise his lounge room ( which actually meant he wanted me to do it ).
Of course with all his components moved around it was back off to the shop to pick up some longer cables and then back to his place to hook up everything, then he asks he if it's possible to connect his old VCR to the plasma, I should've said no but I didn't think quickly enough and answered honestly.
I don't know why but getting that VCR to work with his plasma was a massive pain in the ass, I connected it, disconnected it, swapped cables and did a bunch of other stuff and the damn thing just refused to work for the better part of a couple of hours and then suddenly it was fine, of course using such a poor quality format on such a nice screen seemed criminal but at least it works - for now.
We found a very nice Panasonic Plasma screen on sale so that's what we bought and took it home, then he decided he needed to reorganise his lounge room ( which actually meant he wanted me to do it ).
Of course with all his components moved around it was back off to the shop to pick up some longer cables and then back to his place to hook up everything, then he asks he if it's possible to connect his old VCR to the plasma, I should've said no but I didn't think quickly enough and answered honestly.
I don't know why but getting that VCR to work with his plasma was a massive pain in the ass, I connected it, disconnected it, swapped cables and did a bunch of other stuff and the damn thing just refused to work for the better part of a couple of hours and then suddenly it was fine, of course using such a poor quality format on such a nice screen seemed criminal but at least it works - for now.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
A busy couple of Days
Like the title says it's been a busy couple of days, I re-watched the first series of Spaced as well as watching a few episodes of Relic Hunter and the recent mini-series version of The Phantom.
I also finished reading The Road to Dune which was a book I really enjoyed, then Aaron and I recorded a nearly 3 hour long conversation for Sci-Fi Dig and I finished re-playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as well as watching a few more episodes of the iFanboy video podcast.
I never said it was a productive couple of days, just busy.
I also finished reading The Road to Dune which was a book I really enjoyed, then Aaron and I recorded a nearly 3 hour long conversation for Sci-Fi Dig and I finished re-playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as well as watching a few more episodes of the iFanboy video podcast.
I never said it was a productive couple of days, just busy.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Moon 44
I remember renting Moon 44 on video many many years ago, I enjoyed it at the time even though the special effects for the most part were pretty bad and so was the acting.
I watched the movie again on DVD last night, the cast with the exception of Malcolm McDowell were pretty bad ( why does he keep making these cheap-ass films ? ) and the production designer seemed to be copying what he saw in Alien / Aliens and Blade Runner but that really helped the movie in terms of atmosphere.
You can see Roland Emmerich's visual style beginning to emerge in this movie, unfortunately he still had a lot to learn as a writer.
Moon 44 is a fun little B-grade sci-fi movie, it's nothing special but it's also not as bad as a lot of people suggest either.
I watched the movie again on DVD last night, the cast with the exception of Malcolm McDowell were pretty bad ( why does he keep making these cheap-ass films ? ) and the production designer seemed to be copying what he saw in Alien / Aliens and Blade Runner but that really helped the movie in terms of atmosphere.
You can see Roland Emmerich's visual style beginning to emerge in this movie, unfortunately he still had a lot to learn as a writer.
Moon 44 is a fun little B-grade sci-fi movie, it's nothing special but it's also not as bad as a lot of people suggest either.
iFanboy
I'd sort of been aware of the iFanboy podcast for a while, like so many other things I'd downloaded a bunch of episodes a while back, I hadn't listened to any of them but I had downloaded them.
A few days ago I discovered they also did a video podcast so I thought I sit down and watch an episode, over the last three days I've watched something like 15 episodes so I've only got something like 150 to go.
I've really enjoyed how they have gotten to interview various comic creators at various conventions and signings at stores but the shows where they just geek out at comics have been a lot of fun as well.
If you even have a mild interest in comics click here to give iFanboy a try
A few days ago I discovered they also did a video podcast so I thought I sit down and watch an episode, over the last three days I've watched something like 15 episodes so I've only got something like 150 to go.
I've really enjoyed how they have gotten to interview various comic creators at various conventions and signings at stores but the shows where they just geek out at comics have been a lot of fun as well.
If you even have a mild interest in comics click here to give iFanboy a try
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The Road to Dune
I was a big fan of Frank Herbert's first three Dune novels, his later Dune novels were OK but I didn't enjoy them as much as the original three, I haven't read any of the prequel books written by his son Brian and Kevin J Anderson as I've heard mixed ( more bad than good ) things about them.
A while back I picked up The Road to Dune and so far it's been a very interesting read, it's sort of like the print version of DVD special features, it contains letters that were exchanged between Frank Hebert and his agent as well as various other people, the original much shorter original version of Dune which was called Spice Planet ( I didn't like it very much to tell the truth ), deleted and alternate versions of material from Dune and Dune Messiah as well as some short stories.
If you are a fan of the Dune books then I think this is well worth a read .
A while back I picked up The Road to Dune and so far it's been a very interesting read, it's sort of like the print version of DVD special features, it contains letters that were exchanged between Frank Hebert and his agent as well as various other people, the original much shorter original version of Dune which was called Spice Planet ( I didn't like it very much to tell the truth ), deleted and alternate versions of material from Dune and Dune Messiah as well as some short stories.
If you are a fan of the Dune books then I think this is well worth a read .
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