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The resistance is here

· One min read

“The Resistance” is here and apparently even before the official release in Europe (yesterday) some Burak Çalık had already set up a neat web site from which you can download Muse's new album via RapidShare. As an appetiser (and while you download the archive) check out this live performance of an established classic, “Starlight” (can't get enough of it), followed by one of the most interesting tracks from “The Resistance”: “Undisclosed Desires” (skip to 4:12 for the new song if you're in a hurry).

Neverwhere

· 8 min read

a friend of mine (a book-lover, one of the most admirable bookworms I know) gave this book to me as a present last year. We both love London, we both prefer to read English books in English, and she knows me well enough to anticipate that I would like this novel by Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere. I confess I hadn't read anything by Neil Gaiman before, but the name sounded familiar to me. And, as in so many other occasions, once you find out a little bit on the interwebs and mention the name to a friend or two and let your friends talk to you about the guy, you end up wondering how it's possible that you didn't know him. I reckon most of the (three) readers of this blog don't need an introduction, but let me just say that Gaiman is known for his writing of the acclaimed comic book series Sandman, and for other novels such as American Gods. Although you would be forgiven to think that his actual job is to collect impressive awards (Hugo and Nebula among many others). Even if you're not familiar with his books, you may have watched some of his work: he wrote Coraline, upon which the screenplay for the eponymous film was based, and, most importantly, he wrote the screenplay of a little marvel that was too quickly forgotten: Beowulf. Oh, and he also wrote the dialogues for the version of Princess Mononoke that was screened in English-speaking countries. He has a blog since 2001, he is on Twitter, he possesses a beautiful, beautiful private library, and yet another library (you can zoom in to read every title on the shelves), he has given some long interviews and, to top it all, he is definitely much better than Chuck Norris. Enough said about Mr Gaiman and his enormous talent.

“Neverwhere”

Thirteen years ago Gaiman wrote Nevewhere, a TV series for the BBC. A bit later, and not feeling entirely happy with the many bits that he had to alter or prune during the shooting of the series, he would rework the screenplay and publish it as a 370-page novel. You can watch the whole series (six episodes) on YouTube (but I recommend you to save it for after you read the book). But I mentioned London. What does London have to do with this story? This fantasy novel is set in two Londons: London Above (the one you've seen: Big Ben, black cabs, bad weather, noisy tourists, gorgeous parks); and London Below (a magical, dark place under the surface where the disenfranchised fall; a world linked to London overground by tunnels and sewers, abandoned tube stations and hidden doors). You will make the most of the novel only if you have lived in the city, or if you know the city at least a bit. There are lots of references to real areas, streets and landmarks, and underground lines and stations: Trafalgar Sq, Tate Modern, the City, Battersea, Centre Point, the ubiquitous off-licences and the curry houses… When the characters walk in London Above, you can follow them from Leicester Sq through Soho (“where the tawdry and the chic sit side by side, to the benefit of both”) and Old Compton St. And when they walk from Brewer St to Piccadilly, they stop to stare for a moment at the articles on display at the Vintage Magazine Shop. I have wandered around that shop quite a few times. There are also nice references to the names of tube stations. There is an Earl, with his court, in Earl's Court. There are black friars. Knightsbridge is actually a misspelling of the Night's Bridge. One of the main characters is called Islington, and it is an Angel. We get to know one of the Seven Sisters. And so forth. I was already enjoying all these references and word plays, when I read this about Richard Mayhew, the protagonist: “Richard's offices were on the third floor of a big, old, rather draughty building, just off the Strand”. I stopped and re-read that sentence twice. During my last year in London, I worked at 80 Strand — my company was renting half of the third floor of a very large, old building on the Strand. But wait, I thought; it could be any of the other big, old buildings on that side of the road, or even on the other side. Then, towards the end of the story, Richard “walked over to the window, and sipped his tea, staring out at the dirty brown river” and I could discard all the buildings on the North side of the Strand. I could picture Richard perfectly, taking a break from work to stare at the Thames and the South Bank from that privileged position, as I myself had done so many times. Gaiman writes concise, elegant and accurate. Also tender and funny. I had to laugh out loud a few times when I was reading it, specially with Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar. It seems to me that Neil Gaiman would be perfectly capable of telling the same story indulging in a profusion of details and stretching some dramatic effects, but that he actually writes too well to fall into that trap. Of course, being a fantasy novel, the characters are not realistic, and there is magic, and sometimes a thin smell of deus ex machina floating around. Because of that, I think that you can't engage with the story fully, on the same level you would with a historic novel, for instance. But it is interesting to note that Richard, the young Scot working in London who falls through the cracks to London Below, provides a useful counterpoint: he is sceptic and ironic about what is happening to him, he is easily scared, weak, wants to go back home. That makes him the more likeable to the reader, who can easily relate to him. I wished there were better descriptions of the places in London Below, because sometimes I wasn't sure what places looked like, the shape and size of tunnels, buildings, bridges and roads. I don't even know if there is a sky above London Below or not; sometimes Richard and his companions walk in a direction that doesn't seem plausible, and they end up in places you wouldn't expect. Some features of London appear also in London Below (Harrods, the HMS Belfast), but because the “topology” of the “double city” is not clear, I didn't understand if those landmarks are mirrored, or if the inhabitants of London Below come up to London Above and take them at night. It is a bit Escherian, I guess. But that might be on purpose. The characters I liked the most are Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, a couple of sadistic assassins, two refined torturers, funny psychopaths. They fit in the archetype of the short, cunning, talkative guy and his huge, violent dumb companion. Mr Croup loves words and talks in the manner of an old-fashioned gentleman, although his ideas are less candid (“The police? Alas, we cannot claim that felicity. A career in law and order, although indubitably enticing, was not inscribed on the cards Dame Fortuna dealt my brother and me.”). Mr Vandemar eats anything that has, or that once had, flesh or fur, and is immune to the suffering of the others. You have to love them from the first pages. Today I skipped through the first episode on YouTube because I was curious about how these two guys had been portrayed originally on TV. I recommend you not to do that until you've read the book — the image of them that gradually appears in your mind as you read the novel is probably far scarier and more complex than the image they have on screen (and that's a good thing about the brief descriptions, I guess). Definitely recommended (although, as I said, part of the appeal depends on knowing London and some of its layers).

Howto: repair Grub's menu on a Linux installation that wouldn't boot

· 3 min read

This is a simple recipe that will be obvious for many users of Un*x systems, but which proved useful to me when I needed to fix Grub on my laptop. I'm sharing it here for future personal reference, and in case anyone out there knows even less than I do about booting Linux and about Grub. This recipe assumes that there is a /boot/ partition containing valid Linux kernels. In other words, it just creates a missing menu.lst file for Grub — it does not deal with other more complicated, lower-level boot issues. Last time I installed Ubuntu, I somehow messed with the boot loader settings. I'm running Ubuntu on a MacBook Pro with an Intel processor; but I also have Mac OS installed, and I use rEFIt to handle both OS's. Whatever option Ubuntu ticks by default regarding Grub, I thought it wasn't the right one for my setup. It turned out that either Ubuntu didn't know how to install Grub correctly for my partition layout, or I screwed it myself. Anyway. The system was installed successfully, but once the installation finished, Linux wouldn't boot. rEFIt detected the new OS correctly, but when it was selected, Grub fell back to its own limited command line. Now, if I knew more about Grub, I'd be able to find an image of the Linux kernel and boot the system with it, using Grub commands. Then I would edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst myself. What I did, instead, was the following:

  1. Run Linux from a live CD distro. You can boot using the same CD you used to install Ubuntu (but any live distro which includes Grub in its base system will do).

  2. Fire up a terminal.

  3. Temporarily rename the /boot/ directory:

    $ sudo mv /boot/ /boot.DISABLED

  4. Create a symbolic link to the partition on your hard drive that contains the Linux kernels, and call it /boot/ (if your live system did not mount that partition automatically, find the right device and mount it first under /media/, or mount it directly onto /boot/):

    $ sudo ln -s /boot /media/sda3/ # Your device might not be this one

  5. If there is already a /boot/grub/ directory, disable it:

    $ sudo mv /boot/grub/ /boot/grub.DISABLED

  6. Run update-grub (if it returns an error, you might need to create the directory /boot/grub/ yourself first):

    $ sudo update-grub

  7. Restore the original live /boot/:

    $ sudo unlink /boot/ $ sudo mv /boot.DISABLED /boot

  8. Reboot the system and extract the live CD; this time Grub should show the menu of available kernels and load the one that you choose.

N.B. Although update-grub's man page asks you to run the command first, then set some options in menu.lst, and finally run the command again, update-grub looks idempotent to me (anyone knows what I'm missing?).

Definitive howto: Flex Builder 3 in Ubuntu Linux 9.04

· 6 min read

Two weeks ago I had to reinstall Ubuntu. Yesterday I spent some time setting up Flex Builder in my new Linux installation. This time I faced even more difficulties than the last time, months ago. Definitely, Adobe is not paying much attention to its Linux developers — looking through Adobe.com and Adobe Labs, stuff regarding Flex development in Linux stays pretty much as (bad as) it was one year ago or so. I finally managed to get the Flex 3 IDE and version 3.0.0 of the AIR SDK to run with Eclipse 3.3.2, and to launch both the AIR runtime and the Flash plug-in for Firefox from within Eclipse as needed (run and debug modes). The process is no apt-get install, and is not well documented. At the end I combined instructions and tips from Adobe Labs, one or two comments from forums and the workaround for a bug filed in Jira. This recipe summarises the process in detail and, following it step by step, in a few minutes you will be running Flex Builder 3 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. This recipe might be applicable to other versions of Ubuntu, and even to other Debian-based distros. There are six main steps:

  1. Install a JRE
  2. Install the Eclipse SDK
  3. Install the FB3 plug-in for Eclipse
  4. Back up one SWC library
  5. Upgrade the AIR SDK
  6. Repair the offending SWC library from the backup

A few notes before going into details. First of all, bear in mind that the Linux version of FB3 is an unsupported alpha, and that some key features are (still) missing in it. The most important one is the design view, but also the states view, the profiler and four other features. If these are important limitations for you, you might need to consider virtualisation instead (or a different base OS altogether). Second, there is no stand-alone FB3 for Linux. Flex developers running Windows or Mac OS are used to installing either the FB3 plug-in on top of an existing Eclipse installation or the FB3 stand-alone bundle provided by Adobe. In Linux, on the other hand, there is no option but to install the Eclipse SDK first, and then the FB3 plug-in on top of it. Third, Java is a dependency: the FB3 plug-in needs Eclipse, and Eclipse needs a JRE. Fourth, if you plan to build AIR applications for the desktop (as opposed to Flash applications for the web) you might need to install the AIR runtime separately, in addition to the steps listed here. Finally, here I use Bash commands to illustrate these steps in detail and without ambiguity; but most of these steps, if not all of them, you can accomplish using your file manager and visual tools of choice instead.

  1. Install a JRE

    $ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre

    This will also install sun-java6-bin. You can now check that Java has been installed successfully, the usual way:

    $ java -version

  2. Install the Eclipse SDK
    From all the bundles that Eclipse.org provides, pick and download a minimal Eclipse SDK (you won't need all those fancy plug-ins, and they can be added after the installation anyway). Whatever the bundle, it needs to be version 3.3.x, codename Europa. The IDE “for Java developers” [Europa] is the best option:

    $ wget "http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/europa/winter/eclipse-java-europa-winter-linux-gtk.tar.gz"

    Extract the files from the archive and then move the base eclipse/ directory to, for example, /usr/local/:

    $ tar -xzf eclipse-java-europa-winter-linux-gtk.tar.gz $ sudo mv eclipse /usr/local/

    Create a permanent workspace for Eclipse:

    $ mkdir ~/eclipse-workspace/

    Launch Eclipse:

    $ /usr/local/eclipse/eclipse &

  3. Install the FB3 plug-in for Eclipse
    Download Flex Builder for Linux and give yourself permission to run the file:

    $ wget "http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flex/flexbuilder_linux/flexbuilder_linux_install_a4_081408.bin" $ chmod u+x flexbuilder_linux_install_a4_081408.bin

    Create a new directory for FB3 and make it your own:

    $ sudo mkdir /usr/local/flex-builder/ $ sudo chown $USER:$USER /usr/local/flex-builder/

    Run the installer:

    $ ./flexbuilder_linux_install_a4_081408.bin

    Accept the license. When asked where to install Flex Builder, browse to the directory you just created (/usr/local/flex-builder/). When asked where Eclipse is currently installed, browse to the directory where you copied Eclipse (/usr/local/eclipse/). If you plan to develop for the Flash Player, tick the option to install the debug version of Flash Player 9 for Firefox (but you might be able to download it separately anyway). The “pre-installation summary” should look similar to this:

    Once the installation finishes you can launch FB3:

    $ /usr/local/flex-builder/Adobe_Flex_builder.sh &

    Flash projects will run fine …but most likely AIR projects won't work. When you try to build and launch an AIR app, you will see this error message in Eclipse:

  4. Back up one SWC library

    $ cp /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/frameworks/libs/air/airglobal.swc ~

  5. Upgrade the AIR SDK
    Download the AIR SDK for Linux to a temporary directory and uncompress it:

    $ mkdir ~/tmp-air/ $ cd ~/tmp-air/ $ wget "http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/air_1.5_sdk.tbz2" $ tar -xjf air_1.5_sdk.tbz2 $ rm air_1.5_sdk.tbz2

    Delete the current SDK 3.0.0 runtime/ directory from the FB3 installation directory:

    $ rm -rf /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/runtimes/

    Overwrite the SDK 3.0.0 with the version you downloaded (it will overwrite some files — that's fine):

    $ cp -a ~/tmp-air/* /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/

    Replace these two files:

    $ cd /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/bin/ $ rm adl_lin adt_lin $ mv adl adl_lin $ mv adt adt_lin

    Create this new symbolic link:

    $ cd /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/runtimes/air/ $ ln -s linux/ Linux

    Now it will almost work. When you run FB3 and try to run an AIR app, you will get this error:

  6. Repair the offending SWC library from the backup

    $ cp ~/airglobal.swc /usr/local/flex-builder/sdks/3.0.0/frameworks/libs/air/

    This will fix the previous error. Try to build Flash and AIR apps again in FB3; everything should work fine.

One more on journalists who don't understand blogs

· 2 min read

To Anna Mikhailova With regards to your outing, I strongly condemn the threats you suffered, the harassment and the undoubtedly reprehensible manners. I believe that most bloggers, if asked, would disapprove of that too. That said, I don't quite understand what is the problem with your own outing per se. If three years ago you and your editor judged that it was in the public interest to expose, so prominently, the identity of a thitherto anonymous blogger, then surely you would accept that the public themselves decided that your own outing was relevant news to them, too. Just explain to us how did your piece of news help society, the public interest or the credibility of blogs. You do make a point when you say that the anonymity of bloggers should not be “always absolutely guaranteed”. But you forget that that is not the cause that needs to be fought for: in most countries there are already legal means to take down a web site, and to (try to) identify its authors — only that it is judges (and not journalists) who are to decide when there is ground for suspicion of illegal contents or activities, and therefore for a blogger to be “unmasked”. To bring up such a noble argument to justify your attack against a law-abiding adult who simply writes about her own private life only serves to pervert the fight for free speech on the net within the boundaries of legality.

Doctor WHAT?

· 4 min read

From the I-need-to-procrastinate-now dept. Trying to alleviate somehow this miserable run of hours, days, weeks, months of stooping over my books, notes and laptop; of consuming booked holidays alone at home or in the library; of shortening or cancelling planned trips (so that I can spend more time alone at home or in the library); and of gazing through the window at that hateful, unconveniently sunny outer world, I just watched with Pablo episode #4 of Doctor Who (the new TV series): “Aliens of London”.

Doctor Who is an institution in the United Kingdom: actors who are currently playing the main parts appear on the cover of magazines regularly, Daleks are all over the place in London and everyone here seems to love the show, or at least to acknowledge its existence with reverence.

“In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the show has become a cult television favourite and has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. It has received recognition from critics and the public as one of the finest British television programmes, including the BAFTA Award for Best Drama Series in 2006.”
— its page in the Wikipedia.

But all that does not changes a tad the fact that the show is dull and unconvincing. Its production is cheap by any standards of modern TV and it conveys the same dramatic intensity as the test card. You know — I have extensive knowledge about Doctor Who myself, having watched distractedly two episodes and two halves recently. I think it's bad. Take the episode we watched in DVD today. As far as I can tell, a UFO crashed against the Big Ben and fell into the Thames. Only that the dead alien pilot was not dead and was not alien. It was one of a bunch of relentessly farting humanoid pigs with zips on their foreheads (sic) who simulated the accident and infiltrated 10 Downing St in disguise and kidnapped the PM to achieve their evil goals. Oh, and the humanoid pigs were actually oversized, green, royalty-dodging versions of E.T. incapable of bending their necks or their arms because the budget for animatronics ran out the minute after the assistant to the carpenter uttered the words “Jeez, Quentin; this is a neat prototype, innit?”. The only merit of this episode, obviously, is that it predicted the swine flu four years ago. I mean, just take a look at the bloody robots (they ain't no robots; they're an extraterrestrial race of mutants). These rice cookers make the robots in Forbidden Planet (1956) look like cutting-edge pieces of engineering. And Wikipedia says this is the “2005 redesign”. There must be a certain amount of irony at work here, or very sick doses of nostalgia, but I just don't get it.

And still, it is iconic in this country while also enjoying incomprehensible success overseas. So it is good that, thanks to Pablo, I got to watch a few episodes. Now I can leave the country in peace. All this is to say that tonight we discovered that Rose Tyler (the main character, together with “the Doctor”) lives in front of us! In effect, although she lives in the fictional location flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, SE15 7GO London, the filming location is Brandon Estate, in Kennington.

This estate is literally one minute away by foot from my doorstep. This is where we have our GP, and until very recently our nearest post office was that building partially hidden behind the arches, left-hand side in the picture. Come to think about it, we have seen filming crews at work in our neighbourhood quite a few times in the last three years. I wonder if Doctor Who has something to do with that… Although I suspect that it is just the charming suburban irrelevance of these streets that attracts producers here. Now back to XƎTEX.

Happy

· One min read

Because in about four months I'll be switching from this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

Sad

· 3 min read

Xirick has been damn fast replying to my previous post. And the pictures he's used are great to illustrate my changes for the near future. What Xirick didn't know is that I already had an analogous counterpoint for my own argument, ready to be posted today. You know, being as contradictory as I am, you can't post about happiness one day an not try to balance that with sadness the day after. Or maybe you can. Well, I don't think you can. But you definitely can. I know: these photos aren't nearly as good as the ones in Xirick's post. But my point was to illustrate the differences using only my own photos. Enough said.

I'm sad because in about four months I’ll be switching from this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

From this…

…to this:

…and so many other wonderful things, habits, activities and feelings that I will leave behind. Some of them difficult, if not impossible, to find in other places. Like the amazing architecture, or rather the flamboyant collage of different styles. And the ostentatious buildings, the cityscapes, and that feeling of living in the city, in the centre (not the center) of the world:

And proper winters (with all the nice things that a winter should have). And solvent organisations to work for; in comfy, spacious offices that are within walking distance from many other important places. Organisations that pay what is fair and where you work the time you are supposed to work, full stop:

And those (few, I know) lovely days of summer spent with friends frolicking on the grass, in one of the many parks:

And the institutions, the organisations, the courses, the opportunities, the knowledge floating around. The libraries, the bookshops:

And the rightful lack of modesty:

And the buzz around, the surprises every day, the unexpected events, the festivals:

And the streets, the variety, the peoples. The freedom, the mind-openers. Walking or running the city. Crossing two blocks means leaving Poland and entering Mexico. Run a bit further and you're in Guinea-Bissau:

And the hub, the connections, the flights, the trains. The freedom again. Having trouble to decide the destination because all the first five countries in the list are close at hand and inexpensive anyway:

And all the friends stopping by, the guests every couple of weeks, friends of other friends who become friends. The parties, the nights out:

And the culture, the music, the big names:

And the events, the conferences, the initiatives:

And most of all, I will be missing these two so much: