It’s sucked me in

Posted at 7:17 PM

About twenty years after the rest of the Western world got hooked, I’ve become addicted to Tetris.

I thought I was doing really well, having beaten my brother’s highscores to become third on the table before he told me that on his logon he’d got far higher scores and I wouldn’t come close. Oh, and he normally starts on level nine, not level four like me.

Still, however rubbish I am, I’m addicted, and generally the worse I am at such a game the more addicted I am. Let’s hope I improve, for the sake of my A levels.

My schooldays are over

Posted at 9:43 PM

In the frentic rush of the end of term, I almost forgot – I’ve left school for ever.

It feels weird, I can tell you that much. I’ll post more about the final assembly at some point (it was… amusing). It’s very scary though, as I suddenly thought today that I don’t actually know much about what’s coming up in my music technology film music exam – or rather, I don’t know what I need to know. Last year there was a question on how the music for Robin Hood was influenced by its composer’s rock musician roots. What fun. At least I know what films I’m studying.

H is for Hacker

Posted at 7:44 PM

Some people think hacking is all about breaking into others’ computers, and while that is something I have done (just the once, and the lesson has been learnt) this is not what I mean when I call myself a hacker. A hacker is someone who hacks, and hacking can mean many different things.

I am a hacker because I have an interest in the workings of my computer, and enjoy fiddling around to get things working just right. (This is one reason why I’ve switched to Linux from Windows – you just can’t customise Windows enough.) I also like deconstructing other people’s computer code to see how they’ve done things, and have taught myself all of the programming needed to create this site by doing just that. Circumventing limitations in software is another aspect of hacking that I’m interested in, though never to the extent of it becoming illegal.

I am not, however, a very good hacker. I just don’t have the time to commit to learning non-web programming, for example – or indeed the patience. Even when it comes to something I understand, I often struggle to figure out what’s going on (when it comes to deconstructing PHP scripts for example). I know next to nothing about networking or networking protocols, and probably have an incredibly unsecure system if it wasn’t for the fact we’re behind a secure router with a dynamic IP address. I’d like to become a better hacker, but as I don’t have the patience to learn programming I probably never will.

Becoming a better hacker is often dangerous as well. For example, I recently got talking to people at school who knew their way in networking to an incredible degree – and could teach me how. It was in being taught how that I broke into my first (and only) computer system, something I now regret having done. I did it, though, because the opportunity was there and I didn’t know enough about exactly what I was doing. Who is to say that in experimenting with other forms of hacking I won’t do something similar? I’ve already had to reinstall Linux on two occasions because I’ve messed something up. It gets more scary when you’re dealing with other peoples’ computers though – and there’s only a limited amount you can do on your own.

So I am a hacker, not in the criminal sense (though I have gone down that road briefly, only to run far away from it afterwards) but in the other sense: that of being interested by technology, wanting to mess around with it and being reasonably successful at doing so. The mere fact that I’m writing this from Gentoo Linux shows that to some degree I am a hacker – though, and I am the first to admit it, not to a great degree.

My first (real) A level

Posted at 8:59 AM

Trembling with trepidation, I traversed the turbulent turmoiled terrifying (bear with me while I think of a noun beginning with T…) troubled teeming turbulent (nuts) terrestrial plane (yes!) towards my techniques test. (Composition Techniques, 3 hours, worth 7.5% of my A level.) You can possibly tell that I dropped English.

Anyhoo (and again…) I was reasonably nervous about this exam. It got off to a good start by starting quarter of an hour late (a period we whiled away by sitting on the exam desks talking about anything but music), so I was slightly more relaxed once exam conditions began, but still couldn’t quite believe I was actually sitting an A level exam.

In this exam I’d chosen to complete a chorale (think German hymn with complicated different parts) in the style of J.S.Bach (genius composer who knew his own rules of harmony so well he broke them all the time, making it very very difficult to really write in his style). I was desperately hoping they wouldn’t give us something in a minor key (I’d only practised major ones).

The exam started, and I opened up the booklet. The chorale was not only in a major key, it was in C major – the easiest of all. The exam carried on at the same kind of level for the whole hour and a half I was there (C major being so easy I finished in half the time). So quite encouraging then.

My first meme

Posted at 11:25 AM

Sparticus made me do it.

Total volume of music files on my computer:

My music is split across two computers; some is on both; neither has even a quarter of the music on it that I had before we reinstalled Windows.

The last CD I bought:

Origin of Symmetry by Muse – not half as good as Absolution

Song playing right now:

The Day I Noticed You – John James

Five songs I’ve listened to a lot recently:

• Speed of Sound – Coldplay
• The Beautiful Letdown – Switchfoot
• Butterflies and Hurricanes – Muse
• Going to Your Funeral Parts 1 + 2 – Eels
• The Commuter – Simple Kid

Five people who have to post in the comments with their results:

• Rory T
• Verity
• Jonathan
• Rory C
• Julie B (if you’re still around :))

The gaps

Posted at 6:06 PM

For those of you who had noticed the lack of updates but hadn’t figured out why, let me fill you in: it’s my first exam tomorrow. Sort of (I’ve already done General Studies). It’s quite scary because there’s nothing more I can do to prepare for it – last minute revision doesn’t work when revision relies on getting practice compositions marked by a music teacher. It’s probably good this way. I end up relying on God more than revision. (Of course, God uses revision so he doesn’t become an excuse for not revising – it worked at GCSE but won’t at A level.)

So yeah, first exam tomorrow. Fun fun fun!

Well prepared

Posted at 11:19 AM

Joe expressed how we were all feeling in the middle of our final practice music exam:

I just spelt “cello” with an H.

Revenge of the Sith

Posted at 3:13 PM

Before seeing this film I predicted that it’d be worth seeing, that everyone would be acting a lot better and the script would, on the whole, sound natural. The first time I saw the film, that was pretty much the case. There were a few niggling things about it, but on the whole it was a much better film than the previous ones. I looked forward to going back and just enjoying it, not having to critically analyse it to see if George Lucas had wrecked it. He hadn’t. This is the film that Star Wars fans were hoping for, almost without flaw. (As I said before, the first films had flaws as well so that’s not a problem.)

If you haven’t seen the film yet, I’d advise you to stop reading now and go see it – firstly because it’s an excellent film, secondly because you won’t understand what I’m on about, and thirdly because I’ll give away the entire plot to you.

Christensen can act. Anakin Skywalker is excellent, and his fall will be used by Star Wars savvy youth leaders as a visual aid for decades to come. Critics weren’t sure that his “lean face forward and stare angrily over the top of your non-existant glasses” look was “Dark Side” enough – to me it showed that the fall to evil was all inside. (Hey, just like sin – you can see what I mean about a visual aid…) Portman as Padmé was also very good – it’s just unfortunate that she had to die of a broken heart (I mean, does any otherwise healthy twenty-something ever die of a broken heart?). The hair style hinting at Leia was quite interesting, if unexplainable (I’m pretty sure style isn’t genetic) and her clothes finally stopped changing as much (and became more sensible). R2D2 rocks, and C3PO has just enough lines to keep his fans happy and just few enough not to annoy me. Jar Jar Binks had one line that I noticed – he apologised after treading on someone’s foot. Luckily it happened so quickly I only just noticed it on the second viewing – not perfect, but it’ll do.

Dialogue which appeared cheesy the first time round seemed much less so on the second viewing – in fact, I didn’t feel the script was let down by that at all. In fact, having seen it a second time I find it hard to think of anything particularly bad about it. The lightsaber fights were incredible – no surprises there. I think it ranks up with the original trilogy, as Return of the Jedi, while good, was let down far more by the Ewoks than any of the tiny niggles from this film (what is the point of having a robot fly past in the middle of the final duel, just as if to distract you?). The Ewoks are like the Wookiees done wrong – cute, tiny and annoying. Fitting in Chewbacca to this film was good, as was the mention of Captain Antilles. I’m guessing it’s his son we meet in the original trilogy.

So, thank goodness for that. Lucas has redeemed himself. And hey! it’s study leave next week – we can watch the DVDs of the original trilogy! Sweet.

A review precursor

Posted at 12:57 PM

So Revenge of the Sith was rather good. I’m seeing it again this evening and will be posting a review after that. For now though, know that my predictions were pretty much correct (for once. I’m amazed…)

A prediction

Posted at 1:59 PM

In keeping with my long tradition, I will attempt to predict something that hasn’t happened yet – or, as in this case, I haven’t seen yet. Revenge of the Sith is released tomorrow, and I will be seeing it in the evening. The first two prequels were disappointing (though the lightsaber fights did make up for both of them – especially on the DVD when you can skip the boring/badly scripted/badly acted parts) but general signs are much better for this third one.

So what are my predictions? Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) will stop acting like a petulant teenager (I’m allowed to say this, I have first hand experience of being one) and mature into the role. Natalie Portman (Padmé Amidala) will continue acting well and not let herself down with any one-off pieces of stupidity (remember Padmé gasping in pain, unable to get up until a Clone Trooper asks her if she’s okay? Suddenly her pain is gone…). The film will lack any of the random aliens (Dex the four-armed dart expert, Jar Jar Binks etc.) and unrealistic love scenes (who has time to think up “I’ve been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life” on the spur of the moment?), and will have a very dark feel. Somehow, George Lucas will mess up another aspect I haven’t thought of, but seeing as he did that for pretty much all of the films (even Empire Strikes Back) I don’t think it’ll matter.

As for plot, there’s no way I can predict anything beyond what we know is going to happen anyway (and I won’t go into it in case there are people who haven’t seen the original trilogy yet). It should, however, be excellent.

I’ll post a review after I’ve seen it – but I can tell you now: it’s going to be worth going and seeing it! (But watch Episode 2 at least beforehand – and skip the love scenes if possible.)