Over the last week (while I've been working away, and needing the use of my Ubuntu notebook) I've continued to have issues regarding the weird X freezes I've been having sporadically for the last few weeks (X freeze on Notebook - solved?).  Unfortunately, all the fiddling around with the system were to no avail, and the problem continued.

Seeing the claim that the bug was resolved in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" release, I decided to update the system to the current alpha version of Karmic.  I did this with some trepidation, as I would usually wait until the official release before updating Ubuntu.  Interestingly, I've yet to find any irritating alpha bugs (but it's early days) - it's also a bit early to say whether the X freeze bug has really been resolved.  If not, I'll do a fresh reinstall.  As I type this, I've had a cumulative uptime of 10h42m...so let's hope this is sorted, as it's a bit of a showstopper bug.

Despite being a bit of a fan of Watchmen, I never made it to the cinema to see the film. I finally watched it after the DVD I'd pre-ordered arrived this week. So, what's my take on Zack Snyder's opus? I guess my first comment would be that it's got a kind of fanboy feel - with the exceptions of the omission of at least one scene (the death of Nite Owl I, though I understand it's restored in the new Director's Cut) and the changes to Veidt's gran plot to end the threat of nuclear war, both of which I can understand in the context of a feature film, there's obviously been a definite attempt to stay as close to the book in visuals and script. This extends even to such minutiae as Rorschach's broken trenchcoat epaulette. As an exercise in filming a comic book, I guess it succeeded, but there's the difficulty that a filmed comic book often struggles to convince, and can often come across as rather risible.

Presumably that's why films like the original (Christopher Reeves) Superman series and the Flash Gordon film were in part or whole played for laughs. It's interesting to note the variety of styles applied to the various Batman films over the years, from the really camp 60s versions to the dark and characteristic Tim Burton vision, which gradually slipped in the succeeding films into more jokey style.

This bug report at the Ubuntu Launchpad ([i965] X freezes starting on April 3rd) seems to describe the problem I've been having over the last few weeks with my notebook running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04.  In essence, at some point, usually 2-24 hours after the last boot, the system will freeze up - the display is immobile (though the mouse pointer moves) and there appears to be no input from keyboard or trackpad buttons.  Other than that, the system is running happily, as far as I can tell from logging in remotely.

In a previous blog post (Firefox, Opera and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty), I'd thought that the problem lay with Firefos, but that turned out not to be the case.  From the bug report, it would seem to be related to the Intel graphics card the current theory being:

I entered this race with some trepidation - it would be my first outing on the F1 since the Icknield RC '25' back in May, during which there was a fatal accident.  I hadn't originally planned on riding out to Tempsford, but after doing so on the road bike last weekend to help with the finish timekeeping, I thought I'd give it a bash for this event.

After a false start occasioned by forgetting my pump, off I went at around 5.30am, and across the M1 at junction 13.  Once over Brogborough Hill, the view was one of roadworks - there's a major effort to dual the A421 from J13 to the Bedford bypass.  This meant the ride over had me a bit anxious, particularly in the coned-off sections.  In fact I didn't have much trouble.  I left the A421 at the Moggerhanger exit, and rode through Willington and Blunham on the way to Tempsford, where the race HQ was (I was 10th man off, with number 50 at 6.50am).  After signing on, I nipped over to the start and rode gently around, and had a few sips of energy drink. I was certainly well warmed up!

It's hard for me to believe that it's almost 30 years since this album was released, to huge anticipation by a few (such as my immediate circle of friends)  in May 1980. Howard Devoto had left Buzzcocks just as they were on the verge of success and formed Magazine.  Their storming first album, Real Life, was followed by Secondhand Daylight, which was (as I recall) rather unfairly labelled as being a bit Pink Floyd-like, which was a fair old insult at the time.

The Correct use of Soap blasted out of my speakers like a revelation.  Devoto's snarled and sardonic lyrics, the great Barry Adamson's bass and John McGeoch's guitar work stand out for me. The production on this album was by Martin Hannett, and boy does that show.  The overall sound is kind of sharp and precise, and as if it was recorded in a BIG space.  Of course being as how I bought this when it was released (more truthfully a year or so later), my copy is on vinyl - I recently got my mitts on a digital copy which is a 2007 remaster, with a bunch of extra tracks which is now happily ensconced on my iPod.  It's likely to be my turbo training soundtrack of choice for the nexy week or so.

Here's a weird thing.  A couple of weeks ago, my Vaio notebook that's been running sequentially updated versions of Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the last 2.5 years started playing up on me with apparently random lock-ups.  This didn't start after any specific event or software installation.  I've Googled this, looked in Ubuntu Forums (and indeed started a thread there) to find an answer.  The symptoms are:

1. Display frozen, except the mouse/trackpad pointer can be moved
2. No keyboard input
3. No trackpad buttons work
4. The ongoing processes are still running - I can login from another terminal

This always seems to happen when I'm using Firefox (I am currently on 3.5.1), which is by far my favourite web browser, though this might just reflect both the amount of activity when using that app as well as the number of times I use Firefox each day.  Often the hang occurs when I'm scrolling down a page (which I do by stroking the edge of the trackpad).

This event was originally to be run on the new Stagsden course, but was relocated to the nearby Astwood circuit because the start (or maybe finish) point in a layby was rendered inaccssible as the layby has been used to store road-mending materials.  This was a bit disappointing, as I haven't ridden that course before.  Still, of the courses we use in the club league, Astwood's probably my favourite.  The morning was really windy, and quite blustery (in a continuation of the weather patterns of late).

During the day, the wind strengthened alarmingly.  Fortunately it moderated a bit by the time we started the event.  The strong wind had a curiously variable effect out on the course.  I presume this was because it was a rather blustery wind.  Anyway, it proved quite a slog much of the time down to Chicheley, but once round the turn, things were a bit easier.  Indeed the section through the village of North Crawley, which is usually a bit tough to pick up the speed was quite brisk.

One of the more bizarre features of the Phorm business model has always been the question of why businesses would allow their webpages to be scanned by Phorm's deep packet inspection system.  My understanding of Phorm's system is that individual web users' browsing habits are monitored by kit installed within the ISP's infrstructure, and that key words are extracted from visited web pages and used to target advertisements to the user.

What's always surprised me is that companies weren't flocking to request their exclusion from this system: after all if web users are looking through my product line, why would I want them to be offered adverts from my competitors?

This morning I rode over to Tempsford to help out at the North Middx & Herts '100' - the organiser having emailed a plea for assistance.  Being a kindly soul (and having been in the position of desperately hunting for marshals and other helpers for an Association event in the past), I immediately accepted, but requested a role late in the event as I was planning to cycle over.  In the end I was asked to help the timekeeper by noting riders' numbers as they passed the finish point.

This was a novel version of the F1/100, apparently necessary because a triathlon was being held on the roads normally used for the event.  Essentially, the course used this morning had the riders doing Tempsford to Buckden three times (this being on the A1), then exiting at the Black Cat roundabout to do two laps of a finishing circuit on the A421.

A few weeks ago Tony persuaded me to enter the API/Metrow '25' on the E2/25 near Newmarket.  I bunged off an entry and unfortunately ended up in the opposite end of the start sheet from Tony, which would have meant a fair bit of hanging around for both of us.  On the day, it was really quite blustery, with a what we expected to be a strong headwind out to the turn.

We set off in good time, arriving in Newmarket with well over an hour to go before Tony's start time.   Here, our problems began.  Trying to follow the directions to the race HQ given on the start sheet proved completely impossible.  There was a total absence of riders milling about (usually a sure guide to where a race HQ is), which didn't help.  After cruising around Newmarket for a bit, Tony only had about 20 minutes to go before his scheduled start, so we drove off to the start to see what was there.  Lo and behold, some people on the start line, and down a nearby lane, some cars with riders warming up on turbos.  We stopped to ask these riders where the HQ was - turned out the start sheet was woefully inadequate.