I have been burning sandalwood incense to help me go to sleep recently. I think it works, as I do feel somewhat calmer. Perhaps it brings back memories of relaxed times.

What do you do to help you fall asleep?

Contrary to rumours, I have not been stolen by a cheeky magpie. In fact, I have been engaging in the springtime activity of painting and decorating. The hallway is white and shiny now. Smelly too, but that should disappear.

Of course the other indication of spring is the clocks moving forward to BST. I don't like clocks shifting, it always feels strange. And quite annoying having to go around the house changing all the clocks.

I couldn't resist the second part of the His Dark Materials trilogy any longer.

Pullman does not slow down in this second book. The bigger picture becomes more apparent, but there is still much mystery. He delves deeper into class structure and religion. This book certainly feels darker than Northern Lights. We are introduced to Will, a boy around Lyra's age who lives in our world. He is more savvy of the adult world, as he had to grow up quickly. Their paths soon cross and they help each other deal with pernicious foes, as the tapestry is woven around them.

The cast of characters has increased greatly. Although armoured bears do not feature, bar an occasional reference to Iorek, we do gain insights into witches and daemons.

Cittàgazze provides an intriguing backdrop. Although, Pullman does not play as much on the Lord of the Flies-esque situation, as I expected. What would you, aged 12, do if you had free run of a city?

Seeing where this story is going, it is very hard to refrain from reading the Amber Spyglass immediately.

• Northern Lights
• The Subtle Knife
• The Amber Spylgass

YaST is being GPLed.

This may not mean a lot to people who don't use SuSE. It may not mean a lot to people who use Linux either. IMHO, YaST is one of the main reasons SuSE users are so loyal. Managing a Linux system becomes a breeze.

Well, Novell (the new SuSE overlords) have decided to GPL it. This is a bold and impressive manuever, considering how SuSE never planned to. It is certainly more in line with the Open Source ethos. What will stop another distribution becoming a SuSE clone? Not much, but now that SuSE is owned by Novell, that is no longer a primary concern. What it means is that the Linux community will have a powerful administration tool to expand and build on.

Good move Novell.

(via /.)

I'm a Swatch generation kid.

I grew up on colourful disposable watches, generally costing less than £40. When they stopped working I usually went and got another watch, rather than replace the battery.

I don't generally like to wear wristwatches. They mostly feel uncomfortable to wear for more than a few days. I have found only 2 watches which are comfortable enough to wear for longer periods. My first was a blue and grey Swatch with some sort of cage on it. It saw me through most of my younger school years. When this died, I began my killing spree of various bulky and garish replacements.

Not until 2002 did I find another watch I could wear for long. I bought a Citizen in Buenos Aires. Very simple - it tells the time and date. Black face. Leather strap. Perfect.

It has stopped working now. I can get the battery replaced and the watch resealed for £35. Sounds expensive to me. But is it worth it to keep a watch I feel comfortable with?

My eyes are wandering to the newer models, toting solar power and no battery replacement. The fact that I'm finding none that really compare is probably an indication to keep my current watch.

I suspect that it is in the watchmakers' interest to instill a sense of replacement rather than repair.

Question: Why do watchmakers insist on putting any sort of numerals on the watch faces? Are there people who still need numbers to tell the time?

A romantic comedy. With zombies.

Will be released on 9th April 2004. Lots of familiar faces if you have watched Spaced, Black Books, or the Office: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jessica Stevenson, Dylan Moran, etc.

I wonder how it will fare against the Dawn of the Dead remake.

(via Spaced Out)

TinyURL

A very nice idea. Instead of those long URLs which break all too easily, you get a short URL which can be easily passed along.

You supply your long URL and it provides a short one. It's just redirection based on a DB. The simplest of ideas are sometimes the sweetest.

A friend of mine has recently started learning the guitar.

He has been having difficulty finding a book. I have been through a few and would recommend Solo Guitar Playing.

I find too many books are just trying to rush you to playing something you may have heard of, rather than building foundations. This book states plainly at the beginning that it should take approximately 2 years to complete. That's right. It's not a quick and dirty solution. It takes time to learn to play any instrument. The book is designed for teaching classical guitar, but is great for acoustic guitarists. It doesn't use TAB. For those of you who don't know, TAB is short for tablature. It's a way of showing which notes to play by number only.

This is all well and good if you're trying to play something you already know, but it's harder if you don't know the piece. Why? Because you don't know how long you're supposed to play each note.

Some TAB comes with musical notation above it, so you have to look at two things to be able to play the piece properly. Silly. Also you will not be able to read any music not written specifically for guitar in TAB. You've just cut off centuries of music.

I remember listening to another friend's brother who is a Flamenco guitarist. I thought he was playing the piano. I'd like to be that good one day.

You may have noticed the blog getting somewhat thinner of late.

I've not forgotten it. I'm just time slicing. I'm prepping my CV, looking for jobs, and working my way through Head First Java.

I'm moving my CV over to XML format for easier generation in various formats. I still find it amusing how they'll ask for Word docs for Linux positions. Why am I going through a Java book? Part of my "learn a new language every year" plan - the choice is a little cheeky, as Java is so similiar to C++. I'm battling against my "but that's much easier in Ruby" responses to some of the Java ideas.

However, I have to praise the way this book is written. It is aimed squarely at getting the information in your head. I hope they continue this series with other languages.

Anyway, I hope you will bear with me as I juggle real-life commitments and blogging.

Files which end in tar.gz are supposed to be gzipped tarballs.

tar = tarball This is only necessary if you have more than one file. For some reason some people tar one file and then gzip it! If you only have one file, then just release it as is.

tar.gz = gzipped tarball This is a compressed tarball. I'm going to type tar xvzf. If it fails, then my first assumption is something went wrong with the download. Only after I download it again (costing you bandwidth) and see exactly the same file size will I assume that it was an error on your part.

Yes, I could run file on every downloaded file to determine what it actually is. However, if you're making code available, why make it difficult to get to?

Black Books returns this Thursday on Channel 4.

Dylan Moran plays Bernard - the cigarette smoking, alcoholic, misanthropic, bookshop owner. Bill Bailey is the sweet, almost childlike, Manny. Tamsin Greig as Fran - the alcoholic, manizer (this word doesn't exist, but probably should). Following in the footsteps of fellow Spaced cadets Nick Frost and Jessica Stevenson, Simon Pegg will make a guest appearance this series too. As an aside, Shaun of the Dead is due out soon.

I have discovered a benefit of getting older.

Calluses. I was wondering why my guitar was easier to play and sounding better. Lo and behold, I have calluses on my fingertips!

When I first started playing I tried to get calluses, but curse my youth for its power of regeneration. No matter how long or hard I played, I couldn't get them.

Looking forward to the other benefits of old age...

Lyra's adventure from Oxford to the snowy landscape of the Arctic.

This has been one of the most original fantasy stories I've read in a while. Pullman writes about daemons, witches and armoured bears without making them seem out of place. They simply are. Lyra is the clever 12-year-old who weaves her way through the mystery. The action doesn't really stop through the twists and turns. It was very difficult to put down.

The characters, and their daemons, are all compelling. Especially interesting are what animal form respective daemons take. It made me wonder what form my own daemon might be.

It is dark for a children's book, but no more so than more traditional stories. I have a feeling that this trilogy will be listed as a classic in years to come.

• Northern Lights
• The Subtle Knife
• The Amber Spylgass

On Saturday, I travelled down to Winchester to do a rooftop tour of the Cathedral. Totally worth it if you get the opportunity.

Although I lived in Winchester for 5 years, I never did the rooftop tour. I always find it takes friends who haven't been, to do the local sights.

Through cramped spiral staircases we went, until we were on a gallery not too far from the ceiling. Up further to where the bells are housed, caught as they chimed noon. Then onto the roof. It was a gloomy day, but a stunning view. You could take in the whole city and far-off hills. I tried a 360 shot, but the Canon software is having some trouble piecing it together. This may be because I shot the sequence vertically.

Down and through the bell-ringing chamber, we walked westward through the Vault. It was filled with concrete pits with elaborate fire-fighting contingencies.

At the end of the Vault was the point where they would look out for fires during the war. The chair was still there.

Out onto the roof for a quick view of the Close before heading back down. All in, a fun day.