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| Is there an equivalent of a Bacon number for Doctor Who? e.g, Actor X was never in any version of Doctor Who, but he was in a film with Actor Y, who was in a film with Actor Z who played a Companion, so X has a Doctor Who number of 2. You get the idea, I'm sure. It occurs to me that with last night's episode most of Hollywood probably now has a Doctor Who number of 2 or 3, if not less... Sigeurney Weaver, for example, now has a Doctor Who number of 1. Comments may be spoilery. | ||||||||||
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May 19th, 2013
May 15th, 2013
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Gacked from  jinxed_wood.. Comments may well be somewhat spoilery. Slightly startled to discover there are already 19 fanfics on Archive of Our Own, at least some of them NSFW. Lola is VERY popular... | ||||||||||
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May 13th, 2013
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| Wrote my resignation / retirement letter tonight, I'll be handing it in tomorrow. They want to start interviewing, and it'll make things simpler if I've actually resigned, I think. Huge relief to get it written, somehow. | ||||||||
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May 12th, 2013
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| Should I interpret my flist's silence on tonight's Doctor Who as stunned awe? Or would it be more accurate to say that nobody is saying much because, despite Neil Gaiman's involvement, it wasn't an especially good episode, and nobody wants to be the first to say that? In that case, let me relieve you of this burden. It was okay-ish. Just really nothing very special, and not a patch on e.g. The Doctor's Wife, so a little disappointing to those of us expecting the usual Gaiman magic. Don't get me wrong, if you haven't already seen it, it's as worth seeing as any other average episode. But Gaiman has done much better, and so has Doctor Who. There will probably be spoilers in any comments. | ||||||||||
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May 7th, 2013
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| Whiskers, my sister's cat, died peacefully in his sleep today. He was mauled by a dog a couple of years ago, made a good recovery from that but was generally fairly poorly for the last few months and fairly obviously senile, so it didn't come as a huge surprise. His sister died in much the same way last year. ( big photo - this time last yearCollapse ) Whiskers wasn't the brightest or friendliest of cats, but people liked him, and he was an expert scrounger which probably didn't do much to keep him healthy - half the street seemed to be feeding him sometimes. He was definitely a character, and he'll be missed. PS - please don't offer kittens. At the moment they're not planning to get another cat, although I suspect they will in the end, and I think they'd rather make a decision in their own time. | ||||||||
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| Dear fanfic author, It's the British Army, not the Royal Army, and the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, not the Royal Armed Forces. Neither the British Prime Minister or the BBC would get this wrong, and it's in the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the Army if you'd bothered to check. No love, Marcus | ||||||||||
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May 6th, 2013
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| I've been idly thinking about fitting Dortmunder and his criminal friends (Donald E Westlake, The Hot Rock and sequels) into the Marvel cinematic universe - no sure why, except for the New York setting, but it feels like there might be comedic possibilities there. The obvious way is to have them planning / committing a robbery during the Chitauri invasion, and either fighting the aliens or finding a way to carry on with the crime with total chaos erupting around them. But that's either a cliche or looting, and neither much appeals. Another possibility is that they hear about a mansion loaded with antiques and decide to pay a visit - unfortunately they don't know that Tony Stark has remembered the old family home, is about to use it as Avengers HQ and has already installed JARVIS. But that probably ends up as a Home Alone situation and eventually with them in jail, not the most exciting plot. Lots of variants on this, of course - the one I think might be interesting has them stealing Dummy and ending up having to pay Tony to take him off their hands, a la Red Chief. The really silly one isn't an Avengers plot - I just remembered that Dortmunder's girlfriend is named May. So what if she was Peter Parker's Aunt May, and she and Dortmunder ended up bringing up a really bright kid who would one day have superpowers? Does Peter follow in "Uncle John's" footsteps and become a moderately competent supervillain, or does he still become a crimefighter and end up webbing Dortmunder? There are other possibilities - I'm very tempted to write this as a "five things" story or something, but already have too much on my plate. So if anyone wants to take one of these ideas and run with it please be my guest, but an acknowledgement would be nice. | ||||||||||
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May 5th, 2013
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| On rozk's recommendation I've been taking a look at this series. Lots of interesting vibes including a hint of Sherlock - references to "my methodology" and weird deductions from things like the colour of a horseman's cloak, and a slight opium habit; weird science and mystical stuff that made me wonder if The Doctor was going to pop up somewhere, or Warehouse 13's medieval ancestor; lots of sex and casual nudity; and some sort of background Papal conspiracy straight out of The DaVinci Code, involving apparent precognition with what might be time travel. What it reminds me of is Martin Woodhouse's and Robert Ross's Medici Guns series of novels, with added weird shit, plus a touch of Hudson Hawk, and I'll be very interested to see how it develops. | ||||||||
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| Thought I'd check on the progress of the tunnelling machines that started out across the road last year. According to the Crossrail site they've made good progress, have gone from here to Paddington, then under Hyde park and into the West End, and are both just coming up to Regent Street. http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/near-y This is pretty good going, hope they can keep up this pace and get the stations etc. built on time to meet the planned opening in 2018. | ||||||||||
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May 4th, 2013
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| REALLY silly steampunk, and has Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. The best since Easter, I think! | ||||||||||
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May 1st, 2013
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| The Nook Simple Touch is currently on offer in the UK at £29. I'm not quite sure if I can download files on my PC and transfer them to the Nook (or to a micro SD), or have to use the Barnes and Noble interface. Anyone know? Later: Apparently it's no problem - off to order one! | ||||||||
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| Coming up on Sunday week, Mass Observation Day is always an interesting exercise. http://www.massobs.org.uk/12may | ||||||||
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April 29th, 2013
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| Monsters Versus Aliens just invoked quantum entanglement to explain something, and almost made sense! | ||||||||
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April 28th, 2013
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| More picspam, from a walk along the canal a couple of weeks ago - took the same walk today but forgot my camera, which was annoying because I saw a couple of very nice Mandarin ducks. Anyway, last time I got pictures of another odd duck - not sure of species - and a big black bird I couldn't get close enough to identify - I think it may be a heron of some sort but I'm not sure. Anyone know? ( picspamCollapse ) later - several IDs of the big bird as a cormorant, and a tentative ID of the duck as a male Ruddy Shelduck that doesn't have its full plumage from were_gopher. Must say the cormorant thing surprises me, but I suppose there is nothing impossible about it. | ||||||||
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April 26th, 2013
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Just spotted one of the systems in Oolite (and the older Elite) galaxy seven: In case that isn't clear it reads Data on Beatle Sounds like an interesting place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there. | ||||||||||
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April 20th, 2013
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| ...which makes it VERY annoying that I can't find any Natasha Romanoff fanvids to the tune of Back in the USSR. Come on, folks, how hard can it be? OK, probably hard enough that I don't want to try, but you'd think someone out there would want to. Please! | ||||||||
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April 19th, 2013
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| Just checked my retirement countdown - ninety days (sixty working days plus weekends, public holidays, and my remaining leave) to go. Rather pleased about that... | ||||||||
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April 18th, 2013
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| I heard a while ago that there was a new Saint TV series being made with Eliza Dushku (Buffy, Dollhouse) as Patricia Holm. There's finally some footage on line: http://www.themarysue.com/saint-reb Looks a bit formulaic, with a plot against the Templar family to provide story arc, but might be OK. | ||||||||||
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| Warehouse 13 is back, and more or less resolves the big cliffhanger from the end of the last episode. It does so reasonably fairly - it's a fix, but not a total one. BIG spoilers follow! The biggy is that Lena is apparently going to stay dead, unless someone else goes the metronome route, which is a shame because she was one of my favourite characters. The big plague problem is resolved, though opening up an exciting new can of worms which we don't know much about yet. James Marsters guest-stars as an antiquarian, and I suspect is going to become a recurring character, along with his nemesis. Deliberately keeping this vague since it really would spoil your fun if I said more. On rozk's recommendation I also took a look at Defiance which I can best describe as Alien Nation crossed with Firefly - it's set after an abortive alien "terraforming" and colonisation attempt has devastated the Earth, and humans and a bunch of aliens of various races are trying to maintain some sort of vestige of civilisation in St. Louis, now renamed Defiance. They're basically doing it as a western, the setup for the first feature-length episode has the hero (a Man With No Name type with an adopted alien daughter) arriving in town just as a big crisis develops, screwing the local brothel keeper while apparently being attracted to the mayor (Julie Benz, aka Darla and Rita Morgan) too, and eventually providing part of the solution to the problem and leading the climactic fight against the | ||||||||||
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April 8th, 2013
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| This is a multiple crossover, beginning with NCIS and Dexter and eventually taking in several other fandoms. Some sections include passages with a first person viewpoint, reflecting the narrative style used in (for example) the Dexter TV show and books. I will always try to make the identity of the viewpoint characters clear. Crossovers this chapter NCIS, Dexter, Burn Notice, mention of CSI Miami. Major spoilers for all seasons of Dexter to S4, then VERY AU. Warning, character death! See earlier chapters for disclaimers etc. On Twisting the Hellmouth On Archive of our Own ( Give the Boys a Great Big Hand - XIICollapse ) Comments please before I post to archives. | ||||||||||
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April 7th, 2013
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| Thursday was horribly cold and nasty, ditto Friday. Saturday still a bit cold but dry and sunny. Today moderately warm and sunny, I'm just back from a long walk. I'd be tempted to say spring may have arrived, except we'll probably have another blizzard tomorrow... | ||||||||
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April 6th, 2013
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| The British Library is going to be archiving ALL .uk web sites - there has been a pilot scheme for several years which includes forgottenfutures.co.uk, and I'd imagine this will work the same way, with the library archiving a snapshot of the site at regular intervals, a bit like Wayback Machine but focused on the UK. They are also gearing up to archive eBooks on a VERY big scale. I don't see this as a problem - presumably this stuff is published to be read - but if you don't want researchers to see your embarrassing photos in the 25th century this may be a good time to revise your site contents. | ||||||||
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April 4th, 2013
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| Weather seemed OK this morning, and although I've got a bit of a cold I wanted to go out to the First Thursday SF pub meeting this evening, so I came into work by bike. Now we're getting heavy snow, and while I don't think it's going to settle, I really don't fancy going further than I have to by bike, I'll get soaked and the roads will be pretty slippery by the time I go home. So I've decided to head straight home from work, and give the pub a miss tonight- apologies to anyone who was expecting to see me, but I'd rather not risk it. See you next month, I hope. | ||||||||
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March 26th, 2013
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Gacked from  lizardladylove - Demon's Run sequel - 2 days later... | ||||||||||
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March 23rd, 2013
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| Over the years I've written quite a lot of fanfic as challenge responses, chapters of other people's round robins, etc., mostly on Twisting The Hellmouth. I've been editing the best bits to make them work better as stand-alone stories, and posting them on Archive of our Own. Mostly these stories haven't previously been posted to Livejournal. http://archiveofourown.org/works/69 That'd Be Telling - Buffy / The Prisoner Illogical Commands - Buffy / Pulp Fiction The Deconstruction of Xander Harris - Buffy / Star Trek TNG A Gory Fate - Buffy / Gor novels A Change in Priorities - Terminator SCC / zombies (any source) Trainee - Buffy / Surprise Crossover They Might Be Drabbles - Pushing Daisies / Multiple crossovers (several drabbles) All Shall Love Me and Despair - Buffy / West Wing (several drabbles) Kitty Fantastico Must Die - Buffy Forgotten Fragments - Odds and ends of comment-fic, multiple canons. Code Ragnarok: Good News - BtVS / Futurama Code Ragnarok: A Little Recce - BtVS / Laundry novels Code Ragnarok: Memos - BtVS / Futurama (and others) Ship of the Line: Out with a Bang - BtVS / Surprise crossover later - added The Slayer Spirit - Alternative 3 - BtVS / XKCD / Alternative 3 | ||||||||||
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| A steam train went past west-bound out of Paddington at about 8:10; I got to the window just in time to see a number on the side of the engine, 60163, which means that it's Tornado, the first new steam locomotive built in Britain in fifty years. According to their web site it's doing this run today: Saturday 23rd March – ‘The Cathedrals Express’ - London Paddington to Kingswear and return – promoted by Steam Dreams LOTS more about Tornado on line, especially if you google on Engine 60163. | ||||||||
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| Well, the weather forecast for the weekend was snow, and so I shouldn't be surprised it's chucking it down pretty heavily. Not settling much yet, but I suspect it will be. Annoying that it's the weekend - with my luck it'll be horrible today and tomorrow then clear on Monday for work. But that's snow business... There's been ample warning, and the highway agency etc. say they're ready for this, so it'll be interesting to see how badly the roads and public transport are screwed up, especially since I'll be travelling next weekend. | ||||||||
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March 15th, 2013
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| The battery of the old Sony ebook reader I've been using is on its way out, and it isn't a particularly good one by modern standards. I want to get something to replace it; my main needs are Compatibliity with epub and other generic formats. NOT tied to any one book vendor etc. 6" or 7" eInk display with really good contrast and reasonably good grey scale. Some sort of screen protection e.g. a cover. Uses something reasonably standard (preferably SD card) to hold books. Good battery life and preferably a user-replacable battery that doesn't require removing about 15 screws to get at it if it eventually dies. STANDARD USB cable for file transfer / charing. Not hugely expensive - I get nervous if I'm carrying really expensive kit. Probably don't need Wifi - if I'm travelling I'll usually have a laptop with me. Preferably available at a reasonable price from Amazon, since I got a lot of amazon credits for my birthday. Any suggestions? | ||||||||
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March 12th, 2013
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| Gacked from james_nicoll A binary brown dwarf has been found only 6.3 LY from the solar system. It must be very annoying for everyone who still uses the T2300 jump maps! http://science.psu.edu/news-and-eve | ||||||||||
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March 11th, 2013
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| ...Here I am, flying one of the largest and most powerful starships in the Ooliteverse, a Boa Cruiser. This baby costs 500K credits in its most basic form. It's big enough that it can often bring in 3K credits profit in a single flight. Meanwhile the most powerful reusable weapon in this universe, a military laser, costs 6K credits. Is it really likely that I haven't kitted the thing out with military lasers front and back, and probably sideways too, and pimped it with every possible offensive and defensive system? Seriously? If this is as bleeding obvious as it seems, then why in the name of [insert deity of your choice] are your tactics so crap, especially when you chase my "fleeing" ship and come straight along its line of travel behind me? Less than impressed. Oh well, soon be Elite at this rate... | ||||||||||
| comments: 12 comments or Leave a comment |
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