jcm's blog

[ from the I-like-sun-boxes dept. ]

For no particular reason I just resumed one of my Solaris boxes – called Phoenix – after a good few months and notice it had 238 days of uptime between suspends so must have been last booted a good couple of years almost ago. I love that stability. I now need to buy a 5-10GB SCSI disk from somewhere and install Solaris 9 on it to move my files from CSiT in to a working Solaris 9 setup for no particular reason See trj you cannot even suggest I am wasting time now the exams are over!

Jon.

[ from the coming-to-you-every-hour-on-the-hour dept. ]

Last night was a post exams moment thing. I went to Wagamama with MaW and jok. I was a little late though MaW did forgive me. I had a 77, 99, Raw Salad, Fruit Juice, and a Coke. Then we went to Nandos for Bottomless Yoghurt…and had to ask for the machine to be refilled.

Came back early and decided to read about Open GL and a paper on Crypto.

Today is a day for some work, reading and very important tea breaks.

Jon.

[ from the exams-over-for-now dept. ]

Well it had to happen eventually. I just had the last exam.

The next few days will hopefully involve some relaxation before a busy few weeks working on a Linux port and sorting out where I might be in six months from now, the future, and so on and so forth. I still wish to persue a PhD if possible and this will be sorted out sometime soon – the cost is a negligable 500 pounds per term when studying on a part time basis though it takes considerable effort.

This week I will be in Nottingham, York, London, Reading, Oxford, and perhaps Winchester, Birmingham, Cambridge and a few other places.

Jon.

[ from the cool-films dept. ]

I met up with Ben, Markus and Sid to do some revision for the Advanced Computer Communications exam on Tuesday. Earlier Tom and I went to Nandos for food and discovered their frozen yoghurt. Fantastic bottomless Frozen Yoghurt.

A few of us just watched War Games as Tom has the DVD. The extra commentry is quite interesting and this is one film which I have always thought was done exceptionally well. In fact I am tracking a couple of Acoustic Couplers on Ebay with an interest in purchasing. After watching the end scene it was necessary to fire up Tomato Source Neurothello and set it against itself for some time…

The more I use Darwin, the more I like it muchly. It really is a well designed piece of well enginered software.

Jon.

[ from the second-chance dept. ]

I went to see Matrix Reloaded last night, after yet another Wagamama. This time Warner Village cinemas did not screw up completely. I reminded them that I have filed several complaints against them and that it was very much in their interest to not screw up this time. I am not a complaining little old man – I just want to watch a film peacefully.

My suspicions about Matrix Revolutions may be a little excessive since many audiences would not like the idea that either Neo and the gang are not human or are still within a Matrix within a Matrix within a…

I am reading through some DES stuff because I wish to write some PowerPC assembly routines for the John The Ripper password cracker. Mostly for fun and I will dedicate the patch to the everlasting memory of Kevin.

Last exam on Tuesday and I will do some revision for the next few days. Then I am off to York on Thursday for a random trip and detour prior to returning to Reading for a few days. I may well end up in Cambridge at some point over the weekend.

Jon.

[ from the generic-update dept. ]

I called a few local council departments and spoke to someone in the Environment department who will look in to the conduct of Warner Village Cinemas in Nottingham with regard to the incident that I mentioned before. Apparently Warner are going to have their head office contact me though I am not quite ready to drop this issue. They should learn that customers such as myself will not tollerate such a poor level of customer service.

Jon.

[ from the please-fix-the-problems dept. ]

The body of this entry contains an open letter to Warner Village cinemas concerning the farcical disgrace of their premier of Matrix Reloaded this evening. Warner Village cinemas allowed the presentation to continue while illicit drugs were being smoked and consequently filling the air throughout the auditorium. Today I will be calling the Health and Safety Executive to report this incident as well as Trading Standards and any other agency or organisation that may assist in reminding Warner Village cinemas of their duty to the paying public. I am not overreacting as this completely ruined what otherwise was an enjoyable evening. The legal issues aside, I do not expect to be subjected to any form of smoke in the confined space of a cinema auditorium. Many others were severely disturbed by this also and consequently left to attempt communication with staff.

Jon.

To whom it may concern,

I purchased a ticket to the 23:30 Matrix Reloaded presentation at the Warner Village cinema in Nottingham on Wednesday 21st May 2003. I arrived in good time to see this long anticipated film premier and was most impressed with the film itself.

While I enjoyed the content of the film, I was most distressed by a number of fundamental issues with your cinema in Nottingham on that evening, which should be immediately addressed. I may begin by noting that there was an expected high demand for this film and that adequate preparation time was available beforehand.

The cinema staff initially presented themselves as being too few in number, overworked and unable to handle the crowds to a reasonable satisfaction. The staff appeared both rude and discourtious on several occasions, although I might note that the refreshment area was well managed.

I am informed that certain safetly lighting measures are required however it may interest Warner Village to be made aware that many of the crowd were openly shouting and repeatedly calling for the lightening level to be lowered to an acceptable level of luminance. The film quality was much degraded by the intensity of the background lighting.

Although I am an open minded person on many issues, I do not believe that it is generally acceptable for Warner Village cinemas to allow patrons to actively engage in smoking illegal drugs. The legal issue aside, I certainly did not expect to notice a “spliff” being smoked during the film. Those staff who did attempt to isolate the cause were obviously unable to do so. This began approximately half way through the film and subsequently completely ruined the presentation for myself. I was unable to experience the film whilst constantly feeling anger and frustration towards Warner Village cinemas for their complete incompetence.

A number of other minor issues accentuated the disgraceful manner in which this cinema was managed on this occasion and I feel that an apology must surely be made to all of those who attended and were frustrated. I intend to draw sufficient attention to this issue as to provoke a response.

Jon Masters.
jcm@jonmasters.org