test please delete

[DoctorStrangelove]

Very windy out, yet again

WNFS.

I’ve always wondered why that is; turns out it’s due to the studios employing incompetent Java programmers to write the on-disc software for menus and such, or using competent ones to devise copy protection schemes so complicated that the software itself can’t work out how to resume playing: Why Won't My Movie Disc Restart Where I Stopped It? OR, A Steaming Mug of BD Java! — Bob Pariseau

Oddly it remembers ok for dvds.

You can take those out, switch it off at the mains, come back next day & it resumes ok.

Very irritating with some dvds (MGM mostly) who seem to think that you need to see 15 different versions of don't copy this fecking dvd before getting back to the main menu.

The evening's 2nd feature was "The Water Diviner" with that Russell Crowe character.

It was infinitely betterer than 1941.

Even if the Greeks don't like it.

BBC iPlayer - Hard Sun - Series 1: Episode 1
Cop series set in a dystopian future where the sun will trigger an ELE in about five years' time. The lead characters both have secrets which I suspect will play out as the sub story as they go around dealing with baddy of the week.

Writer Neil Cross claimed in an interview with Radio Times that he had sketched out a full 5 year story arc to accompany the Hard Sun countdown. The shows was canceled after just one series however.

[ladymuck]

Oh. That's a shame. So it ends on a confusing cliffhanger that will never be resolved (unless it gets picked up elsewhere).

[NickFitz]

Very windy out, yet again

Very rainy now too

Oddly it remembers ok for dvds.

You can take those out, switch it off at the mains, come back next day & it resumes ok.

Yes, that’s the problem: the player is perfectly capable of remembering where in the disc you were, which works for DVDs that are just data, and some Blu-rays that are also just data. The problem with Blu-rays that incorporate their own software written in Java is that the Java software supplants the player’s own firmware for the whole process of playing back the disc, rather than just doing the fancy menus and so on. So the player’s firmware never even gets informed about where the disc was when you stopped it, and the Java software that took over those duties is restarted from scratch every time you put the disc in so can’t remember where you were; it has no access to the non-volatile memory in which the player’s firmware stores such information.

It’s all very badly designed, presumably because it was designed with input from the studios’ marketing departments saying “We want to put our own fancy branding on the menus!” and no input whatsoever from the users of the damn things, who just want to pick up where they left off and needed nothing more than a “Play Film” button on the menus in the first place

[NickFitz]

In honour of the lurgy that seems to be developing within me and which may or may not turn out to be the coronavirus, tonight’s viewing started with 28 Days Later... (2002), in which some weird virus escapes into the general population when a number of chimpanzees are, very properly, released from a lab. Shouldn’t experiment on chimpanzees seems to be the obvious lesson, but as it happens hardly anybody is left around to learn it except those crazed by the virus, who are incapable of learning anything, and a small but plucky band of people who managed to avoid infection. it’s rather good as these things go, I thought, and should give pause to anyone thinking of deliberately annoying chimps

One thing is that for almost all of the film, the picture quality is very bad. It turns out this is because it was, except for a tiny bit at the end, shot on SD video which was then often further degraded in quality. This was done because it's Art. Personally, I would have been fine with a bit less Art and a bit more picture quality, but one gets used to it after a while

Also, there’s a few minutes more after the end credits, which seems like a bad idea in an era when people either leave the cinema or eject the disc once the credits start rolling. I only saw it because I realised that it was unlikely to have twelve minutes of credits, even if they employed an entire firm of accountants

And after that, I continued with the theme of people turning from human beings into vile monsters who will destroy everything out of blind greed by rewatching Wall Street (1987). The sight of traders on the NYSE rushing around the floor shouting at each other and using pen and paper to write down trades seems so quaint now; I bet they didn’t realise it’d become a period piece in that respect quite so quickly

The rain seems to have got even heavier now

Goodnight all

[Scruff]

Early doors for Women's Day T20 Final.

Better than lying in bed, listening to "Lent Talks". "Something Understood" is a repeat. Mark Tully is a very interesting man, however...

[BrilloPad]

[BrilloPad]

Looks like my Milan colleagues will be going even slower for a while as they now WFH....

[BrilloPad]

How long until we all have to WFH in the UK? 1 week? 2 weeks?

[DaveB]

Maybe in London, but not in the East Midlands. At this particular Chinese it’s free crackers with orders over £15, but she started giving me them even though my order is almost always below that about five years or so ago:

All the local Chinese places around here give them away. Never had a takeaway that didn't come with them. Our usual place has a big box of them behind the counter, already bagged up so they just grab a bag and chuck it in when they hand over your order.

[AndyGarbs]

Morning All

Weather - Intermittent sun and clouds, 8 degrees

TV - Nicola Sturgeon blowing hot air again

Breakfast - Bran Flakes and Cheerios mix

Lunch - Pasta Carbonara