Blog update time

Earlier this evening Kate told me that my blog was getting mangled in Internet Explorer. The last time I switched themes I tested it carefully under all the browsers I could find, including IE. I retested, and although most of the pages were OK, the main page was unreadable. So I decided that it was time for a change. I went looking for a really up-to-date WordPress theme that supported all of the recent 2.0 features.

Here you are. It’s the wide version of Marco Vlieg’s Lush, ported to WP by Christoph Boecken. It includes a nice touch that I know some readers will appreciate: the ability to change the font size using the palette at the top right.

While I was installing and customizing the theme, I added some extra features. The most obvious one is that if you leave a comment you can subscribe to receive notification of new comments. You’ll see other new capabilities over the next few days.

Please let me know of any problems, particularly related to browser compatibility or readability.

UPDATE: Steve and others pointed out that some of the fonts were oddly sized and hard to read (probably because they weren’t anti-aliased). There are two probable explanations: frequest use of fractional scaling, and PC-centric font preferences. I’ve fixed some of the scaling (though not all), and I’ve backed off to simple “sans-serif” for most of the fonts, so you’ll see whatever your browser is configured for. If you choose an ugly font, don’t blame me….

Finally! "Oh! What a Lovely War" on DVD

I was actually planning to go to bed early tonight… and then while scanning the TV listings I saw that Joan Littlewood’s “Oh! What a Lovely War” was being shown at 10:20. I’m not sure why, but this film has always been extraordinarily important to me. It’s hard to refer to it as a “favourite” when it evokes such a mixture of emotions, but I always watch it whenever I can… which has been rarely. For some reason it was never released on VHS or DVD, and so I had to catch it whenever I could, usually in the middle of the night.
So I stayed up and watched it, singing along quietly with some of the songs, smiling with anticipation at “They were only playing leapfrog…”, grimacing with rage at the callous stupidity of Haig, spotting celebrities (the cast list is amazing), and unashamedly weeping at the finale.
As I watched, I noticed that the film seemed brighter and crisper than I remembered, and there were a couple of scenes that felt longer. I wondered if someone had finally got around to replacing the tired prints from 1969(!) with a newly restored (and uncut) version. I guess they must have, because I just checked at Amazon.com and the DVD is being released next Tuesday! Hallelujah!!
Now if only someone would give a copy of the DVD to Bush and Rumsfeld. Unfortunately I suspect that they’d fail to see the connection. (The BBC already did a short piece entitled “Oh! What a Lovely Blair!”, skewering the Prime Minister over Iraq.) But never mind: get yourself a copy of one of the best anti-war satires ever produced. You may not enjoy all of it (the poison gas, for instance), but you’ll certainly be glad you did.

Linux WiFi… snarl…

Amazon uses Red Hat Linux for almost all of its servers and developer desktops – some lingering RH7.2, lots of RHEL3, an increasing amount of RHEL4 – and so I decided to play with the new Fedora Core 6 on my usually-WinXP laptop. Since my apartment network is entirely WiFi, I downloaded the 3.8GB ISO image to my PowerBook last night, burned it onto a DVD this morning, and tried installing it this evening.
So far, not so good.
As I mentioned, it’s WiFi only here, and I made the mistake of telling the installer to leave the Ethernet adaptor enabled. This caused the installer to hang, probably waiting for me to plug in a cable, and I had to power-cycle. Unchecking the Ethernet option allowed the installation to complete. However I wasn’t able to get the WiFi to work: I’m going to have to try again in the morning. The standard network configuration tool seems pretty lame: it doesn’t allow you to search for available networks, for example. A quick search just now suggests that there are some better tools out there; if so, I hope that they’re bundled, because I’m getting tired of sneakernet with CD-Rs.
Once it’s all working, I plan to install J2SE 1.5, NetBeans, and the full Spring distribution, and play with the sample Spring apps. I’m starting with NetBeans because it’s what I’m used to. Eclipse is more widely used at Amazon, but NetBeans is starting to get a little traction, mostly because of the profiler.

The horror, the horror

Don’t watch this when you’re drinking or within reach of any sharp objects. As reported in Best Week Ever:

The cast of The Times They Are A-Changin, the new Broadway musical featuring the music of Bob Dylan, dropped by The View this morning to butcher perform the classic song “Like A Rolling Stone”.

Slouching towards a police state, one fingerprint at a time

I’ve been getting a bit behind with my blog-reading (and blogging) for the last few days, mostly because Chris has been visiting. This evening I spent an hour or two catching up on my regular feeds, and then wandered over to Samizdata.net. Buried among a piece on the return of the Transport blog and a rant about Kettering town planning, I encountered a story that provoked a classic double-take. It seems that an increasing number of British pubs and clubs are being required to fingerprint their patrons. Incredulously, I read the background material from the Guardian and the Register, then Guy Herbert’s analysis:

The fingerprinting is epiphenomenon. What’s deeply disturbing here is the construction of new regimes of official control out of powers granted nominally in the spirit of “liberalisation”. The Licensing Act 2003 passed licensing the sale of alcohol and permits for music and dancing – yes, you need a permit to let your customers dance in England and Wales – from magistrates to local authorities. And it provided for local authorities to set conditions on licenses as they saw fit.
Though local authorities are notionally elected bodies, and magistrates appointees, this looked like democratic reform. But all the powers of local authorities are actually exercised by permanent officials – who also tell elected councillors what their duties are. And there are an awful lot of them.
Magistrates used to hear licensing applications quickly. They had other things to do. And they exercised their power judicially: deciding, but not seeking to control. Ms Bradburn and her staff have time to work with the police and the Home Office on innovative schemes. I’ve noted before how simple-sounding powers can be pooled by otherwise separate agencies to common purpose, gaining leverage over the citizen. I call it The Power Wedge.
They are entirely dedicated to making us safer. How terrifying.

I’ve always hung on to my British passport, secure in the knowledge that if things turned pear-shaped in the USA I could always scamper back across the Atlantic to an oasis of relative calm and sanity. Time for Plan B, I think….