Sunset in Auckland
The weather in Auckland has been terrible the last few days, but at least we got some nice sunsets out of it.
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Georgie Pie is Back
So MacDonald’s have announced that they are bringing back the original Georgie Pie mince and cheese pie. For some reason this is seen by some people as wonderful news.
Maybe it is because I came late to the Georgie Pie phenomenon, experiencing it only when they opened a branch in Dunedin while I was at University, but I never developed a taste for Georgie Pie. To my mind they really only had 3 things going for them:
- Relative cheapness, even compared to service station pies.
- A location in Dunedin that was halfway between University and my flat in North East Valley.
- The temperature at which they served their pies, which seemed to be about 750°C. This was very welcome after 20 minutes trudging through icy streets on a dark Otago evening.
Of these points, the first is no longer true, the second doesn’t really apply, and the third probably contravenes modern health and safety practices.
The other side of the ledger only has one point:
- You paid good money for what tasted like a cardboard envelope filled with beef flavoured mucus.
Apparently MacDonald’s is not changing the recipe (except for not adding MSG – that was the best part!), so this will still be true. I will not be rushing along to MacDonald’s to try the new pie anytime soon.
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Film Review : Iron Man 3
Tony Stark, still stressed out from the events the occurred in The Avengers, picks a fight with a mysterious terrorist known only as The Mandarin. Stuff happens and he eventually wins.
I really enjoyed the first Iron Man film, it managed to be a witty counter-point to the dour hero cliché. Iron Man 2 was weakly plotted rubbish, but Tony Stark was the best part of The Avengers. So it is at least theoretically possible that Iron Man 3 could have been a fine film. Sadly, the film makers seem to have forgotten what made Iron Man so much fun.
First the good parts. Iron Man 3 is well put together and contains lots of fairly well directed action. Fans of things zipping around and exploding will not be disappointed. The acting is appropriate with Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin being a particularly entertaining standout.
The main problem with Iron Man 3 is the plot. The villain is suitably comic-booky, but his plan doesn’t really make a lot of sense and Tony Stark only gets involved for the most tenuous of reasons. This leads to a long sequence where Stark bonds with a kid who teaches him the real meaning of Christmas. Or something. I don’t know, it was pretty lame and saved only the kid actually being a pretty good actor. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments but the film jumps tone so often that it is had to make out what the producers were going for, action comedy or just gritty action. It is a little jarring.
Of course, it all comes to a suitably grand finale which might have been a neat surprise if it wasn’t spoiled in the trailer. At least Pepper Potts gets her own subplot, even if it goes nowhere. Also, Iron Man 3 contains the single most blatantly silly product placement I have ever seen, I hope Oracle paid well because they certainly got some screen time.
Iron Man 3 is not a terrible film, just a very forgettable experience. Recommended only if you like this sort of thing.
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Film Review : Oblivion
Aliens arrived and tried to take over Earth. The humans beat them back, all-but destroying the surface in the process. Now decades later, a couple is assigned to look after the massive reactor plants producing the fuel required to power humanity’s migration. The fuel plants need protecting because some of the aliens are still around and seem pretty bitter about losing.
Oblivion is a decent attempt at an action sci-fi blockbuster. It is entertaining in all the right ways and gorgeous to look at. The design work is fantastic from the cool house in the clouds that the couple live in to the blasted landscape of the ruined Earth, to whatever process they used on Tom Cruise to make him look 20 years younger. It all looks impeccable.
You may not want to read the rest of the review, so I will just up front say that Oblivion is a decent film if you like this sort of thing, with a few lapses that prevent it from becoming really great. Oblivion really isn’t clever enough to avoid spoiling but if you really don’t want to know anything stop reading now…
There were some things I really liked about Oblivion. The script has a some cunning little nods that hint that all is not what it seems right from the start. Starting a film with a lengthy voiceover describing the premise is trite but I liked the way the characters recite certain mantras later one including the voiceover word-for-word.
The general idea is not original, Oblivion is very similar to the earlier film Moon (which I liked) in a lot of ways (I wonder if Oblivion’s shattered moon is a nod to the influence). But while Moon was a low key character study that gently let the audience discover the premise along with the characters, Oblivion is much more in-your-face, with lengthy action scenes inserted to liven up it. These look OK, but seem to have come from another film entirely or perhaps a video-game.
The acting is fine. Tom Cruise has dialed down his squintacting style. Morgan Freeman shows up as the world’s last surviving black man. Nobody really stands out, but nobody really needs to.
As I said before, the script has some nice touches but there is some terrible dialog at the beginning of the film, and a silly speech at the climax that ruins some of the tone. There are also some pretty big plot holes (how did he build that house without either Vica or Sally knowing? What happened to the other clones presumably monitoring other parts of the Earth? Where did they get the other life pod?).
Oblivion falls into the gulf between a turn-off-your-brain action film and a thinking-persons sci-fi mind-bender, becoming a thinking-persons-turn-off-your-brain-action-bender, which doesn’t quite work. Having said all that, Oblivion manages to be entertaining enough. Recommended if you like this sort of thing.
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Lunch Time : Xi’an Food Bar
Tuesday morning brought me a dentist appointment and general work-related ennui. But even Tuesday mornings eventually turn to noon and noon comes with a friend – lunchtime!
Today we visited a modest little Chinese place with a modest little name – Xi’an Food Bar on the corner of Anzac Ave and Customs St East. It doesn’t look like much but Xi’an Food Bar has two standout features.
The first is that you sit at your table and order via a strange retro-futuristic device that looks a bit like a calculator. The waiter gives you a menu but rather than place your order with the waiter when he returns, you type in the number that corresponds to your chosen meal into the device. Once everyone has chosen their meals the device transmits your table’s orders to the kitchen. A kitchen which is all of 3 metres away and clearly within sight.
This manner of ordering is completely silly and quite wonderful. It feels like you have walked into a cheap 80s scifi movie. I plan to go back on a rainy evening and pretend I am hunting replicants.
The other great thing about Xi’an Food Bar is that they make their own fresh noodles. The service is very quick, and in a couple of minutes you will have a fresh bowl of lumpy noodles covered in tasty sauce. The flavours are strong but well balanced, and the texture of the noodles is very appealing.
The first time I went I made the adventurous mistake of ordering the sliced pigs ears. It wasn’t the worse thing I have eaten, but even the best sauce in the world couldn’t make a silk purse out of that. I think it is probably meant to be a side dish.
So long as you keep the pigs ears to a minimum, Xi’an Food Bar is worth the walk. Get there early though, it gets busy.
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A (Horrible) Method of Hard Resetting an Arduino
Last year I worked on a little home project involving an Arduino Ethernet board. It all worked perfectly except that my program would hang after a few days operation. The time to failure wasn’t consistent, sometimes it failed after only a couple of hours, often it took a week. But sooner or later it would stop sending data across the network and require a hard reset. Adding logging told me only that it was the network code that was stuck.
It turns out that this is a common problem with the Arduino Ethernet hardware. The fancy pants W5100 TCP/IP chip just goes on strike and needs to be reset. Using the Arduino’s watchdog interrupt to software reset the CPU isn’t enough, the W5100 needs to reset as well.
Reading the schematic provided a clue. The W5100′s reset line is connected to the normal Arduino reset line (via a small reset controller IC), so resetting the Arduino by pulling the RESET line low resets the network chip as well.
There is a right way to do this that involves a bunch of extra circuitry, and a wrong way that involves a piece of wire.
Connecting the reset pin to one of the Arduino’s digital IO pins is not recommended. The CPU requires that the reset line is help low for a certain amount of time to reset correctly and it can’t hold the line low and reset simultaneously. That wouldn’t make sense. Except that when I tried it the CPU reset every time and took the network chip with it. There is a capacitor between the RESET pin and GRD that I think helps out here, but my electronics is very weak.
I am still making use of the watchdog interrupt but instead of letting it reset the CPU, I handle the interrupt and bring the RESET line low using the digital IO pin.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
#include <avr/wdt.h>
#define RESET_IO_PIN 3
void setup()
{
// Some people recommend setting the IO pin to HIGH on start up
// but it is better to leave it floating as INPUT. Pulling it HIGH interferes
// with the normal reset mechanism, and the pin is held HIGH by a pull-up
// resister anyway
// digitalWrite( RESET_IO_PIN, HIGH );
// pinMode( RESET_IO_PIN, OUTPUT );
noInterrupts();
wdt_reset();
// these cryptic lines set the watchdog timer control register
// to trigger an interrupt (not reset) after 8 seconds. The normal
// Arduino function assumes you want to reset, so we can't use it here.
// See the ATmega328P Datasheet section 10.9.2 for the gory details
MCUSR &= ~(1<<WDRF);
WDTCSR |= (1<<WDCE) | (1<<WDE);
WDTCSR = (1<<WDP0) | (1<<WDP3) | (1<<WDIE); /* 8.0 seconds */
interrupts();
}
ISR(WDT_vect)
{
// The watchdog timer has fired, pull the pin low
digitalWrite( RESET_IO_PIN, LOW );
pinMode( RESET_IO_PIN, OUTPUT );
}
void loop()
{
wdt_reset();
// do some stuff here, if you don't call wdt_reset() more frequently
// than 8 seconds the Arduino will reset
}
I spent weeks trying to figure out what was going on, hopefully this post will help somebody in the same situation.
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Blog Updates
I’ve been doing some general tidying up of the WordPress installation running this blog. This includes some new plugins that revamp the commenting system. I was getting increasing amounts of spam comments and the old anti-spam plugin just wasn’t helping against what appeared to be manually entered spam comments.
Let me know if you see anything that looks (unintentionally) weird.
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279 New Zealand Blogs
For the last few years Ken Perrott at Open Parachute has been compiling a monthly ranking of New Zealand blogs. His list has the pleasing side-effect of being a good way to discover random blogs you would not otherwise come across.
I decided it wasn’t visual enough:
(click to view montage)This little project used Paparazzi! to grab the websites, ImageMagick to wrangle the images, a few lines of Python, and an evening’s work.
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- Blogs and the Law – Police vs Slater
- The New Zealand Web Harvest 2008 Harvests Too Much
- New Zealand Cover Songs at Coverfreak
Rage of Thrones
So season three of Game of Thrones has started.
View on youtube
Actually, the adaption of Game of Thrones has been pretty great so far. In some ways it is even better than the books, mainly due to stuff actually happening in a timely manner. Also, instead of G.R.R.Martin’s vivid descriptions of breasts in every chapter, we actually get to see breasts. This behind the scenes look explains the creative process.
The books are crazily ambitious but the pace has been slowing with each successive novel. I suspect that the next book will cover in detail what each of the 85 characters did between the hours of 8:30am and 11:30am on a particular Tuesday morning, including what they had for breakfast, if anything scary made their bowels turn to water, and if they saw any nice breasts. It is these colourful threads that the novels’ rich tapestry is woven from.
(Axis of Awesome also have this unrelated but amusing song which is worth a look.)
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Home Made Creme Eggs
Ever read a recipe and know that it is your destiny to try it? I saw this fantastic method for making creme eggs on food52.com and was obsessed. It is a bit more fiddly and time-intensive than most things I make but the results are impressive even if mine look nothing like the photos on the web site.
My ingredient list was slightly adapted for metric measurements and local supplies:
½ cup of golden syrup
85g of softened butter
Tiny pinch of salt
1tsp Vanilla essence
2⅔ cups of icing sugar
Bag of dark chocolate bits
Yellow Food Colouring
Coconut Flavouring
Toothpicks and Potatoes
It took about 3 hours from start to finish but a lot of that time was waiting for the mixture to cool down in the freezer to a workable consistency. I completely messed up tempering the chocolate, but that just makes them slightly harder to eat.
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Review: Three Collections of Short Stories
David Falkayn : Star Trader by Poul Anderson, compiled by Hank Davis
ISBN: 9781439132944
Swashbuckling David Falkayn and his diverse non-human crew travel the galaxy looking for trading opportunities to further enrich his benevolent yet non-too-scrupulous patron. Most of the stories involve the group meeting primitive civilisations and attempting contact which goes badly. The resolution will usually involve the traders figuring out some facet of the native’s culture or physiology that caused the misunderstanding.
I’ve never heard of David Falkayn before, but apparently he stars in a lot of Poul Anderson’s stories. This collection (edited and sycophantically introduced by Hank Davis) covers a lot of ground, from early works written in the 60 to quite modern stuff. The theme that the cultural differences between the traders and the groups they meet can be solved through knowledge and mutual understanding is solid, although some of the resolutions feel a little contrived and almost patronising. The best stories involve the crew interacting with superior cultures that have figured out something about humans that they are using as leverage.
Also, for an author that goes to great lengths to paint complex and sympathetic aliens Anderson sure writes some laughably sexist stories.
Recommend, but if you like this sort of thing.
Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
ISBN: 9781451768435
A collection of shorter tales set in the world of Earthsea, the storied archipelago setting of the Wizard of Earthsea novels the I devoured as a kid. These stories are not particularly linked to the main plot of the earlier books and stand alone nicely. Perhaps not Le Guin’s best works (they seem a little unambitious compared to her great novels), the writing still bubbles and flows like a cool stoney brook and it was a pleasure to dip my feet in again.
Recommend.
Robots : The Recent A.I. edited by Rich Horton & Sean Wallace
ISBN: 9781607013181
Now onto the hard stuff – a recent collection of robot tales. Usually these compilations are a mixed bag but I have no complaints about any of the stories, which are nicely varied but uniformly excellent. Most of the works are straight forward yarns (robot detective stories, thrillers, etc), with a sprinkling of the more experimental stuff that is usually skippable but works well here. There is lots of thoughtful and exciting writing on display.
Highly recommended if you like this sort of thing.
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- Book Review : Cryptic and Oceanic – Two SciFi Short Story Collections
- Book Review : Juggler of Worlds
- Movie Review: Saturn 3
Avondale Hollywood Cinema’s Wurlitzer Organ
Jan Grefstad’s Hollywood Cinema (its full title, I don’t know who Jan Grefstad is) is a charmingly untouched cinema on Avondale’s main street. Most of Auckland suburban cinemas have long since been demolished, re-purposed, or remodeled into high-class boutique cinemas, but the Hollywood has remained more or less untouched. I think the seats are modern, but the layout in exactly how I remember in the old cinemas – a “circle” balcony above a larger area for the stalls.
The Hollywood’s main claim to fame is its huge Wurlitzer theatre organ, a fantastic beast of a thing. The pipes are hidden in rooms behind the screen, and it is capable of all sorts of fantastic sounds – from bells to drum rolls. It can also remotely play the piano on the other side of the stage. The best part is that the whole console is on an elevator, raising up out of the stage with the organist when needed.
Today I went along to see the Wurlitzer being played by a professional organist accompanying Charlie Chaplin’s silent film, The Gold Rush. The organ was put to good use, providing wall to wall music in every scene of this entertaining film. It is not something I would do all the time (I am not quite in the target demographic just yet) but it was the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.
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- Film Review : Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Film Review : Tron Legacy
- Film Review : Paper Solder (Bumazhnyy Soldat)
An Imagined Scene
BRAND MANAGER: RIGHT, we need a FRESH new angle for our new juice product. Any IDEAS?
FLUNKY 1: What about a big orange cartoon mascot, he could be dancing aroun…
BRAND MANAGER: I said FRESH, not TRITE! Get me a COFFEE. NEXT!
FLUNKY 2: A group of attractive people
BRAND MANAGER: go on…
FLUNKY 2: ummm, enjoying the product
BRAND MANAGER: MORE!
FLUNKY 2: … on a beach?
BRAND MANAGER: WRONG! It doesn’t SPEAK to ME, and from now on NEITHER DO YOU!
FLUNKY 3: Get this: we get an attractive model and paste in our product in an awkward pose unlike any human would hold things in. Maybe put some half-ass stock-photo clouds in the background.
BRAND MANAGER: Same as all our OTHER campaigns. I need SOMETHING SPECIAL!
FLUNKY 3: OK, we photoshop her face so it looks like she has just taken a swig of the product and is now struggling to hold back projectile vomit!
BRAND MANAGER: I LIKE IT! You two, LEARN from this GUY. Lets get this out there on EVERY second BUS STOP in the city.
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Maraetai
This summer just doesn’t seem to want to end, not that I complaining. Here is the view from Maraetai on the Eastern edge of Auckland, looking out towards Waiheki island.
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2013 Census Night
Is it weird that I was very excited to fill in my census form for another 5 years? I’ve been looking forward to it for days.
I feel that is like a Facebook status update that only Statistics New Zealand is allowed to see. Or maybe a multi-choice exam on my specialist subject, me.
I don’t have any time for people who object to the fairly innocuous questions on religious practice or race. They are just causing themselves to be underrepresented in statistics that the government uses to make decisions. I fail to see how that benefits anyone. Besides, write-in answers of Jedi or whatever muck up the nice 3rd Normal Form. Won’t somebody think of the poor database?
The census collector came around a couple of days ago, he was very cheerful for someone with what I imagine is a tedious job. You can fill in the census online, but I like to kick it old-school with the paper forms which means he has to come back. Censusman asked which days he should return for collection, assuring me that it would “be during daylight hours, especially in this neighbourhood“.
I was so insulted that I nearly stabbed him for his wallet.
(Now I am worried that being from the census, he knows something that I don’t. Maybe the last census revealed that 15 professional murderers live within 3kms)
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Film Review : Rise of the Planet of the Apes
A medical researcher working on a drug to help the brain repair itself finds himself raising a super smart chimp called Caesar from infancy. Although the researcher has the best of intentions events conspire to take Caesar from his home and Caesar must learn some hard truths about humans.
Nobody really needed a prequel to Planet of the Apes but if one had to be made then at least they put some effort into it. The story is well told, if a little formulaic for the first half with bland stock character humans (well-intentioned scientist, evil corporate executive, etc) but the apes are fantastically rendered. Caesar is portrayed with vigour and sensitivity that the other characters lack and the film comes alive when it follows him.
The best part of the film occurs about halfway through, where Caesar is locked up with a bunch of other apes and must learn to survive. This sequence, almost entirely without dialogue, is impressively staged. The special effects are likewise excellent throughout.
The main problem with Rise of the Planet of the Apes (apart from the mouthful of the title) is that it starts and ends too early in its story. Although the film tries to inject some pathos with the scientist’s family, ultimately all we want is to see some damned, dirty apes. Then once the apes finally get around to rising, the film ends just as things are getting interesting. The original Planet of the Apes could be read as a commentary on race and class, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has its moments but refuses to hammer home any particular point.
Maybe I am asking too much of my ape-related entertainment, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is highly recommended anyway.
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Game Review – RoboRally
Richard Garfield is justly (in)famous for creating Magic:The Gathering, a game so nerdy that groups have to meet in secret less a roving chess team find them and beat them up. But before that, Garfield made RoboRally – a game that makes Magic:The Gathering players look like cage fighters.
RoboRally is exactly want it sounds like; each player has a robot which they guide around a factory floor. The object is to win the race by touching numbered flags placed in strategic locations in turn – the first robot to touch the last flag wins.
Each turn players are dealt 9 program cards each specifying a simple instruction (“turn 90° clockwise”, or “move forward 2 squares”, etc). Before any of the robots move, players place 5 cards face down in front of them in “registers” and discard any cards left over. Then each player reveals the card in register 1 and moves their robot on the board accordingly. Then register 2 is revealed, and so on.
But things aren’t so simple. In addition to avoiding the other robots, the factory floor itself is littered with obstacles. There are conveyor belts that carry any robot on top of them, walls that block movement and worst of all, lasers. Each robot also carries a laser, so damage is inevitable. Damaged robots first receive less cards at the beginning of the turn. The damage quickly accumulates to a point where the registers themselves become faulty, locking a movement card in place for multiple turns.
Because you effectively program in 5 movements ahead of time a certain amount of forethought is required. Forethought that might go to waste, because other robots can interfere with your carefully laid plans. You never quite get the cards dealt to you that you need, and once the damage starts to bite your robot with be careening all over the board.
RoboRally scales really well and is actually better with more players, so long as you don’t mind a certain amount of chaos. It sounds complex but the rules are very clear and each turn takes only a few minutes. It is certainly not a game of deep strategy as any plans you make will collapse hilariously, but it is not totally random either.
Fast paced, humorous, and nice to look at. Highly recommended.
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Mount Saint John
The weather has been a little cooler this week, but the evenings are still fine for jogging. This week I decided to visit another of Auckland’s volcanic cones – Mt Saint John.
This panorama was taking looking East(ish) over Epsom and Remuera. The hill on the left is Mt Hobson. Towards the right is Cornwall Park topped with the monument on One Tree Hill. Off in the distance about a third of away across the image you can see Mt Wellington (about 6km away)
This is Mt Eden, as seen from much the same spot. In the foreground you can see the size of the crater. Mt Saint John is not one of the premier volcanoes around the city but its eruption is responsible for the lava field that eventually forms Meola reef several kilometres away so it must have been a big deal back in the day. I rate it a solid 7 out of 10 Wilberforces on the Volcanic Cone Appreciation Scale.
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Queen Street International Food Court
For years one of my favourite eating places in Auckland has been the Food Alley on Albert Street. You can keep your fancy French restaurants and elegant cafés, turns out what I really want is tasty food served quickly with a prison-like ambience. Proximity to the Food Alley was actually a factor in my choice of current employment, I recommend the clay-pot joint or the Vietnamese place for first time patrons.
But sometimes the Food Alley is a little too flash with its well organised stalls and excellent drinks bar. Perhaps it has moved up-market in recent years, or maybe I am moving down. Either way, if excellent choice in a crummy atmosphere is what you desire then the International Food Court underneath the Strand Arcade off Queen Street is ready to take your order. Right off the bat the International Food Court ups the terrible ambience stakes by being situated in a basement, the Food Alley can’t compete with that masterstroke.
This is Beef Soup with Hot Chilli Oil , my new favourite dish, served up from the Chinese stall on the extreme left as you come down the stairs (I think it was #4 on the menu). It is a hot, very peppery soup with scallions, sprouts, and beef served under a layer of oil which is itself infused with chilli. It sounds odd, but tastes fantastic. One day I will muster the courage to order it “hot” instead of “medium”, but even at reduced potency it takes until mid afternoon before the feeling comes back into my tongue.
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Destruction Gully Track
Yet another perfect day in Auckland, and yet another track in the Waitakere Ranges to explore. This time was the ominously named Destruction Gully Track, a short but fun track that descends from the Whatipu Road just after Little Huia.
Although not very long as the crow flies, Destruction Gully Track is quite steep as the cow plummets and is not one of the best maintained tracks. At a couple of points near the bottom the track is augmented by some helpful garden hose that has been fastened to the rocks. By no means is it as scary as the Mercer Bay “Track”, but a certain level of fitness is required.
At the bottom lies Makaka Bay, a nice little rocky beach that still has a few signs of what I think was a logging tramway back in the day. There are a few good views of the Manukau Heads across the water as well. Makaka Bay is not well visited so you will have nothing to disturb your calm except the skitter of crabs and the thought of the climb back up.
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