Alden Bates' Weblog

Since Doctor Who Series 4 Parte II, the news broke that Steven Moffat is replacing Russell T. as series producer as of the start of series 5. I swear the cheering woke me up that morning. As usual, spoilers ahead!

Continue reading "Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 3)"

Which idiot programmed the predictive text feature on my phone?

Me: 286253233
Phone: You must mean "bunckeade"!
Me: No! I mean "bumblebee"! What the hell kind of word is "bunckeade"?!

[Five minutes later]
Me: 286253233
Phone: "bunckeade"!
Me: *sigh*

So, yeah, I'm thinking of getting a new phone.

In the interests of improving the internet, some questions from the postbagsearch engine queries:

Can hard drive crash be caused by microwave oven?

Probably! Print out your recipes, people! Don't just stick your laptop next to the microwave!

Is Martha's boyfriend really the Master?

It's probably to early to say at this point, but I'm going with "no". I'm not willing to rule out the idea that he's the Meddling Monk though.

What does "mille anni passe sunt" mean?

With the aid of Google and Wikipedia, it appears to be Latin for "A thousand years will pass". (No one seems to have the lyrics for the rest of Corvus Corax's song though)

Why doesn't Tom Baker appear with the other doctors at conventions?

The Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

Who are the mars refugees on earth?

The chances of anything coming from Mars is a million to one.

before and after pictures of results of energy drinks

Before =
After =

Looks like I really was tempting fate (or the spammers) by commenting a month ago on how I hadn't had any spam comments for a while. They're back (and pinging harmlessly off my spam protection).

While waiting for the next episode to screen (two weeks has never been such a long time), I've been musing. Spoilers ensue for The Doctor's Daughter below!

Continue reading "Doctor Who and Shipping"

I updated my copy of AVG to version 8 recently, and discovered that they've added a while bunch of new features. One of these is LinkScanner. When you do a google/yahoo/msn search, LinkScanner inserts little icons into the search results to let you know if the site the link goes to is likely to be hazardous to your computer. This is pretty cool. Unfortunately it tests the pages by actually downloading them (and any javascript files they reference) so I suspect it's going to be unusable on a dialup connection. You can't turn it off, or AVG complains that you've turned off component.

There's a thread about it on Webmaster World, wherein it's shown that LinkScanner is actually quite easy to spot, so it would be quite easy to fool. Not only that, but it only scans search results, so once you go to a site, you're on your own.

The new GUI looks very slick though.

Surprise! Coca Cola has a new energy drink out on the market (apparently e² didn't last?) called Relentless. It comes in a 440ml dark-brown can with the name written up the side in a fancy Germanic font. Some of the letters have three-pronged grappling hooks hanging off them, and there's a faint image of a head made of muscle on one side. I suspect that from the can size and colour scheme, it's aimed at competing with Demon Energy.

Relentless has a sort of sweet but tangy taste which is close to resembling most of the other energy drinks out there. Hey, CC, why don't you make an energy drink which tastes like Coke? You could call it "Coke Plus" or something.

Random thought: why is it petrol stations (or gas stations for the yanks) sell matches and cigarettes? Fire + petrol is bad.

Continued from last time, but obviously covering episodes 4 through 6. Spoiler warnings are, of course, in effect.

Continue reading "Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 2)"

Iron Man! The best Marvel comics movie in, ooo, a while at least. It's fun, has great characters, a plot relatively uncluttered by clichés, and should be relatively kid-safe. Spoilers follow.

Continue reading "Friday Night Movie: Iron Man"

I'm finding that the new error 403 graphic (it appears when people try to leech my bandwidth by remote-linking to my graphics) for this site is proving to be quite effective at discouraging bandwidth leeching. I think it's the middle bit.

If only there were some way to apply this technique to email spam...

Previously: Even better hotlink protection, More on "Even better hotlink protection"

Online today - TSV 57!

After the news of the recovery of missing episode The Lion in TSV 56, the next issue contained the full story of its recovery, as well as the more off-beat experiences of Neil Lambess in his new regular column The Life and Times of Neil Lambess.

The other major item was the printing of Pilots of the Deep. Parts 1 and 2 had been printed in TSV 12 and 14 back in 1989 before the original artist, Mark Roach, had lost interest. Ten years later, David Ronayne and Peter Adamson collaborated on a conclusion and it was printed (along with the first two parts) in TSV 57. There was even a behind the strip article about the creation of Pilots of the Deep. I wonder if Mark Roach has seen it. :)

Also in this issue, Pex anticipates The Juggernauts, and he and the Karkus team up to fight a giant headless chicken. Yes!

Next time, Beyond the Sofa!

Previously: Resurrection of the Daleks
See also: the write-ups by Jamas and Paul