Extortion, pure and simple

Once upon a time, I started to get interested in graphics and design to support work that I was doing to produce material for the Traveller RPG. I started on the slippery slope with a scanner and a copy of Adobe Photoshop. I’ve a feeling it was version 4 or some-such. I also picked up Adobe Illustrator, which was used very heavily in producing graphics for the starship designs in the BITS book Power Projection. Over the years, I upgraded these, and I added a full copy of Adobe Acrobat to support PDF preparation, and for a while used Adobe Go-Live for web design (until it was killed off).

Adobe used to have a reasonably open upgrade policy; so long as you were within three versions or so of the current software release, you qualified for the upgrade price. As I was a more occasional user, I tended to upgrade every 3 years or so, which used to cost ~£400-£600 depending on what I updated and how long it had been since the last upgrade which tended to influence Adobe’s costs.

Eventually, I jumped to the Creative Studio to get access to Adobe InDesign as well, diving in at CS2. I played around with dropping Photoshop for first of all Acorn (really nice and I do use it) and then Pixelmator (never really had the time to play with this), but stuck with it - especially after I got some great actions for building planets. I could never find a replacement for Illustrator that I liked, and had ended up with CS because neither Swift Publisher or iCalamus had been robust enough for layout.

Jumped to CS4 because changes to OS X needed it, and then found myself upgrading  within eighteen months to CS5.5 because Adobe said that when CS6 was released CS4 would not be eligible to upgrade. A month after I did, they reversed the decision, and also added an option to buy CS5.5 and get CS6 in a few months time. Frankly, I was not impressed and felt that I’d been played as a fool.

Adobe then moved to the subscription system with Creative Cloud but I’ve never jumped. A single application costs £17 per month (so £200 per year) and the full  CC package costs around £500 per year. As a comparator, the entire Microsoft Office Suite (which I use a lot more - and I guess has a lot more users) is around £70 for the year. I can’t justify these costs, not for casual use. I’m not a business.

When OS X 10.11 El Capitan came out, parts of Illustrator broke (the eye-dropper tool produces regular crashes) with CS5.5. Now, I could upgrade to CS6 (but that’ll be somewhere in the £300-£500 range (based on previous checks) but there’s no guarantee that it will survive the next OS X update.

Instead, I picked up Serif’s Affinity Designer, a newly built from the ground drawing and design program which is seriously aiming to be an ‘Illustrator-killer’. It’s faster and more stable, and probably has 90% or more of the functions I could ever want. It’s also £40 with free updates through the Mac App Store. They’ve also released Affinity Photo, which is a Photoshop replacement. Both will read PS and AI files, and output PSD, EPS, PDF and all the rest. They also use the same file format. The price? £40.

What I’m most excited about is Affinity Publisher, as Serif have a good reputation for their DTP package. This is due next year. They’ve said the first release won’t generate Creative Studio compatible files, but it is on the route map. The price is also planned as £40.

I think that slowly, Adobe are going to lose me as a customer. It was only £500 every 2-3 years, but it’ll be zero, because they decided to price people like me out from their software. As it stands, I only need InDesign and Acrobat (and I can replace the latter easily).

18 November 2015

The Robocop Reboot

While I was preparing the badges for Furnace X  tonight, I watched the reboot of Robocop. I enjoyed it, but I think that it lost itself somewhere between trying to be a serious story about the use of robot weaponry, a story of relationship changes forced by Alex Murphy having a near full-body prosthetic fitted, and a crime action thriller. It was really disappointing that the female characters were reduced to ciphers; more could have been made of them. The technology, look and feel was excellent though. Recommended, somewhat reluctantly.

15 October 2015 

Initial Thoughts on iOS 9

I don’t do the public betas of iOS or OS X, as I prefer the guarantee of a better level of stability (although, it has to be said that Photos and iTunes under Yosemite are really good at causing a kernel panic through the NVIDIA graphics chip and taking my iMac out). As a result, I’ve been watching news and comments articles on iOS 9 with interest.

I finally got to try it today, as – surprisingly – I was able to download the installers on all on our iOS devices from about 90 minutes after the update went live. This is fantastic compared to previous launches when the servers have been so busy that it has taken me the best part of 24 hours to get the download.

Installation was smooth on our iPad 2, iPad mini, iPhone 5s and iPhone 6. The old iPad 1 is long past updates but fine for movies and some internet.

First impressions - the new system font, San Francisco, feels more rounded than Helvetica Nueue, but I like the style. In honesty, three hours in it feels the norm. The introduction of a ‘Back to App’ option when you drop to another app is great. The introduction of Ad Blockers seems great, but unfortunately can’t be used on the iPads as they aren’t 64 bit CPUs which the architecture is built around. The backlight adjustments for ambient light seem more aggressive. I’m not certain in the new app switcher screen, but I’m glad it lost the contacts material. It feels quicker, but this could be psychological.

Be interesting to see how this develops.

16 September 2015

Interstellar (potential spoilers)

I watched Christopher Nolan’s epic hard science fiction movie Interstellar over the weekend while Jill was ill and I wasn’t. Visually, it was awesome, but the story left me feeling underwhelmed.

Now, I’m not sure if I’m the right kind of person to be judging this as I probably understand more about the scientific jargon that they use in the film than Joe Average, but it was nothing about the science that was an issue. I think that it fell into the 2001 A Space Odyssey trap of loving itself just a little too much. Some of the key events seemed very semaphored and obvious, especially who was signalling to humanity, and the revelations of Dr. Mann’s world. Some of the backstory elements; for example, the chasing of the drone and the weird compass effects on the combine harvesters weren’t that well developed and seemed to be bolted onto the plot for exposition. I’m also not convinced about the entry into the black hole, but I’ll take John O’s recommendation and read Kip Thorne’s tie-in science book first before I have a final judgement on that.

One element I did like was the way that it used an analogy with the issues seen in the present-day USA with creationists rewriting text books to remove evolution, to a plot thread with the US government officially having the Apollo programme officially a successful propaganda exercise and that the moon landings never happened. The smugness of the young teacher spouting this off made me want to shout at the screen. I think you could make a really interesting film using this as a concept. The ideal vehicle for it would be the novel by Niven, Pournelle  & Flynn: Fallen Angels.

I enjoyed the film, and will happily watch it again, but I think it reached high, and fell short of the stars.

9 April 2015

Blast from the Past #ZX81

Blast from the past

 #ZX81 #fullerkeyboard #coding

Farewell, Sir Terry, 66 years is too short

It's strange how some things hit you. I've known that we will lose Sir Terry Pratchett prematurely since 2007, but wasn't expecting to hear the announcement today when I was driving home.

His books have always been a staple of my life since I started secondary school in 1983, when The Colour of Magic was first published. I can remember reading the adventures of Rincewind the Wizard with glee, and eagerly devouring the next book when it came out. A family tradition was born; every Christmas, my mother and father would always buy me the paperback of the latest Terry Pratchett, along with the annual Tolkien Calendar and probably a Satsuma and a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

At University, his books were my escape from examinations, and I tended to rip through the whole series (back when it was considerably shorter in the early nineties) as light relief and a touch of procrastination. His humour slowly shifted and became more subtle rather than slapstick, but I still found my sides splitting with laughter at unexpected moments.

Now I've children, my rate of reading has massively slowed, and I'm overdue a complete re-read of his books by several years. But the Christmas tradition continued, with a new book each year. Except now he's gone, and a little bit of my childhood with him.

Farewell, Sir Terry. You'll always be remembered through your books and the joy they have brought. But tonight, I will feel sad and raise a drink to you, as you pass into memory with a tall darkly hooded figure with a scythe, a horse, a strange twinkle of starlight in his eye sockets, and A LIKING FOR CAPITAL LETTERS.

12 March 2015

Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to wish you all a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year from the Mooney household, now we’re calming down from a complicated Christmas and New Year Period.

(You may still see a few posts appear in 2014, as I recover material from the archive that I never actually posted!).

Tolkien Cinematic Universe

Today I saw the final part of Peter Jackson's adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, a story that I love and have cherished since I was a child. All in all, I found it a satisfactory conclusion.

Yes, the battle sequences were long and drawn out - in many ways mirroring the approach in The Lord of the Rings’ third part, but they were offset by the moments of humanity in the film with the fall and redemption of Thorin Oakenshield from the dragon-sickness for gold and the conversations involving Bilbo Baggins.

The visuals seemed to be channeling Warhammer, especially with some of the creatures used for steeds and the looks of Dain Ironfoot. Looking at the references in Foster's Complete Guide to Middle Earth, and searching on "Dain”in The Hobbit and Unfinished Tales gives no really hint of Dain's character beyond the fact that he was a doughty and determined warrior who finally fell at the Battle of Dale during the War of the Ring next to his compatriot King Brand1. I guess that this means that this interpretation is as good as any, and in some ways, having Billy Connolly playing him as a Scottish Dwarven Hard-man was an act of inspired genius.

I started to watching the first part, An Unexpected Journey again tonight, and it showed much more of a consistency of characterisation than I recalled, especially around Thorin, the dragon-sickness, honour and bravery. I may revisit these notes after I have re-watched the whole sequence.

Fundamentally, film is a different medium to a book, and what makes a good book doesn't necessarily make a good film. Slavish adaptations often fail. At times, Peter Jackson does push it too far for my liking - the Goblin Town sequence in the first film, the barrel ride sequence in the second, Legolas the Super-Hero, but I suspect that these were aimed at a younger audience than me. They certainly delivered thrills and a counterpoint to the darker parts of the film. However, overall I loved the visuals and the exploration of a tale that I and my eldest love dearly.

I entitled this post Tolkien Cinematic Universe for a reason; the recent Marvel films are referred to as the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they have not followed the existing canon slavishly but have still had a recognisable validity and similarity to the original published works. I think that Jackson's films hit exactly the same spot; lovingly created, but only related to the original.

27 December 2014
1. I’m not ruling out further descriptions of Dain Ironfoot in the ephemera of Tolkien that followed Unfinished Tales from the Book of Lost Tales onwards, but in honesty I gave up on delving deeper into the Tolkien canon at that point. The depths nearly always end up with bad things happening, like Balrogs or Dragons. ↩

Simple Minds - Big Music

I’m pretty excited about Monday’s release of a new Simple Minds album, more so than I have been for a long time. From the snippets that I have heard, it’s a definite nod to their earlier style (pre-stadium rock).

Simple Minds were the first band that I saw live, driving over the Pennines in my mum’s old Mini Clubman (we’re talking 1989 here, so it’s a small car rather than the current Giants) with several of my friends to see the concert at Roundhay Park in Leeds, around the time of Streetfighting Years. I can’t remember exactly who I was with, and the photos from the day are in storage too, but I think it may have involved Mike S, Christine M, and possibily Caroline R, Liz M and Nigel McN), but I do remember that it was a long day, but great fun.

Simple Minds are one of the best live acts that you will see, whether it is at a small intimate venue or a stadium. They have an ethos that you’ve paid to be entertained and they make sure that they put on a good show. So much so that when I saw U2 on the Zoo TV tour at exactly the same venue a few years later it was a disappointment and definitely overhyped!

I first found the band through the Once Upon a Time album, which was a loan from our local library (and I eventually bought the Vinyl and a cassette of it from them when they cleared it as surplus stock). Naturally, the vinyl got copied to cassette before that as I loved it, and I probably drove my parents mad singing along (badly) to ‘Ghost Dancing’, ‘Oh, Jungleland’ and ‘All the Things She Said’. I used to play this loud before exams to calm down, something that probably annoyed Jon H and others who shared a house with me.

I very quickly found the older albums recorded in their Arista days, like Life in a Day, Reel to Reel Cacophony and Empires and Dance, and really liked their more synth driven style, but the record that really hit a mark was New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) which includes some of my favourites like ‘Hunter and the Hunted’, ‘Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime’ and ‘The King is White and in the Crowd’. Synth driven slinkiness with a hint of rock.

Sons and Fascination / Sister Feelings Call - packaged as a double album - sat between Empires and Dance and New Gold Dream, and has some fantastic tracks such as ‘Theme for Great Cities’ and ‘Love Song’. They still feel modern and raw.

Sparkle in the Rain, which includes ‘Waterfront’ is the transition record to ‘Once upon a Time’. I have to say that it’s an album I need to be in the right mood for.

Most people who know Simple Minds from their stadium rock era will be thinking of ‘Don’t you (forget about me)’ – as written for the brat pack movie ‘The Breakfast Club’ and not by Kerr/Burchill and friends – and ‘Alive and Kicking’ or even ‘Belfast Child’ or ‘Mandela Day’. The earlier materual will be a bit of a shock but it’s worth a listen.

My first CD was the double disc Live in the City of Light, which is a cracking recording of two nights in concert in Paris during the Once Upon a Time Tour.

Street Fighting Years shifted in style, more openly political, and I overplayed this in Sixth Form. It also marked a shift in perception of the band; they dropped from being ‘cool’ as indie and Madchester were hitting but frankly, I didn’t care. Real Life came out when I was on my year out working before University. I played this a lot in the long haul up from Cheshire to north Cumbria, and I associate it very much with this drive[1]. I think the album is under-rated and it remains a favourite.

The next release was Good News from the Next World, which I mainly remember from the fact that I was in bed for two weeks with chronic Bronchitis at University and my then-girlfriend Sarah went out and bought it for me. It’s very listenable, but not hugely memorable.

I actually missed the fact that Néapolis was being released, stumbling upon it just after I finished University in the Asda in Bromborough. I quite liked it again, but it hasn’t been one I want to go back to. In fact, I started to wonder whether I would bother to buy another album if it came out.

The band then seemed to disappear. I didn’t know at the time, but they had an album prepared - Our Secrets are the Same - but it wasn’t released until the Silver Box collection due to record company politics. I can’t remember how I found them again, but I bought the CD of Cry soon after it came out, and loved the more modern style in it. Caught them touring part of this in Liverpool as well, and Jill & I used ‘New Sunshine Morning’ and ‘One Step Closer’ in the mix for our wedding. In fact, the latter was our first wedded dance.

The next release was Black and White 050505, which again seemed another step back towards form, removing some of my doubts. However, Simple Minds had definitely fallen behind Marillion in my pantheon of favourite bands.

Then, in 2009, Graffiti Soul was released, and was surprisingly playable. ‘Rockets’ was pop-tastic rock, and ’Stars will will Lead the Way’ had a killer guitar riff. As an album, in five years of owning an iPhone, it’s not been off the music stored in iTunes for on-the-go.

There was a greatest hits release last year (Celebrate), along with remasters of the first five albums, but I have to confess that I have ignored these. I may have a listen to X5 (the remasters) to see if the quality from the remix is worth replacing my existing versions, but the thing that excites me is the new album Big Music. The tracks that I’ve heard remind me of the early albums, but more polished.

So, don’t disturb me if you see me with headphones on Monday, because you know what I’ll be listening to.


For the record these are the original formats I bought:
- Life in Day - cassette
- Real to Real Cacophony - cassette
- Celebrate - cassette
- Empires and Dance - cassette
- Sons & Fascination - cassette
- Sister Feelings Call - cassette
- New Gold Dream (81—82-83-84) - Vinyl 45
- Sparkle in the Rain - cassette
- Once Upon a Time - Vinyl 45
- Live in the City of Light - CD
- Street Fighting Years - Vinyl 45
- Real Life - CD
- Good News from the Next World - CD
- Néapolis - CD
- Silver Box (Our Secrets are the Same) - CD
- Cry - CD
- Black and White 050505 - CD
- Graffiti Soul - Digital download
- Big Music - Digital download (subsequently CD)

8 December 2014

Update 27 December 2014
I’m really pleased with Big Music, and I have hardly stopped playing it since I bought it. This doesn’t happen that often…

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[1]: Along with New Order’s ‘Substance’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Violator’.