It's kind of fitting that the last PotW of the year is another late one; at least it's in the right year. I'm staying with the theme of "my sister puts up far too many decorations", but at least they're tasteful. This particular decoration is on the kissing bough hanging up at just the right height for me to smack my head on it every time I walk past. We've had several adventures with these in recent years, especially as I've slept in the same room in which they hang. Many's the time that I've looked up and wondered whether I'd be able to get out of the way if this heavy ball of holly and ivy decided to plummet towards my head.
Luckily, though, that's yet to happen, so I've taken the opportunity to go Christmassy again. We may have as long as possible to go until next Christmas, and I may therefore be about to re-enter Grinch mode. So I think I'll make the most of it. Have a great New Year's Eve, people - see you tomorrow for a review of the year.
Monday, 31 December 2007
Picture of the Week: #52
Monday, 24 December 2007
Best if he tells it in his own words.
68Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Merry Christmas.
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Picture of the Week: #51
I know this picture's not very festive, but I have an annoying tendency to forget my camera every time I'm going off to do something Christmassy. Luckily, I think this should at least fall under the "interesting" category.
These four photos are all of the same table. The table in question is in the waiting room at my local train station, which is where I was yesterday on my way back to Oxford for the day. First up, it's a weird place to put it. There's no apparent reason why there should be a table in the waiting room - there's nothing on the table, and no chairs around it. It seems to be just taking up space. Secondly, although I'm no judge of these things it looks practically antique, and leaving it among the commuters seems like a poor idea, to say the least.
Friday, 21 December 2007
Today, a simple blog post. Tomorrow, THE WORLD!
There's been something of a glut of superhero movies over the past few years. On the whole, this has been a bad thing - comic books thrive on having short, simply-told stories in each issue, which makes it a bit difficult to both introduce the character and tell that story in the same film. (This is, incidentally, why sequels to superhero films can be better than the original. I found X-Men 3 to be much more fun than the original movie, largely because we didn't have to be walked through the interminable backstories of what felt like fifty different characters individually.)
One of the good things about superhero films is that they generally have the I-want-to-be-them factor. All it takes is for one character to have an incredibly cool ability, and suddenly the film has an effect way beyond its running time, as the audience gets to imagine what they would do with that ability. The film producers are almost certainly aware of this (it's the key to selling vast quantities of merchandise), but this doesn't explain why they always give certain types of power to certain roles in the film. There are some pretty subtle reasons for this - I'll go through them one by one.
(By the way, I'm aware that most of these creative decisions are actually made by the writer of the original comic book. I'm focusing on the films because my experience of comic books is precisely zero.)
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Picture of the Week: #50
Yes, I know, this one's very late too. The reason for this is so unbelievable that I'm not even going to bother putting it on the Internet - suffice to say that I was planning to take a photo much like this last week anyway, so I reckon it'll do.
My family would probably be very quick to tell me that I'm rather Grinch-like when it comes to Christmas. I cannot stand Christmas movies, or Christmas specials of otherwise acceptable TV shows in which everyone ends up gathered around the Christmas tree looking misty-eyed. When I was living in Oxford last year, my house had absolutely nothing Christmassy about it. Contrast that with my sister's student house, which sported a tree and little lights everywhere, and large Lego toys scattered over the floor.
Unsurprisingly, it's also my sister who's decorated the tree this year. For the past few years she's been running the operation with ruthless efficiency, stringing popcorn chains instead of tinsel and allowing nothing within half a mile of the branches unless it's either a) red, b) gold or c) vaguely rustic-looking. To top it all off, there are currently slices of orange drying on the radiator, ready to add that extra fruity note to the decorations.
Much as I mock, though, I have to admit - it does look very good. My Grinchy exterior may just be melted by the time Christmas Day rolls around.
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Male perfumes all smell of industrial alcohol mixed with old leather, for some reason. I'm not really tempted.
The Christmas season is approaching (some would say that it's been here for the past few weeks), and it's amazing how much changes to reflect that. Obviously shops start putting up expensive yet oddly tasteless displays, and the radio starts playing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" on endless repeat, but there are some other, more subtle effects.
(Incidentally, it was around this time of year in 2005 that Madonna began following me around. Seriously, "Hung Up" was playing in every single shop I went into when on a Christmas shopping expedition. It made a bad experience considerably worse.)
One of these effects can be seen in TV adverts. For most of the year, there's a decent spread of different types of adverts. There's plenty of cars, food, clothes and so on being constantly offered for our consideration, and even if they're not very good adverts they're usually at least comprehensible.
At Christmas, however, things suddenly change, as the perfume market goes into overdrive. Apparently, it's around now that the perfume companies start to realise that they don't stand a chance of recouping all their losses over the year (don't believe me? When was the last time you bought perfume because you wanted to buy it, rather than as a gift for someone else?) and immediately hire an ad agency to remind everyone that now would be the perfect time to send a loved one the subtle message that they don't smell so good. Result: endless perfume ads, filling every advert break until the audience screams "ENOUGH with the perfume! Try to sell me a car or something!"
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Picture of the Week: #49
The more observant among you may have noticed that this isn't your average view-out-the-back-of-the-house photo. That's right, there's a tractor there.
Oh, and a large fluorescent yellow helicopter. More specifically, the Essex Air Ambulance. We get helicopters overhead quite a bit (I can recognise a military Chinook by sound alone), but I think this is the only time I've seen one in the field, and it's certainly the first time I've seen the Air Ambulance. There's quite a few of these around the country, and I think they're an awesome idea. They're certainly well-used - the Essex one claims to be in use 3-5 times per day, and must have saved countless lives so far. If and when I eventually start earning a regular income, I'll certainly be contributing to their £105,000 per month operating costs.
Helicopters in general are very odd things, really. Aeroplanes are strange enough, but at least there's something vaguely understandable about the idea of making something go fast along so that it will also go up. I've been re-reading Conan Doyle's classic The Lost World recently, and can't help but wonder what someone unfamiliar with helicopters would think if they had been watching when the ambulance lifted itself gently off the grass the other day, spun on the spot and drifted off over the trees. Perhaps they'd have described it in the same kind of style that Conan Doyle uses to describe his protagonist Malone's first view of dinosaurs - a monstrous beast, the ferocious blades on its upper surface beating furiously as it struggles into the sky.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
All together now: Tooooooons. Games! EEEE-mail...
A brief word of warning: This post is going to be pretty much incomprehensible if you're unfamiliar with the source material that I'm talking about. Yes, more so than usual. Sorry.
Anyone who spends any more time than is absolutely necessary on the Internet is likely to have come across Homestar Runner at some point, even if just in passing. For a site without a vast amount in the way of content, and with zero advertising, this is pretty surprising. In fact, the entire site bucks the trend of almost everything else you'll find online - it hosts only Flash cartoons and games, all of which are created in-house, allows no user input whatsoever, and has retained the same basic design for years. Oh, and its creators make their living off it. Did I mention the complete lack of advertising?
So how does a firmly Web 1.0 site survive on a Web 2.0 internet? One possibility is that success simply begets success. HR has been running for over seven years now (for comparison, Google has been live for about eight), and consequently has a massive merchandise-purchasing fanbase. That kind of thing ends up being self-perpetuating. The other reason, and it's one that the site's fans would heartily agree with, is that the content is extremely good. Given the vast numbers of Flash cartoons floating around on the web, and their generally remarkably poor quality, it's refreshing to find a series full of well-animated and funny films and games.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Picture of the Week: #48
As you may be able to tell from the large ship-like object in the background, this photo was taken by the sea. In Harwich, to be precise, one of the busiest container ports in the UK. The large, whale-tail-like object in the foreground is something that I didn't expect to see in such a modern trade centre; it's the end of an anchor, concreted into the ground at the seafront, right next to an old lighthouse (behind me when I took the photo).
Whenever something new and exciting comes along, there's a tendency to pay so much attention to that new thing that anything before it gets forgotten. This frequently leads to history repeating itself; no-one apparently learnt from Vietnam that it's a bad idea to pour troops into a situation from which there's no obvious exit, for example.
With that in mind, I really like the way that the people of Harwich have had the good sense to put something as simple and as important as an anchor in their midst, as a monument to the past; it's within sight of the vast Chinese container ships and the towering cranes, constantly yet quietly reminding everyone there that this is where it all came from. And, perhaps one day, all that will be left.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Next stop, Vegas...or maybe not.
I've recently been introduced to Gpokr (a very Web 2.0 site, complete with diagonal stripes, lower case titles and a marked aversion to including all necessary vowels), which is essentially an online poker site. Now, I know that online poker is immensely addictive, destructive and illegal in a number of places. Happily, though, Gpokr doesn't use real money.
Although you might think that this takes away some of the atmosphere, I'm not sure there was very much to get rid of in the first place. Poker is the type of game that should really be played either in smoke-filled seedy bars, against people called "The Kid" or "Slow-Eye Johnson", or in exclusive Monte Carlo casinos against James Bond. Call me a purist if you like, but I don't really think you get the same feeling from clicking the "raise" button to put a .gif image of some chips onto a green oval. It's a similar story with the names of the players - I'm just not intimidated by someone called "xxxbiggCHIPwinnrxxx".
Not having real money does change one thing, of course - no-one really cares if they lose. It's not remotely unusual to see people going all-in on their first hand at a table and losing the lot, then suddenly and mysteriously appearing back at the same table with another $1,500 and doing it all over again. Having unlimited chip refills is probably mainly to blame, although the very many people with multiple accounts don't help either. It would make even the most generous person suspicious to see "sUpErPlAyEr-1" vanish, to be replaced seconds later by "sUpErPlAyEr-15"; it's the online equivalent of returning to the table with an extravagant moustache and saying "Pheel? Who ees thees Pheel? I am hees looong-loost cousin, Antonio!"
Still, it's a fun diversion for a while. It's also a great way of letting me know that I should never, ever take up professional gambling. How do I know this? Well, in roughly two weeks my total net losses have come out to $5,050.
Not a sound investment, really.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
It's possible that this [CENSORED] was [REDACTED] from [REMOVED], I suppose
I'm in a rather interesting situation right now.
You see, I'm about to sign a contract. This contract will mean that I'm working for a company, but I won't be employed by them. In fact, technically I'll be self-employed, but I'll have no customers or clients. So I'll have to declare my own tax information and so on, despite the fact that I'll be receiving a wage.
Except that it won't be a wage, because I'll be working on a basis that precludes the possibility of hourly payment. It's performance-based, but the level of performance isn't measured in anything more than the most cursory way.
On top of all this, if it sounds like I'm not giving much away, that's because the contract also stipulates that I'm not allowed to say anything about the company in question. "Anything" in this case means exactly what it sounds like; taken literally, the text of the contract says that I can't make any form of comment by any medium whatsoever about any aspect of the company for which I don't work but which still pays me a non-performance-based performance-linked not-wage.
Honestly, you make simple enquiries about employment opportunities and before long you're sounding like Jason Bourne...
No, it's not drug-running, prostitution, pornography or anything to do with the security services. Calm down, for goodness' sake.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Picture of the Week: #47
I'm not sure how long the lovely evening sunlight's going to last now that we're heading towards December, but I reckon it's worth making the most of it. Please ignore the incredibly straggly-looking flowerbed at the bottom of the picture. My family has never really had a reputation as a group of amazing gardeners, being very much of the "let it take care of itself" school of plant care. Well, honestly, if it's incapable of holding its own in our garden it shouldn't be there in the first place, should it?
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Kick-off's at eight, and yes, I will be watching. Unfortunately.
It's nothing personal, England - I just kind of hope that you don't beat Croatia tonight.
I've posted before on the subject of football, and how it doesn't hold a candle to rugby as a spectator sport. I still stand by that assertion, but it is nevertheless possible to get a good football game, and it is definitely more fun than American football, footage of which I saw for the first time this week. (Why does association football come out on top? Well, imagine a form of rugby where all the players perform amazing feats of skill and strength for about ten seconds, then have a little break and a chat. It's not a sport, it's a live-action version of Mario Party.) International football tournaments are certainly capable of producing good entertainment - even if the game itself suffers from the higher stakes involved, the atmosphere, crowds and inevitable outbreaks of violence make it fun to watch.
There is a downside to this, however, and it's that I get far too into it. I end up glued to the TV as England struggle to hold onto a 1-goal lead going into stoppage time, or worse, repeatedly fire shots against a seemingly invincible goalkeeper in a desperate attempt to make up a 1-goal deficit. Then one of the players does something stupid (yes, David, we still remember) and it all goes downhill, spiralling into a morass of depression and despair.
Does it sound like I'm making a huge fuss about nothing? Of course it does, that's exactly what I'm doing, and that's precisely why it's a bad idea for England to get into tournaments like this, especially when their performance is so variable. Man for man, the England team is undoubtedly one of the best in the world, and on their day they can be brilliant, but because they're also capable of being one of the worst teams around, it just adds to the stress.
So play as well as you can, England, and enjoy it while it lasts. But...if Croatia beats you tonight...don't be annoyed if I'm not too cut up about it, OK?
UPDATE 10:13pm: So, you know what I was saying about the desperate attempt to make up the 1-goal deficit? Yeah, that was a pretty convincing object lesson. Have a nice relaxing summer next year, boys.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Coming up next on "Phil Inadequately Covers Inflammatory Topics"...
Ever since the publication of The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, a much-cited and highly controversial book on the subject of intelligence, the question of how race and intelligence interact has been simmering away. It looked for a while as though it had largely blown over, becoming fodder only for the odd dinner-party conversation and white supremacist rally. However, a couple of weeks ago James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA's helical structure, created a storm of publicity with some extremely poorly-judged comments:
"All our social policies are based on the fact that their [Africans'] intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.
As if that wasn't enough to send the world's media into a frenzy, he followed it up by claiming that although it would be nice to think that people of different races are equally intelligent, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." Now, before we go any further it's important to note that Watson apologised just a few days later:
"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have. [...] To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."
A good retraction, certainly, and a necessary one, but the damage was already done. No-one remembers the mitigating language of this retraction, and the media feeding frenzy had already begun, leading to people suggesting that perhaps his first set of statements had actually been true. So what, in this horribly difficult topic, is true? (I knew that psychology degree would be useful for something.)
Monday, 19 November 2007
Picture of the Week: #46
The decorators have been and gone in our house, and the chaos has recently subsided. A bit, anyway. This has given my dad the chance to dig out some of his old music collection, and for the past week the house has resounded to Paul Simon, Randy Stonehill, Ry Cooder and Larry Norman. Now, this should give you a clue as to what on earth the above photograph shows. Have a guess, then look behind the cut to see if you were right.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Bee-deep doop ba dap DAP, dap...
It's quite hard for me, just at the moment, to get things done. This can be attributed to a lot of things; the cold weather, my lack of transport, three unreasonably busy years, they all stack up.
Short-term, though, the main reason why I'm not getting much done has to be VirtualNES. If you're of an age, like me, such that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the must-have gadget when you were six years old, you will undoubtedly remember the strange fascination that this grey plastic box held for so many small children. (Mostly boys, it has to be said, but let's not go stereotyping here.) The graphics may have been basic, the controllers rickety, and the game cartridges requiring someone to blow very hard into their undersides for some reason, and yet the NES was capable of keeping innumerable kids quiet for hours on end.
Sometimes, of course, this led to problems. Terrifying demonstrations of what people can do when given a NES and too much free time are all over the web; see this duel between two masters of the original Super Mario Bros. for an example. The hardware, too, has ended up being used for purposes way beyond its original design - for example, musician Alex Mauer has released two albums on NES cartridges, using the sound chip on the console to produce all of the music. Whether this is an artistic travesty or an exciting way of using retro technology is a question that I'll leave up to you.
The NES was undoubtedly a brilliant piece of work, as were many of the games made for it. And when many of those games are available online, to play for free, it seems that now we have a perfect opportunity to revisit them, to recapture some of that magic. The legality of the site is, I admit, questionable at best - I'd be surprised if their carefully-worded disclaimer protected them from much in the way of litigation - but while it's around, it's a great chance to see what all the fuss was about. And if you can play the first couple of levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 and not be entirely hooked, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Space Chase nearly made it into this post, too. Be thankful that it didn't.
One of the things that I always used to like doing when I was younger was to flick through the Radio Times' film section, searching specifically for the films with one-star ratings. Why? Because star ratings, useful though they are, are deep magic.
This may be difficult to believe, but it's true. A scale that looks like your average five-point rating scale actually conceals considerably more nuances and subtleties than you might think. Now, towards the top end of the scale this is less true; there's not very many five-star ratings, considerably more four-stars, and a veritable ocean of three-stars. This is as you would expect - a three-star rating is usually labelled "average", so the normal statistical workings of the bell curve come into play. It is as you descend into the lower reaches of the star system that things start to get strange.
The reason for the strangeness is that a film needs to meet a certain (albeit small) level of quality to make it to two-star level, but there is no such requirement for one-star level. The obvious result is that the one-star rating is applied to everything below two-star standard, and this is a large and varied assortment. Join me as we move down through the various levels of awfulness.
- The film opens with a nuclear bomb being set off in the middle of Germany, presumably incinerating several million people. The hand-wringing and "oh how terrible" speeches last all of two minutes, then we're back into action, making this perhaps the film with the largest unnecessary body count in the first act ever.
- The villain of the piece is Russian and played by Christopher Lee. He wants to set off the bomb to restart the Cold War. This plot was tired and overused before the Cold War even ended in the first place.
- I know I've already mentioned it, but: Pierce Brosnan's American accent. Why would you do that, Pierce? Why?
- The ending is not only contrived, it is also completely devoid of tension. When your film leaves the audience thinking "Huh. So they didn't all die in a nuclear holocaust. Well, there we go," you know you've got a problem.
If you thought that a film starring Brosnan, Lee, Patrick Stewart, Terrence Hardiman and several other quite good actors couldn't fail to be good, allow me to introduce you to the reason why this film is So Bad It's Bad.
Good Grief What On Earth Were They Thinking
Oh no, SBIB wasn't the last category. There are other films, worse than that. And it is into this classification that Hercules in New York proudly strides. A film that must be the product of either a drunken bet or the drunken gambling away of the entire budget (alcohol was definitely involved at some point), never before has a film been so very, very impressively bad. Arnold Schwarzenegger, almost sinking his career before it began, provides the perfect justification for closing the international borders with his portrayal of Hercules - yes, Greek demi-god Hercules - and his adventures in New York. Arnie was dubbed in the original release, but that couldn't save the movie; if anything, it's better when you can hear his oh-so-authentic Greek accent ("NO VUN IZ SUPEEERIOR TO HAERCULEES!"). The film also boasts repetitive and over-frequent fight sequences - there's only so many times you can see Schwarzenegger push people around with a plank before it gets dull - and, in a great moment of glory, manages to take the crown from Point Break in the category of "Least Convincing Day-For-Night Sequence Ever Filmed".
If you can't work it out, Day-For-Night is a cinematic technique in which "night" scenes are filmed in broad daylight and filters are used on the camera lens to make it look as though it's actually night-time. In Point Break it simply doesn't work - the night surfing scene is spoilt by the fact that the sun's reflection is clearly visible in the water, and everyone is glowing in the sunlight. In Hercules in New York, they don't bother with the filters. Interior scenes, which clearly were filmed at night, are intercut with exterior scenes bathed in golden sunlight, the only concession to the concept of night being that one of the characters is holding a lit torch. This is way beyond bad - this is jaw-dropping.
And this sequence leads in to what is quite possibly the very worst - and most brilliantly hilarious - scene ever committed to film. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...the bear attack.
No, I don't own this video, obviously - it's part of the film. Do I have to tell you people everything?
Hey, look on the bright side. There's nowhere to go from here except up.
Monday, 12 November 2007
Picture of the Week: #45
Not a lot to say about this one (except "sorry it's a day late again"). I was wandering across some of the local fields (or "private parkland", as its owner informed me - I felt like giving him a long lecture on the public footpath system and why it was to everyone's advantage, but decided not to), and thought that this was too nice a picture opportunity to pass up. Autumn really does provide some of the most beautiful light, and when that's tied in with the local landscape it provides some awesome natural sights.
Now, if it wasn't so darned cold all the time, it'd be perfect...
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Unrealistic Life Ambitions, #2: Dadaist Song Titles
(Ooh, a repeating blog feature that has actually repeated. That was unexpected.)
If you watch any TV at all, you can't have failed to notice the adverts for new albums that are sometimes produced. Generally voiced by Mark Goodier (in the UK, at least), all of these adverts follow much the same formula: the voiceover lists the names of the standout tracks that are going to make you want to buy the album, accompanied by either a) clips of the band in concert, b) parts of their music videos, or c) abstract bits of artwork.
Even if the artwork option is chosen, the audio will be part of the track that's just been named. And here's the key part: the clip used will always be at the point where the lead singer bellows out the name of the song. If the album in question was a collection of Bruce Springsteen's hits, for instance, part of the voiceover might go like this...
Voiceover: Featuring "The River", "Murder Incorporated, and the smash hit "Born to Run".
Bruce Springsteen (in concert): 'Cos tramps like us, baby we were booooorn to ruuuuuuuun!
There's nothing wrong with this, as such - it's just a bit dull, that's all. Clearly, there's a consensus among advertisers that this is the only possible way to advertise an album, so even if the visuals are really interesting, the audio will be completely predictable.
I say it's time this was stopped. And I know how to do it, too. My unrealistic life ambition is to start a successful rock band - so successful that we can eventually get Mark Goodier to do the voiceover for our TV adverts - without ever mentioning the title of any of our songs anywhere in the lyrics.
Overly ambitious, you say? Not at all! If countless bands can produce tracks whose lyrics consist of nothing but the song's title (taken from answers.com because the people without a sense of humour at Wikipedia had the terribly bad taste to delete the article), and if the Flaming Lips can produce songs like "The Wizard Turns On...The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins", then how hard can it be? You can expect to hear our tender rock ballad "Seamus Heaney Recites The First Three Thousand And Twenty Digits of Pi" any day now.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
What's in YOUR wallet?
My debit card expired the other week. I know, I know...this isn't really the most fascinating of topics ever addressed. However, due to a lucky combination of circumstances (1. I didn't put it into an ATM after it expired, so it didn't get eaten; 2. I tend to take almost anything to pieces), I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to dissect the old card. I'm not certain what I hoped to achieve with this activity, but no matter - it successfully wasted several hours, and hopefully you'll find it entertaining too!
A couple of quick notes before we start. First, this post is full of photos. The files aren't huge, but they do load at 800x600 resolution (I'm using the cheater's version of thumbnailing, I'm afraid), so I'm putting all of them behind the cut. If you're on dialup, you may wish to wait until you've found some broadband, or you might be here some time!
Secondly, for goodness' sake don't try this at home unless a) you're using one of your own cards, b) you are absolutely certain you won't need it any more, and c) you completely destroy it afterwards. Identity theft is a major problem nowadays; you'll be able to see what steps I've taken against it later in the post. If that's all OK, on we go with the dissection!
- An expired credit or debit card
- A pair of ordinary kitchen scissors
- A penknife, or Stanley knife, or at a pinch just very strong fingernails
The first thing that I did was to make three horizontal cuts across the card, making sure one of them went through the card number.
This not only helps to make the card number illegible, it also makes it much easier to peel off the card's layers. As far as I can make out, the card is made of at least 7 layers; a central white core, with one hard coloured layer and two layers of transparent film on either side. The two transparent layers are pretty much impossible to separate except by accident, so you can treat them as one; they carry most of the important bits of the card. Specifically, the magnetic strip is part of them, so that's what I tried to remove next.
Scoring a line with the penknife didn't work too well near the edge...
...but it did work right in the middle, making it easy to peel off the magnetic strip in both directions. There was much more resistance at the edges, so I reckon either the glue is stronger there or the layers are sealed more closely.
The text under the strip reads "3 Track HiCo Black Magnetic Tape"; for those who are wondering what that means, scan through the FAQs from Intercard.co.uk. I had no way of reading the contents of the tape itself, but I imagine it holds just the card number.
With the magnetic tape's possibilities exhausted, I moved on to the middle segment of the card, and removed the film carrying the hologram. This produced the only completely unexpected aspect of the card...
There's a bird hiding under the film! It's etched into it somehow, making it entirely invisible until the film is removed; I think it's probably a security measure, as it would be fairly obvious that the card's now been tampered with. That's supported by the fact that the bird looks very much like the one on the hologram. It's also visible on the film itself:
The code numbers under the hologram (0 C E 2) return no meaningful hits in a Google search, so they're probably an internal reference to the type of hologram required.
The next thing to come off the card was the film from the bottom segment:
No great revelations here, although it's interesting to notice what's been removed; most of the Visa logo is intact, but everything silvery has gone. Much of the metallic shimmering effect on the card's surface remained, so that must be part of the coloured layer.
Here's the card with most of the transparent film removed from the front. It looks like there might be something drawn on the top segment...
...but on closer examination I think it got there while I was peeling off the film; it does look rather like a fingerprint. Incidentally, this photo shows more clearly how all the silver colouring has come off with the film; the two layers of film are also apparent.
The last bit of film-peeling took me back to the middle segment, in order to remove the signature strip. This was very much like the magnetic strip, especially in that there was something underneath...
In amongst the "VOID"s (I think it's fairly obvious by now that the card's void for purchases, really) there's a line of text reading "Oberthur C.S.3 89302 12/04". (The same text as appears above the magnetic strip and to the right, in fact...have a look at the third photo in this post.) While this produces no Google hits, there is a company called Oberthur Card Systems. So now we know who made the card; what the "3" means is anyone's guess, as is the "89302 12/04". (I got the card in 2006, and I doubt it was sitting in a warehouse somewhere for two years; it's also not a patent, as US Patent No. 89302 is for an "Improvement in Felt Suspender-End".)
Moving on, then, we come to the chip, of Chip&Pin fame. It popped out of its recess with very little force, leaving nothing behind and remaining remarkably intact.
I find it a little worrying that the chip came out quite so easily; the fact that it's the only component which is obviously glued in also seems strange. The film was held on to the plastic very strongly, so what's stopping the chip from being held in the same way? Anyway, it does mean that we can get a good look at the chip itself. It's very, very tiny, with the vast majority of the recess being taken up by the contacts. Each one of these connects to a gold wire (probably gold, anyway), which in turn connects to the chip.
I peeled off the contacts fairly easily, although the central one was much more troublesome, and in fact left a lot of residue on the chip itself. That made it difficult to see properly, and obviously with something so tiny it's difficult to see any details anyway. Time, then, to dig out my dad's old microscope!
The chip's very blurry because we're looking through the glue, although the wires are clearly visible. I'm not certain whether the little circle is a feature of the chip or merely an air bubble. By zooming in, we can see it more closely (along with some of the chip's surface).
We can also see a close-up of the joint between the chip and the wire...
...and part of the circuit on the chip's surface...
...and the (surprisingly detailed and pretty) surface of the glue...
...and the joint between the wire and the contact pad (or where it used to be, anyway)...
Either there was no joint at all between the contact and the wire (and contact was made through pressure alone), or the contacts were created already attached to the wire. I have no idea how that could have been done.
That's all the dissection that I carried out. The only thing left to do was to provide a bit of scale, so you can see just how tiny the chip is...
Here's the final dissected card with its components around it.
Remember I talked about identity theft at the beginning of the post? Here's where you find out how to avoid it...
Nice and simple!
So what does all of this mean? Well, it's clear that credit and debit cards are certainly very sophisticated little bits of plastic - I was surprised at how many different bits go into them, and how much of the visible detail has clearly been assembled rather than simply printed. The chip, in particular, is a beautiful little piece of engineering, and even things like the glue have unexpected details. On the whole, it's a great demonstration of one of the rules of life, as brought to us by the wonderful xkcd: "You can look at practically any part of anything manmade around you and think 'some engineer was frustrated while designing this.' It's a little human connection."
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Picture of the Week: #44
This is the Meadows building of Christ Church College, which can only mean one thing: I've returned to Oxford. Sadly not for more than one day, though; I came up for a friend's birthday, and as the day after was lovely and sunny I decided to hang around for a bit. I have absolutely no idea what the plant is that's had the bad taste to throw itself over the wall in a passable imitation of a very gory murder. But as it's on part of Christ Church, one of the largest, richest and frankly most obnoxious colleges in the whole city...hey, who cares?
Of course, I'm referring to the college as a single entity, and not to its students, many of whom are perfectly nice people. Just thought I'd clear that up. In really tiny writing.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
We can solve this with SCIENCE!
It's fairly common nowadays to hear people complaining about the deteriorating standards of science in our society. We're constantly told that the numbers of students taking science subjects at university are dropping, that society favours people who use their gut feelings rather than evidence (that would be truthiness), and that this is caused by Christianity's dislike of rationality. (Incidentally, if that's true, I'd like to know why scientists vastly outnumbered arts and humanities students in my university's Christian Union.)
Amongst all this doom and gloom, it would be easy to assume that there will be no scientists anywhere in our society in just a few years, and that we'll turn into a society of yokels. This would be a pretty daft thing to assume, however. For a start, numbers of science graduates in the US have actually increased in recent years; moreover, even though students are more likely to be turning away from the traditional sciences now than they were a few years ago (see this BBC article for the figures), the numbers of students going to university at all are constantly and dramatically rising, meaning that we're still going to have considerably more scientists in this country than, say, ten years ago.
Possibly even more importantly, though, the attitude towards science that's seen in the media has been constantly improving recently. I think this can best be shown through the medium of US crime dramas.
(What? I happen to like US crime dramas.)
Sunday, 28 October 2007
Picture of the Week: #43
I've just watched the original Star Wars movie again, so I don't think there's any point in pretending that I'm not in full-on geek mode. (Although I will risk the nerd wrath by saying that Star Wars really isn't as good as it's made out to be. Mark Hamill could only have been more wooden if he was made of chipboard.) Geek mode is an interesting phenomenon, which can be manifested in a number of ways. See above photo for an example.
The idea behind the photo's not mine (I got it from this Flickr image pool), but I think it's quite a cool effect. Is it obvious that I've been spending a lot of time indoors recently?
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Are snarky blog comments the online equivalent, do you think?
WARNING: I accept no responsibility if you go off and draw on someone's wall, then get prosecuted for it, OK? Nothing in this post should be taken as an endorsement of committing criminal damage, and you're on your own if you're daft enough to do so. Now that's out of the way, on we go with the post.
London may be an incredible city, right up there among the greatest cities on the world - and yet, I really can't get very excited about it. The vast majority of times I've been there, I've actually been going somewhere else entirely (the bizarre British transport network means you more or less have to go through or around London if you're going anywhere at all), and I don't have much desire to go there any more often.
One of the major reasons why I dislike London is the view I get when I go there. The train I have to catch comes in to Liverpool Street Station, and the last mile or so of track before the train gets there is surrounded by some of the most impressively ugly and run-down buildings I think I've ever seen. There is one bonus, though; the brick walls of the railway cutting are always covered in graffiti.
- Destructive Graffiti
Graffiti that defaces something underneath, as opposed to being placed in a blank space. This can sometimes be motivated by humour rather than a simple urge to cause damage; scratching out letters on signs comes under this classification, and frequently it makes me think that the only thing wrong with it is a lack of a sense of humour. (If it was actually funny to change "Swimming Pool" to "Swim-in- Poo-" then I'd be behind it all the way. This is how it's done.) If it is actually purely destructive - scrawling "Gaz woz ere" across a piece of art, for example - then it's pointless and shouldn't be encouraged at all. - Tagging Graffiti
One step above simple destruction, but still not very interesting, we have the scrawls that you'll see on walls everywhere, telling anyone who's remotely interested that someone called Barry, or possibly a street gang called B3, passed that way at some point in the near past. Why any of us would want to know this is unclear. Generally, this type of graffiti consists of nothing more than a name or a couple of letters, with no decoration and a single line of a single colour. I have absolutely no problem with people being prosecuted for criminal damage if they're caught doing this, although I'd prefer it if the charge was "devastating lack of taste". - Message Graffiti
Theoretically better than tagging, this type of graffiti involves people writing a slogan or an attempt at humour on the tempting blank surface before them. It's better than the previously-mentioned types to the extent that there is some point in it, some thought behind it; however, the problem with it is that the point is frequently remarkably stupid. There is no point whatsoever in writing "Troops Out Of Iraq" or, worse, drawing an Anarchist symbol on a wall. The intention behind the graffiti may be admirable (although that's doubtful in the case of the Anarchists), but no-one is going to be convinced one way or the other by seeing your scrawl. If anything, they're going to be turned off the message. Comedy sometimes works better, but again, only if it's actually funny. To be more precise, Good Morning Lemmings is acceptable. Bill Stickers Is Innocent is acceptable. Pretty much anything related to genitalia and bodily functions...not so much. - Arty Graffiti
The only type of vandalism that I really like is when the graffiti artist took the time to make something that looks good. Oddly, this can take place even when the theme of the graffiti falls under one of the above categories - some great street art is nothing more than a tag, just executed very skilfully. The large, colourful bits of 3D-looking writing that you'll find in many underpasses are particularly good, and there's plenty of examples of great wall art here, as well. (Don't be put off by the URL...)
I find it very sad that some people, especially those in authority, don't share my views on artistic graffiti. Only today it was reported by the BBC that the town council in Tower Hamlets is going to paint over some of Banksy's great stencil work, calling it an "eyesore". I think this case is particularly sad, as Banksy is one of those graffiti artists who can get away with doing humour and politics in his work, because it's just so well executed - see this painting on Israel's West Bank wall, for example.
Whether graffiti is seen as art to be celebrated, harmless fun to be ignored or dangerous vandalism to be clamped down upon, it's very clear that it's going to continue. And I'm going to keep an eye out for it and keep appreciating it whenever I'm forced to go back into London.
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Picture of the Week: #42
In order to allay any fears that you may have - no, I have not bought a sniper rifle, and no, you are not going to see more photos like this, just with crosshairs and some important political figure under them. Honest.
The reason that this photo looks as though it was taken through a scope is quite simple - it was taken through a scope. A spotting scope in this case, though, which happens to be the perfect accessory if you're going to take up digiscoping, the practice of taking photographs of whatever you're looking at in your telescope.
Contrary to what you may have heard, small telescopes have more uses than simply in voyeurism and political espionage. They're also very useful for birdwatching, amateur astronomy and general looking at nature, none of which I do on a very regular basis, but all of which are kind of fun. So, given the opportunity of sticking a digital camera against the eyepiece, I'm going to do it and see what happens. I think it adds some good qualities to the image. Now all I need to do is find something slightly more interesting to photograph. I hear Menzies Campbell is off on a round of pub golf in Swansea tonight...
Friday, 19 October 2007
It's very important to give this kind of geek something to do. Bad things happen otherwise.
For some reason, the market for video games appears to be filled with people who don't actually want the games that they've bought. No, what they wanted was something nearly the same as their purchase, but not quite. Welcome to the world of game modding.
According to some sources, the earliest mod was a Castle Wolfenstein chop job called Castle Smurfenstein. Quite why the author of this game felt the need to replace Nazis with Smurfs is unclear, although I suppose the Second World War would have been over rather faster if all we'd had to do was assassinate Papa Smurf. Anyway, since then barely a game has been produced that hasn't been modified extensively by its purchasers. Even console games haven't escaped, thanks to gadgets like the Action Replay, allowing gamers to modify the system memory's contents.
The difference between using an Action Replay and modding a PC game is fairly simple - an Action Replay can only modify things that are currently in the game, whereas a PC mod can introduce entirely new things. That said, sometimes Action Replays can be used to discover things that the developers put into the game but subsequently didn't use, to the embarrassment of the game's distributors; Rockstar's revelation that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas contained an unfinished sexual mini-game (the so-called "Hot Coffee" feature) is one obvious example. (Incidentally, the outcry over that issue strikes me as very odd - the whole game requires you to kill, maim and steal from various other people, but it's unacceptable to show simulated consensual sex on-screen?)
