You’ve got to wonder what it’ll take for Martin Scorcese to get a Best Director oscar. I mean, the guy’s made Goodfellas, Casino, The Aviator, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ and Raging Bull, and has been nominated five separate times. Has he done something I’m not aware of? The academy are weird in that way. For example, Jim Carrey never gets nominated, despite being nominated and winning various awards for performances in The Truman Show, Man on The Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. They just don’t like him. Yet a couple of years back Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist. Roman Polanski could not attend the ceremony because he can’t enter the USA without being arrested on underage sex charges. He skipped bail years ago and has been a wanted man ever since. I don’t think he can come into the UK either.

It’s an interesting issue. If a murderer made a stunning film, can this achievement be separated from the person? I don’t know. Some would argue that the work of finished art is all that matters; others would disagree. Personally I can see both sides of the argument, and flitter between the two benches in my head. I don’t really like that Roman Polanski wins awards personally, but, as ever, there’s the issue of where the line should be drawn. What crimes are severe enough to disqualify you from an oscar?

I’m glad Eternal Sunshine won Best Original Screenplay - I think that’s Charlie Kaufman’s second oscar. I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby and am don’t want to, really. I just find the whole concept of boxing so repulsive that I doubt I’d be able to step back enough. Pathetic I know
Anyway, for my stupid moment of the day, see the comic.

Rumours that this strip is based upon real events from this morning are scandalous and demeaning.

Inspired by Cory Doctorow, I’ve moved all of my short stories into the wiki. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but was always concerned about copyright issues. The thing was, that’s pretty much the phrase I was concerned about, I’d never bothered really think about what specifically was worrying me. On reflection, the only two issues I could think of were:

• Somebody might steal my work and publish it under their name. Quite why this was a worry I don’t know - it’s not like any of it is actually of publishable quality!
• If I publish it on the internet do I lose all rights? What if I become a best-selling author in the future and want to publish a book of my early nonsense?

I needn’t have worried. Had I thought about things, I’d have realised that the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license under which the wiki operates completely covers me for the above. The stories are in the wiki, and anybody is free to take them and do with them as they will. Providing that they:

1. Give me credit for the original work
2. Do not use the work for commercial purposes
3. Release the work under an identical license

So that’s cool. Frankly, I’ll be flattered if this ever comes into play ever ever ever, but it’s nice to know that I can share without concern. I’ve added one more story already, and I’ll try to put as much up there as possible (including a certain Mr Todbury). I’ll assemble all of my sub-poetic ramblings soon, too.

As I mentioned above, I only realised that this was possible through Cory Doctorow’s similar approach. He’s a cool guy - you should visit his site

I discovered boingboing.net a few days ago and it’s taken up excessive amounts of time since. There’s just so much interesting information to be found! The links spiral off in infinite pathways of fascination. My RSS feeds list has trebled and my bookmarks are quickly becoming a gelatinous morass requiring serious pruning and organisation beyond my meagre abilities. Just a few examples:

Podcasting. I’d head the word but nothing more. Turns out it’s really cool. It’s like an internet radio station, except that the shows are stored in mp3 form so that they’re accessible anytime and anywhere. iPodder and similar programs will automatically download new shows (by checking their RSS feeds) and place them directly onto your MP3 player. It’s not only wannabee presenters that are getting in on the act - the BBC have a couple of radio 4 shows available via podcasting and it’s turned out to be very popular. If they combine this with their excellent Radio Player (in which, for Radio 2 anyway, every single show is available for streaming) I’ll be a happy boy.

The Observer has a fascinating blog that provides insights into the inner workings of a newspaper.

Amazon is proving to be a powerful tool for independent publishers. Previously authors were forced to deal with large publishing houses or resort to the ‘vanity press’ - companies who publicise and publish your works for a fee. Amazon, however, will list anything with an ISBN and a barcode, and will handle all of the shipping etc. for you. It’s far cheaper and easier to have a printing house create a few hundred copies of your book, then ship them off to Amazon, than to handle all the requests yourself. Also, your work is far more likely to be discovered on Amazon. There’s a full guide here.

Damn it, there were things I had to do today.

For the last four years I’ve stayed up overnight to watch the Oscars, but tonight I can’t as it’s on Sky Movies, which we don’t have

Bit of politics

I just received some sad news about a friend of mine. Kim was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and after various operations, including a bone marrow transplant, she died yesterday evening. I think she was 22. We were friends for a while at school, although I haven’t spoken to her much since. I last spoke to her about 7 months ago, and to be honest I thought she was nearly recovered; things obviously changed quickly. I don’t know what else to say. I know various people who’ll be completely devestated tonight. I’m around if anybody wants to talk.

I’m launching a beta for a new wonga section today. The wongaComic is up and running with a massive two entries. I don’t know whether I’ll lose interest after a while, so I’ll leave making it an ‘official’ site for now. There seems to be a problem with the news updating when you go forwards, and there’s a timing issue due to my US server, but other than that I haven’t noticed any errors, so please let me know if you spot any. Guest strips gratefully accepted (Nod?), in fact I can create a user so you can upload them yourselves…Let me know.

Cancer Research UK
Macmillan Nurses

Obviously this doesn’t really apply any more. It was written when Nodster comics were being regularly updated. And when we’d just been down to Portsmouth. And when there was a ‘we’. Still, I thought it was funny

There’ve been a couple of fascinating astronomical discoveries over the past couple of days, both of which have warranted special extra editions of the New Scientist newsletter.

Today it was announced that the first dark matter galaxy has been discovered. I was confused by the news at first, as the discovery was made at the UK’s Jodrell Bank observatory. Jodrell Bank is a radio observatory, and dark matter by its very nature doesn’t emit any kind of electromagnetic radiation - it’s only detectable by its gravitational influence. It turns out that Jodrell Bank found large amounts of hydrogen (which does emit radiation) rotating too fast to be explained by the detectable matter in the area. Very interesting. The discovery of a dark matter galaxy helps vindicate existing theories of galaxy formation, which suggest that dark matter was the first to ‘clump’ after the big bang. We’ve still no idea what it is, but we’re beginning to get a grip on what it does.

Secondly, examination of images from Mars Express have shown the existence of a large underground sea around Mars’ equator. It’s not very far below the surface at all. Mars Express will deploy its much-delayed Marsis (Mars Advance Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) probe, specifically designed to look for such deposits, which should provide much more information on the discovery. After the craft was launched, the probe’s designers came to the ESA and said that they were concerned that the probe may rebound on deployment, striking the craft. A year of studies has decided that it’s worth the risk - the probe may well strike the craft but it’s not thought anything will be damaged - so it’ll be deployed this May (I think, must check this). Anyway, I’m wondering whether the discovery of this much water at Mars’ equator has just given mankind a brighter future? There’s still the matter of terraforming the planet etc., but Mars is looking increasingly viable as an inhabitable planet. If we can get people there before we all kill ourselves, we may just make it
Isn’t the universe fascinating!

When I said it was Gandalf-life, I was in fact lying. Ladies may wish to seat themselves before clicking on the previous link - it may be too much for you. Guys too, actually.

Don’t let that sight put you off donating, though! Many thanks to all the splendiferous donatees thus far, but it’s not enough! We need more! Come on, I know you can do it…

It’s freeeeeeeeezing. No snow, but I swear the arctic would re-solifidy if you transported it to my office. Not that there’d be room - it’s quite cluttered in here already.

£50!!! Great blimey griefus.

That’s nearly £40 already! As promised, I shall upload an image of the Current Beard State tomorrow morning. What wonderful people you are! Don’t stop now, though. I’m not putting up any more photos for any less than £50. And the dye’s staying exactly where it is unless I hit £100…