James Handley's blog on eutony.net
Tue Jul 24 2001

Saw Searching for Bobby Fischer over the weekend (On a region 1 DVD – my PS2 chipping worked!!!!). Very enjoyable film, although the friend who lent it to me led me to believe there was a romantic/emotional subtext involving a woman, which I spent the whole film looking for!! Going to watch it again this weekend before sending it back – worth a view though.

A very pleasing little number – Reese Witherspoon is suprisingly good too – but I can’t help thinking that this is a story and script which deserves the stage.
But very engaging and funny, can’t really fault the acting or screenplay. Definitly worth watching if it’s your thing!

A moderate film; not really enough plot or action to satisfy, and only one significant car chase in a film where 50 high-performance cars are stolen!

Thu Jul 19 2001

Meant to say – saw Shrek last week at the cinema (superb film – go see!), and then Gone in 60 Seconds on DVD (a moderate film; not really enough plot or action to satisfy, and only one significant car chase in a film where 50 high-performance cars are stolen!).

Also played my first Playstation 2 game (Sky Odyessy) which is fun, but also very frustrating as it is sort of half a flight simulator, only with the useful aspects of flight-sims missing (such as an artifical horizon on the HUD). Was glad I only rented it (would be worth picking up for a tenner, I guess, but not worth 30 or 40 quid).

Last of all I chipped my PS2 to play all-region DVDs and output them in RGB. The RGB fix works, but haven’t tested the region coding bypass (see channeltechnology.com).

Wed Jul 18 2001

Very exciting week – had my first paper published (at my first computing conference), and found out that one of my patents has been granted!

Tue Jul 10 2001

Well and truly broken my enigma losing streak; although there have been a couple of tricky ones recently, which I didn’t do. Last week’s (1141: Powers of Two) was good, haven’t started this week’s yet.

Summer School two weeks ago, photoshoot this morning, and then away at a conference Monday and Tuesday – what a busy life we lead!

Wed Jul 04 2001

Long time without an update – mainly ‘cos nothing’s happened!

Did find a very good online gaming site; check out itsyourturn.com

Fun, but also very frustrating as it is sort of half a flight simulator, only with the useful aspects of flight-sims missing (such as an artifical horizon on the HUD). Was glad I only rented it (would be worth picking up for a tenner, I guess, but not worth 30 or 40 quid).

Fri Jun 22 2001

Ok Enigma this week – used the computer as a calculator.
I’m away all next week in Guildford at the BVMA/EPSRC Computer Vision Summer School. Should be good.
European Grand Prix this weekend too.

Tue Jun 19 2001

Great Enigma (1139: A Simple Addition) this week – took me probably about 3 hours in the end, but it’s the type I enjoy most.