djm's scribble

Hacking
I have been a little busy working on the imminent 3.7p1 release of OpenSSH. As always, not everything I’d like to be in there made it in time, but a lot of good things did. Please grab a snapshot and help test it. Some other software of mine (pfflowd) has also been added to OpenBSD’s “ports” collection. As such, it will be on the official OpenBSD 3.4 CD (which everyone remotely involved with Internet Security should purchase IMBO).

Life
Good, except for the passing of my Wife’s uncle - who managed to overfill his funeral church (at age 80).

Politics
I was somewhat moved by a speech by Paul Keating (former Prime Minister of Australia). I thought that Keating was an arrogant man whose manner increased the suffering felt by Australians during some very difficult economic times. I voted (my first in a federal election) accordingly. I also feel that he has been since unfairly villified as a source of the same economic trouble and that the current government has taken great care to appropriate credit for the unpopular reforms that helped introduce (e.g. the floating of the Australian dollar). His speech did resonate with me - our current government has our nation rehashing tired old debates (multiculturalism, immigration, public investment vs private ownership) and doing their best to stop new ones emerging. It would be a genuine addition to the poliical debate in this country if someone from the conservative side of politics could make as eloquent and passionate a criticism in reply. Windshuttle, Henderson, et al are simply not up to the intellectual task. Perhaps Manne could, if he were still on their “side”. Keating’s comments on “baseness” in our culture were interesting (given the shameful Tampa debacle of the last election), reminding me a bit of Cicero’s famous “Traitor” speech.

More generally, I am struggling to develop a personal political philosophy. All the great canned political philosophies (Communism, Capitalism, Libertarianism, Anarchism, etc.) appear to rest on deep assumptions as to the precedence accorded to values and actors in the body politic and no one system seems to quit agree with mine. This may be because my values themselves are inconsistent, but they may merely be different. I aspire to the incisive clarity and consistence displayed by the likes of Orwell (here I go again…), but I struggle to reconcile abstract political philosophy against practical considerations. This is probably a result of my poor education in this area.

Movie - Dersu Uzala
This was a Akira Kurosawa’s retelling of Vladimir Arseniev’s diaries of his exploration and relationship with the indigene Dersu Uzala. Through their travels, Kurosawa reflects on themes of friendship, manhood, academic vs practical knowledge and the relationship between man and the environment. Its pace is slow, even by Kurosawa’s standards, but parts are jarringly beautiful. The “Walpurgis night” scene where Dersu is introduced must have inspired every “scary forest” depiction since (including, I suspect, those in The Simpsons). Kurosawa doesn’t besaint either side on the debates touched on in the film, though he predictably ignores women (fortunately he refrains from actively villifying them, as he often did in his Shakespeare-inspired films). Overall 8.1/10 - not Kurosawa’s best, but well worth it.

Movie - Terminator 3
This was much better than I expected, but still rather frustrating. There were many opportunities in the plot for the film to take on some subtextual strength (e.g. why was Judgement Day inevitable?) or to flesh out the characters (who appear to be two dimensional attempts at emulating the archetypical “Flawed Hero” popularised by comic books). Instead, the film spends its time fetishing the Terminatrix’s exploits (pardon the pun). I’ll probably watch this again on DVD when it comes out (rather than crappy Thai-vision VCD I saw it on), maybe the decent looking action sequences will compensate. 6.5/10 - at least it made fun of itself.

Movie - Finding Nemo
I saw this during daylight hours with no shame, thanks to the assistance of an obliging five year old niece. Finding Nemo was good fun, with a lot of very funny gags along the way - the writers obviously pitched a lot of the writing at the inevitable adult audience, to good effect. Not having seen any previews, I didn’t realise that the film was set in (under?) Australia and was thus unprepared for the consequent overdone accents. Fortunately these did not detract from the film much. The pacing of the story was good, but it lost it a little toward the end where Dory’s character became more annoying. The seagulls looked and acted in a way strangely familiar to lovers of Aardman’s animations (”Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run”). Being oestensibly a kid’s movie, I was pretty pleased with the story’s overall moral framework, which some would invariably label “politically correct” if it was presented in a less subtle form. I was pleasantly suprised that the writers did not make the ending too happy and complete, choosing instead to leave the film’s initial sorrow intact (forgive my vagueness, I don’t want to give anything away). Visually, the graphics did not “wow” me as much as previous Pixar films, but this may be a sign that the medium is becoming mature. I did notice some very cool technical tricks, especially the movement of the anenomies and flocking behaviour of the fish. Someone must have done a fair bit of math on these two details alone. 8.5/10 - well worth it.

Movie - 28 days later
One might expect an Englishman to do a good survival horror movie, as the genre was exemplified in “Day of the Triffids” (which scared the hell out of me as a kid, along with the Daleks). 28 days later bears more than a passing resembelance to this classic. The first third of the film is excellent, especially the deserted London. Unfortunately, the middle 1/4 of the film is a little boring and doesn’t add much to the whole. The climax is good and the Danny Boyle gives the film enough subtext to make it worth a little ongoing consideration. 7.8/10 - but then, I do like Zombie films.

Misc
Strange, distrubing stuff from my Sister’s blog.