Category: Journal

The Blue Coat

[[wiki:Character Options]], the dudes who make Doctor Who action figures, [announced](http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4_1165_6492&products_id=50540) that they will be releasing a special, limited edition version of the Sixth Doctor action figure in a blue coat.

[A blue coat!!!]A blue coat!

I cannot express how unbelievably awesome this is.

I’ll try.

Back in the 80s, when [[wiki:Colin Baker]] was tapped to be the Sixth Doctor, the producer at the time, [[wiki:John Nathan-Turner]], was starting to lose his mind. He decided to (a) make Colin Baker’s Doctor a total dick, in contrast to Peter Davison’s nice Doctor and (b) make him dress up in an obnoxious multi-coloured coat that would make Andrew Lloyd Weber wince. Colin Baker’s Doctor is not warmly regarded by very many fans of the original series, and his run was marred by bad writing, unfortunate schedule changes, a hostile BBC management and an eighteen month hiatus where the series’ future was in serious question.

Doctor Who carried on after the show was canceled in 1989 (several years after Colin left). A [[wiki:Big Finish Productions|group of guys]]* who were doing fan-produced audio plays in the 80s started producing licensed Doctor Who plays with the original surviving actors and releasing them on CD around 2000.

Colin Baker, in reprising the Sixth Doctor, wanted to reinvent aspects of his character that he thought were a mistake. His Doctor became more nuanced and less argumentative. He was teamed up with an elderly history professor named Evelyn Smythe, who was less tolerant of his cocky bluster than either Peri or Mel. The pair worked surprisingly well.

Another thing Colin Baker said he’d always wanted to change if he got the chance was his outfit. He said he would’ve preferred basic black himself.

[Real Time] A few years before the the new series came online, BBC Interactive wanted to get some original content for the “Cult” Doctor Who site. They commissioned Big Finish (the audio play guys) to do a play for them, [Real Time](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/realtime/index.shtml), and they provided visuals in the form of still images by [[wiki:Lee Sullivan]]. One of the challenges in doing those images was the Sixth Doctor’s coat. It’s a pain to colour, and in order to save some effort, they wanted to re-use art by flipping images, which you can’t do with a multi-coloured, asymmetric coat. And since no-one beside John Nathan-Turner ever liked Colin’s on-screen outfit, they changed it, for a toned-down blue version of a similar design. The blue coat idea had been used previously on book covers, but this was the first time we got to see it in action, as it were.

The blue coat was referenced in later Big Finish audio adventures, and it’s become their official costume for the stories that take place after [[wiki:Trial of a Time Lord]].

And now there’s going to be a toy to make it even more official. And I’m thrilled.

Letter to the editor

I wrote a [letter to the editor of the Waterloo Region Record](http://news.therecord.com/Opinions/article/483932) this week. It was in response to [an editorial on Wednesday](http://news.therecord.com/article/481864). It was printed today.

I have a hard time being proud of this. I mean, I kind of am, in the sort of way where I’m mentally imagining my mom cutting it out and putting it on the fridge, and then giving me a cookie. I don’t think you ever really shake that. The fact that I was driven to write it makes me kind of sad. The fact that I *had* to write it makes me even sadder.

I’m not going to bore you with the particulars of the issue. I’m just really disheartened lately that people, particularly people in the media, seem less and less inclined to value democracy. I’ve seen plenty of instances lately where it seems to me that journalists are blindly reporting spin from one particular party. Maybe they do it for all parties, but I’m just more *offended* by one party’s spin than the others, so I recognize it more.

I didn’t think they were supposed to do that. I naively thought that they took spin, looked at it and said “Yup, uh huh. I know that’s what you *want* me to say, but let’s dig a little deeper here and find out what’s really going on.” That’s what I want them to do, anyway.

Coincidentally, I happened to be listening to [Paul Kennedy’s talk on the Canadian Voices podcast](http://www.canadianvoices.org/speakers.php?id=56), talking about how politicians don’t seem to need to have ideas anymore:

> …Journalism is responsible, or the media is responsible for a lot of the problems there. Politicians in their superficiality, in their concern for spin, in their focus group methodology, they’re responding to the media, because they want to be in the media. The way one gets elected is to get one’s face on television and one’s voice on the radio and one’s words on the front page of newspapers. And the way one does that is to appeal to journalists. Well, journalists plainly then are looking for exactly what politicians are giving them.
>
> I have been increasingly discouraged in the last two or three federal elections and all of the provincial elections that I have experienced in the last few years and in the way that elections are covered in the media. It’s all about polls. I thought it was about policies. But every day, you pick up the Globe and Mail or you turn on the CBC, television *or* radio, and they’re reporting “Oh, the latest Angus Reid polls say that the Tories have gone up two points and the Liberals have gone down one.” Yeah? What did Stephen Harper say? What did Mr Dion say? I want to know what Stephen Harper thinks about Kyoto and I want him to tell me and he has to justify his opinion, and I have a lot of questions for him if he says what I think he’s going to say.

I want journalism to be better. I don’t care if they report on the horse race so long as they’re actually asking questions that matter too. If people choose to vote for a certain party fully informed of what that party believes in and what their policies are, I will be happy. I may be disappointed that those beliefs and policies are at odds with mine and the ones I favour, but I’ll still be happy that democracy works the way it’s supposed to.

Democracy can’t work when the people are deliberately lied to, and the people who are charged in our society with uncovering truth can’t be bothered anymore.

[The vast majority of Canadians don’t even know how their own democracy works](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1yhp-_x7A). And if the media isn’t going to tell them, I guess it’s down to people like me. Me. I resent being put in this position. This isn’t what I want to be. I don’t consider myself a genius expert here. I don’t want to be, and I’m not. I just paid attention in goddamned grade 10 history class.

WWBA and stuff

My poor, neglected blog.

Don’t have time for a proper update, but for ages I’ve been meaning to point out that I’m now a contributor to the [Waterloo Wellington Bloggers’ Association](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/) group blog. I haven’t figured out how or if I’m going to do cross-posts, but I’ve posted a few things about local stuff.

I’ve also been using Twitter a lot more lately, so [you can read that if you want more of an insight into what’s going on in my head at any given moment](http://twitter.com/flying_squirrel)…

Dabbling in distributed version control

The new workplace uses Subversion for version control. That’s cool. I know Subversion. It works, and it’s well-supported everywhere.

For ages, though, I’ve been wanting to try out distributed version control systems, but except for putting a few personal projects (which no one else is working on, defeating much of the purpose) in git, I haven’t had the chance. Now I do! Support for pushing to Subversion repositories is almost a requirement to get a new DVCS off the ground.

Work is in C# in Visual Studio on Windows. Supporting those things is helpful too.

Choices come down to [Git](http://git-scm.com/), [Mercurial](http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/) (hg) and [Bazaar](http://bazaar-vcs.org/) (bzr):

### Git ###

Linus Torvalds coded this up on a weekend to deal with the Linux kernel source. With lots of other projects signing on, it looks like it might win as the standard on Linux at least…

##### Advantages ####

* I’ve started using it for stuff on Linux.
* Fast and space-efficient.
* A friend has been using it for a while, and I’d like to work with him on stuff one of these days.

##### Disadvantages #####

* Subversion integration doesn’t work in the latest Windows release.

### Mercurial ###

I actually know very little about it. [Joel](http://www.joelonsoftware.com) says it’s what they use at FogCreek…

##### Advantages #####

* Good Windows support.
* Most mature [Visual Studio integration](http://sharesource.org/project/visualhg/wiki/) (not saying much).

##### Disadvantages #####

* I find the terminology a bit odd…
* Subversion support is [confusing and/or alpha-ish](http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/WorkingWithSubversion).

### Bazaar ###

Popularized by the Ubuntu project, bzr seems less user-hostile than the others. I’m only really looking into it seriously now.

##### Advantages #####

* I like Ubuntu and it’s made by the same guys.
* Canonical actually cares about usability.
* Subversion support is simple and well-integrated.
* Windows support is good.
* Dedicated to inter-operating with other systems.

##### Disadvantages #####

* No Visual Studio support (yet).

So none give me exactly what I want. I think bzr is the closest, though.

As an aside, the [Ankh SVN 2.0](http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/2008/07/ankhsvn-20-fina.html) Visual Studio integration is actually really good. A little rough around the edges, but still surprisingly good. I’m kinda sad I didn’t hear about it back when it came out in July. It would’ve made my life a lot simpler.

A good Visual Studio integration is the one thing that’s holding me back from diving straight into bzr and using it for work. I’m debating whether automatically tracking adds, drops and moves trumps being about to work on my own branch without having to tell the server about it.

2008 in review

Well, 2008 was certainly interesting. Let’s do a quick year in review. This was my life, as seen through the blog:

January: [My server was down](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/01/21/were-back/).
February: [I went looking for MP3 players](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/02/21/what-i-want-from-a-portable-audio-device/).
March: Not much, but I [went home for Easter](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/03/13/toronto-stop-over/) and [Ellen is awesome](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/03/23/making-music/).
April: I finally got fed up and [canceled my gym membership](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/04/12/the-gym-conclusion/).
May: [Anime North](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/05/23/live-from-anime-north-day-1/).
June: I discovered I [no longer had a doctor](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/06/19/apparently-i-dont-have-a-doctor/).
July: [Polaris](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/07/12/polaris-day-1/).
August: [Nothing, apparently](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/09/06/my-poor-neglected-blog/).
September: [An election](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/09/08/ugh-election/) and [economic angst](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/09/30/frustrating/).
October: [I lose my job](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/10/17/new-opportunites/).
November: job searching (which I don’t talk about), [Barcamp](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/11/23/barcamp-waterloo/), [home improvement](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/11/29/good-bye-ron/), [Stratford](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/11/09/emilia-galotti-and-romeo-and-juliet/) and [Wiki Links](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/11/03/functional-spec-wiki-links-wordpress-plug-in/). I had a bit more spare time…
December: I start a new job (which I also haven’t talked about yet) and [Christmas](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2008/12/26/merry-christmas-one-and-all/).

It makes me realize that most of the really significant stuff in my life doesn’t show up in the blog explicitly. It’s there. *I* see it. But only because I know what it is, and I can read between the lines. I suppose it’s kind of unfair that you can’t. But we’re all going to have to learn to live with that.

By far the most significant thing, of course, was losing my job. No small thing, that. If nothing else, it did settle a long-standing argument I’d been having with myself about whether I’d stayed at one place too long and should have moved on. I think in future I’ll be more cognizant of the signs and portents that I could kind of see then but are glaringly obvious now.

Those six weeks of joblessness have given me a fresh perspective on my life and my career. This is actually a good thing. I feel like I have much more of a direction now. I’m not entirely sure of the destination, but there’s more purpose to the journey.

I’m now working for a fairly small company in Kitchener named [Miovision](http://www.miovision.com/). It’s fascinating, and I can see a lot of challenge and opportunities there. It’s a slightly riskier move than a lot of places I could have settled on, but I think whichever way it goes, I’m better off with something like this than going for the safer option.

2008 also made it abundantly clear what a fantastic person Ellen is and how lucky I am to have her in my life. Without getting all mushy, she was the best part of every part of the year, and she single-handedly turned 2008 from what should have been a really crappy year into something really good. She’s my lovely alchemist.