Peter Howard is Wintermute, mythologist

Updates

28April2005 [directLink] [personal]

various updates, in no particular order:

• Spain photos are up - Bilbao and Pamplona/SanSebastian albums
• got feedback on UTS First Impressions assignment, didn’t do too well, seems impressions wasn’t actually what they wanted… But will have it up here soon as I was pretty happy with it
• Booked my return flight - I leave France 20/01/06, arrive in Sydney the following evening… Heard that I’ve gotta check-in 3 hours early tho (confirm this!) meaning I’d have to spend at least a night in Paris before I leave — in a hotel if I have money, on the street if I don’t ;-)
• Am working on adding a tribes/links feature down the sidebar, but haven’t figured out how to duplicate ColdFusion’s ‘query of queries’ in PHP, so may have to do it the long way…
• was approved for ICS OS-HELP loan for semester one, means I can now get through most of the year alive… also hoping for one for 2nd semester which would set me up nicely
• Am wondering about using mod_rewrite to make this site look static — only reason to do so would be to get Google indexing it properly… Must explore further

And that’s about it for now…

10 days in Euskadi

26April2005 [directLink] [france]

Spent 10 days in northern Spain during the uni break - flew in and out of Bilbao… Spent a few nights with friends there and in Pamplona, both of which are in Euskadi, although the actual ‘Basque Country’ is only three (of five) regions, of which Navarra (où est Pamplona) is not one… Confusing enough? Seems the Spanish government only officially recognise the three provinces as Euskadi, but Navarra to the East and an area of the SW of France are also part of the traditional Euskadi region… The Basques themselves confuse it further, because they tend to admit that ‘Euskadi’ = ‘Pais Vasco’, while using a map of the entire region in their protest imagery…

Learnt a remarkable amount of Spanish for only 10 days too - my old school Spanish returned enough that I could understand what ppl were saying and order coffees and pintxos (tapas), which was enough really… The craziest was sitting round the table with James and Julia Burfitt and some of their Spanish friends - between us we could speak Spanish, English and French, though Spanish was the most common tongue, so when we got going we could get three languages at once (which I’ve decided I love, so I’ll have to pick up my Spanish as well when I return from France!)

Bilbao is beautiful but in an ‘ugly’ way (or should that be the other way around?) Much of it is old and rundown, with bits and pieces tacked together all over the place… Plus it was a filmmaker’s heaven, with so many different environments in such a small place (the whole city made me want to return and shoot a film!)… Took lots of photos

Also went down the coast one day, visited Mundaka, a surf-spot, and San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, a little chapel built on an offshore mountain-thing (or was it an island connected by land bridge?)

Bussed it to Pamplona (more photos) Sunday afternoon (after trying mass in Spanish, and finding I could follow a similar amount to masses in French!)… Liz met me at the bus station and we went back to the apartment she shares with three local girls (well, from the region anyway) — she’s doing the same program I am through UTS, and in all I was extremely jealous… Went out Sunday night for pintxos and had some very fancy creations as they were wrapping up a week-long pintxos-fest… Spent the next few days exploring the town, sampling the food, shopping, eating, plus a day-trip to San Sebastian which was beautiful…

Aside from the rain most mornings, and a hail-storm one afternoon (I thought it was supposed to be spring!) was pretty amazing… And the whole region looked really beautiful (mountains, forests, atlantic coast, &c)

God's Rottweiler

26April2005 [directLink] [myth]

got to a point where i’ve got to say something bout Benny XVI (Seize)… In short, I think it’s excellent that we have someone “strong” in charge. Should qualify that, as I’ve no doubts about JPII’s leadership… But for the last few years ppl (media/liberals &c) have been able to look at JP2 and say “he’s just a kind/gentle old man” (generally falling for the US-president-style ‘the Church is One Man’, and identifying that ‘One Man’ incorrectly). Now however, they see Ratzinger, a guy who doesn’t seem to have any qualms about hitting where it hurts. Ppl may even start to realise that it’s the Church that decides things, not simply the dude in charge…

Couple interesting articles/blog entries:
“Why I don’t want to be a priest” :: some interesting notes on the women’s ordination issue, plus she talks about how the Church can’t just go changing dogma…
And The Pope is Still Catholic :: kind of funny really, again about how the Church can’t go changing things according to the latest polls

In short, the Catholic Church is Not a Democracy… We’re supposed to examine what the Church says on an issue, and if it doesn’t match up with what we thought, we find out why, we can’t just assume that with 2000 years of Tradition and the guidance of the Spirit they got it wrong (and if you don’t believe in those ur missing the point of the Catholic Church)

In the Public Interests of Whom?

11April2005 [directLink] [myth]

funny watching the Austn media suddenly realise (5 months after the fact) that the Libs lied (or maybe just bent the truth) before the elections… As ridiculous as when it took an invasion to realise that Iraq really didn’t have WMDs

There were plenty people pointing out during the election that interest rates were independent of govt policies; that the stats were fudged, &c… But the simple fact is that the media weren’t interested! And now that Latham’s out of the way and Labor has collapsed into irrelevance again, the media can get back to bashing the Libs by digging up old news… Beazley’s no help of course with his digging up the past, but I don’t suppose he has anything better to do with his time…

New Host!

08April2005 [directLink] [personal]

Got a new webhost… You shouldn’t notice the difference though - for now the ‘new’ wintermute.com.au site is still loading the subsectioned home.swiftdsl.com.au/~wintermute like the old one did… In a cpl days the new DNS record will have propagated (meaning the entire internet knows where to find me) and I’ll move everything properly over to wintermute.com.au - the best part of this is that google will find me properly…

Hosted with dreamhost.com, which has to be better than a free ISP site, gives me almost 8GB of webspace, allows for hosting 15 separate domains, hundreds of emails…. Lots of room to move and experiment.

I’ve also bought the domain mutedmedia.com (which is just a copy of wintermute for now), there’s a cpl others I have my eyes on

And finally, I’ve been scouring the site making it all conform to web standards - the CSS is definitely standard, and the XHTML framework is standard; best of all it works in Firefox AND IE!

There still might be a couple ?bits posts that aren’t standard yet… Gonna have to write a script that explores the database for errors…

UPDATE: Migration is now complete. The main difference you’ll see is that the address bar changes when you follow links - before it was hidden within the frame. Things should keep working the same as before though; let me know if anything appears broken…

Paris, Enfin!

05April2005 [directLink] [france]

Finally went into Paris! It was the first Sunday of the month, so… free museums! Visited the Louvre (or, one floor of one wing, and even it we rushed through — almost three hours!), the Centre Pompidou (the modern art museum), and saw the Moulin Rouge. Took lots of photos at the Louvre, and a cpl others elsewhere… Check out the photos here

The Louvre is amazing; could easily spend all year there… We spent some time going through Napoleon’s Apartments (beautiful!) and the Restoration, then hurried through Renaissance… And of course the obligatory fly-by of the Mona Lisa. (Hilarious how packed that area was compared to the rest of the museum!)

After a lunch break we headed to Pompidou - it’s pretty big, so we skimmed through the older stuff (1900-1961) - cubism, surrealism, &c… Lots of beautiful work

Dropped by to get a photo of the Moulin Rouge, but it’s in a seedy part of town these days and not very attractive… Then we caught up with one of Tiara’s friends who lives in Paris; he took us to a park with a cpl other friends. The park was out on the west (still city, but near the Peripherie) and was packed full of locals enjoying the sun. Seemed really odd until Tiara pointed out the beaches in Australia are the same. We walked back to Gare de l’Est - through some beautiful unseen parts of Paris (ie, where people actually live)

Check out the Paris photos, and as well, I added a few more to the ‘Around Town’ album

England, A Holiday in Two Parts

04April2005 [directLink] [france]

I haven’t really said much about my cpl trips to England, so thought I’d get some things down here… I’ve got photos from the first trip in my albums on here, so u can get a complete multi-media experience, with high-technology words and images (only u’ve gotta follow the links back and forth urself, still working on the beaming things straight to your head)

England, Holiday the First (12th-19thFeb)

We got a sudden week off only 1.5 wks into classes, so bought a last minute ticket to England (love being able to walk in and say ‘I want to go to England tomorrow morning’!) Managed to give Jenni a cpl days notice, and when she replied that she had a room ready with them in Salisbury I figured I was committed… Was great to see the cousins, as I hadn’t seen them in at least 3 or 4 years, and had hardly seen them in the previous 10 years anyway. Plus was my first trip to England with lots of things to see

Had planned to take Sunday off, but the family was heading north, and dropped me off at Oxford (photos) on the way through. Brilliant opportunity, as I’d really wanted to see it but had been realistic and had it set as a low priority. Got hooked in the University Museum and the attached Pitts River; all natural history and anthropology. From there I took it slow, exploring the old winding and hidden streets, stumbling across amazing buildings… Then walked further out around a bunch of meadows and parks, getting more and more lost and magically ending up in exactly the right place.

Monday was quieter (ie, not travelling as far, but still plenty walking); Jenni dropped me off at Old Sarum (photos) (which is only a few minutes drive from their place). Ancient hill fort that’s got layers of history on it - various people have built their own forts, towns &c - until the people decided to move the Cathedral down into the valley, founding New Sarum… The ruins are pretty nondescript now, but the ancient earthworks have survived; walking round the hill really gave an impression of why it would have been used as a defensive position… Afterwards, walked down to New Sarum, checked out the Cathedral, more amazing history (read, old dead folks…).

Tuesday to Bath (photos); the Roman Baths are compulsory, plus checked the church -slash- what was left of the old Norman abbey (not much), and, cos it didn’t cost much extra, the Costume Museum. The Baths were fascinating but dreadfully commercialised - they had an audio tour that would give you info about each location/view/ruin, but it too often strayed into useless speculation (of the ‘attract people with sex and violence’ kind that many documentaries deal in nowadays). My interest in Roman Britain and their strange mythology got me through unscathed… The Costume Museum was disappointingly small - a bunch of old (Georgian and Victorian from memory) dresses and suit-things, which were pretty fascinating, but they say they have thousands more in storage, and well, after going to the LOTR exhibition back in January, amazing costumes just aren’t so amazing.

Wednesday local again: Stonehenge (photos). I spent a cpl hours there, then another cpl walking around the area - did a walk through various farms, checking out scattered Barrows and Woodhenge as well. The thing that really struck me was that, to a peoples who went everywhere on foot, Stonehenge would have been visible for miles, and would always be present in their peripheral vision, and thus in their consciousness. It’s difficult for modern architecture to have that kind of affect!

Thursday to London (photos)… Had planned out a list of basics I wanted to see; I’d start at either the Tower or the Houses of Parliament and work my way along the Thames to the other… Went to the Tower first as I’d been warned it could take time - it did, and I hardly made it halfway across London in the day. The Tower was pretty fascinating as it features heavily in the latest Neal Stephenson trilogy I’d been reading; on top of that there were a cpl execution sites, and the cell St Philip Howard (also my Confirmation Saint) was held in; got a photo of his ‘Arundell’ signature carved into the wall. Moved on, reached the Monument - where the Fire of London in 1666 was started, got a photo but didn’t think I had time to climb it. Then walked along the Thames, eventually turned a corner and noticed St Paul’s looming out of the fog (if anyone recently can come close to what Stonehenge and some of the medieval Cathedrals did, it was Christopher Wren). Didn’t go in though as I wasn’t up for spending any more money, and the place freaked me out a little anyway… (that’s a complicated story I’ll have to save for another time). Next to Temple - the old Templar’s compound; walked around Inner Temple, went into the old Chapel, discovered (I should have guessed!) that it played a role in the Da Vinci Code, and so many of the tourists there came in, looked at one particular spot, and walked out again!

England, Holiday the Second (23rd-29thMar)

Well, no photos of this holiday, and the description’s not quite so long (sure you’re all heaving sighs of relief, if indeed you’ve read this far). This was a simple family break, funded by Grandma, Grandpa and Maryann, who were out from Australia. Brilliant way to spend Easter… We went to the Saturday vigil mass for Easter (followed by feasting cos Lent is over!). Hadn’t done that mass before, so a little difficult, but the fact that it was a bit of a novelty and that it was a relatively short one (all over in 1.5hrs, even the priest was surprised) got me through without a problem. Comes complete with 7 readings, although I think we only got 5 - interesting purely in mythological terms (all the readings go through the prophecies and tales foretelling Christ’s sacrifice), and amazing spiritual affect.

Easter Sunday lunch we crammed 14 people around the table; more English food; had brought along a local (Remois) champagne, so we opened it up; ate deserts and chocolate for hours…

England, Holiday the Third (coming late June…?)

Downloading Movies is…

02April2005 [directLink] [film]

Installed Limewire and been downloading lots of anime lately… (discovered a pretty amazing series called Wolf’s Rain, currently downloading Ep11 of 30)

And got to thinking… I want to make movies afterall, and I’d rather be able to make a living from them rather than have people downloading them for free… But it’s not really that simple. In the case of anime, there’s been a subculture sharing subtitled anime episodes for years, because they’re otherwise very hard to come by outside Japan… But if I make independent movies (read, niche audiences), I DO want fans to share my work - that’s better than having my work languish unseen, and the Net enables me to share work with people anywhere, rather than having to find a big enough group in any one place…

So I’m wondering about making films/webmedia pieces, &c, and releasing them freely on the net… Then the money-making part would come from sponsorship, which could take two forms: 1) the old patronage system, where someone sponsors a work of art; or 2) exclusive works for corporations

All very idealistic, but still a step closer to reality than what the movie and music industries are attempting to cling on to.

L'Invasion du Manga

02April2005 [directLink] [france]

Today in class we went through an article on the popularity of Manga in France. (I must admit, I was surprised - the comics sections and stores round here are massive!). They were talking about how its really picked up in the last couple of years (like, the number of manga comics released doubled in 2 years!). But they used the phrase “the invasion of Manga”, which struck me as a little disturbing… It’s the kind of phrase that gets used when you want to subtly hint at ‘asian-invasion’ ideas - the idea of the invasion of asian comics struck me as a very racist image - but then, the French are horribly racist without really knowing it…

They also took the typical French stance - criticising it because it’s churned out faster than ‘franco-belge’ comics (so obviously of a lesser quality), worrying that kids were reading too much Manga instead of good old-fashioned Franco-Belge, which they (ridiculously) claimed was the child of literature and painting, while Manga is the child of cinema (by which of course, they mean contemporary action stuff)

And of course, even that point is wrong - contemporary action cinema is the child of Manga (through Anime)!