Warning: possible spoilers ahead.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn’t as good as classic Indy, that’s for sure, and it does rather ruin the previously well-rounded ending to the series. The first thing that strikes is that Harrison Ford really is a lot older now. He has the charisma to pull the character off, and that counts a lot, but when it comes to the action sequences it really shows that the reactions and flexibility of old simply aren’t there any more.

One thing that really seems to have griped a lot of fans is the realism factor. I imagine this partly comes since a lot of us just aren’t the youngsters we were when we first saw Indy. The original Raiders of the Lost Ark was released back in 1981, so even people currently in their 40s may have only been young teenagers when they first saw that absurdly clad archaeologist creating mayhem in the desert. That similar loss of magic no doubt dispelled a lot of Star Wars fans’ hopes when the prequel trilogy was released. Yet where the recent Star Wars trilogy had a point—the episodes were at that time unmade and the story untold—The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull smacks much more of a cash-in. This financial incentive is another criticism many film-goers have, but making money is the point of most movies, so why should this Indy adventure be treated any differently. There were a number of scenes in the film which were blatantly unrealistic, but the previous films contained as many obvious impossibilities that were simply part of the magic of Indy. Jumping out of an airplane and sledging down the Himalayas in a dingy, sneaking onto a German submarine from the open sea (exactly where would you hide?), or diving under a burning lake of petrol are all part of an average day in the life of Indiana Jones.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull certainly delivers on the entertainment aspects, with so much happening in its 124 minute runtime that you barely have time to take it all in. The storyline is perhaps a little hit and miss, and many have remarked that they weren’t particularly impressed with the extra terrestrial aspect (no doubt more into the religious mysticism of the other films) though the oodles of action knitted the scenes together well enough. Shia LaBoef probably deserves an award for the least annoying new character of recent years. If there are future films planned it seems clear that LaBoef’s role in this film was fleshed out to provide a possible successor to the ageing Harrison Ford. The latter’s age is humourously dealt with, with Indy playing a far more conservative role in his older years, often times pointing out the dangers to his more impetuous companions. The film really grips its 1950s environment, something the other films largely glossed over, from the Fonzi-like character of LaBoef, to the nuclear tests and the cafe brawl set to the tune of Shake, Rattle & Roll. The music of course is first rate, which is little else we come to expect from John Williams, though as he himself admits, getting back to working on an Indiana Jones film was like wearing an old pair of gloves (i.e. he didn’t have to work too hard at it). It was also rather nice to hear some authentic Russian in a film for a change instead of the usual hashed attempts—and all credit to Cate Blanchett for trying.

There were however plenty of poor elements to the film. The promised CGI rebate wasn’t forthcoming, with many scenes obviously touched up and others overly reliant on the green screen. The ants scene in particular was virtual plagiarism from The Mummy. Mutt’s Tarzan-esque swinging through the jungle was more than a little on the childish side, and whoever dreamt up the atomic blast scene was clearly enjoying some illegal substance or other, although the humour just about made up for it. The film also suffered from a deluge of poor supporting characters. Sullah stand-in character ‘Mac’ turned out to be more of a pointless confusion than anything else, given that he revealed himself to be a mole almost from the off (which the FBI confirmed), the unnecessary double-agent shenanigans did little to disguise the fact that he was the obligatory “moral death” character (see Elsa Schneider in The Last Crusade or perhaps Rene Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark). Marion Ravenwood’s return might tie up some loose ends but her demeanour made the whole jaunt down the Amazon seem more like a family vacation than a brutal race against time. In fact very little in the film smacked of danger, perhaps the key reason that the film really failed to live up to its predecessors. At no point did Indy ever look to be in any real trouble, even as a guest of the villain Irina Spalko. Whilst the Nazis had to be transplanted by the Soviets for reasons of chronology, the end result was a much more carnival atmosphere to the fight against evil and life and death situations of the earlier series.

Ultimately, your reaction to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull depends mostly on your attitude and expectations. If you hope that this latest offering will enable you to relive those childhood memories and the magic of the earlier films, then you will only be disappointed to find that time has changed us no less than it has changed Indy. On its own merits, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull delivers as an action movie but perhaps too much for its own good. Had the action been toned down a little and made more believable, and the script toughened up to make us will Indy to the finishing line (instead of merely willing it to finish) then the film would have been deserving of the box office receipts it will no doubt take. Harrison Ford deserves all the credit for reprising the role, and his on-screen charisma makes the film immensely more watchable than its constituent parts alone. It’s definitely Indy, but not as we knew him.

The release of Team Fortress 2 came as something of a surprise, after so little news about its development, with virtually nothing concrete after the initial revelations in 1999. The finished version bears absolutely no relation to those initial screenshots, instead maintaining much stronger links to the original modification Team Fortress Classic, with a strong glossy coat of The Incredibles style graphics and an uncut, Columbian-strength injection of humour.

The game relies strongly on teamplay, and one of the greatest assets in Team Fortress’ arsenal is the balancing act Valve have worked between the classes. Many games with far fewer variables don’t manage to create as level a playing field as this. With nine different classes to play that was no easy feat, with each having different weapons, movement speeds, skills and strengths. That’s not to say it’s perfect—some classes enjoy obvious advantages with very few setbacks—but each one has its uses, and with some practice can be used to great effect. Some require a lot more fiddling and practice to master than the others, for example spying can be a deadly and irritating activity in the hands of those with an innate love of hide and seek. For those with an addiction to pressing ‘W’, however, it turns into more of a kamikaze class than anything of any particular use to the team. By contrast the role of sniper is much more intuitive, which as Yahtzee so brilliantly put it is reduced to the classic point-and-click adventure game style of “use gun on man.”

photo credit: Sam Kindler

And teamplay is well featured in Team Fortress 2. Whilst other games in Valve’s arsenal purport to rely on the teamplay element, there are annoying aspects of these that their latest game has thankfully worked to eliminate. The classic public server ‘tactic’ of many a Counter-Strike: Source player, that of hanging behind a doorway as your teammates are shot to ribbons, before charging in guns blazing to finish off the softened up enemies who are now busy reloading to claim all the glory simply doesn’t find a place in Team Fortress 2. This partly results from the fact that players can ‘assist’ in killing enemies (and score points for doing so). Similarly the Medic class is poorly armed and weak when alone, but when backing up other classes automatically scores points for kill assists, and extra points for healing injured players, extra incentive for Medics to heal all of their teammates rather than follow the top scoring player around like a dog on a leash. The Engineer meanwhile finds a supporting role and scores points through building well placed sentry guns and teleporters, whilst to some extent relying on other teammates in dealing with spies attempting to destroy his buildings.

Another attribute of the teamplay incentive lies in the nature of defeat. The defeated team finds itself unable to shoot, reduced to a crawl, and opens up all of their safe zones (i.e. respawn points) to the enemy, leaving their enemies free to ritually hunt them down and massacre them. In comparison public server gamers in Counter-Strike: Source are free to ignore teamplay objectives and look after their own skins, and are even able to go ‘frag hunting’ for some seconds after their team has lost the round. Day of Defeat: Source takes a middle ground between the two, with losing players unable to fire, but still able to move as normal and make use of the safety of their spawns, and it would be nice if those aspects could be made more like those in Team Fortress 2 as an encouragement to teamplay and a focus on objectives.

photo credit: roBurky

One of the refreshing features of Team Fortress 2 is the great injection of humour. Released alongside the ravishingly humourous Portal, it is clear that Valve’s intentions with The Orange Box were to create a selection of games intended to make us laugh and enjoy gaming, rather than take it too seriously. The cartoonesque graphics provide a beautiful setting to the gaming mayhem, and whilst slightly limited in scope, the richness of the characters more than makes up for this. Each of the nine classes has a particular persona representing one or other stereotype. The Demoman is played by a black, Scottish cyclops, the Heavy by a simple Russian obsessed with his gun, and the Soldier a madcap American with more than a passing resemblance to George C. Scott’s Patton. Each has a large number of one liners that pop up during the game, such as the Sniper, after shooting someone in the head saying “Thanks for standin’ still, wanker!” or the Heavy on hearing a dispenser being built exclaiming “I hear someone building diaper changing station!” Valve have created cute introductory videos for some of the classes, and of course the community have made many more. (Especially worth checking out the gorgeous Ignis Solus from Lit Fuse Films.)

photo credit: Bryan Sutter

A contentious issue that many criticise and drives some players to distraction is the inclusion of ‘criticals’. These essentially give weapons a random chance to do triple the amount of damage normally dealt. This is often enough to kill a player outright, and can lead to many a frustrating situation where an evenly staged fight is determined by the random number generator. It’s almost akin to a gunfight in the wild west in which you suddenly find your gun was replaced with a water pistol. Whilst this can make many a pitched battle appear to be decided on a dice roll, in my opinion that element of luck means the game is ultimately more playable for players of different skill levels. A decent player in a competent team (and with a decent medic to back him up) could probably play many a map without dying, particularly if he outclassed his opponents. The random criticals to a large extent negate such domination, and enable poorly skilled players to have a chance to enjoy the game to a greater extent. However, the system is not without its problems. Given the variety between the classes, the critical hits manifest themselves in different ways: Spies and Snipers benefit from non-random critical hits from backstabs and headshots respectively, Medics can do ‘critical healing’, Engineers’ buildings are resistant to critical shots (consolation for the fact that their sentries never fire criticals) etc. However, whilst Soldiers and Demomen can fire off critical shots and stand a fair chance of the explosion killing someone or causing major damage without hitting anyone in particular, classes like the Pyro in particular have little chance of doing mass damage with their critical flame except on more compact maps. The biggest gripe I have with that system, however, is the manner in which the random nature of critical shots can be affected by a player’s performance. In particular, as this forum post seems to demonstrate, players are rewarded with a higher percentage of critical shots for a limited time, the more damage they do. Of course since the better players tend to deal the most damage, this leads to a runaway effect, as they fire more criticals, dealing more damage, leading to yet more criticals. In defence of my previous statement I would consider a far better employment of that critical ramping to work in favour of those dealing the least damage, or being killed more times consecutively, or dominated by more players etc.

photo credit: Bryan Sutter

One of the aspects of Team Fortress 2 that prompted this post was the recent release of the Medic Achievements pack. The game originally came with a number of fun achievements for players to unlock whilst playing, such as killing a certain number of people without dying, healing a certain number of health points, setting a certain number of people on fire and so on. With the latest addition, Valve clearly intended to cater to the more long-term gamers for whom the initial Medic achievement of 25000 healing points wasn’t challenge enough. By comparison, the new achievements included one for a million healing points, together with a much greater variety of odd rituals to perform. Unfortunately some do tend to detract from the gameplay and initially led to whole servers of medics running around attempting to gain one achievement or another, hopefully an ailment that will be avoided should future achievement packs be released simultaneously. The achievements have been given some purpose through the introduction of unlockable weapons, which slightly alter those the Medic is already equipped with. The changes are small enough that the unlocked weapons do little to alter the game’s balance, though add a further bit of variety and some small advantages. Given the length of time the Medic Achievement pack took to be released it is questionable whether Valve will ever finish what they’ve started, and indeed how they can introduce new weapons to the other classes without balancing issues, though that remains to be seen. In the recently announced update to Day of Defeat: Source, a similar set of achievements have been touted, though hopefully the unlockable weapons will be left to the Team Fortress 2 crowd.

Another feature that made the crossover to the new Day of Defeat: Source Beta is the so-called freezecam which leaves the player a freeze frame shot of the player who killed them. In Team Fortress 2, this is often humorously supplemented by little signs pointing to various giblets littered around the frame with indications such as “Here’s a little bit of you!” and “Another piece.” Whilst this feature adds to the ethos of Team Fortress 2, it could certainly prove to alter the game dynamics in Day of Defeat: Source, which already has the camera aim towards the killer on dying, but would not reveal a hidden sniper to the same extent that the zoomed in freeze cam does. However, it would be nice if that feature could be expanded, in a similar vein to the “Killcam” found in Call of Duty games—a five second replay of the killer’s last movements—a very nice way of seeing how you died, and indeed a great aid to identifying cheaters.

Interesting though is the reaction of many regular Day of Defeat: Source players to the update news. Many have complained about the changes, claiming that it will only ruin the game dynamics, or that the game is becoming too much like Team Fortress 2. It appears to be a rather typical reaction to gamers who become accustomed to their particular niche and fear any changes that would upset their familiar skulking grounds. However as far as I can see, the changes bring welcome freshness to a game that was otherwise on the gradual decline, and indicates that Valve are committed to bringing fresh content and updated engine performance to games in their portfolio even a number of years after their release. Certainly welcome news, given that the touted changes are probably unlikely to improve sales figures in any significant way, beyond the reassuring knowledge that gamers may feel from knowing that the developer hasn’t given up on the game.

Overall Valve really pulled off something brilliant with Team Fortress 2. The game is well balanced, despite the massive variety afforded through the class system, beautiful to look at, comical in more than just aesthetics, and most of all—fun! The news that Valve intend to overhaul their older multiplayer games with the tricks tried and tested in Team Fortress is welcome, and shows that they have given a commitment to these older titles that gives the gamer confidence. Who knows, may we even yet see the reintroduction of the British to Day of Defeat: Source? You almost feel like forgiving them for the constant delays to Half-Life 2: Episode 2! But let’s not get carried away…

100 Best Last Lines from Novels - How great can a last line be? I’ve read some of the works on the list and can’t say any are particularly memorable, but here’s an arbitrary list of the top 100 anyway. (PDF)

The World’s Spookiest Weapons - Starting with the A-bomb and working through mind control, crowd control and animal manipulation, this little list illustrates some of the craziest weapons designed or researched in the years since the last war.

Boxhead 2play - While away some moments (hours!) with this mad flash-based zombie fest. Can also be played cooperatively or in deathmatch mode from the same machine.

But therein lies the problem. As one Slashdot reader put it rather eloquently, “It might be inspirational to see a dyslexic child competing in a spelling bee with the aid of a spellchecker, but it’s hardly the point of the competition.” The decision is obviously a contentious one, and as someone who has no interest in the Olympics and very seldom sees an event, I would not normally have a point of view. However it seems that this decision places the Olympics in dangerous territory for the future. It may well be the case that the appendages offer Oscar Pistorius no advantage above what his normal capabilities might have been, however as no comparison is possible, that would be exceedingly difficult to prove either way. What is certain is that the decision opens the door to others in the future, who may well be afforded advantages above and beyond their natural capabilities. Athletes are made to perform within a fluid bubble of ‘natural conditions’, separated from drugs that would enhance their performance, and divorced from technologies in sportswear and sports gear that would give them that unfair edge, yet these rules exist to keep the playing field level, whilst this latest decision clearly attempts to level a different field. Mechanical advantage or no, Pistorius will have to train hard simply to qualify, and one can’t help but feel that were he already faster than the able-bodied competition his appeal would have failed. Instead this decision allows everyone to feel the cushy ‘aww’ factor of seeing someone disadvantaged compete in the Olympics, but the real result of this ruling, after Pistorius’ name is long forgotten, will be the precedent which allows athletes with mechanical replacements into the competition. There’s a future yet for the cyborg olympics.

Is black the new green? - Do websites with black backgrounds use less energy than bright ones? The team from Dialogue Box tackle the issue of green web design and attempt to explode the myths surrounding energy usage and website colours.

Smaller than mp3 - Not content with shrinking music down to mp3 size, researchers at the University of Rochester have formulated a solution to recreate sounds through recreation of the physical attributes of an instrument and its player to store the sounds in files 1,000 times smaller than current mp3 standards.

Ten stupid ideas that earned a million - From pixel advertising to vegetarian wishbones, through HIV-positive dating and glasses for dogs, here’s a list of some of the most stupid ideas to have earned a fortune for their creators. (Russian)

Warning: spoilers ahead.

It is precisely that simple point of view that makes the book so brilliant. The war experience is palpably retold through the mundane everyday occurrences. The constant search for food and provisions, the tedium of life during the quiet moments, dealing with lice and rats, the pressures of bombardment and the psychological reactions to sleeplessness and the constant threat of death. Scenes from the dressing stations are vividly retold, as are the effects of dysentery, or the aftermath of gas attacks. The novel’s narrator, Paul Bäumer, finds himself constantly searching for the answers, the reasons, the logic behind it all, and often relates conversations with his companions over why the war started, why it goes on, will it ever end, and how life can possibly continue after it all.

One of the novel’s greatest strengths is its personality, its identification with the individual and the individuals as part of a collective in the great overall theatre of the war. Bäumer’s experiences throughout the war are his own, but at the same time it is only through camaraderie with those in his regiment that he is able to function, able to keep his nerves calm and endure the deadly randomness of life in the trenches. Any moment might be his last, but knowing that there are others there around him with the same thoughts and feelings allows him to stand through it. Indeed the war changes him such that he almost fears the life back on the home front, where no one can possibly understand his experiences, when all that classical liberal education instilled into him before the war has lost all shred of meaning and credibility.

At the same time, the book’s other great strength is its imprecision. Paul Bäumer, Stanislaus Katczinsky and the others might be people we are to identify with, yet at the same time they are merely shadowy figures in a much larger play. Remarque makes few references to their real identities, although we know they come from a variety of backgrounds, whether farmers, cobblers or locksmiths. Perhaps one of strongest criticisms of All Quiet On The Western Front is that the focus lies on those from poor backgrounds and the suggestion that they alone served in the fighting. Nevertheless the novel gives little intimation about the nationality of these soldiers; they could just as easily be from ‘those over there’ as Remarque often refers to the enemy. The Hollywood film adaptation of 1930 highlights this even more, as Germans with thick American accents whoop and cheer as their schoolmaster persuades them to enlist, before marching off singing “Die Wacht am Rhein”. In essence the book’s strength is its portrayal of war as an abstract concept, and featuring people of indeterminate origins who are tormented, tortured and killed under its weight.

The novel ends with the reader being told that Paul Bäumer died only a month before the Armistice, almost as if the journalistic memoirs of a soldier at war had been cut short before they could be finished. Bäumer had considered the record of his time in the war a possible source of meaning in his life after being demobbed, something which Remarque himself clearly enacted. Ultimately however, the juxtaposition of this sudden curtailment of a young man’s life, a hero’s life which the reader has shared and empathised with from the first page, with the military dispatch which can report “Im Westen nichts Neues” (more literally “Nothing new on the Western front”) leaves the reader completely unable to answer Bäumer’s searching questions, deafened by the sickening irony.

This last scene is depicted brilliantly in the film version, in a manner not described in the novel. This adaptation certainly deserves a quick mention as it is a true masterpiece of cinematography. The film still seems fairly fresh given its antiquity, and one easily forgets the primitive nature of film making at the time. In 1930 such ‘talkies’ were sufficiently new that whole apparatus had to be built around the great clunking cameras to prevent their mechanical whirrings from being recorded on tape. As already mentioned, the fact that the actors are quite blatantly American robs the adaptation of none of its truth, whilst the script stays largely true to Remarque’s original.

The book was harried by Hitler’s NSDAP as being a crime against every German who fought in the war, and naturally banned on their coming to power. Remarque himself was forced to flee the country, first to Switzerland and then on to the United States by way of France, after the Nazis revoked his German citizenship. The film adaptation even had to be withdrawn from German cinemas, after Goebbels managed to whip up such a storm of protest and disruption at the Berlin screening, and the ban was only lifted as late as the 1960s. Whilst there were many who enjoyed the war for all its glory and adventure (epitomised by books such as In Stahlgewittern by Ernst Jünger, translated as Storm of Steel), one might presume the vast majority shared Remarque’s sentiments about the war years, which leads one to query why this book was not more staunchly defended, and why so many found it abhorrent. The answer may even lie within the book itself; Bäumer finds himself on leave during one section of the book, unable to come to terms with the home front, with those untouched by the horrors of war beyond food and labour shortages. For these members of society the war is ethereal and fantastic, especially for those too young to participate (for example, see Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler: A Memoir) or too old. For them it becomes all too easy to believe in the Dolchstoßlegende, the ’stab in the back’ myth of Germany’s loss in the First World War. For us it becomes all the more important to remember the book’s message, and to appreciate it as a masterpiece of anti-war literature.

Spheers - Fancy downloading your brain? Alright, that’s not quite the idea, but spheers.com, currently in beta, seems to be offering a way of keeping tabs on all that digital information which passes our eyes so we can come back to it later.

Super Cook - A site which offers almost exactly what I wrote about in this post. A few features they could yet implement, but overall a pretty decent site for checking recipes and getting new ideas.

TypeRacer - Nice little game to improve your typing skills. Practice on your own or go head-to-head in a race with other players.

Yet some downtime during a WordPress update is not the only worry when it comes to plugins. Whilst major updates often accentuate the problems, there is no guarantee that plugin authors will continue their work to cope with bugs and software changes. The small WPPA plugin currently used on this blog was recently broken by the WordPress update, but the author considered that the features introduced in the recent version might make his plugin obsolete, and only touched up the plugin to work with 2.5 (so far). Since I hardly post any photographs, such a change makes little difference to this site, but for many others migrating to another plugin could prove a major job if automated tools aren’t available. Others may have experienced such changes when moving between multilingual plugins as the features and support changed, from Language Picker, through Polyglot, to Language Switcher or WP_Multilingual. Such a migration might involve moving media around, altering themes, or having to change tags or syntax within WordPress posts.

How do you approach using plugins on WordPress? Do you consider WordPress should avoid leave extra features to the plugin authors rather than implementing features already well covered (e.g. tags, photos)? Should plugin authors attempt to implement migration tools or leave it to end-users to do the necessary conversions?

In response, today saw maximum attempts from Stephen Hendry, ending at 112 after some tricky shots to keep the break going, Peter Ebdon, who missed the fifteenth black for a 113 break, and Ali Carter, whose first career maximum makes this the first time two have been scored in the same tournament. With six days still to go the potential is there for a third maximum in the tournament, which sponsors 888.com had originally offered odds of 200:1 - these have dwindled down to 7:4!

- “Czy chcesz kawę albo herbatę?”
- “Tak, prosię!”

Đilas (pictured, right) was one of the key figures in the Yugoslavian Partisan movement during the Second World War, and maintained an influential position in the post-war government alongside Josip Broz Tito (centre), Aleksandar Ranković (on the left), and Edvard Kardelj. He started to write his memoirs in the mid-50s and decided to set his encounters with Stalin aside for separate treatment, but his outspoken criticism of the Yugoslav system resulted in his arrest and imprisonment in 1956. He restarted this work in 1961, which eventually brought about his re-internment.

The book details relations between the Yugoslav Partisans and later government and the Soviet Union during the Second World War until the eventual rift between the two states in summer 1948. On account of his position and his command of Russian, Đilas was chosen for a number of visits to the Soviet government, in 1943, 1944 and 1948. Đilas remains quite frank about his own limitations in perception, particularly in his first trip to the Soviet Union during the height of the war. He openly describes his naïve views regarding the west, the perfidious nature of British Intelligence, and his reverence of the Soviet lands as both leaders in the Communist world, and as the spiritual home of pan-Slavism.

Nevertheless, Đilas makes numerous important observations, doubtless with the benefit of many years’ hindsight, from his early meetings with Stalin, and the men who surrounded him. He notes the description of the morale boost Stalin’s continued presence in Moscow made during the Battle of Moscow in late 1941, in a meeting with Georgi Dimitrov (pictured), the Bulgarian Communist leader and head of the Comintern until its disbandment in mid-1943. Đilas also pointed out his surprise at the influence of Russian Orthodoxy, no less than pan-Slavism and Russian nationalism, as a motivating factor in the pursuit of the war against Nazi Germany.

Of the figure of Stalin, Đilas illustrates his early reverence for this figure of genius in the Communist path, but confirms many of the facts revealed elsewhere about the pursuit of Soviet policy and the workings of the upper echelons of the Soviet hierarchy. He remarks on Stalin’s “Kremlin complexion” (of pale skin and rosy cheeks), the copious drinking habits of many of the key figures in the Politburo,1 the excessive meals undertaken from late evening into the small hours (and the subsequent shift in time of the bureaucracy’s operations to account for the late rising of many department heads), and the associated requirement of a weekly day’s разгружение or ‘unloading’ - a governmental detox programme if ever there was one. Also interesting was the mention of Stalin’s penchant for watching films, a detail that Nikita Khrushchev struck upon in his memoirs.2

Đilas makes clear recognition of the influence of imperialism in Stalin’s deliberations and in Soviet policy as a whole. His private recognition of the action of British socialists within the British democratic framework lay in contrast to the public differences, which Đilas maintains came as a result of their differences in foreign policy. Stalin apparently expounded his views in terms of the unity of Slavs as being vital to success, and predicted that Germany would rise within a dozen years on account of her educated and industrious proletariat. Perhaps more intriguing is Đilas’ report that Stalin predicted the ‘next war’ to occur within 15-20 years, and that at a time when the current war was still raging.

“This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has power to do so. It cannot be otherwise.”

This clear imperialistic mentality is further expanded in the last portion of the book, when Đilas traveled to Moscow again in 1948 on account of relations between Yugoslavia and Albania, and the foundation of the Cominform.3 Albania and Yugoslavia had been the only eastern European nations to free themselves from the Nazi yolk without decisive intervention from the Red Army, and as such lay beyond the mental grasp of the Soviet system as the above quote suggests. The cooperation between these two states, particularly in terms of economic development and the potential integration of Albania into the Yugoslav federation brought opposition from Nako Spiru within the Albanian Communist Party, and fierce resistance to his opposition particularly from the likes of Koçi Xoxe and Enver Hoxha4 resulted in his eventual suicide. Đilas points out that the issue of Albanian-Yugoslav cooperation and integration was not one of major concern for the Soviets, but that the Yugoslav government could provide support, aid and most particularly advice to the Albanian regime, despite itself requiring these things of the Soviet government was hypocritical. “We agree to Yugoslavia swallowing Albania,” Stalin is quoted as saying. Incidentally, this period clearly strikes as being of particular interest in light of today’s Balkans, Đilas writing that “its [the potential Yugoslav-Albanian union] particular importance, in my opinion, lay in the fact that it would make possible the amalgamation of our considerable and compact Albanian minority with Albania as a separate republic in the Yugoslav-Albanian Federation.”

This dispute over Yugoslav-Albanian relations was to be solved through the integration of these two states into the Soviet dominated east European framework. At a meeting with the key figures of both the Yugoslav and Bulgarian Communist parties, Stalin and his associates openly derided the Bulgarian attempts at creating a customs union with Rumania without prior Soviet consultation. Soviet policy rather demanded the union of Bulgaria with Yugoslavia (and subsequently the union of Albania with this new federation), no doubt on the basis that the Bulgarian Communists relied on Soviet support, still being under the Red Army’s occupation. Dimitrov himself had been prevented from returning to Bulgaria immediately after the war, no doubt on account of his position and potential independence of Soviet aims.

These final meetings with Stalin strike as the most revealing into the degeneration of the Soviet state, and the first seeds of the gerontocracy which plagued the later Soviet years. Pointing to the vitality of Stalin’s mind during the war, Đilas remarks on his creeping senility, his increasingly gluttonous habits, his reliance on older memories and anecdotes, a more banal sense of humour, and the attitude of those who paid court to his actions. Stalin’s position was as much self-created as it was required by those very forces who surrounded him, and the rot in this symbiotic relationship strikes out particularly in the later section of Đilas’ memoirs. Đilas provides some tidbits which unfortunately aren’t fully expanded upon, such as the appearance of open anti-Semitism in the Soviet hierarchy (Stalin boasting that none of its Central Committee members were Jewish), the mysticism and religiosity surrounding the Lenin Mausoleum, returned from its wartime hiding place in the Russian interior, and the now famous account of Stalin maintaining that Benelux involved only Belgium and Luxembourg and was no real example of a working customs union, no one in his presence willing to correct him.

One should also point out Đilas’ impressions of Khrushchev on his meeting with him in 1945. Đilas noted the marked Russification of life in Kiev,5 despite the relative leniency of regional policy in the late war years: at this time, Ukrainian party officials sought the establishment of separate diplomatic relations with the various people’s democracies. Khrushchev himself certainly straddled the line of Russo-Ukrainian. Khrushchev impressed Đilas as being of limited classical education, but more importantly self-made and experienced beyond the normal limits of the bureaucracy, “a man of the popular masses,” well acquainted with the actualities of the Soviet system (e.g. experiences and limitations on the Soviet collective farms), and interested in modifying and reforming from within said system. Of course as Đilas was able to point out, these impressions came from a Khrushchev of a different era to the one who assumed control of the Soviet Union in Stalin’s wake.

Finally, Conversations with Stalin includes a couple of rather amusing anecdotes worth relating about Soviet views on Winston Churchill. Certainly he was well-respected within higher circles as a ruthless politician, and thus a dangerous one. Stalin had reputedly warned Đilas to be wary of British aid, explaining that it was they who had shot down Władysław Sikorski’s flight leaving no evidence behind. Đilas argues that his warnings passed on to Tito inspired the latter to leave his base at Vis for Soviet occupied Rumania in September 1944. It was this reputation which resulted in Stalin’s following remark:

Perhaps you think that just because we are the allies of the English we have forgotten who they are and who Churchill is. There’s nothing they like better than to trick their allies. During the First World War they constantly tricked the Russians and the French. And Churchill? Churchill is the kind of man who will pick your pocket for a kopeck if you don’t watch him. Yes, pick your pocket of a kopeck! By God, pick your pocket of a kopeck! And Roosevelt? Roosevelt is not like that. He dips in his hand only for bigger coins. But Churchill? Churchill - will do it for a kopeck.

Nevertheless his respect was well earned; during a trip to Moscow, Churchill apparently remarked that he should be awarded for his services to the Red Army, since it was his call for intervention at Archangel that had trained them so well.

Conversations with Stalin offers an interesting insight into the inner workings of the Soviet system, and their relations with the eastern block in the immediate aftermath of the war, in particular of course with Yugoslavia. Đilas marks the start of the deterioration of Soviet-Yugoslav relations with his inquiries into the actions of the Red Army in Belgrade, though points out earlier examples of differences between the two existed even from 1943, quoting Tito as having said “our first duty is to look after our own army and our own people” over the issue of not informing the Soviet Union of their parley with the Germans regarding the treatment of POWs. His style is readable and littered with interesting asides which unfortunately are all too often left unexplored, and one certainly gets the impression that the amount of retouching with the benefit of hindsight is at least more limited than might elsewhere be found. Despite his recognition of Stalin’s growing senility and the blatant imperialism of Soviet policy, Đilas nevertheless continued to respect Stalin, for his abilities, his accomplishments and his drive, despite the horrors that lay in his wake. Đilas describes him as a man who would destroy nine tenths of humanity in order to make the remaining tenth ‘happy’. But a man who was as much driven by his own demands as by the men around him, to drag the Soviet Union into the future.

On Saturday I went to a meeting with Krystyna Janda presented by The National Creativity Centre Foundation, in the National Gallery in Dublin. The meeting principally took the form of a questions and answers session, conducted by the famous Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, ahead of the Irish première of Krystyna Janda’s monologue adaptation of Vedrana Rudan’s Ear, Throat, Knife.

Whilst the interview was pretty interesting, given Janda’s extremely busy and varied career, the translating at the event was a little under par. The predominance of Polish speakers in the audience meant that the poor translator didn’t always get a say until after a few questions had been asked or answered, and her pretty difficult task of translating her own shorthand wasn’t helped by Mr Zanussi interrupting occasionally to demonstrate his own knowledge of English, and I was frankly embarrassed for the poor translator. Most questions focused dealt with Janda’s career in acting, both on stage and on the silver screen, from her early roles in films such as Andrzej Wajda’s Człowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble) or working alongside Klaus Maria Brandauer in Mephisto, to her more recent work with the Polonia Theatre in Warsaw. Many of the audience’s questions focused on her family life, work in politics and music, and just where she finds the energy to keep it all going. Not sure if she answered that sufficiently, but she did suggest that there would be more going on in her blog in the future.

Лет 30 назад он пользовался уважением, и это несмотря на то, что он был низким и хрупким. Он сверкал харизмой и его глаза светились силой молодости, его ум работал замечательно когда он красноречиво и убедительно представлял свои страсти и мечты: воплощение юношеского идеализма.

Сегодня, та же самая фигура почти вызывает жалость, или даже гнев. Его иссохшое и морщинистое лицо скрывает ум извращенный заблуждениями. Его маленькие, чёрные глаза все ещё искрятся, но и самой малейший проблеск надежды давно уже изчезнул. Тот голос, когда-то сильный и уверенный, сейчас перерывистый и пустой. Тонкие усы, имеющие нездоровое сходство на усы Гитлера, вызывают осмеяние.

Сегодня, Роберт Мугабе стал воплощением пословицы: власть развращает, а абсолютная власть развращает абсолютно.

And, indeed, the coda of the first movement, with its slippery, chromatic bass and the awesome moans above it, remains a paralyzing experience. That is the way the world ends. It is absolute music, but it clearly represents struggle, and it is hard to hear so monumentally anguished a cry without reading something into it. The trouble is that face with such music, all of us tend to become sentimentalists, reading into it the wrong message.

So he sums up the Ninth Symphony of that “Revolutionary from Bonn” as the chapter title has it. A pretty decent book on the whole. And yes I realise that was four sentences.

Now the bigger question of who to pass this on to. Let’s see if and how Steffi, Heliologue and Rob respond.

Flash Earth - View the Earth using Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps and more, and switch between them. The site claims to be experimental and works without official consent, so will not necessarily be around for long.

Tenth Dimension - Confused by string theory? Watch this simple and fascinating video explaining the ten dimensions—but be prepared to have forgotten it all inside of two minutes!

Zamzar - Convert between a good variety of audio, video, image, document and storage file types online for free. This includes videos available on a number of popular websites (e.g. YouTube, Metacafe and the like). The paid for version offers a number of improved features, but even the basic free version allows files of up to 100Mb to be converted, plenty adequate for most file types, though the result is emailed to an address of your choice, which could prove problematic for certain inboxes.

The user profile service service failed the login. User profile cannot be loaded.

Or in German versions:

Die Anmeldung des Dienstes “Benutzerprofildienst” ist fehlgeschlagen. Das Benutzerprofil kann nicht gestartet werden.

From what I can gather, it appears that this problem occurs during Vista’s attempt to create a restore point. The user profile is backed up but no replacement is made. Thus these errors are most often seen after the installation of some new software or drivers, or after a Windows update, which may occur in the background with many users unaware of its activity.

Fortunately, some solutions are available, although not all appear to work in certain circumstances. Nigels blog offers a solution to restore the backup profile by editing the Windows registry. To do this, users need to:

1. Start the machine, and press F8 before Vista begins to load, choosing Safe Mode.
2. Search for the programme ‘regedit’ from the Start menu.
3. On opening this programme, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
4. Affected profiles can be located by the extension ‘.bak’. This extension should be deleted, the RefCount value should be 0, and the State value should be 0. Change accordingly and reboot the system.

German readers may also refer to this forum post.

Unfortunately this solution appears not to work in all cases. Since this problem generally appears to occur following a Windows Update or other software installation, however, it is equally possible to restore the system to a prior state and restore the working profile(s) to how they were before the incident. This might result in some strange behaviour or odd errors in some programmes, but these problems should only be minor ones. To do this

1. Start the machine in Safe Mode (hitting F8 before Vista loads, as above)
2. Search for the programme ‘rstrui’ in the Start menu.
3. On running the programme, the user should be presented with the option of restoring the system to the most recent restore point (recommended). Restore and restart.
4. Should the recommended option fail to solve the problem, follow the same procedure but use an older restore point. Hopefully one or other should do the trick.

Hopefully with the gradual rollout of Vista Service Pack 1, this type of problem will become less frequent.

addons
Articles - This plugin allows a list of ‘articles’ to be maintained, to keep a list of the most commonly read or best written posts in one place. The author also has a number of other handy plugins on his site. Currently disabled on this site since well written or popular posts are few and far between.

Democracy - Adds that little widget on the sidebar to run a poll. Great functionality, employing AJAX to make it speedy and fun to use.

Footnotes - Tiny plugin that allows <ref></ref> style syntax to insert footnotes in posts.1 From the author of the brilliant Now Reading plugin.

Language Switcher - Not actually used on this blog since it is written almost exclusively in English, but the author illustrates how to create a multilingual blog, and with a little help from this plugin enables authors to create multiple entries in different languages.

Now Reading - Well designed plugin that integrates well into WordPress, displaying those current books on the sidebar, with those planned and previously read available on the library page.

Quotes Collection - One of the more recent additions, this plugin allows you to store a database of favourite quotes and have them displayed randomly in the sidebar or wherever else the user wants within the WordPress loop.

ShareThis - One of the more ubiquitous plugins out there, this plugin allows readers to easily shares posts with others via the many social networking bookmark sites. Probably extraneous on this site, but a decent plugin nevertheless.

Viper’s Plugins Used - Not actually employed on this site, the plugin offers a list similar to the one I’m writing here.

Viper’s Video Quicktags - An excellent plugin, allows for easy integration of videos from a variety of different sources, including YouTube/Google Video as well as local files in the usual formats.

WP/GeoTrack - Neat little plugin which provides the output shown on the Visitors page.

WP Dash Note - Ever find yourself needing to leave yourself notes on your blog? This plugin adds a tiny post-it note to the Dashboard of WordPress. Useful for those little remembers to finish writing your post on plugins.

WP Photo Album - Very well written and simple little plugin for integrating a photo album into your site. Whilst the WPG2 plugin which works with the Gallery2 software obviously provides more functionality, for adding a few photos to WordPress with the minimum of fuss, this plugin certainly cuts the mustard, though note the recent security concerns.

extra functionality
Advanced TinyMCE Editor - A fully featured addition to the standard WordPress editor, making it easy to format posts exactly how you need them. Unfortunately there still appear to be some compatibility issues with the aforementioned WPG2 plugin.

Category Order - Installed this one a while ago when I had some issues getting all of the categories to appear on the WordPress sidebar, this might now have been superseded by inbuilt WordPress options, but for now it’ll stay put. Allows you to arrange the Categories in the sidebar exactly how you want.

Get Recent Comments - Allows you to display the recent comments in the sidebar using your own preferred formatting.

Google XML Sitemaps - To quote from the blurb “This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO”.

ImageManager - Very handy little extension to the WordPress repertoire, allowing simple manipulation of imported images using ImageMagick amongst other things. Unfortunately seems to have some issues with one or other of my Firefox plugins and leaves some functions unusable, as the popup windows are badly sized, but works fine under Opera.

Photo Dropper - Another new plugin undergoing a trial, this one offering to import Creative Commons licensed images from flickr.com directly into the current post, and attribute the necessary details.

Simple Tags - Successor to the great Simple Tagging plugin of previous WordPress versions, this offers greater flexibility and functionality with WordPress 2.3’s inbuilt tagging feature. One of the must-haves.

Tiger Style Administration - This plugin simply alters the look and feel of the WordPress admin section. Unfortunately looks slightly broken with recent WordPress or Firefox updates, not really sure which is causing the problem.

TinyMCEComments - Provides a small TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor for the comments section.

WP-Lytebox - Neat little plugin to implement the typical Lytebox system in WordPress, and can easily be fit to work with the WP Photo Album, amongst other things.

security
Akismet - Simply a must-have, even on this small blog Akismet has managed to block over 10,000 spam comments of various kinds. Used in conjunction with the Bad Behaviour plugin below, I’m left only needing to review those comments left in the spam queue in case of false positives, which to date I don’t believe there has been.

Bad Behaviour - Works on a number of other systems, purports to block robot-based spamming on WordPress, and at least according to the statistic printed at the bottom of the current theme, seems to be doing a good job.

statistics
Feed Statistics - Neat little plugin to keep track of those feed subscribers without using an external service like FeedBurner. Also counts post views and outgoing links.

GeneralStats - This small plugin counts up numbers of users, posts, comments, words in posts amongst other things. Does its job and satisfies some idle curiosity.

StatTraq - A bit out-of-date now but still quite useful for checking page views and search criteria. Might replace this with the WordPress.com Stats plugin as I test that out over coming weeks.

Nevertheless, Krzysztof Penderecki provides a beautiful score to underline the images, with a smattering of Tchaikovsky and Chopin thrown in during some of the propaganda scenes. As a piece of cinematography the film probably deserves its Oscar nomination, though it is difficult to tell whether it will be remembered more for that or its political implications. That the film does not get caught in a loop of nationalist propagandism is important in light of the tendencies in Moscow and elsewhere. Power is not what comes from the end of a gun but the ability to make people believe ones lies. Certainly disturbing news from Putin’s Russia.

The film’s climax is a rather visceral, and to some extents shocking visual of what the film is after all about. However it does offer an interesting juxtaposition for those taken by the irrationality of mankind—as officer after officer is dispatched in the name of political idealism, these same go to their deaths with a prayer on their lips. Absurd or simply tragic? One thing however is for certain, and that is that my quest for the non-melancholy Polish film continues…

ControlC - This website provides a way to save a copy of everything its users ‘copy’ on their own machines, as a way of safeguarding against losing links and information they accidentally overwrite. Not sure how this works with files rather than text being copied, but it claims to be compatible with most major operating systems.

Visible Body - A fascinating look at human anatomy. Free 3d model illustrating the various systems of the body. Sadly currently only works with Internet Explorer.

What Should I Read Next? - Rather limited in scope, it simply does what it says on the tin, suggesting further reading to entered titles. It offers little more than you might get being an Amazon customer, and since this website relies on a small selection of registered users to provide its suggestions, it’s hard to imagine its current database of around 50,000 titles growing too considerably.

But to kick start February, vaguely akin to the peacekeepers, here’s the THX lemur:

Sadly, the news doesn’t come without other considerations, since the government refuses any public funding to new nuclear plants except in cases of dangerous emergency.