Peter Michael Kerr - Official Website

Blue Songs - Poem & Sleeper - Short Story

2011-05-28T15:22:00.001+01:00

Blue Songs

Blue songs are easy,

they roll off the tongue,

feelings bubbling to the top

mixing with the slop.

Warm songs are tough,

they fade in the rough,

But when they shift

and are sung

real music is done.

Sleeper

I hate this kind of act.

Honestly when does a suit that could be confused as drag and stage fireworks make an act impressive. Despite my own resistance at the rather lack lustre opening of 'Marvellous Mike's Hypnotism show' the rest of the audience already sat entranced as if he was already weaving his magic over them. Which I was sure was giving him far too much credit.

When you are single two things happen to you, firstly you become hypercritical of everything around you, is she giving me a 'you repulse me' look or a 'come a buy me a drink' look. It must be some evolutionary overhang that is still making it's self useful all these years later. The other thing being single makes you, and the reason I am watching a man with electric yellow hair be showered in a rain of glitter sequins, is you become incredibly accommodating. If chance against chance you convince some poor girl to go out with you, it is a down economy after all, then you do absolutely anything that they want to do.
Mary, my date for this evening, sat just as entranced as the rest of the audience to my right around a cheap circular table. Her hands ran along the neck of a large Martini glass, the kind that would look classy if the measures did not go up to the rim and the locals looked in wonder at the olive on the end. This was Las Vegas on a budget. She has heard from a friend that this act was amazing and had insisted we go along. Not quite what I would plan for a first date if I am being quite honest.

The show started up in earnest just as my own beer had made it's way through my body and started urging me to use the toilet. Needing the toilet at some thing with audience participation is like fast kid on sports day. You are essentially guaranteed to be dragged up on stage. I timed his act waiting until he was just about to start a new section. I managed to make my way out with out incident just as he was asking 'Sheila on holiday from Australia' if she was a natural blonde to much banal laughter of the other audience members.

I took the long way back to my seat, trying to work of the calculation of how long I could feasibly stay in the bar and still be on the date. I worked it out to be a depressingly short time and returned to my seat only five minutes later. Sheila was strutting about like a chicken trying to lay an egg onto a chair. At least one positive thing had come out of this night, I had discovered a local micro-brew during my sojourn at the bar. A thick head and a with much more palatable yellow than Marvellous Mike's hair. Apart from sitting with the lovely Mary it was a highlight in an other wise disappointing night.

I returned to the table with a new Martini for Mary, slightly enjoying the alliteration as it rolled around in my mind a tad too much. The lights dimmed just as I took my seat, Mary was startled as I sat as she had not even realised that I had left. She shared with me one of the smiles that had coaxed me into asking her out in the first place. A light started roaming around the room like a hunter looking for prey. Mike's voice came over a speaker system, it was heavily synthesised but his unmistakeable lisp was still there.

“Chinese mystics once told a story of a man. This man would have commune with the world beyond and have the power to entrance any one they met. That man stand before you tonight.”

The light stops on Mike, his head facing down in as a dramatic pose you can muster if a glitter covered suit. His outstretches his arm and points a finger into the crowd. The light follows his finger and it lands on someone. It takes me several moments to realise the rainbow display on my table is from the new light shining through our drinks. I look behind me. It is dark. It slowly dawns on me, the ultimate thing that someone who does not like audience participation dreads. Being noticed.

In a flash of inspiration I turned to Mary and putting on a winning smile that I hoped would work a magic similar to Mike's and convince her to go one stage. My luck was not in, she was clapping already for me to be the one for ritual humiliation. It seemed that while she wanted to come to this festival of cheesiness she did not want to participate herself. The whole audience was clapping now. There is a little known fact that people will always be compelled towards the sound of peoples hands clapping. If lions learned how to bang their paws together we would be screwed.

As I climbed the short distance up the steps to the stage I decided that I might as well play along. I might get a second date out of it at the very least.

A small hard backed chair was brought out and placed in the middle of the stage. I tentatively sat down in it. My stomach twisted as I realised that the audience looked a larger on this side of the looking glass. He makes several pirouettes around me, I simply stare at him. Not in the mesmerised way the others indulged him with but in more of a general 'get on with it before I walk of the stage' kind of look.

To my surprise I found my eyes growing tired. I convinced my self that I was only going to shut them for the briefest moments to try and block out the annoyance I was sharing a stage with.

Suddenly everything is coming to me as if through ten feet of concrete. My body is moving, I can feel the wetness on my fingers as they are plunged into something but I have absolutely no control over it. I am hit with a strong smell of home, it is not a smell I can describe, it is simply a tickling sensation rioting around my nostrils that drags one word from my psyche, home.

Everything stops. There is no more muffled sounds or sensations. There is simply a nothingness.

My mind floats, perfectly relaxed.

How long I am like this I do not know. Time stretches luxuriously around me. It is only broken by a voice coming from far off.

Three.

I do not want to leave this place it is safe and warm.

Two

Nothing can happen to me here.

One.

There is something out there that I do not want to return to.

You are back in the room.

My nostrils are immediately assaulted by the bitter iron smell of blood. A man looks me in the eyes. Shining a torch into each one blinding me. I hear the cackle of a radio beside me. The man happy with what he has seen nods to another man. The room is swarming with men and women dressed as police officers. It takes me an eternity to realise what else fills the room.

Thirty people lie in various states of dismemberment, scattered about the room. The wooden floor is soaked a burgundy red.

My hands are covered in a sticky concoction of blood, hair and other bodily fluids I don't even want to think about. One the police officers, dressed in a forensic suit, gently takes a knife from my limp hand and places it into a plastic evidence bag. I can't even bring myself to talk.

“Sir” One of the police officers try to get my attention.

“What... What happened?” I ask him through dry blood stained lips

“We found you like this sir, talking in Russian. Can you tell us what happened to these people?” He responds patiently

I can't answer him. I can remember sitting down and waking up. It is just like when I was a kid and was on holiday. I had lost a month in that hospital but it was there I had returned to in my head. That was home and I must protect it.

Sheriff of Nottingham's Taxman - Short Story

2011-05-25T13:42:00.000+01:00

This was an entry for a competition wherein you had to write a story that presented a well known story but from a different perspective. Like in the way that Wicked shows The Wizard of Oz.

Tax Man

“The year of our lord 1201.” Reginald says licking his lips after each word and scratching his quill against the parchment as he does so.
With a look of barely contained lust he looks at the pile of gold coins and imagines his own face emblazoned on their surface rather than the King Johns. He hastens to correct him self for that is not the kind of thoughts a loyal subject should be thinking.

It is not the power that attracts Reginald to the pile of coins. For with that kind of wealth he could quite literally live the life of a king; yet it is the order of the coins that keeps his gaze. He marvels at the way that civilization has structured it's self about such tiny tokens, almost like the way the barbarians across the sea are reputed to worship all manner of demons. But yet again he mentally chastises himself for they are not thoughts a good Christian man should be having either.

He scratches his quill to the parchment again leaving his looping hand writing on the parchment, allowing himself a hint of pride at his pen man ship.

“Reginald Hargreaves. Counter of the Levy.”

This was written quickly and with a smile. He practised writing this. In his head, in his free time, whenever things got to much he would swirl his 's'es and tumble his 't's to remind him self of his most prestigious post.

Born the son of a fisherman, and only by the grace of the Sheriff, lofted to near royalty in the castle he had stared longingly at his entire childhood. Everyday he offered thanks to god for providing him with a mind capable of arithmetic and rational thought.

His perfectly neat hand leaves a blotch of ink on the parchment as he leaves his quill hanging their for too long.

The figures can not be right. He recalculates them, then does it again. This is not right.

He forgoes his assistants count and dives into the piles of coins tallying his own measure. Some three hours later his emerges from his mathematical stupor and sheds a tear. Partly for his own stupidity at not realising his arrogance and partly because he has gained a clear vision of the future from the coins and it is not a happy one.

Reginald's hand hovers over the quill a moment debating the worth of writing his family a letter to explain but can not find the courage to admit his failings to them. Let them think that the Sheriff found fault with him another way.

There is nothing for it. He stands quickly and with a straight back. He will not let his failings tarnish the image of the office. Oh, no. The office would always live on. That was enough.

He leaves his chambers and stalks the well worn stone corridors of the castle with a sure foot. Not one guard questions his being there or his entering the throne room. The red robes of his office announce him as he enters the chamber.

“What is it now Hargreaves! You had better not be here to tell me that I can only eat mutton twice a weak to meet your budget, because I have told you before I shall eat what I bloody well please!”

The Sheriff of Nottingham's witticism is greeted with a round of polite laughter from the assembled supplicating lords and ladies.

“My lord. May I request a private audience with yourself, most presently.” Reginald said, head kissing the floor under the dais.

“Just out with it boy I don't have all day to be holding the hands of every member of my staff”

“My Lord, I really much protest”

“Say your piece tax man or I will shove your bills where a duck wishes it couldn't. Another round of polite laughter. The sheriff grin widens at his own cleverness.

“Due to the unprecedented bandit activity of late..”

“I will not have Hoods name mentioned in my court”

“You just did sir...” Supplied one of the Lords who quickly quietened with the shifting of stance of one of the guards.

“My lord. We are broke. The coffers are empty. “

The sheriffs face bypasses red and jumps immediately to purple. His rage is palpable in the room.

“Have this man taken to the gallows he said pointing to the lord who had spoken out of turn.
“Tax man. I have a special place for you because of your failings”

The Little Tree - Poem

2011-05-24T16:07:00.002+01:00

I have a load of my old work gathering goblins on my hard drive that I thought I would share with everyone. Some of you will most likely have read some of this stuff before but for those of you who have not I can only appologise :D Today is a poem about a slightly carnivorous tree.

The Little Tree

I am the little tree

that sits in your garden

I am the little tree

that watches your life pass

Pardon me for interjecting

but I feel I must help you

Remember when the gerbil died

and you gave him unto me

my roots sucked at his body

and made use of his flesh

vanishing him from the world

Why not let me do this again,

while your wife is still fresh.

I will suck and drink until she is dry

and let my worm friends take the rest.

Sony's FUBAR

2011-04-27T14:50:00.000+01:00

There seems to be a lot of misinformation flying about what has actually happened with people jumping on the ITS HACKERS bandwagon pretty quickly but the actual reasons are pretty well known, they are just not being reported that much. I should pre-face this by saying I studied Computer Forensics for four years so know a little about information security and the law.

First thing to address is why do hackers hack.

When the PS3 was first released it was a pretty open platform, Ever since the PS2 if you wanted to install Linux or whatever your flavour be on it then Sonys stance was it is your console do what you may with it. Not only that they actively encouraged it, using it in their marketing campaigns and giving the option to run it through live CD's, even putting an install option on the XMB.

But in 2009, after nine years of having the option to do this sony removed the feature due to 'security concenrs'. Linux is for Pirates you say? Well partly that was the case, and most likely the reason whoever made the decision at Sony used but this form of piracy was very finiky and required generally a hardware hack to get running. But having Linux installed had led to a lot of good things as well, the PS3 is a powerful system and could be used as a cheap alternative to a server farm. Folding@Home (A distributed computing project that creates models of protein folding to be used in scientific research) used Linuxed by many to provide valuable resources to the project, something Sony later brought back to the console but in a severely gimped way. Even the US Air force had been using PS3's for number crunching and as far as we know they still do to this day.

And thus the great debate began, the 'hackers' felt that it was their console to do what they may with it and Sony was quite rightly concerned about possible piracy from the result of having an open system. But rather than try to tighten the security on their own end they drew the curtains and told everyone to go home

So How can they still hack

An entire sub-culture sprang up, the previously partly pirated PS3 became the focus of choice for hobbyist hackers and just people with a lot of know how want to send a big FU to Sony. When Sony Firmware 3.21 the hackers responded in kind and made their own Firmware.

Firmware is the software and datastructures on a device that basically make it tick. You IPod has firmware, you TV has firmware, even your washing machine.

What the hackers did next was creat their own Custom Firmware (CFW) and entered into a game of cat and mouse with Sony. Because of the great strides made by the hackers to gain access to the systems the PS3 became increasingly compromised. Before I continue it is worth noting that both the Xbox 360 and the Wii also have CFW available with varying degrees of complexity to install it. What made Sony different is that they took legal action against those responsible, this pissed of the hackers and made them redouble their efforts when Sony eventually made their previous hack null and void.

Piracy became the main source of all this knowledge now, a lot of people were disenfranchised with Sony and because it had become so easily to install the firmware due to the in-depth knowledge the hackers now had about the PS3's architecture.

And then geohot came along. Geohot is a 21 year old hacker from America who had previously been better known for his jailbreaking of the IPod. Now it is worth mentioning when he first started the PS3 was thought to be pretty unhackable, heck Sony even used to boast about it. So as enquiring minds that are pissed off go it was inevitable that someone was going to test their mettle against the system. What made Geohot famous was he discovered the proverbial keys to the castle in a key string that the PS3 used to authenticate all applications on their network. So using this it was possible to install linux right there on the XBM, you could trick the playstation into thinking any application was put there by Sony itself. This of course led to the natural leap that signing a pirated game with key would obviously also seem that it had been bought straight off the shelves. There was no need for a CFW.

But Sony got angry. Super angry. Law suits ensued, he was made into the proverbial lamb for the slaughter. The protest group Anonymous did not particularly like Sonys methods in their search for those responsible. They particularly were angry that sony was given a list of IP address of everyone who had visited Geohot's blog. Thus Operation Sony was launched. It was a declaration of open season to attack Sony's websites mainly through Denial of Service attacks DDoS. They met varying success, some outages but nothing major.

Those Darn Anonymous, they stole my data!

Actually no. This is where we get into unconfirmed but is known pretty widely this is what actually happened territory.

A new variant of the CFW was released named 'Rebug'. This particular variant was special in that it gave people access to the developer networks. The playstation network is accessed by the general public, but for testing purposes and almost mirror of PSN is kept by Sony so that developers can test their games.

When the word got around that you could do this people then realised that the dev's had full access to the PSN store and every single item on the PSN was available to download entirely for free. You see the network still asked for credit card information but it was never actually checked against any database of trusted accounts or banks. So Sony quickly pulled the plug on the network and set about trying to patch the holes that were in their network and remain a bit mysterious about just why the network was down.

What little media coverage there was at this point followed suit and immediately started asking if this was another anonymous attack. A perfectly reasonable question to which Sony would only reply with that an 'External Intrusion' caused the problem.

Phew, that does not sound so bad.

You would think so, Sony lost a little potential revenue and have some egg on their face. But no. It seems that Sony let the devs have access to your data as well. This data includes:

Your name
Your address (city, post code etc)
Country
E-mail address
Birthday
PSN password and login name
Any security questions
Credit card Details

This is severely FU. It is also not just one unidentifiable hacker but potentially several hundred or even thousands of people have had access to this data.

It is ok, they might have access but they will never be able to read it. That is what encryption is for.

Wrong. Those who have had the firmware installed have reported that Sony stored all this personal information as Plain Text Yes. That is right. If your password was "BobbyMcBob" then your password as sat on their system was "BobbyMcBob".

It is industry standard that some form of encryption should be used when storing any kind of information like this.

So BobbyMcBob should sit on the PSN like 4e6e375e2980c02b37a8183e66cfd5a4 which would be much more difficult for a hacker to do anything with. (That is a MD5 hash which is not entirely secure in itself)

Not only this but it seems that not only do they have your current password stored in this way but also all your previous passwords as well. You know when you try to reset your password and it says "It is too close to your previous passwords" this is how they know.

To make matters worth is seems the Sony has been using GET requests when processing your personal information. Which look a little like this:

creditCard.paymentMethodId=VISA&creditCard.holderName=Max&creditCard.cardNumber=45581234567812345678&creditCard.expireYear=2012&creditCard.expireMonth=2&creditCard.securityCode=214&creditCard.address.address1=example street%2024%20&creditCard.address.city=city1%20&creditCard.address.province=abc%20&creditCard.address.postalCode=12345%20

Anyone sniffing on your network, or their network or anything in-between could have just plucked this out of the ether and used it. We know that Sony has shoddy data security practices, who is to say that this kind of data has been deleted from their logs even?

Is that even legal?

Pinch of Salt time, a lot of sources are saying this plain text thing is true but there is the tiniest chance that Sony were not that stupid, because legally they are screwed. Also I am not a lawyer so only use this as a general base on which to make any claims.

I am not going to get into the finer points of the Computer Misue Act here and argue if the hackers are legally covered or not.

There are two laws in the UK that should have prevented any company operating like Sony from storing your information in this way.

The Data Protection Act 1998 and the Data Protective Directive (Aka 95/46/EC)

First are SOE covered?, they are a company based in American after all. The DPA defines a party who has to comply as:

Part I section 5

(a)the data controller is established in the United Kingdom and the data are processed in the context of that establishment, or

(b)the data controller is established neither in the United Kingdom nor in any other EEA State but uses equipment in the United Kingdom for processing the data otherwise than for the purposes of transit through the United Kingdom.

As the data controller, in this Sony, is established in the UK and the EU store is separate from the US store then they are required to comply to the act. (Under the Act personal information is not allowed to leave the EU)

So what have they done wrong: Part II section 10 (It's a bit long-winded and legalise so in summary)

Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

This means that they should have had your information locked up all nice and tight in a lovely layer of encryption. Granted with a dataset of 70 million compromised accounts a brute force attack would render any encryption void eventually but it would not have been SOE's fault. They would have taken the correct measures to protect your data. But the Dev network should not have even had access to this information to begin with. When you sign the TOS with Sony you are entering into a two way agreement to not unlawfully access their systems and in return that your data will be safely held by them

The Data Protection Act also makes a provision for you if you have any problems due to any breach. Part II section 13:

(a) An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.

We are not just talking your credit card number here but also any identity fraud that occurs due to the people who have access to the data using it.

Unfortunately the DPA process is quite a drawn out one so any potential legal action will take a while to start up.

The Data Protection Directive offers much the same protection as the DPA does but on a europe wide level. Linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

GAH, What can I do?

Luckily the Financial Fraud Authority has already stepped in and is compelling Sony to hand over the details of anyone in the UK's accounts that have potentially been compromised and this will be reported to the banks who will in turn will issue everyone with a new card automatically as is standard practice, you will incur no charge for this. Their current advice is to keep an extra watchful eye on your accounts at the moment and the second you see any kind of transaction that you did not authorise to contact your bank.

If somehow you fall through the net and you do not receive your new card within the next couple of weeks or simply don't trust a government body to get something right Money Saving Expert has a nifty little tool to work out what number you need to contact (It is for lost and stolen cards but I am sure they would be somewhat similar)

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cardsgone/

What is Sony doing?

This far? A whole not of nothing we can tell. It took them all this time because they had supposedly been working with a consultancy firm to find out what the scale of the breach had been but frankly with the kind of information even potentially compromised it should have been 1. never available in the first place 2. Told to us on the very first of the breach.

They have also gave us this FAQ going over some of the salient points along with a collection of phone numbers for you to make your anger known.

http://faq.en.playstation.com/cgi-bin/scee_gb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?locale=en_GB&p_faqid=5593

Review: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

2011-02-21T21:38:00.000Z

This is a spoiler free review
I wont lie. One of the main reasons behind me giving this book a chance was that the author Ben Aaronovitch was the writer of one of my favourite Dr. Who serials - Remembrance of the Daleks. Ben Aaronovitch has worked on several things you may have heard of, Doctor Who, a bunch of episodes of Jupiter Moon when it was still airing and even an episode of casualty thrown in there for good measure.

Rivers of London represents Aaronovitch's first novel based in a world that he has created. His prior prose work is also very who-orientated with several Virgin New Adventures and a Benny Summerfield novel under his belt. But as I try to stay away from the non-canon who stuff this is my first taste of what he can do with prose.

The premise is simple, A ordinary work a day police constable while working the shift that absolutely no one else wants has a conversation with a ghost. This one conversation catapults Peter Grant into the hidden side of the metropolitian police department, where magic is not secret it is just hidden behind paper work.

Imagine the x-files if Mulder had the, begrudging, ackowledgement of the FBI and you start getting the idea. Peter Grant's development from Probationary constable to apprentice magician is nothing we have not seen before but the genius of this book really sets it apart.

This is a real world. Ben Aaronovitch shows the Met as it is and just because you can make magic lights with your mind the protagonist has to do filing along with his friends on the murder squad just the same. The laws governing the use of magic are as immutable as the laws governing the law of the land.

The plot is very strong with a nice sub-plot tied in well. The main plot deals with a series of murders and bouts of violence that are progressively increasing in brutality and severity. The secondary plot concerns the titular rivers of london and has Peter Grant juggling the old ways of Father Thames and buisness lady attitude of Mother Thames. Ultimately the plots meet in a rather spectacular finale that has me waiting for the next book in the series. 'Moon over Soho' which is interestingly slated for release this year along with the third in the series 'Whispers Under Ground'

Where is my hoverboard?

2010-09-18T12:40:00.001+01:00

I have been thinking on this for a while, not specifically "Where is my hoverboard?" but on the general question that it implies. "Why is our world so boring?"

Fiction promises us in fantasy, Dragons, magic, Heroes and Villains. We are presented with a clear cut world where we know who the demons are and who we have to route for. But taking it out of fantasy read any thriller on the shelves at the moment and our world should be chock full of secret societies and conspiracies to over throw the government/steal all your money/bring on the apocalypse etc.

Yet the world keeps on turning. We are in a bit of an economic downturn but it is not exactly on par with being invaded by aliens. So what has gone wrong, are we not pretty enough for our alien overlords to bother with? Is it simply too much work to be setting up a secret society or just not enough profit to be found in beaming advertisements directly into peoples minds.

As I said I have been thinking on this for a little while now, I even have a poem that I might post in a couple of days, and this is what I have come up with. People are cowards. Now don't take that to heart or feel like I am marginalising the work of the visionaries who do manage to make some change but basically we are driven by two things. Fear and greed. Fear that terrorists will hurt our loved ones, fear that there will be war, fear that you will not be able to meet this months rent and even fear of that lump you felt in the shower. This fear encases us and stifles our imaginations. Why try to imagine your plan for taking over the world when it is two for one on trebles tonight?

Greed is the same, it is no coincidence that nearly every major development with a technology comes by military research. Without the second world war we would not have computers as we know them today, or the idea would have taken much longer to penetrate as far it has. What else has war given us, Jet engines, rocket science, radar, Atomic energy that is just world war II, heck WWI was know as 'The Chemists War'. Sure the research that gains funding via the military is ultimately going to be use to kill people more efficiently but eventually these developments find their way to the public.

The fear of losing the war makes us much more willing to part with that little extra cash to fund the effort. But in a relative peace time like we are in now? Put up taxes by the tiniest amount and people are up in arms. It is only with research can this world go from ordinary to extraordinary. I voted lib dem and what do they go and do as part of the coalition? Cut money going to the sciences and the arts. The only two industries that don't just accept with status quo but they dare to imagine. They understand that while in the short term sure they can take funding away and it might find some limited benefits in some areas, but it is almost like people see the sciences as a frivolous pursuit. That any money invested will be squandered chasing a pink elephant but science and the arts do not shape how society functions and therefore people are happy to ignore them. Yet stop to think who invents the chips that power your I-Pod what physicist designs the process for sky scrapers stand up straight.

Where is my hoverboard? It lost it's funding.

Re-creation

2010-09-14T17:29:00.000+01:00

We often try too hard to capture something in writing much more description than needed. Often to the detriment of the narrative. There is a technique used in post-production where rather than try to reproduce a real world thing exactly, which would be time consuming and unnecessary for say a three second shot of a rainbow. They rather capture the essence of the thing in question. Take our rainbow example.

It is certainly possible to create a rainbow using a computer, one that would be indistinguishable to the real thing but it would be a time consuming process to capture the subtle hues that glimmer in a rainbow. So instead of wasting the money they ask not what is a rainbow but what do people expect a rainbow. Try it now, write down five words you would associate with a rainbow. Bright, Colourful, sparkling, beautiful, stunning etc I would be willing to bet that your list is somewhat like that one. Yet if you were to go outside and record one on film you might get snatches of the some of the above but only once in a blue moon would you get the 'Rainbow' that immediately comes to mind.

Did you know that silencers are not really silent? The more accurate term to describe them are suppressors. In the 'real' world the sound escaping one of them would be on par to a car door slamming. It is quiet enough to stop an inquisitive guard from immediately knowing that a gun had been fired but not to keep him oblivious. This is another example of playing to the audiences expectations. Because in Hollywood we have been told silencers are silent then they remain so.

So next time you are writing try to think that you don't need to perfectly craft a immaculate representation of what you are trying to describe but rather if you are able to get the quintessential essence of what makes up that thing then your writing will be the better for it. You are showing the object to the audience, not creating it from nothing and parsing it into their minds.

Different mediums

2010-09-04T14:19:00.001+01:00

For the past week I have been wrestling with a short story that keeps jumping between being a story in prose and in script. I start writing it in prose form and then I am suddenly hit with a scene that would be almost impossible to write without destroying the flow of the narrative, yet this scene could easily translate to script. Likewise I will succumb and start writing it in script and come up against the limitations of that medium as well. I write in both mediums regularly so it is not a lack of experience that is driving my inability to get this story down it is simply that it is a story of the modern times.

Let me explain. When we write a story we write it for one specific medium, you do not write a piece of prose and start planning how it would look in script. This is generally why most novelisations of movies, of movies based on Novels find it incredibly hard to please their fan led audience of the former. Because the original story has been through many drafts to be distilled into a publishable story for that medium when it is translated it loses that refined quality and becomes a square trying to fit into a circular hole.
If the original author goes back to that story and presents the alternative version it can certainly help to appease fans, we call this 'reimagining' or a 'reboot' but both terms fall short of what is actually happening. Just as the method of transfer changes so does our understanding of the story. No two stories are alike. You can have the same story, written by the same author with the only difference being is the medium and they will never be the same story. Heraclitus famously said "You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." and this is most true for a writer. So many things go into the crafting of a story, and one of the most important variables is the method of transfer to your audience. In other words, you should not even try to recreate your story, but write one that fits in your world that may use the same characters and plot line. If that makes sense :D

The best example I can think of this is with the BBC show 'The Thick of It' to its big screen adaption 'In the Loop', which has some amazingly funny lines 'Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult'. It follows a similar plot to what you would find in the TV show, but the writers have realised that recreating the TV on the big screen with a bigger budget would lose the charm and wit of the original. So using the same cast, with some characters renamed but essentially the same but without the history of the TV cannon and others were transplanted completely. They recreated the world to fit the shape of the motion picture rather than scale up the TV show.

So my little short story that started this rant? I need to think of it as two seperate stories. Write the prose, and write the script. The concept of the story is quite vast so why not write two different stories in the same world rather than try to rehash one story to meet two mediums.

On Writing

2010-08-25T13:38:00.000+01:00

This is something that got jotted down in my note book a few weeks back. I have just stumbled on it again and I rather like it so I thought I would share.

"You do not write stories. You grab them by by the horns and force them, quite unwillingly, onto the page. There it struggles constantly to be free of it's tormentor, taking chunks from itself and of you during the melee. It is only when you both lie breathless, and quite often lifeless, that you can survey wreckage and try to discover what manner of beast that now stains the page a bloody black"

Ultimate Security System

2010-08-23T23:27:00.000+01:00

As a writing exercise I ask myself hypothetical questions and try and devise a perfect answer for it. At the weekend I gave my self this question: If I am an evil genius or a member of spy organisation what measure would need to be taken to make the security system unbeatable.

The first thing I concluded was that no system can be unbeatable but you can try to make it as secure as possible.

Each guard has a bullet proof/knife proof vest, this extends up to the neck reducing the risk of a choke hold or downward strikes. Also designed in such a way to make it incredibly difficulty to use standard techniques for breaking necks. Lining the inside of this jacket is heart rate sensors, and therein lies the crux of our defence.

These sensors should wirelessly feedback to a central server but also feedback to two other remote locations. The central and one of the remote servers are manned and monitored continuously. If one of these is compromised then the automated back up should catch it, other wise the other human monitored system can be used to compare against the other two for compromises. If one of these systems is compromised then the other two can be used to ensure that if one is hijacked then it is not fatal to the system. These systems talk to each and compare each others signal inputs. A final system should on top of this that is not connected to the others in any way but the signal. This is so that if the system is truly compromised and it is spread through them all it can be checked against the others still.

Finally a physical wire from the vest should be plugged into terminals around the complex. This relays the information in real time, comparing against the wireless signal and what is received at the servers.

All of these servers run analysis on the heart rates supplied to them. This goes against the mean supplied by the guards at monthly and irregular intervals in a variety of exercises. Even a slight variation to the numbers sent should prompt investigation. First through radio contact, if no response is given on the FIRST attempt of asking a 'swing' team should be sent consisting of a minimum of three guards who are regularly changed. This swing team should check on the heightened heart rate guard even if they answer afterwards. All of this is double checked via video cameras all of the guards carry. These should have similar redundancies to the heart rate monitors. This camera are monitored constantly and all grounds should be check by two individual separate parties prior to commencement of assignment and all signal issues rectified before acceptance.

The video should be interlaced with an encrypted stream that would render a repetition of the same feed easily identifiable. Guards should also be asked to produce predefined hand signals at irregular intervals and the swing guard should confirm at a distance in at even more irregular periods. This video should be reviewed on a 24 hour delay by a third, uninterested, party for any discrepancies.

That is what I came up with. It is not unbeatable but designed in such a way to cause the maximum amount of effort on behalf of the person who is trying to break it. If one guard is taken out then the system, if working correctly, will immedietly put the attack into lockdown. Of course other systems such as motion detectors should work in conjunction with the guards so that the criminal does not just slip by them.

Thats it, that was a fun writing exercise :D if any goverment agency, or evil genius, would like to hire me you have my email.

A-Level Results - Why exams are not getting easier

2010-08-20T16:05:00.000+01:00

What most commentators are seemingly missing from this debate is the reason why students are getting better grades in the first place. Two things become apparent with the passage of time. A teacher will refine their own skills and knowledge of examination procedure, therefore making their lessons more informative. Or as I often remarked when at a-level myself, 'We are learning to pass an exam, not the subject'.

The other much more important reasoning behind this increase in student pass grades is a shift in culture. Students are exposed to a whole different set of complexities that were not even dreamed of when I was in school. Lets think on this a moment, I am not that far out of A-level myself – some five years. Courses offering tuition is media studies were just taking off then, I think in fact that I remember one of my friends remarking that they were the first to go through the subject at the sixth form I attended. When we were in our formative years, discovering the world and all that was interesting in it, well there was not all that much to discover. Television was still bound to four channels, going to the cinema was considered a treat rather than something to do to fill time. Even reading was considered only acceptable to age appropriate books. Basically parents pushed their children to do three things.

1. Go out side and play
2. Stop watching TV
3. Eat your vegetables

That was about the level of the pressures forced on a child of that age some ten years ago. Yet cut to today and you only have to talk to a child for a moment to realise that this has changed drastically¹. The media saturates our lives in a million different ways from such an early age is it any wonder that we have become conditioned to analyse and gained a predilection to study it? This does not only apply to 'Media Studies'. My pocket money when growing up was 50p a week, which would be promptly spent on that weeks beano and a packet of sweets. I would of liked more, and I am sure could of found a use for it, but it was sufficient for the time. Now we have mobile phones as standard in a young persons arsenal, computer games, on demand movies, bank accounts. Children have become responsible adults ten years early.

This is not to mention how free data and intercommunication is to a young adult these days ³. I remember begging my mam for my first programming book when I was twelve, yes I was that kid, and it was only after much pleading and saving I was able to afford to start learning. Today we have online tutorials, youtube videos explaining essentially any subject you can think of, a whole multitude of content and providers ready to turn their knowledge into a medium that anyone can read.

Now can you really say that you had this kind of inbred training from the moment you were born? Children are getting better marks because they are not the same as you or me. Just as in ten years time one of those very young adults will be writing a blog post, or equivalent, about how unrelatable the lives of a kid of that generations life is to their own. The cause for this increase in grades is not because exams are getting easier, but because your children are getting much smarter to very specific forms of stimulus.

¹ Television and child development (2004). Judith Van Evra. New Jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates Inc.

² Tamar Lewin. (2010). If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html. Last accessed 20 August 2010.

³ Amanda Lenhart, Rich Ling, Scott Campbell, Kristen Purcell. (2010). Teens and Mobile Phones. Available: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx?r=1. Last accessed 20 August 2010.

Hello! Look New Blog!

2010-08-20T15:04:00.000+01:00

Hello!

After two years of maintaining my squarespace blog I have made the transition to blogger, I would be lyng if I did not say that this decision was not partly based on financial reasons but I said a lot of things on that blog that I was proud of but I am at a new place in my life and as such felt that a new blog would be appropriate.

On this blog I will continue to post writing tips as I did on my previous blog but they will not be as regular as my previous posts. I want this blog to be more a reflection of myself than me droning on about what you should be doing. So I will be offering more encouragement rather than instruction. And lets not forget I will be be posting examples of my creative work when I write them!

As I said with the previous blog and I will repeat here, When I first started as a writer I would often need someone to talk to or give me feedback on my work but did not really have anyone in my life to take up that role, so if anyone wishes for an honest opinion of any of their work or just general guidance then feel free to contact me
Cheers,
Peter Michael Kerr