Will Knott

I love (or at least heart) lamp.

I don’t get the reference, but I’m happy to join in.

But, unlike others I’m not going to take it too far.

take care,
Will Knott

I borrowed RedMum’s purchase and decided to dress up the graffiti (by Maser)

A lot of the ToeJam photographers were entranced by the T-Shirt stand, but I don’t think any of them (based on their comments about the stand) asked the people running it if they were online.

Turtlehead has been “touching cloth” (which sounds slightly seedy) since 2006. And they do sell their wears online. Given that I’m a size tent, I might have to order my coverage that way.

take care,
Will Knott

When a books comes out with 27 pages of source references, you know someone is trying to prove that he is correct.

Image via Wikipedia

And when the 532-page ebook is free, I suspect that the author is trying to be very correct and get his point across. Partly to stop himself being sued by George Lucas no doubt. The book is question is The Secret History of Star Wars which skews from the Lucasfilm version of history.

According to the “Frequently Asked Questions” part of the book’s site, Michael Kaminski wrote the book to fill the perceived knowledge gap (or at least lore gap) between the observed history from the fan’s perspective, and the official history according the Lucasfilm.

To be honest, I don’t care enough about the politics of the Star Wars movies (or the Jedi religion) to be worried, about the book’s content. But the existence of the book is interesting.

Essentially this book is a compiled collection of sources to create a history of the creation of six highly influential movies; a series which continues to generate controversy. And is of course unauthorised.

When an unauthorised biography is compiled, the person at the heart of it can sue for liable, as long as the accusations (if any) in the book are false). This book is not about George Lucas, but about the creation of a series of products. Which means that is possible to sue for copyright violations in much the same way that a lawsuit was perused against the creators of a printed Harry Potter Lexicon (which was settled out of court). Its not just reputation at stake here, but a multimillion empire. By being a free download, the author manages to avoid at least part of the consequences (financial gain) and given that this 3rd edition of the book came after the above settlement, it is possible that a few discrete alternations may have been made to prevent the “too much of my work” arguments.

There are of course two reasons as to why Lucasfilm has not sued.

1) Suing your fans is not a good idea; you need them

2) Lucas has a Pirates Dilemma problem. Yes its is a derived work, but its taken the history of the series in a direction which LucasFilm never would. While they are unlikely to support it, it would be a bad idea for them to try to destroy it. Because its something they can build on (or at least with).

Could someone who cares about the series and can confirm the truth of any of the books details contact me? Also in the unlikely possibility that someone from LucasFilm is reading this, is there an official response to the book? I can confirm that the author cares enough about copyright to disable copying and pasting from the PDF file.

Still behind the scenes shenanigans are always interesting.

take care,
Will Knott

p.s. I’m waiting for The Secret History of the Babylon 5 series (or at least the collected Hyperion archives). Have I missed them?

I’m not a fan of Facebook

Which is a problem when it comes to Photomeets and Photowalks. And slightly impromptu events and meetings, as the initial invite is sent out via a Facebook invitation. I sort of went off it in the flood of applications, and I’m not surprised that LinkedIn is getting a flood of new users.

The one thing I loved was the friend feed. The quick status updates of “Bob is arriving at three” and “Alice is looking forward to the meeting” and “Eve is still listening”. Of course these are the essential parts of Twitter or Jaiku, or even FriendFeed.com (not the same thing, but I’m intrigued by their rooms to abate noise).

The main use of Facebook I’m doing is trying to track someone I don’t know down and contact them, or as I mentioned, meet-ups (as opposed to Tweet-ups or Meet-kus).

Why all this, it’s because I know about the next photowalk this weekend, (and yes I’m grateful that it e-mails out all messaes and the message contents now) but I have no idea if I’m going yet (and won’t know until that morning). I just don’t want to have to log in to FaceBook to say so.

take care,
Will Knott

The unmanned Phoenix space probe is sending back pictures from Mars

And this is a picture from the ToeJam meet (only 2 more posts like this to go). I called it ground control.

Another ground control in NASA is very happy at the moment.
Take care,
Will

Another shot from the ToeJam meetup. I love the contrast between the stand-keeper and the customers.

I suppose I spotted the shaved heads since I’ve been shaving mine for a while. The first time was a shock.

The reason was a bigger shock.

What the hirsute don’t realise is that the slow loss of hair isn’t always that obvious. I was busy tending to my locks, and combing them over, not realising that the thickness wasn’t there. Just one day with wet hair, comb in place in front of the mirror, arranging the strands when it hit me. I had the dreaded comb-over (patent pending).

After work it was a quick trip to the barber for a head shave, and its been getting shorter ever since. The funny thing is, I do have hair on the top of my head, so if I let it grow out a little, it looks more like my hairstyle is a lifestyle choice rather than nature presenting me with fewer than preferred options.

And since nature did it, I have a lot of hats. Warm ones for cold days, and light sunburn-preventing ones for hot days.

And I might go down the wig route, but only if I can have a different one every day.

Well, it fun, isn’t it?

take care,
Will Knott

As this pops up, I’ll probably be on my way back from 3D Camp, or encamped in a crowd of rugby supporters (how bad) watching Munster do its thing.

This is another ToeJam shot (oddly I’m still sieving through the shots from the walk part of the photowalk), and I just liked the combination…

If you look behind these two gentlemen (responsible for the hat sale) you’ll see a gap in the wall. I went back there to discover a wonderland of discarded items. And the remains of a small fire, possibly to make more room in the wonderland (well hinterland actually).

And in the remains of the fore, were the cards and the king crisps packet. Almost a pity they weren’t the came suit. Still, a pair of kings isn’t that bad a hand.

take care,
Will Knott

The lovely Grannymar tried her hand at a photowalk (and did a very good job at it). And Sinéad commented that she liked the hats Grannymar photographed.

So this shot is for her.

take care,
Will

Phil’s group photo of the ToeJam photowalk photobloggers is responsible for the picture below.

It’s a reflection of the group while the poor guy tried to herd us cats in to a line. And cat herding is hard. The pair in the shot are Alexia and MacAWilliams.

take care,
Will

Gentle reader,

Who am I?

Image via pix.ie

This isn’t an existential question, or something prompted by earlier posts, but its really the sad state of my about page which prompts this. Writing your biography (without headlines to help you) is an embarrassing enterprise. I’ll admit that I did it before.

A recent spate of cleaning (don’t worry, I’ve since had a lie down in a cool dark room) revealed a biography written in 2003 for the programme booklet of a theatre production (“Jobbo’s Secret” I think). I was going to type it in here, but instead I’ll ask … Who do you think I am?

Seriously, based on meeting me, or simply reading the blog, what do you think I’m like? Either add your thoughts and opinions to the comments, or e-mail them in (address in the about page).

I can’t help wondering if this is a web 2.0 way of doing a bio; namely you tell me about me. Sort of a meme in reverse. If you comment of mail, I’ll have to comment or mail when you do a similar call.

So now its your call.

Slightly worried about what I’m going to hear,
Will Knott