Tag: opinion

Security isn’t a dirty word, Blackadder

On 10th July 2017

I’m often surprised at just how some websites treat their users when it comes to security.

As any decent website developer knows, one of the basic tenets of application security is that you should never store a user’s password in an unencrypted format – and you shouldn’t really be storing a password in an encrypted format, either. The correct way to deal with storing a password is to use a password hashing algorithm (note: “password hashing”, not just “hashing”)

I’m not going to pretend that I’m perfect at this. It took me an embarrassingly long time to stop using MD5 for hashing passwords in my code (although, in my defence, it was at least salted and not just a straight hash) but I caught up with the zeitgeist and all’s well again. Of course, it seems these days I do most of my work with existing frameworks and applications, so don’t really have to worry too much about that kind of thing any more.

The fact that there are so many frameworks and other tools out there to help devs with this kind of thing just makes it all the more upsetting when I see someone doing it so drastically wrong. Someone like whoever it was that developed KidsPass.co.uk

For those unfamiliar, Kids Pass is a website aimed at parents that offers many discounts and other offers on things to do with their little’uns. It’s not a website aimed at children, which is just as well because with password security as poor as theirs that would be absolutely terrifying.

Alien: Covenant – Movie Review

By gazchap

On 14th May 2017

In Movies

WARNING: Contains minor spoilers.

Those who know me will know that the Alien franchise is, hands-down, my favourite series of movies of all time. I am too young to have actually seen any of the “original” four at the cinema (when they were released, at least) but I have since seen Alien (the Director’s Cut) on the big screen, Prometheus and now Ridley Scott’s new release, Alien: Covenant. I don’t really count the AvP movies as part of the franchise, although I did go and see them when they were released.

It occurred to me as I was planning this review out, that I haven’t actually written any sort of review or retrospective on the other movies in the franchise, which I really must do – but first, a review of Covenant.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (PC)

By gazchap

On 20th September 2016

In Games

Hey there, readers! It’s been almost a year since my last post on here, because I’m a complete and utter prat who keeps forgetting that this domain name even exists. Still, never mind, I’m here now, eh?

What’s brought me back into the fold, you may ask? Well, it’s the hotly anticipated release of Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 on the PC (and various other platforms, but I do 99% of my gaming on a PC, so the PC version is what we’re talking about here.)

No-one would have believed…

By gazchap

On 12th September 2015

In Blog, Updates

…that in the first years of the 2010s, a new version of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds would be created that is inferior to the 1978 original in pretty much every way.

The original album – featuring the dulcet tones of the late Richard Burton as the Journalist, is my favourite album of all time, so the release of a new version in 2012 replacing Richard Burton with Taken star Liam Neeson raised my eyebrows.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Liam. He was great in Schindler’s List, Taken (although the less said about the sequels the better) and, to be honest, pretty much every film he’s ever been in.

But I just couldn’t picture him (or hear him, whatever the right term should be) as the Journalist.

Being a bit of a fanboy for Jeff Wayne’s most famous work (I even went to the O2 Arena in 2009 for the 30th Anniversary tour, which was at the time touted as being the last tour they would do – only for them to do another tour the year after) I have listened to the 2012 release and I just cannot find anything to like about it.

Wayne explores the characters a bit deeper than in the original, which I suppose can be considered a positive. But, for me, the revised audio (including the frankly odd addition of some "dubstep" style elements) just doesn’t really work and dates the album even more.

My main beef with it though, is that Liam Neeson just does not have the right voice for the role – he almost sounds like he’s phoning in a lot of his lines, there’s no gravitas to them. Richard Burton’s slow, methodical recital of the lines, with emphasis in all the right places, makes for a far more engaging experience.

One of the best examples of the differences, for me at least, is in the track Dead London. Compare the dialogue in the original against the new version below – start at 3:00 if the embed doesn’t automatically forward you to that point.

Dead London (1978, Richard Burton)

Dead London (2012, Liam Neeson)

Neeson’s enunciation and general timing is all off, for me, and a general lack of ‘feeling’ in what is being said. Burton’s speech and the pregnant pauses between certain words adds a whole other level of emphasis that really drives home the emotion in what the character is feeling.

It also doesn’t help that there are weird echoes applied to the end of many sentences in the new version.

Perhaps it’s just because I’m so used to Richard Burton’s voice that I can’t get on with it – please comment below with your preferred version, it would be good to find out if it’s just me being overly picky.