I don’t have to go to work again until next year. I haven’t had more than two days off since Easter. I need a break.

With today’s announcement of “Ubuntu Satanic Edition“, which essentially just ordinary plain ol’ Ubuntu except with 5 .pngs with some flames on, a critical point has been reached: that of the number of forks of Ubuntu having equalled the number of all other Linux distributions combined:

If this projected growth continues, there will be more Ubuntu forks than Ubuntu users by summer next year, more forks than computers by next Christmas and in two years’ time, forks of Ubuntu will have replaced hydrogen as the most abundant substance in the universe.

Ubuntu forks include:

• Kubuntu – Ubuntu with added KDE
• Edubuntu – Ubuntu with, uh, educational stuff
• Xubuntu – Ubuntu with Xfce
• Fluxbuntu – Ubuntu with Fluxbox
• Scibuntu – Scientific Ubuntu
• Xevian – Ubuntu with Xfce but in no way like Xubuntu at all
• Devubuntu – Ubuntu for developers, because apparently you can’t install gcc on normal Ubuntu, or something
• Ichthux – A “Christian” Ubuntu distribution, presumably for people with a lithp
• Ubuntu Christian Edition – Go on, guess

It is very important to note that these are all very definitely worthy separate distributions and in no way could most of them be replaced by a single package installed on top of the original Ubuntu. Yes. Uncyclopedia has a more comprehensive list.

Slate magazine with the astonishing news that NASA don’t have a compelling reason for a moon base.

Well, duh. It’s a moonbase. Like, a base, on the moon. Who needs a goddamned reason? It’s a fucking moon base.

So, yeah. The Nintendo Wii came out on Friday. I’ve had mine on pre-order at HMV since the day the price was announced, because I was a touch excited about it. Obviously, then, it was slightly annoying that Naomi’s brother decided to get married the day after it was released, in another country, thus ensuring Friday was a breathless rush as I dashed into town, picked up my new baby, dashed home again, picked up Naomi and drove to Liverpool airport having not even had a chance to remove said toy from its packaging.

The wedding was nice, as weddings go – a very good service and a posh (if somewhat cramped) reception. Also, it gave Naomi and I a chance to “preview” our wedding, as the reception was at the same venue as ours will be – although I’m assured we’ll be having considerably fewer people at ours, which is definitely a Good Thing(tm).

Anyway, having firmly established myself as an unsociable alcholic heathen (I don’t like large groups of people – I find those sort of situations extremely stressful and exhausting – so I spent a lot of time hiding in a corner, nursing several large whiskys, and was so tired by the end of the day that I overslept the following morning and missed going to church with Naomi’s family), we flew back to England and some semblance of normality.

So, sunday I finally got to set up my Wii and – once I’d figured out how to get it to talk to my wireless network and apply a system update without locking hard – have a play with Wii Sports and the new Zelda.

Wii Sports is a nice demo of the controller – the games are fairly simple, dumbed down versions of their real-life equivalents, but the controls are, generally, pretty intuitive and easy to pick up. There’s a few annoying quirks – some of the games seem to experience a bit of lag, and some of the gesture recognition is a bit wonky at times: going from backhand to fronthand in tennis sometimes seems to register as playing a shot. However, for the most part it’s a good laugh and a nice introduction to the new controller.

Zelda, on the other hand, is very much a Real Game. Okay, so the graphics aren’t as spangly as stuff you’ll see on the XBox 360, but the art direction is superb and attention to detail is spot-on. The game plays much like any other Zelda – explore, fight baddies, save Hyrule, etc – and in style it’s much closer to Ocarina of Time than any of the others in the series (which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing). The new controller does feel a bit tacked on at times – I’m not so keen on the slash-with-the-remote-to-attack mechanic, although other people seem to like it – but some parts (aiming the slingshot and the fishing minigame) work very well; generally, though, the game is neither spoiled nor made by the controller. I’m only about three hours in, so I can’t comment too much about the story, but so far I’m enjoying it immensely and I can see it eating up a large amount of my Christmas holiday this year.

Two work social events: Trip to Jodrell Bank and Trip to Chester Zoo.

You probably haven’t heard of the Last Town Chorus. This is evident from the very small number of people who were at their gig tonight. This is also your loss, because you missed an awesome gig by a very special and very unique band. I suggest you wander over to their website and acquaint yourself with them. There’s not many bands as can cover Bowie, not ruin it and bring something new to the table.

So, my pair of “happy” pinatas have just gone into their “pinata house” and done a “romance dance” (which involved breakdancing to something that sounded suspiciously like a porno-funk soundtrack). Now there’s an egg containing a baby pinata in my garden. As a result, I’ve just received an award for being a Pinata Breeder.

Later on, I have to encourage one of my bird-esque pinata to eat one of the worm-esque pinata that I’ve so lovingly caused to be conceived, born and raised to maturity. Can we say “emotional trauma”?

What are kids gonna learn from this? “Life might look pretty, but when it comes down to it, it’s basically just sex and death”?

This game is pretty twisted, right there.

Awesome, though.

This is astonishingly and unexpectedly moving. If you don’t shed a tear, you may have to consider whether you actually have a soul.

Well, I’ve been at Transitive for two years today. And now, we’ve finally shipped the first public release of the software I’ve been working on (in one guise or another) for those two years: QuickTransit for Solaris/SPARC to Linux/x86-64. Woo.

Okay, so it doesn’t quite have the same earthy thrill as being able to walk into HMV and Game and see my work on the shelf (or, at least, rearrange the product display so our game isn’t hidden somewhere down the bottom shelf between Pippa Funnel’s Horse Dentistry Adventure and M25 Traffic Jam Simulator 2002), but it’s still quite exciting: if this thing takes off like we hope, my code will be running on big-ass enterprise servers all round the world, which is kind of scary.

Anyway, if you’re at all interested, and you’ve got an x86-64 Linux box lying around (sorry, 32-bit CPUs aren’t supported; you really should upgrade to 64-bit, it’s much nicer :), you can download a free trial and see just how bloody impressive this thing really is – at least, I think it is, anyway.

In other news, this is far from the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

So, yes, I went to see Archbishop Rowan speak – turns out it was the opening event for the new Manchester Research Institute for Religion and Civil Society, and therefore he was speaking on a topic more sociological/political than religious, but it was still very interesting, if a little hard for my muzzy cold-addled brain to follow in places. Broadly, he was advocating a sort of post-libertarian state model in which a government would acknowledge that there are bounds beyond which it should not step – in terms of legislating morality, for example – but which also acknowledged the existence of social groups (for example, faith groups) that would necessarily exist under this state: a state which encompassed both political freedom and religious freedom.

I wish I’d taken a few more notes on the talk, but I was still suffering with full on man-flu, so it took most of my effort just to keep up with things, let alone take notes – this being ++Rowan, his style was quite nuanced and he made sure every word meant something.

The day after this talk, the Archbishop hit the headlines in a rather unceremonious way – Church could think again over women, says Williams, apparently. The thrust of the article is that he’d said that, first, the ordination of women hadn’t led to any spectacular rebirth of the Anglican church and that second, he could conceive of a circumstance that would lead to the Anglican church reconsidering its position on female priests.

Now, on the surface, that’s quite a slap in the face for women priests, especially considering he was one of the people most strongly in favour of ordaining women. However, if you read the article, it becomes apparent (if you’re at all familiar with Williams’ manner of speaking) that that’s not what he said at all. Yes, he said there hasn’t been a revival as a result of women priests – but neither has the church gone to hell. Well – good; that’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect. Women weren’t invited to be ordained to because the Anglicans believed they were the key to a modern revival, anyway, so what’s the big deal?

Also, he said he could “just about envisage a situation in which, over a very long period, the Anglican Church thought about it again, but I would need to see what the theological reason for that would be”. That’s like George W. Bush saying that he could “just about envisage a situation in which, over a very long period, America could enter into a political alliance with Al Qaeda”. That’s very far from “re-opening the debate” over women priests.

It’s a shame that this has caused such a furore – so far as several women priests coming out to condemn his remarks – because it seems to me it just stems from a misunderstanding of his comments. The Archbishop is a very clever, very wise man who has a genuine and deep love for God and his Church – but he has a manner of speaking which can be misinterpreted easily and this, combined with headline writers out for a story, can sometimes lead to this sort of misunderstanding.

Graham Ward (one of the people responsible for the founding of the MRIRCS) is such a Rowan Fanboy, though. It’s funny 🙂