Random Fact

Chromium being the open source browser component of Google Chrome has an open policy for bug reports accepting all reports from any source. To help this effort they have a Reward Program where individuals reporting new security can get anywhere from a $500 to $1337 as a reward. They even have a Hall Of Fame.

The Adventures Of Mini Cannon

This miniature cannon isn't just for show, it is a fully working cannon.

Man Really Loves Rainbows

Either he really does love rainbows or he is tripping on mushrooms.

BBC Some Does GOOD Technology Coverage!!!

I like whatever happened at the BBC recently to caused their technology coverage to reach an acceptable level of quality.



However some of their science coverage still leaves a little to be desired. This Piece on meat from cloned animals just talks through the process and doesn't cover the reasons for or against the technology. Despite my love of science and my strong belief we need to spend more on science and make greater strides, I think cloning farm animals like this is a mistake. Many cloned animals are born with defects and the farm animals we have today where created through a process of selective breeding which is perfectly adequate for our purposes.

Ratings Out Of Five

I have watched many films and rated many films through film rental services and looking at how I rate films and how others rate them out of five I have come up with a breakdown of the "out of five" rating system.

1/5 A bad film, makers didn't even try.

2/5 Makers tried to create a good film, but the parts just didn't come together.

3/3 An average film, good, entertaining, but nothing more.

4/5 A film where everything comes together so well it clicks.

5/5 A film that is better than the sum of it's parts and stands as an excellent exsample of film-making.


What I like about the five point rating system is it's ability to give more detail that just a thumbs up or down, but also the ability to not judge a film too precisely and allow each viewer to experience the film on their own terms. Giving a film a five out of five rating says it is very good, but doesn't put an unnecessarily high level of expectation that a ten out of ten, or a one hundred out of one hundred rating would.

Random Fact

Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty glass.

Random Joke

I hear that Mission Impossible is being remade with cats, they are calling it Mission Inpussible.

Anime Dub Vs Sub

Normally Anime fans regard the discussion of original subtitles vs dubbed English with disdain, because historically dubs have been terrible. No terrible as in an audio quality way, but terrible because the dubbers change the script to please a younger western audience. This can mean that characters nolonger swear, subplots are removed, cultural references get a more US flair and most scripts loose their edge.

In the last ten years this however has started to change and companies performing the dubs know that fans hate it when they change things, so they have been trying to do more unabridged dubs. For me this peaked when I seen the English Dub of Beck. I was shocked to discover the Dub was better than the original sub!

The reason for this is that Beck is about a native Japanese speaking band with no knowledge of English who sing English songs. This means they have a strong Japanese accent on all the songs and for myself an English speaker this was slightly jarring, the English dub however has none of this. And with an almost completely unabridged script, it's brilliant. I highly recommend the sub all the time, but the dub is better.

Japanese


English

Tilt Shift Cameras

Of the camera lenses in the world the Tilt Shift style seem to be getting very popular and so I went searching. What I found was rather interesting:



And one of those tight focus videos:

Random Fact

Smurfs are exactly three apples tall.

Data Through Visible Light

When I heard about Data Through Visible Light, I thought it was something about fibre optics, but this is something different. This is an LED based light transmitting a data stream through alpha waves (light in the range of human vision). On the surface this might seem pointless, but it has a few tantalising applications.

Imagine an advert on television where by using a mobile phone camera you could download the product. Or if you are in a club the lights could tell you what music was playing. Or if a power LED on a product could stream detailed information about what it was doing. Imagine a situation where you have twenty or more televisions that you want to display the same image, in sync from the same video source, with current technology that would take a lot of cables, but with this the screens would only need to see the light from a single source.

The future of all electronics will be to make them wireless and this will be another tool. Wither it will be a staple of consumer electronics is yet to see, but all mobile phones have cameras.

Upside Down Dog.com

Upside Down Dog.com is a photoblog of upside down dogs. Very pointless, very silly and nobody would have created such a thing pre-internet.

Money Island 2 Out Now On STEAM

Money Island 2 Special Edition came out on Steam (Link). Playing it, it seems a lot more polished than the last Special Edition. The developers commentary is excellent too.

I was reading an article today called 10 Things You Did Not Know About Monkey Island and unlike your usual "things you didn't know" articles this was very good.

Apple Says No Thanks To Bluray

Apple computers are premium computers that are stylish and do everything in HD because when you buy a Mac you know you are buying the latest technology. But for some reason you can't get one with a Bluray player.

One might think that this was a licensing issue, but Apple isn't bothering with Blueray because users are already buying movies from iTunes.

[Crunch Gear]

Korean Android Girl (Rihanna - Take A Bow)

Simply delightful.



Rihanna's version isn't half bad either.

Super Mario Crossover

Now you can play the original Super Mario Brothers Nintendo game with Samus, Mega Man or several other classic characters in Super Mario Crossover.

The History Of PC Audio As Told By Money Island

I seen this on Evil Avatar. I started with a SoundBlaster 16 myself and the first game I had with sound was Theme Park.

Omnitech Skateboard Figure

The Omnitech Skateboard Figure is a skateboarding action figure with a control rod so it acts more like a puppet.



The below video shows how they are operated, I don't think they will catch on, but they might sell enough to keep going.

Llewellyn On Copyright

Robert Llewellyn, writer, actor and comedian got hit with the YouTube video takedown hammer recently and he has some interesting things to say on Copyright as a result.

Website Naming Disasters

One Hundred Website Naming Disasters. My favourite is the children's charity childrenslaughter.com, is it Children's Laughter or Children Slaughter?

Power Rangers And It's Japanese Twin

Power Rangers was a very popular kids TV show during the 90's and 00's, but it had a Japanese twin called Zyuranger. All the in-costume action shots where re-purposed from the original Japanese show and re-used in the American show with new story pieces filmed around them for a western audience. I always wondered what the Japanese intro was like:

Dinosaur Squadron Zyuranger:


Original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Into and Full Theme Music if you so wish.

Google Chrome Vs Opera Vs Potato

As a mindspace type ad Google put-together an odd advert called Chrome Vs Potato (see below), funny, but one does have to wonder what that has to do with performance benchmarking.



Now Opera have done a parody advert on the same idea, Opera Vs Potato. Proving that potatoes don't make for a very consistent browser speed test.

Random Fact

Horses are unable to vomit.

Harry Potter Linked To The Jewish Plot To Takeover The World

Some people on Iranian television would have it's viewers that Jews in Hollywood are using Harry Potter to take over the world. I am not sure how anybody could use Harry Potter to bring the world under their control, but I think this is a clear example that antisemitism is still very much alive in the world and not something that died with Hitler.

Octopus Guerrilla Filmmaker Steals Diver's Digicam

This Story is brilliant. Octopus steals camera, diver chases after octopus and wrestles it back.

Happy To Own

This guy seems very happy about his Neo Geo collection.

The Pink Panther:The Pink Phink

In 1964 the first episode of The Pink Panther won an Oscar for Short Subjects. I remember watching this as a kid, but unlike a lot of things back then when I rewatch them and realise how shallow they where, this is kind of cool.

Social Is Social Again

AudioBoo is the new newweb2.0/wiki/facebook/youtube/twitter revolution we have all been waiting for apparently. This fascination with the one social site to rule them all thing is kind of silly. The truth is that now and in the future content on the internet is going to come more from users than professional content producers like paid performers. And indeed putting yourself online is nolonger extraordinary, but a normal social activity, hay! look at my video! my music! my rant!

Social media is just another medium for communication, and it is here to stay. Now can we please stop calling every new social media site revolutionary and get on with life!?

Simply Inspired

This is brilliant on several levels. I don't want to deconstruct it, just watch it.

iPad used by 100 Year Old Gran

This video supports everything I have said about the iPad, in that it isn't for tech-people, it is for people who for whatever reason struggle to use a traditional computer.

Random Fact

In Italy drivers loose points for breaking traffic rules rather than gain them. The idea is that loosing good points has a stronger phycological effect than gaining bad points.

Duck Face

Is it pouting, making a kissy face or making a duck face? I don't know, but Stop Making That Duck Face is funny.

I'm Here by Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze director of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are also directs music videos and short films. And last month I'm Here was launched on it's website.

The thirty minuet short features two robots in an adaptation of The Giving Tree. And is one of the better shorts I have recently seen.

Greg Mutt

I seen Greg Mutt first after Avatar was released, he is a very lifelike anthropomorphic CGI Dog. At the time I though it was done by some Hollywood guy who had too much time on his hands, but turns out it is a short film company in Wiltshire UK called BustyKelp who are mainly know for their work on commercials.

The reason why I know this is because AudioMotion the tool they use has been using Greg to promote their tool. I just hope they make more videos now the secret is out, because Greg is cool.

A Very Long Wee

I have had long urinations, but this is something completely different. I should point-out that this isn't me.



Update: Fixed video.

The Codex Of Alchemical Engineering

This is one of those things on the internet that passed me by. Mainly because I was linked to it, couldn't work out how to play it by clicking around it's interface and so didn't bother with it. This has happened a couple of times in the last year, but yesterday when I found myself looking at it yet again (it was mentioned in An Episode Of Geek Nights on Programming) I thought I would give it a proper go. And I am so glad I did.

What I am referring to is a flash game called The Codex Of Alchemical Engineering. In it you are given a set of atom modifiers and some manipulator arms that you must use to collect basic atoms and from level to level make more and more complex elements from them. The game plays very much like a simpler version of CeeBot.

Here is a video tutorial that should help get you started.



NOTE: To rotate one of the arms you have to click and hold the left mouse button as if you where dragging it, and while still holding the left mouse button press the Ctrl or Shift keys on your keyboard to change the arm's orientation or start length. This is not very well explained in the game's instructions, the video does a slightly better job, but still doesn't spell it out.

Some of my solutions:

Level 1 (a very fast solution)
m,11,12,180,3,crol;m,3,12,270,3,orcl;m,3,4,90,3,clor;m,11,4,180,3,olcr;

Level 2
b,7,9;m,6,6,0,3,clorwwwww;m,10,9,270,1,lucdowcro;m,7,12,0,2,clolcrorw;

Level 3
t,4,11;b,6,9;m,4,9,90,3,cddloruuwwww;m,10,9,90,3,cdrwwdrolluu;m,7,6,0,2,clor;

Level 4
b,4,11;b,4,9;m,7,11,90,1,crolww;m,1,11,90,1,cludor;m,4,7,90,2,douucd;m,5,5,0,3,rcllor;m,7,9,180,1,rrcllo;m,13,9,90,3,crolww;

Level 5
c,11,13;t,9,11;t,7,9;b,4,9;m,9,13,0,3,cddloruu;m,9,9,180,3,oddlcruu;m,1,9,0,2,oruwwcdl;m,8,7,180,1,wwcruodl;m,4,7,90,1,clorwwww;

Level 6
t,9,9;t,11,11;c,9,13;c,1,11;b,4,9;b,5,7;m,1,9,90,3,cddluoru;m,11,13,0,1,cllorrww;m,9,11,90,1,llorrcww;m,9,7,180,1,dlcruoww;m,6,5,90,1,crrruodr;m,5,13,270,2,lucdruod;m,5,5,90,3,cddouuww;m,11,5,180,1,cllluodl;m,13,2,180,1,oddwwcuu;

Level 7
p,9,11;b,6,9;b,1,9;m,10,13,0,2,cdloruww;m,7,11,90,1,cloclorr;m,9,9,180,1,dwwwwcuo;m,6,11,270,1,lorwwwwwwwwwwwwc;m,2,11,270,1,rclo;m,1,11,90,1,rrollwwwwwwwwwwc;m,1,6,90,2,lorwwwwwwwwwwwwc;m,7,6,180,2,crol;

Level 8
t,3,9;c,13,11;t,11,9;b,8,11;c,1,11;b,3,7;m,13,13,180,1,crolwwww;m,8,13,0,1,wwlorucd;m,3,11,90,1,rrudollc;m,3,5,90,1,uuwwcddo;m,11,11,0,1,cludlorr;m,6,11,270,1,rclo;m,6,7,90,1,rolc;m,4,5,0,1,rclo;m,8,5,270,1,lcro;

Level 9
b,5,13;c,13,9;t,13,7;b,10,11;c,3,10;b,5,7;m,3,13,180,1,currodllcrrollwww;m,5,10,90,2,wwwwwwwwwwwcrroll;m,6,11,0,3,wwwwwwwwwc11lorww;m,11,13,0,1,wwwwwwwclorwwwwww;m,13,11,90,1,crruududlodlwwwww;m,6,5,90,1,cll22uuoddllwwwww;m,2,1,0,1,cuuodd;

PhotoShop CS5's Content Aware Fill

Like I took this photo at a wedding and cut someone off because they where outside the frame and I don't know who they are, can you fill them in?

Adobe PhotoShop CS5's Content Aware fill just might.

Random Scifi Idea

I was just thinking the other day how cool it would be to have some photo editing software that would change the season, or time of day a photograph was taken.

So you would for example load in a photograph taken in the summer and then you could change the season to winter. It would adjust the lighting, put snow on flat surfaces, even change the cloths people where wearing in the photograph to make it look like winter.

Also if you took a photo and didn't like the time of day it was taken, it would figure out where the sun is and then change all the lighting and shadows to make it look like a different time of day.

I don't have the time or money to make this software, but if I patent it then maybe my grandkids can sue whoever makes it after I am dead.

Earth Hour

Just a reminder that this Saturday from 8:30pm to 9:30pm is Earth Hour.

Failure Is Always An Option

Adam Savage who you might have seen on Mythbusters gave a talk at Makers Fair about times in his life where he has failed.



[Direct Link]

EVE Online's Dr Eyjolfur Gudmundsson

The BBC of all places did An Interesting Article about Dr Eyjolfur Gudmundsson and the role of economy in EVE Online.

If you didn't know, Dr Gudmundsson was an Academic Economist who joined CCP to help the staff with the in game economy and produce quarterly economic reports.
As the game is player driven, and all items in the game are the result of in-game crafting. So keeping the system fluid and fair is key to keeping EVE a fun place to trade. Hiring an economist seems then like a logical decision, but I know of no other MMO that has one; despite how everybody seems to realise or Write About how important a stable economy is.

And if you are so interested, you can download EVE's 2009 Fourth Quarterly economy report from Here.

During the BBC's video interview, Dr Gudmundsson talks about how pressures in real our world economy could be lessened if like EVE it was transparent and allowed people to make their own choices. But I think Jon Stewart Has Proved That Will Never Happen.

Happy National No Smoking Day

Penny Arcade's The Tester

This is just me trying to get you to watch the Penny Arcade WebTV series so if you already watch it, you don't need to read this.


Sony put together a show called The Tester which is a reality show about a group of people playing silly games in order to win the show prize of becoming a video games tester. See trailer:



Working in the video games industry is though and sucks the life blood out of many unfortunate souls. But the lowest position is that of a tester. If you work in other industries Quality Assurance can have some respect, but not in the video games industry. If the company misses a milestone payment from the publisher, before management will give-up their quilted toilet paper, some testers are going to go.

Penny Arcade captured this competition and the crushing reality of the prize in a strip titled Here's Your Reality Program.

Now the reason for this post. Jerry and Mike have a reality show of their own and last week their documentary team (2PlayerProductions) released a Video Of Them Creating That Strip.

STEAM Lies

It is post midnight and I am waiting for Supreme Commander 2 to unlock. All I have to look at is the pre-load screen and that keeps telling me that when the game is released I will be able to play it immediately. I am not sure about Valve's definition of immediately, but clearly we have a disagreement in this matter.

Identify Unknown Fonts

There is a website called Identifont that has an Identify Fonts By Appearance feature. Kind of cool since I already used it productively at work to identify a font we used as a company a long, time ago.

Home Music Systems

For a few years now I have been thinking how cool it would be if all the speaker systems in my home could sync up and play the same track simultaneously and then remain in sync. There is ShoutCast which is a free WinAmp Plug-in that will allow you to connect to an audio stream and then there are other plug-ins you can use to remotly controle winamp like iAmpRemote, but this all needs setting up.

But there is a company called Sonos that does room speaker systems that sync themselves and has a load of remote control options that are all really cool. However I don't think a lot of traditional consumers of music are going to be into Sonos because it is more tuned to the digital age.

A Different Type Of UK Plug

British plugs are large by international standards. The story goes that in an attempt to save on copper wiring in a post World War 2 Britain each plug was wired through new homes in series. This created the problem of a lot of voltage behind each socket. To help prevent people from being electrocuted the BS 1363 Standard was created. In this each plug was given it's own fuse, an earth, a socket on/off switch and a shutter cover inside the socket so that the socket would only accept compatible plugs. The result of all this is was very large large plug.

After spending my life unfortunately standing on these with their prongs pointing upwards as they tend to do I was delighted to see (by way of Engadget) a slimline British plug design.

And the designer is looking to get it into production, so we might be seeing it soon in Ireland, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, Botswana, Ghana, Hong Kong, Macau, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Mauritius, Iraq, Kuwait, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (yes I just lifted that from wikipedia).

Restaurant Menu Phycology

I would have bought the fried pickles because I love to try stuff.

William Poundstone has written a book called Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, it is about how companies manipulate prices to make you spend more. I haven't read it, but it's going on my reading list.

Zoom In On That Reflection, ENHANCE!

If you have a photograph, you can not use special software or an algorithm to zoom in on stuff that doesn't exist in the original image.

This scene from Blade Runner.


Has spawned many copy cats.


Including CSI.


But we all know how silly it is.

Azo The FreeRunner's Dayjob

I love how Azo combines his love of freerunning and animation. I am not sure which came first because I discovered him through his FreeRunning Videos on YouTube. But he has done a video about the combination with a slight plug for his current work project.

How Derren Brown Predicted The National Lottery Numbers

Derren Brown a few months ago supposedly predicted the National Lottery numbers. This was a great event and there has been much speculation as to how he did it, but now an explanation has emerged that I think is rather convincing. I don't feel cheated knowing what the fake is, I actually find this side of magic fascinating.

A good explanation of how. Do you feel cheated? I didn't.

What To Do If Your Accelerator Becomes Stuck

The BBC Has The Answer, put car into neutral and break gradually.

Predictions For 2010 to 2020

I didn't do so bad on my iPad Prediction. I thought it was going to be an eReader device, but turned out to be Apple's entry into the table PC race. But this has given me a taste for predictions, so here are my predictions for the next ten years.

• Telivision as we know it will still be around, but when someone thinks of watching television, it will be over the internet and the idea of scheduled broadcast will seem very old fashioned.


• School pupils will not spend very much time with physical paper, instead they will use an electronic tablet device much like the iPad. The devices will be made by a variety of vendors, but be powered by Google.


• There is will an international summit on plastic pollution. The result of this will be a fund to help countries clean up areas that create this kind of pollution.


• Electric cars will be the only kind of vehicle the average consumer will buy.


• Brain reading lie detection machines used in court to provide circumstantial evidence for the first time to US high profile murder trial, with someone who hasn't killed anybody yet.


• In computing we will be using single chip computers that will be CPU, GPU and BIOS combined.


• Football grounds and other events will be surveillanced with autonomous flying drones.


• Ray traced graphics will have superseded rasterized graphics engines on all platforms.


• The rich will be able to buy a ticket for a flight around the earth and moon.

RIP J. D. Salinger 2010

J. D. Salinger Died On Wednesday and I think the New York Times did a good Article on his death.

My favourite quote from Catcher In The Rye isn't by Salinger, it is a quote that he had a character read on page 169:

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one
- Wilhelm Stekel

In this quote Salinger is trying to save himself from taking a lonely path or one that results in his younger self sacrificing too much for too little. Something he seemed to do many times in his life.

Mustard Does Creep By Radiohead

Mustard sings Creep from Rex Kramer on Vimeo.

Boba Flash Dance

Mandalorian Dance
by PatrickBoivin

Apple 27th New Product Announcement Prediction

I predict that the new product that will be announced on the 27th (next wednesday) will be an eBook reader called the iBook.

Here is my reasoning:

1. This fits the rumours of a tablet like device.


2. The Kindle is Amazon's top selling product, so there is clearly a market for eReaders. This is a new device that is on a rapid upward trend.


3. Most eReaders on the market today are either rather ugly or feel like a first generation product. So there is a gap in the market for an eReader with an Apple quality feel to it.


4. Digital distribution of eBooks isn't far from Apple's core competency with the iTunes store. They could just bolt it on like they did with TV, Movies and iPhone applications.

This doesn't fit a lot of the rumours because a lot of the supposed leaks talk of an iSlate that is just a large iPhone type interface.

Science Won't Save Us

I keep hearing polaticians encuraging more spending in science to combat climate change. I think this is good because I love science, but science already has a silver bullet solution and that is Nuclear Fusion, but as Steven Cowley explains in his Ted Talk, it will be at least until 2030+ before we know how to do it properly. If we wait until that time the planet will be well into a state of rejecting us. So we need to use the techniques we have now to do as much as we can.

The Cove

Everybody should see The Cove, a very good documentery about the Dolphin Slaughtering in town called Taiji in the Wakayama prefecture of Japan where tens of thousands of dolphins are killed each year as part of a government subsidised trade. It is subsidised because Japanese people don't eat Dolphin meat and I can only assume it is preserved out of some misguided notion of historical preservation.


View The Cove in a larger map

Ending Corruption For Proffit

Corruption is a big issue in a lot of countries, where this is the case there is usually a cultural acceptance for bribes and exploitation. Shaffi Mather has had enough of corruption in India and has a plan to stop it with a for profit organisation. It sounds insane and impossible, but I think it can work.

Planet M.U.L.E.

M.U.L.E was a Commodore 64 game where players where transported to a uncolonised planet to compete on the virgin ground for profit. You place farms to make food, solar stations to make power and mine metal and crystal out of the ground to earn the big bucks.

Now it is back as Planet M.U.L.E. and it is free, online enabled, has much better graphics and I know what I am doing because of the improved interface. I don't know what the developers have planned for it, but at the moment it is a very faithful recreation of the original.

M.U.L.E. is not a balanced game, whoever lands the sweet deposits at the start of the game will most likely win; so I would like to see a reworked version to make the gamplay more strategic.

Happy New Year

I have a good feeling about this year.

My Film Of 2009

To found out what my film of 2009 was I went though all the films I had given a 5/5 rating to over the last year on LoveFilm (the UK Netflix) and then had a look at what films that where actually released this year. Of those only one films matched and that means my film of 2009 was 500 Days Of Summer!



If I was include all films that I had seen this year, I would say my films of the year was The Final Cut, but I don't think as many people would agree with me on that one.

Kevin Smith On Twilight

I actually prefer Kevin Smith's talks to his films.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas with phat beats and a thumping base.



Track by Output Jack, MP3 can be downloaded from Here and visualisation curacy of MilkDrop 2.

A Connection To Watch

Damien Walters from Derby UK has a very good freerunning/gymnastics YouTube Channel. He posted a video the other day that I have only just now watched. It is a video of Greg Townley one of Damien's students:



Greg is very talented and it is the kind of talent that makes you wished the whole world could see him. Maybe he could end wars or prevent global warming through his backflips and handstands or maybe he won't, but the world is going to see him as the is stunt double of Hurt Girl (yes a girl) played by Chloe Moretz in the new Superhero comedy spoof Kick-Ass, and it is so brilliant to see someone so young make a name for themselves:

Video Games Post Physics

I always wonder what the next leap in computing will be, what are we going to be doing with all the future computing power that Moore's Law will afford us. For gamming it looks like physics is the current hurdle, but then what? How about realtime dynamically generated sounds where no sound effect is pre-recorded?

F-Secure's The Cloud

F-Secure makers of fine anti virus softwares is going to be launching a new version of their DeepGuard modal that will use cloud computing to help protect user's systems.



What they are doing is an online signature database rather than a local one. This means that if your system encounters a new application or word macro, it can ask the cloud about it, the cloud will then tell your computer if it is safe, not or if it is something new. If it is new it can be scanned and a report sent to the cloud. The cloud will then inform all other computers asking about that application from then on. This sounds like a good idea around large signature updates that only arrive several days after the virus has already gained a foothold, but for people who are using poor, overloaded or intermittent internet connections I am not convinced. At least the video was nice.

Valve Just Did Something Cool

They did a comic about Team Fortress 2, lets call it The War Administrator.

Back To The Future Crysis Mod

This is the best mod ever. And you can download it from Here.

Dear Mandy

In responce to Mandlson's Bill where he wants to dosconnect people from the internet, Dan Bull did a Song.



[Derren Brown]

10 Downing Street Petition To Stop Ludicrous Bill

The skinny:

This petition has been set up in response to the Government’s proposal to cut off internet access to those who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files. We think this has one fundamental flaw, as illegal filesharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet. What's more, such a punishment should be dealt with in the proper way, in a court of law. This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights.

You can sign the bill Here.

If you want to help out more you can signup to the Open Rights Group and Donate to the cause.

How To Cancel An XBox Live Gold Account

This changes all the time and they deliberately don't make it easy by burying the option, make it effort and generally aren't helpful abot the whole thing.

Phoning up works, but you can also do it from www.xbox.com. To do this togo XBox.com log into your account, select Contact Information, Membership Level and then you will see a bit on the screen that says 'Automatic renewal: On' click the ON (a hidden hyperlink?)
Now just keep clicking next while they try to persuade you to not go through with cancelling your account and you are done. You account won't cancel until your prepaid period expires, but at least they will stop taking money out of your account.

Tony Hawk Ride

Giant Bomb has like a short video overview of RIDE and it doesn't look very awesome.

New Version Of Paint.Net

I upgraded my main system to Windows7 today and it is awesome, but it just so happens that today the new more shiny version of Paint.net was released. A full list of improvements can be found Here, but in brief in looks a lot better, the fonts tool has been upgraded and the selection tool uses a lot less CPU cycles.

If you haven't tried Paint.Net than I can happily recommend it to anybody who doesn't need Photoshop.

Random Fact

Alexander The Great of Greece is thought to have started the trend in men shaving facial hair.

Derren Brown's Celebrity YouTube Channel

Derren Brown's YouTube Channel is rather entertaining.
The hippie is Coops, Derren's skateboarding PA.

DNA Copying

This is the most amazing process in natural science. It begs the question as to wither our knowledge of proteins and DNA could eventually render our current methods of material production, crafting and fitting to create tools, obsolete. A world where everything from transportation and communication devices construct themselves from instructions given from a DNA Engineer.

The Importance Of A Good Website Name

Choosing the right website name is something that all first time webmasters struggle over, but it is a very easy thing to screwup. Take this list of 100 Website Naming Disasters for example.

Boba Fett Hoodie

Occasionally I have seen people on the interwebs wearing a Boba Fett Hoodie. These are media types who probably got given one and this kind of stuff is normally very limited edition, but it has been playing on my mind because I really want one.

So I have been searching for a few weeks now (intermittently, not constantly) and discovered that the Official Star Wars Store Has A Preorder For Them! OMG!!!

Plus postage they are a little expensive. So I have to ask myself, does it meet the Brook critique of purchasability?

+ Item is a silent reference to a much loved franchise.
+ Item does not have text, so people won't stand in front of me and read my shirt, ask to read my shirt or read aloud what I already know to be written on my shirt (this all annoys me).
+ Not buying item will mean I will deeply regret it for the rest of my life as another item that got away. I might even dream about wearing it only to awaken not ever having touched it.

- Tis expensive.
- It might not fit when it arrives.

And then I am like 'can I find photos on the web of people wearing it?'

Yes, YES, and YES! (NSFW). So each time it looks awesome and kind of scruffy lookin'
So did I buy it? Hell YES!
I might post photos come November.

Best, Cosplayer, Ever!

Danny Choo Posted About A Cosplayer named Kaname and I mistook his photos for a computer generated Cloud. Very impressive and I would love to know how he does his hair.

Best cosplayer I have ever seen, More Kaname

High Praise For Windows 7

I have been using Win7 for a few months now, first on a few virtual machines, then the beta on my laptop, and when it was released, the RTM on my work machine. My main system is waiting for the retail release, but it will be getting the W7 treatment in November. I love Windows 7, it is the operating system I have waited my whole Windows OS life for. It is the OS that Vista should have been and the OS that XP tried to be. It is stable, fast, feature filled and after a format I find myself reinstalling very few applications.

Maximum PC did a Full Windows 7 Review last month and I think their final thoughts sums it up quite well:

Moral objections to product activation aside, Windows 7 is unquestionably the best version of Windows that Microsoft has ever released, and is the true successor to Windows XP. If you’re an enthusiast or power user, Windows 7 is well worth your money, whether for an upgrade today or on your next new machine.

I even love the Microsoft advertising; yes MS PR did something I liked for a change.

The Governator Uses Twitter

Now that fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger has a Twitter Feed doesn't surprise me because lots of politicians are trying to have more of an internet presence. And the fact he also uses TwitPic doesn't surprise me either, but the fact he posted a picture of the Sword From Conan The Barbarian IN HIS OFFICE! I fine awesomely amazing!

Wireless Power

This is an interesting TED talk about wireless power that will allow us to power everything without batteries or wall sockets.



If you want to know more there is a How Stuff Works Page on this kind of thing which includes an explanation of the technology in the video.

The Onion's Take On Parenting And The Internet

The Onion is like a glimpse into an alternative reality. Sometimes they do disturbing pieces of satire, but this isn't one of those.

Everytime I see parents talking about the internet they are always afraid of it and say that they can't keep up with what theirs kids are doing because it is all hidden, but the Onion has a different take:


Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

How The US Health System Is Wasting Money On Treatment

I blogged recently about how Higher Incentives Lead To Worse Performance, and a very good example of that is the US Health Care system.



Medical professionals in the US earn money by treating patients, not by keeping them healthy.

[Source]

Higher Incentives Lead To Worse Performance

Daniel Pink is a business consultant and the best career counsellor you never had. His TED talk is about how behaviour scientists discovered why offering incentives for a quicker outcome resulted in a slower outcome. This is a very interesting talk and one that has very Human reasoning behind it all.



After watching the talk I wanted to see if he had written any books. I loaded up Amazon and let-out a rather audible gasp! It turns out I have already read one of his.

I read The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko when I started working fulltime. It is an excellent book for anybody who finds themselves in a job where they ask themselves 'is this it?'

He also wrote A Whole New Mind which is more about what his TED talk was about and is now on my reading list.
I will leave you with the trailer for Jonny Bunko.

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

More Dancing Storm Troopers

This is Danny Choo, he has a Blog. I posted this because I can.

DUST 514

CCP, makers of EVE Online did a Press Release for a game called DUST 514 that is somekind of bridge between EVE Online and console FPS gamers.

But both screenshots look brilliant.
Command Pit
Staging Area

And a video Presentation (Thanks Evil).

Video: Dust 514 - Ego-Shooter im Universum von Eve Online - Gamescom 2009 (5:18)

Star Wars Dance Off

It is something called the Star Wars Dance Off that is part of a weekend event every year at Disney's Hollywood Studio.

Fox News Says The NHS Causes Terrorism

Fox News is the devil. There should be a law against miss representing facts to this degree.



[Derren Brown Art]

For Entertainment Purposes Only

There are a lot of unnecessary legal disclaimers in the world, but I think the one on DVD commentaries is a shinning example. I am referring to the message at the start of DVDs that reads 'The commentary tracks on this DVD are for entertainment purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the views or options of the studio, parent company or partners.'

I am no legal professional, but if an Actor, Actress or Director says something slanderous on a commentary track like 'Our wardrobe department stole all the cloths from a local gym to save money!' Then no 'for entertainment purposes only' message is going to protect them from an order to pay damages to the wardrobe company's image and loss of business.

I understand that managers follow what advice the legal department gives them and that the legal department is trying to cover themselves in a very sheepish manor, but you wouldn't find a legal disclaimer like that at the start of an encyclopaedia.

The contents of this encyclopedia is for entertainment purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

Or even

The publisher has taken reasonable care to make sure the contents of this encyclopaedia is accurate, but takes no responsibility for any mistakes.

In July I Posted about how Amazon cleaned customer Kindles of a few novels. Well I am sure they thought they where legally covered, but they also deleted one Justin Gawronski's Summer Homework. He is as American tradition dictates, suing Amazon for damages. And rightly so because that kind of thing might conform to the letter of the law by Amazon giving itself the right to do that kind of stuff in it's terms of service, but it is very unreasonable.

*Note this Blog Post was for entertainment purposes and is not to be retaken orally or in a tart.

Walking Into Death

Dr Temple Grandin is an expert in animal behaviour and works as a consultant for Slaughter Houses. One of the problems facilities can have is, (as you can imagine) getting animals into the facility calmly so they can be killed.

She has a YouTube Channel with everything you ever wanted to know about leading an animal to it's death in a way where it will just walk right into the facility and be calm right through the process. I found her videos to be morbid, but interesting.

The Electric Lute

The Lute is a very old European stringed instrument that hasn't been part of popular modern music for centuries. I was at Warwick Castle last Saturday and some guy was walking around playing one. It has a good sound and if you have never heard one before Here Is A Video of Paul Odette, the great Lutenis playing very beautifully. But I wondered, has anybody ever put an electric pickup in one?

As it turns out a guy named luthier Ian has and the Electric Lute produces a fantastic and different sound to what you will be used to hearing from an Electric Guitar.

Steven Fry On Music Trading

Steven Fry (man of great noble intellect) did a speech (really it was a lecture or talk) on the subject of Copyright Piracy at the recent iTunes Festival in London.

His belief is that the dogged determination of big media industry groups like the RIAA to hunt down and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law people who share Copyrighted material for personal use, is misguided and against the human desire to share stories and ideas. I agree with him full heartedly, but CopyRight law is founded on the principal that the CopyRight holder is the only person with the right to authorise copying of the original material in full. And that a medium between allowing people to copy and not allowing people to copy will probably never be reached in legal terms or permitted by the industry.

Steven has put up an audio recording of it Here On His Website and I think it is worth a listen to as everything by him is.

Life Imitating Fiction

In the Novel 1984 by George Orwell Winston Smith works as a Journalist whose job it is to rewrite Oceania's libraries and journals to exclude information that the controlling political party finds unfavourable.

1984 is a work of fiction, but CBC Reports that Amazon removed 1984 from it's electronic marketplace, without notification to it's customers. All Kindles that had bought the novel had their copies remotely removed, customers refunded the difference and all as if the novel had never been listed or bought in the first place.
The reason for this is that the electronic copy of 1984 that Amazon had been selling was licensed to Amazon from someone who didn't have permission by the IP holder to do so. Amazon has been going through it's electronic library and correcting many such mistakes recently, but the fact that they have the ability to reach out to customer's Kindles and automatically eras novels or even change the contents of it's library in realtime, just like the totalitarian state in 1984 is very scary.

Circle The Cat

Circle The Cat is a flash turn based strategy game where you have to encircle a black cat with dark coloured spaces. It is a fun five minutes until you discover the optimal strategy.

Settlers Of Catan

Wired has an Article About Settlers Of Catan. It takes an honest view about one of the defining classics in boardgaming that hasn't sold as well as it should have in the American market.

Yet in the US, only a few types of games have really taken off. There are so-called lifestyle games, like Scrabble and chess, intellectual skill-based games whose devotees are interested in playing little else; party games like Trivial Pursuit and Jenga; and traditional strategy games like Risk and Monopoly, which are generally seen as child's play or possibly something to do while trapped in a snowstorm without power—just before you eat your own foot.

But part of the reason we don't play much Risk and Monopoly as adults is that those are actually poorly designed games, at least in the German sense. Derk Solko, a garrulous former Wall Streeter who cofounded the Web site BoardGameGeek.com in 2000 after discovering Settlers, explains it this way: "Monopoly has you grinding your opponents into dust. It's a very negative experience. It's all about cackling when your opponent lands on your space and you get to take all their money." Monopoly, in fact, is a classic example of what economists call a zero-sum game. For me to gain $100, you have to lose $100. For me to win, you have to be bankrupt. Gouging and exploiting may be perfect for humiliating your siblings, but they're not so great for relaxing with friends.

The Cove

A while ago I did a post called People Don't Need (Disturbing, NSFW) where I liked to some animal cruelty videos. The Dolphin ma secure video to this date is still the most disturbing that I have seen. Now there is documentary being shown at festivals on the matter. I am looking forward to seeing it even with the subject matter being so disturbing.


[ Official Site ]

Microsoft Could Have Done Natal Earlier

This is a clear example of management not getting an idea. Years ago Microsoft Research was doing a load of camera research and when the XBox Vision Camera was leaked I got all exsighted and wrote a post called Two Cameras Not One for the XBox360 where I talked about the stuff that Research was working on. I was excited because I seen the potential of what they where showing and how that could be worked into gaming. The videos in that post have all been taken down and the best I could find was a small image of GWindows Here, but what they where showing in 2005 was components of what Natal is.

I know that they could have done Natal in 2005, but didn't and I suspect the cause of this was short sighted management, as soon as the Wii was proven to print money, Microsoft called up Research and they made Natal.

This makes me annoyed because I know of a dozen other cool technologies that MS Research has that I know now will never see the light of day until some other company blazes the way forward and creates a market for it. And then when Microsoft responds everybody calls it a Me-Too! move from Microsoft and Research doesn't get any credit for their work outside of a black cube on their windowsill (they get one of these everytime they file a patent).