31/08/04
Marcus:
Nintendo is set to release its latest Gameboy DS thing in November. Not far away at all! (Via waxy.org.)
Marcus:
The BBC is going to put the classic The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy text adventure game on the web.
Marcus: Brilliant but bloody hard. Douglas Adams described it as "the first game to move beyond being 'user friendly'. It's actually 'user insulting' and because it lies to you as well it's also 'user mendacious'".
Marcus:
Communists for KERRY!
justin: Maybe it's because I fell asleep during The Simpsons again, butI wasn't really getting this site much.
Marcus:
BAFTA members will be using "secure" DVD players to view the films up for awards. An end to to pirated DVD screeners? Probably not.
justin: Even my work buddy Richard is on the BAFTA judges panel. They will let anyone on.
Justin:
Corresondence between a complainer and London Underground. Mildy interesting, or quite startling. Or a fake. This could be a fake, anything can be faked.
Marcus: "...to deceive as much is possible whilst ensuring that you never actually appear as cash-centred and rapacious and neglectful and destructive as you actually are..."
Marcus: Having read down to the bottom, this is definitely entertaining stuff. Even if the writer is a bit of a self-loving knob.
Marcus:
A bike that is ridden sideways. What an, er, interesting idea and terrific use of time that represents. (Via MetaFilter.)
justin: This is crap. Come on man. Decent stuff!
Dave:
Probably seen it all before, but Engrish.com makes me laugh every time.
dave: This nearly killed me.
Dave:
Ok, I just need to comment about this from earlier. "Signs is even flimsier: An intelligent alien species that is killed when doused with H20 decides to invade a planet that is two-thirds water? " This has always been my biggest issue with this film. It just doesn't wash! Also I can't believe that The Village was only 106 minutes long. It felt like a triple that. The more I think about it, the more I think that that film was an abject pile of pretensious, self-indulgent sh*t.
Marcus: So we're going back to our earlier discussion then eh? ;)
justin: Were they invading Earth, or just being weird? Maybe they are so alien they didn't know what water was? Perhaps it's like God and they were working in mysterious ways beyond our comprehension... besides. If we invaded Mars we wouldnt exactly be well equipped. Although, on the other hand, if we do ever find an alien race maybe it would be a good idea to invade them.
Marcus: The film makes it pretty clear that they've come to abduct human beings, in what can only be the standard "use them as our slaves/spare parts" scenario. Read beyond that and you're reading way too much into things, at the level where you might as well look for hidden deep meanings in cereal adverts.
Marcus: I still haven't seen The Village, but I'm hoping to at some point soon. My mind is still fully open despite the mainly negative reviews and I'm hoping that I'll enjoy it. But if it's bad...! (Shakes fist menacingly at M. Knight Shamonnnn.)
justin: Well, did The Lord not use the Jews as his slaves? or Moses? or Jonah or someone? sh*t. The Lord worked in downright ant-social ways. Them dudes that built the tower of Babel - he could have told them earlier. Also, now I'm onthe subject, does not the tower of Babel story kind of illegitemise the bible?
Marcus: Justin, I think it's time for intervention about your crack problem.
adam: Wait a tick... even flimsier than Dave's point. Human bodies are about 80% water. In the film they explain that the aliens were hunting for food and will be eating the humans. Right. Like if we ate water balloons filled with cyanide and nitric acid soup or something. Good job, eh.
adam: And on the subject of the Tower of Babel (like what justin was saying just now), isn't it ironic how Babel was what is now Iraq, and the recent war was marred by so much LACK OF COMMUNICATION. And I mean ironic in a real sense, not an Alanis Morisette sense.
justin: It's like rain - on your invasion day.
Marcus:
New G5 iMac revealed.
Marcus: Everything's built into a cool widescreen display. Looks-wise I'd say it leans more towards function rather than style, but it's still a lot better than the weirdo one-foot pod thing that was the previous iMac.
Marcus: Looking at Apple's iMac G5 page, the hinge connection to the stand and the small width of the stand both look a bit precarious. Maybe that's just part of the aesthetic charm.
adam: It is a nice looking toy. Reading about it on the iMac website it has such interesting features as: "the new headphone jack that’s also a mini-optical plug."... great. So if I want to listen with headphones, first I have to unplug it from my speakers. It has a "sizzling graphics processor and next-generation high-bandwidth architecture"... further reading reveals it to be a GF5200. Now, I bought an GF5200 about a year back. It is OK, but I wouldn't describe it as "sizzling". Certainly isn't next-generation, unless I encountered a timewarp between here and the computer shop! I would be interested to see how it copes with rendering UT2004 in 1680 x 1050 (the native resolution of the built-in screen).
30/08/04
Marcus:
The US Justice Department - in the name of protecting domestic security - recently censored a quote from a Supreme Court ruling in which - get this - the Supreme Court drew attention to the potential for abuse when every insidious and scary act the Government commits is represented as a measure to protect domestic security. Brain hurting yet? (Via plasticbag.org.)
justin: I'm really interested to see what happens as a result of this. It is quite serious really, so, is anyone going to get done for it?
justin: UPDATE: This was banned by my company web monitor. I believe the web monitor has a lot of prelisted words and or sites it knows not to look at. But I managed to view it a couple of times before it was banned - either it was on a blacklist or somehow the combination of words was blacklisted - sinsister. My line manager is also our resident IT bod, so I am going to ask him to take it up with the powers that be!
Marcus: That is definitely sinister. Especially viewing it once or twice then getting it banned - what's that all about eh?
Marcus:
The US is trying to steamroller the UN into banning all types of human cloning.
andy: I hope not, i plan on living at least another 500 years on parts of my own home cloned humans.
Marcus: It's a nice dream.
justin: I think they should only be able to clone people if someone is going to make an army of super soldiers who tun on their 'imperfect' masters.
Andy:
Do chimps smoke after sex? - apparently this one doesnt...
bbc news link
Marcus: I take it we're still in the Silly Season, then.
Marcus: And she's only 13 too - what's with the smoking and sex?!
andy: Shes probably been visited by a bus of Rotherham schoolgirls...
Adam:
OK, so who here had a Spectrum... failing that a lesser tape-loaded computer?
Well, here is what you need. Yes, this is a full-logic cassette deck that slots into a 5 1/4" drive bay. First person to write a Spectrum emulator, loading the games from the PlusDeck with minimal lag, wins.
Failing that, just read the FAQ section, including such gems as "Tape is stuck: If you disassemble to ejet (sic) tape inevitably, use following ways." Those Krazy Koreans and their inevitable tape-ejecting ways. Here is a picture of two of them looking very happy, but look at all those copied tapes. Ummmmmmm, I'm telling the RIAAAAAAAA on them!
Marcus: What a cool device, although what's wrong with just sampling into the line-in of your sound card? Not as techno-cool and automated, I suppose.
Marcus: And I want the RIAA to start doing anti-piracy ads like F.A.S.T. used to do. Hell, I'd shop somebody. Especially if they were called Bloggo.
dave: " We revise English web site until 9th, August. 2004-07-28" hehe
Adam:
Shrine of the Happy Dancing Fat Kid. He seems to say "I'm fat and retarded but goddammit, I'm happy"!
Apparently. To me, it appears as if he is banging his fists on the table and chanting "I want my dinner!" in that way that all delightful under 8's do as their parents are making with the nosebag. If you look veeeeeeery closely, you can just about see smaller fat kids in orbit around his belly.
Marcus: Best website ever.
Marcus:
A little bit of movie gossip on George Romero's forthcoming Land of the Dead.
Marcus: And some more. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to get cameos? Cooool.
Marcus:
One man's account of getting arrested and held in terrible conditions for 16 hours simply because he was in the vicinity of the Critical Mass cyclists protesting in New York. (Via kottke.org.)
Justin:
From The Onion - celebreties were asked if they had one message for the children, what it would be. This is funny.
Marcus: The Onion: If you could send one message to the children of the world, what would it be?
Isaac Brock: "Grow the f*ck up."
Isaac Brock: "Grow the f*ck up."
Justin:
Interesting Max tutorial for radiosity - it may not mean much to you, but a quick browse through the images where you compare direct lighting to global illumination shows how wrong things used to be. Radiosity is basically accepting the fact that light bounces around all over the place. Here is another one. See how pleasing it is to the eye? even an untextured model just looks so much more real - you assume it is a real thing made from clay or something. Also, here is an interesting tutorial on HDRI - a new form of lightning. So, say you were lighting a CG element for a live action shot - you get one of them dodgy shiny balls out, or a panormaic camera, then since that is reflecting all the light around in the scene, you use that as a kind of dome outside your scene to light it. So for every point on the dome, there is a colour and light setting for your object. Its crazy, but it works. Also, HDRI images are not based on standard rgb settings from 0 to 255 - they have a much greater range hence 'high dynamic range image'. This is the future of lighting. And it's already here.
justin: I realise that first one is a bit pants- basically the picture orders are (not including ones inside the max interface): 1 - Normal direct lighting, looks like everything is lit from oneside and dark on the other, like a planet in space 2 - radiosity lighting, it looks grey and overcast as there is no direct source of light, but everywhere is lit, except for the dark nooks and crannies (gathered shadows)- 3 direct ligthing to mimic the sun, as well as radiosity lighting to simulate it's bounceback. Looks nicer.
Justin:
This site offers links to any free stuff going around. No lie but I even got a free vibrator fom it and some other stuff. Admittedly a lot of it is demographic/email collecting detritus but some of it is good.
Marcus: I signed up to one of these things at university. The highlights were some free cat food and a couple of tickets to a pre-release screening of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
Marcus: Free stuff for bladder weakness - handy.
Justin:
HP are going to start selling licenced Apple iPods - called "Apple iPod from HP" - it looks like the terrorists have already won.
justin: Personally I don't even like iPods, I'm sure you can get better thigns cheaper and I think the while interface is a pain, and I don't like having to rely on the ID3 tags to sort through the files. Hardly anyone fills them in before I d/l them - hell, some people don't even fill in track names. Losers.
Marcus: I don't even get the point of the HP iPods. It seems that, in every possible way, they will be the same as the Apple iPods. The only way they might have competed - on price - well, that's the same too. What kind of false diversity is that?
29/08/04
Marcus:
For the person who is seriously obsessed about PC noise levels: the Zalman TNN 500A noiseless computer case. Not a single moving part in the b*gger. It uses "heat pipes", whatever those are. And it looks utterly crap. A snip at £675+VAT. (Via Adam.)
justin: who could need a noiseless computer so bad they wanna pay that much for it? When my PC was in my bedroom I would be gutted about the noise. Maybe sound engineers or hospital wards or something?
Marcus: I think seem people are just really, really anally retentive about sound levels. Not me. I love roaring fans, makes my weedy PC seem more powerful.
Andy: Reminds me of my pc, it looks pretty but sounds like Heathrow. its great when you have to step out of the room when on the phone, excusing your pc for its impoliteness.
Marcus:
Apparently this is the new iMac: an LCD screen with everything built in.
Marcus: Actually, nope, it's a hoax.
Justin:
Marcus recently censored a link I had in the Lighter Tricks post that linked to a diagram of female genetalia. Marcus is more happy to link to sites offering pirated copyright material or information about weapons design to kill people than he is to any sexual content: "Keep a lid on graphic sexual content" Here is a link about Sexual Imagery,
Censorship, and the Law It doesn't have any pictures - so those of you who are shocked by parts of the body you have needn't be afraid. Finally, here is an excerpt from Robert Anton Wilson's book 'Ishtar Rising' which is essentially a treatise on the psychological ramifications of the female breast in society. One can attempt to discredit RA Wilson all one likes, but never forget that discrediting a man is not the same as discrediting his arguments. Robert Anton Wilson says: The law of obscenity has the indirect effect of perpetuating itself. You cannot argue with it without breaking it.
Marcus: A tad childish.
justin: thuh thad thildish
Marcus: The Sexual Imagery, Censorship, and the Law link is interesting though.
Justin:
Fitter, happier, more productive - thats the mantra we all sing to ourselves, but how do we do that? Well, I'll tell you how - with a Fitness Ball from Argos. Only Ł3.99 - and it comes in silver not purple. Contrary to the illustration in the previous link. Here are some exercises you can do with it. 1. 2. 3. (this one has videos). This link is to the Mens Health video archive - it has videos showing correct technique for a wide variety of exercises.
Justin:
Lighter Tricks - A site that shows you how to do loads of tricks with Zippo lighters to make birds think you are cool.
Marcus:
Photos and a rundown of the Treo 650, successor to the highly excellent Treo 600. Can't wait to get my hands on one of these.
Marcus:
Star Wars Galaxies protestors cause Sony to shut down the game's servers. (Via waxy.org.)
justin: I think much more significant is the fact that people in Russian are being paid to make credits in games which are then being sold on for real profit. What a way to earn a living.
Justin:
Masturbation means to 'defile the hand'.
Marcus: It should be said that this isn't a very work-safe link. Not at all work-safe, in fact, unless you work in a sex shop.
Justin:
We all know that after me, John Holmes is famed for having the biggest penis in the world ever. His name is a byword in penis discussion. I bet you didn't know what a BAD FELLOW! he was though.
Marcus: Not safe for work... Oh, and Boogie Nights was pretty closely based on his life, bar the really nasty excesses of his character. Or the AIDS.
justin: I thought this was a site for likeminded adults?
Marcus: Is that why you prefer to post in an inflatable gimp suit?
justin: Do we all do that then?
Marcus: I prefer a giant nappy.
28/08/04
Marcus:
Classic 1980s F.A.S.T. anti-piracy ads, including my all-time favourite: Bloggo. (Via waxy.org.)
Marcus: And what's the morality of this one, eh? Teacher gives up time to run after school computer club and gets shopped by a goody-goody pupil because he lets the kids copy stuff?!
justin: I wonder how many people actually ever A: grassed anyone up for software piracy or B: actually got a reward. I think the latter is quite a significant point.
dave: That one is my favourite too. I remember it from my old Commodore 64 magazines.
Marcus:
Kelly Holmes, great-granddaughter of the late Sherlock, has made Olympic history with a double gold for athletics.
justin: You are thinking about John Holmes.
Justin:
The All Music Guide is like the IMDB but for music. Good way of finding out about albums or tracks.
Marcus: I like the idea of it, but damn it's slow. Also, the compulsory registration irritated me - go bugmenot.
justin: What compulsory registration?
Marcus: The compulsory registration before you're allowed to search or do anything useful.
justin: You don't have to register to search.
Marcus: I had to register - maybe it didn't like my face.
Justin:
Why that remasted version of THX-1138 might be sh*t. I have this to say about remastering movies - I don't mind it in principle, but don't make it sh*t. Easy really.
Marcus: Lucas really has gone mad, hasn't he? Hey George - instead of constantly dicking around with classic films you made in a time before you started to wear your underpants on your head, how's about making new ones that don't suck? Scratch that - how's about doing the honourable thing and falling on your own lightsaber?
Justin:
Facts about Michal Knight shukuchucka - shh - oooh! - cha, on the scene-ah. The Case against Shyamalan. Interview with.
Marcus:
I really like the aims behind Blog Torrent:
"1. To make it completely effortless for complete neophytes to download torrent files.
2. To make it as easy as possible for people who have websites to set up their own torrent tracker
3. To make sharing a torrent as fast and easy as posting a file to a website."
"1. To make it completely effortless for complete neophytes to download torrent files.
2. To make it as easy as possible for people who have websites to set up their own torrent tracker
3. To make sharing a torrent as fast and easy as posting a file to a website."
Justin:
A man has a new jaw grown in his back. Shows some backbone.
Marcus: Boom. Boom.
justin: Don't get mouthy
Marcus:
Why We Enjoy Telling People Off.
Marcus: I can only assume that the part of the brain that this stimulates is massively swollen in Justin's case.
justin: I think it is pleasurable because in many ways, telling someone off can be an act of love, or group-grooming and is very satisfactory to our monkey-side. Also, correcting and 'interogating' is a control drama and a way of shifting focus and attention to the one doing the reprimanding - so one gains pleasure from this. Marcus, you yourself love to quote facts at people like an autistic about things you have read on the internet (when grown ups are trying to talk) - and you probably stimulate this part of your brain as well.
Marcus: Stop stimulating yourself, you dirty little boy. Oh wait, but by saying that, I've stimulated myself - bah.
Marcus:
"Why Piracy Is Good". An interesting tale involving the Sinclair Spectrum game Robotron 2084. (Via waxy.org.)
justin: I will download all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy just in case all the copies in the world are lost.
Marcus:
The FBI has raided the homes of some Direct Connect P2P users. (Via Adam.)
Marcus: Claims that each DC hub had "40 petabytes of data" seem pretty ludicrous to me. That is a massive, massive amount of data for what are essentially small-scale networks in comparison to the likes of Kazaa.
27/08/04
Dave:
Some people have sad, sad little lives.
Justin: Come on man - I think it's more a showcase of 3D character modeling talent. Plus, it is an interesting question - to explore modern notions of beauty through artistic impression.
Marcus: At least there's no Lara Croft.
Marcus:
The Grauniad lists what it reckons are the top ten sci-fi films of all time. (Via kottke.org.)
justin: I think this is actually top ten sci-fi films as chosen by scientists.
26/08/04
Marcus:
Another one of those stultifyingly stupid articles about how the shuffle option on iPods is "changing the way people listen to music".
Marcus: Note to comatose technology journos: MP3 playing software like Winamp has been doing this since, what, at least 1997. And MP3 players well before the iPod could do it too. Everybody knows about the shuffle feature, it is not a new phenomenon. Stop giving Apple so much redundant yet free advertising before I come round and give you a foot enema.
dave: Mr. Greist is a c*ck.
justin: Agreed - I read this a while back, and was quite schocked. Even the original CD players had shuffle. If I remember, the article mentions how interesting music combinations are throw up - isn't that what DJ's do as well. This man should not be writing about music.
Marcus:
One of the last "code talker" American Indians from World War II has died.
Marcus: Wind Talkers was about them, you know. Shame it's not the best of films.
Marcus:
New York Times Link Generator creates permanent weblog-friendly links to New York Times headline articles that won't require registration.
Marcus: Except when it doesn't. Some links don't seem to work, but still useful.
Dave:
Tie your tie, Fold your shirt. Now marvel at all that is IAN'S SHOELACE SITE! I have scoured this site looking for a hint that it might be ironic or a bit of fun, but no. Some FELLOW! has genuinely made a site about shoelaces and how to tie them. I suggest you look at the Ian Knot, which is a surprisingly good way of tying your shoes. But seriously. This guy is one hell of a loser...
dave: Check the links page. He links to Marcus's T-Shirt folding site? I think we've found you a new best friend :)
Marcus: Leave me alone! You're not my real dad! I'm calling Childline and running away from home!
Dave:
This is a great little comic strip. I think it sums up Linux users.
Marcus: I tittered.
dave: huh huh Linux sucks.
Justin:
I hate to advertise people's films for them, but The Village is good entertainment. I am a big fan of M. Knight Shamon's (Michael Knight?) and have seen all his films except 6th Sense, where the ending was ruined for me. I am sure Marcus wil disagree, because he is unable to appreciate the subtelty of the director, the way he transcends and expands genres - deconstructing and reconstructing simultaneously. Nope. Marcus will read the 'Village big disappointment' headlines, discover that it is in fact, not The Matrix and hate it. The rest of us will appreciate it though.
dave: I'm going to go watch this film tonight. I quite like Knight Rider's films. Especially Unbreakable.
Dave: That's a bit harsh Justin, Marcus won't like it because it isn't Fight Club, Star Wars or The Matrix
Marcus: Unbreakable is a load of pretentious, sleep-inducing, "haha bet you didn't see my cunning twist on this one - oh you did? bah" load of crap. On the other hand, I enjoyed both the Sixth Sense and Signs, so the jury's still out on what I'll think of The Village.
Marcus: I don't agree with the statement that Shamonmuthaf*cka transcends and expand genres either. He does decent thriller flicks that flirt with bigger ideas whilst simultaneously dangling a hair's breadth away from abject pretentiousness. And that will be his epitaph.
dave: Well I watched this film last night and I have to say it was absolutely sh*t. This is hard for me to say as I desperately wanted to like it. You see, I think I 'liked' it, but I didn't enjoy it. I spent so much time thinking "end, end, end". I don't want to ruin any plot lines or anything, but I have some serious issues with some parts (one in particular) of the film. I have decided that Micheal Knoght better get better soon or I will start to hate him like I hate John "I ruined the Mission Impossible Franchise" Woo (he also directed Windtalkers, see below). In essence this was a decent, polished film with some above average acting. However, I thought it was rubbish. I can imagine that it will be the opposite of AvP and Blade Trinity, which will both be a load of absolute bollocks, but I will love.
cath: that's a shame, I really enjoyed it.
justin: I think he does try to explore new avenues with genres. I never saw 6th Sense so I can't comment, but Unbreakable was about looking at the super hero in realistic context - exploring the notion of hero/villain and what drives ordinary people to do either. We can all see that it was not a super her movie per se - also, it did not have some mad twist and the end. Signs didn't have a mad twist at the end either - it was definentely an exporation of religion and faith using an alien encounter as a backdrop with which to explore certain notions. that's why it was called 'Signs' and not Close Encounters: The Revenge. It didn't have a mad twist on the end either - in fact, the importance of it's ending was based on the faith of a person, and nothing to do with aliens at all. No one got blown up. Signs and The Village also worked in an a thrilling sense because of the tiny amounts of 'The Characters We Do Not Speak Of' and then we have it laid in front of us, to stare at - playign with the ideas, in the latter mainly, of bravery, ignorance, inquisitiveness etc. I did see the end coming in The Village quite early on I must admit, but it still didn't make me enjoy the film any less. I think as Cath said - there weren't any really scary bits, but we were both in a constant state of tension. I think Marcus should be excluded from all debates about films.
Marcus: Unbreakable is plodding, tedious, and the "super hero if they were real people" thing just makes me want to bang my head against the wall, it's 1) laboured 2) unentertaining 3) completely stupid 4) badly explored. You'd have to be on crack to think it was good. Signs got dissed for perfectly justifiable reasons - people were led by the film's marketing department to expect one kind of film (some cross between Independence Day and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and instead they got Mel Gibson soul searching, retarded aliens who can fly across the galaxy yet can't bash down wooden doors, and a slightly dodgy "it all makes sense in the end" ending. But I liked it anyway because the themes are good and I know it's not all about the gaping holes in the plot. That said, I honestly think The Shamon has always been struggling to repeat the excellence of The Sixth Sense, which is a tour de force in plot, acting and direction.
justin: If you liked it, and miliions didn't who cares - obviously you 'got it' and therefore realised the story he was trying to tell. I'm sorry that you are still at an emotional stage where you need every film to be a rollercoaster ride of thrills. It's like when you were moaning about the ending of Natural Born Killers. Jesus, that was a pastiche and the plot was only there examine different aspects of a theme.Far from trying to repeat the success of 6th Sense, I think is one of the bravest story teller/film makers out there precisely because he is willing to break the Hollywood formula which you so clearly need in order understand which ass to shove a film into.
Marcus: Natural Born Killers is a self-conscious, smug and heavy-handed attempt at satirising the media obsession with human story/personality cults that isn't half as clever as it thinks it is, and which has been far better attempted elsewhere - eg The Truman Show. I don't expect every film to be a rollercoaster ride of thrills, but I do expect it to be a decent film, and this includes criteria like "making intelligent commentary" and "not being up its own ars*". I think "making a film that isn't up its own ars*" is a criteria which Shyamalan, in the eyes of many including at times my own, has failed to succeed. Certainly with the unbearably dull, pointless and self-reverential crap that was Unbreakable, and flirting on the very edge of the same with Signs.
Marcus:
Screen capture comparisons with changes made between the original Star Wars, the Special Edition and the new DVD boxed set.
Marcus: The "Greedo Shot First" comic is great too.
25/08/04
Marcus:
Godchecker - "Your Guide to the Gods!" - has information on over 1,700 gods. And that's got to be useful for something. (Via del.icio.us.)
Marcus:
A weblog supposedly being written by Quentin Tarantino. (Via LinkMachineGo.)
Marcus: For my money it's a blatant hoax - the content is amateurish and I've spotted at least one glaring inaccuracy in what's being written (Reservoir Dogs has got a director's commentary).
Marcus: And what's with the "Kill Bill 3 news" posted only last Sunday? That news is as old as can be...
Marcus: Yup. It's a fake.
Marcus:
First there was the website that showed you how to tie a tie. Now presenting: how to fold a shirt. (It means a T-shirt rather than an actual shirt, but useful anyway.)
justin: We tried this at work - quite cool but I'm not so sure it's that much better than normal. I don't normally require shop-floor quality in my t-shirt folding.
24/08/04
Justin:
Mind, body and Kickass moves is a well decent series running on BBC 3 at the moment exploring all aspects of martial arts. It takes a playful look at some of the more esoteric arts, but the host also has total respect for the men and women he is interviewing. Obviously some of the things you see are total oriental exaguration, but others are truly amazing no matter how you look at it. If you have missed any, here is a link to UKNova for Bit Torrent links for the show.
Justin:
This speaks for itself. So a guy sees interracial porn on a plane and sets fire to the magazine. Cool.
Marcus: So he "tried to take the magazine into a toilet to burn it". Burn it. Sure.
justin: Burn it with the fierce godly fire of his sex-magma.
Justin:
Which is harder - the Lion or the Tiger? This site on interspecies conflict deals with the real issues. What is the hardest animal?
Dave: This is a genuinely serious site! Someone has actually spent their time researching who would win out of a tiger and a lion.
justin: Loads of people have for centuries. We used to debate this every day in the office until this site ended that debate. Unfortunately we also debated what would win out of a Lion and a Shark. I say Lion.
Marcus: I say it's the Tigron. Or the Liger. Whichever is the one where you cross the two and it's a bloody great big bastard.
Marcus: On further examination of Google, I can report that I mean the Liger.
justin: There are both - I think a Liger is a male Lion bred with a female Tiger, and a Tigon is the opposite. Apparently there are some differences.
Justin:
Prison b*tch name generator.
dave: Put in David Warren. I dare you.
Marcus: How very rude. Mine is Ox, which I am choosing to believe is highly appropriate.
Aryan f*ck Toy: Mine is right. Would have been quite insulting if I had been black.
Justin:
Olympics.
Marcus: What's with "Soccer games broadcast at 150% speed", eh Onion? Eh? Assuming the implication is that football is boring, it's worth pointing out that even cricket is fast-paced and enjoyable compared to the four hour long, girly padded, stopping-every-ten-seconds-of-play snooze that is American football. Maybe that isn't the implication at all, but either way, I felt it was important for my views on American football to be known. Either play rugby or play "soccer", but don't mess with the two and then add a load of girly padding just in case a player hurts their liwwidle finger. Bigoted rant ends.
justin: You don't even like football you poof.
Marcus: Lies. Come on you reds. Or blues. Or whoever.
Jon:
Hey, check this out - it's tres bizarre...
Salad Fingers (episodes 1-4) and Burnt Face Man. The former is a bit Tim Burton I think. Or just plain strange. You decided - just don't do acid or mushrooms beforehand.
Justin:
In no way is Anthea Turner a fatuous chocolate-bar sucking parasite.
Jon: Silly cow - why didn't she get shot instead of Jan Dildo, or whatever her name was.
justin: You'll be kicking yourself for years to come over that one wont you.
Marcus: With caring stunts like these, Anthea Turner is surely our new Princess of Hearts (position vacant since 1997).
23/08/04
Marcus:
A Print CSS Primer. (A web design thing I've linked to more with the vague intention of it being found by a future Marcus searching the linkbunny archives.)
Marcus:
Northrop Grumman has been commissioned to build in-no-way-sinister-looking unmanned fighter aircraft drones.
justin: In the (obviously faked) BBC picture, why would a member of the ground crew be waving and guiding an unmanned craft?
Dave: Actually, that picture does look pretty faked.
Marcus: Maybe they're unmanned but have really great sinister AI that means they have to be beckoned in from the air, and perhaps fed some kind of fighter aircraft drone treat afterwards.
Dave:
I know this, because Tyler knows this.
dave: sh*te Marcus, you're not wrong, this thing posts hella fast these days!
Marcus: I like it when people sneak stuff in like that. And all tremble before the might of the new server and it's hopefully-not-going-down powers!
Marcus:
The guy who did those screen-headbuttingly-annoying "Switch" adverts for Apple is going to use his one-trick-pony for anti-Bush ads. Interesting article all the same.
Marcus:
These days, university students spend nearly £1bn a year on alcohol. Rich bastards. When I was a student, I could barely afford to spend more than ten thousand pounds a year on drink.
Marcus:
Chinese policeman does mad action hero building rescue of kidnapped kid by shooting kidnapper in head twice at point blank range. Kidnapper falls five stories. Kidnapper is later discovered to be alive in coffin. (Via kottke.org.)
22/08/04
Justin:
What did Saddam Hussein and General Custer have in common? Neither of them knew where the Tomahawk's were coming from.On the Navy site, the Tomahawk® is labled as ® - which means they have registered tomahawk as a trademark. In case other arms manufacturers start selling cheap knock-off Tomahawks. Now who first called ranged weapons Tomahawks? That's it, the native Americans. Reminds me of when somone pointed out the US
Army sent in loads of Apache gunships to help stop ethnic cleansing in Serbia - the Apache were an ethnic group cleansed by the yanks a little while back.
justin: I was drunk when I wrote that.
Marcus: Impressive.
Marcus:
BTbot - a BitTorrent search engine. (Via del.icio.us.)
Marcus: Doesn't seem to be particularly good at the moment (although to be fair it's still in beta). It could do with searching suprnova.org, for starters.
Justin:
Bush has a guy arrested for asking a question during a press conference. American Fascism at it's best. Bit Torrent link.
Marcus: Alex Jones is a bit of an Illuminati/New World Order conspiracy nutter, and his assertion in the video that "Europe is taking over America" is nothing short of bizarre, but compelling footage nonetheless.
justin: I think he might be referring to the council of foreign relations and some budgetary mandate made by republicans. eg. the same could be said for the common agricultural policy being the English getting f*cked by the French.
Marcus:
A surprisingly critical (and poignant) article on Sports Illustrated about the Iraqi football team objecting to President Bush using them for his own political re-election ends.
Marcus: "Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. In the city in which 20,000 fans used to fill the stadium and chant Sadir's name, U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled loyalists to rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr for the past two weeks. Najaf lies in ruins."
21/08/04
Justin:
Scientology lies. Also, please look at this Google Search on the similarities between Buddhism and Scientology that someone mentioned to me once. If The Buddha was alive now he's want me to nut all scientologists clean on the 'brow.
Marcus: I particularly like the bit on about.com. Tom Cruise: "Buddhism is the grandfather of scientology". Article author: "The real ancestors of Scientology are figures like P.T. Barnum and Flash Gordon, not Buddhism".
Justin:
Interesting political blog site thing. Lies. (More anti bush stuff - but still the yanks wont learn). that reminds me, I swore to email ten random Americans after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 and just explain to them, why, as an English person, I feel I must try to influence the US vote in some small way. Anyone with me on this?
Here is a site dedicated to more Bush Lies.
Marcus: I'm not sure spamming ten Americans about why Bush is a retard is a particularly great idea. Much as if I received an e-mail from an American telling me that Blair is an idiot and why wasn't I doing anything about it?, I might be a tad irate.
justin: Would you actually get irate? Depends on the wording really doesn't it. "Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I have just see f911 and have been moved to write to 10 Americans urging them to watch it... sorry to waste your time." Would that actually make you irate, as opposed to either inspired to do it, or simply just delete the the message?
Marcus: As political opinion is so polarised on Fahrenheit 9/11, if they were a Democrat they'd already have seen it, and if they were a Republican the chances are they'd just blankly refute the idea of watching it. But hell, give it a go anyway, maybe you'll make some pen pals.
justin: That's quite nihilistic man. Also, we may as well try to do something innit? Emailing 10 people is hardly 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth', but it's the least we can do as citizens of a reasonably sane country. We need to dipose a mad dictator - let's do it with emails instead of Tomahawk missles. Although, if anyone knows heere I can buy some Tomahawk missles do let me know.
Marcus:
In the James Bond film Die Another Day, Bond has a car which can turn "invisible" by filming and projecting what's behind it onto its surface. Now a Japanese scientist has used the same principle for the "invisible" coat.
Marcus: I've also found a video of the invisible coat in action.
Marcus: It might be more "translucent" than invisible, but it's still damned impressive.
Marcus: An even better demonstration video of the invisible coat. I want one of these to wear in my flying car!
Marcus: Whoops - Justin actually posted about this back in June. The videos are all-new though.
Marcus: And actually it's not quite as exciting as you'd first think. Visiting the Optical Camouflage research page and examining the "how it works" diagram reveals that the coat is actually just a reflective surface being projected onto from a seperately positioned projector, that takes the image from a seperately positioned camera. Bah.
Marcus:
Dick Van Dyke is really into 3D computer animation and has actually been paid for his CG work. Not only that, but he was a big Amiga fan too! (Via waxy.org)
Marcus:
According to the New Scientist there's a rusting World War II shipwreck on the bank of the Thames that contains enough explosive to cause "one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever". And all it would take to set off this big boom is a small shock to initiate a chain reaction. Glad I don't live anywhere near Kent.
Marcus:
I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson films (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), so the forthcoming The Life Aquatic (trailer) has me girlishly excited.
Marcus:
From our "Ban This Sick Filth" department come the Child Pimp & Ho Costumes.
Marcus: Four pimp costumes and only one ho costume. How sexist.
justin: I well would love to make my daughter dress like a wh*re. Then explain to her the birds and the bees, the what wh*res are, why she shouldn't be one, why it isn't demeaning to anyone for her to dress like that, what to do if uncle Terry starts to show more interest etc. Good to fill them in on the whole sexual politics early.
If I want childred dressed as sluts I will go to Thailand.
Marcus: *laughs nervously*
Marcus:
This one comes courtesy of Dave, but the problem with the server thwarted him earlier: Mr T vs Everything.
Marcus:
linkbunnies.org has fallen strangely silent for a couple of days due to a server migration which resulted in a problem with some Perl module or other. But it seems to be fixed now - hooray!
19/08/04
Marcus:
Resident Evil viral marketing ploy backfires. Sending people text messages that their phone is infected by a virus = not very clever marketing.
Marcus:
Yoda 'speaks like Anglo-Saxon'. Mmm. Get children interested in Anglo-Saxon English, I will.
18/08/04
Justin:
New information about the Hypnotoad. Here and here. And here. Quite a few people had that idea. And here.
Justin:
The Cutty Sark was the Millenium Falcon of it's day.
Marcus: It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve pars*cs.
Justin:
Why do Americans bother fighting for democracy when they clearly don't know what it is or how to practice it?
"Now that he's [American icon Bruce Springstein, entirely misjudged for decades about the meaning of his song 'born in the USA'] moved onto the political stage to bash my president, it is entirely fair to respond." Bashed my president? Silly yanks are getting feudal?
If the yanks can't respect the fact that at least one opposition party is necessary for democracy to work, then what else do they not understand about the basic tenents of modern civilisation? PRICKS!
Marcus: Well, to be fair, that's a Republican Senate candidate talking there. But whilst on the one hand I think it's good that at least ordinary American people get quite passionate about their politics (unlike here), they do tend to do it in a tribal, blind way that involves blankly refuting or ignoring anything negative that transpires about their chosen team, whilst focussing on any tiny piece of negativity about the "enemy". It's also interesting how many seem to regard the President as some kind of unimpeachable figure, the representation of America in human form who must never have anything negative said about him. It seems slightly bizarre if you're British (would anybody care if the Prime Minister recieved a slagging off? Hardly), but I suppose it's at least partly to do with the role of the President as Head of State, so a more fair comparison would be the President to how we view our Queen. And I think she's a silly unelected non-tax paying moo, but there's plenty of British people who would start foaming at the mouth if I made that observation to them.
Justin:
Monkey voiceover actor dies at 72
The actor who was the voice behind animal spirit Pigsy in cult Japanese children's TV show Monkey has died.
Peter Woodthorpe died on Thursday, less than a month after finishing recording the voice of Pigsy for 13 Monkey episodes not yet broadcast in the UK.
The 72-year-old also did the voice of Gollum in the 1978 animated film of Tolkien's book, The Lord of the Rings.
Monkey told the surreal story of the boy priest Tripitaka's quest to retrieve ancient Buddhist texts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3572944.stm
Justin:
This is what I mean about Richard Pryor being f*cked up.
Marcus: I think encouraging ethnic minorities to become comedians is a great idea! What's wrong with that?!
Marcus:
The Athens 2004 Olympics has one of those hugely obnoxious and arrogant linking policies. Apparently you have to e-mail them before linking to their website, and only link to it with the correct text, and so on. And - whoops - I've done it all wrong.
justin: Eh? surely they can't restrict people from linking to them as and when they see fit? f*cking Greeks - developed philosophy, medicine, mathematics almost invented modern history, then they put their f*cking feet up for 3000 years. (C) Pub Landlord Joke
Marcus: Harsh but fair.
Marcus:
According to Wired, FreeiPods.com isn't a scam site and people really do get given free iPods!
Marcus: Shame it's US only. Bah.
Steve Jobbies: Ain't this a pyramid scheme though?
Marcus: Very close to one, I'd say, albeit one which allegedly delivers.
Marcus:
The classic action/puzzle game Lemmings incorporated into a DHTML webpage!
Justin: very cool!
dave: Ah man, I'm going to get so sacked.
Marcus:
<predictable lemmings joke>
Oh no!
</predictable lemmings joke>
<predictable lemmings joke>
Oh no!
</predictable lemmings joke>