31/12/05
29/12/05
25/12/05
Marcus:
b3ta: Land of Keeping Up Appearances. Funny if you remember the delightfully pedestrian UK sitcom, and like zombies.
Marcus: By the same guy: Corrupt African Dictator School.
Marcus: Also: The Chronicles of Narnia: Xtreem Off Road!
Marcus:
Speedy Santa 3D and Elf Zapper - two festive Shockwave 3D games from the people who brought you Speedy Santa.
Marcus:
Speedy Santa is back for this year, and the race track is tougher than ever.
Marcus: It now seems to be sponsored by UK gadget shop Firebox.com, and you get a free five pound voucher for completing the course.
Marcus:
Marcus: Merry Christmas to one and all!
Marcus: In a retro-childhood experience, for the first time in years I've woken up at 4am eager to open presents and jump up and down excitedly on my parents' bed.
Marcus: I haven't found any Christmassy links so far, so here's what I was talking about in Christmas 2004. At a slightly more reasonable hour.
24/12/05
22/12/05
Chris:
Someone on Flickr is having a very merry Noodly Christmas...
gareth: May you be touched by his noodley appendage.
Gareth:
The World's longest palindrome (a symmetrical word, sentence, string) weighs in at 17,259 words. All I have to say to that is ogopogo racecar.
21/12/05
Gareth:
Have some fun with the Animal Splicer, and create abominations to your heart's content. My favourite generated name is the "monktopus".
Gareth:
"I plugged the video-out port on my video card into the video-in port of my capture card." (Via)
Gareth:
Japanese company NEC has developed a lightweight, flexible battery that is less than a millimetre thick and can be recharged in half a minute. Impressive, to say the least.
Aimie: Is this the same company who make the crap mobile phones? It's the first phone I got which came with two batteries and chargers, which says it all. The only reason I got it was because the tarif was damn good. Bad, bad move.
gareth: Well, I suppose it could be worse, it could come with two batteries and no chargers. Then you'd have two batteries worth of lifetime.
20/12/05
Gareth:
US court rules against teaching intelligent design in public schools. Which makes sense, considering it's a public school.
Justin:
Schwarzenegger returns his ring of power to his home town of Graz. Maybe it was one of alex Chui's life rings?
Justin:
So it looks like they are going to make all new video machines have to obey a special "rights signal" that means you can't copy digital media with an analogue device. This CG Talk forum thread discussion says how we all feel I guess.
gareth: When the revolution comes, Jim Sensenbrenner and John Conyers will be among the first against the wall.
19/12/05
Justin:
Microsoft is no longer supporting IE for the Mac "Macs are sh*t & IE is sh*t, so the synergy was already there to suggest Mac owners ought to use a rival brand - anything except Firefox" - A Microsoft spokeman said.
gareth: With the abundance of proper browsers out there, I don't think it'll be missed.
Justin:
Face Recognition - upload a picture of your face and find out who you most look like
justin: It's very clever - in this photo of me doing the spastic face, it correctly identified Oscar Wilde in the background and said I looked like Rock Hudson
chris: Rather than making a cruel jibe at Justin's expense here, can I just point out that the site suggested that a male colleague of ours looked like both Vivien Leigh and Jean-Michel Jarre, and that it told a female colleague that, as well as looking like Shakira, she also resembled Charles Bronson and Bing Crosby? And apparently I resemble Pope Pius XII. Hmm...
Marcus:
El Reg: "Gmail goes mobile".
Marcus: Just had a quick go using my Treo 650, and it's not bad. Even the normal Gmail renders ok on the Treo, but this mobile version is faster to load and still pretty intuitive when switching conversation threads.
Marcus: The mobile Gmail address is http://m.gmail.com just in case you can't be bothered to read the article.
Marcus: One little snag: apparently they're using a bad or out of date security certificate.
Marcus:
"Microsoft's forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser will adopt Firefox's RSS feed icon, effectively making the orange square with white radio waves the industry standard."
Marcus: More info on the MS RSS team blog.
Marcus: 
Marcus:
And my vote for 2005's Most Arresting Sentence in an Introductory Paragraph goes to: "According to a recent study, women are aroused by watching monkey sex." It's in a science journal, so SFW-ish. (via)
Marcus:
Washington Post: "Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago." (via)
justin: Yeah man, culture is the real difference between groups not colour. Though, did anyone get that joke about catching a cab at the end of the article? Was it supposed to be funny?
Marcus:
Oxo cube art: an artist has made a bunch of sculptures (teddy bear, Christmas pudding, wine bottles) using nothing more than different flavours of Oxo cubes and their wrappings.
Marcus: Despite my best Google Fu I was unable to turn up any more info or pictures, and that includes faffing about on the press section of both Campbell's and Oxo. I did manage to download some pictures of the old Oxo family though, so it wasn't entirely in vain.
Marcus: 
Marcus: Ahh, Bisto.
Gareth:
If you ever said to yourself "I really wish I could wield my bedside table more effectively, should I need it for mortal combat" then you are in luck.
Marcus: 
Marcus: For maximum effect try to resemble a startled junkie with a hangover caught masturbating.
justin: The round bit underneath the table looks like it would dig into your arm if you actually used the shield. I think this is supposed to be "art" though.
16/12/05
15/12/05
Justin:
Why use the Immobilise Property Register? Click to find out.
gareth: That would actually be really good, if it became widely used.
Justin:
The U.S. Air Force plans to change the designation of the F/A-22 Raptor to "F-22A"
justin: What we've all be waiting for.
justin: Bonus - most patriotic nose art ever.
justin: "we'll take it from here!" - "but how are you going to put out fires with those machine guns?"
gareth: Wow, patriotism has hit new lows.
Gareth:
The MP3 police are coming. This has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was funny.
14/12/05
Marcus:
Yes Car Credit goes bust.
Marcus: 
Marcus: The devil makes work for people with five minutes, an internet connection and MS Paint.
Justin:
More atrocities from the African leadership
tim: Sudan has got a pretty efficient ethnic cleansing policy, saddam would have been proud.... hmmm thinking baout it, I wonder if they've got any oil....?
Justin:
Robotic boats fight piracy on the high seas!
gareth: Now, if we can somehow throw ninjas into the mix, I think we could have a really interesting time.
tim: yeah but how much would a few ex-russian army snipers be? half the price probably.... and you could hang the pirates corpses from the highest yardarm for that days work etc etc
13/12/05
12/12/05
Gareth:
Clocky is an alarm clock for people who have trouble getting out of bed. If you hit the snooze button, Clocky will roll off of the nightstand, fall to the floor, and run around the room, searching for a place to hide.
chris: As if being woken from a deep relaxing sleep in a warm comfy bed wasn't bad enough. What's next - an alarm clock that gives you a slap for using the "snooze" button? We were looking for things to complain about and get them banned - this has my vote!
tim: it gets even better
justin: If I was Han Solo my advice would be "don't get Clocky, kid!"
11/12/05
09/12/05
08/12/05
Justin:
You know how swans can tear a man's anus out with their wings? well - apparently squirrels are worse. Let's just say that squirrel scene in Charlie and the chocolate Factory was right.
Justin:
Apparently it only takes around 20 complaints to get Sainsburys or Woolwirths to pull a DVD.
justin: I think we should set up a campaign where we complain about everything to see how much we can get pulled.
Laura:
You know those people who have to cover every inch of the outside of their home in Christmas decorations? Well, apparently they're called 'Houseblingers' and this is a website just for them.
gareth: That is really unfortunate.
07/12/05
06/12/05
Justin:
New Fake or Photo competition from Alias - is it real or is it CG? I got 9 out of 10.
Marcus: So 3D's still rubbish then?
Marcus: If it keeps on failing to pass basic scrutiny like this, I foresee a return to the days of using models and plasticine to create movie special effects etc.
Gareth: Well, it's improving.
Tim:
Cameron's in. Told you (or someone) he would, although I think we used to beat up a kid called cameron in school
justin: People called Cameron as a first name are middle classes ponces- the name is actually worse than Timothy, Justin & Marcus for gayness.
Marcus: That's alienated our Timothy, Justin, Marcus and Cameron audience then.
Marcus:
"Pakistan's government is to remove a poem from a school textbook after it emerged the first letters of each line spelt out 'President George W Bush'."
justin: That's a bit insidious!
05/12/05
Gareth:
On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris.
Dave:
I'm not sure I told all of you, but I'm going to be away for a while. I have packed my bag and f*cked off round the world. Am currently delayed in Changi airport, hard life huh? If you get bored please read my blog and leave (tasteful) comments for me. I'll post on here when I find fun from round the world. Speak soon.
Marcus: I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say "Get the f*ck out of my country you godamn hippy traveller!"
justin: Good riddance.
gareth: Have a nice time!
04/12/05
Gareth:
Definitely going to hell for this one: Body of Christ? Not so nice. Attempts to spice up the flavour of communion wafers.
Chris:
I hadn't realised Bryan Singer was quite as big a Star Trek fan as this interview indicates. Now, a Star Trek movie from the guy who brought us The Usual Suspects, that might be... interesting.
03/12/05
Chris:
Forbes Magazine brings you the world's top 15 super-rich people who don't exist. Nice to see Lex Luthor in there at number four. But Lucius Malfoy at number fifteen?
02/12/05
Gareth:
Clint Eastwood to receive Lifetime Achievement award from Director's Guild of America. He deserves it!
Gareth:
Pleix: "Pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in Paris. Some of us are 3D artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers. This website is the perfect place to share our latest creations."
Gareth: I like the video for Basement Jaxx's Cish Cash.
Marcus: Which I talked about back in July 2004. Was I even alive then? Cor.
gareth: Well, it's technically not a double post!
Marcus: Not at all - I'm reclassifying this to "lovely post".
Gareth:
Pi to the one millionth decimal place. I don't really understand the Dr. Evil image at the top though?
justin: Because it's Pi to one million decimal places!