31/12/06
Gareth:
George Lucas plans to shoot fourth Indiana Jones movie in 2007. Oh George, what are you doing to yourself?
Gareth:
Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq. Maybe it's just me, but it seems fairly ironic that they executed him in a building formerly used for executions by his death squads.
30/12/06
Zanna:
Tranform yourself into a monkey, a drunk, a different race and others.
gareth: I can transform myself into a drunk very easily using no software at all, it's a special talent I have.
29/12/06
28/12/06
Gareth:
Hey!Watch is an online video transcoding thingy. Unfortuantely it's invite only. I put my email in for an invite but have yet to receive it.
Gareth:
CNN cedes Wales to England. I'm going to take a flying leap of a guess and say that this probably angered a few people.
Zanna:
Richard Hammond back in the saddle. He told Motorcycle News he had taken his Honda Fireblade around the streets of London just days after being given the all-clear to ride by doctors.
27/12/06
Gareth:
The dolphins are beginning their attack
zanna: I've always said one day dolphins will take over the Earth. I'm avoiding any large bodies of water from now on.
Gareth:
"Tired of racking your brain trying to squeeze out yet another artist's statement extolling the unique virtues of your latest net.art joint? Do you lapse into fits of involuntary muscle spasms every time you hear the word "immersive" in casual conversation? Then search no further -- The Market-O-Matic (1.0) [fine arts version] is here!"
Gareth:
From reader Tara: Project Looking Glass is a Sun's swing at a 3D user interface. With a company like Sun behind it, it'll hopefully go somewhere. Thanks, Tara!
25/12/06
Marcus:
James Brown (bread).
Marcus: On a related note, a list of c*ckney rhyming slang.
gareth: Damn, you beat me to the draw.
tim: I saw a gig of his at glastonbury with justin a few years ago and I have to say he had the entire festival up and partying, fantastic showman
gareth: Yeah just saw a bit on TV showing him when he was around 70 and he still has quite the charisma.
Dave: He was a wife beater though. Alledgedly.
24/12/06
Gareth:
In an attempt to brighten up the Russian winters, some buildings in Moscow have been painted with some pretty (read:psychadelic) colours
Gareth:
Youtube: Happy Holidays, 24 style made me laugh
Dave: Fixed Link.
gareth: How odd, don't know how that happened. Thanks, fixed the main one.
23/12/06
Gareth:
The fan-made independent Max Payne movie, Payne and Redemption seems like it might be awesome. The official one should hopefully be good as well, but the word independent makes the former that much more interesting. Although then again, it might be difficult to get good quality bullettime on an independent film budget.
22/12/06
Gareth:
If you're bored and for some odd reason feel the need for a psuedo psychaledic drug trip, Vai Avanti seems to have what you're looking for (albeit nothing more)
Gareth:
From reader Dave: (youtube) the concept of a Pinata Hunter is a very odd thing.
Gareth: Alternatively, there's the revenge of the pinata
gareth: I meant to say - thanks, Dave!
21/12/06
Marcus:
My Little Cthulhu: attention H.P. Lovecraft/cutesy Japanese-style figure fans. (via)
gareth: You might want to get rid of the mailto: on the first link
Marcus: Doh doh doh. Fixed.
20/12/06
Justin:
Trailer for the new Transformers movie. Not the teaster trailer, but the full trailer!
gareth: The anticipation is killing me. I just want to know whether they brutalize the Transformers name!
Marcus: YouTube version - easier to get to, albeit it's been stretched out from widescreen (duh).
Marcus:
FLV Online Converter - free webpage tool which converts embedded Flash movies in a webpage (eg YouTube) to a format of your choice. (via)
Marcus:
Just what does "the pompitous of love", as sung in the Steve Miller Band's "The Joker", actually mean?!
19/12/06
18/12/06
Marcus:
BBC: "Joggers using the iPod Sport kit to keep fit are putting their personal privacy at risk."
Marcus: "In the worst scenario stalkers could use the tracking data to 'engineer' encounters with victims."
Marcus: Lawks.
Gareth:
The best of Craigslist 2006 has some funny stuff, such as 2 effective methods to bathe a cat
17/12/06
Marcus:
YouTube: Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry. My favourite Christmas song ever. I'm feeling festive.
Gareth:
Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you. Isn't that cute?
Marcus: It's about time Time made me Person of the Year. I've been writing letters to them about this since 1993.
16/12/06
Gareth:
From reader Pedro: Nintendo is issuing replacement straps for the Wii controllers. Pedro was even nice enough to point out a funny quote from the comments: "My wrist straps are fine. Over the years I've managed to develop an ability to hold onto my controllers for an extended period of time without them flying out of my hand. My grip works well on plates, glasses and various types of fruit as well." That's basically how I feel about it as well. I got the chance to play one again, and even in fevered boxing matches no controller went flying.
15/12/06
14/12/06
Dave:
We (Wii?) haven't had any issues like this in our house... yet.
Dave: I'd also like to coin and trademark the following phrase... Wiitard.
Dave: Goddammit.
13/12/06
Zanna:
Anyone want free tickets to see TV shows being recorded? I went to see 8 out of 10 cats being recorded and it was hysterical.
Dave:
"Things" are sh*t and people are stupid for buying them.
zanna: That's cool! I want one for christmas!!
12/12/06
Gareth:
"Blind hunters would be able to use laser-sighted rifles to hunt animals in Texas, if a bill introduced in the state's legislature is successful."
Marcus:
The Nintendo Wii controller is a bit inaccurate, apparently. (via)
gareth: I played one very briefly and gave the boxing a try - it did seem a bit innacurate. Although I don't think it's the controller's inadequacies that make the author feel like an incompetent novice; I was able to play Excite Truck really well using it.
Dave: This is rubbish, my brother has one and it sounds to me like this guy had trouble using and he didn't like it. I've not had any problems in the few times I've played on it.
11/12/06
Gareth:
Invisible Burglar is a game created by Symantec to promote Norton antivirus. I wouldn't have posted this if the game wasn't actually semi-good, if you try and forget that it has anything to do with the most bloated line of protection software there is. Thanks, Jonny!
gareth: What I find fairly funny is how the game illustrates that there are big holes in norton.
Gareth:
Tower Defense is quite the addictive game, wherein you defend your castle using towers shooting various things at circles moving through a maze. It's a takeoff of the Starcraft/Warcraft 3 tower defense maps.
Marcus:
Spelling With Zombies. (via)
Marcus: On the subject of zombies, Dead Rising on Xbox 360 is loads of fun.
gareth: That's awesome. The cheeky (yet smart) bastards are piggybacking flickr's incredible bandwidth by using flickr's static image urls.
Gareth:
"Brian McCarty is a Memphis-born toy photographer and director/producer. Working with toys for over 15 years, Brian’s quirky photos and photo-illustrations have attracted a huge international following and found a home within the growing art-toy revolution."
Gareth:
Pikipimp is a web-based image "editing" site in which you can add beards, odd bits of leather etc to photos of people. It's a good time.
Gareth: I even beautified myself
gareth: And the linkbunnies logo
Marcus: 
gareth: Feel free to send any creations/abominations you'd like to show off
10/12/06
Marcus:
WiiSaber: WiiMote + Mac = lightsaber antics. (via)
gareth: See also the Powerglove for Wii
gareth: Some of the wiisaber vidoes are a little like starwars kid
gareth: Also, a wiimote controlling Nord Lead (a music synthesizer)
gareth: Man, the wiimote is basically a Christmas present to all geeks from Nintendo.
Gareth:
Find out how far off your computer's clock is.
gareth: Mine was off a whole 2 minutes and 53 seconds.
zanna: Mine is only 12 seconds behind.
Gareth:
"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound."
09/12/06
Gareth:
"Kim Jong-Il is up to no good with his Taep-O-Dong. How far can you launch him and his malfunctioning missile?"
Gareth:
The PulseVU is a nice mod for the Wii (and soon other systems) that allows the disc light to pulse in sleep mode as well as to music while the Wii is in operation
Gareth:
Ooh, a Firefox 2 development build now passes the Acid2 test. It's even now been intergrated into the trunk, so it'll be in all future builds.
Gareth:
Youtube: This is one of the funniest beer ads I've ever seen
Gareth: Wow, and it's big enough to have it's own fairly extensive wikipedia entry. It notes that it was released August 7 2005, so I'm fairly late on this one. It's still good though.
Gareth:
Apparantly math is not the strong suit of Verizon, a phone company in north america: "Verizon doesn't know Dollars from Cents" It's pretty excrutiating how difficult people can be.
Gareth:
Winterbells is a pretty good flash game in which a bunny, for some reason, hops up a bunch of bells.
gareth: The only think is that you can't turn off the fairly loud music (although it's pretty good, for Christmas music)
08/12/06
Marcus:
OS X tip: press Command Option H to hide every window except the currently active one. I'm still looking for a "minimise all windows " keyboard shortcut ala Windows key M.
Marcus: I found a piece of AppleScript called Minimize all windows in all apps - which would seem to be ideal - but it doesn't seem to do an awful lot.
Marcus: The closest working one I can find "hides all applications except Finder, then tells Finder to minimize all its windows".
Marcus:
Wired: interview with a woman who provides sex texting services.
Marcus: "A whole group of text actresses respond to a single client, and each text actress responds to many clients in any given minute."
Marcus:
"The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics has a logo that changes every time it gets used on letterhead or displayed on a web site."
Gareth:
"The Last Picture I ever took contest" will of course net some funny photos
gareth: Ah, here's the origin: A Worth1000 gallery: "final photo"
Gareth:
Youtube: Holy sh*t Halo 3 trailer. I'm about three days late on this, but oh well. Also, Halo3.com is now live.
Marcus:
Stretchy rubber business card.
Marcus: Also from Dethroner: leopard seals are the new Loch Ness Monster.
Marcus: Leopard seals make a hobby out of skinning penguins alive by beating them and killing people.
Marcus: Leopard seals are nature's answer to critics who label the seal as "too cutesy".
gareth: That reminds me of the lockpick business card
07/12/06
Marcus:
Oscar the Obsessive Compulsive action figure: "comes with a persistently worried expression, gloves in case he has to shake hands with less fastidious humans, and a surgical mask so he won't be contaminated by shared air"
Marcus: Also: ThinkGeek's Cylon-esque USB-powered robot snowman.
Gareth:
Somethingawful has come upon a leaked copy of the Simpsons movie script. NSFW if your boss doesn't like curse words in red sharpie.
Marcus:
Easy Star All-Stars are a dub reggae outfit who have covered Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon (Dub Side Of The Moon) and most recently Radiohead's OK Computer (Radiodread).
Marcus: I saw them do Radiodread in Bristol last weekend. Normally I shoot reggae cover bands on sight, but these guys are really cool - awesome music.
Marcus:
GoodSearch: conduct Yahoo! searches for charidee (although they don't like to talk about it, mate*). (via)
Marcus:
Major record company EMI is experimenting with zero DRM MP3 downloads.
gareth: If it's good music in 192+ kbps vbr or cbr, I'd certainly pay for it.
Marcus:
YouTube: The 12 isms of Christmas. Somewhat overlong (like the original carol), but amusing and swearily NSFW. (via)
Marcus:
Stephen Hawking: "So we don't get wiped out by a giant asteroid hitting the Earth or something (like in that film I saw the other day), humanity should go out in cool spaceships and establish planetary colonies, like in Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars and that."
Marcus: Woah! Check out the big brain on Steve!
gareth: Wow, Stephen Hawking said cool. I'm aghast.
Marcus: He said it in my head, anyway. That counts for something.
06/12/06
Marcus:
The Richard Littlejohn listing in this old TV Go Home listing had me spluttering "LOL!!" into my chai latté. (Warning: sick, not at all safe for work, and may offend and confuse you unless you're twisted and quite possibly British.)
Gareth:
Stripping in Norway has been declared as an art form, and is free from VAT.
gareth: I suppose it makes sense, as in a sense stripping is no different from a movie. A very erotic movie, but still a movie.
Marcus: Well, it's dancing I suppose. Just dancing in which clothing is removed, and money gets inserted places. Not really like ballet, then. Not yet, anyway.
Chris:
There's playing a record, and there's playing a record. Kid Koala, with several copies of Henry Mancini's song "Moon River", takes it to a whole other place.
Marcus:
Fascinating clips from a British (BBC?) documentary on Savant Syndrome: part 1 and part 2. (via)
Marcus: What makes this interesting is that, unlike most autistic savants, the people in this documentary can explain the thought processes behind their astonishing mental feats.
Marcus:
Interesting kottke.org piece on popular weblog posts. Apparently traffic doubled after a 9/11 post.
Marcus:
Wii Safety: The Missing Pages. (via)
Marcus: Don't even think about feeding your Wii after midnight.
Marcus: (For context, see.)
gareth: The Wii is awesome, I'm not going to lie.
Marcus:
BBC: David Tennant named 'best Dr Who'.
Marcus: Now I'm not exactly a Dr Who fan or anything, but isn't it likely this poll is more than a little skewed? How many of the people who voted for David Tennant have ever seen the earlier incarnations?
Marcus:
YouTube: "I'm Typing LOL... But I'm not laughing".
Marcus: Word of warning - I execute people who type "lol" when what they mean is "I might be sort of smirking a little bit".
Marcus:
iFilm now hosts legal versions of Comedy Central clips. (via)
Marcus: Previously.
Marcus: Slight hitch in that iFilm has sucky video quality and is certainly no YouTube, but better than nothing.
tim: you just said 'sucky' LOL!
Marcus:
"Your average Second Life avatar consumes about as much electricity as your average Brazilian." (via)
Marcus: Despite the fact it's killing us all with global warming, I've tried getting into Second Life, with limited success.
Marcus: How on earth do people find the time to just float around looking at homeless kids in a 3D virtualisation of the Rockefeller Plaza?
Gareth:
If you for some reason have some sort of love for MS Paint, you can now use it in your browser.
05/12/06
Gareth:
I really like funny pictures of cats. Drillcat is definitely my favourite. You've no doubt seen some of these before, I think I've posted them. Or not, silly search isn't working and google didn't turn up anything.
chris: I've said it before, and I'll say it again - it'll all end in tears, mark my words...
gareth: It'll be a good death.
Dave:
Some help on getting past the Windows Genuine advantage tool. Should you happen to fail the legitimacy check for any reason.
04/12/06
Marcus:
Directors/screenwriters/actors/bands who have followed a masterpiece with a, er, crappiece. (via)
Marcus: Ridley Scott's directing career is a great example.
gareth: The Wachowski brothers' The Matrix -> The Matrix: Reloaded (or Revolutions). And it killed me.
Marcus:
Buy awesome genetically modified pets and personal enhancement from NextGenCode - "Your Destiny Is No Longer In Question". (Thanks Tara!)
Marcus: They even have a MySpace page so you know they're for real.
Marcus:
Civil Netizen is a secure online file transfer service for Windows and OS X. Handles files of up to 4GB and features a download manager with resume ability.
Marcus:
Damn Interesting on the incident which led to the internment of hundreds of thousands of US-Japanese civilians during World War II.
Marcus:
UK readers will almost certainly already know about this, but just in case you didn't, here's a link to the famous (and real) 40% off Threshers web coupon. (Thanks Matthew!)
Gareth:
A guide to the terminology that technicians use to express themselves in the manner of drunken sailors.
03/12/06
Zanna:
Phallic logo awards. The entry from Pontins suprised me!
Gareth: The link's broken, you have one too many https. So until Marcus/Zanna gets around to fixing it, here's a proper one. Just watch, I'll have screwed that one up somehow.
Gareth:
4 year old scares away would-be robbers/kidnappers/general criminals when he dons a Power Ranger costume, having them believe that he morphed into it.
02/12/06
Zanna:
Super Columbine Massacre RPG.This game delves into the morning of April 20th, 1999 and asks players to relive that day through the eyes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, those responsible for the deadliest school shooting in American history.
Gareth:
You should all see The Fountain. It's good stuff.
gareth: From the imdb trivia: "Instead of using CGI, Aronofsky chose to do the special effects for the film by using micro-photography of chemical reactions on tiny petri dishes. He has said that CGI would take away from the timelessness of the film and that he wants the film to stand the test of time." That's just one reason why it's so awesome.
01/12/06
Gareth:
By exposing the insects to the odor of explosives followed by a sugar water reward, researchers said they trained bees to recognize substances ranging from dynamite and C-4 plastic explosives to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq."