30/09/07
Marcus:
YouTube: Madman reaches 130mph riding down a 45° snow-covered mountain slope on a mountain bike. Let me just repeat that: 130mph on a mountain bike. On a 45° snow-covered mountain slope.
Marcus: Short Telegraph article on this new world record.
Marcus:
Wired's "Get the most out of Gmail" wiki is full of useful tips, like funnelling all your different e-mail accounts into one handy inbox.
Marcus: This might even be the magic way of clearing the ever-increasing backlog of linkbunnies e-mails. (Sorry to anybody who's written to us in the last month and thinks they've been ignored - we love you and we love link suggestions).
Marcus:
Photo of a (live) iguana(?) trained to lounge around on a tiny sofa in a really creepy anthropomorphic way. (stolen)
Marcus: Depressing that flickr comments seem to be going the way of YouTube comments (illiterate and full of LOLs), but that's ubiquity for you.
29/09/07
Zanna:
Girl Guide threatened with ASBO.
zanna: Also- 12 year old boy who flicked paper at a classmate charged with GBH.
Marcus:
Crackbook: amusing Facebook parody. Don't miss Mercution Ritz's profile, and his Reality Revealed actual profile. And other things. There's a fair amount of detail in this endeavour. (stolen)
Marcus: And for Internet dating aficionados, there's Poor Match.com.
Justin:
The Spanish newspaper El País recently published the transcript of a conversation between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister José María Aznar on Feb. 22, 2003—a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq—and it confirms some (though not all) of the most dreadful accounts and suspicions about Bush's intentions and nature.
28/09/07
27/09/07
Justin:
Line of succession to the British Throne
justin: Interesting how much royalty from other countries is in line for OUR throne; especially the bloody Norweigans.
26/09/07
25/09/07
Marcus:
Radioshift: new Tivo-esque internet radio recording app. Looks awesome. OS X only.
dave: hmm where's the version for people with real computers?
Marcus: PC users don't get one because you're all about boring-ass spreadsheets, whereas Mac users are all about listening to music, making websites and being smug. I saw it on an advert.
Justin:
Put your right hand in the box.
What's in the box?
Pain.
And Raytheon have developed a pain-amplifier that shoots waves of pain out to people - yay!
Here is what that could potentially look like (You Tube)
What's in the box?
Pain.
And Raytheon have developed a pain-amplifier that shoots waves of pain out to people - yay!
Here is what that could potentially look like (You Tube)
Marcus: Gratuitous Dune references are always welcome at linkbunnies. In fact, if you're sending us an e-mail, please remember to word it like a Frank Herbet novel or we might not understand you.
justin: Marcus must contextualise things - a weakness that can be exploited.
justin: Hehe - cheers Marcus.
24/09/07
Dave:
The Family Guy Star Wars episode was on in the US last night. Watch the first 10 mins here (if this hasn't been posted already). I suggest you get it from your favourite torrent site.
Marcus:
Hotel Chevalier, a 13-minute prequel to Wes Anderson's new movie The Darjeeling Limited, will be available as a free download from iTunes starting Wednesday. (stolen)
Marcus: It would be nice if this was available on iTunes stores other than the US site, but I'm not massively hopeful.
23/09/07
Zanna:
How amazingly cool! Iron man with Robert Downey Jr.
zanna: An interesting fanboy overview by 'Alittlekidwithabeard'
Gareth:
Apparently during the Cold War the Russians were inches from launching a retaliatory nuclear attack
gareth: More close calls
21/09/07
Chris:
Forget digitally removing the guns from ET, it looks like Steven Spielberg is going to have to make some big changes to one of his other films after it was announced that Velociraptors had feathers.
zanna: "I just happened to feel these couple of bumps along the backside. And it was like, 'Oh, that's very interesting,'" - Alan Turner
Marcus:
Prince is demanding YouTube remove videos of his music. He's also threatening eBay with a lawsuit for selling unauthorised merchandise.
Marcus: According to his lawyer, "Prince has always stood up for his rights and been proactive in that respect. It's important to have control of your rights online in this digital age and not leave it to rampant piracy."
Marcus: When Prince gave away free copies of his album to Daily Mail readers back in July, the editor was very clear on Prince's "music should be free to the people" philanthropic outlook.
Marcus: ""It's all about giving music for the masses and he believes in spreading the music he produces to as many people as possible."
Marcus: Shurely shome mishtake?
Marcus:
Impressive Etch-A-Sketch-drawn picture of a Big Daddy and Little Sister from ace game Bioshock.
20/09/07
Marcus:
Stephen Fry has a weblog.
Marcus: One of the many awesome things about Stephen Fry is that he is a lover of all things computer gadgety - just check out his long discourse on smart phones.
Dave: And he's a Norwich City fan. OTBC!
chris: He's also a fan of the Microwriter Agenda, too - I used to have one of those, until it was stolen. Stolen, for goodness' sake! It was useful as a conversation starter (along the lines of "what on earth is that thing?" but rather than replacing it I got a Filofax instead. You don't lose your entire memory because the batteries have gone flat when you use a Filofax...
19/09/07
18/09/07
Marcus:
Apparently Apple and O2 announced that some kind of phone thing will be released in the UK on 9th November. It'll cost £269 and have unlimited EDGE and GPRS data transfer.
Marcus: O2 have sewed themselves into a helluva unfavourable deal with Apple to become exclusive carriers.
Marcus:
The New York Times is opening up pretty much all of its website for free, losing the TimesSelect subscription option.
gareth: Hoorah, now I don't have to rely on bugmenot
17/09/07
Marcus:
The Zap Colors Bookmarklet makes any webpage's colour scheme a more-readable black on white. (stolen)
16/09/07
Justin:
This is hilarious - the Facebook drinking game!
justin: "Take 3 DRINKS if your Friends List has someone on it who stifles your entire Facebook existence, such as your an ex-girlfriend, your boss, or your real-life mom or dad
BONUS: Do a chaser if your mom or dad is listed as 'You hooked up once'"
BONUS: Do a chaser if your mom or dad is listed as 'You hooked up once'"
15/09/07
14/09/07
12/09/07
Chris:
The more miserable you are, the more ice cream you get! Now there's a philosophy I can live with.
11/09/07
Gareth:
The National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000.
justin: Also fun to lok at is the ladies home journal of 1900 predicting life in 2000 - some of it spot on. Here!
Marcus: What's interesting (I'm reading the Ladies' Home Journal here) is how tantalisingly close some of the predictions are.
Marcus: Condensed "spelling by sound" - well, that's txt spk right there. "Hot and cold air from spigots" - central heating and air conditioning. Fast food and delivery. Fridges. Hydro-electric power. Photo news feeds. Cheap cars replacing horses. Widespread gym membership. Mobile phones.
10/09/07
Justin:
An amplified photon thruster that could potentially shorten the trip to Mars from six months to a week has reportedly attracted the attention of aerospace agencies and contractors.
Marcus:
"Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species." Which has some pretty interesting (and probably extremely frustrating) implications for genome research. (stolen)
08/09/07
07/09/07
Gareth:
A very funny (and very accurate) review of Bioshock
Marcus: Looks like it may have been taken down - the URL now leads to the main user video page.
gareth: I've updated the link to one that should work.
Marcus:
Tip: create your own iTunes-compatible ringtones for the iPhone. Seems a better choice than the official Apple ringtone ripoff feature.
Marcus: And, within 24 hours, an iTunes update has already broken the exploit. Thus more or less instantly disproving the idiots who said "Apple deliberately allowed this method to pretend to the music industry that they want to charge customers twice, but really they want customers to have an easy way to make free ringtones". No, idiots, Apple wants your money.
Marcus: But - aha! - there's already a workaround to keep custom ringtones. Until that gets broken too.
Marcus:
Five News is banning the "noddy" shot. Having filmed a bunch of these myself (nothing fancy, just degree work) I have to say they really are one of the stupidest TV conventions around. (Although chilidish fun can be obtained if you take the noddy rushes and show them in their entirety without cutting backwards and forwards.) (stolen)
Marcus: Contrived cutaways and staged questions are also gone - good lord, I might even start watching Five News.
Marcus:
Google Video: Documentary about John Lennon's 40 favourite songs, as discovered in a 1960s portable jukebox once owned by him. (stolen)
Marcus:
Kottke has lots of lovely Wire links, including an excellent interview with creator David Simon (written by Nick Hornby, a big fan of the show).
Marcus:
John Gruber, Jackass of the Week: Mac blog pundit famed for his cringeworthy Apple apologist stance love of all things Apple is roundly kicked in the ass for defending Apple's sudden $200 iPhone price cut (after only two months). Gruber's response is unconvincing.
Marcus: I'm actually a fully paid-up reader and regularly pinch links from Daring Fireball, but this time Gruber really went too far in defending the indefensible and insulting the intelligence of early adopters in the process. Icky.
Marcus: The similarly asinine defending of Apple in the comments is ridiculous too. Proof indeed that there really are people who will jump at the chance to explain away the morally questionable actions of a multinational company that makes shiny computers no matter what.
Marcus: Anyway, that's enough tedious Mac geekery. Next, some photographs of girls wearing meat on their heads.
06/09/07
Dave:
Ooooooh the iPod Touch. Can't believe I beat you to this Marcus!
Dave: Ooooh and new iPod Nano Video too.
Dave: Some more info and pics.
Dave: Video guide - by the smuggest **** ever.
Marcus: I was reading as the event unfurled last night, and perhaps I'm some form of ultra-rare jaded Apple user, but I didn't see anything the least bit impressive. Also, everything unveiled has been credibly rumoured for weeks, if not months now.
gareth: The only thing that really appealed to me was the wifi, but supposedly it doesn't support any encryption whatsoever
Dave: Ha - I totally bought it. I want one.
Marcus:
Chipwrapper: custom Google search for the content of UK newspapers (and BBC News and Sky News). (stolen)
Marcus:
Video: Internet Commenter Business Meeting. A meeting consisting of the sorts of people who add comments to popular weblogs and YouTube videos. Hilarious. (stolen)
05/09/07
04/09/07
Marcus:
A Toot and a Snore, a rare post-Beatles breakup bootleg featuring Lennon and McCartney (and Stevie Wonder) jamming in 1974. (stolen)
Marcus: (Oops, the original link wasn't a very good one - fixed.)
03/09/07
Dave:
http://www.syfyportal.com/news424083.htmlKevin Smith is going to direct an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
gareth: Unfortunately, reader Matt points out that it's not happening due to scheduling conflict. Damn.
Dave:
Clark and Michael. Internet sitcom from Michael Cera of Arrested Development fame. Pretty funny. These kids have great timing!