29/11/07
28/11/07
Justin:
David O'Doherty text song - amusing song/sketch about sending a text message to the person the text is about.
dave: Link missing mate
justin: I am silly. You Tube Link
Dave: That's funny. We've all done it, or know someone who has.
Justin:
Kent "Toast" French, The World's Fastest Clapper
Dave: I find him unsettling.
justin: Yeah, I think he's the kind of guy that gets on with children - and ends up spanking them 14 times a second.
27/11/07
Dave:
Ok, if I saw this on Dragon's Den I wouldn't invest. BUT it seems to work - teach your cat to do it's ungodly business in the human toilet.
justin: Genius - probably a good idea to get with a new kitten as well and start them young. So how do we get them to flush?
Marcus:
Unreleased Doom MIDI sound files, straight from creator ID Software's John Romero. (via)
Marcus: Direct link to .ZIP. Got to love that the creator of Doom has harnessed Romania's .ro domain suffix to make his own surname a complete web address.
Marcus:
The Arcade Fire's new interactive music video for Neon Bible. Click the hands! Click the face!
Justin:
A British primary school teacher arrested in Sudan faces up to 40 lashes for blasphemy after letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad.
justin: If this is true - then this is f*cking ridiculous.
Chris:
Billie Piper is coming back to Doctor Who as Rose Tyler. Hmmm, how's that going to happen then? I thought she was stuck in a parallel universe with no hope of return...
26/11/07
Justin:
This December sees the release of the feature film The Golden Compass based on Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. What many of the cinema-goers will not know is that Pullman's clever use of parallel universes relies heavily on the work of an American quantum physicist, Hugh Everett III.
justin: That is Mark from The Eels' dad. Though Marcus might like this one.
25/11/07
Justin:
Jesus this guy is turning into a bloody tree! video
Gareth: This makes me shudder uncontrollably.
Marcus: Especially when you consider it's a result of uncontrolled warts. Telegraph story. Shiver.
justin: When they were saying about the cut on his knee, I thought it was some mad sh*t like the tree roots started growing in his body and lived in him like a parasite. I've got to say though, this story makes me want to vomit, it truly is horrific - I hope he can be sorted out.
24/11/07
Marcus:
YouTube: Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Will seem drastically boring for the first 50 seconds, then it goes all kinds of clever awesome. A love of Daft Punk helps. (via)
23/11/07
Justin:
This is some hardcore cute catness - these cute cats are talking cat language! CUTE VIDEO!!111!!!
gareth: They sound a little like dolphins.
Marcus: "thats probs a mum an her bub coz thats how all my kittens an their mum talk but any way... THEY R 2 CUTE!!"
Marcus: YouTube: I come for the videos but I stay for the comments.
Justin:
Jesus Harold Christ - look at this exo-skeleton suit being developed for the US Army - this is how the Terminator got started. I defy you not to be wowed.
gareth: this makes the Crysis nano suit seem actually feasible.
Justin:
The Worlds Best Country to live in - Left out of the Michel Moore film Sicko - a look at the post-human utopia that is Norway
Marcus:
ies4osx: run Internet Explorer 5.0+ on Mac OS X. Useful for Mac-based web developers who can't be ars*d to boot Parallels or VMWare, I guess. (via)
Marcus:
Twin set of tattoos inspired by Portal. I loved the game, but the person who had this done is nuts. (via)
Marcus:
Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007. Includes such gems as "child-bearing machines" (government minister talking about women), "some sort of regenerated water" (government minister talking about tap water used in his office), and "it couldn’t be helped" (soon-to-be-ex government minister shrugs off the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki).
Marcus:
"Scotland Yard is spending £15,000 on ethnically diverse police mascots after complaints that PCSO Steve, its current rubber representative, is too white, too male, and too blond." Political correctness gone mad, you couldn't make it up, etc etc. (via)
Marcus:
GearsMonkey: make any website viewable offline. Uses Greasemonkey and Google Gears. The tutorial I've linked to shows you how to make an offline copy of Wikipedia (albeit hacky, messy and assuming some HTML/Javascript know-how).
22/11/07
Gareth:
Arnold shares his true feelings is one of the funniest ytmnds I have ever seen, and I can't really figure out why.
Marcus:
ScummVM has been ported to the iPhone. Regularly updated builds too. I'm currently making my way through Day of the Tentacle, and it works pretty well (clumsy finger accuracy aside). You'll need a jailbroken iPhone and handiness with SSH or SFTP. Installation instructions.
Marcus: Check out the compatibility list - virtually every SCUMM graphic adventure game is fully playable.
Marcus: Fans of The Secret of Monkey Island may also be interested in The Monkey Island Saga - Ultimate Edition. Contains virtually everything ever done about Monkey Island ever. Includes soundtracks, fan games, sheet music and a video of a high school play.
Marcus: (Don't download it - write to The Pirate Bay and demand they remove this and every other piece of copyrighted material.)
Marcus: (Tell them to get rid of the ScummVM Games Collection while they're at it, too.)
Marcus:
PickyPirate: a mashup between Metacritic, Mininova and The Pirate Bay. Discover the highest-rated media currently available for pilfering. Then phone up your local copyright enforcer and demand something be done about it. Obviously. (via)
Marcus:
Thom Yorke paid nothing for the latest Radiohead album. Bloody cheapskate.
Dave: I paid a pound. I was ripped off.
Justin:
Insanely red-shot video intro to Disney's Ducktails - nothing I can say can prepare you for this so just watch it. I won't say "not safe for work" as I'm very likely to show this to my boss tomorrow morning - but you know how it goes.
Marcus: Jeebus.
Dave: Good lord!
20/11/07
Zanna:
The average price of a pint of beer could hit £4 after poor weather forced up the price of hops.
Zanna:
Introducing the Roosh Pregnancy Test ™, with an 80% accuracy rating.
'With the Roosh Test, if it comes back positive there is a whopping 20% chance that your life is not ruined.'
19/11/07
Marcus:
Jonathan Coulton sings an acoustic version of ace Portal end song "Still Alive". (Previously). (via)
Marcus:
Optical illusion: a face hidden in a seemingly identical (and eye-bending) set of black stripes. (via)
18/11/07
Justin:
This heart breaking youtube video shows a guy crashing his new Suzuki GSXR as he rolls out of the dealership parking lot.
Justin:
Street Fighter Art in Progress: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly - blog from Capcom about the new high-def Street Fighter game.
Justin:
Take a look at the amazing-looking dynamic rotating building - where each floor rotates independantly. Video.
17/11/07
Justin:
Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything
justin: And no, it's not "if we all smoked weed everyone would stop fighting"
Marcus:
The new Ghostbusters game now has an official website. There's screenshots and a brief outline of the new story. Presented to you in non-hotlinkable Flash-O-Vision.
Marcus: There's also some footage of the game in this video from G4's Attack of The Show, although it also contains large amounts of irritating punditry.
Marcus:
Americans Shouldn't Cosplay: photos of Japanese "cosplay" people compared with their American counterparts. Amusing. (NB Cosplay = people who dress up and parade around pretending to be their favourite video game character. There's nothing weird about that whatsoever.) (via)
Marcus:
Nihilist Job Résumé. (via)
Marcus: "I eschew all so-called personal development, instead dying under the premise that, when I'm a biodegrading mess of worm feed hopelessly buried beneath a fathom of dark earth, being able to type 70 words a minute really won't do me a modicum of what you so ignorantly refer to as 'good.'"
Marcus:
Google Trends Reveals People’s Predictability. "There’s an interesting correlation between depression and rain..." (via)
16/11/07
Marcus:
"The fire in the Sierra Oaks subdivision in Jacksonville's Northside was started when a woman at the 2-month-old home smelled something and lit the fireplace to clear the air..." (via)
Marcus:
Tip: How to make OS X Leopard's bar opaque. Then optionally add a gradient tint to it. Another bit of Leopard visual duncery fixed. (Apparently 0.63 is a good setting.)
Marcus:
New Ghostbusters game confirmed for 2008. Best news is it'll feature new voice acting from the original Ghostbusters team (Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson). And the script will be written by Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd. Sweet!
Dave: WANT.
15/11/07
Marcus:
Lifehacker: How to build a Hackintosh Mac for under $800. (Hackintosh=PC running hacked Leopard).
Marcus: The benchmarks are pretty impressive too.
Marcus:
The BBC has a new iPhone-optimised site for its podcasts. Same address as the usual one: bbc.co.uk/podcasts. Yay!
Marcus: It's not working too well for me at the moment (can't get past the selection screen), but I'll put that down to newborn website bugs.
Marcus: It looks like the iPhone has to be in landscape web browser mode for the play icons to show up - not that they seem to do anything much (at least on GPRS, maybe EDGE/WiFi works better).
Marcus:
Register: B3ta served DMCA notice for Photoshop Prince challenge. Oh dear Prince, oh dear.
Marcus: "In recent months Prince has stomped on Pirate Bay, an 18-month-old baby having a boogie to one of his songs on YouTube and three of his most popular unauthorised fan websites."
Marcus: Interestingly, "while the UK has a concept of 'fair dealing', it stops short of authorising parody and satire."
Marcus:
Original Xbox games will be downloadable to the Xbox 360 come the Fall Dashboard Update in December. This is one area (retro downloadable gaming) where the Wii's been streets ahead.
Marcus:
iPhone web app design techniques. Handy for when I pull my finger out and make linkbunnies an iPhone-friendly site. (stolen)
14/11/07
Dave:
Interesting post on Google answers about how much money cinemas make out of you buying popcorn
13/11/07
Justin:
Your Bandicoot Sucks
justin: The author of this has got a variety of different animals' number. - "Go ahead and buy your hamster a big complex of tubes. It's just going to sit in the bottom one looking stupid until you get bored and put it in your *sshole."
12/11/07
Justin:
Here's a short film entitled 'Terminus' by Director Trevor Cawood. It was chosen as an Official Selection in this years Toronto Film Festival.
Justin:
If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in Iraq, the total cost would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group. The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy?
justin: With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.
Marcus:
Register: iPhone UK launch night was a flop.
Marcus: There were about 20 people in the iPhone queue outside the O2 shop in Bristol. I was about seventh in line and I only joined the queue twenty minutes before launch. Oh dear.
Marcus: Always sad when the hype is defeated by reality. Silly Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse! British consumers don't like paying for their phones when it's tied to an eighteen month minimum £35 contract!
Marcus: Personally, having now got one, I think the iPhone is awesome. Unlimited internet and a decent web browser rocks hugely, and even the stupid keyboard isn't as stupid as I'd feared. Still a little bit stupid though. And no Edge coverage pretty much anywhere yet.
justin: At the end of your 18 month contract you will have paid at least £900. This is what I think of the iPhone. This is what I think of Mac users.
justin: PS - I wonder how generous they are going to be around the time to upgrade/end your contract?
Marcus: Most contracts add up to big bucks if you work them out over a sufficient period. Essentially, what I've done is buy something for the cost of an iPod, and kept on the same-priced contract I already had. And I get unlimited internet. And the best phone EVAH
justin: It's not the best phone ever - you could have got a free phone upgrade with your contract and not paid anything. You are having your techno-savvy spoon fed to you by marketeers.
Dave: Yeah come on Marcus, it's not the "best phone EVAH". Sure, it looks impressive and has a fancy interface, but it's not really breaking the boundaries of telephony is it? Can you send me an MMS message or record me a video of your cats? I don't think you can. In that way it's a totally backwards step. Top 10 things to hate about the iPhone. All that said... I still want one. They look pretty.
Marcus: I honestly think it's the best phone EVAH. I can't put it down. It's Phone Crack. The internet integration is awesome. And MMS and video will almost certainly come with a firmware upgrades. And upgrades are easy on the iPhone. No weird open heart surgery required. See: best phone EVAH. Apart from maybe the Treo 650.
Marcus: BTW Dave the article you link to was written in January before anybody had even touched an iPhone, and contains speculation that is often wide of the mark. (For instance, it doesn't matter how heavy data use is on the iPhone - it's all freeeee).
Dave: So you CAN send MMS messages then? That would change my opinion greatly.
10/11/07
09/11/07
Justin:
The UK is due to continue the upgrade to its military satellite communications system with the launch of a new spacecraft on Friday. It's called Skynet. What else is called Skynet?
08/11/07
Marcus:
Jesus vs Jeezus: amusing contrast on various issues between actual Bible quotes from Jesus against what the facist nutjobs of America have decided the Christian stance is. (stolen)
Marcus:
Tip: how to remote-control an OS X Leopard Mac over the internet using any old VNC client, for instance TightVNC on Windows. Handy.
Gareth:
Wikipedia’s entry on blogs, with everything that is not the word ‘blog’ (or a derivative thereof) removed. xkcd's blag has some funny stuff.
07/11/07
Marcus:
BBC: 62% of downloaders paid nothing for Radiohead's latest album. Wow. That's really... expected.
dave: And they still got ripped off.
05/11/07
Dave:
Some dirty bastards who can afford to buy luxury cars are too tight to spend £8 on the congestion charge.
04/11/07
Justin:
Aliens vs Predator - Requiem Stills A shot of the predalien and another of a predator taking on a predalien.
Justin:
One for the designers, or anyone who works with them - or in fact anyone who works with people in the creative industry! Make my logo bigger! - because what the hell would your designer know?
03/11/07
Chris:
Found on Ben Hammersley's site: Rob Paravonian hates Pachelbel's Canon in D. Very, very clever.
02/11/07
Justin:
DirectX 9 vs. 10 in the Crysis Demo
justin: The sequel to Farcry looks amazing in Directx9 - but roll over each screenshot to see how it looks in Directx10 - ie. on a PC system with Vista and a graphics card that by itself costs more than the Xbox 360.
Marcus:
Interview with Valve's Erik Wolpaw. He wrote the terrific script for Portal. Funny guy. Contains spoilers about the game, so only read if you've finished it. Trust me.
Marcus: At the end of the interview, there is cake.
Marcus: Speaking of Portal, here's a YouTube video of the awesome Portal end song. Which, again, is spoilerific.
Marcus: Here's an interview with Jonathan Coulton, the guy who wrote the Portal song. He also wrote the song Code Monkey (MP3), which is similarly great (and used as the title music for the amusing geek cartoon Code Monkeys).
gareth: Just the name "Alien vs Child Predator" made me laugh out loud.
Gareth:
"I am sitting in a room" involves a really interesting phenomenon.
gareth: The same sort of thing, but with a computer