31/01/08
Marcus:
List of 1930s American slang. I'm tossing these into my everyday vernacular, pronto. (via)
Marcus: Here's a list of 1920s slang - gonna ride my iron down the to the juice joint and have a copacetic time.
Justin:
Anyone disappointed by the Transformers in the new Michael Bay film? want to see Optimus Prime and Megatron getting it on old school style done with proper CG? then you had best un-f*ck yourself and click this link.
Marcus:
Ender's Game, a scifi novel which I recall either Tim or Justin or possibly both of them being very excitable about, is being made into a game for Xbox Live Arcade. (via)
justin: You bastard - I was gonna link to this, I just read it! It's a cool book.
30/01/08
Laura:
Ever wondered how those crazy Finns dance at their local nightclub? Now you can find out for yourself (though I think it's an Estonian couple, as I can under stand them a little, and they are definately counting in Estonian. Uks, kaks, kolm, neli is one, two, three four. Not that you needed to know that).
Dave:
Former Britain's most hated man Jeremy Beadle has died.
Marcus: Really sad. By some weird coincidence I was humming the "Beadle's About" theme this evening (before I heard the news).
justin: Aww what a shame... he was synonymous with Candid Camera style pranks. Also, the classic gag "On one hand Jeremy Beadle has a tiny little hand... but on the other hand he doesn't" - because he had a tiny hand.
Dave: I believe the joke went "Jeremy Beadle has a small dick, on the other hand, it's quite big".
justin: Yeah, I remembered that today. I couldn't be bothered to correct my post. I held a one-minute silence for him today.
Marcus:
2 Girls 1 Cup: The sitcom. Funny. Not nearly as offensive as the original shock video. Still NSFW. (via)
Marcus: The "Push it to the Limit" acting/assembly montage is my favourite bit.
Dave:
Do you have what it takes to be a Gladiator? But missed your chance cos you were 14 when it was on TV? Well looks like it's coming back
Justin:
"Tower, this is Ghostrider requesting a flyby" - that is what you will want to say when you look at this cool high-res interactive panoramic shot of the inside of an A380 Airbus.
Tower: Negative Ghostrider the pattern is full.
29/01/08
Marcus:
O2's UK iPhone tariffs are being made a whole lot better. Good thing too - £35 for 200 minutes was ridiculous; now you get a more palatable 600. 500 texts thrown in is pretty good too. (via)
Laura:
This just made me lol, not so much a link, more of a set of instructions.... Go to google, type in 'find chuck norris', then hit the 'I'm feeling lucky button'. Tee hee. (I think if I found this funny I may need to get a life)
28/01/08
Laura:
According to a recent survey, women believe that men who are called Dave are the best endowed. I'm sure our own Dave is pleased to hear that. Sadly, neither Tim, Marcus, Gareth nor Justin appear on the top 10 endowed list, but then they don't appear on the bottom 10 either, so it's not all bad news.
Gareth: Nick has a small... yeah.
Marcus:
YouTube: f*ck Planet Earth. Lots of clips of animals saying "f*ck". Way funnier than it technically should be. NSFW. (via)
Dave: Haha - that has no right being as funny as it is.
27/01/08
26/01/08
Gareth:
Armstrong and Miller genius work on why texting won't let you swear. I swear I was thinking exactly this the other day, the bastards beat me to it.
25/01/08
Laura:
Here's a date to put in your diary: January 30th is international delete your myspace account day.
24/01/08
Marcus:
Article on flirting. Interesting (long-ish) Psychology Today piece with insights such as "our basic social ability to 'read' another's facial gestures and emotional expressions acts as a fact-checking system in flirtation. It enables us to glimpse the tone of a prospective mate's inner life and to check for the presence or absence of psychological weakness."
23/01/08
Laura:
Hello fellow linkbunnies, long time no post and all that. I can assure you I have every excuse under the sun available to explain why I have been away for so long, like I was dead at the time. Not believable? Oh well. But yes, I thought I would treat you all to a James at War spoof of Nickelback's Rock Star. Can't get the damn song out of your head? Try singing along with these lyrics. This is probably old, but I only just heard it, so there. Enjoy!
Justin:
Martin Lewis' blog entry on the bank charges test case - a test case is on it's way to UK courts soon, and a lot of papers are now saying that reclaiming the back charges will mean an end to 'free banking' - how true is this?
justin: Hint: There is no such thing as free banking and there never has been!
Justin:
Top 10 Ugliest Motorcycles Of All Time - my bike makes the list! This is terrible, just like in school when everyone used to tease me for being ugly.
Justin:
Hollywood actor Heath Ledger has been found dead at a residence in downtown Manhattan. and.
gareth: It's amazing how much I've been hearing this all over the place
justin: You heard it here first!
20/01/08
19/01/08
Marcus:
Bionic contact lenses with cool built-in screen displays and stuff are very close to becoming a reality. (via)
18/01/08
Justin:
Everyday Normal Guy Rap Song 1 & Everyday Normal Guy Rap Song 2 - I find this amusing and so do you.
Marcus: Language NSFW.
Justin:
My tip of the day is to never get into a fight with a member of the Russian special forces - Spetsnaz
justin: I've read tale of their open-handed strikes, so anyone into martial arts might find this interesting. Also, remember all those double-armed (or 'double axe-handles' if you used to watch WWF) blows Kirk used to do in Star Trek - imagine if he did these Spetsnaz attacks instead.
Justin:
Rules Kids Won't Learn in School
Marcus: I can confidently say I teach most, if not all, of those rules.
17/01/08
Tim:
In France apparently you are potentially the re-incarnation of the person who died a year and a day before you were born. The bbc have helpfully published my person on their front page. He wasn't even very good at it. An unsuccessful serial killer who got caught easily and was known for asking to be killed. Thanks world.
justin: That sounds about right.
Tim:
Here's another entry in my fascinating series 'companies using a scantily clad and/or foxy girl to advertise something quite unrelated' today its the turn of corrugated roofing sheets (fixing guide)
gareth: Wow, that is some awful cropping
justin: "No other roofing material is so easy to handle and so simple to fix!" - giggle.
16/01/08
Marcus:
ModMyIfone's 1.1.3 status page will let you know when the new iPhone firmware has a jailbreak/SIM-free hack.
Dave:
Leaked Scientology indoctrination video starring Tom Cruise.
Dave: The site reports that it's already been taken off of Youtube so grab a glimpse of this sociopath whilst you can.
justin: Can someone save it from you tube?
zanna: The bbc have got it.
Dave: The Beeb have 2 mins of it. That link is the whole 9 min debacle
15/01/08
Marcus:
Obligatory Marcus link to Engadget's coverage of Steve Job's Macworld 2008 keynote, where it is rumoured the Apple CEO will talk about some stuff, and quite possibly point at something new and shiny you can buy from Apple. It's happening right now - no shiny stuff yet.
Marcus: Only problem is Engadget seems to be overwhelmed with traffic (the page is more or less down). Try MacRumors Live.
Marcus: Twitter is slow as hell too; Tom Coates of Plasticbag.org is tweeting live from the keynote.
Marcus: New iPhone firmware is out - mmm, jailbreaking-breaking-tastic. I'll pass on that for now thanks.
Chris: New features for the iPod touch - but if you've already bought one, it's $20 to upgrade. Apple gouges the early adopters once again.
Marcus: MacBook Air looks pretty sweet.
Marcus: $20 for a few apps that already came with the iPhone as standard is superweak. A jailbroken iPod touch can get them for free anyway. This gaffe is likely going to drive iPod touch users to jailbreak out of sheer righteous indignation, I reckon.
Marcus: The MacBook air has a multitouch trackpad. That's pretty cute.
justin: Oh when will Mac users learn?
gareth: A stream of the actual keynote
Dave: Fools. Rich Fools.
Dave:
I just lost the game
Marcus: You bastard. I hadn't thought about The Game for a good year and now you've ruined my high score. And ruined it for everybody else who plays the game who read that. And this. Oops.
justin: Bastard. I just infected my decent flatmate with 'the game' - then two minutes later asked her how she was doing: "I've just lost the game!" - the thing that amused me was the belligerent look that came over her face when she was just about to tell me how she was winning the game because she couldn't remember it. Ho ho.
Marcus: I'm the indecent flatmate.
Gareth:
So you know how Microsoft bought the rights to the Battletech universe and basically just f*cked it up with MechAssault? Smith & Tinker is fixing that. I can't believe I didn't know about this until now.
Justin:
"Best party ever, that's what everyone's saying." - An Australian kid throws a party that literally ends in a riot.
gareth: A video of it.
Dave: What. A. c*nt.
Dave: I had a look for a video of that guy and couldn't find one. I love his line at the end. Still, he's everything that is wrong with the world today.
justin: That news presenter can tell me off for being a naughty boy any day of the week.
Dave: Anyone want to come to my party?
14/01/08
Marcus:
WallpaperMaker: choose and customise a variety of nice abstract wallpapers then render them out to a resolution of your choice. The ability to add photos of Wonder Woman and various celebrities is a pleasingly strange feature. (via)
13/01/08
Marcus:
Video: Footage of the upcoming Street Fighter IV and an interview with the game's producer, Yoshinori Ono. 20 minutes long all told, but worth a view if blue fireballs and dragon punches conjure up happy memories.
Marcus:
The Pirate Bay is hosting a 3.8GB torrent of every single UK number one since 1952. If you download the 1,103 MP3s it contains you're no better than a common criminal and you should be strung up. I'm warning you.
justin: Here's an idea: we're allowed to listen to these songs for free because radio stations play them and because they pay for licences with advertisers money - songs sell products. So what happens when we buy products because we want them, not because we have just been advertised to? can we have a free listen?
11/01/08
Zanna:
Twins separated at birth have married each other without realising they are brother and sister.
Marcus:
Long podcast interview with The Wire's Bunk and Bubbles (Wendell Pierce and Andre Royo). Meanders over a lot of topics, but good listening if you're a Wire fan, and if you're not - you bloody well should be. Pierce in particular has a lot of interesting stuff to say. Direct link to MP3. (via)
10/01/08
Marcus:
Darth Vader and Yoda to appear as characters in beat 'em up Soul Caliber IV?! (via)
Marcus: Apparently PS3 owners will get Darth Vader whilst Xbox gamers are stuck with Yoda. Boo.
Dave: Can't decide if this is awesome... or sh*t
justin: It's "awww sh*t!" - I don't understand why it could be bad.
Marcus:
NetNewsWire (Mac RSS reader) and FeedDemon (Windows RSS reader) are now both free, and come with free syncing to Newsgator (online RSS reader) too. (via)
Marcus: It's hard to over-stress how awesome this is. Three superb RSS readers, with free automatic web syncing so you can read your subscriptions at home, at work or on any device with an internet connection.
09/01/08
Marcus:
Video for the new Moby single, Alice. A danceable, rappy tune with a rather unsettling video. (via)
Justin:
Great CGI of the relative sizes of stars and planets - featuring Beetlejuice which is bloody massive.
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space."
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space."
chris: In fact, Betelgeuse is so big that if you put it at the centre of our solar system, the Earth's whole orbit would be inside it.
Chris: According to some astronomers, it's so big that you could fit Jupiter's orbit inside it. That's definitely a big star.
08/01/08
Marcus:
Listen: iPhone app that will attempt to identify a song on the radio when you run the app and hold your phone to the speaker. (Available on Installer.app too). (via)
Marcus: Listen's pretty impressive - so far it's quickly identified "Take On Me" By A-Ha, "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead, "Something to Talk About" by Badly Drawn Boy and "All I Need" by Air.
Marcus: No sweat identifying the more obscure "Cold Water Music" by Aim, although it appears to stumble on "I Like Birds" by eels and "S'il Vous Plait" by Fantastic Plastic Machine.
justin: That sounds well cool - can it do it from half remembered lyrics - it could have come in handy here.
Marcus:
StupidFilter is "open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English". That's the goal, anyway. At the moment they're still in the design and analysis phase, but you can amuse yourself with a random stupid comment being used for research. (Most of which are from YouTube, "that ever-inspiring font of stupidity".) (via)
justin: LOL!!11!! I wonder how it would deal with Linkbunnis?
Chris:
(Puts on Australian accent) That's not a plasma screen TV; this is a plasma screen TV. Panasonic have announced a model with a 150 inch screen, suitable only for the homes of premier league footballers and the headquarters of multinational companies or Bond villains, I suspect.
07/01/08
Marcus:
BoingBoingBingo! is an amusing BoingBoing pisstake. Funny if you read the weblog concerned, sh*t if you don't.
06/01/08
Justin:
YouTube video of Neil Diamond singing The Beatles' ' Golden Slumbers' - it's tragically cheesy - forward to 2:00 to see the tragedy in full effect.
justin: Bonus: Forward to 2:12 to see him look like the Lou Ferigno Incredible Hulk.
justin: Here it is being done properly.
Marcus:
YouTube: Compilation of the line "excuse me, Princess!" uttered approximately 5,217 times by Link in the 13-episode run of the Legend of Zelda 80s cartoon. (via)
Justin:
Global Warming Myth Buster - Have you ever been in a situation where you're talking with friends and the conversation turns to global warming? It's hard to be an expert. Sometimes it's hard to even show the slightest bit of concern without being met with with skepticism.
05/01/08
04/01/08
Justin:
Between them, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have made 13 of the 100 top-grossing movies of all time. Yet they struggled for more than a decade with the upcoming fourth instalment of their billion-dollar Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Annie Leibovitz gets exclusive access to the set, while Lucas, Spielberg, and their star, Harrison Ford, tell Jim Windolf about the long stand-off over the plot, why critics and fans will be upset, and how they’ve updated Indy.
Marcus:
The Secret Crush Facebook app tricks users into installing adware. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
Marcus: "The widget is already being used by three per cent of the Facebook community or around one million users."
Justin:
Air Attack - your one-stop shop for all fighter aircraft and space(ish) related info... has videos, specifications, news etc. very comprehensive.
Zanna:
Reviews of Movies We Haven't Seen: Teeth
"One would think that upon realizing the vagina he is now penetrating has teeth, he'd stop. The actress is a normal looking, marginally attractive girl, so it's not like these guys are doing Jessica Alba and thinking "screw it, this is worth it!" (And let's be honest, a fair amount of guys would totally trade having their dicks bitten off to sleep with Alba.) But alas, they carry on"
dave: Trailer
03/01/08
Marcus:
The stomach bug norovirus is sweeping the UK and causing the nation to projectile vomit all over the place.
Marcus:
Spammers appear to be stealing people's Hotmail and Gmail account details and then using them to spam their address book contacts. I just got an e-mail from a friend trying to sell me, and everybody on her address book, electronics at a known fraud website called stwoxy.com. Worrying.
Justin:
Channel 4 news video of Benazir Bhutto being shot. - it seems to contradict what the Pakistani government says.
02/01/08
Marcus:
Awesome BBC footage of stunt biker Robbie Maddison breaking the world motorbike jump record. 332 feet in the air - that's nearly 100 metres!
Marcus:
On New Year's Eve, Radiohead did a live video webcast performance of songs from In Rainbows. View Scotch Mist here. (via)
01/01/08
Marcus:
If you're scared of the number 666, you have hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.
justin: Just as bovissh*tphobia is a fear of bullsh*t. Any time I pick up a magazine and they hilariously translate something into latin, stick the word 'phobia' after it and then chuckle over it, I'm going to find the editor of that magazine and drive a front end loader through their living room window whilst screaming and wearing a clown suit made out of animal pelts.
justin: Hopefully when they are home though.
Marcus: It's inevitably a bit of a letdown when you've planned this special surprise and the magazine editor's not at home. My tip is to carry out extensive surveillance of their home for a month or two beforehand. Get to know their routines. To really "get inside their heads" you should break into their house, try on their clothes and parade around in front of the mirror blowing kisses at yourself.
Marcus: When they're not at home though, obviously!
Justin:
In his new book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America" Gavin Menzies claims that a massive Chinese fleet of huge junks and support ships made a two-year circumnavigation of the globe, with extensive exploration of the Americas, nearly a century before Magellan and Columbus.
Justin:
The Software That Will Take Digital F/X to the Next Level of Awesome
justin: "Jos Stam is standing on a pearl-white beach under a cloudless sky. He is visiting his parents, who are vacationing in Faro, a medieval town on Portugal's Algarve coast. Stam, a 41-year-old computer scientist specializing in 3-D graphics, doesn't look at the world the way the rest of us do. Reality is a binary riddle to be cracked, a series of fleeting images best appreciated after they've been rendered into 1s and 0s. Even here, watching the waves hit a beach in Portugal, his thoughts drift, as they always do, toward numbers. He begins scribbling in a small black notebook filled with mathematical interpretations of everything he sees."