Dan Q
Claire‘d like this, as she’s been programming a lot of Perl recently:
There’s a guy who uses Perl code to generate music in nightclubs. So far, so good. Well, now, he’s taken to writing the code that generates the music live, in front of an audience. Of course, this brings up a whole suite of new issues, technological and otherwise. If you like Perl, or synthethised music, read the article.
The Austin Business Journal reports that the makers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are taking to court the makers of a new show, Mr. Sinus Theater 3000, in which a group of guys sit in front of a cinema screen and take the piss out of the films they watch. And fair enough: it seems to me that this is quite obviously an attempt to cash in on the fame of the now-dead series, MST3K. Although if it’s not – and it is just fair use and parody… then Best Brains would be complaining that their parody-ridden show was itself the victim of a parody… umm…
In any case, go read the story.
I’ve been made aware of an easter egg in emacs, a text editor.
Fire up a copy of emacs, hit meta-X (alt-x), then type doctor to talk to an ELIZA-like chatbot. Better yet, type psychoanalyze-pinhead to… well… you’ll see…
Have my two-tone, 1958 Nash METRO brought around..
I don’t understand.
So this is what it feels like to be potato salad
Do you really think you might want to be a potato?
Don’t SANFORIZE me!!
Are you frightened by that?
It’s OBVIOUS.. The FURS never reached ISTANBUL.. You were an EXTRA in the REMAKE of “TOPKAPI“.. Go home to your WIFE.. She’s making FRENCH TOAST!
Possibly your sex life is related to this.
I feel partially hydrogenated!
What makes you think you feel partially hydrogenated?
What I want to find out is — do parrots know much about Astro-Turf?
Earlier you said you would like to be a potato?
Well, I’m INVISIBLE AGAIN.. I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES ROOM..
Etc.
New Scientist reports that researchers at the University of Durham have created the world’s first plastic magnet to work at room temperature (previous plastic magnets worked only at extremely low temperatures, typically measurable in double-digit Kelvins).
I’m sure I’m likely to be corrected on some minor point by any of the physicists who read this blog, but – for dummies:
Traditional (and naturally occuring) solid-state ferric magnets work by having their composite atoms aligned to all ‘face the same way’: the difference in potential between the ends of the atom causes a magnetic field, and the combined action of these is what makes the magnetism. These can be created by heating the metal (freeing the movement of the atoms) and then exposing it to another magnet (aligning the atoms) before allowing it to cool. More on magnets from Wikipedia.
Conversely, these counterpart plastic magnets are composed of a two-part polymer and the magnetism is induced by the alignment of free radicals within the plastic.
Plastic magnets have applications in computer magnetic storage, mechanical medicinal implants, and other fields.
Following the success of our last game of hide & seek in the Castle, Paul, Bryn, Claire and I went for another game last night. Ah; the simple joys of childish fun – legging it around a darkened ruin at night. Right up until silly screaming girls filled the area. Then we left.
In other news, I’ve been playing far too much The Ur-Quan Masters (a.k.a. Star Control 2). If you like retro space exploration and trading games, give it a go (it’s free). Fantastic soundtrack, too.
Missed my bug this morning. It seems that Arriva carried out some changes to the local bus timetables at the weekend. This much I knew about. I also know that my bus would now be leaving the bus station at 0740 (rather than the 0750 I’m used to), so I arrived ten minutes earlier than at a bus stop it passes.
I was all in favour of this change. Throughout the day, the buses on the 531 route to Penrhyncoch have all left Aberystwyth at twenty to the hour… except for the aforementioned first one of the day, which leaves at ten to. For those of us who frequently alternate between these two times, it seems particularly not to have the first bus of the morning leave at the same minutes-past-the-hour as the rest: it’s only a ten minute difference. This is what I assumed they’d done.
Somehow, I managed to miss my bus, so I returned home and downloaded the new timetable.
It seems that not only have Arriva changed the start time of my service, but also it’s frequency, number, and even it’s route. The lightly-worded poster discreetly placed in my bus didn’t hint at the magnitude of the upcoming change (“a few changes to schedules”, it said). Bloody hell.
So now there’s no Sunday service, no late service, and an even harder-to-memorise timetable (with the first two and the last one bus either way now on a different schedule pattern than the rest). The only possible benefit to me is that the bus makes less stops: for example, it no longer stops at the bus stop I was waiting at this morning…
<sighs>
This isn’t a good start.
I can’t believe that it’s been 13 and a half months since I pre-ordered Half-Life 2 on Amazon. I went to check on my order earlier today:
It seems that my delivery estimate hasn’t been fixed – I can still (apparently) expect to receive my copy of this long-awaited game by 2nd October… 2003. Hmm.
Picture removed. The joke’s gotten old. – Dan, 5 June 2007
Picture reinstated. The joke’s so old that it’s now dead, and this page can serve as a permanent archive to what once was. – Dan, 7 October 2018
Picture removed again. I’d misunderstood a conversation in which I believed Bryn had approved of its reinstating. – 10 June 2019
Just came across the Infinite Cat Project. The premise is simple: take a picture of your cat looking at the
current picture on the web site, and send it in, and it will become the current picture. The first cat is Frankie: just
click Next Cat to get to the next one.
I think this is a great use of the high-speed communication that the internet gives us in order to produce something truly artistic. Cool.
Woo and indeed hoo! I’m really starting to enjoy programming RSS feeds into my web sites now. I’ve just done a little bit of recoding of the Troma Night website to allow the newly-relaunched Aberystwyth weblog aggregator, Abnib, to syndicate it. Now, Abnib will show the details of the next upcoming Troma Night… and not a moment too soon – if you’re viewing this post on Abnib, you’ll see the announcement of tonight’s Troma Night just below it. Yay!
(much thanks due to Gareth)
Abnib, the Aberystwyth Weblog Aggregator (bringing you niblets of the best of Aber’s weblogs) is back online, after months of absence. Take a look and see who you recognise.
Haven’t quite gotten around to putting everybody’s ‘mugshots’ in there (as I’m having some difficulty with semitransparent PNGs), but Gareth’s made a good few to get us going. Yay! Hooray for Gareth! And Aberystwyth! And Abnib! And RSS!
This is just crazy. Some mad geeks have adapted a Pocket PC into a hip 80s-esque belt buckle, such that it displays a scrolling list of popular web search terms of the last 24 hours, live… at your crotch.
I have no idea what the purpose of this is.
I saw Thunderbirds at the cinema last night. Jeez; was that awful. Unlike Bryn (who’s complained at length about the film already), I’m not a long-standing fan of the original TV series, and so the film didn’t ‘ruin’ it for me (although I did notice several major inconsistencies). Nonetheless, I still found the film to be quite abysmal.
The whole thing feels like a bad re-make of Spy Kids. It’s riddled with continuity errors (where did that door opening switch go?), conveniences (suddenly an electronic lock becomes a mechanical one later in the film, so that Parker can pick it), plotholes (The Hood states that he was born with his powers, then later states that he gained them after the Thunderbirds failed to rescue him), false geography (I must take that trans-Thames monorail someday), false physics (you’re landing that rocket how?), bad sound effects (reminiscent of 60s cartoons, but no, not authentic to the style of the original series), awful acting (look; I’m scared – look; I’m concerned – look… umm), characters with no common sense (let’s all leave the base undefended during this period of suspicious activity, for no reason whatsoever – and – my being a Thunderbird is a secret, so I’ll be seen to exit a disaster scene with them… in my flying car)…
The best thing about the film was the subtle and less-subtle jokes they made about the original series: “Look at him, like a puppet on a string!” says The Hood, as he uses his mind control powers on Brains. In another scene, with a close-up of a character’s hand, strings can clearly be seen supporting it (in the original series, the characters were puppets but for close-up scenes real hands were used).
It’s currently averaging 4.5 on the IMDB. I’d give it a 3, and it’s only that high because (a) I’m not a Thunderbirds fan and (b) I’ve seen a lot of awful films this last year.
There’s an article on how Google could overthrow AIM/ICQ (link removed; apple-x.net now seems to be occupied by domain squatters), and perhaps even MSN Messenger, from their dominant positions in the instant messenger market, and improve internet standards usage and accessibility, by releasing their own instant messenger tool powered by the (wonderful) Jabber protocol. It’s a lovely idea, but (sadly) not one which is likely to happen.
On similarly geeky news, there’s a new web site, BrowseHappy, which aims to help everyday users make the switch away from Internet Explorer to safer, simpler, faster, better browsers. If you’re still using IE, take a look. If you’re already enlightened, show it to your unenlightened friends. It’s a very approachable site in nice, easy language.
And finally, there’s apparently a new worm doing the rounds, “Peeping Tom”, which, upon infection, turns on the victim’s webcam and microphone, and begins broadcasting to the world. What a lovely idea for a novelty virus.
Thanks for listening