fun – Page 15

Happy Fun Weekend

It’s so much nicer coming back to the office on a Monday after a weekend both relaxing and productive, with lots of happy fun time with friends. Managed to tidy the flat, do heaps of laundry, have a successful Troma Night (three films, a decent crowd, and everybody hung on in ’til the end despite knackeredness), a sedate but moderately successful Geek Night (Carcassonne and Chez Geek). All good.

Plus, I managed to find time to learn a fair bit about mod-rewrite, the Apache module that lets you do all kinds of useful things like canonical URLs, content negotiation, proxying content, fallbacks, etc. (as used on Scatmania to make the ‘nice’ URLs you see with the date and post name embedded into the pseudo-folder-structure). Fab. And managed to help Bryn with his new web site, which I’m sure you’ll all be seeing later this month.

And in actual news, BBC News reports that a Swedish man has been issued with a £90 ticket for illegally parking his snowmobile in Warwick, despite claiming never to have been there and that his snowmobile was in his shed in Bollstabruk at the time.

The Scary Baby Conspiracy

Now here’s an idea for an Illuminati: The Game Of Conspiracy “Illuminati” card – The Scary Baby Conspiracy. Suggestions for the Scary Baby Conspiracy’s unique win condition and any special rules are welcome (from anybody who actually knows what Illuminati is). Fnord.

On which note – it’s Geek Night tonight! Hopefully we can have a couple of games of Carcassonne and perhaps one of Hacker.

Sweet Sounds Of Perl

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.

Mr. Sinus Theater 3000 In Name-Theft Lawsuit

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.

Sick And Wrong Use Of Emacs

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.

Amazon Pre-Order For Half-Life 2

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:

Dan's pre-order for Half-Life 2 on Amazon... with delivery estimate 2003.

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.

Bryn – Afro Man!

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

The Internet As An Art Form – The Infinite Cat Project

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.

How Am I Coding?

Schoolboy, 12, Performs Armed Robbery And Is Placated With Crisps

Article on the BBC. A schoolboy holds up a shop and demands money, using a sawn-off shotgun.

My favourite bit: Mr Guliani said there was no money in the till and, on instruction to load the bag with cigarettes instead, told the boy he was under age. The retailer later offered him sweets and crisps instead.

Bush’s Foreign Friends

There’s a new googlebomb out, abusing the way that the popular Google search engine works. To see it in action, go to Google and enter “Bush’s foreign friends” (including the speechmarks) as the search term, and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

The ActionScript Jabberwocky

This made me smile: The Jabberwocky in ActionScript (Macromedia Flash’s scripting language). It’s another one of those that you’ll really need to be a proper geek to appreciate, but it’s really quite good.

Perhaps you need to be a Lewis Carrroll fan, as well…

This Weekend : Parachuting For Dummies

Parachuting For Dummies

The good news is that the weather looks fantastic for my parachuting trip this weekend. I can’t think of a better thing to be travelling for on a Friday 13th.

The downside is I haven’t spent more than a few consecutive minutes off the phone this morning talking my work colleagues through the code I’ve left behind for them to carry on with. At current rates, I should expect to be answering my mobile during a free-fall.

If I Were An STD…

If I were an STD, I would be…

HIV

Which STD would you be?

Bushism Of The Day

“They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people – and neither do we.”

Full story from BBC News.