Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Dirty flipbook animations

A good friend of mine pointed me to this website today: http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/index.html

You can quickly and easily make your own fun dirty flipbook animations (or clean ones if you like). No msn-messenger style stuffing of pointless extra features here. Just draw, flip the page, draw, flip the page, draw..

Trust me it's more fun than it sounds. Here's my first attempt, which i knocked up in just two minutes:

http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/flipbook_player.php?id=1125515310-213174192217

If you give it a go, post links to your animations as a comment of this post. And i'll cast my uber-artistics eye over your super creations. :p

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Maybe i'm just getting old

Do you know what's more interesting than being in a club? Well lot's of things. But do you know what one of those things is? Being outside a club! (i'll get back to that in a minute). Tonight i went and played pool for a bit which was quite cool. We played a game called killer. Five people, and we took it in turns to take a shot. You get three lives, you can pot any ball, but if you miss you lose a life. If you pot the black, you get a bonus life. Simple as that. £1 each in the pot. I won the first game (woohoo £5 up!) but then lost the next seven games (d'oh £2 down).

Anyway after that malarky (and several pints of a golden liquid known as "lager") they somehow convinced me to go to a notorious local club. Now i hate clubbing, but on the way there i was pretty sure i was drunk. Upon entering, i was suddenly the most sober person. Wow it was crap. Too hot. Too crowded (maybe i'm just getting old, or MAYBE clubbing just sucks). So anyway, being the slightly old slightly boring person i am , i went and sat outside (see told you i'd get back to it). It was totally interesting! I got to see an ambulance crew help a person who was having a massive asthma attack. Then a random (very nice looking) girl who seemed to know me asked me if i knew where this other girl that i know was, because she had all her stuff. I said if she couldnt find her i'd walk her home but in the end she didnt take me up on the offer :(. Then i got to witness the bouncers drag a guy out who was going a bit mental, and one of the bouncers had to be dragged back inside by other bouncers as he yelled "I'M GONNA F***KIN' KILL YOU!!" which i thought was perhaps not appropriate conduct for a bouncer. Then i got to see a guy and girl have a massive argument and the guy start on some other random guy.

I mean come on. That's more pikey entertainment than on any TV channel! Score one for real life! And it's right there at 1am on a high street near you!!

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Uber cool lighter tricks!!!1!!!1!!1!

Here's a great video that shows how totally cool you can look doing tricks with a zippo lighter. Totally cool dudes!! Check it out and you could be as uber cool as this guy!!1!1!1!!11!

http://media.putfile.com/itburns

Monday, August 15, 2005

Because the jedi don't want to get wet anymore than the next person

I'm actually pretty glad there isn't a UK store now. I think i'd become it's number one customer.

For example, what would you get if you crossed a lightsaber with an umbrella? No it's not the start of a very odd joke, it's a strange and confusing reality:


More crazy free advertising: http://www.googlestore.com/product.asp?catid=1&code=GO0105

I wonder if they have an affiliate program i could join..

Goo-gle

If you're lucky enough to live in the United States of America, you can buy Google Goo. That's right, Google Goo:


If anyone knows where you can get it in the United Kingdom, please leave a comment. Thank you!

Obligatory Link: http://www.googlestore.com/product.asp?catid=2&code=GO0096

Sunday, August 14, 2005

YOU feature on google's homepage! (possibly)

Today i've been re-affirming my love affair with google, by playing with some of their tools on offer in their "labs" area. I'm going to tell you about two of them: Personalized Homepage, and Google Download accelerator.

The personalized homepage ROCKS. Mostly because you can add your own sections provided by RSS feeds. This means my homepage not only features local weather, bbc news headlines, some tech news, a quote of the day, a word of the day and my favourite bookmarks, but it also includes the last 3 posts from my friends blogs. How cool is that my friends? You feature on google's homepage! Check it out:

google personalized homepage

The second tool i played with was Google's Download Accelerator. I think it's been done in one way or another before, the idea being that while you're internet connection would usually be idle (you're reading a webpage or whatever) it could be pre-fetching pages you might click to visit next. Then having already cached them it can present them to you faster.

I had mixed results. Sometimes it was noticeably faster (although my connection is pretty fast anyway) . Other times i suspected it might have been slowing things down.

There's a downside for those of you who are internet paranoid (they really ARE watching you you know). You have to agree during the install that you don't mind Google being sent personally identifiable information such as your IP address, and other such things that are sent to the sites you visit. I'm not entirely sure on the idea behind this, other than that it perhaps communicates back and forth with google and a clever algorithm (they love their algorithms at google) works out what you might click next in order to decide what to pre-fetch. Also, you'll be inadvertently visiting sites that are linked from the page you've viewing (or at least your IP address will be) whether you actually end up choosing to or not.

There was some delicious cleverness that i observed. You can enable it to underline in grey links that it's prefetching. Having this on, you'll notice it prefetches links you hover over, in anticipation of your click.

They've officially shut the supply of the beta of the Download Accelerator, but any good googler will find it for download on countless 3rd party sites.

[your advert here, apply within]

I saw "the island" today. From this film i can tell you one very important fact. In the future, there will only be two companies: Microsoft and Puma. And their products will be advertised blatantly througout all science fiction related adventures.

Why-oh-why do they have to do it? The films make billions of dollars! Much more than the amount they cost to make, so why include blatant obnoxious marketing in the film? It distracts from what is otherwise a very interesting plot. But instead of watching the film, you're left wondering why in the future they're still advertising the (would-be ancient) xbox or why the msn and puma products haven't changed design in however many years it's supposed to be.

It's pointless money-grabbing pap. And any film-maker that allows it should be kicked to death by someone wearing the latest Puma trainers, available in a store near you for just £59.99.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Pornogami

I just visited the greatest bookshop in the world. It features such brilliant titles as "the gangsta rap colouring book" where you can colour in a tribute to the Notorious B.I.G, "kill your pet" which was just filled with lots of disturbing messages scrawled in large black pen such as "IT WILL HAPPEN", and pornogami. Make pornographic origami (obviously!), using their detailed instructions and step-by-step pictures. Fantastic.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Tales from a rail commuter

Sorry that this blog is turning into a "tales from a rail commuter" but despite all their flaws, the most interesting parts of my day seem to be the train journeys. I have no idea what i'm going to blog about once i'm done with this training in London.

So the train related news today: I was sat on a crowded train near the toilets (not a first class seat clearly, in fact the toilets are probably the best seat on the train, seeing as you get your own private quarters). Aaaanyway, as a gentlemen entered one of the toilets the train pulled away from a station, which caused the door to slam. And wow did everybody around me jump. I didn't quite put it together at first, because i was seated facing the toilets, so i could see it was just the door. But then the cogs turned, and i thought large bang + on a train + recent events (+ thursday).

In other lighter news, today i inadvertandly started a new game (well new to me anyway) on the walk with my friend to the train station on our way home. I've cleverly titled the game "bra or no bra" after i observed at lunch time a definite lack of bras amongst a lot of London women. Contestents have to call it as they see it, such as "definitely not", "definitely" and "probably not, but probably should". Points aren't awarded for creativity, in fact points aren't awarded at all, but creativity certainly isn't discouraged.

Play it today, in a town near you.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Time for some geekery

Here they're using a Microsoft product called Virtual PC 2004 and i'm really impressed by it (which probably means Microsoft didn't write it, they just bought it from someone else).

Basically it allows you to create Virtual PC's on the hard disk of one machine. The PC's exist as a file large enough to store all the data they contain (so for Windows, usually about 2gig) and once you open them, it boots in a Window or Full-screen just like Terminal Services.

It's really handy for doing testing and experimentation with Windows products, and you can have multiple images that can inter-communicate, if you need to test a multi server environment. Anyway it impressed me. Here's Microsoft's link for more info:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

The euphoria of free coffee

The train scored a point at last today. When i arrived at Wimbledon, i was given a voucher for a free cup of coffee from the local coffee place. At first i ignored her, because much like pop-up advertising, we've become trained to ignore people that shove advertising in our faces. But then the words FREE and COFFEE reached the frontal part of my brain (where all the really important decisions take place) and i went back to collect it. I also thanked her on the way back past with my coffee, because i'm nice like that. And so was she.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of the free coffee didn't last very long, after i discovered my next train was delayed due to "flooding" at Kings Cross. Here's how Wimbledon train station dealt with the matter:

"The 7:07 thameslink train is delayed."
10 minutes later..
"the 7:07 thameslink train is cancelled."
"the 7:37 thameslink train is delayed."
10 minutes later..
"the 7:37 thameslink train is cancelled."

I could see a pattern emerging so i sought out an alternative route. This involved asking non-english speaking station staff questions that they couldn't understand, and reading an overly complicated map of London. In the end i decided best bet would be to carry on to Waterloo, and to get the Tube. Basically i shouldn't have bothered getting off my original train (except i got free coffee and a copy of the metro).

So tube travel. Scary. At first i thought the tube was actually just a series of underground tunnels that you walked, because it took forever to actually get to a train. But once on it, it was quick, efficient, and devoid of anyone carrying a backpack. What do you do if you do spot someone though? It's so crowded there's nowhere to go. Suffice to say i'm alive and well and at at my destination.

The tube station staff were all very good. All i had to do was explain i couldn't use the Thameslink, and they let me through all the barriers without a ticket. Anyone travelling by tube today if you don't want to pay just say you couldn't use the Thameslink.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Train: It's blogger's gold

I will say this about the Train. It's great for coming up with Blogging material. You've just got to remember to jot things down somewhere. Or start moblogging. Which i'm told is slightly weird. So here's my list of bloggable things from one train journey:

It all started with this man, who was on my train. I recognised him as being the Dad from the BBC's TV apaption of "The Borrowers", but googling him for a picture just now, it turns out he was also in some film called Lord of The Rings. Okay so it might not have *actually* been him, because i can't imagine he uses the smelly south-west trains, but it sure as hell could be his evil twin. Unless he's his evil twin, in which case the guy on the train is the good twin. We've established at least, he's definitely a twin.

After that, i wanted to tell you about how hilarious it was to watch someone come flying down the station stairs, only to get to the train just as the doors close. It might have been mean and unnecessary of me to laugh, but it was still funny. And we've all been there.

The train was very crowded again from the start and although i managed to get a seat, it was next to a pregnant woman. Note to self: don't pick a seat next to a pregnant woman. Pregnant women are wider than normal, and take up an unfair amount of seat space. On the other hand, i did get to read some of her book, which was of course "baby names". There was some that brought me some amusement. I joined her as she reached "N", and she spent a disturbingly long time looking at "Norman". Poor kid. The strangest name was definitely "Odyssues", but best of all, i got to look at some alternative names for "Ralph". For anyone that know's Ralph, you can also address him as:

- Rauf
- Raul
- and.. Raoul

Congratulations, Rauf. After that, i decided i wanted to make an important observation on the over-crowding of the trains. The government are currently discussing the idea of "pay-as-you-go driving". This is where you pay an amount per-mile for the roads you use. This will effectively make driving so expensive it will force most people off the roads and on to public transport. Public transport which doesn't appear to have the capacity to support it's current passenger-load. Perhaps they'll replace all the roads with railways, and have about a thousand times more trains than they do now. Which will of course cause congestion on the rail network. Which they'll resolve by making people pay a ludicrous amount per-mile for rail travel.

I had to change at Wimbledon, on to another train with no available seats. Here i stood in the doorway bit and as the train pulled away almost fell on top of a random woman. No one found this amusing but me. Which just seemed backwards.

After that the train eventually emptied out. Turns out the only person who travels by train to my town is me. I did get to listen to one-side of another long boring mobile conversation. Oh, and i was on a brand new South-West train. It has a clever auto-announcer that tells you what the next station is. This one was clearly already bored of it's job, because it kept lying. I'm telling you once that Skynet comes online these machines are going to kill us all.

mmmm.. bourbons, hmmm.. foot-longs

They have FREE bourbon biscuits here that come in packets of 3. That's just too many bourbons to be eaten in one sitting! Dammit, there should be a 3 packet limit.

Speaking of over-eating, i was handed a voucher outside the station when i arrived today. Three one-foot long foot-long (obviously) sandwiches from Subway for £9.99.

Who could eat THREE FEET of sandwich? Anyone??

Why not have 10mbps broadband?

UK cable firm NTL today promised to make 10Mbps its standard broadband access speed, and to upgrade existing customers at no extra cost.
The first home surfers in the UK to receive the upgrade will be NTL's current 3Mbps broadband customers.

"By the end of this year they will have a connection of up to 10Mbps, while their
usage allowance will increase from 30GB to 75GB per month," the company stated.


I'm a 3mb customer! :p

Taken from: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2140877/ntl-10mpbs-broadband-standard

"Does anybody know who's bag this is?"

It's the words you never want to hear while on the train,

"Does anybody know who's bag this is?"

Thankfully a woman immediately took ownership of this suspicious and seemingly abandoned item that i'd failed to even notice.

"It's mine!" she said with an awkward smile, "but you were right to ask."

And he was.

It's not British to speak to strangers on the train, or the bus, or in the evelator, or well.. anywhere. Thankfully that's not stopping the good people of this nation from looking after eachother. And well, that felt good.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Why you shouldn't ever stop blogging

"raphs says:
you better keep blogging
raphs says:
or the easter bunny will get whacked and you'll never get a db9.
raphs says:
as well as never get a promotion.
raphs says:
did i scare you enough to keep you blogging?
Markus says:
yes."

Why my car is better than a train

This week i'm visiting London every day. I thought about it long and hard, and as much as I love my car, it just didn't seem the best way to get into the centre of London. I was sorely mistaken. Here's a few ways my car is better than a train:

- My car leaves almost the moment i board it. It never makes me wait, and it's always there on time.

- My car only stops when it gets to my destination, or to pick up vital snacks. It doesn't stop at every town along the way, and it takes the most direct route.

- My car never stops to pick up strangers. If it were to stop and pick up a stranger, i'm almost certain they wouldn't sit right next to me due to lack of available seating.

- Even if due to some strange coincedence a random stranger were to be seated next to me in my car, the seats are wide enough for me to be a comfortable distance away from them.

- In my car a single press of a button rolls down the windows. However if you're on a crowded train and someone farts, there's nowhere you can go.


That's not to say i didn't notice any intrinsic benefits from travelling on the faithful train. There were several things i enjoyed:

- On a train, there's more time to admire the view. Often this turns out to be run-down council estates, but still, admiring the view while driving a car just causes accidents.

- You can have short amusing conversations with the random strangers. It's fun to make sarcastic comments about the woman who's having a loud conversation on her mobile. "Do you think she could speak up a bit?"

- By peering over a person's shoulder, you can read pages from the middle of a random novel. It's harder to read the pages on the left side of the book than the right without getting caught, but you still get to enjoy parts of an interesting story.


So there you have it. Trains might not be fast, clean, efficient, timely, free from crowding, cheap or have timetables that anyone outside of Mensa can understand, but they do get you to your destination. Eventually. Sometimes.