via Kottke.
A hybrid of two interests – comedy and gangsta rap. Very entertaining. Wonder if this is part of the BBC/YouTube deal or if it’ll get taken down?
Awesome stir fry
I made one tonight. The secret was a new wok, made of precious, thermally magical titanium. And throwing stuff about like crazy man.
Messy-licious.
I really don’t hate Apple this much…
…but did find the below, and Maddox’s rant (via Fake Steve), amusing:
Sorry, this is more geek humour. Less geeky stuff may follow. But not tonight…
Web 2.0 software wishlist – party and holiday planning
Ok, Lifehacker. I throw down a challenge.
I would like a web tool that helps me organise a night out where I need to check everyone’s availability, take suggestions for what to do and (democratically) or otherwise choose the best course of action for a group. I know about evite and mypunchbowl, but when you don’t know what the date is going to be, how do you avoid those reply-to-all-fests?
I would also like a piece of software to help me organise holidays. Gauge requirements, collect details where required, check dates, budget, etc.
If these don’t exist, would someone start something that does them quick and let me know? Rather than trying for another social networking site or social bookmarking site… etc? I’ll probably even pay to use one if there’s a decent, not-too-expensive one out there.
iTunes 7.1 + Vista = problems (still…)
They’ve still not sorted how iTunes and Windows Vista work together. There’s bloating, lag, and staggering performance issues that result in skipping and long pauses mid-track. Mind you, I’ve had some of these issues since v7 launched and I was still using XP. So who knows where the cause lies? Causality is problematic enough without introducing a computing layer into it all…
Someone wake me when they fix it, or tell me about another media player (not Winamp, that seems slow with a big media library too – I have 13,000 tracks).
Accursed spammers
I used to be a bit bemused by spam. I mean, how did it present a security issue or anything other than a minor inconvenience? How hard was it to press ‘delete’?
Now, a few things have happened.
(1) I’m getting spammed on WordPress in an infuriating manner. I have to scan through my comment moderation queue to check for real comments through a very long list of spam comments, some of which are 100 links long, each on a separate line. It’s time consuming and irritating and I’m sure I occasionally spam out some real comments, for which I apologise. Should I force human authentication or OpenID for commenters? I really don’t want to…
(2) I check my mail on my mobile. So spam there takes a little more time and fiddling to delete, and that’s just annoying.
(3) Lots of ‘valid’ emails get caught in spam filters.
(4) People have started spoofing my domain.
Who pays for this kind of marketing? Is it all spyware, phishing and sex-sites? I really hope they work it out soon…
Fratellis, Brixton Academy, rock
I always read gig reviews with a certain amount of ‘erm, what?’-ness, as I don’t understand that bands who leave me so utterly speechless with the sheer rockingness of it all can be described along the lines of (searches for reviews of the gigs they’ve been doing since the 2nd and is annoyed to find there aren’t any online so makes up a generic example instead):
“The frenetic energy of the band is in sharp contrast to the controlled precision of their lyrics and the masterful thumping of the resonant bass.”
What I have to say about the Fratellis is rather more straightforward: they rocked hard. They’re great live. All their music is fantastic. All of it. Especially if you like, erm, music. Oh, and the support band was bad. Mind bogglingly bad. So bad, it took me a while to get into the Fratellis who rocked hard from the word go. If the support band had been competent but generic that would have been a better choice than incompetent and… nope, no redeeming characteristics. At all.
Ok, I know that’s probably the reason I’m not a music journalist (possibly one of several), but its amazing to walk away from a gig with that feeling – your ears slightly buzzing, shaking, warm and excited by it all. It was great. I’m listening to the album again now.
That’s said, I was irritated by the beer throwing, hooligan-esque fans. Why would you do that? Never mind that people could get hurt, or fights could start, or the overall annoyance of being sprayed with beer…
Why it’s good to be a Spurs fan
We’re one of those teams that doesn’t play consistently well enough to get the same level of cup/league excitement as the big 4. But today’s eleventh hour victory against West Ham was amazingly fun to watch!
Berbatov is a legend. What a match.
C&C Tiberium Wars Demo mini-review
The C&C Tiberium Wars Demo is out (via Kotaku) and I downloaded and played it this weekend, whilst suffering from a cold. There’s probably an hour’s worth of fun you can eke out of the 1 gig download.
It seems decent. Now, I have no doubt that I will go nuts over the game when its out (and I really hope that EA sends me a pre-release copy so I can review it properly! Hint hint), but the demo has some limitations (beyond the obvious that its an, erm, demo).
The good stuff first:
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Graphics are great. Good evolution on what had gone before. Good textures, level of detail, control system.
Squad system, weapons, troops, structures, etc., pretty much exactly as went before. Some minor detail touches.
Better multi-base control.
Entertaining cinematics with an absurd cast. Actors from Battlestar Galactica (Jon must be loving this! There’s a Cylon on bothGDI and Nod’s side!), Lost, and more!
The not-so-good
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Computer AI, at normal difficulty, is DUMB. Maybe I’ve suddenly gotten good at RTS games and should play on ‘hard’ difficulty, but normal did seem a little too easy.
Hardware requirements are BIG. My Windows Performance Index of 4.2 causes the game to have MASSIVE slowdown. Probably fine if you have a Core2Duo… Grrr…
Not much has changed. It’s standard C&C fayre. That’s not necessarily a bad point, but the way in which you play this game (in single player mode) feels unevolved.
I think this game will potentially be a *lot* of fun if I reduce my graphics settings to a point where the gameplay speeds are manageable… Although I have no idea how the Xbox 360 version is going to make sense without a mouse. Watch this space for more.
The Daily Mail gets a global exclusive with UGC
Bizarre. It was actually pointed out to me by a colleague at work who read it in the Mail before it made it onto BoingBoing. Quite a lot quicker. And unusual for a publication whose headlines more frequently look like this.