On my way home from my last FNO as an undergraduate...

This is what i saw.

I'm far too late to bed, and I'm off on holiday to Kos later today. Expect some cool photos in a couple of weeks...

Carfire

This is cool.

I found it after seeing Muttalica on b3ta.

The Beer, it is good (x3)

I'm listening to The Late Show on SBN via my student radio station GU2, and Craig Pilling has just brought this odd website to my attention.

Turn up your sound.

New Webcam

Today (well, yesterday now) I treated myself to a Logitech Quickcam® Zoom webcam.

Ace.

Expect plenty of pointless rubbishy animation made by me and the cool stop motion and time lapse features...

It Began In Africa. And on the Amiga.

I was wasting time on my Amiga emulator, and I finally got a Budbrain demo to work. I'd heard good things of the Budbrain demos way back in the 90's, and as it loaded it seemed I had found the second of their demos.

Things flashed, text swirled, and although it all looks very dated now, I can appreciate it for what it was back then. The music started playing, and suddenly I heard some familiar lyrics...

"It Began In Africa"

The very same that can be heard on the Chemical Brothers track It Began In Afrika that caused quite a storm in 2001.

They credit samples to one Jim Ingram of who I found out very little, although it seems that Jim's 1974 spoken-word album Drum Beat was the source of the phrase.

And here it is, appearing on an old Amiga demo, "released at the Dexion Copyparty in Odense Denmark Dec 1990". You can download the Yo Africa mod by Diablo and listen to it for yourself...

It would be interesting more of Jim Ingram's original work. Gime me a shout if you can point me in the right direction.

Calling Elvis

I was listening to some Dire Straits, and Calling Elvis came on. I was just thinking of how I though it was just an "ok" song when suddenly Mark Knopfler launched into the guitar solo...

...and I remembered how much I actually love this track! I headed over to Google to find some tab, and promptly found this.

So I picked up my under-used Washburn MG-34, and gave it a go.

OK, I was hardly up to speed, but it sounded mostly accurate, but not quite right. I loaded the song up into Audacity, found the section I was interested in, and halved the speed. There were a couple of errors which I corrected, and voila!

--10>7------7----------------------------------------------------------
-------10>7---10>7---7------7------------------------------------------
-------------------9---9>10---10>9>7---9>7---7-----------------7-------
-------------------------------------9-----9---9>7-----------7---9vvv--
---------------------------------------------------9---7>8>9-----------
----------------------------------------------------10-----------------

Samurai Jack

Taking a well deserved break from revision for my final exam tomorrow, I caught an episode of Samurai Jack on the CNX channel.

I'd seen the end of an episode a while ago, and had though "this is soooo cool". Finally I've managed to see one all the way through, and my opinion remains.

Wick.

There was also a very funny cartoon called Home Movies during the CNX "Comedy Hour". Apparently it's by the same people who did the excellent Dr. Katz

Sealab 2021 is also part of the Cartoon Network adult swim section.

All highly recommended.

What makes a face beautiful?

www.beautycheck.de (in german and english) gives an interesting insight into the research of facial beauty, and includes example images that, composed of several real faces, are artificially generated.

(source: Metafilter)

I've always been interested to know what properties of a human face make it more appealing than others. Whilst the expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is certainly true in most cases, there are some faces that appear beautiful to everyone and therefore must posses some inherent property making them indisputably beautiful.

If anyone manages to extract and bottle it, please let me know. Ta.

Summer Holiday 2003

Finally, it's booked! Weeks of nagging paid off for my girlfriend when we went into town today and booked our holiday for this summer.

Destination: Kos. We managed to get a great deal on an all-inclusive, 11-night stay at a 4-star hotel, plus insurance for just short of £400 each.

Now I really do have something to look forward to...

Do Friday's get any better?

I just got back from what was possibly the easiest exam I have ever sat.

On my way home I nipped into the Union and ended up checking out some videos and soundclips in the albums section of the Metallica website, including a 30 sec preview of Frantic from the upcoming album St. Anger. I just had to satisfy my thirst for more Metallirock when I got home (currently Astronomy from Garage Inc.)

Then, I found a great article over at b3ta. What a star. Made me think of Swashbucklin' In Brooklyn by the Fun Lovin' Criminals...

Now I'm off for an all-you-can-eat-buffet at Pizza Hut. Arse, I'm late.

Windows Messenger on Steroids

While browsing through issue 0304 of Ripdown published by cosmo7, I found a small article about a new peer-to-peer chat program from Microsoft.

threedegrees is in beta testing at the moment. I had a look at the demo film and it looks pretty quirky. I'm not convinced, although it surely has to be tried at least once.

Come on Ladies, don't be shy

Mothers should breastfeed more. A good diet of breast-milk made me the handsome, healthy, intelligent man I am today. No, really.

Valerie: Father? Where's Johnny?

[They kneel down to watch her unbuttoning. Freeze-frame, roll credits.]

In his sexy pants and his sausage dog

I was working away at some coursework on my computer, listening to music, when out of the blue some lyrics caught my ear...

Hey don't look now
There goes God
In his sexy pants and his sausage dog
And he can't stand Beelzebub
Cos he looks so good in black, in black

Wick.

It's from a Crowded House song called "There Goes God". Read the full lyrics here.

Taking the Plunge

I was watching a nature program on TV tonight about pelicans.

This episode of Wildlife On One (abreviated to WOO!) focused on the high diving antics of pelicans including the intricate take-off and landing procedures required on water.

Check out the video (.ram file - requires RealPlayer)

"...so what does it take for a pelican to become a campion high diver?" asks David Attenborough in his trademark, softly-spoken voice.

Well, for a start, the pelican chicks get crapped on by their parents. Yes, you read that right; the shade of the mother is not enough to keep the youngsters cool, so poo is deliberately expelled onto them to help maintain a lower temperature.

That is officially the funniest thing I have learned today.

It's Official

Well, my Nominet Confirmation of Registration for jimshep.co.uk finally arrived through the post today. I got a certificate and everything.

I feel so special.

Max Python

Whilst chatting on MSN Messenger with my pseudo-brother Matt, I had a great idea.

We're both fans of the excellent Max Payne game (never played it? download the demo now!)

I've been wanting to make a mod for a while, and I've only had a mess around with Half Life modding so far (nothing big) so this seemed like the perfect choice. With both of us being Monty Python fans too, that seemed the natural subject choice for the Max Payne modification!

Well you heard it here first. It'll either die a death, or will rise to success. Time will tell. But just think! The Black Knight, the Holy Handgrenade of Antioch, the Killer Rabbit, the Knights of Ni.... the potential is huge.

Bounce

Spacehoppers are cool.

You fool! You foolish fool!

I got an e-mail from a friend this morning.

A virus may have been passed on to me by a contact. My
address
book WAS infected. Since you are in my address book,
there
is a good chance you may find it in your computer too.

Oh NO! That's terrible. Thanks for letting me know. So, what virus are we dealing with?

The virus (called jdbgmgr.exe) is not detected by
Norton or McAfee anti-virus systems. The virus sits
quietly for 14 days before
damaging the system. It is sent automatically by
messenger
and by the address book, whether or not you sent
Emails to
your contacts.

Blimey. I've got Norton Anti-Virus running on my PC, but even that can't help. So what can I do?

Here's how to check for the virus and how to get rid
of
it: YOU MUST DO THIS

Sure thing! Those capital letters are really persuasive!

1. Go to Start, Find or search option
2. In the file'folder option, type the name
jdbgmgr.exe

5. The Virus has a Teddy Bear icon with the name
jdbgmgr.exe DO NOT OPEN IT
6. Go to Edit (on menu bar), choose "select all" to
highlight the file without opening it.
7. Now go to File (on the menu bar) and select delete.
It
will then go to the Recycle Bin.

You want me to put a virus into the Recycle Bin? Surely it should be deleted, oblitereted, annihilated, and stamped on? Why don't you tell me to empty the recycle bin too?

IF YOU FIND THE VIRUS, YOU MUST CONTACT ALL THE PEOPLE
IN
YOUR
ADDRESS BOOK, SO THEY CAN ERADICATE IT IN THEIR OWN
ADDRESS BOOKS. To do this
(a) Open a new e-mail message
(b) Click the icon of the address book next to the
"TO"
(c) Highlight every name and add to "BCC"
(d) Copy this message enter subject paste to e-mail

So let me get this straight. You want me to delete a file on my PC just because you say so. Hmmm. I know, let's have a quick search on the web first.

Let's use everone's favourite search engine Google to find out a bit more about "jdbgmgr.exe".

...oh look, it's a HOAX. Good job I checked, otherwise I might have deleted a perfectly normal file like you just did.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHA.

(with a nod of acknowledgement towards Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth from Futurama and his quote)