I wouldn't normally microwave batteries, but now i'm confused.
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
My Mac is Self-Aware
A while ago my favourite bit torrent client 'Azureus' rebranded itself as 'Vuze', changing from a simple client to a full blown media 'experience'. Presumably the changes were made to try and make the author some money, which is fair enough. Unfortunately as a result of adding these 'features' the software became a bloated pile of crap. So I thought I'd leave some feedback. Fortunately, the captcha did the work for me.
Saturday, 20 December 2008
That went quick...
2008 seems to have gone really quick and despite my best intentions i've managed to avoid blogging about a lot of the stuff I've done this year. The whole point of the blog was to try and persist some of the more transient memories so that in years to come I can reminisce about the mundane events of 2008. (I blame EJB3 for my odd usage of 'persist' and 'transient' in this sentence).
Unfortunately, if Will Smith was to zap me with his Men In Black style memory be gone TM sonic screwdriver, wiping my memories of the last year, reading this blog would only tell me; my iPod lasted longer than expected, video game covers are misleading, I like flowers, my tomatoes didn't work out very well, my best man's speech was acceptable and that I can't kill a rabbit.
50 year old Dave might read that stuff, but to be honest I think i'd remember a fair bit of it (damn the gaze of that dying bunny, it will haunt my soul forever ... sob). So, one of my many new year's resolutions is to blog more, even if I don't have anything that interesting to say, making this more of a diary then a blog.
So, in the spirit of the above ramble, here's some thoughts on 2008 that unless you're 50 year old Dave will probably want to skip...
Music - I've not bought as many CDs as I'd like this year, with my major obsession being Midlake & Sigur Ros despite that fact that the former haven't released anything this year and the latter released a good but slightly below par album this year (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust). Notable mention should go to the eponymous Ladyhawke album, which I've really enjoyed, but sure I will stop listening to soon, never to listen to again. It's a fun album, but a bit throw away. I've discovered TV on the Radio as well (late to the party as usual), whos album 'Dear Science...' is great.
Haven't been to many gigs. Early in the year was Radiohead at Manchester LCC with Neil and Corrine, which was good but lacking in intimacy. Support was from Bats for Lashes (never did get into her much) and MGMT (who i thought was boring at the time, but actually now really like the first half of their album Oracular Spectacular). The only other 'proper' gig was Sigur Ros at Alexandra Palace just before christmas which was fantastic. There was alot of slow stuff, but the light show made the ambience electric, culminating a full water fall across the front of the stage, rear projection onto the water fall and glitter cannons. Apparently it's being released on DVD this year, woo!
Seen a bit of comedy, Boosch at NIA (funny, but bloody awful visibility) and Mitch Benn and Luff Town Hall (well worth the £13)
On a semi-related note, I start to learn keyboard/piano earlier this year on a slightly knackered casio I bought from Christine. Unfortunately the sticky keys meant that I had to turn touch-sensitivity off, which meant I couldn't put any expression into the music. In 2009 I'm planning to buy a full length keyboard with the proceeds from whoelsewriteslike.com.
Film - My favourite two films of the year have to be 'There Will be Blood' (actually late 2007) and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. It sounds stupid but they're both real films, beautifully shot, amazingly acted and sticking with me long after viewing.
Games - It was the year of making music on plastic instruments. Jen got me Guitar Hero III (wii) at christmas which I was hooked to for months. Then in summer I got rock band (xbox) which I must of spent hours drumming on, convincing myself that I'm a semi proficient drummer, which is bollocks because I can't drum unless I have a tv screen in front of me saying what to hit.
Interweb - It's all about podcasts, highlights being Collings and Herring, Adam & Joe, Mark Kermode, Phil & Phil's perfect 10, Stephen Fry (infrequent but brilliant) and Russell Brand (fun whilst it lasted).
Holidays - Went to Barcelona for the second time in two years with Becky & Matt, followed by a cosy few days in the parent's Caravan in Wales.
Phew, that's enough rambling for now, told you to skip it!
Unfortunately, if Will Smith was to zap me with his Men In Black style memory be gone TM sonic screwdriver, wiping my memories of the last year, reading this blog would only tell me; my iPod lasted longer than expected, video game covers are misleading, I like flowers, my tomatoes didn't work out very well, my best man's speech was acceptable and that I can't kill a rabbit.
50 year old Dave might read that stuff, but to be honest I think i'd remember a fair bit of it (damn the gaze of that dying bunny, it will haunt my soul forever ... sob). So, one of my many new year's resolutions is to blog more, even if I don't have anything that interesting to say, making this more of a diary then a blog.
So, in the spirit of the above ramble, here's some thoughts on 2008 that unless you're 50 year old Dave will probably want to skip...
Music - I've not bought as many CDs as I'd like this year, with my major obsession being Midlake & Sigur Ros despite that fact that the former haven't released anything this year and the latter released a good but slightly below par album this year (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust). Notable mention should go to the eponymous Ladyhawke album, which I've really enjoyed, but sure I will stop listening to soon, never to listen to again. It's a fun album, but a bit throw away. I've discovered TV on the Radio as well (late to the party as usual), whos album 'Dear Science...' is great.
Haven't been to many gigs. Early in the year was Radiohead at Manchester LCC with Neil and Corrine, which was good but lacking in intimacy. Support was from Bats for Lashes (never did get into her much) and MGMT (who i thought was boring at the time, but actually now really like the first half of their album Oracular Spectacular). The only other 'proper' gig was Sigur Ros at Alexandra Palace just before christmas which was fantastic. There was alot of slow stuff, but the light show made the ambience electric, culminating a full water fall across the front of the stage, rear projection onto the water fall and glitter cannons. Apparently it's being released on DVD this year, woo!
Seen a bit of comedy, Boosch at NIA (funny, but bloody awful visibility) and Mitch Benn and Luff Town Hall (well worth the £13)
On a semi-related note, I start to learn keyboard/piano earlier this year on a slightly knackered casio I bought from Christine. Unfortunately the sticky keys meant that I had to turn touch-sensitivity off, which meant I couldn't put any expression into the music. In 2009 I'm planning to buy a full length keyboard with the proceeds from whoelsewriteslike.com.
Film - My favourite two films of the year have to be 'There Will be Blood' (actually late 2007) and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. It sounds stupid but they're both real films, beautifully shot, amazingly acted and sticking with me long after viewing.
Games - It was the year of making music on plastic instruments. Jen got me Guitar Hero III (wii) at christmas which I was hooked to for months. Then in summer I got rock band (xbox) which I must of spent hours drumming on, convincing myself that I'm a semi proficient drummer, which is bollocks because I can't drum unless I have a tv screen in front of me saying what to hit.
Interweb - It's all about podcasts, highlights being Collings and Herring, Adam & Joe, Mark Kermode, Phil & Phil's perfect 10, Stephen Fry (infrequent but brilliant) and Russell Brand (fun whilst it lasted).
Holidays - Went to Barcelona for the second time in two years with Becky & Matt, followed by a cosy few days in the parent's Caravan in Wales.
Phew, that's enough rambling for now, told you to skip it!
Friday, 21 November 2008
Bring on the wall!
Two years after moving in and we've still not finished work on the house. One part that's annoyed me for ages is the 3 x 6 metre stairs wall. It's a funny shaped wall and because of this trying to hang picture on it would just look a mess, like an Ikea monster had vomited chunks of contemporary art onto the wall.
A few months back I decided that we should have a single image on the wall that fits in with the odd shape. To keep things cheap this invariably meant we'd have to paint something on to it by hand.
I knew from the start that it would either look incredibly cool or like the work of a crayon weilding manboy. So, to reduce risk we took a methodogical approach that involved photoshop, a projector, a macbook, step ladder, wall paint from the shed, ikea pencils, a week of painting & a bit of guess work. The actual pattern is derived from a collection of Photoshop Brushes, available here. You can load these in GIMP using the instructions here. Here's a few pictures:
The scale plan we knocked up in Photoshop
Projecting the plan
This photo is only part of the image, it actually goes further down the stairs with some huge flowers.
My dad once painted an awesome Star Wars wall mural in mine and my brother's bedroom (I'll try and dig out some pictures). He did this all free hand in multicolour, with a little help from the 'how to draw Star Wars' book, which makes our monotone technologically assisted job seem a bit weak. If only there was a 'How to draw Evil Dead II' book. That would be awesome. We'd need a lot of red paint though.
[Updated post on 14/12/08 to point to the actual brushes file I used and explain how to open brush files in GIMP]
A few months back I decided that we should have a single image on the wall that fits in with the odd shape. To keep things cheap this invariably meant we'd have to paint something on to it by hand.
I knew from the start that it would either look incredibly cool or like the work of a crayon weilding manboy. So, to reduce risk we took a methodogical approach that involved photoshop, a projector, a macbook, step ladder, wall paint from the shed, ikea pencils, a week of painting & a bit of guess work. The actual pattern is derived from a collection of Photoshop Brushes, available here. You can load these in GIMP using the instructions here. Here's a few pictures:
The scale plan we knocked up in Photoshop
Projecting the plan
This photo is only part of the image, it actually goes further down the stairs with some huge flowers.
My dad once painted an awesome Star Wars wall mural in mine and my brother's bedroom (I'll try and dig out some pictures). He did this all free hand in multicolour, with a little help from the 'how to draw Star Wars' book, which makes our monotone technologically assisted job seem a bit weak. If only there was a 'How to draw Evil Dead II' book. That would be awesome. We'd need a lot of red paint though.
[Updated post on 14/12/08 to point to the actual brushes file I used and explain how to open brush files in GIMP]
Monday, 27 October 2008
3rd Gen iPod, down but not out
My 3rd Gen iPod broke today. I was gutted. The thing had surpassed all expectations, lasting over 4 years with the original battery still going strong. I plugged it into the eMac this morning and it made a horrible whirr flowed by a click, like the hard disk head just gives up.
After trying all the normal soft solutions suggested by Apple, Google came up with this page. It turns out that putting a bit of pressure on the hard disk can get rid of the problem. As suggested in the article I opened the ipod and put a business card inside the case to increase the pressure (I knew those 200 business cards from my old job would come in handy). Unbelievably, this worked. I thought I'd blog this incase anyone else had a similar problem.
Update: This worked for a about a day. I've now given up on the iPod and convinced Jen to buy me a 16GB touch for Christmas. Any one doing the same should take advantage of the iPod trade in programme, saving 10%.
After trying all the normal soft solutions suggested by Apple, Google came up with this page. It turns out that putting a bit of pressure on the hard disk can get rid of the problem. As suggested in the article I opened the ipod and put a business card inside the case to increase the pressure (I knew those 200 business cards from my old job would come in handy). Unbelievably, this worked. I thought I'd blog this incase anyone else had a similar problem.
Update: This worked for a about a day. I've now given up on the iPod and convinced Jen to buy me a 16GB touch for Christmas. Any one doing the same should take advantage of the iPod trade in programme, saving 10%.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Don't judge a video game by its cover
'Super Smash Brothers Brawl' (Wii) turned up from Lovefilm today, after I spent a good five minutes last weekend saying how much it didn't enjoy any of the previous versions of the game. After playing Smash Brothers for a few minutes I feel like i'm lapsing into premature old age - I don't know who I am, where I am and sudden death is imminent. Jen's excuse was that she wasn't really looking at the names of games she was adding to the rental list, she just went for the ones that had good covers.
Modern video games, with their retina-burning epilepsy-inducing mental graphics can put a pretty reasonable representation of the game on the front cover. This wasn't always the case. Take Jungle Hunt (1982) on the Atari 2600 as an example. Here's the cover:
How good does that look! Look at the detail, the mustache , the baying crocodiles, the cheeky monkey, the elmo watch. This must surely be the most advanced video game experience since that bit in D.A.R.Y.L when the pre-pubescent T2000 managed to get Pole Position running at 200fps. It's 'the arcade hit!' I remember when I first found this game at my aunts, circa 1998. The anticipation of what could only be the greatest game ever was unbearable. I plugged the cartridge into the Atari, switched the TV on and waited what seemed on age for the game to slowly reveal itself while the CRT warmed it self up.
Fucksocks.
Modern video games, with their retina-burning epilepsy-inducing mental graphics can put a pretty reasonable representation of the game on the front cover. This wasn't always the case. Take Jungle Hunt (1982) on the Atari 2600 as an example. Here's the cover:
How good does that look! Look at the detail, the mustache , the baying crocodiles, the cheeky monkey, the elmo watch. This must surely be the most advanced video game experience since that bit in D.A.R.Y.L when the pre-pubescent T2000 managed to get Pole Position running at 200fps. It's 'the arcade hit!' I remember when I first found this game at my aunts, circa 1998. The anticipation of what could only be the greatest game ever was unbearable. I plugged the cartridge into the Atari, switched the TV on and waited what seemed on age for the game to slowly reveal itself while the CRT warmed it self up.
Fucksocks.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
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Hello. This blog is part memory dump, part writing exercise. Enjoyment will vary. 
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