Planet TermiSoc

/~bma: Thoughts on Google Chrome

2008-09-05T11:22:43+00:00

Google are due to release a new browser, called Chrome, tomorrow. So, here are my initial (i.e., pre-release) thoughts on it, based solely on what they've said about it so far.

Initial release will Windows-only; Mac OS X and GNU/Linux versions coming Real Soon Now. Nice to see that even Google, with their thousands and thousands of GNU/Linux machines, treat anybody not using Windows as second-class citizens. Hardly unexpected by now, but still irritating.
I'm glad to see that they'll be releasing it as free software; hopefully, they've the sense to use the GPL or something, rather than a new licence of their own design.
I'm not convinced by the tabs-as-separate-processes thing; is there really an advantage over tabs-as-separate threads, that outweighs the additional overhead of separate processes? I admit that I don't know enough about memory management to seriously evaluate this one, though.
They make a big deal about webapps, but say nothing of the client side; will there be anything along the lines of Firefox's extensions API? Gem suggests supporting Firefox extensions directly, which may be difficult without XUL support; an equivalent API is a must, though.

Beyond that: we'll see?

Update: um, today, apparently. About to try it out under WINE.

/~bma: Grasp on Reality?

2008-09-05T11:22:43+00:00

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7593106.stm:

"The browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online," he said in a statement.

—Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Ah, good old Microsoft: never one to let reality get in their way; of all the browsers that those statements could apply, MSIE would be the least likely.

Chris Hunt: Hair

2008-08-24T23:03:36+00:00

It's Gone. It's Just Gone.

Hair
Originally uploaded by ThisIsTheChris

Episode 11 - 15/08/08 - Intellectual Property

2008-08-23T22:06:36+00:00

Dan’s off cycling around the countryside, so instead it’s just Ben A’Lee, Gemma Peter and Rich Jeffery ranting about IP laws and people’s attitudes towards it.

The topics in question:

Are software patents a good idea for developers and producers to secure their code?
With online piracy and the failings of DRM dominating the media, what’s the next step for content providers?
With all the new exceptions and rules being added to the GNU Public License each revision, is it becoming too restrictive for developers?
Will physical media ever die, or is it all media hype?

All this and tea, lovings and hatings, cake, faux microphone stands and much more in this week’s LOGin!

Download now!

/~bma: German Course

2008-08-17T18:26:37+00:00

We recently received our annual spamming by Plymouth On Course, who apparently are some sort of umbrella group for the various places in the city that do adult learning courses. Last year I considered signing up for one, but didn't have the money; this year, I have the time and the money (at least, compared to next year), so I've just requested a place on a Beginner's German course. (I considered French, as they have courses all the way up to A-level, but German seems more interesting, and they may have more advanced courses by the time I'm ready to do them anyway).

It starts at the end of September, every Tuesday evening until May.

Episode 10 - 02/08/08 - The Internet

2008-08-10T11:10:06+00:00

Yet more topical discussion from the gang at TermiSoc. This episode’s topic: The Internet.

Featuring discussion on:

The potential downfall of ‘netiquette’ and the prevalence of ‘trash-talking’ online;
Domain squatting and ‘ad-sites’;
Content providers, ISPs and the ‘two-tier web’; and
Household appliances that should be networkable.

…plus “Loving & Hating”, Tea drinking and now: ‘Today’s Microphone Stand’!

Download now!

/~bma: London Healthcare

2008-08-02T12:45:21+00:00

From an ad in Computing magazine: "BT and the NHS are teaming up to improve the quality of London's community healthcare blah blah blah."

What for? Since when does London have a lack of adequate healthcare? The NHS site for Cornwall lists three hospitals with A&E departments --- two of which aren't even in Cornwall (Barnstaple and Plymouth). The only one actually in Cornwall is the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. Devon's not much better: apart from Barnstaple and Plymouth, there's Exeter and Torquay --- and another listed which is in Taunton. I didn't check Somerset, but I doubt they're much better off.

There's plenty of places in Devon and Cornwall that are thirty or forty miles from an A&E department, yet London needs better healthcare. Hmm...

/~bma: Ridiculous and Invasive

2008-08-01T07:43:17+00:00

It's not often you see something that manages to perpetuate stupid beliefs about gender at the same time as demonstrating yet another way to invade someone's privacy with Javascript, but this article manages it. Apparently, it looks at your browser history and guesses whether you're male or female based on the sites you've visited. Now, I'm not convinced that there's a significant gender bias for most sites, and looking at the results it looks like a sizable proportion of them were wrong ("oh noes ur site thinkz im a gurl!!!!111"). It bugs me that people even bother, though.

What's more concerning, as Simon points out, is that apparently any site that can use javascript (i.e., any site you don't disable it for) can find out what sites you've been to just by creating a link and checking whether the CSS style is :visited. I think I'm going to have to install NoScript again, despite having to use Javascript for work...

/~bma: Git Shared Branches

2008-07-29T21:14:05+00:00

The problem: I have files that are shared by more than one repository. Specifically, the TermiSoc constitution and security policy both contain a logo and LaTeX style, which should be identical.

The solution: remote branches.

This is probably really obvious to anyone who already knows Git, but I had trouble working it out from the available documentation, so I'll record it for posterity. I was somewhat hampered by the fact that my previous experience has been with Darcs, where you can pull from any repository to any repository, and expect everything to work just fine.

First, you'll need to set up the repositories: one for the shared files, and however many to share these files amongst:

cd style
git init
git add *; git commit -m "import."

cd ../document
git init
git add *; git commit -m "import."

Then, add the remote branch:

git remote add style ../style
git fetch style
git branch style style/master
git merge style

Simple.

To update:

cd ../style
vi termisoc.sty
git commit -m "blah" termisoc.sty
cd ../document
git checkout style; git pull style
git checkout master; git merge style

This can probably be improved upon, but that's the way that worked for me. You can probably also edit on the style branch in the document repository, and push from the style branch to the style repository, but it's late and I couldn't get it to work properly. I shall have to experiment at some point.

How to run a LAN Party

2008-07-28T16:59:22+00:00

I’ve put up a guide to running a small to medium sized LAN Party on the termisoc wiki

http://wiki.termisoc.org/index.php/Lan_party_guide

Currently its quite Termisoc specific, with details on locations in the Plymouth university campus, so eventually I’ll be writing a general version for the rest of the world…

ps. If you’re a student at Plymouth University and fancy a LAN party, Termisoc , the computing society, runs LAN parties every term, with smaller unofficial events in babbage every so often.

The MooseBlaster: 'These people are mad, I tell you! They're completely bananas!'

2008-07-27T15:13:35+00:00

For anyone interested in the music for that new Seat Ibiza advert known as both 'Perfection requires a touch of madness' or 'Madhouse' or whatever....

It *isn't* Frontier Pyschiatrist by The Avalanches - not a remix, not the original, nada, zip. Anyone who *does* say it is obviously hasn't heard it since it was out. Song of The Salesman is wrong on this, trust me.

Actually, it's a comissioned piece specifically for SEAT, which they have named as called 'Madhouse'. You won't be able to find it. Give up, and just rant at the advertising company until they finally release it (like the VW advert featuring the remix of 'Singin' in the Rain, which wasn't meant to be released until all the DJs pleaded for it). Sorry.

SOURCE: HMV.com - Lists the track as 'Commissioned piece for Seat - Madhouse'

/~bma: Depressing Atheists

2008-07-22T18:02:59+00:00

Ed writes that he finds atheists depressing when they throw away the "real message" of religion.

As an atheist, I have to agree --- though it depends what "the real message" is. I grew up believing that Christianity taught that being a good person was what got you into heaven; it was only when I started university that I learned that actually, it's believing in Jesus that gets you into heaven (or, more accurately, they redefine "good" to mean "believing in Jesus"). This is what put me off religion, long before I ever read The God Delusion.

You can't even, unfortunately, argue that that's an issue with the Church and not the religion, since it has its roots in a verse from the Bible, where Jesus is quoted as saying "nobody gets into heaven except through me" (more or less). The problem is, though, that despite the reasonable moral guidance provided by religious figures such as Jesus, they get overshadowed by the bits that give the Church power to control people, and that is why I object to religion.

Sure, you may say that the crappy church is not a good reason to avoid religion as a whole --- but what other reason is there to pay any attention to it? Morality doesn't require some Israeli carpenter/hippy to make it moral, or a Saudi merchant, Nepalese prince, or Prussian writer, and it's perfectly possible to live a moral life without paying attention to some cosmic Jewish zombie and his imaginary friend.

So, serious question: what, exactly, is religion needed for? Answers on a postcard.

/~bma: Has this guy even tried running a society?

2008-07-22T17:58:55+00:00

Okay, usually I ignore Student Union politics, since it rarely gets anywhere useful. However, one poster in the union caught my eye---Darren Jones, Presidential candidate, you are a pillock.

The policy of his to which I am referring is "Cheaper Membership to Clubs and Societies". Now, I'm not going to say that there are no societies which are overcharging for membership. I do know, though, that many societies get a substantial amount of their annual income from membership fees; TermiSoc, certainly, is always trying to find the balance between charging as little as possible for membership, and charging enough that we have money for maintenance and hardware repairs. I suspect that other societies have similar---or, likely, greater---problems, and mandating a maximum membership fee is just going to make things worse unless societies are provided with a reasonable income from the union (all societies, that is, not just the ones who bring prestige to the union---i.e., a couple of the sports teams).

This is yet another case, I suspect, of someone proposing changes that are bound to be popular with the majority of students, without actually looking into the situation and considering the consequences.

/~bma: Plant

2008-07-22T17:58:55+00:00

I have a new plant; it's a spider plant that sprouted from one we're looking after for a friend. It needs a name; any suggestions?

Update: danbjorn suggested Tolstoy, which I like the sound of.

/~bma: First week over.

2008-07-22T17:58:55+00:00

Today was the first day of my second week at PML, and I appear to have survived so far. The work's pretty interesting; I spent the first couple of days writing Perl, and seem to have won; the last few days have been spent getting to grips with one of the major projects I'll be working on. It's a bit of PHP and a lot of Javascript, and my first task has been adding session support, rather than passing dozens of parameters in the URL (which will lead, hopefully, to being able to make the whole thing a lot more user-friendly, or at least developer-friendly).

This afternoon, I also started the second part of my role there --- I'll be doing some sysadmin-type stuff, on a rather more serious level than I've had the opportunity to do before. I'm setting up a brand-new (had to unpack it and everything) server to act as a master for a cluster, and then experiment with SystemImager so that we can easily roll out upgrades.

It's a pretty cool place to work, too; there's various sport and social groups (including cycling and running, helpfully), and there's also apparently an agreement with a gym nearby to allow PML staff to use their facilities.

Looking forward to the rest of the year. (Hopefully not famous last words...)

Episode 09 - 19/07/08 - Security

2008-07-19T18:27:53+00:00

Yes, we’re back - and now with less news and more topical discussion!

This episode’s topic: Security

Featuring discussion on:

Should lockpicking be made illegal?
Should programmers be responsible for bugs in their code?
Should computer owners be responsible for bot-net attacks? and…
Should there be a program security rating based on how quickly Bruce Schneier can crack it?

Plus! Loving & Hating and Tea Of The Day/Week/Fortnight/Month! (delete as appropriate)

Download now!

The MooseBlaster: 'Mr. Horrible, Mr. Horrible. Telephone call for Mr. Horrible!' - They Might Be Giants, 'Someone Keeps Moving My Chair'

2008-07-14T13:04:52+00:00

In case you haven't been in the loop, Joss Whedon's got a project released tomorrow called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

It's a full budget affair telling the story of evil genius Dr. Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris) in his attempts to overthrow the world - much to the chagrin of superhero Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion - ohhhh yes).

(Click here for the trailer)

However, unlike Joss' previous projects:

a) it's a Whedon Bros. affair, so Jed and Zack Whedon are helping on this one;
b) it's being shown completely online; and
c) it's 100% musical (unlike Buffy, which was about 0.69% a musical).

The first episode is being released on the 15th of July, the second on the 17th and the final episode on the 19th of July - but get your skates on! It all goes away again after the 20th!

So check it out at Dr. Horrible.com from the 15th or prepare yourself with the free comic at Dark Horse Presents....

Kicking your body into shape: getting started

2008-07-12T21:37:37+00:00

Hate your body? Depressed at how out of breath you get walking up hills?

Well, never fear, for we have a marvelous new invention called “exercise”.

Garuanteed to get your body in awesome shape, make you stronger, fitter and all round happier.

Except most of us don’t bother.

We’d like to, but the sofa is very comfortable and the tv so very interesting right now and it looks like its going to rain and I’ve got too much to do today and, and, and a ton of other excuses…

So, here is my guide to making that first step to getting off the sofa and out into getting on with getting in shape, a collection of hints and rants on getting good with minimal pain.

(note, most of this will only apply to people starting an exercise routine, some of it won’t apply to people who already so regular exercise)

screw exercise, do something fun

No pain no gain?
Bugger than for a game of soldiers, I’m off to play footy with my mates, you have fun with that pain business…
Excerise doesn’t have to be a gruelling, punishing experience, twist it around and do something that you actually enjoy doing, but that will get you fit in the processes. Hardly anyone starts climbing purely for the health benefits, but after a few goes most people are back every week like crack addicts pushing themselves faster and harder and their body has no choice but to keep up.

do something, anything, even if its small

Starting an intensive exercise regimine of running every day, pushing yourself constantly harder, giving up your current comfortable state for a never ending gruelling workout every day is a daunting task. So, most people don’t bother.
But, unless you’re on a serious time limit, you don’t have to start big, as long as you get started.
Just do one run a week, even if its only a mile or half a mile. run only for as long as you feel like and don’t feel too guilty about going slow or the distance, the important point it getting off the sofa in the first place.

Exercising without doing any exercising

Back in ye olden dayes, people didn’t need ye gym, a hard day working in the fields was more than enough of a workout. The world is full of opportunities to burn off calories- take the stairs instead of the escalator, pick a hilly route to walk to work instead of the quick way, cycle instead of taking a car, lift heavy stuff instead of letting other people do it for you. Take every opportunity the world gives you to put your muscles to work and eventually it all builds up…

to hell with doing it right, just jump in and do it anyway

Do you use the excuse of “I’m no good at it” or “I’m too unfit to do that” to avoid doing something? Screw that and wade in anyway. No one cares if you screw up and if you just sit on the sidelines you’ll never get good at it. Feel free to fail gloriously, knowing that next time it’ll be a little easier and you’ll be a little faster.

eat well

dieting without understanding nutrition properly can be worse for you than what you were eating before and lets face it, almost no one sticks to a diet for more than a month before the chocolate craving becomes uncontrollable.
Eating well is much easier than you think just cut down on stuff thats obviously bad for you and add things that are good for you. Add more fresh fruit and vegetables to your diet and try and cut down on fatty and processed foods. With a bit of thought, its not even much effort, for example fruit smoothies taste awesome, do your body great and are easy to make (just open the carton ). You don’t even have to give up anything, in fact its probably a bad idea to give anything up completely, since when you finally snap, it can be hard to unsnap and go back to eating healthily. The key is eating the correct amount. A bit of chocolate or some bacon every now and again isn’t a sin, its only a problem when the bad outweighs the effects of the good.

bring someone along for the ride

Everyone needs a little motivation to resist the urge of the sofa and the tv, so having someone else exercising with you can be a great help. Not only do you not get quite so bored, but it means you have to make your excuses to them as well as yourself and are less likely to slack off.

Do something regular

Much like having an exercise partner to keep you going, doing a regular group activity can help keep the pattern going. Instead of having to decide on a day to day basis what to do for yourself, you know Wednesday=circuit training day. Then you only need to get up the motivation to get to the event…

keep track and set goals

being able to see how far you’ve come is a great motivator to keep going and to keep pushing yourself further the next time. Setting goals also lets you split exercise into manageable chunks, where all you have to do is reach your next goal of a 1 mile run, then set a goal of a 2 mile run instead of trying to go from a couch loafer to marathon distances instantly.

don’t set goals, just get on with it

On the other hand, setting goals can take too mcuh effort and you can get discouraged if you set your goals too high and fail to meet them. Sometimes its easier just to go for whatever you feel like doing confident in the knowlege that bit by bit, every step you run today is giving you a stronger body for tomorrow.

Rhetorical question #4217: What terrorists?

2008-07-04T01:10:38+00:00

Conspiracy nuts have the NWO to explain everything, the converatives blame…pretty much everyone that isn’t middle/upper class and white.

We apparently live in constant threat of terrorists. Airport security is just silly these days. New laws are passed to “protect” our freedoms. We even invade random countries to “protect” ourselves.

except…the thing is….with the exception of 9/11 and 7/7, theres been bugger all terrorist acts in the last 5 years. By no means do I think 9/11, 7/7 and madrid etc. should be forgotten, but if a group was really determined to cause terror, they could do worse things and more often easier than we could possibly imagine…

The IRA showed how much havock a terrorist organisation can cause and that was before the days of the internet and ebay and a group that at least vaguely tried to go for legitimate targets (they killed a lot of innocent people too, but the current “threat” is solely aiming at civilians).

Iraq is utter meyhem at the moment with car bombs a daily occurence and yet…Britain and the US rarely see anything.

bombs can be made from household materials using GCSE chemistry in an afternoon, and yet…they don’t.

one person could easily leave dozens of home made bombs around london in a day and yet…they don’t.

the exeter, glasgow and liquid bombers have all been so completely and utterly incompetent that they were unable to even use google to check if their chosen methods were even remotely sensible…

for bonus points: Whats with all the fuss over blowing up aeroplanes? Theres so many things to blow up in this world, many of them easier and more effective to creating terror than planes and yet airport security barely stops short of anal probing, but you can wander into a shopping centre or a nightclub unchecked…

the other side blog

2008-07-04T00:09:55+00:00

I’ve had an idea for a blog/zine/thingy that I could do with some feedback from people on…

The idea is to show the sides of issues and systems that people normally don’t see.

For example, with the emergence of blogs and the anonymity, its become far easier for people on the inside of systems such as the police, NHS, education system, restaurants, bartenders, anarchists, strippers to tell the true story of their worlds without the spin of the PR and the bias of the media. I’d like to highlight these blogs and collate some of the best posts to show the best and worst of the worlds.

On many issues there are quite vocal people on both sides, but they’re rarely put together. For example, to do a piece on the Iraq war with articles from the soldiers on both sides, the civilians caught in the crossfire, maybe even some people who understand the struggle in Ireland to give some perspective. I doubt many westeners really understand what its like on the ground in Iraq, living with the bombs and the troops. I for one don’t.

Examples for issues are pirates vs content creators, students vs faculty vs management vs the world in universities, various sections of the government vs everyone that has to deal with that section.

one of the issues I need to solve is that frankly, most people don’t care. (Genocide in Africa? Terrible! Shocking! Oh look, Big Brother is on the other channel). Those that care are so polarized they don’t want to listen to the other side in case they find themselves sympathising with their enemies.

This becomes even more of a problem when discussions start. Discussions=good. Mindless flame wars=bad.

What I want is suggestions for what to do with the idea, issues that you think would make interesting and informative reading, if you think you could write about your job, hobby, world that most people never see I’d love to put your post up.

If you don’t start using the middle path, I’m going to have to do something extreme

2008-07-03T23:16:30+00:00

Again, inspired by the legions of crazy, I feel the need to rant about the basic rules of reality.

When we have differences and argue with people, we have a tendancy to become polarized. Once we take up a position, our egos really don’t like the idea of being wrong, so we tend to end up believing that “we” are “right” and “they” are “wrong”.

One of the most useful lessons I take from taoism is the concept of balance, which is similar to the buddhist Middle Path. Its like believing “never say never” in the same way christians believe in “love your neighbour”. its not just a good idea, its pretty much compulsory if you want to live a happy life.

A real world example I’ve recently hit is anarchists vs the police. I know people on both sides. Some of them are good people, some of them are tossers.

The anarchists believe “all police are bastards”. They’ve had run ins in the past and they haven’t exactly been polite.

The police know the anarchists are all drugged up violent punks. They know this because they’ve seen the drugs and have the scars from the “peaceful protests” to prove it.

And yet…I know both sides and they’re both good people, so what gives? I know people on both sides who would risk their lives in a riot/ex-peaceful protest to save me from the other side without a second thought

The problem is that neither side understands the other, they only see what they want to see so they can keep justifying their actions. Try and explain to an anarchist that a fight is the last thing a copper wants at 2am on a friday night and they’ll look at you like you just licked their mother. Tell a constable that those squatters are fighting for his freedom and he’ll tell you stories of the trail of destruction they can leave.

So go find your enemies and understand them. Work out why they do what they do what they do. Victory comes so much easier when you realise you never have to fight them in the first place.

Your world is ruled by things that don’t exist

2008-07-03T22:56:49+00:00

This post goes out to religion bashing scientists and people who think conspiracy theorists are nuts, because people on both sides of those issues have been giving me all kind of crazy lately…

The point I want to make is that even if something is completely wrong and completely flawed, it can still be just as important as whats right.

Take for example, the concept of a centre of gravity. You can measure and predict the centre of gravity of an object, you can change where it is and how it affects things, but you can rip apart the world and never find one. The centre of gravity doesn’t exist, but it’s there nevertheless.

We hit this same thing in the taoist concept of Chi. You can do all kinds of scientific studies to prove chi doesn’t exist, but when a tai chi instructer focuses his chi and pushes you so hard you bounce off the opposite wall, that won’t be much consolation. One of the great things about taoism is that even if you don’t believe it literally, as a metaphor it still works. Chi is a great way of getting your mind to understand how to move muscles better. Its damn near impossible to conciously control your muscles, but as a metaphor, chi helps you feel the kinetic forces in your muscles, the blood in your veins and the spinning wheels in your mind to help you deliver a more powerful punch, a stronger stance and a better grip on reality.

But what does all this mean in the real world?

It means that sometimes you have to give up on trying to be right on principles all the time and learn to relax and accept, allow and use what you disagree with to make your world a better place, solve your problems faster and easier.

Even if God doesn’t exist, religion can provide meaning to life that science has yet to do, conspiracy theorists rant about the new world order that rules our life without us knowing and even if they are just crazy, we need to crazies making noise and asking awkward to keep the government on their toes so the conspiracies don’t come true.

look at the crazies, the ones you oppose and ask if either of you are really getting doing what you claim to be doing or getting too distracted by being “right”.

Sometimes you need your enemies more than you realise…

reply with comments (especially if I completely failed to make sense) and arguaments!

/~bma: Some Creationist Gets Owned

2008-06-25T11:26:00+00:00

http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-time-classic-creationist-pwnage/

Biologist Richard Lenski recently published a paper describing the emergence of new traits in bacteria (they evolved the ability to metabolise new food sources when kept in an environment without food they could already metabolise). Andrew Schlafly, founder of that paragon of scientific endeavour Conservapedia [1] [2], got very upset by this and demanded to see the evidence. Lenski responded quite politely, but after further demands, threats, and insults, replies with an impressively snotty letter.

[1]

He’s also, apparently, teacher of “one of the largest homeschool classes in the country”; isn’t that a contradiction of terms? When you’re teaching 58 kids, that’s not homeschool; that’s actual school; presumably, the claim to be “homeschool” is to avoid the necessity of teaching the kids actual science.

[2]

Because we wouldn’t want people to actually correct Conservapedia, it’s actually very difficult to get to edit a page, despite the fact that it’s a wiki; for example, the page on Phyllis Schlafly, mother of Andrew, is locked, preventing people changing the statement from the (true but inaccurate) “a fraction of people present protested her honorary doctorate” to the more-accurate “a third of people present, etc.”; this despite that the numbers in question are in a news report cited elsewhere in the article. Hurray for selective blindness to the facts!

Gem: Lego Games

2008-06-09T12:42:31+00:00

I’ve completed two games to 100% this weekend, Lego Star Wars II and Lego Indiana Jones.

For Lego Star Wars II all I had to do was to complete the Super Story modes on each film which basically means playing through the entire of the story mode again except you get timed. I was under the impression that because the best time was defaulted to 1 hour that if you took longer you wouldn’t get the associated golden brick. This meant that I was restarting the Super Story mode if I felt I took too long on a level. I finally decided to play it all the way through to see what times I was currently getting and then found out that the under 1 hour completion time wasn’t mandatory. So off I went to get the last golden brick in Return of the Jedi which allowed me to complete the spigot outside the cantina which spews studs so I could finally afford the multiplier extras in the shop.

This Friday I got a copy of Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii. It is very fun and I spent the whole weekend playing it finally completing it at 100% on Sunday evening. It’s a fun game and like the Star Wars II Lego game you play through the original three films collecting characters, minikits and posting parcels (which unlock the extras).

Unlike the Lego Star Wars in the Indiana Jones Game I found it much easier to get the treasure multipliers. There was also a sub quest that unlocked Han Solo which involved finding Star Wars characters hidden in the levels. Here’s where I found 4 of the 5 characters (can’t remember the last one)

Princess Leia I found in a detention cell in the Temple of Doom (ladder down a cliff face, metal barrier to blow up, nazi needed for guard)
Chewbacca - desert city in Raiders of the Lost Arc, door is behind where you find the vehicle which you use to smash the gate near the end of the level (door opened by academic, need short person)
C3PO in the first level of Raiders of the Lost Arc next to a minikit.
Luke Skywalker - found hanging by feet in snowy cave down a cliff face in ‘Into the Mountains’

Also if you are on the level battle on the bridge the minikit detector will make it appear that there are two minikits beyond the gate just before the end of the level. I think what it’s actually showing are the two minikits hidden in the very beginning of the level, one requires you blow up a metal fence, the other requires you outrun the water.

I liked it better than Lego Star Wars II because you only needed to get the “True Adventurer” (like the Star Wars “True Jedi”) once per level rather than once in story mode and once in free play. I also liked that there wasn’t a Super Story Mode which had to be completed for 100%.

/~bma: US Presidential Stuff

2008-06-06T01:11:00+00:00

I’m a little amazed that, after eight years of Bush, there’s actually the possibility that the USA will have a presidential candidate who doesn’t suck. I’m still not convinced that Obama would be a better president than Clinton, but either one of them is fine by me (or, even better, either one of them with the other as vice-president).

Chris Hunt: The Most Popular thing I put on the Internet...

2008-06-05T03:19:20+00:00

At nearly Two and a Half Thousand views it's this image from my Flickr account, which made an appearance on TUAW:

Flickr Link

TUAW Story, which links to the Picture

[UPDATE 1 - The Picture's hit count is now pushing 3,200]

[UPDATE 2 - The Picture's gone up to 3,600, and this picture has over 1000 hits]

Chris Hunt: RE: Ridge Racer Type 4

2008-06-03T00:58:24+00:00

Just a Quickie Today (Or a shameless plug for a new Business in Plymouth). I was in the recently opened Computer Exchange and to my delight, sitting on the shelf was an original copy of one of favourite games on the original Playstation, the afore mentioned Ridge Racer Type 4.

For One Pound.

So, with Giddy Delight, I proceeded to the desk, and quickly ran home with my new purchase. I admit, the game has dated a lot, but the soundtrack is still as great as I remember and the stories of the Race team mangers are still as compelling as ever.

Proper Blogging to resume soon!

Chris

/~bma: Rather cool use of Twitter

2008-05-30T09:58:00+00:00

From Twitter Blog:

Masai tribesman Joseph Kimojino (@maratriangle on Twitter) is using Twitter as one way of raising awareness for the Mara Triangle wildlife park. For more information, read Life, Death and Twitter on the African Savannah.

Very cool indeed. He’s also on Flickr and has a blog.

Chris Hunt: Facebook App Idea No. 1

2008-05-29T20:19:49+00:00

University Organiser

Organise University Life within Facebook
Connect with People on your course
Track Coursework Deadlines, Communicate, and Collaborate on group work
Integrate with an online office application (e.g. Google Docs)
Publish Important events and information in the News feed.

What do you think? Leave a comment or even @thisisthechris me on twitter.

Chris

/~bma: Yet more RC bollocks.

2008-05-29T09:18:00+00:00

Wow, what an astonishing lot of bollocks this Cardinal Rouco has come out with. Typically for a Catholic spokesman [1], he manages to make a lot of claims (about how wonderful and perfect “God’s law” is) without even a shred of evidence — after all, why would he need evidence? He’s speaking on behalf of God!

I especially love the nonsense he’s spouting about “biological limits”. Though he’s far from clear, I think he’s trying to make two points: a) that legal rights for gay people have come about because of “gender ideology” — feminism? — and b) that “gender ideology” is somehow opposed to human biology. I can’t be bothered commenting any further on this bigot.

[1]	I actually wrote spokesperson there without thinking, but I doubt the Catholic church has many, if any, women who speak on its behalf.

Chris Hunt: [A] I [B] Part 1

2008-05-27T03:36:01+00:00

[A] Podcasts
[B] Listen to..

In the First of a new series of continued internet whorage, a list of all the podcasts I Listen to (or Watch, in some cases)

Best of Chris Moyles
Best of YouTube
Cool Hunting Video
The Digg Reel
Diggnation
Digital Planet
Doctor Who: The Commentaries
Experiment of the Week
The Kojima Productions Report
LOGin - The TermiSoc Podcast
MacBreak Weekly
Mahalo Daily
New Yorker: Fiction
One Life Left
Pets
PlayDigital
Radio One Chart Show
Radio One Mini Mix
Rocketboom
Science Weekly
Skeptoid
Stephen Fry's PODGRAMS
Tech Weekly
this WEEK in TECH
Tiki Bar TV
The PSP Show
Windows Weekly

I Haven't Yet added links for all these (that'll follow in an update), but they should be 'Googleable' just now.

Enjoy

Chris

charles cross church is really really creepy

2008-05-26T13:55:47+00:00

If you’re ever in plymouth late at night and feel like really creeping yourself out, head to the bombed out church next to the shopping centre late at night.

Its really well lit, which just adds to the creepyness, screwing with your night vision enough to give anything that might want to eat your soul (or your wallet) plenty of shadows to hide in. Its in the middle of a roundabout and with all the windows long since blown out during the war, you can just hear random snatches of voices from people over the sound of the cars, giving a ghostly haunted voice effect.
The whole place was bombed out during world war two, taking the windows, roof and furniture to a better and temporarily airborne afterlife. Open plan is not the word to describe it. Exposed would be more accurate. As in the military definition of exposed. As in the kind of exposed where your animal sith sense is constantly checking ever corner and expecting something to sneak up behind you.

also, there was a complete set of womans clothes strewn about in there…I can easily imaging why they came off, it seems like a good place for some late night hanky panky, but the question is why didn’t they put them back on afterwards?

/~bma: Twitter Notifier

2008-05-25T11:31:00+00:00

Wrote a script to display Twitter updates via notification-daemon (used quite heavily in Gnome, I believe, but I’m not sure about KDE). It’s written in Python, and it’s here.

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0460

2008-05-23T20:27:45+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0459

2008-05-23T20:26:47+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0458

2008-05-23T20:25:50+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0457

2008-05-23T20:24:53+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0456

2008-05-23T20:23:50+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0455

2008-05-23T20:22:52+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0454

2008-05-23T20:21:56+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0453

2008-05-23T20:20:36+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0451

2008-05-23T20:19:17+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0445

2008-05-23T20:18:06+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0428

2008-05-23T20:17:08+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0416

2008-05-23T20:15:46+00:00

Dan fell over.

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0402

2008-05-23T20:14:24+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0400

2008-05-23T20:13:07+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0399

2008-05-23T20:11:54+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0398

2008-05-23T20:10:28+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0397

2008-05-23T20:09:28+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0395

2008-05-23T20:07:48+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0393

2008-05-23T20:06:21+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0363

2008-05-23T20:01:47+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0361

2008-05-23T20:00:46+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0291

2008-05-23T19:34:44+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0290

2008-05-23T19:33:12+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0289

2008-05-23T19:31:33+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0288

2008-05-23T19:29:59+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0287

2008-05-23T19:28:40+00:00

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0286

2008-05-23T19:27:16+00:00

Planet TermiSoc

/~bma: Thoughts on Google Chrome

/~bma: Grasp on Reality?

Chris Hunt: Hair

Episode 11 - 15/08/08 - Intellectual Property

/~bma: German Course

Episode 10 - 02/08/08 - The Internet

/~bma: London Healthcare

/~bma: Ridiculous *and* Invasive

/~bma: Git Shared Branches

How to run a LAN Party

The MooseBlaster: 'These people are mad, I tell you! They're completely bananas!'

/~bma: Depressing Atheists

/~bma: Has this guy even tried running a society?

/~bma: Plant

/~bma: First week over.

Episode 09 - 19/07/08 - Security

The MooseBlaster: 'Mr. Horrible, Mr. Horrible. Telephone call for Mr. Horrible!' - They Might Be Giants, 'Someone Keeps Moving My Chair'

Kicking your body into shape: getting started

screw exercise, do something fun

do something, anything, even if its small

Exercising without doing any exercising

to hell with doing it right, just jump in and do it anyway

eat well

bring someone along for the ride

Do something regular

keep track and set goals

don’t set goals, just get on with it

Rhetorical question #4217: What terrorists?

the other side blog

If you don’t start using the middle path, I’m going to have to do something extreme

Your world is ruled by things that don’t exist

/~bma: Some Creationist Gets Owned

Gem: Lego Games

/~bma: US Presidential Stuff

Chris Hunt: The Most Popular thing I put on the Internet...

Chris Hunt: RE: Ridge Racer Type 4

/~bma: Rather cool use of Twitter

Chris Hunt: Facebook App Idea No. 1

/~bma: Yet more RC bollocks.

Chris Hunt: [A] I [B] Part 1

charles cross church is really really creepy

/~bma: Twitter Notifier

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0460

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0459

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0458

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0457

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0456

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0455

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0454

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0453

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0451

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0445

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0428

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0416

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0402

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0400

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0399

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0398

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0397

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0395

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0393

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0363

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0361

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0291

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0290

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0289

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0288

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0287

Benjamin A'Lee: dsc_0286

/~bma: Ridiculous and Invasive