Saturday, January 31, 2004 - "Monkey-flavoured chips on toast."
| > Science/Tech |
- I'm lazy, so I'm going to link Slashdot's mid-week update on Mars Rover goings-on. [Details]
- Maybe this is why Spirit mysteriously stopped communicating with Earth for a few days - it was "otherwise occupied". [Details]
- NASA are still agonising over whether to abandon their beloved baby Hubble. [Details]
- There you go - mobile phones are safe. Now stop bitching. [Details]
- Your usual lot of amazing photos from NASA's Earth Observatory. [Display]
- About time too, quite frankly - everyone's been rabbiting on about foldable flat-panel displays for enough years. [Details]
- How it all began - with a low budget. [Destroy]
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| > Geek |
- Gah, more big nasty viruses (not virii) going around. I've had some virus trouble this week, though not anything as horrible as this. Managed to deal with it fairly easily, but I'm still not sure where it snuck in. Shrug. Anyway - the usual advice: don't bloody open unidentified email attachments! It really is that simple! [Details]
- It's a typical PEBKAC virus, anyway - Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair. If people haven't learned yet that they shouldn't open email attachments that they don't recognise, or attachments with the extensions pif, bat, vbs, scr and even exe period, they deserve to get a virus. Then of course it gets passed on through internal networks and it's the people who have a clue and know not to do that who have to clean up the entire damn mess. [Details]
- Continuing with the weekly theme of thinking up new words starting with "Google", this site presents Googlejack. [Details]
- A few minutes of leaked footage from "Star Wars: Episode III". Update: Lucasfilm have brought out the lawyerstick and are applying it liberally. No more working links, unless you want it from my hard drive.
- "Politicians: Now available with our patented 1-Click® ordering system!" [Details]
- What a great story - a teenager called Mike Rowe got sued by Microsoft for copyright infringement because of his domain name, MikeRoweSoft.com. He has settled with them, giving up the domain in exchange for costs, an X-Box, MS Certification training, an invitation to their technology festival and some other bits. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- SNOW! YAY! [Display]
- Here be dragyns! Shame it's a hoax... [Details]
- I was sent the email that's been going around of this chap's work last week - amazing perspective street drawings done only with chalk. b3ta managed to find his website. [Display]
- Some more great perspective pictures - this time with photos. [Display] [Display]
- It's a bit of an oldie, but it's a goodie. [Destroy]
- The Harrison Ford Curse! [Display]
- Amazing sand-art presentation. [Download - Streaming]
- Someone had to do it, and b3ta was always going to be the one to oblige. [Display]
- It has a ninja in it. It must be good. [Destroy]
- Weebl strikes again. His target this time? Kenya. [Destroy]
- My head hurts. [Destroy]
- My head hurts more. [Destroy]
- Alternative title: Food Poisoning 101. [Details]
- Some blog directory thing. Ignore. [Details]
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Posted by Stormcaller at 5:46 PM GMT [Link]
Saturday, January 24, 2004 - "Without silence there can be no music."
| > Science/Tech |
- Uh-oh - they've lost contact with the Mars rover. Still another Opportunity, but they're trying to keep their Spirits up (blame Az for that terrible joke). [Details]
- Hmm... they've received some signals back from Spirit, and it's sending some data now, but communication with, and control of, Spirit is a bit dodgy at the moment. [Details]
- If public opinion could be swayed, a long-term one-way mission to Mars would probably be the best and cheapest way of doing it. Why bring the astronauts home when they can be supported there for many years? [Details]
- Slashdot has a nice roundup of the missions and projects NASA has in the pipeline. [Details]
- ...and someone posted the same kind of thing today for ESA's plans and goals. [Details]
- In the future Windows won't crash, though they may break or shatter. [Details]
- MC found this link on how credit card thieves modify ATM machines to copy your card information and send video of the keypad and screen wirelessly to a laptop in the area. Spooky, but very clever. [Details]
- As usual, Slashdot discussion/flaming and counterflaming is more interesting than the actual article - this one on the future of NASA. [Details]
- The Spirit Mars rover's weblog. [Details]
- An explanation of how the colourization of Spirit's Mars photos works. Rather technical. [Details]
- Meanwhile, the first pictures are up from the Mars Express orbiter. Apparently Mars will eventually be mapped more accurately than Earth ever has been. [Details]
- One aerospace company has plans to save the Hubble Space Telescope, by pushing it up to a higher orbit or even bringing it in-line with the International Space Station. [Details]
- Trust Japan to come up with a gadget to direct your dreams. [Details]
- Is the UK running out of gas? [Details]
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| > Geek |
- Justin Frankel of Nullsoft (Winamp, WASTE, Gnutella, ...) is interviewed in Rolling Stone magazine. What a guy. [Details]
- The FBI have raided the house of a programmer in San Francisco suspected of being involved in the stealing of the "Half-Life 2" source code. I never thought I'd see the words "Team Fortress" on the BBC News website, let alone on an FBI search warrant. Though there have been rumurs that it has been pushed back again to September, the Beeb still reckons HL2 is due out in April. [Details]
- The world has now gone insane. More specifically, the US Patent Office. A couple of guys were granted a patent for using URLs in the form subdomain.domain.tld and email addresses of the form subdomain@domain.tld - On December 30th 2003! Of course, they're now suing everyone who isn't paying them licensing fees. [Details]
- He never went to the International Space Station to make a film, but James Cameron is apparently planning a "big-budget science-fiction film with a pile of special effects", filmed using high-definition 3D IMAX cameras.
- Adobe have now actually admitted the existence of the 'secret' anti-counterfeiting technology in the latest version of Photoshop that prevents you using pictures of banknotes. [Details]
- Americans: Free things! Fairly good Microsoft posters, more specifically. [Details]
- Maps! Lots and lots of maps for loads of different games. [Details]
- Therefore I am win, and you are lose. [Details]
- Geekculture.com is certainly the right place for this. [Details]
- Some early concept art from the upcoming "Neon Genesis Evangelion" film, produced by Weta Workshop (the LOTR lot). [Display]
- Quickboot. [Details]
- Nokia's trying to be cute and 'hip'. Fair enough, I guess... [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- I've decided to sell a bunch of things on eBay, starting with my old Warhammer stuff from years ago. Anybody interested, know someone who might be or just want to see photos? [Details]
- "The Day Britain Stopped", the BBC's fictional documentary on a day when a chain of events lead to total gridlock on the motorways and a mid-air collision of two planes over Heathrow, was shown again today. Very well made - and scarily realistic and plausible. [Details]
- Jess reckons that society has hit an all-time low now that we have skateboarding owls. [Details]
- It's probably lucky that the 16-year-old teenager with X-ray vision isn't male. [Details]
- 1) Apply for credit cards in pet's name. 2) ??? 3) Profit! [Details]
- Shame items aren't permanently on the site - this link will probably only work for a few days before disappearing. [Details]
- Ditto here. [Details]
- Azrael reckons I should just write gibberish here and point every link to this URL. Wonder if anyone would notice. [Details]
- I like reading the blogs of Londoners, even if they're not technically Londoners. [Details]
- I haven't wasted nearly enough time lately reading about mostly-silly conspiracy theories. My tinfoil hat is gathering dust in the cupboard. [Details]
- I have definitely wasted too much time on this, though. See if you can beat 323.5, or Azrael's lowest non-zero score of 65.4. [Destroy]
- Some fun little Java game. [Destroy]
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Posted by Stormcaller at 1:22 PM GMT [Link]
Thursday, January 22, 2004 - "Gargantuan update of dooom"
| > Random quotes |
- Milked ducke, my mother badde!
My mother, my mother - my mother badde!
Your mother be de ducke milke. - I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- The killer app for networked wireless home appliances: ntp Seriously. Many people will pay extra money for a microwave that isn't flashing 12:00 at them.
- Any common pirate can rob and plunder and rape and kill. It takes a great pirate to do politics.
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| > Serious |
- Fax.com Also spam laws. We already have the general public ignoring speeding laws and "No ball games in this park" laws. It's commonly accepted (at least in this country) that laws are there to discourage excess and overzealous laws are just ignored. Are we seeing something similar happenning in the manegerial mind, where 'bad law' about advertising is just being ignored? The pleas of "But we need to spam you to make money!" just feel so similar to pleas of "I need to speed to get home sooner." What can be done to prevent this fragmentation of society - when people only want to accept responsibility for things which harm them? Or should we give in, and carve out different areas for different types of people, each with its own set of laws? This, then, is the kinda related article which sprung this train. [Details]
- One point not often talked about, with University fees. "Limit the number of applicants for 'Mickey Mouse' courses" - seems a good aim, doesn't it? Until you realise that, on strictly economic grounds, science courses will be the first to go, leaving all of those cheap arts courses... [Details]
- Is this what you want people to be doing? Or do you want the people to use the rocket launcher? [Details]
- New law. It is against the law to change the law in order to specifically get at one person. She is not a danger to anyone - why should she not be paroled? [Details]
- Speech always has consequences. So what consequences will his article have? [Details]
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| > Science/Tech |
- It's like a supercooled super jelly! What oddness exists at extreme temperatures. [Details]
- The eyetap is back. [Details]
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| > COTD |
- Scary cat skeleton - imagine a horde of them eating your spine. (Thanks mc and head) [Display]
- Fricken sharks with fricken cheese strapped to their foreheads? [Display]
- So that's how pictograms spread. [Display]
- Type in random things into your address bar, see where you end up! [Display]
- Allegedly real language textbook. [Display]
- Face like a sprocket, fits Davy crocket, strapped to a rocket... [Display]
- To quote: 'Everyone should have to read a Jack Chick parody' [Display]
- Lawyer jokes. Will they ever go out of fashion? [Display]
|
| > Humour |
- Bickickles! [Display]
- Teach 'em right! [Details]
- Important safety advice [Details]
- You can't possibly improve on the headline the author gave this page.
"What Tolkien said about Elf sex" [Details] - What's behind periodic element 24? It's a mystery! [Details]
- The stupidest words ever. This year. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- Baen release new books. "Oh, how cool! We can try out the grenade launchers!" [Details]
- More books! Princess of Mars? [Details]
- And yet more books! One persons utopia is anothers nightmare - the author misses the obvious twist in the tail in order to ask the obvious question: "Why is automation, which is supposed to make lives easier, actually putting people out of jobs?" [Details]
- Music to mass mail me. [Download]
- Do you know how to swear? [Destroy]
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| > Programming |
- For when you really can't be arsed doing things the proper way - sql as a library. [Download]
- Bios passwords. Evil,aren't they? [Details]
- Fuzzy 3d? [Download]
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| > Gaming |
- Penny Arcade love this game, so you may wish to avoid it [Destroy]
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Posted by Vitenka at 5:24 PM GMT [Link]
Saturday, January 17, 2004 - "The English language has been temporarily suspended for maintainance. Please try again later."
| > Science/Tech |
- A couple of astronomy students have produced logarithmic maps of the universe, going from Earth's core all the way to the big bang. A fascinating summary of what the rest of the universe looks like from here. [Details]
- This puts my multi-monitor system to shame. [Details]
- Water, eh? [Details]
- Proto-technical something or another. Not sure how to describe the article, but it's interesting if you're into that sort of thing. Note that this gets scarily imformational-philosophical towards the end. In fact, I just completely made up some phrases and you didn't even notice. [Details]
- Slashdot's conclusion? The public are stupid. [Details]
- Bubbles! [Details]
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| > Geek |
- Living up to the title of "really cheap mods". [Details]
- ...And really dangerous ones, too. [Details]
- What will those nasty spam types think of next, when they've gotten bored of talking about kibbutzim the chairwomen laterite with armhole mcleod and satisfy toni plus astigmatism? [Details]
- My first Googlewhack. Dave Barry's got a book out on Googlewhacking, you know. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- I've been playing "Black & White" quite a lot this week, and have decided that I definitely underrated it the first time I played it. It can be pretty frustrating (why are the villagers so stupid?), but it's a lot of fun, the creature AI and learning is still very impressive and the whole thing has a fun quirkiness to it, from the advisors to the fact that you're basically a giant hand. [Details]
- I'm afraid I'm starting to come round to the whole Oystercard idea. For those who don't know, it's London Transport's new proximity card that holds pre-pay credit or a travelcard and is used as a ticket on the Tube, buses etc. It also brings with it a whole host of amusing possibilities - try them before everyone gets bored of the same old Oyster tricks in a couple of years. [Details]
- From average fat bloke to fit, muscular man within a year, with a picture for every week. He definitely turns into Max Payne at the end, too. [Display]
- b3ta did a cute thread on lies your parents told you. [Details]
- Nothing particularly amazing about it telepathy-wise, but it's... fun. [Destroy]
- Still not quite sure what's going on here, but it's a rather funky plasticine stop motion film. [Download - 8.70MB]
- Tin foil house, also from the b3ta newsletter. [Display]
- Much more interesting subject material than most source-based history exams I've done. [Details]
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Posted by Stormcaller at 4:17 PM GMT [Link]
Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - "The text deconstructs itself. This way it looks less like we are making things up."
Early this week, since I was late last week. Heh. Continuing the theme of 'stuff you'd never normally read: The summa theologica
Alright, now - on with the Cat^H^H^HStormnews.
| > Serious |
- Our language! It's dying under a morass of irrefutably obfuscated exposition! [Details]
- Um - you know, pretending to be cops is illegal. But at least they have the right targets at last (though it may be more effective to aim a little higher up the supply chain) [Details]
- America is planning a Mars mission of "exploration to rival columbus". Perhaps the Mars colonists will bump into something else on the way to Mars, and colonise it instead?
- RFID not going to take over your life? Hah. [Details]
- I'll believe it when I see it. Shame that there's not much information about how it does what it claims to do. [Details]
- Cool. Irans cabinet are now threatening to resign. Of course, revolution is less likely to be cool. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- Turkish folk stories. Get into the cupboard, little girl. [Details]
- A bittorrent client that does pretty much everything that you want. Mainly, moving on to the next torrent when it's done with one, and a web control interface. [Download]
- Would you pay money for this computer mag? No? Want it anyway? [Details]
- Icecast. It's like shoutcast, but frosty. [Download]
- How to use Google. Useful tips for everyone, not just idiots. But the idiots who keep asking questions like "Where do I find?" and, in fact, practically EVERY question, certainly need to read this. [Details]
- Stormy stole my deconstruction links! I'll deconstruct him, oh yesss... Anyhow - multiple points of view on the phenomenom of stupid people prattling on about rubbish. Bias? We don't do bias here. Deconstruct this: "People who deconstruct stuff are mostly stupidiots." [Details]
[Details] [Details]- Oh, ok - counterpoint. (Mathmo in support of deconstuctionism) [Destroy]
- Hobbit. Music. Goodness. [Download]
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| > Humour |
- Rats! Foiled again. Yeesh. Is it possible to come up with a funny headline for a funny event, that doesn't sound stupid and trite? Maybe I should stick with 'small earthquake' like ones. Hmmm. "Man's house covered in tin foil, few people mind controlled by sattelite" perhaps? [Details]
- Hey, it's gotta be worth a try, right? [Details]
- They missed a trick by not choosing a panther. [Display]
- Dayamm. Why didn't I think of that? [Details]
- Sometimes the world is just too clued in for me. Of course you want to invite tourists in to watch your insurgence and fund it. Though why western tourists are supporting maoists, I have no idea. "But Joe! Look at their cute hats, oh, and the way they hold those guns. Aren't they just precious?" Ok, so I have some idea... [Details]
- Oh those whacky Americans and their terror alerts. How long until we have an FBI sit-com? [Details]
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| > Gaming |
- Adventure quest. It's small, it's pointless, it's flash - it's actually kinda fun. [Destroy]
- "It's time to make some crazzy money!" Crash-splat-kerronk-beeep-boom. "You suck!" Well, that's my experience with that game, anyway. [Download]
- Flash sites are eeeeeeeeeeeevil. Die die die Javascript DIE. Ahem. Railroad Tycoon innn spaaaaaaaaaaace. [Download]
- Poor kittens. They'e just so... shootable. [Destroy]
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| > COTD |
- Lisp: "It's the preferred language for unlocking the secrets of the universe." [Display]
- It's old, and it's got bricks in it. [Display]
- I feel that this image is so perfect, it would fit any caption. "Limecat is amused" "Limecat wishes to eat your face"... yup. It's all good. What's your caption? [Display]
- Mainly funny for the title, but the evilness of digital cameras and animated gifs is pretty good too. [Display]
- Too many sites to link them all. Many of them good examples as to why I block javascript and flash, but many others actually pretty. Slashdot thread, but just pull out the links. You mean your browser can't automatically create a list of links? For shame! [Display]
- The path to enlightenment. [Display]
- I haven't linked this in a while - so I do so now. Futur is just beginning Chapter 2. [Display]
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Posted by Vitenka at 7:30 PM GMT [Link]
Saturday, January 10, 2004 - "With a sufficient amount of clever handwaving and artful verbiage, you can interpret any piece of writing as a statement about anything at all."
| > Science/Tech |
- The first Mars rover landed! The ancient Martian missile defense system that everyone keeps going on about obviously missed its target this time around. You can track the progress of the rovers using Maestro, a modified version of the program used by NASA to control them. [Download]
- NASA thoughtfully put a plaque on Spirit in memory of the crew involved in the Columbia disaster. [Details]
- Here's a gallery of the raw images sent back from Spirit, unless you fancy viewing them in stereo 3D. [Display]
- ...or even better - Jiggyvision! Awesome. The second link is to pictures from the 1997 Pathfinder mission. [Display] [Display]
- Poor Beagle 2. I spoke to one of the guys on the Beagle team at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures at the end of December, and he gave the impression that they were really pinning all their hopes on January 7th even from that time. That date has now been and gone with not a blip (much less a Blur-composed tune) heard from the lander. Looks like they've all but given up hope. [Details]
- They reckon there's a small air leak in the International Space Station, but can't find one anywhere. Let's hope the ISS team are just jealous of all the media attention that Mars is getting right now. [Details]
- MC found some lovely NASA aurora pictures, along with this article. [Details]
- Williams' innovative (read: bizarre) new F1 design. [Details]
- More valuable research from German scientists. [Details]
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| > Geek |
- Slashdot has a discussion going on what constitutes too much broadband usage. The answer? Well, me. For 576/288kbps, the download and upload totals for my family are insane. [Details]
- God's original IRC chat logs. [Details]
- The industry must surely be able to see the facts, or pay external analysts to reach conclusions that they're too far down the anti-consumer road to face themselves. [Details]
- Evilness must be destroyed... [Details]
- ...and The Man must be fought! [Details]
- (but not like this. You are a moron.) [Details]
- (and certainly not like this. You are a fat, greedy, over-litigous slob - get a job.) [Details]
- Random new "Half-Life 2" screenshot. Schweet. [Display]
- The top ten games of the coming year. Now you can skip 2004 entirely! [Details]
- To boldly go where no army has gone before - fashion? [Details]
- Title quote taken from this amusing piece about literary criticism from the point of view of an engineer. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- I hadn't thought about these words, but he's right, you know. Almost all usage of words like "inappropriate", "divisive", "insensitive", even "sexist" or "un-American" is a crock of shit. We're all just conforming to the non-confrontational pussyfooting that blights our generation, politically and socially. If you have something to say, let's hear it - and quiet down, you at the back. [Details]
- A very chunky new year from Weebl & Bob. [Destroy]
- Aerobatic simulator - delightful. [Destroy]
- The only wall where the bricks provide their own cement. [Details]
- Abandoned places can be a little... chilling. [Details]
- Communist China's underground train network looks like the French one, has a station exactly resembling Euston in London and has German/Belgian stripes on its trains. So much for the capitalist pigs. [Display]
- You heard the man. "Do not disturb the sexy", says P. Diddy. Or he'll bust a cap in yo' ass. [Details]
- They're taking over the Australian Daily Telegraph! [Display]
- Self-bottled bottles. [Details]
- Please note that I'm linking this under duress. [Destroy]
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Posted by Stormcaller at 5:09 PM GMT [Link]
Thursday, January 8, 2004 - "A loaf that twists fate is not a loaf at all, but is, in fact, a pretzel."
| > Serious |
- Thinking whatever you like is bad. There. I said it. [Details]
- Risks are fine, as long as you're lucky and don't overthink them.
Something of a rebuttal to an article from last week. [Details] - The UK version of 'we shall take away the process' [Details]
- And the US version. [Details]
- Alright, all RIGHT already. Mars. The US probe landed. So have some more red photos. [Display]
- Sorry, what? It's unnacceptable, but they are right, you should have expected it. [Destroy]
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| > Humour |
- And here was me thinking that being able to win a six foot tiger was classy. [Details]
- It's important to target your advertising, isn't it. [Destroy]
- Having just commited blood sacrifice to my test rig at work, I can safely say that computers appreciate the spiritual attention. [Details]
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| > COTD |
- Yay for angry scientists. (It's ANGRY, I tell you!) [Display]
- Clan Bob: Anyone got some free time to write one of those accent modifiers and pipe google through it? [Display]
- Neko the Kitty: You know that you've done it too. [Display]
- Penny Arcade: The cardboard tube samurai returns! [Display]
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| > Gaming |
- A bunch of top games [Download]
- A fuller list [Download]
- Some direct downloads that I think worthy of a look. Star chamber (A 4x crossed with a ccg) [Download]
- And Mage Bane (diablo style rpg with a twist) [Download]
- Sparx. Tile based puzzle game. Activate things in the right order to get to the end. [Download]
- Morkh. Puzzle game, where you don't get to save Mindy. [Download]
- Anito. RPG. Bah humbug. [Download]
- Terminator three. Ninety minutes should be more than all the play time you need. [Download]
- Solar Wolf. Wow, these old classic games are clunky and unplayable, aren't they? [Download]
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Posted by Vitenka at 7:06 PM GMT [Link]
Sunday, January 4, 2004 - "When I needed someone to talk to, you were the only one around."
So Stormcaller.net is one year old. Well, and a bit - the first post was on the 2nd of January, 2003, though it seems like I've already been running this site for years. Perhaps that's because I used to post similar links updates on the now defunct Catnews, run by Vitenka (who, funnily enough, now posts on my site. Revenge!). But it has been nice to have my own site to do with as I wish. Back on that first post, optimistically saved by the program as 00000001.htm, I was noting that GreyMatter seemed to be working out ok. 106 posts later, GreyMatter is still the engine which drives the news system on my site, controlling the posting of articles, updating of the front page and maintainance of the archives. I'm also still hosted by the wonderful 34SP.com, who I've got no complaints whatsoever about and have provided a constant, reliable and reasonably priced web hosting system. They now maintain my domain, Stormcaller.net, as well.
I know the banner at the top, as well as the splash page, still says v1.0, just as it has since I started this first proper incarnation of the website. To be honest, that was a bit of a missed opportunity. I could have moved it up when I got the photo galleries online back in late January, and the addition of the sidebar in March should certainly have been worthy of at least a v1.2. New photo gallery layouts to fit in with the rest of the site's blue, white and black design with sidebar etc. a few months ago or the introduction of Vitenka as a [mostly] regular contributor may also have been worthy of version increases. But I didn't change that version number at the time, and it seems silly to arbitrarily do so now. A v2.0 doesn't seem to be looming on the horizon any time soon, what with A-Level exams and the like this year, but I'm still doing the odd bit of work on the site. It would seem like a waste to chuck it all away and start afresh now - if it ain't broke...
It's been fun. I still don't really know if anyone reads the site. Usage statistics have climbed from ~100 hits per day when I first started the site to a huge daily average of 1700 hits last month (hope that's not seasonal fluctuation!), but that certainly doesn't mean 1700 unique visitors to the site every day, and search engine crawlers and spiders probably skew the statistics quite a lot. But I enjoy it anyway. The site is my only real, on-going coding project, even if it's just messing around with HTML, CSS and Photoshop most of the time, so it keeps me a little bit up to date on that front. I do enjoy collecting the links I post; it gives me an excuse to spend time reading a large variety of the quality (and the crap) that the Internet has to offer. It's nice to see my friends enjoying the photo galleries, even if that means little to the majority of those visiting the site.
Mainly, though, I love writing. I recognise that I've gotten less frequent lately with my non-link, more blog-like posts. I suppose that's what comes with a busy life and studies. I do miss writing from time to time, though, and have the urge to just type out a article. I have, however, been trying to add snippets of that kind of thing in with the links, and you'll have been finding bits on various films, plays, life, the universe and everything. I've so far resisted creating any kind of cheesy "about me" page; I hope my opinions and stances come through in my commentary and what I have to say. So should I make this weblog more of journal, as my resolution for 2004? I'd like to, if I have the time, though I fear I'd just be another one of those tens of thousands of people who spend time writing only to be read by almost nobody. Who am I kidding? I'm already one of those people. It's always nice to receive some feedback, and that's what the comments system is there for. That's the one thing I'd really like to see with the site - more frequent comments from visitors. But that's the nature of the internet; it's transient. You read, and you move on. Leaving a post-it note is nice, though. I also tend to send out a quick email whenever I post a big update to the site. If you'd like to be added to the list, please email me.
But it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I'll do what I feel like doing. The links will stay, and whatever else, if anything, I decide to do with Stormcaller.net will have to remain to be seen. Thanks for reading, whether it's a one-off or, hopefully, a regular thing.
Posted by Stormcaller at 2:28 AM GMT [Link]
Saturday, January 3, 2004 - "Uruk-Hai: bred from Orcs, Goblins and the French."
| > Science/Tech/Geek |
- Maybe the Titanic was deliberate. A floating island (or aircraft carrier) made entirely from super-ice. What a concept... [Details]
- Ever wondered what a Foley artist is or does? [Details]
- Vitenka was stumped by these cryptic puzzles. So was MORAT. So, later on, was I. Any ideas? The first one has something to do with the particle accelerator at CERN, apparently. [Decrypt] [Decrypt]
- You can't deny that Japan is just... cool. [Details]
- The movie industry has a great opportunity to succeed where the music industry completely crasheded and burned. It's still difficult to download a movie, and they tend to be poor quality. It's even more difficult to convert it and burn to a format playable on a DVD player, especially without further loss of quality. If there was a service where I could pay a couple of quid and be able to legally download a good quality movie in a format of my choice, I'd probably do that for most films. They'd better get one up quick, before everyone starts getting DVD burners. [Details]
- A server which is not only edible but also inhabitable. [Details]
- ...Almost as good, in fact, as this Millennium Falcon Mini-ITX computer. [Details]
- For no reason whatsoever, I remembered the other day that this exists. How handeh! [Details]
- Flash objects break the XHTML validator, which is a pain. Here's one method of getting round that, which is also a pain. [Details]
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| > Stuff |
- On Tuesday I saw the two part stage show of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy at the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank in London. Enjoyed it very much - mostly well played and believable, especially Lyra, the main character. The more difficult aspects of the story to portray on stage - armoured bears, daemons, nasty flying creatures, angels - were managed very cleverly, and the sets were brilliant. Certainly recommended if you're in London, can get tickets, have a whole afternoon and evening free and can catch it before it ends in late March. [Details]
- Lovely. Not a clue really what it is, but I like it. Turn off Winamp and leave this in the background for 20mins. [Destroy]
- The story's moot, but the discussion is interesting. [Details]
- Cults are the new weblogs - everyone's starting them these days, but nobody's ever heard of most of them unless they've done something particularly mad. [Details]
- ...like this one did. You've surely heard about the Sarin attack on the Tokyo underground transport network back in 1995. [Details]
- Yes, weblogs. Milla from TheFarscapeLounge has started a new blog. Nice implementation of Movable Type, and she's an excellent writer. [Details]
- ...And while I'm at it, I'll link Marnie too. [Details]
- Even Western celebrities can't resist the lure (or the money) of Japan, often making themselves look like right tits in the process. [Details]
- Weebl vs the French. [Destroy]
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Posted by Stormcaller at 1:50 PM GMT [Link]
Thursday, January 1, 2004 - "Out with the old, in with the new"
Um. I'm a bit late, but I'm back from holiday and awake now, so here we go.
| > Gaming |
- Interactive fiction at its very best. Sleep induced insanity. [Download]
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Posted by Vitenka at 9:09 AM GMT [Link]
![Clan [WoF]](/images/wof.gif){kind=small}
