Stormcaller.net

Saturday, March 27, 2004 - "Lunacy with a firearm."

> Science/Tech

Water discovered on Mars! Er, again! No, wait - the rovers have found an area that might have once been a salty sea. [Details]
More on NASA's "mind reading" technology. [Details]
Using microscopic lightning to cool microchips. Odd. [Details]
Infinite fractals. Shiny! Keep on zooming in. [Destroy]
Why aren't I already reading my books in electronic form, damnit? Storage -> text -> screen is surely not particularly new technology. [Details]
Less surprised that I'm not yet controlling monkeys with my brain, though. [Details]
Beat the casino using technology. Sky are starting a new series about a casino which looks pretty interesting, incidentally. [Details]
3D beer! [Details]
NASA has a plan to measure deviations from Einstein's Theory of Relativity to an incredible degree of accuracy using two satellites orbiting the sun and the ISS. [Details]
> Geek

Brilliant - fry things and make pretty explosions using custom cables. [Details]
Finally dispelling all of the pigeon-related jokes on the net, some solid proof. [Details]
Someone won one of my eBay auctions using a last-minute bidding service called AuctionSnipe.com. Odd, but Google says it's legit. Here's what that's all about - apparently it's not a recent phenomenon. [Details]
ToothyWiki's interesting discussion on new "Chip and Pin" credit cards got NTKed. Vitenka would want to link this, but I got there first! [Details]
Hear about the Witty Worm? Analysis here. Dangerous little git... [Details]
Starbucks jumps on the "sell downloaded songs for a dollar each" bandwagon. [Details]
Surprisingly, the next big crimefighting technology is mobile phone cameras. [Details]
"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" stunt video - schweet! [Download - 50MB]
> Stuff

SuperGeoff! The "midguided young chap" is my friend Dave, who you'll also have seen in the kid-walking-along, money-dropping-out-of-his-trouser-legs Prudential advert. [Details]
NASA finds evidence of an ocean on Mars, and America gets free shrimp. [Details]
Ban this very dangerous chemical! [Details]
Nice little story about a girl in New York who buys a new cell phone and ends up with Chris Rock's recently-changed number. [Details]
More pointy clicky adventure games. [Destroy]
Lemon juice: deadly (when nasally inserted). [Destroy]
Long clip for a short gag, but it's classic anyway. [Destroy]
A day in the life of a b3tan monster. [Destroy]
Also from b3ta, "old people talk bollocks". No subtitle needed. [Details]
Er... Spacecake. [Details]
Rather clever Iraq-War-as-Risk parody from the ever-excellent "Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie", the anti-Bush snipes notwithstanding. [Details]
Buy your very own world domination base - a secret underground complex in Washington state. On eBay! [Details]
New YetiSports game up - getting old yet? [Destroy]
Boom, shake shake shake the... browser window. [Destroy]

Posted by Stormcaller at 11:39 AM GMT [Link]

Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - "It is intelligence that tells us the tomato is a fruit. It is wisdom that prevents us adding it to a fruit salad."

> Gaming

A puzzle-stroke-Flight-sim? That's gotta be a typo. [Download]
Can't make a good shareware game? Call it a parody! [Download]
Can you break into the blah blah puzzle game. [Download]
Halflife2 is ramping up the hype again. Significant new information? We are talking about months, not weeks. Oh, and steam is really really required. So those of us on Win9x won't be able to play. [Details] [Details]
> Comics

Neko the kitty. He won't kill you today. [Display]
Catharsis. Oh yes. [Display]
Shaw Island. Coffee mafia. [Display]
> Humour

Tempted to put this is serious, but that would be too damning an indictment of the tuition system we are inheriting from our castoff colony. [Details]
Ah, art. [Display]
Top that headline: Fire breathing busses... [Details]
Sadly the tool itself is not yet available. Kung fu physics movie. [Destroy]
Crop the last two words from this headline. The word 'takes' can be used in either sense. [Details]
technologically savvy killer rabbits [Details]
Ah, the wonders of a handbook that says 'be all you can be' then gives exceptions. Someone was watching wayyy too much M.A.S.H. [Details]
> Stuff

I have no idea what this is, but it's interactive! [Destroy]
Want to make your desktop a bit more useful? Fancy risking it? [Download]
Vector art package. Oingy poingy. [Download]
Bitmap art package. The second gimp. (Still not good for creation, still second only to photoshop for manipulation) [Download]
Can IE be a useful source tree component of an IDE? [Details]
Evil script required site - but a free version of SoftImage. Courtesy of valve - being a cut down version designed for halflfie2 doesn't prevent softimage from being the third best 3d world building tool in existence. [Download]
!this world building tool, however, clocks in somewhere around number 80, just above MS-Paint [Details]
Hmmm. I think we should get a copy of this program, spread it as widely as possible and run it as often as possible. Just because. [Details]
Freewhere? [Download]
Mortal passage. Third and final piece in the trilogy of four, but it comes first in chronological order. You are asked to kindly forget that the original third one ever happenned. Annyway - SciFi short story and good. [Details]
Can you write? Can you write well? [Details]
> Serious

A computer program that does decent voter analysis. Joy. time to game the system. [Details]
Microsoft is ordered to tell people how to interoperate with their OS. At bl**dy last. Sadly, of course, it won't be enforced before it's moot. [Details] [Details]
Oh for fucks sake. [Details]

Posted by Vitenka at 10:44 PM GMT [Link]

Saturday, March 20, 2004 - "Stealth Banana!"

> Science/Tech

Sedna, eh? [Details] [Details]
I'm not convinced. It's probably just a very large Kuiper Belt object (as, technically, is Pluto). Nineplanets.org has a good page on the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, which they've already updated to briefly discuss Sedna. [Details]
I think I linked this last week. No matter - here's an ever so slightly bigger view of Earth from Mars. [Details]
While we're all worrying about how much faster the next Pentium chip will be or enjoying our new wireless networks, America's Defence And Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the group that kicked the Internet off in the first place, is looking much further down the line. [Details]
You've probably heard about cities and the like supposedly on the Moon and Mars, or the "face" spotted by the Viking orbited in the '70s. Here, "Bad Astronomy" debunks another load of silly conspiracy theories about Mars. [Details]
Just when they're having so much success on Mars, NASA have managed to crack mind reading too! [Details]
> Geek

Rah - my first contribution to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. [Details]
Another "wow, Google is great" article. [Details]
Toilets are cleaner than computers, apparently. So wash your hands when you're done. [Details]
> Stuff

It's probably an advertising campaign, but who cares? It's a 15-foot mech robot conversion from a Mini Cooper! [Display] [Details]
While we're at it: you've seen the Volkswagen Transformer animation, haven't you? [Download]
A great idea (and way to make money, too) - an imaginary girlfriend service. A great birthday present for someone single and male, or just odd? [Details]
Vitenka has already mentioned the Harry Potter puppet pisstake type thing, so I won't link that again. This is just as good, though, for the Simpsons. [Destroy]
Going back to that Bad Astronomy link above, I actually had a look at that chap's website. It really is amazing how many ridiculous numerical and symbological coincidences and connections you can find when you're a conspiracy theorist. Have a flick down this page - it's almost hilarious. [Details]
The "Lord Of The Rings" musical, in London next year. Er... might be good? [Details]
Spielberg is planning a remake of HG Wells' "War Of The Worlds", apparently starring Tom Cruise. Great! [Details]

Posted by Stormcaller at 6:36 PM GMT [Link]

Thursday, March 18, 2004 - "Very late. Sod you all."

> Stuff

NHS 'must test for sudden death'. Giggle.
Congraturation! Yew are not day-edd!
Forget the environmental and social arguments, economically it's best to stop mining coal. How much does coal earn per tonne? Now, how much will it earn in fifty years when world supplies are running low?
"Obesity too widespread" ... They're doing it on purpose! How can I possibly make mocking headlines when the ones they come with are just so bad?
Is that going to make my grandma's grapefruit tree obsolete?
RUN TO THE HILLS!! "But they're coming from the hills" Run AWAY from the hills! If you see a hill, run in the other direction!
You read the first half of the headline - "YAY!" Then you read the second half. "Boo." Some people might reverse those sentiments. Where's that quote? Oh yes: "You may disagree with me. After all, you've been wrong before." [Details]
Future of online gaming? [Details] [Details] [Details]
Comic: Dream dressed in chains [Details]
Nitro - it's like serious sam [Details]
Spring is here. In december. But then we get a bit more winter. Next spring is due end of may. [Details]
Well, we knew these claims would be made. Will we ever know the truth? [Details]
"No one knows why teenagers are having sex". Uh huh. right. You're just saying stuff to get linked to, aren't you? [Details]
Get over yourselves. Website design is trivial. [Details]
Anyone care to enlighten me as to context? I've got plenty of fish for bob in this linkset. [Details]
... You can't make this stuff up. Serously - someone else already has copyright. [Details]
Wizardly puzzle games [Details]
Count your sheep: [Details] [Details]
Free muzak. [Details]
A cynical view on the spanish election. [Details]
Awwwwwwwwwwww. [Details]
Catball hates you. [Details]
Now, I don't want to be seen to advocate piracy, but dayamn it has bnever been easier. Insert dvd. Hit 'go' on a piece of software named after a philosophy puzzle. Mixing down to a size that fits on a single sided cd or dvd is easy too -but by the end of the year that won't be a limit either. [Details]
Does IE have problems rendering your site? Then fix it! [Details]
New nvidia and ati drivers. I'm linking the nvidia ones because, well, Ati smells. [Details]
Yeah, we're sorry too. [Details]
Fictional blogs. In a good way. Much transmet influence, for fairly obvious reasons. [Details] [Details]
Question not ze frauline! [Details]
... they still make papers this bad? Why? Seriously: "The pitbulls of the animal kingdom." Making pitbulls what, the lizards of the bird kingdom? [Details]
Dunno, flashy. [Details]
BitTorrent. It helps you download stuff. [Details]
It be raining men! [Details] [Details]
Ok. I so want to see the live version of this. [Details] [Details]
LucasArts adventure game engine - includes yet another full free game! Play it now, scum! [Details]
Anyone else worried that they're gonna do away with essential protections, in the pursuit of efficiency? This is the second such story... [Details]
Oh, I approve thoroughly. [Details]
And if fish aren't insane enough for you... Noiseman! And many many more! [Details]

Posted by Vitenka at 10:04 PM GMT [Link]

Saturday, March 13, 2004 - "My karma just ran over your dogma."

> Science/Tech

The Hubble Space Telescope proves once again that it's still alive and kicking and still useful. The Ultra Deep Field image is the most detailed and deepest image ever taken of the universe by mankind. [Details]
More pretty NASA pictures. Thanks, MC. [Display]
Burn a cover picture on a CD using the the laser on the drive. Obvious, but now they've actually developed it. [Details]
In a bit of a twist, pictures of Earth from Mars. [Display]
Water found on Mars! Solid photographic evidence! [Details]
Sharp have released their first 3D notebook PC... [Details]
...while Hitachi are going for a 400GB hard drive. [Details]
Trumpet playing robots? What next? With the Japanese, you can never be quite sure... [Details]
Scanning of breasts now in 3D. I mean, really - think of another use of this technology for the average "desktop user". [Details]
25 mile range wireless networking - never mind your house, that's most cities hooked up. [Details]
> Geek

GameSpot's excellent history of controversial computer and video games. Long article, with lots of examples. [Details]
Google are playing with a new layout, which you can try out. Just add the bookmarklet at this page as a favourite, and click it while on Google to toggle back and forth between the new and old looks. I'm using the new one for the moment - small difference, but it's nice. [Details]
Confused by video codecs? I think even the people who work with them for a living are confused about all the choice. [Details]
Lovely new "Lord Of The Rings" 5ft long, good quality commemorative poster. Surely the one piece of merchandise to own. [Details]
The non-extended "Return Of The King" is coming out pretty soon. Apparently, Peter Jackson's plan is to do some uber boxed set after he's finished with "King Kong", which could be a few years. [Details]
Talking of DVDs, SplashDVD.com has gone belly-up. Shame - they were always cheap, and you could get unlimited £2-off vouchers if you knew how. They still owe me a £13.99 DVD, so I hope I get a refund. I've also got a £5 voucher with them whicvh I won't be able to use. Bastards. [Details]
> Stuff

If you want to see the English language in decline, you just have to speak to the youth of London today. Sad fact. [Details]
For example: Read these lyrics to this song by Sean Paul. If you can. These is the music people are listening to these days. There's no hope for the world. [Details]
Yay, fun Japanesey escape game thing. It is finishable, so don't give up. [Destroy]
Counterstrike-based flash shooter. [Destroy]
Good ol' Channel Four. Wankers. [Destroy]
I haven't linked Weebl & Bob for far too long. [Destroy]
Ok, enough with the penguin game. [Details]
MC found X-Box shoes. Er, riiiight... [Details]

Posted by Stormcaller at 6:00 PM GMT [Link]

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - "The economic cycle of internet artists comissions."

> Stuff

Squirrel Mail! [Download]
A positive use for biometrics? Full of obvious holes though. [Details]
Democracy good. Just keep thinking that. Or, if ytou're not convinced, "Alternatives worse". As this study famously proved, democracies don't go to war with each other. So you're ok, unless a historian later reclassifies your society as something else (Germany WW2) or it's a civil war. Loopholes - for democracy! [Details]
If you haven't read these then, well, you're probably not a totally boring person. But read them. [Details]
Netflix uk. Via tescos. [Details]
Command line is good! For some things. More plausbily, whatever you learn first is good. [Details]
> Humour

Subtitling goodness - very silly [Destroy]
I thought they'd offer rewards for doing this. [Details]
Keep your job? Write badly! - Or if you don't get to keep your job, become an internet columnist! [Details]
Competing for worlds strangest headline comes 'worlds most obvious ruling'. [Details]
It's a flash. One is about the mystery of time and space. Don't ask me, I don't run flash often. [Destroy] [Destroy]
And, at last, here are the rules. [Display]
Mix two movies together, make a strange movie, win a prize. Prize void. [Destroy]
You've seen 'film in sixty seconds'. You've seen 'book in five lines'. Now, tremble in fear before the might of 'film in thirty seconds - enacted by bunnies'. [Destroy]
Live journals. The property of kittenish teens and gothy idiots. On Mars. [Details] [Details]
Shooting yourself in the head is a bit of a craze this week. I urge you to try it. [Details] [Details]
You know, it says something about your hobby when you have to rename it because it seems too much like trainspotting. [Details]
People aren't mentally equipped for science. [Details]
> Gaming

How real world media reviews computer games. Step one, smoke crack... [Details]
Some shareware games With exceedingly odd tag lines. [Download]
A SHUMP. A badly translated one, no less. [Download]
Sometime back in prehistory I linked this. I recently restored all my backup CDs(having got a shiny new HDD) and rediscovered it. A completely insane point and click adventure. Play it for the accents alone. [Download]
Download RPG sourcebooks and supplements. Many of them free. You do have to jump through hoops (involving going to the front page, creating an account, going back to the front page, then selecting the products from the list not by direct URL) to get it to work, but... Ars Magica 4th Edition. The whole damn shooting match. Free. If you don't know what it is and you consider tabletop RPGs as even slightly worthy then you owe it to yourself to at least read it. [Download]

Posted by Vitenka at 5:40 PM GMT [Link]

Saturday, March 6, 2004 - "format c:"

Sorry there aren't more links - I've spent the last couple of days formatting, reinstalling and configuring my computer. Evilness.
> Science/Tech

Strong evidence that there was once free flowing water on Mars is found by the Opportunity rover! [Details]
Shame this was announced on March 2nd - American missed out on millions of free Giant Shrimp by two days! [Details]
A coin lands the same way up as when it was flipped 51% of the time. So now you know. [Details]
After all that money and more than two decades, the American military is scrapping the coolest helicopter on the planet. [Details]
> Geek

Never mind the web - this forum has completely owned a television channel. A news station was showing information on closed companies on a snow day, and accepted forms online. Naturally this was horribly abused by a bunch of webmonkeys, with hilarious and very dumb consequences. Some good pictures a third down this page, or look at the rest of the thread. [Details]
I received spam/virus email the other day supposedly from administrator@hendon-hub.org.uk. I live in a town in London called Hendon. Does this mean that spam has just gotten a little cleverer again, and is finding out where I live (presumably from some passed-on signup data), finding a legitimate domain with that town name in it and spoofint itself as a real email address harvested off of that site? Or is it just a community website in Sunderland sending me viruses?
NTK pointed out a new email spam scam that's going around. Good idea, actually. [Details]
When drunk gamers write articles, RPGs are like Jazz. Okaaaay... [Details]
The GUI Olympics - who can design the best visual styles for Windows, Winamp and icons. [Details]
Funky video effects. [Details]
How to detect counterfeit dollars - microwave them. Only problem is that if they are real they'll explode. [Details]
Technoghost! [Details]
> Stuff

Who needs a television on Oscar night? Just follow Jen's great commentary on her blog. LOTR gets 11 Oscars - fantastic! [Details]
It's a form that generates pointless drivel based on a few user inputs. They've automated the internet! [Destroy]
An odd take on Pong - a radial version. [Destroy]
A glimpse of life inside the Chernobyl radioactive zone. [Details]
I got 3/10. Whoops. [Details]
What a fantastic idea. [COTD]
Lucky he hadn't been wasting cops in "Grand Theft Auto". [COTD]

Posted by Stormcaller at 6:56 PM GMT [Link]

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - "Life's a joke. The punchline is "And then you die.""

Ugh. Too sleepy to use the evil formatting. I'm a snodware deleveller!
Useful Things
This is a handy resource. I used to have an old version in hardback. [Clicky]
Another reference chart of handiness [Clicky]
Can you make websites? No? Tough luck! [Clicky]
Important Stuff
Oh, you're not guilty of anything - but we'll keep you locked away in a hell hole forever, just in case. It's the American way! [Clicky]
Jobs going to India? It could be worse, moving to India aint so bad... [Clicky]
Wait. Teachers unions say that "To date they have tried to only take actions that do not affect pupils, but may now blah blah" ... There are things that they can strike that don't affect pupils? So why do they usually do them?
Be aware of being spied upon. [Clicky]
I guess that you have to buy the report to find out whether they just made up these statistics, or can actually support them. [Clicky]
I honestly expected the stats to be the other way around. Seventy five percent of people are hidebound and credulous. So much for my short period as an optimist. [Clicky]
Democracy. Love it or laugh at it. [Clicky] [Clicky] [Clicky]
If this takes off, trains are doomed. Intercity busses for one fifty. [Clicky]
Hard drives are complicated [Clicky]
How broken is electronic voting? Balanced view. [Clicky]
Gaming Stuff
Home made adventure games. I've been told that people sometimes pay money for games. Why would you do that? (Downloadables) [Clicky]
[Clicky]
Do you remember text adventure games? So does slashdot, and they've got the remakes to prove it. [Clicky]
It's like elite. Only space station docking is easier. [Clicky]
Pretty badly broken for me, but allegedly a decent games client. [Clicky]
Code puzzles! [Clicky]
Light puzzles! [Clicky]
And puzzles for people who were asking about strategy games for the PC. [Clicky]
... Its a game that professes instead to be 'an experience'. But I like the guy's music (that professes to be, um.. sound). So he gets a link. One that bypasses his truly evil javascript and flash driven site. Warning, the game is allegedly even worse than the site. [Clicky]
Comic of the Day Stuff
Ah, french. Language of poets. [Clicky]
Your will "read" this "comic" [Clicky]
... um. Yes. [Clicky]
Even if all you can do is add subtitles to other peoples art, you can still have a webcomic. [Clicky] [Clicky]
The time traveller... in a big hat! [Clicky]
Funny Stuff and Just-plain-stuff Stuff
And heck, we can get moveis for free now, too. [Clicky]
Advertisers are stupids. Take advantage of that. [Clicky]
My dog has two legs. How does it smell? Uh, with it's nose like every other dog. Oh, yeah, right. [Clicky]
That film I've been ignoring? It has something to teach you. [Clicky]
A new career for you. If you get people-how. [Clicky]
Dr Suess! I'll break convention here and be the only person in the world linking to this puff piece without breaking into rhyme. [Clicky]
Fake a DNA test, steal a child! [Clicky]
Hmmm. Local interest media on the world wide web. The mind boggles. [Clicky]
How the world should have gone. [Clicky]
Broken stuff [Clicky]
History [Clicky] [Clicky]
More Doctor Who [Clicky]
Strange strange strange person talks about how he became almost world famous. [Clicky]

Posted by Vitenka at 8:59 PM GMT [Link]