Stormcaller.net: A weekly summary of the trouble the internet has been getting itself into

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - "After all this time, I bet you expected 'Deatils' didn't you?"

> Quotes

  • For starters, you can babysit our niece, Darth Tiffany.
  • Cafeteria Buddhist
  • There is no 'we' in 'Target'
  • The oracle was not evil, but it was vague and tended towards drink...
  • People were staring at me more than usual.
  • "Killing Hitler's Brain for America".
  • Drinking coffee very rarely triggers ninja attacks
  • If I had thumbs, you would already be dead.
  • Not to suggest that America might have blown it up covertly to suggest that there is still some kind of menace there. I'm only not suggesting it, because have you ever tried to blow something up covertly? It goes boom dammit, that's overt.
  • I am not on fire.
  • Force *yoink*
  • Glasses are the wonderbra of the face
> Serious

  • Whilst I'm at it - what is each party actually promising? Not much? Shocking. [Details]
  • The european constitution (pdf. argh.) [Download]
  • ID cards as they are being sold will NOT help with this (or any other) kind of problem. ID cards enforced by a fascist police state might. Either way; Vote them out, please. [Details]
  • I doubt any thugs read this, but if they do: WHY attack the emergency services? Is 999 really 'victims by phone, 30 minutes or less' to you? I hope your cats burn down. [Details]
  • American tax revolt. I suggest we ask for our tea back-taxes. [Details]
  • Ah, the buck. A glorious thing to chase. Many pointed. [Details]
  • Is Christianity legal in China again? Shame. [Details]
  • Drinking and driving is so bad that campaigners accidentally hint that they'd be better off dead. [Details]
  • They say the best discoveries are those that make someone go "Hmmm.. that's odd.." [Details]
  • Could it be because state school sucks? [Details]
  • Because there are NO legitimate reasons to have someones name and address on a piece of paper. Now sure, he MIGHT be guilty of something else. But if that is the case, TELL US WHAT. [Details]
  • Really? How shocking. (Why can't I vote the guy out?) [Details]
  • Good thing - house arrest administered through the courts. Bad thing - house arrest at all, you idiotic repressive regieme. If you want to arrest someone, you put them in COURT. In front of a JURY. And you present compelling EVIDENCE. Anything less is EVIL. How hard is this for the government to process? [Details]
  • ID cards are gone for another few weeks. Now vote the fascists OUT so that they stay gone. And if anyone lives in the same county as Blunkett? Burn down his house. Then get caught to prove that the system works. [Details]
  • Testing. Hard to do. Important. [Details] [Details]
  • Chip and pin, yet fraud has increased. What a surprise. [Details]
  • Iraqi writers are starting to chafe. [Details]
  • And don't forget the rest of the world. It's still all f*cked up and run by idiots, too. [Details]
  • Oooh. Strings for supper. If they've really found one, then time-travel is possible. [Details]
  • They rejected this plan - but that they even considered it is a mark of horror. [Details]
  • Arguing is NOT an art form. [Details]
  • Tactical voting. It's simple. You don't want labour to win, because they've broken promises and taken us to war. You don't want the tories to win because they've had far too many terms in office recently and brought about yuppies (and took us into a war) - so you make the only choice remaining to you. Vote Monster Raving Loony. [Details]
> Techie

  • Logo in Java. Coming soon - Java in logo. Which gives us recursion, which is neat because that's what logo is FOR. [Details]
  • Adobe (pdf) and macromedia (swf) merge - implosion of usable internet imminent. [Details]
  • Actually, no. I want a /ignore that works in RL. /Mute doesn't cut it. [Details]
  • And whilst we're at it... Bad Sony. No patenting things you cannot do, and hich have been thought of by sci-fi long ago. [Details]
  • We knew it was coming. [Details]
  • Sony later said that they're willing to co-operate. [Details]
  • Evil competitors must crumble! [Details]
  • Glaciers on mars. Call Fox's mints. [Details]
> Stuff

  • Meatbot massacre. Tabletop strategy game. [Download]
  • CDex. Decent AudioCD->Ogg converter. [Download]
  • Some kind of game, from the URL. Posisbly french. [Destroy]
  • My uploads and ftpish directories. Much strange stuff! [Download] [Download]
  • Someone had to do it. Conservative poster mocking automated for your convenience. [Destroy]
  • Have a white board. [Download]
  • Accents? Heresy! [Download]
  • You remember game-books? Well, have some good old free ones. [Download]
  • Gantlet. What a nifty new word. (For sixteenth century values of new) [Details]
  • I'm linking to a video file again, with nmo warning what it might contain. Flee! Flee for your livers! Seriously deeply wrong. [Destroy]
  • Seriously overdone CGI - but a good Star-Wars fan-film. Shock horror. [Destroy]
  • Batman fan movies. Eeep! [Destroy]
  • MPlayer. It plays everything. Clunky, but good. [Download]
  • Jimmy! [Details]
  • Piratical. [Destroy]
  • Pop ups recurring? Since you can't disable javascript in your puny browser, try this. [Details]
  • On the one hand, it's good that the USs faults are being pointed out. On the other, it just means certain countries feel they have free reign - since there's no one to tell them 'no'... [Details]
  • A black box for windows. Not a crash proof flight recorder, but instead an explorer replacement. Hopefully it'll work better and crash less than litestep. [Download]
  • The URL says it all. Awww. [Display]
  • Well, it claims not to be pron, so I'll link it. [Details]
  • Videos of people destroying stuff. With a shredder. [Destroy]
  • I remind you, once more, that I don't view flash before I link it. So this might be good, or it might make your head explode - which might be a good thing in itself, of course. [Destroy] [Destroy]
  • Doctor Who is returning soon. (Has returned, is good. Boy this update took a long time to get out.) An early cut of the first episode has been reviewed and leaked to the net. It is discussed here. [Details]
  • Multiple clipboards. Quick handy windows util that you should never be without. [Download]
  • TClock. Not quite so vital - but it makes the windows clock quite a lot more useful. At least for those of us who can never remember what day it is... [Download]
  • Kerio personal firewall. (Used to be tiny personal firewall) Good, free, configurable... If you're using zone alarm or the built in windows one - get this quick. [Download]
  • I haven't linked to a novel in ages. Have one now. Have another. How novel. [Details] [Details]
  • Ah heck, have a whole library or four. [Details]
  • Network game API [Download]
  • Print to pdf. (Or, preferably, don't.) [Download]
  • Who wrote what? [Download]
  • Tweak windows to be, you know, less crappy. [Details]
  • Strange STRANGE songs. About fractals. [Download]
> Humour

  • SOMEONE has been watching too many pop videos. Seriously yoinked. [Details]
  • Strange but nifty revenge. [Details]
  • I'm sorry - the pope needs to be sheilded from radiation? And buried in a triple casket? They usually embalm them? What is this - masonic egypt? [Details]
  • So very nifty. Fancy a holiday? [Details]
  • Odd odd people. [Details]
  • LARPers are lkess than sane? Who'da thunked it. [Details]
  • This couldn't posisbly go wrong... [Details]
  • Good Omens was never like this. [Details]
  • Where do black helicopters come from? [Details]
  • B3ta makes music. [Destroy]
  • Silly peoples. [Details]
  • I almost linked this in serious - but the 'ouchie' factor makes it funnier. Screwed up primitive country - yet going in and 'helping' them makes things worse. [Details]
  • Lazy and fat, much? [Details]
  • How to destroy the earth. (Project difficulty means recommended age 14+) [Details]
  • This is what comes of havng fewer wars, you know. [Details]
  • Maybe you can find them :) [Details]
  • That cookie thing just keeps on rolling. Seems a sense of justice trumps the law. [Details]
  • How do you make a cat go 'meow'? At about fifty miles an hour... [Details]
  • Old jokes. Old old jokes. [Details]
  • Well, I hope they DO find a dinosaur. Because it'd be fun. [Details]
  • It's important to wear traditional dress. You get given free stuff! Like, say, funny looks. [Details]
  • Scotsenland. Bring your own whisky. [Details]
  • As if shoplifting puppies wasn't mad enough... [Details]
  • Oh, I think NOT. [Details]
> Games

  • Hive. A buggy java game. [Destroy]
  • Pariah. One of those 'big games' that no-one has ever heard of. [Download]
  • Holotz's Castle (Platform puzzler) [Download]
  • Adonthell (RPG) [Download]
  • Gate88 (RTS) [Download]
  • Globulation (RTS) [Download]
  • Glest (RTS?) [Download]
  • SCOURGE (Roguelike) [Download]
  • House of the dead 3 - doesn't run on my machine. (Fscking games unable to clear overlay before startup, unable to run in a window...) [Download]
  • Free RTS? [Details]
  • Have a free superhero RPG. [Details]
  • FF7. PS2. Together at last. Apparently mister "Triple your magic" isn't too happy about it. [Details]
  • I of the enemy, tutorial and prequel game. Let's be like sensible people and call it a demo, shall we? RTS. [Download]
  • Hapland. Strange flash game. [Destroy]
  • Nanaca crash. One of those 'fling things' games. [Destroy]
  • Planescape torment - the plot extracted and novelised to save you having to put up with the game. [Details]
  • Remember, port is passed only to the upper class. [Destroy]
  • Independant games - several of which are good. [Download]
  • Some (old) but good gaming articles. The second link is one of the best - and quite horrible when you think about it. [Details] [Details]
  • Zangband. For those who want nethack plus tolkien plus zelazny's Amber plus the kitchen sink. [Download]
  • Natural selection finally hit version 3. Lots of fixes. Lots of map changes. [Details]
  • A remake of privateer. (Which was a sequel to elite.) [Download]
> Comics

Posted by Vitenka at 7:30 PM GMT [Link]

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - "Just a crosshair"

> Geek

  • One of Google's new toys is Video Search. It literally searches through the script/text of thousands of TV shows, news programmes etc. and finds the phrases you've searched for - then shows thumbnails of that moment in the programme and tells you when and where it's on! Only works with certain U.S. networks so far. [Details]
  • Wikipedia is a very noble cause, and it needs your help. [Details]
  • Here's Google's apititude test, if you haven't seen it. Both impossible and cool, which I didn't think could ever apply to an exam paper. [Details]
  • ...and how to solve some of the mathematical questions. [Details]
  • I want a Big Red Button Of Doom for my computer! [Details]
  • Apparently the "Hitchhiker's Guide" movie sucks. I'm really hoping I'm wrong! Here's the best trailer. [Download]
  • It's time for the Goons to invade an island! [Details]
  • There probably will be a "Hobbit" film made, but not for at least four years, says Peter Jackson. [Details]
  • Empire Magazine's ultimate "Star Wars" poll just closed. Wonder when we'll get the results... We're getting close now to the release of the film! [Destroy]
> Stuff

  • National ID cards - potentially scary or overexaggerated dangers? [Destroy]
  • The Cambridge University Gonville & Caius College legend of the van that went up in the world. Marvellous. [Details]
  • Multi-user fridge magnets - try and fail to make coherent words/sentences using the same letters as up to 79 other people, simultaneously. [Destroy]
  • Failing that, try this instead - multi-user graffiti. Great fun! [Destroy]
  • The best snow creations ever. [Display]
  • Who owns what, exactly? TimeWarner, News Corp., Disney etc. - what do all these companies actually control? Interesting to find out. [Details]
  • Good old Cookie Monster - always looking out for the children. [Details]
  • I've gotten hooked on the new "Battlestar Galactica" series. Lucky it's only twelve episodes. It's fantastic, though it takes a lot of elements from other (fantastic) cult sci-fi shows such as "Space: Above And Beyond" and "Farscape". Go watch.
  • Band of the moment: Lodger. Best song is "I Love Death". Go listen.
  • I just got fifty quid for two hours of my time, for the fourth time in the last six months. Hooray for market research focus groups! UK people can sign up with the company I get these through, Saros Research, at the following link. Any questions? Feel free to leave a comment. [Details]
  • Talking of comments, I don't know if you've noticed, but I keep getting comments by spam bots, advertising poker etc. I'm doing my best to delete them as they arrive, but it's getting irritating... On a more positive note, I actually played Texas hold 'em poker for the first time the other day, and it's pretty fun. I can now watch those "Celebrity Poker Showdown" type programmes, as I did for a while for no good reason last night, and understand what the heck is going on. Yay!
  • Hey look! I posted an update! More yay!

Posted by Stormcaller at 5:34 PM GMT [Link]

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