Stormcaller.net

Saturday, June 28, 2003 - "Same concept, less morons"

> Science/Tech

Last week I linked this beer microscopy thing, but what I didn't see on that horribly unnavigable website was this absolute gem. [Destroy]
It's pretty. It's shiny. It's cool. And it's faster than anything you've ever encountered. Unfortunately, it's still a Mac. [Details]
...though maybe not that fast. [Details] [Details]
A really interesting and clever look at the phenomena caused by traffic waves and jams, and how one driver can actually help to dissipate an entire jam. Thanks for the link, MC. [Details]
What do you get when you mix two gliders and a phallic fuselage? One of these. [Details]
Quasar with zombies. [Details]
Random messing around with microwaves and stuff. [Details]
HP + DreamWorks = Rah. [Details]
> Geek

Be very afraid - the RIAA are coming to get you. Read both articles, in this order. [Details] [Details]
I can find no online source for this, but I've been told that British copyright agents have been snooping around on all the UK Direct Connect hubs, searching for copyrighted files. This was apparently in the evening standard, which seems unlikely given the amount of detail - I actually bought the Evening Standard, and there's nothing in it about anything to do with this. Anyway, the upshot is that certain people in DC hubs, who may or may not have the prefix [FC] before their random alphanumeric names, could be government agents. Be warned.
A useful insight into how tech support really works at a big company, why it's usually so awful and how to get past the crap and get something fixed. [Details]
Damn - he has a better monitor setup than me. Something to aspire to, I guess. [Details]
It doesn't do video, but on the plus side it's red. [Details]
Lord Gates rallies the troops against the evil Spam Demons. [Details]
AMD being silly over their Athlon warranties. [Details]
Who wants to watch a movie like "The Hulk" unfinished, in bad quality and minus most of the visual effects? If you're going to pirate the movie, at least get a copy that will look half decent and of the finished film. [Details]
> Stuff

Lovely b3ta-style animal... er, hybrids. [Display]
Finally - a TV news channel that tells it how it is. Shame it's in New Zealand. [Details]
Pretty pictures created using just-as-pretty equations and algorithms. [Details]
All music sucks. He's not far off, actually. [Details]
But no probing, ok? [Details]
Random idiocy (in a good way). [Destroy]
Inflatable daleks?! [Details]
Physche! [Details]

Posted by Stormcaller at 5:38 PM GMT [Link]

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - "Smile - Cthulhu Loathes You"

I've been reading "At The Mountains of Madness", by H. P. Lovecraft. As anyone who's at all familiar with Lovecraft would expect, it's sinister, gothic and full of dark, hidden, unholy horrors that lurk in the depths of the world. Though I'm somewhat acquainted with the Cthulhu mythos, it's my first go at actually reading one of his books, and I'm enjoying it very much so far. Perhaps "enjoy" is not necessarily the right term for Lovecraft, but it's certainly excellent.
It's been nice to get back into reading this week. For the last... well, two months, I guess, I've not had any time for reading, what with exams and revision and all that jazz. As someone who's always in the middle of a novel or two, I've really missed it and have been raring to get stuck into a big juicy book.

Posted by Stormcaller at 11:20 PM GMT [Link]

Sunday, June 22, 2003 - "Lovely Shiny Things"

What a difference a decent monitor makes. The chance to get a 17" flatscreen monitor on the cheap is one you just can't pass up. I've been using this brand new silver, 17" TFT monitor, made by Samsung subsidiary Xiod, for about a week now, and it's just lovely to look at - even when it's off (click the images for bigger pictures). It replaces the unbranded and frankly not very good 17" CRT I've been using as my secondary monitor for a few months.
I'm currently using a dual monitor setup, with both screens connected to a single GeForce 4 Ti4200
graphics card. It's all configured and managed using an excellent utility called UltraMon, which, in conjunction with Windows XP's display settings, allows me to do things like stretching windows across both monitors, aligning the screens however I like in relation to eachother, configuring separate screensavers for each monitor, stretching wallpapers (mostly nice 3200x1200 ones, nowadays) across both screens, enabling and disabling the second monitor automatically when I start certain programs (useful for games) and moving things from one screen to the other with a quick hotkey. You can do it all with nVidia's own display settings, which allows you some extra options such as window transparency, but it's not very cleanly done and I prefer it this way.

Posted by Stormcaller at 2:54 PM GMT [Link]

Sunday, June 22, 2003 - "Most planets are not earth. We live on a planet, therefore we probably don't live on earth."

> Science/Tech

Screw Mars - American 'Nucular' spacecraft to be designed for exploration of Jovian moons. [Details]
Meanwhile, China are getting themselves involved in the whole space thing. [Details]
Pretty much the most accessible but in-depth physics website I've seen. [Details]
Downsides to the hydrogen economy, or just another thing for the environmentalists to whinge about? [Details]
Very clever robot hand that responds to movement and can do things like grasp a rapidly-moving object. Videos to download. [Download]
More crazy NASA ideas - this week: "Wheeeeeeeee!" [Details]
Trilobites are cool. [Details]
> Geek

Everybody's been laughing about the website for the Italian division of the company Powergen having the URL "powergenitalia.com" - but does it? [Details]
This can't help but beg the question: "What is Weta Digital planning to do with the world's largest cluster of Intel computers once it has finished rendering "Return of the King"? [Details]
"The Two Towers" DVD special type stuff. [Details]
"Fight Box". Yeesh. [Details]
Who says shareware is dead? Oh, wait - I was talking about exactly that the other day. [Details] [Details]
...and while I'm on the subject, I may as well give Spiderweb a link. Go play Avernum! [Details]
Again: Not everyone thought the Matrix sequel was any good. [Details]
...and some more heavyweight Matrix philosophy. [Details]
For those not codemonkey-inclined, generate a random web design. [Details]
> Stuff

"There are black people in Britain, so let's add black to the flag." Buh? Who comes up with this logic? There are Japanese people in Britain, too - should we stick a big red circle in the middle of the flag as well? Yes, we're British, and yes, we have a national flag just like every other country, and no, it's not so terrible that it exists - and hey, it's even ok for us to bring it out or show it once in a while without being labelled neo-Nazis. Why are people so afraid of that? What part of "Sod off, stop being so pathetic and get a real job" doesn't this reflag bloke, charity worker Mr. Nigel Turner, understand? [Details]
Ever wanted to see what your favourite beer looks like under a microscope? Well, me neither, but the pictures are pretty cool. [Details]
Still a distinct absence of any pie, though. [Details]
You can never have too many sci-fi pisstake cartoons. [Details] [Details]
Almost makes me want to become a vegetarian. Wait, no - vegetarianism is stupid. [Details]
"Man vs Shed". Best newsletter title ever. [Download]
Dodgeh. [Details]
His sale to Real Madrid wasn't the only news story this week about David Beckham. [Details]
So the black guy always dies in Hollywood films, but the real asshole character is usually white. [Details]
I've been missing all the recent new episodes of Weebl & Bob - these are the two best ones from the last lot. [Destroy] [Destroy]

Posted by Stormcaller at 12:52 AM GMT [Link]

Sunday, June 15, 2003 - "Welcome to the desert of the real."

> Science/Tech

Remember the railgun guy? Well, probably not. Anyway, this week he got his improvements done and started some serious testing. Anything that fires a projectile this fast is automatically very, very cool, as are most of the other projects on his site. It being a railgun is a big bonus, of course, and Half-Life fans may also appreciate his gauss gun projects. [Details]
The damn thing finally gets off the ground. [Details]
Woo... pretty flying thing. [Display]
And more shiny little robots. [Details]
Next step: large scale force fields. [Details]
> Geek

I've always been impressed by Gamespy's ability to get out vast amounts of their own, original content. They've done it again this time, with a great feature on the dumbest moments in the history of gaming. It's more interesting than the title suggests - skim through some of them, or you'll still find yourself reading half an hour later. [Details]
A thought-provoking analysis of that scene in "The Matrix: Reloaded". Don't read if you haven't seen the film - but then again, if you haven't seen it by now, you probably don't plan to. [Details]
BT breaks the million broadband user barrier. South Korea breaks the 12 million broadband user barrier. Go figure. [Details]
Yes, spam probably is Nigeria's largest export. [Details]
Just in case there isn't already enough bullshit flying around the "e-conomy"... [Details]
Should you really be reading this section? For reference, I got 34.91124% - Total Geek. [Details]
This is awesome - check out the video. I wonder what would happen if you did this in a microwave. [Details]
Farscape sweeps another set of genre awards, of course - Best Series, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress and Theme. [Details]
Not everyone liked "The Matrix: Reloaded", though. Maybe a couple of tiny spoilers. [Details]
...though I like the film, this guy is actually right about a lot of stuff. [Details]
Hear the hypocrisy of the RIAA executives first hand. [Details]
A search engine for H.P. Lovecraft fans. [Details]
Rez was really cool when I played it, but not this cool. [Dodgy]
"Different" search engines are fun and look rather shiny, but are generally crap for actually finding anything useful. [Destroy]
> Stuff

Everyone knows that slot machines are a rip-off, but now there's PROOF* that it's a scam. Go play the change machines instead. [Details]
Um... help? [Details]
Play moral/ethical/philosophical mindgames with yourself. [Details]
The smelliest website on the net. [Details]
Everything you ever wanted to know about the United Kingdom... or, in fact, anywhere and anything else at all. [Details]
Random mass nudity. [Details]
More stupid Japanese cat things. [Details]
*Though the sources of the ROMs playable on the site are unclear, so we have to assume.

Posted by Stormcaller at 2:57 AM GMT [Link]

Sunday, June 8, 2003 - "We are all just dust in the wind, dude."

> Science/Tech

Taking my usually-weekly "I want one!" link to the extreme, this British aircraft carrier is a steal at only $4,500,000 USD. [Details]
Low cost, never-ending production cycles are useful and efficient. Never mind the hydrogen economy - maybe the next buzzword will be the carbohydrate economy. [Details]
...or just do it directly - excrement to power. [Details]
Who needs broadband when we can just speed up the net? [Details]
1) Humans will almost certainly become extinct before becoming technologically mature.
2) No technologically mature civilisation is interested in running computer simulations of minds like ours.
3) You are almost certainly in a computer simulation.
Pick one. [Details]
> Geek

If you're a regular reader of my site but never understand what I'm talking about when I chirp on about music copyrights, filesharing, the RIAA etc., read this. [Details]
Try to hack this website. You have to access consecutive pages with increasing levels of difficulty. I've reached Level 5 so far, and should be able to do that one when I have the time - might have another go later. A true geek link. [Destroy]
Shock horror! Evil corporation destroys excellent filesharing app with airtight security! AOL, parent company of Nullsoft, the wonderful company who have brought us such fine programs as Winamp, ShoutCast and the Gnutella system, has suddenly pulled their new piece of software. WASTE, a small-scale, secure filesharing system, was taken down just two days after it was supposedly released under the open-source GPL, leaving only a nasty message and lots of legal questions. [Details]
Of course, mirrors have already begun to spring up all over the place, and someone has even set up a SourceForge project.
...and for our part, I've already set up, together with friends at MORAT and TFX-Soft, a nice little WASTE network of our own. If you want in, drop me a line.
Later on in the week: Justin Frankel, Lord of Nullsoft, benevolent creator of Winamp and generally all-round cool dude, has resigned. See above, or the discussion on Slashdot for reasons, or hear his own take at his blog/.plan/website. Then again, his four-year stock options from the sale of the company came through the day before he quit - join the dots, anyone? [Details]

Make your computer sound like those in the movies, with "Hyper-Auto-Blips" and "Excitement-Generation Technology". [Details]
They've cracked the Sims' genome, and are busy breeding them in preparation for a sequel. [Details]
> Stuff

Excellent column by Mark Steyn in the Telegraph this morning on how pathetic everyone in Britain is being over the Iraq war. Go read. [Details]
Rathergood.com wins a Webby award! [Details]
Amongst the complete load of rubbish that was the MTV music awards last night, Gollum was brilliant! [Details]
Update: A downloadable video of the speech is here on TheOneRing.net, with a faster mirror of the highest quality version here.
I'm apparently worth exactly: $2,186,090.00. [Details]
The URL says it all, really. [Details]
P2P + online transactions = chaos. [Details]
This explains a lot of things. [Details]
Mildly amusing chicken pong type thing. [Destroy]
Slightly more amusing "Raiders of the Lost Art" remake by bunch of kids. Actually, I haven't gotten around to watching this yet, but it's supposed to be very good. [Details
Google is your friend. So is this guy, though he'll charge you lots of money. [Details]
Sorry the update was a bit late, and a litte shorter than usual - I've had exams all week. Five from Tuesday to Thursday, and three today (Sunday). Evil. Only a couple more exams left, one this week and one next, so content should be back to normal from now on.

Posted by Stormcaller at 11:04 PM GMT [Link]