Intentional

I like this alot.

Twatted

The tweet in question:

One day I'll make an excellent housewife; in fact, I've already collected most of the parts.

Bad EU law ruins cookies

This is silly.

A law that demands consent to internet cookies has been approved and will be in force across the EU within 18 months. It is so breathtakingly stupid that the normally law-abiding business may be tempted to bend the rules to breaking point.

If the cookie is "strictly necessary" (ie used in a shopping basket script) then there's an exception, but for everything else, the user will have to give consent for the site to use cookies. This means google analytics, auto login, webtrends, user tracking and saved site preferences. A website will have to get your consent before it can do any of these things. And I can say with confidence that every website I visit will use cookies in some way.

It's cocking ridiculous!

Paint.NET 3.5 released

My favourite free paint app, paint.Net, is now on version 3.5. Go download it!

Go! Go!

The closure of Geocities

Earlier this week, Yahoo closed Geocities.

Geocities was a free website hosting company, launched in 1995. The servers comprised of virtual neighbourhoods and blocks, where pretty much anyone could have their own website. If your website was music based, your neighbourhood would be sunsetstrip. Sci-fi sites went into Area51. You then had your own block under there ie www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/3635 (sunsetstrip ftw).

Most geocities websites comprised of bright text, centred over a dark background, with transparent tables, animated gifs, marquee tags and horrible MIDI tracks. My first site was on geocities! It was horrible, ugly as fuck, and as a full time web developer I'm embarrassed by it. But that doesn't stop the closure of Geocities being a terrible idea.

So what if there was a lot of rubbish on there? There was also a lot of useful information and a lot of memories, too. How many old tech manuals were on there? How many broken links have Yahoo created by removing Geocities? How many Geocities websites were created by people who have since died?

It's a piece of history, and a reflection of the state of the Internet at that time. Yahoo should at least have made a proper backup or snapshot of the site, but all they did was point archive.org in the right direction and say "get on with it".

As Jason Scott puts it: "Help me save Geocities. Not because we love it. We hate it. But if you only save the things you love, your archive is a very poor reflection indeed."

More awesome Jason Scott speak here.

Stupid proxy

We've been given a new proxy server to use to connect to Internets at work. It is evil because it monitors all our web browsing, and blocks awesome tools such as twitter.

Fuck the new proxy server.

My jaw hurts!

I've had the same three songs stuck in my head for over a week now. Not just the main melodies, but the entire thing, bassline, drums, rhythm guitar and all. When I lie in bed at night, it's almost as if I'm having auditory hallucinations. Seriously, this shit is so vivid, it keeps me awake. I need a volume control for my imagination. And as if that's not maddening enough, I've also been gently chattering my teeth in time with the brainsongs, so my jaw is aching too. I'm a danger to myself.

Oh, holy shit, would you look at this! It's an update! I have nothing interesting to write about, but someone complained about my lack of posts so I thought I'd better write something - anything.

This week I have mostly been making Google my bitch. Well, not all of google, that would be crazy. I'm not running around the Googleplex slapping employees arses and screaming "You belong to me now". I'm not involved in a long and complicated plan to blackmail Larry Page or Eric Schmidt with ill-gotten pictures of them involved in bizarre sexual practices with Gary Glitter and a tub of swarfega.

No no, I mean I've been working some magic with ASP and our company's Google Mini search appliance - getting our intranet to send requests to the Mini, and have results returned in a manageable XML format using the MSXML2. Then I'm taking that XML feed, wrapping some pretty CSS around it, sticking on a bow and presenting it to staff as if it never left the original server.

Of course, if staff weren't so LAZY they wouldn't need a search engine. Can't be arsed to look around for procedure H2? That's ok, we'll spend a few grand on a search engine for you. But for future reference, it's listed under Procedures. Yeah, I know, it's complicated. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

Ah thank fuck it's Friday. If the weather stays nice tomorrow I might go get drunk up the park, spend an hour shouting at some trees, fall asleep and get massively sun-burned. I think Aimi's in town for some birthday drinks in ze evening. It'll be good to see Tom and that lot again.

On Sunday I'll visit my parents during the day, and in the evening I'll drown myself in a bath of my own puke. Lovely.

WTF blanket!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Also, I'd like to congratulate myself. The previous post was NUMBER 666!!!!

Eat a shit, cockhole.

Foley art

Awesome:


"The Noises Rest" from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

Ok

I've suffered it, so you should too.



To be fair, the cunt can sing. Just chooses fucking terrible songs. All the time. Terrible. Terrible.

edit - I said sing, I meant mime.

Black Dynamite

If you haven't heard of Black Dynamite, you should go google the fucking trailer. Right now.

Done? Good. Back? Good. Now watch this xmas message from him.

PS - NSFW 'cause there are boobies. W0000t!

Opera 10 is out

Opera 10 is out and I've decided to take it for a test drive on the Acid3 track. I was surprised (and chuffed) to see it score 100/100!

In comparison, Firefox 3.0.4 scored respectable 71/100, and Internet Explorer 7 choked on its own shit and died.

www.childsplaycharity.org

www.childsplaycharity.org

The guys at Penny Arcade are doing Child's Play again this year. It's a charity that donates toys, games, books and cash to children's hospitals.

If you're fucking amazing like I am, and you have a bit of money to spare, it'd be sexy as hell if you too could help out with donations.

There's also the Desert Bus For Hope event. The money raised from this also goes to Child's Play.

These guys are playing the most BORING GAME EVER INVENTED...

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused. The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends).

The more you donate, the longer they play it. So go on! What are you waiting for?!

Red Alert 3 and other updates

Ryan and I completed the Allies chapter on RA3 tonight, which leaves only the Red Sun missions left to do. It's getting NAILS, and I don't think I'd be able to do it without the co-op help from Ryan.

At the end of the Allies chapter, Gemma Atkinson (yes! yes!) invites you back to her flat for "dinner", and you get to see her looking hot as fuck in a white dress with boobs and everything.

I'm hoping I can redeem the invitation IRL soon.

In other news: I linked a new blog, Am I Human Yet?, that one of my twitter friends has just started up. Go give support! And while you're at it, go see the awesome music reviews on This Is Not Pitchfork.

Open mic night tomorrow. I'm all excited because I'll be playing The Future Soon.

Oooooh

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Looking For Group

LFG Comic is awesome and I've been reading it for a while now. However, today's comic won't seem to load, which makes me sad.

In times of sadness, it's usually a good idea to try and cheer the fuck up. And a good way to do exactly that - cheer the fuck up - is to look at the first lfgcomic.

Looking For Group » Page 1

Adam Buxton again

Oh, what a bunch of pricks.

Fucking twats.

Edit - Looks like the voting machines are flipping votes from Obama to McCain.

Twitter / stephenfry

Twitter / stephenfry

Yes, it's really him.

Adam Buxton makes funny again

From MVA news & Gideon