Everything on hold
Distant worries, as well as
Assignment to write
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday Links
- Baby Bongo Born at Franklin Park Zoo - ZooBorns
- James Bond vs Phillip Marlowe Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler present a masterclass for thriller writers
- Game theory and probability of iPhone passwords How secure is your iPhone password?
- Tinyhack A complete adventure game in 8 x 8 pixels - amaze!
- Haunted Mansion Portrait Chamber Bookmark If you've ever been round the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland then this DIY bookmark will be instantly recognisable
- The Loving Trap of Pandora's Nightmares Not an Adam Curtis documentary ... :-)
- Create Tutorials in One Click on Tildee This looks like a useful tool for creating a step by step tutorial to share with people, on anything from configuring a network drive to making ice cream at home
- Vintage Mugshots from the 1920s
- Spitalfields Nippers Street urchins from the turn of the last century
- The Turing Game Exploring Identity in an Online Environment
- The 100 Longest Entries On Wikipedia
- Abandoned 1940's Power Station Urban Exploration Photos
- The ten best Nürburgring laps on video If you are in any way, shape or form a petrol head then you really need to watch these videos of the ten best laps at the Nürburgring
- Byliner An interesting collection of journalism
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Haikusday
Sunny pub garden
Precious time with my father
Enjoying a pint
Velcro Teddybears
Give their electric debut
Another great gig
A binary image
Encrypted with a cipher
Matched to an answer
Disappointing news
Leaves me feeling rather sad
Out of my hands now
Precious time with my father
Enjoying a pint
Velcro Teddybears
Give their electric debut
Another great gig
A binary image
Encrypted with a cipher
Matched to an answer
Disappointing news
Leaves me feeling rather sad
Out of my hands now
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday Links
- Snow Leopard Mom Has Her Paws Full with Triplets!
- Hedgehogs Taking Bath Spike-tacular bath time fun
- Don't play games with me! Promises and pitfalls of gameful design.
- Mindbloom Get gaming achievements for meeting your life goals
- 8-bit Guerrilla Chip tune heaven!
- Abandoned Skyscraper Exploring a fifty level abandoned building
- HOWTO bake a Portal cupcake
- Unintentional Faces in Objects
- The Baby and the Baath water The roots of Syria's slide into oppression explained by Adam Curtis
- Famous Objects from Classic Movies Identify the movie from the object
- Dear Photograph Overlaying the past on the present with a photograph
- Music can be fun An excellent demonstration of the power of HTML 5, in this well presented music game by Edan Kwan
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
No More Heroes
Well, I seem to have swapped the exam anxiety dreams for ones about violent riots in urban environments. This was before I heard the news from Vancouver too, so it's not an assimilation of something I've seen recently. Most strange and disturbing.
In games news, I picked up LA Noire after a break of a couple of days and I struggled to remember the details of the case I was working on. I had two suspects in custody and I wanted to make sure that I charged the right one. I dug a little further into the evidence and then had an idea of how the case had played out, which turned out to be right.
The next case has involved following a trail of clues around various landmarks of 1950s LA, and it shows just how much work has gone into the environments. It's just a shame that there isn't the opportunity to do more in the city outside of your role as a detective, but I have a hunch that these assets may well get repurposed in GTA V if the rumours about a return to San Andreas are true.
In Game of Thrones news, yikes - didn't see that one coming! Say no more, in case anyone hasn't seen episode nine yet.
In games news, I picked up LA Noire after a break of a couple of days and I struggled to remember the details of the case I was working on. I had two suspects in custody and I wanted to make sure that I charged the right one. I dug a little further into the evidence and then had an idea of how the case had played out, which turned out to be right.
The next case has involved following a trail of clues around various landmarks of 1950s LA, and it shows just how much work has gone into the environments. It's just a shame that there isn't the opportunity to do more in the city outside of your role as a detective, but I have a hunch that these assets may well get repurposed in GTA V if the rumours about a return to San Andreas are true.
In Game of Thrones news, yikes - didn't see that one coming! Say no more, in case anyone hasn't seen episode nine yet.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Into the exam room
After what seems like weeks of anxiety dreams leading up to this moment, I finally walked into the exam room for my M255 Java exam today. It was a three hour paper - one hour of multiple choice and two hours of written questions. I finished all of the sections, although I was rushing a little at the end when I didn't really need to.
As suspected, writing for that length of time has left my hand feeling like it has been fed into one of those old fashioned meat grinders - ouchies. I'm quietly confident about the whole thing - I've definitely passed, but I don't know if I am in reach of the 85% for a distinction though. We shall see.
Anyhoo, tonight is a night off and then back to the grindstone of T215 and a 2,250 word assignment on biometric security systems.
As suspected, writing for that length of time has left my hand feeling like it has been fed into one of those old fashioned meat grinders - ouchies. I'm quietly confident about the whole thing - I've definitely passed, but I don't know if I am in reach of the 85% for a distinction though. We shall see.
Anyhoo, tonight is a night off and then back to the grindstone of T215 and a 2,250 word assignment on biometric security systems.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Haikusday
When it is my time
I hope I'm able to choose
The how and the where
The dog demonstrates
His base canine nature by
Rolling in dead things
Eight months work concludes
With a three hour test paper
On Java methods
On the net there are
Some things you just can't unsee
One bath, one Herring
I hope I'm able to choose
The how and the where
The dog demonstrates
His base canine nature by
Rolling in dead things
Eight months work concludes
With a three hour test paper
On Java methods
On the net there are
Some things you just can't unsee
One bath, one Herring
Monday, June 13, 2011
Is it in my head?
I currently feel like my head is about to explode like something out of that old David Cronenberg flick 'Scanners', scattering Java functions and code snippets hither and yon. I've had a stressful day at work too, taking most of the day to get a Recaptcha plugin working on our web product, which I managed to finally sort out with the help of one of my cow-orkers. We ended up working through lunch too, which makes for a long day when you start at 8:00 in the morning.
I was so tired when I got home that I fell asleep on the bed listening to a Collings and Herrin podcast, only waking up when an Audioboo from Will came on with a thrilling tale of killer snakes in the classroom.
I was so tired when I got home that I fell asleep on the bed listening to a Collings and Herrin podcast, only waking up when an Audioboo from Will came on with a thrilling tale of killer snakes in the classroom.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Sunday Links
- Australasia's First Ever Galapagos Tortoise Hatchling Tiny shell based action on Zooborns
- You Do Not Choose What You Choose Sam Harris on the illusion of free will
- Paper people Papercraft Richard Herring and Stewart Lee - excellent! Lots more on this blog too, including Brian Cox and Robin Ince from Infinite Monkey Cage
- A hula hoop's eye view
- Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Brilliant Authors
- awesome people hanging out together
- Cassini The fan film. It never ceases to amaze me that images like this are not the product of CGI wizardry but are actual photos from half way across the solar system, broadcast from something with considerably less computing power than my phone.
- newspaper map All online newspapers in the world, translated with one click
- Vintage Vibes Perfect for treating hysterical paroxysms!
- The bread that changed Britain The best thing before the best thing since sliced bread
- Exotic spheres or why 4-dimensional space is a crazy place and maybe HP Lovecraft was right all along
- @Peanutweeter Peanuts cartoons recaptioned with random tweets
- There's no such thing as *a* jellyfish
- These Robotic Hearts of Mine An intriguing story based puzzle flash game
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Podcast Thursday
- The Infinite Monkey Cage This week's show features Stephen Fry, Dr Aleks Krotoski and Simon Singh discussing the mathematics of Twitter and the famous six degrees of separation. Prof Brian Cox seems to be making a habit of cracking obscure Unix puns though ... :-)
- Guardian Tech Weekly An essential guide to the news from E3 and the Apple announcements of iOS5 and Lion.
- In Our Time Melvyn Bragg grills three academics on the subject of the week. A podcast that genuinely educates, informs and entertains in equal measure.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Crosseyed and Painless
At some point in the wee small hours I turned over in bed and something in my neck went twang, sending a muscle into spasm and was painful enough to wake me up. Ow ow, and thrice ow. Needless to say I was not a happy bunny today at work, even less so as I was trying to catch up with the work I should have done yesterday when we had a three hour meeting about time management, and getting constantly interrupted. Bah.
Normal service, ect, ect.
Normal service, ect, ect.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Haikusday
Another murder
Same M.O as the last one
Follow the blood stains
Genetic robots
Running an ancient program
Survival instinct
Long day, no lunch break
Three hour afternoon meeting
Not impressed with this
In happier news
Time for AIOTM
And a glass of wine
Same M.O as the last one
Follow the blood stains
Genetic robots
Running an ancient program
Survival instinct
Long day, no lunch break
Three hour afternoon meeting
Not impressed with this
In happier news
Time for AIOTM
And a glass of wine
Monday, June 06, 2011
Good Morning, Morning
Or not, as the case may be.
After just about adjusting to getting up at civilised times over the last seven days, I found myself awake and watching the clock at five this morning, waiting for the alarm to sound. Bleurgh.
Work was the usual mix of a mountain of emails, followed by a couple of meetings to slog through. At least I wasn't coughing quite so much as I had been before the holiday, so maybe whatever it was is fading? We can but hope.
At least I managed to fit in a bit of OU work, doing some background reading on aspects of the surveillance society - the proliferation of CCTV, personal data, identity theft and intrusive government databases. It's enough to make you sever all connections to the internet and go and live in a cave.
Or not, as the case may be.
After just about adjusting to getting up at civilised times over the last seven days, I found myself awake and watching the clock at five this morning, waiting for the alarm to sound. Bleurgh.
Work was the usual mix of a mountain of emails, followed by a couple of meetings to slog through. At least I wasn't coughing quite so much as I had been before the holiday, so maybe whatever it was is fading? We can but hope.
At least I managed to fit in a bit of OU work, doing some background reading on aspects of the surveillance society - the proliferation of CCTV, personal data, identity theft and intrusive government databases. It's enough to make you sever all connections to the internet and go and live in a cave.
Or not, as the case may be.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Sunday Links
- Rare White Kiwi Chick Born in New Zealand - ZooBorns
- Are you a Mail Reader or a Guardian Reader? There's only one way to find out ...
- Doctor Who as Japanese anime. Genius.
- The Museum of Me
- NIN: "Cars" with Gary Numan One of my favourite bits of electronica, given a thoroughly excellent rock makeover
- Science fiction you can dance to A excellent mix selection of SF themed choons
- Fallout: Nuka Break If you've played Fallout 3, then this fan film will be right up your irradiated street
- Outside Aperture Likewise with Portal
- Black Hat A free ebook, examining the rise of the internet bad guys
- Who Had the Best Civil War Facial Hair? Enquiring minds need to know, so vote for your favourite beardy chap here.
- yog-blogsoth Every squamous thing from the works of HP Lovecraft, illustrated and blogged
- These are the biggest numbers in the universe
- The word LOL Guess what David Mitchell's opinion is ...
- One Page Dungeon Contest Some nifty ideas here for old school role playing game scenarios, complete on one side of A4
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Thursday, June 02, 2011
In the Sun
Another day of revision and practicing writing until my finger went numb. I did manage to sit out in the sunshine and read for half an hour before the late afternoon heat defeated me and I retreated indoors.
In games news, I picked up a movie quiz game on my iPhone the other day which is fun in small doses, but I'm constantly amazed by the number of films that I have never heard of. I didn't know that there was a movie called 'Barbershop', never mind 'Barbershop 2 : Back in Business' and yet IMDB assures me that there is. I get the feeling that much of the 2000s has passed me by, both in the cinema and the world of popular music. I pick up on odd things here and there, but there must be a vast world of popular culture that I am simply unaware of.
In games news, I picked up a movie quiz game on my iPhone the other day which is fun in small doses, but I'm constantly amazed by the number of films that I have never heard of. I didn't know that there was a movie called 'Barbershop', never mind 'Barbershop 2 : Back in Business' and yet IMDB assures me that there is. I get the feeling that much of the 2000s has passed me by, both in the cinema and the world of popular music. I pick up on odd things here and there, but there must be a vast world of popular culture that I am simply unaware of.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Check Yo Self
My first run through of a complete three hour sample paper today and it was a bit of a shock to the system, mainly to my writing hand which is not used to that sort of punishment. I totted up my marks, and got thirty six marks on the multi-choice section which put me comfortably in sight of the minimum pass mark of forty even before I started on the longer written answers. I struggled with the question on serializable objects, so I need to do a bit more work on that tomorrow before trying another paper.
In other news, we've watched a couple of dvds from Lovefilm recently and they couldn't have been more different. Firstly was 'The Social Network', a dramatised account of the development of Facebook in the far distant dawn of time (eight years ago). It took a little while to get tuned into the way that everybody talksreallyquicklyallthetimewithoutpausingforbreath and every so often there is a scene at a party or night club with REALLY LOUD MUSIC and important plot developments muttered in the background and that's before you realise that half the movie is flash forwards to two different legal actions four years in the future. Or something. Anyhoo, it's a gripping tale that portrays Mark Zuckerberg as part genius and part borderline sociopath, who ends up surrounded with chancers, legal sharks and a financially naive best friend who acts as CFO of the company and ends up getting royally shafted by not reading the small print on a contract. Or something. This might sound like a negative review, but it isn't. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is scary to realise how much the world has been changed in the last couple of years by something that started as nothing more than a cruel frat boy prank on an ex girlfriend.
The second film was Of Gods and Men, based on the true story of a monastery of French monks living in a small village in the Atlas mountains in Algeria. They lead a simple existence - growing vegetables, selling honey at the market and providing medical services to the impoverished local villagers, intertwined with the religious rituals of monastic life. When they are caught between the threat of brutal Jihadi terrorists and the resentful presence of the government militia who see the monks as the remnant of a colonial past, they are faced with a dilemma. Should they abandon their life and calling, and return to the safety of France or stay and hope that they will be left alone? The film is beautifully shot and almost glacially slow, allowing you to appreciate the simplicity of the life of the monastery, before gradually increasing the sense of impending dread as the outside world impinges. Worth seeing.
In other news, we've watched a couple of dvds from Lovefilm recently and they couldn't have been more different. Firstly was 'The Social Network', a dramatised account of the development of Facebook in the far distant dawn of time (eight years ago). It took a little while to get tuned into the way that everybody talksreallyquicklyallthetimewithoutpausingforbreath and every so often there is a scene at a party or night club with REALLY LOUD MUSIC and important plot developments muttered in the background and that's before you realise that half the movie is flash forwards to two different legal actions four years in the future. Or something. Anyhoo, it's a gripping tale that portrays Mark Zuckerberg as part genius and part borderline sociopath, who ends up surrounded with chancers, legal sharks and a financially naive best friend who acts as CFO of the company and ends up getting royally shafted by not reading the small print on a contract. Or something. This might sound like a negative review, but it isn't. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is scary to realise how much the world has been changed in the last couple of years by something that started as nothing more than a cruel frat boy prank on an ex girlfriend.
The second film was Of Gods and Men, based on the true story of a monastery of French monks living in a small village in the Atlas mountains in Algeria. They lead a simple existence - growing vegetables, selling honey at the market and providing medical services to the impoverished local villagers, intertwined with the religious rituals of monastic life. When they are caught between the threat of brutal Jihadi terrorists and the resentful presence of the government militia who see the monks as the remnant of a colonial past, they are faced with a dilemma. Should they abandon their life and calling, and return to the safety of France or stay and hope that they will be left alone? The film is beautifully shot and almost glacially slow, allowing you to appreciate the simplicity of the life of the monastery, before gradually increasing the sense of impending dread as the outside world impinges. Worth seeing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)