Milk’s Site

Time for some old and newer tech links

• Wireless repeater in a backpack

  “Rigging up a DV camcorder to a laptop for webcasting was easy. We hit a snag when we realised that the signal dipped out at street level because of the wireless card’s antenna. The solution to this was to hold a more powerful antenna up at around 10 feet. Seeing as none of us wanted arm-ache, Matt Leonard built this fantastic backpack”. I’m just waiting for the first live, real-time video web cam and wi-fi antennas fitted in new backpacks as standard.

• Text messaging from fixed land lines

  “It shows that there might be a need for mobile phone like services in the living room. Maybe for interacting with the TV shows that uses SMS, MMS, whatever. But you can also use your mobile phone in the living room. No one needs a fixed phone anymore“

• How about a 12Gb compact flash card for your camera/phone/pda? Going cheap at $14,900 (£8080).”
• Why Windows is a security nightmare
• Use Google to search your hard drive
• Are you ready for your close-up?
• Remote control road cones!
• More Doom 3 info from E3

Argh, this post was meant to appear on the 31st, but my ljcrosspost plugin decided to backdate it so that it didn’t appear on anyone else’s LJ friends page, so here it is again (I’ve deleted the older copy. Thanks to for pointing that out). This post refers to the weekend before last. An update regarding last weekend will be appearing soon though. Possibly, maybe.

Saturday

After publishing my last post, I popped up to Lyon Street to help move things 50m along the road from his student digs to his new flat. The flat is really nice and fairly spacious, especially the lounge. Everything there actually works and isn’t falling apart (unlike my kitchen and bathroom). Lucky bastard, although he’s paying more than a hundred more a month for it. Even so, maybe I should start looking again if my flatmate/landlord’s son doesn’t get his ass in gear and start fixing things..

The Jazzanova night was good fun. He (Alex Jazzanova) has just released a mix CD so it was a nicely varied set, going between acid jazz, lounge, electro, drum & bass, reggae, stuff like that. I briefly saw DJ French-a from the T.-A.E.C gig at the start, but he disappeared to the toilets after a while to snort something-or-other. I stayed in the dancefloor room for most of the night with it’s sweet sound system – there’s a really comfy leather armchair just below the DJ booth where you can sit back and relax while people dance just feet in front of you. I quite like the layout of the Reading Rooms with its distinct separation of bar, seating area and dancefloor, plus it’s nifty uses of space. At one point in the night, when I was talking to a couple of people in the toilet about something random, one of the staff came in, looked at me then said “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, this is unacceptable”. I looked at him for a second wondering what the hell he was on about, then his face suddenly changed and he said, “Oh, sorry, never mind. Sorry about that.” and left. Then it twigged that he thought I was a woman. I was happy after that :) Other than that, I danced a lot.

I left about 5 mins before the end and walked 200m along the road to the City Function Suite where Cage was just winding up. Walked in, said happy birthday to Drew (who then proceeded to jump on me, dragging both of us down to the floor), saw Richard from work (not the Richard) who was wearing a kilt after having attended a wedding earlier that day. He was absolutely rat-arsed, hehe. Afterwards Richard ( this time), Andy, Jo, Stu and Chris and I went back to Richard’s flat in an attempt to get Chris stoned for his first time. I think we failed in the end, although Stu was so muntered he stayed doubled over the edge of the sofa for several hours without moving apart from the occasional moan (”How’s it going Stu?” “Uuuhhh..“, “Not feeling too good?” “Uuuhh-uhhh…“). Then Andy, Jo and Chris left and everyone else fell asleep.

Sunday

Woke up on Richard’s sofa around 1:30pm – Stu must have slipped out earlier without Rich or I noticing. Sauntered up to my flat, cleaned up for a bit, then headed 100m down the road to ’s flat’s garden for a BBQ. After a while, I realised everyone there had LJs (, , , , , , , and ). *insert some witty comment about us all living in the digital age these days*.

After the barbey we all squeezed into ’s flat to play poker and sing karakoe. After that, , , and I all went back to ’s new flat to chill. The living room looks nifty when it’s dark outside, and the two small table lamps plus the glow lamp make the walls and ceiling glow a warm orange colour (a drunken ran around capturing everything on his video camera for posterity).

Monday

I was sure that I did something last Monday, but I’m fucked if I can remember what (mental note; update blog more often).

Meme time

Get your own Meme Meme!

You know those alarm clocks that wave a row of leds back and forth through the air so that the time is displayed asif it was ‘flating’ in mid-air? Well that technology is coming to a mobile phone near you soon. The first use that springs to my mind is making requests in a club. Second is dancing with one’s phone in one’s hand. And I’m needing to upgrade my phone at some point soon…

From Private Eye, 28 May – 10 June 2004:

“Fertility doctors were baffled when a perfectly-healthy couple claimed they couldn’t have children – until they confessed they had never made love,” reported the Mirror last week, telling the story of a German couple from a very religious community who didn’t know what sex was.

Doubters immediately raised eyebrows at a story that sounded so much like an urban legend, although the story was full of quotes from the University Clinic of Luebeck – identifiable as the UniKlinik Lübeck.

The story was written by Berlin-based freelancer Allan Hall. When the Eye contacted Hall to ask him where the story came from he snapped: “It was in Bild am Sonntag [a German tabloid] and the Medical Tribune.” Er, no. There was a recent story about a Lübeck couple who sought fertility treatment in the German Medical Tribune, but the cause of their celibacy was erectile dysfunction, not ignorance. Bild am Sonntag actually reported the story fairly accurately, quoting “potenzprobleme” as the cause. He quickly changed his story to “someone at the clinic told me”.

Back in February Hall was at it again with a gruesome tale of a man in Dortmund who was eaten alive by his pet spiders. “More than “)) spiders, several snakes, a gecko names Helmut and several thousand termites gorged on their former master for days,” he reported in the Mirror. The story also appeared under his by-line in the Sun, saying “giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him”.

“That was in Bild too,” insisted Hall. And, yes, a tale of a dead man with a lot of pet spiders did appear in the German press. But Gerna, animal protection charity Arche 90, which was called in by police to deal with the creatures, said the body was intact when it was found and the man’s many pets were safely in their tanks and cages. “No freely running spiders were discovered in the house, ” they said.

In an article in the Evening Standard last year, Hall reported that “a little bit of lying is good for us, according to German scientists.” At least that story appears to be accurate.