Things and stuff
The person I was staying with this weekend in London has had to pull out due to unforeseen circumstances, so I was wondering if anyone down there wants to adopt a milk for a few days? I’ve got a Megabus booked to get into London early on Friday, returning Monday afternoon so we’re talking three nights. I’m planning on going to Slimelight to meet up with
P.S. If any geeks are wondering what to do with their holiday Monday, I’d check out the live video streams of this years GNOME User and Developer European Conference (or alternatively, check the archived vids). You don’t have to be a GNOME user (I’m not, although I’ve a bittorrent for the GNOME live cd running atm which I’ll check out at some point soon) as there are a few interesting topics on the schedule like the rather interesting talk on the BBC’s open source Dirac video codec today (which one can grab from the link above). There’s also an irc backchannel for attendees and stream users in #guadec on irc.gimp.org.
Work flew by rather quickly this week. Traffic to the second line Ethernet support desk I’m on right now seems to be picking up now it has a single unified number for front line agents to call. Before we had to print out and distribute around the call centre a list of each Ethernet agent’s specific phone number which was rather dumb, although we had a great skive the day the floor manager decided to put us in a side room as someone had managed to schedule more agents to come in than there were phones/pcs available and practically no-one knew where we’d disappeared to.
On Wednesday I headed to Drouthy Neebors for the latest Trans-Avant Electronic Collective night. First band on was Omnivore Demon (Andy Wake and friends) playing electro-acoustic ambient. I wasn’t keen on the first half which was more at the noise end of things, but I think they got into the zone later on with some rather pretty harmonious droning sounds from acoustic and electric guitars plus synths. Next up, after some ‘eclectic’ DJing by the organiser Neil McIntree, was Veestar (Gordon Cameron plus his Dundonian friend who’s name I forget). Dub-techno mixed with ambient, lots of knob twiddling, plus a variety of samples thrown in for good measure. Turns out afterwards that they hadn’t actually planned what they were going to be playing as it was all arranged at the last minute; it really showed, with a noticeable lack of progression and sometimes even general structure in the tracks played, although there were a few good bits to come out of the jam like some funky bass lines and catchy loops (albeit I’d assume they were pre-programmed). The downstairs room in Drouthies, which is where Scope will be held in two weeks time, was pretty devoid of people and the manager even closed the bar down much to Neil’s annoyance, although turning off the bar lights made for a cosier atmosphere as everyone sat together and had a bit of a chat in-between and after the two bands played. I met a nice guy by the name of Jim who’s just been in town six months and is working at Dundee Uni and had an enjoyable discussion about music, the world of research and Graphviz. It also made me feel that I really should try and do something about a Dundee music scene portal again, albeit leaning more towards electronic and experimental stuff this time. The T.A.E.C doesn’t have much of a web presence apart from an announce only mailing list (comment in this entry if you’d like the addy) so I can see ’scope’ (haha, *sigh*) for something more dynamic and interactive. Maybe an open discussion mailing list for peeps into electronic and experimental would be great so there could be networking between people who’re interested in Dundee events like the T.A.E.C, Sin, Scope, Felt, Electric Lady, Dysfunction, etc.
Friday evening was Sin. To be frank, I think I’m starting to get bored of the music played there. Too many techno orientated tracks, not enough variety of ‘club classics’, not enough innovation outside the first 45 mins of the night (saying that, although I wasn’t there early this month someone informed me Wai Pi Wai’s ‘YPY’ was played again), plus they have a tendency to play remixes of requests rather than the actual track requested (and that’s if they play the request) – if I wanted a remix I’d have asked for it! Plus there are no track listings for the sets which is infuriating, although it does have the effect that if a bad track is played then most of the regulars I know will blame DJ Barry as DJ Matt is ‘too cool’ to play anything bad.
Tech:
Other:
And finally… sausage sculptures!
This morning I awoke to find my hard drive had run out of space. Well, it’s only 145Gb so it was bound to happen sooner or later. Time for a big clear out. I must get around to popping that spare network card I’ve got into the old PC I’ve ‘borrowed’ from my Dad. I’m pretty sure that’s got around 40Gb in it which I can use for temp storage until I can up the space on my main box. I’ll probably end up making it a media storage box or something handy like that.
Many people say Mondays are the worst day of the week but I disagree; it’s Tuesdays I fear. By Monday morning I’m bored of doing nothing and sleeping until noon, and coming into work makes a bit of a change, but by Tuesday morning it finally sinks in that “no, doing nothing and sleeping until noon is much better than this shit” and the realisation that I’ve another 4 full days to go until I can relax and have some proper fun again hits home. A friend once said he dislikes Fridays because he knows that he’s only got two days until he has to be back at work again. Our clashing viewpoints made for one of those great silly long-lasting debates. I think I’m just bored of being lonely and not having anyone to talk to or cuddle with when I wake up on Saturday/Sunday mornings. Meh. Anyway.
Half Life 2: A Panoramic Approach – “Generally, before releasing games, publishers and developers give game portals some screenshots where you can see the graphic features of the in-development game, and perhaps some game action. I wanted to go further and highlight the architectural and photographic aspects of the game, which I’ll demonstrate with QTVR [Quicktime Virual Reality] images shot during game play, the first time (that I’m aware of) that this has been done.”
Deputy Sues Florida Hospital After Being Injected With Glitter – “Nurses were supposed to inject him with Demerol. But one shot, he says, didn’t make him feel better. ‘There was a lot of pain. I complained several times that something was wrong in my buttock, hip, in the area I got the shot,” said the deputy.”
Companies sync dogs-to-buns ratio – “Vienna Beef and Alpha Baking Co. … will sign a formal ‘piece’ treaty, vowing to package hot dogs and buns in quantities of eight. … Because of former inequities, more than 2 million buns a year are wasted, the news release stated.”
“After earning a Fine Arts degree from Yale, Steve Keene soon developed the SK Art model, bringing original works to the masses by painting in Bulk. … I am now giving [a Steve Keene] painting away to the Finkbuilt reader who seems to want it the most. Using the comments for this post, just tell me why you want the painting. At the end of one month’s time, I will ship the painting to whoever seems to want it the most. Good Luck!” – link
P.S. Wayne Pygram, the actor who plays Scorpius in Farscape, was the young Wilhuff Tarkin in Revenge of the Sith! Check this comparison between him and Peter Cushing.
Scope – Chilled, groovy and peculiar electronic music
Friday 10th June @ 8:30
Drouthy Neebours, Dundee
Free entry. Bring all your friends!
Can anyone recommend any good movies or made-for-tv shows that are primarily a contemporary (or 20th centaury) drama but that are also intertwined with elements of sci-fi, either plot twisting, metaphoric or just referential? I’m thinking along the lines of Dennis Potter’s Karaoke/Cold Lazarus, plus Vanilla Sky (one of the biggest tear-jerkers I’ve seen in a long time) and 2046 (which I saw at the DCA with
P.S. Tom Cruise is cute.
I’ve lost me wallet! This is extremely annoying as now I will only be able to get cash out of the bank on Saturdays (damn my work being in a technology park miles from the centre of Dundee). Sorry to
The Playstation 3 has been unveiled. I don’t know if I like the look of it from the shots and the controler is ugly as hell but we’ll see how it plays.
Also revealed is the Nintendo Revolution. No specs yet, but it’s “only two or three times as powerful as the GameCube”. Interesting design, but I’d quite like to know it can actually do that makes it a “revolution”.
P.S. The PS3, X-Box 360 and Nintendo Revolution have all been confirmed as being backwards compatible.
P.P.S. Nintendo are also releasing the Game Boy Micro. Here’s a pic and here’s some info. Googling for “game boy micro” only gives 147 results; I can see this increasing by several thousand in the next week or so.
