Milk’s Site

My phone has died for those who care (the number of which I can probably count on one hand). Time to look at getting a cheapo contract. The second hand stereo I’ve been given by my grandparents has a greatly overly emphasised bass response and questionable crossover frequencies, and the speakers, although having kick ass woofers which my previous lacked, have a shit mid-range when used with my old tuner/amp. It also only has record table line level phono inputs, i.e., it’s EQed for the top-end heavy signal you’d get from an unamplified record player, compounding the too-much-bass problem, and I have to turn my PC right down so it doesn’t distort. I now have 3 sets of largish speakers, 2 amps and 2 large stereo systems I’m either unhappy with or can’t use taking up space. My flat is now a total mess after moving things around, getting infuriated by said stereo problem, not having the energy to do chores and sleeping all of the evening away. Now it’s fucking 3am and I’ve work in the morning. And I need to be arsed enough to shower between then and now. At least I get paid today. I think some retail therapy is in order.

Dark City post is forthcoming.

Does anyone know of a smartphone that can be set to periodically sync with multiple iCal feeds via http for it’s calendar? Thought not.

That would have been two weekends ago then. In brief; Leila () and Shian () came up to Dundee and we, along with Andy (), Jo () and Rich (), went to see DnB threesome Pendulum at the Cotton Club. Wow, what an energy packed set. Half-way through Slam, they dropped Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’ then seamlessly mixed back into Slam again. Needless to say, the crowd wend wild[er]. On Saturday it was just Leila and I, out, again, at the Cotton Club, this time for Headway featuring FC Kahuna. A comparatively relaxed tempo from the night before (thankfully) with house beats abound. More dancing was had, natch. After it all finished (with Glitterball) we had interesting convo with a couple of nice seeming munters then headed home to crash. Sunday was spent monging around my flat. All in all, a really enjoyable weekend, although it would be nice to have a quiet night or two in with L for some proper snuggling.

Last weekend was fairly quiet; Friday was spent with Andy, Jo, Rich, Stu () and Teresa () at Ciaran and Micha’s flat getting completely wasted and my having a quick go on Ciaran decks, and Saturday was Eurovision night at Andy and Jo’s with everyone again plus Kashfa () who has been out of the country for yonks.

A few months ago my parents informed me they’d be getting a new laptop for my sister on her 21st and that, because it was a tad more pricey than my own 21st present, they’d give me £500 to spend on whatever I wanted. Which is nice. So I thought long and hard about it and quickly answered back. Decks! Of the CD variety! I’ve done a bit of research and asking around over the last few months (thanks again to those who have helped) and am now pretty set on getting a pair of Pioneer CDJ-200s. decks.co.uk has several bundle offers on so I was thinking of going for one with the Behringer DJX-700 mixer (which is essentially a clone of the Pioneer DJM-500 ). You never know when you might need those extra channels. But that’s £815, but, partly due to a mix-up with getting the P45 from my previous work, partly due to my procrastination, I’ve been on an emergency tax code since I started working at Abertay Uni in January. Thus, having received my P60 a couple of weeks ago, I am now due a hooge tax rebate some time soon. When I received this months pay slip I thought I’d better check with payroll about how to get said cash, they advised I fill out a P46. This will be sent off to the inland revenue and means that, with this months pay included (which I get next Wednesday) I won’t get taxed on the first £4000 I earn (P.A. or whatever term it is) until I get a proper tax code sorted out. This means I’m instantly getting £115 more a month after tax. Fuck me. Needless to say, much happy dancing has been done over this. So, by about the start of July I’ll be able to start doing some proper beatmatching. I’ll also be able to start buying CDs and the like, something I haven’t been able to budget for for a long while now.

Rock on! Lordi won Eurovision. As the article notes, this’ll hopfully open it up for other styles of music, albeit the poppier end of things. The UK’s entry was just embarrassing. What were they thinking?

News/op-ed/discussion
Great-grandma tattoos “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” on her chest – Practical body art.
Drunk Monkeys Mirror People – Research money well spent there.
Japan faces chopsticks crisis – OH NOES!
Kissing ‘could help hay fever – I’ve got allergic rhinitis btw, so if anyone would oblige..

Tech news
Controller showdown: PlayStation 3 vs Wii – PS3 controller is laggy and the Wii can be oversensitive. Early days yet though..
Bon Echo (aka Firefox 2) Alpha 2 Review – Screenshots with comments. Integrated spellchecking, session restores, nice rendering of RSS/ATOM feeds, and finally, a way to remove search engines. Unfortunatly, the feature I was most looking foward to isn’t there; “One of the most notable features missing in Alpha 2 is Places, the new personal web directory system that integrates bookmarks and history in a single interface. Due to its complexity it has been phased out for Firefox 3.” Firefox 2; Safer, Faster, Better.
Samsung 16GB Flash Drive for Sale? – Possibly, maybe? Natch, it’s $1999 (£1057. Yes the exchange rate is well in the £’s favour atm.), but roll on the rise of the solid-state hdd. Re the comment “Where are the pendicular solid-state drives?”, see the awesome animated advert for Hitachi’s new Perpendicular Recording hard drive technology.
History Of Playstation 3 Pricing – Standard expensive console prices. Also, Merrill Lynch Predicts $200 Wii (£106), but then again they also predicted the highest price for the PS3. Ah, the rumors and speculation..
X-Box 360 Hacked! – Allowing one to play copies of games.
Apple DVR Soon? – “When Steve Jobs says: ‘The new products in the pipeline are the best I’ve ever seen in my life,’ he means it. And think of some of the products he has seen in his life: sliced bread, the steam locomotive, and penicillin.”

Techy things
Inventables – Rubber Umbrella, Transparent Toaster – Someone, hurry up and make them!
Hooligan chants silenced by delayed echoes – That ought to shut them up. Or, um, make them riot.
Airtrax Sidewinder: Omnidirectional Forklift – Check out those crazy mofo wheels man.
40″ LCD TV With Built-In DVR (40GB HD) – Digital convergance. Whatever happened to that buzz phrase? I rather liked it.
Nintendo Wii Classic Controller – Just in case you’re scared by the inevitable future of console controlers.
Electrophile: Devotion, rated – Each key has two metal contact point which give the user an electric shock of increasing intensity as they use they kayboard. Youch!
Create 3D images with ease – A service that lets you upload a series of pictures of an item then creates a basic flash-app you can rotate. I’m sure it’ll come in handy for something.
The Million Dollar Cellphone – ’spensive.
Teddy Bear Remote Control – With instructions on how to make your own.
X-Box 360 Case Mod – Twice the size of the original, but apparently faster.
USB Aroma Diffuser – Yet another USB peripheral (YAUP). I’ve been looking for easy-for-a-lazy-person-to-use nice-smelling-thingy for a while now.
John Carmack Q&A – MEGATEXTURES!
Self-stiring Cup – I always hate how you get gunk at the bottom of a hot chocolate that’s too sweet to eat
NYC 3D Prints – Google Earth meets those nifty 3D resin printers.
E3 1995 – Heh, check the Sega presence. Back in the day..

Misc
There Is Something Weird Going on With the Clock on 24 – Trust someone.
Bread statue popular with pigeons – Nuff said.
How to Take Better Dirty Pictures – *Takes notes*
Flaming Jello Shot How-To – Ooh, gotta try that..
How To play The Spoons – Clackity clack clack. Go get two spoons NOW!
Bacon Strip Plasters – Ooh, yummy. I forsee myself getting these, sticking them on the back of my hand then licking it like a cat for hours on end. Wait, they’re not favoured? Hmm.. I see a market niche!
Animal Sounds – A tabulation of onomatopoeicly written animal noises plus some animal commands and generic pet names from a number of different languages. *spanish dog panting*
Riot Goo – Who you gonna call? Riotbusters!

Video
Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOOOOOOUR – A classic.
E3 2006 The Nintendo Wii Line – Woo Wii!
Graffiti Research Lab – “The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artist and protestors with open source technologies for urban communication.” – Check out the videos, especially the LED throwies ones. Temporary hi-tech low-budget grafitti that’s amazingly beautiful.
thebrainfreeze.com – Another classic. I haven’t had brain freeze in years!
BBC News 24 interviews the wrong guy – Quality. More info here.
Flaming Tuba – From the director of the forthcoming Simpsons movie
Stone Golem – Made from foam mattresses and hot glue for LARP purposes.

Ctrl-F “miruku” on here for the nugget of wit that got me “Score:5, Funny”. Ctrl-F “profit” here if you don’t know what the fuck I’m on about. All I had to do was drop a choice word and those /. nerds modded me up like a comedic genius. It’s kinda funny and sad at the same time. Ah, the melancholy of a sad geek.

P.S. Dundee people (specifically, any of the 20+ I have on my friends list other than , and ); does anyone socialise during the week in a pop-round-to-a-friends-for-the-evening,-get-drunk,-stoned-or-watch-a-movie kind of way? Or does anyone want to come visit me (if you can be arsed trekking around to Stobswell)? It would be nice to see peeps more.

Google Calendar rocks. Lifehacking and Web 2.0 kick ass.

Last Friday night was spent at Perception, a new dance night at The Cotton Club. When I got there, fairly early on, it was Full Intention stylee house, the kind of stuff that’s annoyingly pop sounding. Thankfully things swiftly moved onto a more acid/progressive vibe, then tech-house, then some quality early trance floorfillers with Jay-M finishing off the night with a hard trance set. I loved the variation throughout the night and glowsticked the night away. Bumped into a few peeps that I’d met previous at the hard dance night Disfunction which was cool. Pics and a video available on DontStayIn.

Saturday evening was an impromptu party at and ’s with , Micha and Kerin. Nice relaxing night, although I couldn’t really be arsed getting that drunk. Need to prepare better next time, get some energy drinks and voddy on the go, like back in the day..

On Sunday I went to see Dave Clarke DJ (again) at the London club in the centre of town. Had never been there before, although had passed by crowds of neds and townies queuing to get in. It being Sunday, it was relatively quiet. I had work the next day and new I was probably doing a Bad Thing, but it was Dave Clarke in Dundee and you don’t see that everyday. Met some of the guys from Headway, a couple of which were DJing in the main room. Yes, main room. They had Dave on in the smaller space, no idea why, although it might have been some weird contractual thing between the organisers and the club. Dave Clarke was tops, mainly hard techno as expected with a few lighter tracks thrown in such as that James Holden track with the perky skipping then tumbling melody that I can’t remember the name of. However, I wasn’t really in the right mood half the time and kept wandering through to the main room which was more funky house orientated. Three quarters of the way through the night, I wandered back to the ‘G room’ (geddit?) to hear Nitzer Ebb’s ‘Murderous’ being played which got me in a glowsticking frenzy. Then some funkay new electro and before I knew it, he was doing this scratching-a-rock-tune-that-had-been-drowned-in-delay last-tune-of-the-night thing. T’was enjoyable to see him again, and what’s even better is that, while I got to bed at 03:30, I managed to get myself so worked up about waking on time for work, that my body clock woke me up right before the alarm plus I had enough energy to get right through the day. I love it when that happens.

Previous weekends and other stuff coming soon.

News/op-ed/discussion
How to practice Islam in space? – Kind of tricky.
Modernizing the Muslim world – So, ‘women are important but things are slowley getting better’; how fucking obvious is that? How shit-for-brains stupid would you have to be to have missed that? And polygamy? What? That’s nothing to do with the way in which gender has fucked up this world. And clean your mouth out with some NPOV soap.
Totally Appropriate Covers – Flipping gender roles; if sex doesn’t matter, no kind of activity should be restricted towards either sex.
A Game For All Ages – “In many ways, Nintendo is the Apple of the gaming world, and it’s betting its future on the same wisdom. The race is not to him who hulas fastest, it’s to him who looks hottest doing it.”

Techy news
Intel claims 40% performance gain with new Core 2 Extreme processor – Intel giving AMD a run for their money.
Massachusetts OpenDocument plans questioned by disabled – The geeks kinda missed that out but trust the open-source loving vendors to come to the rescue.
LucasArts Shows Interest In Wii Lightsaber Game – Hehe, this should be fun.
Robotic tentacles get to grips with tricky objects – Animatronic tenticle porn anyone?
Microsoft Sides With Nintendo Against Sony – Ooh, handbags at the ready! Insightful comments abound.
Sun Says Java Source Already Available – Uh, that’s not what open source is…
Volkswagen’s New Car Experience – Car parks of the future?
Yes, we are still all about search – Even more new stuff from Google. Google Desktop 4 will feature “Google Gadgets” which sounds very similar to Konfabulator, uh, I mean Yahoo! Widget Engine. I use Google Desktop at work because I use it for work, mainly because you can integrate outlook todo lists and calendar appointments but at home I prefer to use litestep and have a more oraganic feel when integrating additional apps.
Mapping a path for the 3D Web – “We are identifying areas to explore. We’re seeing mountains in the distance and saying, ‘There’s something there, someone should go investigate it.’”
PS3 Launch Details Announced – Ooooouch.. check some of the /. comments. “Sony, say hello to third place.”

Other techy things
Then again, it might not be overclocking after all – An addendum to There’s an awful lot of overclocking out there which I posted about last year. See, Microsoft does do something with all those crash reports users submit.
A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at £79.95 – Can it be True? – Overclocking!

Random
Hell Money – Expenseive place, hell.

Video
Bible Brew – What would Jesus brew?

A comment I made on ’s journal;

I don’t give a fuck about a person’s sex, which is why I’d describe myself as being bi[sexual], but I do prefer a gender with a touch of femininity in it. Or maybe I just hate the gender role of “masculinity”. Maybe because the majority of people in the world fall into gender roles so easily, it would be better if I called myself bi-curious. But I’m not curious, I know I could love a guy if I met the right one. Bah, silly terms.

News
Russian Thieves Break Into Soviet-Era Missile Silo to Find it Filled With Money Bills – Nuff said.
Berlusconi silent after Prodi declared Italian election victor – Hahaha, schadenfreude time!

Op-ed & discussion
One Big Bang, or were there many? – “People have inferred that time began [with the big bang], but there really wasn’t any reason for that inference”
10 rules to manage your boss – Some handy tips for working with rather than around your boss.
The Culture War – Traditional values vs. the changing world throughout the years.
Ghost Speakers – I am a ‘ghost speaker’ to some extent, although I’m more just sharing the links I’m interested in for you n00bs who might also be interested but can’t be arsed with RSS or don’t know where to look.
FUCK – Exploring fuck.

Technology
Boot Camp First Look: Half Life 2 Video + More – A bit old now, but interesting none-the-less.
Google Talk now does avatars and themes – Maybe I should give it another look. Or maybe I’ll stuck with a pure Jabber client.
TDK Shipping $19.95 Blu-ray Blanks – Some expensive potential coasters.
Windows Vista installed on an iMac – Just to show it can be done.
Retro stylee microphone case mod – Good, but not as good as the anime doll mod.
Hard Drive Interface for 360 – For anyone that cares.
Developers React To ‘Wii’ – Weeeeeeeeeeeee!
Silver Wallet #1 – I think I’ve found my new wallet.
Simply Google – Easy access to the different functions of Google, still doesn’t beat Googlex though.
DVD+RW DL (8.5Gb) – Does anyone use RW discs that much though?
Army of Two – Interesting sounding “principally co-operative [360] action game” from EA.

Humour
Replace ordinary eggs in cake recipe with Cadbury Creme Eggs and observe results. – “Hypothesis: THIS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME”
10 reasons why gay marriage should be illegal – God damn homos.
Age of Umpires II: Age of Cricket. – I’m loving the screenshot ;D
In-tro-ducing… flamewar – “Trolls Masquerading as Legit LJ Users: have a field day”
Conversational Ebonics – Learn such helpful phrases as “Shut up bitch!” and “Once you go black, you never go back” in Japanese
The Incredible Sega Rap – Oldskool.
Coming Attractions – “Sending text messages from your cellphone or PDA to a scrolling comments bar, soon to be present at the bottom of every movie screen, will allow you to critique films like a regular cyber Ebert and Roeper.”
bash.org/?240849 – For all those into robotics out there.

Misc
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – Webcomic along the lines of The Far Side but somewhat cruder. ([1], [2], [3], [4])
Hacking MySpace layouts – For all of us sad enough to have a MySpace.
Armchair bookcase – Sweet.. If only I had the room/money.
Paper Sculpture – Pretty and intricate foldings.
Mucho icons! – In-case you need any.

Video
YouTube and the neglected art of lip-syncing. – Links to various weird and wonderful vids.
Captain Picard doing something very unusual – S’like, wtf? :D
Descent of Huygens onto Titan – Shows a shot from below the NASA lander plus loads of stats at the side and audio derived from said stats.
Windows Vista presentation – Audio from a Vista demonstration to video of Mac OS X
They’re Made Out of Meat – A nice wee sci-fi short. If you like that, check the original story.
Titanic: Two The Surface – It’s hard to tell at first as you wouldn’t put it past them..
Otaku from USA – A quick Japanese documentary on American anime/manga fans in Japan.
Pink – Part of a series of films comissioned by Adidas. See the links at the top left for more.