Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

Monthly Archives

01/06/2008 - 30/06/2008 01/05/2008 - 31/05/2008 01/04/2008 - 30/04/2008 01/03/2008 - 31/03/2008 01/02/2008 - 29/02/2008 01/01/2008 - 31/01/2008 01/12/2007 - 31/12/2007 01/11/2007 - 30/11/2007 01/09/2007 - 30/09/2007 01/08/2007 - 31/08/2007 01/07/2007 - 31/07/2007 01/06/2007 - 30/06/2007 01/05/2007 - 31/05/2007 01/04/2007 - 30/04/2007 01/03/2007 - 31/03/2007 01/02/2007 - 28/02/2007 01/01/2007 - 31/01/2007 01/12/2006 - 31/12/2006 01/11/2006 - 30/11/2006 01/10/2006 - 31/10/2006 01/09/2006 - 30/09/2006 01/08/2006 - 31/08/2006 01/07/2006 - 31/07/2006 01/06/2006 - 30/06/2006 01/05/2006 - 31/05/2006 01/04/2006 - 30/04/2006 01/03/2006 - 31/03/2006 01/02/2006 - 28/02/2006 01/01/2006 - 31/01/2006 01/12/2005 - 31/12/2005 01/11/2005 - 30/11/2005 01/10/2005 - 31/10/2005 01/09/2005 - 30/09/2005 01/08/2005 - 31/08/2005 01/07/2005 - 31/07/2005 01/06/2005 - 30/06/2005 01/05/2005 - 31/05/2005 01/04/2005 - 30/04/2005 01/03/2005 - 31/03/2005 01/02/2005 - 28/02/2005 01/01/2005 - 31/01/2005 01/12/2004 - 31/12/2004 01/11/2004 - 30/11/2004 01/10/2004 - 31/10/2004 01/09/2004 - 30/09/2004 01/08/2004 - 31/08/2004 01/07/2004 - 31/07/2004 01/06/2004 - 30/06/2004 01/05/2004 - 31/05/2004 01/04/2004 - 30/04/2004 01/03/2004 - 31/03/2004 01/02/2004 - 29/02/2004

 

Meat Water

What more could you want from a drink other than ground beer and aged chedder. <drool> Cheeseburger flavoured water...</drool> And just in case the company ever goes, there is an image just below for posterity.

Trailers

Yes yes.. the full Iron Man trailer does look good.. usual caveats ie hope not best bits yadda yadda... But more importantly the frickin LEGO Batman game trailer.

Just. Kicks. Ass.

80 Million Tiny Images

Check out 80 Million Tiny Images - a visualization of all the nouns in the English language arranged by semantic meaning.

At 3.5Gb The full version is gonna steal your bandwidth though...

YouTube

Normally I'd put these as internibbles, but they are rather good.

First, you will never look at Lemurs the same way again. Secondly, a frozen Grand Central.Thirdly, whilst perhaps not as good, nonetheless informative/educational.

Oh, and lastly, remember to leave Brittany alone.

Playing Geek

Not sure why, but I decided to have a play with Twitter and Remember The Milk to see if they would be of use. So far I have managed to schedule reminders using launchy and some bat files, so in a couple of key strokes I can set a SMS reminder to my phone. Conversely I can set reminders from my phone to send me an email.

Presumably if other people were to use the above sites, I could send them scheduled messages at sans cost. Now if only the problems with iCal and outlook could be sorted, I could update my personal outlook folder at home using a text message via something like google.

Dual/Tri/Quad Monitor Wallpapers

For those of you who run multiple monitors, check out the following good sites for wallpapers:

• Mandolux
• Vlad Studio (reqs reg.)
• Dual Monitor Backgrounds
• Triple Monitor Backgrounds
• Quad Monitor Backgrounds
• DeviantART
• Theme Creative
• DesktopPimper

Spammyness

From the nice people at Project Honeypot

Regardless of how the rest of your day goes, here's something to be happy about -- today one of your donated MXs helped to identify a previously unknown email harvester (IP: 89.138.211.172). The harvester was caught a spam trap email address created with your donated MX. You can find information about your newly identified harvester here.

Don't forget to tell your friends you made the Internet a little better today. You can refer them to Project Honey Pot directly from our website

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San Diego ComicCon News

The ComicCon is always a good source of comic based film news.

One of the more interesting tit bits is the link from what is perhaps a viral site, WhySoSerious.com for The Dark Knight, which includes a countdown to the WBs panel at the ComicCon. You can see a screen capture here). Teaser trailer perhaps.

Also Neal Gaiman speaking about Stardust makes references the Death and The Sandman films, stating that

I'd rather see no 'Sandman' movie than a bad 'Sandman' movie made [and] I think the time of a good 'Sandman' movie is getting closer

Also confirmation about the Watchmen cast, which as Film Wad states is too young IMHO, and includes useful picture comparisons if you're a stickler for that sort of thing.

Also the news that Shia LaBeouf is up for the part of Yorik in the film adaptation of Y: The Last Man.

Addictive

Possibly one of the more addictive wastes of times on the web is My Heritage's Facial Recognition (does require registration). Simply upload photos and see who you resemble. I wasn't displeased per se with any of the people I notionally resemble, and its interesting to see that have friends who resemble, Jeff Goldblum, Gareth Gates and Kate Hudson. And thats just some of the men.

VD

Oh, and for those who have been stuck in a cave and have managed to escape the carpet bomb-esque marketing, its that time of year again when big corporations remind couples to shell out extravagent amounts of money to prove their love or face persecution, contempt and accusations of inadequacy from their former nearest and dearest*. Of course the inadvertent knock on effect that it makes all singletons feel incomplete, worthless, and the bonus ball.. ..suicidal. This probably means that it the underwear and chocolate makers are subsidised by the brewing and pharmaceutical industries although I cannot yet prove this...

Bearing this in mind, and to keep the somewhat now twisted spirit of love and sharing going, may I once again, direct your attention to Be My Anti-Valentine.

For those of you who will inevitably find yourselves stopping via petrol station on the way back from the pub tomorrow and before your arrival at home to a burnt/in the dog/in the bin** dinner, don't bother. Say no to a wilted bunch of flowers and a tacky card. Be brave. Risk the consequences and prove your love/infatuation/hate by making your object of affection laugh, or in the case of you freaky stalkers out there, make them run crying to the police***.

Have fun kids and make sure you get some VD goodness.

Keep smiling.

You Don't Know Jack

Something that I have always heard people say is that university is the best time of their lives. IMHO it certainly has the highest density of memorable (for the right and wrong reasons) and completely memoryless events/evenings people are likely to have.

One endearing memory, or possibly memories as they do have a habit of blending, is of playing You Don't Know Jack until the wee hours. A brilliant game. Can't really explain it as it was a you-have-to-be-there kinda situation.

Miss it loads. Go play the online version.

P'haps 2007 ain't that bad after all.

Space Is Big

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Want Proof?

In fact, the earth is so small you can put it in the palm of your hand.

Comics

Prior to updating some of the more static pages, I thought I'd trawl through various comics I've been sent recently, and see if there are any others people would recommend.

• Least I Could Do
• Penny Arcade
• Ctrl+Alt+Del
• User Friendly
• xkcd
• Questionable Content
• diesel sweeties
• Calvin and Hobbes
• Sam and Fuzzy
• Toothpaste For Dinner
• the Creatures in my Head
• Player vs. Player

French Female Cryptographers

With the imminent release of The Da Vinci Code, The Sunday Times published an article detailign thirteen facts you may not know about the movie.

Perhaps one of the quirkier facts included, is the press release by the Alliance of French Female Cryptographers:

...which is concerned about the stereotyping Tautou's portrayal of Sophie Neveu, the seductive cryptographer heroine, might promote. 'What's important is that people realise not all female cryptographers are enchanting, or even sexy,' it says. 'Some of us are thoroughly plain, bordering on dowdy, and couldn't smile in a cutesy, pixie-ish manner if we tried.'

At least it means some of them are though. Right?

OMFG

Words... breathing....failing....

If here doesn't work then you wanna look at the Plastk:net post of 7/3/06.

Well, you only wanna look if playing Quake 3 at a resolution of 10240x3072 interests you.

Bill 'Too' Rich

Who would've thought. Microsoft founder too rich for tax computer to handle.

'My tax return in the United States has to be kept on a special computer because their normal computers can't deal with the numbers,'

I wonder if its a linux box.

Ooh-ness

Hell. You got a mucous membrane - you'd be crazy not to accessorise!?!! If thats a bit farther than you want to go or you fancy something more temporary, you could always consider piercing your eyelid.

Or perhaps if your want aesthetics and functionality, you may want sub-dermal knuckledusters.

And whilst it may be possible to beat someone into submission with the above, and I'm not saying I wouldn't watch girls attempting to knock each other out with their kn.. anyway, in a do or die combat situation I'd probably opt for the sleeker more effective new Metal Storm smart gun capable of dishing out 240,000 rounds per minute of unadulterated high velocity metal death.

Cuddle Therapy

If you have a hankering to work as a psychiatrist for abused plush toys, then this is the place to go.

There are some quite emotionally harrowing scenes, some of which depicting violence and cotton wool, which you may find disturbing. But hey, thats why you're training as a toy shrink.

Want. One.

For those cold winter nights the perfect accompaniment to a warm sofa - a slanket. And if you have to venture out, what more could you want than an Earbag. Technically two I guess.

What Can You Do In 11 Seconds?

'If you make a mistake, it's over,' Mao said. 'One mistake and it's all off.'

In these times of strife, in a kill or be killed world, never have such words rung more true.

Strange then the subject matter Mao describes. This is not war, guerrilla conflict or civil disorder. No. This is cubing.

Whatever floats your boat I guess. Strange though, that given the subject matter, it reads like something from the AVN awards. Or is that bit just me?

'He won the standard 3x3x3 solve competition, beating out more than 60 others, by posting an average time of 14.91 seconds. However, that time was below his world record average solving time of 14.59 seconds.

He also came in third in the 3x3x3 one-handed contest, second in the 3x3x3 blindfolded and third in the 4x4x4...

...And as the sound of the clacking of rapidly spinning Rubik's Cube layers dominated the area of the Exploratorium where the event was being held, it wasn't only males who were amazing the crowd with their prowess.'

Just me then.

Scanner Photography

As ideas go, Scanner Photography is pretty damn excellant.

Black Helicopters

If you're interested in Black Helicopters, spy satellites and the like, then you'd probably interested in this old Reg article. Althought the hole issue of Google Earth being censored as a breach of national security, is old hat, it is quite interesting to look at some of the images.

Thats Annoying

It would appear that as part of the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act, George W has made anonymously annoying people over the Internet a federal crime.

'Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.'

A Million Similar Things

Any good idea people have will invariably spawn copycats. Take the Million Dollar Homepage for example. It didn't take long for others to sprout up:

• The world Famous Million Quarter Webpage


• Million Pixel Page


• Pixel Bay


• Million Penny Homepage


• Pixels Anyone?


• Million Dollar Tattoo


• Power Of Pixels


• Million Pixel Booty


• 250000.org

There are those though that have a slight varation and deserve a look in:

• The Million Dollar Screenshot - Own a piece of my computer desktop


• Fill My Room

Now, having looked at these I have the sproutings of an idea. I wonder if I could turn it could work.

Kittens. War. 'Nuff Said.

Following Cute Overload, we now have Kitten War.

Creole Cooking

I don't know about you but I love Creole and Cajun food and as such will be making a resolution in the New Year to better my knowledge, and as such, what better place to start than The Gumbo Pages. I wonder what other resolutions I can make for the New Year, and perhaps more importantly, which ones I can keep.

Too Cute

Courtesy of BoingBoing this is Cute Overload. Way too cute.

Caveat Emptor

Would you pay �470 for a photo of an XBox?

As this person has found out, it always pays to read the description, and as such I would've thought the negative feedback of 'Lying theif, stay away from this ebay member !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' was a bit harsh. Subsequentially, it would appear the seller's account has also been pulled.

Immoral? perhaps. Illegal? I wouldn't have thought so. Goddam funny? Oh Yes.

Random Bits

Not sure why, but here are a few things that have been occupying me of late:

• Just browsing for christmas presents, a Rubber Band Gatling Gun could be fun, and whilst a RC Battle Tank is cool, is it better than Micro Battling Tanks?. Finally if you have that bit of extra cash, why not go for a L39 Jet, a snip at �199,999.


• For idle timewasting, try Sober Santa 2


• If your looking for a unique Christmas gift, why not choose a Porn Empire courtesy of eBay (NSFW). As strange headlines go, BBC pulls plug on Dalek lesbian romp flick (NSFW) isn't one you see often. In a bizarre twist, the story actually bears a strange resemblance to what my friend Marc did for a GCSE English project (Don't ask).


• I can't remember what prompted it, but I spent some time thinking about Sealand. Perhaps I'm just hankering to move.

Free Music

If your interested, you can use Google operators to find unprotected directories of audio files or files of type .mp3 (or in fact anything).

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Pink Floyd"

Turns up several directory listings of Pink Floyd MP3�s. Replace 'Pink Floyd' with the artist, genre or keyword of your liking.

If you don�t want to use Google operators, try the video/audio search engine that is Singing Fish.

Ooh

So, having finally found time, I downloaded a copy of Google Earth and now have a pretty map with with lots of pins in it. Not sure what use it is, but its very swishy.

Nemi

I thought todays Nemi would bring back some memories, or rather lack of them in my friends.

For a weeks worth of Nemi, click here.

Samhain

Summers end is here, and what better to accompany a time of quiet reflection than your very own pumpkin to keep you company.

MSN Tools

If you use MSN Messenger, you may be interested in the Mess Patch courtesy of Mess With Messenger. It allows you to do all sorts of things such as remove advertising, run multiple instances with different Logons, and the list goes on. It does however infringe the Microsft ToS but eh...

iBelieve

For the technologically literate and religious, there are those times when you just gotta say, iBelieve.

Oh. How Annoying.

Why didn't I patent the idea when I first though of it.

Mental note to self. Trust instincts.

Vengeane Is Mine

I had forgotten all about this particular barbie. Not having one, I can only imagine the rather strange scenarios that must have been brought into existence.

Poppy

Apropro of nothing, if you want something quick a simple to poll multiple mail accounts with minimal system resources, check out Poppy.

You see, this is the problem with starting with a clean slate as it were. So much space to fill with odd small programs that you don't really need. Roll on Nonags.

Que cera.

Love At First Bite

Hmmmm.

If you love someone, you want to give something of yourself to them.

What could be more a symbol of your love than your ring finger. Afterall

You can take a ring off your ring finger, but you can never put your ring finger back on once you take it off.

Whilst true, I'm sure there is a flaw in this argument. If only I could put my finger on it.

Oh no, wait, I can.

PartyPoker

Curious. According to Alexa, PartyPoker.com is rated the 509th most popular website on the net. Yet they have taken the time out of their busy schedule to trawl the net, and email me personally (well personally-ish) to compliment me on my site and asked me what current advertising arrangements are. Sceptical? Me? Slightly.

Thoughts?

Standards

The nice people at Watchfire have launched WebXACT which is an online tool for checking a variety of issues, including quality, privacy, and accessibility.

Eccentris

Another interesting art/photo site is Sacha Dean Biyan's. NverySFW.

Who You Should Know

I don't know why you should know them, but apparently you should.

Like Cats? Use Computers?

If you have answered yes to both these questions, then you need one of these (patent pending).

Musical Lists

Arguably one of the funniest things on the Internet, songs broken down into lists. Here’s a couple of my favorites, but there are thousands. You must go read them.

A personal fave...

• Things I did today:
• Put a spell on you
• Because:
• You're mine
• Did not lie
• Still ain't
• Couldn't stand it cause you put me down
• Loved you
• (lots)
• Didn't care
• If you didn't want me
• I'm yours
• Right now
• Things you better do today:
• Stop the things you do
• Because:
• I couldn't stand it
• Your running around
• Conclusions:
• You're mine!
• Aoooooghhhaa!
• Boooga boooga blblblblblbl ahahahaha!

And perhaps the funniest of the lot...

• Things which I will do for love:
• Anything

• Things which I will not do for love:
• That

How Much is That Skitz In The Window

I am worth $2,304,364.00 on HumanForSale.com. I am not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.

Careless Talk?

Today I am reminded that the old adage careless talk costs lives still has some good mileage in it. In fact, given todays society where technology allows for the dissemination and proliferation of information at the speed of light, it probably is more apt than ever.

Whilst it is humouress to watch people screw up their lives big style (and I won't even mention