September 20, 2007

BookMooch Enhancer V1.1

I've just released version 1.1 of the BookMooch enhancer.

This version will automatically redirect you from http://bookmooch.om to http://www.bookmooch.com . That should prevent you from having to login again on a wishlist hit!

Let me know how you get on.

See the instruction on this page for how to install.

If you are upgrading from a previous version you need only click this link to download the newly updated file

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Posted to BookMooch | General | Greasemonkey

June 15, 2007

BookMooch Enhancer

I've started work on a small Greasemonkey script to add a few features to the Bookmooch website.

First thing to add is a direct Charity link on a users Bio page to give that user points.

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Posted to BookMooch | General | Greasemonkey

June 5, 2007

Movable Type 4.0 Goes Open Source, Adds 50 New Features

I'm pretty excited about this... Sixapart has announced a beta version of it's Movabletype blogging platform (the same platform that runs this site) . I'm currently sorting out a test environment to see what has changed and get a look at the new interface. It promises to provide community based features and a streamlined interface.

I doubt my infrequently posted blog is the target audience for this new release, but it's still interesting to see whats around the corner.

The list of known issues is rather long at present, but hopefully that will be pared down with future Betas.

read more | digg story

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Posted to General

June 4, 2007

CatCam!

It's been a while since I've posted here, but one thing brought me back..

Cat Cam!!

Someone has strapped a camera to their cat and recorded its various jaunts during the day.

Take a look at this felines furtive forays here:-

CatCam

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Posted to General

January 4, 2007

Sketchy Royal Mail delivery

Edit Whoops, I appear to have lost the image.... Time for you to use your imagination!

This is why Royal Mail postage is getting more and more expensive...

Armed with only the recipients name, and a sketch showing the rough location of his home address Royal Mail managed to deliver the letter in 9 days.

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Posted to General

January 3, 2007

LSN Web Interface Fixer 1.4

I've made a slight update to the Web Interface Fixer to include the new maps released over Christmas. You'll just need to redownload the newer version. It should install straight over the old version without any problems.

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Posted to General | Greasemonkey | LSN

New Indiana Jones film!

CNN reports that the script for the new Indiana Jones file has been finished, and filming is due to start in 2007. Harrison Ford will be reprising his role as the whip wielding archeologist.

Its been over 20 years since Indy first hit our screens, and I wouldn't be any more excited at the prospect of a new film.

There is alkso a new Indiana Jones PC game in the works which I'm also looking forward to. I loved The Infernal Machine but wasnt so keen on The Emperors Tomb.

Lucas: 4th 'Indiana Jones' to shoot in 2007 - CNN.com

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Posted to General

December 8, 2006

LSN Web Interface Fixer 1.3

The Map Name now links through to CountZeros marvellous Map HQ, giving you an instant reminder of the map layout and deployment zones.

Enjoy!

Grab it from here as usual

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Posted to General | Greasemonkey | LSN

LSN Web Interface Fixer 1.2

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usI've just released a new version of my Web Interface Fixer. You can now add your own Tournament descriptions to games on the main page, allowing you to keep track of which games are Alliance Matches, World League or any Belt games.

Once installed you click on the relevant Tournament line and you should get a pop-up asking you for a description of that game. You can rename as many times as you like, so you could use it to keep whatever notes you'd like.

You'll need to refresh the page for and new changes to be displayed.

You cannot rename any of the 'official' tourneys.

The only drawbacks is that this is on a browser by browser basis, so if you access the web interface from a different PC then your descriptions will not be viewable. I also have no idea if they persist across Firefox upgrades, although it looks like they should.

You can install the new version here and you can get the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox here

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Posted to General | Greasemonkey | LSN

December 6, 2006

The future of Dating

glumbert.com | Sexual Consent

(Can't wait to see what Adsense content this post pulls in... )

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Posted to General

Useful Amazon gadget

Do you ever find yourself just shy of the £15 Free Delivery limit when ordering from Amazon? Well, here is a website that will certainly help you out.

just key in the amount short you are and it will scour Amazon for the cheapest item you can add to your order to take it to the £15 level. Hurrah!

Amazon.co.uk Filler Item Finder

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Posted to General

December 2, 2006

Get your own back on telemarketers

How to prank a Telemarketer

This is VERY funny! I might have to start doing this.

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Posted to General

November 14, 2006

Find It

Is this the worlds hardest game...? I cannot get past the second picture!

findit

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Posted to General

October 27, 2006

The Coin Master

How many takes, I wonder...?

The Coin Master Video

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Posted to General

October 9, 2006

56k Modem Emulator

This is for those of you who miss the 'Good-Ole-Days'

56K Modem Emulator

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Posted to General

September 20, 2006

Baby Toupe

Link

One of those sites that makes me go "Er... what...?"

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Posted to General

September 15, 2006

Free Money!

Its not often us Brits get something for nothing, but this looks like it;ll work out just fine.

Sign up for the ScreenSelect free trial by the end of the month and they'll give you a free tenner

Just remember to cancel that trial after getting your first DVD sent to you...

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Posted to General

The power of The Hoff!

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | The celebrity power of the Hoff

The BBC has a good story on the Hoff today. The section I found most intriguing is this:-

"His is due to appear in a musical about his life called David Hasselhoff: The Musical, which he has described as "totally campy"."

A Hoff Musicial? (Hoffical?) That sounds fab! I bet I couldn't persuade the misses to go with me though...

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Posted to General

August 14, 2006

Cosmotions

I've just discovered this interesting website.

Its called Cosmotions, and it contains some fab time lapse pictures of the heavens like the sample on the left. The fullsize pictures are rather large, so this isn't for you 56k-ers out there (if indeed you still exist)

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Posted to General

August 8, 2006

How to make an electric motor

Step 1 - Find a battery, a scren, a small magnet and a short piece of wire.
Step 2 - Assemble them as described on this page
Step 3 - Enjoy!

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Posted to General

July 4, 2006

Thames Water insanity

Despite haemorrhaging 890 million litres of water a day Thames Water have avoided having to pay a fine to the industry watchdog. Its worth noting that Thames Water posted a pre-tax profit of over £300 million . Its about time they spent some of that on fixing their infrastructure instead of applying for a drought order to cause further hardship for their customers

BBC NEWS | Business | Thames Water escapes leakage fine

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Posted to General

June 29, 2006

The Incredible Shrinking Artwork

If you've spent any time on the internet you have undoubtedly received spam mails from people professing to have huge sums of money they are willing to share with you if only you can help them get it out of their country. Perhaps a long lost relative of your has died, or perhaps an unscrupulous lawyer is trying to sneak the contents of a large unclaimed bank account out of the country.

These are all scams of course, and they have earned themselves the nickname of '419' after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes. They basically try to butter you up into giving out your personal details, bank account numbers or even sending them some form of processing fee to free up this huge amount of cash. Its a big business and thousands of such messages get sent out every day. Sadly, some people are taken in by them and end up losing a great deal of money. There have even been reports of people flying out to Nigeria (where most of these scams seem to originate from) and never being seen again....

There has sprung up a counter-movement to these scammers who respond to their mails in an attempt to waste as much of the scammers time as possible. There are a number of sites dedicated to this practice but the most popular is 419 Eater . They often post up the results of their email exchanges, revealing the lengths that scammers will go to if they think they're about to get sent some money.

One of the best examples of this Scam Baiting has been posted to the site. Ever thought you could get a scammer to carve a wooden Commodore 64 keyboard and post it to the UK...? Neither did I, but click below for details on how it was done.

The Incredible Shrinking Artwork

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Posted to General

June 27, 2006

My fear of mustard and pickles is ruining my life

Possibly the most bizarrely titled Chat Show ever...?

YouTube - Maury Show - Phobias - Pickles

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Posted to General

June 26, 2006

Carboot Bargain

I did a trawl of a local carboot sale Sunday morning and found a fantastic item.

It was a compilation of cult kids TV shows, featuring Danger Mouse, Count Duckula (which is rubbish), Jamie and the Magic Torch and the main reason for buying it... Chorlton And the Wheelies , Complete first series!

All this for a mere 200 pence!

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June 19, 2006

Ghosts Of Mars

Well, thats two hours of my life I'll never get back.

Why did no-one warn me it was so very rubbish...?

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Posted to General

Magic update

For those amoung you who were wondering how my journey into the world of Magic has been going, here is an update.

I'm practising a few sleights of hand at the moment, without knowing any real 'tricks' to go along with them. I'm trying to get the basics learnt properly so I can concentrate on remembering the stories and procedures for the trick, instead of fumbling at the super-secret-snazzy moves at the same time.

I've alos been putting a lot of study into the Mallusionist site as they details the workings of lots of tricks.

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Posted to General

Project Paradroid

Remember Paradroid? A classic Commodore 64 game whereby you had to destroy a shipful of robots by either zapping them or taking them over and controlling them directly. I used to love it!

Now, some clever fellows have remade it to run natively on modern PC's. It uses authentic sound effects from the original and plays pretty well. Thre were a few control niggles when I tried it (delayed keypresses mainly) but it certainly brought back the memories. Better than Paradroid 90 on the Amiga

Click here to take a look for yourself.

Also, if you are interested in the original Paradroid then take a look at this page detailing the process behind the making of the game.

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Posted to General

April 30, 2006

My last season

I think Season 4 is going to have to be my last in the Specialist League. I am finding it harder and harder to keep up with all my games, which you can probably tell by the complete lack of any recent game write-ups. DibbleNGrub still seems to be going strong though.

So, I'm going to take a break com competitions for a while. Maybe I'll pick it back up in a while, but I think I need to find the fun of LSN again rather than be forced to play games I dont really fancy...

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Posted to General | Season 4

BookCrossing

Its been a while since I've posted here, and I'm determined not to let this stagnate. Sure, I'm not exactly into a six figure readership here but I should male the effort on my part if I expect anyone to make the effort to read...

With that in mind I thought I'd post about my most recent Web discovery, BookCrossing.com

The premise of the site is the sharing of books. If you're anything like me you have a huge pile of books waiting to be read, another huge pile that you're partway through and a third pile, the top of which has long since disappeared into the clouds, full of books you're finished with. Now, there is not enough shelving in Ikea for me to keep all of these books, so I either have to sell them on Ebay, palm them off onto semi-interested friends and family, or just donate them to charity.

The Ebay sales are generally more hassle then they are worth and it wont be long before all my family members have teetering piles of books of their own so mostly these books end up in a local charity shop.

BookCrossing.com presents an alternative. You register a book with them which gives it a unique BookCrossing number and then set it free somewhere. Leave it on the bus on your way to work, on a park bench, in your local coffee shop or post them through random peoples letter boxes.

You either write a manual note inside the cover, or use one of BookCrossing.com's preprinted Release stickers which point people towards the website and lists the BookCrossing number for the book. Hopefully they'll follow the link, make a quick note to say your free-flying book has been caged once more and then pass it on again once they are done with it.

As the site says It's also a fascinating exercise in fate, karma, or whatever you want to call the chain of events that can occur between two or more lives and one piece of literature. Oh, and we should mention, it's absolutely free and absolutely private, too.

Do your straining floorboards a favour and set some books free today. Let me know how you get on.

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Posted to General

Pop-ups?

Is anyone else seeing pop-ups, or attempted pop-ups when viewing my site?

I've not intentionally added anything to pop-up windows (I hate them myself!) but I seem to occasionally get one when checking my posts have gone live correctly.

Anyone know how I can track down the cause? I thought it was one of the stat-tracking applets I loaded on, but I took them out again but still seems to get the odd pop-up every so often.

Any ideas?

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Posted to General

April 12, 2006

Do NOT press the button

Do not click here

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Posted to General

February 24, 2006

Father gets life for baby murder

This man should never be released.

BBC NEWS | England | Tyne | Father gets life for baby murder

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February 23, 2006

Mobile Cooking

Is it really possible to cook an egg using Mobile Phones...?

Click here to find out.

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February 13, 2006

3d Rooms

3D Painted Rooms

I think these would give me a serious headache....

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Transformers - The Reality

Remeber the cartoon series Transformers? Optimus Prime and ..... the other ones.

Well, now they are a reality. Check out the video below of a buggy that can transform into a walking robot.

Clicky Clicky

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February 12, 2006

Move Complete!

If you are seeing this then the server move is complete.

I need to do a bit of tidying up, then all is done!

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Posted to General

Server Move

This site might be off-line for a few days while I shift hosting companies. It should be painless, but please let me know if things do not work afterwards....

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Posted to General

January 30, 2006

Time Warner to release films on P2P

While I think that digital distribution is soemthing that the big film studios need to think about, I believe that Time Warner have the wrong idea here.

Time Warner embraces P2P | The Register

The article says:- The subsidiary will be called In2Movies and will offer films for about the same price as a DVD ... The film files will go online the same day DVDs are released.

So, you still pay pretty much the same as for a boxed DVD, complete with artwork and inlay, but you also have to use one of your own blank DVD's to burn it to. This is assuming they make the full DVD .iso available, with Menus and special features rather than just the bare-bones film.

I think they'll need to make the downloadable version MUCH cheaper than the full, boxed DVD for this to be an attractive proposition.

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January 25, 2006

Specialist League Season 4

The Specialist League season 4 has kicked off, with me taking Mechs for The Unprofessionals. Our name is particularly apt, since I'm already late in deploying in my initial games....

Will I have time to write up any matches? We'll have to see about that... Keep 'em peeled!

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January 16, 2006

Best Blonde Joke Ever!

This has got to be the funniest Blonde joke I've ever seen!

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January 12, 2006

Glow-in-the-dark Pigs...?

Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs

All I can say is why? So we can eat bacon sarnies at night?

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Posted to General

Alakazam!

I've always had an interest in Magic, from some basic magic sets through to a very complicated card trick book1 I owned when I was young. Last year I tried to relearn some of the old tricks I used to be able to do as a kid but never got anywhere.

However, I like the idea of being able to baffle my daughter with a few tricks when she gets older so I've decided to pick it up again. I also like the idea of knowing secrets that other people do not!

Personally I like the kind of tricks you can do without having to use any specially designed cards or props, the kind of thing you can do anywhere at any time. So, last night I learnt my first new magic trick!

Its a trick whereby I'm seen to pull a coin through the centre of a handkerchief . It can be done with any handkerchief and any coin which is rather handy. (However, I don't know if people even use handkerchiefs these days...). I know hoiw sits done, but I think a bit of work is needed on the presentation.

Even still, the description in the book wasnt particularly easy to understand. Does anyone know of any good books with easy-to-follow instructions, or is it the case that part of the puzzle is to work out how to perform the trick yourself?

1 So complicated in fact that I couldn't even understand how the trick was done, let alone attempt it.

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Posted to General

January 5, 2006

Daisy

I thought it was about time I posted up a pic of my daughter on this page.

I just couldnt resist these two!









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Posted to Flickr | General

December 4, 2005

LSN Web Interface Fixer V 1.0

Ok, we are ready to go with the LSN Web Interface Fixer.

I'm pretty sure I've hidden all details that might give away the result of a finished game, and there are a few other niceties, as shown in the previous post.

To use this script you must be running a Greasemonkey compatible Web Browser, like Firefox. You must also have installed the Greasemonkey extension1, available from here . Make sure you have uninstalled any older versions you might have installed or else they may well conflict with each other.

Once done, you can open the Web Interface Fixer script here

When you have that open in your web browser, go to the Tools menu, then Install This User Script.

That's it, job done!

If anyone finds any problems with it then please let me know and I'll try to sort them out.


1 Eventually I hope this to be a FireFox extention in its own right, which eliminates the need to have Greasemonkey installed. Indeed, I do have a standalone extention already, but for some reason it is inserting my identity lines twice and I can't figure out why..... If anyone wants to try it out its available here

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Posted to General | Greasemonkey | LSN

New version soon!

I'm just putting the finishing touches to a new version of the LSN Web Interface Fixer.

It's a total rewrite, and so now works under the latest Greasemonkey version. (0.5.3 at time of writing)

Here are the features:-

// Features
// --------
//
// Hides the Win/Lose/Draw status of finished games to prevent spoiling
// a close final turn.
//
// Hides League Point changes of finished games on main screen
//
// Hides the sections of the game detail page that tell you the
// game result, final score and League Point changes.
//
// Allows you to view the last turn/wholegame for games in Waiting status.
//
// When issuing a direct Player Challenge, if you specify a map it will
// automatically select the radio button to play that map. Eliminates all
// those "I'm sure I picked a different map" moments.
//
// Allows you to deploy early on games while waiting for your opponent
// to deploy. Not tested fully

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Posted to General | Greasemonkey | LSN

November 15, 2005

Welcome to DibbleNGrub

A big hello to DibbleNGrub, another LSNer who is using this site to post some game writeups. You'll find his entries (once ready for public consumption) over on the right.

If you fancy getting your game written up, then why not send him a challenge! You may just get lucky.....

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Posted to DibbleNGrub | General

November 9, 2005

The Email Time Capsule

Did you ever want to set up a time capsule, but could never be bothered mucking about in the dirt, digging holes and making maps?

Well, this is the Digital Age, so why not send yourself a digital time capsule? You can choose periods of 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 years for your capsule.

What do you want to say to your future self?

The E-Mail Time Capsule - Forbes.com

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November 3, 2005

Sony DRM gone too far

This is a very interesting read from those brainy chaps at SysInternals

One of their clever chaps discovered that a Sony CD put hidden, uninstallable software onto his PC just by playing the disc.

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

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October 25, 2005

Mad For Mad

Remember Mad Magazine (back when it was still funny...?) While away a few hours on the following site:-

MAD Magazine Explorer

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Posted to General

October 14, 2005

Heres comes Gwyneths head in a jar

How to make your own Head in a Jar

Creepy.....

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Posted to General

What did you just call me....?

UtterlyBoring.com pointed me towards the Profaniwki .

Have you ever heard someone use a previously unheard phrase and wondered "Did they just insult me...?" Now you can look it up and find out exactly what they thought of you. Of course, you might be better off not knowing....

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October 11, 2005

A SMS controlled kettle

Too lazy to walk to the kitchen?

Your prayers are answered....

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October 4, 2005

Welcome On Board!

A big Hello goes out to Colmans Pig, who has jumped on board to write up some more LSN games.

He has his own little area under our Hosted section. At the moment it needs tarting up a bit (by me) but eventually it'll be its own little SubSite.

If anyone else wants a section here for LSN game writeups then let me know

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Posted to ColmansPig | General | Hosted

September 28, 2005

Random Flickr Goodness

Got a few minutes to kill, and appreciate a good photo? You could do much worse than visit the Random Photo Browser

It finds a random Flickr user and then shows you a selection of pictures that person has marked as a favourite. I dare say that a lot of the pics I post to the Flickr Category will be found this way. People mark pictures as favourites for lots of different reasons, but the vast majority I've seen there so far are good pics.

If you find a good picture this way, leave me a comment about it!

  • Update * - While browsing around I found FlickrRandom . This does the same thing, except the picture doesnt have to be marked as a favourite. you get the good with the bad, but you can find some previously unseen pics.

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Posted to Flickr | General

September 24, 2005

A new game on the go!

Ok, its time to play my Month 3 game against Calvin523 . It's a Specialist LEague game, with my Mechs against Calvins Greys. Keep an eye on this category to see the final game write-up!

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Posted to General | M3: 185313 Vs Calvin523

September 20, 2005

An interesting game

I saw this game crop up on the open challenge list. It's not often I take up 15 force point League Games. Its also not often that a 15 point game will throw up Scrum as the random map.....

Worthy of a write up I thought.

Now, I historically lose any games of significance that I decide to write about, so stay tuned to this category to see if that holds true this time!

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Posted to 185317 Vs Argonaught | General

September 17, 2005

Reflection



Reflection
Originally uploaded by fujiyama17.

This picure caught my eye on Flickr today. A very clever shot. I wonder how many attempts were made before they got it just right....?

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Posted to Flickr | General

September 13, 2005

Hammered with Trackback spam

Wow, there has been a huge surge in Trackback spam today, with someone trying to publicise their disgusting porn sites by spamming my blog (and billions of others) with fake trackbacks.

Their hope is that they will get published on all these blogs and so increase their search engine rank since they have lots of people linking to them (That's one of the factors Google uses in its black-magic ranking algorithm)

Well, thanks to Movable Type 3.2's inbuilt spam fighting feature none of their attempts have succeeded. They have either been junked immediately, or held in limbo until I manually approve or reject them.

Following this onslaught I've tweaked the blogs settings so that more of them get junked in the first place. Still, deleting them manually takes about 3 clicks in total.

Trackbacks in general are a pretty good idea, as they allow fellow bloggers who comment on other peoples entries to let those people know they are being talked about. It increases exposure in general and gives a warm-fuzzy feeling. It used to be that trackbacks were accepted by default, immediately getting listed alongside your websites content which is why they made such a juicy target for spammers. The age old arms race then began between spammers and spam blockers. I think the current implementation in MT 3.2 is very good. It pulled in a third-party anti-spam plugin and embraced it, tying it in to the main body of the code enabling it to do much more in the fight against spam.

Good job so far I say!

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Posted to General

September 12, 2005

WeBoggle

Now, this is a great timewaster!

Ever play the game Boggle? Its a word game whereby you have to make words out of a grid of letters. All the letters have to connect and you cannot use the same one twice. The longer the word the more points you get.

Someone has written a version of this that runs directly in your browser. No plugins or technical jiggerypokery required. Give it a click and you can be playing against others within minutes.

WEBoggle

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September 9, 2005

A deep deep hole......

Ever wondered where you would come out if you started digging a very deep hole in your back garden..?

Well, now you can find out"

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September 8, 2005

Legal flamewar over a Ham Sandwich

Two legal secretaries have been fired in Australia after an email exchange about a missing ham sandwich was forwarded around the world.

You can read the full email exchange here . Read from the bottom of the page upwards.

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August 31, 2005

Hello LangaListers!

A big Hello to everyone clicking on through from The Langalist . It seems that I've been listed in the Loaded The Code section, (although Fred did get the name of the website wrong). Its nice to know that an IT Pro like Fred Langa is not infallible. Makes me feel better about the billions of mistakes I make every day.

For those first time visitors I'd like to say that most of the entries on this site are following the game Laser Squad Nemesis. The categories over on the right contain game write ups and commentary. It's a Play By Email tactical squad game. It looks pretty dated I'll grant you, but it plays like a dream! Plus, you don't need a cutting edge PC to play it, and you don't need to dedicate much time. Since I'm expecting my first child in a couple of months , time is something I wont have much of!

If anyone is interested in giving me a game then let me know . There is a free trial that's more than enough to get you hooked.

The entries that get listed on this front page tend to be stuff that catches my eye and things I find noteworthy.

Pop back and visit me every so often!

Finally, I run a Cartoon list on Yahoogroups. I dont often link it from these pages, but if you feel like checking it out then send a mail to Toontastic-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Posted to General

The lonely guy (over the umbrella)

I've just discovered this chap on Flickr. He has done some remarkable pictures...

I'm sure they have had more than a little Photoshop editing, but I'm not bothered by that at all (it would appear that a lot of Flickrites are....)

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Posted to Flickr | General

August 28, 2005

I'm back!

I got back from my hols on Saturday. We spent a week down in St Ives, Cornwall on a well earned holiday. We were only there for a week but mananged to get loads done including a couple of beach days, viewing the Tate Modern, and trips to Lands End, Penvance and St Michaels Mount. I did my usual trick ofgetting burnt in amusing patterns which is my own fault as I didnt put the suntan lotion on properly. (Yuck.. i HATE that stuff!)

It sure is nice to be home though.

I have lots of games to write up (expect a few to be revealed shortly) and lots of emails to get through. My ISP had written to me complaining that one of my accounts had 340Mb of email waiting in it, and my quota is 20Mb. Whoops...

Anyway, there are some pictures of my hols online if you want a look. I had to upload them in a smaller size than I would have liked as I do not have a Pro Flickr account and so my uploads are limited. Anyway, have a flick though then. I think this one is my favourite.

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August 18, 2005

New Server Glitches

I've moved the website to a new server in order to upgrade the software that runs the site behind the scenes. There are a few glitches, so some entries might look a little odd for a while. Links will probably not work properly in entries. Let me know if you spot anything else that looks odd.

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August 8, 2005

I'm ill!

Human Virus Scanner

How infected are you....?

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A Word To The Wise

Never drink an entire 750ml bottle of Pro-biotic yoghurt drink in one sitting.

Trust me on that.

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Update imminent....

The new version of Movable Type (the software that runs this website) is due to be released shortly. I'll be upgrading the website with it, so if you spot anything that looks odd, or is just plain broken then please let me know

Hopefully you won't even notice the difference, but it'll make maintaining the website (and stopping all the spammers who keep trying to post comments) a great deal easier.

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August 5, 2005

Version 0.5 already!

For soemthing I only started yesterday I sure have had to make a lot of changes to it....

Anyway, Version 0.5 of the LSN Finished Game Status Hider(snappy title, eh..? Suggestions for a better one anyone?) will now allow you to view games that are waiting for your opponents moves.

You cant resubmit your orders as the server already has them. There is nothing stopping you from wasting your time replotting the orders, but the server will just throw them away, so don't bother.

Also, I've fixed a bug when viewing the game details pages for games that were not finished. The Message From Opponent box was getting hidden, which isnt conducive to witty banter. Also the bit that shows you the points on offer for a ongoing League game was getting corrupted.

Sorted now anyway. Get it from the usual place.

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Posted to General | LSN

Rockstar being Bullied for Bully

Press The Buttons has a nice article about the recent demonstration agsint Rockstar Games.

Apparently a bunch of people calling themselves 'Peaceoholics' have decided that they know best for all of humanity and are trying to prevent the release of Rockstars forthcoming, unfinished game "Bully".

Well, thank Christ that there is someone out there to stand up for me. It sure makes me feel nice that a bunch of people have decided that I cannot possibly make my own mind up and choose whether or not the game is suitable for me. Hopefully they will prevent me from ever buying an unsuitable game again. I only ask, Where were you when I bought Double Dragon on the C64? . Where were you when I was pondering buiying "Super Monkey Ball 2"?

Those two games have done far more to enrage me than any Rockstar game (with the possible exception of State Of Emergency, whic was just plain rubbish.

I hope these 'Peaceoholics' get met with the total derision that they deserve. I dont need you standing up for me, I'll make my own choices thank-you-very-much.

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Posted to General

Version 0.4 of LSN Game Status Hider

Couple of bug fixes, and general tidy up.

Download it from the same place:- Here

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Posted to General | LSN

August 4, 2005

Fiddling with Greasemonkey 2

Ok, it turns out there were a few more bugs in the first release.

Here is another release

You will need to install an additional extention for this to work. Its the Platypus extention and you can grab it here . It seems to enable a new toolbar by default, but you can turn that off by going to View --> Toolbars. It all works fine with the toolbar turned off.

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Posted to General | LSN

Fiddling with Greasemonkey

I've had Greasemonkey installed into my Firefox browser for some time now, and its been busy rewriting webpages for me in the background to improve my browsing.

I've decived to write my own script to fix up the LSN Web Interface.

Here it is.

Edit Changed link to point to new file Edit

First you need to install Greasemonkey , then click my link above, go to Tools and then click Install User Script. Job done! (I've no idea if there is a Greasemonkey derivative for Internet Explorer. As far as I know this only works for Mozilla based browsers.

I need to figure out a way to hide the Rating Change for League games as thats also a bit of a giveaway, but not as much as having to click on the words Won/Lost/Drawn when you want to find out how a close game ended up....

Any problems then either leave a comment or email me

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Posted to General | LSN

July 28, 2005

Is your printer spying on you?

This is news to me, althought it looks like its been going on some time. Printer manufacturers have been imbedding information into printouts that enable a document to be tracked back to the printer that produced it. Evidently thay are printing small patterns of yellow dots intermingled with the rest of the print out that can be decoded to the printers serial number and model.

The EFF are trying to track down the makes of printers that do this in order to put pressure on them to stop the practice.

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July 25, 2005

Updates

You've probably noticed a few updates have been made here recently.

Firstly there is a groovy Flickr badge over on the left. Ok, so its a bit monotonous at the moment since I only have a handful of pictures online. I hope to be adding to that soon though.

Secondly I've found a long lost LSN game writeup. Its the Month 3 Guerilla League match against Private Dickson. I bet you can't wait to find out who won! Me neither, as it would appear that I never finished the writeup. Sorry 'bout that....

Finally I've added a link to Fred Langa's Langalist newsletter. Its over on the left. Its a rather useful resource for all kinds of PC problems and issues. Click on through if you are into that kind of thing....

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Infinite Flickr

You've probably seen things similar to this before, especially if you've ever decided to look into a mirror while wearing reflective shades....

This is a funky little movie that links a series of images originally posted into the Infinite Flickr group at, well.. Flickr . Worth a quick gander. It reminds me of the section in Bladerunner where Harrison Ford zooms into a photo over and over again.

Check out the video here

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Posted to Flickr | General

July 14, 2005

Blogging explained

For enyone in the dark regarding the world of Blogs then you should check this out.

I'm sure glad this page doesnt fall into any of those definitions!

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June 30, 2005

What you looking at?


What you looking at?

Originally uploaded by Robmonster.

22 week scan of our little-un. We found out that bump is going to be a girl! Now Em and I get to fight over girls names.

You'll probably want to click on through to view the pic at Flickr, as there are some nice notes which make the image clearer.

There are also a number of other shots to check out.

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Posted to Flickr | General

Instant Polaroids

Turn any web image into an instant polaroid with the Polaroid-o-nizer™

There is also a nice bookmartlet to make an easy job even easier!

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June 29, 2005

Flickr Montager

This is a rather cool piece of coding. You give it a search term, it finds relvant Flickr pics and creates one of those Photo Mosaic style pictures.

The results are variable as the level of details in the final montage is fairly low but its a clever piece of coding none-the-less.

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Posted to Flickr | General

June 28, 2005

Hats of meat

This years Must-Have accessory.

Link

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Posted to General

June 24, 2005

Curse you Google Adsense!!

It would appear that since I mentioned that awful Crazy Frog ringtone a few postings down Google have decided that my site would be a great place to advertise it.

I guess their adsensing algorithm needs a little adjustment....

(I realise that by mentioning it again I'm making the site an even larger candidate for their ads. Double Curse!!)

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Posted to General

Zoomy Moon

Once again the BBC have a great article all about the moon appearing larger when it is on the horizon. Apparently even the mega-brains at NASA cannot explain why this is.

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Posted to General

June 14, 2005

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

Ok, so I'm a little late on this one, but I finally got round to seeing the H2G2 film over the weekend.

I'm a big fan of the books and radio shows but I must admit to being left cold by the film.

The film loosely follows the plot of the first book but it seemed very rushed. Lots of the classic scenes were missing, or cut down to unrecognisable facsimiles. The jokes that remain seem to be included as a nod towards the viewers who are already familiar with the series.

For example before leaving Earth, Ford makes a show of trying to find a towel. He uses it on a number of occasions during the film, and even goes so far as to say that you should always know where your towel is. However, he never says why, and that’s where the joke is. It might be funny to a new viewer purely because its rather eccentric behaviour, but the original joke detailing the many uses for towels is not there.

With so much missing and trimmed it seems odd that they would include brand-new material that wasn’t in any of the books (to my recollection anyway....) For example, Trillian gets captured by the Vogons, and the group travel to the Vogon home planet to rescue her. Since the main audience for this film are the people who enjoyed the original works, it seems an odd decision to replace the material people want to see with brand new stuff.

I didn’t particularly like Arthur in this version, but that may just be because I am so used to Simon Jones portrayal of him. I thought that Zaphod was awful, entirely unlikable and incredibly annoying.

On the plus side, I thought the Vogon models were very well done, the opening song is rather good and the sequences featuring entries from The Book are good.

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Posted to General

June 9, 2005

Dalek gets kidnapped

The BBC are running a story about the original Dalek that has been kidnapped in Somerset. A ransom note was found asking for instructions from The Doctor.

Link

UPDATE

The dalek has been found on top of Glastonbury Tor after the thieves said it had become "too hot to handle"

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June 7, 2005

Radiohead :- Creep

Check out this fantastic animation put to the acoustic version of Radiohead's Creep. Its a beautiful song and a fascinating animation.

Link

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Posted to General

May 29, 2005

Another Timewasting Game

Got some time to kill? Give this a try.

My best so far is 18 in a row......

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Posted to General

Challenge Vader

Ok, so its sponsored by Burger King, but its stil amusing.

See if you can outwit Lord Vader in a game of 20 questions.

Link

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Posted to General

May 25, 2005

NOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!!!

Oh, the humanity!

Spice Girls Reunite

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Posted to General

Frog ringtone to oust Coldplay in music charts

Its a travesty! This cannot be allowed to happen.

Everyone reading this must go out and buy 4 copies of the Coldplay single. Ok, so you might not think that Coldplay are the best band in the world, but do you really want that bloody frog to be top of the hit parade?1

The "Crazy Frog" mobile phone ringtone -- loved and loathed in equal measure in Britain -- looks set to be number one in the music charts after it went on sale as a CD single, pipping a new release from top band Coldplay.

Source Link

1 How old am I....?

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May 24, 2005

Homemade Lightsabres

Following on from the previous post about How Lightsabres work, it would appear two people decided to have a go at making their own with flourescent light tubes. And petrol.

Read about the lunacy here

Thanks to Rainman for the link

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Posted to General

May 23, 2005

When you need a Paper in a hurry!

You've all been there. You have a deadline looming... Up to your eyeballs in work.... You just dont have the time to write up your document properly.

What do you do....?

Cheat!

Use this website to generate you a authentic looking scientific paper in no time at all. you can even save it as a nice PDF document.

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Posted to General

Google Content Blocker

Are you tired of all those pesky words on websites getting in the way of your surfing experience?

Try out the Content Blocker from Google. It can turn this into this.

Handy, eh?

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Posted to General

May 22, 2005

How lightsabers work

And you thought it was Science Fiction

Get the info here

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Posted to General

New RSS Style

RSS feed subscribers will have noticed a shortened RSS article summary instead of the full article.

What do you think? Do you prefer this, or the full article instead?

I shortened it as the RSS file was getting quite large, but if you prefer it the old way I'll switch it back.

Leave me a comment, or drop me an email. telling me what you think.

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Posted to General

May 12, 2005

Pacman turns 25

CNN has an article celebrating 25 years of Pacman.

Some people have been preparing for this for some time.....

Pacman has heavily influenced my generation. After all, where else did they learn how to stand around in dark rooms, listening to electronic music and munching pills.

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Posted to General

May 9, 2005

Chilli Sauce that can kill

Following on nicely from the Mexican post comes new of some chilli sauce that can kill . It is made of pure capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers “hot” and costs £105 per bottle.

I like my curries spicy, but that might just be overkill....

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Posted to General

A tale of woe...

I went down the pub with a few friends Friday night and we got talking about a Pub near us that does an All-You-Can-Eat Mexican buffet. We all love Mexican food and often bemoan the fact that there are no decent Mexican restaurants anywhere near us.1 The last time they held one of these evenings was about 6 weeks ago, and we all agreed to keep an eye in the local papers to see when it would next be held.....

The next day I met with Jamie who said he had found an advert for this pub, with a new date for their Mexican night!!! Guess when it is....

The night before.

We had missed it, while moaning about how we had missed the one before.

I need some kind of system that emails me 3 days in advance with details of interesting culinary treats in my local area.

Its either that or I go hungry. Again.

1 Actually, there is a Mexican takeaway in the next town up the road, but I've yet to try it. Too worried about the food getting cold by the time I get home

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May 7, 2005

Fainting Goats

There isnt really much to say about this video clip......

How these animals ever survived any predator attacks I'll never know.

Video Link

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Posted to General

May 4, 2005

May the fourth be with you!

Today is the day I get to make my annual Star Wars joke.

Good isn't it?

If Lucasfilm had any sense they would have scheduled Episode III for release today. "May The Fourth Be With You" would have made a great advertising byline....

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April 27, 2005

A Batch o' Links

Watch your life ticking by at the Day Of Dots Clock

You'll need keen eyesight to watch the dots tick past as your day ebbs along. Thoroughly depressing....



To pass the time in a more amusing manner you could play Guess the Google

The program runs a Google Image Search and then displays you the first 20 images it find. You have to guess what search term was used. In 20 seconds. Blindfolded1.

Its worryingly addictive, as you can get enough right to make you feel let down when you fail.



Finally there are a couple of amusing blogsite to read.

We have Darth Vaders Blog and Marvin, the Paranoid Android

Most amusing reading.



fn1. Only for the very hardcore

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April 26, 2005

Far more fun than it should be

After a drunken night at the pub I stumbled across this game

There is something incredibly addictive about it.

My current high-score is 4645. Which is rubbish.

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April 22, 2005

Cat Buckaroo

Its sweeping the nation apparently, this chap appears to be rather good at it.

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Posted to General

My Little-Un


Little-un

Originally uploaded by Robmonster.

This is the first scan of my future insomnia inducer.

We went along yesterday for the 12 week scan and I was amazed at the clarify of the pictures on screen. It loses a little something in the translation from screen to printed image to scanned jpg but its still remarkably clear.

The little blighter was fast asleep, so Em had to give a little wiggle to wake it up. It didnt seem best pleased and soon was fast asleep again. Takes after me!

Hopefully the long sleep sessons will continue after the birth...

You can click the pic for a larger annotated view.

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Posted to Flickr | General

Happy to be a hoarder

The BBC have a story about a man who found an old magazine underneath his floorboards. That magazine contained the original publication of Moores Law .

Intel paid him a tidy £10,000 for it.

This weekend I'm going to rip up all the floorboards in my house and see if IOntel are interested in any of it.

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Posted to General

April 20, 2005

Upgraded....

The upgrade to Movable Type 3.16 seems to have gone ok. Rebuilt the website, nothing untowards has appeared just yet.....

If anyone does see anything odd, please let me know

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Posted to General

April 19, 2005

Emailing Jennifer Aniston

I received a rather odd email in my inbox today. It had a few authentic photos attached of Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox-Arquette and David Arquette at a babys Christening. The email urged you to read down to the bottom , through all the comments and FWD: FWD: FWD's to see who started it. The originator seems to be Jennifer Aniston herself, although the email address is missing.

It looks like I'm about 10 emails away from Ms Aniston, which gave me an odd thought. This email had reched me by being forwarded all around the world. I wondered if I could reverse the process to get an inane message back to the lady of Rachel fame.

So, I went through the mail figuring out who seems to have sent the message on to who, and constructed a chain-mail of sorts to get my message passed all the way back by the same route. Some of the people down at the bottom had addresses I could have mailed directly, but that would be cheating.....

I wonder if the message will ever get there?

UPDATE

Of course, this is a fake, however its a good job that I didnt post the attached pictures to this site :)

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Posted to General

Movable Type 3.16 released

Six Apart - ProNet - Movable Type 3.16 released

I thought I'd post this as an explanation for anything that might break on this site over the next few days.

I'm planning on upgrading the software that constructs this site on Wednesday night. From the sounds of it it should be relatively painless, and will mean that I'll be able to put entries together a bit easier.

If you notice anything wrong then please let me know

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Posted to General

April 13, 2005

Intel give AMD Best CPU Award

You just couldn't make it up!

Link

Actually, I'm not familiar with that site, so maybe they do make it up!

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Posted to General

Progress on the FI Roster

I've finally solved a problem I have on the Field Instructor Roster . I wanted new LSN players to be able to post their details to the site, so that one of the Field Instructors could issue then a training game.

This turned out to be far trickier than I had thought, until I stumbled across some nice details on Arvind Satyanarayan's Movalog website. I've given them a run through on my test blog and it seems to work fine. I need to make a few adjustments to tailor it to my exact requirments but that doesnt look too tricky.

Hoepfully this will make the FI Roster much easier to use for any new players seeking a bit of help finding their feet.

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Posted to General

April 9, 2005

Shooting some b-ball outside the school.

Check out this cracking video clip of some rather special basketball moves.... There MUST be some video editing going on there.... Right..?

8.8MB Quicktime Link

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Posted to General

April 5, 2005

Need a few words?

I got sent this link today.

A lady has collected together all the amusing .sig entries that she has come across since 1990. There are a HUGE number of entries here, some are awful but there are a fair few gems.

They are all credited to the original poster, so see if you can find your name on there.

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Posted to General

March 31, 2005

Dr Who....?

Christopher Eccleston has apparently quit Dr Who after only 1 series, fearing being typecast. Well, that didnt last long.... Either he thinks the rest of the episodes are bad and doesnt want to be associated with them, or he's holding out for more money to reprise the role in the second series (which has already been commisioned).

Either way its a shame as I thought he made quite a good Doctor, albeit I've only seen the first episode.

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Posted to General

March 30, 2005

The Shouting Lamppost

I could use a few of these round my way. Might help move the local chav kids on......

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Posted to General

March 29, 2005

Fancy a snack?

This has got to be uncomfortable, but as the site says "Eat My Bra!" has got to be the most forward chat-up line going.

If you like that perhaps you could get the matching set

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Posted to General

Give Firefox a kick up the backside

Stu forwarded me this link. It shows you how to speed up the Firefox web browser.

I've tried it out and it certainly seems to be faster when opening lots of links in new tabs, and the BBC news site seemed pretty quick.

Give it a try yourself for a nice speed boost. It's easily reversable if it causes you any oddities

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Posted to General

New AntiCheat tool in the making

I've just watched a video of a new Counterstrike Source anti cheat tool. It looks like it runs through recorded demos and colours all playermodels whenever the data for them is present. So, if a player is hiding behind a wall you can see them in the demo. That way you can see when people are aiming through walls using Wall Hacks. It also looks like it can detect certain aimbots. It looks a formidible tool to prove players are cheating, or even to prove someones innocence in a clan match.

The video is a pretty big download (Approx 30Mb) but worth a look if your connection can handle it.

Check out this forum thread for the details.

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Posted to General

RSS Feed Changes

I've made a couple of changes to the RSS feed for this site. I'm redirecting it through a service called FeedBurner, so I can see exactly how many people aren't reading it.

I've set up a few redirects so if you are currently using the RSS feed to keep tabs on this page then you shouldnt have to do anything....

If you have never heard of RSS Feeds and are wondering what its all about then take a quick peek at this page . They give you a brief bit of info on what it is, and what its used for. They mention a few programs you can use as RSS Readers.

Personally I use FeedDemon but it isnt free. I used to use FeedReader which IS free.

The Feed for this page is http://www.boringbutgood.com/blog/index.xml . You can put that link into your RSS Reader to keep tabs on this site.

Happy NewsReading!

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Posted to General

March 28, 2005

The next Unreal Tournament

BeyondUnreal have some interesting news about the forthcoming Unreal Tournament game based on the Unreal 3 engine. It mentions a new gametype called Conquest that sounds almost like a Massively Multiplayer wargame. I'm a bit worried about whether my PC will be able to handle the game when its released... It severely struggled with UT2004 to the point of making it unplayable on some maps. A few upgrades down the line and it seems fine now, and I am beginning to get back into it. It certainly makes for a nice change of pace from playing Counterstrike:Source.

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Posted to General

March 17, 2005

More finished games

I've released a couple of new game transcripts for reading. A Specialist League game Vs Spaceman Spiff and a Guerilla League match against Anduril.

Did my dazzling tactics win the day, or did I fall flat on my face?

I'm not going to tell you, so you'll have to read the game notes. Get clicking!

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Posted to General

March 14, 2005

New Game Posted

My Month 2 Specialist League game against Fatboy has now been made public. I've been writing up turn by turn notes, and the game has just finished.

To read up on what happened, along with a wholegame file click the category listing on the right!

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Posted to General | LSN | Specialist League

March 8, 2005

Phantom Entries....?

Imagine this... you used the form on the left of the page to get email notifications of new posts on this site.

Each day you get an email saying that its updated, so you click on it.

What? Nothings changed? How pequliar!!

Well, I thought so to, until I realised whats going on.

I am adding entries, but they are not yet published. They are entries about ongoing LSN games that I have blocked from displaying. Obviously I dont want my opponent to be reading the ins and outs of my game while its still going on. Once the game is over, for better or for worse, then I make the entries public and they appear in the listing over there on the right.

However, the bloglets update doesnt seem to realise that there isnt anything new to read. It jsut sees that there are new entries of some sorts.

So, instead of thinking I've tricked you into coming back to this page, treat it as building suspense for the game writeups that are in progress.

Suspense. Yes, thats it.

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Posted to General

March 6, 2005

New Guerilla Season

A new season of the Guerilla League is now underway. I signed up at the very lat moment as I completely forgot about it....

Anyway, the Guerilla League is a player run competition managed by UglyToy. The basic premise is that you are allowed to take only Marines or Mechs, no HQ's and only 1 Commander or AI. you only get 15 force points to deploy and they are 15 day games so expect some fast and furious action.

Month one sees me playing Analprobe and Anduril. After a bit of a delay on my side these games are now underway. Expect to see the writeups for them here once they are complete!

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Posted to General | Guerilla League | LSN

March 4, 2005

Put your money where your mouth is...

Check this link out. A very effective way of showing how much you trust your own product...

3M Security Glass Ad (Signal vs. Noise)

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Posted to General

March 3, 2005

Now Opera Compatable!

A big Thank You goes to Scallywag who let me know that this page didnt work properly is the Opera web browser.

The problem was with the Style sheet in use for the site. I started doing a bit of research on how to fix it, but things got horribly complicated horribly quickly. Z-index, position:absolute and pixel padding are not the kind of things you want to have to read about to figure out why no-one can click your links.

So I dropped a mail to the guy in the know, Style Monkey . He's fixed the problem and sent me a new stylesheet.

Thank goodness for that.

There you go Scally, all that work just for you. I hope it makes you feel special.

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Posted to General

The Codo Brothers get a mention

This chap seems to think that the Codo boys have made a wise choice in their distributor fro the US release of Laser Squad Nemesis.

Lets hope they can bring in lots of lovely new players to trounce.

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Posted to General | LSN

Bloglet subscription form added

Hey, go look over there.. no not that way.... there on the left. Looky! A nice little form that lets you get updates sent to your inbox.

Its all managed by Bloglet , you can check out their privacy policy here if interested.

I need to give it a test myself as I dont want it to be emailing out the entries I've made fro a few more LSN games..... Not until the game is over and the dust has settled. I lose enough games as it is without having my opponet read my turn by turn thoughts as the game progresses!

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Posted to General

March 2, 2005

New game posted

I've just published the write up I've been doing of my League game against Brokk.

How did it go...?

Who won...?

What dumb mistakes did I make this time?

Read all about it, and see the wholegame file by clicking the category over on the right hand side.

Keep watching for more games as time goes on.

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Posted to Codo League | General

February 28, 2005

Relaxing Comments

I've decided to loosen the commenting restriction on this site. Now, unregistered commenters will get their comments listed immediately, they will no longer be moderated until I approve them. I want to make it easier for people to comment here, mainly because no-one is :'(

I have set up some anti-spam scripts so if any of those nasty spammers get hold of the site I can deal with most of it automatically.

Ideally you should probably get a free Typekey account but if you don't fancy that then you can now comment without restriction. You will still need to enter an email address, but it will not be displayed on the site.

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Posted to General

February 24, 2005

Damn you Deestan!!

Just finished a most amusing game against Deestan.

It was on the new map Pacman and was a HQ game. I set up one HQ right in the middle with a few grenaders and was pleasantly surprised to see all of his troops just the other side.

I was also pleasantly surprised to realise that I can bounce grenades round the edge of the forcefield generators.

Test results from that first turn had me totalling all of his XT's and maiming the MT. Actual results were not qwuite that good, but I still dealt a healthy dose of damage. Following that it was a race to the forcefield controls to try to stop him lowering them.

After some amusing self grenading (note to self, watch out for those exploding 'pills' in future games) the scores were tied and I had his only remaining AI pinned down.

The game was mine!!! Wasn't it?

You can get Deestans fullgame from here

I'll upload mine a bit later.....

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Posted to General | LSN

An unpleasant Job....

Urgh.....

I've just been asked to disable the email access for a member of staff here as they are going to be let go. Its not been made official yet, so I have advance knowledge of it. This is most unpleasant as I really like the person.

I've got to deal with them as if I dont know anything, and then act all surprised when the announcement is made.

I hope they dont ask why they cannot get into their email.....

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February 22, 2005

Chavminton

Played squash last night. I won the first game rather convincingly (9-3 if I remember) . Dan then said he had to leave the court to go get some tissues. However I think he snorted some performance enhancing drugs instead as he then took the next 3 games! Grrr! The last one was pretty close though, going 9-8 after about 5 minutes exchanging servers at 8-8. I think I'l try using these 'tissues' next week....

However, as we left the court we spotted a couple of proper Crawley chav kids out on the badminton court. Skinny little oiks, decked out in designer tracksuits (originals no doubt), jewelery and baseball caps.

Thus the sport of Chavminton was born.

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February 19, 2005

Field Instructor Roster

I've been busy adapting another blog to use as a list of Field Instructors for Laser Squad Nemesis

Its starting slowly but more and more people are getting involved now.

You can check it out here

I still need to change the layout so that it looks different to this page, and also make it look more like its actually involved with the game. Unit pics, groovy background, that kind of thing.

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Posted to General | LSN

February 17, 2005

CS + Teamspeak

I've just finished with a Counterstrike:Source session with a couple of online chums:- my old friend Ash, and new friend Seb.

They had a teamspeak server setup so you could chat to each other, scream abuse, taunt when beating them and whimper when being beaten.

It was good to put a voice to the picture I have seen of Seb on his MSN buddyicon.

Except that it was Pemby I was online with, not Seb. I realised towards then end when I asked him why he had that MSN pciture with the funny beard and he said "I dont have you on MSN.... and Seb has the beard"

Whoops.

End result is I still have no idea what this wierdo sounds like:-


seb.jpg

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Comment Settings

I've decided to change the comment settings so that people not using TypeKey can still post, but will be moderated. I've also required that commenters leave an email address. Dont worry though, the email address is not visible on the site, its only available to me.

I've done this to hopefully keep any comment spam to a minimum. The people who make Movable Type list this in their Best Practices. I've also got a couple of plugins to install that help with automatically rejecting spammy comments and Trackback pings.

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Posted to General

February 16, 2005

PostSecret

I'm not sure where I came across this link to this site now, but I find it amazing.

At an Arts festial in Washington DC someone handed out these cards. They invite you to write a secret on it and then post it off to a set address. It has to be true, and it has to be something that you have never told anyone else before. Other than that, there are no rules.

PostSecret has now archived them all anonymously. Some are amusing, some fascinating and others moving.

Take a browse around the site.

If you have secret you want to share, then the address is at the bottom of the site.

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Posted to General

Breakfast Club

I stayed up far too late to watch The Breakfast Club last night. I knew it was a mistake turning the telly on whilst getting into bed.

Its a great film , although some of the language is cringworthingly eighties, ie lots of words ending with '-zoid'

Whatever happened to the actor who played the toughguy character?

I then made another mistake when the film had finished which was flicking around the other channels instead of turning it off.

3 frames of snooker later I decided to call it a night. Bloody knackered.

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February 15, 2005

Comment Posting

A couple of things to say about posting comments here.

At the moment absolutely anyone can post a comment on absolutely any entry. You dont have to leave your name, address, phone number, vital statistics, bank balance or inside leg measurement.

I've set the comment system up so that if you leave an email address it will not be displayed on the site. I'll have access to it, but no nasty spammer robots will be able to grab it so you wont get any more offers to buy drugs from 'Reeleey grate 0nloin pharaciis' because you posted here.

I also support TypeKey logins which seem pretty dandy. If you register with them (for nowt) you can click a Sign In button on the comment posting page and it will realise who you are. That way you can keep a common name, and also prove it was you that posted a particular comment. Personally I would still avoid putting your main email address in your TypeKey profile since some TypeKey enabled blogs will display your email address. This one is set up not to, but others might and once a spammer gets your email address they never let go...

So, I'd suggest using this service to generate a disposable emial address for use at such site. Its another great free service. Ive been using them for around 6 months to create disposable emails addresses that only let a set number of mails through before becoming inactive. They are great for putting into sites that require an address but dont tell you exactly what they are going to do with it. So far they have blocked 785 unwanted emails for me!

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Movable Type

Lo there!

Welcome to my blog. I''ve been looking at a few different blogging sites of late as I've decided that I'd like to start one up. god knows why anyone would want to read it, but hey, it passes the time if nothing else.

I had a brief flirtation with LiveJournal but decided that I'd like to be able to customise the interface a little more than seemed possible (at least with a free account) . One thing that LJ had going for it was some of the tools people had created for it, particularly Semagic. It seemed a great tool for remotely publishing blog entries, although I could never get the font preferences to 'stick' properly.

Then I took a look at Movable Type style blogs. MT and LJ are all run by the same company. I like the idea of having Trackback enabled so I can see just how many people are completely ignoring this page. I also like the myriad of plugins available and the fact hat if I can be bothered I can completely change my page layout.

It also seemed that my current webhost included everything I needed to run MT as part of my basic hosting package so I thought "Why not give it a try".

I uploaded all the files as described by the docs, edited a couple of files and knock-me-down-with-a-feather it blimming well worked! Get in there!

So, this is now my new home. I'll be posting odds-and-sods and I'm hoping to get a few run throughs of particularly interesting LSN games, cos that should get the readers in!

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Specialist League

Its just come round to the second month of The Specialist League

I managed to win my two month one games, the first against Kraklath 23-1 and the second agaisnt thegoblin scoring 22-7. It was a pretty good Greys Vs Mechs map though, so I got a little lucky there.....

This month I have to play Fatboys Marines and Dominatus' Spawn. I've not played either of these two before, and I cant say I've ever heard of them so I have no idea how well they play.

Heres hoping I can get another 2 wins!

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Posted to General | LSN | Specialist League