Paxo

June 9th, 2006

Well, my day just peaked. In town, just now:

Me: I just can’t believe that you didn’t ask for a qu..
My Beloved: That was Jeremy Paxman
Me: That was Jeremy Paxman. Cool.

If a day can get any better than nearly walking into Jeremy Paxman, I’d like to know how.

The Skeptics’ Bible

June 8th, 2006

This site is amusing for a few minutes, until you realise that what they’re doing is taking the whole thing just as literally as the Innerantists, and then saying “OMG! Look! It’s full of contradictions!” Well. Yes.

Maybe the whole site is actually ironic and has been set up by moderate non-innerantist Christians to make both the other two sides look bad.

Sick fucks

June 8th, 2006

US evangelists are twisting the Bible to say that beating the young is a Christian doctrine.

For the under-one-year-old, a little, 10- to 12-inch long, willowy branch (stripped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient

Get. Out. Of. My. Church.

Sandi Thom

June 3rd, 2006

Punks didn’t wear flowers in their hair, hippies did.

Also, MySpace, please stop producing bands. They’re all uniformly awful. KTHXBYE.

Half Life 2: The Ordeal

June 3rd, 2006

Woohoo! I’ve beaten it! Half Life 2’s installer, that is. Almost as much fun as the game itself, although not quite.

First, the DVD doesn’t work in my PC. But “Ah!”, I think, “That clever Steam thingy should just let me activate the game and then download it!”. So I enter my key into Steam – and it asks for the DVD. Hm. Try again.

I check the DVD in my laptop – it works there, but my laptop sure as hell won’t run Half Life 2 – at least not in any way that you’d want to play it. However, my laptop does have an external USB hard drive. Sooo… copy all the install files to that, then plug the hard drive into my PC and install from there. Woot! It’s installed! Double click on Half-Life 2, enter activation key and… “Please insert DVD”. Bah, foiled again.

How about… Steam keeps track of games online, doesn’t it? So if a game is activated in my account, I should be able to play it anywhere, right? Hmmm… So if I install Steam on my laptop and activate it there, I ought to be able to play it on my PC, right?

Cup of tea first. Ah, that’s better.

Woohoo! Half Life 2 activated! Now, turn off laptop and connect to Steam again on my PC.

Oh. Why does it keep telling me to pay for Half Life 2? Quit, reload. Still telling me to pay for it. Reboot PC. Still telling me to pay for it. Something not right here.

Wait, what? I have to tell Steam to log me out and then log back in again for it to notice I’ve activated a new game? That’s retarded, that is.

But… w00t! It works. Three hours later, I finally have Half Life 2 working. Brilliant. If only all installs could be so simple.

Oh, and in other news, Starship Troopers doesn’t work, so I don’t know if it’s any good or not.

GIANT ENEMY CRAB

June 1st, 2006

Apparently, right, Sony didn’t copy Nintendo’s controller idea. I mean, I know how it looks – Nintendo announcing their all-singing, all-dancing motion-sensing position-sensing WiiMote earlier this year, and then Sony announcing some months [i]afterwards[/i] that they’ve got some half-assed tilt sensor in their controller, developers not getting wind of it until a month or so before E3, and nothing actually being delivered to developers until the weekend before E3 – but really, it’s all to do with technology becoming available, and nothing to do with trying to take the wind out of your opposition’s sails by half-assedly ripping off their gimmick. At least, that’s according to Sony’s irritatingly self-satisfied mouthpiece, Phil Harrison, in his interview with Der Spiegel Online.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you respond to people who say you stole Nintendo’s idea for a motion-sensitive controller?
Phil Harrison:On one level I understand why people say that. But it’s a little stupid, if you don’t mind me saying so. When we launched Playstation in 1994 we introduced the concept of real-time computer-generated 3-D-graphics for the first time. That was the innovation that drove the platform. When Nintendo
released the N64 in 1996 and they had real-time CG 3-D-graphics, did you hear us say, “Nintendo, you’ve stolen our idea?” Of course not.

There you go. Before 1994, there was NO SUCH THING as real-time CG 3D-graphics. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly lying.

Also: Sony’s E3 Press Conference in One Minute – possibly the most pathetic thing you will ever see. Ever. It’s Ridge Racer! RIIIIIDGE RACER!

Weddings

May 30th, 2006

I’ve just spent the weekend in Derry organising The Wedding. On top of booking the church, visiting a couple of hotels and booking one for our reception and talking to a couple of photographers, we were visited by every single person in that Naomi – or anyone in her family – knew or was related to in the whole of Ireland. Who all asked exactly the same questions. Apparently, personal space is something that doesn’t exist in Ireland.

Oh, and I will “bring Naomi back” to Donegal just as soon as Donegal gets the kind of thriving IT industry necessary for me to get a job there.

Newsnight

May 24th, 2006

Just what the haemorrhaging fuck* have they done to the Newsnight theme tune? That’s just wrong.

* it’s a Douglas Adams quote, alright? So it’s not rude, because it’s a literary reference.

Towel Day

May 24th, 2006

25th May. Make sure you know where your towel is.

John Reid is retarded

May 23rd, 2006

Victims of crime could be given a say on whether offenders should be freed from jail, under plans being considered by the home secretary.

I’m sorry, in what way is that not the single worst idea anyone has ever had in the history of ideas, ever?