As I’ve noted elsewhere what I find most strange about the whole Sony XCP saga (apart from one of the largest media companies on the internet actually distributing one of the biggest infections of malicious code of all time; or the fact that in doing so it voiolated the GPL, and thus the very copyright it was trying to protect) is the names of some of the CDs the evil software was on: »
I’m going to quote liberally so enjoy: Girls Aloud – British talent show pop girl group, yeah? Well, sure, but don’t get it twisted. They are, in fact, one of the best rock acts in the world right now. I can understand why so many people would make the mistake of believing otherwise – in 2005, rock more often than not denotes a slavish devotion to guitars and the tedium of tradition, with most good acts working within the genre getting by on charm and chops rather than a mad rush of pop energy and invention. »
Mobile web developers! I have a tip for you that should speed up the rendering of your site by a significant margin, close to 50% in my stopwatch tests. And what do you know? It’s totally counter intuitive to normal web development practice. I’ll let the Nokia team who are porting the KHTML rendering engine (the tech behind Apple’s Safari) to Series 60 (it’s the default browser in devices from the N70 onwards) take up the story from here on: »
Here’s a couple of fun security scare stories and a heartning bit of rugby news for you. Firstly, rootkit authors are getting more clever: “So now we have developers of rootkit detectors adding detection of latest rootkits to their scanning engines - and developers of rootkits adding detection of latest detectors to their scanning engines.” A rootkit is a bit of software that is used to invisibly control your computer after it has been subborned by an attacker. »
I have an HP nc4010 laptop at work. It’s a pretty decent machine, although it could do with a smidge more RAM for the sort of beating I tend to put machines through. The one thing that’s unacceptably poor about it is the docking station. Now I don’t know how much you know about docking stations but short order, they’re a little box that you plug your desktop mouse, keyboard and monitor into (basically everything you don’t want to take with you) and then place the laptop into when you’re at your desk. »
Let’s talk about emergant gameplay. Go on, I know you want to, whether it’s the little flick of the analog stick in the correct direction of the action in Farenheit (which is ace, everyone should buy right now) or the pseudo p2p vial social network in the multiplayer of Xbox Far Cry: Instincts there seems to be a more haptic understanding of what it feels like to be represented somewhere else (in a virtual world that is) going around these days. »
Visualisation is great. Even when it’s done badly it’s great which is why you should particularly check out the Color Project and Baby Name Wizard Voyager. Both of them take vast reams of data and not only make it beautiful, but make it fun to navigate. This is too short but I’ve got User Guide writing in my head at the moment and am suffering from a creativity defecit anywhere outside my choice of shirt. »
I recently bought a Treo Sync and charge cable from proporta.com and apart from fscking up the delivery time (for which I recieved a very nice and peronable call and apology, so fair enough) I got a nice teabag in with the order as a little rider. Most civilised. »
For your education, a list of things to do on the tube, so as not to get arrested as a suspected terrorist: Make sure to stare at the police officers wherever you see them, cracking a joke about stopping petty theft might be good to break the ice, wouldn’t want them to think you were ‘avoiding them’. Try to enter the station and go through the gates alone, when the station is empty. »
Define: dissociation “Psychiatry. A psychological defense mechanism in which specific, anxiety-provoking thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations are separated from the rest of the psyche.” contrasted with “After having evaluated the situation, H&M has decided that a campaign with Kate Moss is inconsistent with H&M’s clear dissociation of drugs”. »