Ceramic pig

Amstrad CPC 6128, with green screen

2011-10-03T12:25:00.002+01:00

The next computer I had as a child, after the Sony Hit Bit, was the Amstrad CPC 6128, with a green screen.

We used to type in games from magazines and play them.
We also loaded commercial games from cassette tapes, which took about half an hour and sounded like an old dial-up modem.
Sometimes there would be a problem and the loading process would crash, and we'd have to start all over again.

I found a scan of the User Instructions book online, which had the code for some games printed in the back. Bomber was quite good!

New things Google is doing

2011-08-17T11:12:00.004+01:00

They've made the sitemaps much bigger:

(click to enlarge images)

And started putting pictures of users next to some entries. What's the criteria for this? Perhaps something to do with Google+

Update 02/09/2011: Now we're starting to see the user's profile picture within the result itself: Rock on Amit!

Reviews of a cable from Amazon

2010-11-30T15:53:00.002Z

There's a growing trend of people writing lengthy satirical or surreal reviews of seemingly simple products, like a cable:

3,308 of 3,328 people found the following review helpful:
I have only a little time...
By Whisper (CA USA)

November 15, 2010

This review is from: AudioQuest K2 terminated speaker cable - UST plugs 8' (2.44m) pair (Electronics)

We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives.
PLEASE! You must listen! We cannot maintain the link for long... I will type as fast as I can.
DO NOT USE THE CABLES!
We were fools, fools to develop such a thing! Sound was never meant to be this clear, this pure, this... accurate. For a few short days, we marveled. Then the... whispers... began.
Were they Aramaic? Hyperborean? Some even more ancient tongue, first spoken by elder races under the red light of dying suns far from here? We do not know, but somehow, slowly... we began to UNDERSTAND.
No, no, please! I don't want to remember! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME REMEMBER! I saw brave men claw their own eyes out... oh, god, the screaming... the mobs of feral children feasting on corpses, the shadows MOVING, the fires burning in the air! The CHANTING!
WHY CAN'T I FORGET THE WORDS???
We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives.
Do not use the cables!

751 of 769 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If only Heracles had such power!
March 19, 2009
By Valannin "Pantheon Outcast" (NY)
This review is from: AudioQuest K2 terminated speaker cable - UST plugs 8' (2.44m) pair (Electronics)

If there is one cable I would whole-heartedly trust to my Chimera-hunting needs, this would be the cable. No other cable has the tensile strength to properly and efficiently garrote a lycanthrope, asphyxiate an Esquilax or even gag a mermaid. Last week, using my trusty AudioQuest K2 (retrofitted with lead weights, bright orange latex paint and a generous coating of crushed glass stolen from the window of an abandoned church at midnight), I managed to snuff 3 golden unicorns in swift succession!
Pros: Quickly tears through scales, fur, bone, and adamantium with ease
Coils and uncoils from hip holster (optional) quickly and quietly
For a product fabricated from 1,000 Onyx Dragon fetuses, the price is unbelievably reasonable!
Cons: Shipping from the R'lyeh took far too long
Doesn't come in 10' lengths (which would be perfect for hydra, cerberii and other multi-headed creatures)
After every use, I can feel 6 ounces of my soul slipping from my core into the ether. But this may be due to the fact that I prefer to work without gloves. YMMV.
Overall, I would recommend that any hunter buy one, nay, two, of these immediately, and experience the difference that upgrading to the K2 will make in your next quest!

The burnt man at Oxford Circus station

2009-08-29T01:18:00.005+01:00

There is a man who stands at the bottom of the stairs at the Oxford Circus or Bond Street tube stations in London. His face appears to be very severely burnt all over. Many people who catch sight of him get a horrible shock -- he looks like he is from a horror film or some kind of nightmare. It upset me to see him there. I was also disturbed at my own feelings of repulsion.

I don't know if he is begging for money or not. I've never seen him ask for anything.

Have you noticed him too? I wonder if there are any pictures of him.
I wish I knew his story. Does he stand there for sympathy, or to shock people?
Maybe he is he lonely, or perhaps mentally disturbed.

Sony Hit Bit computer fan club

2009-03-24T12:04:00.015Z

Around 1984-5 Sony gave away a computer free with one of their video cameras. This was the first computer I owned, at age 3! It had a version of Microsoft's MSX Basic, and could play games. The Sony Hit Bit was part of a range called MSX computers. There's a site with Hit Bit game ROMs and references to an MSX emulator. The wikipedia page for MSX is informative. The Sony Hit Bit started me on my lifelong hobby and career with computers.

There are quite a few fan sites for MSX computers at the end of this post. I've included some pictures of the manuals for MSX-BASIC. They contain some basics for learning programming. I'd like to start a Sony "Hit Bit" computer fan club. Please add your comments here if you ever owned one of these. It would be great to see a real one working, or find an emulator. rom-world.com site has an MSX emulator and games.

Hit-Bit memories: One game was the only computer game my mother has ever enjoyed playing. You played a fireman, running up and down ladders to save mice from fires. I also remember a maths game where you had to walk along platforms collecting numbers and operators to make the correct sum, before some water rose up and filled the screen.
There seem to be several emulators that would play these games, it looks like amusement-center.com/compile might have a commercial one, under their Project Egg. But it's all in Japanese and I don't understand it.

Related articles:

John C Dvorak asks "Whatever Happened to MSX Computers?"
MSX Computers on Wikipedia
List of MSX models, including the Sony Hit Bit (HB series)

Manuals I have:

In the future, all companies will be organised like this

2009-02-21T23:21:00.003Z

Below I have re-posted an inspiring description of how team behind The Pirate Bay is organised.
Spectrial is the current legal trial of the Pirate Bay for copyright infringement.

Where to buy tickets or the question of accountability

Some of the omnipresent questions at the main stage of Spectrial are the questions of accountability and organisation. It seems like one of prosecutor Roswall more important lines of arguments. When our three heroes answer them we understand how the answers can seem a bit absurd to you people that are not used to the workings of our organisations.

Let me illustrate with an example. Tonight we will be holding a party. There are tickets for the party, I think. I do not know how has got them though. We receive a lot of questions on how to buy tickets. Thing is, none of the people organized in the Spectrial knows how to sell nor how to buy these tickets at this moment. Or rather, someone knows but we dont know who it is.

What follows is a short description on how we work. It has its ups and downs. But it produces.

A major up is the fact that we are NEVER BORED. Each one take the role they feel they can fill. Quite often these roles are abandoned. The network then reorganizes til someone is filling the role again, or, the role is disregarded by all nodes and that role dies out. This could happen to the party tonight, but that wont be the case. A party is ohh so nice.

This is one of hundreds of examples of our management. It is how we have been operating since the very start. People have a hard time grasping it. They ask us; Who’s in charge? Who are you representing? What is your goal? What is your agenda? Why? When? How? These questions are wrongly posed and I am afraid I cant give you the right ones, that’s up to scholars later.

People might be working with us making important contributions to one of our projects and still say that they wish to be part of The Pirate Bay/The Bureau for Piracy/S23MXK. Well, they are. There is no formal organisation. Only work with joy and no to full accountability.

This is how we PWN U ROSWALL. The work that is being produced by the peers of the Spectrial is propably “worth” six-seven figures. Thing is one could never buy it. Its a brave new world here, we are making a huge experiment.

Please join us, pick your role. Take upon you the responsibility you feel you should. Have fun. And know we love you. But dont ask ME where to buy tickets, because I dont know. Ask questions on this unclear text in the comments and we’ll continue with a talk there.

Johan Allgoth
confused peer

Yay, snow!

2009-02-02T08:14:00.004Z

It's been snowing all night!

The TFL journey planner website is slow but still responding...

What are those wordless black background ads about?

2008-09-26T00:03:00.006+01:00

kenako writes:

What are those wordless black background ads about?
at some tube stations and in the papers and so on. The first is a gormless, chubby and ginger kid (UNLUCKY) in a pair of slighty too tight speedo shorts, the second is Obama left hanging on a high five outside No 10 Downing street and the third is big machine thing that looks like a cross between the hadron collider, the channel tunnel digger and the big brother eye. Something to do with the guardian maybe?
apologies if it's been done before. I'm not on so much at the moment.
kenako 25 Sep '08, 16:30

And I reply (here, for I have no wish to register on the place where it was posted):

"Yes, what are they for? I think that adverts without words speak are much more intriguing than the traditional kind. These London tube adverts have a black background and strange, seemingly unrelated objects such as a golden football and the hadron collider.

I've also seen a much bigger advert without words. It looks to me like a blurry david cameron in the foreground, with churchill looking on disapprovingly.

Does anyone know what either of these adverts are for?

10 pluses of Creationism

2008-09-01T14:46:00.003+01:00

To celebrate the retired beauty queen, Sarah Palin's nomination as McCain's running mate in the United States presidential election 2008, Paul Richards and me have compiled a list of the top ten pluses of Creationism, something close to this dear lady's heart:

1) Humans were around at the same time as Dinosaurs, so kids got to play with the real thing.

2) God is definitely in control, which means that everything is happening in the right order, so there's absolutely nothing to worry about.

3) There's definitely going to be a second coming so that means that some of us, even in this actual team, will get to meet Jesus - in person. Yippee.

4) Religious Knowledge and Science departments in schools and universities can merge, freeing up more funding for Sport and Games.

5) We get to go even higher up the medal table in 2012 (see 4).

6) As there is an overall plan, and it's all leading to heaven on earth, this means that natural disasters have to be a good thing: which means we can cut the world Aid budget and spend it on finding more oil... Yippee...

7) We get to flagellate Richard Dawkins in a public square

8) We don’t need to waste time asking questions about geography, palaeontology or biology, because everything’s already explained.

9) We can blame women for everything, since Eve ate the Apple of Knowledge.

10) Humans don’t have to evolve from damn, dirty apes.

Wah, kya film hain!

2008-08-12T23:36:00.003+01:00

Yaadon Ki Baraat

Even if you read the wikipedia page, read imdb reviews, watch clips and listen to the theme tune, you will still not realise how good this film is until you watch it yourself.

Dharmendra's acting is superb. The plot is gripping. The music is excellent, and it's got some great dancing. Even the editing makes it great fun!

I can't get enough of Zeenat's British pronunciation :D

There is no modern movie that even comes close to the greatness of Yaadon Ki Baraat.

42 days

2008-06-18T14:37:00.007+01:00

The House of Commons has voted to extend the period that the police can keep someone locked up *without charging them with any crime* from 28 days to 42 days.
There is quite a long way to go before this becomes part of the law. The unelected House of Lords may still overturn it.

The newspaper said that most democratic countries have a limit of less than 1 week. Australia has 12 days. China stands out with 37 days.

Allegedly, many MPs were offered dodgy deals whereby the government would support them in their own campaigns, if only they would vote for 42 days. This doesn't seem to benefit the democratic process much!

Police documentary

2008-06-18T14:37:00.006+01:00

There's a independent documentary called "Injustice" about how Police officers in the UK are *never* prosecuted for unlawfully killing someone.

There have been many incidents during the past 30 years where the police have killed people. Courts have even delivered verdicts of unlawful killing. But after this, the Crown Prosecution Service has overturned the convictions, every single time.

I am fed up with Blogger!

2008-06-11T14:19:00.003+01:00

Blogger is always crashing and generally being unresponsive.

I guess, in the end, you get what you pay for.

UPDATE 17/08/2011: Blogger is now awesome!

Instincts

2008-06-11T13:02:00.002+01:00

We instinctively believe that our thoughts and feelings are more important than others'. We learn that we are represented by our ego. But this does not bring happiness. Why? Because in fact, our true self is that which observes our ego.

What are thoughts and feelings? Temporary, fleeting, but all the more seductive for being so. They are addictive, if you feed them, they will grow.

What is happiness? It begins with contentment, calm, and a lack of identification the the ego. Identification means we think "that _is_ me, or part of me". But nothing is us. We are the observer.

We cannot easily stop having desires, and this would be unnatural anyway. But we can see our desires for what they are - part of the ego - and we can let them go, instead of becoming them.

All actions should be judged by the fruit they bear.

In a Letter to His Kids, Wired's Founding Editor Recalls the Dawn of the Digital Revolution

2008-05-28T23:29:00.000+01:00

Inpsiring!

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-06/ff_15th_rossetto

My brother James

2008-05-26T16:48:00.003+01:00

My brother James Hurr is part of Klub Kidz, a music production company.

One of his tracks: Katrina vs. Sleazesisters - "They Don't Know" just reached number 2 in the commercial club charts, beating Madonna!

What I'm listening to

2008-05-26T16:09:00.005+01:00

Bollywood soundtracks in car CD player on rotation.

Om Shanti Om

Ajab Si -- Everyone's favourite
Dard-E-Disco
Deewangi Deewangi
Main Agar Kahoon
Jag Soona Soona Lage
Dhoom Taana
Dastaan-E-Om Shanti Om
Dard-E-Disco - Remixed -- All fantastic dance mixes
Deewangi (Rainbow Mix)
Om Shanti Om (Medley Mix)
Dastaan (The Dark Side Mix)
Om Shanti Om (Medley Mix)

36 China Town

Aashiqui Meri
24x7 I Think Of You
Dil Tumhare Bina
Badi Dilchaspi Hai -- "Mujhe tujhmein badi dilchaspi hain"
Jab Kabhi
Aashiqui Meri - Remixed -- [fast version of the main theme]
24x7 I Think Of You - Remixed
Dil Tumhare Bina - Remixed
Badi Dilchaspi Hai - Remixed
Jab Kabhi - Remixed
Jab Kabhi (Remix Dj Suketu)

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna [KANK]

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
Mitwa
Wheres The Party Tonight
Tumhi Dekho Naa
Mitwa Revisted
Rock N Roll Soniye
Farewell Trance

Gangster (download mp3s)

Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai (Part 1)
Bheegi Bheegi
Lamha Lamha (Male)
Ya Ali
Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai (Euro Mix)
Mujhe Mat Roko
Lamha Lamha (Duet)
Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai (Part 2)

Locker Gnome

2008-05-24T00:33:00.002+01:00

I just discovered Locker Gnome... The guy Chris there is really funny. I identify with his geeky frustration. There's a whole world of geeks out there, and they're writing fascinating things!

William Gibson speaks! He wrote an *amazing* sci-fi novel in 1984 called Neuromancer (study guide). It predicted a cyberspace experience that reality is now starting to catch up with. The other landmark novel that predicted cyberspace was True Names by Vernor Vinge. His work is the most singular example of science fiction I've ever encountered.

People are now travelling with only a Blackberry, iPhone, or other smart device for their information needs.

Those repetitive beeping noises I love: Techno vs Electronic music

It seems there's also a conference, Gnomedex, in Seattle.

John Peel and Radio 1 music

2008-05-23T22:31:00.007+01:00

John Peel was a DJ for BBC Radio 1 for a very long time. He was a special person, an inspiration to many. He represented beacon of hope for those who created their own music as he was the only DJ who played a huge eclectic mix of new music - crazy stuff, amazing sounds and weird tunes from people of which you'd never heard. Lots of new dance music, and lots of everything.

After John Peel, Radio 1 has worked hard to improve their schedule. Not too long ago, dance music was sorely under-represented on the radio, but today we can gorge ourselves on 12 hours solid, starting every Friday evening on Radio 1.

I wrote a computer program to automatically record all this dance, trance and techno music digitally, into mp3 files. I now have dozens of gigabytes of the stuff, all at a bitrate of 128kbps, which is fairly reasonable.

I'd like to put it online on one of the file sharing systems, but I suspect that I'm not allowed to do that. Although that doesn't make sense, because if it's been broadcast for free once, why can't it then be distributed further for free? Many people record the radio, but we have to pretend that we don't, as it's frowned upon.

Vanity

2008-05-23T22:31:00.006+01:00

I've fallen into a trap now that I'm blogging frequently.

I've begun to feel that everything I have to say is vitally important.

I've sinned!

Keeping all your data safe

2008-05-23T13:44:00.001+01:00

I want to keep a lot of my data online, so it's safe and I can access it easily.

Emails are already stored on gmail. Pictures can easily be stored on Picasa, Flickr, or Facebook -- but I don't feel safe storing pictures there that I want to keep private. I can't be sure that someone will not be able to access them, either through a fault with one of the websites, or by using a computer that I've set up an automatic login for.

I'd also like to keep some of my bank account statements and household accounts online, for example in Google Documents. But I don't trust it for the same reason. There are already fears about privacy with Google, and I keep my Google account logged in all the time to check email quickly. So someone could easily walk up to my computer when I'm not there and rifle through my documents.

Large video files and other big files can be stored on one of the many free or cheap file storage websites, such as adrive.com. But then again, how safe are they really? What if I don't access my account for 6 months -- will the files get deleted then? What if the company closes down? What if they decide to change their storage policy and I don't find out? I could lose the very data I've been trying to protect.

This issue of not trusting websites is holding up my adoption of the latest technology to organise my life. Am I being too paranoid?

Maybe the best solution is a shelf of DVDs and a couple of external hard drives.

Bar room economics

2008-05-21T22:52:00.001+01:00

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay
nothing.
The fifth would pay £1.
The sixth would pay £3.
The seventh would pay £7.
The eighth would pay £12.
The ninth would pay £18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20.' Drinks for the ten now cost
just £80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.
They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they subtracted that from everyone's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid
nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay £5 instead of £7
(28%savings).
The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a pound out of the £20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got £10!'

'Yes, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a pound, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I did'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get £10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison.
'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have
enough money between all of them for even half of the bill.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

UK Government Census data

2008-05-21T13:32:00.000+01:00

It's amazing how much information is available online.

You can also search in different areas.

Haiku 5-7-5

2008-05-20T22:12:00.001+01:00

Dangerous people
use your own mind against you
Words are their weapons

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

2008-05-20T15:25:00.000+01:00

I hope this distracts people from constantly telling me to turn my computer off at night.

To flush, or not to flush?

2008-05-15T11:20:00.001+01:00

We're moving into a new office and have been asked to think of things that would make our life easier there. A colleague has just informed us he is going to ask for a personal toilet. The reason being, he tells us, that there is one individual who never flushes the common toilet, which is quite disgusting.

He say they must think they are saving the planet by not flushing.

In order to express his disapproval, he says that when he uses it, he deliberately flushes the toilet three times in order to counteract the effects and punish the non-flusher, and he actually waits there for the toilet to refill in order to do this.

School uniform

2008-05-10T01:46:00.001+01:00

Christ's Hospital.
It's not a hospital, it's a school.

Microsoft search

2008-05-10T01:09:00.000+01:00

Does it still suck?

Watch Steve Balmer squirm, earlier.

Om Shanti Om

2008-05-10T00:09:00.000+01:00

In this landmark bollywood movie, the CGI graphics in one of the dance scenes are the best I've ever seen! And I've seen a lot of movies. Sure, Lord of the Rings is great for computer generated characters, but Om Shanti Om has a dance scene where they somehow splice in the heroes from three other 70's movies. The join is so invisible that I'm sure you would never know unless told. Not only have they worked on the lighting almost to perfection, but the heroine Deepika Padukone actually ruffles the clothes of the actors who aren't even in the same movie as her! It's simply awesome.

Two-way links on the world wide web

2008-05-09T16:42:00.001+01:00

When someone else links to your post, you can set blogger/blogspot to display back-links to that person's post underneath your post. This is how Tim Berners-Lee, widely credited with 'inventing' the web, imagined that all links anywhere on the web would work.