I love NASA - check out the two videos taken from NASA’s Deep Impact probe showing Earth as an Alien World. The videos were taken at the end of May from 31 million miles away.
Drake Deming of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said:
A “sun glint’” can be seen in the movie, caused by light reflected from Earth’s oceans, and similar glints to be observed from extrasolar planets could indicate alien oceans.
Outstanding. I love that we (the human race) are doing this stuff.
Yes! A thousand times yes, Mitchell & Webb nail exactly why the whole idea of “Identity Theft” is a great scam for banks and bad news for unwitting consumers.
Oh, and it’s also very funny.
A list of Fourteen Passive-Aggressive Appetizers for your next dinner party.
Vegetarian friends? Try veggie rumaki: wrap a strip of imitation bacon around a water chestnut, spear with a toothpick, and broil—but instead of imitation bacon use real bacon, and instead of a water chestnut use veal.
I know Fuller will be gutted about this, he’s been obsessing over the trailer for WipEout HD since he got his PS3. Sony Europe are citing a specific (but undisclosed) technical problem that is holding back the release. They’re still hoping to get it out before the end of the year.
What’s that? You thought there were only three laws? Well check out SomethingAwful.com’s excellent additions in their 30 Laws of Robotics list. I especially like:
23. A robot must shut up around girls and let me, Isaac Asimov, do the talking; however, a robot may bail me out if things start to go haywire.
I wonder if my Roomba is three laws safe?
It looks like my experience of awful customer service from iRobot’s UK service center, Domotec, was an anomaly. Either that or the spotlight of publicity, combined with my emailing a number of iRobot’s senior management caused someone to ensure policy - and warranties - were being properly applied.
I called Domotec’s service number this morning, after checking by email that they were definitely the authorised warranty centre for Roomba’s sold by the iRobot UK store. A very helpful and friendly lady answered the phone and on hearing my description of the problem offered to send out the replacement cleaning module for me to fit. No quibbles, no fuss, just an immediate acceptance of the problem and offer of an entirely satisfactory solution.
So I can recommend the Roomba again. Just be sure to clean it after EVERY use, not just every 3 times like the manual says!
I’m lusting after the new Sony Vaio Z Series which doesn’t come out in the US until mid-August, and I’ve no idea when it comes out in the UK. Annoyingly, while the US site allows you to configure your system from scratch - including putting in dual solid state drives - Sony UK limit us to choosing from three prescribed models, none of which contain quite the match of processor and storage I’m looking for. Continue reading ‘Sony Vaio Z Series’
If you have ever enjoyed any of Joss Whedon’s output, be it Firefly, Angel or especially the musical episode of Buffy, you owe it to yourself to see his new musical project: Dr. Horrible. It stops being free to stream on July 20th, so hurry! There’s no way to download or buy it legitimately in the UK at the moment so this is your only chance to see it until a (we hope) DVD release.
It stars Neil Patrick Harris as the eponymous horrible Doctor. You may recognise him as the awesome Barney from How I Met Your Mother. Those of you with longer memories will recall him as the precocious Dougie Houser MD.
He is excellent as Dr Horrible, a sorry excuse for an evil genius with grand plans to get into the Evil League of Evil and a hope to one day work up the courage to talk to the girl of his dreams. I’ll leave it there because I don’t want to give away too much but trust me: it’s laugh out loud funny and tuneful to boot - I had no idea that he could sing! Go and watch it!
Continuing the theme of past computers and consoles, I found this post about the Atari Jaguar, and specifically Jeff Minter’s contribution to it: Tempest 2000, arguably the finest version of that game on any platform.
I first discovered the trippy weirdness of Jeff Minter on the Atari ST, playing Llamatron, a bizarre game starring a futuristic Llama that shoots white energy in whichever direction it is moving. I remember being horribly addicted to it in the early 90s. It was unlike any game I’d ever played, not least because of the weird array of enemies and powerups that populated the game - from Rizla papers to cutlery and burgers. Continue reading ‘Console Nostalgia: Atari and Jeff Minter’
Three handy sites for people who need to manage the volume of email coming in.
Don’t want to be included on the latest “funny” forward, let your correspondent down gently with www.thanksno.com.
Or do you have a contact who doesn’t know how to use BCC and reveals your email address to everybody else they’re sending the message to? (As one of Lindsay’s contacts did this weekend.) Send them a link to bccplease.com for a quick lesson in email etiquette.
And finally, if you’re getting swamped with the amount of email you have to reply to, why not instigate a five sentences rule to speed things up a bit. See five.sentenc.es for more information.
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