Television Commercials

Some make you laugh, some make you happy, some make you cringe. Others make you want to stab the person sat next to you in the heart. The new Shell advert, however is fantastic. There is only a certain type of advert that make me stop and watch, Honda of course being up there near the top. But the new Shell advert is one of the most well constructed adverts I have ever seen, it just makes me want to watch it again and again. Okay, enough blabbering on about adverts. I have some Axis to destroy.

A well deserved sending home

Anyone that held any hope leading into the quarter-finals last night needs to be shut in a box for a few years. Those that truly believed that we were going to win the World Cup this year has been slapped in the face and put to bed. We just never looked like a side that was worth it. The American press described our team as boring, and I’m certain to tell you I wasn’t leaping and bounding at that game. It was utter drab. I felt like going out for a walk since the country had gone quiet for once. If England are ever to even get into the semi-finals in the World Cup, they need to up their game a huge amount. Sven just didn’t seem to understand there that 4-1-4-1 doesn’t work as on his own, Rooney does as much work as a bloody goalkeeper; and the team – where is the spark of genius that Cup winning teams have? It’s non-existent. The second seed team comes home today, and they played like a 10th seed team. Appalling.

eon8

What is eon8? If you had asked me that 24 hours ago you would have sent a shudder down my very spine. eon8.com was a social experiment. A bloke from Florida, named Mike decided 6 months ago that he would create a suspicious looking site to gauge the publics reaction. The web page he set up consisted of a timer counting down, a world map with dots on high population areas (“deployment”), several undecipherable codes and parts of the site completely restricted from the outside world. I don’t know what other people thought, but it sure did shit me up some.

What is really interesting is the kind of reaction a human mind has to this type of thing instantly you panic. There is something here that you don’t have a fucking clue about, and there’s the slight possibility that it could do harm. So what does the human mind instantly want to do. Destroy it. Several people were so scared by this site, that they attempted to take it down by any means necessary, in the hope that whatever would happen would be stopped. It is funny to think that anything we don’t and can’t know about, we feel we must destroy it.

Read more…
Peace

Instant Messaging

MSN Messenger. The scorn of the internet. I know people who use their computer, just to go on MSN messenger or Live Messenger as they call it now. I hate it, but unfortunately everyone uses it and if I want to communicate with them, thats where I have to be and WHOOP-DE-FUCKING-DO, Microsoft have been ever so kind as to release a version for Mac and Windows, but not Linux.

Miranda-IM
It’s OK though. If I had the choice of the bag of shite Microsoft messenger and a simple GUIed messenger, with but a few features missing, you can tell from my tone which one I’d pick. Enter Miranda-IM. Another windows only program, but boy, it makes you feel happy.

Simplicity
Some people don’t seem to understand that simplicity is the key. I don’t want an application that is all eye candy and takes forever to load. Windows Vista, apparently has tones of effects between windows, needs a whole 512mb of RAM to run. Personally I think that it would slow down productivity rather than increase it. Windows Live Messenger takes up a sluggish 50mb of RAM. Miranda takes a sweet 1mb.

Linux
GAIM. It kind of, rolls off the tongue. You don’t need to step back to see the interface, and the way it works and produces results is fantastic. It also works in Windows and Linux.

And, for all you command line freaks, theres even something for you. Bitlbee. You don’t even need to install anything except an IRC client (if you’re a windows fanboy). Just use the IRC in the terminal and connect to a Bitlbee server. Fantastic.

Stop living in the past. Stop being Microsoft’s bitch. Get a multiple protocol messenger. Make the world a happier place.

Blog off!

General bordom and late hours have decided that I’m having a blog whether I like it or not. Let’s have a little back story shall we. Well, about 3 months ago, I was doing stuff in windows. Bam. No access to my FAT32 formatted partition. Well that wasn’t nice was it. So I hunted around for a bit and dug out an old Hoary Hedgehog CD, did a fresh install of Ubuntu, updated to Breezy, and since then it’s kind of stuck. It’s not like I was using it as a kind of replacement for Windows. It simply derived from a hatred of Windows leading up to that one boiling point where enough was enough. So here I am on Ubuntu, just one whole upgrade to Edgy later.

Its been more than an upgrade for me, it’s been a whole journey. While it may bore other people, I thrive in this kind of community; I can simply sit back and watch the people of the community debate. What excites me the most is that even the project leaders are part of an open community and will communicate with whomever steps up and talks. Windows users, just imagine if you saw Bill Gates on a mailing list that you read? Thats what it feels like.

The learning process represents a journey as well. I’ve basically had to learn from scratch, relearning everything I thought I knew. Sure it’s useful to know how to open the System menu in Windows with one keystroke, but what’s really exciting is getting down and understanding the importance of the programming and compiling. Dependencies and Binaries! God I’m such a geek.

Anyway, Tom, out.
Peace.