Rory saw someone with a dog on an airplane. Now beyond the pretty comical situation, isn't that bloody dangerous?
Surely if you were to hijack an airline, then a well trained Attack Dog might be a very Effective Weapon
"The problem with Britain is that we are Mr Average, with an inflated view of our place in the world. We think we still have an empire, but the reality is that no-one wants the few bits of pink on the map"
Not my words by the way, just someone at work. Not sure I agree, but he's lived here his entire life, and I've just lived here for 2 years.
I love the original Microsoft Natural Keyboard layout. You can see what it looked like by clicking this link.
Anyway, I can't find any. The closest I can find is the 'new' layout that looks like this but I really don't like it.
So, this is another request, if anyone knows where I can buy some of the old layouts, please tell me.
Well it looks like Microsoft wants a decent build environment now as well. A quick search reveals that it's not very new, but very little real information exists.
An interesting quote I found is from an entry on Jerry Dennany's blog:
"In addition, MSBuild will ship on every OS starting in longhorn. Actually, they’ll also be shipping the .NET compilers there, as well."And who said that Linux doesn't influence Microsoft!
There is an episode of MSDN TV about MSBuild, which I might watch when I get home. I'm not sure I will though, as I find those MSDN TV things extremely boring and have only ever managed to watch about 4 minutes of one before turning my P.C. off.
I don't get to use C# much, but I do really like C# and .NET. An article published by MSDN (Dated November, but linked today from MSDN Just Published has a sneak preview of the new changes.
I'm pretty impressed, and a few of the things I like are editor specific, so I hope they make their way into the C++ stuff. Here are some of the things that interested me:
There are other new things, but those are the ones that stand out for me. They are also adding more Visual Assist like features, but I will still keep using Visual Assist, because they don't seem to have gotten it all, especially with VAX on the horizon.
Justin Frankel used to frequent #winprog. I doubt `Burn remembers me, but obviously I remember him (I use winamp every day), and in many ways I admire him, so when I see articles like this it makes me feel happy for him.
Well I've been looking around for something to allow me to connect all my devices to my television using component video, so I can get nice progressive scan, but I also want it to support digital audio (Optical and/or Co-axial).
Smarthome.com seem to have a device that fits the bill, but before I go and buy it, I want to fish around for opinions, so if anyone reading this can help me with advice, please leave a comment.
Thank god for Lord of the Rings and Spiderman. Together those two movies (well four movies) have proven that geeky movies can once again be blockbuster movies.
Thanks to the likes of those movies, we will be able to see Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow and Van Helsing.
Of course, this has been a trend, and one that makes me happy.
I'm selling my Car, if you know anyone that needs a 1998 Ford Fiesta 1.4 please send them to http://garethlewin.com/car/ :)
Take a look at Gamespot's review of "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". Now admittedly I haven't played the game, but I think Gamespot make it pretty conclusive, it's a piece of crap.
It was made by Stellar Stone LLC, a games outsourcing company in Russia.
Now, I'm not sure what to say. I don't know what the reasons for the game being so shit are, but I do know one thing, if you are in the game dev industry, please, I implore you, don't use Stellar Stone for your product. Ever.
I don't care if their costs are "3 to 5 times lower than comparative offers by a local EU and USA companies", because obviously, in this case, you get what you pay for. Well you don't even get what you paid for.
It all boils down to professionalism, Stellar Stone Group have none.
Now, I'm not saying international outsourcing is bad, even though most 118 numbers are rubbish here because of it, and I'm definitely not taking a pot shot at Russian development houses, it's just Stellar Stone specifically.
Lately this is a typical conversation I am having with people.
Them: I heard you are going to Canada, where are you going?
Me: I got a job with EA.
Them: Wow cool, where in Canada.
Me: Vancouver.
Them: Cool! ... Oh wait, don't they make Fifa.
Me: Yeah, but I wont be working on Fifa.
Them: Oh, what will you be working on? Not a sports title I hope.
Me: Well I can't say yet, but yes, it is a sports title.
Them: oh ok. Cool, I guess.
Or they get that "Poor ickle baby" look.
So tell me, what is so wrong with making sports games? To me it sounds idyllic. You make cool games that lots of people play. You do yearly cycles so you get to work with solid code each year, but get to incrementally improve it.
I mean it's not like the ultimate sports titles have already been made and there is no place for innovation.
Apparently now, the BBC thinks that silence is art.
I don't have much to say about it, except that the world is going mad, and at this rate we are all going to die soon, and I'm sure whatever intelligent life form evolves in 10million years time will think that we should have all gone earlier
Some people in this would are visionaries. Doug Englebart is one such vionaries, and I wonder what computing would be like if it wasn't for him.
Who is Doug Englebart you ask ? Well Wired have an interview with Doug Englebart that will explain all...
I have to agree with John C. Dvorak's article about Cell phones, especially when he says "Grocery stores are now filled with drips talking on cell phones—as loud as they can—about their sisters.".
Now I personally have owned a cell phone from when they came out in Israel. I was working at Telemesser and we worked on related technology so I needed one. To me they replaced beepers (I had one, actually at one stage I had both a beeper and a cell phone). They were an easy method to contact me wherever I am, and had the added bonus of me being able to contact other people whenever I needed to.
But I think the situation has gotten out of hand, mobile phones ringing (at full volume mind you) in the office, people talking on a phone while driving, buses and trains full of people shouting into their phone and so on.
I currently own a 7250, and Karina has a 6610, and to be honest they are perfect for us, in fact my camera on my 7250 is probably not needed, but I bought it before the 6610 came out. I think the 6610 is the perfect phone, because it's simple, small, and robust. But then I'm not a great fan of convergence, I did own a 'cool' Orange SPV for about a week, but I exchanged it for my 7250. I have a friend with a P800 that he loves, which is fine, but I think it's just a big brute of a phone that is a really bad PDA at the same time. In fact the only feature I would like on my 7250 would be bluetooth if I ever buy a PDA, but then chances are that the PDA will have Wifi so I won't need that.
I do wish there were more rules about cell phone usage. Laws that make it illegal to have them turned on in Cinemas for example. In the UK Orange have a very cool commercial series at the start of movies to remind you to turn off your cell (if anyone has any links to the vids, I would be grateful) but it's no way near enough. I want 'no cell' areas in restaurants; a law against people screaming into phones in the street; and a proper ban on phones in cars.
On that subject, I don't get how people can hold a phone to their ear while driving, and then claim it doesn't effect their driving. I tried it a few times, and I got so scared that I won't ever do it again. The closest I have come to doing that in the last few years is to use the Loudspeaker on my phone while it's on my lap, and even that I don't like doing, and try not to.
Mini iPods really do exist. I'm a bit slow writing about this, but who cares eh ?
So full information here and a very informative specs page.
They currently are priced at $249, but I have a feeling that's a price for the fanbois, and the price will be coming down. If it does by the time I get to Canada I might just buy one, although the iHP is still what I'm the most interested in I think.
Some times I'm stunned by how much the world changes. There are the obvious big stories. There are probably also a lot of small stories around us that change our lives in small ways.
But sometimes something positive happens that is totally unexpected. Who, a year ago, would have believed that there could headline the reads"Israel seeks Libyan ties "?
Rare Exports is a short movie made by some guys in Finland. It's very well made, and quite funny, so go on down to their page and have a watch for yourself.
I was looking at mp3 player stuff on the net, and I found this product, which can only be described as 'iNob'. (Look at the other products on that website, iFM, iTrip, iCurve, iFire).
Yes, that is a USB dial.
A new article seems to think that Apple have announced a new iPod.
Now I think that is good news, but I find it strange that the Evening Standard knows about this, but no one else seems to, including the official Apple Webpage.
We will just have to wait and see I guess.
