Weblog

Posted at 8:57pm on 30 Apr 2008

Quit IT

An excellent article about quitting your job:

Up or Out: Solving the IT Turnover Crisis

I think it rather nicely puts paid to the job-for-life, career-minded attitude of a lot of companies, and suggests that constant movement is a good thing in technical organisations because it avoids stagnation and encourages knowledge sharing.

Posted at 5:51pm on 29 Apr 2008

Euphoria

Incredible new animation system that combines artificial intelligence with physics simulation to create lifelike character movement without the need for motion capture.

This is really impressive. The characters dodge projectiles and grab ledges to save themselves from falling. Check out some of the videos of Euphoria in action in LucasArts' upcoming games.

Posted at 10:51am on 29 Apr 2008

99 Monkeys on 99 Typewriters...

The evolution of the stackoverflow.com site is an interesting example of "branding 2.0".

After selecting a name for the site by polling the developer community, they have now enlisted the help of 99designs to come up with a logo (my money's on #141).

Normally I'm not a fan of the community design paradigm - it's too similar to design-by-comittee, and we all know that never works. But the 99designs approach avoids this issue because whilst the designs are submitted by the public, the voting is entirely controlled by the person or persons who intitiated the competition.

Looking at the quality of the submissions, I think this has got to be the future of branding. A company could easily pay $500,000 to an agency and get a worse design than some of the ones here. Jeff and Joel are stumping up a mere $512 for the winner, and get hundreds of choices.

Posted at 2:32pm on 28 Apr 2008

Nikko R2D2

Nerdy, but awesome: R2D2 Projector & Webcam

This is a really nice piece of kit, it looks like it has pretty much every imaginable feature. In fact if it didn't look like R2D2 it might well be the best Projector and Webcam respectively on the market.

Realistically though, I suspect the Star Wars theme will put a lot of potential consumers off. Shame.

Posted at 2:46pm on 25 Apr 2008

It's Hip to be Square

Not new, apparently, but I hadn't come across these before:

Square watermelons (no, really!)

Apparently the idea is to make more efficient use of fridge space, as well as avoiding damage due to unfortunate rolling-off-table incidents.

I think it's brilliant - I wonder what other things we could make into cuboids for efficiency (or amusement). Square cows perhaps?

Posted at 2:05pm on 25 Apr 2008

Eastern Europe

I love this: Visualisation of Eastern Europe

From Dresden Codak's, LiveJournal page.

Posted at 10:10am on 23 Apr 2008

Chip Shop

In a surprise move, Apple has just purchased P.A. Semi, a microprocessor design company.

It's unclear how Intel are going to take this news - after cozying up to Intel for the past year or so, Apple's sudden decision to see other people is unlikely to go down well.

Posted at 10:05am on 23 Apr 2008

Grand Theft Google

Nice little flash game where you drive around a Google map: googleDrive.

Reminiscent of the the old top-down GTA games (minus the cop-killing and exploding cars).

Posted at 1:01am on 23 Apr 2008

Microsoft Drops Support for MSN Music

Microsoft once again demonstrates its commitment to its valued media customers by ditching support for the MSN Music DRM service. This basically means that anyone who bought tracks on MSN will not be able to play them on any future PCs they purchase.

The message here in case anyone missed it is do not buy media protected by DRM unless you have a clear path for removing it, or you don't mind losing the ability to play it at some unspecified time in the future.

If that's too complex, don't buy any media from Microsoft is probably a good rule of thumb.

Posted at 3:06pm on 22 Apr 2008

Airstrike

LM3Labs has created Airstrike, a gesture-driven hologram system.

I'm not quite sure what the point of it is, but it's all very Star Wars.

Posted at 10:10am on 22 Apr 2008

I Want One

Some whimsical cuteness from XKCD.

Every nerd secretly wants a pet with a serial port (and that doesn't shit, shed, or chew on the network cables).

Posted at 1:18pm on 21 Apr 2008

Hooray for Bureaucracy

Just over a year ago we wrote about Microsoft's OOXML format, a dreadful specification that they were trying to get ratified as an ISO standard.

Anyone who has been following this sorry and sordid story will know that after initially rejecting the spec on technical grounds, almost every party eventually gave in and voted yes to the standard, despite the fact that none of their concerns had been addressed.

Now at least part of the mystery of how this happened has been revealed. It turns out that (in Norway at least) an 80% majority of experts is overruled by one bureaucrat.

Posted at 4:20pm on 20 Apr 2008

REALunit

We've added REALunit, a new open source unit testing framework for REALbasic to our open source software page.

Posted at 7:08pm on 19 Apr 2008

Paypal

Paypal is apparently planning to ban web browsers which don't provide anti-phishing features.

Since phishing typically takes the form of a site pretending to be Paypal to get user's details, wouldn't they somehow need to persuade the phishing sites to block these browsers?

Otherwise they'll end up with the ridiculous situation that the only Paypal branded sites that some users can visit on their browser will be phishing sites.

Posted at 8:45am on 19 Apr 2008

The Videogame at the End of the Universe

A fascinating account of the aborted development of Milliways, the sequel to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy adventure game. The best bits are the design documents, written by game designers who were evidently geniuses, but quite possibly insane:

On Magrathea is a crater left by the impact of the whale. (You don't remember the whale? Then you'll be even more confused by the petunias...)

Even more incredible is the tale of how the author came by this information - he's somehow gotten a hold of a complete backup of Infocom's company network drive circa 1989, including all the company emails, financial documents and source code for all their games.

Posted at 4:39pm on 18 Apr 2008

Your Session Has Timed Out

Jeff Atwood hits the nail on the head with respect to session timeouts.

This is a typical example of technology driving a usability consideration. Session timeouts are not good enough as a solution to this problem. We need something better.

Programmers doing the same stupid thing over and over again just because it's what everyone else does is exactly what's wrong with software interface design as it stands today.

Posted at 2:30pm on 18 Apr 2008

Now Requires Flash

Dilbert has gone all "Web 2.0".

The prominent Beta at the top of the page hardly excuses turning a simple, fast-loading site into a processor-hungry JavaScript behemoth that requires Flash to be enabled before you can view the cartoon.

But that's just my opinion.

Posted at 2:32pm on 17 Apr 2008

Dreamworks Acquires Ghost in the Shell

http://www.variety.com/VR1117984029.html

If you can get past the toe-curling insistence of the characters to wax philosophical for minutes on end about the nature of humanity, the original Ghost in the Shell anime is one of the finest examples of the genre, and a gripping high-tech thriller in its own right.

By removing all the Japanese cultural elements that don't translate well to a Western audience, and converting to a live action format (which the intended "adult" viewer will relate to better than a cartoon), Spielberg could have real winner on his hands here.

Should be interesting to see how they screw it up.

Posted at 11:53am on 17 Apr 2008

stackoverflow.com

Intriguing new site from Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood: stackoverflow.com

Not much to see yet, but on his blog, Joel describes the site as...

a programming Q&A site that's free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away"

Sounds pretty good to me.

Posted at 11:29am on 17 Apr 2008

Rockin' Our Sales

There's something very wrong with Microsoft.

Here is a recent internal promotional video for Vista.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great when a company can poke fun at itself. But to paraphrase Krusty the Klown, "it's only funny if the sap's got dignity"!

Update: In case you were thinking that this depravity was some kind of recent phenomenon at Microsoft, think again.

Posted at 10:11am on 16 Apr 2008

V for Vendetta

Virgin Media has stepped over a line, and Charlie Stross and pals aren't happy about it.

Amid allegations of sniffing for router hardware and intentionally providing an inferior service to anyone using one, the CEO of Virgin Media has come right out and said that he's in favour of throttling the bandwidth of sites that don't pay a premium for data delivery.

And all this after the previous fiasco whereby Virgin somehow managed to fall out with Sky, resulting in Virgin's customers permanently losing access to Sky One, and with it shows like Lost, 24 and Battlestar Galactica.

Posted at 10:06am on 15 Apr 2008

Samorost

Cool, quirky Flash puzzle/adventure game: Samorost

Reminds me a little of Cosmic Osmo and the other early Hypercard games for the Macintosh.

Posted at 9:57am on 15 Apr 2008

Google TV Ads

Google have just announced that they will be selling TV slots for their Internet advertising service.

Now anyone with a Google ads account (and a big budget) will be able to advertise their service on TV without any additional infrastructure.

It's a great idea, but it only serves to make me more certain that this arbitrary distinction between Internet and TV is destined to be very short lived.

Posted at 5:58pm on 14 Apr 2008

Five Minutes to Kill Yourself

Original (if somewhat morbid) Flash game:

http://www.adultswim.com/games/game/index.html?game=fiveMinutes.

Posted at 12:20am on 12 Apr 2008

Open Source Self-Replicating Printer

A few months ago we wrote an article predicting the impending rise of bespoke manufacturing technologies, specifically the 3D printer.

It's happening. An open source group split across the US, UK and New Zealand has just announced the RepRap, a 3D rapid prototyping system capable of printing its own components. It's a long way from a general-purpose home manufacturing system, but it's definitely an important step closer.

Posted at 9:26am on 08 Apr 2008

Google App Engine

http://code.google.com/appengine

Google App Engine enables you to build web applications on the same scalable systems that power Google applications.

Looks pretty sweet. Based on Python/Django, it provides all the back end services for building your web app + they'll host it for free (until it gets popular).

Posted at 3:11pm on 07 Apr 2008

Starcraft 2 "fansite kit"

Blizzard are offering a downloadable "kit" of resources so that Starcraft fans can build their own fan sites:

http://eu.starcraft2.com/downloads.xml

This is a breath of fresh air compared to the heavy handed tactics of other companies/individuals over the unauthorised use of their copyright material by fans (Apple, Prince).

Between the accessible and innovative use of technology on the Starcraft 2 web site (unobtrusive JavaScript and Flash, client side XSL), the innovative approach to product development and quality control and the friendly and encouraging attitude to fans, I’m absolutely blown away by Blizzard. I think a lot of companies could learn a thing or two from them.

Posted at 2:10pm on 07 Apr 2008

11 Innovation Lessons

Innovation lessons from Blizzard (makers of World of Warcraft):

"9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU'LL GET MEDIOCRITY"

They don’t say what to do when you demand excellence but still get mediocrity – still, seems like some good thinking here.

Posted at 1:45pm on 07 Apr 2008

Calligraphy

Smashing Magazine mourns the death of hand-penned calligraphy.

If only there was some way to simulate beautiful calligraphy on a computer...

Oh well.

Posted at 10:20am on 03 Apr 2008

Beautiful New Coinage from the Royal Mint...

… and a new five dollar bill in the States that looks like a kindergarten finger painting experiment:

http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=93

Posted at 4:02pm on 02 Apr 2008

Outside

A candid review of the popular game Outside:

The physics system is note-perfect (often at the expense of playability)... The real fundamental problem with the game is that there is nothing to do.

Brilliant!

Posted at 1:36pm on 02 Apr 2008

Oh... Bollocks

Well that’s all we needed: ISO approves OOXML

If only Microsoft had spent half as much money on actually fixing the giant, man-eating holes in their specification as they have on bribing state officials into ratifying it...

Posted at 12:12pm on 02 Apr 2008

Who Ate All the Pies?

Today is officially the fattest day of the year.

Funny, I don't feel any heavier...