closed.

it’s official, the blog is now closed. i won’t delete it because the links are handy. but if you’re curious, here’s a list of reasons:

1. it’s not worth it.

2. i’m too laz

norman rockwell – easter morning

he really is very good.

beats the drawings i did today on the interactive whiteboard for science:

shut up, i couldn't see the board because the sun was shining on it. normally i'm not that bad. they all knew what i was talking about anyway.

i cannot believe these went into the comments spam box. why?

hey, 3 is better than nothin.

all the submitters emails are wonderful. my favourite is the top from deshawn cuevas though. classic deshawn.

can’t wait for season 3.

dan harmon talks (a loooooooot) in his ama. seems to be drunkish for a some of it, but it adds to his charm.

what he says about glee is fucking hilarious. and no lazy bones, i won't link directly to it.

making money.

fileserve, easy share, bit share, freak share, oron, filesonic, rapidshare...

i’ve noticed a pattern on rlslog over the last few weeks. it’s not just releaselog, it’s happening all over scene sites. people are moving away from linking torrents to linking to direct download sites. instead of a peer to peer network you visit a website and enter a captcha, wait few seconds and download the whole file directly to your computer.

how bittorrent works – a bunch of people share all of, or part of a file (known as seeds) and others take all or a part of it they need (known as leeches). it’s worked well for years but as you’ve noticed (and i’ve linked) crackdowns are happening all over the shop.

people are cashing in.

time was when the comments section of rlslog was just that – comments. people talking shit about whatever movie/tv show/release got posted or comments on quality of picture. now it’s all links to files hosted by the poster. why? because they get paid every time a file is downloaded. i should clarify, they get paid everytime their file is downloaded. thats a generalisation because each site offers ‘uploaders’ different pricing plans depending on a) how much data gets downloaded and b) where that data is going to. you get more money from an american downloading than say, an indian guy. it’s all to do with page clicks and advertising for the hosting website.

for example. sploogeserve (owned by you) allows people to upload files to your website (server). servers cost money and you want to make some income too. so you offer people incentives to upload to you rather than anyone else. soon, you’re running out of space, and want that shiny new cat for your house so you reach out to advertisers (like every websites does, including facebook) and say “bro, check out my stats, i get 1000 hits a month” and they say “1000 hits? we’ll pay you $3 a day to put our advert on your site. you think “shit, all this work for $3?” i need more hits. so you offer another bump/incentive. it goes on and on.

a typical pricing plan is this:

doesn't matter which, although this offers more money (simply to attract people)

so per 1000 downloads of your file, perhaps an mp3 for example (usually 1mb per minute so normal songs around 5mb-ish) would net you $4.00 if all of those 1000 people were from a category a country:

at least we're a. suck it france.

which is the main reason for this post really. when edthebear was in singapore i thought since rlslog started uploading copies of magazines/ebooks i could email them over to keep him busy. not so fast. looking at the file sizes for say, iphone magazine april 2011 – it’s a pdf file, they all are – it’s 110mb. it’s a hundred and something pages of bullshit and pictures.  but when you scan it at an incredibly high resolution, that’s a bigger file size, and earns you more money.

magazines are one thing. say you had a good dvdrip of a new film. say avatar, which was downloaded over 16m times via torrent > via file sharing but the number is in the hundreds of thousands. you’ve just made $3200 for about 10mins work and a couple of days waiting. games are where the big money is because the file sizes are way bigger than a movie. e.g. a new game can be 15x bigger than a dvdrip. you do the math.

anyway, it’s interesting stuff.

they’ve shut down seti. i feel like crying.

they lost government funding. it only costs $5m for two fucking years.

just the fact that we were looking gave me hope for humanity. that we were looking outside of our own arseholes to wonder at the universe, and imagine what if?

the fact that it costs a measly few million to fund should matter even more. considering in “october 28, 2009, the final size of the department of defense’s budget was $680 billion”. 650 billion divided by 5 million is 130,000. that’s 65,000 years of research. not including interest.

the entire cost of the apollo program (from “hey let’s go into space” to “eagle, shit i just landed on the motherfucking moon”) ,adjusted to 2005 dollars, would approximate to $135 billion. big sigh.

from bob dixon:

“mankind must always explore the unknown and push the frontiers of knowledge. without new quests, we lose an important part of being human, and our society starts to decay.”

the chances of seti finding anything are pretty much zero. i’ve always known this. i’ve read enough sciencey sci-fi to consider the numbers involved. it was never the point. like neil de grasse tyson says: “if we can’t communicate with lower order species here on earth that we know about, maybe aliens can’t communicate with us for the same reason.”

still sucks though. fingers crossed for google/gates/whoever to pick up the bill.

westboro baptists get pwned.

classic.

the important bits about a recent solider’s funeral (killed on his 5th tour of afghanistan):

a couple of days before, one of [the westboro baptists] ran his mouth at a brandon gas station and got his ass waxed. when they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.

most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. it seems that certain rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over.

a few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business.

awesome.

how much did you pay for your hdmi cable?

i think mine was ~£15, and i probably spent too much.

sounds about right.

of course, go for the comments:

“my girlfriend recently bought me this cable for my birthday and i was immediately excited. i had already purchased a sunBrite 55″ outdoor lcd tv and new that the picture quality was lacking due to the cheap $500 cable that i was talked into downgrading to. this one, at only a little more than 3x the price, would surely take me to another plane of viewing pleasure. oh how right i was…” [you should really read the rest btw]

the funny thing is (and i had to look this up) is that hdmi is an industry standard. that is to say that every single hdmi cable made has to conform to the same number of pins, transmit the same data (ie digital). you can get one on google for £3. there are some people with more money than sense i guess.

unless you’re buying a dedicated link cable to connect your denon equipment.

don't laugh, it's "made of high-purity copper wire"

and it’s an ethernet cable. y’know, the one that’s plugged into the back of your pc to connect it to the internet.

aphex twin – nanou 2

30/40th listen i think. one of the comments on youtube was that it was his last release in 10 years. i thought bullshit, but it’s actually right. he did a bunch of stuff on the analord series but this was the last track under aphex twin. i miss him.

everything about this pisses me off.

tracker - "he must trap the enemy to set them both free."

where to begin. meh, i can’t even be bothered to complain.

oh and it’s set in the boer war, so expect an awesome accent from ray i can barely speak english winstone.

tube +.

think pirate bay meets youtube.

i’ve run out of room to store [totally legal things] and spent a couple of hours wondering whether i should invest in another hard drive. it was kind of spurred on by the fact that someone mentioned they had 12tb of storage (to my measly 2tb). i’m going to have to get a vpn as soon as the d.e.a comes into force, but in the meantime, streaming, rather than dl’ing, might be best.

i hate my life sometimes.

his name is matthew weiner.

yep. christina hendricks and alison brie. so my new plan is to write/produce a sopranos quality show. and then produce something like mad men.

i call it, the sopradmen. it’s about an mobster who gives up a life of crime to become an advertiser for, say, cilit bang. ron howard is attached to direct.

reddit down.

boooo. probably a reason for this mornings posts. a couple of iama’s in the interim.

abed in community.

brooks brown - columbine survivor that was told by the shooters to 'get out of here'

tom dwan. me neither. but he has made a fuckload at the poker tables.

robot exoskeletons and infinite soda.

present version costs $150,000 and has an 8 hour battery life.

this pretty much says it all:

“robot exoskeleton helps man walk after 20yrs in a wheelchair…rewalk™ is an alternative mobility solution to the wheelchair for individuals with severe walking impairments, enabling them to stand, walk, ascend/descent stairs and more.”

up to 106 flavors.

i present the coca cola freestyle. touch screen custom drinks. we’re getting closer to cafe 80’s.

but at least we survived skynet. again.

alan and emily.

one of the most moving stories i’ve heard. i didn’t full on bawl, but i had wobbly lip at one point. i suggest somewhere quiet, ~20 mins.

another fantastic podcast from radiolab, the same people that did that stochasticity one i posted a while back.

world’s most important 6-sec drum loop.

the narrator is kind of comatosing but interesting stuff. when he shows how it’s been chopped up for pretty much every genre, i was also reminded of this. sample sample:

so, whales fucking rule then.

well, humpback whales do.

killer whales are scary as shit.

i’m been scared of killer whales for a few years now. that wave attack footage is pretty bad, as is their penchant for pwning great whites. they don’t mess around is my point. so they’re kind of like the fictional velociraptors as portrayed in jurrasic park (i’ll come back to that).

anyway. two articles that i read and wowed:

the first is that scientists think that humpback whales are using the stars, or earths magnetic field (or both) to navigate. they don’t know yet. the important thing is that over the last 8 years they’ve been tracking their movements. and they migrate in a straight line. so fucking what right? well, not really:

“researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses. in about half the segments mapped by the researchers, humpbacks deviated by one degree or less”

over 5000 miles. one of my earliest memories of school swimming was when me and my main popularity rival at the time (paul grey?) were asked to demonstrate to the rest of the class our front crawl skills by doing a length. a race basically. everything was going fine until i hit my hand against something, looked up, and saw that i had swum into the side of the pool. paul had already finished i was still half way down, looking confused, and being subjected to echoey laughter. my point is i can’t swim 25m in a straight line.

the last is that humpback whales follow musical trends, singing the same songs all over the world, then changing them a couple of years later.

“the findings are based on 11 years of recordings from underwater microphones slung over the sides of boats…the team had to listen to 745 songs in total from six whale populations across the south pacific over the 11-year period. the researchers identified 11 distinctly different styles (audio). sometimes the “hit song” contained snippets from previous seasons, sometimes it was entirely revolutionary. but at any given time and place, there was only one song. what’s more, the popular song switched incredibly rapidly; it took only 2 to 3 months.”

there is probably a lady gaga/weird al joke here, but i can’t think of one.

back to the velociraptor thing. can’t remember where i was referred from, but he’s pretty fucking funny:

he certainly has a type.

louise bergoin.

browsing rslog this mo’, the first thing i thought when i read the release ‘the extraordinary adventures of adele blanc sec‘ was – luc besson is hitting that.

celeb gossip. i know. i put it down to a bad nights sleep. too many layers i think.

so here’s a game: the plot summary below has had one element, or elements,  removed by me from his latest ‘film’.

“adele is on a mission in egypt, attempting to retrieve a sarcophagus and tote it back to western Europe, but simultaneously attempting to fend off complications wrought by her nemesis, archaeologist dieuleveult. she succeeds on both fronts, but upon returning runs headfirst into another issue: a parisian scientist with the power to heal adele’s comatose sister has accidentally let loose an ancient [                                               ]. while a zany detective and a hunter attempt to eliminate the [                  ], the villains turn up yet again and try to thwart adele’s long-term plans.”

so is it:

a) pterodactyl above the parisian skies

b) egptian malevolent spirit  in the streets of paris

c) leviathan in the waters of the seine

d) all three.

correct answer wins.

battle los angeles and hobo with a shotgun. and rubber.

looking forward to the sequel.

it was one of the worst films i’ve ever seen. it makes independence day look like goodfellas in comparison. my main issues:

* the aliens are never really explained/explored. there’s a brief mention of why they may be here, but its all of 10 seconds. no ideas about how/where they came from, their history or capabilities. water is mentioned. liquid water is like crack to them or something. but that makes no sense. why not just go to, hmmmm, any fucking planet with ice caps and melt them with your giant alien spaceships. why even bother coming to a planet which will offer resistance (although that’s never really explained either)

* there is no ending. at all. remember the ending of black hawk down, where one of the spec ops guys goes back into the fighting. it’s basically that but worse somehow – oh i know, because you know nothing about the characters and hope that they all die of choking on teaspoons.

* you learn nothing about anything. see alien thing above. there is no message or food for thought. at least independence day had some poorly acted message about humanity and working together and using windows to create alien viruses.

* marines running down streets isn’t original anymore. it’s old. stop doing it please.

* no one has more than 2 lines of dialogue in a row. get down, cover, reload, flank right, incoming. etc. destroys any character development. to the point i was slightly disappointed when the girl in the picture isn’t killed (she was supposed to get to da choppa but was late, it got blown up on take off)

wasn't that bad.

honestly, i’ve seen lot worse. see above. for an indie film with little/no budget and a couple of familiar faces, its actually quite well done. the plot is plain but effective and you are kind of rooting for the guy the whole way through.

rubber.

i need help with this one. it is weird. the word pretentious kept jabbing me in the brain before i realised the film had only been on for 2 minutes. its hard to explain because the movie is about a rubber tyre that realises it’s conscious and goes on a murderous rampage. but…no i can’t really explain it. i stopped about 20mins in because i felt like i needed to talk about just exactly what the fuck i was watching. it’s french if that helps.

twat.

strike one.

i think kpop is korean pop music. anyway. it sucks to be in new zealand (even more than usual):

“this week the new zealand government rushed through its controversial 3 strikes-style law as part of christchurch earthquake emergency legislation. this means that after being ‘suspected’ of sharing copyrighted material online three times, people may be fined and lose their internet access for six months.”

just hours before giving a speech in support of the three-strikes law which is supposed to protect the copyright holders, she (sent that tweet).

lee defended herself by saying that the songs were downloaded legally and paid for. but unfortunately for her that doesn’t mean much. as the national business review points out, when a friend makes a copy of songs that were legally bought, the recipient of the ‘gift’ is still guilty of copyright infringement.”

so someone who rushed through (a frankly unimaginable piece of legislation, seriously – have you seen my hard drives?) this law is getting bitten in the ass by it. you twat.

battlefield 3 and some amnesia fun times.

it’s the full version of those clips that have been released but i wanted to talk seriously for a moment. watching this last night i couldn’t help but a) drool and b) wonder at the future of pc gaming.

just look at it. the lighting is jizztastic but what i noticed more was the particle effects and bullet impact. when he’s on the machine gun on the overpass, look at the damage to the road. not the car explosions (which are pretty much as good as they can get) but the holes in the pavement left by the bullets. and they stay there. forever. the buildings are also destructible. now, you may be thinking – wtf bullet holes, who cares about bullet holes? i do. and here’s why.

i remember in 1996 that goldeneye had bullet impact damage, but only up to around 20 rounds. that it to say, you could spray the wall with your klobb and you would see bullet holes, when you fired the 21st round the 1st hole would disappear to make room for the new one. i would try and write my initials in the wall. it comes down to immersion. games are getting to the point (and some already have) where suspension of disbelief is as real as a good movie. the first time i played mirrors edge i felt actually sick. and it wasn’t just me.

from penny arcade.

for years i’ve been leaning left and right or ducking gunshots when i play, but thats because my brain is an idiot. what battlefield 3 does is provide a visceral gaming experience. yes i looked it up: “ felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body”. i’m not saying that battlefield 3 is a like being in a war, of course it’s not. but by leaving traces of battles (and bodies and burnt out cars) i feel more involved in the game environment, that my actions have consequences. and not the bullshit consequences of say, fable 3 (more morality than anything else). along with character development (which good games have had for years anyway, just ask the tattoos on iamthedemonamon’s arms) and a good story (something lacking in the battlefield series single player experience ) games will become the audio/visual experience. the games industry is already bigger than the movie industry. just think about that for a second. i’ll wait.

so there are lots of confused points here and this isn’t really what i intended to type, but what the fcuk. i guess i’m just happy is all. happy that my longest hobby is doing so well for itself and there are game makers who focus on these types of details. the new crop of indie developers are realising that there is a massive audience for good games. i don’t want to go on about minecraft, but $30m? have you seen it? i played about 10mins before i was bored but jesus christ it has a following of devotees that…well you know that by now.

i was originally going to include this as a hahaha look at that moron video, but it kind of connects the points quite well. amnesia is a game i will never play. not because it’s boring or got bad reviews (85 on metacritic). it’s that it is scary as shit. and i say that as a 31 year old man/child, and accept all the embarrassment that may follow.

in short, amnesia is a game where you wake up and don’t know what’s going on (i think i’ve mentioned it before). anyway, you don’t have weapons and basically have to run away for the whole game. just stay alive. there are hundreds of videos of people being scared shitless by this game (search for amnesia reactions). no thank you. it’s sold over 200,000 copies  (an indie game priced on steam now at £6.49, 50% off) and goes to show that it’s content rather than packaging that pc gamers want. i won’t even play the free demo. fuck that shit. i have a fear that i would act pretty much like the guy in the video does. and if you want to know what the water part is…

lighten the mood.

 

the before time. the long long ago.

since that history mindfucks uber-post, i’ve been on a bender.

so here are some must watch/listen programmes:

bbc - the ascent of man

the presenter, jacob bronowski, has a ‘unique’ delivery system (like 10 minute unbroken takes) but information and access is pretty spectacular. there is a slight fear that because of his age/accent he did something regrettable during the war and this is his way of making up for it. but, it’s a very impressive series. stick with it.

civilisation - by kenneth clark

i actually prefer this guy. he is classic grandad material and gives you the impression that what he’s telling you is just the introduction into the topic. it’s a different focus though (what it means to be a civilisation (rather than human evolution in taom). it’s a gentle but informed delivery that tells you what you need to know. his long speeches are broken up with images of what he’s talking about (as opposed to the ascent of man).

both of these are available in their entirety on youtube, but i just dl’ed the torrents. moving swiftly on:

dan carlin's hardcore history.

one of the best factual podcasts i’ve heard. i started with ‘ghosts of the ostfront’ (in 4 hour-long parts). it was unbelievable. about 10 years ago a read a dissertation from a student at west point (us officer training school, yes i was that bored at social services) that focussed on stalingrad and the german invasion of russia. that opened my eyes. this guy’s detail is astounding, as well as his references and quoted material . it took me about 10mins to get over his accent/delivery, but when you do, it’s easy to enjoy.

12 byzantine rulers

exactly. me too. the byzantines…yeaah. those guys with their wacky locations and time in history. this 12 part podcast will give you the facts (i’m on ep 7 now). they’re quite short too so easy to listen to shopping.

ancient rome refocused.

i like this one because i’ve just been cherry picking topics i think i’ll like. e.g. ‘the first thriller’ (about theseus and the minotaur). have a browse.

the history of rome

unfortunately the website blows, so just use a reader instead. i like this one because it’s also short (about 10-15min eps) and there are over 100 of them. listen to the first few, if you’re not hooked (or informed), slap my face.

i told you.

right now, bruce campbell is taking questions on reddit. awesome.

hey reddit – demon-killer and ex-navy seal here to answer your questions. i’ve got someone manning the keyboard for me throughout the day – but i’ll be checking in and replying from 12:30-1:30 est and again from 4:30-5:30 est

col. chris hadfield, an astronaut, did one the other day.

and so did yahtzee.

porkins.

it's called 'shitty wingman'

i laughed anyway. that character is classic fail in star wars and i always wondered why the rebel alliance had a shitty fat guy in the lead attack on the deathstar. but i digress.

reading down the comments, it came to light that the character ‘jek tono porkins’ has backstory. impressive backstory.

a holographic tribute at yavin 4.

with all of the comics and novels set before and after the movie timeline, the canon for star wars is understandably huge. i like this quote:

“you are elite pilots and you are more than just that, but no matter who you are, or how good you are, you’ll never be considered as good as biggs darklighter or jek porkins or anyone else who has died in service to rogue squadron. they are legends, this unit is a legend, and none of us are ever going to be able to be more than they are”

and yeah it’s a stupid name, but you’re talking about george lucas. you remember kit right? from episode 2?  kit…fisto?