Nov 13, 2009
This little guy isn’t going to let go.
Let this vinyl decal bring out your inner child. It measures 4″x7″ fits right on your Macbook. *Please note: this decal will definitely make you the coolest kid in the library.
via Lego My Apple by MacSlaps on Etsy.
Speaking of Lego, I’m considering getting something similar for my Mac.
Namely, the black version of the Snow White one available on Etsy. Hawt.
Nov 13, 2009
Kick Some Brick in I through IV
Play through all six Star Wars movies in one videogame! Adding new characters, new levels, new features and for the first time ever, the chance to build and battle your way through a fun Star Wars galaxy on your PC!
via LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Steam.
Er… That’d be VI for six, Steam.
Roman numerals FAIL! 
That being said, US $20 for all six isn’t bad. I already own boxed copies (at roughly double that), but having the physical media is always fun. Right?
Nov 11, 2009
A while ago in my AP Chemistry class, this one annoying kid and my friend were having a weird argument about who was better. The annoying kid said, “Well, at least I have a girlfriend!” to which I responded, “Whatever. Your girlfriend has 67 protons.” In response, the entire class, including the teacher, turned their heads to look at the periodic table on the wall. The element with 67 protons is holmium, with the chemical symbol “Ho.” My teacher was the first to laugh. MLIA
Nov 9, 2009
We thought the lack of dedicated servers was bad, but now we can add the lack of console commands, the inability to have a say in who hosts the game, a lengthy pause while the game migrates to a new host if the currently selected host quits, no leaning, no option to record matches, and no way to kick or block trouble players, hackers, or cheaters.
You have to wonder if there are any actual PC gamers working at Infinity Ward, as it will be a challenge to find any member of the PC gaming community that will stand up for any of these omissions, not to mention all of them bundled together. At launch, this will be one of the most locked-down, inflexible, and gamer-unfriendly game ever created.
via PC Modern Warfare 2: it’s much worse than you thought – Ars Technica.
…and that’s why I haven’t preordered what certainly would have been the most popular FPS to come out in 2009.
Nov 8, 2009
The OpenOfficeMouse includes default profiles for the five core OpenOffice.org applications based on 662 million datapoints compiled by the usage tracking facility incorporated into OpenOffice.org 3.1. These profiles can be easily customized to suit the user’s preferences using the included OpenOfficeMouse setup software. The setup and customization software is an application that will be released as an open source software project under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 in the first quarter of 2010. Default profiles for 20 other games and applications are also included; the OpenOffice Mouse supports up to 63 profiles to be stored simultaneously in the mouse’s memory.
via OpenOfficeMouse: The Multi-Button Application Mouse for OpenOffice.org.
I don’t know what’s more ridiculous: that this is actually a serious project, or that that’s the most hideous mouse I’ve ever seen.
Nov 8, 2009
Dec. 14, 2008. 4:49 p.m. Smoke rises from trash being burned at Camp Echo. The past three days have brought many complaints from Ian: shoveling dirt, sitting in the maintenance bay, picking up garbage.
This is how an American soldier is made.
For 27 months, Ian Fisher, his parents and friends, and the U.S. Army allowed Denver Post reporters and a photographer to watch and chronicle his recruitment, induction, training, deployment, and, finally, his return from combat. A selection of photos from Ian’s journey are posted below.
via Captured Photo Collection » Ian Fisher : American Soldier Photos.
Nov 8, 2009
That’s not to say that all shipping code wins; after all, Andrew and Intermedia and HyTime shipped code too. Code is necessary but not sufficient for success. And I certainly don’t mean to say that shipping code before a standard will produce the best solution. Marc’s <img> element didn’t mandate a common graphics format; it didn’t define how text flowed around it; it didn’t support text alternatives or fallback content for older browsers. And 16, almost 17 years later, we’re still struggling with content sniffing, and it’s still a source of crazy security vulnerabilities. And you can trace that all the way back, 17 years, through the Great Browser Wars, all the way back to February 25, 1993, when Marc Andreessen offhandedly remarked, “MIME, someday, maybe,” and then shipped his code anyway.
The ones that win are the ones that ship.
Nov 5, 2009
Blogtober was great.
For those late to the party, Blogtober 2009 was, as far as I can tell, a scheme to get bloggers like me to post something on their blog, at least once per day in October 2009.
For the most part, it worked well.
It all started when one of the people I follow on Twitter mentioned something about Blogtober, and how they were considering taking part. Having not researched the concept any more than that single tweet (but having heard similar concepts before,) I decided to partake on this particular adventure, and post something every day in October, right here.
For what it’s worth, I think it worked quite well. If you take a scroll through the October archives you’ll notice everything from quick quotes, Youtube clips, and even the odd musing/ponderance post, plus a few shots from my iPhone camera roll thrown in for good measure.
I certaintly gained something from it: the ability to publish iPhone screenshots, via a service called Posterous. Posterous allows you to publish things to your Posterous blog or to Twitter/Facebook/Wordpress blog, all from a single email, and that’s what I’ve been using to put up screenies from my iPhone. Previously the way I had to publish iPhone screencaps was to email them to myself, or use the WordPress app itself – neither of which were exceptionally good. Now that I’m using Posterous, I can push content from my iPhone to pretty much any service I want, be it Twitter/Facebook or otherwise.
It’s pretty cool.
Overall, I enjoyed Blogtober. Sometimes finding something interesting to post was a little tricky, and there are still a couple of posts I haven’t yet published, but for the most part, I didn’t feel obligated to publish something every day (OR DiE!!), it was pretty much exactly how I imagined it – relaxed, pretty casual, and so on.
Blogtober’s now over, and as you can probably tell we’ve already returned to our normal programming (that is, nothing every day). I enjoyed posting stuff during Blogtober, so why stop?
Here’s to more stuff!
#end
Nov 2, 2009
Video Comparison Between The Uncut version of Left4Dead2 and the Australian “Low Violence” version
According to the classification board report, the modified version removes considerable amounts of gore from gameplay.
The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment, the report said.
No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground.
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EDIT: ALSO CONFIRMED (30.10.09)
But was unable to get footage of at time of making
Infected don’t actually Catch Fire in cut version (Except the Tank) however they still die in the flames.
NO Blood splatters on the screen
NO RIOT COP uncommon common in AUS release (violence against authority figures)
(and if you play with a person who has the cut version even if you dont, the riot cop will not spawn)
Pipebomb Explosion is Similar however the bodies ragdoll off and vanish in midair with out gibbing almost instantly
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For those not in the know, the reason this game had 2 be modified to be released in Australia is because we don’t have a R18+ rating for games here in Australia. To have one introduced, all the states have to agree that they want one, all states have said yes to this, except SA (Michael Atkinson). So it is one man stopping the rest of us getting an R18+ rating, So seeing as MA15+ is the highest we have got, the OFLC have no choice and the game must be modified to fit into that category if it is to be released here, otherwise its the ban hammer and the game gets Refused Classification(RC). So its not Valves Fault, Its not the OFLC’s fault its not the governments fault… its Michael Atkinson’s Fault.
His Excuse is that he doesn’t think we need one and that if we don’t have one the children wont get introduced into Violent Video Game, He thinks he is protecting the children, however when you think about it he is doing the opposite, by refusing to have a R18+ rating he is making it so that games that would have otherwise been rated as R18+ are being modified to fit into
the MA15+ rating therefore introducing those games to an even younger generation than would have been whilst at the same time punishing the rest of us by censoring the game and making a choice that should be ours for us.
We Should be allowed to play this as we want, in the uncensored version you have the option to disable gore if wanted.
via YouTube – Left 4 Dead 2 – Censor Comparison L4D2.
There’s a supposed “fix” for if you’ve got the censored version, but it seems pretty hackish, like a nasty hack.
Otherwise, you could always buy it from Steamerica (Steam in the US does not equal Steam in Australia) via this method. Works just fine in that you don’t get censored crap.
Nov 1, 2009
