A Man and his Penguin

1. Kobo Deluxe. This is a retro-styled space shooter, but rather than being the usual "You’re a spaceship travelling up the screen and you have to shoot other spaceships travelling down the screen", you are a spaceship in a 2D universe, having to destroy enemy space bases. The catch is, that the heart of the base is protected by labyrinth-like structures, with nodes on the outside which, when shot, will destroy one of the structures. Shooting the actual structure itself won’t do any damage.

This game becomes seriously frantic, because the outside nodes can fire at you, as can the heart of the base inside. There are other enemy ships, which start off fairly benign, but then other sorts of enemy ships appear which are fast and destructive. Eventually, the nodes actually shoot ships at you!

Very frantic, and leads to some exhilarating moments when you start off surrounded by bases and have to fly right in between them, with nodes shooting Azgardi ships at you :-)   (Long-time Mac gamers should know exactly what I mean by "Azgardi").

2. Mozilla-beagle.  This is a Firefox extension that enables Beagle to index the websites that you visit! Yes, this is seriously cool. If you remember recently reading an article about telepathy, you could do a search in Beagle for "read my mind". Beagle would pull up the e-mails you sent to your clairvoyant, your copy of the Gordon Lightfoot song "If You Could Read My Mind", and the article that you read in Firefox but forgot to save to your home directory!

I don’t really use Beagle - on Dapper I had it completely disabled - but at least this should help me find quotes that I read on Bash but can’t remember and didn’t save

1. Kobo Deluxe. This is a retro-styled space shooter, but rather than being the usual "You’re a spaceship travelling up the screen and you have to shoot other spaceships travelling down the screen", you are a spaceship in a 2D universe, having to destroy enemy space bases. The catch is, that the heart of the base is protected by labyrinth-like structures, with nodes on the outside which, when shot, will destroy one of the structures. Shooting the actual structure itself won’t do any damage.

This game becomes seriously frantic, because the outside nodes can fire at you, as can the heart of the base inside. There are other enemy ships, which start off fairly benign, but then other sorts of enemy ships appear which are fast and destructive. Eventually, the nodes actually shoot ships at you!

Very frantic, and leads to some exhilarating moments when you start off surrounded by bases and have to fly right in between them, with nodes shooting Azgardi ships at you :-)   (Long-time Mac gamers should know exactly what I mean by "Azgardi").

2. Mozilla-beagle.  This is a Firefox extension that enables Beagle to index the websites that you visit! Yes, this is seriously cool. If you remember recently reading an article about telepathy, you could do a search in Beagle for "read my mind". Beagle would pull up the e-mails you sent to your clairvoyant, your copy of the Gordon Lightfoot song "If You Could Read My Mind", and the article that you read in Firefox but forgot to save to your home directory!

I don’t really use Beagle - on Dapper I had it completely disabled - but at least this should help me find quotes that I read on Bash but can’t remember and didn’t save

1. Kobo Deluxe. This is a retro-styled space shooter, but rather than being the usual "You’re a spaceship travelling up the screen and you have to shoot other spaceships travelling down the screen", you are a spaceship in a 2D universe, having to destroy enemy space bases. The catch is, that the heart of the base is protected by labyrinth-like structures, with nodes on the outside which, when shot, will destroy one of the structures. Shooting the actual structure itself won’t do any damage.

This game becomes seriously frantic, because the outside nodes can fire at you, as can the heart of the base inside. There are other enemy ships, which start off fairly benign, but then other sorts of enemy ships appear which are fast and destructive. Eventually, the nodes actually shoot ships at you!

Very frantic, and leads to some exhilarating moments when you start off surrounded by bases and have to fly right in between them, with nodes shooting Azgardi ships at you :-)   (Long-time Mac gamers should know exactly what I mean by "Azgardi").

2. Mozilla-beagle.  This is a Firefox extension that enables Beagle to index the websites that you visit! Yes, this is seriously cool. If you remember recently reading an article about telepathy, you could do a search in Beagle for "read my mind". Beagle would pull up the e-mails you sent to your clairvoyant, your copy of the Gordon Lightfoot song "If You Could Read My Mind", and the article that you read in Firefox but forgot to save to your home directory!

I don’t really use Beagle - on Dapper I had it completely disabled - but at least this should help me find quotes that I read on Bash but can’t remember and didn’t save

I had a look at Dell’s Open-Source PCs website, and for fun I decided to see what a great Ubuntu desktop system would cost me when they reach Australia.

I was amazed at the great value for money.

• Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (4MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1066 FSB) - the most powerful that they offer
• Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 1 year of Basic Support
• 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ (not sure what DataBurst Cache is meant to be, but 500 gigabytes is much more than my total storage currently is!)
• Dual Drives: 48x Combo + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable (I really wanted dual DVD burners, but this will do - just last night I was thinking of replacing my CD-RW drive with another DVD burner).
• 22 inch E228WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel (I can’t really afford a 42 inch plasma to use as a monitor, but 22 inches would be nice anyway)
• 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
• Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
• Bog-standard Dell keyboard and mouse
• SurgeArrest 11 Outlet with Tel2/Splitter, Coax and Ethernet Protection (I’ve been thinking about buying a proper surge protector for my computer)
• 13 in 1 Media Card Reader

All for the not-so-princely sum of $1,703 US dollars, or $1,969 Australian!

Good value? Undoubtedly. I seem to have a nose for bargains in computers - my current system came with the following specs (since upgraded a bit):

• AMD Sempron 3200+ at 1.8GHz
• 256Mb RAM
• 80 gig 7200RPM hard drive
• CD-RW drive
• Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200
• 9-in-1 memory card reader
• 56k softmodem
• Ethernet 10/100 Base T
• Integrated 6 channel (coaxial) sound card
• Windows XP Home
• Bog-standard keyboard and mouse
• Bog-standard speakers
• CRT monitor

Which cost me $596 over a year ago.

Just for fun, let’s configure an iMac at the Apple Store with the closest specs possible to my proposed Dellbuntu:

Apple 20 inch iMac:

• Only a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 2 gigabytes DDR2 RAM
• 500 Gig SATA hard disk
• ATI Radeon X1600/256 mb
• No modem
• Standard keyboard and mouse
• No Applecare
• No software support
• Only one optical drive - a DVD burner
• Only a 20 inch monitor
• No Ubuntu
• Only 2-channel audio, I think
• No surge protection
• No memory card reader

Grand total: $3,404. Fucking hell, that’s roughly half my savings, and I’m getting less of a computer. THIS SHOULD PUT TO REST ALL THE APPLE FANBOYS WHO CLAIM THAT MACS ARE CHEAPER OR EVEN THAT THEY ARE GOOD VALUE.

To emphasise the point even more, I configured a Mac Mini:

• 2 gigs of RAM
• A tinchy little 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo - the maximum offered
• 23 inch flat-panel display
• Superdrive (writes DVDs) - no second drive offered, of course
• Standard mouse and keyboard
• Tiny 160 gig SATA hard disk - the maximum offered
• No modem
• Intel graphics

Grand total: Just under $3,500. "Oh, but you get a cutting-edge form factor!". True, but my $600 year-old computer would probably outperform it.

EDIT: Any way that it is possible, I will buy a Dellbuntu when they become available here; and it won’t be an el-cheapo one either!

I had a look at Dell’s Open-Source PCs website, and for fun I decided to see what a great Ubuntu desktop system would cost me when they reach Australia.

I was amazed at the great value for money.

• Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (4MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1066 FSB) - the most powerful that they offer
• Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 1 year of Basic Support
• 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ (not sure what DataBurst Cache is meant to be, but 500 gigabytes is much more than my total storage currently is!)
• Dual Drives: 48x Combo + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable (I really wanted dual DVD burners, but this will do - just last night I was thinking of replacing my CD-RW drive with another DVD burner).
• 22 inch E228WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel (I can’t really afford a 42 inch plasma to use as a monitor, but 22 inches would be nice anyway)
• 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
• Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
• Bog-standard Dell keyboard and mouse
• SurgeArrest 11 Outlet with Tel2/Splitter, Coax and Ethernet Protection (I’ve been thinking about buying a proper surge protector for my computer)
• 13 in 1 Media Card Reader

All for the not-so-princely sum of $1,703 US dollars, or $1,969 Australian!

Good value? Undoubtedly. I seem to have a nose for bargains in computers - my current system came with the following specs (since upgraded a bit):

• AMD Sempron 3200+ at 1.8GHz
• 256Mb RAM
• 80 gig 7200RPM hard drive
• CD-RW drive
• Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200
• 9-in-1 memory card reader
• 56k softmodem
• Ethernet 10/100 Base T
• Integrated 6 channel (coaxial) sound card
• Windows XP Home
• Bog-standard keyboard and mouse
• Bog-standard speakers
• CRT monitor

Which cost me $596 over a year ago.

Just for fun, let’s configure an iMac at the Apple Store with the closest specs possible to my proposed Dellbuntu:

Apple 20 inch iMac:

• Only a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 2 gigabytes DDR2 RAM
• 500 Gig SATA hard disk
• ATI Radeon X1600/256 mb
• No modem
• Standard keyboard and mouse
• No Applecare
• No software support
• Only one optical drive - a DVD burner
• Only a 20 inch monitor
• No Ubuntu
• Only 2-channel audio, I think
• No surge protection
• No memory card reader

Grand total: $3,404. Fucking hell, that’s roughly half my savings, and I’m getting less of a computer. THIS SHOULD PUT TO REST ALL THE APPLE FANBOYS WHO CLAIM THAT MACS ARE CHEAPER OR EVEN THAT THEY ARE GOOD VALUE.

To emphasise the point even more, I configured a Mac Mini:

• 2 gigs of RAM
• A tinchy little 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo - the maximum offered
• 23 inch flat-panel display
• Superdrive (writes DVDs) - no second drive offered, of course
• Standard mouse and keyboard
• Tiny 160 gig SATA hard disk - the maximum offered
• No modem
• Intel graphics

Grand total: Just under $3,500. "Oh, but you get a cutting-edge form factor!". True, but my $600 year-old computer would probably outperform it.

EDIT: Any way that it is possible, I will buy a Dellbuntu when they become available here; and it won’t be an el-cheapo one either!

I had a look at Dell’s Open-Source PCs website, and for fun I decided to see what a great Ubuntu desktop system would cost me when they reach Australia.

I was amazed at the great value for money.

• Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (4MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1066 FSB) - the most powerful that they offer
• Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 1 year of Basic Support
• 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ (not sure what DataBurst Cache is meant to be, but 500 gigabytes is much more than my total storage currently is!)
• Dual Drives: 48x Combo + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable (I really wanted dual DVD burners, but this will do - just last night I was thinking of replacing my CD-RW drive with another DVD burner).
• 22 inch E228WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel (I can’t really afford a 42 inch plasma to use as a monitor, but 22 inches would be nice anyway)
• 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
• Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
• Bog-standard Dell keyboard and mouse
• SurgeArrest 11 Outlet with Tel2/Splitter, Coax and Ethernet Protection (I’ve been thinking about buying a proper surge protector for my computer)
• 13 in 1 Media Card Reader

All for the not-so-princely sum of $1,703 US dollars, or $1,969 Australian!

Good value? Undoubtedly. I seem to have a nose for bargains in computers - my current system came with the following specs (since upgraded a bit):

• AMD Sempron 3200+ at 1.8GHz
• 256Mb RAM
• 80 gig 7200RPM hard drive
• CD-RW drive
• Integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200
• 9-in-1 memory card reader
• 56k softmodem
• Ethernet 10/100 Base T
• Integrated 6 channel (coaxial) sound card
• Windows XP Home
• Bog-standard keyboard and mouse
• Bog-standard speakers
• CRT monitor

Which cost me $596 over a year ago.

Just for fun, let’s configure an iMac at the Apple Store with the closest specs possible to my proposed Dellbuntu:

Apple 20 inch iMac:

• Only a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 2 gigabytes DDR2 RAM
• 500 Gig SATA hard disk
• ATI Radeon X1600/256 mb
• No modem
• Standard keyboard and mouse
• No Applecare
• No software support
• Only one optical drive - a DVD burner
• Only a 20 inch monitor
• No Ubuntu
• Only 2-channel audio, I think
• No surge protection
• No memory card reader

Grand total: $3,404. Fucking hell, that’s roughly half my savings, and I’m getting less of a computer. THIS SHOULD PUT TO REST ALL THE APPLE FANBOYS WHO CLAIM THAT MACS ARE CHEAPER OR EVEN THAT THEY ARE GOOD VALUE.

To emphasise the point even more, I configured a Mac Mini:

• 2 gigs of RAM
• A tinchy little 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo - the maximum offered
• 23 inch flat-panel display
• Superdrive (writes DVDs) - no second drive offered, of course
• Standard mouse and keyboard
• Tiny 160 gig SATA hard disk - the maximum offered
• No modem
• Intel graphics

Grand total: Just under $3,500. "Oh, but you get a cutting-edge form factor!". True, but my $600 year-old computer would probably outperform it.

EDIT: Any way that it is possible, I will buy a Dellbuntu when they become available here; and it won’t be an el-cheapo one either!

Customer: How does the water rating sticker work? Is it "more stars is better"?
…
Me: You know, a year ago nobody looked at the water and energy rating stickers.

Customer: I’ve ALWAYS looked at them.

Oh yeah. They didn’t even know whether more stars was better, yet they’ve always made a point of looking at the rating. Or, if they’re totally honest, they’ve been looking at the water and energy rating stickers ever since Al Gore’s movie "The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Carbon, The Weather and The Warming".

As if I would be so stupid as to believe that she’s "always" looked at ratings, when she virtually admitted that she knows nothing about them.

If somebody decides to buy a washing machine because its competitor is much less efficient, that’s not so bad. It’s rare, but not so bad (because washing machines use much more water). What I really detest is that ALMOST EVERY customer who comes in and looks at dishwashers, quibbles over fucking 200ml of water difference in usage. Who cares if it’s quiet and does a good job of washing dishes, as long as it uses a tiny bit less water than the one next to it?

People go and buy a washing machine without checking the ratings, and then they buy a 1-star-energy-rating clothes dryer, and then they closely examine the ratings on dishwashers. I even had one fucking idiot check the numbers on our gas heaters. The things are all 5.9 / 6 for gas efficiency… they could only be more efficient if they had an Einsteinian total matter-to-energy converter, yet this guy decided to try and save himself 5 millijules per year by choosing one with slightly lower numbers.

Gas convection heaters are more popular this year. It’s got nothing to do with their set-and-forget operation, nor their nice modern looks, nor their remote control, nor their safety features. No, it’s because people get confused between inverters in air-conditioning; and convectors in gas heaters; and they think that convector heaters are more efficient.

All the people who obsess over the slightest carbon emissions should stop breathing - that way they would no longer emit carbon dioxide, and the world would be rid of one more fucking religious-climate-change cunt.

The local Ubuntu repository mirror is down at the moment, but the rest are probably up, so here’s a game you might like to try.

It’s called Monster Masher. Anyone who has played Bubble Trouble on the Mac will know the basic idea: It’s a top-down view arcade-style game where you have to squash monsters in between these big movable boulders.

The differences are:

1. You can only move the blocks one space at a time
2. You can push multiple blocks
3. You can PULL a single block at a time as well
4. You must squash the monsters in between two boulders - pushing one into them has no effect unless there’s another boulder on the other side.
5. You can’t dissolve any blocks.
6. There’s none of the cool music and humour, no powerups, and the graphics are very simple

But these differences make the game harder and more interesting, where you try to build structures where the monsters will hopefully go into, and you get into a position where you can squash them, without creating a dead-end where you can be trapped.

There’s a two-player mode too, which I haven’t tried yet. Could be fun, let me know how it goes!

Just because I haven’t posted anything about SoundExchange lately, don’t think I’ve forgotten about it!

I received this comment from Fred:

Although the letter you posted dealt with a royalty forfeiture last year, there is another one scheduled for this December.  The only place they talk about this is on their own website.  They have done nothing to publicize the fact.

Fred Wilhelms

8,280 artists. When we say "artists", we really mean "solos and groups". There could easily be 20,000 people who are owed royalties. More, even. And bear in mind that many of these artists might be earning a meagre living, may be retired, or may have died and left their families with very little. They need those royalties. If you can contact an artist, PLEASE DO.

The list of unpaid artists is at: http://63.236.111.137/jsp/unpaidArtistList.jsp (don’t be scared by the IP address, I got this link by following the links from www.soundexchange.com).

If you can donate a couple of minutes of your time to choosing some artists off the list and contacting them about this, I would really appreciate it.

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–>

I just downloaded the AllSTARS album
from the iTunes Music Store. Putting aside the guilty feeling I
always get when buying a license for the playback of music from one
of those DRM-infested stores, I started listening as it was
downloading.

Tracklist wise, I was a bit surprised.
I’d always thought that the album was actually called Starstreet –
named after the show these guys were on. Strike one for me. I’d
assumed that “Funkey”, “Rock This House”, and their excellent
cover of “Love Cats” would be on the album. Strike two for me –
they weren’t.

The album starts with their biggest
hit, “Things That Go Bump In The Night”. When I say “biggest
hit”, I mean that it got to number 12 in the UK charts. Yes, the
reason why AllSTARS isn’t around anymore is because of incompetent
artist promotion that was rife in the first couple of years of this
century. Kudos to the AllSTARS Street Team, who did get that single
up so high on the charts.

TTGMITN is very similar to those Max
Martin songs – you know the ones, where the backing is meant to
sound tough, all the boybands as well as Britney Spears did these
songs. But hey, it’s a good start to the album, and although it’s
dated it’s a very catchy song. If you’ve got the soundtrack for the
Scooby Doo movie, you’ll already have this song.

Next is “Land Of Make Believe”,
which is a fantastic cover of the Bucks Fizz song. A great song,
unusual choice, and of course who can forget Thaila’s corset in the
video? (Unfortunately, too many people remember them badly miming the
song on Top Of The Pops – naughty naughty!)

After Kylie’s song “Can’t Get You Out
Of My Head”, everyone seemed to go nuts about Cathy Dennis as a
songwriter. Suddenly, this nearly-forgotten singer became everyone’s
favourite writer, and worked with S Club and Rachel Stevens. She also
wrote “Back When”, which is track 3 on AllSTARS. This song was
the flop that broke the record deal for the group, and although it
isn’t really too bad a song, the middle eighth juts out of the song
like a sore toe. It’s not as bad as the middle eighth in the Spice
Girls’ “Weekend Love”, so I hope that reference gives you an
indication.

A couple of tracks on this album make
me think of Absolute, but they seem not to have been written or
produced by Absolute. I can’t find out though, because iTunes only
puts composer names into the files, not producer names. “Love Is”
and “Train Of Thought” are those sort of tracks. Actually, Love
Is has a hilarious line: “I’ll solve your problems, I can wear the
hat”. Wear the hat? Someone please tell me what on earth do hats
have to do with solving problems!

“Happy Ever After Endings” is a
cheerful song… well, the backing is, the lyrics sometimes aren’t!
Lyrically, this song is a bit of an enigma.

The double-A-side for the Back When
single, “Going All The Way”, is pretty weak; it really sounds
like a B-side. Backing-wise, it’s pumping! But the rhymes are
simplistic and a bit like what I’d expect from Hi-5. Amazingly, I’m
not the first person to have compared Hi-5 to AllSTARS. True.

The most memorable part of “You Got
It Bad” is the little reference to You’re So Vain - “you
probably think this song is about you, don’t you”. Enjoyed. Very
catchy song.

“Tearing Up The World” was actually
co-written by Tracey Ackerman, who did backing vocals for some Steps
songs! Speaking of these sort of songwriting cameos, “You’re A
Fool” and “Butterflies” have Andrew Frampton as co-writer; and
“Once Upon A Lifetime” has Simon Ellis, who from memory was in
the Spice Girls live band in 1998?

Tearing Up The World is another catchy
song, and Butterflies has a sort of early 90s feel with great chords;
but You’re A Fool is stupid and weak; Allstars gone R&B. It sucks
arse. Skip it. If you’re downloading the album, don’t bother
downloading this one.

Another little surprise in store for me
on this album. They put 3 ballads in a row. Four, if you count
Butterflies as a ballad, which I don’t; but I understand if you do
count it as a ballad. “Once Upon A Lifetime” sounds suspiciously
like S Club’s “Two In A Million”. But it’s nice in its own right.
I know a guy in India who likes these sort of songs, so I’ll send him
this song! Heck, I’ll send him the whole album to get rid of my guilt
at buying DRM tracks

“Lost Without You” is quite
forgettable. I’m not sure if it bears resemblance or anything, but it
reminds me of the later part of Atomic Kitten’s second debut album.

“Greatest Love Story” is actually
quite good, once you get used to it. Ashley does a spoken bit, with
Sam doing the Darkchild-like noises in the background :-)  For those
of you who haven’t seen the TV show, Becky had a crush on Ashley, so
this is why Becky sings the main part and Ashley does the spoken. At
the end of the song, I always expect Ashley to say “Can you give me
back my toothbrush? Give me my toothbrush, Becky!”, which was how
the song ends in that particular episode of the show. You’ve got to
see it to get the joke.

“Train Of Thought”. I think I
mentioned it earlier, as one of the Absolute-like songs. But yeah,
it’s very catchy.

Is there something I should know? No.
This is another cover version – I think the original was by Depeche
Mode or some group like that. I hate it. Not AllSTARS’ fault though,
as my beef is with the lyrics. The original line says “You say
you’re easy on me, you’re about as easy as a nuclear war” which is
so pretentious. “Hey, look at us, we’re deep and complex and
political because we talked about nuclear war in a song!”. The
lyric has thankfully been changed for AllSTARS’ cover, but whenever I
hear the new lyric I can’t help but think of the original line. The
whole song is dumb, anyway. It’s just a pity that it’s the last song
on the album!

However, I downloaded the version with
the remixes on the end. Don’t bother downloading the version with the
remixes. The Almighty mix of Land Of Make Believe sucks arse. The
syncopated nature of “Best Friends” makes it difficult to remix,
and although Almighty do better it’s still not that great. The
Xenomania mixes are crap too. I’ve got a confession to make; I
haven’t actually finished downloading. I’ve still got the Is There
Something I Should Know Mothership Remix to download.

So, should you buy this album? Yes. If
you’re a real fan of pop music, you’ll really enjoy AllSTARS’ album.
I did. And who knows, since Scooch and the Spice Girls have had
comebacks lately, maybe AllSTARS will be the next group to reunite?
We can hope!

7.5 / 10