Eventyr

Those Pesky Zombies

Back in June Ginquinn asked me to plot my zombie escape plan...  Finally I get around to it.  In a kinda abbreviated way.

1. Describe your zombie escape plan (generally). Explain your choices.

Find boat.  Sail to Norway.  Go to hut in mountains.  They'll never find me.

2. Who would you choose to have with you and why?

Someone who can sail as, despite always intending to, I never learned.

3. What is your choice of zombie bashing weapon? Be creative - this is the UK, are you really going to have time to try and acquire a shotgun when the apocalypse comes?

One of my heavier laptops.

4. Finally if your escape plan goes horribly wrong what will you do?

Err?  Get turned into a zombie and learn to tapdance?

Ho hum, I lack skills in these question answering things it seems.

Games

Wondering if I can find the time to play Kingdom of Loathing on top of Warcraft. 

It seems fascinating, and I love the promise of fierce Ninja Snowmen to fight once I get past all these angry bunnies.

Unsung in London

"You can while away hours perusing the place, but the Grade II-listed natural history gallery – refreshingly devoid of computer touchscreens – possibly contains the most memorable: a comically over-stuffed walrus (the work of an over-zealous 1880s taxidermist).

There’s much fun to be had in the music gallery, too, where the impressive collection of 7,000 instruments includes an Iranian zarb, 600 concertinas and a pair of Egyptian clappers dating to 1,500BC. Wandering through the rest of the museum, you’ll discover an Egyptian mummy, a Nigerian Ijele (a special ceremonial African mask), Inuit seal-skin clothing, Vodou altars and a functional beehive."

From London's Fifty Best Unsung Museums (via Kevan)

Imagini

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

Loud Noises

You are about 20 years old

The teen repellent will no longer foil you, but you can still hear some pretty high tones. The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 16.7kHz

Find out which ringtones you can hear!

First Life Questions

Got First Life Questions? We've Got Answers
Are five senses enough?
What's this body thing, and what do I do with the dangly bits?
Why can't I build a dirigible with my mind?
Penguins, spoons and you -- what's life like among the the flightless?

Get a First Life

Old Games

The oldest backgammon in the world along with 60 pieces has been unearthed beneath the rubbles of the legendary Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran.

Iranian archeologists working on the relics of the 5,000-year-old civilization argue this backgammon is much older than the one already discovered in Mesopotamia and their evidence is strong enough to claim the board game was first played in the Burnt City and then transferred to other civilizations.

Iran Oldest Game, "Backgammon" (via Boing Boing)

Which therefore clearly beats go in age.  However the title of oldest known board game still probably goes to Senet.

Silent Sound

Along the length of the strip is a pattern of fine ridges or lines. Run your thumb nail along the ridges, and the tape speaks. However the sound needs to be magnified, so that you can hear it. One method is to hold one end of the strip between your teeth. Then, when you run your nail along the strip you hear it talk, but no-one else does.

Want.  Reminds me of my love for playing the oven shelf, and the joy of sound that only one person can hear.  (via Boing Boing)

Writing Gender

I'm curious about the algorithm which predicts gender based on writing style.  The Gender Genie doesn't seem too sure about my gender much of the time.  Must use less lists and more personal pronouns it seems.

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman (From the g):

Given the Gender Genie's hopeless record in identifying the sex of the Guardian's women columnists, it is tempting to write it off as a piece of rubbish. But it's not quite possible to do that, for its guesses have proven accurate in 72% of cases, which may be less than the 80% claimed, but is quite impressive all the same.

Maybe it just shows that Guardian women do not conform to the stereotypical perception of the differences between male and female uses of language. Maybe it shows that this newspaper's women columnists, unlike the women columnists on other publications, are not mainly interested in personal relationships. In My Fair Lady, Professor Higgins sings with exasperation, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" If he had only met a few of the Guardian's female writers, he might have found that a woman can be just like a man when it comes to the matters that interest her.

Armoured Cats

Cats and Mice. Armoured.

Urban Lewes (Dead)

For the less dedicated, or less wealthy, there are games such as Urban Dead, a free, low-tech, text-based MMORPG, in which roughly fifty thousand characters, half of them human, half of them zombies – you can be turned from one to the other by being either killed or ‘revivified’ – struggle for control of a post-apocalyptic city called Malton. What sets these games apart is that the environment is defined not so much by a set of predetermined parameters as by the sum of the behaviour of the other players. In addition, the game’s mastermind – in the case of Urban Dead, someone from Lewes called Kevan Davis – is able to fine-tune the rules in response to player activity. A few months ago, for example, a large number of disgruntled zombies, who felt they were getting a raw deal compared to the humans, went on strike. They stopped attacking people and headed for a park in the centre of Malton where they held a mass demo. The high concentration of characters in one place caused problems for the server, and the refusal of so many to play – the strike received a huge amount of support, from zombies and humans alike – threatened to sink the game. Kevan (everyone’s on first-name terms in Malton) responded to their demands by improving the zombies’ lot; the strike came to an end; and, to celebrate, the zombies went on a rampage round the city, attacking each of the shopping malls in turn, in a campaign that became known as Mall Tour ’06, and once again significantly changed the dynamics of the game. It’s perhaps noteworthy that the zombies tend to have a much better sense of humour than their more po-faced human counterparts.
Thomas Jones: Diary.  Fabulous.  (Via James)

'nuff said

His Knits

Thanks to Bill I now know that Real Men Knit.  I shall bear that in mind.

Making Things

Just in time for xmas comes The Toymaker, a lovely site dedicated to folding paper toys you can make yourself. 

I am still of the opinion that hand-made presents are the only ones that mean anything these days, so this looks like it will prove a useful browse.

Extremely Skippy

RLT (the creators of mangonel.com and trebuchet.com) have now created a site dedicated to Extreme Exercise Equipment. 

I just wish I had access to the money and facilities to enable me to play with an aqua-skipper...

Code Monkey

My like of Jonathan Coulton is growing more and more.

Code Monkey like Fritos
Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code Monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart:
Code Monkey like you.

Alice and Bob and my Job

This has reminded me I need to get on with my Security Protocols work.

I laughed.  Is that wrong?

Go Go Ninja Dinosaurs

Because today the monkeys have broken out the zoo.

Thanks Judith.  I've now bought my own copy of Colours are Brighter.

("Colours are Brighter is a thirteen track compilation of children's songs recorded by the likes of Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand, Four Tet, Kathryn Williams and The Divine Comedy. It will be released on Rough Trade Records on 16th October 2006 and all the proceeds go to Save The Children.")

Games and Work

Must not distract myself, must do work...

Must not read or browse the online archive of the first 100 issues of Computer Gaming World magazine.

No no no.

Squiz

Tufty's goal? To bring human civilation down and enslave its survivors in a hopeless cycle of harvesting delicious nuts for chitterbox consumption. The purpose of this page is to display the insideous propaganda tools and information Tufty used to brainwash and mislead his victims with the false promises of squirrel world domination.

Tufty, and his propoganda, hurts my head. 

It may be nap time - thank goodness I have a giant furry cushion and a nice view out of my office window.

Hmm, while I don't mind the beautiful woodpecker being part of the view, I wish that squirrel was not looking at me like that right now...

Le Chuck

Best video game ever.

Best alarm clock music ever.

Monkey Island on YouTube.

A Posteriori Proposition

How better than to follow Dalek Abduction than with Philosophers' Porn? If only...  It would certainly make me laugh.

Pirate Swap

But looking like a pirate and talking like one isn't what it really takes to be a modern 21st century buccaneer. Those things are piratey to behold, but it took being on Wife Swap to truly understand what being a pirate means--adopting the attitude of a pirate from the inside. I'm not talking about pillaging and plundering. I'm talking about having the courage to show the world who you really are, and never apologizing for it. And believe me, if you do reality TV, you had better have an honest grasp of your persona and not be afraid to show the world--fleas and all.

Wife Swap was convinced our family's level of "pirate" was, indeed, good enough to represent the pirate community, so our messy, chaotic, creative, freedom-loving pirate family was paired up with a rigidly ordered, controlled and controlling family who, I swear on Great Neptune's man nipples, actually lives by the credo, "appearance is everything." They actually said, "You judge a book by its cover."

Keep to the Code  -  Pirates Invade ABC Television's "Wife Swap" In Season Opener

Promo Trailer Here

Yarrage

Most days are like all of the others,
Go to work, come back home, watch TV,
But, brother, if I had me druthers,
I'd chuck it and head out to sea,

For I dream of the skull and the crossbones,
I dream of the great day to come,
When I dump the mundane for the Old Spanish Main
And trade my computer for rum! ARRR!       

T' me,
Yo, Ho, Yo, Ho,
It's "Talk Like A Pirate" Day!
When laptops are benches God gave us for wenches,
And a sail ain't a low price to pay!
When timbers are shivered and lillies are livered
And every last buckle is swashed,
We'll abandon our cars for a shipfull of ARRRs
And pound back the grog till we're sloshed. Yo ho ....

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

This day last year I was sailing the Norwegian main.  This year I shall be mostly using judicial application of pirate garb and pirate rum zombies.

Mosquitofly

Take my dog, take my cat
Western without cowboy hats
Look at me I’m on TV
You can’t take this show from me
Take our doctor, make him squeal
I’m told our whore is quite a deal
We say Zed instead of Zee
You can’t take this show from me
They’re airing baseball yet again
We might not break episode ten
But you can’t take this show from me
Mosquito: Behind The Scenes Preview

Long Live the Stupid Pirates

A cruise ship sailing off Somalia has beaten back gunmen in speedboats who opened fire on it in an apparent pirate attack which terrified passengers.

but

The crew used an on-board loud acoustic bang to deter the gunmen, making them believe they were under fire.

Stupid pirates...

BBC NEWS | Africa | Cruise ship repels Somali pirates

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* Ed has now linked to the real story.

Buffalo birds

Hmm, a future where...

Small bird robots communicate in the trees?

Wireless accessed buffalo run free?

Viral storytelling wireless nodes attack your views on fable?

Damn. I'll never win those euros at this rate...

Sentient Future Competition

Mask Making (part one)

I have started basic latex mask-making.

In order to prove my point* I started by learning how to:

a) Acquire (in this case borrow without returning) some plastazote
b) mould it in the oven (15s at 150c approx)
c) shape it to my face
d) cover it with evostick (though not evostick)
e) pick glue from my hands as if I were still a small child

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* that the masks that I saw for sale at the expo for £70 I could make for pennies, using basic techniques...

Moon!

CURRENT MOON moon phase info

Link obviously stolen from the lord of the weretigers

On a rope, Got my Gotan on a rope

This is my Gotan, Huey: 

I tried pulling his head off, but he didn't like it. 

He doesn't seem to like the look of Gotan Sr either. 

Poor Gotan Sr...

I can see him staring...

He knows that soon he'll be a'swinging from a rope too.

I think I'm safe though.

Pirate's Log

Well, the problem is this: once I've sorting out the teething problems, what should I call my brilliant new game? The crew are all plumping for 'Pop Up Pirate'. But I tend to favour 'Lucky Stab Game'. Or even 'Lucky Stab Dan Hicks Through His Scrawny Neck What Was That Spanish Princess Thinking Getting It Together With Him Game'. Will I ever get a rest from this kind of terrible responsibility?
Raargh! The Pirate Captain has a weblog!

How on earth did I miss it?

3-way Chess

In the immortal words of Beanpole: "Man made this."

Adventures with Reading

Picked up my copy of The Pirates! In An Adventure With Whaling today.

I'm hoping it will be half as good as its predecessor.

I'm also hoping that the pirate badge it tells me to send off for is a genuine offer.

And that the many sequels it lists will get written.

Time to go looking for more pirate books to buy before my impending student poverty reduces me to having to satisfy my piratical urges through compulsive listening to the Press Play On Tape version of Monkey Island.