That's How It Happened

Mr X (who doesn't wish to be named) works in Moscow for Russia Today. It's a state sponsored TV station, running 24/7 pro-Putin propaganda. It's hilariously amateurish at times, mostly because of the strong russian accents. Today though they are running a great segment about robo-crayfish being used in the St Petersberg waterworks. The crayfish swim in the outgoing water, continuously testing the water quality. They are hooked up to tiny implanted harnesses that monitor their cardiac rhythms. Ingenious, though they do lack any frickin' laser beams. If you're a Mac user you have to submit to the indignity of Window Media Player 9 to enjoy the streamed broadcast, Windows users can stick with VLC: link (The picture shows a cutting edge Russia Today interview with Grandfather Frost, the Russian Father Christmas).

Japanese flash animations are all I feel like linking to today, well that and a picture of the Snuffleupugus chilling with Spike Lee:

Hilarious S&M Mario 64 japanese machinima.

Star Wars recreated in household objects, with great soundtrack.

(Relatively) conventional flash point n click game.

Skyfish, a game of terrifyingly japanese sensibilities.

If you think that lot are unintelligible, just imagine the craziness of the stuff I filtered out.

Completely demented Japanese flash game: Nanaca Crash. (Top score from me: 1909.62m)

Santa does Parkour video, with insane barefoot ice-skitching segment.

Howto: deep fry candy bars.

Word of the day: hechsher.

Hilarious blogger version of The Aristocrats. Namechecks Jorn.

4 minute video of Rodney Mullen demonstrating why he is clearly the greatest skateboarder who will ever roll the earth.

The etymology of "Hue and cry"

RIP Vincent Schiavelli.

Apparently 40% of Americans have changed religion. This makes no sense to me at all. 2/5ths have changed from one irrational belief system to another? No wonder "atheist" is such a dirty word in the states.

Nice Guardian piece about the practicalities of using MyLifeBits to record your entire life. Looks like the Kurzweilian singularity, isn't quite with us yet.

Great ask.me: "Help me eat a lot of meat fast".

I didn't post yesterday, and I might not post tomorrow.

Top 3 Xmas Flash Games 2005

1.Nothing quite says Christmas like a new version of Grow Ornament.

2. That or a game of Frosty Flips, a variation on BMX Backflips.

3.A rather poor third place for Christmas Time, a horizontal scrolling Santa simulator.

Channel 4 has a rather more comprehensive Top 10. Happy Christmas to one and all. My gift to you: Silent Night (2.1Mb MP3) by The Dickies.

Top tip for Xmas/NYE parties:
"If you are at a loud party and find yourself shouting louder and louder just to talk to people, begin speaking "under the noise." What is happening is that the voices in the room are competing in the same frequency range - so that people raise their volume and their pitch when they feel they can't be heard. They shout in high voices. All you have to do is not compete. Talk in a quieter, deeper voice, and you will be heard easily. Try it. You will be shocked at how easy it is to talk under the din." (from)

Howto: fold a toga, and throw a toga party.

llor.nu is a rolling Monopoly-esque game, worthy of a moment's distraction, if only for its fancy 2.0-ness.

EarBudFitKit, for people who like crystal clear audio, and blue gum in their ears.

Blob Wars a simple Othello/Reversi-esque strategy game, that's annoyingly hard to beat.

How does someone become an Amazon Top 10 reviewer? Barron Laycock writes ungrammatical, poorly spelt drivel about diverse topics, including the upcoming Grizzly Man DVD.

In case you hadn't heard already, the BBC Open News Archive is open. (UK only)

Tunatic is a freeware app that recognises songs for you. It does the same as Shazam, only for free.

Right now there's a queue of 15 kids from Japan and Hong Kong outside the Busy Ape Workshop in London. They're waiting until 11am tomorrow, for a camo cap. I think they might be insane. I queued for all of 30 seconds last Sunday for Stussy Court Forces, before deciding that my self-respect was more important than a pair of sneakers. Either I'm getting old, or streetwear just isn't as exciting to me as it was back in '03/'04. Good luck, crazy Bape otaku; I hope you all get your caps.

Stalin's efforts to breed half-man half-ape super-warriors. Luckily they failed, both to impregnate chimps, and to have chimps impregnate humans. Like Troy McLure says, "We've finally made a monkey out of..." Stalin.

Google Trends makes me feel queasy. They know too much about me. I'm actually a little scared that the more I offload my critical faculties onto the Google servers, the closer they come to creating an AI version of my consciousness.

If you're a really dedicated reader, you might know that I have a large collection of Tiki mugs. Perhaps then, this only excites me, but Ooga Mooga has a database of 900+ mugs, and lets you classify and trade your Tiki mug collection. Neato.

Techy virtual GIS coolness at: The Party At The Centre Of The Universe, read it and weep non-i/Power-book users.

Top ten: most puzzling ancient artifacts.

How much do various liquids cost?

The recent reports that (a) a new neural net "knows" which movies will be successful and (b) a new emotion recognition algorithm "knows" that Mona Lisa was mostly happy, seem to me to be utterly wishful thinking. The media are reporting these clever bits of software as if they are somehow better at doing what they do than a human would be. The movie rating neural net reminded me of ScriptGenerator©®™. That book purports to be the manual for a neural net that writes, produces and markets Hollywood blockbusters. There is a disparity between most "best of" movie lists, and the actual Top 100 Grossers, but it's a fiction to imagine a computer could be better at predicting blockbusters than say, Roger Ebert. Equally, reading emotion from faces is something we all do well from birth. Face recognition is not an example of "the wisdom of crowds", it's something we are hard-wired to do flawlessly. If the Mona Lisa is enigmatic, that's because her smile really is ambiguous. No matter how big a neural net is devised to analyse her face, the neural net inside my skull can do the job better. Don't believe me? Try uploading your photo to myheritage.com to see which celebrity you (supposedly) most look like.

The collected 1968-1974 Alcoholics Anon Comic Strips.

Biggie Vs Baskerville, a musical, typographical, awesome flash animation.

The many faces of Lohan, another flash amusement.

The History of Ideas in 2005 from The Star (That'll be the Toronto Star, not the UK's rather more "busty babelicious" version.) It's a fine list, though they've practically made-up Lebowskiism (7 hits at time of writing).

The LeafySeaDragon Cetacean-Human Network fulfills all my Zizzou-esque dolphin communication needs. It's open-source software, developed from the US Navy's attack dolphin program, that can be implemented by a keen amateur for about $5k.

Arcadia should bring out the secret D.A.R.Y.L. in you. Play four old old school games at once. Too alpha-geek for words.

Cards As Weapons as a 42Mb pdf download. (see picture)

I'm trying to ask the Lazyweb (if my pings are pinging not ponging) whether someone can hack twofifty.org so that it handles the entire Criterion Collection, not just the IMDB 250.

Twitchr looks like a most exciting piece of social mobile software. It seems like a cross between Tamagotchi and Pokemon, with a birdwatching theme.

My actual factual life has overwhelmed me (in a good way) over the last couple of days, hence the dearth of posts. I did however manage to start an interesting thread about becoming a power shower power user.

I don't think anyone has ever asked this, but imagine if you will, for a second the hypothetical question, "What happens to all the links that don't make it into howithappened.com?". Strangely there is an answer; it's that odd links, or links I don't quite have time for, get a kind of preview run on my del.icio.us list. Nothing particularly makes these links unworthy, though they don't all have general appeal. Some recent highlights:

Queens of the Stone Age remixed by UNKLE.

Pingmag's guide to japanese typography.

Pongiste, an incredible word of the day.

And the first ever "weblog" weblog posts from ooh 1997, at Robot Wisdom.

"Your Amazon.co.uk order has dispatched"
According to Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: dis·patch
Etymology: Spanish despachar or Italian dispacciare, from Provençal despachar to get rid of, from Middle French despeechier to set free, from Old French, from des- dis- + -peechier (as in empeechier to hinder)
Transitive senses
1 : to send off or away with promptness or speed; especially : to send off on official business
2 a : to kill with quick efficiency
b obsolete : deprive
3 : to dispose of (as a task) rapidly or efficiently
4 : defeat
Intransitive senses
1 archaic : to make haste : hurry

This makes me so angry. How could Amazon be so stupid? They are after all a vaguely literary organisation. Perhaps it derives (falsely) from the even dimmer Word grammar checker that tries to remove all uses of the passive.

Some stuff on my xmas list:

A baby tiger.

A marshmallow gun.

An R/C Humvee that climbs walls using suction.

Anything by iDiom.

Wild Palms on DVD.

A set of Protiles.

A Bugatti Veyron.

Making my own custom Nike Dunks
Some people were less than kind about my planned design for a custom Dunk. I took their critcisms on board and planned something equally gauche. I gathered my materials: Liquitex paint, mock-croc leather, craft knife, sable brushes, masking tape and fluid, and entirely white Dunks sourced from Foot Locker.
Step one: Neatly cut mock-croc leather into the shape required around the 4 swooshes. This was a fiddly tough job, and I haven't got any tips except dogged patience and persistence.
Step two: extremely careful masking and painting of the requisite bits of leather. You need two coats to get an even finish all around. I choose gold swooshes, gold stripes on the heel, and crimson around the large heel panel.
Step three: Stick down the leather parts using latex glue. Sit back and admire. All I need now is to choose some laces to set off my colour scheme. I'm thinking gold might be what's required.

Google Earth secret leaked beta for OSX! Woohoo! Download now before it gets pulled.

del.icio.us got bought by yahoo!, which makes me think Google might buy and rebrand digg.

Phrase of the day: blazecock pileon (scroll down).

Seemingly some people like to dance to My Humps, despite it being the devil song.

I loathe squidoo, it's an even more commercialised evil web2.0 version of about.com, and I wish I'd never signed up to beta test it. Amusingly over 300,000 "lenses" have been created which have so far earned just $202 in advertising revenue. Ha!

Strangely that hasn't put me off signing up for the enigmatic 30 Boxes (via The Museum of Modern Betas)

If like me you're feeling stressed at the end of a long week then I'd recommend either Cardtoss (for calming) or Madness Interactive (for blowing the cr*p out of some stickmen with an uzi). Both great flash games.

Top 5 of 2005: Mobile Phone Software
I've been trying to get the most out of my Nokia 6600. All the software in this list runs on a majority of Series 60 phones, not just fancy smartphones. In reverse order:

5. Guardian Mobile Crosswords: for a minimal fee you can download the current quick and cryptic crosswords to your phone. The software is intuitive to use, although not a real substitute for paper. It archives the previously attempted crosswords, and supplies the answers the day after publication. That's such a handy function for actually improving your solving abilities.

4. Mephisto Chess ME: I am admittedly a dreadful chess player; no better than kindergarten grade. Mephisto has a great interface, and a similar range of options to a regular chess computer. My favourite feature is that it shows you a graphic of the moves it's considering as it ponders, and then tells you what variety of opening it is playing: Sicilian, King's Indian etc etc. It's a shame it kicks my ass so comprehensively.

3. Geominder is a non-gps locational reminder tool. It learns the various places you visit in your daily life, by reading which cellphone cell it is in. You then set voice or text alerts when you vist that place. e.g. triggering an alarm to tell you to buy lightbulbs when you arrive at the supermarket. It's not fantastically useful, but the incredibly cute interface makes it rather moreish.

2. Opera Mobile is now the standard browser on new Nokia phones. It is streets ahead of the old Nokia browser. It has a preloaded google search box, like Firefox, and it streamlines pages so they load fast. It also displays complex pages in a fantastically clear way. It has absolutely revolutionised my mobile surfing, and it is definitely worth the $29 fee.

1. iSync is the most perfect piece of GTD software you could ever want. If you have a bluetooth enabled laptop it syncs your contacts, to do list, and iCal calendar. No need to back up your sim card data, no need to open your laptop to schedule an appointment, and the ability to have scheduled "to do" alarms when you are away from your computer. It's available for every phone under the sun, and it has become an essential part of my GTD plan. Fantastic.

Honourable Mention Nokia Sensor was a brillant idea. A little mobile blog and guestbook, hosted on your phone, and broadcast locally over bluetooth. It ought to have been a must-have killer social app. However it is extremely processor hungry, so it slowed down my 6600 unbearably. Plus no-one else seems to have downloaded it, so no-one has ever accessed the carefully crafted Sensor pages on my phone. A huge disappointment for something that could have been wonderful.

This is my last post for the day, but it's too good to pass up, probably tomorrow's Sun headline:
Myleene Klass Victimised In Happy Slap Attack

My contribution to Le Micro-Musique / Machinima
Seriously, I'm not wasting my day off. I've recorded a new (my first ever actually) bootleg. It's a remix of the new Honda ad Vs me playing (and finishing in time to the song) the Blazing Angels game Vs the slightly annoying voice from WireTap Pro. I call it the "Blazing Dreams of Ambrosia" remix. 1.8Mb MP3 Download.

While I'm on the subject of David Foster Wallace and having a day off, I thought I'd quote him from a speech earlier this year on the nature of adult life:

"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing."

I'm taking that advice from a very smart man, and having a great day off; doing things I never normally find time for, like casual reading; finding value in things I usually overlook, like vanilla milk; and indulging in a little harmless solipsism. Hooray for (possibly subclinical) bird flu!

Some words that I intend to use more of:
Having a day off is such an unabashed luxury. I spent most of the morning (when not preparing slides, see below) getting stuck into David Foster Wallace's book of essays A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I particularly liked his long ultra-pomo backstage tour of the set of Lost Highway. DFW is a huge David Lynch fan. He's also a compulsive sesquipedalian. From this morning's readings, I picked up some words that I really ought to use more, if only to seem cleverer:
iamb, crepuscular (one I always forget), weltschmerzian, Kafkan (so much rarer than Kafkaesque), scotophilic (a darker sort of crepuscular), hypotenal (practically a neologism), miscegenation, and heirophantic.

It's with some trepidation that I'm posting today at all, since I'm off sick from work. I assume, perhaps incorrectly that no-one I currently work with reads this blog. If they do, they're mondo f***ing cagey about it. After I texted my boss to say I was sick, and that I'd arranged someone to cover for me, she rang me back to check I wasn't actually dying. Having established that I had no worse than a mild case of avian flu, she then immediately rang back again to point out that she'd emailed me through a PowerPoint presentation, that needed fixing by tomorrow. By which pre-amble, I mean to suggest, that even if I'm too contagious to be actually in the office, I'm clearly not so sick that I can't be expected to manipulate a keyboard and trackpad.

Fantastic Rubik's Cube Art from Invader.

Not getting the most out of GMapTrack, MapBuilder, or Frappr? Maybe SocialLight is for you! While I retain healthy skepticism about everything 2.0, SocialLight has a great interface for mobile/web/GPS/tagging-ifying everything.

Neologism watch: "technology-free", from an interesting article about "Wasp Hounds".

RoboChimp x Roomba mod. (Via robowis)

Growabrain, itself one of the best linkblogs ever, names their favourite linkblog.

GeoMinder isn't helping me get anything done, whereas FolderShare is. Shame Geominder is so cool, and FolderShare is so prosaic.

Lavatory eccentricities and idiosyncracies at AskMe.

US Monopoly Money pdfs for boardgame cheats everywhere..

Would anyone like to join me in a Cash4Cadavers Team? It's like Fantasy Football for the obituaries page.

Gallery of Harry Potter props on display in Tokyo.

Just discovered Diggory's Monkey Food Blog. Techy, designery, goodness. Must remember to steal template.

DJ Waxy tells me this 30 min breakbeat mix is awesomeness audiblized.

As McSleazy opened his set on Thursday night at xMaS bAsTaRd, I suddenly realised I was embarking on one of the best nights out of my whole life. The entire club were dressed in nativity costumes (I was a sheep (pictured)), the drinks were ludicrously strong, and the DJs were fantastic. McSleazy started by cutting the music completely, then doing a black power salute while the crowd jeered. Then suddenly Thus Spake Zarathustra boomed out, mixed into an endless flawless sequence of Cypress Hill/Britney/Beasties bootlegs. After McSleazy we got Go Home Productions who were equally awesome. It may not sound sophisticated, but it was a truly great party. I've uploaded a Blo Up Doll Dizzee remix that was given out at the club as a going home present: Blue Rascal (7.8Mb MP3), enjoy.

Telling Fake Global Knives From The Real Thing
I bought my first Global knife after the recommendation in Kitchen Confidential. They look great, they feel great, and they stay sharp. Unfortunately they are also quite expensive, at £30-£80 each. Recently counterfeit Global knives have been appearing, sold on eBay, and by unscrupulous door-to-door salesmen. One of the medical students working for my team recently tried to sell us this fancy 12 knife set, in a rather glam chef's carrying case. I took the opportunity to compare the fakes with my real knives, and they really are extremely close to the originals. After intense scrutiny I have a few tips for spotting the frauds:

1. The real Globals have a very even pattern of black dimples, with each dimple neatly and symmetrically pressed from the steel. The base of the dimple is an even black colour, that exactly meets the edge of the dimple. It isn't painted, it is an actual colour "corroded" onto the steel. The fakes have rather variable dimples, and the base has been airbrushed black, with obvious spills.

2. The logos "printed" on the blades of the real knives have crisp edges, and when new, have a very dark colour. The logos on the fake knives have printing errors, and look faded.

3. Obviously the edge of the blade on the real knives is incredibly even. The edge looks like an engineering miracle with it's micrometrical accuracy. The fake knives are very sharp, but the edge is visibly flawed. It doesn't even look straight to the naked eye, and is ground down with a wildly varying width.

4. The most obvious give-away though, is the price. If an internet bargain looks to good to be true, that's almost always because it is. eBay is an open market, and things tend to find their real value.

Best. Funeral. Ever? The Beeb are reporting that 1 in 3 of the entire population of Northern Ireland are turning out, to line the route of George Best's funeral procession. That's Pope-level mourning. Link to live coverage.

Jorn picked up "Freetime be gone!" as a neologism yesterday, and "Tada!" (NSFW), I got my first ever (semi-)MSM linkage at the Houston Chronicle. I haven't been so proud since the time I got Fleshbotdotted.

Cloud Game, Cloud Game, Cloud Game, and finally a genuinely original Cloud Game.

The Tube mapped by time between stations. At school we used to have a working tube map, where each station was marked by a button and an LED. Clicking any two buttons would light a path of LEDs between the two stations, having calculated the quickest route. That was even better than this new map, because it compensated better for changes between lines. Best of all, it was completely analogue.