Saturday, December 15, 2001

You can learn l33t speek now! Course courtesy of PlanetQuake. Finally I'll be able to communicate with haX0rs, I c4n f33l i+ |/|/0r|<1n9 41r34D`/!!!!!

posted by Andy Buchanan at 2:45 PM

Friday, December 14, 2001

We all know paper can be pretty nasty stuff, dishing out punishment in the form of clean but painful micro cuts. But now there is a way to make paper even more deadly... Paper Throwing Stars. That's right, now is the time to be an Origami Ninja!

posted by Andy Buchanan at 12:22 PM

It would take too long to explain exactly how or why I got onto the subject of the The Elves & The Shoemaker story in a recent meatspace conversation, but I did, and then I found a version of the story on the web. Reading it again I was wondering if this is the basis for house-elves in Harry Potter?

posted by Andy Buchanan at 12:17 PM

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Today Yahoo reports on the first reviews of Peter Jacksons first installment of the eagerly awaited Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring. Overall the reviews are positive, though the movie seems to have failed to impress the Evening Standard. Well, I'll be able to see for myself on opening day as I just learned my employer is letting us all bunk off early to go see it on the day

posted by Andy Buchanan at 2:23 PM

Mysteries of the Universe Revelealed Part 426. The Australians have been giving serious investigation to the question of "Belly Button Fluff" (or "Lint" if you must). Theage.com.au have the story.

"Our scientists have discovered that lint mostly moves up from the underwear rather than down from the upper body and believe that a pierced navel will not collect fluff."

"Just as navels are as individual as fingerprints, so do they vary in the way they collect lint, says Sydney University physicist Karl Kruszelnicki"

So there you go, remember Knowledge is Power!

posted by Andy Buchanan at 10:23 AM

I've seen a pretty cool idea over on Halfbakery.com, this happens from time to time. The idea is called the Secret Comedy Suffix Club.

"The first rule of the Secret Comedy Suffix Club is you do not talk etc. blah.

All members of the Secret Comedy Suffix Club have to go out on the chosen day, and use the chosen comedy suffix, after every single phrase they say.

The chosen day is this Friday.
The chosen suffix is "your honor".

This sounds like it might be quite fun

. For some reason this also reminds of a game ol' Nick (Hi Nick!) was telling me he and his buddies used to play involving a suitcase. The idea was simple, one person had the suitcase, when they saw another player the suitcase was handed over (unless the other player managed to escape!), when the suitcase was recieved the recieving player placed one item in the suitcase. Over the duration of the "suitcase weekend" the case would get heavier and full of bizarre junk. At the end of the game the players would assemble and open the case to see what was inside to geat merriment. I don't recall if there was an actual winner to this game. I don't think so.

posted by Andy Buchanan at 10:12 AM

The MayFly Project 2001 is gathering Micro-biographies for the year 2001. The Mayfly's own "Born, Eat, Shag, Die" being the the shortest biography, hopefully do you can better!

posted by Andy Buchanan at 9:56 AM

Monday, December 10, 2001

Whilst searching something completely and totally unrelated I dug up this spanking Keyword searchable archive of Brighton Imagery. It has lots of cool images, but the best fun to be had by far ( in a decidedly adolescent way ) is to search for the more common profanities

posted by Andy Buchanan at 9:13 PM

I Wonder what's happened to the Headlines today...[Update 21:09] Oh they're back now

posted by Andy Buchanan at 1:49 PM

Check out this devious puzzle game:: Reflections. Like all good puzzle games it's simple but devious. There are 25 levels but I've only managed the first 17 so far. I am however totally hooked so the other levels will be vanquished in due course.... ha ha haaa!. I have the passwords for levels 2-18 if you get stuck.

posted by Andy Buchanan at 1:48 PM

Sunday, December 09, 2001

Okay, just to get it over with here's a bunch more Online Tests:

The Utterly Surreal Test
What Cat Are You?
What kind of Frog are YOU?
Which Online Personality Test are You?

I'm getting really bored with these, but I seem to have a compulsive urge to keep finding and filling them in! Anyways, rather than pollute the blog with the results I have dumped them on my page.

posted by Andy Buchanan at 2:45 AM

Here's a link I found a couple of weeks back but totally forgot to post. It's on an interesting graphics technique called Image Analogies from the boffins at New York University. You basically show the program how you would like to process images by feeding it pairs of images that demonstrate the required alterations. The program learns from this and can apply the required effect to other images. Very Cool, though we probably can't fire all the artists yet

posted by Andy Buchanan at 2:40 AM

So it seems KPMG have been very daft/ignorant/arrogant (not sure which). Wired picks up the story:

In a letter to a consultant in Britain who runs a personal website that has not been especially nice to KPMG, the company said it had discovered a link on his site to www.kpmg.com, and that the website owner, Chris Raettig, should "please be aware such links require that a formal Agreement exist between our two parties, as mandated by our organization's Web Link Policy."

Web link Policy? Formal Agreement? Ha ha ha haaaa ha ha ha haaaaaa ha, etc.... I shant bother ranting about this as Chris Raettig has covered his own views on this quite well on his website, here with the letter and his response and this page of musings on the matter at hand.