z00t's space

Giant Gundam over Tokyo

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:54:00 +0000

Apart from those awesome French people with the Space Princess, London has some pretty dull modern landmarks. The Millenium Wheel. Meh. The Millenium Bridge. Bah. The O2 Dome. Yawn.

Over in Tokyo, however, the Japanese really know how to party. They do things properly. Take this, for instance - the monster Gundam they have assembled over Tokyo, that's as high as a seven story building.

For even more awesome pictures - and video! Yes! - head on over to the Flickr blog.

Meatcards!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:23:00 +0000

The chaps over at Meatcards have a great competition running at the moment. They will create your own, personalised business cards, by burning them out of beef jerky with a laser.

Yes, read it again - it is that cool. They will laser meat to create your business cards. Awesome!

The competition is to submit your own real-life re-enactment of one of three of Frank Frazetta's iconic fantasy art paintings.

Head on over to the competition page at http://www.meatcards.com/challenge/ for the full list of rules, and to see some of the winners that have been chose so far.

The Plan of Attack: Royal Ascot Week

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:22:00 +0000

This is something I wrote up last year, when planning how on earth I could park my car, catch the train from Ascot station, and not totally lose my mind in the drunken toff insanity that is Royal Ascot week.

This is what I came up with:

1. is platform 2, where the Waterloo -> Reading train stops
2. is where the underground tunnel comes out - normally you'd turn immediately right and go up the steps to the front of the station. But this has security barriers in place to stop you doing that - in fact, there are security barriers in place to stop you even *exiting* the tunnel
3. is where you finally escape the barriers and get into the Jazz cafe carpark - which is filled with marquees and Drunken Fuckers
4. is where the security barrier is based, replete with machine gun toting police marksmen
5. is the entrance to the carpark. So tantalisingly close!
6. is where my car is parked - even more tantalisingly close!
7. is the (normally locked) gate which allows the Honda garage access to the (shared with SWT/Railtrack) carpark - this is how you now exit the carpark
8. is the vehicle entrance to the Honda garage, and where you know exit on to the main road

Looking at the map, two new options pop up:

1) go the opposite way through the tunnel, coming out in a housing estate near QV London (the ace Ferrari mechanics). You then have a 5 minute walk through the estate, under the railway, and then back up the road to 8.

2) from 3., walk out to the road, then down the road to 8.

Both of these assume there would be no police presence at 8., allowing free entrance to the carpark and retrieval of my car!

Royal Ascot opens on Tuesday, which means the defensive perimeter (yes, it's really called that by the security goons who staff it - there were even signs calling it that last time) will be in place, allowing time to check out the defenses this time round.

Amusingly, the gun-toting cops and the security search at 4. is pointless - because if I wanted to commit a terrorist act, I'd do it by blowing shit up at 2., where the crowd is most dense, and contained in a submerge pathway, where you'd do the most damage. Either that or go post in the Jazz cafe carpark.

And you know what the best bit is?

By sharing this all with you guys, when^Wif I get arrested, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, you will all automatically get arrested too!

How cool is that? Our tax money at work!

Swine Flu Piglet

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:01:00 +0000

For the lovely @sazchik, and to the tune of "Pinball Wizard":

Ever since I was a tourist
And I went to Mexico
Then headed back to Brighton
To the hopsital I go
But I ain't seen nothing like him
In any farmer's field
That deaf, dumb and blind pig
Sure has a mean swine flu

He stands like a statue
Becomes part of the disease
Sniffing with a runny nose
And making us all sneeze
He snorts and he snuffles
Passes his germs on to you
That deaf, dumb and blind pig
Sure has a mean swine flu

He's a swine flu piglet
There's got to be a twist
A swine flu piglet
And now the WHO are pissed

How do you think he does it?
(I don't know)
What makes him so ill?

He ain't got no distractions
Can't hear those sirens and bells
Don't see lights a flashin'
The cops are pigs as well
He's now quite infectious
He'll end up killing you
That deaf, dumb and blind pig
Sure has a mean swine flu

I thought I was
The ER table king
But I just handed
My sickness crown to him

The media are in a frenzy
And we're all gonna die
But I'm still eating bacon
My wife is asking why?
He's got crazy freakish symptoms
Pork chops will finish you
That deaf, dumb and blind pig
Sure has a mean swine flu

Rock on!

Best baby stroller idea ever

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:53:00 +0000

The Xtracycle FreeRadical

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:34:00 +0000

I've always been a keen cyclist, and my pride and joy is my 2001 Cannondale F700. I've done over 70k miles on it, and it has never let me down. One of the best investments I've ever made - it is hand made by Cannondale using Win and Awesome as the main components.

However, it's not that great for quick trips to the shops. Where I live most shops are within an easy bike ride, but even with a capacious backpack, it can be difficult to lug everything back again. Also, even my heavily battle scared Cannondale just screams "Expensive bike!", and no matter how extreme my locks and security precautions are, I'm always a bit leery of leaving it outside a shop.

So, what I really needed was a cheap crappy old bike, and some way of converting it to being a load carrier.

I developed all sorts of pretty crazy ideas, but never got round to building any of them - mostly because they would have resulted in me being killed in some horrific road crash, when it all disintegrated underneath me.

I thought about trailers, but they're too unstable for my liking - I don't like the way they change the handling of the bike, and they're a bugger to manoeuvre when you're not riding.

Then I came across a bunch called Xtracycle, who make this awesome kit called the FreeRadical. It basically bolts onto your frame, and extends your bike to enable it to carry some serious loads.

So, I picked up a £10 donor bike from a jumble stall at our local May Fair, headed over to the lovely chaps at Practical Cycles in the UK.

On a related note - why do people throw away old bikes like that? A new set of inner tubes and tyres costs less than £20. A new chain is only £15 and a new rear cog set can be had for around the £20-£30 mark.

Seriously, if I wasn't doing the FreeRadical build, I could have put this £10 bike on the road, suitable for everyday commuting use, for under £80. £30 or so would have make it perfectly serviceable for occasional use.

Anyway, I've documented my build up on my Xtracycle FreeRadical Flickr photoset.

I'm a total amateur when it comes to bike maintenance. I've always taken my Cannondale to my local bike shops - I've adjusted the brakes and greased the chain and that's been about it. The only extra tool I needed for this build was a bike chain tool (£5) - I already had sockets and spanners. Everything was very straightforward and easy, and took about 3 hours in total. The instructions could have done with some more pictures, which would have made it easier to figure out a few parts - but this is something easily do-able by any budding bike mechanic.

The finished bike is a pleasure to ride. You don't notice the extra length at all, and it can be easily picked up via the FreeRadical frame and carried under one arm. It took two of my kids round the block quite happily.

Xtracycle's FreeRadical kit is excellent. It's simple and it works, and I've ended up with a very practical load carrier that's going to be put to heavy use for shopping trips, taking the kids to school, and heading off to the recycling bins.

The Brick Testament

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:32:00 +0000

I was recently introduced to this and had to share via Twitter. Key chapters of the Bible have been recreated - in Lego. The build quality and photography are top notch, and the passages chosen are also fantastic.

The Book of Revelation in particular is a great read ;-)

Head over to The Brick Testament for more fun.

The childcatcher is alive and well

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Failblog delivers the latest as he is tracked down to New Delhi. If you've never watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang then:

this will merely be an amusing picture, as opposed to a hilarious one
you led a deprived childhood. I mean, come on!

And just in case you totally missed out - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by Ian Fleming (author of considerable James Bond fame) and was directed by Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli (of James Bond films fame). It also starred the excellent Desmond Llelwyn (of Q from the James Bond films fame).

Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay based on Ian Fleming's original novel, and Benny Hill and Barbara Windsor also starred. An epic film!

Giant fire spitting robot terrorises Roppongi

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:21:00 +0000

More awesomeness from our friends in Japan, who clearly know how to party.

Sculptor Kenji Yanobe’s Giant Torayan robot, a 7.2-meter (24-ft) tall mechanical baby that sings, dances and spits fire, was sighted in Tokyo’s Roppongi district last night. The fire-breathing robot spent the night on center stage at “Roppongi Art Night,” an all-night event featuring installations and performances by dozens of artists at various venues in Roppongi.

Those wacky Japanese

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:44:00 +0000

You've probably seen those claw machines at an arcade or shopping centre. Put in some money, try and steer the robot claw to pickup a cuddly toy.

Dull.

The Japanese have upped the ante in claw based entertainment. Mobile phones, pornographic DVDs - and now, boobs.

No, those are not onions or swedes.

Friday fun - what do you like to do?

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:38:00 +0000

I have some chaps on a windsurfing forum to thank for this one:

1. Go to Google
2. Type in "(yourname) likes to"
3. Copy and paste the first 10 search results back into this email, and share the love

Fat Tom likes to boogie
Tom likes to role play
Tom likes to play Disc Golf
Tom likes to jack off
Tom likes to see Katie in bowl cuts and men's suits
Tom likes to spend his time hanging out with friends
Tom likes to CLIMB OVER JOHN MAYER'S FENCE
Tom likes to Look
Tom likes to come to the matchs with a new joke or two each week
Tom likes to visit the zoo

Have at it! :-)

Give it a go, share the results via Twitter or add your blog post's URL to the comments.

Kill it with hammers!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:32:00 +0000

This is pretty horrific, and will be haunting my dreams for many nights to come.

Aquarists at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay have discovered the identity of a mysterious killer that had been devastating their coral reef display over recent months.

Staff at the award-winning attraction had been puzzled by violent attacks on their fragile living reefs - in some cases the corals had been literally cut in half.

After staking out the display for several weeks, aquarists decided as a last resort to take it apart rock by rock.

Halfway through the process the terrifying perpetrator was finally revealed - a monstrous four-foot-long giant reef worm.

Read more at the Blue Reef Aquarium site.

It's Windsurfing time!

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Been a while since I last had a chance to post something on there - but this is a doozy.

Check out this fantastic video from YouTube:

The group is called The Surfers, and I am going to have this playing on my iPod the next time I'm out windsurfing on my board. This is so bad it's awesome!

You can check out some more of their hits at Last.fm

EmTech inanity

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:50:00 +0000

Bit of a break from posting, been pretty busy - but I had to share this. Dan Lyons (of Fake Steve Jobs fame) has hit the nail firmly on the head with his latest post covering a panel at the EmTech conference.

He's nicely summed up what I've been telling investors and boards for the last 18 months - why do these people not get it?

My first reaction was that in the greater scheme of things (economy in free fall, war in Iraq, global warming, energy crisis, not to mention the old reliables like cancer and poverty and AIDS, etc.)this challenge of finding a good restaurant seems like a fairly trivial and unimportant problem for our big geek brains to be trying to solve. If I were funding these guys I might go home scratching my head about what those kids are doing with all of my millions. Maybe there is a point to what they’re doing,but honestly, what great problem are these companies trying to solve? Sitting there watching this spectacle — watching these guys unable to simply explain what they do and and how they are going to make a business out of it -it was staggering to think that someone has entrusted these people with very large sums of money. But someone has. I weep for those people.

(Via Real Dan Lyons Web Site.)

And why are work shy slackers *still* getting funding for mediocre faff that adds no value to the collective human race, doesn't solve any problems - and, worst of all - will never make any money?

Attack of the Cock Copter

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:51:00 +0000

Some protesters wave around banners. Some have some more spine and throw some eggs.

In Russia, they have more balls. They heckle with giant flying dildos.

Yes, chess grandmaster turned dissident politician Gary Kasparov was giving a speech in Moscow when he was harassed by a remote controlled flying dildo.

After the attack was thwarted, Kasparov joked "I think we have to be thankful for the opposition's demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate. Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt." An audience member shouts back "Finally the political power shows its face!". Kasparov's reply?

"Well, if that's its face..."

Will we see Secret Service agents taking a cock for the US President? I can only hope so.

Here's the full video of this harrowing thrust against democracy:

Promoting small websites or finding out about large ones

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:52:00 +0000

In doing some poking around to research the background behind a domain, I came across three websites which all offer similar tools. Depending on how you choose to use them, they can either be used to carry out some background research on competitors, or to promote your own small website or blog.

AboutUs.com

AboutUs asks you for a domain or website URL, and then wanders off and retrieves information from the site. It analyses the site contain, and pulls back a summary, related domains, other sites linked to, and information about the domain itself.
The interesting thing about this is that AboutUs presents all this information via a Wiki, which can be edited and update by the site owner, or by visitors.

Check out this example page for Finance-Portal.co.uk

DomainTools.com

DomainTools uses a whois lookup to pull back registration information about a domain, as well as the server it's hosted on, and any other relevant sites. On top of that it also retrieves a site's rank from Alexa and Complete.com. Most interesting though is the analysis DomainTools does on the homepage content. As well as counting the number of internal and outbound links on the homepage, it works out the relevancy of the meta description and site title against the homepage content. Create a free account to get access to more tools and goodies.

Compare the Finance-Portal.co.uk page against the one for AboutUs.

BuiltWith.com

BuiltWith works in a similar vein to AboutUs and DomainTools. The difference with BuiltWith is that it's tools are more concerned with the optimisation of a site, and the technology and software used to build it. BuiltWith will report on things like the advertising systems being used, the scripting framework, the analytics and tracking software being used, and so on.

Get a flavour of what's available with this report on Finance-Portal.co.uk

Taken individually, these are all interesting and useful tools. However, when combining their reports together, they can be used to fully map out the web presence for a given domain. Equally, they can produce powerful pages and reports which can be used to promote a small site or blog.

Give them a go and try them for your sites.

Cyanide and Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:26:00 +0000

If you haven't come across their cartoons and animations, your life has a gaping void in it. Luckily for you, it can now be filled!

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Spartacus is probably their best animation yet. Enjoy!

TRON's lightcycle scene - in stop-motion animation

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:02:00 +0000

French filmmaker Freres-Hueon has recreated the epic lightcycle battle from Tron in fantastic stopmotion form. Using cardboard cutouts to replace the computer graphics, and the entire scene is re-enacted in all it's glory.

Feast your eyes on this gem:

Tron
by freres-hueon

Utterly fantastic. Head on over to http://www.gltron.org/index.php and relive the fun for yourself. There's an IRIX binary available to, to give your SGI workstation a proper workout.

Ling from LINGsCARS on website promotion

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:04:00 +0000

I've known about Ling's Cars for a while. Not only is the website pretty awesome, but Ling also has a Zil 131 truck with a fake nuclear warhead strapped to the back. I've been a big fan of Zil and Gaz trucks for ages, so that's how I first came across Ling and her site.

Ling has a fantastic post on her blog at http://www.lingscars.com/blog/?p=2412 where she goes into detail on how she builds awareness of her website. This should be required reading for anyone who's trying to get traffic or raise the profile of their site - it's not all about PPC and Google Adwords.

Well worth a read, and I can highly recommend subscribing to her RSS feed as well.

Home Secretary in ID Card database security gaffe

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:06:00 +0000

Home Secretary in ID Card database security gaffe: "

Unhackable? Up to a point, minister

Security experts have rubbished claims by the Home Secretary that databases for the controversial National ID Cards will be 'unhackable' because they are being kept off the public internet.…

(Via The Register.)

When will the current Government learn the lessons from IT gaffe after gaffe? Jacqui Smith's speech is well worth a read through, just to understand how badly the Home Secretary and the Government are trying to mislead votes over the ID cards scheme.

For an even more complete takedown, read the thorough dissection at the excellent SpyBlog.

How is this legal?

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:07:00 +0000

So I was reading a report in Management Today detailing HMRC's involvement with a Lichtenstein 'Deep Throat' mole.

For some background: Lichtenstein is a tiny country in Europe that exists purely as a tax haven. A number of years ago, an employee of a main bank there stole some account details.

Let's be clear here - he stole them. These contained information including balances, transfers, and other account details for a number of very wealthy account holders, who had Lichtenstein bank accounts for - surprise! surprise! - tax avoidance purposes.

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have bought this list, and are now using it to conduct tax investigations against a number of people.

What exactly seperates HMRC from any other criminal organisation at this point? There was no moral outrage here, the guy wasn't a whistleblower - he stole people's bank account details and has been trying to sell them to the highest bidder. He'd already sold them to the German tax authorities for £5m.

Given HMRC recently lost personal details (including bank account information) for 25 million people, it's clear how little they value personal information - at least, the public's personal information. Their automated systems also recently screwed up and they sent out hundreds of 'missed payment' penalties to businesses across the UK. Bear in mind, these weren't 'friendly reminder' notices, these were 'we are taking you to court because our system says you didn't pay your taxes 3 years ago' notices.

Try getting a Freedom of Information (FoI) request carried out by HMRC. The double standards here are breathtaking.

Grab the full Management Today story at http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/newsalerts/article/786024/mtsweek/hmrc-cash-liechtenstein-deep-throat/?DCMP=EMC-Daily%20News

That Sharia Law comment controversy in full

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Wing Commander ship blueprints

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:12:00 +0000

I can remember being blown away by Wing Commander when it came out. That, and having to save everything I earned from my holiday job to get a 386. Tough times.

If you have fond memories of tackling the Kilrathi in your trusty Hornet, then you'll be pleased to hear that high resolution blueprints for all the Terran ships are available for your download and printing pleasure.

The Wing Commander Combat Information Centre have 1600x1100 blueprints of all four Terran ships - the Hornet, Scimitar, Rapier and Raptor.

Or you can grab the entire blueprint pack. Although it's a monstrous 42mb, it does have the blueprints at 5000x3300 resolution.

Get those printers warmed up!

MiFare RFID vulnerabilities exposed

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:57:00 +0000

Great video presentation from the recent CCC in Germany, highlighting flaws and issues with the security around Philips' MiFare RFID tags (as used on Oyster cards ;-)

Renting out a holiday property? Check out The Villa Place

noreply@blogger.com (z00t) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:34:00 +0000

Just chatting to a friend of mine, who has a nice villa in France. He actually only spends a couple of months a year there, and rents it out the rest of the time. We were talking about ways to manage property rental for holiday villas via the Internet, and he gave me a heads up to an interesting new site that has just launched - The Villa Place.

They've got a really slick frontend for choosing where you're interested in, and you can browse for property via location, drilling down from a global map. If you have a property you want to rent out, you can register, then upload photos, link to reviews - it's pretty comprehensive.

It's pretty impressive stuff, and a great example of how far we've come since the early dark days of static HTML listings from estate agencies.

Check them out at http://www.thevillaplace.com/

Technorati Tags:
holiday villas, the villa place, holiday rentals, vacation villas, estate agents