Shaunland - an average place to live!
Shaunland is a principality within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is a very small country, with a burgeoning economy. A Shaunland passport is required for entry into Shaunland, and the immigration policy is very strong.
As Shaun might have to leave the country on Friday, we've taken the logical step of declaring his apartment as a principality.
Cool article on why the SNES is the best console ever. Face it, it's true! Make sure to check out the forum link at the end of the article, awesome thread.
An AJAX fronted, MySQL based internet protocol library for JACK (Low latency audio server) for Ruby on Rails
The Yarrwin project was created to make it easier for developers and distributers to use Apple's Darwin source code in their project.
Creative Commons (CC) advocates such as Lawrence Lessig have become fixtures on panels discussing Free Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). Frequently they are seen as representatives of the growing movement to translate the principles of free software to the world beyond code. Creative Commons advocates, directors, and supporters increasingly describe the project as an attempt to apply the principles of free software, appropriately adapted, to less technical forms of creative expression like music, writing, and the visual arts.
Excellent article about Creative Commons and their relationship with freedom.
CNUK - create. share. be free - free culture and free software for everyone When we refer to free culture and free software, we're talking of a matter of liberty not price. You should think of "free" as in "free speech".CNUK, established in 2004, is dedicated to promoting the rights of digital artists and computer users to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute artistic works and computer software. CNUK promotes the creation and use of free cultural works and the development and usage of free software, particularly GNU/Linux.
Our original mission was solely promoting free culture, and our name was the source of some confusion. We're now happy with our unofficial 'backronym', 'Culture's Not Unix, Kids!' - we support the Free Software Foundation and their GNU project.
It's taken a little while, but it's all up, we've also got a weblog you can comment on.
Zhanna Gumerova lives and works in moscow, where she studied photography and design at the Moscow Printing-Trades Institute. She has worked for the past seven years as a photographer and graphic designer for advertising agencies and magazines in Moscow.Gumerova’s art photography is influenced by the Russian tradition of ostranenie , making the familiar unfamiliar, associated with early modernist photographers such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Andre Kertesz, as well as Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The camera creates a distance between observer and observed, while extreme close-up or unusual angles remove the familiarizing context of objects.
Buy art from here! Go on! - Some of it really looks good, and if I had any spare cash I'd buy some.
I've asked unemployable wretch Johnny Hoare to keep a weblog of his life. He's doing it.
This one is great...
A Tanzanian mother went into hysterics when she found her six-month-old baby suckling on a dog.She had left the boy on a mat while she went to peg out clothes in the yard of her house in Dar Es Salaam. When she came back, she found him sucking milk from a dog.
Mum's Horror As Dog Suckles Baby (courtesy of Kate)
You are on the Glasgow underground (subway), travelling clock-wise. The journey time between Buchanan St. and St. Enoch is approximately 55 seconds. Hmmm. On the surface it's downhill journey, down the busiest shopping street in Glasgow with 2 road crossings. Hmmm.Challenge: Can you get off the a train at Buchanan St. and back on the same train the next time it stops at St. Enoch?
Rules: You can break the law if you wish.
This needs to be seen to be believed. - shame the video is in two equally annoying formats (WMV and MP4)
IEEE Spectrum (engineering magazine) ran a story in February, reviewing telecommunications development in Africa, with a big section on Nigeria. The writer says that a fiber optic line was brought into Lagos three years ago, but few connections have been made to it. Shell Oil, and almost nobody else. Not the universities [who have to be heartbreakingly creative to keep services going], not the ISPs, not the major businesses, apparently not even the government agencies. Hard to understand - until these photographs arrived! ;o) Well, would you commute to work at the telephone company under those conditions?
I do want a monkey, but that place just looks scary as fuck. Hyenas? No thanks.
Victim's concern over 'odd e-fit'
A crime victim has criticised a police e-fit of a suspect saying although the thief had an unusual appearance he "didn't look that odd".
In case anyone was wondering what the creative minds behinds a sitcom in which people argue about whether films have dogs in, look like, here's a lovely photo of Sir Mark Stephenson, drunk, making tea with chopsticks in the old CNUK office.
Help prove the legitimacy of a line from my sitcom pilot. "All films, set on the land, on Earth, not in space, or in the air or sea, have a dog in them." - this is the widely held belief of my friend, Mark Stephenson. I disagree, but every film I suggest, he disagrees (in the script, at least.)
Anyway, help us solve this eternal problem, using the comments below.
Also, if you're a girl from Exeter or maybe Leeds and you were in Leeds Bradford Airport in December (21st, I think) last year, and you spoke to me and I disappeared when you failed to incorrectly reposition a copy of 'The Spectator' in the newsagent shelves, I apologise but I am using you as a sitcom character.
By leaving a film below, you transfer all rights to use your suggestion in a sitcom. Thanks. We will acknowledge you in the credits though, because, we're lovely.
(Update: I've also added in a bit about a character who gets hit because it is claimed he looks like Roy Orbison. He doesn't, but this is to be cleared up in the script.)
Just a quick heads up for all of you who will be celebrating St Skeletor's Day on Feb 15th.
Events planned so far:-
I will be eating a massive skull shape of Fruit Salad sweets in my bed.
I will also be drinking lots of beer.
I will also be giving a talk about free software, free culture and the importance of community in Sheffield.
A reminder of the aims of the day:-
a) The destruction of 'lurrrve'
2) The destruction of 'saucy' greetings cards
d) The destruction of people who have a boyfriend/girlfriend and talk about them as if they were a unicorn.
Looking for a gift to give your pals on SSD2K+6 (as everyone's calling it)?
Vodka
If you don't get it, you never will. Not that its important.
For those that are angered/outraged by Google's policy in China, here's your opportunity to express these feelings and pledge to boycott on V-day:"Break up with Google this Valentine's Day - Have you heard about Google and the Chinese government?! They're SO going steady. We know it's all about the money though. Why else would Google betray us all and start spreading China's lies?
PLEDGE NOW>> to boycott Google on Valentine's Day!"
I'm not convinced Google is evil, and I think there are much better targets for a boycott.
An update on my progress, of switching to GNU/Linux...
I now have a really stable machine, I had a few problems with the internal sound causing the machine to lock up when it would try and 'beep' at me - fixed this (for now) by removing the snd-powermac module from /etc/modules
I can now play all my music, still using free software, thanks to Rhythmbox and VLC.
Evolution is a really good email client.
Nautilus is my browser of choice.
Received this in my email, it refers to the text on the front of my website...
I am the fastest human being alive, and can definitely fight a bear, but I choose not to.
Anyway, post your comments below and I'll forward the best ones back to the guy...
Hey there,Why do you say you're the fastest human being? What would be your mile time, 100 yd dash, and @ least 5 mi. time (if not marathon time). I'm interested.
And how do you say "I can DEFINATELY fight a bear". How would you know that, without trying? To know if you were the fastest human is feasible; just time yourself and compare to known records (emphasis on "known"). But to say you know you can fight a bear is not as feasible. And worse to say "Definately" know.
A bear can weigh as half a ton; 1000 lbs. They can run higher than 30 mph. The top olympic atheletes run @ a rate of about 20 mph. Running @ 20 mph they weigh 150 lbs to 250 lbs and are still slower than a bear, and so to then add 500 lbs on thier backs to equal a bear's power would make them even slower.
A car probably weighs at least 700-1000 lbs. If one were heading towards you at only 14 mph and you were to stand in front of it to stop it, do you feel that's pratcial? I'm very interested in you so I hope to hear your response. You seem quite bold and very interesting. If it's all true then I'd love to hear about it.
You can see my amazement by my own display of physcial comprehension for it all. Simple math. Also, a car traveling @ 15 mph is like some car driving at a school zone or some local street. I know if I were to try and stand in front of it to try to stop it, or Lou Ferrigno, or Mr. Universe, he wouldn't be able to stop it. So how's a 1000 lb bear traveling at over 30 mph gonna get stopped by Mr. universe, or you, or Lou Ferrigno, which is of course a greater situation than the car at the school zone.
It's all pretty cool, so wanna hear about it. On another note, if you mean like a different kind of bear, like some old and tired bear, well then that's no claim anymore. Or a small bear, like the one's you see at a zoo. A shaggy opponent. Hey, ever watch "Legends of the Fall" ? Just thought of it, cuz Brad Pitt fights one at the end.
Don't forget my 1st questions regarding your various speeds. Plus! Are you faster than Bruce Lee? If I were to video tape you swinging a punch would I be able to see it on tape? Master Bruce Lee could not be seen on tape, they slowed down the footage. Can you snatch a penny out of my hand faster than I could out of yours? Could you assemble a table faster than me? Fastest human being (as you claim) means fastest human being. Not fastest runner.
Bruce Lee was incredibly fast and if you told me he could beat two bears, heck I'd believe it. Essentially you are then saying you're greater than Bruce Lee. Also Bruce Lee could curl a minimum of a 100 lbs in a single arm, yet he was so lean and thin and weighing 120 lbs -130lbs. That means to say he's moving 85% of his own body weight with only one limb of that body.Does that mean you can do the same? If so, then boy, kudos to you man. That's amazing and exciting. Anyways, hope to hear from you Bear Champion.
Paul
On this Day 9 Years Ago - Apple Completes Purchase of NeXT Computer
The year is 1985 and Steve Jobs is in trouble, after hiring Sculley as new CEO of Apple he began to enter a struggle over power in an attempt to regain control over his beloved Apple. In a move that was strange to Jobs he was banished to the distant office known as “Siberia” and it didn’t take long before he left…$7 million and seven employees later Steve Jobs had a new interest, NeXT Computer. They originally worked on PostScript like technologies, working closely with Adobe but they soon found direction. It didn’t take long before Apple targeted a lawsuit at NeXT and in January of 1986 it was agreed that NeXT would be restricted to the workstation market.
