A blog about the road that led us to where we are. And where we are going.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

The Daily Mail - Friend or Foe?

From humble beginnings in 1896, the Daily Mail has grown from strength to strength becoming the country's second most popular daily rag.  Second only of course to the giant uber-mega-paper, The Sun.  The reason it comes in second?

Too subtle?
The only newspaper still sporting a 25 year-long erection obsession with Princess Diana.  In fact today on its website there is a meaningless comparison of Jennifer Aniston to Princess Diana, simply because they have both, at some points in their lives, worn white skirts.  What I don't understand is why?

Like political parties, newspapers invariably appeal to a certain type of person.  Indeed, sometimes newspapers and political parties align themselves, and sometimes to great effect. In fact, it is pretty well known that on the political/newspaper spectrum, the Daily Mail aligns pretty closely to the Conservative Party.  

A quick google search as to the average Daily Mail reader turns up some gems.  Posted without comment or editorialisation:


Typical Daily Mail headline.
  • The Driver Is Always The Victim.
  • Everything has the potential to give you cancer.
  • Everything has the potential to cure you from cancer.
  • Homosexuals all know each other and work together to promote "buggery" and other vices.
  • The BBC is run by homosexualscommunists and muslims
  • That the UK benefit system is the most generous in the world and the sole reason that anyone migrates to its shores.
  • Paying income tax is actually more oppressive than being taken into a cell and beaten up. Inheritance tax is even worse. But still not as bad as the council refusing to collect your bins every four hours.
  • The first European settlers to the British Isles never existed.
  • It is illegal to fly a Union Jack or celebrate St George's Day without permission from the council. If you do you can be arrested. However, if an immigrant wants to paint a mural of Osama bin Laden with "Death to the Infidels" underneath it they will be given money to do so by the local council.
  • In a collision between a speeding car and a pedestrian, it's not the speed which kills, but rather the inability of the driver to control his/her vehicle.
  • Speed cameras don't save lives or calm traffic.
  • Daily Mail readers are the only species on British soil paying taxes, so forget about tourists, foreign workers/investors and international students.
  • The 'Human Rights Act' exists only to furnish convicted child murderers with cushy, Xbox and Plasma-TV filled 'cells'.
  • If a white person and a non-white person apply for the same job the State makes the poor employer pick the brown person against his will, even if the brown fella is an unqualified, blind, comatosed ex-street sweeper and the job is Neurosurgery.
  • If a crime is committed by an immigrant it is much worse than if the same crime was committed by a native briton. If the immigrant was here illegaly, the severity of the crime is automatically increased tenfold.
  • When white people run businesses they are hard-working risk-takers who deserve their riches. When hook-nosed darker races do the same they are scheming, greedy cabalists working together to exploit and extort.
  • The term "Paki" is not racist. In particular, it's not racist if the Royal Family say it, it's just "banter".
  • Women who have more than one of: a career, children, attractiveness, intelligence, weight loss, weight gain, enjoyment of life; are evil and responsible for the end of society.
  • Anyone to the left of Thatcher supports an "open-door immigration policy".
  • Any and all editorials or columnists who echo BNP policy and literature are immediately cleared of any association by referring to the BNP as "vile" or "knuckle-dragging yobs". 
  • Nick Griffin has been saying this for years. 
  • Polluting the environment is necessary and a duty of all human beings.

These last two are particularly funny.  In fact; here's a short video listing all the things which, according to the Daily Mail, can give you cancer:



And our survey says…

“Earth facing a mini-ice age!”

Is this the right answer? Our survey says…

bygraves_duhduhh

So the media (shockingly) have been butchering science reporting in their usual manner. Let's see what the scientists actually said when compared to what the Daily Mail reported.

Monday 20 June 2011

The art of the Troll

pictured above: not me
By nature, I'm a troll.  Not that kind of troll.  Granted, I'm overweight, hairy and have a big nose, nor am I cute and have brightly coloured hair (ahem).

No, I'm talking about the internet phenomenon known as trolling. Urban dictionary describes a troll as:
One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

This kind of internet trolling isn't my bag.  I'm far more into trolling in person; mostly to cold callers, cold knockers (not chilled boobs, people who knock on your doors unexpectedly), and to idiots with clipboards in town centres.

closer, but still not me
Today, I have successfully trolled 2, count'em 2 paid charity fundraisers, Friends of the Earth, and the British Heart Foundation.  Not because I don't agree with their aims and objectives, but because I object talking to hypocritical students who are getting paid to convince people to donate their money!

These hypocrites tell me that I should spend my money on the charities that spend their money on fundraisers? Do these people have no sense of irony?!?  The Peon from the Friends of the Earth informed me (as if it mattered) that his wages don't come from the charity, but from GiftAid Donations.  So the Tax that I have ALREADY PAID is refunded to the Charities on top of MY DONATIONS, and this extra slice of money for the charities is spent on these hairy, smelly students with their unwashed hair and baggy trousers telling me that I need to give them money?

I'll admit that I don't give as much to charity as I'd like.  It is a personal aim of mine to donate more money to charity this year than I did last year.  This is an ongoing New Years Resolution that I'm getting better at keeping.

So anyway, my favourite method of dealing with cold callers is this:  Listen to them.  Answer questions, and appear as very interested in whatever they are peddling as possible.  More advanced trolls may set themselves a time limit and try to beat it.  Once you've had enough (I can't usually beat 5 minutes, no matter how hard I try), simply inform them you've been wasting their time.  You see, their job is simply about numbers; the more people they talk to, the more likely they'll get a lead.  So, if you eat up 5 or 10 minutes of their time, you may have saved 20 people the trouble of talking to them.  You see? Well, when you tell them this, their faces are a picture!

Now we're talking!

Thursday 16 June 2011

New Technology saves the rich at the expense of the poor



Car Number plate without PixelPervert
device installed

Recent breakthroughs in the area of adaptive Electromagnetic Field Technology have led to the announcement today of the new PixelPervert device.


Tired of pesky security, surveillance and speed cameras collectively sapping your stash of cash? PixelPervert is a simple (in concept!) little doohickey that plugs directly into your car, then saves you money.


Car Number plate with PixelPervert
Enabled
At its most basic level, PixelPervert detects the specific resonant frequencies used by the aperture in most digital cameras, and jams them. The resulting picture looks exactly like your own personal computer hacker has broken into the database where the image is stored and mixed up the pixels good and nice to save you, the motorist, more money to spend on petrol!


Drive as fast as you like with the PixelPervert.  Only £740.00 including delivery.


The range is good for up to 50 metres and will prevent most types of digital cameras taking legible images of your number plate.  It will not detect the aperture closing on old-type film-cameras, but - who cares! Nobody uses them nowadays anyway.


For more information, contact B&S Enterprises.
Free Dyslexia Screening

If you can read this... You probably haven't got it!

Monday 13 June 2011

krakatau_fulle_big

The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Dyatlov_Pass_incident_00This one has always fascinated me. You know it’s going to be a good mystery when the investigative board concludes the cause of death of nine people was an ‘unknown compelling force’ which loosely translates from Russian as ‘fucked if we know’. But in the case of the Dyatlov pass incident, the pieces of the puzzle just really really don’t fit leaving no good explanation as to what really happened. The sole survivor of the incident Yuri Yudin who had left his friends earlier the date in question due to ill health summarised it best – “If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, ‘What really happened to my friends that night?’”

The Dyatlov Pass incident involves ten ski trekkers from the Ural Polytechnical institute who had gone hiking in the Ural mountains in January 1959. Their final camp was made on the foot of a mountain called Khloat Syakhl which translates as ‘Mountain of the Dead’ – who would have thought? When the hikers didn’t return on schedule, a rescue operation was ordered. Not long after the search began it turned up five of the hikers’ bodies, all dressed in their underwear – not entirely unexpected since the temperature was around –25 to –30 oC (although paradoxical undressing common with hypothermia victims could have accounted for this). But as the investigative team continued their investigation it just got weirder and weirder. When the camp was discovered it was found that the tent had been ripped open from the inside as if the team was desperately trying Dyatlov_Pass_incident_01to get away from something although the footprints and positions of the first five bodies seemed to suggest they were trying to make their way back to the camp. What didn’t make sense were the injuries of the next four bodies discovered. Although there were no signs of a struggle and no external injuries to the corpses, it seemed the two of the victims had fractured skulls, two of them had broken ribs and one was missing their tongue. Since there was no sign of external injuries, the only reasonable conclusion was that they had been subjected to an extremely high level of pressure. The last four bodies found were also dressed in snippets of clothing which appeared to have been cut from the first five bodies discovered.

Other facts also surfaced during the investigation which didn’t seem to fit any rational explanation. Four of the victims’ clothing contained substantial levels of radiation and at the funerals, the skin of the victims was reported to have a strange orange tan whilst their hair had gone grey. An investigating officer also stated that his dosimeter had shown a high level of radiation though the source was never determined. Some reports also suggested that there was a lot of scrap metal in the area leading to speculation that the military had been utilising the area secretly whilst on the night in question another group of hikers 30km to the south had reported seeing glowing orange balls in the sky above the Dyatlov pass area.

Dyatlov_Pass_incident_02Other facts also didn’t fit any logical conclusion to the inquiry such as the odd location of the campsite – out in the open rather than near the forest. A weird scrap of paper was also found that read ‘From no on we know that snowmen exist’. After the incident Soviet authorities closed off the area around Dyatlov pass for three years and files pertaining to the investigation were sealed away until the 90s. When reopened again important documentation that may have shed more light on the incident was found to be missing.

No one really knows what happened that night and no satisfactory explanation has ever been put forward although the most likely explanation is that the Soviets were testing some kind of thermobaric nuclear device which would appear to account for the injuries, lack of clothing, the missing tongue, the strange behaviour, the radiation and the apparent panic but the location for such a test is highly questionable given that the Russians usually liked testing their nuclear warheads in Kazakhstan. Other explanations – Aliens? Bigfoot? Ghosts? Or possibly all three working in tandem. Secret weapons test it is then.

Monday 6 June 2011

Star Trek?

Apparently, anti-matter has now been trapped for 16 minutes.


I'm sure that this should be relevant in some way shape or form to life as we know it, but I'm unable to work out how. So to put it bluntly, they've got hold of some anti-hydrogen, in order to work out the differences between anti-hydrogen and hydrogen.

Clifford Surko, a physicist at the University of California said that it would be a "huge advance in terms of understanding why we live in a world of matter". I couldn't really give a toss, but I really do feel like this information should be life-changing. Are we soon going to be producing matter-anti-matter reactors?

Oh, wait, NASA are trying to design one here.

Sunday 5 June 2011

Why Fallout 4 will rock

Ok so news on exactly when it will be released is sketchy at best and it’s only rumoured to be in development at the moment with a release date of Q4 2012 at the earliest with sometime in 2013 being  most likely. Bethesda has announced Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be released later this year and that another game is in pre-production and has been since August of last year, presumably that game is Fallout 4. That’s about all that’s known about it really, that and the likelihood of it being set in the Mojave wasteland a la New Vegas. But all this is still rumour, what isn’t rumour is the new technology that will power it. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion like Fallout 3 and New Vegas used the Gamebryo engine which although set the benchmark by which others were judged in its time has begun to look terribly dated. Fallout: New Vegas although enjoyable was just more of the same when compared to FO3 which isn’t really such a good thing considering it came out two and a half years later. The Gamebryo engine is a decade old now, it was used on the PS2 and original XBOX and although it has undergone significant revision since then just doesn’t seem like it will cut the mustard with future releases. I guess Bethesda figured it was time for something new.

Skyrim is to be released in December of this year and uses a new game engine developed in house by Bethesda – the Creation engine. And just a few screenshots from the game illustrate exactly how superior it is to its predecessor.

Joined-1-copy

Draw Distance

The sandbox style of the RPGs Bethesda develops means that the player spends most of their time outdoors. It makes sense to ditch the annoying effects that plagued fallout 3 in this respect i.e. you could walk and objects such as bridges and trees would suddenly pop into existence in the background. While not a major fault of the game, it is something that could have been dramatically improved upon and for this reason the Creation engine increases the draw distance resulting in smoother transitions of more distant objects and much greater detail of closer objects. So gone are the days of that annoying pop into existence effect that plagued the creation engine. Compare the above two shots, in the background of oblivion the forest is blurry and as you move forward you know a few more massive boulders are going to suddenly appear out of nowhere. Skyrim by comparison shows much greater detail in the background giving a much clearer idea of what will happen as you move forward.

Joined-2-copy

Foliage and Water effects

Looking at the above two images, it would seem the fluid dynamic lighting effect applied to the water in Skyrim trumps oblivion. The trees also have a much more realistic looking vibe to them but the foliage in general has a greater sense of realism. How this will translate into a fallout game isn't very clear because as people will remember there were no trees in Fallout 3, except at one weird location on the map which you never needed to visit to complete the game. Hopefully the desert textures will be on a par with the forest textures. 

Joined-3-copy

Scarier Monsters and Smoother Battle scenes

In Fallout 4, these could be truly epic improvements. Just think how much scarier a supermutant behemoth would be. Nuff said.

Joined-4-copy

More attractive NPCs

One of the biggest failings of all previous Bethesda RPGs was the ugly 2D play-doh look of the NPCs. They were never very pleasing to the eye whereas looking at the above two images, it would seem that future NPCs will look the dogs bollocks. Not only this but they won't freeze in time when you talk to them either, they'll carry on about their daily routine further increasing the sense of realism. The level of detail for the interior scene is also worth noting. It'll make looting through abandoned shacks for weapons and nuka cola much more fun.

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Level of detail

Comparing the level of detail of the above two scenes gives an idea of just how graphic the next Fallout game could be. Imagine if after slotting a gang of raiders, your weapons are still covered in blood. With the new Creation engine, battles also affect the environment. This could be interesting given the level of violence Fallout battles usually entail.

Combine all of the above with the existing Fallout 3 formula and a good storyline and you have the ingredients for one hell of a computer game. Anyone even doubt it?

The New Beast

Samsung_RF511_NP_RF511_S04PL_Anglicka_verze_Figured it was time for a new laptop since the Windows recovery virus so completely destroyed my old one. Not only did it set the attributes of every single file on the HDD to hidden, it deleted every program from the start menu, kept bombarding me with demands to purchase the recovery software, restricted administrator access, disabled task manager and finally installed a rootkit somewhere that made it impossible to conduct a Google search without being directed to a random website whereupon it would re-download the virus. I managed to solve every issue except the rootkit and couldn’t find anyway to fix that one although I did trace the virus to a JRE vulnerability so deleting Java stopped it from reactivating the virus. The motherboard was failing anyway and it kept overheating and throwing up power failure messages so that gave me my cue to buy a new one. Being impatient and after failing a credit check, I finally managed to get hold of a Samsung RF511 which should keep me happy for a while.

Not a bad piece of kit – it comes with an Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 2410M (2.30GHz, 3MB), 6GB DDR3 Memory, 640GB 5400RPM SATA HDD, WXGA LCD Screen, NVIDIA GeForce GT540M (Optimus) with 1GB DDR3 Graphics memory and a few other little frills. Just don’t ask how much I paid for it, probably could have gotten better for the same price but that just wouldn’t fit with my level of patience. A quick roadtest of the machine reveals that it runs recent games (Crysis and C&C3) comfortably at maximum resolution and quality, not that I would use it for anything like that.

Friday 3 June 2011

Lady Gaga - The Edge of Glory

Looks as though unfortunately I’ve caught the Lady Gaga bug. She’s weirder than Michael Jackson,  recently had cosmetic surgery and alterations made to her face so she looks like Satan, and is probably destined to cause an epic shitstorm in the media one day but damn some of her music is catchy. And for that reason and the bizarre image she portrays, she almost certainly looks set to become one of the defining artists of the 2010s. Can’t hurt I suppose, she’s leagues better than the avalanche of complete shit we’ve had to endure this last decade.

lady-gaga-born-this-way-art-617-409

Billy Joel - The Downeaster Alexa

Absolutely love this tune, makes me feel nostalgic for the life I never led. Probably would have never listened to it had it not been on the Hangover Part II OST.

The Angry Sea

Lyrics

Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trawling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here.

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me