Archive for the 'Geeky' Category

Bumptop Desktop

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

Now, this is a funky application of a desktop environment. It only focuses its interface on the icons on the main desktop window, and doesnt indicate how real operations of the icons is implemented, i assume its a simple “double click” type thing thou.
The basic premise is of a desktop which is full 3D, with each icon behaving as a physics prop. Using the mouse u are able to drag icons around, select groups and pile them, view in grids, stacks etc. It has a very intuitive look, the demonstrator often performing a number of quick tasks with simple gestures.
The demostration video is avaliable here : BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype, and while it

Net Neutrality

Monday, May 29th, 2006

I’m sure many of the geeks out here know about this Net Neutrality thing thats going on right now, but for those who dont, heres the beef.
Some time last year the CEO of AT&T asked the world why the internet should be allowed to use their pipes ( Cables transmitting the data) for free, this sent shockwaves through the internet. Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers, while web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.

This tiered system provides a number of threats as service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics

Wikimapia

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

Just a short one today (ben) ;)

A clever combination of the Google Maps interface with a Wiki backend, ive added some cardiff spots including some of our department. Looks like a neat idea, hope they fix the functionality so u can rotate the blocks around areas and suchlike.

wikimapia.org

Windows 98 Conference

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

I dont know how many geeks around will have seen this, and ignoring bens continual rants about my posting lots of mini blogs about different things, heres a neat clip from a Windows 98 Conference, the guys talking about the wonderful new feature of Plug and Play avaliable to all the users of Windoze 98… Brilliant Simple, Opulent Beauty (or BSOD).

In other news, heres a funny clip set of G Bush bloopers :)

Whats a Month of Torrents worth to the RIAA?

Friday, May 19th, 2006
French Flag

A fabulously sarcastic calculation on the losses the RIAA acheive after a single month of torrent users downloading music. The figures are taken from the $150,000 per infringment maximum allowed by the Copyright laws in the US, which incidentally are the same numbers the RIAA are using to sue XM Satellite Radio for each song their subscribers have recoreded to their Inno Player

Such sillyness always amuses, especially as this guy wrote a Java app to trawl Pirate Bay for the torrents of music in the month of Jan :)

“We have all heard how the RIAA is suing people over piracy, giving figures such as “300 million dollars a year” in

Java To AJAX

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

Google Labs have created what appears to be a clever little set o’ widgets.
Its now possible to write an AJAX enabled website using Java as its base language, which then gets translated into HTML, and Javascript. Creating a neat way of developing ajax sites without the headaches of browser quirks and odd effects.
The Kitchen Sink demonstrates all the widgets avaliable to the user, and its darn impressive, the source code is avaliable here.
I cant play with this at the moment due to exams, but its compatabilty with Eclipse is handy for me personally, but its not IDE focused. While it may not provide all the functionality you want from an AJAX site

Boozy Bill

Monday, May 15th, 2006

Mr Gates is set to build himself a dream factory, one that when running will produce 35m gallons of liquor annually.

The lucky folks of Boardman, on the Columbia river, will play host to Bill’s boozy dream factory when it opens its doors toward the end of this year.

Sadly, the factory will not be a kind of alcohol-themed Willy Wonka’s, complete with lumpy rivers of advocaat and private army of caterwauling drunken dwarves. But instead, will produce fuel-grade ethanol on an industrial scale. Gates owns a quarter stake in Pacific Ethanol, which is behind the plant. The firm aims at a land-grab in the burgeoning west coast market for renewables by fermenting sweetcorn. Makes me wonder what

Times nearly up!

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006

3 seconds past the second minute of the first hour, on Thursday the 4th day of May, Two thousand and Six.
Doesnt look that good does it?
how about like this:
01:02:03 04/05/06
doesnt happen every day… well, not quite like that anyway :D

Spread Firefox

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

Say no More…
[ Firefox Flicks ]

Count the passes

Monday, April 24th, 2006

Hey peeps, just something linzi showed me thats really interesting, watch the following video and count the number of passes of the ball between people. Dont count the bounces, just the passes.
Comment with how many passes you count

Heres the page with the video on it, it uses a Java applet for some reason so make sure uve got that installed.

Go on, go count the passes

Now once uve watched the video and counted all the passes watch the video again without counting…