Total Eclipse of the Flowchart
Aug0
Originally from jeannr, who is obviously far more witty than I.
What can I say other than “Awesome?”. It’s Total Eclipse of the Heart… in a flowchart!
Button It
Mar0
Apple, it seems, have a thing against buttons. For many years the Apple mice were famous for having only one button. The iPhone and iPod Touch have their world-renowned touchscreens. The new MacBooks have no discreet mouse button, opting for a single huge clickable glass trackpad. Rumours abound of a new Apple netbook with a touchscreen.
iPod Shuffle 3G
It should come as no surprise then that Apple’s latest incarnation of music player, the iPod Shuffle 3G, is completely devoid of buttons on the player itself, sporting only a single switch with the positions ‘off’,’shuffle’ and ‘play in order’. To actually drive the thing you need to use the included headphones with in-line remote, which sports three buttons for ‘volume up’, ‘volume down’, and ‘everything else’.
It’s not big and it’s not clever.
Feb0
I’d like to extend my personal thanks to whichever dick decided it would be a good idea to – in a drunken stupor no doubt – hit one of the fire break glasses in The Junxion at just before 1am today. As they are no doubt aware the fire alarm system treats the breaking of one of these glasses as a genuine fire and tries to evacuate the entire building and not just the block in question. Since this was the event which woke me from my peaceful slumber prior to my 9am lecture today they deserve my most heartfelt congratulations for currently being top of the list of people I want to see die slowly from smoke inhalation in a real fire.
I would also like to thank the assholes who think it’s entertaining to walk through the courtyard at 1.27am, 2.14am, 2.43am to 2.58am, 3.30am, 3.36am and 3.52am shouting, singing or yelling “yerwotyerwotyerwot” at the top of their voices. Your harmonious cacophony helped prevent me from getting back to sleep once awoken by aforementioned fire alarm. However, those numerous attempts to prevent me from staying awake during my lecture today pale in comparison next to whichever monumental twat decided to play Womanizer by Britney Spears, Up by The Saturdays and Single Ladies by Beyoncé at 4.08am, at full volume on what sounds like quite a powerful (if low quality) sound system, in a room not too far from my own. Truly, drunken students are the height of civilisation and evolution.
I still want to kill all of you.
The Great Broadband Surcharge
Jan0
Apparently our favourite government is considering changes which would basically levy a £20 per broadband connection surcharge to help prop up the inherently failing business model of the music and film industry.
Whilst this isn’t a tax which goes straight to the content producers, its purpose is to fund an agency:
The agency would act as a broker between music and film companies and internet service providers (ISPs). It would provide data about serial copyright-breakers to music and film companies if they obtained a court order. It would be paid for by a levy on ISPs, who inevitably would pass the cost on to consumers.
Given that all my music, films and TV episodes are legally purchased via the wonderful iTunes store, can I earn exemption from this? Or by paying this can I somehow get given a complementary £20 worth of content from iTunes?
This is of course in addition to the upcoming almost certain announcement that every house has a legal right to broadband internet connectivity (huh?), no doubt another place for taxes to vanish in providing a government-subsidised internet service for people who don’t want it.
Why are governments even allowed to contemplate things involving technology?