Quality web development in the Sheffield area
Well, if you’re looking for some quality web development in the Sheffield area, I could do worse than recommend Rich Gwilliam, Sheffield Freelance Web Developer par excellence. Yeah, there’s some vested interests there, but the fact remains if you want a website doing for reasonable moneys, you could do a lot worse than hiring him. Ahem. You will also find blogs there of a technical nature and yet strangely similar in literogical style to the content you are so richly satisfied with at this fine webstop.
He’s dashing and suave, too.
Ahem.
“You are here”, AKA the Newswipe theme tune
Fans of minimal electronica (it’s not quite a chiptune, I think) and Charlie Brooker have no excuse not to listen to this:
It’s the full majestic eight minutes of the Fortdax remix of Nathan Fake’s “You are here”, both the perfect news theme tune and the perfect name for a news theme. Although the Newswipe version’s basically distilled one of the best bits, I still can’t stop listening to it in its entirety, and you should too.
Next in our series of OAPs kicking arse…
Okay, it’s an old one but oh my god still funny.
You stay classy, South England.
Jesus fucking christ. Flagged on b3ta last week;
Oh yeah. I’m not sure what I think of either of them, but apparently I’m sufficiently desympathised to find it absolutely bloody hilarious.
Four free games you may never tire of
Sustainability is a hot issue these days, so in the interests of efficiency here’s a list of awesome games that write themselves as you play them.
Spelunky
If you haven’t played Mossmouth’s freeware randomized Indiana-Jones-em-up, you absolutely should. Broadly speaking a cross between vintage platformer Rick Dangerous and one of your granddad’s rambling yarns that change every time he tells them, Spelunky is a prince among procedural games purely because every game you play is golden. Play it, you’ll die. A lot. And every time, you’ll love it. It’s being re-developed as a commercial XBox Live indie title, but is still (and will remain) available free for Windows. Because Mossmouth still got love for the streets.
Dwarf Fortress
Tarn Adams’ sprawling epic Dwarf Fortress isn’t for the faint of heart. The vanilla version sports nethackesque ASCII-only graphics, though veterans hold that after a while you don’t see the code. It’s like the Matrix, with dwarves and the capacity to build infernal contraptions that drown invading armies with freshly pulped cats. It takes the form of a random-terrain basebuilding sim in the vague style of Dungeon Master, though the unbelievable depth and flexibility in it means you can basically make your dwarves do whatever sadistic savagery tickles your fancy. If it’s all a bit daunting, you can follow the sexiness of Captain Duck’s honeyed dutch tones in his tutorial series on getting started in the game. You’ll probably need it.
Canabalt
Why is Canabalt man running? What are the shadowy monstrosities looming in the distance? I’m a twenty-seven year old man with eighteen years of gaming behind me, why can I never get the fucker to go through a window? Why does adding a fourth question break the narrative flow? Another impossibly addictive free game that’s been catapulted into the commercial market, Canabalt was recently ported to the iPhone. Seems bound for success, given Canabalt’s headlong single buttonry is instantly addictive, lasts about thirty seconds before inevitable plummeting death, and can hold you captive for about the length of a moderate bus journey. Hit the button to make your running man jump, to hurtle through and over buildings in twitch-inducing accelerating parkour. Check out the free flash version at Canabalt central.
Probability: 0
You’re a man. As you descend into the pit, surrounded and assaulted always by red-eyed fiends, your constantly dwindling chances of escape are displayed at the top of the screen in such cheery idioms as “Probability of seeing your family again” and “Parallel universes in which you still live”. When you hit zero, you die, you swear, you compulsively start again. A nice touch is the ability to start with Talent (moderate abilities but no advancement) and Potential (no starting perks but the potential to level up past the abilities of a Talented character). Though statistics show that if you select Talent you are a dogfucker. Go and fuck your dogs at the official thread at TIGForums.
Warning Forever
Wow, this is a grandaddy of procedural games, with the respectable pedigree of all Hikware shrumps. Three minutes on the clock, infinite randomly-constructed bosses and the ability to piss fire like an demon with herpes. Die and lose time, kill a boss and claw a little back. That’s really all there is to it; it was released in 2003 and didn’t tax the hardware then, but its neon-tinted apocalypse looks like like it was built yesterday. If you’ve got the p300 and DirectX 7 it demands, you can pick it up at the official site.
I will admit, he does transmit…
BALLS. I just bought a power ball. It’s allegedly a fantastic way for nerds to exercise their pale, bandy little arms – so hopefully I’ll soon be looking like this guy:
Yeah, keep watching there, it gets funnier. Respect to the guy, I know I’d never be able to do that near a mirror. I particularly like the choice of music – “I’m coming home again to you ’cause you’re my only friend”. Indeed.
And because it’s awesome, and it’s Balls:
Lily Allen only hates pirates because her dad looks like one
Well I think I speak for all the not-entirely-legal music downloading community when I say “Oh fuck, Lily Allen’s weighed into the piracy debate“. I think she might have been panicked by International Talk Like a Pirate day. Lily says, and I quote:
Seeming to imply that the evil rich overlords of music are indifferent to the suffering of mediocre musicians. Hm, I can’t imagine why Lily would be bothered by the trials of the bland, the mundane, the humdrum purveyors of beige music. Not at all.
I’d just like to point out here that while it’s certainly not ideal for the desperate muso, I should imagine that any musicians who’d genuinely be pushed over the poverty line by their sales dropping are probably saving a fortune on their own music collections by Limewiring the shit out of that bitch. In fact the only people I’d say should be concerned about the loss in profits are the cocaine dealers of the semi celebrity pop idol winners.
Not that I’m claiming torrenters are guiltless. It is taking somebody else’s work without paying the requested fee – which is pretty unreasonable for something which, when all is said and done, is entertainment. At the very least it’s impolite. The point, however, is moot, and not one Lily should be worried about. The people with a real stake in this are the pushers, the dealers, the recording industry gods like Sony and EMI who’ve built up a massive advantage over the competition. Although they’ve certainly got the resources to construct a new medium that works for both artists and consumers, it’s never going to be quite as profitable for them as the status quo.
The current situation is, as far as I can see, simply massively influential bodies clinging by the fingernails to a dying medium that has been paying their amphetamine bills for decades. Artists weighing into the debate are simply footsoldiers who have been convinced they have something to lose. Chill out, Lily. There’ll always be teenage chavs. I don’t think anyone can say that the current setup is particularly great for anyone save the suits who run it.
The simple fact is that these megalithic entities have been acting like such pricks to artists and fans alike over the years, they realise nobody would give a shit if they turned up their heels in the wake of the revolution. So they use puppets, like Lars Ulrich, Patrick Wolf and, indeed, Lily Allen, to promote their cause. The visionaries who can see the change in the wind are capitalising on the situation; you only need to see the sales figures on In Rainbows to realise that even if “pay me what you like” isn’t a sustainable paradigm, you can certainly capitalise on that kind of shenanigans.
The future belongs to the innovators. Imminently, a new way of distributing entertainment will be demanded; Big Music’s leverage is slipping. Without it, compromise will be needed to bring customers and artists into their fold. Possibly after someone’s explained the concept of compromise to them. In the meantime, fresh blood, the Spotifies and the like will be surging ahead, becoming new giants, earning the right for the next decade or so to be total and complete arseholes.
Just a quickie.
In a month in which I’ve posted no, count them, NO articles, my readership has skyrocketed to a massive 33 views per day. What’s the secret?
I’ve had a massive influx of searches for “Doctor Manhattan Blue Penis”, presumably coinciding with the release of Watchmen on DVD.
So I’d just like to add: PENIS PENIS PENIS MICHAEL JACKSON MEMORIAL DISCOGRAPHY PENIS.
That should do it.
“Too soon”, volume one in an inevitably long-reaching series; In Which Flopsybuns Delivers A Fairly Inappropriate And Hypocritical Eulogy.
I’ve been playing with Google Insight today. True to its name, it held a few surprises for me.
Not least that the fourth most popular Google in the UK this week was “google”. Come on, country. Get your act together. I’m not the most organised, or even conscious person, but I’ve never asked someone to their face where they are. I suppose it’s the next logical step in windowlickery from hunting for my glasses when they’re on my head – so long, sunday afternoon, I’ll never see you again – but on a national scale I can’t help but feel this is unacceptable.
Even more depressing is that seventh worldwide rising search is Jade Goody. The press blitz of coverage of the “tragic” pseudo-celebrity was inevitable, and even the fact that the usually level-headed Guardian gave it front-page reportage stimulated little more than a stifled groan. The press can’t account for this kind of showing though. There’s only one logical conclusion; people of the world are actively searching for news on… her. I’m not going to be overly unkind here. A woman is dead, and her genuine family and friends are grieving. They should stop reading here.
Jade exemplified a subculture of consumers who want nothing more than fame and attention, at the expense of dignity, privacy and wellbeing. It’s worrying that so many people desire it so badly (he said, typing into his unpaid weblog), but ultimately understandable compared to the mass hysteria and schadenfreude that possess those who follow them. My own theory is that these reality stars give the public the opportunity to feel superior to some of these glamourous characters, and illustrate that it could really be anybody – and in being the everywoman, Jade excelled.
Her eulogy and tribute is loud in the press this week, not so much on the lips of the people in my own experience. Maybe this unequal treatment is because her presence in the zeitgeist was the pure result of the media and PR insisting she was interesting, rather than genuine relavence. I’d like to believe that the british tabloids felt some twinge of regret at the way they publically treated a human being, though she was nowhere near the least deserving or worst treated of the victims of ravenous and unscrupulous journalists. I’m fairly certain though that they were just bleeding the last column inches from her life. Jade Goody lived to be a celebrity, and died famous. Now let’s all move on, and read a little less Heat magazine.
