Still not here June 9, 2008
Posted by krisN in Internet, Misc.Tags: Band, Opium Toad, Scraps
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I just thought I would post a reminder that I am here, but not doing it here.
Mostly though I wanted some more recognition for my band’s website (opiumtoad.com) which is getting abused by Google at the moment. They so mean!
Of course I’m still maintaining the blarg over here.
So yes, that is it.
Moving off to my own domain August 14, 2007
Posted by krisN in Blogs, Happenings, Internet.add a comment
I decided to move this blog to my own domain lackingthewords.com as I’d like to have the extra layer of control over my blog and its not like domains are expensive. Since I already have hosting for tehdurka it was easy enough to add it on to that and although setting things up has taken a little while everything has been going ok. I’m hoping to write some stuff people might actually want to read in the future (wow, think of that!) and hopefully develop some steady traffic. Maybe I’ll see you there, metaphorically speaking, of course…
BBC iPlayer Beta July 31, 2007
Posted by krisN in Entertainment, Happenings, Internet, Technology.add a comment
Well the BBC opened up the beta for the new iPlayer a few days ago, I signed up for it on the day it came out and got accepted yesterday. I’ve been excited about it for a while, the idea of on-demand BBC programming is a very nice one in my mind. Having given it a bit of a spin I guess I can talk about it a bit.
When I was accepted I got an email telling me my username and password, which are both rather awkward and pretty much impossible to remember (and I think impossible to change). I headed to the website on IE (since its not firefox or any OS other than XP friendly) and logged in, through what seems like a bit of a strange pop-up box similar to what you get when logging into FTP. I had to run a few activeX controls but it seemed to be working.
When it came to downloading the first show I first had to download the library which is the part of the program on my computer which manages all the downloading and viewing of the material. After dealing with some connection problems (Firewall etc) I finally got into downloading the first show. It was kinda difficult to tell whether it was actually doing anything though as everything seemed very inactive for a while. You don’t get any info about your kb/s or how many peers you are connected to (it uses P2P technology, presumably to lower strain on the BBC servers) so its difficult to know whether its not working or whether its just slow.
As well as the snails pace downloading my computer had basically ground to a halt as well and I couldn’t really do anything. I tried to close the iPlayer but it wasn’t working. I just got pissed off and reset the computer and didn’t start it back up until a while later. When I did start it up I was pleasently surprised to see that the first of the shows had finished and the others were getting there. This is pretty strange considering that the program hadn’t even been running but I guess it was a blessing really.
At this point the app seems to be quite clunky and slow but otherwise ok after the original crushing of my computer responsiveness. To be honest I think the whole system needs a complete re-write as it seems completely incompatible with other browsers and operating systems in its current form. The BBC are getting a lot of flak for having it only available for windows XP users and although I didn’t think it was such a big deal since they have basically just targeted the biggest demographic to get it ready sooner the way it seems to operate doesn’t seem to be very multi format friendly. Ultimately it needs to turn into something a bit more like Joost, with no need to go fiddling around in IE to download the shows. I think this will make it easier to put it across different formats and hopefully make the application a bit better in itself.
I just finished watching last weeks episode of mock the week, which I missed. The iPlayer uses windows media play to play the shows, its not exactly the greatest player ever made but it works and I’m familiar with it, which is something. At the moment the iPlayer is a bit bare and clunky but I’m hoping with time it will turn into something more enjoyable to use.
Fuck – internet a danger earlier than I expected July 17, 2007
Posted by krisN in Entertainment, Happenings, Internet, Rants.1 comment so far
Just got home and spotted that Harry Potter 7 has been leaked onto bit torrent. That really makes my fucking day.
I had already planned it out, I wouldn’t dare look at the internet once the book was out, or even leave the house, or anything for fear of getting hit with a spoiler. Now I have to live in fear until I can finally get my hands on it, or I torrent the book and start reading. But I really don’t want to do that.
It was only just a couple of days ago that I read that it was surprising it hadn’t been leaked yet and now it has. I’m not sure that there is anything I can do without finding spoilers. There are fucking bastards on the internet and given that this is the last book there are going to be some uber ripe and juicy spoilers just ready to spread onto the net. I really don’t know what I’m gonna do.
Not to mention people are going to start shouting random fake spoilers, at least if you know that no one other than Rowling knows the spoilers you don’t have to worry about random people making comments as you know its all bullshit. Now anything could be true but its not even going to be as fair as that. Enough people will say the real spoilers that it will be obvious.
AGGGHHHH.
I really don’t know what to do here, I don’t want the book spoiled but at the same time I don’t want an internet lockdown for the rest of the week. I’m not sure anything is safe, I can’t stumble or look at digg or anything. It’s all at risk now.
Damn it.
If only nobody cared I wouldn’t be at risk.
And yes, I am writing as though it is some kind of contagious disease – because it is. You only have to look once and that’s it everything gets ruined, its like how you can’t un-see anything (and hence why you should never click any links), you can’t un-read anything either, or un-hear for that matter.
I feel like I can’t do ANYTHING. There’s a reasonable chance that people at school will have found the spoilers, probably just to go around shouting them just to fucking piss people off.
I can’t even do things that would normally take my mind off impending doom such as play Wow, or…yeah…browse the internet.
I guess I either have to accept that its going to be ruined for me, hide till it comes out or torrent it and do nothing but read until I finish it. UGGHH!
That is really not the kind of decision I want to be making.
“Armchair psychology” March 25, 2007
Posted by krisN in Blogs, Internet, Life.add a comment
I quite like that term. I think we all like to do a bit of it every now and again, the internet seems to be great for it. At the moment I am quite enjoying reading http://www.thegirlwho.net although just because of what is going on in relation to other people, namely http://lundone.blogspot.com/ and input from http://www.violentacres.com. However against what the title suggests I’m not going to engage in any of that type of psychology. Perhaps because I don’t sit in armchairs very often, either way it is merely pleasurable for me to sit here and watch this fascinating series of events (although granted I only just caught on from reading about VA talking about enjoying watching it). This whole thing I find very entertaining, as do quite a lot of other people and I reckon if I were to try and take any kind of serious look at it it would just be stupid, so I’m not going to.
In other news I’ve copied up most of the dreaded King Lear coursework, tomorrows I intend to seek advice from my teacher about it and then add the finished touches, alongside finishing off my sensors physics coursework before Easter and then I’ve got a long time to finish off the handling data. If anyone were to ever read this (doubtable) then you wouldn’t really have any idea what I am talking about, all it really matters is a previously large mound of work is becoming a nice bit smaller and that is always good.
Lacking the words 