My Life

My life, in four comic images.

Toshiba still haven’t responded over my laptop, apparently Toshiba shuts down at the weekends.

[update]According to the repair status website, my laptop repais has been “announced”. Anyone have any clue what that means?[/update]

Surely I Don’t Have To Think Up A Title For *Every* Blog Post?

I’m getting a new bed to replace the glorified hammock that I’ve slept on for the past year. It arrives next Thursday and I’m quite excited. It should be noted the woman and child pictured are not included.

In other news, I suddenly thought last night; does anyone care? Who gives a rats ass whether I’m getting a new bed or not? Who am I typing this to anyway? I get like 2 visitors a week to this blog, and all they care about is telling me how to downgrade Wine on Ubuntu, even though I’ve explicitly said that I’m about to return to Fedora (which by the way rocks!).

I think I need to talk to the Emacs Psychiatrist (as my human psychiatrist is next to useless).

I’ve Got The Freebie Jeebies

Capitalism never fails to amaze me . The question is, are companies so desperate for our custom they’re willing to give away free products just for signing up to a free trial? Amazingly, the answer is yes! A friend of mine has just received a brand new Xbox 360 through one of the many sites that offer free stuff just for signing up to a few marketing websites and free trials. I admit to being completely amazed that it actually worked (and I realise there’s no way I can assure you it’s not a scam, because in doing so I make it sound even more dodgy! But for what it’s worth, the offers are real and the Xbox 360 I played on this morning was very real )

The whole system depends on referring friends, which is problematic for me as most of my friends are make-believe, and the few real ones are about as helpful as a dead camel.

So if you appreciate my reviews, and wish to show your appreciation, simply sign up to Freebie Jeebies through this link and together we can get that Xbox 360 Elite. It’s in you hands, you can make it happen and in return I will review every item in my studio. Ever wanted a direct comparison between £10 Behringer preamps and £5000 SSL preamps? Desperate for impulse responses from an SSL G series EQ or compressor, or the lush reverbs of a Lexicon 960L or (slightly less lush) Lexicon 480L? How about a video tutorial or effectively integrating hardware studio equipment like large desks and outboard equipment, with a DAW like Pro Tools or Ardour? You can make it happen ! Heck… I might even upload the Mackie VLZ3 and Allen & Heath Z reviews that I’ve been promising for so long.

It’s completely free to do, I think the best offer to signup for is the LoveFilm offer where you get sent DVDs. Just cancel within 14 days (and send back the DVDs ) and there is absolutely no charge whatsoever. And of course once you’ve signed up you can get friend referrals for your very own piece of high definition gaming.

So sign up now, and together we can reach that Xbox 360. And let’s be honest, if this guy can swap a paperclip for a house, surely I can get a free games console!

On a completely unrelated note sometimes I get people asking me to write reviews or tutorials for certain hardware/software, so if you want me to write a review of some audio equipment just drop me an email.

Enter the friends referral scheme and get free stuff…, no really…, honest I’m not kidding or anything!

At Last, Someone Gets It

Now’s a great time if you like to get music for free. Record Labels and artists finally seem to be waking up to changes in the music industry and realising that giving away albums for free will create far greater buzz (especially for smaller less established bands) than usual promotional channels ever could. This translates into more people coming to see these bands live, which is the only place where the band might actually turn a profit. There also seems to have been a slow realisation that DRM does not work! It only serves to criminalise the legitimate user and restrict the listening enjoyment of the very fans who gave the artists (and labels) any measure of success in the first place. I can only hope that through campaigns like the Free Software Foundation’s “Defective By Design”, all the CRAP (Content Renumeration And Protection) is removed from music.

So I’d like to personally thank the likes of The Charlatans (You Cross My Path), The Crimea (Secrets Of The Witching Hour) and Nine Inch Nails (The Slip) for allowing the world to enjoy their music in a less restricted way.

On a technical note, special kudos must go to Nine Inch Nails for releasing their latest album in both 16bit/44.1kHz lossless FLAC and 24bit/96kHz PCM Wave. My Bittorrent client is chugging away as I type and I can’t wait to listen to NIN in all 24bits .

Computers Suck, But Fedora Rocks

As I type my much loved laptop is in the hands of a trained monkey at Toshiba awaiting repair. My laptop wasn’t perfect, she couldn’t quite manage hardware virtualization on her Core 2 Duo, her paint job was fading and her screen brightness was not as uniform as when we first met; but I like to think we had some good times together. Unfortunately her power supply was unable to cope with her demands and caused untold damage during its final hours. And now, as she awaits her fate inside a crowded warehouse I don’t mind admitting that I miss her. The old Athlon XP 2000 on which I am forced to write this, comes a pale second place.

The only thing to raise my spirits is the imminent release of Fedora 9. Despite a small delay (it wouldn’t be Fedora without last minute jitters), Fedora 9 should hit the mirrors on Tuesday 13th May at around 10am Eastern Time and satisfy my upgrade urges for another 6 months. There’s an excellent video from Linuxfest 2008 where Jesse Keating talks through some of the cool new features in the new Fedora (here). I can only hope that Toshiba get off their asses, fix my laptop and get it back to me in time for the launch of Fedora 9. I’ve suffered through using Ubuntu for too long !

Incidentlly, if any Toshiba employees are reading this, as much as I like my old machine if you wish to just send me a new one instead, that would help the grieving process a lot !

Possibly The Best Frame Of Snooker Ever Played

The final frame in today’s match between Ronnnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams, is quite possibly the greatest frame of snooker that has ever or will ever be played. It is impossible to imagine anyone ever playing the game better than Ronnie did in that frame. The shot at 07:15 is certainly the best positional shot in snooker you will ever see. As much as I hate to agree with Willy Thorne, if he can make a shot like that, he deserves to get the maximum, and win the world championship.
It also marks the most maximums made in tournament play, beating the record previously held by the great Stephen Hendry.

Watch Ronnie’s Record Breaking Maximum Break

Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Go To SAE London

Some guy’s uploaded a few photos to Flickr entitled “Reasons why you shouldn’t go to SAE London” which I guess only adds fuel to the SAE inferno. I should add that these are not my photos and a lot of the abuse aimed at SAE is often ill-advised and ill-informed.

I don’t particularly hate SAE (despite the somewhat controversial article I posted on my previous blog :p ), I just think there’s better ways to spend nearly £7,000 a year! In my humble opinion, most of the problems don’t lie with the institue itself, but the people who study there. I would say the vast majority of people I meet at recording schools like SAE, have little to no interest in the technical aspects of what is after all, an engineering profession. They’ll happily lecture you on how to get the “phattest” beat, deepest bass or grungiest guitar, but discuss the concept of phase cancellation in balanced cables and they’re completely lost. There’s nothing wrong with “just wanting to make music”, but don’t spend thousands of pounds on a course which claims to teach you about audio engineering (and often fails to do that).

I Have Way Too Much Free Time

I don’t know why, but today’s Garfield cartoon made me laugh more than usual. And since I’m largely unemployable, I figured I’d blog about it :p

How Much Is An Online Identity Worth?

What has gone so terribly wrong with society, that people will pay $1,025 (at the time of writing) for a twitter account?

I’m happy to accept offers for my own twitter account… anyone?

[update] Clearly Andrew Baron is not great at sticking to decisions. After some deliberation (all publicly on twitter of course) he’s decided not to sell his account after all:

You have my promise, I will not ever sell this acct. There is still plenty of fun to be had, however & many more questions need to be asked.

Personally, I think he’s mad. if someone offered my over $1000 for a twitter account, they’re welcome to it. I don’t think my two followers would be too cut up . [/update]

Big Buck Bunny

• Do you like films?
• Do you like free stuff?
• Do you like free films?

For anyone who’s unsure whether open source software can be used in the creative industries, check out the new open source film (released under a Creative Commons license),“Big Buck Bunny” that premiered this week. After the wonderfully surreal Elephants Dream, Big Buck Bunny is an altogether cuddlier affair with all the production values of a big budget blockbuster. The incredible high definition quality of both Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny is phenomenal, and these two short films are the most powerful and accessible advert for open source and creative commons available.

Big Buck Bunny is available to pre-order on DVD, and will be freely available to download shortly.