You can teach an old computer new tricks

There are lots of novel uses for old computers; this radiohead mashup done with a ZX spectrum (My first computer) is super-dope:


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

As is this rendition of Funky Town, running on a C64 and dot matrix printer:




And for all those who thought that the ZX spectrum had crap graphics and sound... you are right. But look at what some leet Russian demoscene hackers have coded up - very nice, especially when you know how limited that old hardware was/is:

Left brainers and overthinkers...

... should read this post to help boost their creativity. Nice ideas.

10 Ways to Help Left Brainers Tap Into the Best of Their Creativity

http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2008/07/right_ways_of_w.shtml

The joys of F1

Its great to be here in Europe and be able to watch F1 at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately the broadcasts are in Dutch. My good pal, ATech, often gives me a skype audio feed, as everyone shares the same video feed.



This is us doing some serious F1 watching. This time, ATech was getting the video from me - the webcam pointing at the TV. If you look closely, you can see him enjoying it.



I love that I can download (cough) onboards, lap data, as well as the ITV coverage, and run them all in sync the next day. Pain to setup sometime, but great once lined up. I have been thinking of attempting to weave them into matroska files sometime.



This is ITV on one laptop, onboards on the other. Awesome.

Bill Gates sign-out

So, Bill has hung his hat up at Microsoft. For all that I don't like about Microsoft, I can't deny that they did kickstart the PC revolution, so I have to respect that.






Your philanthropic activities give you more kudos and enjoyment then that whole borg / spawn of satan thing. Respect for giving your $$ away :)

fsck that damn chkdsk

Something is wrong with my disc check.. I think...

The Royal Dutch Football Team

...have an awesome new website.

http://www.onsoranje.nl



With the Euro Cup this year, the Dutchies need a site to get all the latest info (as well as plenty of Dutch adverts :/ )


Ruud van Nistelrooy gives it the thumbs up! Thats a PDA running windows mobile and opera over wifi. the touch screen approximates the ease of the iPhone. sorta. Anyway, what a nice site! (except that slow panning image at the top, the flash banner, can give you a headache if you look at it for too long. )

The legendary SID chip:

Computer games don't affect people. I mean, if video games affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.

Not sure whos quote this is, but I think its very true - the last part, that is - that those awesome music tracks that the old 80s games paved the way for modern electronic music.

Well some guy, Stone Oakvalley, build the most extreme rig to authentically record the entire SID collection, stripped and collected from C64 disc images etc. (Remember that the files are digital, so its still bit-perfect) He then built a PC mesh and associated custom hardware to control, load and playback the SID files into multiple real C64 hardware, then playback and record in real time. He cut no corners - 100% original C64 hardware, in all major SID revisions, converted to high quality MP3. And the best thing is that all the songs are available to listen to online.

This rig and associated site is exceptionally geek-tastic. All you nerds worth your salt, this is worth looking even if only for the "OMG that is extreme dedication" factor.

Check it: http://www.6581-8580.com/soasc_background.htm

So to the SOASC= crew: My hat is off to you guys - this project rules in a way that have maximum respect for. One of my personal faves would have to be last ninja, I spent hours in front of that game! I got a feeling someone linked me this recently, but I didn't give the site time to sink in - if so, i got there in the end :)

Puts my C64-DTV to shame..