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VLC hits milestone: over 5 billion downloads
5 weeks ago
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Hawkwind, Arthur Brown and more for HRH Prog festival
Classic Rock's sister title Prog Magazine is proud to present a new boutique event, the HRH Prog Festival, which will take place at the Magna Science Adventure, Rotherham, on April 6-7 2013.
It's being run by Chic Festivals, the team behind acclaimed weekend events Hard Rock Hell and Hammerfest, plus the annual week-long HRH: Road Trip to Ibiza.
The event aims to offer an interactive experience using the Magna Science Adventure's unique setting, while offering the broadest possible range of progressive music.
Already confirmed are Hawkwind, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Enid, Caravan, Mostly Autumn, TesseracT, Aeon Zen, Enochian Theory, Order of Voices and Antlered Man for the inaugural event – with many more to follow.
Chic Festivals CEO Jonni Davis says: "We have always felt that the UK market was missing a dedicated prog festival, and as huge fans we wanted to put on something that honoured the world of prog, both old and new.
"We needed a special location to house this style of event. The Magna Science Adventure, a renovated steel foundry will different interactive zones, is the perfect setting for a new experience."
More announcements will follow at www.hrhprog.com.
10 reasons Led Zeppelin will never reunite
Acclaim: Led Zeppelin in 2007
The surviving members of Led Zeppelin gathered yesterday for the first time since their acclaimed reunion show in 2007 – and offered ten reasons why they'll never do it again.
Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played a one-off concert that drew over 20 million ticket applications, although only 12,000 people saw the performance with Jason Bonham playing drums in place of his late dad John.
The three founding members answered questions at a press conference to mark the upcoming release of Celebration Day, the movie recorded on that night in London's O2 Arena.
And in the question-and-answer sessions they offered ten good reason why no one will ever see Led Zeppelin live again. See below for a clip from Celebration Day and a full transcript of the press conference.
1. It was a relief to get through the reunion show.
Robert Plant: "It's a terrible thing to say, but in truth, the idea of actually being where I am now in my lifetime, to get back in the middle of that music, was a spectacular experience. I was approaching it from a different angle, so to get through it and come out the other side was something not much short of miraculous, I think. But great fun."
Jimmy Page: "I remember walking up the steps onto the stage, and then the moment right at the very end of it. The rest of it had passed very, very quickly, actually, but I knew, and the lasting memory of it was that I knew we did what we intended to do: go out there, stand up and be counted."
John Paul Jones: "My lasting memory: getting through it all. It was pretty good. It worked out really well, but it was a relief at the end of it."
2. It's part of their past.
Plant: "We don't see each other too often, but no sooner do we start talking than some little innuendo creeps in. Some old memory pops up, and you go 'Whoa, that's one to forget!' There's lot of those things drifting around."
3. Stairway to Heaven doesn't mean what it used to mean.
Plant: "I struggle with some of the lyrics. The musicality and the construction of it is peerless. But maybe I didn't feel quite the same about the lyrics later on in life, as I got further down the road. Maybe I'm still trying to work out what I was talking about… every other fucker is!"
4. The passage of time doesn't mean much.
Jones: "Five years is five minutes in Led Zeppelin time."
5. They didn't know how to rehearse without new material.
Plant: "We didn't have any material, did we?"
Page: "Well, not really, we were just doing whatever. But it was just the intensity of what was going on: the communion, if you like, of the four of us. It was very intense, right from the start."
6. You just can't be Led Zeppelin without John Bonham.
Jones: "Jason was great – all the songs we played throughout the Zeppelin years, we would end songs in a different way to accommodate the next song. We would play something and say, 'Well, how does this one end?' We'd all look at Jason, and Jason would go, 'Well, in 1971, you did this, and in 1973, you went into this…' He had this encyclopaedic knowledge of everything, and it was just a real compliment."
Plant: "He's got some great bootlegs. Some great Beatles stuff too. He's a mine of information. I don't know which band he's going to be in next – but he's really got it down."
7. It was more fun in those days.
Page: "We weren't having to follow up a single or any of this stuff. We were there to make music. It was a much easier process – and more positive for musicians."
8. Nobody thought about reunions.
Plant: "The people we met along the way were brigands to some degree. Everybody was just having a great time, and the concept of looking back, and asking about what you said about, 'Don't you think you could do it again?' There was no thought about 'What do you think about it now?'"
9. They look back on their inspirations differently.
Page: "The very early blues and rockabilly, I can still put on and really get excited by it, now, still. Except – along the way, I think, each and every one of us, our tastes became more eclectic across the board. But it was that music that I heard when I was 12 or 13 that really seduced me. And it did a good job of seducing me."
Plant: "So many more doors have opened in the last 40 years to access singers like King Solomon Hill, and some fantastic guys from the delta who maybe only cut four or five sides. But they shaped so much for other people. Willie Brown – who Robert Johnson sings about in Cross Road Blues – I think he cut five or six sides, and he was great . But everybody was out to play all sorts of different kinds of music along with the blues. Robert Johnson used to play all sorts of stuff, including songs of the day. To me, it's a home of the heart. I really still feel moved by what their lives and their worlds and their aspirations might have been. Like we do, they came from another time. We can't come from another time, really now."
10. The journey was over.
Plant: "We just hugged each other and went: 'Pffft'. There was a real feeling of camaraderie and, actually, successful adventure, really. As Jimmy was saying, it was nuts that we didn't do any warm-up gigs or anything like that."
Page: "There was a massive party that went on afterwards. There were lot of celebrities there. They must have had a great party while we disappeared off into the evening."
Supercomputer Genius Watson Is Headed for the Cloud [Supercomputers]
This Tiny Telescope Implant Gives Eyesight to the Blind [Monster Machines]
Disk Falcon is a nice looking disk analysis app for Windows 8
There are probably a dozen or so free disk analysis tools available for the Windows operating system. These programs display a visual representation of the used disk space on a hard drive or a selected folder, giving users options to find out which programs and files are using most of the hard drive space.
What's so special about Disk Falcon that it needs to be reviewed here on this blog? The main reason is that it is the first app for Windows 8 that visualizes the disk space usage of folders or hard drives. As you know, Windows RT users can't install desktop programs at all, and even x86-based Windows 8 users may find an app useful that is highlighting the biggest files on their drives.
The first thing that you need to do after installation is pick a folder or drive that you want to analyze. Some reviewers of the app noticed that the data gathering part is rather slow, and that they'd recommend to only select folders and not whole drives for analysis.
The program was reasonably fast on a test system with a 160 Gigabyte Solid State Drive. It took a couple of minutes tops before all folders of the drive were processed.
Disk Falcon displays the data in a pie chart by default, which you can change to a bar, file type or age-specific display using the top menu buttons. Both the pie chart and bar display allow you to navigate through the structure, to look closer at specific folders of interest.The right sidebar displays color coded folders, their total size on the disk and percentage values.
The app lacks options to delete or move data right from within its interface. Considering that it displays in full screen, it is less usable than desktop programs that offer similar functionality. Regardless of that, it is the first app of its kind for Windows 8 and therefor the only option for Windows RT users right now to analyze the disk space of their system. (via Dottech)
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Skype for Windows 5.11 beta released: Messenger, Facebook integration | LiveSide.net
Skype for Windows 5.11 beta released: Messenger, Facebook integration
Sep 13, 2012 11:21 am by Kip Kniskern | 11 Comments
A new beta version of Skype for Windows has been released today, according to a blog post on the Skype "Garage" blog. It looks like we're beginning to see Windows Live Messenger and Skype come together, as the beta has support for sending and receiving messages to WLM, along with the ability to log in with your Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID):
- Sharing Instant Messages with friends with Messenger You can now sign in with your Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID), and see presence as well as send and receive IM messages from your friends who are using Messenger, Xbox, Hotmail or Outlook.com.
- Improved Facebook integration You can now sign in directly with your Facebook account log in, without needing to first create a Skype account.
- Support for 6 new languages We are excited to support our growing community around the world with new localized versions of Skype in Thai, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Catalan and Slovak, bringing the total languages Skype supports to 38.
The new beta version comes with more improvements to clean up the look, make it work better with Facebook and WLM, and offering a way to save telemetry information to help Skype improve the quality of their product:
- Sign in with a Microsoft or Facebook account.You can now sign into Skype directly using a Microsoft or Facebook account, without having to first create a Skype account, making it easier to connect with friends on Skype without needing to setup a new Skype account.
- Link Microsoft and Facebook accounts to a Skype account. If you sign in with a Microsoft or Facebook account you will be offered the option to link your Skype account. If you choose the link option then Skype will display a combined list of friends. This is an area we are still working through so please let us know about your experience.
- Updated visual design.We have refreshed and flattened the Skype UI with a simpler and less cluttered look.
- Removal of the online user count.We have removed the online user counter at the bottom of your Skype Contacts list to unclutter the UI and make more space for your friends within the contacts list.
- Display previously created profile pictures.When you change your profile picture, we will now show you all of your previous Skype profile pictures so you don't have to look through old files if you want to use a previous image.
- Improved telemetry.We are constantly looking for ways to improve the quality of our product. To that end we are adding additional "opt-in" telemetry reports for users who choose this option: "Tools>> Options>>Advanced>>Tick "Help improve Skype…" The reports may contain your Skype ID and or Microsoft Account ID but we will not use it to identify you or contact you.
You can download and install Skype 5.11 beta for Windows here. Are you using Skype? Will you consider switching from using Windows Live Messenger to Skype now that you can IM with your Messenger friends? Do you even use IM anymore? Let us know in the comments
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Neil Peart on introverts, learning to improvise, and why people should be nicer to one another - The Interview - Macleans.ca
Neil Peart on introverts, learning to improvise, and why people should be nicer to one another
Rush's drummer and lyricist talks to Mike Doherty
Photograph by Andrew Tolson
Rush's 20th studio release, Clockwork Angels, hit No. 1 in Canada in June—not bad for a steampunk, progressive rock concept album. Its story, about a young man who flees a land designed to function in perfect mechanical order, reflects the philosophy of drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. Now living in Santa Monica with his wife and daughter, the native of St. Catharines, Ont., is preparing with his long-time bandmates, bassist-singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson for a concert tour that starts next month. At a Toronto rehearsal studio, he granted a rare interview about musical integrity, freedom and his fight to escape precision.
Q: Thirty-eight years ago you joined Rush, and the next day you went shopping for instruments for your first tour. What are your memories of that time?
A: I remember all of us riding in the truck down to Long & McQuade [a music store in Toronto]. What a young musician's dream, to say, "Look at those chrome drums. Look at that 22-inch ride cymbal. I'll have those." It was one of those unparalleled exciting days of your life.
Q: Did you feel you were embarking on a great, lifelong journey?
A: No, nothing like that. When I was young, my ambitions were very modest. I thought, "If only I could play at the battle of the bands at the Y, that would be the culmination of existence!" And then the roller rink, and you work your way up branch by branch. Whereas if you're [thinking], "I want to be a rock star"—those kind of people just want to know how they can start at the top, and they're doomed not even to get to the bottom.
Q: That said, the hero of Clockwork Angels, called Owen Hardy in the novelization [by friend and science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson, to be published in September], says, "I can't stop thinking big."
A: Ah, the classic dreamer, and one of the lovely distinctions that Kevin and I wove over the character with reflection to our own pasts. When I was in the band J.R. Flood in St. Catharines, where we were doing pretty well, I said to my bandmates, "Let's go to London [England]." I did, on my own, but it surprises me to this day that no one wanted to go with me. I went hungry and wasn't finding fame and fortune as quickly as I'd fantasized, but there was nothing daunting to me at the time. Like Owen, I did stumble into things, and a trail of events that could not have happened otherwise in one sense led me toward the person I am today. I lived away from home for the first time; I got a real job and proved myself in a workday situation, and thus I was never afraid anymore. As crises came up later on—"Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this," I'd be like, "No, I don't have to."
Q: It sounds ideal—having had such a long career without ever needing to compromise.
A: Well, it's an unending and awful battle, because sometimes you're up against everybody in the whole world—even your friends and family are saying, "You need a single." You feel sometimes incredibly alone. When we first got into the professional music business and saw how calculated people were, we called that "the sickness." We grew up in the '60s where music was for music's sake. To us it was pure, and dedicated to getting better, and all of the good ambitions that later became subsumed in the "progressive" moniker.
Q: It seems as though now, with your full-length concept album, Clockwork Angels, you're swimming against the musical tide.
A: Yeah, but it grew from the bottom up. The reverse is how we worked in the '70s: I would think of a grand plan and then build the pieces to fit it. This started as a simple [idea]—the steampunk image and aesthetic I liked, I suggested to the guys as the basis for some kind of extended work. It built up to [the album] piece by piece by organic expansion. All the music was created by Geddy and Alex jamming in the studio, and many of the lyrics were just extemporized over email. There's so much life experience in this story—it's not just a far-blown fantasy. Wish Them Well [offers] a very mature response to the world that it took me a long time to learn. In a lot of our early stuff, my lyrical inspiration was anger, for sure. [laughs] There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people too, you constantly think, "If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better." They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.
Q: You've mentioned being influenced by Voltaire's Candide and John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor—both humorous works. The album's lyrics, however, are rather dark.
A: They have to be. People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung. I love jokes as much as anyone, but I don't want to hear my snail jokes [he's collected 16 so far] every day. But I might want to hear a good song every day. We're just about to film comedy clips like those we used on the last few tours, and of course we necessarily have to ramp them up every time into more ambitious things. To me, the highest expression of life is art with jokes. It's very rarified, very difficult to accomplish if you want to be more than just funny, and more than just jokes about human gaseousness.
Q: Is there a link between writing about a land that's meant to function like clockwork and your goal to become a more spontaneous drummer?
A: It's absolutely coincidental. I have been on that campaign for four or five years. [In the past], my ambition was not a humble one, to try to play with superhuman perfection in the studio and then reproduce that every night. Once I had defined myself as a compositional drummer, I thought, "Well, I want to be an improvisational drummer." I think in the recorded drum parts on this album, you can sense the excitement and danger: "This guy never played that before, and he just barely made it." I'm going to cut myself completely loose this tour; I'd always composed and choreographed a tour solo and then improvised within that framework, and this time, I'm throwing that out.
Q: Are you afraid of disrupting generations of air drummers who've memorized the classics?
A: The old stuff will remain. A song like Tom Sawyer I don't need to change. It's always hard; it's always satisfying. Why mess with it? And I play some of those songs now so much better than I did then, because I was approximating a style and a feel that now I understand.
Q: Rush received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award in May. What was it about giving an acceptance speech that made you nervous? After all, you play for several thousand people night after night.
A: I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. Standing in front of a microphone where every word or every slip that you make, especially in these times, is with you forever—you want to say the right thing. I fell into having to extemporize, and it came okay because of tools I've learned. I said [to myself], "Remember [to mention] mom and dad."
Q: You have a reputation for being a private person, but in your blog posts and memoirs, you're quite forthcoming. In some ways you're the most open member of the band.
A: It is true, but I'm less comfortable in a gregarious social situation, and you can be introverted and still share everything. It just means that you're guarded. Certainly there is a line that seems perfectly clear to me about what's to be shared and what isn't, but it's not always so clear to others. Extroverts never understand introverts, and it was like that in school days. I read recently that all of us can be defined in adult life by the way others perceived us in high school. I know [people] who had the popular, good-looking path in high school; they tend not to do so well. It was a little bit too easy for them, where for those of us who struggled in every sense, perhaps our determination and self-reliance and discipline were reinforced by that.
Q: Clockwork Angels deals with concepts of fate, circumstance, and free will, which you've been writing about throughout your career. What are your thoughts on these issues now?
A: I remain the optimist: you just do your best and hope for the best. But it's an evolving state of mind. I still totally believe in individual rights and individual responsibility and in choosing to do good. On the liberal side of things, they go to an extreme of how people need to be led, and they can't handle freedom. Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, "Oh look at that—why doesn't he get a job?" While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly. A realization I had lately: it is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It's philosophically absolutely opposed—if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That's when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave. You just become adaptable and try to lead a good life in ways that make sense, regardless. Because I know at the end of it, if I'm going to meet Jesus or Allah or Buddha, I'm going to be all right.
Fill Disc Scratches with Peanut Butter [Video]
Friday, September 7, 2012
This Is the Most Expensive Penny in the Universe [Space]
Thursday, September 6, 2012
New Neil Peart Interview with MacLeans' Magazine
During Rush's current rehearsals in preparation for the Clockwork Angels World Tour, Neil Peart granted a rare interview with MacLeans' Magazine where he discussed a number of topics including his early days, musical integrity and the question of faith.
The article, titled Neil Peart on Introverts, Learning to Improvise, and Why People Should be Nicer to One Another, was conducted by Mike Doherty. Below is an excerpt from the interview:Q: "...the hero of Clockwork Angels, called Owen Hardy in the novelization [by friend and science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson, to be published in September], says, 'I can't stop thinking big.'"Neil also touches upon some more 'controversial' subjects regarding fate, circumstance, and free will to which he responds:
A: Ah, the classic dreamer, and one of the lovely distinctions that Kevin and I wove over the character with reflection to our own pasts. When I was in the band J.R. Flood in St. Catharines, where we were doing pretty well, I said to my bandmates, "Let's go to London [England]." I did, on my own, but it surprises me to this day that no one wanted to go with me. I went hungry and wasn't finding fame and fortune as quickly as I'd fantasized, but there was nothing daunting to me at the time. Like Owen, I did stumble into things, and a trail of events that could not have happened otherwise in one sense led me toward the person I am today. I lived away from home for the first time; I got a real job and proved myself in a workday situation, and thus I was never afraid anymore. As crises came up later on—"Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this," I'd be like, "No, I don't have to."
Q: "It sounds ideal—having had such a long career without ever needing to compromise."
A: Well, it's an unending and awful battle, because sometimes you're up against everybody in the whole world—even your friends and family are saying, "You need a single." You feel sometimes incredibly alone. When we first got into the professional music business and saw how calculated people were, we called that "the sickness." We grew up in the '60s where music was for music's sake. To us it was pure, and dedicated to getting better, and all of the good ambitions that later became subsumed in the "progressive" moniker.I remain the optimist: you just do your best and hope for the best. But it's an evolving state of mind. I still totally believe in individual rights and individual responsibility and in choosing to do good. On the liberal side of things, they go to an extreme of how people need to be led, and they can't handle freedom. Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, "Oh look at that—why doesn't he get a job?" While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly. A realization I had lately: it is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It's philosophically absolutely opposed—if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That's when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave. You just become adaptable and try to lead a good life in ways that make sense, regardless. Because I know at the end of it, if I'm going to meet Jesus or Allah or Buddha, I'm going to be all right.Click HERE to read the entire interview.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
A Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your Computer [Video]
Fw: Is it Bad to Shutdown My Computer Regularly or Leave It On All the Time? [Ask Lifehacker]
http://lifehacker.com/5940176/is-it-bad-to-shutdown-my-computer-regularly-or-leave-it-on-all-the-time
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
List of Chrome URLs and their purpose
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/09/04/list-of-chrome-urls-and-their-purpose/
Just like Mozilla Firefox or Opera, Google Chrome ships with a set of internal URLs that you can access for various purposes. From displaying internal information to downloads, looking up crashes or the browser’s experimental features that you can enable to test them out, there is something available for anyone here.
But which pages are available, and what purpose do they serve? The first thing that you need to know is that all ChromeURLs begin with chrome:// followed by one or multiple words afterwards. Multiple words are always hyphenated and URLs never include spaces or special chars in them.
You can display the list of Chrome URLs by loading chrome://chrome-urls/ in the browser. While that gives you a list of available pages, it won’t provide you with information on what purpose they serve, and not all pages that are available actually. You can obviously load them one by one to find out, or look at the list below for faster results.
List of Chrome URLs
- chrome://appcache-internals – Information about appcached sites, including how much space they use.
- chrome://blob-internals – Displays analytics about blobs (Binary large objects)
- chrome://bookmarks – Opens the browser’s bookmarks manager
- chrome://cache – Displays all cached items, websites, images and scripts
- chrome://chrome-urls – Displays this list. Can also be loaded with Chrome://About
- chrome://crashes – A list of all recent crashes. Only available if you enable crash reporting first
- chrome://credits – Technologies that are included in the browser, their licenses, and who has created them
- chrome://dns – If prefetching is enabled, then information about the prefetching is displayed here
- chrome://downloads – The browser’s download manager listing all past downloads
- chrome://extensions – Displays the installed extensions
- chrome://flags – Displays experimental features that may or may not be integrated into the browser at one time or the other
- chrome://flash – Detailed information about Chrome’s Flash integration
- chrome://gpu-internals – Information about the video card and supported features, e.g. hardware acceleration
- chrome://history – Opens the browsing history page with options to clear the browsing history or look through it to find a page that you have opened in the past.
- chrome://ipc – Information about Chrome’s inter process communication
- chrome://inspect – Option to inspect elements, such as pages or extensions in Chrome
- chrome://media-internals – Displays media information when you play media
- chrome://memory – Displays the browsers processes, and the memory usage of all webbrowsers opened on the computer
Hackers claim proof the FBI is tracking Apple mobile devices
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/04/hackers-claim-proof-the-fbi-is-tracking-apple-mobile-devices/
FORTUNE -- Toward the end of a bizarre rant that begins with a quote from Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and ends with an off-color suggestion -- in German -- for the Republican candidate for President ("Romney aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!") the anonymous AntiSec hacking group gets to the point:
During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of "NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv" turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.
The statement says the data were released Tuesday -- with some identifying information removed -- to alert the public that, in its words,
"[unprintable] FBI IS USING YOUR DEVICE INFO FOR A TRACKING PEOPLE PROJECT OR SOME [unprintable]"
Note that the hackers don't say they have obtained Apple IDs, passwords or credit card numbers.
Still, if the claims are to be believed, users whose addresses, cell phone numbers and iOS device IDs made their way from Apple's (AAPL) servers to an FBI agent's notebook computer deserve an explanation.
No comment so far from either Apple or the FBI.
The hackers, for their part, say that no further statements or press interviews will be forthcoming until Gawker's beat reporter for two rough-and-tumble social media sites, 4chan and Reddit, is pictured on Gawker's front page dressed in a tutu with a shoe on his head. "No tutu, no sources."
No comment so far from Gawker.
You can read the AntiSec post in full here. Warning: It contains language unsuitable for polite company.
Via: The Next Web.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Fw: Play classic Atari arcade games in your browser
Ah Atari, what a big name they were back in the beginning days of computer gaming. I had my first experience at home with the Atari 2600 system and classics like River Raid, Frogger, Pong or Pitfall, as well as arcade games such as Arkanoid. I had lots of fun playing those games alone and with friend, and am grateful looking back that my parents restricted the play time as I'd otherwise would have spend all my spare time playing them.
Microsoft in an effort to promote Internet Explorer 10 and touch devices has teamed up with Atari and GSkinner to recreate modern versions of classic Atari games. While designed to promote Internet Explorer 10, the games should run in other web browsers as well. You may however see a small ad when games load that mentions that you get the best experience when you play it in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10. The very same message appears if you load the games in older Internet Explorer versions as well.
I did however experience another issue in other web browsers that made the games barely playable. Eventually, the game screen would change and ask me to rotate the device, which obviously can't be done on a desktop PC. There was no way to continue playing the games. This changed after I switched to Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8.
The following games can be selected on the arcade website:
- Asteroids
- Centipede
- Combat
- Lunar Lander
- Missile Command
- Pong
- Super Breakout
- Yars Revenge
All games can be played alone, while Combat, Missile Command and Pong support multiplayer as well. The games play directly in the web browser supporting both keyboard and touch inputs. If you are using the keyboard to control the game, you can use the WASD or cursor keys to move, and space to interact.
The games feature modern graphics and play reasonably well in the web browser. You can register an account at the site to save high scores and play the multiplayer games with your friends.
It is definitely fun to play a game or two of the games, but once you have done that, you are probably craving for games with more substance. Still, if you want to relive some of your childhood memories or have a classic game of Pong against your buddies, then this may be exactly what you are looking for. The screen rotation error needs to be resolved, as does issues for users who run the Windows XP operating system.
Other than that it is pretty nice to see what HTML5 and JavaScript can bring to the table game-wise. Oh, and if you want to see high end contents using nothing but HTML5 and JavaScript, you can take a look at this demo. (via Caschy)
Classic Amiga demos in HTML5
After discovering this HTML5/JavaScript demo by Alcratraz a few days ago I have started to look closely at the technology and what it makes possible. When I bought my first Amiga 500 back in the days I quickly started to follow the demo scene, and there especially the music that talented musicians like Dezecrator, 4-Mat, Romeo Knight or Jester produced.
A big part of the demo scene were intros, not only crack intros that were displayed before the actual game as some form of credit and advertisement for a group's bulletin boards, but also intros that were released on their own or as part of disks. Yes, trading back then was not limited to games and apps, but also pure demo-scene productions.
I just stumbled upon We Are Back (WAB), a website that is brining back classic Amiga intros in form of HTML5 and JavaScript conversions. The creators suggest you load the intros in Chrome as it is providing better performance than other browsers. While that is certainly true, I did not experience any issues watching those intros in Firefox.
The website displays a list of 50 or so intros that various authors have converted from their original Amiga format to HTML5 and JavaScript. The majority of intros feature visuals and sounds, while some unfortunately only visuals. Back then, intros did not need to have sound necessarily, especially if space was very limited on a disk. Disk? Yes, games were released on disks back which were limited to 880 Kilobytes.
All available intros are listed on the main page from where you can make your selection. It would have been nice if the original groups were listed on the page. Intros start to play right after you have clicked on one .
You can't change the volume of audio on the page or pause an intro which is definitely something that the operators of the page should consider adding to it to make it a more comfortable experience. It is a trip down nostalgia lane for those of use who experienced the scene back then first hand, and an opportunity for people who missed it all to get a glimpse. Then again, it is likely that the majority will be shocked by the audio-visual quality.
Talking Heads awarded ‘greatest concert movie of all time’ gong by Total Film
David Byrne: better than Rocky Shades
The Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense has – perhaps controversially – been named the best gig movie ever by Classic Rock's sister magazine, Total Film.
Total Film says Stop Making Sense is its No.1 choice because:
'The rock gig is deconstructed as Jonathan Demme captures the innovative staging of a Talking Heads gig, from solo performance to full band to David Byrne dancing in an oversized suit.
'Best song is the the opener, Psycho Killer – just Byrne, an acoustic guitar and a drum machine whose staccato rhythms cause the singer to stagger around like a murder victim.'
The Band's The Last Waltz came in at No.3 in Total Film's chart, followed by Gimme Shelter and Woodstock.
The Top 20 is as follows:
1. Stop Making Sense (1984)
2. The Last Waltz (1978)
3. Gimme Shelter (1970)
4. Woodstock (1970)
5. Awesome; I Fucking Shot That! (2006, feat. Beastie Boys)
6. Don't Look Back (1967, feat. Bob Dylan)
7. Meeting People Is Easy (1998, feat. Radiohead)
8. Monterey Pop (1968)
9. Buena Vista Social Club (1999, feat. Wim Wenders, Ry Cooder and veteran Cuban musicians)
10. Jazz On A Summer's Day (1960)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. Elvis: That's The Way It Is (1970)
13. The Kids Are Alright (1979, feat. The Who)
14. T.A.M.I. Show (1964)
15. Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2006)
16. Let It Be (1970)
17. Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (2002)
18. The Song Remains The Same (1976)
19. Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1973)
20. Soul Power (2008)
Head over to the Total Film website to see their full Top 50.
Surprisingly, Wrathchild – Live From London isn't mentioned anywhere at all in the poll.
Clockwork Angels: The Novel Released Today
via Latest Rush News from Cygnus-X1.Net by Jag2112 on 9/3/12
Clockwork Angels: The Novel, the official novelization behind Rush's latest concept album of the same name, is now officially available.A remarkable collaboration that is unprecedented in its scope and realization, this exquisitely wrought novel represents an artistic project between the bestselling science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson and the multiplatinum rock band Rush. The newest album by Rush, Clockwork Angels, sets forth a story in Neil Peart's lyrics that has been expanded by him and Anderson into this epic novel. In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life. The mind-bending story is complemented with rich paintings by the five-time Juno Award winner for Best Album Design, Hugh Syme.Author Kevin J. Anderson also posted a detailed report on his blog about the world premiere launch of the novel in Toronto last week. Included are numerous pictures of the event and an interview Kevin had with Quill & Quire.
To order your copy of Clockwork Angels: The Novel, click HERE.
Related News Stories
[Clockwork Angels: The Novel World Premiere Launch Coming August 23rd - August 10, 2012]
[Clockwork Angels Novel Preview Booklet Now Available for Download - New Artwork Revealed - August 9, 2012]
[Clockwork Angels: The Novel Special Autographed / Numbered Editions - July 23, 2012]
[Clockwork Angels: The Novel Official Press Release - Neil Peart to Narrate the Audiobook - May 29, 2012]
[Clockwork Angels Novel Artwork Revealed - May 11, 2012]
[Clockwork Angels Novel Now Available for Pre-Order - March 19, 2012]
[Novelization of Rush's Clockwork Angels to be Penned by Kevin J. Anderson - February 09, 2012]
Freshwater Jellyfish: Species of the Week
Sent to you by SysopChris via Google Reader:
via News Watch by Brian Clark Howard on 8/31/12
Freshwater jellyfish: don't worry, it won't sting you. Photo: OpenCage/Wikimedia Commons
Freshwater jellyfish have been spotted in Ohio ponds, alarming locals and surprising old timers. The local Newark Advocate quoted Frank Snelling, who has lived in the area for years, as saying, "I told him, 'You better drink a beer. There aren't jellyfish in Ohio.'"
Actually there are, because small freshwater jellyfish (Craspedacusta sowerbii) are native to Ohio as well as many other parts of the world. Marty Lundquist, a fisheries biologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division, told the Advocate that his agency gets called about the small jellies every year.
Lundquist said the jellyfish like to live in ponds with good water quality, and that they usually hang out near the bottom. They prefer calm water and are also found in flooded quarries and lakes. They enter new habitats as polyps stuck to vegetation or birds, or transported in bait buckets.
The freshwater jellies do have stinging cells but they are so small that they usually don't hurt vertebrates (the whole animal is only about 1 inch (20–25 mm) across).
The jellies live off copepods and other zooplankton, which they paralyze with their ring of 400 slender tentacles. They pull their prey into their mouth, which hangs below the translucent bell. Freshwater jellyfish may have a whitish or greenish tinge.
These small animals have been reported in many countries around the world, from Thailand to India to Brazil, and in most U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
Like many jellyfish, this species has a complex lifecycle that includes a polyp phase, a larva phase, eggs, and the most familiar, the medusa (the one that looks like a jellyfish). When conditions get tough, they can wait it out in a dormant resting phase at the bottom.
So next time you take a dip in an old quarry or swimming hole, see if you can find any one-inch freshwater jellyfish. They won't sting you, and they're part of a healthy ecosystem.
Learn about the golden jellyfish in Palau's saltwater lake>>
See amazing jellyfish photos>>
Freshwater jellyfish prefer slow-moving, clean water and can be found all around the world. Photo: J. Michael Tracy, Wikimedia Commons
Brian Clark Howard covers the environment for National Geographic. He previously served as an editor for TheDailyGreen.com and E/The Environmental Magazine, and has written for TheAtlantic.com, FastCompany.com, PopularMechanics.com, Yahoo!, MSN, Miller-McCune and elsewhere. He is the co-author of six books, including Geothermal HVAC, Green Lighting, Build Your Own Small Wind Power System, and Rock Your Ugly Christmas Sweater.
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Sunday, September 2, 2012
"RUSH - "Headlong Flight" - Official Lyric Video"
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| chrislively3 has shared a video with you on YouTube: The official lyric video for "Headlong Flight" - the first single from the new album Clockwork Angels - available everywhere June 12th. Pre-order here: http://amzn.to/I75qAy | |
| © 2012 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066 | |
"RUSH - "The Wreckers" Official Lyric Video"
| | help center | e-mail options | report spam |
| chrislively3 has shared a video with you on YouTube: The official lyric video for "The Wreckers" - the new single from the album Clockwork Angels | |
| © 2012 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066 | |
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