Apple today acquired Emagic creators of the popular Logic audio apps. "Macintosh-based products account for over 65 percent of Emagic's current revenues. Emagic's Windows-based product offerings will be discontinued on September 30, 2002". Ouch!
Just my bloody luck, I finally get ADSL in and two days later Audiogalaxy gets taken down by the RIAA. Macslash are here to help though with a Post-Audiogalaxy round up of what the P2P community has to offer Mac OSX.
If like me you own a Jap/US Gamecube you'll have been suffering from the dearth of A Grade titles from Nintendo since Christmas. Well the flood gates are about to open over the next couples of months with more potential classics on the way than you can shake a stick at. First out of the traps is Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Nintendo's first atempt at taking on the "mature" gaming market. The couple of reviews i've read so far have both used the words "one of the best games we have played..ever", so fingers crossed for when it turns up from DVD Box Office.
This years entries are up at the5k.org. Unfortunately it looks like the efforts to shave off those last few bytes have meant an end to any cross-platformification. The current leader of the pack is an awesome windows IE only version of Wolfenstein 3D. This tiny, jerky little bitmap miracle has to be seen to be believed.
I'm not even sure how it's done, it appears to be redrawing a single graphic on the fly and the code looks like javascript. Some of the comments mention xpm and xbm, but googling for those doesn't turn up much other than that they're graphics formats. Can anyone satisfy my curiosity?
Update: I've put a slightly de-obfuscated version of the code here for anyone who wants a look, and click comments below for a little bit more detail on how it seems to be done.
Here's a gaggle of IA links for you:
Brave little Gumby to pilot Crayola Crayon video rocket into the stratosphere! [via boingboing]
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You know that weblogs have left the domain of geeks and teenagers when Ru Paul gets one. He writes about "cunty she-mails" from "ignorant bitches"! He let's us know he's going to "back that ass up for a high colonic"! I'd swear it was a parody site if it wasn't so nicely put together. [via haddock.org]
Thanks to Apple's OS 10.1.5 now even IE features Quartz rendering. The 7.2 MB download is available here, although the page is a bit vague on details of the improved features.
At the risk of being controversial, does anyone else think Quartz rendered text is actually harder to read and a bit too blurry? (I'll just go dig my asbestos suit out of the cupboard).
The Snoopers' Charter gets delayed. Lets see what they try and sneak through in the second draft.
Xicons.com have launched a new Open Source section to their website, the aim of which is to provide free icon designs and resources to OSX opensource developers.
Not only are they going to record everything you do, say and everywhere you go online or with a phone in your pocket, but now they're going to let everyman and his dog have access to the information at the drop of a hat. I mean what possible justification could there be for Consignia having access to this data?!? Go on, get writing!
Hot on the heals of Mozilla 1.0 comes an Alpha version of Mozilla 1.1, now including Quartz rendering under Mac OS 10.1.5. Other improvements include DHTML performance enhancements, faster start-up, improved download manager and better drag and drop support. The 17mb download is available here.
On a similar subject I just installed the Orbit 3+1 theme for Mozilla. You'll either love it or hate it, Its possibly a little too colourful and fussy for me but it sure does make a change from the drab themes that ship with the standard installation.
OSX 10.1.5 is available through the OSX Software Update app. Can't find an installer yet on Apple's website, I'll post a link when i do. Update: Standalone Installer available here.
Whilst searching for the new Biosphere release Shenzhou (sample) I stumbled across New Order circa 1982 'video 5-8-6' (sample).
Apple has released a public preview of Quicktime 6 on their website. This latest version of Quicktime finally provides MPEG-4 support straight out of the box. Other supported technologies include JPEG 2000 and Flash 5. The OSX installer is a 10MB download. Apple also announced that they will be selling the eMac to the general public as of today, previously it was only available to educational customers.
Usability guru Jakob Neilsen, author of the essay 'Flash: 99% Bad' is to help Macromedia sell their decidedly non user friendly Flash software.
Haha! just been on the news: Buckingham Palace caught fire after Ozzy Osbourne finished rehearsing for the jubilee concert. Coincidence, or Ozzy's infernal influence? You be the judge!
Unbelievable, I don't know if any of you have been following the story of MacSlash losing their domain name, but it seems it's all been down to an iTools email account. Supposedly anyone with a mac.com account has their email pre-filtered, without their knowledge, for spam. Someone in their greater wisdom at Apple has decided to add domain name registration company Dotster to the list of blocked spammers, and thus MacSlash never got their renewal notices and have had their .com domain hijacked by a Spanish guy called Vicente Peiro Crespo. I haven't read the fine print on Apple's iTools conditions but it seems pretty amazing to me that they not you choose what and what isn't spam on your own mail account.
Fantastic, France 0 - Senegal 1, this can't last. It did, final score 0-1. The world champions get trounced by the African underdogs.
As a vague tie in with Matt's post below. Textism presents 'Manual', 17 essays by web writers on the subject of 'How To..' in PDF format.
O'Reilly's forthcoming book Essential Blogging is up for public review! You can download 9 of the 10 chapters as PDFs. The book mainly covers the ins and outs of the major players in blogging software. So it might be a bit less relevant to those of us who roll-our-own, but with bloggers like Rael Dornfest and Cory Doctorow contributing there's bound to be one or two chapters worth a read. Which clumsily segues into the fact that Wiley Wiggins is currently guest blogging over at bOingbOing.
You thought the gamecube screens looked tasty? Check out the jaw-dropping Doom III teaser screenshots and overview at gamespy. Please say that's in-game footage! [via slashdot]
I hate to sound like an 18 year old corporate whore, but Jeff Mills really is playing an absolute fucking blinder on John Peel's show at the moment, ( so much so that John Peel effectively just let him play for the whole show ). Live at the Liquid Room Tokyo has to be one of the greatest mix albums of all time and one of my favorite CDs.
The E3 flood has started, check out the following incredible Gamecube screens at CubeEurope. Metroid, Star Fox, Mario, Zelda, Wario World and Mario Party 4. Are they not the best looking games you've ever seen? And via Nintendophiles, 1080 and Monkeyball2.
The sudden and suspicious deaths of 11 of the world's leading microbiologists. via News of the Dead.
Spacewar, the very first video game, celebrated its 40th birthday yesterday.
They said they expected 50,000 on day one.
They shipped 150-200,000 copies (to match Sony's Hard Drive unit shipments). I guess they got more than they bargained for... people have reported sell-outs across the country and it seems like every man and his Tarutaru cannot register because the servers are so busy. I've been trying for 3 hours so far. I hope this is not the future of online entertainment! Come on Square!!!
Maybe I missed them, maybe they weren't posted on the usual sources, but if like me you've missed these OSX driver updates for Microsoft's excellent IntelliMouse and Internet Pro Keyboard then here they are.
More Apple goodness in the form of Xserve. Fancy one of these babys sitting on your shelf?
In a shock pre-E3 announcement Nintendo have revealed their plans to take Gamecube online by this Fall. Nintendo says that both a v.90 and a broadband modem will be released for Gamecube, both at a low pricepoint of $34.95. The first online enabled game looks set to be Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II from Sega.
VersionTracker.com has today launched a new subscription service called Version Tracker Plus. For an annual fee of $19.95 the subscriber gets access to a range of features includeing personalised watch lists and the abillity to toggle Ads on and off. One of the listed features i find a little odd however is the 'view previous days software', you can already do this through the standard website so lets hope they arent going to start reducing the functionality of the normal service in a bid to win your subscription.
Forget your lilly-livered skate prank videos. After 3 years of filming, a Las Vegas filmaker brings you the real face of street stunts. Roofus the Stunt Bum is the star of Bumfights!
From a faq session on the official aphex-twin site:
Q. Have you worked with anyone else on this album? A. Yeah,at the beginning of 1997 I adopted 3 goats on my farm in scotland and taught them how to write music,I upgraded one of the goats at the end of 98' with a hoof mod and its fucking serious man/woman.
So much for the worldwide simultaneous release counteracting piracy, Attack of the Clones is out on DivX already.
Whilst checking to see if Hayao Miyazaki's Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) had been released on DVD yet, i stumbled across the almost unbelievably awesome Studio Ghibli DVD Player which is destined to come bundled with some versions of the DVD.
Steve Jobs promised today that OS 10.2, code named 'Jaguar', will ship by end of Summer. This next major upgrade to OS X is set to include handwriting recognition, an improved Mail app and iChat instant messaging as well as 'Rendezvous' networking technology.
Don't know if this will spell doom or boom for Microsoft but apparently Xbox piracy is finally on it's way, the only stumbling block being the lack of a Mod chip. Any bets on how long it will take one to appear out of Hong Kong?
Limited edition artworks of stills from the movie Waking Life are available at wakinglifeart.com. via Wiley Wiggins.
Just helping Dean Allen of the fantastic Textism to Google bomb Verisign as part of the on going saga with his friend Leslie Harpold and her lost domain name.
USB Still Camera Driver 1.01 supports L'Espion cameras under OSX. Pluging the L'Espion in to a free USB port starts up iPhoto ready for an import, no more booting up Classic.
Last week, Penny Arcade let loose a rumour that Nintendo were going to announce something big at E3... something big that wasn't going to be just another (amazing) game title. Soon after, some guys on the GameFAQs Gamecube Message Board sussed out that this was related to display peripherals.
So then everyone started puzzling over 3D display technology, including the lame attempt that Sega made in the arcades, way back when, with Time Traveler. Well, it seems like the guys at MediaFuzion might have cottoned onto something much more concrete. It seems Nintendo have made a bit of a slip-up and dropped subtle hints in their own screenshots. This one, in particular, shows us some "doubling" at work, which could well be used in conjunction with some 3D specs to bring us "ultra-realistic" three-dimensional graphics, the like of which have not been seen since Muppet*Vision 3D!
Designed for the education market Apple today released the eMac. Featuring a 17" monitor, and 700mhz G4 processor this could be a big hit in it's target market. It's a shame Apple can't bring a 17" iMac to the normal user on the street like all those rumors had suggested. Insanely Great Mac have an interesting take on the story.
It's often said that scientists have little taste in aesthetics, so it should come as no surprise when a budding tech slave, Yoshi DeHerrera, comes up with something as ugly as this: Yoshi's Boxx. Basically it's a collection of nextgen consoles and a custom PC with random factor Atari 2600 and NES thrown in there to fill the empty space. The fact that he's put a custom PC and an Xbox in the same box strikes me as a waste of space - he could have fit a Dreamcast, Saturn and Megadrive in there instead!
The Long Bets Foundation turns the less-than-noble pursuit of gambling to noble ends with it's focus on long-term forward planning for the good of mankind and our environment. It encourages the refinement of critical thought by asking those on both sides of the debates to put their money where their mouth is.
Most of those involved are Wired luminaries or at the forefront of their fields, but there's the odd curveball with Ted Danson even getting involved for a more short-term, whimsical bet. Though with minimum stakes of $2000 none of the bets are made lightly.
If Quiter is to be believed then tomorrow Japanese Gamecube magazine Dengeki will reveal the existence of previously unannounced Mario and Zelda games from Nintendo. If true it will mean that Gamecube will be seeing 2 Mario and 2 Zelda games within the next year.
I've said recently that I've been extremely impressed with Mozilla 0.9.9 on OSX, and that it's now my default browser. Well, Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1 has just been unveiled and we're one step closer to the full release of Mozilla 1.0. I'm just off to download it, if anyone else has done so already post some comments on how it looks..
Apple has released the latest point upgrade to OSX, check in Software Update for the 2.2mb download.
Update 10.1.4 delivers improved networking, security, and additional disc recording device support. Specific enhancements include:
Disc Recording Devices: Updated and new support for Fast 10 SCSI drives, including the Pioneer 201 drive. Expanded support for SmartDisk, EZQuest, and LaCie disc recording devices.
Networking Improvements: Dial-up connections over PPP are more reliable and system responsiveness has been improved. Significant improvement to file searching on local and remote volumes. Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) services can be browsed on networks with 3Com routers.
Security Update: BSD-based TCP/IP connections now check and block broadcast or multicast IP destination addresses.
I was searching for a link to an excellent Bergeresque documentary by Piers Plowright called Ways of Hearing which I just watched on BBC4 when I came across BBCi Experimental Music.
Someone has discovered a one of a kind 'Stealth Mac' in a barn in Boulder Creek, California.
Richard Linklater's animated film 'Waking Life' sees it's UK cinema release this weekend. I think Matt may have mentioned it in the past, but I just saw a short documentary on it Sky News is running and have been completely blown away. The film is of special interest to Mac users as it was made on a host of G4s. Footage was shot by a small crew as normal live action on DV camcorders. The footage was then converted in Quicktime, before being passed through rotoscoping/animation software on the Macs to give it a comic book look. Waking Life is a series of vignettes exploring the boundries between reality and dream worlds, communication and human desires. It opens in cinemas across the UK this Friday, and receives its R1 DVD release on the 7th May.
I came across the Covers Project while reading up on all this web services malarkey (since it has an XML-RPC interface). It's much fun, basically a database cross-referencing which recording artists have covered each other, and charting the longest interconnected chain of covers in the process. What's great about it is that it's still fairly incomplete. I'd added a Nirvana cover of Devo's Turn Around, and a Beastie Boys cover of Minor Threat's Screaming At A Wall within my first couple of minutes.
Unfortunately the interface is slightly lacking in places. There's no easy way to report an incorrect entry, and no verification of your additions as far as I can see (some poor soul has entered Madonna's Material Girl as being a cover of a KMFDM song). It'd also be nice to have some kind of logging of who's entered what, but it's still good fun and I'd guess it's only early days. Test your pub-quiz knowledge and see how many you can rack up.
Further to yesterday's post, it seems that Google's Web Service is now officially open. Or at least ready for testing and tinkering. Oreillynet is punctual as ever with Rael Dornfest's comprehensive tutorial on how to get started. There's a devkit available for download from Google with sample SOAP requests/responses and Java and .NET bits and pieces to set you off on the right path. You'll also need to sign up for an account since they're sensibly limiting developers to 1000 requests per day, and 10 results per response while still in beta.
Speaking of mr. Dornfest, I'd heard his name bandied around before, but hadn't quite linked all his achievments together. He's the man behind the small and perfectly formed Blosxom weblog app. He's also behind Oreilly's Meerkat RSS newsfeed portal. And last but not least there's his excellent Raelity Bites blog (See the "Googling for Rael" sidebar for an early-adopter application of the API).
Oh and by the way, the post before this was number 300. Hooray for us! Have a browse through our archives for a taste of our not-so-long and prestigious history of cutting edge reportage.
One of the best nights of my life involved seeing Arab Strap live, cheap Whisky, a flying kebab, a half ton block of sandstone, my bleeding head and my girlfriends tears in the moonlight. If you've never had the pleasure then get over to Arab Strap's 'official' website, the MP3 page has a couple of CDs worth of MP3s to download, half of which are previously unreleased or rare demos and sessions etc. The files are all high quality rips and the music is all up to Arab Strap's usual exceptional standards.
Note: I just noticed the album tracks are only 30 second samples, but all the rare stuff is still good to go :)
O'Reillynet has an interesting piece by Tim O'Reilly about what the thirteen-thirtyseven geeks are saying are the technologies to watch in the days to come.
The roll-call is low on revelations, but towards the end Tim goes into a discussion of the relationship between custom web-spidering and web-services. The gist of it being that we're going to see a lot more of the big database sites (amazon, imdb) providing low-to-no cost web-services similar to that which Google seems to be planning on offering with the recent announcement of it's beta RPC interface and API.
Tim also covers many of the same topics from a slightly different perspective in this interview with infoworld.
I can't even begin to explain or describe this without spoiling it, so just click the link and praise Panasonic for Hi-Ho.
More l'espion fun this afternoon, landing joiner. Think I might try sticking to flatter subjects in the future.
I got me some Evangelion Kubricks off Tracy for Christmas, JonnyRam's Tron ones look ace though. Wonder if they glow in the dark?
Ozzy and family are taking the US by storm with their reality based TV show The Osbournes. The show has apparently just given MTV it's highest first quarter ratings in history. Wonder when we'll be getting it over here in the UK? via metafilter.
I've been using this version of Mozilla for OS X all night and I have to say I'm really impressed, it's a little slower to render than IE 5.1 but the tabbed browsing more than makes up for it. Think I'll stick with it for now.
After my previous mini joiners I thought I'd have a go at something a bit bigger. Switching to lo-res mode on the l'espion gives 80 shots, which although pretty useless for anything else are just about right for doing a big joiner. Anyway see what you think, room joiner, and no comments about the decor :)
Its been quite a week for announcments from Nintendo. First they announced the release dates for the first Super Mario game in 5 years. This was followed by news that PS2 exclusive Timesplitters 2, created by the former Goldeneye team at Free Radical Design, was also due for simultaneous release on Gamecube. Mario Party 4 and 1080 II recieved their Japanese release dates, but possibly the most important announcment of the week was that Monkey Ball creator and EDGE contributor Toshihiro Nagoshi's Amusement Vision division at Sega would be developing, one of the jewels in Nintendo's crown, F-Zero for Gamecube and arcades.
One of my brothers in arms has come up with a little ditty about friends in our industry... "Why do programmers pick their noses?" is the resulting anthem. Give it a listen and why not drop by his portal and big him up while you're at it.
Warp are taking to the road with their Magic Bus tour. The line up includes Keith Tenniswood, Mark Bell, Plaid and Prefuse 73 among others, although Warp's website doesn't make clear which artists are playing which venues. The tour hits Traveller in Newcastle on the 1st of June.
Poor old Finlay Dobbie the self confessed Mac evangelist and frequent contributor to Apple's Darwin system core has been given the chop due to the fact that he is only 15 years old.
I got a l'Espion digital camera a while back after seeing Matt @ Frownland recomending them. This camera is the size of a box of matches and dangles from the end of a key ring, so obviously the image resolution is pretty crap. In an effort to extract a modicum of extra resolution out of mine I've taken to making mini Hockney style joiners. Here's some I took today in Northumberland, Crag Lough, Tracy and Steel Rigg, taken at 2° 23' W 55° 0' N
I saw Darren Aronofsky's Pi for the first time last night. I'd been meaning to see it ever since getting Requiem For A Dream on DVD but never managed to get round to buying it. For those who haven't seen it it's the Kafkaesque story of a mathematics genius and his all consuming search for the meaning of life through mathematical theory. During the course of the film the main character, Maximillian Cohen, visits his old college professor to play Go and talk maths. I was thinking while watching that I'd always wanted to know how to play Go, anyway to cut a long story short guess what popped up on memepool, Go, Go, Go, and if you're feeling social, Go. The film comes highly recommended too btw.
This ridiculous reuters article being linked to by the usual suspects made me laugh. Apparently the use of handheld electronics is causing a mutation in youngsters hands making the thumb their most dextrous digit! I quote:
"In her research, Plant noticed that while those less used to mobile phones used one or several fingers to access the keypad, younger people used both thumbs ambidextrously, barely looking at the keys as they made rapid entries."
Hmm, so to reiterate: people who are used to doing something are better at doing it than those who aren't? Well no shit sherlock.
The guys at Goshu Trading have converted a Mac SE 30, (a machine with no hard drive), to run OSX. via Wired.
I've probably been living under a rock but I hadn't actually realised that these are real human corpses!
I used to love adventure gamebooks so it's a real treat to find this collectors lovingly maintained site which lists just about every one I ever had. The ones I remember best are the Choose Your Own Adventure books, TSRs Endless Quest series, Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy books (of course), and my personal favourites Be An Interplanatary Spy, of which I owned all but the last 2.
The Fighting Fantasy list has relatively few for some reason but the unofficial fightingfantasy.com has ridiculous amounts of information. No cover scans though for some reason.
Gamebooks are sort of a spiritual counterpart to interactive fiction so it's cool to see there was even a Zork series!
What strikes me as odd though is that they're all such obvious contenders for being given a new lease of life online, yet one of the few things I can find that comes close is Jerk Your Own Adventure.
After our extended hiatus we're back like a pantomime cow, with a refined back-end and a cheery new front-end. The two main changes you can actually see are the new playlist sidebar, and the absence of the registration and login system. You should now be able to post comments with a minimum of hassle. Just give a name and away you go. There's also a new "about us" page with a little about who we are and how to get in touch.
As always, if you spot anything untoward or have an idea for a feature you'd like to see on the site, drop us a mail at info@pixelised.com. Oh, and let us know what you think of the changes too.
Grand Royal magazine puts forth the argument that the word "Mosh" has it's origins in hardcore, more specifically HR of the Bad Brains and his admonitions to "Mash it up!".. who'da thunk? If only the print version of Grand Royal had kept going longer. 6 or 7 issues was nowhere near enough. To ease the loss there's more bits and pieces from the online verson here.
Just to let you know the site re-design has turned into a re-build. I've re-designed it and Matt's got to re-build it, hehe..
Christmas and a possible impending re-design have caused our brief hiatus, normal service will resume soon :)
Visit the archive if you wish to skip merrily through time in a devil may care fashion.
