Month: April 2010

I watched Kick Ass and enjoyed it

When I first saw the trailer for Kickass the movie, I wasn’t sure about it but after reading Miss Geeky’s review back earlier in the month I gave it a try.

Kick-Ass is an awesome movie and one I’d recommend to anyone who likes the big action-y superhero movies. I was hoping I’d like it, but wasn’t expecting to have this much fun. Everything from story to music works in this movie and I guarantee you’ll have a great time. I so want to see it again once it’s released!

To be honest I walked away loving the movie. But what amazed me about the movie was Hit Girl. Without sounding odd, she was amazing even with a mouth of filth and I can’t believe shes only like 13 years old. Great actress to watch for the future.

Another reason why I bring up the fact Miss Geeky’s review got me interested was down to this fact, mass downloaders, spend the most on media. I’m also floating the idea that downloaders also attribution more than anyone else. Who else sticks trailers on there site and writes such detailed reviews. We’re fans and we want to see it first, again and again. Then we want to write about it and tell our friends and the world about it. If your business model interferes with this, your on to a slow looser.

The one step beyond entropy mix

The one step beyond entropy mix by cubicgarden

The mix isn’t perfect, I almost dedcied not to release it and maybe even do it again, but I changed my mind as theres a lot of new tunes in this mix. Of course there’s classic ones too. Recorded in Bristol while waiting to go out one night, I’m sure yuo will enjoy it.

Its been a while since I’ve uploaded a new mix mainly because I’ve had some trouble getting the Pacemaker editor software working in Ubuntu. I tried to get it working using Wine but it just would not work. So I had to go back to using Sun’s VirtualBox which thankfully does work.

Here’s the playlist for the mix…

  1. Salvation (Album Re-Vised Mix) – M.I.K.E
  2. Second Slience (Michael Jast edit) – Signum vs Delerium
  3. Intution (Martin Roth Remix) – Marninx pres Ecco
  4. Watch out (Extended Remix) – Ferry Corsten
  5. Junk (Body Snatchers Vocal mix) – Ferry Corsten Feat Guru
  6. Strange Bends (Kyau Vs Albert) – Sebastian Sand
  7. A New dawn (Virtual Vault Remix) – Steve Forte Rio
  8. Smack – Simon Patterson
  9. Invisible Touch (Ferry Corsten’s Touch) – Bobina
  10. Sinister (Original Mix) – Airbase
  11. Language (Santiago Nino Dub Tech Mix) – Hammer and Bennett
  12. Shivers (Alex M.O.R.P.H Remix) – Armin Van Buuren
  13. RAMsteram (Jornvan Deynhoven Remix) – RAM

What happened to Escape Magazine?

Escape Mag issue 9

From Magazine Forum,

Dennis Publishing, 1996-?

Short-lived title from Maxim publisher Dennis aiming to explore the World-Wide Web. The first issue was withdrawn for legal reasons. Jennifer Aniston was on the cover.

It was T3 crossed with Loaded, and maybe a too ahead of its time. Now you could do a whole video podcast in the style of Escape magazine, specially with the youtube and Facebook always a place for somekind of monthly excitement. Heck if you throw in the maturity in gaming and you got something quite cutting. There’s no doubt it was a lads mag but I always felt there was more to it than just the pretty lady on the front cover. It at the time was talking about the culture of electronics and culture of the internet, when dot net was still trying to hook people up using AOL cds.

Well I’m weirdly happy to say I found all the issues at my parents house recently, and going by the lack of any details online, I’m sure they will sell for a good amount to some collector. Of course if you’d like to get in on the action a head of time, drop me a email. I’d also like to scan every page one day in the future, so there is a digital copy online somewhere, because right now there seems to be nothing at all. Not even enough details to be clear that it does actually exist (remind me to add a entry to wikipedia one day).

Manchester Werewolf Chapter: PlayEverything special – 15th May

Lady with Candle next to face

Been looking forward to doing this for a long time. Imagine playing werewolf but instead of playing it in the well lit area of a bar. Imagine playing it out doors within a circle of small candles which flicker in the slow moving wind. Well dream no more, its going to happen on 15th May as one of the FutureEverything events at the Contact Theatre. Spaces are limited to 35 maximum so if you are interested please add yourself to the Werewolf group and signup for the attached event.

Like Instapaper, love ReaditLater

I was enjoying instapaper because it just works but then I checked out Readitlater which someone wrote a nice script in Calibre (if you have a ebook readder and are not using this, you should be) for. And I’m converted. Its not as casual but with things like the firefox plugin, its certainly a much richer experience and works how I tend to work. There API could also be very useful for my plans to do with semantic desktop logging or even to move things into a archive space like delicious.

HTML5 yes great but it should have nothing to do with the ipad

I’m getting a little fed up of seeing this company, that company are preparing to launch video streaming using HTML5 so they can catch the Apple ipad users.

Don’t get me wrong HTML5 video streaming is a good thing, finally we can get away from Flash and Silverlight type non-standard technology and give the user the video they require. I do wish they had sorted out the Theora/H.264 codec issue but its too late now, and both are a major step ahead of using Flash. But what gets me is that all these companies are doing purely for the iPad? I’m sure supporting the ipad is in there somewhere but to do a massive swing the other way because Apple launches a massive ipod touch?

Worrysome.

Replacing Copyright, is it time?

Ars Technica, has a nice piece about a couple of efforts to replace the current copyright law with something much more enlightened.

Suggesting something new to replace it can be a harder job, and Litman turns her attention to that task in an unpublished new paper called “Real Copyright Reform” (PDF). Part of a spate of recent reform proposals (Public Knowledge is heading another high-profile effort, for example), Litman’s quest to reform the 1976 Copyright Act is, as she acknowledges, quixotic.

“None of these proposals is likely to attract serious attention from Congress or copyright lobbyists,” she writes. “Right now the copyright legislation playing field is completely controlled by its beneficiaries. They have persuaded Congress that it is pointless to try to enact copyright laws without their assent.”

Still, academics have never limited themselves to something as tawdry as “reality,” and Litman’s theoretical work here is no exception. Her entire reform proposal is based on a few key principles: returning power to both creators and consumers, radically simplifying the law so that people can understand it without a lawyer, and beating the record companies, publishers, and movie studios about the head with a shovel.

Who might object to that? The big distributors, for one, would probably not be pleased with any plan devoted to ousting “the current vested intermediaries from their control of pieces of copyright, and return that power to the creators.”

I had a read through the PDF of Jessica Litman’s and although I found it hard to follow at first, it started making a lot of sense. The arguments and references seem to be up to scratch but as the whole piece concludes on, the fact that Copyright was never written to cover the millions of ordinary people who want to share there culture with one another. The last few extensions to Copyright have had such a massive chilling effect, maybe it is time to relook the whole damm thing from scratch, even if its going to take a lifetime it will be worth it for our children and there children.