Last year, during my time working in industry (a year out as part of my University degree to work with a company doing something computing related - it was worth 10% of my final degree), I started running quite a lot.
Best. Game. Ever.
I was recently introduced to the game Audio Surf (well, I actually found a link to it somewhere and read an article about it, forgot about it and then remembered it when being shown it the day before yesterday), that is kind of similar to Guitar Hero etc. in that you have to hit notes according to a songs tempo etc.
The difference with this is that it’s kind of like a racing game in that you have to avoid the gray blocks and hit the coloured blocks.
It also lets you play the game using any song on your computer (as long as it isn’t protected by DRM), as it analyzes the song to generate the track (kind of like a rollercoaster).
It is lots and lots of fun, especially with any dance, drum n bass, rock song!
So yesterday was the due date for my final year project (the BlueJ Java IDE GUI Builder extension). It was a stressful day to say the least with us handing it in right as the office was closing. I wasn’t particularly happy with that, as I was hoping to get it in a few hours before. But oh well, it’s in and now I just have to write an Individual Report and have an interview with some examiners regarding it.
On another note, I just want to point out how incredibly annoying it is that Grand Theft Auto IV comes out on April 29th, just a few days before my final exams start!
I guess I’ll have have to wait until May 23rd to buy it (that is the day after my last exam). Very annoying.
The title of this entry is somewhat misleading, but it does hold true in some respects. More and more services are appearing on the internet that allow you to publish information about yourself in some for or another. Whether it is information about what you are currently doing (Twitter) or photos you’ve taken (Flickr), user generated content is booming. Just look at how popular websites like YouTube are.
There are various other sites that allow you to publish information about yourself however, and they are slightly more interesting to me. It’s all well and good letting someone know that you are currently eating last nights leftover meal (Ok, so I may have told Nicola that I was eating reheated Dominos pizza earlier), but that doesn’t really tell me all that much. Seeing what people have been listening to recently and having music recommended to you based on your own personal music habits is something that is quite exciting.
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http://www.hypebeast.com/2008/03/carnegie-mellon-university-sneakerology-101
Why is this course not available over here?!???!?? I’m a bit of a sneaker freak… I own 6 different colourways of the same trainer style (Nike Dunk), one of which are a pair of Nike iD’s (you get to choose what colour each section is and add a personalised tag), and a pair of special edition Dunk SB’s (the Stussy Team Manager editions), along with another 5 or so pairs of trainers that I wear regularly. I’ll get some pictures up eventually.
I don’t know what it is about trainers, I just like being able to wear different colours and styles depending on the clothes that I am wearing. I tend to colour co-ordinate my trainers and t-shirts, bags, jackets - basically whatever I’m wearing!
Don’t judge me!
How many people associate certain songs, artists or albums with certain periods of their lives or even just a particular moment?
I know I do, and I guess that lots of other people do too but it is something that I find rather interesting. I listen to a lot of music, I’m usually listening to music unless I’m somewhere that requires me to have full use of my hearing or if I’m sleeping. I’ll be the first to admit that my music tastes are a little bit rubbish, but I’ve been branching out a lot more in recent years (I’m fairly sure I’ve blogged about this in the past).
So, back on to the subject of this entry… There are albums that remind me of periods of weeks because during that time all I listened to was that album, or there are songs and artists that remind me of particular people either because they recommended them to me, discovered said artist/song at the same time as me or the song itself has some kind of association with someone (their name is in the title/lyrics somewhere etc.).
I’m back in London this weekend visiting my family and found myself with a fair bit of free time this afternoon. Whilst generally browsing the internet on the family computer (formally my main computer), I came to the conclusion that it was running quite badly.
Now, because I am studying a technical course at University (Computer Science), the department that I am taught by have a MSDN Academic Alliance account. This means that I am able to download various pieces of Microsoft Software for free, from Microsoft (read: totally legitimate).
Over the last few weeks I’ve been badgered by one of my housemates and some friends from Uni to install Ubuntu on my PC at Uni. I’ve been holding off because I am planning on dual-booting with XP, but just haven’t found the time to get myself properly organised and backed up etc. I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to try out re-installing Windows XP on an old machine that isn’t too important (OK, so my father needs to be able to access his work emails, as he is currently on leave for 6 months or so [he still needs to be in contact etc.]).
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Back during Christmas I contemplated buying the HD-DVD player for my Xbox 360. I thought, I’ve got an HDTV (one of the things I bought during my time working last year) and the quality really is fantastic (my boss lent me his HD-DVD player and I watched King Kong on it). However, I couldn’t really justify the ~£110 for it at the time as well as the premium you have to pay for the films themselves.
It turned out this was a good decision, with Toshiba announcing that they are ceasing to promote the format after losing key supporters to the Blu-Ray camp.
Although this currently doesn’t affect me (because I don’t own a high-definition player, it is good for the consumer because now there isn’t the uncertainty about which format will succeed (although there is now the issue of when everything will be done via online distribution - but that is another matter).
Anyway, the reason I posted this is because I found this article about the uses of the Microsoft HD-DVD player at Kotaku rather amusing.
Due to recent circumstances, I am now traveling a lot between Canterbury (where I go to University) and south east London (where my parents live, and where I live when on holiday from University). I’m going back most weekends, Friday through till Sunday evening (or sometimes Monday morning) and this takes out a large chunk of my week.
I tend to have a reasonable amount of work to do over the weekends and this presented a problem for me as the computer we have back in London isn’t particularly good (slow) and I find it difficult to use (cluttered and full of software that probably doesn’t need to be on there!), so getting work done is usually rather unlikely. So I decided it was about time for me to get a laptop. Why a laptop and not just a new computer for home? Well, although there is a price premium when buying a laptop (I wouldn’t have needed to buy a new screen for the home PC) the convenience of being able to use a laptop on the train back home or up on campus made me think it was worth paying that bit extra. This led me on a search for a good laptop…
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It seems like a bit of a resurgence of blogging at The Planet recently! It’s been a very long time since I last blogged, mainly because I hate the layout of this blog… I’ll get around to redesigning it after I finish my placement year… maybe! Super quick recap before more detail:
I’ve been very busy with work, lots of things happening at the company and i’ve been learning lots of new things.
I’ve also been having an amazing time outside of work. A group of us had a weekend trip to Bournemouth and there was also the Easter weekend. Random nights out have proved good fun and basically the year is coming to an end far too soon!