archive for November, 2007

The Wire: Season 5

Movies & TV Thursday 29th November 2007

The fifth season of The Wire will apparently start on December 6th, aces. The site also lists five of the teasers that must be airing on HBO in the US.

 

Deus Ex 3

Links Tuesday 27th November 2007

Whoah, Deus Ex 3!

 

Empire

Book Blog Monday 26th November 2007
 

Amber Spyglass

Book Blog Monday 26th November 2007
 

Imperium

Book Blog Sunday 25th November 2007
 

Mac Ad

Links Wednesday 21st November 2007

Hilariously cheeky anti-vista Apple advert

 

Hasbro release special “Regular Edition” Monopoly

Links Tuesday 20th November 2007

Hasbro release special “Regular Edition” Monopoly

 

SMTP Disclaimer

Technology Tuesday 20th November 2007

This guy is a genius. His SMTP server has a customised welcome message which includes a URL to a page of disclaimers that override any of those stupid signature disclaimer messages.

 

Kotaku Gift Guide 07

Links Monday 19th November 2007

Kotaku Gift Guide 07: Kotaku’s 2007 Gift Guide of Obscene Nicety and Sublime Naughtyness

 

Open Social

Technology Sunday 18th November 2007

Open Social, the future of social networks? Certainly looks promising.

 

Citizen’s Account Usability

Design,Edinburgh Thursday 15th November 2007

Edinburgh Council have a “Citizen’s Account” area on their website. I registered so that I could view and pay my council tax bills online. The process had been surprisingly painless until I came to add my council tax account number. I was presented with this stellar piece of form design:

Ignoring the incredibly sloppy layout bugs, it doesn’t look so bad, until you actually read the text:

Your account number is an 8 digit number which forms part of the 11 digit number to be found in the top right hand corner of your Council Tax demand. Please ignore the first digit and the last two digits of the 11 digit number. For example, if the number shown on your Council Tax demand is 91234567807, please enter 12345678.

(my emphasis)

Why, why, why are they making the user jump through hoops when entering a simple number? Why isn’t all this stupid number truncating done by the server? Entering an 11 digit account number (only once I notice) can be difficult enough without having to do a number puzzle on the data first. Council, you must try harder.

 

Chip Kidd

Books Wednesday 14th November 2007

Very interesting interview with book jacket designer extraordinarire Mr Chip Kidd. My good buddies Ian and (the awesome) Jed bought me Chip Kidd’s gorgeous Book One last Christmas, it is supremely shiny.

 

Californication

Movies & TV Monday 12th November 2007

I keep catching bits of Californication on TV and it always seems great. Last nights episode was called “LOL” and had Hank (Duchovny) bitching about the decline of decent spoken english, very topical. It also featured this great exchange:

Hank: “B” to the “I” to the double “L”. What’s up, my nig nog?
Bill: I need to talk to you.
Hank: Well, you should have called. I wouldn’t have answered, but you could’ve left a message, which I would have quickly erased.

OK, maybe it was funnier in context. You’ve just got to imagine the half-awake, hungover, dead-pan of Duchovy’s delivery.

 

The Wire Season 5 Teaser

Movies & TV Sunday 11th November 2007

 

ZeroPunctuation

Gaming Sunday 4th November 2007

My good buddy Ian (dude, fix your website) recently put me onto the incredibly fast-paced “zero punctuation” video reviews done by a fellow Brit living in Australia. With his dead-pan voice over and accompanying stick figure animation he manages to brilliant summarise some of the latest games, as well as get in plenty of sight gags and pithy commentary. Here is his review of Valve’s Orange Box:

 

Nintendo Advanced Video System

Technology Saturday 3rd November 2007


 

Wi-fi SD Card

Links Saturday 3rd November 2007

Wifi SD card. How can this not have been implemented already?

 

Bioshock Halloween

Links Saturday 3rd November 2007

Brilliant Bioshock Halloween outfit video – with both Father and Daughter