Twitterdildonics

Speaking of dildonics…

Cliph also pointed me towards a project that came out of SXSW this week: Twitterdildonics. Which provides an interface for controlling the USB Trance Vibrator via Twitter updates.

…

And I better stop there. Much further and I risk entering Xeni Jardin territory.

PlayStation 3, Teledildonics and You

Talking to Cliph on IM about the PlayStation 3, we touched on the ideas of how the social space in Home will be filtered. For example, in the public area, people can talk to each other using a keyboard, the built-in phrases (“Would you like to play a game?”) or via a Bluetooth headset. It’s likely that there will be a bunch of ‘banned’ words for those using the keyboard input, but will there be any restrictions on what can be said via a headset? Is there anything to stop me turning the virtual air blue with obscenities?

Sony have said that in the private space, there will be few restrictions. You will be able to decorate your ‘room’ with whatever images you have on your PlayStation 3’s hard drive. You can stream whatever movies and sound files on your PlayStation 3’s hard drive and everyone visiting your room will be able to see and hear these files. I’m willing to bet that without restrictions, there will be a thriving red-light market in Sony’s Home faster than you can say “WELCOME TO JOHN’S COCK PALACE.”

But let’s go even further. By taking the possible sexual underworld of Home and combining it with Sony’s own USB Trance Vibrator (released with ‘Rez’ on the PlayStation 2), we could be witnessing an evolution and mass-marketization of teledildonics.

I can’t wait to see what happens when you put in the Konami code.

Detox

In preparation for the trip to Rome, I’m working my way through a list of 99 things to do before moving to another country. One of these was ‘Get a dental MOT’. So, after 10 years of avoiding the dentist, I finally caved last week. Overall, not bad. A couple of minor fillings, but in pretty good shape, considering it’s been ten years, and the amount of Diet Coke I drink.

I drink assloads of Diet Coke. Retarded amounts. And it’s easily the worst thing for my teeth because not only does the sweetener rot the teeth (although I’ve seen Mythbusters - it’s not as corrosive as people say), the copious amounts of caffeine running through my system makes me grind my teeth in my sleep. I wake up with a sore jaw and my teeth are slightly worse for wear.

This was made worse by the weekend that was in it. H. had over to Rome for a bit of a reccy. Checking out the apartment, checking out the people she would be working with. Which left me with four days all to myself. I did nothing but eat junk, drink Diet Coke and play Crackdown on the Xbox 360. I came out the other side feeling rotten. Not so much a shadow of my former self, but a dirty, bloated, jiggly play-do model of my former self. So, big changes are afoot.

Yesterday marked the first day without Diet Coke. And it was awful. I was sucking down Tramil to cope with the headaches, I was going outside every hour for some air to keep me awake. I was grouchy. I was lethargic. And since I could barely keep my eyes open, I probably shouldn’t have driven up to Tesco at 9pm.

Today, however, it’s all different. I managed to get out of bed when my alarm went off, instead of hitting the snooze button for an hour. My headache is gone, and I’m already getting work done. Hell, I’m almost lucid.

It’ll never last.

Why you shouldn't use MyBlogLog

Tom Raftery unwittingly gives us a perfect demonstration of why you shouldn’t use MyBlogLog.

Sure, MyBlogLog is a great idea and all, but there’s always going to be someone out there who will exploit it as a way to display a pair of tits, or a huge fuckin’ dong, or worse on someone else’s blog.

Home (or: I think Sony just killed Second Life)

Today at the Game Developer’s Conference, Sony officially announced “Home”. Home is so many things, it’s a little complicated to describe.

Pitched as somewhere between Second Life and MySpace, it’s a social space where PlayStation 3 owners can meet PlayStation 3 owners. They do this by navigating an avatar (similar to Nintendo’s Mii, but more realistic and with more customization options) around a 3D world. Each user also gets a private space - a virtual apartment - which they can customize as they see fit. They can invite people into this private space and launch multiplayer games, or stream music and videos from their PlayStation 3 to the other people in this room. Sony’s Home includes a virtual ’trophy room’ where people can display their ’entitlements’ (Sony’s answer to Xbox 360’s achievements) as moving, 3D trophies.

Oh, and it’s all free.

This was Sony’s ace in the hole. A completely unexpected, beautifully executed masterstroke that almost makes you forget about all of Sony’s fuck-ups with PlayStation 3.

Almost.

Right now, Sony is still talking about the possibilities of Home, and although a lot of these are still pretty blue-sky suggestions, they do give you some idea of what an online virtual world is capable of when you’ve got the weight and muscle of the entire Sony Corporation behind it. For example, using its ability to stream high-def movies, there could be movie premieres (in a virtual cinema) of Sony Pictures movies within Home. And for the MySpazz crowd, there’s the possibility of in-game appearances by their favourite Sony BMG bands.

I bet the makers of Second Life won’t get much sleep tonight.

Is Batman actually a Superhero?

I was speaking to someone earlier about superpowers - how all childhood conversations about “what superpower would you like to have” were ruined by the one asshole who had to say “everything” - when our conversation drifted towards Batman. When I was growing up, you either liked Superman or Batman (just like you were either a Whizz-kid or a Chipite). And so the Superman-followers would want Superman’s powers and the Batman-followers would say they would like Batman’s superpowers.

But what the hell are Batman’s superpowers?

He can’t fly. He can’t run faster than a speeding bullet. He can’t slice people open with Adamantium claws. So what does he have? Well, he’s got a neat car and a lot of nifty gadgets. And he’s pretty athletic, I guess. But these aren’t super-powers. With enough money, anyone can have these.

And is this a good message for our kids? That being fabulously wealthy is a superpower?

(For more pictures of Joker’s boners, check out redshirt.co.uk)

Brown Bag Films - Copying again?

Via YouThoughtWeWouldntNotice:

A few months ago, someone spotted that Brown Bag Film’s “Bears” Lotto campaign looked suspiciously like Matt Everitt’s Ricky Gervais Bears. The thread on CreativeIreland.com has some interesting discussion, including a couple of posts by Matt Everitt himself, saying

I was told about this and after watching the ad (and falling off my chair) and emailed Brown Bag who of course denied that they would ever do such a thing and said that they could’nt see any similarities.

What can I do?
Not a lot.

Brown Bag Films defended their position by suggesting that Bears3 are “obscure” and hadn’t been broadcast.

How similar are they? You can make up your own mind

Matt Everitt’s Bears3

Brown Bag’s Lotto Ad

Now we have a similar situation. The new Argus Car Hire advert from Brown Bag Films looks suspiciously like the terrific opening title sequence from Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can”. Hardly something they can claim as “obscure”.

Can you see any similarities?

Argus Car Hire advert

Opening credits of Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can

10 Kilometer Mix

Speaking of mixes…

Just before Christmas, I took part in the Port Tunnel 10k run. I hadn’t run much before then. In fact, I would estimate that if you if you took all of the times I have run in my life and added them together, you probably wouldn’t get 10K. So how did I go from lazy fat ass to the bronze Adonis I am today?

Well, it’s entirely down to my special 10k iPod playlist* These songs helped keep me going when I couldn’t see anything in the port tunnel except the steam from other people’s sweat. It kept me going when I realised that, after 5 minutes of actually being in the tunnel that I’d seen everything the tunnel had to offer and the next hour or so would be like watching paint dry. Really painful, exhausting paint.

Anyway, so here’s the mix. If anyone’s got any suggestions for additional, suitable song, please let me know. I’ll put them to the test next time I go to the gym.

1. We Want Fun - Andrew W.K.

2. Still Waiting - Sum 41

3. Noise Brigade - Mighty Mighty Bosstones

4. Training Montage (Rocky IV) - Vince DiCola

5. Girls Own Love - Andrew W.K.

6. Life During Wartime (Live) - Talking Heads

7. How I Could just Kill a Man - Rage Against the Machine

8. List of Demands (Reparations) - Saul Williams

9. Bump - Spank Rock

10. Movies - Alien Ant Farm

11. Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen

12. Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva

13. Music is my Hot Hot Sex - Cansei De Ser Sexy

14. Heart’s On Fire (Rock IV) - John Cafferty

15. Fat Lip - Sum 41

16. 99 Problems - Jay Z

17. Flashdance / Fame - The Dan Band

18. God Hates a Coward - Tomahawk

19. Fuckin’ Spend - High Speed Scene

20. Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen

21. Jump - Van Halen

22. Holing Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler

23. Jesus Walks - Kanye West

24. Shimmy - System of a Down

25. Million $ Man - Imperial Teen

26. This Month, Day 10 - Cansei De Ser Sexy

27. Goin’ Out West - Tom Waits

28. You’re the Voice - John Farnham

Notes:

• Yes, there’s a lot of Andrew W.K.

• Yes, there’s a lot of 80s power ballads

• Go for the single version of “I need a Hero” - you don’t need six minutes of Bonnie Tyler wailing

• Every life goal should be achieved with Vince DiCola’s “Training Montage” playing in the backround

• • Well, the four or five weeks of training I did beforehand may have helped a little

Death of the Mix Tape?

Inspired by an article in the Observer some weeks ago in which Sean O’Hagan talks about the way our ‘digital lifestyle’ has killed the mix tape, Tom Farrell (who still gets my vote for Ireland’s funniest blogger) recently wrote a post on the subject of mix tapes which reminded me of the response to the Observer article I had drafted but not yet finished. So I finished it.

Reading Sean O’Hagan’s story of the emotions he felt while recently compiling a mix tape is fascinating and I’d encourage everyone to read it as an eloquently-written piece of nostaligia. But I strongly disagree with his article’s suggestion that mp3s have somehow made music less personal and I think he’s just plain wrong to suggest that “mix tapes” are somehow dead. They’re not - they’ve just evolved.

The “Mix CD” is the most basic 21st Century representation of the “Mix Tape”. Sure, it might not be as difficult to compile these as it was to compile a mix tape, but this doesn’t mean they’re any less important or meaningful. I would even suggest that these are more important, more meaningful. With the actual creation of the CDs mostly taken care of by software like iTunes which allows the user to just click and burn a CD, more time can be spent putting thought into the content of these mixes. This means that the medium is no longer the message. The message is the message.

One of the traditions of the thumped.com Christmas bash is the ‘mix exchange’. Everyone who comes is encouraged to bring a mix tape/cd, put it into a box and in return, this entitles them to take someone else’s mix from the box. I’ve gotten some great stuff from this, and in recent years, have seen this taken to the next level: Mix DVD featuring some of the year’s best movies (it’s not like this is any more or less legal than a mix tape).

And what about when we outgrow CDs too? Well, we’re already seeing the next stage in the evolution of the mix tape. Sites like Out of Five offer weekly themed collaborative mixes. Collaborative! Can you imagine the logistics of trying to do a collaborative mix tape?!

Personally, I think the whole thing has less to do with the death of the mix tape or music being less personal and more to do with the fact that the writer has reached the stage in his life where mix tapes are somehow ‘immature’ and music isn’t the most important thing in his life. He and his friends have become old farts: grown up and settled into a rather rigid existence; less willing to try new things.

And After all, It’s hard to put thought and effort into a mix when you don’t have anyone to give it to.

Congratulations Cliph!

First two results on Google Image search for “Myspace Pose”.

Bizarrely, this only works “SafeSearch” turned off. This means Google has decided Cliph’s picture is “explicit”.

Explicitly gorgeous, maybe.