boncey's random Internet stuff

"Hammer drives a beat-up, bullet-riddled, lime green Dodge St. Regis with an “I ♥..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:27 +0100

“Hammer drives a beat-up, bullet-riddled, lime green Dodge St. Regis with an “I ♥ VIOLENCE” bumper sticker. He prefers to wear cheap sports jackets, loud neckties, and dark sunglasses. His favorite music consists of classical, “Taps” and “Ballad of the Green Berets”. He is divorced, and frequently makes jokes at the expense of his ex-wife…”

- Sledge Hammer! - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Row upon row of shelves containing some of this year’s...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:11:51 +0100

Row upon row of shelves containing some of this year’s most-wanted gifts. The 800,000 sq ft warehouse is 60% bigger than Amazon’s huge distribution centre in Milton Keynes.

Amazon’s distribution warehouse in Swansea | Money | guardian.co.uk

"“This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Even if it erases your hard drive, too bad...."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:56:47 +0100

“

“This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Even if it erases your hard drive, too bad. Although we did fix that bug from the last release.”

—README from a long-ago release of DJGPP

”

- CDDA Paranoia Download

"If you have a large enough container, let that bitch freeze. Enjoy your show, go to bed, grab life..."

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:56:45 +0100

“

If you have a large enough container, let that bitch freeze. Enjoy your show, go to bed, grab life by the scrote. The center of the ice block will be opaque but there’s enough ice around the edges to get Scientology-clear ice.

When you’re ready to get all ol’ school with an Old Fashioned, grab an ice pick or table knife and chip off a clear hunk just smaller than your Old Fashioned glass. That cube will shine like it’s the mother fucking Dark Crystal and your drink will be richer and lovelier than Kira’s everlasting essence, if you know what I’m saying.

”

- American Drink | Ice Part 2: How to make the best fucking ice ever

"In his first outing as judge, Chomsky quickly made his mark. ‘Your act is part of a propaganda state..."

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:13:32 +0100

“In his first outing as judge, Chomsky quickly made his mark. ‘Your act is part of a propaganda state promoting a culture-ideology of comforting illusion’, he told one hopeful young girl, before adding, ‘I’m saying yes.’”

- Noam Chomsky to become new X-Factor judge | NewsBiscuit

"Now, remember, these dimensions are all in opposition to one another. You can spend a three days..."

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:10:54 +0100

“

Now, remember, these dimensions are all in opposition to one another. You can spend a three days writing a routine which is really beautiful AND fast, so you’ve gotten two of your dimensions up, but you’ve spent THREE DAYS, so the “time spent coding” dimension is WAY down. So, when is this worth it? How do we make these decisions?

The answer turns out to be very sane, very simple, and also the one nobody, ever, listens to: “START WITH BREVITY. Increase the other dimensions AS REQUIRED BY TESTING.”

”

- Call Me Fishmeal.: Pimp My Code, Part 14: Be Inflexible!

"He and another employee went to work creating beautiful mock-ups depicting the perfect interface for..."

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:24:58 +0100

“

He and another employee went to work creating beautiful mock-ups depicting the perfect interface for the new program. On the appointed day, Evangelist and the rest of the team gathered in the boardroom. They’d brought page after page of prototype screen shots showing the new program’s various windows and menu options, along with paragraphs of documentation describing how the app would work.

“Then Steve comes in,” Evangelist recalls. “He doesn’t look at any of our work. He picks up a marker and goes over to the whiteboard. He draws a rectangle. ‘Here’s the new application,’ he says. ‘It’s got one window. You drag your video into the window. Then you click the button that says burn. That’s it. That’s what we’re going to make.’ “

”

- Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere | Fast Company

"At the age of 83, Mr. Dewar boasted that he ate at least three Twinkies a day. “I fed them to my..."

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:49:19 +0100

“At the age of 83, Mr. Dewar boasted that he ate at least three Twinkies a day. “I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my 15 grandchildren,” he said in an interview a few years before his death in 1985. “My boy Jimmy played football for the Cleveland Browns. My other son, Bobby, was a quarterback for the University of Rochester. Twinkies never hurt them.””

- Let Us Now Praise the Great Men of Junk Food - NYTimes.com

"The online home to the UK’s most popular award-winning Chinese Elvis impersonator!..."

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:58:07 +0100

“The online home to the UK’s most popular award-winning Chinese Elvis impersonator! CHINESEELVIS is the first and only Chinese Elvis registered with the Actor’s Union, Equity. He has been a member since 1988. With so many cheap imitations around (made in China, of course), make sure you choose the official and the best.”

- ChineseElvis - the online home to the UK’s most popular award-winning Chinese Elvis Impersonator!

"The less you spend thinking about what lens you might need for the shot that’s in your head the more..."

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:54:35 +0100

“The less you spend thinking about what lens you might need for the shot that’s in your head the more time you can actually be photographing.
A fixed focal length is not only going to give your work an admirable consistency, but it’s also going to surprise you. It’s not simply a tool to bring mental images to light- Instead, let your camera teach you how to make a picture.”

- Travel Photography by Photographica « _valerian

(via tokyo camera style)

"What was new, and was undoubtedly the star of the show, was the Canon Wonder..."

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:24:00 +0100

“

What was new, and was undoubtedly the star of the show, was the Canon Wonder Camera…

…still image and video imaging are combined…

…It shoots at massive resolution, well beyond anything we currently know, with a single zoom lens which caters for all circumstances, from macro to megazoom. Everything is in focus at all times and you can zoom in several orders of magnitude beyond anything we currently know…

”

-

Canon Wonder Camera Concept displayed at World Expo 2010

Not sure I like the idea of picking out still images from a video to make my photos. I can see the usefulness of it for professionals - it just doesn’t appeal to me.

"Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print,..."

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:36:12 +0100

“Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.”

- Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

"No multiple gears, obscure roads, the possibility of being stalked by bears and eagles, a 3.30 am..."

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:47:49 +0100

“No multiple gears, obscure roads, the possibility of being stalked by bears and eagles, a 3.30 am start in the middle of the night: this was indeed a daunting prospect…”

- The Tour de France celebrates 100 years in the Pyrenees.

Tour de France 2010 - Pyrenees 1910-2010

"Gary Lineker has sharpened up his comic timing as well, but disappointingly remains no more than..."

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:56:37 +0100

“Gary Lineker has sharpened up his comic timing as well, but disappointingly remains no more than three times as funny as James Corden’s World Cup Live, signing off last night after a month-long run, which coincided with the hay fever season, but proved less susceptible to pharmaceuticals. You cannot fault Corden for enthusiasm, though. Each evening he has been bounding on to screen with the puppy-dog exuberance of a much-loved family pet diagnosed with a fatal disease, whose owners cannot bear to have him put down.”

- World Cup final: BBC and ITV pat an entire continent on the head | Martin Kelner | Football | The Guardian

The Art of Building (via BBC News - In pictures: Art of...

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:41:41 +0100

The Art of Building (via BBC News - In pictures: Art of building)

“Once you’ve got six Thierry Henrys in your...

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:41:30 +0100

“Once you’ve got six Thierry Henrys in your collection and no Jonathan Bornsteins - and you’ve no idea who Jonathan Bornstein is but you really want him - then you kind of get to realize that perhaps things aren’t as random as…” (via BBC News - Today - Always look for the shiny side of life)

"And I’ve tried. Inspired by Mad Men, I come home from the office dressed in my Don Draper suit,..."

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:53:42 +0100

“And I’ve tried. Inspired by Mad Men, I come home from the office dressed in my Don Draper suit, place my hat on the counter, layer an extra dab of Brylcreem into my hair, watch my aproned wife tear herself away from preparing dinner to drop the needle on the new Bobby Vinton album, have my kids bring me a tall, stiff drink and silently shuffle back to their rooms, flick the switch on my energy-inefficient table lamp, crack open my black leather briefcase, pull out a crisp new copy of Atlas Shrugged, sit back, cross my legs, light up a Lucky Strike and start to read. I’m OK for the first few lines, or maybe even paragraphs. But even in this setting, by the time I get to the second or third page I start to think, “Man, this whole chapter could be condensed into a pithy Tweet and a short link to something cleverly ironic.””

- Tweetage Wasteland : I Can’t Read Anything Longer Than This Headline

BBC Television Centre is Fifty years old today (via BBC News -...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:51:16 +0100

BBC Television Centre is Fifty years old today (via BBC News - BBC Television Centre turns 50 years old).

I now work for the BBC and walk past this lovely building each day (I’m based just up the road).

The publicity caravan, created in 1930, will celebrate [being]...

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:38:29 +0100

The publicity caravan, created in 1930, will celebrate [being] 80 years old on the next Tour de France. This parade has won over brands and the public, even becoming an essential part of the race.

Tour de France 2010 - Publicity caravan

"Apparently 500+ people complained to the BBC about them, though. Not quite sure what they expected..."

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:01:00 +0100

“Apparently 500+ people complained to the BBC about them, though. Not quite sure what they expected them to do. Perhaps Motty could run on the pitch with a microphone and say “Excuse me, would you mind terribly not blowing on your vuvuzelas? Only Mr Smith of Tunbridge Wells is getting a headache…”.”

- 606 Commenter on the sound of the Vuvuzela.

BBC - 606