xerode

My current choice of computers is a 6 year old desktop and a 5 year old laptop. I desperately need a more up-to-date machine. Here's a list of what I use my machines for and what I think I need.

Software

• Music software - primarily Ableton Live but also Propellerheads Reason and NI Traktor
• Development - Adobe Flash and general web dev
• Day-to-day - web, IRC, office, photo editing/graphics etc.

Hardware requirements

• Minimum of 500Gb HDD, preferably as high as possible
• Minimum of 8Gb RAM
• Fancy graphics card
• Lots of USB ports for MIDI controllers etc.
• FireWire for my audio interface
• As much future-proofing as possible!

Bearing the above in mind, I feel that my options are either a MacBook Pro or a Lenovo ThinkPad 520, both tricked out and weighing in at around the same price.

However, I'm torn over getting a MacBook Pro. On the one hand they have amazing build quality and seem to be sturdy enough to take out DJing/whatever. On the other, well... I don't like Apple's approach to developers or their attitude to Flash. I'm really not fussed about Mac OS, I'd rather use Windows (for music) and Ubuntu (for development). The only reason I'd be interested in Mac OS is for publishing iOS applications. Could I get away with triple-booting between Ubuntu, Mac OS and Windows 7? Considering I'd want to use Windows for music-making, would the latency be too much using this method?

Is anyone able to help me out here? Should I be going for such a pricy laptop or just grab something cheap? Either help me make up my mind (although I'm not asking for a platform war in the comments) or confuse things by introducing new challengers!

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Paul showed up to the Wizard's party, dressed like Jesus, at Easter and I lost my shit laughing at him. then he put on the dinosaur mask

Going to a wizard-themed fancy dress birthday party - dressed as Jesus. On Good Friday*. And shitting it up with a dinosaur mask. That's got to get me a sweet, sweet blasphemy Brucie bonus, right?

* I'd completely forgotten the signifance of the date when I packed my costume.

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I received a link to this video on Alexandros Maragos' blog through our internal work e-mail and it's now doing the rounds on Twitter.

Sadly it's a fake and here's why.

First of all, if you've ever used an iTrip or similar FM transmitter, you'd have probably encountered one of their major flaws straight away - they have a very limited range if you want a clear signal. Even a few metres away from each other and sound quality starts to drop significantly. If you try to use this setup on the same frequency as a broadcast radio station, you'd best be indoors and have the transmitter right on top of the receiver to have any chance of it working otherwise the strength of the broadcast radio signal will massively overpower the tiny output of a handheld transmitter. I didn't see any large batteries attached to Alexandros' transmitter or "repeater", so I find it hard to believe it would have the strength to overwhelm the signal sent to the screens. Think about the hardware required to run a pirate radio station and then wonder if it could be successfully miniaturised to the size of the circuits shown in the video.

This assumes that the video screens in Times Square use some form of RF or wi-fi signal to receive the signal they display. RF seems unlikely as they would need individual streams for each screen that shows a different signal. Wi-fi is even less likely as it can be slow, prone to interference and susceptible to hacking. I work in advertising and although it's predominately web-based, there are certain principles that are the same across the industry - if you've booked advertising space somewhere and your ad doesn't go up when and where it's supposed to, someone's in deep shit. Judging by these figures that would involve an awful lot of money and so I can't see a competent tech team implementing wi-fi as it's just too unreliable. Even taking into account the costs of digging up bits of New York City to lay it, cables would be cheaper, faster, and less likely to be tampered with than wi-fi. Considering that the screens at Times Square have been around longer than wi-fi technology has, I'd wager that it'd be easier to upgrade the existing infrastructure instead of replacing it with a new system when wi-fi came out. I've had acquaintances that have investigated the feasibility of hacking the screen adverts and announcement boards in the London Underground and they didn't get very far purely because practically everything was cabled for security reasons. I'd be very surprised if Times Square was any different.

Most importantly, judging by information from Apple themselves, no model of iPhone can output video from the headphone socket. To be on the safe side I looked on-line for any third party peripherals that might be able to achieve this but so far I've not found anything of worth.

Unless the next update is an independently verifiable circuit diagram, his hack is all just bluster. And probably the result of an afternoon spent in After Effects.

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Can you wait at least one more week? I'm out of the country this weekend and I don't want to miss the party:

On the first Saturday after Margaret Thatcher dies, Class War is calling a mass party to start at 6pm, in Trafalgar Square, scene of the most famous riot against her policies!

Whether or not you want to remenicse about the good old days of rioting against the poll tax, to toast old friends who fought Thatcherism, or just want to celebrate the death of the most reviled woman in Britain, we hope to see you there.

Bring your champagne, fireworks, party clothes and yourselves!

London Class War

Remember to check Is Thatcher dead yet? and pop one of these in the post when you hear confirmation (found via Allan Cavanagh):

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Residents of Democracy Village, a protest camp in Parliament Square, were evicted in the early hours of this morning.

What is it with the Police doing this sort of thing in the middle of the night?

Original photo sourced from telegraph.co.uk

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I've always had an interest in artificial intelligence and I'm still gutted that I didn't get to study my holy trifecta of AI, Latin and Computer Science at university, instead settling for a dismal Multimedia course at London Met.

After a quick flick through them they seem pretty interesting. Hopefully I can use some of the concepts to improve the AI for one or two game projects I've had kicking around my head.

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On my way home from work the other day I stumbled across a bike in Stoke Newington. Chained to a lamppost and painted white, it didn't look like it was to be used, so I snapped a photo with the intent to find out if it was part of any particular street art project.

Coincidentally I ran across another, this time on my way to work when I got off the bus a stop early to grab some breakfast. This one's purpose was more clear, as there were the remains of some flowers and a laminated placard. It turns out these were ghost bikes placed in memory of cyclists killed on the road. The one in Clerkenwell was for Rebecca Goossen:

The colleagues of an architectural assistant killed by a lorry at a notorious central London junction paid an emotional tribute to her this week by placing a “ghost bike” at the scene of her death.

Rebecca Goossen, a 29-year-old German who worked at Farringdon-based Metropolitan Workshop, was struck by a cement mixer turning left between Goswell Road and Old Street two weeks ago.

Goossen, who was cycling from her home in Bethnal Green to Metropolitan Workshop’s office, was pronounced dead at the Royal London Hospital.

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Mounted on that weird thick plasticard stuff too. Thanks, Vlad. Thlad.

Source

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Last night I saw Atari Teenage Riot play at The Electric Ballroom in Camden. They were one of the bands I used to love as a Kerrang-reading teenager but I'd never managed to make it to one of their few shows in England. It was their first gig in the UK in about a decade and as it's being sold as their final tour I figured I'd catch them while I still had the opportunity.

Did they live up to 10 years of anticipation? Well, yes - they played an absolutely blinding gig, belting out the classics and all the expected tunes from their last few albums. With nothing but a banner as a backdrop, the music was at the forefront as the various members would screech the lyrics and alternate running back to the decks or drum machines. The set overran and after closing with the anthemic "Revolution Action", descended into unadulterated chaotic noise.

I was just happy they played "Ghost Chase" although a little disappointed I didn't hear my favourite - "You Can't Hold us Back".

There were two downsides to the night. Hanin Elias was conspicuous by her absence (as well as Carl Crack but that can't exactly be helped). Support act Ulterior were one of the worst acts I've seen, boring music and no stage presence, even after the heckling started. Who on Earth booked them to support someone like ATR?

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Just got back from doing my little bit for democracy (for today, anyway). I was pleasantly surprised to find a queue on my arrival and so I had a friendly little chat with two of my Hasidic Jew neighbours while we waited to cast our votes. I'm only mentioning their ethnicity because a few weeks ago one of the prospective Labour councillors came canvassing. During his sales pitch he asked me to vote tactically in the local election as the Greens and Liberals poll badly in this ward, while the Jewish population tend to vote to en masse to the right of centre. The fellows I talked to seemed keen on UKIP but didn't sound too impressed with the Conservatives. We spoke about Nigel Farage's plane crash and the riots in Greece, the three of us remarking that Britain might not be so far from a similar situation before heading to the booths.

I voted for the Liberal Democrats in the nationals despite this probably being a "wasted vote" as this borough is pretty much a safe seat for Labour. But as my MP is Diane Abbott I'd be fairly happy if she was reelected and so my vote goes a little way to shore up the popular vote for the Liberal Democrats.

In the local elections my vote went to two of the three Labour candidates, the gentleman who came a-canvassing and his female counterpart because I'm all about equality/special treatment for women. The last vote went to the only Green candidate because she's got such a delightful name - Precious Martini-Brown. Well, that and the Greens have done some good work here in the 7 or so years I've been living in Hackney.

The final vote was for the Mayor of Hackney. My first choice was for the Liberal Democrat candidate, second choice went to Monty Goldman, finally fulfilling a childhood wish to vote for the Communist Party.

As I left the polling station the queue was even longer, meaning it's likely I've lost the money I put on a bet of a low turnout a few months back. So a bad day for my wallet but hopefully a good day for democracy.

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I'm trying to find a decent drinking game for tonight's festivities. So far I've found this one by Army of Dave:

Drinking One Finger:

• When a seat’s result is announced. Now, there are – I think – 649 seats so this might be A Very Bad Thing. Alternatively, you can drink a finger whenever a seat changes from one party to another. Mind you – the way things are going – this could also be dangerous.  
• “Thirteen Years”
• “The BNP are twats”
• “Shiny”
• “Michael Gove must be sad that his work experience placement is over”.
• “Hopes & Fears”
• Any other album by Keane is mentioned.
• George Osbourne is allowed to say ANYTHING AT ALL.
• Jeremy Vine’s big shiny machine does something it’s not meant to do. (That is NOT a euphemism)
• Anyone accidentally calls Nick Clegg “Nick Griffin” (Though, if it’s someone from a Murdoch publication, this may be deliberate)
• Anyone accidentally calls Nick Griffin “a massive c*nt”. Sorry. I don’t mean ‘accidentally’.
• An argument breaks out (Extra finger if there is actual violence)
• You utter the phrase “What the fuck’s he/she doing on this?” or “I thought he/she was dead.”
• You laugh at something the Monster Raving Loony Party or similar do or say (You also need to go and take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror)
• You involuntarily cringe at anything.
• You can lip read someone saying a swearword behind the Returning Officer when the vote doesn’t go their way.
• Sleep deprivation causes David Dimbleby to announce “I’M DAVID BUMBLEBEE!” and attempt to drink nectar from Michael Portillo’s face.

There's also this contribution from Danger Man on Cooked & Bombed:

• 1 sip of alcohol for every Lib Dem gain.
• 1 sip for every reference to 1974 or 1983.
• 1 big glug for every 'Portillo moment'.
• 1 shot of tequila when Jeremy Vine is on.
• A bottle of scotch if LfBarfe wins his seat.
• Down a case of 1945 Chateau Rothschild if the Libs win a majority.

I'm going to try and compile bits of the above and other ideas into a little system we might use at our shindig tonight.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

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A quick, dirty and downright lazy response to the front page of tomorrow's Sun.

Edit: thanks for the retweets guys! Now I wish I'd made a better funny. If anyone is interested in the font, I used Arial Black and slightly reduced the width. Now to try and think of something funnier involving DOPE/NOPE/etc.

Edit#2: Star Wars themed. And now bed.

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I have voted Liberal Democrats at the national level in every election I've been eligible to take part in. Local votes have been split between the Green Party or the Liberal Democrats, with no real thought behind them. I've voted once for Labour when it came down to the London Mayoral elections as despite some reservations with him (particularly when he rejoined Labour), I thought Ken Livingstone was the best man for the job - he's also on my list of Fantasy Dinner Party Guests.

In case that doesn't make it clear, I'm a massive lefty liberal.

Yet I now want the Conservatives to "win" the 2010 General Election.

Before people start lighting the torches and looking for the nearest collection of pitchforks, I should clarify that. Ideally I'd like the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party to form a tag-team government, work out the best of each of their policies and implement them after finding a huge wodge of cash down the back of the sofa in Number 10.

Obviously this will never happen, so I'm having to look for more likely outcomes instead.

The reality of the situation is that the UK is a bit shafted. The purse is empty and we're going to be facing severe cuts across the public sector and a rise in taxation. If we're to believe Mervyn King and various other economists and civil servants, the measures required to sort out Britain's budget deficit will be so severe that whoever has to do them will suffer such a backlash that they'll be out of power for a generation. I don't want that to happen to the Liberal Democrats or even Labour, so I guess that means I want the Tories to "win".

So for me, the least worst outcome is:

• The Conservatives win the popular vote, gaining seats from Labour and losing some to the Liberal Democrats and fail to pull off their planned coup.
• The Liberal Democrats come second in the popular vote, gaining seats from Labour and the Conservatives. They'll still end up with ~100 at the most, highlighting the problems with FPTP and somehow manage to demand constitutional reform involving fixed term Parliaments and a Proportional Representation system (preferably something like mixed member proportional representation).
• Labour come third in the popular vote but manage to hold onto enough seats to thwart a Conservative majority.
• The Green Party gets its first MP.

Whoever wins this election loses out overall - and that's why I want the Conservatives to just scrape through. Just don't remind me of this once the BBC is neutered so Murdoch's empire can take over, the NHS is ripped apart, tax-funded faith schools spread like the plague, the welfare safety net is removed and anything that hasn't already been privatised is flogged to one of Cameron's mates for a knockdown price and then has to be subsidised anyway.

Does it show that I'm a pessimist?

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I'd have preferred to have put these on my tumblr but tumblr doesn't like more than 8 uploads in one post and I'm too anal to spread them across entries. They really ought to improve their multiple upload process, it's far too Web 1.0.

None of these are my work, they were all found in the delightful UK LF thread on SomethingAwful. It's currently titled "Helicopters: I Met Some Dead Gay Young Boys In The Bath" in response to all the shitty anecdotes brought up in the Leaders' Debates.

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But I'm still a bit of a mess.

Full write-up of the Weekender and Snowbombing coming soon, once I've scooped up all my brain cells and managed to squeeze them back inside my head.

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I was hoping to have sorted my post about Snowbombing but instead I've spent today on MySpace previewing acts at next week's Bangface Weekender. Last year's was a lot of fun so I'm starting to get pretty excited. I sourced two costumes in case I feel like dressing up but still haven't found a satisfactory dinosaur mask. They seem to be surprisingly difficult to get hold of in London and I'm far too lazy to try papier maché.

Anyway, here's the line-up and their various URLs. Hopefully someone will find it useful, I'll be using it to listen to stuff during the week regardless.

• 16 Bit MySpace, Twitter
• 2 Bad Mice MySpace, Twitter
• A Guy Called Gerald MySpace, Twitter
• AC Slater MySpace, Twitter
• Amen-tal MySpace
• Appleblim MySpace
• Aux 88 MySpace, Twitter
• Bassbin Terrorizer MySpace
• Bok Bok MySpace, Twitter
• Ceephax Acid Crew MySpace
• Chrissy Murderbot MySpace, Twitter
• Cooh MySpace
• Countryside Alliance Crew MySpace, Twitter
• Dave Skywalker MySpace
• DJ 3000 MySpace
• DJ Donna Summer MySpace
• DJ Food & DK MySpace, MySpace
• DMX Krew MySpace
• Drumcorps MySpace
• Equinox MySpace
• Friction MySpace
• General Levy + Devious D MySpace, MySpace
• Hardfloor MySpace
• Human Resource MySpace
• Jackmaster MySpace, Twitter
• Jimmy Edgar MySpace, Twitter
• Joker MySpace, Twitter
• Kelpe MySpace, Twitter
• Kenny Dixon Jr + DJ Stingray + Anthony Shake Shakir
• Kid606 MySpace
• Killa Kela MySpace, Twitter
• Loops Haunt MySpace, Twitter
• Luke Vibert MySpace
• Mark N
• Matthew Herbert MySpace
• Mike Dred MySpace
• Otto Von Schirach vs Gabe Serbain (The Locust) MySpace, MySpace
• Plaid MySpace
• Raffertie MySpace, Twitter
• Ratpack MySpace
• Rebel Lion MySpace
• Saint Acid MySpace
• Steven Seagull MySpace
• The Bug, Daddy Freddy and Flowdan MySpace, MySpace, MySpace
• The Orb MySpace, Twitter
• The Squire of Gothos MySpace
• Twinhooker & Paulie Walnuts MySpace MySpace
• Venetian Snares MySpace
• Wrong Dance

Not forgetting Tim Westwood of course.

Here's the current attendees from Twitter:

• @abscond
• @aden__
• @barndrama
• @bobtfish
• @burritob
• @clusterfrog
• @miss_chambelle
• @nervechannel
• @phuturatica
• @spiderylue
• @symphonicknot
• @xerode

Anyone missing?

Now, fingers crossed that the volcanic ash doom cloud doesn't affect any of the acts getting to the UK.

Edit: I've thrown together a Twitter list of all the people performing at the Bangface Weekender because I'm a massive nerd.

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I'll be writing a full account of my time at Snowbombing 2010 but in the meantime here's a photo of when I met Mr Motivator!

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