“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” : Hunter S.Thompson

Damn shame to hear that Hunter S. Thompson has apparently committed suicide. We’d recently watched Fear & Loathing, since Jo got round to reading the book. I’d been thinking that I’d really like to hear him ramble on about stuff, on a podcast. Now, I guess we won’t. Unless he’s pre-recorded a bunch of messages, of course. Hmm.. Who knows, maybe he knows something about GW *hinting* that he’d smoked Marijuana. GWB attended a Superbowl party thrown by HST back in his ‘cocaine days’.
Check out out this little biog.

When asked decades later if he remembered whether Bush had used any drugs at his party, Thompson replied:

“I can’t be expected to remember what every drug-addled yuppie hanger-oner who wanted to get close to me during a football game twenty-five years ago digested. There were so many dope fiends milling about, I don’t remember what some Yalie named Bush, whose father was a factotum in the Nixon Administration, was doing. But he strikes me as the sort of person I would have thrown out of the room. A rich, beer-drunk yahoo with a big allowance who passes out in your bathtub. … I don’t want to become the Deep Drug Throat. … I won’t do it.”

However, I just found this interview with him on Australian radio. You can click the mp3 link and download there.
Very interesting. Not about Bush and Mary jane, but about Bush and the impending war, the White House and news media, etc. Recorded nearly a year after 911.

I think I might have to go and buy his book Kingdom of Fear.

I like that sort of thing 😉

Viva Las Vegas!!. Just off in the morning to CES 2005 where I will be looking at the hottest new technology and gadgets to look forward to over the next year. I will be ‘mobloggin’ the whole trip, using my ‘camoby’ system here. I can’t wait to see all the gadgets and Las Vegas itself. It should be quite a trip. (Even though Jo has been made to stay in the cheapest hotel on the strip!! Grrr)

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (1939 – 2004)

“There’s something about records which is really satisfying.”

Flash EPG – Archos scheduler

Since getting my hands on the excellent Archos AV
with its TV recording capabilities, I’m getting around to creating a Flash based EPG. Using data from bleb.org, I can use this to hopefully create the required text file (DVRTimer.txt) which the AV420 can read for its recording scheduler.

The AV420 can apparently use data from the Yahoo! TV Calendar to create schedules, but as far is I know, it doesn’t work in the UK. Hopefully, if this all works, there might be a nice altenative 😉 – I plan on adding the ability to create schedules from any of the bleb.org channels.

Bear in mind that this is all unfinished, unofficial work in progress. 😉

b3tamotion

Using footage from the BBC Motion Gallery here’s (possibly) the first of (potentially) many slight ‘edits’ to some of the stuff on their extensive database of clips. 😉

inspired by b3tans

God, I love the internet. I was just browsing through various recently updated blogs on the new blogger site, and came across this entry titled ‘Building a Freevo box’. Hmmm.. I thought. This led me onto a site about XMLTV. Ooo.. Looks interesting. From here I find some instructions on how to get the UK TV listings. Out of this lot I was able to put together a url which, when hit, will download a zip file containing my chosen TV channel listings, on the days I want in either XMLTV format [a big single file with all the info] or bleb format [zip fle contains folders with each day and channel in seperate files – nice simple XML structure – good for mobiles and keeping memory down]. Download them and have a look.

Using Flash Studio Pro (which I KEEP going on about) or even just Flash for a Pocket PC, this makes it dead easy to knock together a little Pocket EPG.

Damn. I fear more sleepless nights. Ever since upgrading the WiFi in the flat, I’m seeing just how much I can do with my iPaq 5450 and it’s built in WiFi. Especially with Flash. I found a neat application that does standalone Pocket PC applications here. I’ve already started building an RSS newsreader to try for work. Watch this [pocket/cyber]space.

Here’s the URL for the multiple-bleb format in a zip file [could easily write PHP to process all this on the server]:

http://bleb.org/tv/data/listings?days=0,1,2,3&format=bleb&file=zip&channels=bbc1,bbc2,bbc_radio1,bbc_radio4,bbc3,bbc4

Also, here are the files on their server:

http://bleb.org/tv/data/listings/

Blimey! Is that the time!

I wonder what’s on the telly?

Blogger’s facelift. Not bad at all. Just testing out the interface. Nice templates. I might even try one on for size.

(edit: Hmmm.. comments don’t seem to be working…)

Some interesting data on mobiles.

http://www.canalys.com/pr/r2004041.htm

{edit: this link seems to be dead.. hmmm }

Notice Microsoft’s rise in the voice-centric sector. I believe this growth will double that over the next year, with more and more Pocket PC devices around on phones and WiFi devices.

This will make it really easy, using existing skills and technology, to create compelling content with html, Flash, and windows media. The potential for mobile feedback, comments, opinion polls etc are huge. And at very little cost.

The people behind the product, Flash Studio Pro [http://www.multidmedia.com] (which I have banged on to a few of you about already) have just assured my they will have a Mac output plugin hopefully by end of July… this means ‘Skinkers’ for all!

BUT.. they have said that a PocketPC standalone executable output will be available sooner. (I will be on the beta program)

Stand-alone executables on PocketPC, created using Flash (with a host of extra functions provided by FSP) will enable us to create mindblowingly cool applications for PocketPC devices. News aggregators, voting booths, image/audio/video uploaders and viewers, blogging tools, video consoles, all sorts… oh, and news stories and specials 😉

It would also be very easy to obtain valuable usage and tracking statistics from these applications, based on FSP’s ability to retrieve a lot of system data from the pc or device. MAC addresses (unique to each device) ip addresses obviously, machine ‘names’; all sorts! 😉

God, I want a Motorola MPx ! 😉 [ HERE…. ]

Moblogging from CeBIT. I recently went to the CeBIT technology show in Hannover. With a Sony Ericsson P900 and P800, an iPaq 5450 with WiFi and bluetooth with an SD card slot 1.3 megapixel camera, I snapped away photos and uploaded them using my camoby blog application. BBC News online even used it here!.

I want to develop this further. Watch this space (in your pocket).

WE WON A BAFTA!!!!. Wowee! Just a quick update to mark the fact that the Celebdaq site has won the BEST ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT award at the prestigious 2003 BAFTA Interactive awards ceremony! This is brilliant news! Definitely going on my CV! 🙂