Dude, seriously: the trailer for the Doom movie looks like the final product will suck. A lot. It’s reminding me of Paul WS Anderson’s Resident Evil quite a lot. Combined with a bit of Paul WS Anderson’s Soldier. And maybe some of Paul WS Anderson’s Aliens Versus Predator to boot.
Paul WS Anderson is not a man whose oeuvre you wish to emulate.
Whilst the excellent Blinksale has been getting a lot of plaudits recently, I only just discovered Side Job Track (launched in November 2004), which is in many ways just as noteworthy. It exists to track progress on projects and jobs for freelance, part-time, or small business workers, and it’s really pretty good; simple to use with excellent help and notifications – it’s very consistent about letting you know what you’ve just done, and what will happen when you click something. The only slight problems are that the invoicing is a bit less awesome than Blinksale, and that it’s very focused on building up lists of standardised “services”… when many people are consistently doing bespoke work. Still, worth checking out.
In the boring-but-useful category comes Anti-RSI, a simple, not-overly obtrusive break manager for OSX. I don’t need it to prevent RSI, I do OK at that myself. I need it for my own sanity. Will check it out and report back; think it could make things calmer and less stressful, especially when bugfixing programs in languages I don’t really know.
Vienna is a new, freeware, opensource feedreader for OSX. It’s in final beta but I’m really liking it; very stripped-back interface, support for groups, smart folders and Atom. I’m going to experiment with it for a bit; NNW and me have only got on so well, recently, so this could be the change I need. Recommended, anyhow. [via Jon Hicks]
“Where are all the startups?” asks Tom Coates. It’s a good question, and, as the 2lmc boys rightly note, his theories regarding marketing and advertising might have something to do with it. Tom and I discussed this topic at the New Media Awards ceremony a few weeks back – it’s been something that’s crossed my mind several times in the last month or two – and whilst I agreed with his complaint, I found myself somewhat lacking in inspiration. I mean, I’d try to do something about it, but I seem short on ideas right now. Still, I’ll keep racking my brain. Could be something in it.
Exhausting weekend. OpenTech on Saturday was pretty good, though as it drew on I became more and more tired of lectures and more and more in need of networking and chat-time. That did eventually happen, and it was great – good to catch up with some and meet others for the first time; set lots of cogs whirring and helped others along their way. Today saw some much-needed sleep, after a tiring week, and then afternoon (and evening) of article writing. For once, the topic wasn’t technology. More on that later.
Oh, look. Another week’s here already.
Drat.
So, along with a whole host of other geeks, I’ll be at OpenTech 2005 tomorrow. NotCon was great fun, and I’m hoping that this year will be just as good… and that I’ll manage to network just that little bit more. If not, you’ll probably find me on the backchannels as twra2. Anyhow, it’d be great to meet any of you going; I’m probably bringing along a 6-gang extension lead for those precious power sockets, and will be lugging a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows, v1.1 (5.25″ floppies still shinkwrapped!) to donate to the Internet Archive. I might also have my DS.
Looking forward to it a lot… and do say hi.
Google Moon. Awesome. In honour of the first manned moon Landing, on July 20, 1969, Google have produced a small-ish map of the Apollo landing sites and surrounding area. The imagery is not from Keyhole this time, but Nasa. Unfortunately, Nasa could only supply information to a certain resolution; undeterred, Google used their common sense, which is why what you see when you zoom all the way in is just too beautiful.
Eurogamer report on a terrifying new computer game released by the National Alliance (roughly, America’s answer to the National Front). Entitled Ethnic Cleansing, it’s colossally offensive to just about anyone. As is traditional with about 50% of EG news items, it is essentially a rewritten press release – but goshdarn if the tone and content of that release aren’t scary enough. And to cap it all, there’s a quote from the NA chairman. I want to write more about this, but for now, just don’t have time; instead get over to the news article and make up your own mind. There’s so much in it that defies belief. And yet also, demands comment. I’ll see if I can rustle up anything further in future.