Archive for the ‘Geek Stuff’ Category

Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

We’ve had a couple of interesting comments relating to our tactics for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse and, with more than a little smugness, we’d like to think we’re now well-versed in the best methods of defence. Someone calling themselves Monkey Mischief (we’re intrigued) opts for some seriously hazardous tactics, while the more reasonably-named Craig Melson has gone for some equally more reasonable safety measures. Thanks to both.

 

 

 

Sayeth Monkey Mischief:

“OK, absolute household essentials when under attack from a legion of zombies:

Food sources:

Squash is a big no-no! You cant drink the water cos it’s full of zombie gunk and the fastest way to get infected other than being bitten!
Ice cream - always good, helps when you feel low, helps when you feel high, usually after a kill, and helps for that quick sugar pick-me-up you need after running for your life.
Bottled water: defo an essential. If you have this then you’re ok to have squash.
Pot noodle: as long as your kettle still works you’re OK to boil the tap water and you have pasta for carbs.

Weapons:

Curtain rail
Axe
String
Put all of these together with the string and you’ve got the perfect weapon for killing zombies, without having to get within biting range!

Never stay with friends, in the end they will just get you bitten. All you need is Guitar Hero and an Xbox 360 you can keep friends but talk to them online, that way you can watch their sorry asses getting killed from a safe distance.

BUT MOST OF ALL you must have a Border Collie! Have you noticed how dogs never get bitten by zombies? You can train it to go out to the shops to buy more Pot Noodles and squash…”

Now, there are several inconsistencies with this strategy - is it wise to survive solely on squash and Pot Noodles? Tinned food is surely a better idea. Also, that Blue Peter-style weapon idea - what about close combat? There seems to be a definite focus on just grinning and making the best of a bad situation which, though commendable, might just end up in some serious brain-gnawing. And remember - a dog is for life, not just for the Zombie Apocalypse.

zombieapocalypse_sm

Craig Melson’s stratagem:

“Step 1: Be prepared before the zombies come. Stock canned and bottled water and dried fruits and tinned food as it cannot go off. Remember to allocate 20% extra water for washing needs.

Step 2: Destroy the staircase. If you live in a house, chop through the staircase so the zombies cannot walk up it. Also use this tactic for Daleks. If you live in flats or have concrete stairs, barricade it so nothing can come up or down.

Step 3: We’re in Britain not in a small Yank town. Therefore guns are mostly out. Make sure you have a long reaching bladed weapon or a bow to hack off the head of a zombie. In emergency, a broom handle with a kitchen knife securely fastened can act as a spear.

Step 4: Supply yourself with matches, candles and books. If the electricity goes out, you need light and heat, plus material. Reading engages the brain better anyway. After reading you also have emergency fuel.”

This is a much more reasonable series of steps. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance and all that. Not too sure about the staircase tactic though - this is slightly debilitating if the Z.A. looks set to last a sustained period of time. In the short term, though, excellent foresight. As opposed to Monkey Mischief’s “just play Guitar Hero and the zombies will take care of themselves” attitude, Craig adopts a distinctly more Cormac McCarthy-esque viewpoint and would probably last longer.

Anyone else got some good tips for survival?

The Worst Zombie Film EVER Made

Monday, October 26th, 2009

It’s finally here. Whatever you do, don’t go over to the IWOOT site and type ”UNDEAD” into the search box…

Extreme Communication Rotation

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Readers, a grave injustice has occurred. We demonstrably love the iPhone. A humble but essential gadget, it is the very essence of our modern lives, running through it like a river of relevance, pausing only at the delta of fun applications before rolling out to the sea of technology. In short, any act of violence visited upon an iPhone is an act of violence visited upon us, its humble sympathisers.

Imagine how our faces contorted in agony, then, when someone from Customer Services sent this video through:

(Disclaimer: Any iPhone owners who value them above things like jewellery, pets and family members should steel themselves before pressing play).

Crushing.

Still, if you’ve mangled your iPhone, why not enter our competition to win a nice shiny new one? This inspired psychotic fun comes courtesy of Will It Blend?

The Past Is A Terrifying Place

Friday, October 9th, 2009

It seems that Windows has come in for a bit of a kicking lately, PR wise, and this old Windows 95 tutorial video is doing them no favours either. Hindsight is certainly a wonderful thing, but even at the time this must’ve seemed a little stilted as a promotional tool. What’s worse is that they clearly haven’t learned their lesson, as anyone who’s seen their latest Windows 7 videos will tell you. Not that Apple have displayed much better form - remember the Mitchell & Webb Mac and PC ads? Either way, have a look at these guides starring comedy stars of the day Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry:

 

 

Hilarious, eh? Those multi-million dollar paycheques were certainly money well spent. I particularly liked the “so you can fax from your computer?!” line - JimboWoot will be quietly celebrating the triumph of technology’s inexorable rise beyond the fax machine. As I said in a blog entry last week, it’s not a matter of Microsoft proving their worth, it’s a matter of affordability and until Apple’s prices drop, I’m going to have to use this kind of tutorial video to get my computing tips. Renaming documents is going to be a cinch!

Good on the Guardian for listing a load of interesting viral videos.

Kevin Shields’ Guitar Set-Up

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

This picture has done the rounds once or twice before, but it’s always a good time to stand back and marvel at the geek-overload that is Kevin Shields’ guitar set-up. To the uninitiated, Kevin Shields is the guitarist in seminal shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine, and a man to whom all modern electric guitarists owe a considerable debt. It’s not often we get bogged down in nerdisms (honest…), but Shields is a technical and aural whiz - thick layers of distortion are treated to endless groaning tremolos, whammy pedals, pre-amps and samples to create his signature sound, and it’s a true guilty pleasure to see exactly how he manages it:

shields-set-up

As you can see, it’s a mite more complex than just sticking a distortion pedal into your Squier practice amp. I was lucky enough to catch My Bloody Valentine on their reunion tour last year - it’s the only gig I’ve attended where earplugs were handed out on the door. Like the purist (or fool) that I am, I didn’t bother using them and couldn’t hear for three days. It’s great to suffer for your art, eh? And, following in the footsteps of EddyWoot (last seen trailing through the skies over Brick Lane), I’ll be heading to the ATP Festival in December to do it all over again. Some people never learn.

Anyone who wants to hear what such clutter would sound like, have a listen to this Spotify link.

Woody Harrelson Is Prepared For The Zombie Apocalypse

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Whilst waiting for a bus to work this morning, I was reminded of a valiant man who, despite the ridicule of the press, is truly ready for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse. A poster for the comedy (or documentary?) ‘Zombieland’ was on the side of my bus this morning and its star, Woody Harrelson, is a man on top of the Z.A. After the film had finished shooting, Mr. Harrelson apparently assaulted a photographer at La Guardia airport - you can read the full story at CNN here.

This may be old news, having taken place in April, but seeing Harrelson on the side of a bus reminded me of his defence:

“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character. With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie.”

Woody Harrelson

Though this defence is completely hilarious, it should be added that if we were all to adopt such a lifestyle (in which we assume everyone we don’t know is a zombie), the chances of total carnage would be somewhat reduced… something to think about? Or are we taking this too seriously?

Faxing Hell

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

We live in a day and age where nearly every person in this country has a mobile phone. Netbooks are the new laptops, and smartphones are the new netbooks. Mobile phone providers are offering packages featuring everything from, ‘unlimited’ internet access to free unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls. ‘Eco-friendly’ is no longer just a buzz-word - it’s becoming the motivation for serious innovation. The hydrogen car, for example. Robots are here. Not quite Skynet or OCP style, but the global robot race is constantly getting faster and more challenging with leaps and bounds in robotic innovation. HD TV is kind-of here, we have re-invented the way we interact with gaming consoles (just look at the Wii or Tony Hawk Ride), people are building Smart Homes that they can log into and control the temperature on their toilet seat (my guess is that this must be ‘Paul’s’ house) so that it’s a nice happy warm temperature when you get home to your throne. Soon people will be embarking on the first commercial flight into space. So Jimbo, what the hell are you on about?

Basically, after all of this acknowledgement for how advanced we are, why, oh why, is it that companies, (I must add – BIG companies) still ask you to FAX things to them. Yes, FAX. According to Wikipedia (a source as reliable as Michael Moore) the fax was finally polished and honed in 1985.

The object of Jimbo's frustration

So, when I was recently asked to FAX a claim, I queried how long the response time to my fax would be. It was then explained to me that my Fax would go through to the sorting department, who then SCAN it in, then attach the SCAN to the relevant query number. It should be done in 3 days.

3 days? Seriously, am I the only one who has an image of a Third World sweat-shop-like floor in one our nation’s largest banks? Take a FAX off the pile, put it into the SCANNER, SCAN. SAVE FILE. PLACE FILE IN CLIENT FOLDER. REPEAT.

I would really like to cruise in there, and give them a demonstration of this new awesome technology. It’s called EMAIL. How it works is quite simple. You ask me to EMAIL you the Claims form. I then SCAN it in, EMAIL it DIRECTLY to YOU and then you get it within a matter of seconds (possibly minutes, because you are probably still on dial-up). Then we can discuss it almost instantly. You see, there is a thing called the internet – AND I HEARD IT’S GOING TO BE BIG!

So all this leaves me with the question that promptly ended my telephone conversation – ‘Are you from the past?’.

Throwing Apples Through Windows

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Charlie Brooker, one of IWOOT’s favourite writers, has highlighted a particularly thorny issue in his latest piece for The Guardian - that of the seemingly eternal dichotomy between Apple and Windows operating systems. Eloquently and with not a little vitriol, Brooker lambastes both sides. Apple users, he argues, are smug, while Windows users are doomed to a life spent waiting for applications to open.

For me, this is an issue that is governed by something else. No matter the incredible ease of the Mac OS, I can’t afford one. Not by choice, but by force I have to side with Windows and their terrifyingly slow Vista OS. My last laptop cost me £249 and, though I thoroughly hate the thing, I would be lost without it. All my work, my photos, my iTunes library (my one Apple luxury) and near-enough anything that’s important is on there - it just takes me a couple of hours to access it. No joke - I was sitting in a North London café on Saturday afternoon (sipping a particularly rich Americano, if you’re interested) and making use of their free wi-fi, and my wretched little box took 11 whole minutes to get used to its surroundings, get comfy, pull itself together and be ready to connect. The poor waitress with the network key was forced to be very patient. I suspect she wanted to pour my particularly rich Americano all over its stupid keys.

laptop-bin

I agree with Brooker when he says that these Apple acolytes are so very obsessed with spreading the good word, and I know that I can’t join them unless I seriously save up for it. I too feel a little pang of incandescent rage when I see someone using a Mac Book or an iPhone - not because I detest the way in which their owners seem to luxuriate in the glow of being correct (maybe a little…), but because I want to be one of them.

JimboWoot even let me touch his iPhone the other day. It was pretty magical. It’s not that I needed converting, but I know I can’t spend my life resisting the urge to despatch strong coffee all over my Vista screen in the same way you would a cuckolding partner. Might be time to open a savings account…

Say Goodbye To James May’s Lego House

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Folks, today is a sad day for fans of interlocking bricks. What seemed like such a beautiful idea, James May’s Lego House (which we blogged about here), has been deemed unsustainable by the purse string-holders, and has been demolished. Apparently it would have cost around £50,000 to dismantle and move the whole thing.

Just think of the man hours involved in constructing such a noble and proud building. As a child, I could often be found trying to build something without the use of instructions, but chickening out as soon as my needs outweighed my talent - this Lego House project was the perfect example of someone finishing off what so many of us would like to have started.

The pictures below make for harrowing viewing, and are not for the faint-hearted:

Shame.

james-may-lego-house-demolished_1

Disaster.

My best Lego moment: arriving back from holiday to find that my older brother had built an entire Lego space station from scratch that went around the majority of my bedroom.

My worst Lego moment: being about four years old and getting lost in Legoland, Denmark, after following a man who I thought was my Dad (he was wearing the same colour jumper, I clearly thought that was enough to identify him).

Thanks to Geeky Gadgets for getting there first.

Teletubbies Massacre Amuses Gaming World

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Some bright spark has managed to shoehorn in those loveable/infuriating (delete as appropriate) Teletubbies into the popular zombie shoot ‘em up, Left 4 Dead. This means that where players would normally be hurtling shotgun shells into the rabid undead, they are now pummelling the stars of many a pre-schooler’s early television viewing into a bloody pulp. Seeing as our zombie senses are especially attuned at the moment in IWOOT towers (they’re coming!), we thought it would be foolish not to show you a bit of it. Please be warned, though, it’s not suitable for anyone who harboured any affection for these multicoloured child hypnotists:

As you can see, it’s completely crazy. The bit where flaming Teletubbies burst in nearly made me choke on my cheese & pickle sandwich. Am I the only one who finds the Teletubbies soft voices in this context absolutely terrifying? I think they’re worse than standard zombie moaning and the omnipresent wail of “Braaaaains…”.

Apparently, this is all the brainchild of someone going by the name of Flameknight7. So well done to him. We found it via the MTV website.

PS: I was toying with the idea of calling this post ‘Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, DEAD”, but it seemed a little cold-hearted.