BONWAG

When I first made the switch to the computer industry (from radio) in 1995, it was still a pretty arcane undertaking – but it had only just begun gathering steam for the big ‘dot-com’ boom in 2000, and boy, was that a fun wave to ride. Everyone knew that the techies finally got paid off for all the late night gaming and pizza, and programming was elevated from a Dark Art to a Respectable Profession. The programmers got their expensive cars and management jobs. People squeaked out an envious ‘ooh’ when you mentioned you ‘worked in computing’.
We’re now back to where we started: one of the original and best Australian web design shops is out of business, the computer companies are oozing ennui (look it up), Spike Networks is also belly-up, and Dilbert is looking pale and unfunny. Team that with the fact that I’m not able to squeeze an international business class flight out of my current employer, and it all adds up to a dull old time in computing at the moment.
You can stop envying me now.
(P.S.: I’m pleased to report that the late-night gaming and pizza continues.)

While strolling through the sordid tales about heavy handed lawyers, I came across a couple of cool installations which bring gaming to a new level. A while back, some nerds decided to take over the uni library as a tetris game arena, and has documented the results. Talk about your ‘high scores’. La Bastille at Brown Universityhas photos (but the biggest was at Delft University in 1995)

I’m sure they thought it was a cute idea, but the idea of naming a consultancy company after a day of the week is just insane. And of all they days, they had to pick the most dreaded and loathed one: Monday. Whuh?

It’s a scary thought; TV On Demand. This article discusses (using fairly unexciting techno-speak)the potential of a whole new form of our addiction (link)

Just like the X-Wings against the Death Star in Star Wars, it seems the bigger Big Brother gets, the easier it is to slip in under his radar. Hot on the heels of the news that you can break CD copy protection with a felt-tip pen, comes the news that finger-print recognition technologies can be easily thwarted with materials no more advanced than a jelly baby. (link)

OK, I get the message; the interactive sections aren’t working. Oh, well; worth a shot. I’ve taken out the message board and all that sort of rot, so it’s pure Dave-driven content from here on. Hopefully it’ll be a little easier to keep track of!

Here’s a small intro for guimp: the world’s smallest website. Heh.

You know the old advice: “Smile; people will think you’re up to something.”? Well, don’t. (link)

Ainslie and I have been waiting for these cool ‘tablet’ gadgets to arrive; it now seems that they’ll start rolling off the conveyor belt in the US in October. (link) Yeah, right.

So much for multi-million dollar copy protection research; it seems the new trick for making copy-proof CDs can be beaten with a texta. (link). I think that’s pretty funny.