This must be one of the smallest games you’ve ever played in a browser.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s in the favicon!
Occasional hiccups in FF3.6, will check FF4 RC1 next… way better!!!
PS: Tetris from the URL bar, over whatever site you’re visiting.
Browser mini-game
March 14th, 2011Comprendre le francais, c’est facile? (in English)
March 10th, 2011
Just so you know, this post is in English. Relax, you can all breathe again :) The posh French title is there because this is about French (the language, not the people). The local platform for innovation is organising a series of lectures on intellectual property rights. Since I am sideways, tangently involved with that on rare occasions, I figured it would be nice to attend some of these lectures. Caveat: they’re in French.
Le ouch! Hmmms, then again, after 4 years in a foreign country (where I usually speak English), and day-to-day interactions with non-Dutch (again, English), my grasp of French ought to be sufficient, no? Well, shucks, why not give it a go.
So I did. Imagine my surprise when I could not only follow most of the first lecture, but was actually quite at ease. Of course, this is a subject with which I am familiar (e.g. I know some things about the Berne Convention — beyond knowing of its existence :), and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the first lecture had little news for me in store.
I was a little dismayed when the second lecture was similar. It makes sense, they are focusing on SMEs, but listening to a talk about the intellectual property rights involved in setting up your website was not the reason I was attending.
So I even learned that I can multitaks (to a limited degree) while listening to a presentation in French on a subject with which I am passingly acquainted. :) Hooray for me! :)
FireFox 4.0 RC 1
March 10th, 2011
Firefox is almost up to version 4. Today, I had occasion to boot into Windows (in short, I was forced). My Firefox needed updating after a long period of neglect. So I updated it, and noticed that there was a Release Candidate for the newest version. Now a release candidate isn’t the finished product. You might run into bugs. Then again, I almost never use Windows, so why not give it a try? Next boot, there will probably be Firefox 4.5 or so to install anyway :)
I did. While it was downloading, I wasted some time browsing slashdot (a site which I should stop browsing since it no longer is as good as it was, but okay). Slashdot uses quite some javascript. So after finishing the install, I figured to test the speed claims on Slashdot, check if there was an improvement.
BY GOLLY THERE WAS!! The flames left by the racing speedmonster Firefox had become threatened to engulf my desktop (metaphorically speaking, of course). I’m now actually tempted to install RC1 in Ubuntu as well. If I do, I will let you trusty reader(s?) know all about it :)
More movie
February 23rd, 2011
The other night, we watched two movies by Dreamworks. One was the Jerry Seinfeld mishap also known as Bee movie. The one-line summary: bees can talk, behave like humans, want their honey back, sue mankind, win, flowers die as bees stop working, bees realise that they’re vital, life goes on. The verdict: Avoid. It’s not that Jerry Seinfeld is Unfunny — no, the man never was funny in the first place. Ever. Which becomes painfully obvious if you watch this movie. Mediocrity does not constitute a replacement for Fun, nor for Story. Bee Movie: the movie so mediocre, it drowns in it.
What a refreshment Kung Fu Panda brings! I don’t know if it is the difference between the whiny bag of hot air Seinfeld vs. the explosion of verbal energy that is Jack Black (actually, I do and it is in large part :), but seriously, so much better. Of course the story isn’t very good here either. But the jokes at least made me laugh, and I didn’t feel nauseated to the point of vomiting by the movie’s obligatory moral point (which, incidentally, always make me want to shout “Now we know! — and knowing is half the battle”).
tl;dr version: watch Kung Fu Panda + Jack Black rules; avoid Bee movie + Jerry Seinfeld sucks.
Hugo on ice!
February 22nd, 2011Today, we tried our hand (or rather, our legs) at the long-since planned ice skating evening. Surprisingly enough, all beginners in the group (Dalia, Symeon and le moi) were doing rather well. Dalia made the most of her one-skate propulsion methodology, Symeon remained undaunted by his various close encounters of the cold kind, and my mediocrity in inline skating proved useful enough so that I did not fall, and at the end could even go at something resembling a pace (I won’t call it a reasonable pace here, but it was more than a standstill, even more than a walking-on-ice trick). I impressed myself quite a bit there. Looking forward to trying that stuff again.
Not bad, considering today I also went for sports. The intense kind. Was good to move a bit again after about two months of inactivity due to feeling not well enough to do sports. Might make this a regular event till I pick up a bit of stamina again (after all, need to prepare for June 11th)
Thin Lizzy
February 15th, 2011
Yesterday, we went to see Thin Lizzy. It was one of the few bands left on Mat’s todo list. Well, did we cross that one off! These guys rock! And don’t be fooled by old youtube footage, nowadays they sound a bit more like this. In one word: R*O*C*K*S*! (err… that’s no Thin Lizzy…).
Anyway, Thin Lizzy. It was seriously cool. And the folk attending Thin Lizzy concerts in the Rockhal @ Esch are seriously non-animate. But we had a great time. And Mat had this seriously content smile upon his face. Well, after Shane + Pogues and Thin Lizzy, he could hardly ask for more. Come to think of it, neither can I. Ozzy would be nice though. Oh, wait.
Long lost song!
February 15th, 2011
Once in a while I reflect back to my early days in the AOR (the Eindhoven student bar. Those were the days… house/club/pop music/hakkuh in the main bar, and alternative music in the schuifbar. There’s one song I only recall having heard there, despite liking it a lot I never found it.
Until just now! Youtube + healthy dose of good luck = refind weird old songs. Unfortunately, there’s a truckload of remixes of the song online. I don’t know which was the original, so you’re getting two links. Without any further reason, I sort of suspect the latter to be the correct link. Enjoy Banana-na-na by Technohead (of “I want to be a hippy” fame)!
ps: feel free to remind me that sometimes, you should let old memories rest ;-)
Webcomic fun
February 13th, 2011Last Friday’s Penny Arcade struck me as hilarious:
“You want them to go back [to the old layout]?”
– “I want them tried in The Hague!”
:)
On an unrelated note: very old, but still true XKCD webcomic.
Recently seen movies
February 13th, 2011
Since I’ve felt for a while that I’d like to keep a bit track of what I’ve watched, here’s a speedy update on some recent movies I’ve seen (including some old DVDs as well as some excursions to the cinema). I’ll try to include the Christmas holidays with it (I did see a movie I think, just can’t recall which one.. at Bobby’s…).
- Tangled. Rapunzel with a twist. Rather predictable, but the horse more than makes up for that. Plus, I’m a sucker for Disney movies :)
- Hercules. Still fun :)
- Tron: Legacy. Saw some reviews before, which put me in the right frame of mind. Don’t expect an engrossing story. It’s nice visuals, a SF story with a bit of a twist (well it’s basically the old story all over again), and music by Daft Punk. Not too deep, but very enjoyable.
- Push. This was movie night, and not my choice. An action movie with fantasy (read: x-men) twists. Somewhat similar to the various X-Men movies, and very, very similar to Jumper, a movie I’ve recently seen with Rogier. Between the two of them, Jumper is the better movie.
- The movie I saw with Bobby. Shit I forgot — some action movie we both enjoyed.
Google == funny
February 3rd, 2011
I’m going to a lindyhop dancing event which is called “Swingin in the rain”. Already added the dates to the calendar when I hadn’t made up my mind yet, so there was an entry “Swinging in the rain?” in my calendar. In steps Google with their user-friendly automated processing. So I click on the entry now, and find out that Google added a “where” to this event. Guess where: “the rain?”.
Google, you’ve never been so right about anything before :D
Best part? Clicking on the map link next to the name of the location not only brings up Google maps, but Google actually managed to find a location too…
Funniest google logo I could find — their regular one is just too boring to add. Like it?