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From the beeb:

The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.

The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

[…]

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N’kisi-ism was “flied” for “flew”, and another “pretty smell medicine” to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N’kisi said: “Got a chimp?”

Linky.

Gary :: Apr.30.2006 :: All the news that's fit to print, w00t! :: 1 Comment »

Phillip Torrone from MAKE goes through the features on Logitech’s new webcam. Bloody amusing, and sure as hell makes you want one!

Gary :: Apr.30.2006 :: Funny, Tech :: No Comments »

I’ve always been a big fan of Marilyn Manson, though I’ve gotta admit I haven’t visited his website for some time. So imagine my surprise when I recently did, and was greeted by a front page which looked like this:

Mind you, that thing is in flash and is animated, with a very strage soundtrack. So strange, in fact, that I thought my download was corrupted and I reloaded the first page a few times. In both FF and IE.

I then realized that were was no link to click in order to enter the website; merely two hotspots, one over that wheel-like thing with the double-Ms and a Cross of Lorraine (not visible in the picture) in the top right corner. I thought I was experiencing some technical difficulty, and did the reloading thing again, in both FF and IE. No change.

I decided to pay some Manson fansites a visit to check out the buzz on the forums and see if anyone else was complaining about the official site being screwed, and stumbled upon a rather intriguing fact - The website has been gradually evolving since Jan 3rd this year, and no one knows what to make of it, as there has been no official word on the significance of the updates. Sometimes coded messages will appear on the site for a few hours, then disappear. Strings of numbers, weird soundclips, etc.

The mystery is still ongoing, almost 4 months from when it first began, and there are scores of people discussing it online.

Some have broken codes, others have rooted out references to historical speeches, one guy has even discovered a 16th century book in the French (yes, I shit you not) which seems to be the source of a certain motif used on the site.

You mayn’t be a Manson fan, but it’s still an interesting read… This I assure you. =)

Linky to discussion.

A MUCH more detailed analysis.

My favourite: The roman numerals IIV will appear in the Cross of Lorraine after some time if you just let the page sit there. Clicking on it, then pressing “1″ on the keyboard causes a brief flash of teeth onscreen:

Then everything returns to normal and the words “The first gate has been opened” appears inside the cross for a brief moment.

Then the letter V apepars in the cross after a while. Clicking, then pressing “v” on the keyboard causes the screen to flash.

Once again, after remaining undisturbed for some time, the entire cross then turns red. Clicking on it, then hitting “0″ on the keyboard causes a song to play. A man’s voice recites something, and a church choir or something starts singing, accompanied by a pipe organ. The words, “Do you love your God, Guns and Government” appear inside the Cross.

Gary :: Apr.30.2006 :: Entertainment, Music, WTF :: 4 Comments »

Well, here’s something you don’t see very often… A sex-toy review.

On wired.com no less.

Linky.

Gary :: Apr.29.2006 :: Tech, All the news that's fit to print :: No Comments »

So it seems that the folks over at Disney, after coming up with an animation sequence, use it more than once… sometimes in different shows, with nary the slightest expectation that someone will catch them at it. My guess is that the characters are drawn around a set of skeletal outline sketches, to realize the scene in context.

Of course, this being Teh Intarweb, there are bound to be some really free people out there…

…as there’s a whole gallery here:

Linky.

Gary :: Apr.29.2006 :: Entertainment, Movies, General :: No Comments »

Pirated goods - Not news.

Authorities siezing pirated goods - News.

Authorities uncovering an entire pirated company - damn bloody fucking amazing.

From the article:

After two years and thousands of hours of investigation in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in China, Taiwan and Japan, the company said it had uncovered something far more ambitious than clandestine workshops turning out inferior copies of NEC products. The pirates were faking the entire company.

Evidence seized in raids on 18 factories and warehouses in China and Taiwan over the past year showed that the counterfeiters had set up what amounted to a parallel NEC brand with links to a network of more than 50 electronics factories in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In the name of NEC, the pirates copied NEC products, and went as far as developing their own range of consumer electronic products - everything from home entertainment centers to MP3 players. They also coordinated manufacturing and distribution, collecting all the proceeds.

Full story here.

Gary :: Apr.28.2006 :: All the news that's fit to print, WTF :: No Comments »

First off, don’t get it wrong, I’m not working as one. I just titled it such because it’s the topic of this post. =)

In light of my pending graduation, I have been asked by more than just a few people to “go and make games la!” The main rationale behind this, it seems, is simply because I like to play games, so why not get paid to do it? Once put in writing, this logic is glaringly flawed. Just because one likes to play games does not mean one would enjoy being involved in any aspect of its production. Making and playing games are two different things. Just like watching a movie sure is a whole damn lot more enjoyable than shooting one. (Ain’t that right, Tianyun?)

For one, there’s the whole wrangling with the game design issue - getting worried about the tiniest little things you hope a hardcore fan (and you hope you have hardcore fans) will notice and say “Dude! You gotta see this!” and drags his buddy over to the monitor - Then there’s the wrangling with the new features which you hope won’t be panned by the reviewers.

For the code monkeys, there’s debugging. Maybe I’m ignorant, but with the increasing sophistication of games these days it seems to me that debugging one remains one of the most laborious and unrewarding jobs on the planet. Probably next to planting rice. No one’s going to thank you for the bugs you did fix (and who ever does?) but you’re probably going to get flamed left, right and center from all and sundry just because some character’s legs clip through the fucking ground plane when the player does 40 backflips under 3 seconds on the lip of the tallest volcano he’s not supposed to be on anyway on the edge of La La Land.

Then there’s crunch time. Did anyone mention crunch time? Oh yes, there’s crunch time. Crunch time is basically an extended period of long, intense working hours. To be fair, other software development jobs have crunch times too, but then again, thumbdrive drivers don’t have to make it in time for Christmas. Crunch time makes me feel queer in my stomach. I do not like crunch time, though I expect I will be facing lots of it in future.

Therefore, I will not join a game studio.^*

Post Scriptum: I do not work in the game industry. I have never worked in the game industry. This is merely my impression of working in the game industry, is completely subjective and skewed by my personal opinions and prejudices. I am an ignorant undergrad. Please do not email me to tell me how much I suck and that you, as a developer in <insert name here>, are drawing 100k a year for sitting in a plush chair writing bug-free code for a summer blockbuster. You’re welcome to leave a comment though.

Post-post Scriptum: A class action lawsuit against game giant Electronic Arts over unpaid overtime has recently been settled to the tune of $15M USD. It was put in motion by a woman who was sick of not getting to see her fiance who was crunching at EA 85 hours a week.

From the article:

On Hasty’s second day of work, the team was sucked into a six day-a-week “crunch,” an intense work period. By September, the team had to work 13-hour days, seven days a week.

The exhausted team members started making mistakes and getting sick. For Hasty, the stress triggered an allergic reaction that resulted in stomach problems and chronic headaches. He dropped 10 pounds and turned pale.

He and Hoffman moved into an apartment 10 minutes from EA’s office. She started bringing spaghetti dinners to his office and dining with him there so they could spend 30 minutes together.

Post-post-post Scriptum: Here’s a blog entry by someone who used to work in the game industry and why he will never go back.

Gary :: Apr.27.2006 :: Games, General :: No Comments »

…at 11.15pm. — Not interesting.

At gunpoint. — Slightly more interesting.

He managed to hide his phone, wallet and passport while showing his pockets empty and convincing the thugs he had nothing on him. — wtf?

Then you realise who they picked.

Gary :: Apr.26.2006 :: Funny, 1337, All the news that's fit to print :: 2 Comments »

From ea:

Although the 1.3 patch is still being worked on we wanted to provide a peek at what you can expect with the coming release:

NEW FEATURES

* Co-op: Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.
* Air dropped vehicles: Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.

BUG FIXES & GAME PLAY TWEAKS

* Prevented ban list from being cleared in the event of a server crash.
* Fixed issue with players not properly ranking up on servers where they continuously play.
* Fixed bug where friendly vehicles show up as valid targets.
* Friendly Vehicle lock: Lock-on weapons do not lock on to friendly vehicles. The box with an X through it will still appear, but a lock tone will not sound and then if fired, the missile will not track the friendly target.

Keep in mind this is only a part of what 1.3 will include. Our live team is working diligently to provide the best update possible in preparation for the release of the Armored Fury booster pack!

Gary :: Apr.26.2006 :: Games, All the news that's fit to print :: 5 Comments »

I am currently unable to download a driver file because the file is named Realtek_ALCXXX_I0003.zip. The link is embedded in a javascript so my usual straightforward workaraound isn’t quite so straightforward. I am so SEETHING MAD now the only reason I’m typing so calmly is because I am consciously suppressing myself.

Previous posts:

NTU’s content filter has the intelligence of a shit stain.

This post about porn is banned in NTU.

Gary :: Apr.26.2006 :: Bitchin', Fucked up :: 3 Comments »