all the world's a stage...

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive (by ImagineDragonsVEVO) Here by...

Sat, 18 May 2013 08:00:11 +0100

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive (by ImagineDragonsVEVO)

Here by way of the Lindsey Stirling cover.

Hahaha… I just find this catchier and I like the grungy(?) element. Imagine Dragons wins this Cover Comparison.

To my compromised cognitive state at this hour, this video is making me think of some dark cross between Pokémon and Avenue Q…

That sounds like one freaky anime. (O_o)

Oh, and I think Darth Vader called, he wants his NOOOOO! back :p

Random Thoughts: Focus

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:45:13 +0000

Problem: Experiencing a period of increased distractibility. Attention drifting to distant, or “exterior” sounds, like people talking downstairs.

Workaround: Institute a louder, closer source of sound that I can control. Got music playing and volume turned up.

Note: It seems rather hit and miss how various conditions are diagnosed because there’s so much overlap in diagnostic criteria of various neurodiverse states. It’s a wonder that anyone actually gets the right support they need. A very similar (or even identical) set of symptoms diagnosed one way warrants medication but diagnosed another way, the advice is to work on self-management.

I actually took an official diagnostic test for ADHD this week. I scored firmly in the middle of the “highly probable for ADHD” range of scores. However, all the issues I have (and have pretty much always had, but now outstripping my ability to cope with them, I think) with focus/ concentration/ attention/ organisation could also (perhaps additionally, rather than instead) be due to dyspraxia, aspergers and more recently ME.

*sigh*

Don’t wish me luck. Wish me ironclad focus.

5 Awesome Halloween Light Shows

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:00:00 +0100

Compared to us here in the UK, over in the US they’ve really got a knack for doing certain things bigger and larger scale. Halloween is one good example. Check out these amazing installations synchronised to music:

[Or watch the whole playlist here]

Thriller (Michael Jackson) - KJ92508
The way the pumpkins light up to mark the path taken by the footsteps at the start of the song, it’s a nice touch hinting at the choreography to come.

If you’re a fan of LMFAO then chances are you’ve probably already seen this guy’s work. Kevin Judd of Riverside, California is pretty prolific when it comes to amazing light shows on the front of houses. So impressed were LMFAO with his light show, synchronised to Party Rock Anthem, that they approached him and had him do their lights for last year’s American Music Awards.
Supermassive Black Hole (Muse) - soilhead13
For Rocky Horror fans there’s also one for The Time Warp by this user. It was tough to choose which one to feature.
This is Halloween (Marilyn Manson) - KJ92508
Wasn’t kidding when I described this guy as prolific- another one from KJ92508 that I really like. His channel features probably the best examples of creative lighting on YouTube. I love this one featuring Marilyn Manson’s cover of “This is Halloween”.

Hope to continue to see more videos of his light shows. Apparently there was an issue with the HOA (Home Owners’ Association?) and he had to stop putting up light shows on his house.
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) - OdessaWest
By the way, the numbering is actually rather arbitrary: if the numbering actually meant anything there’d be two or three tied first place with the rest tied second place. I really do think that the ones featured here are the best of the bunch. This one is good enough to be ranked joint first place.
Monster Mash - jennstarr722
Nice song, nice colours…

Come Christmas time I’ll probably look at “Awesome Christmas Light Shows” because it was actually a YouTube video of amazing Christmas lights that led me to explore Halloween lights…

SciTech Editorial - Freshers Issue

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:28:00 +0100

So, a while back I promised you (or whoever reads my blog anyway) and myself that in an effort to keep my blog regularly updated, I’d put up articles and things that I write for Spark*, the student newspaper at my university The University of Reading. So this is me making a start on that. We used to have a “In Other News” column but I decided to re-purpose it into an Editorial. I feel it adds a personal touch to the section.

I also happen to be the Web Editor too so I heartily encourage you to go have a look at the website at www.sparknewspaper.co.uk, and if you want to read the latest issue, then that’s just gone up on Issuu - check out the Issuu page on the website or go straight to Issuu.

It’s your Science & Technology editor, David Thai here! Well, one of the two of us anyway. Regular readers will have noticed a change: we used to have a column of “other news” on this page. I’ve decided that we shouldn’t limit ourselves so beginning this first issue of 2012/2013, we’ll be using the space for an editorial instead.

This issue opens with Vinay’s in-depth interview with Ross Beale, one of the team behind the new social networking app Mixer. It’s a fascinating read. Will Mixer be the next big thing in social networking? Have a read and perhaps have a go, and let us know what you think!

Then we join Frances McKean to consider the ethics and implications of transhumanism. It comes with a lovely piece of artwork from Hannah Tierman. While I myself don’t have so much as a tattoo, I find transhumanism a fascinating concept: I for one think the prospect of enhancing our abilities with science and technology is an exciting one. Deputy Editor Calum drew my attention to Lepht Anonym who I looked up immediately. On the Wellcome Trust’s blog about their Superhuman exhibition, they consider the cases of “the artist, the scholar and the zealot” (http://wp.me/pJJaZ-2NP) where our very own Professor Kevin Warwick is the scholar, the artist is Stelarc and Lepht Anonym is dubbed a zealot. Lepht performs surgery on herself in the kitchen and has placed magnets in her fingertips to allow her to detect electromagnetic fields. A visionary, or a madwoman? That seems to roughly cover the range of opinion on what she does to herself. I think it’s amazing. Maybe I’m just weird?

Well that’s all we have time for this issue. Thanks for reading and see you next issue!

Gangnam Style: Top Parodies/Tributes/Remixes

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:24:03 +0100

When a viral hit or meme reaches a certain critical mass, anyone who wasn’t paying attention… well, you just gotta.

As is often the case when it comes to music viral hits from genres outside my usual mix, the first thing I usually look at is parody. Then any tributes/covers or remixes and then finally I’ll look at the original. I find it a good deconstruction of the meme and it helps me appreciate the original more: I come to understand it’s appeal and have some fun while I’m doing it.

In my top 3: North Korea’s Kim Jong-un tells it like it is in Key of Awesome #63, a pair of town guards from Skyrim show off their Gangnam Style and then a look at what might’ve happened if Psy was Klingon.

Key of Awesome #63: PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) PARODY! KIM JONG STYLE!
This one was the first one I saw. I love Key of Awesome’s parody videos. This is one of those that’s “funny because it’s true”. The truth itself isn’t funny but the showing up of a less than ideal state of affairs is.
Skyrim : Gangnam Style Dance by abexomotron1

This one I class as a tribute. And it may be my favourite of the ones I’ve seen. The song itself is unchanged but it’s an innovative use of a couple of guards from Skyrim. I should get around to playing that game at some point. Maybe when they release a GOTY edition that bundles DLC/expansions.
KLINGON STYLE (Star Trek Parody of PSY - GANGNAM STYLE)

Finally, what is probably the best Gangnam Style inspired video I’ve seen on YouTube. This is amazing. You’ll just have to watch it yourself. There are lyrics in actual Klingon. Several popular characters from Star Trek make an appearance too.

Afterthought: It occurred to me that Psy/Gangnam Style is sort of this year’s LMFAO/Party Rock Anthem. Is everyone still shufflin’ or are they doing it Gangnam Style?

Queued Posts...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:56:19 +0100

So, I’ve been incredibly busy with various stuff so I’ve not been on Tumblr in ages. Is it bad that having felt an urge to blog something, after completing the post I then have to queue for the end of next month because it’s a bit premature to talk about it right now?

Will get round to finishing this game when I have the time but...

Mon, 28 May 2012 17:22:00 +0100

Will get round to finishing this game when I have the time but in the meantime I’ve got the soundtrack on repeat, especially this track, and now I’m out of plays on Spotify. To Grooveshark!

I still haven’t seen it and I was wondering if I was...

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:50:54 +0100

I still haven’t seen it and I was wondering if I was missing anything…

crisiscookie:

He’s right. That movie was baaaad D:

So, it's been a while...

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:46:00 +0100

Right, I haven’t blogged in months but I am still alive. I’ve just been more active in other places, like Twitter.

In terms of content, I’ll soon be posting up new articles on a (hopefully) regular basis - but more on that in a moment.

Anyway, how is everyone? I’ve been doing alright. I’ve been keeping quite busy actually. In the past few months I’ve been getting stuck in with student media at Reading University.

As of March I’ve been working on the radio station Junction11’s twice-weekly news show and for the past two shows I’ve even been able to read some of it. You can listen to Junction11 online on their website. And as of last month I’m one of the two new editors for the Science & Technology section of our Spark* newspaper - I finished editing our section yesterday for the next issue, out this Friday. It’s also likely that I’m also going to be the new Spark* Web Editor too because right now all we’ve got right now is the twitter account @SparkNewspaper - someone needs to get the Spark* website back up and running and keep it that way. It had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong. ;).

And hopefully I can get more involved with RUON TV, our TV station… going to production meeting tomorrow to see what comes up.

But anyway, on to content. Whenever I write an article for Spark*, I’ll also post it on my blog :)

Nokia ringtone during concert of classical music: How to react...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:40:13 +0000

Nokia ringtone during concert of classical music: How to react when a mobile goes off and interrupts your performance

(Found this via BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16688007)

Really need to use Wikipedia today?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:42:00 +0000

Calm down dear, it’s only Javascript!

As you’ll discover, if you didn’t know already, Wikipedia is staging a 24 hour blackout which began 0500 UTC today.

So much has been made of the Wikipedia blackout… but what if you really need to use it? In case you don’t know how to get Wikipedia back because you didn’t follow the link to “Learn more” then basically you should know that it’s not the end of the world if you urgently need access to Wikipedia today. The pages are all still there, they just appear with an overlay on top of them thanks to Javascript.

So fear not, because Wikipedia have made it very simple to get the normal site back because the SOPA blackout works by Javascript so you can get Wikipedia back by disabling Javascript or adding this line to AdBlock:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:BannerLoader&banner=blackout*

Most if not all of the sites participating in the blackout are probably doing it with Javascript (e.g. I know that the http://sopastrike.com/ blackout is), so disabling it will also bring back those sites.

I think this has been a great idea. It’s like the Internet’s equivalent of peaceful protest versus the more hands on hacktivism of Anonymous (akin those who protest by smashing windows and burning cars, etc.). Having said that, I’m half expecting to hear about various cyber attacks in the next few days against organisations supporting SOPA/PIPA. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is for another post/debate.

I still haven’t seen the Series 2 finale of Sherlock. I...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:07:00 +0000

I still haven’t seen the Series 2 finale of Sherlock. I think maybe subconsciously I’m trying to shorten the time I have to wait for Series 3. If I left it long enough then the previous two episodes would no longer be fresh in my mind so I’d have to watch Series 2 right from the beginning.

But if I did that then I may as well start right from the beginning from 1x01 and have a Sherlock Marathon! Oh woe is me! >:p

And while I’m at it, I’ll probably want to go back and rewatch Luther too.

Speaking of a Sherlock marathon, the Sherlock - Series 1 and 2 Box Set is available to pre-order on Amazon… but I think I’ll wait for the Series 1, 2 and 3 Box Set.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it just a little annoying how for a second series and series thereafter they’ll release a standalone series box set (like Sherlock - Series 2 on DVD, also available to pre-order) and also a combined box set of all the series to date? It makes me want to wait until the show has stopped running and then get a combined all-series box set because it’s cheaper that way.

foobar2000: A better audio player Yesterday I switched...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:36:00 +0000

foobar2000: A better audio player

Yesterday I switched to foobar2000 and found it to be my favourite audio player. It has everything I want from an audio player: it’s light on system resources, can scrobble to Last.fm and supports media keys so I can easily play/pause/skip without needing to activate foobar2000. The UI is easy to customise to your preferences and there are various components that you can add for extra functionality. One of the components I’ve added is the lyrics component. I’ve changed the layout so that the lyrics window is docked into the main window rather floating separately.

I don’t use iTunes or WMP because all I want is to listen to my music. I don’t need all the extras. There are specific things I dislike about those two but I won’t go into it here.

For a long time, I’ve used Winamp for playing music. However, I started noticing how it was not lightweight and would slow, freeze and/or crash if I left it running. This in turn would slow down my system. This I did not like.

I looked at what I already had installed and started using VLC instead. VLC is one of my favourite programs. No more worrying about having the right codec. Highly recommended and you should try it if you haven’t already.

Anyway, VLC is much lighter than Winamp and does what I need it to do. Only down side is that it doesn’t support the media keys on my keyboard - its global hotkey settings literally will not let me bind the media keys. The only way to get it to kind of work is if I install mk2mp and even then it only works if the VLC window is active- which sort of defeats the point of using the media keys.

I did also look at Media Player Classic, which does support media keys but doesn’t scrobble. Personally, the Last.fm support is more important to me than media keys support, so VLC, it was.

But I have foobar2000 now and I’m not going back.

Screenshot was taken while foobar2000 was in use. I was listening to Tapping the Vein who are one the many bands I adore. Female fronted gothic metal, yay. Go have a listen on Grooveshark or find the band on Amazon.

chronicillnesscat: [Image: 6-piece blue colored background with...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:10:28 +0000

chronicillnesscat:

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat with blue eyes. Text reads: “Top text:Socialize with friends for a few hours Bottom text: In bed in agonizing pain for three days”]

urgh… gpoy

I want to cuddle...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:56:00 +0000

…a large wolf :/

Originally posted on my Facebook but I suspect there may be others who’ve experienced a similar predicament so I’m sharing my story here! :)

The desire to lie in bed cuddling big cuddly toy increases proportionally to how worn-down I’m feeling.

Lestat de Lioncourt used to curl up with his mastiffs for warmth and comfort but a cuddly toy is going to be the closest I’ll ever get to curling up with a wolf.

My brief search this morning has led me to discover the following:

Wolves are a rarity in the world of cuddly toys. Particularly compared to the obscenely common teddy bear.
In the entire world - or at least, the world as represented by the Internet - there is apparently only one wolf toy (of the larger variety) on sale.
This is the “Lge Lying Wolf by Hansa Toys” from http://www.lincrafts.com/wolf.htm - It is a “truly realistic animal” according its Amazon listing and it’s a whole metre length of Canis lupus plushie.
Cuddly toys can be far more expensive than I could ever have imagined. This one costs £300. Yes, you read correctly: Three Hundred Pounds Sterling.

The Serotonin Experiment: Epilogue

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:06:30 +0000

For the full story behind this, see this.

November-Present

Things have got pretty bad. Towards the end of November I was seeing the GP repeatedly, trying to get him to give me something to stop me being so debilitatingly tired all the time.

The only thing he was willing to offer was to increase my dose of sertraline from 50mg to 100mg- because I found that the 50mg dose seemed to stop me getting headaches as much or as often, so maybe increasing the dose might help in other ways.

I repeat, while it may be an antidepressant I was not taking it because I was depressed, but rather I was taking it because it seemed to help with my headaches- which is one of the symptoms of my ME. Something is better than nothing, I figured, so I agreed to the increased dosage.

As I went through this new packet, I didn’t find that I was getting any additional improvement from the increased dosage.

So I’d take one pill a day but sometimes I’d miss a day but as I’d still have boosted serotonin levels in my system, I could just top up the next day and carry on as normal. Thus, it would be one tablet a day or at least one every other day. No big deal.

But as my condition seemed to take a turn for the worst, there would be more and days that I’d lose to sleeping because I’d be so tired and that was all I could do. This eventually led me to missing more than one day at time. It was at this point I realised that this was not working. Because on the second day without sertraline, I got the mother of all headaches.

It occurred to me that I was locking myself into a drug that provided minimal benefit which if I ever stopped taking, there would be a small bit of hell to pay. If I was benefiting more substantially, then it would be a different story. I’ve concluded that I would rather risk the occasional headache without sertraline than the guaranteed mega headache if I were on it and discontinued it.

I think I’ll see how things go without sertraline. Going onto 100mg tablets was counter-productive. If occasional headaches become a problem, I’ll consider taking a low dose as a prophylactic but otherwise I think the SSRI angle is a dead end.

Damn.

What I’d really like is for the doctor to let me try something else. Screw the “official guidelines”. Given that there’s no cure for ME/CFS anyway, lets forget about the diagnosis for a moment and focus on alleviating the actual symptoms. What I’d like is to be able to take something to fight off the constant tiredness and need to sleep.

It's not counselling I need...

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:01:00 +0000

endorphinmachine:

I wish there was more support in general for people with ME/CFS.

About the extent of it is “Here try these tablets and if you don’t die in the mean time come back and see me in a month.”

We don’t get offered counseling, any kind of therapy eg. art therapy, no support groups, no nothing.

I don’t know if that’s the case for everywhere else, but where I live it seems to be.

I can dream.

The main “treatment” offered here in the UK is CBT but it’s not really what I need and doesn’t treat the symptoms. Forget about “counselling”. Just develop a proper treatment or medication to make the symptoms go away.

At MCM Expo, with Jonathon Young and Agam Darshi who play Nikola...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:54:00 +0000

At MCM Expo, with Jonathon Young and Agam Darshi who play Nikola Tesla and Kate Freelander in Sanctuary.

Although I wish I hadn’t been so tired and out of it by the time I got to them. I probably gibbered nonsense but they were both friendly and nice about it.

Always knew there would be consequences of going out yesterday - exhaustion aside, will have to go into overdrive to get that report finished for tomorrow morning - but I guess that on balance I have to conclude it was worth it as I had wonderful time with friends ^^

Pretty good experience for my first Expo. Lessons learnt for next time:

Don’t expect to be able to use ATMs at the venue because there will be long queues- withdraw sufficient cash before arrival
Immediately acquire map/schedule from Info Desk on arrival so I know what’s happen, where to go and when
Goes without saying but for things that need queuing, queue early. The earlier the better
In the “theatre”, closer is not better. Better is to sit in the front row directly in front rather than the side of the protruding “catwalk” bit of the stage because some panellists (i.e. the Torchwood stars, on this occasion) will come out to the edge of that catwalk to get up close to fans and you’ll end up behind them
If you’re keen on grabbing some of the prizes the MC dishes out then save your enthusiasm for second or third items- unless you really want Pocky, for example. MC will actively avoid focussing on single areas of the audience but rather try to distribute prizes widely across the entire audience area. He typically opened with Pocky here and if you or someone in your area of the audience gets a box of Pocky, don’t expect on getting anything else (T-Shirts, mouse mats, plushie, etc).
For popular panels, get in early like I did this time to find a good seat/view.
Personal goal: Must dress up and cosplay next time!

Priorities...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:00:04 +0000

endorphinmachine:

Doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Are any of my followers?

I set my word count goal for 30,000 words. (I set it lower than 50k because of my ME/CFS, it’s kind of unrealistic to think that with my brain fog I’d be able to churn out 1,500+ words a day.)

So anyway, it’s my first year attempting NaNoWriMo.

Urgh. I wanted to last year. I planned to this year. But between health and keeping up with uni I’m having to skip it this year too :(

What Occupy Wall Street’s critics are really trying to accomplish

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:29:42 +0100

What Occupy Wall Street’s critics are really trying to accomplish:

wilwheaton:

Critics of Occupy Wall Street have a transparent objective: They want to persuade blue collar whites and ordinary middle class Americans to turn on the movement for cultural reasons — because its optics offend these voters’ cultural instincts — even if they broadly agree with its general principles and critique of what’s gone wrong.

This dovetails with a quote from John Cole I recently posted here (to much rending of garments and clutching of pearls from the very people he’s talking about):

“The greatest hoax of the last couple of decades has been the ability of the right wing to co-opt members of the struggling lower middle class and lower class and pretend they speak for them while enacting policies that enable the super-rich. They’ve used wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion and the baby Jeebus to alienate folks from their own economic interests, feeding them a steady diet of hatred of minorites, the educated, science, and, well, reality to create a voting block of people so guided by hatred of the ‘other’ that they would crawl over broken glass to cut their nose off to spite their face.”

I just posted that quote from Cole on my G+, and the self-identified conservatives are livid about it. I don’t mean this as an attack on self-identified conservatives at all. I quote it because it breaks my heart.

And not that it matters, but the same thing can largely be said of Democrats since the election of 2000. I strongly believe that if Obama and the Democrats had behaved like the populists they claimed to be when they had majorities in both houses of congress, and actually done something to hold these Wall Street criminals accountable, #OWS wouldn’t be necessary.

Now we just have to hope that the #OWS protests capture enough attention for long enough to force the Democrats (because you can be damn sure it won’t be the GOP) to enact laws and policies that actually address and correct the things we’ve all been begging them to listen to for about ten years.

This is how a movement gets started, and it doesn’t end quickly or cleanly.

And it isn’t the job of the protesters to write the damn laws; that’s the job of the Congress, who need to work for The People instead of The Lobbyists.

I don’t think I have anything more to add…