The Astounding World Of The Future!

You never had it so good!

Seriously, watching this makes it clear that Warren Ellis was right - the problem with the future isn't the technology, it's that people are still people.

Thanks to stevegreen for the video.

Oh for fuck's sake

My gas meter needs to be replaced.

I was phoned by a representative last week, and I arranged a visit for today to get it installed.  I was promised an early appointment, and that it should be done by 9:30.

So I'm sitting here, ready for work, waiting for the person to show up and replace it, and I hit 10:00.  And still no sign.

So I phone up and I'm told that my appointment is for between 8am and 1pm, and that nobody has been assigned to me yet.

And...I was expecting to pick up food on the way into work, so I have nothing to eat in the house.

Not happy.

Clearly they needed the cash

Patrick Stewart.
Robery Carlyle
Jason Isaacs
Natasha McElhone

Oh, yes, that'll be the new Castlevania game.

Things have come a long way since the NES:

to


Trailer here, along with the other nine best from E3: Final Fantasy 14, Left 4 Dead 2, Mario Galaxy 2, Uncharted 2, Project Natal, Metroid: Other M, Star Wars: Old Republic, The Last Guardian, Beatles Rock Band.

Of those the ones that looked fantastic were Uncharted 2, Metroid, and The Last Guardian.  I've never even played Ico or Shadow of the Collosus, but I've been meaning to for years, if only I had a console that played them, and The Last Guardian looks to capture some of that same sense of awe and beauty that they did.

Saved!

I found some Super Noodles.

All is well with the world once again.

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 6-11-2009

• Cartoon Korea
  How the view of Korea that's reported in the UK is distorted. Not that this makes NK a lovely place to visit, but it does highlight the things that aren't reported.
  (tags: NorthKorea journalism UK)
• US brain-plug interface gets live human trials
  Internet in my head, plz.
  (tags: TheFuture technology brains)
• Raw Video: Cop Tasers 72 Year-Old Granny
  Highlighting, again, why the police should have cameras on them at all times. Because then you can watch him taser a 72-year-old half his height, and make your own mind up whether it was reasonable behaviour.
  (tags: TransparentSociety crime video)
• French Three Strikes law thrown out
  Huzzah for them having a constitution!
  (tags: copyright France internet law p2p threestrikes)
• Humans prefer confidence to expertise
  (tags: psychology advice brain)
• The Ducks Are Not Mine
  This is just _hilarious_.
  (tags: funny pets)
• Monster Jellyfish take over the oceans
  Aieeee!
  (tags: nature pictures science globalwarming environment)
• Students call for student tax to replace fees
  Doesn't sound like a bad idea.
  (tags: tax students)
• Gödel and the End of Physics
  A talk by Stephen Hawking. Well worth reading.
  (tags: interview hawking godel physics quantum science logic)
• How chaos rules complex systems and our existence
  Nice tying together of Godel, The Halting Problem and chaos.
  (tags: complexity mathematics programming math philosophy chaos)
• Terror suspects win legal battle
  Government has to actually tell people what they're accused of. Shocking!
  (tags: terrorism HumanRights law UK)

Not happy

Just phoned the Gas people again, to discover what was going on with my 8-1 appointment.

And discovered that it was originally made for _tomorrow_ 8-1.

And that when I phoned the first time she noticed this after I rang off, and told someone at Scottish Power, so they could contact me.  Only they completely failed to do so.

So, off to work now, after an annoying morning waiting in.

And tomorrow will, once again, be spent waiting for the gas man.

The annoying thing...

Is that part of rememberes getting off the phone and immediately writing down that I'd booked the gasman in for Thursday, and is totally sure I got the day right.

And the other part knows that sometimes I forget things instantly.

I'm terrified to complain in case I was wrong, but if I could find out without looking like a complete idiot then I would...

Strange events in the middle of the night

Last night we were awoken by my laptop suddenly turning itself on.  I had placed it by the side of the bed in standby before we went to sleep, and was a bit disturbed to see it turn on.  So I just opened the case and closed it again, causing it to go back into standby.

This morning I was somewhat surprised to see a "Windows rebooted itself to install updates" message waiting for me when I turned it on.

Would Windows actually wake up from standby to install updates, and reboot itself?  You'd think that it would at least wait for the next time I brought it out of standby before installing the updates...