Krioma.net

Well... ummm, maybe not for scientific content but when it has a title "How Unlikely is a Doomsday Catastrophe?" and has been published in Nature (though a smaller version) you really have to read it... I just love the line "Annihilation by a hostile space-colonizing robot race.". Take a look at it [here] (it is a pdf).

Last Sunday was my first trip down to the Birmingham Barfly. I have to say I was impressed, it is a nice little venue. It does however remind me of a very industrial club and I could easily see it being more suited for a more gothic venue (or even trance) - maybe that was the combination of the bright red and black. Anyway the bands Stars and Shadybard were really cool. On first was Shadybard, they had an interesting sound - with cello, violin and even a french horny to accompany the normal indie band setup. I was damn impressed and I'm sure I'll have to try and catch them again. They were quite laid back and it was a pleasure to listen to them. Stars in the other hand where a bit more "bouncy" (can I use that to describe a bad?). They were energetic and full of people - I think there was 7 of them in total! They are from Canada so I bout I will get to see them again, well not for a while, so I am glad that Kat dragged me along. All in all a very good night, definitely worth £8. Oh and it was only £1.50 a pint - damn cheap for a gig venue these days!

We were robbed, enough said. At the least the last disallowed goal was a goal. Oh and people call Chelsea boring at times (well for a team with such natural attacking presence) but it is nothing in comparison to the way Sao Paulo played. Its not the worst thing to do, they did win, and heck played well for it. Though they should have lost but the linesman made a couple of shocking decisions. Well that's football - with 17 corners we really should have scored. Oh and the most wonderful thing happened at the start, a minute silence for the father of Rafael Benitez - good on ya FIFA.

The subject says it all for this post...oh and then there is this picture of me being festive whilst teaching :-)

I'd really like one of the new "toys" from SEGA - take a look at: [SEGA Toys]. I could think of hours of time wasted with one of these (maybe a little sad but I'm not afraid to say that!) - those who know me will understand, if you don't take a look at the number of space posts I make. Oh and the above website is in Japanese so don't worry if you can't read it - just take a look at the wonderful movie (I lost the link I had to an English page about this).

An interesting conversation between a rock and a ruler...

oh and I took this off some website ages ago so I am not sure where it came from.

Every year, well the last few years, I have posted my favourite songs of the year. This is in the hope that someone will actually read it, but I somewhat doubt it. If nobody does then I don't mind cause it always provides an interesting read for me a year later and I'm sure it will later on in my life. Oh and hopefully, if, when I have children then they will not think so badly of my music taste.... I doubt it though. Oh anyway enough talk, 2005 - 50 - 41:

50: Gorillaz - Dare

49: Thirteen Senses - The Salt Wound Routine

48: The Magic Numbers - Love Me Like You

47: The Blood Arm - Do I Have Your Attention?

46: VHS Or Beta - Night On Fire

45: The Others - Lackey

44: Kasabian - Club Foot

43: Green Day - Whatsername

42: The Darkness - One Way Ticket

41: Coldplay - Speed Of Sound

more to come over the next few days...

Here is the second installement of this years singles. Oh and I meant to mention the criteria for these songs. Essentially they must be singles that have been released (or in a few cases rereleased but I hadn't heard the original released) during this year into the UK charts.

31: Bloc Party - Banquet

32: Clor - Good Stuff

33: The Subways - Oh Yeah

34: We Are Scientists - Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt

35: The Bravery - Honest Mistake

36: The Dead 60s - Riot Radio

37: Interpol - Slow Hands

38: The White Stripes - My Doorbell

39: Agent Blue - Children's Children

40: Weezer - We Are All On Drugs

I don't know why I didn't come across this before, but now I have I'm well impressed. [American Edit] is a collection of "mashups" of the Green Day album "American Idiot" with various other songs. It is actually quite impressive. It was even banned, well the author was told to stop distributing it, by Warner Records - the label behind that Green Day album (more info [on Wiki]). I particularly like Dr Who On Holiday, though it is probably not the best mix on the album. There was a protest called, Dean Gray Tuesday, and lots of website released the tracks and you can still get them. Take a look at [Webfeedcentral.com] as that is where I located the files. It is really worth a listen.

Ok, time for the third installment of my chart for 2005:

21: Hell Is For Heroes - Kamichi

22: Foo Fighters - DOA

23: The Coral - In The Morning

24: The Bloodhound Gang - Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

25: Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To

26: My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay (I Promise)



27: Bowling for Soup - Almost

28: Paddingtons - 50 To A £

29: Idlewild - El Captain

30: Interpol - Evil

Punk Rock band, see [Wikipedia] for a bit more background. The reason I started listening to them is cause they have Billie Joe Armstrong in them! After coming across the Network (I don't care if they are or aren't them - I reckon they are but heck they sound like them, which is good enough) I though I'd have a look to see what else he has been involved in. This is actually quite a good band, though I have found it hard to come across their material.

Ok I have put this under polical but it really isn't! Heck it does come roughly into it but not really. You will understand why when I say, does George W. Bush look like a chimp? Well.. the people over at [bushorchimp.com] seem to think so! :-) I'm not saying that he does or doesn't.. but heck it is a good way to pass 5 minutes on one of those slow days. I wonder when people will stop coming with ways of insulting the ruler of the free world. Now who am I kiding with that sentance! Free world, we would have more chance in N. Korea.. at least there you know you haven't got a chance.

Time to enter the top 20 in my chart....:

11: Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor

12: Doves - Snowden

13: Feeder - Shatter

14: System Of A Down - Hypnotize

15: Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less And Less

16: Editors - Blood

17: The Subways - Rock and Roll Queen

18: Editors - Bullets

19: Maximo Park - Graffiti

20: Queens Of The Stone Age - In My Head

I was in two mind wether or not to wait till the last day of the year.... nah - I'll do the albums for tomorrow (assuming I get it finished). Well here is the final singles of the year. My fav is probably quite predictable by some people, less so by others I hope. Anyway I hope you haven't got too bored by me posting this. If you haven't heard of any of these tracks, they are good! Go out buy them or alternatively use the power of the internet to download them... and then go watch the band to remove the fact that you haven't paid for their efforts!

1: Green Day - Jesus Of Suburbia

2: Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure

3: Foo Fighters - The Best Of You

4: The All-American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret

5: My Chemical Romance - Helena

6: Simple Plan - Welcome to my life

7: Bullet for My Valentine - Suffocating Under Words of Sorrow (What Can I Do)

8: Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God

9: The Ordinary Boys - Life Will Be The Death Of Me

10: Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

You may have noticed that most of this site has had a complete makeover (it will all be done soonish) and I'll write more about that soon but not now. Now I am here to give you an interesting link! I have for years wondered why 3d elements were missing from operating systems, ok it would be odd to have a 3d menu system and it would be quite useless baring in mind we have a 2d display. Anyway I do rant on at times. I am actually here to write about 3d website design. Well it is not really 3d in the sense I have just wrote about but it is layering, which essentially introduces the z direction into our geometrical arguement. You might think its odd to suggest that this is new stuff since essentially this can be achieved with traditional css, heck I know I have come up with it on many occasions when I really didn't want it to. That is the point, it wasn't meant for this. To really do the layering so you can layer images over each over nicely you need some nice image editing suite, I use photoshop for this! That means you can't really do it dynamically as you go along, though I bet with some fancy php you could do it in some sense but it would not be elegant and quick. Well the future is z-indexing. Essentially each "z-index" gives you another layer and you can build up nice layered images. I believe [this] is a really funky example. Probably not the best to sell the idea to budding designers though! Anyway there is a much better and more thought provoking discussion over at [24ways.org], take a read.

There are some odd mashups (also known as bastard pop) sites out there, trust me I have come across a few them. Some are good, but most are odd. Though all have their worth one way all the other as the idea behind the combinations of two songs can be as interesting (/good) as the actual mashup. Obviously there are people out their with some great ideas but not the skills to do them, therefore they are always worth a listen. Not all of them are as good as the Dean Grey album but some are still good. I particularly like the George Bush "Imagine This" track that is out ([Download Here]). One site full of some interesting ideas is [Totom's Music] and some are actually worth a listen, others aren't but heck its interesting. For further information on this style of music editing you could do far worse than read this [Wiki Article].