Roland’s missing Bassline synth…

Roland is well known for it’s TB-303, TR-808 & TR 909 synths and drum machines, but it also made others in this numeric series: the SH-101, MC-202, and so on. However, it never made a ‘404’ of any sort, which leads me to create this HILARIOUS info-graphic:

Pat is partly to blame for this joke – though he’s sensible enough not to actually make a picture of it and upload it to his blog.

Times Crossword for iPhone

1a) Finally, The Times Crossword iPhone  app that I’ve been working on has appeared in the iTunes Store! (4)

2a) Actually we’ve launched first with the Concise Crossword, and the Cryptic above will go live in the next week or so. (6)

3a) But both are a very reasonable £2.99 for 50 crosswords. (1)

1d) The good thing about the Concise crossword is that it’s actually doable by mortal human beings – unlike the bloody Cryptics which I still can’t get my head around. (5-6)

2d) Get it from iTunes by clicking this exciting Universal Resource Locator link

3d) It was #1 in New and Noted yesterday in the iStore, so hopefully that will drive a few sales (4)

4d) If you’ve bought it – let me know what you think of it! (2-3-4-3)

Looking for some uranium?

Any website that has uranim for sale using an animated gif like the above is ok in my book.
www.unitednuclear.com

Also check out their maiming super-magnets: http://unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm

“Two Supermagnets can very easily get out of control, crush fingers and instantly break ribs or even your arm if opposing poles fly at each other.”

What a super website!

Maximum Security Toothpaste

As used in the Guantanamo Bay Bad Place:

But I bet you still can’t take it on aeroplanes…

from Times Online

Geeking and Popping

Armed with only some sinewaves, a vintage valve oscilloscope, the Flippers and an incurable fascination with visualising sound a thing has been produced. It is a sort of musical thing with a sort of visual thing.

It’s been accepted into the virtual festival GeekPop.

You can see it here: http://geekpop.podbean.com/2009/experimental/onrails

It’s like an amazing rock video without the rock. You’ll love it because it’s lovely.

Finally, the 21st Century arrives…

Robots are awesome, and for this reason alone Honda have pumped millions into developing a bipedal robot over the last twenty years.

Today their latest, called Asimo, came to visit us at work so we could see him in action:

As well as serving drinks he did some running, kicked a football (gently) and was able to be led around by the hand. The last was particularly impressive as that wasn’t ‘preprogrammed’ as such, it would respond to the direction it was moved in.

A cliche to say, but it’s amazing how wired we are to respond to humanoid shapes, imparting them with human emotion and intention. (Funnily enough, this was undemined somewhat by the child-like sound of it’s computer generated voice. It wasn’t the right voice for the job)

It’s certainly come along way since their first robot ‘EO’ in 1986:

Will we really have one in the home of the future as the presenter claimed? Maybe – at least it seems a little more plausible that those imagined in the 1950s…

Oscillating with joy

The People: So, what did you do on Valentine’s Day?
Oli: I went to Warwick South Services on the M40. at 9:30am to meet a  man I met on the Internet.
The People: Hmm.
Oli: To collect the oscilloscope I bought off him off Ebay!
The People: D’oh, you tease.

Was worried it wasn’t working to begin with, not having ever used one before, but with a bit of advice from Gabriel Oscilloscope Vendor, it all turned out ok.

It’s for a video I want to make to accompany a piece of music submitted to the GeekPop Festival, whcih you can just about hear tinkling away in the background.

Yes, I could have used a digital oscilloscope on the Mac, and which I do have several flavours of, but like analogue synths there’s something much more satisfying about knowing that there is a real stream of electrons being deflected by the audio signal, and that it’s really flourescing the crt display. It looks great actually, not done any justice by crappy Youtube compression. 

Not only that, but this oscilloscope is so old it actually have valves in it – gawd knows what it does to my electricity bill when I switch it on!

Playing synths is cool…why are you laughing?

I’m gonna get me one of these, then I can be as cool as Des.

Imagine a whole band of these…swoon

Moany Baloney

In case anyone was wondering, these are my 10* least favourite phrases on US tech blogs/newsites

(*seasonally adjusted to 9)

When you’re as addicted to reading tech blogs and tech news sites as I am, you notice the same phrases and word memes come up over and over again. Often, they’re amusing the first couple of times, but they can quickly become wearying to read again and again. Here are the ones that are currently annoying me the most:

Called out
“The IDC called out this new category for special mention”.
It just sounds wrong and ugly, like a kind of unfortunate singling out in a military parade for ‘special attention’. It sounds lumpy to UK ears, in the same way that ‘I promise I’ll write you in the fall’ does. I concede that this is pure British linguistic snobbery, but there it is.

B’okay?
“Y’all stop beating on Apple, b’okay?”.
I reckon South Park and their Mr Mackey is responsible for this one, reverse enginered from ‘Mmm’kay?’

Beating on
“Y’all stop beating on Apple, b’okay?”
This is as bad as Australian news reporting ‘a bashing’ in the mall. Mall is bad too.

Kool Aid
“You’re clearly drinking the Microsoft/Apple Kool Aid” .
Swallowing marketing hype as if it were the truthiness. As I’m based in the UK, I have absolutely no idea what Kool Aid is, or how the consumption of it suspends one’s critical faculties.

Truthiness
Probably Simpsons. It’s the sort of thing Homer would say, like ‘saxamaphone’ and ‘Rageahol’

Much
“Pedant, much?” or “improved camera on new iPhone? Not so much.”
Much nice discussion of the new muchness here: http://www.azcentral.com/ent/pop/articles/1031catchphrases1031.html

ipod/iPhone killer
Ha ha ha.
The ipod was launched, when, 2001? It was killed in the same way that the G’Gugvuntts in the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy killed the Earth (they were, in fact, eaten by a small dog due to an unfortunate miscalculation of scale.) But the idea that something should be ‘killed’ because some talented industrial designers actually thought about user experience, and made something as well as they could, seems to smack of reverse snobbery or jealousy or hypocrisy, or maybe snobbery. Or Jealousy. Or reverse hypocrisy.

Frigtard
“I hear Robert Scoble may or may not be a frigtard”
Used exclusively by Dan Lyons, the Forbes journalist blogging as Fake Steve Jobs. I’m not sure this update of the charming American insult ‘retard’ has caught on in the wider world, along with it’s variants twittertards, freetards and tardtards.

Micro$oft
Of course, it’s all good sport to be terribly annoyed with Microsoft and Vista, but it seems a rather pointless insult to imply that Microsoft, a commercial company, is…in it for the money! Shock, horror, eyes popping out on stalks, etc. In fact, as an insult it’s fails somewhat as it looks kinda cool with a dollar sign in there, very bling.

Teh
Just stop it now, please. We get it. It’s easy to misspell ‘the’. Great. Now just spell it properly.

Superstudio & the future

A couple of years ago I went to the excellent Superstudio exhibition at the Design Museum, London. Active in the 1960’s, Superstudio were an exciting architectural practice who never actually built any buildings- and who liked celebrate the death of architecture. Being Italian, they clearly took their manifesto driven approach from their equically radical forebears, the Futurists.

Like the Futurists, they also produced great graphic work, and like the Futurists what they predicted actually seems to be happening now.

Look at this building proposed for Dubai:

Superstudio:

More superstudio:

More Dubai:

More Superstudio:

Now you are fully briefed, you can say whether this is Dubai or Superstudio: