Links for 2007-01-13
- The BBC has an article about people who think all this technology stuff is just moving a bit too fast, really. It cites the iPhone as an example. It is a dumb article. In the UK, many people are confused by technology but still end up with Sky+ and mobile phones. Point is, there will always be confusing stuff as long as there is new stuff. Eventually, people like Apple make it usable and useful for the mainstream. Duh.
- The Burning Crusade is out on Monday and I have to say I'm actually really looking forward to it... After a few months off the Warcrack, I've now developed a more reasonable and sustainable habit which I'm enjoying quite a lot. Burning Crusade should feed it nicely.
- The ModBook is a splicing of a MacBook and a WaCom screen/tablet and it looks actually pretty lovely... I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these. Apparently tablets are mainly used inside hospitals and for deliveries and stuff and so aren't a good market for Apple. Still, it's pretty nice...
- Flash Element TD seems to be some kind of towers-based game and I've played it a fair bit and it's stupidly addictive...I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to splat towers over one another. Surprisingly intellectually invigorating. Lots of nice bits of logic and animal instinct overlaps...
- Lovely Preston strides off Buzzcocks set in unlikely to endear himself to the public move... So I have a bit of a thing about lovely Preston, and I even quite like that Chantelle woman and I know that this is not necessarily the kind of thing you people want to know about. But I find it interesting. Poor chap. He's going to get roasted.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
There's something about appearing on celebrity big brother that makes you fair game for anyone at anytime for the whole of the rest of your life, whether you like it or not.
The problem facing Preston is the fact that what Mr Amstell was taking the piss out of (Chantelle getting excited over M&S clothes) was actually pretty funny. I can't imagine, however, that Chantelle would have taken it all that personally - she seems to treat all this stuff in a surprisingly, and commendably, water-off-a-duck's-back type way. She clearly could teach Preston a thing or two.
→ Posted by: minifig at January 13, 2007 10:06 AM
Make the iPhone twice as wide and you've got an Apple tablet (an iTablet?).
→ Posted by: miketually at January 15, 2007 10:06 AM
Preston is indeed quite charming, though the news reportage does make it seem he was overreacting (apparently he got upset that people thought it was funny that Chantelle thought M&S was upmarket and classy).
He's not gonna do well out of it, is he?
Now, do you mean roasted in the same way footballers do? Will there be tickets on sale?
*ahem*
→ Posted by: Owen Blacker at January 15, 2007 12:18 PM
You're spot on about the addictiveness of that Towers game -- I've wasted hours on it.
→ Posted by: Mark H Wilkinson at January 15, 2007 5:24 PM
You might be interested to know that TD (Tower Defense) is a genre of game developed by the players in Warcraft 3 (the real time strategy game). The Warcraft 3 map editor had a decent amount of scripting available inside it, and a whole community sprung up around tower defense maps. This is one of the more simple tower defense warcraft 3 maps recreated in flash.
The better Tower Defense maps were actually quite a bit more complicated -- in many cases you can build some towers on the walkway to force the creeps along certain paths. Some of the TD maps had a dizzying amount of options. They were quite a lot of fun multiplayer -- many could be played cooperatively or competitively (you could spend money to send especially annoying monsters over to your opponents side for example). With multiple players cooperating, finding synergistic upgrade paths becomes vital.
I know that I played TD style maps (and another style popularized by DoTA War3 maps) much more than 'vanilla' Warcraft 3.
→ Posted by: Jon at January 15, 2007 8:25 PM
I completely hear you about having a thing about lovely Preston. Trouble is, I also have a thing about not-quite-so-physically-lovely-but-definitely-more-intelligent-which-is-sexy-in-its-own-way Simon Amstell.
So who should I back in this completely important battle of the cuties? I'm just so torn...
→ Posted by: Scott M at January 15, 2007 10:41 PM