If you happen to have a spare $200k lying around, you might like to know that in December this year, Jet Pack International are hoping to begin selling the first production version of their T-73 Personal Jetpack.
Just in time for Christmas!
(via Team Geared Up)
Just curious but of those of you who develop websites (especially those who do it commercially), what tools and packages do you use?
Mother Nature can be a cruel and harsh mistress. Here’s the reality of live in the wild, as caught on film. WARNING: if you’re squeamish and like to think of furry animals as being cute an cuddly, don’t watch what follows.
Signed up to Facebook, found out I can’t hide, signed out again. Not before having a quick wander around and finding a stack load of people who I wouldn’t want to know I was on there. Mostly relatives. That is another story, however, and one likely not to get told here.
To the 3 people who did attempt to add me as friends using my email address (and then probably wondered who the hell the person was given the hastily constructed pseudonym that I used) apologies about that. It’s nothing personal. In fact, in this case, it definitely wasn’t you and it was most certainly me.
What sort of fucking error message is this? Despite my firm conviction that Twitter is, well, pointless, I am beginning to use it more because it’s less mundane and tedious than my average day at my current contract. This morning I was greeted by this error message. All well and good and it’s nice that they’ve bothered to put an error message up.
BUT
Read what it says: “The site should kick itself back into gear in a few seconds”. I don’t know what time the site went down and I’m guessing that it only went back up again a short while ago (seeing as how Pix’s first twitter was “stops twitching and commence twittering” entered not so long ago). That means that, in fact, it’s been at least 3 hours - possibly more - since it became unavailable. Saying that it will be up “in a few seconds” and even providing a link to click on to try to reload the page is bad form. Very bad form. It is misleading at best and manipulative at worst.
I don’t care that the site was unavailable - I just don’t like inappropriate messages like that which are blatantly untrue. There’s nothing wrong with saying “available soon” or “until further notice”. A message saying “click here to get in now” when it’s simply not possible is just heinous.
That is all.
Aquaasho asked what I meant when I earlier twittered about having had 3 close shaves with death this morning. (It’s nice that someone cares!) For once, they weren’t my down to my incompetence on the bike. They were, in order of happening:
Quick quiz: when you’re coming to a give way junction (be it from a drive, a T-junction, whatever) which way do you look first?
A couple of days ago, were were discussing writing CVs. A colleague (let’s call him Dick) was asking whether or not he should include a photo on his CV. I commented that I’d never seen a photo on a CV and would never consider including one. It’s not necessary in our line of work (i.e. code monkey - if I was an actor or a model then obviously it would be a different matter). But someone else (let’s call him Bob) suggested that he should include a photo. His reasoning was this: it would probably be apparent on Dick’s CV that he came from South Africa (because even if he didn’t explicitly state his nationality, his job history would give it away). Therefore a photo would show that he was white, so if the person reviewing his CV with a mind to interviewing him was racist then he’d probably be more likely to get pass the initial stage.
I was, in no uncertain terms, taken aback by this reasoning. I think my response might well have been a “What the fuck?” followed by a hasty “But that would be totally illegal!” Bob’s response was that it might well be illegal but even so, it wouldn’t stop the racists. The flashing moments of self assessment that were going off in my head like gunshots in Beirut made me realise that as much as I’m generally quite bitchy and cynical, I do tend to not think ill of people and their motivations. I’d never consider tailoring my CV so that it would be obvious that I was a WASP (even though I’m actually a WASC or, these days, more of a WASA. Except not so much AS - think I’d actually be classed as a WCA. Just think of all the fun you’re going to have working out what all those mean!)
At this point I think I said something along the lines of “If I didn’t get the job because I didn’t attach a photo, I wouldn’t care because I wouldn’t want to work for a racist anyway.” To which Bob said “Doesn’t that make you as bad as him because you’re discriminating too?” “Of course it doesn’t,” I replied. “Why not?” he queried. “I, ah…” My philosophical acumen failed me and I couldn’t come up with any constructive argument that was better than “It just doesn’t.” I felt so ashamed.
Reading Gert’s blog shortly after this, she said something quite simple: “the only thing we hate is hatred itself“. The logical inference from this is that Gert must hate herself for hating (under the assumption that the other thing they hate are people who hate). Yet this is one argument where logic can’t feature. I’m 99.9% certain that hating those who hate, discriminating against those who discriminate and being intolerant of those who aren’t tolerant is morally acceptable - after all, freedom of expression doesn’t make it all right - and I’m confident that it’s not being hypocritical or and that it’s not, in any way, a paradox. But for the life of me, I’m coming up blank when trying to find compelling justification for this viewpoint.
What would you say?
Found a video of edited footage from one of the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War expansions set to “I’ll Meet You In Poland Baby” by Foetus while cruising the YouTube channels. It’s rather splendid.
Unless, of course, you don’t like Foetus.
Or video games.
Notice how there hasn’t been much in the way of movie reviews recently? No. Oh well. Perhaps they’re not being missed. Might add some soon.
However, a couple of tidbits of movie news to share. First is the recent reveal of two new aspects of next years Batman film, “The Dark Knight”. Entertainment Weekly recently showed the new incarnation of the Batman suit and there’s no a higher res picture of it in this article on AintItCool. The big selling point? He can finally turn his head. However, the biggest news is the reveal of his new vehicle. No, not, a new incarnation of the Batmobile but an adapated motorbike type vehicle called the BatPod.
(Clickie for biggie)
This is going to divide people but personally, I love it. I also want to know if, like the Hummer style Bat-tank from the last film, it actually works. I think it’s taken a lot of inspiration from the Lawmaster bike of Judge Dredd fame, without the fairing and a very reduced seating area but the wheels and the armaments are very Mega City One.
By the way, I hope you all got the unveiling of the face of the new Joker, as played by Heath Ledger? No? Well, here’s a link to it anyway. Scary huh? This film is shaping up to be interesting.
In other major news, Indiana Jones IV has finally started shooting. Cast is getting interesting - Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone and John Hurt have all signed on (no doubt the Englishers are either doddery old librarians or the bad guys). Sean Connery, however, will not be reprising his role as Henry Jones Sr. Film is due for release in May next year.
Posts and conversations about MMOs and online gaming will be happening less here as I have been taken on as a contributor to the popular MMOG blog “Kill Ten Rats“. (Well, they needed someone to lower the tone!) I know some of you are occasionally interested in that topic so if you want to read more, drop by there sometime.
