But won’t it be absurd

Cover songs again. First up, I mentioned Tetrastar’s “Soulja Boy” in a previous post. Well everyone should go to their website and download the free album Songs We Didn’t Write. If Dragonforce, Jonathan Coulton, Modest Mouse, Sparks, and System of a Down cover versions weren’t enough to tempt you, there’s an almost sacrilegious yet strangely brilliant cover of Hallelujah as well. Plus the mindblowing “4 Chord Song”.

Next, the most 80s thing ever (and probably NSFW):
Amanda Lear – Wild Thing

Last, a cover version found in a really odd way. I was listening to the Dandy Warhols 2003 album Welcome to the Monkey House for the first time in ages. At least I was until partway through the opening title track when I noticed the lyrics:

When Michael Jackson dies
We’re covering Blackbird
And won’t it be absurd then
When no one knows what song they just heard
Unless someone on the radio tells them first

So on a whim I googled “dandy warhols blackbird”, and it turns out they kept their promise. And it’s pretty good too:
The Dandy Warhols – Blackbird

We gotta move these colour TVs

The new laptop arrived on Tuesday, and it’s brilliant. Dual core processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard disk – these might not be all that impressive, but after the five year old laptop I was stuck with it runs like a dream to me. And nevermind the specs, my favourite thing about it is that it’s so quiet. I can barely hear the fan at all, so it’s great for watching DVDs – and even the built in speakers aren’t bad for a laptop. The big sharp screen is actually making me wish I’d shelled out for a Blu-Ray model though – and I’ve always been cynical about Blu-Ray!

Of course like the big geek that I am, I’ve been playing with my new toy every chance I get. One of the things I wanted to try, which I wouldn’t even have attempted on the old one, is some POV-Ray. Anyway I had a bit of a bash at it tonight, and it’s surprisingly easy to get nice looking results. Here’s something I whipped up and am using as a new desktop (click to see it full size).
foo2

Crank That Soulja Boy

I hate the song in the title of this post. Hate it with a passion. I honestly think it might be the worst song I’ve ever heard, representing all that is terrible about modern music, and made worse by its bizarre popularity and almost omnipresence during 2007.

Well, that goes for the original anyway.

But replace the horrendous steel drums with a beautifully fashioned electronic backing (including almost 8-bit sounds), get a sweet young woman singing the bizarre lyrics, and dress up a dog for the video, and you get this. I couldn’t believe anyone could make this song listenable, let alone loveable, but they have.

And then just the other day I found this. It’s proof of Devo’s sheer awesomeness that they can make Soulja Boy sound good. I honestly can’t stop listening to it.

Wish you were here

Well, I can’t believe I’ve been in my new job almost two months. Am really enjoying it too, getting to do all sorts of fun stuff.
Millom is lovely too, but a bit isolated and I’m missing lots of my mates. Finally making the trek back to Manchester tonight though to have a long overdue catch up with at least some of them.
After much woe my broadband is finally set up too. Despite being very upset about what’s been happening on Wikinews, I’ve decided to continue contributing there, in the hopes of turning the tide.
Well for once I have an excuse to keep this post short, as I’m writing it on my phone. I love WordPress.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends

Ok, I’m going a bit crazy. Trying to follow the Election on BBC, b3ta, Twitter and Wikinews IRC all at the same time, and still feeling bad for missing C4’s alternative coverage – Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr? That’s an awesome lineup.

Anyway, with all that I’m dead tired, and there’s only been 3 seats declared as I write this. I need a slow down before heading to bed, and remembered that I haven’t updated this blog in far too long.

And I do actually have news: I *finally* got a job offer, and though I’m really looking forward to starting, I need to move (up to the Lake District!) and there is loads to sort out in a short time. So the whole day has been rather hectic, especially as my Cantab email has decided to stop working at the most inopportune moment.

So, yeah. That’s an update of sorts. Now I am going to try and get some sleep.

Now the fireworks in me are all gone

I’ve been playing with Flash some more, and have made the leap to pure AS3. I’m using FlashDevelop, which is a really great IDE – far better than Flash CS3 itself for writing code. It’s amazing what a difference a good editor can make.

Anyway this is what I came up with, a bit of a rehash of some old Blitz Basic demos I did long ago. Click to launch fireworks
Fireworks.swf

Now I’m trying to learn flixel, a free AS3 framework designed for games. I’ve already made one basic platform game following a tutorial, and am now working on my own.

A Rorschach Test on fire

After much battling with ActionScript, this is the latest version of my Mandelbrot generator. Yes, it has skipped a few version numbers. New features:

  • Rough rendering first, followed by a better quality one
  • Various optimisations
  • Information panel
  • Actually being able to get back out again, without reloading the flash
  • Doesn’t resize stupidly
  • Just generally cleaner code

Hooray!
mandelbrot 5.swf