After months of procrastination, I just upgraded Wordpress to version 2.6. Where to start… Well the admin interface looks way nicer, but when I’m writing or editing a post, stuff like categories and tags are not as immediately accessible. I mean I have to scroll down the page to get to them. This is probably not a big deal, since these are things you would set once and rarely change. But its still a bit annoying. In the old interface I could move these sections up and down on the sidebar, and either you can’t do this anymore, or I just haven’t figured out how yet. It also looks like there is a lot of wasted space at the top of the page, and this is one of my all time pet peeves. Grrrr! See this screenshot for what I’m talking about.
But on the plus side, the Autosave feature kicks total arse now. It’s off to the side so I can see it easily, and it dims slightly when saving, so I catch this in my peripheral vision and know everything’s going to be OK. Post Preview is now a nice big button instead of the pissy little link, so that’s also great.
I also just found this intriguing “Turbo” link up in the corner. Apparently Wordpress now supports Google Gears so “After you install and enable Gears most of WordPress’ images, scripts, and CSS files will be stored locally on your computer. This speeds up page load time.” Maybe I’ll try that out some time.
Overall, it was pretty painless. My theme still works, and thus the site also appears to work. I haven’t checked everything though, so if anything’s broken, drop us a line via comment or email.
So I’m gonna spoil the fun right here and say that this is one of four viral videos created by “Cardo Systems” to advertise a boring headset or something. These were watched by over 16 million viewers on YouTube and probably more; mine was via a forwarded email. At first glance this seems pretty plausible, but there’s a couple of obvious clues that it’s a total fake. Firstly, the corn doesn’t move. Anyone who’s popped a kernel or two in their life will know that it’s a pretty explosive occurence. Yet in the video, once the popping starts, the unpopped kernels, even when placed snugly together, remain undisturbed. I would expect at least some movement. The other dead giveaway is that the camera pans away from the popcorn for several seconds. This happens in every video.
Now that’s not to say that this kind of advertising shouldn’t be applauded. I think it’s brilliant. And way more original than something like the Air Force One gag. There’s a few reasons the cellphone popcorn concept in particular makes for successful viral marketing. Firstly, there were four separate videos seeded to YouTube, each apparently from different countries. This adds to the authenticity, creating the illusion that it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Secondly, the videos appear to contain real people who seem genuinely astonished at the result; the Japanese one especially. You believe it because they believe it. The third reason unfortunately alludes to gross scientific ignorance. The majority of people have little or no understanding of how cellphones work or radio waves for that matter. So they believe it because they can’t easily explain it. One physicist summed it up nicely by pointing out that if cellphones emit enough energy to cook popcorn, they would cook our fingers (not to mention ears and faces) every time we used them. Actually I think it’s a combination of ignorance and the media hype around cellphones and the dreaded “R” word in general. This leads to widespread but relatively mild distrust, which spawns the little voice whispering “Hey… that might actually work”. The final reason I can think of is that while it looks simple enough to do, you’d have to actually make the effort to go get some popcorn, then get eight phones set up to try it out for yourself. Now there are plenty of people who have actually gone to the effort, as a simple YouTube search proves. But most people will just watch it and forward it on to their friends who will just watch it and forward it on, etc.
Alas the Mythbuster in me can’t just let it rest there. We’ve disproven the myth, now we have to reproduce the result. And you’re not allowed to use CGI like Cardo did. That’s CHEATING dammit! One theory involves a hidden heating element, but that’s busted because it would burn right through the table. Or if it was under the table, you wouldn’t get enough conduction through a wooden table, for example. You might be able to use Kari’s microwave gun… Anyway it’s gonna annoy the bugger out of me until I solve it. Or at least until I lose interest.
… maybe the whole thing was staged inside a giant microwave… or maybe the phone’s infrared was just on a really high setting…
I think “Shuffle” is a silly name for an iPod. From the name, you assume it’s permanently set to play songs in random order. I just convinced myself that I could live with an iPod that only plays in random order. When I took it out of the box I found a switch that toggles between “shuffle” and “play in order”. OMG Apple! Why have I been without a Shuffle all this time? Because of the stupid name you gave it, you idiots!
*sigh* That said, it’s a great little MP3 player. I have a playlist in iTunes called “Hot Right Now” that I put on it. It’s smaller than a Nano, and smaller than most pieces of food I put into my mouth. So maybe a better name would be the “iPod Pico”? I think it’s a cute name. But when I started up iTunes, there was only one name I could give it. Warning: link contains J-Pop ^_^
Our favourite Baywatch Babe is rumoured to have been paid $500 000 to appear on Ten’s reality series Big Brother, a show whose emotional exploits could easily be considered cruelty to shallow twenty-somethings for the purposes of entertainment.
So she’s fine with cruelty to people, but the animals, man. We have to save the animals.
Then the ultimate irony is that KFC have managed to indirectly fund her appearance on the show. Oh the irony! My head a-splode.
I have collated all the iPhone plans and Optus’ $49 cap plan looks the best for my needs. All other plans are too expensive, and Telstra simply don’t compare, even on their business rates. And who could live with only 5MB data anyway?
The spreadsheet is my attempt to dispel the marketing bullshit that is “capped” plans. You know, the ones that cost $80 per month but include $500 worth of calls. Doesn’t anyone realise that if the call rates were lower, it would only include $80 worth of calls??? Anyway, it has my averages at the top so won’t be applicable to everyone.
So I bought that Brawl game everyone’s talking about. I used the Gamecube controller. I tried the Wiimote/chuck setup but with these intense games (MK is another one) my left hand very quickly starts to ache from holding the Nunchuck like I am trying to strangle a small animal.
Single player adventure mode is absolutely awesome. Clever cut scenes that make the characters look like they are ready to kick some serious butt. Strangely it feels like I’m playing Final Fantasy again. Great way to have some fun while getting to know the different characters.
Now online multiplayer… I tried the quick brawl feature to “play anyone, anywhere” and to say I was disappointed would be the understatement of the year. I don’t know how this game’s hosted (server or P2P) but the brawl was UNPLAYABLE. It would lag every second for about half a second. And the worst part: you can’t exit even using the Home button. So it was hard reset time. VERY POOR. Let’s hope this is fixed somehow or at least the friend battles are lag-free otherwise there will be A LOT of Aussie Brawlers who are gonna want Nintendo to suffer. And I mean suffer on the scale of Microsoft Antitrust suffering.
UPDATE: From a quick glance at some forums, it may be that Nintendo’s servers can’t keep up with the demand. Found some more info from Nintendo, limited in usefulness as it is.
People Say