Kotaku kind of assplode last night when they released a rumour about the forthcoming PlayStation 3 social networking features. Sony then blackballed them and they’ve made up now, but anyway, by the looks of things there are some really great features coming up. A number of other sites also let rip about the new features to be announced at GDC next week, but this bit was the juiciest:
An inside source close to Sony made a post on the IGN boards a few weeks ago talking about a new feature that Sony would be implementing. At the moment the feature is dubbed “Home”, and Sony has even secured a patent and logo for the name. The poster commented that this new Home feature would create a virtual home located in a virtual town, populated by the people on your buddy list. Your buddies can go inside your house when your PS3 is online, and you can go inside their house.
Your home will act as a storage of trophies, achievements, and other rewards that can be viewed by anyone on your buddy list. But, the most crucial aspect to the asset is that it’ll let people listen to audio on your HDD and watch videos from your HDD (you make the audio/video public or private). You’ll be able to play a host of mini-games like cards with your friends, and also have the virtual TV in your home display a video in your PS3. Lastly, the poster suggests that you can walk outside of your house and visit the Virtual Theater (you’ll get movie clips/videos here) and visit the Virtual Arcade.
Sounds great.
I spent around 5 hours over the weekend installing Fedora Core 5 Linux on my PlayStation 3.
After getting myself a 120gb Fujitsu HDD from OverClockers.co.uk, I made a 10Gb partition for the ‘second OS’, and set about the installation process. It would’ve been quicker if I hadn’t downloaded the wrong 3.4Gb file first, oops. But once I had the v5 torrent it took 2 hours to download and about 2 and a half hours to install.
For a free operating system, it’s great. Looks a bit too bit on my 42” Sharp 1080p LCD but still. Fedora Core 5 and the PlayStation 3 add on disk that it comes with give you a desktop operating system that has everything you need out of the box, including: full Open Office applications, A few web browsers including FireFox 1.5 (upgradeable to 2.0), Mail clients, IRC clients, Graphics applications, Photo Applications, DVD/CD players plus a multitude of server and database applications and a whole load more. Basically, everything you’d need.
I mostly installed it out of curiosity but now curiosity is driving me to investigate upgrading to Fedora Core 6 and installing Beryl. Which is very pretty indeed.
Update: Ok. So I upgraded to Fedora Core 6 before learning that Beryl won’t run on it. Doh. That was a waste of time…
I was in the pub last night, I think it was approaching third pint time and 8 o clock. Food time. So I go to the bar, and my eyes scroll across to the 'Burger Menu'. I'm looking at the options. First up there is a 6oz Beef Burger, £6.00. "Hmmm - not bad I think", but maybe I'll treat myself, get something extra. An option called 'The Magic' presents itself at £6.50, 'A whole portobello mushroom, with caramelised onions' - wow, that sounds good. So I order, and get my food about 20 mins later. When it arrives, I think to myself it's a little bit on the small side, open it up and low and behold. It's a Mushroom, in a burger bun. And it's 50p more than a regular 6oz Beef Burger! It's daylight robbery!
OK, so the actual description does not mention a burger in the bun, with the said mushroom. But it's on the burger menu! And a mushroom is definitely not a burger. What is a burger?
Burg-er n. [Short for hamburger.]
1. A sandwich consisting of a bun, a cooked beef patty, and often other ingredients such as cheese, onion slices, lettuce, or condiments. Often used in combination: a cheeseburger.
2. A similar sandwich with a non beef filling. Often used in combination: a crab burger; a tofu burger.
You wouldn't put a crab in a bun and call it a burger. You'd have to make a crab patty first, one that had the appearance of a beef patty. The same, surely must apply for mushrooms. I would've accepted a mushroom-patty in a burger. Then at least it would be clear that they're trying to make it look like a burger. But slapping a mushroom in a burger bun and placing it on the 'burger' menu is clearly flouting the rules, especially when the price suggests it would be a beef-burger with a mushroom.
This is horrible. It reminds me of the time I had an argument in a chip shop the menu that stated 'Pineapple fritters - £1.50' and when I ordered I only got one! The menu stated fritters, plural! You wouldn't order chips and expect to get one, would you!?
Ho hum. The goverment is planning new restrictions to prevent photography in public places for anyone who, on their ID card is not a registered photographer (from what I understand).
The petition creator writes:
There are a number of moves promoting the requirement of ‘ID’ cards to allow photographers to operate in a public place.
It is a fundamental right of a UK citizen to use a camera in a public place, indeed there is no right to privacy when in a public place.
These moves have developed from paranoia and only promote suspicion towards genuine people following their hobby or profession.
So, I signed the Petition.
Well, it’s been about 8 months now since that picture of a cat went up on the site. And other sites… And about time too. After the server died last summer, I lost a number of websites. Some have survived to live another day, some have fallen in to a deep hole, only ever to return should time be available. But TomKiss.net is finally back up, and would you believe it - I’m using WordPress. The last two sites have run on a custom built content system. But the freebie apps available these days are simply too good. So I downloaded WordPress, spent a few hours designing a Theme (which is already annoying me for its lack of colour) and away we go. Here it is. I’ll try to add more decent content as time goes by but essentially, I’ve got my place to rant about things again.
w00t.
My Sony Ericsson k800i started playing up recently. A known bug with the Firmware, when trying to use applications it would simply say ‘Unavailable’ or something like that. Anyway, rather than send it to Orange for repair I thought I’d investigate fixing it myself. And well, I did. I was so pleased I thought it worth sharing with fellow owners of the phone:
1. Go to www.wotanserver.com and buy some account credit
2. Download the Wotan Client
3. Follow these instructions, they’re fairly simple
Once you’ve done that, your phone will have the original firmware it was meant to have. It’ll even have a software update option to upgrade the firmware directly from Sony Ericsson, as and when updates become available.
Oh, and download MyPhone Explorer from the MyPhone site. I can honestly say it is the most awesome software I’ve had for a phone. It lets you back up your text messages! (for me, this is a novelty having never investigated before).
Thoroughly recommended anyway.
Also recommended are the following applications: Google Mail Mobile (go to: www.gmail.com/app on your phone), Google Maps Mobile (go to www.google.com/gmm on your phone) and Opera Mini (go to: operamini.com on your phone).
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Wow. Well, obviously fake but it'd be good if someone actually tried this.
Had an awesome time snowboarding again this year. Courchevel 1550, French Alps. Absolutely wicked time. Lots of booze. Lots of food. Heck - even lots of snow! Every year I go and I get bowled over by astoundingly beautiful it is. Anyway. Suppose I should start thinking about next years trip...
I was walking to work and this kind of caught my eye. I wonder if the person who decided they didn't need these 'tools' of theirs anymore dumped these on the pavement during the cover of night.
Slap bang in the middle of the pavement, someone's sex toy collection.
Not very nice, very strange.
This is the kind of thing that amuses me (and my family).
This tomato was found at Christmas whilst at my Mums in Cornwall. It's BUM TOMATO!
Later, Jemima pulled the stalk off.
