• Destroy as many of the Red Spiders as is humanely* possible by tapping them.
• Become overwhelmed by the ultimate futility of all human achievement in the face of entropy (a tangential effect of playing the game)
• Lapse into a zen-like catatonic and attempt to achieve nirvana (not currently enabled in this release)

Once finished, you can tweet your highscore, visit the wonderful and highly recommended xkcd.com webcomic, or GOTO 10
* For the purposes of this game, the definition of ‘humanely’ has been extended to include death involving a satisfying blood splat, and a rather less satisfying pop sound.

More details HERE

Get the game HERE

Blokky is a simple but ever-so-terribly-cute falling blocks game, and highly addictive too!

• Swipe left/right to step the blocks across the screen as they fall.
• Swipe upwards to rotate them around.
• Swipe down to drop them to the bottom.
• Clear the blocks off the screen by arranging at least four blocks in a line, either vertically or horizontally.
• Try for powerups by clearing more than four blocks at a time!

Features original artwork and music by Lmd64

Easy to play, almost impossible to put down! And only €0.79 too, what a bargain!

More details HERE

Get the game HERE

www.flickr.com/photos/lmd64/sets/72157615789175836/ 

This is the HDR set I took in California. San Diego Zoo, Death Valley, and more San Diego pics, taken with my Dad’s Canon Powershot Pro 1 using exposure autobracketing +/-2 and merged in Photomatix

It’s not mine, but here’s a well-written article on how to get started in iPhone development.

http://furbo.org/2009/02/19/bootstrap/

The Region Free MacBook

I’ve posted these instructions elsewhere but wanted to bring them here. The topic is how to play DVDs from anywhere in the world on your MacBook. The reason you might want to perform this hack is that DVD players are manufactured to only be able to play DVDs manufactured for the local region. That sucks. I buy the MacBook and the DVD andthey won’t let me play the darn thing. I could download the video illegally but I like to collect DVDs (I know, I’m already in the 12-step program). I could rant about this for hours but Wikipedia does a good job of describing the issues.

This is how I performed the hack and links to the software I used. Special thanks to the guys at RPC1.org for making this possible, especially Ben11 who did all the hard work.

Copy this at your own risk but it worked for me.

1. Go to Apple -> About This Mac -> More Info -> Disk Burning to check what firmware version you’re running.

2. Download the software you need. A list of the MATSHITA drives (the appropriately named company whose drives Apple uses in their MacBook and other lines) that can be currently upgraded by this method is available.

3. Apply the flash AT YOUR OWN RISK. Do not interrupt the installation. Restart the computer after the installation has been complted. FYI, my installation paused a couple of times; if yours does too, don’t be tempted to restart the computer or stop the installation before the installation is complete.

4. Use DVDInfoX to confirm that you’re flash worked.

When I did the check, this is what it showed:

DVD Info X v1.0.1, by xvi (xvi@rpc1.org)

WARNING — DVD Info X will only list DVD drives that have some WRITE
capabilities, like combos, DVD-R, DVD-RW, etc…
DVD-ROM-only drives will NOT be listed.
WARNING — You also must eject any inserted medium to list the drive.

Vendor: MATSHITA
Model: DVD-R UJ-857
Firmware: HBEA
RPC-1 (region free)

5. Set and change the region using (the Intel updated) Region X 1.3.

6. Use DVD Player to watch your region free movies and reset the region as need be (using Region X) or use VLC and don’t worry about changing the region (as it doesn’t set a region).

from http://hackthemac.blogspot.com/2008/06/region-free-macbook.html

Edit: took me 3 goes to figure out how to spell “non-sequitur” properly, servers me right for trying to be a smartarse.

http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2008/9/10/peter-gunn-at-50

One amusing thing about the article is that the author bitches about how Mancini ‘stole’ his ideas from various other artists of the era. Eh, hello, anyone producing music for TV/film over the past 50 years has always appropriated musical ideas from popular culture, no big surprise there. By its very nature, soundtracks are cobbled together from the popular music of the day (or at least, from the type of music that we generally associate with the subject matter’s era).

Personally, I think Mancini was superb at what he did, composing genre-defining soundtracks that are still to this day recognisable, from Pink Panther’s cat burglar tiptoeing across the piano, to Thornbirds’ Irish tin whistling in the Outback, to, yes, Peter Gunn’s Private Eye sleazy brass section and mean streets guitar.

The rare original video to David Bowie’s Space Oddity

And for the purists, the album version (easier to hear the stylophone in it)

Kraftwerk’s Pocket Calculator, live in 1981, doing the funky robot.

 
And the original version

…and my personal favourite, Orbital’s Style (from The Middle Of Nowhere). Love the Kafkaesque video…

Also, (last post today (probably)), I’m playing at Synth Eastwood‘s Laptop Battle in Twisted Pepper (used to be Traffic on Middle Abbey St) this Saturday (Oct 24th) at 10pm (free in before 12pm). Join me, and a host of others, as we bang the shit out of our laptops, live, totally unscripted, and for your enjoyment*.

And I am fully aware that I have used an excessive amount of brackets (parentheses) in this post.

* You, apparently, are a masochist.

* The terms & conditions being, I’ll need your iPhone ID to let me build a copy of the app that you can just drop into iTunes to install on your device , so I’ll be sending you an email with instructions. But it’s really pretty simple anyway…

Ennio Morricone, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, is one of my personal heroes. Much of his work is instantaneously recognisable the world over, from the pounding marching drums and whistling motif of his western movie soundtracks, to the heartbreakingly stirring and triumphant yet plaintive theme to The Mission. It’s highly unlikely that you’ve never heard anything composed by the man, ubiquitious should be his middle name. Just a month short of 80 years old, he’s created the musical atmosphere for over 500 films (yes, I  know that’s almost verbatim taken from the wikipedia page, and your point is?)

On stage, there were roughly 200 people playing, singing and (obviously) conducting, an incredible feat in itself, including a 100-strong choir and a soprano whose name I didn’t quite catch at the start, but who was a totally captivating presence on stage.
The concert was broken up into various sections, playing for 20-15 minutes at a time, touching upon various eras from his selection of ouvres, yes, the western themes were played, yes, The Mission was visited, but joy of joys! He also played several numbers from the earlier Italian films he was involved in (I highly recommend the two albums below)

I didn’t take that many photos, the night was far too memorable to be spending the whole time fumbling around with a camera and trying not to get caught with it. The highlight of the concert were many, including hearing the piano intro to “Metti, Una Sera a Cena” coming in, with all the jazzy brushed drums and the glockenspiel and marimba flourishes, absolutely fantastic. Cinema Paradiso had me weepy-eyed, and the final performance of “Here’s To You, Niccola and Bart”, with not a single idle performer onstage (seriously, they were ALL playing/singing it) was a triumphant ending to a wonderful night.
 

…Stylophone, for the iPhone!

It’s my first bit of coding on the Mac, having only bought a Macbook in Miami last July. The interface was designed from using Pixelmator (lovely application), and coded in Xcode using the OpenAL framework, but enough about the technical details…

I’ve included an additional feature not available on the original Stylophone, Sustain, which is fantastic for actually playing it as a proper instrument, rather than it being a mere novelty gimmick

Regarding its availability, it’ll be going live as soon as it gets approved by the App Store, hopefully shouldn’t be more than a week or two, so watch this space!

The idea behind RjDj is kind of like Brian Eno’s application Bloom, except that it doesn’t require you to touch the screen. Instead, it samples ambient sound from the microphone, runs it through Pd-based processes, and sends it back out through your headphones. Sounds basic enough, but it’s far more random and interesting, kind of like an early Warp/Aphex Twin recording, only it constantly changes and morphs, depending on what noisy things are happening around you.

Currently sitting at my desk in work, typing away and listening to the various patches. It’s like sitting inside a piano while brushing against the strings, or inside a busy train station, listening to various sound sussurating around, echoing and repeating over and over. Definitely one of the most interesting app concepts I’ve seen in a long, long time…

http://www.fring.com/download/iphone/

Fring brings VoIP to iPhone

Legitamate VOIP Calls from Your iPhone

This is great stuff! I’ve used Fring on my old N95, it was very handy for having quick mobile online IM chats and stuff, hadn’t really used it for VOIP, but will definitely be giving it a bash from home now that it’s available for the iPhone.

…and have gotten rid of the NDA on their iPhone SDK.

iPhone NDA!!!!! Yay! Slightly more info here…

Also, from the makers of Twitterific, something I’ll have to wait till I get home to try out

Human League! ABC! Heaven 17!

Playing in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham grounds on October 26th, Bank Holiday Sunday. Got my tickets already. The Human League played a great show in Vicar St a couple of years ago, so can’t wait to see them again, plus the latter-day incarnation as offshoot of Heaven 17 is a bonus too. AND New Wave pop-schlock meisters ABC as well? Please, everyone, no loud noises, if this turns out to be a dream, well I for one don’t want to wake up…

from Gizmodo

Things That Podcaster’s Rejection From the App Store Is Not About

All maddourrivit in there, so they are, so they are.

This time on the history of disco & dance culture by Paul Tarpey, written from an Irish perspective.

In the London of 1983, the parallel Irish actions by Walsh and his crew were described as “parties with a vengeance” by David Johnson in The Face. In his article, he mentions the rebel dance parties that were “glorifying the individual and wrestling power back from the elders”. Johnson was referring to the comodification of the disco after Travolta sublimated the dance for the tribal “release from the bondage of weekday work” spectacle.
…
New musical journeys downtown dispensed with any trace of the slow set, jive or party performance conventions that were in place uptown to orientate the unfamiliar visitor to the experience provided by the venue.

In Temple Bar, the absence of these (nominally straight) conventions can be seen as a pledge of definition by the nascent dance community to themselves. It was a way of saying “these are our rhythms and we own them”. If slow sets appeared on the crazy party nights where show tunes or familiar songs were aired, these sets were slow and low and once again out of reach to those out of the loop.

An excellent, cohesively well-written article on a previously undocumented aspect of an alternative to the rocker-dominated landscape of Irish music history.

When I got home last night, I (finally) managed to carry out a successful app deployment to my iPhone. Which is probably of minimal interest to both of you, dear readers, but it does mean that I’ll potentially have a couple of apps ready for release on an ad-hoc basis within the next couple of weeks (fingers crossed…)

We can’t stand the fact that we have 2,739 friends on MySpace, several of whom have posted highly encouraging messages such as “thnx 4 the add”, and yet none of them are prepared to dig in their pocket, or Paypal account, and just send us a few quid – despite the fact that we’ve poured our heart, our soul and our cash into the whole endeavour.

Blatantly taken from the Perry Bible Fellowship

This is not actually me, more it's representative of how I'm feeling at the moment.

…grey and tired. Have been spending the last few days attempting to figure out the iPhone OS SDK, pulling late nights at home, for probably no good reason at all, whatsoever. The basic application setup I’ve got kind of nailed so far, but comprehension of the multi-touch user interactions is proving somewhat elusive.

Not to mention how to implement the AudioQueue, and how to deploy to a device without having to carry out a sync from iTunes including the interminably long backup procedure… It’d be nice if Apple would remove the NDA on their SDK tools, so people could talk and share notes on how to do stuff in it.

Anyway, tired and strung out right now (with an inexplicable hunger for brains).

Thomas officiating, and commenting on wonderful shoes

Music was provided by various individuals, including a group comprised of Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, Conor, Brian and Mike from various incarnations of assorted Dublin bands, and a rather good rockabilly band called Aces Wild that had lots of dancers dancing and swingers swinging.

The Wedding Cake, replete with The Bride from Kill Bill, a zombie from Day of the Dead, and lots of splatter gore

A special mention should be made for the Cake, comprised as it was of two-tiers of gore-splatter, with Kill Bill’s The Bride and a appetizingly green zombie from Day Of The Dead adorning its upper level.
 

Ian rocks out to Purple Rain, including extended guitar solo and falsetto whoops and aaahs

Omelette, Ian’s band, played a rather good version of Purple Rain at one point in the night too. Wonderful night, great to meet up with all the mates from Things/Thumped/Ballroom of Romance from over the years. Congratulations to the happy couple!