Julian Assange.

He may be an egomaniac but does anyone REALLY believe the shit going down in Sweden? No, probably not - the charges are bunk, the Interpol arrest warrant is of highly dubious legality. Paypal and Amazon, you are gutless whores. I suspect a gun has been placed to your heads by "the powers that be". Fuck you and fuck your kind.

I wonder how long Assange can go on. Weird shit is all over the interwebz - millions of posts decyring Assange as a murderer, traitor etc. US politicos calling for him to be executed - You sound worse than the fuckign Taliban.

I might not trust Assange... but I STILL trust him more than the machinery of US politics...

Insanity.

CPL - Binary Incompatibility - Refactoring is $DEITY

I'm starting work on something... Although the bits have been around for ages.

It's quite nice... so far it goes "Peeeuuu...".

It will published under the Crowley Permissive License...

1 - Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Observations on Swans

Well, I'm done in Staines working at Samsung - and lots of fun it is too.

I like to go for a wander to get out of the office and have a good long think about a project, some code, an optimisation or just simply clear my mind. It's good. Well, I think it is. Maybe it doesn't seem too productive to some peeps but for me it works.

Anyway, the Thames, Wraybury and Colne all flow through Staines so there's lots of water here... and lots of swans.

I watch these swans a lot - they're nice and peaceful.

Sometimes they float around with one leg tucked up over their backs and their big grey feet pointing up from between their wings - it looks odd and a little uncomfortable so I wondered why they do it... I think, from watching them, that they might do this one leg at a time so as to warm one foot whilst still being able to swim.

The other thing they do is lift their wings slightly and form a sort of heart shape. Initially I thought this might be a aggressive thing - but no (they just hiss as a warning and are pretty placid really). Then I thought it might be a mating/showing off thing - but no other behaviour indicated that either.

I think they're sailing... when the wind is in the direction they want to go they put their wings into this shape and get blown down (or up) the river saving lots of energy.

Well, that's my thought for the day... I wonder if I can put a sail on my Ka and get home for free???

Apple.

Latest results - sales up - especially Laptops.

I'm no fanboy of anything really (ok, maybe DS-10, Korg Radias, Roland drum machines, TNA, My girlfriend, my cats) but I ma going to say "I'm not surprised".

For years I owned a Sony Vaio T1XP. Tiny thing - had problems (CPU fan died, sound board had to be replace, HD died, dead pixels on screen) but it was so tiny and great and cost so much I kept using it - Win2K Pro + audio software + web software + Dev Studio and more... it did a lot.

So,eventually it gave up the ghost (won't even POST anymore but I might fix it up). I 'ummed' and 'arrrred' and boot a MacBook - cheapest Apple laptop. I have had NO problems (actually the first was DOA but that turned out to be Argos' fault). I never reboot it - I don't need to. XCode is a bit gnarly but QtCreator sorts me out on that front. It's been a great experience - reliable, solid, never crashes. Not something I can say about most PC laptops and Windows XP or Vista - although Win7 has proved to be pretty good.

I also have a desktop machine - dual core, stacks of RAM, every gadget you can imagine (I use it to recover other peoples data). Once apon a time I'd have put Windows on it but I tried Ubuntu 9 and it turned out to be very good... I upgrade to Ubuntu 10 and... BLIMEY! What do I need Windows for now? I don't!

Very reliable, very fast and the effects! Desktop cube (there are 4 desktops in a row) is awesome! Pick up a window and move it - as you bash the edge of the screen the screen rotates to the next desktop as if they're all mapped onto a cube. The "social" side (MSN and chums integrated into the main desktop menu) is actually useful and the software... the software!! TONS of it! All very easy to install (there's a little 'store' type app that does it all for you - you just search and click).

Ubuntu 9 was nice - Ubuntu 10 is REALLY good. Combined with all those lovely Unix tools & Qt Creator I've got a very hansom developer box - in fact - I do a lot of work on it now. My Mac comes everywhere and does my XCode/iPhone stuff too.

Sometimes technology really suprises me.

Google background...

Now they've gone I miss them! Well, I still reckon I'd end up turning 'em off... ah well.

Google Search Backgrounds...

I HATE THEM! I use Google cos' it's nice and clean - now I'm presented with illegible text over some puke inducing ultra colour scene of some crap I'm not interested in...

AND... as yet, there's no remove button. 4FS!!!

Goodbye Uncle Malcy - NOWHERE 777 - Malcolm McLaren...

Went to "Uncle Malcy's" (Malcom McLaren's) funeral today. What a blast! Bless him - I've gotta love him because I just love the Sex Pistols - one of the greatest bands (for MANY reasons) ever.

We all had a blast - Flame and I managed to outrun Chelsea and chums and chased the funeral courtege from Camden to KT and a little further (well as far as Chelsea's place!). What a brilliant funeral. TBH - the whole thing had just the right feel - a little silly, a little fun, a little reverent, a little respect.

The Malcy's casket was carried in a traditional horse drawn carriage. Painted on the side the words "TOO FAST TO LIVE, TOO YOUNG TO DIE". Four beautiful black horses pulled it past the shops of Camden and there were crowds everywhere.

An old route master bus pumped out My Way, Anarchy in the UK, You Need Hands and other tunes. A hoard of bikers followed it and punks clung, precariously to the back of it. Vivian gave a wave and all on board seemed pleased to be there.

People were well chilled out - got chatting to Peter who had turned up about an hour early like me at Camden Road Tube. Sorry Peter! Totally lost you as the procession moved on!

Got pics - will upload at some point.

Lots of folk turned out in the end - Was a lovely sunny, hot, beautiful day - quite a few of us ran through Chalk Farm Road, Prince of Wales Road, Angler's Lane up KT High Street and up Highgate Road. Wonderful stuff. Bless you Uncle Malcy! We had a lovely time!

And.. just to finish...

You need hands to show the world you're happy,
And you need hands when you have to stop the bus,
But the hands we love so dear are the hands we love to hear,
ARE THE HANDS THAT YOU GIVVVVEE TTOOO USSSSS!!!

Now... where's my tap dancing dwarf?

Belgium, Veils, My opinion is garaunteed unpopular...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8636039.stm

For example... If Belgium goes ahead and bans the wearing of the veil what the hell next? Ban goths? Heavy metal T-Shirts? Pentagram rings? Suits? Ties? It's completely stupid.

My opinion of the veil is probably not popular. I do see it as a symbol of female subjugation, that's my opinion and I'm free to have it... yet if women want to wear it they are free to do so - just as I am free to hold my opinion of their subjugation.

Fair enough?

I'm laughing at you not with you...

"New Media" really is entering this election. I'm surprised - clearly many people aren't online so probably 30% odd of the population don't really care but when the Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph run articles about "Nick Clegg in Nazi Jibe" the loonies come out of the wood work - Even Sky News is reciting this ad nauseum (being a TV station they couldn't publish this themselves but they can report on the reporting... weird...).

Soooo.. how is New Media entering the election... well, these lunatic articles attract lunatic comments - Some on the Daily Telegraph site denounce the EU as facists whilst slating Nick Clegg for having 'foreign' parents and grandparents - these people do NOT help there cause... just like in the last USA election the neo-cons came over so hard, so aggressive and so 'facist' that they sidelined themselves - their immediate reaction to this was to become more entrenched, beligerent and, well, scared. See the "Tea Party" - strange choice of name.

The Tories will not end up like this but I wouldn't be surprised to see a sizable chunk of their vote go to more and more right wing parties.

Lastly, cos' I think it's funny... The Daily Mail in Clegg Nazi Jibe? Hang on - is this the paper that supported the Union of British Facists, showed support of Oswald Mosely and whose owner was a personal friend of Mussolini and Hitler?

Shirely not.... *titter!*

Before we start... here are some of my fav instruments...



QY70 - Awesome musical possibilities. PlayFX is fantastic - More later.



MPC 1000 - Just hit it - More later.



Cool Edit Pro (now Adobe Audition) - Nothing has ever come close to a perfect audio editor and nothing has ever come close to the control of CEP. More later...



OR...



I had the Supernova II before, to me the Radias sounds better. Slightly better IO on the Novation. However, what's important here is realtime audio mangling, the total break down of what's in and what's out... More later...

New horizons in sound now as Roger plays a solo on the electric shirt collar...

By daytime I'm a mild mannered developer and hacker. I fix people computers, recover their data, fix up websites - that kinda thing. I enjoy it.

By night I make strange noises and build strange new designs.

This is just to say "it starts here".

The end result should be a user programmable system for the creation of mad audio. No holds barred, all options are possible. Speak soon.

Getting started with iPhone/iPod development

It needn't be _too_ expensive.

Here's a reasonable route that, so far, I've found pretty good.

Buy a MacBook - you can get something bigger and more powerful but this will work fine. 800 pounds from www.argos.co.uk - this is your biggest expense.

Buy a Mini DVI to DVI adapter - 15 quid from the apple store on New Oxford Street. YMMV

Buy a 19" LCD screen - this will be essential for debugging. There simply isn't enough screen space EVER for debugging! You should be able to find one for a shade less than a 100 pounds.

Download the latest SDK from Apple.

Register as an Apple Developer

Pay up! Become a paid up Apple developer - 60 quid

2nd hand iPod - if you're not using the mobile network (or audio input) this will work fine - second hand units are around 80 to 100 pounds.

SOooooo...

1075 Pounds all in to start developing - Nearly all that cost is hardware.

Get stuck in - it might seem like a lot of money but this is fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things.

Laters, Matthew.