Okay, so I haven't been updating this at all. This is because I've been busy, okay? But I've been merrily bookmarking things for your later enjoyment. So I'm not going to be systematic about this, but here's 5 from the "unsorted" folder of my favourites:

DiscountDomainRegistry.Com really should have a much catchier domain name, but I suppose they get what they pay for :-). Anyway, domains are cheap: US$14.95 for a .Com, including some free hosting apparently. Good deal, go get one -- you have no excuse.

I finally rediscovered the Helliconia series of books by Brian Aldiss. I'd read one book of the series, loved it, then managed not to remember the author's name or the title of the series for about five years. Thanks to Evil Dan for the memory work, there.

Arstechnica has an interesting/scary geek cookbook. Most recipes seem to involve "mac&cheese" as a staple ingredient :-)

Did I mention I got a Handspring Visor? Well, I did, and it's nifty. Running the PalmOS means I can download millions of random apps for it, including little drawing programs like Doodle. Ah, I remember what paying attention in lectures was like... (no, mom, I pay attention really!)

It recently became necessary to look up a latin root to work out what a joke was about. This Latin to English dictionary was very useful. Cave canem, etc..

As an extra bonus point I didn't bookmark but just remembered about, did you know that Windows Explorer is now a fairly credible FTP client? At least on fast networks it turns FTP sites into just another remote folder, which is surprisingly useful for a Microsoft product. Just ftp:// into your windows explorer bar.

However, that's the only kudos Microsoft is getting from me for a while. Over the weekend, I attempted to fix my copy of Win2K's inability to uninstall programs. Instead of fixing the problem, the whole OS caved in and refused to reinstall under any circumstances -- it would just randomly reboot halfway through the install sequence, no matter how I installed or what media I was using. Grr. So my only option was to switch to (I refuse to say "upgrade", 'cause it isn't) to Windows Xtra Pain. AAAAAAARGH! I was right all along about the essential, unavoidable shitness of this operating system. It's noticeably slower, and every single change they've made to the interface has pissed me off (with the exception of being able to hide system tray icons; can you believe that's the only thing?).

I also lost the last month of my mail, so if you've sent me something recently and I don't seem to be replying, it's because I have no idea what you're talking about. Do resend, there's a dear. More rants about XP will doubtless be forthcoming.

Second blog in two days! Can you guess I have an exam?
A combination of sleep deprivation and random typing led me to Boing.Com. I found myself curiously fascinated by it and its anonymous author, who features frequently in the numerous family photos. In particular, I speculate about the relationships of people in December 1998, and also what mad plastic surgeon has been experimenting on them.

Okay, so I slept for like 45 minutes last night. Which isn't good. But I did finish my HCI assignment! And, lucky you, there are actually some random screenshots at which you may gander, awestruck at my awesome (obviously) design prowess.

The main interface, in simple friendly first view, and

Same again, but later on in the movie-production process, when more features (like sound and text effects) are visible.
The HCI assignment, BTW, was to design a movie-editing suite of software. Which is quite cool really. But also to justify the design in terms of theoretical principles of user interfaces, which was frankly junk.

I've been singing along to Crying at the discotheque. Oh, fabulous song. If I wasn't posting this from a random computer in the labs at Warwick, I'd post the MP3 too. Maybe when I get back. If I ever get back -- there's another deadline Friday.

Hmmm, I need sleep. Yay for the one-click personality test (which I found surprisingly accurate), one of the dozens of personality tests that this clearly self-obsessed guy has subjected himself to.

You heard it here first (unless Raymond, who recommended it to me, told you first): Alanis is back. Under Rug Swept is a fantastic album, and a return to form. I liked Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, but it wasn't nearly as catchy as Jagged Little Pill, which lost her lots of fans. This is good. And now, it's time for another

Minor Anti-US rant
I'm more than a little pissed off by Camp X-ray, and the treatment of prisoners there. Okay, so America has been attacked, now it's had a retaliatory war, and now it has prisoners. These people are clearly prisoners (you don't get much more obvious than locking them in cages), and they were taken during a war. That makes them -- listen carefully, George -- prisoners of war, and the Geneva convention is all about them. But, as the Onion pointed out, the GC was written when were fighting other white people. And that clearly doesn't matter now -- the one white, American Taleban is being tried in US courts while the brown people languish in cages and are called "illegal combatants".

This is more than the usual run of arrogant shit from the USA. If any other country were treating captives like this, America would be complaining -- indeed, as a former prisoner of the Hezbollah points out, they already have. But because they're the only world superpower, they get away with it. And there's not even any internal criticism, since that wouldn't be patriotic, an offence which it seems is now enough to get you arrested. That's what seemed to be the case of RaiseTheFist, an anarchist site with zero to do with the war on terror (apart from the standard bomb-making instructions every anarchist site in the world has). RTF recently had its servers taken, its premises ransacked and its author incarcerated, taken naked from his mother's house in the early morning by a load of LAPD with automatic weapons. This was made possible by the USA Patriot Act, which granted sweeping new powers to law enforcement officials that they promised they wouldn't abuse. According to the FBI, "People can rant and rave on the Internet all they want, but when they cross the line of calling people to action to violently overthrow the Constitution of the United States, they have a problem." Well, God bless that land of the free, eh?

My second blog for the day, I'm trying to get up to date. I was amused by a controversy that erupted when the Replican party's official Black Person, Colin Powell, said that he supports the use of condoms by teenagers. What's controversial about that? Well, George W Bush does not: he thinks abstinence is the only way. Leaving aside hilarity of such an obsolete issue still even being discussed, does anybody smell just a whiff of hypocrisy in a former cocaine-user and reformed alcoholic preaching that we should abstain from safe sex, which hasn't hurt anybody who hasn't asked nicely first?

This timeline of the future is a pretty interesting read, especially when you consider that the last time the person who wrote this produced a timeline (in 1991) it turned out to be 85% accurate. Which is not bad. It's very believable, and I was amused by the prediction "25% of TV celebrities synthetic" by 2010. I thought they were all fake already...

I recently discovered the video for Do the Evolution. The song's lyrics are excellent, but the video (which I can't find a link to online, and at 45MB is too big to post here) is amazing. Go find it, and watch it.

Fab! More webcams of Warwick's campus! Check out what's currently going on in Cholo and the cooler! This is the kind of evil big-brotherish misuse of technology which our university is so well known for. I love it.

Home on a Saturday night. Z is a bloody evil language; a recurring theme with languages I've had to learn for my CS degree, it seems. Distraction-wise, Technosphere has a certain something: build your own creature (carnivore or herbivore), set it loose into a terrain populated with other creature created by other users of the site, and see how it survives: will it get eaten, or defend itself? The creatures look pretty funky, if somewhat Dali-esque. You can take a look at my creatures, apologies in advance for those names :-)
Also, The Sims, after a rocky start for me, is clearly the most addictive game, ever. Hoo boy.

Thanks to Timothy for the link to the definitive penis size survey. Go on, you know you want to know really. (Warning: contains 4 clinical pictures of penises, for the purpose of illustrating how measurements were made.) Interesting tidbits from the survey: white men apparently have bigger dicks than black men after all (what?), and when viewing someone with a larger penis, gay/bisexual men are 50% more likely to react with "awe". ROFL.