Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Xbox 360 Software Compatibility List

Go to the link - nuff said

The things you hear when you haven't any earmuffs

Last night was the Christmas "Do". A group of us from work all went out for drinks and a meal. Unfortunately sitting down to table with work colleagues can be a little bit like Russian roulette and after people have had a drink or two sometimes they share things that were probably better left unsaid but, now that it's in the public domain...

Part of the conversation turned to favourite movies and of course Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings was mentioned and the merits of film vs book. Then someone said that Weta Workshop also did the masks and armour and weapons for Disney's new Narnia movie and the merits of film vs book came up again. It was then that someone said something I wish I didn't know but if I have to carry this burden then so must you. While reading "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" at the age of seven or eight this guy was reading the description of the White Witch and clearly remembers with fondness getting his first "hard on". /me puts fingers in ears "LaLaLaLaLaLa" I'm sure that's not what C.S. Lewis had in mind.

Serbs line up for testicle shocks

I really don't fancy this new form of contraception. Bet it doesn't catch on over here.

GUERRILLA INNOVATION: GAYmobile

It's been a while but this I couldn't resist. A new mobile operator in Denmark is targeting the Pink Krone. The GAYmobile.dk website offers the HOMOBILE service line which will be selling subtle ringtones that indicate a user's sexual preference (like the handkechief code?). Until the service comes online the company suggests that subscribers use songs like "I am what I am" or anything by ABBA as their ringtone. I could make a fortune selling my ringtones in Denmark. Oh yes, they say that they will donate 25% of their profits to the gaytrust.

Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands

Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands Oh yeah!!

Download details: Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP

About time. Many digital cameras allow you to take pictures in "RAW" format, which gives you a very high image quality. However, XP doesn't support this format by default, so you couldn't use its built in photo viewing and printing features with photos saved this way. Now Microsoft is providing a free tool, the Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer, that you can download for XP to provide viewing, organizing and printing functionality.

CMOS Password Recovery Tool

Cmos, LILO, NT passwords - Data recovery

'cause no-one will ever use this to try and hack someone else computer will they?

Hey Bobby, What's the French for Diesel?

I love Thierry Henri's Renault Ads. In true Thierry Henri fashion someone in French Class the other day said "What's the French for 'cul-de-sac'?" Which is funny enough in itself but what really had the rest of us rolling on the floor (yes we are this sad) was the English translation, which literally is "arse-end of a bag". So to all those people who think they are posh because they live in a cul-de-sac... the French are sniggering at you.

WB

After a long absence, the Blog has been reborn - as BodBlog.

BodBlog is nothing to do with poking fun at personality traits or quirks of mannerism or speech that are perceived as effeminate (despite the fact that my gay friends thought it was funny).

BodBlog (from bod for "body" or "person") is about poking fun at anything or anybody that takes my fancy in the true nature of the satirist whose freedom of speech has been been protected for hundreds of years and is even specifically not included in the "hate crime" laws being passed in the UK thanks to (amongst others) two of the greatest comedians of our generation: Rowan Atkinson and Eddie Izzard.

Batman Begins

Batman Begins

Went to see this last Thursday. Thought it was the best movie I have seen in a long time. Way better than the Star Wars thing.

Adventures of Asterix

Adventures of Asterix

Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs

Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs

Determine USB Power Load

Determine USB Power Load: "Do your PC's USB ports supply enough electricity to power all the devices you have attached to them? Plugging too much gear into a bus-powered USB hub (one with no external power adapter) can overwhelm a USB port by demanding more than the 500 mA it can supply.

Check the power demands on any USB port in Windows XP by
right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties,
Hardware,
Device Manager.
Double-click Universal Serial Bus controllers,
double-click the USB Root Hub entry,
choose the Power tab, and add up the amounts in the 'Power Required' column."

How to Prevent Users from Using USB Storage Devices

USB flash memory drives are handy, but they can also be used to upload malicious code to your computer or to copy confidential information from your computer and take it away. You can disable the use of USB storage devices. Here's how:

• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the systemroot folder (usually named WINDOWS) and then to the Inf folder.
  
• In the Inf folder, right click the file named Usbstor.pnf and select Properties.
  
• Click the Security tab.
  
• Find the name of the user you want to prevent from using USB storage devices in the list labeled Group Or User Names.
  
• In the Permissions list, check the Deny checkbox next to Full Control.
  
• Click OK.
  

Repeat the above steps for the file named Usbstor.inf.
Now the user(s) you selected will not be able to install USB storage devices to the computer.

If one is already installed, you'll need to edit the registry to prevent USB devices from working.

• In your registry editor, navigate to:
  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
  
• In the right pane, double click the item labeled Start and in the Value Data field, enter 4 (make sure Hexadecimal is selected as the data type).
  
• Click OK and close the registry editor.
  

Black Hole

Some boffin reckons to have created a black hole.

Sky News : Don't Panic! Black Hole Made On Earth

So it absorbed the jets of particles and then evaporated all within 10 million billion billionths of a second (1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 th Seconds 1x10-25 s). I'd like to see the camera that detected that.

The Einstein@Home Starsphere Screensaver

Like SETI@Home but for something that is actually of scientific use and likely to happen, The Einstein@Home Starsphere Screensaver has a number of elements related to current efforts to detect gravitational radiation from periodic sources such as pulsars.

The primary element of the screensaver is a rotating celestial sphere showing the known constellations, along with the current zenith positions of three gravity wave detectors. Also shown are the positions of the known pulsars and supernovae remnants, and a marker indicating the positions being searched as the calculations proceed. When the graphics are shown in a separate window (not as a screensaver) the user can control the display with the mouse and keyboard.

When the graphics are displayed in a separate graphics window (rather than as a screensaver) you can control the display with the mouse and keyboard. To zoom in or out or rotate the starsphere hold down the appropriate mouse button and move the mouse up and down or left and right.

XBOX Uber Gaming

Why do Microsoft give the XBox the capability to do 5.1 surround sound and then not advertise the fact or provide a cable to let you do it? Well, until recently anyway. Earlier this month they gave offical sanction to this little number from Spherex but it costs $500 and is't available in the UK... yet

Some of the bits you need to do it yourself for an awesome increase in graphics quality and sound are:

This Joytech Xbox Digital AV Cable

A Decoder with an optical input like this one from Creative
Decoder DDTS-100 - Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, Pro Logic II & DTS Neo:6

And some 5.1 speakers like these

There are other systems available but "without optical input, you cannot enjoy aural features like Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Instead, you'll be treated to simulated surround sound through a circular-surround algorithm."

Oh yeah, and some games that actually produce 5.1 output like Halo 2 or just about any DVD.

Neko The Kitty

Have just discovered (oh ok, been shown) Neko the Kitty and am slowly working my way through the archives. here is one of my favourites form way back in December 2003. I wonder if Jeff watched Firefly.

Astronomers spot first ever dark galaxy | The Register

I do a little bit of Astronomy so the artists impression of this Astronomers spot first ever dark galaxy The Register really impressed me.

Left out in the cold

Someone else in teh team apart from me must've missed gay t-shirt Friday because today he came in wearing the loudest jumper: a cashmere v-neck pullover with 4-inch horizontal stripes of pastel grey and pink.

All I did was take one look at him and he said, "Don't say anything, I don't care what I look like. I've been ill and this is snuggly".

Single Wet

When you work in a team you make teas and coffees for each other.

One of the greatest evils in the working world is "the single wet" where you go to the coffee machine and get yourself a drink without asking anyone else if they want one.

A Pain in the Neck

OK, so we get homework from French class. No-one does it, right! It's a rule.

Guess what? The new guy has not only done his homework but it turns out he has covered his house in Pink and Yellow Post-it® Notes for feminine and masculine objects to help him remember which is which.

Oh yeah. We were learning parts of the body and "the neck " is "le cou" which sounds to me like "coo". If you get the pronunciation a little wrong you say "le cul" which sounds to me like "cue" since you don't pronounce the final "l". So a pain in the neck is "une douleur dans le cou" but "une douleur dans le cul" is a pain in the arse. How funny is that?

Gay T-Shirt FRIDAY!

Apparently today is gay t-shirt Friday and no-one told me. About 5 guys at the office have all (independently) arrived in some of the most flamboyant t-shirts I've seen for a while.

Bumblee Bee man is wearing a midnight blue number with random silver horizontal strike-throughs.
There are a number of pink numbers in evidence which were "bought that way" and not a laundry accident.

Our hero is wearing the BRIGHTEST ORANGE I have ever seen and someone is wearing a T with the words "Badger Bash" emblazoned across the front. He says it's not a euphemism for anything but was the name of a party he went to. When pressed he was very coy about what went on at the "party", however, the badger bash site has this picture. If that's not phallic I'm a Dutchman.

The Pot and the Kettle

Apparently I have a gay ringtone and my colleagues are complaining. What's wrong with the opening bars of Shania Twain's "Man I Feel Like a Woman"? In deference to hordes of miserable gits I intend to change it.

Can anyone lend me a sample from Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"; or possibly, The Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men"; or C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)"; or finally and at a push, the Village People's "Y.M.C.A."

My Funny Valentine

Today, "mon collègue"  joined my French class for the first time and one of the things we do at the start of each class is discuss, in French, what we have been doing since the last lesson.

Today being Valentines day we were talking about cards and flowers.

The newbie claims not to have given or received any since he does not have "un ami". I think he meant "une amie" (or more accurately "une petite amie" [meaning girlfriend]) but that's not what he said and when questioned about it he blushed furiously. Maybe he's gender confused or maybe he's still got a lot to learn in French; who knows? It was still funny.

Zoo tempts gay penguins to go straight

OK, so it's nothing to do with our normal subject but I couldn't resist this snippet from Ananova. Thanks to Grom for bringing it to my attention.

What's the French for "arse"?

The company I work for provides French Language classes for its employees and "mon collègue" has been taking classes for a few months. This week he decided that he wanted to join my (slightly more advanced [but only because we've been doing it for longer] class).

He gave some cock-and-bull story about getting the wrong gender on a French word and shocking our teacher by saying "arse" when he meant "queue". He claims the two words are pronounced the same but with "La" for one and "Le" for the other.

A little research shows that "le queue" (meaning queue) is pronounced to rhyme with "deux" (meaning two) and "la cul" (meaning arse) is pronounced like "coo" or "kuh" and is supposed to be particularly offensive.

The French for "the elbow" is le coude which is another similar sound. I wonder if that's where our phrase "He couldn't tell his arse from his elbow" comes from.

The French are laughing at all the people in the UK who think they're posh because they live in a cul-de-sac; it literally mean the arse end of a bag.

Vikings

OK, so, in our weekly team meeting this morning one of the guys mentioned that he was taking his kids to the Jorvik Viking Festival and one guy just happened to mention that if anyone was interested he could tell them which pub to go in so they could drink with Real Vikings afterwards.