A bit of geeky fun cropped up on Twitter a few days ago in the form of the #songsincode hashtag game, the purpose of which was to rewrite popular songs in the form of programming code and still have the song be recognisable (I said it was geeky). I’ve listed all my entries below, written in a Java-like code. Can you name the songs?
(more...)Take a pinch of The Good Life, a classic 70’s BBC sitcom starring Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal and placed 9th on a Britain’s Greatest Sitcom poll. Add one fan of the show with a rapidly approaching birthday, in the form of a Mr. Hood who’s retired and spends a lot of time in the garden growing his own fruit and vegetables. Mix with one software engineer with a rudimentary grasp of Adobe Illustrator and send the results to a photo printing website. What do you get?
(more...)Here’s a little verse to recite for all those struggling to develop websites to work Microsoft’s latest and “greatest” web browser, Internet Explorer 8.
Our Browser, Which art after IE7…
(more...)I had a hard time choosing the title of this post. I was toying with “My Brother: Triple Awesome Comedy Genius” in recognition of the tale of magnificent lolmastery it describes.
I started a new lap of Sol today, and to mark this special occasion one of my three brothers sent me a birthday card. An unremarkable event you might think, but this was no ordinary card. Oh no, this was a card with a jest-quotient the likes of which you’ve never seen before and are unlikely to see again in your or your grandchildren’s lifetime.
(more...)There has been much media and online 2.0 hysteria about the recent outbreak of the dangerous H1N1 strain of Swine Influenza, a.k.a. “Mexican Swine Flu”. It’s important though that we all sty calm. H1N1 swine ‘flu is still just a snoutbreak, a minor hamergency the health services can contain for now.
(more...)Originally written by Rupert Goodwin, I first read this excellent ode in an issue of The Home Computer Course back in the 1980’s. The C programming language is just as popular today as it was back then, and this poem is just as funny too.
(more...)In a posting on one of their blogs, Capcom have announced that their forthcoming multiplatform action game “Dark Void” is to get all new in-game graphics and marketing materials inspired by games from the 1980’s.
Dark Void’s plot centres around a cargo pilot named Will who crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle. From there, he is teleported to a parallel universe where he encounters other humans, called Survivors. Together, Will and the survivors must battle the alien race who control the parallel universe in order to return to Earth.
Regarding the move to a retro style more at home on an Amstrad CPC than a Playstation 3, Capcom simply say:
“…Cell processors, complex shaders, and dual analog sticks, although modern, really don’t capture the essence of what we set out to accomplish. Additionally, extensive market research has taught us that “photo-realistic graphics” are so totally last-gen…”
But 8-bit graphics aren’t their only bright idea. They’re going for the whole retro package with redone packaging, title music and they’re even implementing a retro-innovative “pass word” system for saving your progress through the game, so doing away with those tedious storage devices and save states found on Dark Void’s contemporaries.
Dark Void's all new old style title screen
Dark Void is being developed by Airtight Games and published by Capcom, on Unreal Engine 3, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows.
Now that it’s got a retro-revamp, I’m really looking forward to it!
John Girvin is a software engineer, sci-fi buff, cyclist and retrocomputer fan (ie: nerd) from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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A lunchtime discussion (somehow) got on to the subject of assembly language programming, and I was of course asked “So, what’s it like programming in assembly then?”. I get asked this more often than you’d think as very few developers I run in to have any experience with it and they’re always surprised to meet someone who’s dived below C level…
(more...)As you can see, things got pretty bad here today:
John and friends shelter from the elements
John Girvin is a software engineer, sci-fi buff, cyclist and retrocomputer fan (ie: nerd) from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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