North American PSP 2.0 Update finally arrives

So here is the process to get your PSP, over to the new 2.0 software version. After doing a normal network update check, this is what follows. Sorry for the crappy quality, I don't happen to have a PSP dev kit lying around in all my piles of gold, and $100 bills I use to light my cigars.



OK here we go...

User Agreement (Phew! Must have been 15 seconds or so since I read one of those)


Yes, of course

Click here for the details of the next 6 screen shots



Battery Warning. Don't play with batteries kids!


One percent... two percent... zzz


Hurrah! Time to play with the new toys...


New browser entry on the menu


Theme, or from what I saw, color selection of background.


Browser in action, before we unleash full screen...


BEHOLD THE MIGHT OF FULL SCREEN!
The mouse pointer you see here as a pen, uses the little analog stick on the PSP to move, VERY nice. There are options for bookmarks and a home page also. Cookie management too, how jolly exciting.


An applied wallpaper, but stupid me used an image that exactly would not look any good at all. The black areas are just where there is no image, nothing more.


Not had much time to mess with it as yet, just wanted to get these images up quickly. So far so good. The crappy looking images are due to a digital camera taking shots of the screen, which has a screen protector on it. The shots where then straigtened out in Photoshop, hence the not very straight looking edges.

Kids and another tale of pandering

Slashdot had an article today about children being given video games as homework. But one particular comment seemed to stand out.

"How will you make the hamburger-flipping jobs they get after graduation not feel like hamburger-flipping?"

As far as I see it, that is the whole point of children going to school. To help prepare them for the world once they have to make their own decisions. I am sure each generation, feels the next one is never going to survive, but they seem to. However, making children feel as if they must be entertained at every possible moment of their waking lives, or it's ok to just turn their noses up and walk away? I am not sure how this trend is in any way self sustaining? It takes quite a patient person to be able to give, over and over, to others who do not resepct that effort in any way. So who will continue this weird tradition further down the line? As with most things it may just swing back the other way.

I see a lot of gadgets in my job, and the stuff they have for kids is staggering. I am not referring to toys, but endless amounts of stuff designed to not give them a moments peace at any time in their life! I think children miss out on just being able to be quiet for a moment or two and be left with themselves. Listening to music and playing video games is one thing, but they are constantly bombarded with entertainment options for every part of their lives, they never get to experience that peace.

Otherwise when they get older they have to be explained this sort of shit!

Mad rush for $50 computers

Astounding! Watch the video of how a county sale of $50 Ibooks, went bananas. I am sure there will be people blaming those concerned with organising the event, but nobody will call to task those who acted so insanely over a laptop, trampling people in the rush!

I agree with the comment posted on Digg... Ebay next time.

Sad

read more | digg story

Lord of the Rings

I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings series of books. So being the geek, I thought I should really read it. Can't be a nerd when you haven't. I have NEVER done the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, you know, with 20 sided dice, no women, dark aged worlds of festering monks, smashed barrels, and large cellar dwelling rats etc. Was never my scene. First off did "The Hobbit", (my only previous exposure to it through an ancient text adventure) and then onto the "Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring". It was a strange read indeed. There were endless descriptions of endless miles and miles of countryside. That seemed about it! Any actual story, was always supposedly a story of something that ALWAYS happened before memory recalls (but seems able to recall the long trudging detail of even what color the kings hat was etc). Which they told to eachother with annoying regularity. I always imagined (after seeing the movies) this was an action thing. Twanging arrows, squelching sword play, and rocks squishing foes. Not at all. One part an entire battle (of jaw dropping vastness) was described as "...they came over the hills and they had a battle. Next morning....." Maybe not an exact quote, but you get the idea.

The books came across to me like a Middle Earth, Benny Hill show. They were chased up the hill, and down the hill. Into the forest, around the forest, and out of the forest. Even had Aragorn slapping little Frodo on the head for no reason. (Ok I made that bit up, but he should have done). And even that is making it sound more exciting that it was. Endless trudging over hilltops and fanatically detailed scenes, of woodlands, forests, escarpments (I knew there was a reason for teaching geography in schools), and surprisingly shimmery sunsets, blah blah blah... Nothing EVER happened to the people in the story, they just wandered about all over the place.

Who ever actually oversaw the adaptations for the movies, deserves a medal, as they used all the RIGHT parts of the books.

I will read the rest of them, but not until I have cleansed my palette with a novel taken from the screenplay of the apparent stinker, Fantastic 4. After that, I should be ready for the next Benny Hi...er.. I mean Lord of the Rings installment.

Click here for my audio review of these books.



Slappity slap slap

Know someone in a bad mood?

Ask them to watch this...




Priceless
I dare you to only watch it once

Official: drinking improves thinking

Research by the Australian National University in Canberra suggests drinking in moderation boost your brainpower. But none at all, or too much, can make you a dullard.

read more | digg story

Shizzles and fizzles...er.. my home fries...er.. dudes

Radmila decided to urbanificate a tiny portion of her readers... Can you spot me in this lot?
I cheated and used an online graffiti generator, and you know what? It still makes less sense than it did before, and being completely color blind, I was totally sick of this by the end of it... Guess I won't be dizzling my bling-tastic rub-a-dubs any time soon?

Anyway, we've been er.. yeah...er.. like in the er.. studio er.. yeah, writing some like totally important songs...er.. yeah...and er.. here is like the er.. yeah...er.. first one off the ever so important album...er... yeah (hey do the kids still call them albums?)...like we cannot be put into any catagory...er... yeah.. as we are so totally er... uhm yeah.



What does all this mean?
Use them if you can figure out how

Second Life Log-a-thon

Second Life had a contest yesterday to see if they could handle a large load of 5,000 people in world, at the same time. As far as I know, there are around 40,000 names in Second Life (but of course, people can have more than one identity), so you would imagine 5,000 would be no problem. It seemed even with a first prize of a completely free account, with a 4096 sq meter plot (also rent free), people would go for it. Most people I talked to, said they were, and the others simply didn't know about it. But after a swift explanation, they were in too.

I had made plans to log out in a deserted area, because of past problems, when the system is busy it can take a while to get in, and you had to be in Second Life for a total of 30 minutes, from 7 - 9pm PST, July 31, 2005, to be entered into the draw. So logging OUT there, would mean I had a chance to get in with minimal fuss. It turned out to be just normal. No strain that I could tell of, even in the worst place I could think of (the Welcome Area, pictured below) everything was normal for me.

The final totals I have come across seem to be around 3,839. Which while not being the 5,000 hoped for, was nearly 50% more than ever seen logged into the grid at the same time, according to his royal highness Philip Linden. In the pictures below you can see a counter for all those in world. The red thing has been there for a while now and is NOT a bong.

People from Europe were understandably miffed. 7pm PST, turns out to be 3 am GMT! So those who valued their jobs could not attend. You only had to be in the world to be entered into the contest, and I can't help wondering if a Saturday night would have been better all round?

For this Second Lifer, there was no difference to any other time in world. I am sure there were plenty of people who were completely unaware of the whole thing. I do hope that someone with little or no land wins the contest. Personally I could do with 936 prims for construction of my empire!


Top image was the start, the bottom was the end of what was christened before hand, the "Lag-a-thon" probably as people expected the worst.