Unencrypted signal = it’s only a matter of time.
UPDATE: New Scientist has an article on it as well.
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Malicious hackers can kill users of heart monitor implants
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008NIN, Radiohead, and Diesel Sweeties
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008To celebrate Clango’s 8th birthday, R Stevens is releasing his entire archive of Diesel Sweeties as a 10-volume set of PDFs, under the Creative Commons license.
By my calculations, DS is going to hit 2000 comics in a little under two months. April is Clango’s 8th birthday. I’d like to celebrate by releasing the entire webcomic archive for free in ten volumes. It worked for Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead- not bad company to try and keep!
1 per week for 10 weeks, starting Wednesday, 12th of March. Details are here.
I found out via BoingBoing.net, even though Diesel Sweeties is on my daily webcomics reading list.
State of the art(ist)
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008I’ve just about finished tweaking this comicpress theme. It’s not exactly how I want it yet, but it’s G.E.F.G.W., as they say. I’m sure there are a few errors, and I am not 100% convinced that I like the color scheme… I suppose it will get a tweak or two when I get chances.
The script-writing is coming along. I’ve written and revised the first 7 pages to the point that I am satisfied with them and am not looking back. Now, it just remains to lay them out on the paper and see just how horribly wrong I’ve been about how much dialogue and action my own meager skills can actually communicate on the page. I’ve got dialogue for the next 2 pages (which are, in fact, almost entirely dialogue), but I am not sure that I should interject 2 pages of pure dialogue at this point in the story. I think I will trim it down.
Having just read the first four parts of Warren Ellis’ Freakangels, I was struck with how little dialogue there actually is in that comic… I suppose it’s the “less is more” concept.
I’m going to try and strike a balance, I think. I am sure it will be crap, but oh well.
Regarding Freakangels, it’s entertaining but not much has happened yet. The first four parts so far, released once a week, have mostly been setting up some background and introducing a few characters, and not much else. Of course, because it’s Warren Ellis, there are a lot of eyes on it. I am not particularly familiar with his style, so maybe this is par for the course. I mostly read his blog, rather than his comics.
Art must be served.
Friday, March 7th, 2008I really like The Steampunk Workshop. It appeals to my Lovecraftian sensibilities. I’ve always said that I want to have a study with crazy Victorian stuff in it. Also, a Giger skull chair. But I seriously want to make one of these: The Steampunk LCD Monitor.
The Steampunk Keyboard looked terribly anachronistic sitting in front of my Dell 1907FP flat panel monitor and while I hesitated to tear open a $300 monitor that was still under warantee, art must be served.
I’ll need the keyboard too.
Maybe when things settle down in a few months, I’ll have the time and space to do a couple of DIY projects myself… I’d have to see about doing it in more of a slate/black/steel theme. Brass is nice, but I prefer carbon fiber.
Also, on the subject of steampunk: Abney Park has a neat website, and their music is pretty cool, too.
Gary Gygax is dead.
Thursday, March 6th, 2008I can’t say that I was ever that connected to him as anything other than a name on a book cover… Yeah, I played AD&D when I was a kid, but I branched out to other (and better, in my opinion) games quickly after getting introduced to role-playing games as a concept. I knew who he was only vaguely, in that he had “invented” Dungeons And Dragons… but it is much the same as Noah Webster = Dictionary, at least for me personally. He was highly regarded by a lot of people, though, and Websnark does a fair job sumarrizing Gygax’s impact on popular culture here.
Hell yes.
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Trent Reznor has just released Ghosts I-IV in a variety of lossless DRM-free digital formats, with the first 9 tracks being given away absolutely free. The full set of tracks (36 total) can be downloaded for $5, and a variety of other formats/packages/media bundles can be bought for a range of prices up to a limited-edition set for $300 (which has already sold out). Radiohead caused a bit of a stir with their In Rainbows online release, but they weren’t really on-board with the whole digital distribution thing.
First the viral media coolness of Year Zero, now this. Trent is the fucking MAN.
UPDATE: NIN Confirms Uploads to Public and Private Torrent Sites
“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”
“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added.
Head static
Friday, February 22nd, 2008Currently have the lyrics to Hurt running through my head, but the vocals are a blend of the Johnny Cash cover and a something off one of the tribute albums I have… A strange combo.
I’m wrangling the navigation and color scheme now. It’s frustrating, because I can’t be too clever, or it all breaks. At the same time, I’ve got to try and make it so that the navigation isn’t a total mess, which it is right now. I will find the one UI to rule them all…
Abort, Retry, FAIL
Thursday, January 31st, 2008Many, many parts of this website are broken right now.
Rough thumbnails of a page
Saturday, January 26th, 2008This is a rough sketch of a possible page layout from a previous script.
Merc sketch 3
Friday, January 25th, 2008The so-called “shadowguy” merc. A very, very rough concept sketch.
