487 Million Europeans Will Be Gagged On June 12th
May 31, 2008 (7 Responses)
PROTESTS ARE BEING HELD outside 40 Irish embassies this weekend congratulating Ireland on holding a referendum denied to 487 million Europeans. This is because the upcoming Treaty of Lisbon referendum is only being put to the vote in Ireland. Read more
Getting My Mesocorticolimbic Buzz On…
May 30, 2008 (2 Responses)
I LOVE GAMES. There I said it. I’ve loved gaming (the computer kind) since I was capable of understanding what the concept was. I started with a BBC Acorn, progressed to a ZX Spectrum and eventually after years of loading tapes, writing pointless programs that printed out ‘Hello’ a few times I managed to purchase myself my very first PC, then the endless opportunity for faster, slicker and better upgrades arrived and took hold and then of course the Internet arrived and, well… I’ve never looked back since.
I’ve never really questioned why I love games so much, however I’ve always wondered why none of my female friends ever got into the act. I know there are female gamers and clans out there, but they are far outnumbered by the males and always have been. We just seem to get more out of games, but until now I never knew why.
It’s all about territory apparently, and the impact gaining territory within a game has on a males brain; specifically the mesocorticolimbic centre. This is the part of the brain linked to reward and addiction and it goes bananas in males when we achieve objectives, gain territory or otherwise make important stuff happen within a game context according to a recent study conducted at Stanford university. Read more
Falling Longer, Further & Faster Than Anyone In History
May 24, 2008 (11 Responses)
IT’S AMAZING WHAT AN OBSESSIVE person can accomplish sometimes, and certainly obsession is what has driven french parachutist Michel Fournier to the point where he intends to break a hell of a lot of records.
Picture this for a challenge…This guy intends to climb into a pressurized gondola of a 650-foot balloon, which resembles a giant jellyfish, and make a two-hour journey to 131,000 feet. Then, almost 25 miles up, Fournier will see both the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth.
Oh and another thing… he will also experience weightlessness. Not content with all of this he will then step out of the capsule / gondola and drop like a stone back down to earth for approximately 15 minutes equiped with only a spacesuit and a parachute.
In doing so, he will – if successful – fall longer, further and faster than anyone in history and may even break the sound barrier in the process. Fournier calls this project “Le Grand Saut” (The Great Leap) and has been working towards this for over 20 years. Read more
I Want to Work For Google In Zurich!
May 18, 2008 (3 Responses)
IT TAKES A LOT to get me excited about things, unless of course I’m really pissed off at something, in which case you can measure the time from normal to apocalyptic in terms of nanoseconds and the trail of dead or dying bodies in my wake is usually a bit of a giveaway too… anyway I’ve just seen a bunch of photos from the Google Zurich office and I’m now officially jealous.
Actually I think it’s worse than that. Ah hell it’s much worse if I’m honest. I’m now lthinking about where I currently work, and the various outfits / offices I’ve worked in for the last – well lets just say “few decades” – and I’m beginning to realise that I’m way beyond jealous. Yup I’m actually really really pissed off.
Seriously folks, have you actually seen these offices? It’s like someone read my mind about the perfect place to work. It looks so perfect they probably don’t have a HR department or any accountants clogging up the place and bringing all the creative people down… but then again that would be too perfect wouldn’t it?
Just look at the few photos I’ve managed to glean from the ‘Net below and tell me you’re not completely jealous and now considering a career change… or at the very least that you’re not also considering going ‘postal’ on your current office in response to the way the ‘other half’ work/live. Read more
Yet Another Speed Bump, But Almost There…
May 14, 2008 (No Responses)
I’VE HIT ANOTHER SPEED BUMP on the way to releasing the new version of my website folks; sorry for the – hopefully – last delay.
I was just about to release the new look and theme when the sodding developers released a new version of the base Wordpress theme I’ve been extending, with enough changes to the base files that I need to now retrofit all the changes I’d been making in order to get the best usage from the theme itself.
All I can do is promise you that the new look is a major departure and I guess I should drop a few hints at this point about what you can expect.
For starters – you might have noticed I’m using consistent image sizes for recent posts, and that’s because I’m going for more of a magazine look to the new website, meaning a fixed width layout with consistent image sizes and thumnails for a more professional look.
I’ll also be featuring embedded videos of choice and providing some additional functionality for readers too. I plan to launch within a week (assuming I can retrofit the changes successfully) and then look to make more gradual changes over time, as the starting ones are so fundamental. Read more
Domain Transfer Completed, At Last!
May 11, 2008 (One Response)
SORRY FOR THE RECENT INACTIVITY here in the last few days folks, it’s been a bit of a struggle to get things sorted.
I was in the middle of moving from my current hosting provider to a new one, and the domain transfer took a lot longer than expected and seemed to do lots of weird things in the interim.
As far as I can tell the website is now up and running again but I will need to do a little more testing before I move on to the next stage of the plan. I’ve also got a bunch of emails to migrate, folders to populate and many more levels of hell to go through before I’m done.
I couldn’t post any content or respond to any emails in the interim due to the “limbo” I found myself in, but that seems to be resolved at this point.
Over the next week I intend to complete the final checks on the site to make sure everything is where it should be and then I’ll be launching the new look Avalon5.com for all to see.
As ever – if you find any weird problems, missing links or issues with the site please do let me know and I’ll sort them out ASAP. Thanks.
CyberWar 2.0: China Is On The Offensive
May 5, 2008 (No Responses)
MANY MOONS ago I wrote an article about the first real (publicly at least) Cyberwar instance, that being the concerted electronic attacks on Estonia’s infrastructure. That was an interesting story in itself, but the key point is that it was a wake up call for the West, for NATO and for just about every country with an electronic infrastructure.
The message was clear – Cyberwar was a real threat, not just a clever term in some obscure science fiction novel or military think-tank paper.
Since then most governments have been rushing to shore up vulnerabilities and create cyber-defence agencies for both offensive and defensive options. China however seems to have been a busy little aggressor in this department.
However it turns out that Estonia was not really the first real Cyberwar because China has been on the offensive for over 18 months now. Read more
