Saturday, May 29, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 3:21 PM
On May 15, 2004, Josh Findley discovered the 41st known Mersenne Prime. It is 2
24,036,583-1. The number is nearly a million digits larger than the last find and is now the largest known prime number!
Find out more at
http://mersenne.org/
I am involved in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search and yet Bloody Hell this happened two weeks ago and somehow I missed it. My current stats are as follows.
LL P90* Exponents Fact.P90 Exponents P90 CPU
CPU yrs LL Tested CPU yrs* w/ Factor hrs/day
------- --------- -------- --------- -------
49.868 17 2.033 1 2628.03
Friday, May 28, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 11:53 AM
Today, if it is clear, Manhattan will flood dramatically with sunlight just as the Sun sets precisely on the centerline of every street.
See the magic here.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:00 PM
Up B4313 to B4329 through Brynberian and Crosswell to A487 through Eglwyswrw to Cardigan. Through the town to the coast and
Mwnt. National Trust property with a little church that could almost have been hewn out of the landscape. A beautiful little beach enclosed in acove and a huge mountainous headland of steep rock that we climbed and sat at the top and looked practically vertically down on to the beach. Excellent views of the landscape.
Then we travelled northwards round the coast to
Aberporth where there is a
MOD military base or something and then on to
Tresaith.
We then went south to Newcastle Emlyn simply because of the cool name but didn't think much of it and west to
Cenarth where we stopped for lunch. Again we had a little picnic this time sitting by the
River Teifi watching some little fish swimming about. There was a little waterfall where you watch the salmon leaping but we didn't see any that day. Maybe it was too late in the year as I guess they probably do it in early spring.
We then head up towards Cardigan but turned off towards
Cilgerran because there was sign for a castle but we saw the castle from a distance and didn't stop we just carried on going to the A478 down and back to Maenclochog.
DVDs watched
Thirteen Days and
Minority Report.
Monday, May 24, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:00 PM
We went to
Scolton Manor Countryside Park which is a environmentally friendly park and woodland walk and behind the manor is a disused piece of railway with a signalbox and refurbished locomotive. The we decided to travel to Broad Haven via
Haverfordwest but we miss the right road and end up on the A487 upon which we continued to Simpson's Cross and then turned off for Broad Haven.
Saw Broad Haven didn't fancy staying there so we turned back to Haverfordwest and up the A40 to
Fishguard to see what that was like. Having parked up we are asked if we can assist by pushing a car that has broken down because they have put petrol in it and it is a diesel. We buy some food in a supermarket where there was no customers and only one woman working and had a little picnic on the headland overlooking the harbour of the lower town. We then went through the Lower Town and stopped on the opposite headland at
Fishguard fort. So far the holiday seems to be travelling all over Pembrokeshire and sitting down overlooking the sea but that suits me I am fucking chilled out.
That night we watched
The Bourne Identity.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:00 PM
Travelled from Maenclochog to
Abereiddy via Castelbythe, Puncheston, Letterston and Mathry. At Abereiddy is a former slate quarry that was opened up to the sea and flooded and is now a diving spot known as the
Blue Lagoon. We saw a group of young teenagers in lifejackets jumping off the wall of what was probably one of the old quarry buildings into the Blue Lagoon. After watching the kids for a bit and sitting on top of the headland we travelled on to
St. David's.
In St. David's we saw the
Bishop's Palace and visited the beach at
Whitesands. Then back in town we ate at an organic cafe/restaurant where I psychically predicted the soup of the day would be 'carrot and coriander' (fuck knows how I just knew it would be). On the way back to the car I bought a couple of ice creams made from real ingredients, I had chocolate and my brother had Rum and Raisin. The salesgirl was very pretty. Back to Maenclochog via Solva, Newgale, Roch, Simpson's Cross, Haverfordwest and Wolf's Castle.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:00 PM
The diary of my holiday with my brother in Wales part one.
6am leave home.
9am arrive in
Maenclochog where we are staying.
Visit
Pentre Ifan standing stones and burial chamber.
Then we travelled on to
Nevern where we visited a wild fowl sanctuary and saw three buzzards flying overhead. There was a weird little shack held together by string and that was emitting a strange humming sound. We then went to the Nevern churchyard and saw the 'tree that bleeds' spooky gothic churchyard with the overhanging tree branches. Church was interesting and and featured
Ogham writing on some of the walls. My brother tripped over a broken tile and then proceeded to place the pieces back where they should have been like a jigsaw puzzle. We sat down for some drinks at the
Trewern Arms.
We travelled on to
Newport Bay and enjoyed walking along the beach and then came back via the Tafern Sinc an old mining tavern made from zinc and with sawdust on the floor.
That night we watched the DVD of
Pirates of the Carribean.
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 12:01 AM
I'm holidaying in Pembrokeshire from today. Bring on the sunshine and lack of tourists.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:10 PM
Came across an interesting site earlier today.
Gmail Swap: Everyone's talking about Gmail, but it's still only a handful of lucky ducks who have snagged an account. And while the rest of us go hungry, you can be sure that the best email addresses are being gulped down by nefarious hooligans.
Some interesting swaps I noticed.
* trail advice/tour around Kamloops, BC
* join someone's Christmas Card List, for life!
* an hour-long recording of one man's English accent
* artifacts from Gabon, Africa
* Jewish mystical knowledge
* one human soul
* someone will name their firstborn after the swapper
* the story of how someone lost their virginity
* a photo of a wife and girlfriend kissing
* a box of colorado pinecones and photos of the area
* Spider-Man's Aunt May
* 1 week beach-house rental in Maui
* a dented 5G iPod
* an original fairytale
* a flight crewmember will send postcards from a different place every month
* honor, and a pondersome speech
Monday, May 17, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 5:10 PM
Whilst bored at work I was playing around with Google and discovered that I am the top 5 results for a search for
Nipponese Archery.
But what is Nipponese Archery?
For answers why not visit
The Meishin Kyudojo Homepage.
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 3:21 PM
The following is a post from the 37 signals weblog called
It's good that you're upset found via
plasticbag.org
The world is rightfully disgusted by the treatment of some Iraqi prisoners, but the fact that the world is outraged is a good sign that America is still held to a higher standard. The Arab street remained mostly quiet when Saddam tortured for three decades or when American soldiers were dragged through the streets and hung to dangle in public a few weeks back. And how many leaders in the Arab world will be outraged that one of their own ruthlessly beheaded an American contractor after forcing him to name his parents and his siblings (and don’t forget about Daniel Pearl who had to admit he was a Jew before his head was cut off)? The world barely gave notice to the Taliban’s systematic and despicable treatment of women in Afghanistan or the destruction of ancient works of irreplaceable art and culture. The world was barely interested in stopping the carnage in Bosnia until over a half-million were killed (and then the UN still didn’t want to get involved). The world is still barely affected by the genocide taking place right now in Africa. But, when the US humiliates some Iraqi prisoners, people are outraged and are calling for resignations at the highest levels of our government. And that’s a good sign for America. We’re held up to a higher standard and it’s something we should be proud of. Not the vile treatment, of course, but the world’s response. We’re in trouble when people stop caring about how we act as a nation.
I don't know whether America is held to a higher standard I tend to the opinion that it isn't but that this belief that it is is born out of the American Superiority Complex. I think America truly did change after 9/11 but rather than move on it fell back to the position it had in the Fifties and Sixties before Vietnam and Watergate. I think the Bush Administration imagines itself to be in some Manichaean conflict against evil and is itself incapable of doing wrong.
The beheading of Nick Berg was horrific and was condemned by people all round the world including those in the Middle East as were the actions of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The torture of Iraqi prisoners though blamed upon a few bad apples does seem to have been if not directed from the top then at least permitted. The incidents of torture are not restricted to Iraq either but have been reported in
Afghanistan and
Guantanamo Bay the difference being is that we have photographic evidence of the abuse in this case. The outrage from the world is not for a single incident but for the US government policy, which has been exposed to be that of using any tactic to get the result wanted.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 5:18 PM
Reading today's copy of The Observer I noticed that below an
interview with Jennifer Griffin the 17 year old daughter of the leader of the BNP was an advert for a documentary about The SS and Heinrich Himmler that will be on
The History Channel tonight.
I wonder if this was intentional or merely a coincidence.
Friday, May 14, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:26 PM
Pixar have released the
trailer for their new animated feature
The Incredibles. To be honest I didn't like it as much as the
teaser trailer, but then I was totally blown away by that.
The teaser was a beautiful masterpiece that could have stood alone as a short animated film. If Pixar are cunning they should submit it for the best short film at the Academy Awards as well as submitting the full movie for the Best Animated Feature award.
Labels: movies
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:46 PM
I saw this on Wednesday and loved it, the idosyncratic writing of Charlie Kaufman really gels with me. The film is a bizarre romantic comedy in many ways and
Jim Carrey and
Kate Winslet make a great couple in a difficult and turbulent relationship.
If only Carrey could make more films like this and
Man on the Moon and I would be a very happy man.
The supporting cast were great as well particularly Elijah Wood who escapes from his hobbithood by playing a slightly creepy guy who is trying to seduce Clementine by using stuff from her memories that have been erased.
IMDb's page for
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Again questions are raised in my mind concerning memory and the importance of integrity of the memories in your head. Losing parts of your memory robs you of more than you might imagine. I think you lose a part of your personality with everything that is erased.
Labels: movies
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:21 PM
Just seen the teaser trailer for the new
Keanu Reeves film
Constantine based upon the comic
Hellblazer published by DC. The trailer is available here at
Straight to Hell.
Initially reaction is Constant-een (WTF I've always pronounced it Constant-I-ne) but then I got into it, I quite liked it.
But if I had seen it and not known what is was supposedly based on I would never have guessed it had any connection to Hellblazer.
Rachel Weisz's character seems pregnant, is it with the Devil's child I hope not. It's becoming more like a remake of
End of Days rather than an adaptation of Hellblazer.
IMDb's page for
Constantine.
Labels: movies
Thursday, May 13, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 9:35 PM
I tried to buy
Ninja Gaiden yesterday but I couldn't because it doesn't go on sale until Friday.
Arse, I felt like such a fool and the twelve year old kid that was serving behind the counter mocked me and my stupid twentysomething lack of knowledge of all things video gamey. That didn't really happen it just flashed through my head at the time.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 9:32 AM
Crazy moment in the middle of the night where I was half awake/half asleep and unsure of where I was. I felt this uncertainty would have resulted in me having sex with someone who wasn't my girlfriend. If indeed I was with someone else which I wasn't and if I had a girlfriend which I don't. This makes no sense at all.
Labels: Sex
Monday, May 10, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:54 PM
Sunday, May 09, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 5:09 PM
When I have enough real world money to buy a new PC and get a broadband connection electricinca will become a moneylender in
Second Life.
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:51 PM
but he launched a generation of computer geeks in Britain. If you are in the mood for some reminiscence of simpler times where 48k of memory was ample why not check out
Hey, hey, 16K.
Link found via collision detection.
Do we really miss the games such as Jet Set Willy and Dizzy where the trick was to manoeuvre with pixel-point precision in order to complete the game? Maybe not, they were fun at the time but having to complete the same movement but incrementally better the next time is just not fun anymore.
Having said that Chuckie Egg is still fucking fantastic and I still can be found playing using a Speccy emulator on my PC.
I'll tell you what I do fucking miss
the prices. Premium games such as Robocop or Operation wolf would be £9.99, but there was also s huge selection of budget games to be had for £1.99 or £2.99 many of them being completely new games and not just rereleases of older games. I used to have hundreds of games for my Spectrum but now my game collection for my PC and Xbox is barely in double figures and I probably spent far more money on them than I did for my entire Speccy collection.
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:11 PM
Did Andy Kaufman fake his death? Will he return 20 years to the day after he 'died'?
Find out on May 16, 2004, Comic Relief, the charity organization Bob Zmuda founded in 1985, will present . . . something. Something secretive, something at House of Blues on Sunset Strip. Title: Andy Kaufman — Dead or Alive?
Read more about the upcoming show and a profile of the life and comedy of Andy
here at LA Weekly.
I think the spirit of
Andy Kaufman has been taken up by the screenwriter
Charlie Kaufman they seem to share a passion for the dadaesque comedy that treads the line between hilarious and inexplicable.
The invention of an imaginary twin brother is something I could imagine Andy Kaufman doing.
Weird fact: Andy shares the same birthday with
Jim Carrey, who plays him in the film
Man on the Moon (1999).
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:03 PM
Saturday, May 08, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:38 PM
My quest to become anonymously famous has been boosted by my having been quoted at
Wired News but only being attributed as
a commenter.
The story is
How the Word Gets Around and concerns the Internet experiment called The Memespread Project by Samuel Arbesman.
I wrote about The Memespread project
here, and the comment that I posted at
Kottke.org that was picked up in the Wired News story can be found
here.
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 1:22 PM
Bizarre customer enquiries part 7
- "Why do they have to put all the acknowledgements on the end of the film? What interest is that to the general public?"
- "I don't really know, but it's of interest some people and it's probably a union requirement."
- "But why do we have to sit through it."
--Fuck I have no words.
A teenage boy wearing jeans, white trainers and a blue Bath Rugby Club anorak asks.
- "Would you know where I could exchange some gift vouchers? I've had a heart attack and I'm stuck in Bath."
--What the fuck
Labels: cinema
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 12:38 PM
Watched
Have I got News for You last night and they had a round in "honour" of Margaret Thatcher's 25th Anniversary of becoming Prime Minister.
My god how did the majority of people in this country not notice that she was completely mad. Were they all blinded by greed.
I think
Warren Ellis got it right in issue #7 of Planetary.
Jakita Wagner said
"Jack always said it was difficult for us Americans to understand what it was really like here in the darkest parts of the Eighties.
We had a doddery old President who talked about the End of the World a little too often and was being run by the wrong people.
But they had a Prime Minister who was genuinly mad"
Planetary : All Over the World and Other Stories
Available from
Amazon.com |
Amazon.co.uk
Planetary: Fourth Man
Available from
Amazon.com |
Amazon.co.uk
Friday, May 07, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:12 PM
An article in yesterday's Guardian concerning an improvised show by the Improbable Theatre company. The show entitled Lifegame is improvised around an interviewee's life story. Former subjects describe their experiences
here.
Matt Jones of
BlackbeltJones picked up on the following passage:
"In some cases, Improbable's versions of my memories have almost replaced my actual memories: the way they did my mother singing around the house; the way they described how I came to read drama at university, creating puppets out of newspaper. They asked me how I would like to die; it wasn't something I had particularly thought about, but I said dying on a limestone ridge in the Mediterranean would suit me fine. Now every time I go on holiday and go walking on high limestone ridges, I remember their depiction of that scene. "
Matt writes: "If someone tells a better story of your life to strangers than the one you actually lived, it may lodge itself in the spotless mind..."
It has been the concern of philosophers for centuries that the memories we hold in our heads may not be the truth. Recent evidence would suggest that this is indeed the case. Witnesses to events will remember different details which in some cases can be completely contradictory, particularly in highly emotive events. Memories can be shaped and influenced by one's emotional state and in traumatic events the memory may shut down and become inactive.
In fact new theories of the mind and brain would suggest that it is possible to program it like a computer, leading to the possibility of the creation and implantation of fake memories. The movie Total Recall may be not be a wildly improbable piece of Science Fiction as we might have thought. Incidently it is probably the most intelligent movie Schwarzenegger ever made.
I think the techniques used by hypnotists are more powerful than anyone can imagine even the hypnotists themselves, many even confess not to understand what they do, they just know it works. Fucking freaky shit of you ask me.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:59 PM
From:
Marginal Revolution
The consumer surplus from Google's Gmail
Google will be offering its Gmail service for free, but right now supply is limited. Not surprisingly, a market in the accounts has arisen, check out this ebay listing. I have heard that some accounts have gone for as much as $150.
More...
Maybe I should get into this and start selling off
Gmail accounts because as a user of
Blogger I've been given the chance to get an account before the general public.
See sample Ebay listings for Gmail accounts
here.
Monday, May 03, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:30 PM
Tom Coates of
Plasticbag.org and
Barbelith wrote
What can I say - I'm behind, okay? (May 01, 2004)
So basically what can I say - I'm behind, okay? I'm not doing all the things I want to do as effectively as I like. And yes - there's a lot of procrastination in there as well. It's not like I'm busy all the day and night. I'm hardly busy at all, except that when I am doing things, they're kind of head-intensive and I'm having trouble maintaining concentration on them. So what can I say - I'm behind, okay? more...
I know the feeling. I am the procrastination king at the moment. Regular readers may have noticed the changes to the site but I have made a complete half-arsed job of it and have links to pages with no content. I must get round to sorting them out so I stop looking like a twat, but instead I'm writing this new post for the weblog.
Also I should be writing my book on computer security for the technophobe but I'm having doubts over who I'm writing it for and whether it is necessary. I may have pinned my hopes on this project when what I should have done is found myself a proper job instead of working at the cinema.
Labels: books, Security
Saturday, May 01, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:57 PM
