Scatmania

Missed my bug this morning. It seems that Arriva carried out some changes to the local bus timetables at the weekend. This much I knew about. I also know that my bus would now be leaving the bus station at 0740 (rather than the 0750 I’m used to), so I arrived ten minutes earlier than at a bus stop it passes.

I was all in favour of this change. Throughout the day, the buses on the 531 route to Penrhyncoch have all left Aberystwyth at twenty to the hour… except for the aforementioned first one of the day, which leaves at ten to. For those of us who frequently alternate between these two times, it seems particularly not to have the first bus of the morning leave at the same minutes-past-the-hour as the rest: it’s only a ten minute difference. This is what I assumed they’d done.

Somehow, I managed to miss my bus, so I returned home and downloaded the new timetable.

It seems that not only have Arriva changed the start time of my service, but also it’s frequency, number, and even it’s route. The lightly-worded poster discreetly placed in my bus didn’t hint at the magnitude of the upcoming change (”a few changes to schedules”, it said). Bloody hell.

So now there’s no Sunday service, no late service, and an even harder-to-memorise timetable (with the first two and the last one bus either way now on a different schedule pattern than the rest). The only possible benefit to me is that the bus makes less stops: for example, it no longer stops at the bus stop I was waiting at this morning…

<sighs>

This isn’t a good start.

I can’t believe that it’s been 13 and a half months since I pre-ordered Half-Life 2 on Amazon. I went to check on my order earlier today:

It seems that my delivery estimate hasn’t been fixed - I can still (apparently) expect to receive my copy of this long-awaited game by 2nd October… 2003. Hmm.

Picture removed. The joke’s gotten old. - Dan, 5th June 2007

Just came across the Infinite Cat Project. The premise is simple: take a picture of your cat looking at the current picture on the web site, and send it in, and it will become the current picture. The first cat is Frankie: just click Next Cat to get to the next one.

I think this is a great use of the high-speed communication that the internet gives us in order to produce something truly artistic. Cool.

Woo and indeed hoo! I’m really starting to enjoy programming RSS feeds into my web sites now. I’ve just done a little bit of recoding of the Troma Night website to allow the newly-relaunched Aberystwyth weblog aggregator, Abnib, to syndicate it. Now, Abnib will show the details of the next upcoming Troma Night… and not a moment too soon - if you’re viewing this post on Abnib, you’ll see the announcement of tonight’s Troma Night just below it. Yay!

(much thanks due to Gareth)

Abnib, the Aberystwyth Weblog Aggregator (bringing you niblets of the best of Aber’s weblogs) is back online, after months of absence. Take a look and see who you recognise.

Haven’t quite gotten around to putting everybody’s ‘mugshots’ in there (as I’m having some difficulty with semitransparent PNGs), but Gareth’s made a good few to get us going. Yay! Hooray for Gareth! And Aberystwyth! And Abnib! And RSS!

This is just crazy. Some mad geeks have adapted a Pocket PC into a hip 80s-esque belt buckle, such that it displays a scrolling list of popular web search terms of the last 24 hours, live… at your crotch.

I have no idea what the purpose of this is.

I saw Thunderbirds at the cinema last night. Jeez; was that awful. Unlike Bryn (who’s complained at length about the film already), I’m not a long-standing fan of the original TV series, and so the film didn’t ‘ruin’ it for me (although I did notice several major inconsistencies). Nonetheless, I still found the film to be quite abysmal.

The whole thing feels like a bad re-make of Spy Kids. It’s riddled with continuity errors (where did that door opening switch go?), conveniences (suddenly an electronic lock becomes a mechanical one later in the film, so that Parker can pick it), plotholes (The Hood states that he was born with his powers, then later states that he gained them after the Thunderbirds failed to rescue him), false geography (I must take that trans-Thames monorail someday), false physics (you’re landing that rocket how?), bad sound effects (reminiscent of 60s cartoons, but no, not authentic to the style of the original series), awful acting (look; I’m scared - look; I’m concerned - look… umm), characters with no common sense (let’s all leave the base undefended during this period of suspicious activity, for no reason whatsoever - and - my being a Thunderbird is a secret, so I’ll be seen to exit a disaster scene with them… in my flying car)…

The best thing about the film was the subtle and less-subtle jokes they made about the original series: “Look at him, like a puppet on a string!” says The Hood, as he uses his mind control powers on Brains. In another scene, with a close-up of a character’s hand, strings can clearly be seen supporting it (in the original series, the characters were puppets but for close-up scenes real hands were used).

It’s currently averaging 4.5 on the IMDB. I’d give it a 3, and it’s only that high because (a) I’m not a Thunderbirds fan and (b) I’ve seen a lot ofawful films this last year.

There’s an article on how Google could overthrow AIM/ICQ, and perhaps even MSN Messenger, from their dominant positions in the instant messenger market, and improve internet standards usage and accessibility, by releasing thier own instant messenger tool powered by the (wonderful) Jabber protocol. It’s a lovely idea, but (sadly) not one which is likely to happen.

On similarly geeky news, there’s a new web site, BrowseHappy, which aims to help everyday users make the switch away from Internet Explorer to safer, simpler, faster, better browsers. If you’re still using IE, take a look. If you’re already enlightened, show it to your unenlightened friends. It’s a very approachable site in nice, easy language.

And finally, there’s apparently a new worm doing the rounds, “Peeping Tom”, which, upon infection, turns on the victim’s webcam and microphone, and begins broadcasting to the world. What a lovely idea for a novelty virus.

Thanks for listening