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#vegetarianfilms Filletproof Monkfish, Pak-Choi Story 3, The Lambshank Redemption, Finding Miso
2 days ago from web Brioche, goats cheese, rocket, cranberry and *orange*. Yes, I get all my lunchtime culinary ideas from Upper Crust.
3 days ago from txt I seem to have exhausted all the cute/interesting things in Manchester, so I'm off to London. See you later.
3 days ago from web
Open Letter to David Chaytor
April 8th, 2010 by Liam JamesToday I emailed the following to my MP, David Chaytor. David was the subject of an expenses scandal last year, and in February 2010 he was convicted under the Theft Act for false accounting. He has been suspended from the Labour party and will not stand in the next General Election, to be held in the UK on 6th May.
Unsurprisingly, David was not one of the 236 MPs who bothered to vote for or against the 2010 Digital Economy Bill which is causing a storm on twitter for (amongst other things) the powers it will grant ISPs to disconnect users suspected of copyright infringement without a fair trial, and the legal requirement for ISPs to block access to websites "which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright". The wording of this is especially dangerous, as technically it includes search engines like Google, which you can easily use to find mp3s.
I had previously emailed David twice in March concerning the bill, and aside from requesting my details to confirm that I was indeed a constituent, he did not respond, did not vote, and did not even attend the second reading. Here is my third and potentially final email.
FAO David.
I appreciate that since the expenses scandal and your subsequent suspension you've been forced into a more submissive role, but transparency is the trial of your occupation. If you will put yourself in the public eye, then you must accept that you will occasionally be subject to scrutiny, ridicule or humiliation.
The real challenge is to roll with those punches without losing your footing, respect or dignity, and without letting it compromise your duties as an MP. You must ensure that you continue to respect the position that you have been elected into by your trusting constituents, and continue to represent them to the best of your abilities.
Whether or not you care about the issues concerned is irrelevant. Whether or not you are able to stand for the coming election is irrelevant. You still have an obligation to research the issues involved and make an informed stand on behalf of the general public. You had the opportunity to win a little bit of respect back by making an argument against the badly-written Digital Economy Bill, and you just ducked.
Please don't let a scandal be your final contribution to the country. Don't curl up in a corner. You are in a privileged position now- you're a man with the public's interest and nothing to lose. Please stay sharp and do something good to be remembered by.
But I suspect that I'm wasting my time with words.
Instead of just voting against your party, I intend to actively campaign against Labour for the coming election. I am a professional graphic designer by occupation, and I'm sure that an opposing party candidate in the Bury North area will appreciate my support.
Actions speak a little louder.
Kind Regards.
Read More I Don’t Play Games
March 26th, 2010 by Liam JamesSix years. That's how old I was when I first started regarding the contents of my pockets as my "inventory". That's how old I was when I first attempted to teleport, double-jump, spinning bird kick and hadouken. And that's how old I was when I first became horrifically disappointed with my lacklustre abilities as a human being.
Although I love designing them and testing new ideas, I don't play computer games anymore. I don't have a modern Xbox or a Playstation. This is partly because I've always been the kind of person who struggles to distinguish fantasy from reality. I often sit here on my floating mushroom and wonder what life would have been like if I'd been born with dragon breath, or the ability to shoot solid rainbow bridges from my fingers. Sometimes when I'm working in the office I get the overwhelming feeling that I've picked up some kind of speed powerup, and I start running and jumping about, throwing people thumbs and peace signs like the uncool human version of sonic the hedgehog.
When I was 6 I used to breathe on people, citing it as a powerful weapon. I'm not sure if it was lethal or not, but my brother didn't appreciate it. As I progressed into teenage years my conversation skills devolved into simply picking the best response out of my three available options- "Fantastic!", "Your mum!", and "How appropriate, you fight like a cow".
When I hit 19 I turned on my "always run" option. That was useful. Sports and athletics became a lot easier. But when the back of my left knee inexplicably started to hurt after a half-marathon, my physio told me that I should have been "stretching" before and after doing anything energetic. Eh. I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to work; my prior experiences with exercise have consisted solely of Killer Instinct and Street Fighter II Turbo, and the only "stretching" moves I know are Dhalsim's basic kick and punch attacks. So I spent several misguided weeks practising power combos, which just made matters a hell of a lot worse.
Deus Ex has firmly instilled in me the belief that wherever there is a combination lock, there is also a homeless guy nearby who knows the code. My search for "secret areas" down strange-looking corridors has often led me into meeting rooms or private functions which give me no bonuses, powerups or new weapons. It's like every aspect of my subconscious is utterly convinced that somehow, somewhere... I'm getting points for whatever I'm doing.
Increasingly, I am getting frustrated that I don't have a theme tune. I feel that a poppy, racing synth bassline would improve my life, and improve the lives of the people around me. It would also add context when I pick up my speed powerups and stop me from looking like an over-dramatic arts student to the people in my office.
But the worst thing is that in this life, there is no storyline. No epic event to unfold, no pre-destined "Interesting Things" to fill the time and populate my little life with the meaning I crave. There's no final boss to kill, no great reward, no helpless princess and no high score. I get the impression that I'm just a Sim, and my primary goals in life are to eat, wash, sleep and go to the toilet often enough so that I don't become unhappy, lose my job or wet myself in public.
How distressing.
Sure, we've had this problem throughout history. Life does seem like a bit of an anticlimax after the promises of films, books and stories. But I'd argue that this generation has a new hurdle - computer games that put you directly into the role of the hero and give you a video and audio link to this new, emotionally-disconnected reality. It's fun. It's awesome. It's super effective. And it makes it increasingly hard to accept that you'll be working in an office until 2040.
Read More
Deus Ex has firmly instilled in me the belief that wherever there is a combination lock, there is also a homeless guy nearby who knows the code. My search for "secret areas" down strange-looking corridors has often led me into meeting rooms or private functions which give me no bonuses, powerups or new weapons. It's like every aspect of my subconscious is utterly convinced that somehow, somewhere... I'm getting points for whatever I'm doing.
Increasingly, I am getting frustrated that I don't have a theme tune. I feel that a poppy, racing synth bassline would improve my life, and improve the lives of the people around me. It would also add context when I pick up my speed powerups and stop me from looking like an over-dramatic arts student to the people in my office.
But the worst thing is that in this life, there is no storyline. No epic event to unfold, no pre-destined "Interesting Things" to fill the time and populate my little life with the meaning I crave. There's no final boss to kill, no great reward, no helpless princess and no high score. I get the impression that I'm just a Sim, and my primary goals in life are to eat, wash, sleep and go to the toilet often enough so that I don't become unhappy, lose my job or wet myself in public.
How distressing.
Sure, we've had this problem throughout history. Life does seem like a bit of an anticlimax after the promises of films, books and stories. But I'd argue that this generation has a new hurdle - computer games that put you directly into the role of the hero and give you a video and audio link to this new, emotionally-disconnected reality. It's fun. It's awesome. It's super effective. And it makes it increasingly hard to accept that you'll be working in an office until 2040. UK Palm Pre
March 20th, 2010 by Liam JamesLuckily my phone took a bit of damage out in Madagascar, so I had the perfect opportunity to upgrade to a Palm Pre in January. O2 immediately gave me some bad vibes when their promise of a "free gift" turned out to be a charging dock instead of a goldfish or an embroidered bandana, but when I realised that it was a magical magnetic charging dock the anger disappated into restrained geeky joy. It charges through the back of the phone by a process technically known as sorcery, and it is a constant source of wonder and happiness for me.
When I turned on the phone I was treated to a beautiful introduction video on a shining bright screen, followed by a request for my Google and Facebook passwords. Give a little, take a little- the Pre is evidently a device of both Yin and Yang. It helpfully told me that if I entered these passwords, it would "link" my accounts. What? Did I want that? I was intrigued- perhaps this meant that I could now actually physically jab people in the ribs with my phone instead of just poking them. Spurred on by this possibility, I signed my life away. Then the creepy little thing downloaded all your phone numbers, birthdays and profile pictures onto itself. So now when you phone me, remember that I'm rubbing my face against your face. Or your crotch, if you have a dirty profile picture.
The phone itself has a QWERTY keyboard and a well-designed sliding mechanism... which feels slightly flimsy. The screen is a thing of joy. It's bright, it's shiny, it has multi-touch, gestures. It has an accelerometer and all that jazz, so you can play tilt games and the display will automatically change from portrait to landscape when you turn it. The camera's nice. It reads MS documents. It integrates really nicely with Gmail and Google calendar. Etc, etc.
WebOS (the operating system) is great, but it's still being developed. It's still slightly less responsive than the iPhone and doesn't have as many options or features as I'd expect. But it's very stable, you can run several applications at once, and the gestures are fast and intuitive.
The applications that are there are polished enough... but there aren't many there yet. I rooted the device and installed some homebrew Quake and Monkey Island while I waited a month for some games to be released in the UK, but I'm not sure that everyone would have been bothered to go through that ordeal.
Luckily, Palm seem to be aware of this, and throughout March they are letting us download Need For Speed, The Sims 3 and Monopoly for free while they sort out the sorry state of affairs. I've played all of these through now, and I'm quite impressed by them. Unlocking all the cars in Need for Speed didn't take very long, but racing around and crashing in gloss-mapped 3D multi-touch is great fun. The Sims 3 doesn't have much furniture to buy and lacks any community addons, but it turns the Pre into an advanced tamagotchi... which is actually pretty fun. And Monopoly has enough options for me to play it the way my mummy taught me, just without all the cheating and the Dire Straits playing in the background.
Maybe that'll come in an update.
In conclusion I'm pretty happy and impressed so far, but not totally blown away. Which is probably a good thing. There's little worse than talking to someone who just fishes out their fancy phone at every available opportunity and talks about how amazing they think it is. I think I only did that for a couple of weeks until the novelty wore off. Or until all my friends stopped talking to me.
Read More On Bad Innovation and the iPad
February 2nd, 2010 by Liam JamesApparently everyone got bored of Haiti last week and decided that touchscreen, keyboardless laptops were a much bigger world priority. Apple's offering was flatly panned* by fanboys and geeks for lacking multi-tasking, camera and phone capabilities, but at least it renewed interest in the upcoming HP Slate... which is basically the same thing, but with windows and multi-tasking. Today Google leaked pictures of their prototype all over the internet like a bored kitten that can't quite comprehend why he isn't the centre of your universe, and yes (thankyou Google) it looks... similar. OK.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debO2FroXA0[/youtube]
Has everyone gone insane?
Seriously, an A4 phone-top? Without a phone? Without a keyboard or a mouse? With that same shiny glaring screen so you can't read books on it? Unfortunately I don't have padded A4-sized pockets or a magical inter-dimensional bag of infinite space to carry a new tablet around, and if I did then I'd probably just carry Rachel Riley around instead. I'm quite sure that I would abuse that power.
Big companies seem to be falling over each other to design a new minority report interface without considering that it's about as useful as a sodding mouse shotgun. Let's be a bit analytical.
1) The stuff we already have already does everything it does. Better.
What's wrong with a laptop or a smartphone for browsing the internet when you're away from your computer? You can take both of those out of the house without a padded iBag, and you can probably carry your phone with you without choosing a custom outfit that makes you look like a desert trekking cyborg.
But what about browsing the internet while you're slouching on the comfy sofa? Ah, Perfect. Or hang on... couldn't you use a laptop on your comfy sofa without needing to prop it up against your crotch? Unless you like that kind of thing. Or connect to the internet through your TV using your games console? Thinking about it, there are loads of better gadgets around for that purpose, and you probably already have more than one of them.
I'm drawing a blank here. I can't help but feel that the primary use for this device is to go on Facebook and touch someone's face. I can (and regularly do) do that on my Palm Pre.
2) It needs propping up.
I won't go into detail about many of the championed potential uses of the tablet PC, because frankly it's all rubbish. It's not going to make me more productive, Apple. I promise you. There's no way I'd use it as my primary calendar, or to schedule meetings, edit office documents or tweak photographs. I'd use it to play Bejeweled while Come Dine With Me is on in the background.
You can watch films on these tablet computers. But why watch a film on your tablet when you're at home anyway? You'll have to prop it up against a couple of thick books and then reach over to touch it a couple of times whenever you want to pause, like a pretty hooker on ketamine. What's wrong with a laptop, a computer or your goddamn TV?
"Easy access to recipies" is a sad hopeful mistake too. Even if you're not horribly lying to yourself (takeaway pizza is NOT cooking), then you'll still either need a bookstand or leave it to the mercy of the red wine, misbehaving cat and HP sauce.
3) Rule of stuff #6: If it's small and it's not useful, then you will lose it.
The problem with thin and flat things is that they're quite nice to stack other things on top of. Especially if you keep them in the same room as the TV, which you will.
If you live on your own, then you might be able to get away with giving the iPad/Gpad/HPsaucePad its own little space next to the sofa without worrying that one day it will be gone. Most of us have no such security. Within six hours it would be either under a newspaper or stacked in a different room under a mountain of books, clothes and empty cider bottles. We would have to patrol the sofa constantly during daylight hours, or carry it with us at all times in a little iSash or an iPram.
These are devices brewed for the sole purpose of entertaining you while you're either in bed or already being entertained by something else. Or both. Anything more advanced than "Plants vs Zombies" is going to make you realise that you should stop craning your neck and sit up properly- get yourself a mouse and a keyboard and stop pissing around.
Don't get me wrong - I love the look of the new tablet PCs, and as a digital artist and musician I can see some niche possibilities. You could rig one up as a custom midi controller, or a sketchpad... If there are multiple velocity or pressure sensitivity levels then it becomes vaguely useful to a professional.
But I'm just confused why consumers are still trying to justify buying one, and amazed that Apple and co. have the balls to try carving out a market for a non-portable laptop that can't stand up on its own. Any ideas?
*thank you.
Read More In Retrospect I Really Don’t Have Enough Self Restraint For A Lapdance
December 28th, 2009 by Liam JamesBefore going to Madagascar in September I started to record a demo of a new novelty track called In Retrospect I Really Don't Have Enough Self Restraint For A Lapdance. To celebrate the launching of a new website, I thought I'd post a 1 minute snip of the chorus as an early preview.
It's still pretty rough around the edges, but hopefully the fact that it's now "on the internet" will put me under a bit of pressure to get it finished quickly.
Download In Retrospect I Really Don't Have Enough Self Restraint For A Lapdance
Photos of Madagascar will follow, but in the meantime please check out our travel blog at liamandnish.co.uk. We've been told that it's quite funny. :)
[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Oh Dear"]
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Read More [/caption] I Promise
September 16th, 2009 by Liam JamesTo all my friends;
I promise to be affectionate and loving in everything I say and do. But I promise not to smother. I promise to surprise you. I promise to respect your privacy, and keep no secrets from you. I promise to be there when you need me. I promise to give you my coat when you're cold. I promise to carry you for miles when you're wearing beautiful, ridiculous heels. I promise to keep you entertained and amused. I promise to always bring you a smile, a hug and a shoulder to cry on.
I promise to be reckless and interesting.
I promise not to play mind games or cheat. I promise to be open and honest about everything I feel, say and do. I promise to make friends with your cat, your friends, your family and your CD collection.
I promise to be reliable. I promise to be on time. I promise I won't be angry- it's OK, we'll fix it. I promise to fix your cupboard, catch spiders and open jars. I promise to cook, clean, wash up and help you move furniture. I promise to buy chocolate and cakes, and never talk about calories, diets, exercise or your metabolism.
I promise to listen. I promise to pay attention. And I promise to remember next time.
I promise to notice when you've changed your hair. I promise to notice when you've made an effort. I promise that when you've had a bad night, I'll give you a cuddle, fetch you a hot water bottle and watch TV with you until you fall asleep.
I promise that when I speak to you, as far as I'm concerned you're the only person in the room.
If that's not enough, then I promise that I'll be open to suggestions.
x x x x x
Read More Where We’re Going
July 24th, 2009 by Liam JamesWe won't need eyes to see...
I'm migrating the original look and feel of the old website to Wordpress. Rather than transfer the posts across, I'm starting again and giving this site some personal attention. Thanks for being patient as always. :)
Read More Livejournal Users Are Nuts
August 5th, 2007 by Liam JamesHello old amigos. I cherish you as distant brothers.
I considered applying for a job as a Blackpool stripper last week. Just for the hilarious job description. "Requirements : Successful Applicant Must Be Nude". I don't think I have adequate muscles though - I'm 22, just short of nine stone and when I'm still you can clearly see my heart beating through my chisled ribcage. I'm told that's not sexy. People say that with the glasses and short unkempt hair I have a bit of a Harry Potter vibe though, so I guess I could go for that angle... I could strap on some pyrotechnics, set off a smoke machine and gradually make my clothes 'disappear'.
Seriously though, I'm looking for jobs. My portfolio is looking about as anaemic as me, but the recent stuff is all looking pretty good. I'm getting into 3D and animation, learning Japanese properly and basically giving myself as many different skills as I can. It can't hurt.
If anyone has any leads, please let me know. I have a degree in Audio Technology, and I'm quite friendly. :)
My latest project with the girls in the bathroom is Riverfall - a massively multiplayer browser game that's sort of a cross between Diablo and Magic: The Gathering. Considering it's all CSS and javascript it's looking great. Can I embed video here? Looks like I can, so I'll record a preview and attach it in my next post.
Aside from that I'm still recording crap music and writing... although University put a massive plug in the Pirate Rock Opera, I'm finally ready to start tracking the drums. It's about as cheesy and epic as you'd expect.
... Has anyone seen the insanity going on in ljnews? Proper LJ drama. It started, as all good stories do, with a livejournal suspension for Harry Potter porn and a playful quip by a member of Six Apart support...
Read More I considered applying for a job as a Blackpool stripper last week. Just for the hilarious job description. "Requirements : Successful Applicant Must Be Nude". I don't think I have adequate muscles though - I'm 22, just short of nine stone and when I'm still you can clearly see my heart beating through my chisled ribcage. I'm told that's not sexy. People say that with the glasses and short unkempt hair I have a bit of a Harry Potter vibe though, so I guess I could go for that angle... I could strap on some pyrotechnics, set off a smoke machine and gradually make my clothes 'disappear'.
Seriously though, I'm looking for jobs. My portfolio is looking about as anaemic as me, but the recent stuff is all looking pretty good. I'm getting into 3D and animation, learning Japanese properly and basically giving myself as many different skills as I can. It can't hurt.
If anyone has any leads, please let me know. I have a degree in Audio Technology, and I'm quite friendly. :)
My latest project with the girls in the bathroom is Riverfall - a massively multiplayer browser game that's sort of a cross between Diablo and Magic: The Gathering. Considering it's all CSS and javascript it's looking great. Can I embed video here? Looks like I can, so I'll record a preview and attach it in my next post.
Aside from that I'm still recording crap music and writing... although University put a massive plug in the Pirate Rock Opera, I'm finally ready to start tracking the drums. It's about as cheesy and epic as you'd expect.
... Has anyone seen the insanity going on in ljnews? Proper LJ drama. It started, as all good stories do, with a livejournal suspension for Harry Potter porn and a playful quip by a member of Six Apart support...
