From BBC’s “The Computer Programme”. The sound is loud and distorted, so turn your volume down before you click play.

I didn’t think the LEN function would work without parenthesis around the variable, but there you go.

This “Mailbook” advert appeared on Scrabble, just below the normal Facebook toolbar.

Seems dodgy to me. It’s a quite misleading way to try and get you to click on the ad.

Surprised Facebook would allow something that appears so similar to their own navigation.

Maybe they haven’t spotted it yet. I wonder if the icons are pixel-for-pixel copies?

A post for the nostalgics to read:

How many Commodore 64 computers were sold?

I quite like the YourTV.com.au web site. The TV guide it displays is quite usable, and can be customised to show your correct channels.

But why does it keep forgetting your region every few weeks, and reset itself to metro Sydney?

Very irritating. (Well, if you live outside metro Sydney.)

Using your web browser, you can check the cookies. This article describes how, in various browsers.

That’s where the problem is: it looks like the “TvFixGuide” cookie, which seems to hold details of what region you’re in, is only set for a month.

It doesn’t look like either browser allows you to extend the time range of the cookie, or otherwise modify it. I suppose there’s legitimate reasons for that.

It is possible to hack it by deleting the cookie, setting your computer’s clock, say, a year into the future, before going back to the site and setting the option.

Yep, it seems to work:

Don’t forget to set your clock back afterwards.

Part 1: Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, NES, Commodore 64, IBM PC (DOS), Apple II

Part 2: Vic 20 (dodgy emulator?), TI-99/4A, Atari 8-bit computers, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari 7800

With adaptions from an arcade original that had a screen that was higher than it was wide, there’s an obvious compromise to be made between the clarity/resolution of the characters, their aspect ratio, and the number of girders to the top — eg compare the Atarisoft Commodore 64 version with the Ocean one. Some versions look very squashed.

Most surprisingly good I reckon was the TI version.

Via Retroist

News clips from the USA are often 4:3 – why?  Is it a technologically backward country, or do they only export their news in a universal format?  I see work-arounds to disguise this fact, like framing the whole clip in a themed border, or widening the clip by tacking onto the pillar-box sides a blurred-out duplicate of the clip that’s been zoomed, stretched or clipped.

And while I’m noting this, why is it that the watermark on these clips is almost universally blurred out and overlayed with the local broadcaster’s watermark – can’t they get the raw, unwatermarked footage from the provider?

Five HOURS of maintenance?!?

I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms.

OK, they do say it won’t be inaccessible for the full maintenance window, but still, isn’t it time Twitter got enough redundancy that it didn’t need to do this?

I’ve long been a fan of TV idents, and I used to love seeing the late-80s BBC1 globe animation, when it occasionally popped-up on television here. As well as the Alas Smith and Jones spoof version.

Here are a couple of fascinating articles on how it was generated: by a standalone computer, which animated the 12 second rotation, at the PAL standard of 25 frames per second.

• A Computer Originated World
• BBC1 – Bright New World

(Update: Found a better video)

I just want to look at a photo a friend has posted. No doubt the app in question makes it very easy for my friend to post the photo, but it’s difficult for me to see it without handing over a bunch of control to the app.

Now, I know it’s not Facebook’s fault specifically, but c’mon, why do I need to give an application access to my Profile and details of my friends just to look at a photo? I don’t want to do that.

Surely they could change the FB API around so it’s easier to have simple interaction with an application (eg to just look at the photo, not post my own) without handing over this kind of permission?

But then the app wouldn’t spread so fast virally, would it.

The fact that this kind of stuff is so typical is not exactly training users to be careful about minding their privacy online.

Fortunately in this case, it appears that the app is just re-broadcasting a photo from the user’s existing collection of photos, so I’ve been able to hunt it down and look at it there.

Of course, it’s in the FB photos standard lowish resolution, no bigger copy available, but that’s another story.

A true geek can’t help themselves.  Every time — every time — the garage door is closing, you’ve got to duck out under it as per Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark; for some reason I keep remembering it’s his hat he retrieves, not his whip.

But malfunctioning technology kills my inner child.  Every time the collision detector fires off (which it does fairly often, even when it hasn’t collided with anything) and the garage door opens again – beeping – a little part of me dies.

Details

totem-video-thumbnailer at fault?

Close Nautilus, the file-system browser that you’ve got open on the directory where the files are being downloaded. It file is constantly getting pinged as having been updated, and so it’s getting thumbnailed over and over again, to no end.

Note your download speeds may improve after this fix.