[livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to Eurovision: Shine a Light 2

May. 16th, 2020 10:02 pm
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Not even the Coronavirus can stop the madness that is the Eurovision Song Contest! The official console has been cancelled, so instead we've got "Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light" which is a collection of the performances that we would have had if the contest was going ahead as normal.

And, of course, another highly inaccurate liveblog!

We begin with... a wall of Zoom streams telling us it's another year?

Oh, it's going to be rapid-fire songs with 30seconds of each one, followed by a (sometimes very heartwarming) message from the artists. Get ready!

  1. Israel: Very orange
  2. Norway: Checking all the power ballad boxes here - sparkles, fire, smoke, the works
  3. Russia: What is this madness?
  4. Georgia: Another power ballad - this one with something of a film noir style?
  5. France: Nice and laid-back compared to the last few
  6. Azerbaijan: Ah, they've found the wind machine in the desert, guarded by a mysterious cult
  7. Portugal: Shoulders of power!
  8. Lithuania: Wave those hands!
  9. Sweden: Everybody move like this

Interlude time!

First up: an acoustic version of "Heroes" from 2015. This was impressive enough when it won, but somehow the unplugged version is better. And the NHS (and everyone else helping to keep the world turning) are very much the heroes of our time.

The next song... something about this really sounds like it's a Christmas carol of all things. And finally a bit of guitar playing that's all Italian to me. Impressive Italian, to be fair.

  1. Latvia: The future of silver service: precisely arranged carrots and broccoli
  2. Belgium: That looks like one very puzzled guitar player
  3. United Kingdom: Striding through a snowy forest because reasons or something
  4. Belarus: Oops, we forgot the background video
  5. Finland: Very red
  6. North Macedonia: Auditioning for Strictly
  7. Switzerland: Why have I got a piano? Why!
  8. Serbia: Bring on the clone army!

Interlude time!

Serbia get to re-run their 2007 win, carefully socially distancing in the middle of the road. Followed by another zoom video wall, with most playing but the occasional stream of someone looking awkwardly at the screen waiting for their cue as landmarks dramatically switch the lights on

And we get an extra special interlude (because the BBC doesn't do commercials), with a collection of Eurovision party photos.

  1. Spain: We found the BBC quarry!
  2. Albania: Very white
  3. Ireland: It's the story of my life! No, really, here's some old camcorder videos!
  4. Solvenia: See, King Canute would have succeeded if he had a backing track
  5. Austria: Are you sure we booked the right location?
  6. Bulgaria: Thunderstorm? What thunderstorm?
  7. San Marino: Bring back the nineties! With lasers!
  8. Iceland: Erm... just dance or something?

Interlude time!

Unlike Serbia, Germany's 1982 entry has been moved inside. To the middle of a staircase because why not?

  1. Greece: I must only use my superpowers for important things, like saving cats from trees
  2. Czech Republic: What happens if I touch the beam?
  3. Poland: ALL THE FIRE
  4. Moldova: Oops, I seem to have double-booked a photoshoot
  5. Cyprus: Keep on running
  6. Romania: Very blue
  7. Croatia: Are there words, or just random syllables?
  8. Germany: Don't get too close to the portal

Interlude time!

What, no lucky cats? Very different to the usual Netta performances.

Netherlands now with last year's success. And they're scrounged up the EU's entire stock of tungsten lightbulbs for the set design.

And now a collection of short messages from past winners and runner-ups. But no trolls?

  1. Malta: We can't decide if we want a water or a fire theme... so both, then?
  2. Estonia: We couldn't get any lightbulbs so will have to make do with candles
  3. Australia: The hands are coming to get you!
  4. Ukraine: Somehow, this seems like the most Eurovision-like entry this evening
  5. Denmark: Say YES!
  6. Italy: Did we remember to send the tickets out?
  7. Armenia: Unusual style for Eurovision. Confident though.
  8. Netherlands: Awww

And that's all 41! There's no voting, which means no winner but more importantly no "nil points" for UK!

Instead our very own Graham Norton is put on the spotlight (on the UK commentary, after the interview he said "God that was awkward!"). Finally we end with yet another classic rerun - this time a rare UK win from 1997.

Until next year!
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[livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest

May. 18th, 2019 08:00 pm
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It's Eurovision Song Contest time again, which means another highly inaccurate liveblog!

So if you win the Eurovision Song Contest, you get to land a jumbo jet at the studio using drones for runway lights? Someone's been watching past British entries for inspiration (a few years ago our entry was a very over-the-top cheesy aircraft safety briefing - not our finest moment)...

This year's theme appears to be triangles and dancing - triangular shapes everywhere, and dancing is actually required for the video postcards. Anyway, on with the songs!

  1. Malta: Okay, that's quite neat. Incredibly gimmicky, but neat nonetheless and one of the better uses of video projection I've seen.
  2. Albania: Impressive.
  3. Czech Republic: Cue the slightly mad drummer to provide backing for a life story. Reminds me a bit of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song...
  4. Germany: Aww... though at times the vocals seem somehow off.
  5. Russia: And their singer has got lost in a hall of mirrors before being trapped in a shower. This might be best described as "trying too hard with special effects".
  6. Denmark: Aww
  7. San Marino: Word soup lyrics? Oddly enough, there was a recent article on training AI to come up with Eurovision lyrics, and the result was similar word soup...
  8. North Macedonia: Wow.
  9. Sweden: Meh.
  10. Slovenia: Lost in their own little world
  11. Cyprus: Um. I wonder if this was carefully timed to be post-watershed what with the clingfilm-and-gaffer-tape outfit?
  12. Netherlands: Decent entry.
  13. Greece: Sword ballet?
  14. Israel: Oddly enough, this makes me think of an Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical...
  15. Norway: I rather like this one.
  16. United Kingdom: We wish to make it very clear that the universe is big.
    And we now have an interlude with interviews around an ironing board? Okay...
  17. Iceland: They are aware that this is Eurovision and not a death metal nightclub, right? And is that singing, or just white noise?
  18. Estonia: Apparently it's stormy out or something?
  19. Belarus: You do know you're supposed to take the smoke machines out of the flight cases first?
  20. Azerbaijan: So this is how the robot uprising begins...
  21. France: Sometimes, one just has to make a point with a sledgehammer.
  22. Italy: I think this is also trying to make a point?
  23. Serbia: Okay, that's good.
  24. Switzerland: Meh.
  25. Australia: Ringwraiths vs Elsa boss battle? No, wait, they're just doing scarecrow impressions.
  26. Spain: Quick, escape from the dolls house!


And that's the lot! So to sum up, my favourites are Albania, North Macedonia, Norway and Serbia, Russia are trying too hard, Malta actually know how hard to try, and Cyprus and Iceland are trying their luck with NSFW entries.

Interval act 1: past contestants perform each other songs, continuing with the borderline-NSFW outfit theme. I think this is one of the strangest interval acts I've seen...

Interval act 2: bit of an odd collection of genres and instruments. Seemed a bit short and underwhelming though.

Interval act 2.5: okay, that's a nifty trick.

Interval act 3: other benefits of winning Eurovision: getting to go to the ball and rap about bananas.

Interval act 4: gothic steampunk pirate Madonna? Accompanied by monks wearing gas masks with flowers of all things. I take it back - this is more weird than the first interval act was. Oddly, the dancers in black remind me of the witch's assistants from the Howl's Moving Castle film...

Anyway, the lines are now closed and it's time for the results! I do find it wonderfully quaint, all the live links and the "This is $capital calling" greetings as each country announces their jury votes. Even today, getting all the satellite linkups together must be quite the achievement. Surprisingly Malta have not given the UK any points (for many years they gave UK the full score in protest at the traditional bloc voting). The Netherlands' presenter is over the moon to have been chosen to take part. Yay, Norway have given us 2 points so we are not on "nul point"! Romania have chosen to yodel their points? Someone has let the Russian presenter loose on a piano. Greece have decided to up things by deploying an electric guitar.

So with all the jury votes in, it's surprisingly close with no runaway winner. Sweden is leading, with North Macedonia, The Netherlands, and Italy not far behind. And unsurprisingly the UK is almost (but not quite) bringing up the rear - our entry this year wasn't bad, just nothing special.

On to the phone votes! There's an awful lot of points up for grabs, so theoretically anyone could still win it. I think they've changed the order though - last year I think they went from lowest score from the phone votes, this year they're going by the order the jury ranked them. And the UK is quite definitely last with 3 points from the phone vote, giving us 16 total. At least we didn't get the fewest public - Germany are ahead of us, but got nul point from the public! Now Norway have just been catapulted into first with 200 points - they're unlikely to win, but that just goes to show how different the juries and the public think. The public also like Iceland a lot, but only enough to put them into 4th (for now). And Russia's performance was popular too.

With 5 to go, I don't think it's possible to call it with the new announcement order. With 3 to go there's still 4 possible winners - Italy, Sweden, North Macedonia or The Netherlands (oddly the same top 4 after the jury votes).

With 1 to go... aww, North Macedonia didn't get anywhere near enough from the public. So it's The Netherlands or Sweden. I think it's The Netherlands - the points seemed more equally distributed this year and Sweden need over 250.

The winner is... The Netherlands! And with that, g'night!
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[livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest

May. 12th, 2018 07:58 pm
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Yes, it's time for another instalment of me liveblogging my highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest Final! This time round there's only £1 riding on it ($work has expanded over the year and so we only get one country each) - I picked France out of the hat, so while I'm not going to win I doubt I'll lose and so should at least avoid the forfeit of having my office ringtone set to a past Eurovision winner.

Anyway, it's time for the show, the pseudo-liveblog, and as always the snark!


I'm not sure what I was expecting as the intro but an acoustic performance wasn't it - though it was very good. I definitely didn't expect the followup pair of DJs with a turntable - or the olympics-esque flag parade!

For a change, they don't have a video wall this year. Instead there's a pattern of arches and pillars with some sort of projection or LED setup - it'll be interesting to see if anyone makes proper use of them.

  1. Ukraine: ...So we have a vampire with a coffin that turns into a piano that's on fire. What.
  2. Spain: And we go from Ukraine's madness to an incredibly sweet piece performed by a couple on a an empty stage. Proof that you don't need a special effects budget to achieve a great performance.
  3. Slovenia: Audience participation time! Which is totally spontaneous and not planned at all :P
  4. Lithuania: Surely it's cheating to mix images into the video feed? That aside, another simple but good song.
  5. Austria: Meh. Good, but not my cup of tea.
  6. Estonia: Wow. Someone who can really sing, combined with a shiny new special effect - projecting video onto a giant dress. Colour me impressed.
  7. Norway: It's Mr. Bean with an invisible violin/drum kit/guitar/keyboard - oh wait, he has an actual violin. Not convinced he's actually playing it.
  8. Portugal: I rather like this one.
  9. United Kingdom: WTF happened there - it looked like a protester grabbed her mic and started yelling something incomprehensible (the Twittersphere thinks it was an anti-UK-media rant?). Full marks to SuRie for keeping going through that! Stage-crashers aside I did quite like that song.
  10. Serbia: The intro to this one reminds me a little of the opening theme from Ghost in the Shell. Not sure about the rest of it - I don't think the techno-like beats work with it.
  11. Germany: So the solution to not having a video wall is to bring your own. Again, surely that's cheating.
  12. Albania: Meh.
  13. France: Awww.
  14. Czech Republic: What is this madness?
  15. Denmark: The vikings have discovered Eurovision and wish to point out how badass they are through the power of wind and snow machines.
  16. Australia: Meh.
  17. Finland: What.
  18. Bulgaria: You fail at statue impressions :P
  19. Moldova: What is this, a comedy show? I don't know what that was but it was very silly.
  20. Sweden: Meh.
  21. Hungary: Rock on, dudes, rock on! Complete with crowd surfing and the obligatory Eurovision Final Chorus Key Change.
  22. Israel: ...And now we have beatboxing with lots of pink clothing. And a couple of bookcases full of lucky cats because why not?
  23. Netherlands: Apparently their drummer can only be trusted with one drum... and an invisible cymbal :P
  24. Ireland: Awww.
  25. Cyprus: Meh.
  26. Italy: Meh


This year's theme appears to be vampires, zombies and werewolves - even the presenters have picked up on it! As a friend on FB put it "I have seen nothing yet to dissuade me that Eurovision is the one night a year Europe’s vampire get to come out and play."

So to sum up my favourites are Estonia, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. In other news Ukraine is apparently populated by vampires, Israel managed to fend off the Czech Republic for the "what is this madness" trophy, and Moldova win the inaugural comedy award.


Interval act 1: I have no idea what's going on here, other than it does all seem very laid back.

Interval act 2: A short documentary on Portugal's Eurovision history. Viva la Eurovision revolution!

Interval act 3: I don't think I've ever seen someone use a piano as a drum before.


On to the voting, with the traditional "This is $city calling" greetings from around the world as each country phones in with the votes from their official juries. Which are totally awarded on merit and have nothing to do with European politics at all... anyway, Latvia has given the UK some points! This will not be a nul point year! Watching the jury results come in, it does seem like they can't make their minds up. With all the jury votes in it's a tie between Austria and Sweden for the lead, with Israel, Germany, and Cyprus in the running for 3rd place... and France is somewhere in the top half. I don't think I'll be getting my £1 wager back :P

Time for the phone votes! My recollection is there's quite possibly 300-odd points up for grabs for the winner, so it could all change. ...And it just has, with Sweden, placed #2 by the jury, coming in the bottom few from the televote. That just goes to show how little the juries actually know :) Now Austria's been placed somewhere in the middle by the televote, so neither of the jury favourites are going to win.

With the top 8 to go, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Israel as the ultimate winners just because of how bonkers it is.

Interestingly Denmark's still in the running, and the juries panned it... but the televote's just ranked them 5th.

With the top 3 to go, I doubt Italy can manage it so it's a fight between Israel and Cyprus.

And the final result... Israel! Madness for the win!
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[livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest

May. 13th, 2017 08:08 pm
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Anyway, enough disappointment about how these days LiveJournal's more interested in third-party advertisers than their userbase (that said, they do at least offer the option of paying to remove ads - that's more than Facebook does!).

Instead, it's time for [livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 Final! Yes, it's that time of year again wherein us Brits get to collectively snark at the artistic endeavours of Europe. This year $work's decided to run an office sweepstake and so I have a whole £2 running on it - so let's hope Romania or Norway does well.

So, on with the show, the pseudo-liveblog, and most importantly the snark!


This years theme: glitter and sparkles, judging by the flag intro and the presenter's outfits.

  1. Israel: Good opening act.
    2. Mini-rant: is it just me, or is there practically no bass in the sound mix? I recall the past couple of years having similar sound mixes.
  2. Poland: Almost a good one. I think it would work better with more singing and less shouting. Did like the Freedom birds though.
  3. Belarus: What.
  4. Austria: Pretty background video, meh song.
  5. Armenia: Interesting. The choreography has a certain style to it that is so often lacking.
  6. The Netherlands: Female barbershop triplet with surprise electric guitar!
  7. Moldova: Microphone flower bouquets? Okay...
  8. Hungary: I see they've gone the traditional dress route - at least, I'm assuming this is traditional dress and not merely excessive gold braid.
  9. Italy: Surprise dancing gorilla with a bow-tie! Otherwise, meh song, decent (if incomprehensible) video.
  10. Denmark: I rather like this one.
  11. Portugal: Wow. Just wow.
  12. Azerbaijan: Not quite sure what to make of this. Seems like a macabre goth song... except somehow not.
  13. Croatia: Meh.
  14. Australia: Meh.
  15. Greece: Um...
  16. Spain: A nice upbeat song.
  17. Norway: Daft Punk lite!
  18. United Kingdom: Almost an excellent entry - I don't like the way the vocals become a bit harsh when she tries to put too much power into them.
  19. Cyprus: Full marks for use of the floor video display.
  20. Romania: Bonkers combination, but it seems to work. Slightly disappointed that the cannons didn't do anything.
  21. Germany: Meh.
  22. Ukraine: It's Andross!
  23. Belgium: Hmm. This one has potential.
  24. Sweden: Ok Go! Except nowhere near as convoluted.
  25. Bulgaria: Surprisingly good.
  26. France: Stunning background video, meh song.


Overall I enjoyed Armenia and Norway, Portugal's entry is pure understated awesome (it's rather like an inverse Lordi), and Belarus wins the WTF award. I struggled a bit to pick favourites this year - Denmark, Poland and United Kingdom I almost really liked, but they're let down by harsh vocals which is a shame. Portugal aside, this year's collection seemed somewhat underwhelming and few songs really grabbed me - or perhaps it was that last year had some particularly good and epic entries in it.

And as for my £2, well I'm not holding out much hope but you never know (after all the bonkers entries have been known to win - like the Russian grannies from a few years back...).


First interval act: pretty decent.

Second interval act: interesting mix of modern synths and traditional instruments. And whatever bizarre (possibly made-up) drum-with-a-tail thing they've got in the middle. Overall I rather like it.

Third interval act: um... well someone apparently wanted their 5 seconds of TV fame. Full marks to the singer for carrying on regardless, but nil points to whoever was on the TV mixing desk and failed to switch away. Interruption aside, a reasonable song though I preferred her Eurovision entry last year.


( Time for the voting! )
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[livejournal.com profile] boggyb's highly inaccurate guide to the Eurovision Song Contest

May. 14th, 2016 11:58 pm
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This year appears to be WTF Eurovision. As in, WTF is that dress, WTF is that hair, WTF argh my eyes, WTF how is that even possible, WTF will the new voting system result in, WTF are the judges on (really, UK judges, you voted like that)? So here's my highly inaccurate WTF does [livejournal.com profile] boggyb think of it all guide...

  1. Belgium: meh
  2. Czech Republic: I'm not sure why, but I really like this one. It all fits - the lyrics, the images, the theme. This is quite possibly my favourite of the evening.
  3. Netherlands: meh
  4. Azerbaijan: meh
  5. Hungary: So their trick is a mad monk with a giant drum.
  6. Italy: Pretty, though I had no idea what was going on - there's no English subtitles of the lyrics this year.
  7. Israel WTF is that hair?
  8. Bulgaria: And this song's trick is light-up jewellery/clothing that only turns on near the end as just static white. Meh.
  9. Sweden: meh
  10. Germany: Alice (of Alice in Wonderland) is in some sort of gothic wood? I have no idea what's going on.
  11. France: Nice use of the video floor/wall. There's quite a few this year that are actually using this as part of the performance with more than a simple backdrop.
  12. Poland: meh
  13. Australia: This one started slowly, but grew on me - it's another of my favourites this evening. There's also a video overlay at one point but unlike in Italy where it was some random scribbles, here it's actually linked into the choreography and the singer interacts with it.
  14. Cyprus: Well it's presented as being some gritty metal song... and actually sounds like a tame bit of rock (Nickelback is more aggressive). I think they were trying for Lordi's success.
  15. Serbia: Some sort of goth theme?
  16. Lithuania: Another good use of the video floor/wall and overall I like it.
  17. Croatia: So the latest WTF dress is a plastic sheet?
  18. Russia: Oh, that's pretty neat. Heh, it's almost like a game of Rhythm Thief. Wait -- WTF HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? It's unfortunately let down by the truck driver's gear change at the end - the last part feels like they ran out of ideas and tried to fill the time with a more traditional Eurovision entry - but aside from that, it's very well done.
  19. Spain: meh
  20. Latvia: Yet another good video.
  21. Ukraine: Possibly the best use of the video wall/floor today. The singer is also putting an amazing amount of emotion into it.
  22. Malta: meh
  23. Georgia: ARGH MY EYES.
  24. Austria: Very pretty. I think it'll be overshadowed by the other entries
  25. United Kingdom: Actually a pretty decent entry.
  26. Armenia: meh

To sum up: Czech Republic and Australia are my favourites, Russia's entry DEFIES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, and Georgia will MELT YOUR EYES with retina-destroying strobe lighting and eighties video effects. But wait, there's more!

First interval act: meh

Second interval act: AWESOME. What they've done is to create a song with every single musical trope from TV Trope's Eurovision page combined with every single winning act - and not only dare to perform the result, but actually make it work.

Third interval act (just after lines close - and no, this is not Heroes): The song is alright - nothing special - but the staging is impressive. They're performing motion capture of the dancers (that's what the little white dots on their suits are for) in real time and feeding it into the video floor.

...And now we've run out of songs and are into the voting. Which is weird this year - no, I don't mean the new system (which supposedly makes it more suspenseful, and definitely makes it go faster) but where the points are going. The top scores are all over the place! Interestingly when it got to the popular vote the public has a completely different opinion to that of the juries... and the voting itself went right down to the wire with the winner unknown until the very end (the combined popular vote ended out handing increasingly crazily high scores, so what looked like on unassailable lead suddenly became very uncertain).

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The department of discontinued lines

Apr. 29th, 2015 08:58 pm
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It's eerie how current old shows can appear. Take this quote from an episode of The Avengers (the British spy series, not the Marvel superheroes) I saw the other day...

"The department of discontinued lines! That's what they call this place. Discontinued lines... relics of a bygone age, the glorious age! A machine was a thing of joy then, built to last a man's lifetime. Now it's out of date before it's left the assembly line."

Fits perfectly with how modern gadgets aren't built to last anymore, right? Except this is from a show first broadcast in the sixties.

It's like watching Yes, Minister - despite it dating from the Thatcher era, it looks just like modern government. I recall watching through it at university, and one of the first few episodes from 1980 was about introducing a new National Integrated Database... which is exactly what the then-Labour government of 2005 had just announced with great fanfare.
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5... 4... 3... 2... 1! Thunderbirds are go!

Apr. 19th, 2015 12:19 am
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Flicking semi-randomly through Youtube videos, I stumbled across this:



Yes, that's a trailer for a new Thunderbirds series. How did I manage to miss this?

Even better, it's just started broadcasting (ITV, at the ridiculously early time of 8am Saturdays) and because it's only just started the first few episodes are still on ITV player. From what I've seen of it so far it's made of win and awesome, and of course is full of nostalgia and ridiculously complicated launching sequences.
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Man lab's wasp-destroying helicopter

Nov. 14th, 2010 10:33 pm
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Hmm, I wonder if my mini r/c helicopter has enough lifting power to carry a small wasp-destroying rocket...
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Bonus NaBloPoMo post

Nov. 5th, 2009 10:58 pm
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I managed to crash my TV earlier today.

I switched on the N64 to play some Wipeout, held down power on the remote to turn on the TV, sat back, and then wondered why the TV hadn't powered up. So I look at it, and just see the power led flashing once every couple of seconds. "That's odd", I think, and I hold down the power button again for a couple of seconds (this model needs the button on the remote held down for a bit to turn on). The LED on the TV flickers like it should, but when I let go of the button it goes out completely. Strange.

This TV runs Linux internally (judging by a GPL hidden somewhere in the menus, and some source code on a related website), so I can only guess that the Linux kernel has actually crashed.

I suppose it is a sign of how advanced modern technology has become.
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VNC > stunnel > PuTTY > nc > nc > PuTTY > stunnel > VNC

Nov. 24th, 2005 11:26 pm
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Or, in other words, how to make an encrypted VNC connection when both ends are behind a firewall. Abusing PuTTY's fun. Abusing stunnel is also fun. The combination makes for some mind-boggling network connections that are somewhat reminescent of Uplink (and if I had my Linux box on, I could have added another bounce in there somewhere). And all because there's no native free SSH server for Win32 (the OpenSSH one requiring Cygwin and a Linux-style configuration and account setup).

Anyway, on to other stuff. There's not been an update for a while, mainly because there's not been anything much to write about. University assignments are ticking over nicely, apart from HCI where we're all doomed anyway, and the computers here seem to have learnt to behave. Either that or they're just biding their time, waiting to annoy me.

Speaking of computers, a recent addition to Igor (aka. Achilles, The Desktop, That Stupid Pile Of... Of... Argh!) courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] ricold has been a TV capture card, with which I have rediscovered TV. With this I can now get my weekly Top Gear and Scrapheap Challenge fixes, all from the comfort of my chair. With enough effort I could probably rig up automated recording of those as well, and turn my computer into a TiVo-type widget.

Hmm, maybe I should rig up a quiet system just for recording and watching TV. Shouldn't take much to run - all that's needed is a TV card, bit of RAM, reasonable CPU, and plenty of disk. Hardware Mpeg-2 encoder would be nice as well, as that way I don't have to put in anything particularly fast for a processor. I could in theory take Odysseus (aka. The Aptiva, The Linux Box), swap the processor out for one which doesn't have a fan, swap the power supply out for a modern quiet one (not that it needs anything much for power - the supply's rated at around 150W. You get bigger *laptop* supplies), pull the case fan and stick a quiet hard disk in there. The only downside is that this box is a good ten years old now, and so only has an original Pentium clocked at 166MHz in it (not even MMX!) with a mere 48MB of RAM. It does have a CPU upgrade (K6-II clocked at 300MHz), but the BIOS has a tendency to disagree with the upgrade and claim that, for example, the processor is not installed. Or is clocked at 0MHz. And I don't think there's that much in the way of realtime full-PAL video codecs that run with that little processing power. Perhaps some kind of Beowulf cluster, made out of a bunch of old Pentium-era laptops, would do the trick. Though at that point I'm probably better off picking up some off-the-shelf components and building a Mini-ITX system instead.

( Moving on to the film spoiler section )

Also in the film rumour section: latest news is that a Legend of Zelda film is being considered by the Big N (after the Metroid film, which appearently might actually happen). Various posts on the various Zelda fansites have mentioned this, andthe source appears to be an interview given by a high-up in Nintendo. It's been somewhat amusing to see the different reactions to this. A quick sweep of the forums shows a lot of people going "Noooo! Link will speak and that will kill it", along with others going "If they do this then it must be anime or CG as live action would suck". I'm actually a bit suprised at those comments, considering that a lot of people disliked Wind Waker for it's cel-shading. Personally, I'm siding with those who aren't denouncing it before the script's even been started. A Zelda film could work quite well, it could be live-action (which personally I'd prefer to CG or anime), Link could speak without destroying it, and it doesn't have to be a retelling of Ocarina of Time. Nintendo probably have the ability to make it a success, as long it doesn't get mangled by Hollywood. Still, I'm going to keep an open mind about it until I actually see more concrete information about it, and (more importantly) until such time as the film comes out (assuming of course that it happens).

Ah well. 'Twill be amusing if Twilight Princess gets bad ratings for *not* being cel-shaded, or *not* being "kiddie".
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Thomas
Beware the Jabberwock...

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