The dedicated few made the difficult trip up to Newcastle to check out UFC 80 this weekend. The Metro Radio Arena is a tiny shed of a venue compared to the O2 and the M.E.N. making our cheap ‘nose bleed’ seats seem considerably closer than previous shows. This was a great show to see live as only one fight went the distance (the opposite of UFC 75) and even that was pretty exciting. The roof blew off whenever BJ Penn did anything and we were all pleased to see him finally get the lightweight belt, he deserved it. I don’t think the noise in the arena came across on TV, although I didn’t realise quite how bloody the fight was till I watched it back at home.
Oh and due to a hilarious lapse in security when the show ended we got octagon side, met Mike Goldberg and got involved in the numerous chants aimed at Joe Rogan, Dana White and of course Micheal Bisping. At one point there were about 20 guys chanting like crazy at Goldberg right behind the camera while he was doing a fill for a prelim, if you watch it back you can just make out the noise but Goldberg never cracks - what a pro.
Great show, fun weekend, shame about the location, come on Dana bring UFC to Birmingham!
Finally made it back to Solihull after the car decided to crap out on me just when I was ready to leave. Note to self - always keep jumper cables in the car. This festive period will give me some time to catch up on some blogging, watch some wacky Japanese MMA and get through a ton of films. Oh and there’s this whole thing involving eating and drinking too much which will no doubt be taking place simultaneously with the rest of my activities. Woo!
I have had my “home cinema” setup for a few months now but totally forgot to blog about it until I was reminded recently. Right now I have an Optoma HD70 projector sitting atop some cheap IKEA shelves that boost it over the height of the sofa with anyone sitting on it. It’s far enough away from the wall that I can get about an 80″ to 100″ picture depending on how I feel. Luckily the wall in my apartment is very plain and clean and you don’t even notice the texture of the wall. 720p stuff looks amazing while standard def content doesn’t look too shabby either, especially when compared to and LCD TV. The projector has HDMI, component and VGA inputs so I connect my PC via HDMI and the Xbox 360 via component.
I knew I would have to get some new speakers to go with this when I got it so I went for the cheapest THX DTS set around. This turned out to be the Logitech Z-5400 which produces a ton of bass and has coax and optical inputs to connect to the PC and 360 respectively. The remote is a little flaky but nothing a few smacks can’t cure.
(click for full resolution)
Alien is an awesome demonstration of the system. I have a 1080p version with DTS sound and it just comes alive with the creepy score and crisp visuals. Having this system makes me want to go back and watch the classics all over again and I have definitely found myself watching more movies because of this. Next on the list is Blade Runner Final Cut and Back to the Future (if I can get a decent HD version).
The 360 works nicely too but I did find myself getting slightly motion sick in Halo 3 from the first few hours of play. This is probably due to the sheer size of the screen alone but you do get used to and it only affects FPS games. Oh and playing games like Lumines, Tetris and Bomberman on the thing feels like total overkill!
So my recommendation if you are looking for a nice big screen is to seriously consider a projector. Obviously you need the throw distance, a dark room and a large enough wall but the price per inch of screen size cannot be beaten. Gizmodo put handy list of tips together recently which are worth checking out.
The site has been experiencing some down time over the week and not for a particularly good reason. My hosting provider fasthosts decided to scramble the passwords of all their user’s accounts making webspace, databases and other services inaccessible. Due to a security breach they felt it necessary to post the new passwords by old fashioned snail mail.
Bad move.
The first thing I did when receiving the password was to start moving the blog. This site is now brought to you by Dreamhost. And it seems slightly faster don’t you think?
After a mild screw up with UPS yesterday (they wouldn’t deliver to the concierge unless I gave them the ok) I finally got the new black Apple MacBook. I’ve been looking for a laptop for a few months now and being stuck with three PCs isn’t exactly useful if you can’t take them with you when you travel. The MacBook seemed like an obvious choice for me so I’ll break it down. I needed a small portable system (12″/13″) that wouldn’t be too heavy to lug around and be decent for coding and movie playback.
Having used Windows Vista since January made it very hard to find a system I would actually like to purchase. It’s a terrible situation for these PC manufacturers to be in when the software is affecting sales of the hardware. Vista is a dog of an OS and the only reason I use it on my powerful rig is because I paid for it and like playing the latest games. So my choice was either the Mac I am typing on now or getting a crippled Vista laptop, clearing it out and installing Ubuntu on it. Wanting a low maintenance system that “just works” meant going for the Mac.
Since I posted the previous entry on the blog a few people were very understanding of my Vista plight and my need to get a different OS while a couple of others couldn’t believe I was doing it. There is only one reason and one reason alone I maintain my Window box. Games. If someone could please tell me what the hell else I need it for then I would like to know. I can do everything I need to do be it programming, watching video, email, web, IM, music or whatever on any of the big three platforms. I was never buying a laptop for games, it needed to be portable and therefore not powerful for my gaming needs. Games and laptops are a no no for me, that’s what my DS is for.
I am happy running Leopard, it meets my needs. But don’t forget if the walls come crashing in and the sky falls I can still install Ubuntu and Windows on this thing. It’s one of the biggest no brainier purchases I’ve made in a while.
I never want to deal with letting agents again. Their websites suck, they don’t answer the phones and they never call back. My theory is they are making so much money hand over fist that it’s actually a waste of their time to pursuing clients as one walks through the door every few minutes with a wad of cash in hand. Unfortunately it’s getting harder and harder to deal directly with landlords now that the agencies have polluted all the decent listing sites. Gap in the market? I’ll look into it.
Long story short I found somewhere half decent and fingers crossed I can move in this week (or at least whenever the broadband gets hooked up). The old BT monopoly reared its head once again and wanted to charge a ¬£125 connection fee for the phone line! But thanks to Andy’s Bulldog suggestion I will be paying a grand total of ¬£1! Lets just hope they show up for the installation. One of my considerations in picking a flat this time aside from location and price has been large white walls. You know the kind a projector would look good on? More on that when I have it set up.
It’s looking pretty hectic this week and I will be travelling about quite a bit so I look forward to my next post coming from the new place (if everything goes according to plan)!
So I tried to finish up my WPF app and I have done it up to a level where I can use it regularly. I just don’t feel like I need to put it out there right now and get inundated with bugs I have yet to find. Also got distracted by the awesome Ruby on Rails. Yes I am working with ANOTHER programming language. I personally blame Aston University for insisting we use so many languages making it hard to focus on just one. I walked out of that place with Ada95, Java, PHP, LISP, C++, SQL and some other crap I’m forgetting - it’s all on my CV anyway. So I know something good when I see it and Rails is definitely it.
Trying Rails was born of my frustration with Struts at work more than anything. Trying to find entries in colossal XML files and maintaining them is quite a chore. Add to that the database specific SQL that needs to be written at certain levels and sometimes I wonder if Struts is actually doing anything useful for me.
Rails is great because it uses conventions for filenames and actions rather than massive XML files - we stick to a naming convention, why shouldn’t the framework know what to do with the code you write? There’s also no database specifc SQL, you just write your Ruby code and it hooks into whatever database you have be it Oracle, MySQL or even Derby.
Don’t get me started on the way code can be hugely minimalised and the wonderful selection of pre-written standard procedures that can be plugged in anywhere. Rails is fantastic, it’s just such a shame that in the UK it’s only being used by a relatively (to Java) small number of developers in London only.
The time was right for a new venture so here it is, my new collaboration with Andy Griffiths is a site dedicated to Steam news and information that we like to call Steam Report.
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