Reading

Lets be honest im a lucky sod. Not many people can say their birthday party has a ~100,000 or so people attend it, Along with Pearl jam headlining.

Ok its not specifically my birthday party but it falls close enough to the reading festival to make it a good excuse. this year we had the standard shinanagans and far too much nasty larger (so many years will i ever learn).

I got to see Gogol Bordello, Reel Big Fish, Less than Jake, Flogging Molly, Placebo, Pearl Jam, Feeder, Keiser Cheifs,Bodycount.

All in all it was a damm good weekend.
Gogol Bordello were my suprise act of the weekend being a mental Gipsy rock sort of thing. They truly kicked ass. Body Count were also a pleasent surprise, to be fair i had forgot about Ice T's early 90's Rock/ Rap band but they provided the best drum solo of the weekend.

Reel Big fish and less than jake were sweaty, skanky goodness with the less than jake circle pits providing as much painfull mayhem as usuall. Unfortunatly a new barrier halfway into the main stage sort of stopped the massive circle pit of death that LTJ had last year from forming :( Though i suppose its a good thing as im getting a little old for that sort of crazyness. There were a load of young fans in the audience for both these bands which goes to show Ska Punk isnt dead. Unfotunatly some of the kids there acted a little shocked when they discoved i had been Gigging to the fish since they were in primary school.

On a surprising sub note. It appears that my lifestyle of Beer and Smokes cant be too bad for me. I am now the proud owner of a reasting heart rate around 50 BPM. Which is getting to top athlete level.

The Kemp Project: Wireless Fun

The Kemp Project: Wireless Fun

Kemp astounds me once again with a tale of scary wireless power. The Talk of frying pigeons reminded me of something I once heard involving routing and birds. After a quick Google I found RFC1149 a proposal for TCP (Transmission by Carrier Pigeon) protocol. A Couple more searches and I discovered that some crazy LUG has actually implemented this protocol. Managing to ping each other.

A Website with photos etc can be found at here make sure you check the ping log. It even makes my hall of residences "Super Fast" internet connection seem good.

I don't quite know the range of a pigeon off the top of my head but I bet its slightly further than 5k. Though the onset of shooting season this weekend may cause unacceptable packet loss. Also if you live anywhere near trafalgar square its possible you may suffer from DOS attacks

Babel Fish

A mate of mine has just started his blog, which is possibly the best thing on earth as he suffers from a nastier form of dyslexia than me, so the english is almost google babelfish quality.



The Legend That is Conroy bumpas

That reminds me of a post i found a few months ago, the Intrigue level of which was astronomical.

In the adult the arrival sound which is not audible

Which may not work but google for
japanese.engadget.com/2006/06/12/mosquito-ringtone/

From what i can make out its a mobile phone that repels young people. As I'm getting on for middle age now i feel its a outstanding idea. Here's a rough transcript of the train of thought whist reading the article

With age increase the treble hears and when publishing concerning device Mosquito which repels just the young person with unpleasant noise making use of the fact that it becomes unable to come off, “in just the young person the radio which is audible Don't Trust Over Thirty just starts shouting if, and so on you wrote anyhow,”, but in England it seems that strike of young person side starts right away.

Evidently they have created a mobile phone mosquito that repels young people with a high pitched noise. Old people aren't affected as you loose the ability to hear high frequency sounds.

At first Glance this appears to be the opposite of the crazy frog. A ringtone developed by the most nefarious scientists to only be bearable by people under 6 or with a sub 50 IQ.

Bit lost with the bit about the radio. But again i assume it means that young people like to listen to music louder than old people who have to shout or start striking the young pearson to be heard above the racket (See post about flatmates for more on that...) Perhaps the striking is not mandatory but helps you feel better, like killing wasps when they sting you.

According to the article of METRO.co.uk, when the students have utilized the sound of Mosquito which is recorded as “the arrival sound which is not audible in the adult,” is. In the word of junior high school teacher who is quoted, “inquiring) it started in class the pupils (what about laughing, but you did not understand whether by your something occurs” “being taught by the pupil afterwards, you understood, but, the [re] which very appraisal does tact there is no air which gets angry excessively”.

It looks like students have been using the mosquito noise as a ringtone, which old people cannot hear. This has been quoted in that most authoritative source the Metro, this makes sense as according to immutable law of life no 32054 train journeys are plagued by people discussing their personal life's over the phone.

The bit about the classroom confuses me though i think it means that peoples phones were going off in class and the teacher not hearing them. I suffer with ringtones going off in the university labs . And i can tell you that there is definitely air which get angry excessively when the place sounds like a farmyard with various "comedy" ringtones going off.

Actually hearing, like one the mp3 file which is in the article of BBC go ahead with (laughter and the cancan! With as for the sound which is said background sound.

Well i visited to the BBC site and although it enlightened my on what the device actually is i didn't hear any laughter or the cancan.

In fact i didn't hear anything but that may be because i am old. I turned the volume all the way to 11 and still I heard no sound. Unfortunately my young flat mates did. I was accused of all sorts of devilment and breaking the Geneva convention becouse of the Sonic wave i was inadvertantly blasing through the house..

Anyhow I think this young person repeller is a great idea, Cant wait to get me one. I will place it in the corner of the whitefriars and drive the vermin that order larger from the place.

Till next time

Awesome Forces

Well this weekend I had the privilege of seeing The Aquabats. A band that I now class as possibly the best band in the world narrowly beating LTJ and the Fish because of their Super Rad =p live performance

The Aquabats are your average ordinary superhuman. Punishers of evil, rock and roll band. designated to save this crazy world. Fronted by MC Bat Commander, they fight enemy's such as Powdered Milk Man and the The Floating Eye of Death armed with nothing but Their superhero uniform of rashguards, anti negativity helmets, and eye masks and some fantastic tunes

musically its a kind of ska/punk/electronica/rock madness. Lyrically its genius, some of the tracks have a amazing poetry to them my partiular favorite example being captain Hampton and the midget pirates. The stage show has to be seen to be believed. With a video backdrop showing videos to the songs as they are played. The gig is split with interludes where this display shows mock commercials and "messages from the sponsors" which is a great touch.

The style of the gigs and band itself can be seen on their website
its Flash but I feel it works well and is one of the better band sites I've been to, I especially recommend the mini ep section of the media page. It lets you download damm near a whole album of b-sides which rocks.

As a sub note the lead singer MC Bat Commander was the voice of one of Cavin (the boy that was the bears friend) in the early gummi bears tv series. which can bring back memories for those of us old enough to remember it

if you ever get a chance to see this band Go they get a five star recommendation from me. I for one know that I shall be joining the Aquacadets and cant wait for the next UK gig. Serious Awesomeness