http://blog.matthall.org.uk Matt Hall Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:43:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="60" caption="Red Flag Linux"][/caption] NPR reported this morning that the Cultural Department in Nanching, China, has been requiring that internet cafe owners replace Windows XP with their home grown Red Flag Linux - a "free" operating system that comes with a mandatory $726 maintenance contract. The move is ostensibly ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/12/you-are-free-to-do-what-we-tell-you/ Wow, I think the Tidy Boys and So Solid Crew just had a baby. Blackout Crew - Put a Donk On It Tidy Boys - Coca Cola So Solid Crew - 21 Seconds Thanks to my main man StefK for this one. http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/11/put-a-bangin-donk-on-it/ This interesting factoid was reported in several outlets after Her Majesty paid a visit to Google UK: According to the Palace, the Queen was the first monarch in the world to send an email, at an Army base in 1976. Sterling work Ma'am!  After further research I also discovered that she created ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/10/queen-better-at-internet-than-mccain-or-obama/ I don't have cable, and my TV signal sucks, so I've been streaming video podcasts and downloaded TV shows to my Xbox360 using TVersity.  TVersity works great for streaming but getting content is a different matter - for TV shows you're basically stuck with torrents and the wifi bandwidth they ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/10/playon-streams-hulu-to-xbox360/ I finally got embroiled in the credit crunch yesterday after Landsbanki's subprime reindeer investments collapsed.  Does anyone else think it's kind of funny that Iceland have frozen their assets? Maybe I should have listened to the secret coded message in the lyrics to Bennet's 1997 hit "Mum Has Gone To Iceland". More ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/10/icefailcouk-predicted-by-bennet-in-1997/ I don't much like TV news.  In the UK they tork to u laik a 5 yr old and in the US it's all whizz bang graphics and nitpicking over the minor semantics of soundbites (which, by the way, I will be doing myself at the end of this post).  ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/10/liveblogging-the-post-debate-set-teardown/ Pretty limited audience for this one but I had to do it. [caption id="attachment_121" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption=" "][/caption] To get this you'll need to have been exposed to both the delicious convenience of McCain oven chips and payattention.org's attempts to improve voter registration amongst the under-represented binge-drinking 21-35 year old urinal user ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/09/elect-oven-chips/ This is Usher's "Love in the Club" played by the mighty Rock-Afire Explosion. The insane genius behind this has a number of other performances on YouTube but he's really hit his stride with this one.  Wikipedia, as always, has more. http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/09/physically-emotionally/ Web app HopStop (via LifeHacker) allows you to access public transport directions directly from your phone.  It's currently available for some of the major metropolitan areas in the US and based on my tests in Chicago it works pretty well. This makes for a much more usable experience than the CTA's ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/09/hopstop-in-chicago/ My CTA card has been playing silly buggers for the last couple of weeks. My rather uninformed theory is that it has been locked in an unending radio-frequency conversation with my Oyster card about the correct pronunciation of the word 'tomato' and finally stopped talking altogether as matter of principle. My ... http://blog.matthall.org.uk/2008/09/chicago-cards-and-oysters-dont-mix/