1
I can't decide if Non-Stop Dancers is trying to be Madness or the Stray Cats when they grow up.
I haven't heard that Eurogliders track in... um... a long time. I can't claim to have missed it, but it's a good '80s tune. I see it was #65 on the Hot 100 charts here in the US, but it surely got no airplay in Duckford... it was only the ubercool kids that knew it here. (note: Wonderduck was not "ubercool," except when it came to music)
Posted by: Wonderduck at Tuesday, November 12 2013 02:06 PM (WWkBJ)
2
Despite the name, the Eurogliders were an Aussie band, so it got a ton of airplay here, and hit #2, I think.
Not as much airplay as Who Can It Be Now? That played incessantly at the time. Any time I hear it I'm instantly transported to sitting at my desk with the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's guide and a book of graph paper...
I don't know what became of the Non-Stop Dancers, but that track holds up really well; it has quite the distinctive sound to it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, November 12 2013 08:14 PM (PiXy!)
1
Pixy, there appears to be a commenting issue, I keep getting 500 errors trying to comment at Wonderduck's, and this post shows a count of 4 comments but none visible...
Posted by: David at Wednesday, October 23 2013 12:43 PM (da+4f)
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 606, in respond
cherrypy.response.body = self.handler()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 25, in __call__
return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
File "Minx.py", line 149, in index
return go(cherrypy)
File "Minx.py", line 122, in go
notify(cp)
File "Minx.py", line 132, in notify
send_admin_email('splat@mee.nu',subject,text)
File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 49, in send_admin_email
send_email(sender,to,subject,body)
File "/var/minx/live1.1/Util.py", line 73, in send_email
s.sendmail(sender,[to],msg.as_string())
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 695, in sendmail
(code,resp) = self.mail(from_addr, esmtp_opts)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 450, in mail
return self.getreply()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 337, in getreply
line = self.file.readline()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/socket.py", line 404, in readline
data = self._sock.recv(self._rbufsize)
timeout: timed out
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, October 23 2013 01:12 PM (+rSRq)
3
Wonderduck just posted a comment on his own blog. So I tried it again, and got the same dump above.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, October 23 2013 08:42 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, October 24 2013 01:40 AM (2yngH)
6
Looks like a problem with Akismet - not sure yet if it's on our side or theirs. Anyway, I fixed the error handling, so that if there's a problem with Akismet you can still comment. It might be slow (if Akismet times out), but it will work.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, October 24 2013 01:48 AM (2yngH)
7
Pixinator, I just got SPAMslammed. I saved 'em for you to laugh at, but could the Akismet change have something to do with 'em gettin' through?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, October 24 2013 12:27 PM (GE6XS)
1
No kidding! That was my degree in college as well. Good on her!
~I bet you thought this is where I'd say something like "None of the girls in my classes looked anything like her", but No! I will take the high road here.~
P.S. They didn't.
:-D
Posted by: Tommy at Wednesday, June 19 2013 07:37 AM (70H8v)
2
If they take that prototype and go into production, I'll buy one! No matter how much it costs!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, June 19 2013 08:18 AM (+rSRq)
1
I was all prepared to point out that his eyes should have blown out and all that sort of thing... except it's nowhere near vacuum, and I appear to just be a miserable b*st*rd.
And it's a toy friggin' train.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Tuesday, June 18 2013 01:22 PM (4qAlp)
Sony Electronics has not been a happy bunny the last few years. Though they've produced some fine products, they haven't been the trend-setter and status symbol they once were.
At E3 this year, in one shining moment, they turned around all those problems and made themselves relevant again. Not just relevant, but hugely important:
Note that all he really said was: We are not going to screw you over any more than we already do. And the response was just short of a standing ovation.
For those not following the story, Microsoft recently launched the third model of the Xbox, the Xbox One.* It requires an internet connection, and phones home once a day, and deactivates itself if it can't connect. All your games are attached to your account, so you can't simply lend the disk to a friend or sell it; you have to go to a registered second-hand game dealer and have the game de-registered from your account and registered to theirs - and that's if the developer has decided to allow that at all. Oh, and Kinect, the motion-sensor-camera-recorder-thingy, is now a core part of the system and must be connected and on to use the system. Though in theory you can deactivate some of its functions.
And to rub salt into the wound, the PS4 is 50% faster** and $100 cheaper. The difference in price is largely made up by the Kinect hardware; the Sony equivalent adds $60 to the price of the PS4. But the Sony one you can unplug.
I'll leave it to the gentle reader to discover the allegorical implications in this little tale.
Oh, and Sony? If you ship the Xperia Z Ultra as something like the rumours (1080p 6.44" screen, Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 64GB flash, microSD, and a stylus), I'll likely buy two. You just nailed my wishlist.
* Yeah.
** Mileage may vary, but the PS4 and Xbox One have the exact same AMD graphics engine, except that the PS4 has 50% more cores - 1152 vs. 768.
1
All this is purely marketing. Sony was sliding in Microsoft's direction for a while, with things like PSP Go. It's fairly obvious that digital distribution is the way to go. All Microsoft have to do is to correct their "phone home" silliness and voila, they are a generation ahead.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Monday, June 17 2013 03:24 AM (RqRa5)
2
Yep, it's pure marketing, but it's brilliant marketing. It's a classic example of never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. All Sony needed to do was sit back while Microsoft told their customers to go fuck themselves, and then not do that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, June 17 2013 01:32 PM (PiXy!)
3
But the point is, they are alrady doing "that". They only pretend they are somewhat different, for propaganda purposes.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tuesday, June 18 2013 02:37 AM (RqRa5)
4
They are not doing that to prospective PS4 owners. Yet, anyway; tomorrow is another fish. And that's all that they needed. It's a low hurdle to jump, but the only other runner in the race decided to cut their own legs off.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 18 2013 09:01 AM (PiXy!)
