Archive for June, 2007

Posted on June 30, 2007 - by jono

One Man Freedom March

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

A while back we released the Freedom March promo video for LUGRadio Live 2007. Well, the ever amusing Roger Light of Bruce Campbell looklike fame has produced a spoof version which is utterly, utterly excellent:

(If you can’t see the vid, click here)

All of the hair growth appears to be real, and it must have taken him ages to do it. He will be there at LUGRadio Live 2007 on the 7th and 8th July (a week today!!) to receive your adoration. Nice work Rog.

Posted on June 28, 2007 - by jono

LUGRadio Live 2007 Social Fun

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

As LUGRadio Live 2007 grows closer (one week! – 7th and 8th July 2007), I just wanted to fill you all in on some of the social events that are happening. So, below is the schedule of LUGRadio Live 2007 from start to end:

• Friday 6th July 2007 – 7.30pm – Pre-LRL07 drinks at The Hogs Head in central Wolverhampton. This takes part in the beer garden at the back of the pub. Kicks off at 7.30pm.
• Saturday 7th July 2006 – Daytime – LUGRadio Live 2007 Day 1 at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton.
• Saturday 7th July 2006 – 8pm – LUGRadio Live Party the main LUGRadio Live venue at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton. Music, drinks and good company make the official party the place to be after the first day.
• Sunday 8th July 2006 – Daytime – LUGRadio Live 2007 Day 2 at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton.
• Sunday 8th July 2006 – 7.30pm – Unofficial post-show meet up at The Quality Hotel, Penn Road, Wolverhampton. This loose, informal meet-up is a great way to wind-down and talk about the weekend. A number of members of the LUGRadio community come along to this evening.

For a map of where the venue, travel links, hotels and other places are, click here.

Posted on June 24, 2007 - by jono

Inspired

Right now I am at FooCamp in California.

I learned today that I am most creative and inspired when talking to people I like. As such, my creativity is a result of the incredible people I know and love. Thanks to every one of you, you know who you are.

Posted on June 20, 2007 - by jono

The Opinion Slab: OpenConsole?

Welcome one and all for this weeks block…no chunk…nay, slab of opinion. As ever, everyone is welcome and encouraged to scribe their opinions into the comments on this post. Yep, even you oddbals with your wild staring eyes and can of Special Brew in tow are welcome to join in. Lets go…

“In recent years the gaming world has become bigger, more impressive and more diverse, but all within a pretty restrictive set of metrics – if you want to develop for PS3, Wii or XBox you need licenses, special hardware and there is little opportunity to write homebrew games on these systems. Despite utterances from some of the vendors about encouraging some degree of homebrew, the situation is pretty drab. Then mix in the complexity of writing games for PCs and specifically Linux with its array of potential dependencies. Could we instead make our own open games console standard? As in, could we define a machine spec (a chosen set of components), a set of software tools, a development stack and consider this the OpenConsole standard? This could provide a specific target platform, a target set of tools, and potentially allow OEM vendors to release hardware based around said spec. There were similar attempts with the multimedia specification in the late nineties and it died on its arse. Could it work here? Could this be our opportunity to define an open games console standard and get our grubby feet into the gaming ring?“

My take: I think it could work. Sure, there are challenges, and there would be some tough decisions (which graphics cards, which processors, which software etc), but the aim of this exercise would be to make tough decisions, define a platform and then build a strong community around that platform of players and importantly, developers. The platform could potentially offer a predictable gaming experience (which is always a benefit of consoles) and a specific set of development processes to encourage games production. There is no reason why the development platform could not encourage choice (support both C/C++/Java and Python as an example) but have the benefit of consistency and a predicable and known set of resources and abilities.

So what do you think? Share your views in the comments.

Posted on June 19, 2007 - by jono

Never a dull moment

Recently I have been thinking of my next charity stunt to do. Well, this weekend it came to me. I am going to keep it under wraps for now. I don’t even know if it is possible and over ambitious. Quite possibly, the stupidest idea I have had. In any case, it needs to wait until after LUGRadio Live 2007.

If I do it, I will need plenty of help. This could mean you.

Posted on June 15, 2007 - by jono

Happy Birthday to…

Just a quick note to say congrats to the excellent OpenSolaris crew on their second anniversary. They have achieved a huge amount in two short years. Well done folks.

Posted on June 15, 2007 - by jono

LUGRadio Live 2007 Prizes

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

Yet more excitement about LUGRadio Live 2007 on the 7th and 8th July 2007in Wolverhampton, UK.

We have some incredible prizes to give away at LUGRadio Live 2007 donated by our good friends at O’Reilly, Nokia and Defective By Design. Not only will O’Reilly be giving bundles of books away and Make magazines, but Nokia are giving us five Nokia N800 Internet Tablets to give away. Finally, Defective By Design have donated one of the excellent hazmat suits they used in their Anti-DRM campaign, as modelled below:

Each of these incredible prizes will be available in competitions throughout LUGRadio Live 2007, and we expect even more prizes to be available on the big weekend.

Get more info on LUGRadio Live 2007 and go and REGISTER!

Posted on June 14, 2007 - by jono

Life is good

As many of you know, I rather like heavy music. In addition to being an avid listener, I am also a musician and take a number of influences in crafting my own music. One of the key musicians that has inspired me has been Chuck Billy from Testament – his combination of melodic singing ability and deep growl offered the perfect inspiration for my own music. When I started out taking singing seriously, I took singing lessons and at my first lesson brought along a cassette tape with Chuck singing, and said to my singing teacher “help me sing like that”.

I saw Testament a few times but never really got a chance to meet Chuck. He was always around after gigs, but I had to rush off or someone was picking me up. Then, he was diagnosed with germ cell seminoma, a form of Cancer and underwent chemotherapy which knocked him out of action. The metal world was worried about him and his future, but thankfully he made a full recovery. He continued to work with Testament and recently co-formed the Dublin Death Patrol, a band comprising of various thrash legends, most notably Steve Souza from Exodus, another one of my metal heroes.

Well, last night I went to see them play and finally one of life’s ambitions was satisfied:

With the prior history with Chuck, I was worried I would never have got a chance to meet him. Happy is an understatement.

Not only that, I hooked up with Steve Souza as well:

Life become that little bit more complete last night.

Also check out Steve singing and both Chuck and Steve singing together.

Posted on June 13, 2007 - by jono

LUGRadio Live 2007: Don’t Listen Alone

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

(if you can’t see the above video, click here)

The LUGRadio team are proud to release our second promo video. It is available in many different formats so share it and spread the word about LUGRadio Live 2007, which is less than a month away!

…oh and if you are coming to the big event, go and REGISTER!

UPDATE: Go and Digg it! – thanks to mrben for digging it.

Posted on June 13, 2007 - by jono

Bask in its mighty glory

A while back I bought a Playstation 3. Well, one thing it does is spit out Full HD, referred to as 1080p by nasally gaming nerds. For a while I was thinking about getting a HD TV, and yesterday I buckled. Big time.

I picked up a Samsung 52″ 1080p LCD monster:

Mmmm

The above snap really does not get over how enormous it is – it really towers over he room. In fact, when I first put it on the TV stand, my dogs cowered in its mighty shadow. I needed to console little Frankie to show him he had nothing to be scared about. Madness.

Buying it was one thing, but getting the bugger back was a whole other thing. Although I wangled free delivery, I wanted mega-telly in my house straight away, so I drove out to the store and with the assistance of two of the store clerks, managed to cram the enormous box into my tiny 4×4 (affectionately referred to as a hairdressers car by my so-called friends). Well, there was not a huge amount of room for both mega-telly and me:

Big telly, tiny car

Driving was an experience. It really was.

The picture quality is stunning and really does make the whole experience much more pleasurable. I really recommend you all consider buying such a beast if you get a HD console such as the PS3.

Oh, and my Playstation Network user id is cptfishhead. Add me if you fancy some online gaming.