deKay’s Blog

Found this at work today. It’s like they neither understood Rick-Rolling, nor could they be bothered.

Today marks two major, and opposite events in my life. One amazing, and the other quite saddening.

Firstly, it’s my very first Father’s Day. My beautiful daughter Daisy (who is 6 months old this week) is too young to celebrate it with me, but the occasion will be marked regardless. She has had a massive effect on my life, as you’d expect, and every day she’s growing up more and more. I don’t know where the time as gone, but it seems only last week when she was a helpless little wrinkled pink thing that only cried, slept and ate.

Now, she’s a playful, happy, noisy little girl. She has her own personality too – she’s cheeky, and can already get her own way simply by looking at me with her big blue eyes. I love her so very much.

Secondly, it’s my brother’s birthday; his first since I last saw him. A year ago he got married in Canada, and in August had a blessing over here. I was his Best Man. Soon afterwards, he simply stopped contacting me. Something I don’t understand happened between him and the rest of the family, and for some reason him blotting them out seemed to require him breaking off contact with me too. I don’t even know why. Now he’s moved house, moved job and essentially disappeared.

Happy birthday, Ian. I both love you and miss you.

Someone pointed me at this article today. It’s a “get the facts” piece from Microsoft, pointing out how much better Internet Explorer 8 is than rival browsers. Of course, being from Microsoft, it’s not going to be completely unbiased – is it?

No.

I won’t even begin to point out most of the glaring issues with the article, but one does stand out for me:

Does it? Does it really? And, even if it does, what about CSS3? And what about all the nasty hacks people have had to use over the years to make sites work in IE5, 6 and 7 which means IE8 now needs to have a compatibility mode?

Anyway, the real test is Acid 3.
Read the rest of this entry »

Time for another one of these, I think. There was a bit of fallout from the text adventures feature in issue 03, and the cover art was stepped up a notch. Reading it now, I’m reminded of a couple of great (but probably forgotten) gems – Doshin the Giant and Pac-Man Collection. Ah, fun times.

Unless that really is a word on the left.

Completely impractical, and later levels will be totally impossible, but playing Super Mario Bros with a theremin is… different. Kind of reminds me of playing Bubble Bobble on the Master System using a pair of pliers.

What should she do?

Found this video on a British Heart Foundation “emergency life support skills” DVD. Is it wrong that the (added, obviously) punchline is the first thing I thought of when I watched it?

I’ve finally got round to adding a pile more games to my museum section. And, having stuck them all in the database and scanned them all, I realised I have another pile on my desk. Oh well. They can wait.

Amongst the games added today includes the not-played-yet and probably-not-great Rise of the Argonauts by Codemasters, which is notable because I won it in a competition a few weeks ago, along with a matching Xbox 360 faceplate. So much for never winning anything! In fact, the week previous, I won three XBLA games!

They were rubbish too though. Perhaps I’m only able to win tat?

What I like about this, is that not only do I get an huge cash sum, but I bag myself a gen-you-wine Nigerian woman into the bargain!

See also the amazing nonsense about my file (marked X!) and the released disk (painted RED!).

From:     janejames08@gmail.com
Subject:     Jame J
Date:     5 June 2009 14:20:52 BST
To:     Undisclosed recipients: ;
Reply-To:     janejames01@hotmail.co.uk

I am Miss Jane James.. a computer scientist with central bank of Nigeria.

I am 26 years old, just started work with C.B.N. I came across your file which was marked X and your released disk painted RED, I took time to study it and found out that you have paid VIRTUALLY all fees and certificate but the fund has not been release to you. The most annoying thing is that they cannot tell you the truth that on no account will they ever release the fund to you, instead they let you spend money unnecessarily. I do not intend to work here all the days of my life, I can release this fund to you if you can certify me
of my security, and how I can run away from this Nigeria if I do this, because if I don’t run away from this country after i make the transfer, I will seriously be in trouble and my life will be in danger.

Please this is like a Mafia setting in Nigeria, you may not understand it because you are not a Nigerian. The only thing I will need to release this fund is a special HARD DISK we call it HD120 GIG. I will buy two of it, recopy your information, destroy the previous one, punch the computer to reflect in your bank within 24 banking hours. I will clean up the tracer and destroy your file, after which I will run away from Nigeria to meet with you. If you are interested.

SPECIAL INFORMATION:YOU WILL SEND THE FEE FOR THE HARD DISK FIRST BEFORE I MAKE YOUR TRANSFER.DONT CONTACT ME IF YOU CAN NOT SEND THE HARD DISK FEE FIRST.AS SOON AS I RECEIVE YOUR EMAIL I WILL LET YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THE DISK WILL COST YOU.

Do get in touch with me immediately.

Regards,
Jane James.
Computer Scientist
janejames01@hotmail.co.uk