News - Fooling the Fools, New ABC TV show gets caught out

I get home from work, flick on the telly and see a very interesting on ABC's Mediawatch. A new show fooled some of the biggest media companies in the country with a false scientific report on the gullibility of various cities in Australia. This, as the usual reporting goes, was snapped up by the likes of "The Age online", ABC Radio and even Ch10's new fo-news program "7pm Project" thus proving how you shouldn't believe everything you read in the media. Funny to think that despite the presence of a Seinfeld gag (it would have been funnier if they had credited 'Art Vanderlay'), a statement that the report was false, and the fact that the publishing company simply didn't exist, they still missed it. As Derryn Hinch would proclaim....."Shame..."



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IkeaHacker - make your sweedish flatpack even more useful

TapeMonkey followers would be well aware that I'm a big fan of the nerder things in life and my home office tends to get a bit unruly. Ikea is usually pretty good for supplying temporary furniture needs, but what if you want something a little different after you've bought that Gulliver crib? Ikea Hacker will give you a variety of hacks/alterations for your random collection of northern European flat-packed goods.

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's alien-on-the-run film Paul

The Official Website

LOOK AT IT!

Zero Punctuation: Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5

NU BLU - COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop)

Here at Tapemonkey we have been fans of the unique animation talents of BLU since we saw MUTO (see below) as part of the Melbourne animation festival. Perhaps not quite as consistantly dazzling as MUTO, COMBO, a collaborative effort made as part of the FAME festival, is quick and effective, and plies new practical 3D elements... and you should watch it instead of some crap on tv today.

MUTO

Pirates look forward to business

Following several high-profile court cases, more and more previously illegal file-sharing services are trying to reinvent themselves as legitimate businesses.

However, it is not just the threat of legal action that has caused the change of heart, say some industry watchers."They have realised they can make money out of it," said Eddy Leviten of the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact)."They have advertising on their sites and, as those sites attract more eyeballs, they are getting more advertising income."

Popular sites include Isohunt, Mininova and The Pirate Bay. These indexing sites act as search engines for "torrents" files - links to TV, film and music files held on its users' computers.Peer-to-peer (p2p) software connects users to one another and shares files through means such as so-called bit torrent, which chops up files into manageable bits.No copyright content is hosted on the websites themselves - they simply do the indexing of the available content. more...

OMG Total Recall on Australia's East Coast!

BRISBANE is a city beseiged, ringed by bushfires and cloaked in a tawny haze of dust, all kicked up by the desert winds that brought chaos to Sydney and NSW early this morning.

An eerie fog of dust blanketed the Queensland capital, reducing visibility to less than 100m, and bringing traffic to a standstill in places as motorists turned on their headlights and hoped for the best to nose through the surreal conditions.

While the haze kept temperatures below the forecast 30-plus maximum, it also hampered efforts by firefighters to use aerial water bombers to contain blazes whipped up the winds that had driven the dust into the city.

Seven crews were battling a fire at Neurum, north of Brisbane, which jumped containment lines and threatened at least one home.more...

Final Fantasy XIV to have cross-platform interactivity?

Well this is a first...

So MMO titles are all about playing with your friends and encouraging gaming in a social environment; however up until recently this has been a trend dominated by the PC. The MMORPG will be new experience for console owners and with titles already nearing publication, questions have been raised about cross-platform interactivity. Up till now, most gamers playing online have been restricted to their own platforms community, isolated from the rest of games community on other platforms.

A lot of MMO developers have discussed doing cross-platform interaction in the past, and joining the race is Global Online Producer Sage Sundi of Square Enix who recently confirmed that Final Fantasy XIV Online will have the ability to support cross-platform interactivity between players on both the Playstation 3 and the PC. more...

OnLive: The end of gaming as we know it?

If you have been keeping up with all the latest gaming news, by now you would be well aware of the "Console/PC-Less" gaming service OnLive, which was announced at this year's Game Developers Conference. Since the announcement, gamers of all demographics have had to question whether this system could mean the end of gaming as we know it?

There's no denying that people are being blown away with the concept of such a service, but you have to admit that a lot of things that sound good in theory don't always work so well practically. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, OnLive is an on-demand video game platform. The games you play are synchronized, rendered and stored on a remote server and delivered to you via a data-stream using the internet to one micro-console. more...

VENTURE BROS SEASON 4 TRAILER!

Season 4 Premieres October 18th... on Adult Swim... in The United States...so of course we won't get to see it for quite a while... like when the DVD gets released or whatever... but oh gees it looks funny.

More on Jackson Publick's Livejournal blog

Game News - Scribblenauts caught in sambo racism controversy

It had to happen, really. With over 22,000 words in its vocabulary, it was only a matter of time before someone managed to find a racist angle with Scribblenauts, and that racism came in the form of the word "sambo." The word, commonly regarded as a derogatory term for black people, is in the game. Even worse, it conjures up a watermelon when used -- a fruit classically portrayed as the favorite food of a stereotypical black man.more...

Daily Show - Keep F$%!ing that chicken....?!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Intro - Ernie Anastos' Catch Phrase
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Halo ODST: Live Action Extended Trailer = Hype to the Max!

Well the game is released tomorrow and this newly available (XBOX Live, and all the usual online suspects) live action video really gets the juices flowing. Could this be a test for a proposed live action feature? I wonder why no-name actors have been used? Was Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin busy at a a Serenity convention?

Shatner Of The Mount by Fall On Your Sword

This Weeks Zero Punctuation - Batman Arkham Asylum

Cyborg Exoskeletons May Soon Become as Common as Bicycles

Written By: Surfdaddy Orca

Date Published: September 2, 2009

Great grandma can soon put aside that powered wheelchair she uses to terrorize the residents at her rest home. Japan's robotics venture Cyberdyne's robot-suit "HAL" (Hybrid Assistive Limb) is now available for rent and is being tested on the streets of Tokyo:

The HAL exoskeleton –- described in a popular article for the first edition of h+ ("I am Ironman!") – helps the wearer to carry out a variety of everyday tasks, including standing up from a chair, walking, climbing up and down stairs, and lifting heavy objects. The suit can operate for almost five hours before it needs recharging.

Cyberdyne’s HAL isn’t quite ready for great grandma just yet. But until it is, Toyota researchers in Japan have built a brain/machine interface (BMI) that has been demonstrated to control a wheelchair using a person's thoughts. The wheelchair enables a person to make it turn left or right or to move forward simply by thinking the commands –- and it has a 125 millisecond response time.
The HAL exoskeleton, on the other hand, has robotic limbs that strap to your arms and legs -- providing much fuller mobility than a wheelchair. The suit's backpack contains a battery and computer controller. When a HAL-assisted person attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles, and very weak traces of these signals can be detected on the surface of the skin. The HAL exoskeleton identifies these signals using a sensor, and a signal is sent to the suit's power unit telling the suit to move in synch with the wearer's own limbs. more...

Ponyo on the Cliff Review

cute

–adjective

1. attractive, esp. in a dainty way; pleasingly pretty: a cute child; a cute little apartment.

2. affectedly or mincingly pretty or clever; precious: The child has acquired some intolerably cute mannerisms.

3. Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Studio Ghilbi Film 2009

There's is no other way to describe this new film from Master Director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, The Castle of Cagliostro) other then CUTE! It's spread over every frame like cling wrap on mondays lunch. There is a tendency for Japanese animation to walk idly down cuteness avenue with several stops at the corner of Puke Place and Retard Street. In the skilled hands of Miyazaki the ridiculous side of Anime is tamed and bigger ideas are put forward. The hand drawn cells feel more endearing and leveled then some other material aimed at the same audience.

The cute fest begins with a small boy named Sōsuke (english voice - the ever phallic Frankie Jonas) who finds and befriends a magical goldfish with a human face named Ponyo. Their forbidden relationship angers her father Fujimoto the wizard (Liam Neeson) and when Ponyo escapes to be with her new human friend she inadvertently pulls the moon from the sky causing a dangerous flood that may engulf the world. This may sound all momentous and even following Miyazaki's usual grade A formula (kids+love-environment = coolness) the final product is ultimately marred by the choice of age group. This film is not a adult/teen flick like "Mononoke" nor it it a tween flick like Spirited Away, it feels ultimately held back. Ponyo is weighed down by it's 3 - 6 year old lead and subsequent demographic which just holds everything back. The whole journey is a relativity small one considering the images and phrases that are thrown around by the characters. The love between Ponyo and Sōsuke is a little off considering Sōsuke's age (5 years old and in love for life with a sea creature or the world will end??) and the weight of what their love is doing to the world seems lost in a effort to fit the films younger audience. If Sōsuke was 9 years old then putting him in real danger (and resulting animation glory?) wouldn't have be such a stretch and the ratings and moral shackles would have been loosened. The light peppering of loss, rejection and a hint of environmentalism Ponyo is very much catering to the smaller children.

Saying all that it is a charming tail of innocence and wonder. The animation is beautiful with a bright and vibrant color pallet, remarkable water effects and really adorable character design. The archipelago that Ponyo inhabits is reminiscent the Whitsundays or Hawaii with lush greens and turbulent blues of the tropics. Over 170,000 hand drawn images were produced for this film with Miyazaki doing many himself. This amount of of drawing is unparalleled in Ghibli's history and makes for an impressive sight epically compared to older pictures made by Ghibli.

- Ponyo (100 min 54 sec): 170,653 pictures

- Howl (119 min 11 sec): 148,786 pictures

- Chihiro (133 min 24 sec): 144,043 pictures

- Mononoke (124 min 35 sec): 112,367 pictures

Some fabulous SFX and folly work really show what a class act Studio Ghibli is in 2009. I have to recommend this great cute fest to anyone wanting to treat their kids to something that's not so generic and a whole lot of Japanese.

7.5/10.... ham

Weekly Zero Punctuation - Wolfenstein

Guitars and rockstars on the box.

While the music journalism industry is hyping itself up over 'Beatles week', mostly due to the re-release of several of their albums and the much-anticipated Beatles version of the 'Rock Band' console game (review here), I was surprised to discover a couple of things (more after the u toob)



MV/Viacom pay millions to produce likenesses of the band members royalties for the songs and even to produce instruments that look like the ones John Paul and George used to play. This last one is particularly fascinating - they are paying through the nose to have permission to make a similar copy (not identical) of a guitar - while real instrument manufacturers have been copying, borrowing designs and reproducing each other's styles ever since they went into mass production.



Now these mini-Gretsch, Hohner and Rickenbacker are very cute and I sort of want one badly (although I've been promising myself I'm holding out until they come out with a Vox Teardrop like Brian Jones or Ian Curtis both used to play), but it also seems kinda silly - why can't they just make generic copies that look a bit similar - what is it that anyone thinks is 'genuine' about a half size plastic guitar that can't produce sound of any kind on it's own but is used as a game controller?

It's stuff like this that reminds me why Monkey is the 'gamer' guy on this blog - I don't think I quite get the appeal of some parts of it.

The licencing of a likeness can also have some pretty unhappy implications -
Activision's use of Kurt Cobain's 'Avatar'in the new video game 'Guitar Hero 5 has lead to former band mates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic condemning company for disrespecting his legacy. Apparently there's a couple of Nirvana songs in the compilation that the company sought to gain permission for using Cobain's likeness (by paying a licence to Cobain's estate) but somebody (Courtney Love, ladies and gentlemen) didn't read the contract closely, and once players have mastered those tracks they can 'unlock' the character and play as Cobain for the whole game. In essence, this means you can play guitar hero and make Kurt Cobain perform a Coldplay song, a Bush track, or Bon Jovi, or indeed any of the tracks listed here.

Not so bad? See for yourself (link via Stereogum)



I think I'd rather just go and read Billy Corgan's new spiritual blog.

2009 - The Year the Avalanches finally drop their second album... or just more hype for the hopeless?

It's a few months old now but this interview from Time Out Sydney With Steve 'Pav' Pavlovic, founder and owner of Modular records, starts off with him asserting that the Avalanches 2nd lp will actually come out this year. OK, so it's from waay back in April, and there's only three months left of '09, but fans of good hip hop, party tunes and summer-lovin' who are old enough will remember back to November 27, 2000 when 'Since I left You' first came out, or indeed any summer fun times after when they have listened to it, and must, like me, yearn for another unique mix sample-fest album like it... could finally be coming? (hopes, hopes, fingers crossed) Dunno, I've been burned before.

Here's a little taste - remember why you'd love some more

UFO footage from Chinese Observatory

more here - UK's Daily mail is always a fun read

Wanna see Oceans Rising?

Google Maps Mod - What the world will look like if/when the oceans rise?

Chinese gamers block re-launch of classic game

September 4, 2009 11:47 PM | permalink

Chinese gamers shut down the relaunch of "Hot Blooded Legend," a beloved, classic game, by massing their avatars at city gates and stopping others from entering. They were upset that the relaunch didn't do justice to the original. More...

George Romero's new Zombie flick

Survival of the Dead

- here's a new clip from 'shocktilyoudrop.com'

The Road - John Hillcoat adapts Cormac McCarthy

New Clip From the Toronto Film festival, Via twitch.com, here's a new clip previewing this long awaited movie, featuring Robert Duvall being creepy.

TREEVENGE - New Horror Film Short

From the people who brought you Hobo With a Shotgun, the 'Grindhouse' trailer competition winner, now comes 'Treevenge'; a new and equally brilliant Horror short. Watch it in full on twitch.com

More on these talented Canadians on the Treevenge Website

Spike Jonze - Where The Wild Things Are

New York Times article on the upcoming film and it's director


We really have to change our hyper-link colour...

edit: Yeah, orange is much better

Weekly Zero Punctuation - Monkey Island!

Astro Boy the movie is nearly here!!!! WOOP!

 Astro Boy Gets the Hollywood-Blockbuster Treatment

 Astro Boy—the beloved '60s Japanese anime series—is launching on the big screen on October 23! Woo ... wait a minute. Haven't we been here before? The Technicolor hemorrhage that was Speed Racer recently taught us that anime doesn't necessarily benefit from the Hollywood-blockbuster treatment.

Astro Boy, however, promises to be different. For starters, it's not live-action; it's CG produced by Imagi Studios, Hong Kong's version of Pixar. The company's founder, Francis Kao, not only secured the movie rights but also hired the son of Astro Boy creator (and god of manga) Osamu Tezuka as a creative consultant. "I was encouraged to expand on the universe," says the flick's director, David Bowers. "But at its core the movie is still faithful to the original." Case in point: Our favorite rocket tyke sports a windbreaker and slacks (good-bye red undies and go-go boots), but his original powers (x-ray vision and turbo butt) remain unchanged. more...

Theme song goodness...mmm, the classics

Dragon Ball Z Online - coolness?

Disney remaking YELLOW SUBMARINE?!?

Ack! Zemeckis and Disney remaking YELLOW SUBMARINE?!? It's all in the mind, y'know.

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Look, I love Robert Zemeckis' flicks and it's kind of appropriate that he tackle another Beatles film since his first real calling card as a director was the Beatlemania flick I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, but YELLOW SUBMARINE is very, very dear to me.

I love the animation style, the biting satire and just plain weirdness of the original animated movie and I worry that remaking it will lose one of those key elements that made the original work so well. So, I'm a bit nervous. Disney and Zemeckis are quietly closing a deal on the remake which will have Zemeckis doing his performance capture thing in recreating the Blue Meanies' invasion of Pepperland... in 3-D. more...

Wilfred - Season 2 is coming!

Wilfred has already gained deserved cult status in Australia. It's a unique comedic vision of slightly ageing single life on the verge of 'coupledom'; of rent and girlfriends, of being 'in between' jobs, smoking pot, and digging holes in the backyard.
It's a look through dark suburbia at the modern male as a dirty dog.
Wilfred is the dog who thinks he's a human.
Sarah is Wilfred's owner, and both of them are still grieving the old boyfriend.
Adam is the new guy, the one that mothers like, eager to please, aware that maybe Sarah's just a little too good for him.
A Bizarre Love Triangle?
Adam seems to be the only human who can understand Sarah's 'little man' Wilfred when he talks... and Wilfred's dead against Adam doing the 'naughty boy' with Sarah.
Low Budget, live action (it's not a cartoon) black comedy - gold.

Halo Wars Movie On Hold

Halo Wars Movie On Hold Due To Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach

Posted on 01 September 2009

Halo games are one of the most successful games series in the gaming industry, and fans all over the world are waiting for the Halo Wars movie. The rumor about a Halo movie has been around for months now after it was said that Peter Jackson wants to produce the movie. When fans heard that, they went crazy. At first Microsoft denied that there are plans for a Halo movie, but eventually the company admitted that such a project has been considered.

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Online TV - Co-Op 1994 Part 2 -- Wolfenstein, Spider, Super Metroid

Here...

Fooking prawns throwing fookin' lollipops right in my fookin' eye!

It's the best sci-movie in quite a while (although we haven't seen 'Moon' yet), especially since it's one that achieves a balance between the action and compelling drama in a way I haven't seen since Children of Men - which for me is high praise indeed. Blomkamp has made a stunning debut with a unique vision - at times his style reminded me of Verhoeven (a few Robocop moments with the mecha, along with mostly brilliant effects work and nice Red HD pics) or Cronenberg (as our stupid but beloved hero Wikus experiences a few changes over the course of the movie) in it's themes, and with the broad humour and abject body horror of Jackson's early work.

But these are just names I'll be dropping to friends to encourage them to go to this movie, Blomkamp presents his audience with a story dense in intelligent science fiction concepts which are often just implied rather than explicitly shown, and lots of references to gaming science fiction (the guns and the mecha especially) as well as other literature and movies. But it seems like a new story, and an innovative style, and it's also really open; both to conclusions and interpretation. I've been talking it over with people who have seen it all day.

I have some qualms, but they are minor; the whole film has a slightly clunky structure - starting as it does in mock-documentary mode the film eventually abandons this technique with no real explanation. It's a minor beef, however, as the film's engaging lead and his arc in the overall story carry us through this (Silly Wickus and his daft wife have an abiding affection for each other that nearly had me losing it at the end of the movie), but it could also have been smoothed over more convincingly with one scene of exposition, Cloverfield-style. The other aspect is the Prawns themselves; I can accept that they are worker bees, but they are worker bees with freaking gravity guns and hard core weaponry - there should at perhaps have been a little more collateral damage and fracas when they first arrived. But then again, my interpretation is that they are refugees on a ship literally exhausted when it docks at Planet Earth at the beginning *Spoiler* (at least until Christopher eventually 'wakes up' and can accumulate enough of the virus/nanotech to restore it).