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Sony’s musical trojan horse. [via]
The company’s copy-protected audio CDs include a stealthy DRM process that consumes CPU cycles even when the CD isn’t playing.

Damn that DRM. [via]
Do these content-provider overlords want to drive users to piracy? This Slashdot comment seems more “5, Insightful” than “5, Funny” right now and it’s not surprising people are revolting.

I want to. [via]
“a page of utilities to help you do stuff you want to.”

Roblog: Robot blog. [via]
Keep track of the evolution of your future masters, puny fleshling.

The Dapper Rat.
“… dedicated to the charming, cheeky, suave, lovable, audacious, crazy, loyal, sweet, intelligent, enthusiastic, comical, troublesome, adorable, cute, furry little whiskered characters who share our lives.”

Posted in Web.

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By Gobi – Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Blue jerseys, red faces

Edwin van der Sar was quoted as saying United’s next few games, beginning with the one against Middlesbrough, would determine the course of the team’s season. If that indeed is the case then United fans had best brace themselves for disappointment.

United started the first of their “season-deciding” matches in their blue away strip but ended the match red-faced as they succumbed meekly 1-4 to Boro (BBC, Soccernet, Guardian, ManUtd.com). What was particularly dismaying was the manner in which United allowed themselves to be dominated by McClaren’s team. This United team never really looked like they were going to battle their way back into contention in this match.

United had problems all over the pitch but the game was lost in the middle of the field. United’s central midfield pairing of Scholes and Smith were outclassed at every turn by Mendieta, Boateng and Rochemback. Smith may have Keane’s fire, grit and determination but not his footballing brain and as a ball-winner, the ex-forward leaves a lot to be desired. Scholes is merely going through the motions this season and it must be only a matter of time before the manager relegates the stand-in captain to a well-deserved stint on the substitutes’ bench.

It’s always painful to see the Red Devils lose but it’s a lot more painful to watch them play like this. Where did the confident swashbuckling attacking style disappear to? We’ve only seen it sporadically this season and it wasn’t regularly evident last season either. The last occasion I can remember being thrilled by United’s attacking play was in the first half of the match against Fulham. The measured approach with pragmatic, conservative play geared towards earning 1-0 wins doesn’t really suit a club with United’s attacking tradition.

There’s little indication United will be able to inflict upon Chelsea their first Premiership defeat of the season next Sunday. Indeed, it is entirely likely United will be humiliated yet again.

There’s still some reason for optimism, though. It’s possible United will once again rise to the occasion. The pundits may all speak of Chelsea’s invincibility now but most pundits were still saying the title was Arsenal’s to lose last season until United beat Wenger’s “Invincibles” home and away in the Premiership.

Posted in Football.

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By Gobi – Sunday, October 30, 2005

Elsewhere on the web

Microman Saint Seiya.
Fan-custom ideas using Microman Material Force figures and Saint Seiya plastic model kits.

Compoboy.
Someone tell Engadget Soundwave and Soundblaster were based on Microman Microchange MC-10 CassetteMan and in a more Engadget-relevant geek note, Microchange MC-21 Radicasse Robo featured a working AM radio.

Sony’s MMOG trojan horse.
The undescribed game will be free without a subscription-fee and gamers will only have to pay for expansions or items.

The power of myth. [via]
“Like art, mythology was the product of the creative imagination; it transfigured our fragmented, tragic world and helped to glimpse new possibilities.”

Best band names.
“Jesus Chrysler Supercar” and “Sweep the Leg Johnny” cracked me up.

Posted in Web.

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By Gobi – Sunday, October 30, 2005

Impulse buy

MMMGQ Sword Impulse Gundam

The Metal Material Model Gundam Quality Sword Impulse Gundam is the kind of toy design I’ve been hoping for years to see in the Gundam franchise.

This is a thoughtfully-designed figure for adult toy fans. It’s a joy to handle and a delight to look at. Nowhere near as fragile as model kits and much more satisfying than the cheap (and cheap-feeling) MSIA figures, the MMMGQ Sword Impulse Gundam is sufficiently articulated to earn the mobile in “Mobile Suit” and on top of that, the figure comes with enough well-produced accessories to increase the cool factor even further.

It’s not flawless but on the whole, it’s a fantastic figure and well-worth the asking price of 5500 yen.

A long, rambling review will be coming.

Posted in Pix, Toys.

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By Gobi – Friday, October 28, 2005

Yaaargh

Back-ups. You know you should do them but you never do. Or perhaps you once did but since nothing untoward happened for months or years, you became complacent.

And, of course, that’s when A Serious Problem rears its head and bites you in the ass.

Well, A Serious Problem reared its head today when I attempted to update the Tripod mirror of my blog with Blog. I had trouble publishing to my site because BitTornado was sucking up my bandwidth so I decided to try again later and aborted the Blog publishing attempt by hitting the Close icon on the Blog window.

It turns out this was a vewwy, vewwy bad idea.

Thanks to a rare bug, Blog deleted all my blog data. It has no record whatsoever of my 1600-plus entries or the templates I use to create the site.

Fortunately, I had back-ups up to October.

Unfortunately, it’s October 2003.

That’s over 900 entries ago.

So now you know why I have A Serious Problem-sized chunk of my ass missing.

The problem isn’t as bad as it might seem. For one thing, the site itself is fine. The only problem is Blog itself has no record of the site. It would be simple enough to fix this if Blog had a way of importing HTML files on the site into its record database but alas and alack, it doesn’t.

I have no intention whatsoever of manually copying, pasting and reediting 1600-plus entries in Blog but I think there might be an inelegant workaround. I’m not sure if I can actually pull it off but regardless, there might not be any updates on the Tripod site for awhile.

Posted in Blogging.

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By Gobi – Wednesday, October 26, 2005