Portent

Ah those wacky Google jokers. Click the “I’m feeling lucky” button and you get a countdown (in seconds) until the new year!

Calling it an Easter Egg at this time of year seems a bit odd and yet…

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This is an excellent (free with optional subscription) file synchronisation service. After signing up, you download a setup exe (one for each of Windows, Linux and Mac) and create a folder or use the default one. The free subscription gives you 2GB of storage.

You can then allow others to access your shared folder by inviting them (by email). I installed the free Dropbox App on my Mac, PC and iPhone and took a photo of the Mac screen from the iPhone (which to be fair was on Wifi) and the photo appeared within a couple of seconds in the shared folder accessible from the Mac and PC. It’s very slick and worked flawlessly. I set up a shared folder with an artist friend and moving the graphics between us was very fast. Moving files between computers has never been easier. Recommended.

Link (Link contains Referrer code – if you sign up with it, we both get a little extra storage free).

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Well I’ve been attacked a few times but having joined a big clan TIE-II – currently 8th in the ratings) helps. If I notice an attack on me, I can request help and repulse the attacks (hopefully!)

There’s a lot of resource management though not quite as much as Inselkampf. I’ve now got 4 villages. The first took 5-6 weeks to get it to the point where I could establish a second one. Now it’s about 8-10 days to create a new village (it’s constrained by culture) and I’m near to maxing out at least one village. You can’t build all building types so I’ve got one big military city and the rest are resource feeders.

The capital village can have resource (Wood, Clay, Iron and Wheat) producers raised to level 20 (That will take a long time!) whereas all other villages are limited to 10.

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This is not about building sand castles but is a remarkable video of a live performance on “Ukraine’s got talent”. An artist called Kseniya Simonova tells a tale of love in World War 2 using just sand and her fingers and artistic talent.

She conjures up images in the sand with her fingers then wham they’re gone, wiped clean and replaced by something else. A truly remarkable performance.

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We’ve been going around 3 years and now have over 1,200 posts on site. I could have published a book!

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Everytime I follow a tinyurl.com or bit.ly link I always wonder if there’s a nasty website waiting. By which I mean one that might try and infect my computer by downloading malware. Longurl.org does the opposite, it extracts information from the linked page so you can get a feel for what the link is pointing to.

I know tinyurl.com has preview links that no one seems to use! there’s not just tinyurl.com or bit.ly nut nearly 200 url shortening services out there. There’s a full list on the longurl.org site of the ones that it handles. It’s nicely done and is a useful free service.

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It’s not unknown for people to put their name into Google and to search on it; nothing like vanity and a touch of narcism. This isn’t the first site to do it, googlism has been around for donkeys years.

This though, originally was an art project and has become a website. It generates a sort of digital DNA of your profile on the web, but unlike real DNA of course can alter. It’s quite colourful and could I’m sure be expanded further. I’d love to see category links so I can find out what the illegal links are!

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This post is for wannabe website creators. Creating static html websites is pretty old hat. You could do that in the 90s with people like AngelFire etc.

Now though it’s all about dynamic websites, where the stuff your browser receives (html, css and JavaScript) is generated on the fly. There’s no FTP needed, this does everything in the browser. From a technical perspective this uses JavaScript on the server side which is somewhat unusual; normally JavaScript code runs in the browser, classic examples being Google Maps, Gmail etc.

So if you’re wanting to dip a toe or completely immerse, give it a try. A British firm as well.

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A confession. this is a collaboration between a friend of mine Andy and myself so I’m not going to mention it again after this. I do more of the technical stuff.

The wiki is for information about ship cruises around the world. Not uncoincidentally a bunch of us are doing a cruise next year. Nothing too formal, visiting a bunch of countries bordering the Mediterranean. If you know a bit about ships cruises join up and do your bit.

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The internet has made political protest much easier though you need to get a big crowd behind you with over 100 websites out there. A few months back this appeared.

Because Gordon Brown didn’t apologise to Congress when visiting the USA, so here’s your chance to email friends with an apology on his behalf! It’s nicelt done. It makes me think the the net is more powerful than the pen…(which is more powerful than the sword)…

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It’s only three weeks since I joined but I’ve now moved up to position 2614 which is an improvement on 5622 that i was in the first report!

I got through the being picked on stage by building Crannies; these are secret stashing places. Most people attack to nick resources (Wood, Clay, Iron, Wheat) but if you have sufficient cranny capacity they get nothing. Also a spot of psychological warfare helps: I renamed the village to Multi Crannies Ville. That really rolls off the tongue!

Of course writing about it here does rather lift my head above the parapet but onwards and upwards I hope. I’ve also joined an alliance N E 1 which seems as if N O 1 is in charge. So if you’re on server 6 and anywhere near me (at -22, -85) and not in an alliance, please join, we need all the bods to help the alliance move from being 90th to top! (Yes I can dream).

Most of the game so far is just expansion and a bit of military building to strengthen the defences. Soon though the time for military action will be here…

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Fifty years ago, the first hovercraft was invented here in the UK. I travelled on a commercial one in 1976 between England and France. It was fun and fast apart from the rough weather then.

Now, this project Steam Boat Willy, named presumably after the first Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Cartoon is a hand built leg powered hovercraft. You can see the video is action and read about the technical details. I remember as a kid seeing small one person hovercraft on TV and wanting one; this may be the next best thing.

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Now here’s a video that has been viewed over a million times. It shows a man going down a giant water-slide, flying through the air and landing in an inflatable pool.

It looks very good, isn’t very professional in production and you can see the man flying through the air (circled!) the big question though is it fake or amazingly real? You judge!

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I love it when you see somebody talented do something extraordinary with everyday objects. It gives me the hope that maybe, just maybe I could do that. Though deep in my heart I know I can’t and never will.

A point in question, this photograph and many others (Link goes via Google.com translation as original site is in Spanish). You can also see his art on the online Saatchi Gallery.

These are photo quality but drawn by hand using ballpoint pens from photos he has taken by the Spanish artist Juan Francisco Casas. Apparently he goes through 4 pens per painting! They are of the “i can’t believe it’s not a photo” quality. Just amazing!

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A couple of years ago I started playing Travian, a free browser game of expanding your village and attacking other players set in the time of Rome with you being one of three tribes (Romans, Gauls or Teutons). I got knocked out but eventually realised, I’d been playing blindfold with one arm tied behind my back.

So I’ve rejoined and things are progressing slightly better. One thing I’d missed out on were the quests. Click the Soldier on the right to get these as you can earn grain, iron etc and speed up your growth.

Anyway, more as I progress. I’m only at position 5622 in the table so room to improve. I’m playing on server 6 under the name Portent.org.

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