Ian Robinson’s Soapbox

I bought PixelJunk Monsters from the Playstation Network Store last night. It’s fabulous Really addictive and lots of good fun. Reviews here and here. Time to build some towers…

Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden is being sanctioned by the Australian Cricket Board for calling India’s Harbhajan Singh an obnoxious little weed in a radio interview. He also said he would like to meet the Indian pace bowler Ishant Sharma in the boxing ring I think this is class. It’s all part of the civilised war [...]

Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen has some excellent points to make on why inspiration matters. (1) Never apologize for your enthusiasm, passion, or vision. (2) Never apologize for being inspired by another human being. (3) Seek out inspiration (don’t wait for it). (4) Inspire others by sharing your talents and time. (5) And no [...]

Marvellous! Listen to a snippet on iTMS.

I love Motorstorm. The Dot.Life BBC blog is reporting that there will be a new version by Christmas – Motorstorm 2 is due out in time for Christmas and moves the action away from the desert locale of the original. Gamers will be able to race around a lush island environment, full of interactive vegetation.The [...]

I was watching the weather on BBC yesterday and it struck me that the one thing that I learned in secondary school (K12 for Americans) that I have used the most over the intervening 29 years is the ability to read pressure charts. I’ve probably used this weekly (at least) since learning it in geography [...]

Cool city. The original series of Star Trek is being cleaned up, and some modern ship CGI added, for a new syndication to TV channels. They are using the original prints from the cameras and converting to digital HD. The CGI will be for shots of the Enterprise orbiting planets etc. They are also recording [...]

A marvellous instrumental track with a Japanese feel to it. From the wonderful album of the same name by Taken by Trees (aka Victoria Bergsman of Young Folks fame). Preview on iTMS.

Announced today. Microsoft is saying it’ll play nice in the standards area and will provide open access to the API’s for several of it’s core product lines. Assuming they mean it and follow through on what they are announcing, then this will be a good thing. Time will tell. Microsoft have a history of embrace [...]

Now that the HD format war is over people might be looking for a HD player. I’d recommend the Sony PS3. I bought mine last April primarily to be a Blu-ray player, with a games console for free. The PS3 is priced very nicely at present, there are plenty of Blu-ray movies and some stunning [...]

Pure genius. Listen to a snippet on iTMS. Then spend the 79p to get the full thing. You won’t regret it! A guitar extravaganza.

These 2 books from Martin Rowson look like they’ll be good when they are published over the next few months: 1) The Dog Allusion: Pets, Gods and How to be Human From the Amazon page: As with dogs, so with gods – by and large, you should blame the owners.’ A particular trait, common to [...]

Toshiba are preparing to announce the end of their support for HD-DVD. Given that they created the format this would seem to be the end of the disc based HD format war. Next battlefield will be Blu-ray HD discs versus HD downloads.

I got a MacBook Air. I had said I wouldn’t get one as it didn’t offer anything that my MacBook Pro didn’t have. However, several times over the last year when traipsing through an airport with the 17 inch MacBook Pro, in its Brenthaven case, pulling the shoulders out off me, I’ve thought about getting [...]

A man in a wheelchair came hurtling round a corner. “I was in surgery yesterday”, he said to a man looking in a shop window, “just trying to find my legs after the operation”. “You don’t have any legs!” the window shopper observed. “I know that. Aren’t you listening. They cut them off during the [...]