Fractal Geek

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We are stardust, we are golden...
The Leonids are back - Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. For London, the weather forecast is marginal, and we'll have poor viewing of the (very well modelled) peak. It should still be good, though, if clear.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18152

"House" - S6 "Epic Fail"
The whole episode is built around an immersive video game, which looked great. Some lovely ideas, especially when the patient went nuts and the hospital turned into the game....

No details, alas. It was obviously a mock-up but so far outside the usual show parameters, the crew had excelled themselves. Alternatively, a game creative team were involved.

I particularly liked the idea of video capturing the players' (real) movements to move the characters - 13 moving hand-over-hand hanging from the ceiling was really suggestive of future play modes (and then who needs Wii Fit?)

Reasons to have DirectX 11
(Or an NVIDIA DirectX 10 GPU)

Your graphics card can run as a coprocessor, using "Direct Compute".

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/partner/archive/2009/08/22/gpu-computing-and-windows-7.aspx

In other news, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has promised that an external Blu-ray drive is coming to the Xbox 360 - probably just in time to sit next to my (planned) PS3.

Later....
Paloma Faith - bonkers, great performer, great dress, great tats. (yes, tAts)
Jummy Ruffin.... the voice has suffered.
Magazine - OK, but I wasn't a big fan first time round
Wolfmother - perfectly competent.

Seasick Steve. How can an old hobo, with a 2x4 plank with a single string and a slide groove so well? Of course, it does help his drummer sounds huge.

telemeister, if you haven't come across him, check him out - raw, stripped down blues.

EDIT: Having watched the full version, I like Magazine's other performances much more, and ditto Devendra Banhart.

Watch the Skies...
The Perseids are back...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17572

And the forecast for Tue/Wed night (for London, anyway) is clear, though with moonlight

Blown away by some excellent acting, but...
Just watched the "Stargate Atlantis" episode The Shrine and loved the disintegration of Dr McKay, as played by David Hewlett - in particular, the video diary. I'd also missed up to now the fact that his sister really is so in real life, adding an extra poignancy to those scenes. Award nomination time, perchance...

However - it was such a complex portrayal as to make the rest of the regular characters look far more simplistic and wooden than normal - even Rodney's normal self, which may in future reduce my enjoyment.

I also hope they now pick up too, that they have a specific cure for a "common" (& devastating) disease among the natives of the Pegasus Galaxy, and not just leave them...

gEEK!
Two Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs are currently available. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 retails for about $200 in the United States and delivers 1 teraFLOP of computing power and 512 MB of 2Gbps GDDR3 memory. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 retails for about $300 and provides 1.2 teraFLOPs of computing power and 512MB of 3.6Gbps GDDR5 memory.

Well, it impresses me!

Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight (mon/tue)
Assuming you have a clear sky (alas, unlikely here), the shower will be most visible once the moon has set, after about 1:30am

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14507-perseid-meteor-shower-set-to-dazzle.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

For once the BBC get their priorities right...
BBC Radio 4 will broadcast live from Cern on 10 September. The Big Bang Day starts in the LHC control room at 0830 BST for the official start-up, and then continues through the day with related programmes, from in depth discussions about particle physics to a special one-off radio version of the popular TV drama Torchwood.

Two items of note for this Friday
1) In the morning, it will be 08:08:08 08/08/08. (And for anyone who misses that, it will be 20:08 20/08 2008 fairly soon too.

2) ITV2 are re-showing "Pushing Daisies" and the cut episode #2 IS being shown.

One weekend watching small white balls being abused in high winds. I find it helps me relax.

And why did I only find out about this just before it disappears off free viewing?

Tonight on BBC2...
...they are repeating Jezza's astonishly good homage to the St Nazerre Raid - the first test of the Commandos. Largely considered to be a suicide mission, horribly under-resourced, and one of the most astonishing cases of "winging it" in existence.

Highly recommended.

BBC Glastonbury Coverage - Elbow(?)

I caught the end of a clip where someone who I presume to be Guy Garvey of Elbow was singing in front of band and Orchestra, an anthem with motif "throw open the curtains", which may rival the Farm's "All together now"

Cam anyone fill me in on the details? I can't link the lyric exactly to them, nor has this yet appeared on the BBC website.

Book Meme

Taking the list from

thalinoviel

- and it's a lot quicker to use the "Rich Text" input

Bold those you have read.
Italicise those you intend to read.
Underline the books you LOVE.
Strikethrough on the "barge pole" ones

( cut to protect the bored )

"Volume" is back!
Probably my favourite piece of interactive art of all time is back, now on the Southbank between the RFH and Hungerford Bridge. It's a lousy location compared to the V&A courtyard garden, but it's still fun. It's there until nearly the end of July. Going late, when the world is a little quieter and darker is strongly recommended.

Current details: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/calendar?action=production&production=39f
V&A link : http://www.uva.co.uk/archives/49