As you may know, I've been blogging for quite some time. Things on this blog may have wound down however its far from the end.
You may follow me on twitter. www.twitter.com/frompaul
Or visit my associated blog: http://morefrompaul.wordpress.com/
I do hope you will continue to nip in for a nosey from time to time and thanks, as always for visiting.
Paul
What do you do when you want to become president of the USA? There's quite a few things to think about but you wouldn't think that keeping your flickr account up to date would be one of them. You'd be wrong though.
Yes, both Clinton and Obama can boast a high turnout as far as uploaded photographs go. It seems that every moment has been recorded for the candidates and despite trawling through a good 20 pages per politician, I haven't seen them holding the babies up just yet.
Now I have my doubts that they really are spending so much time online but I'm no sceptic when it comes to the question of communicating with as wider audience as possible. Gone are the days of radio, tv and newspaper battles, replaced instead with online blogs, video sharing websites and even, it would appear, photo sharing ones too?
What next? Bebo?
You can browse Hillary's photostream here. Obama's is here.
I've been busy searching through some of my favourite photographs from the past three and a half years and here's the result.
www.paulhurstphotography.com features some of my most popular work along with some of my personal favourites. Let me know what you think, and if you have your own photoblog or photowebsite then why not post a link here for other visitors to check out too.
They may sell millions of burgers every hour and they may even believe their food can be healthy as part of a balanced diet but it seems that someone has been busy programming an online game which won't be flavour of the month in the McDonalds boardroom.
The tutorial section of this new online game seems to include some rather unusual dialogue which probably isn't quite what the fast food chain would like to see on their menu.
Here's some of the text which will be making the marketing boys sick:
Agricultural sector:
If we had to rear all the cattle we need in our part of the world, our cities would drown in an ocean of cow shit. Pastures and soy culture need a lot of land and South America is one of the best places for it. Obviously you have to conquer your land as our forefathers did. Remember the old saying: \under every forest there is a lawn".
Soy culture:
You can increase terrain productivity using genetically modified plants. GMOs allow us to use more aggressive pesticides to minimize insect damage.
Feed lot:
Every good American wants a fat and greasy burger. Unfortunately, the cows coming from the pastures are slim and won't yield fat meat. So we must keep them here for some months and overindulge them with hyperchaloric soy-based fodder. Make sure there is sufficient fodder for all the cows and avoid the epidemics.
Hormones:
You can fill the cows with hormones to make them fatten more quickly. This could have some risks to consumer health, but make no mistake: in love and war everything is licit.
Fast Food:
People live fast and want to eat quickly. Fast food restaurants are the cathedrals of our age and everything must be efficient and optimized. Avoid customer queues by supplying hamburger for the kitchen and making human resources prompt and motivated.
Managing the crew is an art: to keep your employees motivated you can reward them with an "employee of the week" badge or reproach them. For the most ungrateful the best solution is firing. Eliminate the weak links!
The website closely mirrors the McDonalds style on their worldwide site and the McDonalds logo also seems to make an appearance, unlicensed I suspect?
I can't imagine this website will be around for too long as it stands, not without the McLawyers getting involved so be sure to check it out while you can!
I'm Lovin' it!
Looking for some social software thats just a bit different than the rest? Citypixel will probably be right up your street.
The format is based around an 80's 'pixel art' isometric city. You sign up and create your virtual citizen which can wander round the 'sim-city-esque' streets and nip into the odd building here or there.
You'll pass lots of other mini citizens along the way, and if they have a green line underneath, they're online.
Now just before your mind conjers up thoughts of animated isometric characters smoothly walking around your web browser, I must point out that your journey is done via clicks and as such, contains no movement at all (the gridlocked cars are fully animated in that regard).
So the main reason this site exists, as far as I can tell, is to dress up the rather tired idea of social software into new clothes and as such, I did find myself wondering why I was clicking around a very poorly designed navigation section just to reach user generated biogs etc. That was until I stumbled across a really, really neat feature.
Anyone who's played the 'sims' will be familiar with the house design element of the game. Well its here on this website! The tedium of statically navigating around the clumsy city was broken immediately as soon as I realised that its possible to claim your own 'virtual apartment' and even a 'virtual office' too. Your little avatar moves in and can drag, drop and arrange your furniture to your hearts content. Not only that, you can even create your very own website to allow visitors to peek through your keyhole.
My 'apartment'
'The office'
This kind of customisation really breathes promise into the Citypixel idea. You can visit anyone's apartment and rate them and you can even watch their YouTube videos if they have installed the little 'plasma screens' on their walls, I was impressed by what I saw here.
I suppose you could sum up Citypixel as a web-browser version of Second Life it has a cut-down feel of this kind of persistent world social software. I'm really hoping that the day will come when these incredibly cute (and detailed) pixel art characters and buildings become animated but until then, the customisable nature of my Citypixel home, will keep me popping back. Even if its just a holiday home away from Myspace or Second Life itself.
Anybody who's into their computer games will probably be well aware of just how powerful the next-gen consoles are, but some of the graphics in the latest xbox 360 shooter, do look more realistic than usual.
In Rainbow Six: Vegas, you get to sign up to the fictional Rainbow squad, devised by Tom Clancy. Its then time to run around Las Vegas and gamble with your virtual life as you tackle the nasty terrorists who have clearly been recruiting... There's thousands of them!
Gameplay aside, one really nice feature allows you to get right into the action by mapping your face right into the game. Users who own the xbox webcam can take a series of photos which are then digitally 'mapped' into the game, in 360 degree glory.
I found my virtual persona to be slightly flattering, but amazingly accurate! And as I went online, I noticed a few other familiar faces too.
Yes, in the game, I bumped into George Bush. I shot Homer Simpson (doh!) and JFK and even glimpsed one cheeky chappy who had tried to include a picture of their posterior (with mixed results).
With a slight degree of seriousness, I am amazed how the latest breed of games consoles are bringing a richer and more vivid world into the games which we are playing and I cannot help but wonder where this can go to next. Oh and to the 'bum' who was running around before... Get a shave mate...
We really should be used to this now, Microsoft's latest version of Internet Explorer has already suffered a security compromise. The browser is less than one week old.
The loophole allows a website to 'masquerade' as another which could lead to end-users supplying sensitive data to unauthorized third parties, commonly known as 'phishing'.
This latest security issue is embarrassing for Microsoft as IE now includes 'anti-phishing technology' which obviously may not be as robust as the software giant had hoped for.
The best advice remains to keep your personal data to yourself and never follow links to supposedly 'well known' sites which then ask you to log in or provide bank details. Instead, visit webpages directly.
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