Feckoff.net

Having never successfully installed 3D-enabled ATI graphics drivers on any Linux platform before, I was pleasantly suprised to actually succeed at it on my first try under SuSE 10 — thanks to this handy guide.
So, it works, which is nice, but ATI’s control panel application really leaves a lot to be desired … i.e. it looks minging.

The sooner simple installers for drivers like these are available on Linux the better – end users should NOT have to install kernel source packages just to install a driver!

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To anyone who bought Half-Life 2, log on to Steam and download the free Lost Coast level now. It is very good. Very short too, but it is more of a tech demo than a game. The minimum specs to run it are very high (2.2 GHz CPU (worked fine on my Athlon 64 3200 at its stock 2.0GHz clock speed), ATI X800 or Nvidia 6800 graphics, and 1GB of RAM), but they put all that expensive hardware to good use. The church interior and the fisherman model look really, really top quality.

It really made my ATI X800 sweat. I have bought an nVidia 6800GT off somebody on boards.ie, so I look forward to giving this a whirl on that baby!

Aldi are doing another laptop offer this week, and it looks like a good deal.

You get a Centrino(Pentium-M) 1.73ghz with 2MB cache, 1 GB of RAM, 100GB hard disk, ATI X700XL 128MB graphics card, 15.4″ wide screen, 8x DVD burner, TV card and a few other bits and bobs for €1400. They also throw in a laptop bag with it.
I bought one fairly close to this in specs (mine has a slightly lesser graphics card, that’s the only main difference) from their last offer about 5 months ago for €1500, and I can’t recommend it enough.

You suck.

Kilkenny Cineplex seems to have some kind of policy against showing new films as they are released. I’m still waiting for Lord of War to show up, and its been out 2 weeks now. There’s a few other films I’d liked to have seen as well, such as Red Eye, which as far as I can tell, never made an appearance there. This seems to be quite a regular occurrence. Good film? Sorry, we won’t be showing it.

Muppets.

Most people who play games and use the Internet will be familiar with Penny Arcade. Those who read Penny Arcade, and pretty much any other site with a focus on games will be well aware of one John ‘Jack’ Thompson.
Jack Thompson, the Miami, Florida based lawyer and utter nutcase, in welching on his promise to donate $10,000 to charity if someone makes and sells a game based on his sick and twisted design, has shown himself to be an untrustworthy liar yet again. Well done Jack, you are this week’s bell-end of the week. You must be proud.
Not only that, but if you read the previous link, Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade donated the $10,000 to charity themselves, in Jacko’s name. Our Jack then promptly faxed the Seattle chief of police with a spin-tastic tale of games that train cop-killers and Penny Arcade’s links to them. The aforementioned link is worth a read, its quite amusing.
Eurogamer also have some coverage of this.

Well done jack, you are an ASSHAT.

… until South Park resumes!
Here’s the latest from southparkstudios.com:

This Wednesday on South Park:
“Two Days before the Day After Tomorrow”

A GLOBAL WARMING STATE OF EMERGENCY is declared in South Park. The world’s largest beaver dam breaks and floods the adjacent town of Beaverton. As the victims wait for help to arrive, everyone in South Park tackles priority number one: who is to blame? Only Stan and Cartman know who’s really at fault.

Further to last week’s post about the Wikipedia entry on farting, here is some more amusing fart based fun, courtesy of spammy emails in inboxes everywhere.

Plain Jane: One-second duration, nice resonant reverberation, and pungent odor cloud with a nearly instantaneous 5-foot radius. Your standard, everyday, friendly fart.

Beefy One: Sounds loud and butch, e.g., ‘BRAAAMMPPP!’ Smells like a cross between a decaying meadow muffin on a hot day and a fresh dog-turd.

Eggy: Smells very much like rotten eggs (or hydrogen sulfide). A powerful odor which tends to put people off lunch. Often rips out in the fashion of a Bunbuster.
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The unionist mouthpieces up north are getting their panties in a twist after being compared to Nazis by Fr. Alec Reid, the priest who was one of the witnesses to the IRA weapons decommissioning.

Delicious, really, given that for generations the unionist majority had persecuted Catholics in Northern Ireland, much like Jews were treated in pre-war Germany. It is only now, when both sides are treated pretty much equally that they unionists start bleating about nationalists getting preferential treatment to them, when in reality they’re getting FAIR treatment.
Aww, you don’t get special priveleges over a group of people you used to be allowed to treat like scum? Poor babies.

I’m no Sinn Fein supporting, “fuck the queen” shouting chucky, but this really amuses me greatly.

I saw this mentioned on a thread at boards.ie. For easily amused toilet humour fans like myself, it makes a few minutes of fun reading. Very informative! Here’s some snippets:

For acute situations, it is recommended to spread the buttocks, so as to stretch open the sphincter while the gas is passed. This is best accomplished by sitting on one buttock, shifting body weight laterally, then putting the body weight on the other buttock. The opening will not snap shut and the passage will be silent. If done incorrectly, however, this may result in a characteristic high-pitched squeal.
f sitting on a cushioned surface, the gases can be directed into the open-cell polyurethane foam and somewhat quarantined. Following the fart, standing will not release the odour, in fact, the gases will be further pushed to the centre of the cushion. The gases will not leak out and be detectable, unless the cushion is compressed again under the weight of another person. The use of this phenomenon as a practical joke is obvious.

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Activated charcoal underwear and pads can be somewhat effective at reducing the odours of flatulence, but these products do not muffle the sound. Additional security can be obtained with common deodorizers and perfumes. Care should be taken to select a perfume that combats the odour, with floral and citrus notes, instead of musk, which would complement the offending odour.

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In many cultures, excessive human flatulence is regarded as embarrassing and impolite, even to the point of being a taboo subject; and hence a natural subject for toilet humour.

People will often strain to hold in a fart when in polite company, or position themselves to conceal the noise and smell of a fart using the techniques mentioned above.

Flatulence can be considered humorous to some people, either due to the scent or the sounds produced. Some find humor in lighting farts, which is possible due to the presence of flammables, such as methane, though the process is very dangerous and can result in internal anal combustion.

Hahahaha!

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the last line of Inferno Chapter XXI reads: ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta (“and he used his ass as a trumpet”), in the last example the use of this natural body function underlined a demoniac condition.

In Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale” (one of the Canterbury Tales), the character Nicholas hangs his arse out a window and farts in the face of his rival Absolom. Absolom then sears Nicholas’s bum with a red-hot poker. (Lines 690-707)

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Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford farted while swearing loyalty to Queen Elizabeth I, and consequently went into self-imposed exile for seven years.

Switzerland’s biggest telco, Swisscom, is looking to make a bid of €3bn for Eircom, according to RTE News — and the Irish Independent.
Does anyone reckon such a buyout would have any effect on Eircom’s current trend of fighting all things that are anyway competitive (See Smart Telecom v Eircom over number porting…) ?