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pi3.co.uk http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php en-us CuteNews <![CDATA[Edinburgh Fringe 6th-8th August 2010]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1281476581&archive=
Friday 6th:
We went to see The Penny Dreadfuls, 18:00 today.
Three guys doing sketch comedy, Humphrey Ker, David Reed and Thom Tuck. This was overall very funny, the sketches were mostly all good, a few let it down part way through, with a couple of outstanding ones near the end. It did sometime feel a little disjointed but the whole show and a couple of clever sketches running throughout ending in a clash of the two. Worth seeing.

Coffee near the Udderbelly from Artisan Roast

Saturday 7th:
I was supposed to see four shows today however, one was cancelled due to a power cut (which I saw on Sunday and feel was the funniest of the three) and then I missed the next one due to going for lunch (The Leftovers, 15:20, which from what I heard from my friends that went was a great show, so I intend to catch this one soon).

On the way to Pleasance Courtyard to meet some friends after a morning show.

Heading to the GRV for The Gentlemen of Leisure (which got cancelled due to a power cut).

Went to Frankenstein's for lunch instead.

At the Caves waiting for The Leftovers to finish

The first of the other two shows was Nish Kumar + Friends, 16:45. A free standup gig which turns out would have been worth paying for. We got there just in time and got the last seats, was packed! Nish is one half of the The Gentlemen of Leisure (see Sunday below) and did a very good half hour of standup. It was a little shaky at points, but some of that we can attribute to tech issues before he started, overall very funny. His friend for today was a guy from Finland (?). Pretty dry tone to this one, but very funny, delivery was good, and I think he played on his accent a little to help with the jokes. Well worth a free hour of your time.

In Pleasance Courtyard waiting for a show to end

One of the Pleasance Courtyard bars

The views over Edinburgh. It was a nice night, some good light around:

The other show today was Paul Zerdin - Sponge fest revisited. If you haven't heard of him (I hadn't until recently), Paul Zerdin is a ventriloquist. I do feel this was the weakest of the three. I think the puppets put me off, which doesn't bode well for a ventriloquist show. It just felt too silly and he seemed to constantly reference they were actually puppets, not people, which I didn't like a whole lot. He also did a little bit without any puppets that was much funnier, but that obviously can't be the whole show for a ventriloquist. If you like that sort of thing then by all means go for it.

A handheld shot of the Castle at night (can you tell?).

Sunday 8th:

Waiting at the Udderbelly (we were in the wrong place though so missed out on another show).

A Banana filled crepe for Brunch (followed by a second shortly after for lunch) before the The Gentlemen of Leisure

The cancelled show from Saturday, The Gentlemen of Leisure Present: An hour of too much culture, 13:40. I do think this was the best show of the weekend for me (I know the guys performing, so I might be a little biased, but even if this has clouded my judgement I don't think I would have been laughing so much if it wasn't funny). The Gentlemen of Leisure consist of Nish Kumar and Tom Neenan. It was well structured, it was coherent and most of all it was funny. One theme running throughout; so it didn't feel disjointed like The Penny Dreadfuls did occasionally, a couple of more random, but still fitting, sketches in the middle and ending well. They performed well especially with the pervious days show being cancelled (afterwards we learned the power had only come back on 10 minutes before this show!). The one thing they could have done with was a bigger audience; so get down to this one. UPDATE: Here is the Scotsman's glowing review if you don't believe me.

And now for the rest of the random photos throughout the day:

]]> 1281476581 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:43:01 +0100 <![CDATA[Two months later at a special Apple event...]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1279322981&archive=
"...and that's iTranslate. The new universal translator from Apple coming this holiday season.

Next, now this is something really special, I am pleased to announce the next generation of programming languages. Something we like to call "RealCode".

Now remember two months ago when I said at the iPhone press conference that we couldn't fix the iPhone 4 antenna issue with software? Well it turns out we can, with RealCode.

Let me show you.

We have created this little app called 'AntennaFix.app'. You run it directly on the device. Like so. *the app opens and closes and deletes itself*.

Now, I'm sure you are wondering what just happened. Well let me tell you. With RealCode you can create anything for the real world, with code. Hence ReadCode. This little app just created a micro-polymer layer over the phone. *Steve smiles and soaks up the applause*. You can now even drop it in a tank of water and it will be fine.

Let's look at some other uses. You can write a RealCode app to make the dinner: *Steve creates a turkey on stage to much surprise*; what about a jet pack: *jet pack appears*; and even a cat with Smarties tubes on it's legs: *boom, a cat with smarties tubes on it's legs appears and proceeds to walk around the stage*. Isn't that just wonderful. Now what about getting rid of all this? Just hit delete. *everything vanishes* It's that simple.

Release date? Today! *much applause*
For only $99 per licence. *even more applause*
It will run on all Mac platforms and the code can run on any Apple device. We are working on bringing it to other platforms.

Now we gave it to some really great developers two weeks ago and they have already created some really great apps. Let's take a look..."

Only three days later, the world would fall into chaos leaving only a handful of people to defend themselves against the zombie hordes created with RealCode. A former Apple developer, who requested to remain anonymous, would tell us he informed the Apple management of the potential for zombie hordes early into development. Our request for comment from Apple would then be ignored and the head of Steve Jobs in a jar would inform us they had no such warning, but did offer free shelters to all developers with a RealCode licence.]]> 1279322981 Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:29:41 +0100 <![CDATA[My guesses about the iPhone 4 issues]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1279278000&archive= brought to the attention of Apple management early on. All these stories are making people now actively looking for a signal drop and so it is obviously getting reported more and more, even if it's only loosing a bar or two and seems to be getting blown out of proportion.

At the weekend I was in Bristol still with my 3GS, the signal in the hotel room was pretty bad, holding the phone in my hand (like the picture in the engadget post above) I had a very poor signal and no 3G, not even Edge. Having shifted the phones position in my hand to just the finger tips by chance, I gained a bit of signal and 3G, thus in my accidental test got the death grip issue with my 3GS. Having now got my iPhone 4, I briefly tried the death grip but nothing happened, but O2's signal in Edinburgh has been really good everywhere which leads me to believe that the signal strength is the major factor in the problem.

Those are just my wild guesses and who knows what's really going on. I don't know anything.

Let's see what Mr Jobs has to say later on.]]> 1279278000 Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0100 <![CDATA[A short iPhone 4 rant]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1279231697&archive=
We are living in the future.]]> 1279231697 Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:08:17 +0100 <![CDATA[The Football Cup 2010]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1278885600&archive=
"...and at 90 minutes the football had been won! The victors had won a big gold chalice of football pride; the losers, an even bigger cup filled with pure shame. The burden of the second place cup of shame weighed them down, and their country, for years to come. The crushing defeat wounded them so deeply they started rolling around on the floor clutching various body parts except their chests, where the pain in their hearts, must surely have be the strongest of them all.

The victors celebrated by running around the field and performing ever increasingly complex feats of acrobatics. After seeing the losers writhing around on the floor, they immediately appealed to the ref, who awarded a penalty for every team member on the floor and booked the whole of the losing team, filling them with yet more shame and dishonour, whilst the victors gained yet more goals and pride. Of course this did not go over well with the losers' manager, who upon seeing the red cards immediately started shouting and balling. Many fans had the same reaction, but most were too full of shame and remained silent.

As both teams started to leave the pitch; the losers limping and the victors prancing; the marching vuvuzela band were playing, which some say was formed in the fires of hell out of the worst musicians in history; their tuneless dirge echoing around the stadium. Unfortunately this cannot be confirmed as many of the records were destroyed by the various puppet masters controlling the football leaders.

In the following days, weeks and months there were many inquiries, inquests and injunctions around the outcome of this football match; which has now cost the world football consortium of football, but mostly various tax payers around the world, billions of dollars. There are still some legal battles going on to this day.

This match will go down in History as the flashpoint that started the downward spiral of the game of football. Eventually causing it to be banned in most parts of the world, thus driving this once great game underground to illegal 'football dens'. These dens were the beginnings of the football wars that..."

Gripping stuff I think you'll agree.
]]> 1278885600 Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:00:00 +0100 <![CDATA[A dream where I had my hand cut off, but don't worry I reattached it.]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1262524245&archive=
The next day I found my hand in the fridge and put it back on. I used some tape to secure it. It seemed to work again straight away but was a bit loose. If you are wondering about the bone, worry not, because I used a plastic ruler as a splint with some duct tape (I was worried the bone wouldn't heal correctly otherwise). In the evening I told my mum, it had mostly healed by then and there was a small scar around my arm. I did think I better not open the fridge with it as it might just come off again. I thought I better go to the hospital to get it checked though. We just laughed a little about it.

When I actually woke up I checked that my hand was OK and that there was no scar. It was a great relief to find my hand and arm were fine.]]> 1262524245 Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:10:45 +0000 <![CDATA[Design 4.1 with added CSS3]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1261931539&archive=
Bit of transparency with RGBA, rounded corners with border-radius and some drop shadows with box-shadow.

A bit more fun looking than my usual efforts, however it will only look nice in a CSS3 capable browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc). It really doesn't look great in IE, not overly bothered at the moment though, might fix it up later, and by later probably when IE actually supports CSS3.]]> 1261931539 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:32:19 +0000 <![CDATA[Hey look a new design.]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1240703947&archive=
Might need something else, but don't quite know what.

Anyway, more to follow.]]> 1240703947 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:59:07 +0100 <![CDATA[iPhone to iCal sync issues.]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1217278946&archive=
iphone-to-ical-sync-issues

By running a 1 line terminal command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/SyncServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/resetsync.pl full

(apple doc)

As far as I can tell it does a full sync history reset. Removed all the deleted calendars didn't actually delete the real files though and allowed syncing again!

Along with this today google have added caldav support for google calendar so now can have proper syncing with ical and google calendar. However I did discover that the iPhone does not add events to that calendar, which is slightly annoying, but can't be helped for the moment. Google just need to add some exchange service to allow over the air syncing and everything will be fine!]]> 1217278946 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:02:26 +0100 <![CDATA[Mighty Muggs - Darth Vader]]> http://www.pi3.co.uk/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1204129951&archive= Canon IXUS 950 IS) and offer a small review of the Darth Vader Mighty Mugg which I got from Firebox.com.

Vader 1

It's about 6" tall, good detailing and a new and interesting style for Star Was characters. His helmet and cape are removable, but that just looks stupid.

Vader 2

I don't really like the extra big white dots on the eyes. They are a bit too big, too white and unless you put them helmet down a bit they make it look silly. These appear to be gray or not there in other pictures and on the box, but oh well, what can you do.

Vader 3

There is something slightly off centre with the eyes or the helmet or something and this makes Vader look a bit shifty, but I like it, its comical.

Vader 4

He also comes with a lightsaber. If he didn't, I'm sure someone somewhere would riot.

Vader 5

His arms can move up and down, which allows for a death grip pose.

Overall, I like it. Its a very cool thing to have sat on your desk.]]> 1204129951 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:32:31 +0000