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From the BBC

Tom and Jerry are to return to the big screen in a live-action remake, according to industry reports.
The animated cat and mouse, who debuted on the small screen in the 1940s, will follow in the footsteps of fellow Hanna-Barbera character Scooby-Doo.

The end of civilisation as we know it is upon us…..

From All About the Cake

btw, if you don’t read Cakewrecks, you should!

From Steve Jobs in 2004 after his surgery to cure a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

“Big” Fable 2 Announcement Coming:

“Oooh Lionhead Studios, you’re such a tease! What could
it be?”

Personally, I hope you’ve fixed all the fucking bugs in it!

Being able to bring your own player into someone else’s world would be nice n all……

(Via The Escapist : Latest News.)

From The BBC:

A Japanese comic featuring vampires inspired a suspect in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007, an Italian prosecutor has said.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here…..

No it didn’t. STFU.

Via kottke.org.

Did you know that there was a ban on solo encores…:

“Did you know that there was a ban on solo encores at the Metropolitan Opera? Not anymore. After Juan Diego Florez busted out nine flawless high Cs in a tenor solo, the reaction from the audience compelled the singer into the first solo encore at the Met since 1994.

Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said on Tuesday that he had asked Mr. Florez weeks ago whether he would be prepared to repeat the aria, if the audience demanded. Mr. Fl’orez had already done so at other houses, including the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where last year he became the first to violate an encore ban since 1933.

Mr. Florez agreed to Mr. Gelb’s request, and the orchestra and chorus were warned. A system was established. Mr. Gelb kept an open line on the phone in his box to the stage manager. After the explosive reaction he gave the stage manager the go-ahead. The manager activated a podium light for the conductor, Marco Armiliato. Mr. Armiliato held out a questioning two fingers to Mr. Florez. ‘He just smiled, and that means ‘Yes,’ ‘ the conductor said.

Florez nailed all nine Cs in the encore too. The mp3 of the performance is a thrilling listen.

(link)”

First impressions, having just read the spec.

For the record, I like small laptops. And I mean, I REALLY like small laptops. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sub-notebook I’d actually consider purchasing, be it Mac or PC.

And I can’t see that changing with the announcement of the MacBook Air.

I’m using a 1.83ghz Core2 MacBook with 1.5gb RAM at the moment.

An entry level MacBook Air is running at 1.63ghz and shipping with 2gb RAM.

While there’s not a lot of difference here, it is worth noting that the Air has 4mb of L2 cache on the chip (versus 2mb on the MacBook) and an 800mhz FSB (versus 667mhz on the MacBook). I’m unsure as to how much of a performance increase we’ll see from this. Have to wait and see.

Interesting to see a PATA instead of a SATA hard disk in the Air.

Multi-touch trackpad is a nice feature too. Looking forward to playing with that!

The Air certainly looks the part. It’s small, it’s light, spec is pretty good, looks amazing. Couldn’t ask for more.

Until…….

A: No Firewire.
B: No removal/upgradeable memory.
C: No optical drive as standard (available as an option)
D: No removable battery.
E: Hefty price tag

Any one (or maybe even two or three (at a push!)) of these would be acceptable, but all five really makes me shy away a bit, which is a real shame.

I was really hoping Apple would release a sub-notebook and not the iPhone-esque tablet thing that everyone’s been praying for, so I was really excited to see the MacBook Air release news.

I’m a little disappointed on initial inspection. That may change when I actually have one in front of me.

I’ll let you know when that happens.

The world is full of strange people.

Firefighters had to turn a waterhose on a man armed with a samurai sword while attending a fire in Dundalk.

(Via BBC News.)

Cool use for the Wii remote.

Help feed the poor while brushing up on your vocabulary.
Freerice.com is a website that does just that by giving you a word and suggesting four possible definitions. For each one you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program (WFP).
Rice is paid for by advertisers, including Apple and Toshiba. It’s a cool idea and one that should be suppported.