Among the many seedy little subcultures of computer geekery, there exists something known as the Demoscene. In days gone by whenever any given piece of software was pirated the person/group that cracked the program would often program a little self-congratulatory audio-visual sequence, usually consisting of trippy graphics and a moody synth background track. This sequence would load prior to the main program and serve as a kind of digital graffiti, loudly and garishly boasting about their exploits and general superiority. Over time these electronic ’signatures’ began to evolve, growing increasingly complex until they eventually became standalone productions, or ‘demos’ as we now know them.

The concept of a demo is quite simple; a programmer (or team of programmers) attempts to create a stunning sequence of visuals, and set them to an equally awesome soundtrack - and do it all within 512k of memory (or thereabouts). This was way before the concept of having gigabytes of affordable RAM available, so the programmers that coded these demos had to squeeze every last bit of performance that they could out of 7Mhz processors and 1MB total RAM. It is a testament to the abilities of these programmers that their creations are regarded as works of art 10-15 years after they were created.
Continue reading ‘Demoscene - “Real” by Complex’

On December 1st 1976, just after the release of their first single ‘Anarchy in the UK’, the Sex Pistols appeared as last-minute replacements for Queen on Thames Television’s ‘Today’ programme. The host of this show was Bill Grundy, a well known television presenter and broadcaster who had been the first person to present The Beatles on Granada Television in 1962. This brief meeting would go on to be one of the most notorious moments in British television history.

Grundy’s approach to the interview was that of a patronising establishment figure, and if he had originally intended to produce a damning indictment of punk music then what followed was certainly not on the agenda. Within moments of the segment beginning the interview had degenerated into a battle of condescending remarks between Grundy and the Pistols (appearing with their ever fashionable hangers-on the Bromley Contingent), ending with this memorable trading of insults between guitarist Steve Jones and Grundy:
Continue reading ‘The Filth And The Fury - The Sex Pistols vs Bill Grundy’

I can’t decide whether the concept of Manchester Passion is really cool or incredibly naff; certainly the idea of a live modern day retelling of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ set to classic songs by classic Manchester bands sounds god-awful (pun actually not intended), as most historical (or should that be mythological?) events that are given ‘contemporary’ interpretations tend to be quite terrible in their execution (again, no pun intended… much).

Anyway, being a Manc-in-Exile I won’t be able to attend the performance itself, so instead I will be listening to the BBC Manchester radio special hosted by professional shitbiscuit Terry Christian via the Beeb’s online radio thingy.

Here is a list of songs that are apparently planned for inclusion in the event:
Continue reading ‘Manchester Passion’

As the title suggests, I’ve done a fairly comprehensive overhaul of this site, simplifying it where necessary, and making things horribly complicated (for myself anyway) elsewhere. It also has a nice clean new look, thanks in part to the awesome K2 WordPress mod by Michael Heilemann & Chris J Davis, and a striking header featuring my favourite Sin City character, Marv.

I’ve implemented software that will allow me to stream videos and music (I will write in detail the reasons why YouTube is too suck-ass for me to use at a later date), and I’ve set up a system to allow me to post from my mobile to this site, so that the next time I find some amusingly naff trinket in a shop somewhere I don’t need to wait until I get home to regale the world with images illustrating said object’s crapness; and I’m sure that knowing I have this capability will allow you to sleep sound in your bed tonight.

I’m still making changes and adding things here and there, so consider this “Quad Lasers 2006 0.9 beta” for the time being….

Now, I’m not saying that waxworks are inherently disturbing things, but when I saw this post on welovecelebs.com, upon seeing the expression on the wax Lindsay Lohan’s face, I couldn’t help thinking that it bore a fair resemblance to one of the most disturbing Buffy villains, The Gentlemen:
Continue reading ‘Wax Horrifical’

You know when you try to sign up for some sort of service online, and get asked to read a bunch of swirly alphanumeric characters and copy them into a text box in order to prove that you’re a human and not some automated net bot? Well, that is what’s known as a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), and while it may be a necessary evil in today’s spam-infested online world, there’s no reason that it should be limited to mildly indecipherable words set against butt-ugly backgrounds.

It is with this in mind that Oli Warner developed KittenAuth Test, the cute animal based verification system. The idea is that in order to be considered sufficiently ‘human’ to be granted permission to perform some hypothetical task, you have to first pick out three kittens from a selection of assorted images of fluffy animals - once you have proven your knowledge of all things feline you can be on your merry way, signing up for that SuperBonerDaddy69@hotmail.com email address or leaving anonymous hate-filled comments on random blogs.

n.b. Apologies if you are the owner of the email address SuperBonerDaddy69@hotmail.com, but I picked it feeling safe in the knowledge that nobody could be sufficiently twattish as to actually have an email address like that, although I suppose it does take all sorts…

Shadow with a cute look on his face.

Foot Dancing.