I don’t think it’s going to rival Netflix but I just got an email from Plex saying they’re now offering free streaming of movies, tv shows, music shows and documentaries. I had a quick look and the selection was small, and with not many movies there that I’d recognise. Playback is advert supported so hopefully they’ll do well. This engadget article says, only about one-third the amount of ads you’d expect on cable television” and that while some movies and TV shows will be geo-restricted, the “vast majority” of content will be available worldwide You can still serve your own […]
Games
Creeper World 3 – Fortress Siege
This game is ridiculous. I love it. If you’re a fan of tower defense games you’ll love this real time strategy game. Wikipedia describes it as a, mix of real-time strategy and tower defense, where there is only one enemy and it can only be repelled rather than destroyed. The player must hold back a purple mass called the “Creeper”, which has already destroyed most of humanity and is now attacking Odin City, humanity’s last bastion. This is done by placing towers onto the battlefield which shoot at the Creeper. The main goal of the game is to connect the […]
Ireland
RIP Niall Tóibín
Another giant of Irish entertainment and theatre has passed away. Niall Tóibín died today at the age of 89, only a week shy of his 90th birthday party. Thanks Damien for the longer video and for linking to this article on the Examiner website.
Games
Retro Asylum on Stunt Car Racer
The guys on the Retro Asylum podcast played Stunt Car Racer this month. That game is one of my favourites. A wild roller coaster of a game where you literally drive a car around a roller coaster. I played the C64 version for hours on end and listening to them prompted me to set up FS-UAE again as I wanted to try out the Amiga version once more. I think I’ve only ever played that version in emulation as I didn’t have the game when I had an Amiga 500. Anyway, FS-UAE is a great emulator based on the Winuae […]
Ireland
RIP Gay Byrne
Like most Irish people my age and older I was shocked to hear about the death of Gay Byrne today. He was ever present in Irish daily life as he presented a daily radio show and a talk show on Friday evenings. If you’re not yet 40 or not familiar with Gaybo because you haven’t lived here, @PantiBliss explained how big an influence he had on Ireland in this tweet. The #RIPGaybo hashtag on Twitter and in part Irish Twitter is a place of mourning today. If you watched Stephen Fry on God then you’ve watched Gay in action. Over […]
C64
Solar Jetman on the C64
This is a game I’d forgotten about until recently when I saw someone playing it on Twitch. Solar Jetman came out on the NES in 1991, and conversions were made for the C64, Speccy, Amiga and Atari ST. Unfortunately due to poor sales of the NES original the conversions were never released. Luckily the team at Games That Weren’t were contacted by Martin Holland, someone who knew about the game’s development. GTW got to work and began to search for this elusive conversion, and started with Haydn Dalton, who sadly could not find anything of the game after some searching. […]
C64
Before I knew about revision control
Going through some of my old C64 discs and I found a bunch of “work in progress” demo parts and routines I was playing with. Back then I didn’t know about revision control but it was a pleasure to find these bits and pieces of code that I had completely forgotten about. Here’s a few screenshots from Vice, but it’s shocking the difference between Vice and real hardware. The cascading Ozone logo is very pale compared to what I see on another screen. Could it be the screen? Or is it the emulator? These were found on disc 23, side […]
Humour , Youtube
Did Somebody Mention Cork?
Regional accent discrimination? Foil Arms & Hog show are spot on with their accents!
Science
Rebooting the Apollo Guidance Computer
If you can’t get enough of the Apollo missions after my last post watch as the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) is booted up. See inside the machine at the ropes used to store information and marvel at all the little wires that made the landing on the Moon possible. For more check out this playlist on Youtube. If that’s not enough I highly recommend listening to episode 220 of The Oribital Podcast. It has an excellent interview with Ron Burkey that will have you enthralled (well, maybe, if you’re like me and find the archaeology of old software interesting!) The […]
WordPress
WP Super Cache 1.6.9: security update
WP Super Cache is a full page caching plugin for WordPress. Version 1.6.9 has just been released and is a required upgrade for all users as it resolves a security issue in the debug log. The issue can only be exploited if debugging is enabled in the plugin which will not be the case for almost all users. The debug log is usually only enabled temporarily if a site owner is debugging a caching problem and isn’t something that should be left on permanently as it will slow down a site. If there is an existing debug log it will […]