Attitudes and knowledge of what is going on

I grew up watching non the nine o'clock news, and this sketch (a little bit saucy) is less of a comment on the legal system and more of people not knowing things that you would expect them to know due to popular culture.
Fill in anything here, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, games, ipods, gps the list goes on. Just goes to show nothing changes :-)

40th birthday epredator cake

40th birthday epredator cake, originally uploaded by epredator.

I got a fantastic second life avatar cake too :-) it was not a potato cake BTW :-)

This is what happens when others drive your cars

qcumbercrash3, originally uploaded by epredator.

At the post 40th party we have spent the day on the excellant Forza 2 360 game I got a one of my many pressies (thanks lisa and malcom :-)
So the 360 has been on all day, with time trials, multiplayer and generally kaning the arcade part of the game.
Needless to say the precision driving one comes to expect from us old gamers sometimes goes a bit awry.
Colin (a.k.a qcumber) managed to launch the porsche cayman (same model as I drove the other day)
Forza lets you stop and take photos, upload them, and then of course I flickred them too so I could blog the event.
Marvelous stuff really :-)
Anyway Forza 2 Rawks as they/we say. Very solid driving game and the career elements are going fun too.
The custom paint jobs people are doing are amazing too, so i put in a bid on a auction to use game credits to buy a spongebob VW beetle. :-)

Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago

Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago, originally uploaded by epredator.

I had a suprise birthday gift for my 40th of a driving day at thruxton race circuit.
I got to drive a porsche vatman as a warm up, then a Ferrari 430 then this monster of a lambo.
640 bhp awesome car.
My twitters were not clarksonesque enough so I finally twittered "raging power bubbling from the gates of hell and i dont mean bill, lambo invite you to choose how you crash ... spectacularly "

It does not get any better than this

On the way to legoland for mrs epred's birthday the Ipod kids selection started playing this. Its new to the predlets, but I could not stop singing it all day.

Posh graffiti

Posh graffiti, originally uploaded by epredator.

We have really posh graffiti down our way. I saw this down by the shore and had to take a photo of it.

Musical Augmented reality genius

Just watch this video by Roo

30 Years since Elvis died, 17 since SRV died

It is 30 years today since Elvis died. I was brought up listening to Elvis and I am a big fan. I know the image of Elvis is a very tragic and cartoony one, but what a talented and influential singer he was.
I was suprised I had never visited Elvis.com thats not a recommendation, but just I realized that elvis was back in my youth, before computers. I was 10 when he died. I did remake some of the tunes c=64 style with some animations, but it never really did the song justice :-)
It is nice to see thinks like this footage on youtube of a young elvis.





It is also 17 years this month since Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash. SRV was one of the greatest blue guitar players ever.



In a desert island disk type of way I would have to take some Elvis and SRV with me to keep me sane.

Genius mashups Star trek vs Python

Hilarious :-)

Guitar Hero III and Rock band

So bemani has come of age. Guitar Hero II in particular has got people wanting to rock out with funny peripherals.
Now we have Rock band AND Guitar Hero III on the horizon.
They are greta pick up and play games.

Killzone 2 then and now

Back before the PS3 launch this video appeared which was proven to be prerendered CGI



Very impressive but not gameplay
Now we have this from e3 2007 with actual gameplay footage. Its not bad !



Its another cool game to look forward too. The PS3 needs some killer apps.

This game rocks :-) Strangehold

I got to play the demo on the 360, I relaly like Hardboiled (the John Woo film)



Yes its insane, over the top, violence. There will be smoother games, but this has a lot fo style and spirit.

Bounding and flying in Real Life

Today in Fareham a group of performers were showing off in the town centre using these fantastic springy feet stilts.

It was funny as I was recounting the story of having seen someone wearing these years ago in Sydney. The amusing bit was he was advertizing them and attracting attention by being on teh tail end of an anti-capitalism rally that was wandering around the city.
It was great to see this sort of stuff on our streets :-) No I dont have a set !

Reason to be cheerful part 3

Having come back from holiday, and felt a bit down about things I have had the good fortune to talk to several people about recording the past 18 months acheivements and to encapsulate the good bits. This now has left me feeling extremely positive about so many things.
Taking stock and reflecting, but in a positive way of what has gone well, collecting evidence about all things metaversal, and looking at all the good people that have joined in on the way is just such a reason to be proud (in a good way)
The massive amount of positive feedback people gave me on Linkedin when I asked "please help" re-enforced and built on that positive feeling.
So, looking forward there seems to be a whole lot of things to do still, but they are all good.
Travelling around explaining the metaverse to people is but one element of that. As more people get into the concepts this becomes less needed.
However, explaining how this movement came about, how it built using the social networks and language of web 2.0 is an even more powerful story. It is a history lesson in many respects but one people can learn from regardless.
Finally there is the whats next. So many things are buzzing around, developments, ideas both from the more local eightbar community and also much wider that it is an exciting time.
Take this for example, the fact we can do Augmented reality due to the great efforts of artag.net allows us to try out some now ideas and share them too. What is not to be liked about that :-)
So.... no resting on laurels, lets get on with it :-)

Top gear impersonations

Daz on occasion has said I bear a passing resmblance, in attitude and outspoken style to Jeremy Clarkson. Which I do think may be a little bit true.
When I did a quick video of Roo demonstrating this RFID cleverness right at the start he appears to sound like Richard Hammond from Top Gear :-)
So...... who is our James May?

More little big planet

This is why I have a PS3.....


Little big planet. Yes its not out yet, but anyone who experienced building in Second Life and teh creative buzz, but yearns for more physics will love this.

Check it out. HD version on the PS3 network to download too.

Back to the world, shock, horror, joy etc

The family and I have just returned from 2 weeks in Spain over at Xavia on the costa blanca. It was a bit of a journey of discovery for baby sam as he is only 6 months old. We flew from Southampton too so a lot less travel hassle. Fly.Be managed to not give us the seats I payed for and prebooked on the way out so that got a little tends as Sophie was going to be sitting on her own somewhere on the plane as we were all dispersed across the cabin. Its not like we were late or it was full either.
Anyway, the airport wait was a bit tedious as per, as Southampton is a bit small. We got there in one piece, to massive 30c heat. Picked up the hire car, and drove for 90 mins to the james villa place we had. These have always been great for us and this was no exception.
We had a great time with the pool. Sophie can now swim without arm bands which is veyr cool indeed.
I had a little shock that my small amount of n95 usage led to my phone being cut off in Spain. A few quick tweets and mobile rss seemed to be goign ok. One day it stopped working. I used Jan's phone to call t-mobile. Someone, somewhere, and not me, had racked up £2,000 worth of data bill. So it was a little tense coming home and trying to sort that out. Data is expensive when roaming, criminally so, £7 a Mb. So I was being careful and only using about 0.5mg a day if that. So the day that something supposdly did 128mb on my bill was a shock!.
In the end I figured I would have to pay and then try and claim it back through some sort of legal action. However, in trying to pay t-mobile were not able to accept a £2k payment on a credit card online or on the phone. I ended up at an accounts department, who thankfully recended the bill, back down to what I expected it to be.
Clearly this is a worry that it has happened. Apparently companies just bill one another, no itemization, so there was no record of any usage time or places. I am not sure what the solution is, or how this happened. I just know that I am not that daft, or that rich to do something that mad on a mobile in europe.
So its back to the world. Back to the stress and joy of the metaverse and big corporations.
Having had 2 weeks to contemplate contributions/minor celebrity and family I now know that something need to be sorted damn quick to pay for or acknowledge all the work that has been done. So far I have been very very patient.
This time last year (well post may) I returned to work to a massive push to stop me doing anythign with virtual worlds. That was an insane time with a few people who I hope have realized that they may have been wrong. Me, I could have taken the job I was pished into and sat in a corner on my own stitching mail bags (or the digital equivalent). If I had then I would have not had the chance to do all the things that have happened, and get the company so far into this. So I woudl do the same again. I am hoping that the blockers would look back at that time and say, well you know he was right after all.
So far I have not even hit Second Life yet. I have been resisting in order to slowly immerse back into the web.me world. I am not sure the complete cut off via the phone suspension did me any good, it is good to feel connected and have a little sense of world. Thats different from fielding every work call which is not a good idea.
Best part so far though, coming back from a 100 bhp hire car to the scooby 225 bhp :-)
So monday, back to the office, see people and have some tea, deal with emails and try and figure out what the next few months bring.
Customer visits, internal metaverse, second life personal appearences, press and tv, presentations, belgium, netherlands, san jose, london, barcelona, guest blogging, jan back to work, sophie starts school, 40th birthday..... gulp.
I may not get the what you or I might expect in terms of company recognition but it is certainly diverse and interesting. Not sure I could find the same job elsewhere.
Lets see where the journey takes us all :-)

Breakfast @ wimbledon

Breakfast @ wimbledon, originally uploaded by epredator.

Well about the only perk of being at Wimbledon working is the breakfast.
Apart from the free strawberies, champagne, constant waiter service and personal assistants running around sorting everything.

Wimbledon darth vader vibe part ii

We were going to recreate the vader scene live in the canteen. I had to cut it short as my star here decided to swear too much.

However, and for those of you who have heard the izzard sketch, I nearly dropped my tray of breakfest when the guy behind me was talked to by the chef as he said "hello jeff".
Its all linked I tell you !
Made even funnier by Andy, who is known as chubby finding these on fire box

Wimbledon Darth Vader vibe

Every year at wimbedon we sit in the bunker giving tours to people and this year hanging around on IBM 7 in SL talking to loads of people.
The mix of adrenalin, boredom and stress all in one for 14 days solid creates a massive team bond. This year is no exception.
This time its darth vader. After the "dont you know who I am" and the fact we eat in a canteen where every morning we do the "this trays wet, this ones wet" etc. We also stand in a queue and quote "jeff vader" and "I can kill you with a thought"
Rob who works with Jay doing loads of the photo editing and manipulaiton for the site said go and find vader and python on youtube. So we did. I know its been around a while but when something fits into a teams train of thought its even funnier.
We will always have vader.