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  • Windows 7 Beta works with Virtualbox on Mac OSX

    A little experiment tonight, decided to see if I could get the Windows 7 Beta running on my iMac using Sun’s Virtualbox software. I’ve been meaning to try out Virtualbox for a while, and this seemed like a good method of seeing just how versatile it is.

    Basic result of the experiment is that it works, although it took an age to install (not from having to fix things, just the sheer time to run the install). Have run a couple of things in Windows 7 and had a look about, and thus far it all looks okay.

    So, if you want to have a go yourself, here’s how:

    1) Download and register for the Windows 7 Beta. You have until January 24th 2009 to do this. I downloaded the 32-bit version of the .iso file, so can’t comment on the 64 bit version. Make sure you note down the Registration Key you’re given before you download the file, as you’re really going to need this.

    2) Download and install VirtualBox for Mac OSX.

    3) Run VirtualBox, opt to install a new Windows system, and choose Windows(other) as the type you wish to install. Use a new blank hard disk image, and save it.

    4) Go to Settings for your install, click on storage then the CD/DVD-Rom tab. Check the box for mount CD/DVD drive, select ISO image File, and point this at the .iso file you downloaded from the Windows 7 site, and click on OK.

    5) Click on the green arrow for Start to start the install. Set aside a good hour or so, particularly if you’re not blessed with memory. Make sure you’ve got your registration key to hand from step 1 before you start, otherwise you won’t get very far.

    And that is pretty much it, the install will chug along, and then you’ll be started on Windows 7. I’d suggest this might work also on a reasonably powered Linux box (Virtualbox is available for Mac, Linux and Windows).

  • Bill Drummond Says, Bill Drummond Says

    I’m a bit of a fanboy for Bill Drummond, former member of the KLF, former manager of The Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Big in Japan. More for his chaotic good side and his appreciation of the effectiveness of a good bold font really though, although he absolutely has been involved in some wonderful music.

    Anyway, a message reached me this evening through somewhere in my google reader account (I’d honestly say if I could remember) that he was recorded giving a lecture in Liverpool last year, and that it had recently been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 (not a usual haunt for me, I must confess). It was part of their Free Thinking festival in Liverpool, and there is a recording of it available on iPlayer now: Bill Drummond on Night Waves.

    It’s about 50 minutes long, and well worth a listen soon (I think it will be taken down on the 15th January 2009, and then it may be elsewhere on the BBC site, or nowhere at all unfortunately, so go and listen now). There is a wonderful little exchange which sums up for me why I like him so:

    “You know how it is, you get an idea, you book some advertising space in a major newspaper, you announce that art is dead, and then you wake up the next morning and think “Why did I just do that?”

    “So can I ask, with this latest project, which you’re telling us is the future of music, why should we trust you?”

    “Whilst I’m passionate and truly believe in this project, I would warn that it is no more mature or thought through than anything else I’ve done”

    Also in digging around afterwards, I found a 7 minute video of him recorded just before the same festival, talking about music: Bill Drummond: How to be a musician.

    Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a link to my own fanboyish writing about him, which was written in a notebook on a train either to or from Wolverhampton: Bill Drummonds Dead Bill Drummonds Dead. The more ardent Julian Cope fans will note my repeated theft of his song titles.

    Incidentally, Chaotic Good is how I once read Doctor Who described as in a book about Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80s.

  • MC Chris – Reece’s Pieces

    I mentioned in my last post about having enjoyed an MC Chris video. Well I dug a little more, and found this gem, a tribute to one of the world’s truely great sweets, Reece’s Pieces:

  • New Oxford Guide to Local Independent Shops launched

    This is a great idea, a guide showcasing 85 of Oxford’s best independent shops. I like to support Oxford businesses where I can, and this can only help me.

    It looks like there is a site coming to thinklocally.co.uk too, so that will be worth keeping an eye on.

    Book keeps Oxford independent (From The Oxford Times)

  • Best top ten list of 2009

    violet blue ® :: open source sex | top ten sexy geeks 2009

    (Article is safe for work, however the ads and links in the sidebar really aren’t)

    I think I was robbed. Also do watch the MC Chris – Nrrrd Grrrl video at the end of the article, kudos for being the first rap track I’ve heard to include a reference to Animal Crossing.

  • Rip Torn pleads not guilty to drink-driving charge

    Rather sad bit of news this, the magnificent Rip Torn is up on a charge of drink driving in Connecticut. The police report sounds pretty damning, and seeing as he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s licence now due to a previous conviction, it looks like he could be in a lot of trouble if he is found guilty.

    Rip Torn is something of a hero, as to my mind he responsible for one of the most spectacular characters in all of sitcom history, Artie from The Larry Sanders Show. I was angry that Alec Baldwin seemed to be doing an impression of Artie on 30 Rock, so I’m slightly sated by the news that Torn is now playing his boss on the show. As a fan, I’m just a bit sad that he’s got himself in trouble again.

    30 Rocker Rolled by DUI – E! Online

  • Racing Little Cars

    Another day, another diversion. Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted a Scalextric layout set up in a loft. I was very kindly bought a set for my last birthday, so I’ve taken the first step towards this (the loft will have to come at a later date). This evening I was idly looking around Youtube, and happened upon a clip of a great layout:

    What I like about this is that it isn’t the largest of tracks by any means, but it’s set up for racing and overtaking, it looks like a racers track. This clip shows an experiment they made to see just how many cars they could run on this setup at once. A lot, is the simple answer.

    Now this led me onwards elsewhere, and I noticed a Japanese equivalent to this, where they race battery-powered cars around much larger tracks:

    I think I had one or two of the Tamiya models when I was young, but I’d never seen them raced before, without the track they will chug along a carpet in a straight line. This looks a lot more exciting. I also suspect that you find a difference between the British and the Japanese approach to model car racing here, where with Scalextric it’s mainly about the racing itself, the interaction of the driver with the car. With these Tamiya cars, I suspect with the racing it’s more about the tuning and the engineering, I can instantly picture a whole culture of tuning and building of the larger models that dwarfs the tuning possible with Scalextric (I do know that does go on, but you’ve got less to work with I think).

    To further this theory, the next clip I watched was of a three-wheel car being raced on a similar track in China, at something approaching an insane speed:

    Now I think my loft of the future may need the space for both…

  • Archigram

    It’s always nice when you get taken on a little journey of discovery and information on the internet. I had this today when my fancy was taken by an article on the BBC news site about Archigram. Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group which was formed in Britain in the 1960s. They created fantastic concepts for hypothetical building projects, finding technology and imaginative solutions for the possible problems of living in the future.

    It’s probably easiest to go off and explore for yourself (and I don’t want to steal any of the pictures involved. There is an Archigram book (see the Google preview) which is also available to buy from Amazon: Archigram. Well worth investigating.

  • Christmas can now start

    The turkey is in the fridge, the presents are under the tree, the heavily discounted champers and wine are in place. So I guess this must mean I’m prepared. All I have to do tomorrow is find cloves (and I’m going to be stunned if the food shops of the Cowley Road fail me), and meet my wife in the pub around 1ish.

    It should be a nice chilled Christmas Day, just the two of us for nice pressies and lots of good food. We’ve already treated ourselves to our main present, a nice big HD telly, and I’ve already been making the most of this for Rock Band 2 playing, and World Championship darts viewing. I suspect the Boxing Day tradition of 4 Hills Ski-Jumping is going to look lovely on it too.

  • Worst Journalist of 2008

    Goes to Max Hastings of the Daily Mail.

    What the sacking of Posh Ed tells us about the BBC’s hang-ups over class

    Now it’s a pretty shoddy piece of journalism all round, but my attention was particularly drawn to the following paragraph:

    In the case of Stourton, BBC gossip suggests that he has been dismissed from his role as a presenter at the Today programme because he sounds too ‘toffish’. I have no idea whether this is true. But it is very believable.

    This is astonishing for a journalist to admit. He has no idea at all about the premise his whole article is based on? He made no effort whatsoever to investigate it? Hastings is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard, so it isn’t as if he doesn’t have any contacts at all he could try to speak to. I just think it is stunning for a journalist to admit he hasn’t done any work, and that he’s making massive assumptions for the sake of his snotty little article. At least most other columnists pretend they made an effort.