The Grax Domain

26 Jul 2008 A response to T2 Risk Taking

Seems like my rant about T2Darlantan's Player Hater entry has caused quite a reaction. The first part has received dozens of comments, ranging from praises to hate-mail to even "WTF is with your eyes??" The second part has only received a handful of comments, which tells me that the majority of people didn't bother to watch part 2 of my rant (which is kinda important to watch as it rounds off my rant). It certainly seem to be case judging by some of the comments that have the vibe of "Don't you tell T2 how to live his life, fuck you!"

And if that wasn't enough T2Darlantan himself made a video response to my video response.



So there are lessons to be learnt from this exercise.

1. Don't split your videos into multiple parts; people will probably stop watching after the first part and ignore the rest
2. If you want lots of comments and subscribers on your YouTube account target a person that has a huge fan base, leave a video response to one of his entries and have him to respond back

23 Jul 2008 T2 Risk Taking

I found some guy calling himself T2Darlantan on YouTube one day ranting about having fun (in relation to what other people think) and risk taking. Or something like that. You can see what T2 said at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbB7AlgJTTI.

I did this video blog to try and argue against his idea, that to have a fun and full life you need to take risks. Instead my video blog entry ended up being quite dull and not exactly supporting my argument.

Anyway you can watch the video here. Be warned, it's a two part ramble. If you can't see the videos below then you can watch part one here and watch part two here.

11 Jul 2008 Run Twinkletoes Run!

If you can't watch the video above, you can read what I said below:

Hi there. My name's Grax and I have a friend that is going to be attempting something quite spectacuar in a few months time.

On Sunday 12th October 2008 my friend Mitu will be attempting the London Parks Half Marathon. And the reason she's doing this? She's doing it for The Right To Play.

Right To Play is a charity that uses the power of 'play' to improve health, build life skills, and foster peace for children and communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Using their specially designed sports and play programmes, and working in both the humanitarian and development contexts, Right To Play has projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Now this is a sponsored run and Mitu would like everyone to give their donations towards this run. She has set herself a minimum target of £500 and I would like to do my part for her run.

So Mitu, a message for you, I've added my sponsor money to your run. And I hope it goes towards a good cause.

Now Mitu has also created a website for her to keep a video diary of her progress at www.runmiturun.com. Since she's created this website a couple months ago she a grand total of two video entries. Which is a shame really because I personally would like to see more or Mitu and see more of her video entries.

In fact, here's an idea Mitu. You can use it as an incentive to get more people to give more donations. How about this: for every £10 towards the £500 goal you recieve you'll release a new video blog. I mean it doesn't even have to be anything amazing. It can be something crap. Why it could even be something like....

"Hi everyone! Mitu here and I just got out of bed ready for my morning run! Except it's 7:15pm now and I... kinda... missed it.... Still, nevermind! I got my music player, I got my trainers, I got my Ready Brek, and I'm ready for action! It's gonna be awesome!!!"

Well... it's a thought.

If you would like to give your donation towards this sponsored run then you can. By going to www.justgiving.com/mitu. Alternatively if you would like to check out her progress you can take a look at Mitu's website at www.runmiturun.com. And hopefully by the time she sees this message she'll create some more video blogs for our amusement.

Please give as much as you can towards this sponsored run. Every penny can go a long way for the right to play.

Thank you.

9 Jul 2008 Kieronononon Review

If you can't watch the video review above, you can read what I said below:

Sometimes you can get bored or frustrated with the common bands and genres in the mainstream music society. People turn to Internet Social Networks like MySpace to satisfy their needs for something totally random. Sometimes they get lucky and discover a band like Kieronononon.

Band members Orta, Float Star Point (pronounced (float*)(p->x) ) and Goat-Boy spewed out a new music genre for all to enjoy; Brutal Techno Punk.

Kierononon's brutal techno punk sound is an angry, aggressive sound, with a hint of odd humour. Now you might be forgiven to think that this a bunch of random noise because it's unlike anything you will ever hear in the mainstream charts, or even outside the mainstream charts. To me when I first heard Kierononon, it sounded like three guys with a couple of guitars and a drum synthesizer kit making random noise, and I didn't really give it the time of the day. But then I gave it a second chance and I listened to it again. And then somehow it fitted together and actually started to sound decent. Now I could see that it was three guys just messing about with a couple of guitars and a drums synthesizer producing and recording something decent.

Kierononon have improved with time and experience and this is evident in their newest album "Brutaltechnopunk". The sound quality is vastly improved compared to their earlier albums "More Interesting than nik Naks" and "More boring than Poison". It's as if one of the band members was fiddling about with the sound editing software, found some new settings, unticked the "suck ass" checkbox and cranked up the "bad ass" slider to max.

However the music is only part of the story. You see Kierononon at their best when they play live. I watched Kierononon perform live at a local pub in Leamington Spa. This was their final ever tour... just like the last tour... and the tour before that.... There's something about the thumping noise from the big speakers, the bass player Float twanging his strings and fiddling with knobs, the front man Orta screeching and mincing in front of everyone, the Goatboy being all.... Goatboy-ish that brought a smile to my face. You can tell that they're enjoying themselves on stage and that only helps to improve the music.There was a large crowd surrounding the stage area at the begining of the show. By the end of the show the number had shrunk to about half. But that's ok, Kierononon is only for awesome people.

When you first hear Kierononon you might get put off and decide to run from it like a mental patient running away from the doctors with their medication and their straight jackets. But this band is a grower. Give it a few more tries and it may broaden your mind to what can be done with music.

If you're not put off initially by the sounds of this brutal techno punk then that makes you pretty awesome.

To find out more on Kieronononon head to their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/kieronononon or head to their record label's website at http://www.roxxor2.co.uk/.

Man someone should really write a wikipedia entry for this band.

7 Jul 2008 Cowley Road Carnival 2008

Last Sunday I attended the Cowley Road Carnival in Oxford. Well it was just down the street from where I live, so I thought I'd see what all the hub-bub was about.

If you can see the video clips below you can watch them on YouTube by clicking here and clicking here.

3 Jul 2008 Why should picture frames be plugged into the wall?

I was thinking about those picture frame that display pictures from a SD card. Initially I think they are a great idea and I would like to get one myself. Hell I even contemplated getting them as presents for my family. But there's one design flaw which really, really bugs me about them. Most picture frame models you have to plug them into the wall to keep them powered up.

Why should they be plugged into the wall sockets?

It doesn't make much sense to me. Because they have to be plugged into the wall there are only a limited number of places you can put the picture frame. And the wires are just bloody inconvenient.

Also If you keep the frame switched on all the time you're constantly draining electricity. This is not only bad for the environment but, more importantly, is costing you money to maintain.

I mean, how much power do these things need? Surely it can't be that much. I've seen models where you can charge them up via a USB cable, but that doesn't cut it for me because you still need to take the frame to some power source and plug it in.

I was thinking of another alternative source of power for SD picture frames; solar power.

Surely you can dedicate some picture frame real estate for adding solar panels. Most SD frames I've seen have a thick border, around 3 inch's. Fill up that space with solar panels, gets constant energy from a light source to keep the display going. Now you can put the SD picture frame wherever you like. Hell, why not throw in a spare USB charger for when there really is no sunlight.

Surely it can't be that hard to design and make a solar powered SD picture frame.

... Wait a second.... I've just had a brainstorm whilst writing this blog entry out...

Get a USB charging SD picture frame, get a solar panel charger that connects with a USB connector, plug one to the other and switch both on. That sounds like a good idea to me.

It's a bit of a work-around hack idea but it might do the job well enough until somebody creates a SD card picture frame with built-in solar panels. The only flaw in that plan is if the USB charging process puts the picture frame in 'sleep/charging mode and you don't actually see the picture, which would defeat the whole point of the solar power-ness of it all.

Who wants to give that hack idea a try?