binaryslate

Check out Giveaway of the Day. What is it you ask?

They’re giving away free commercial software every day, they put up something new every 24 hours and you then have 24 hours to download it. You’re not likely to find photoshop available here but there might be something that sparks your interest.

Out of interest i’ve stuck their RSS Feed in Thunderbird so I can see what shows up.

Today has been Windows refresh day. I like to do a clean install every couple of months just to clean out all those redundant dll’s and other bumph.

Popped over to OpenOffice.org to get the latest version for the reinstall and I was pleasantly surprised to see the download available over bittorrent as well as the standard http/ftp route.

So opted for that and it came down at about 300kB/s, sweet!

This should be the standard for releasing software.

Google has a sense of humour

The Slightly Bemused

The Kingdom of The Slightly Bemused is a small, pleasant nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 12 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The medium-sized government devotes most of its attentions to Law & Order, with areas such as Social Equality and Social Welfare receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 13%. A robust private sector is led by the Gambling industry, followed by Book Publishing and Beef-Based Agriculture.

The alarmingly racist TV show ‘Bigtopians Say the Darndest Things’ is a hit, euthanasia is legal, punitive tariffs protect local industry, and the mining industry is making inroads into environmentally sensitive areas. Crime is a problem. The Slightly Bemused’s national animal is the liger, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the lupin.

The Slightly Bemused is ranked 49th in the region and 19,932nd in the world for Largest Trout Fishing Sector.

Think I’m doing better than Blair? I’ve had two endorsements from other nations, so I must be doing something right

Who needs all that fancy camping equipment when all you really need is some choc and some coke!

Fire from a Can of Coke and a Chocolate Bar

The key to this is the bottom of the coke can (by the way, any pop can will do), which is ideal for reflecting and concentrating the sun’s light and energy.

[…] Note that it has a slightly dull finish. In its present condition it is not shiny enough to concentrate the sun’s rays enough to ignite tinder.

That’s where the chocolate bar comes in ….

And there’s photos to prove it works!

Stumbled across a web based political sim called NationStates.

The general gist is thus:

Jennifer Government: NationStates is a nation simulation game. You create your own country, fashioned after your own ideals, and care for its people. Either that or you deliberately torture them. It’s really up to you.

You’ll be asked to choose a name for your nation, a motto, a national animal, and a currency. Then you answer a short questionnaire about your politics. This will determine what sort of nation you end up with: authoritarian or permissive… left-wing or right-wing… compassionate or psychotic… you get the idea.

Once a day, you’ll be faced with an issue, and need to make a decision as to what to do about it. This determines how your nation evolves.

I’ve joined up to see if it’s interesting, i’ve called my nation ‘The Kingdom of The Slightly Bemused’ and i’m in the England region.

You can create your own regions if you want to play along with friends. If anyone is interested in such do tell me and we can band together.

atm my stats say:

UN Category: Conservative Democracy
Civil Rights: Some
Economy: Strong
Political Freedoms: Excellent

Update: Here’s a link to my nation The Slightly Bemused

Stay tuned for further developments