Consider ++ungood;

In ASCII codes:
+ungood; summed = 43 + 43 + 117 + 110 + 103 + 111 + 111 + 100 + 59 = 797.

797 in hexadecimal is &31D, or D13 backwards. D is the fourth letter of the alphabet. In base 4 it's 30131.

797 in octal is 0o1435. 1 + 4 + 3 + 5 = 13. In decimal, admittedly.

1 + 9 + 8 + 4 = 22. Which is 0o26, or twice thirteen.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Seven fiendish click-on-everything try-anything-to-escape puzzles:

• #01: the cell - completed.
• #02: light livingroom, dark bathroom - completed.
• #03: bedroom shrine - completed.
• #04: motorbike garage - completed.
• #05: space station - completed.
• #06: ocean cottage - completed.
• #07: apartment.

Sales figures released by a major department store showed forks were outselling matching knives by almost two to one.
-- Snackers won't fork out for knives, Mark Bulstrode, Press Association, 20 July 2009.

It appears that the No To Knives campaign is finally having some effect beyond the entirely risible.

The Onion reports on new Domino's pizza toppings, giving ideas for the Domino's toppings contest.

What toppings to choose? Well, you can't go wrong with vegetables.

NewsBiscuit is probably the closest the UK has to The Onion. (SatireWire and The Rockall Times have ceased publishing new material, which is probably just as well.)

Rita Levi-Montalcini won a Nobel Prize for her work on nerve growth factor, which she now administers daily in eyedrops to keep her mind sharp and fend off Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And she's over 100.

Richard Feynman won a Nobel Prize, worked on the atomic bomb, and died of two rare forms of cancer at 70.

Hmmm.

My sister finally gave me her old, unused, Playstation 2, so I have, belatedly, been looking at the last eight years of video games as the PS2 reaches its end of life as a platform. I'm not much of a gamer, and have only ever more-or-less-completed a few PS2 titles:

• SSX3 and SSX Tricky - SSX3 seems to be the immersive pinnacle of snowboarding games, with the other SSX titles close behind.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - it's good fun exploring Hogwarts. Unlike the earlier Potter titles, it's less room-based, far larger, and, importantly, works in anamorphic widescreen for 16:9 televisions - though there's no Quidditch. Upcoming Potter titles will be worth a look.
• Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - a sense of mischief that is laugh-out-loud funny, and which seems to be shared by its sister titles. Blowing up the first Death Star's a non-event, but the second...

The nice thing about the PS2 is that, mostly (with the exception of third-party flash cards) things just work. No drivers, no debugging. That almost makes Sony's approach to region protection and DRM (especially MagicGate, which contributes to the flash problems) forgiveable. And many of its games are now cheap to pick up, while Playstation 3 games are over thirty quid each. Still, discovering that a lot of games only play in 4:3 was disappointing.

Other than learning that a lot of tie-ins aren't worthwhile, I'm not sure what else I'll enjoy and should hunt down while copies are still available. So, here are a few lists to peruse to provide food for thought:

• GameSpy's top 25 PS2 games.
• IGN's Top 25 PS2 Games of All Time.
• GamePro's 36 best PS2 games.
• Roger Altizer's Top Ten PS2 games of all time and of 2006, and other top picks.
• genre recommendations.

But really, whatever turns up in the local bargain bins is likely to get the most attention. Which was, come to think of it, pretty much my attitude to buying CD singles in the 90s - none of which I've listened to in years. Still, it's only a game.

Update: Sony have dropped PS2 compatibility from the PS3. PS3 software compatibility with the PS2 apparently wasn't very good, and it's been a long time since hardware compatibility on early PS3 models. Perhaps this means that the PS2 and PS3 can be expected to coexist for some time?

F*** My Life is the new Not Proud.

You just have to take life as it comes.

It's all about extremes. Is there anything good about men? (mirror) by Roy Baumeister (Wikipedia entry).

I think I've read too much science fiction and fantasy. Of course, there was a sequel. It's a trilogy, in fact.

After years of waiting, I've finally heard Lloyd Wood of the Lloyd Wood show.

Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger by Jakob Lodwick.
Where the Hell is Matt? by Matt Harding.

Vimeo is cooler than YouTube.
Vimeo is cooler than you.

It developed a big research park containing more than 110 companies, one of which, Surrey Satellite Technology, launched 27 satellites and has just been sold for £40m-50m. "We will spend the money wisely," says Professor Snowden, the vice-chancellor looking more solemn than usual. "The idea is not to fritter it away."

Surrey University's new China institute will help to put it on the international map,
Lucy Hodges, The Independent, Thursday, 26 June 2008.

The Surrey Centre for Sports is a campaign to raise £33 million to build a world-class sports centre at the University. Our vision is for the new centre to be one of the best equipped in the region, providing world-class sports facilities, state-of-the-art fitness equipment and unrivalled provision for disability sport.
The centre has been designed by internationally renowned architects, Faulkner Browns, whose reputation has been recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Association of Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS). Central to the plans is a 50-metre swimming pool. The eight-lane pool will feature a variable level floor which allows for different aquatic sports to take place concurrently and for a shallow end to be created for recreational use and disabled access.

Sport at the University of Surrey

The role of recreational sport is as important as the social environment for students when choosing a university. At Surrey we are committed to providing a world-class sports facility which will rival any in the higher education sector in the UK.

Professor Christopher Snowden, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed simple, mindless, shoot-em-ups such as Raiden X. Discovering that the vector Flash applet scaled to various sizes was almost as nice as discovering how much the game slowed down at the larger sizes.

It's a blast.

"The first time I ever saw him speak," says Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing, one of the country's most popular blogs, "I remember having the doors blown off my mind."

It was 1977, and I had just had my mind blown clean out of my skull by a new movie called Star Wars

Accordioning sofa - mindblowing video

In this mind-blowing, exhaustively researched Cato institute paper by Ohio State University's John Mueller, the case against being afraid of terrorism is laid out in irrefutable logic.

Rainbows End is probably the most mind-blowing work of science fiction I've read all year

I just finished Bruce Sterling's brilliant new book of futurism, "Tomorrow Now," which is mind-blowing and provocative as hell.

Sand-sculpture photos: mind-blowing

I've averaged more mind-blowing experiences per ETCON than at any other event I've ever attended.

Here's a mind-blowing new image-processing paradigm (yes, I hate that word too, but this really is a new paradigm)

Canada and Apple: top brands.
USA and Microsoft: bottom brands.

Yet, geographically, Microsoft is almost in Canada.

With Everything is Byte Size I was introduced to Hot Bitch Arsenal. And since its wikipedia page is about to vanish down the memory hole...

Hot Bitch Arsenal, established in November 2005,¹ is a band consisting of members Christina Abbott (lyrics, vocals, guitar) and Kim Galibert (bass, keyboards and sequencing). They have used the Internet for word-of-mouth promotion of their album ''Secrets in Tiny Pockets.''² Their music, which they describe as ''sultronica'',³ is notable for being released under a Creative Commons license.

1. CD Baby biography.
2. New England 'Sultronica', National Public Radio, 13 February 2006.
3. An interview with HBA's Kim Galibert, Amphetameme.org, 21 February 2007.

• Hot Bitch Arsenal website.
• Hot Bitch Arsenal Myspace page.
• Hot Bitch Arsenal thesixtyone page.