Hugh "Nomad" Hancock

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• Commented on Mystery blob devouring Alaska coastline
  I don't know what it is, but for god's sake don't let the fighter hit it with his sword. That never ends well....
• Commented on Cult of Done Manifesto: a name for my disease
  Interesting. There are some people here saying this is awful (and it's interesting that they take this to be universally applicable - a manifesto isn't usually intended to apply to everyone), there are some people saying it's great, but what...
• Commented on Archive of home recordings accidentally released to Napster
  Is there potential emotional damage here? Yes. These recordings are trivially easily identifiable - they contain the person being recorded's *voice*. And presumably content like names and so on, in the case of love letters, prayers, and so on. Sure,...
• Commented on Making sauerkraut is easy
  Very interesting - thanks! Since you're fermenting in anaerobic conditions, I'd be a bit worried about botulinus, the fun bacteria that secretes nerve agents. How does the process avoid the possibility of poisoning through botulinus growth? You're not acidifying the...
• Commented on Ukrainian Teen Serial Killer Gang Document Their Crimes on Cellphone Video
  Suggestion - is there any chance that BB would consider running individual RSS feeds for each poster? I'm sorry to say this, but I'd like to be able to avoid Xeni's posts, just because she occasionally posts things like this....
• Commented on Vanity Fair on the fate of Lehman Brother bankers
  I'd imagine that just because you made a lot of money before doesn't make being broke, unemployed and in tons of debt suck less. I don't have much sympathy for the guys who still have millions, but someone who's gone...
• Commented on Geeks try to cook Gordon Ramsey's fancy recipe
  @Alosius - The 1337 T-Shirt is from Pure Pwnage - http://www.noobstore.com/prod_tshirt-m-1337.shtml I don't agree with the rest of your post, though. A good recipe should teach you how to make what it's describing. Take a look at Heston Blumenthal's cookbooks...
• Commented on Geeks try to cook Gordon Ramsey's fancy recipe
  @Bugs - I completely agree. Part - indeed, most - of the idea behind our "Normal Person Versus" series was to demonstrate how celebrity chef recipes are often far from adequate in actually telling you how to cook. I have...
• Commented on Geeks try to cook Gordon Ramsey's fancy recipe
  Oops, I see what people mean about food processors. I'll test tomorrow (when I can buy brussels sprouts) and see if they puree better in my food processor. I have to say, I seriously doubt it, though....
• Commented on Geeks try to cook Gordon Ramsey's fancy recipe
  Briefly - @Everyone talking about blenders - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(device) . I don't know if the terminology is different in the US, but we'd certainly refer to what we use in the episode as a "blender" in the UK. @Oscar - thanks!...
• Commented on Geeks try to cook Gordon Ramsey's fancy recipe
  Hi - I'm Hugh from KKC. Eriko - great idea! Actually, we should write a recipe for them to follow... Arkizzle - It was a recipe from The Times, actually, written by Mr Ramsay - there's a link on the...
• Commented on First Microsoft ad with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld
  I must admit, I rather liked it - and as a branding exercise, I think it's a darn good one. (I'm not sure they're trying to do anything more complicated than make Microsoft appear human.) Also - Bill Gates has...
• Commented on Dave McKean's Keanoshow, surreal gorgeous short videos on DVD
  I saw Neon when it was entered in a film festival I was judging a few years ago. Fantastic piece. Visually stunning. I'm tempted to buy the DVD for that alone....
• Commented on New Infinite Matrix ish with my "Nimby and the D-Hoppers," Tesanovic, and Dubinianska
  Happy birthday!...
• Commented on EUROPEANS! You have until MONDAY to contact your MEP and save the EU from a three-strikes copyright rule!
  Likewise. Have emailed my MEPs and, in fact, made a film encouraging others to do so......
• Commented on That Violet Blue thing
  I must admit, I'm not entirely comfortable with the "unpublishing" of previously public content. It doesn't seem to jibe with BB's normal ethics. Were any other blog to do a similar thing, I'd treat it with suspicion from then on,...
• Commented on Sleazy <em>proposed</em> new Dungeons and Dragons license seeks to poison open gaming systems
  It's a rumour, guys, at least according to the original article. The GSL license has not yet been made public, but there are rumors, speculations, and concerns, fueled by online posts made by the brand manager and licensing manager for...
• Commented on Virgin Media CEO: Net neutrality is "bollocks," promises to breach agreement with customers
  For everyone's information, I've heard great things about the ADSL2 provider Be (http://www.bethere.co.uk). I've just signed up for them - after a warning about multi-week waiting periods on the site, they've said they're going to activate my account in 4...
• Commented on Science News on food science
  Yes, "On Food And Cooking" is fantastic. One of the best cookbooks ever. On a similar note, two Molecular Gastronomy-ish blogs worth following are http://blog.khymos.org and http://ideasinfood.typepad.com (and the Mystery Project I'm developing, too, but I can't talk about that.)...
• Commented on Prison yoga made inmates restive and disturbed
  Gareth - thanks, that's a really interesting reference. I've tried a variety of massage and similar bodywork techniques over the years, and the "storing" of emotion or memory is one thing that keeps popping up, despite my skepticism. I'm fascinated...
• Commented on Storming Omaha Beach (on a shoestring, with three actors)
  Oh. My. God. That's truly amazing work. (You see similarly massively impressive work in the Machinima field, particularly in the WoW community, but it's harder to do IRL.) Big-budget movies are getting harder and harder to justify....
• Commented on Gorgeous machinima video for surreal Creative Commons story
  Superb work. This really shows off the strengths of Second Life for Machinima - minimal animation or walking, no talking, lots of gorgeous costumes and sets. The character models, particularly the woman, are just lovely....
• Commented on Gorgeous machinima video for surreal Creative Commons story
  Superb work. Thanks for the link....
• Commented on TV star publishes bank details in anti-privacy editorial, gets ripped off
  Hey, he said "I was wrong.". That's rare enough in any public figure that it's worth applauding. Well done him....
• Commented on Organization for Transformative Works: defend fandom!
  Naomi - since you're reading these comments - are you focussing on all transformative works, or purely on fanfic? I'm specifically interested in Machinima, including non-fannish Machinima, here. Obviously, we have our own small, underfunded organisation (the Academy of Machinima...
• Commented on Charitable giving guide, the 2007 edition
  Great post, and great comments too. On the subject of developing world charities, anyone know how well the Oxfam Unwrapped scheme is administered? I've given gifts from their range before....
• Commented on HOWTO make open/free video
  As someone involved in making Creative Commons media using Open-Source tools where possible (BloodSpell) I'd throw my weight behind the "use AVI/XVid/LAME MP3" recommendations. OGG may be good, but it's not in common usage. That's a real problem, as several...
• Commented on Machinima screening/discussion in London tomorrow night
  Oops. Got the time slightly wrong - it's actually 5:30 pm. D'oh....
• Commented on Science and carbs - A big fat lie revisited
  I'm reminded of William Goldman's famous comment on Hollywood - "nobody knows anything". An interesting link related to the discussion here - Tim "Four Hour Workweek" Ferriss on fat loss. No idea if it works, but he makes his money...
• Commented on Larry Lessig's TED talk
  Brilliant. The Souza argument is a tremendously well-articulated and clever way to illustrate just what we've lost. And it even played to the expectations of the audience ("Oh, we're hearing another "stupid luddite" story. No, wait - "). I do...