I added a miniblog to my site, which will be a list of interesting links as I find them. Subscribe to the RSS feed, if you like. If you like this blogging style, Cameron posted many other great examples.

As if Valve Software wasn’t already suffering enough from the leaked Half-Life 2 source code and today’s announcement of an expected April 2004 release date, Neowin broke the news that a fully-playable beta release was leaked today. It was apparently spread via IRC channels, and will likely soon hit Usenet and the rest of the Net. There are several screenshots of in-game play available.

October 8, 2003: The leaked release is functional, but barely. You have to load maps manually from the console (e.g. ‘map e3_bugbait’), and most maps don’t load at all. The E3 tech demo maps appear entirely scripted, with enemies moving into predefined positions and otherwise ignoring you completely. This indicates that either the AI code is incomplete or overridden for purposes of the E3 demo. A 15-minute movie of in-game play shows that several other maps can be played, but it’s not immediately obvious how they were able to load them. I expect that a guide to tweaking the alpha release will be published soon.

October 9, 2003: Here’s a very brief guide to getting the game to run. (Basically, just double-click each map in the /hl2/maps directory.)

My new site has launched! Upcoming.org is a collaborative event calendar, where anyone can add the music/sports/arts/film/drama events they’re going to, find out who’s going to the same events, and browse the event listings of other people with similar tastes. After adding events to your list, you can use the generated RSS feeds to list them on your own weblog. By adding people to your friends list, you can track your friend’s events as they add them (also available via RSS).

Along with a group of about 20 friends, I’ve been using the site to manage my concerts and find new concerts for the last couple weeks. The feedback has been very positive… Sign up, add an event or two, and let me know what you think!

And if you’re in the Los Angeles area, come out tonight for drinks to celebrate.

Update: Matt posted a glowing review, and Andre talks about why Upcoming is not Friendster. Also: Many to Many.

As Hurricane Isabel slams the North Carolina coast, you can keep an eye on the storm via several webcams online. Here are all the active webcams in North Carolina I’ve found. Add more in the comments! (Inspired by Mat’s entry.)

In the 1980s, I lived in a butt rock household. With my step-dad in a hair band and my mom managing several bands, my adolescence was spent in rehearsal studios and Sunset Strip nightclubs. I think this family photo sums it up nicely (that’s me on the right). The full story and many more photos are on my mom’s site, if you’re curious.

Hairspray, guitar solos, and spandex may be poised to make a comeback in the form of The Darkness, a new British band that’s #1 on the UK album charts for the past two weeks and the leading contender for the Mercury Prize. They remind me of equal parts Scorpions, Queen, and Spinal Tap, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether they’re serious or not. I can’t tell.

Watch the video now: Windows Media or RealVideo.

In 1983, Tommy Boy Records held a remix contest to promote G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid’s “Play That Beat (Mr. DJ).” The unanimous winner was Steve “Steinski” Stein & Douglas “Double Dee” DiFranco’s “Lesson One: The Payoff Mix.” Two more Lessons soon followed: “Lesson Two: The James Brown Mix” and “Lesson Three: The History of Hip-Hop.”

“Lesson One” became an urban radio hit within days, but was never commercially released because of its extensive and eclectic samples. Clearing the sound clips — a diverse collection ranging from Mae West and Humphrey Bogart to Ed McMahon and Herbie Hancock — would have been a legal nightmare under copyright law.

Made in a cutting-edge studio with Steinski’s extensive vinyl collection, these three tracks paved the way for current cut-and-paste turntablist experimentation. Countless basement DJs were influenced by The Lessons, including DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, who both released unofficial tributes called “Lesson Four.” It was way ahead of its time, and deserves to be heard beyond vinyl bootlegs traded by DJs.

Download the MP3s. (Thanks for hosting, Andre and Cameron!)

Lesson 1: The Payoff Mix (mirror)

Lesson 2: The James Brown Mix (mirror)

Lesson 3: History of Hip-Hop (mirror).

Update: If you want to know more about the origins of these songs, read this fantastic Village Voice article from 1986. “[Steinski]’s just a perpetually disillusioned optimist who still assumes that the sounds and images rippling through the American consciousness are, forget copyright, every American’s birthright — that we’re all free to interpret and manipulate them as we choose.”

Lately, I’ve been playing classic arcade games over the Internet using the MAME emulator and Kaillera. There’s nothing quite like crushing your friends or co-workers at a game of Joust, Bust A Move, or Gauntlet.

First, download the MAME32/Kaillera client for Windows. Install it, download some game ROMs into the appropriate directory, and you’re all set. If you want to set up a server, you’ll also need the Kaillera server.

The public servers are dominated by fighting games like the Street Fighter and King of Fighters series, but we’ve found that Kaillera is much more fun with classic games.

My list of recommended titles is below, and you can find all of these ROMs on Vega’s MAME site. If you can’t find a particular ROM, try looking up the ROM filename in Mame.dk (e.g. “pbobble.zip”) and searching for it in Google. If you have any other multiplayer arcade recommendations, please post them.

George W. Bush’s “grassroots action site” launched today, though it’s about as grassroots as the Avril Lavigne street team. No RSS feeds or campaign weblog yet, but they offer news feeds for your “personal Web site or blog.” (And dig those crazy backwards breadcrumbs.)

Unsurprisingly, the website runs on Windows 2000/IIS. I noticed that Microsoft Exchange’s Webmail seems to be running on the box, too. Guess the password and win a first class ticket to federal prison!

Google’s new calculator is a fun diversion, with several undocumented new features. Here’s a few. (Kottke has some more impractical uses. Please post more as you find them.)

– How long can you play a 30GB iPod without repeating a song? Answer: 18.2 days

– How much hard drive space does one hour of 128kbps MP3s consume? Answer: 56.25 megabytes

– How many seconds in a decade? Answer: 315,569,260

– 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius? Answer: 37 degrees

– How many feet in a smoot? Answer: 5.58 (via Ryan)

– What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything? Answer: 42

– What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything multiplied by the speed of light divided by three teaspoons? Answer: 8.51523871 × 10¹⁴ m^-2 s^-1

– What’s the speed of a Delorean going back in time? Answer: 47,600,819,200 m³ kg/s⁴ (via Cam)

Apparently, the RIAA wasn’t impressed with the friendly “do it for the little guy” approach taken by the MPAA’s anti-piracy campaign. Their new Public Service Announcement takes a much more aggressive approach… Download the 9MB MPEG (direct link) or 5MB Quicktime (direct link).

I wish I could claim credit for this, but it was created by an anonymous and very talented friend.