Now I definitely need to learn Python, tho I'd agree with Rui that better Java bindings would be nicer...

OK, a post-Christmas LinkFest now of stuff that's been saved over the last few days. I didn't manage to completely get offline but had a couple of 24-hour periods without email and managed not to blog. Flickr, of course, is now part of everyday life so that doesn't count :)

On play, something that will be occupying a chunk of my bandwidth over the next few months: "online games broke through onto the political arena in 2004". My personal favourite was this one from the talented folks at Masabi - certainly one of the best Series 40 games I've come across (a couple that we have in the pipeline excepting, of course :)). Some nice info on the lost H2G2 game, though IMHO any visual adaptation of the books loses something - radio w00t!

"You want your players to be able to kill each other if they want (that’s where the fun is for many), but you also want the newbies to get through their first 10 minutes without getting pulverized.". The Kids Are Alright: "I like the whole dot idea, but it should be a 3D dot with laser arms that can do Matrix moves. Pachoo! Pachoo! Pachoo!"

As you may have noticed from my Flickring recently, Donkey Konga arrived this Christmas. Fun, fun, fun - even with a single set of drums. Even then, you can have others participate (up at Ju's folks, a few of us would take over clapping duties whilst the player gets on with the drumming) and muck with the hardware (have you tried doing a human beatbox into the mic?)

Finally, a critique of Nintendo: "f the teams at Nintendo can still stretch and re-imagine 20 year old brands with such ease, it boggles the mind to fathom what kind of magic they could create if given the freedom to follow their creativity to the very epitome of imagination.". Personally, I like the tack that they seem to have taken, competing on gameplay and originality rather than technical specifications. Donning my asbestos flame-cape, it seems almost... Apple-like...

When your phone is constantly with you, when you're using it to store confidential information (contacts, calendars, messages, call history), when it can be used to purchase goods and services... then doesn't it make a good mechanism for authenticating you?

Lovely quote via Louise Ferguson: "There's more to life than adding another feature."