Dear Mandy

In responce to Mandlson's Bill where he wants to dosconnect people from the internet, Dan Bull did a Song.



[Derren Brown]

10 Downing Street Petition To Stop Ludicrous Bill

The skinny:

This petition has been set up in response to the Government’s proposal to cut off internet access to those who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files. We think this has one fundamental flaw, as illegal filesharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet. What's more, such a punishment should be dealt with in the proper way, in a court of law. This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights.

You can sign the bill Here.

If you want to help out more you can signup to the Open Rights Group and Donate to the cause.

How To Cancel An XBox Live Gold Account

This changes all the time and they deliberately don't make it easy by burying the option, make it effort and generally aren't helpful abot the whole thing.

Phoning up works, but you can also do it from www.xbox.com. To do this togo XBox.com log into your account, select Contact Information, Membership Level and then you will see a bit on the screen that says 'Automatic renewal: On' click the ON (a hidden hyperlink?)
Now just keep clicking next while they try to persuade you to not go through with cancelling your account and you are done. You account won't cancel until your prepaid period expires, but at least they will stop taking money out of your account.

Tony Hawk Ride

Giant Bomb has like a short video overview of RIDE and it doesn't look very awesome.

New Version Of Paint.Net

I upgraded my main system to Windows7 today and it is awesome, but it just so happens that today the new more shiny version of Paint.net was released. A full list of improvements can be found Here, but in brief in looks a lot better, the fonts tool has been upgraded and the selection tool uses a lot less CPU cycles.

If you haven't tried Paint.Net than I can happily recommend it to anybody who doesn't need Photoshop.

Random Fact

Alexander The Great of Greece is thought to have started the trend in men shaving facial hair.

Derren Brown's Celebrity YouTube Channel

Derren Brown's YouTube Channel is rather entertaining.
The hippie is Coops, Derren's skateboarding PA.

DNA Copying

This is the most amazing process in natural science. It begs the question as to wither our knowledge of proteins and DNA could eventually render our current methods of material production, crafting and fitting to create tools, obsolete. A world where everything from transportation and communication devices construct themselves from instructions given from a DNA Engineer.

The Importance Of A Good Website Name

Choosing the right website name is something that all first time webmasters struggle over, but it is a very easy thing to screwup. Take this list of 100 Website Naming Disasters for example.

Boba Fett Hoodie

Occasionally I have seen people on the interwebs wearing a Boba Fett Hoodie. These are media types who probably got given one and this kind of stuff is normally very limited edition, but it has been playing on my mind because I really want one.

So I have been searching for a few weeks now (intermittently, not constantly) and discovered that the Official Star Wars Store Has A Preorder For Them! OMG!!!

Plus postage they are a little expensive. So I have to ask myself, does it meet the Brook critique of purchasability?

+ Item is a silent reference to a much loved franchise.
+ Item does not have text, so people won't stand in front of me and read my shirt, ask to read my shirt or read aloud what I already know to be written on my shirt (this all annoys me).
+ Not buying item will mean I will deeply regret it for the rest of my life as another item that got away. I might even dream about wearing it only to awaken not ever having touched it.

- Tis expensive.
- It might not fit when it arrives.

And then I am like 'can I find photos on the web of people wearing it?'

Yes, YES, and YES! (NSFW). So each time it looks awesome and kind of scruffy lookin'
So did I buy it? Hell YES!
I might post photos come November.

Best, Cosplayer, Ever!

Danny Choo Posted About A Cosplayer named Kaname and I mistook his photos for a computer generated Cloud. Very impressive and I would love to know how he does his hair.

Best cosplayer I have ever seen, More Kaname

High Praise For Windows 7

I have been using Win7 for a few months now, first on a few virtual machines, then the beta on my laptop, and when it was released, the RTM on my work machine. My main system is waiting for the retail release, but it will be getting the W7 treatment in November. I love Windows 7, it is the operating system I have waited my whole Windows OS life for. It is the OS that Vista should have been and the OS that XP tried to be. It is stable, fast, feature filled and after a format I find myself reinstalling very few applications.

Maximum PC did a Full Windows 7 Review last month and I think their final thoughts sums it up quite well:

Moral objections to product activation aside, Windows 7 is unquestionably the best version of Windows that Microsoft has ever released, and is the true successor to Windows XP. If you’re an enthusiast or power user, Windows 7 is well worth your money, whether for an upgrade today or on your next new machine.

I even love the Microsoft advertising; yes MS PR did something I liked for a change.

The Governator Uses Twitter

Now that fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger has a Twitter Feed doesn't surprise me because lots of politicians are trying to have more of an internet presence. And the fact he also uses TwitPic doesn't surprise me either, but the fact he posted a picture of the Sword From Conan The Barbarian IN HIS OFFICE! I fine awesomely amazing!

Wireless Power

This is an interesting TED talk about wireless power that will allow us to power everything without batteries or wall sockets.



If you want to know more there is a How Stuff Works Page on this kind of thing which includes an explanation of the technology in the video.

The Onion's Take On Parenting And The Internet

The Onion is like a glimpse into an alternative reality. Sometimes they do disturbing pieces of satire, but this isn't one of those.

Everytime I see parents talking about the internet they are always afraid of it and say that they can't keep up with what theirs kids are doing because it is all hidden, but the Onion has a different take:


Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

How The US Health System Is Wasting Money On Treatment

I blogged recently about how Higher Incentives Lead To Worse Performance, and a very good example of that is the US Health Care system.



Medical professionals in the US earn money by treating patients, not by keeping them healthy.

[Source]

Higher Incentives Lead To Worse Performance

Daniel Pink is a business consultant and the best career counsellor you never had. His TED talk is about how behaviour scientists discovered why offering incentives for a quicker outcome resulted in a slower outcome. This is a very interesting talk and one that has very Human reasoning behind it all.



After watching the talk I wanted to see if he had written any books. I loaded up Amazon and let-out a rather audible gasp! It turns out I have already read one of his.

I read The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko when I started working fulltime. It is an excellent book for anybody who finds themselves in a job where they ask themselves 'is this it?'

He also wrote A Whole New Mind which is more about what his TED talk was about and is now on my reading list.
I will leave you with the trailer for Jonny Bunko.

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

More Dancing Storm Troopers

This is Danny Choo, he has a Blog. I posted this because I can.

DUST 514

CCP, makers of EVE Online did a Press Release for a game called DUST 514 that is somekind of bridge between EVE Online and console FPS gamers.

But both screenshots look brilliant.
Command Pit
Staging Area

And a video Presentation (Thanks Evil).

Video: Dust 514 - Ego-Shooter im Universum von Eve Online - Gamescom 2009 (5:18)

Star Wars Dance Off

It is something called the Star Wars Dance Off that is part of a weekend event every year at Disney's Hollywood Studio.

Fox News Says The NHS Causes Terrorism

Fox News is the devil. There should be a law against miss representing facts to this degree.



[Derren Brown Art]

For Entertainment Purposes Only

There are a lot of unnecessary legal disclaimers in the world, but I think the one on DVD commentaries is a shinning example. I am referring to the message at the start of DVDs that reads 'The commentary tracks on this DVD are for entertainment purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the views or options of the studio, parent company or partners.'

I am no legal professional, but if an Actor, Actress or Director says something slanderous on a commentary track like 'Our wardrobe department stole all the cloths from a local gym to save money!' Then no 'for entertainment purposes only' message is going to protect them from an order to pay damages to the wardrobe company's image and loss of business.

I understand that managers follow what advice the legal department gives them and that the legal department is trying to cover themselves in a very sheepish manor, but you wouldn't find a legal disclaimer like that at the start of an encyclopaedia.

The contents of this encyclopedia is for entertainment purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

Or even

The publisher has taken reasonable care to make sure the contents of this encyclopaedia is accurate, but takes no responsibility for any mistakes.

In July I Posted about how Amazon cleaned customer Kindles of a few novels. Well I am sure they thought they where legally covered, but they also deleted one Justin Gawronski's Summer Homework. He is as American tradition dictates, suing Amazon for damages. And rightly so because that kind of thing might conform to the letter of the law by Amazon giving itself the right to do that kind of stuff in it's terms of service, but it is very unreasonable.

*Note this Blog Post was for entertainment purposes and is not to be retaken orally or in a tart.

Walking Into Death

Dr Temple Grandin is an expert in animal behaviour and works as a consultant for Slaughter Houses. One of the problems facilities can have is, (as you can imagine) getting animals into the facility calmly so they can be killed.

She has a YouTube Channel with everything you ever wanted to know about leading an animal to it's death in a way where it will just walk right into the facility and be calm right through the process. I found her videos to be morbid, but interesting.

The Electric Lute

The Lute is a very old European stringed instrument that hasn't been part of popular modern music for centuries. I was at Warwick Castle last Saturday and some guy was walking around playing one. It has a good sound and if you have never heard one before Here Is A Video of Paul Odette, the great Lutenis playing very beautifully. But I wondered, has anybody ever put an electric pickup in one?

As it turns out a guy named luthier Ian has and the Electric Lute produces a fantastic and different sound to what you will be used to hearing from an Electric Guitar.

Steven Fry On Music Trading

Steven Fry (man of great noble intellect) did a speech (really it was a lecture or talk) on the subject of Copyright Piracy at the recent iTunes Festival in London.

His belief is that the dogged determination of big media industry groups like the RIAA to hunt down and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law people who share Copyrighted material for personal use, is misguided and against the human desire to share stories and ideas. I agree with him full heartedly, but CopyRight law is founded on the principal that the CopyRight holder is the only person with the right to authorise copying of the original material in full. And that a medium between allowing people to copy and not allowing people to copy will probably never be reached in legal terms or permitted by the industry.

Steven has put up an audio recording of it Here On His Website and I think it is worth a listen to as everything by him is.

Life Imitating Fiction

In the Novel 1984 by George Orwell Winston Smith works as a Journalist whose job it is to rewrite Oceania's libraries and journals to exclude information that the controlling political party finds unfavourable.

1984 is a work of fiction, but CBC Reports that Amazon removed 1984 from it's electronic marketplace, without notification to it's customers. All Kindles that had bought the novel had their copies remotely removed, customers refunded the difference and all as if the novel had never been listed or bought in the first place.
The reason for this is that the electronic copy of 1984 that Amazon had been selling was licensed to Amazon from someone who didn't have permission by the IP holder to do so. Amazon has been going through it's electronic library and correcting many such mistakes recently, but the fact that they have the ability to reach out to customer's Kindles and automatically eras novels or even change the contents of it's library in realtime, just like the totalitarian state in 1984 is very scary.

Circle The Cat

Circle The Cat is a flash turn based strategy game where you have to encircle a black cat with dark coloured spaces. It is a fun five minutes until you discover the optimal strategy.

Settlers Of Catan

Wired has an Article About Settlers Of Catan. It takes an honest view about one of the defining classics in boardgaming that hasn't sold as well as it should have in the American market.

Yet in the US, only a few types of games have really taken off. There are so-called lifestyle games, like Scrabble and chess, intellectual skill-based games whose devotees are interested in playing little else; party games like Trivial Pursuit and Jenga; and traditional strategy games like Risk and Monopoly, which are generally seen as child's play or possibly something to do while trapped in a snowstorm without power—just before you eat your own foot.

But part of the reason we don't play much Risk and Monopoly as adults is that those are actually poorly designed games, at least in the German sense. Derk Solko, a garrulous former Wall Streeter who cofounded the Web site BoardGameGeek.com in 2000 after discovering Settlers, explains it this way: "Monopoly has you grinding your opponents into dust. It's a very negative experience. It's all about cackling when your opponent lands on your space and you get to take all their money." Monopoly, in fact, is a classic example of what economists call a zero-sum game. For me to gain $100, you have to lose $100. For me to win, you have to be bankrupt. Gouging and exploiting may be perfect for humiliating your siblings, but they're not so great for relaxing with friends.

The Cove

A while ago I did a post called People Don't Need (Disturbing, NSFW) where I liked to some animal cruelty videos. The Dolphin ma secure video to this date is still the most disturbing that I have seen. Now there is documentary being shown at festivals on the matter. I am looking forward to seeing it even with the subject matter being so disturbing.


[ Official Site ]

Microsoft Could Have Done Natal Earlier

This is a clear example of management not getting an idea. Years ago Microsoft Research was doing a load of camera research and when the XBox Vision Camera was leaked I got all exsighted and wrote a post called Two Cameras Not One for the XBox360 where I talked about the stuff that Research was working on. I was excited because I seen the potential of what they where showing and how that could be worked into gaming. The videos in that post have all been taken down and the best I could find was a small image of GWindows Here, but what they where showing in 2005 was components of what Natal is.

I know that they could have done Natal in 2005, but didn't and I suspect the cause of this was short sighted management, as soon as the Wii was proven to print money, Microsoft called up Research and they made Natal.

This makes me annoyed because I know of a dozen other cool technologies that MS Research has that I know now will never see the light of day until some other company blazes the way forward and creates a market for it. And then when Microsoft responds everybody calls it a Me-Too! move from Microsoft and Research doesn't get any credit for their work outside of a black cube on their windowsill (they get one of these everytime they file a patent).

Learn To Fly

Learn To Fly is a distance objective flash game where it is your objective to throw a penguin as far as you can. Normally these games are over fairly quickly as you can only control the start angle of the object and clicking at the right time on a rapidly moving slider controls thrust, but Learn To Fly is quite different.

In LTF the game starts out with your penguin only being able to Bellyflop off the end of a ramp, but soon you can afford a glider that increases the range of movement, then a rocket and at that point a level of strategy is introduced as the player then starts to learn the interaction between speed, altitude, angle and air resistance.

My best time for completing the game was 25 game days.
5/5

English (UK)

Everytime I see this or something similar, a part of me screams in disgust. But it is ok, really, I am fine with it, for now, but come the revolution, THEY WILL ALL PAY!



On a more serious note, I have wondered if there is anything special about English that makes it so universal. A quick Google resulted in an interesting piece by Wendy Wang from China:

Because countries like US, British, Canada, Australia, etc are of powerful economy. Some of them even are of strong military power. Any a country wants to develop their economy or cooperate with these countries in military has to know English, or how could they communicate with these countries?
Besides, History proves that the country of strong economy is sure to have a great cultural influence. Due to the overwhelming economic power of US, American music, movies, TV programmes, even Mc Donald's, KFC are spread all over the world and attract youth throughout the world Which motivate many people especially youth to study English.
PPL say we are living in a global village nowadays. On one hand English is accelerating the process of global village, because ppl can communicate with each other in English. On the other hand, Global Village is making english an obligation to the ppl who want to integrate into the present global village. For example, open the website you will find the vast majority of websites are written in English, so how could it possible if you don't know English?

[EnlishBaby.com]

Uncle Jay Explains Deficit

An inspired update from Uncle Jay.

Awesome Fonts Collection

There are some websites that I instantly bookmark when I see them and then rarely visit. One of them is the fonts websites DaFont probably has the best fonts collection site out there. These aren't fonts for reading, but more fonts to play with. They have a great video game section, movie section and even a food/drink section with fonts such as the CokaCola and PES fonts.

Cinemassacre's Star Wars Review

James Rolfe, better known as The Angry Video Game Nerd is a big movie buff and has done a retrospective review of the Star Wars films. I like James have seen them a lot throughout my life, but he mentions a few things in the first part of his review that I never realised before. I always knew that Star Wars followed a very classic Hero/Villain story, but I never knew how much of a melting pot of classic archetypes it was. So worth a watch.





In relation to James' comment on the optimum order to watch the films in, I think it has been well established now that watching them in the order they where filmed, results in a better first viewing.

Eve Online Video Tutorials

Eve Online is both a very good and very difficult to get into MMO. But there is a very large helpful player base, including some people who have made videos on some aspects of the eve universe.

paradigmblue
Fleet Ops 102
Fleet Ops 101
Goonfleet 0.0 Mining 101
Goonfleet Safespotting 101
Goonfleet Tackling 101

1stStepsAcademy
Tread Alliance Test Video
Jet Can Mining Test
Turrets Tutorial
Map Tutorial
Low sec mining

Eve Online Tutorials Search Index

Windosill

Windowsill is a very simple puzzle game come toy. It would be nice if it was longer, but it is a very well designed flash game.

[Jay Is Games]

National Cybersecurity

I felt like I needed to comment on This BBC News Post about America's national computer security. It is full of statements like "we need leadership" and "it is upto industry to provide better solutions". Well the truth is, and has been for many years now, that industry and governments have all the solutions to protect their data and their users, but are too lazy to implement them properly. The tools that help organisations sleep at night are:

Antivirus
Firewall
Strong Passwords
Common Seance/Training
Backup Policy
Asset Management
Disaster Recovery Plan

The final two are not the kind of thing home users can implement, but the rest are good things for everybody to know about, and should be implemented on every computer on the planet. Why there are still organisations and governments floundering over IT security annoys me as it is not rocket science.

Stand By Me, By Verious Artists

You has best visit the Gizmodo Post on this video, but it demonstrated the universal nature of music.

What America Does With It's Tax Dollars

An artist named Mibi On Deviantart has created A Graphical Representation Of What America Spends It's Tax Dollars On.

The surprising thing is that 68% of what Americans pay in tax goes to Security, either military or none-military. I don't know how much of the tax I pay goes to security, but looking at the size of the US army and the equipment that they have compared to to the UK forces, I suspect that it isn't even close to as much as 68%. It is interesting to think wither that money is well spent or not.

I suspect that most people presently will say no because America uses it's military to solve some of it's problems. Problems that could been avoided if less money was spent on the military.

[Source Digg]

Pacemaker Handheld DJ System

ThinkGeek are selling this thing called the Pacemaker Handheld DJ System. It is mega expensive and you might was well get a Korg 10 for the DS or some proper DJ equipment for the $500 price tag, but I really liked the advert.



And then I seen this video below where someone has used a RF output device to listen to the Pacemaker's output on his car stereo system. Which is cool because that could be another evolution of in-car entertainment.

1) In car radio (music chosen for you)
2) In car Tape/CD player (the music you want to listen to)
4) In car MP3 player (on demand audio, music, mixes, podcasts etc)
5) In car DJ system/music game (on the fly music creation)

Incredible Tiger

After watching the Incredible Tiger trailer I was impressed with the selection of movements that have been incorporated into the character. It is as if made by a Kung Fu film buff with complete disregard to actual fighting mechanics, and the fight combinations looks really good. I don't think the game will be any good because it is likely to be just a button masher, but the movements remind me of a few good martial arts films.

StarFox Synchronized Flying Training

I always wondered when I was a kid if it was possible and if there was a reward for doing it well. After a quick YouTube search I now know it is possible and there isn't a reward. My younger self would have been so disappointed.

Star Trek 1 to 6 On BluRay!

OMG! It's HERE!
Not I just need either a new monitor or a BluRay player for the living room.

This Will Blow Your Mind

The rate of technical and scientific achievement of the our people is accelerating all the time. This is both a cause and effect of our global population number, and this video contains some surprising facts around this.



What does it all mean?
It means that we are closer than ever to answering that question.

Cogs

Not my kind of puzzle game, but it does look very interesting and cudos to the developer Lazy 8 for doing proper 3D menus and doing some interesting stuff in 3D.

Dan Ariely On Cheating

Dan Ariely Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University (His Papers) did a TED Lecture about Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal.

Essentially people cheat because of the belief that they can get away with it, but I thought it was interesting to hear that people cheat more if they are disconnected from the consequences and less so if cheating questions their morals.



[Source Derren Brown's Blog]

Uncle Jay Explains The Current Economic Crisis

Uncle Jay knows his stuff.

OnLive Another Pump And Dump?

The best place to get info on this is Rock Paper Shotgun, but OnLive is a new webservice where you play games on a server, but not just casual games, the latest FPS and racing games. It is supposedly a Remote Process Service Provider. So the software runs on a remote server, the game is rendered on the remote server, your PC just displays a video of what is running on the server and collects game input signals to send to the server.

The thing that makes me sceptical about this is that I was expecting to see this in the next few years, but not now. Kind of like Phantom which was a download game distribution platform, at the time very cutting edge, was a pump & dump scam to steal money from investors, but retrospectively could have done very well, as online distribution is very much the present and future of the industry. So I just hope that OnLive is for real, but the current day technical challenges seem to me, to be too great for them to do this right now.

Fantastic Aminated Wall Art

Some fantastic animated wall art. I think this video is better without sound, but maybe that is just me.

inFamous

There are two big open world games in development at the moment, Prototype and Infamouse. Ptototype is about a quarentined city and a genetically altered guy who runs around a city absorbing people. Infamouse is about a quarentined city where an event happens that gives some poeple super powers and a guy who has the power to control electricity.

Prototype looks quite forgettable with a main character who absorbs bullets like a fridge, but Infamous really interests me because of the way people you fight have unique powers like teleportation or the ability to control mass. From what I have seen this could lead to some very interesting narrative situations. Unfortunately I will not be playing Infamous because it is PS3 exclusive, and I have no intention of buying a PS3 at it's current price point (as a matter of sanity).



[PS3 Blog via Evil Avatar]

Flash Political Map Quiz

Globetrotter is a great map quiz, not as good as the great Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, but I can still give it props for being a short distraction.

The game consists of a world map, a sign at the top of the screen lists the name and country of a place. You then have to put a pin in the map as to where you think that place is. You get points for accuracy and each level you have to acquire a certain number of points to proceed to the next level. Simple yet fun.

It ticks the boxes of improving the players strategy as they play by educating them and by making the player feel as if they are doing well by simply being in the correct vicinity of the place.

I managed to reach level four by cheating with Google Maps; and like to consider myself well versed in different cultures. I hope others do better.

[Jay Is Games]

Barreleye Fish Seen In Wild

I sometimes wonder wither I should have gone into Zoology. So the National Geographic has the First Photos of the Barreleye fish in the wild. This is significant because since the fish was first discovered in 1939 by Chapman, only corpses had been studied, but in the wild it is clear that it is a fish with eyes inside a transparent head. The new discovery here is that it can rotate it's eyes to look up when possibly searching for food or forwards when it eats. What it eats however is still kind of a mystery.

Random Fact

Facebook has a friends limit of 5000.

[Explosm]

Nice Film Trailer, FanBoys

I was over at Apple Trailers when I seen the trailer for FanBoys. It is a road-trip film set in 1998 about some Star Wars fanboys who go on a pilgrimage to Skywalker Ranch; mainly to steal stuff.

There has been many movie spoof films over the past five years. Recent notable enteries have been Superhero Movie and Disaster Movie. Both are horrible slapstick comedies, but Fanboys looks good; I am looking forward to it.



[Apple Trailers]

Science, Primates And Sperm

Jacquelin Nascimento is part of a project to findout which primate has the fastest sperm. Not sure who her funders are, but it is quite an odd project.

Mirrors Edge And New Monitor

Two things happened this week. Firstly I got a new monitor and secondly I played through Mirrors Edge on it.

Firstly this is my old setup:



This is a 16" 4:3 CRT monitor I got more than ten years ago and has served me very well over the years. The reason why I haven't replaced it in so long was because I didn't have any desire to. But the fact that Bluray films didn't look any better or worse on it than DVD or for that matter on my 24" Samsung LCD TV made me want a screen where I could see that extra resolution. Plus the idea of widescreen FPS gameplay was an appealing one. So I bought this:



It is a blue Acer G24, the G24 standing for 24" gaming monitor. 16:10 ratio and very importantly a 2ms gray to gray response time so there is no ghosting on the screen. It has a native resolution of 1920x1800, that's higher than 1080p, well it would be 1800p. This means Bluray films look amazing at their full resolution, but unfortunately DVDs because they don't have as much resolution to them, don't. Games of course look fantastic on and that brings me to Mirrors Edge.

Maybe it was because of my new screen, but I loved this game from start to end. I have read a few opinions and I disagree with almost all of them. And mainly in the area of what kind of game Mirrors Edge is. To me it is clearly an FPS Platformer with shooting elements. Shooting elements that should have been left out, but I can imagine someone seeing seance at EA during development and saying that if there are guns in the game the player should be able to shoot them. Personally I would have left them out all together and replaced them with tasers. Pacing on the game is great, but I would have liked to have played few more basic courier missions to start with to get the player into the flow of the action before the main story kicks off, but then that is me saying that after playing the finished game. It is very difficult as a designer to make such decisions at the start of a project.

The story of Mirrors Edge should have been fleshed out more, although with my interest in writers I was surprised to find that it was written by Rhianna Pratchet, the daughter of Terry Pratchet. I am not familiar with her work, but the story in Mirrors Edge leaves a lot to be desired. The game in general feels very short so my thoughts on this are that if the game was longer, the story would have been better.

Having said all that, Mirrors Edge is by far my most favourite game from last year simply because it offered me a new and original play experience, and maybe my new monitor had something to do with that too.

Dead Snow

Død snø or Dead Snow as it is called in english, is a film coming out later this year about a group of teenagers who holiday in a cabin that is attacked by Nazi Zombies. This might seem very 1981 and even formulaic, but I think the Nazi Zombie angle could hold my interest.

I Won't Miss Bush

In one week Obama takes up the United States Presidency from Bush. Many commentators on the news will probably talk about Bush's legacy, but I don't think anybody, now or in the distant future will anybody call Bush a good president. His legacy is one of death and greed. So Goodbye Bush I am glad to see the back of you.

Random Fact
Bush is responsible for adding more new words to our language than any US president before him.

The Buckingham Palace Guard Band

When the changing of the guard happens (Schedule) at Buckingham Palace, The Guard Band plays as The New Guard is inspected. This is a tradition that dates back to the 16th century, however what the band plays isn't necessarily the same pomp of tradition that the rest of the ceremony is.

Dates For Your Diary 2009

If you where wondering when the big industry events where taking place this year, I have you covered.
I have included the 3DTV Conference on my list because that is looking to be the big technology this year with 3D-Ready TVs hitting the market.

January
8th to 11th Consumer Electronics Show (Las Vegas)

Febuary
10th to 12th Casual Connect Hamburg (Germany)
18th to 20th Dice Summit (Las Vegas)

March
17th GamesGrads North (Manchester UK)
19th GamesGrads South (London)
23rd to 27th Games Develop Conference (San Francisco)
24th to 26th Game Connection America (San Francisco)

May
4th to 6th 3DTV (Germany)
12th to 13th GDC Canada (Vancouver)
19th to 20th Nordic Game (Sweden)

June
2nd to 4th Electronic Entertainment Expo (Los Angeles)

July
14th to 16th Develop Conference (Brighton UK)
17th to 19th Gcdc (Leipzig)
21st to 23rd Casual Connect Seattle (USA)

August
3rd to 7th Siggraph (New Orleans)
17th to 19th GDC Europe (Cologne Germany)
19th to 23rd Leipzig Games Convention (Germany)

September
4th to 6th Penny Arcade Expo (Seattle)
14th to 18th Austin Games Develop Conference (Texas)
17th to 20th Games Convention Asia (Singapore)

December
8th to 10th Game Connection Europe (France)

The Manipulator

There is this game I have been playing called The Manipulator, it is a platformer with puzzle elements. You play a Manipulator, someone who can take controle of a person's mind, read their mind and even kill them with your power of through. It reminds me of Scanners in this respects, but also Metal Gear as you have to sneak around guards and take them out before they realise you are there.

The Manipulator will take about an hour for a complete play through, but you can't save your game (this is deliberate). The thing I like most about the game is that none of the puzzles solutions are obscure, or at least I found all the solutions myself through experimentation. There also isn't a tutorial, just some simple text queues for the controls.

The Manipulator is a surprisingly mature game with many lessons for budding game designers (note the narration, visual setting, environmental setting along with the audio and the simple control scheme).

If you are quite smitten by The Manipulator, you might want to try Messiah (David Perry, 2000) or Oddworld Abe's Oddysee (1997), which have a very similar gameplay concept of playing a weak character with the ability of possession to solve progression obstacles.

The Umbrella Umbrella

Think Geek is Selling An Umbrella that resembles the Umbrella Corporation logo from Resident Evil. So it's the Umbrella Umbrella. The funny thing about this is that it isn't official Resident Evil merchandise so they are being very coy in their description.

The red and white alternating panels? It just says "corporation" and "umbrella." Umbrella. Corporation. Doesn't that just have a nice ring to it?

If sued I think it would come down to who had the better lawyers.

P.S. Merry Christmas

Man Killed in Black Friday Stampede

Black Friday is the day in America after thanksgiving when all the Christmas Sales start. Where as in the rest of the world Christmas shopping becomes gradually more intense from October through to Christmas day, in America Black Friday is when Americans try to get all their shopping done. This is mainly because they are afraid of not being able to find presents and because the big shops encourage shoppers to binge spend just after thanksgiving.

So it does not surprise me that a temporary Wal-mart employee, Jdimytai Damour (34) Was Stampeded To Death in a rush by some 200 shoppers. Here are some photos of the crowed.

I understand that the crowed of people where in a frenzy and their actions are part of Human nature, but it is a part of Human nature that has always sickened me.

Team Fortress 2 Video - Mass A.I.

I was reading the excellent Rock paper Shotgun and seen the below video posted there. A very impressive video put together by Manta Engie, a group who seem to have an affinity for good music.
The track in Mass A.I. (the video below) is Propane Nightmares by Pendulum. A band that has been growing on me very much recently.

Some People Just Enjoy Christmas More Than Others

I would dearly love to do something like in the below videos, but it is so very much out of my skill set.

Mirrors Edge Music Video

I love the music in Mirror's Edge, so when I seen the title for this video, Mirror's Edge Music Video, I was a little excited, but still sceptical because I thought it could be a fan made project. However it isn't, so enjoy.
Available in Standard and High Definition resolutions.

Pizza Machine

I watch looking around the BBC news site and I seen This Video About A Frozen Pizza Factory.

I didn't realise that some frozen pizzas receive such little human contact. I always imagined they are all made on a conveyor belt system with people sticking stuff on as a pizza base went by.

Activision Do Some Creative Guitar Hero Marketing

Activision has done some creative marketing and created a video called Bike Hero. They have tried to disguise it as a student thing, but the cuts between takes can be seen when the rider looks away from the path. Nice video though.

Mr Blazinskie Has A Twitter Feed

Cliff Blezinsky creator of such titles as Unreal Tournament and Gears Of War has a Twitter Feed and it is so awesome.

Some of my favourite quotes so far:

Mark is trying to instate a "no high-five" policy here at Epic. He says I'm hurting too many people that need their hands.
- Cliff

I'm a renaissance man. My goal in life is to make everything I do bigger, better and more badass. If that means opera, so be it.
- Cliff

I keep having this reoccurring dream where my future-self rides in on a badass bright red fire-unicorn and tells me how awesome I am.
- Cliff

Everyone keeps telling me I'm a better Mark Rein than Mark Rein is...
- Cliff

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself while walking around Epic, and I start to cry at the beauty. If someone asks, I say my eye itches.
- Cliff

Interactive Fallout 3 Map

Fallout 3's main quest might be a little short, but there is a lot to see in the wasteland. Planet Fallout has put together an Interactive Fallout 3 Map With Google Maps, making it easy to navigate and find something of interest. And when you find something you can always look it up on the Fallout 3 Wiki, that has guides and descriptions to most things in the game.

[The escapist]

99 Blocks Is An Interesting Take On Tetris

99 Blocks is a twist on the traditional block stacking game of Tetris. Instead of stacking blocks to clear lines your objective is to create the highest tower you can with just 99 blocks. The twist is that this is a Tetris variant with physics. So if you don't stack carefully, your tower will fall.

I myself have come back to 99 Blocks a few times after first playing it to try out different stacking strategies, but ultimately 99 Blocks remains a very casual experience with possibly a too steady pace of gameplay.

[Source Wired]

Fallout 3 Graphics Comparison Guide

I like This Graphics Comparison Guide they did that shows you what all the game's graphics settings do and wither it might be time for an upgrade.

One of the main arguments about PC gaming is the need to upgrade every six months, but that isn't true if you buy good hardware and certainly isn't true if you are prepared to run a game like Fallout 3 with some of the settings turned down.

Nintendo Talks Again About Price Cuts

I thought this was funny.
Nintendo President Iwata Said In An Interview:

This is my personal thinking, but when the model's price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it's better to wait, and I've always thought that was a mistake.

I have to partially agree with him as I have traditionally (as well as a lot of other people who aren't myself) waited for a console's first price cut before running out and buying it. Nobody likes to buy a console and then just after a price drop is announced. But that reminded me of something. When the N64 was released in the UK in March 1997 it was only a few weeks before the price was dropped by £100 (The Only Reference I could Find) so Nintendo are uniquely positioned to talk about such things.
However the N64 unlike the Wii and DS, doesn't print money.

Some nostalgia:

Grim Fandango Design Document

Tim Shafer has unleashed the Design Document for Grim Fandango onto the web. It is an interesting read, but ultimately Grim it suffered from a couple of the symptoms that Caused The Death Of Adventure Games although Grim was hardly the worst offender. And I also don't think Grim was as good as Tim's other works, buy maybe that is just me.

Obama Won!

And The Resident did a dance.

McCain Voters

Next week is the US Elections where the United State's Federal Subjects, vote for a new president. At the moment Obama is the favourite to win and why not. Obama is a young (for a presidential candidate) charismatic leader who has a background in community projects, comes from a diverse background giving him a broad world view (something America desperately needs), has a very optimistic view of the future, wants forward thinking changes made in the US, is softly spoken and is an exceptional speaker. Clearly these are a fantastic combination of qualities to have in a politician. All I know about McCain is that he is old, he spent a few years in a prisoner of war camp and no idea why he feels that he is qualified to lead a country.

President Bush has been one of the worst presidents in American history. I am still reeling from when the American people re-elected him four years ago. I keep telling myself that is was because Kerry didn't put up a fight, but if I take a bight out of an apple and it tastes sour, I will not take another just because another apple in the bag doesn't compete as much for my attention.

If the American people vote for McCain and elect him, although they will have a new President, they will not have changed the party that is running the country. McCain doesn't seem to want change, so I don't feel that McCain will be much better than Bush.

So I ask myself, who would vote for McCain?



I have voted on the If The World Could Vote website, but if I could vote for real, I would vote for Obama

[source Digg]

Random Fact

Fingernails grow slower as you get older.

One Hundred Days Before Bush Leaves

FYI, Bush is leaving soon. I just hope that they don't make a mistake when choosing his replacement.

Wii Music Is Just Lame

Rarely do I use the word lame to describe anything, but for Wii Music I think I will make an exception.

Google Chrome Auto Updates

Google Chrome is awesome, but in a seemingly controversial decision Google has chosen to auto update without the user's consent. There isn't even an option to turn updating off.

Rob Mensching has more on this and a very interesting selection of comments to his post.

I think Google has made a good decision in doing this, but as a power user I would like to know when this happens and what has changed when it does. The only reason why I am ok with this is because Google Chrome is a self contained platform and not a symbiotic piece of software like iTunes. Plus I recognise the security benefits and the benefits for Google in only having to support a single current version

Free Powered By Ubuntu Stickers

If you have a system running Ubuntu and don't have a 'Powered By Ubuntu' sticker on it and want one. Send an empty envelope addressed to yourself with a stamp on inside another envelope, with a stamp on addressed to the relevant place on System76's Free Ubuntu Stickers Page and you will be sent four.

Sexy PCs

There is a company called VoodooPC and they make the sexiest PC and Laptop I have ever seen.

360° Views of the LHC

Some 360 views of the LHC where taken while it was under construction and they Really Make You Feel Like You Are There.

Someone should make a game about a physicist in a Large Research Facility. That would be way better than all these street combat FPS games like Half Life 2.

Some Pictures Of The LHC During Construction

Sometime today the LHC comes online and a new toy is available for Physicists to play with. Here are some spectacular picture taken during the machine's construction.

BBC Radio 4's Coverage Of The LHC

This Wednesday the LHC is officially turned on and the full machine will be used for the first time. BBC Radio 4 will be covering the event live throughout the day.

If you are interested, but don't have a radio (I know I don't) then Wednesday just visit the BBC Radio 4 Homepage and click the Listen Live link at the top right. To listen you will need a real player compatible player. If you are a Windows user I can recommend Real Alternative.

Random Fact

On Windows operating systems, shortcuts are .LNK files.

Spore On The Cheap

The good people at Amazon are doing Spore for £26.98. And that includes P&P. Just so you know.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is my new default browser. It is too awesome to try and convey with mere words. It is lightning quick, on EVERYTHING. Even my Yahoo Mail account which is always sluggish due to the heavy scripting. It is, the browser I have always wanted, right now. Goodbye IE, Goodbye Opera and Goodbye Firefox, you won't be missed.

The genius behind it all is that each webpage isn't just managed well or given it's own CPU thread, but instead managed by the browser like a process. And then for each page there are sub processes. So say a YouTube page will have the page as a process and then the flash object as another.

Chrome uses a relatively HUGE amount of memory to what we are used to from a browser. Right now with four windows open it is using 36MB of memory, but it is SO worth it.

Google have put together a Comic explaining their philosophy behind Chrome and some of the technical 'How We Did It' stuff. And please give it a try.

Google Chrome Download Page

Tweaked Out 911 Space Invaders Commentary

Kotaku did a news article on an artist who created some crappy art piece where (simply to be a media whore) he Combined Space Invaders and The World Trade Centre.

The reason why I mension this is because Dripp was a little tweaked out when he vlogged about it, lol.

Random Fact

A system interrupt (either a hard restart or system freeze) during windows Vista boot can corrupt the boot sector, making Vista impossible to boot into or even do a simple repair on to fix.

R.I.P. Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch, lecturer of The Last Lecture, Died Friday.

If you haven't see either his The Last Lecture or his lecture on Time Management then I suggest you go to his Academic Page and sit through them. As much as students like to moan about how boring lectures are, Randy is one of those pragmatic lecturers who are a delight to hear from. Both of these lectures are inspiring and it is unfortunate that it took a terminal illness for him to come to our attention.

Below is a brief clip of Randy addressing members of Congress regarding funding for Pancreatic Cancer research. I know he will be missed by many people.

Windows Vista's Speaker Room Correction

Very expensive speakers have this feature called Room Correction. This is a calibration system where each speaker plays a test signal and uses a built in microphone to listen to the signal coming from the other speakers. By listening to this signal, delay and room frequency response from a room can be mapped out. This creates an automatically calibrated listening environment that compensates for a lot of room features like furniture and has many advantages over a manually calibrated equaliser system (mainly the fact that it is automated).

Windows Vista has Room Calibration built in. To do a calibration:

1) Connect up a microphone to your computer.

2) Setup your microphone so that your computer can listen through it.

2) Open up Playback Devices window.

3) Open up the properties window for your speakers.

4) Select the enhancements tab.

5) Select Room Correction and then Settings.

6) Follow the on-screen instructions.

I recommend turning your speakers up so that the test signal can be heard by your microphone. And place your microphone in a similar location to where you yourself will be listening to your speakers.

I don't know if this has made my listening experience better because I am not that well trained in these things, but the alterations applied to my system where to add a delay and slightly turn down the volume on my right speaker. This makes sense when you consider that my right speaker is closer to me, than my left. So logically my speakers should now sound better. Although I should add that this is no consolation to not buying a good set of speakers in the first place.

Mirrors Edge Developer Commentary Disappoints Me

There are a lot of games where I see some kind of preview of the game and from that little snippet I build-up a picture in my head on what the game will be like to play and how the mechanics will work etc. So I can run through my head what it will be like to play just from seeing a very small preview. Sometimes the finished game surprises me and I am delighted and other times the reality of playing the finished product falls short on my expectations. I am sure you too do this.

The concept of Mirrors edge is that of a very clean line art style set in a city where all communication is closely monitored by the state. Because of this runners are paid to carry sensitive information across the city by hand so that the authorities don't get their hands on it.

The game takes the concept and some of the style of Freerunning into itself. This combined with the Currier missions made me think that missions would be given very much like they where in Thief and Assassins Creed. Where you got missions by talking directly to hidden contacts or by finding clues and markers left for you. However for some reason Mirrors edge features a radio, which for me breaks the whole anti-surveillance thing as obviously the state could listen into the radio. They will probably have a plot point that says that the radio transmissions are encrypted, but to me this is nowhere anywhere even close to being as cool as getting a mission from a set of cryptic symbols on a hidden bit of paper, or getting a mission by meeting someone secretly hoping the authorities doesn't find out.

Plus as much as I love story being feed to me during a mission as I am playing through a level, the crackly radio doesn't fit the visual styling of the game.

Nintendo & Sony E3 Press Conference Impressions

I have finished watching all three conferences now and I thought Sony's was the best. Best in presentation and best in all round content. No big announcements, but what Sony needs is games.

Nintendo's conference left a lot to be desired. That woman (whoever she was) on-stage to me felt as if she was addressing some parents PTA meeting, not the specialist press and other people from the industry. Her presentation style felt very clicky and wooden.
The Wii music game looks as if it will sell very well, but the Drum section that was played didn't sound good at all. And that surprises me because Nintendo has always had such a high quality bar.

As always The 1Up Show had some nail on the head observations, but to sum it up, all the conferences where lacking in one way or another.

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Impressions

Microsoft's E3 press conference was a little dull and very light on news. Three big announcements.

1) Completely new dashboard interface coming this fall. Yet no news on wither that is going to make finding stuff on marketplace easier.

2) XBox360 Miis coming this fall. A direct rippoff translation iteration of one of the Wii's most successful features.

3) Final Fantasy XIII. Not that I care about this, but I expected a proper (i.e not Crystal Chronicles) FF game to come to the 360 a year or two ago. Why did this take so long!?

Update: I almost forgot.

4) And Netflix support. This really is one of the final nails in Blockbuster's coffin.

BMW Did Something Truly Innovative

Innovation is about taking two technologies that might not necessarily have anything in common and combining them to produce something new or solving a problem by applying a technological technique or idea as a solution. In the early years of aeroplanes, they where constructed from wood and cloth. In later years aluminium was used and now we use composite materials. Cars have always used hard body shells, so BMW tried using a flexible cloth-like material as a concept design and they have produced something fantastic:



No I don't think we will all be driving clothed cars in ten years time, but as a concept this is has all the hallmarks of an iconic design.

Alone In The Dark 5 Looks Better Than I Thought

I take it back, I am interested in Alone In The Dark 5. The main character can't remember who he is, and is possessed with a demonic entity. This gives the plot a high probability that the protagonist turns out to be the antagonist or blood related to the antagonist. Yes it has all be done before, but from the looks of things the bits between the big predictable plot reveals look really fun.

Bernie, About That Car You Wanted

Freerunning Awesomeness

Surprisingly there is a difference between Freerunning and Parkour. Parkore being a philosophy of "be strong to be useful" and Freerunning being a type of gymnastics.

So even through this video is titled "Best Of Parkour/Flips/Tricks", what is really on show is Freerunning.