Nick's Blog

The man who planted trees

2009-09-24T20:53:00.000+01:00

For Cat's 30th I got tickets for a few plays from York theatre royal's Takeover 09.On Tuesday we saw the first of the plays, The Man Who Planted Trees.

At first I was a little apprehensive, I knew this was a family play (hell it involved puppets), but the crowd was decidedly... young.

I shouldn't have been worried! The play was utterly beautiful, a wonderful little ecological tale performed brilliantly by the actors/puppeteers involved. They had a fantastic combination of a lovely tale and plenty of silly comedy to keep even the attention of even the shortest of attention spans (I'm talking about the kids', not mine).

Young or old, I definately think you should go see this, especially if you can take some young kids with you. :D

The stuff of nightmares

2009-09-22T20:54:00.000+01:00

Teletubbies and left 4 dead mashup.

So very very wrong

Balloon pictures

2009-09-21T20:52:00.003+01:00

Photo of one of the first balloons to go up.

Unfortunately ours didn't go up quite so gracefully. the woman in front of us on our side of the basket really struggled to get over the edge of the basket and took ages to climb in. I'd only just climbed in when the pilot shouted for everyone to sit down and grab the handles and it tipped over! It then righted itself briefly, before tipping over again. Felt a little squashed with two people on top of me! At this point poor Cat had had to get clear and was worried it was going to take off without her! Luckily the pilot got in control and everyone else got in, and the balloon behaved itself after that!

Fantastic view of York including the minster

We saw quite a lot we recognised. We flew east from York, and spotted York's maize maze which was fun as we'd only just visited that a month or two ago. Could confirm that yup, it really is shaped like an astronaut. Schools are especially fun to spot as you get to see all the patterns in the playground. Oh and there was a football pitch at one point with lots of tiny dots chasing a tinier one :D

More of the view

The most stunning thing about flying in a balloon is the absolute silence (other than the roar of the burners every couple of minutes or so). It really is peaceful.

All the fields looked like a fantastic patchwork :D

Our less than graceful landing :)

The landing was fun, didn't realise they came in at quite as high a horizontal speed as they do! slid along the stubble field we landed in for quite a while before gently tipping over :D

Definitely recommend taking a balloon flight! It's a fantastic experience.

Ballooning adventure :)

2009-09-20T22:41:00.002+01:00

Had an ace trip on a balloon this afternoon / evening!

Will fill in the blanks tomorrow, as am a bit tired this evening, but for now I will just say: scary take off, blissful journey, comical landing, tasty champagne :)

Okay I give up.

2009-09-19T19:40:00.002+01:00

From now on I'm not even going to try working out which way t-shirts and things go on, it always ends up in failure and the time spent deciding is a waste.

From now on they're going straight on and I'lll swivel it round if necessary!

(image from http://store.xkcd.com/reddit/#Jawsbackwardstshirt)

Classic knock-off console :)

2009-09-18T19:28:00.003+01:00

Saw this in a shop in Scarborough a few weeks back.

What I particularly liked about it, was the maker's audacity in not pretending that this was the next console in the series, but the next NEXT one.

Overall though I hate knock-offs like this. Not because someone out there is making a living off of some other persons brand, but because you know there's some poor kid out there that's the only one with a Wiii 3 instead of a Wii in his class.

Dusting off the CCGs

2009-09-17T19:02:00.000+01:00

CCGs (Collectible Card Games) are something that I sunk a whole lot of time and money into at various points in the past.

From 1995->1998 it was Vampire : The Eternal Struggle
In 2001 it was Lord of the Rings and a bit of Harry Potter for something a bit lighter :)

They are horrible horrible evil things. I cannot stress this enough. Do not get involved with them! The amount of money you put into them is absolutely insane for the amount you play them. Don't even buy a starter deck. That's like a crack dealer giving you your first hit free.

Seriously, it's like if someone tried to sell you a car, but in order to get the most out of it you had to buy individually boxed extra parts, but you can only buy parts in identical looking sealed boxes containing a random part, and the best part can only be found in a few random garages in the UK... You'd just tell them to bugger off in that case, but for some reason in the shape of a CCG the concept is somehow really appealing.

Despite all this I found myself getting them out of the cupboard. At first the Vampire cards as there's talk of a few of the guys from Garforth Tabletop Gaming getting together for a game or two. Then I thought it would be fun to get the Potter cards out for a couple of games with Cat. They originally got put away around 2002/2003 when Cat developed an unbeatable Hermione deck and I got in a strop ;) . Luckily with my new gaming experience I managed to put together a better deck, and we're currently at 1 game each this time (plus I'm a much better loser now :D).

But still, I stand by my original opinion. I'm never buying another card again. These things are pure evil and should never be bought. There's so many great games out there that will cost you far less than getting into these things, there's really no justification for them! For those that really do love building decks try Dominion instead.

Back to work

2009-09-16T19:26:00.000+01:00

Got some contract work this week, and I have to say I'm enjoying it. I think the break from work was really beneficial, as I'm feeling a new enthusiasm for the stuff that I was previously feeling fed-up and frustred with.

Been a little too efficient and have almost finished the project I was brought on to do in around half the estimated time, but luckily they've decided that it's worth keeping me on for the rest of the week to help out with some other projects. :)

I'm also hopefully going to be in again next week for another project, so that should help with my funds. I can probably consider going to Essen this year now... very tempting!

A few things I would really like to see dropped from JRPGs

2009-09-15T21:21:00.004+01:00

Items / Endings / Areas that can only be found from following strategy guides from the start of the game.

E.g. The god damn Zodiac Spear in Final Fantasy 12. This item could only be got if you avoided opening 4 chests early on in the game, which had no marking, clues, or warnings to differentiate them from any of the other thousand identical chests. Nice.

Also see: Some of the missable quests in Last Remnant. I have to go back to a distant area and talk to a guy before and after each of 6 connected missions in order for a quest to open afterwards or it's missed forever?!?!? WTF.

No further explanation needed :)

70 hour+ game times.

Long gone are the days where good games were few and far between, or I just couldn't afford more than one game every 3 months. Nowadays I don't need my games artificially stretched out. Once I've seen every game mechanic around 100 times, and you've not got anything new in the
gameplay to surprise me, it's time to wrap up the plot and show me the credits.

Again, The last Remnant is a hideous offender in this respect. It's main way of stretching things out is unskippable extra long battle animations for any action (even swinging a damn sword). I've taken to reading a book whilst letting the battles play out, stopping occasionally to issue orders.

Personna 3 is an absolutely brilliant game in most respects, but suffers badly from this. I've been playing it on and off for around a year now, because the battle sides of it do get horribly repetitive until the boss shows up :| Does that freaky tower really need that many floors?

Unskippable, slow moving battle animations.

Already mentioned this above a little regarding The Last Remnant's (Seems like I'm picking on it, but honestly there is a lot to like about that game) gameplay being extended by the long winded battle animations . Final Fantasy is a well known offender for this as well (Knights of the Round being a move taking 1 minute 21 seconds to execute).

Yes we love eye candy, but is there really any reason to force it upon us the 10th time if we want to skip it?

Disgaea showed the world how it's done. You can turn all animations off! Now this may seem like it's taking the fun out of it, but when you're just fighting through an item world to level up you're glad of any time saving device the developers give you!

Alchemy

Oh how I hate alchemy in JRPGs. Some people might love the idea of alchemy in RPGS, but to me they're yet another mechanic to sell the strategy guides and prolong the game.

They're never intuitive, combinations being either trial and error, or done to fixed recipes you have to find in the world. Not that having a bloody recipe helps, because it's never obvious which is the only place in the whole frigging world you're going to find that piece of necrotic metal.

Even once you have all the ingredients, you usually don't dare make the ruddy thing. You never know if that ingredient you're using to build that slightly better sword is the only one of it's kind, and it might be the core ingredient of the even better (but only slightly so) betterer sword you'll get the recipe for in the next part of the game.

Seriously, what is alchemy bringing to the game? Sending me off to the other side of the world (via a strategy guide) for a piece of item that only drops from monster X if I have item B and have killed 300 of them. THAT'S NOT FUN. Give me shops with gradually improving stock and nice item rewards for doing side quests. IT WAS LIKE THAT FOR A REASON.

Got any pet JRPG hates of your own? Comment!

Image Credit : "Moogle" by Christina L. Frazer

Miracle berries? More like curiosity berries....

2009-09-14T21:06:00.002+01:00

This week we finally got round to having cat's Miracle berry tablets. They're the ones that affect your taste buds for about an hour, making sour & bitter things taste sweet instead.

We tried a range of different things:

Lemon & Lime - I loved these, tasted nice and sweet to me, but they were still a bit sharp flavoured for some of us.
Goats Cheese -tasted a lot lighter and creamier
Guinness - didn't taste like chocolate milkshake like advertised, but definitely took on a sweet almost milky taste. Very nice :)
Banana bread beer - win win win! So tasty, the sweet banana flavour really took over and made for a lovely drink.
Salt & Vinegar crisps - tasty good, not sure how to describe the flavour, kinda like a sweet peppery sort of flavour I think.
Pickled onions - I love pickled onions anyways, but the tablets really brought out the sweetness and gave them a very moreish quality.

Overall it was fun, but hardly mind blowing. I think whoever named them miracle fruits needs to get out and see the world a little more :D

Limited Connectivity :(

2009-09-13T23:15:00.002+01:00

Struggling to do a post this evening as I can't seem to connect to half the Internets :(

Something's blocking my tubes, so I'll try again tomorrow.

Brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

2009-09-12T12:18:00.003+01:00

I finally upgraded my phone.

I'm not talking my usual upgrade, i.e. whatever's free if I stay on my small-usage, off-peak, same network contract. I'm talking proper UPGRADE.

This was mainly driven by the fact that I'm supposed to be a techie web developer by trade, and it was getting a bit silly that I had never used mobile Internet, let alone developed for it! Luckily there wasn't as many choices as their might have been, as many of my friends were singing the praises of the new Google Android powered phones. That pretty much narrowed it down to 3 choices, and I eventually opted for the HTC Magic.

It's absolutely blown me away. I can't believe how far mobile technology has come. I'm now constantly connected and am finding it so convenient. How did I manage before? Will definitely have to try and make a web app that's designed for a mobile device as a learning experience.

Only niggle I have is it doesn't seem to like my home wi-fi network. When I have it connected to the Internet by wi-fi it can be very very slow. Any tips Android users? Before anyone says anything yes this problem was the same BEFORE I managed to drop it in my rum & coke. Amazingly the thing seems to have been totally unaffected by that experience (I don't recommend anyone repeating this with theirs though). Sturdy little bugger.

A fight between logic and love - dealing with insects

2009-09-11T12:00:00.003+01:00

I'm generally a very logical sort of bloke. I don't let sentimentality or superstition get the better of me. However when it comes to dealing with insects I have been conditioned by my girlfriend to rescue them and gently escort them out of the house. I find myself doing this even when she's not in, or when I'm at other peoples homes.

I guess it's not a bad thing. I definitely think the principle "First, do no harm." is a very good one to live by, but I know that insects are just efficient little impulse driven little robots. They don't have feelings. In fact I completely ruined ants for Cat one day by telling her how I learnt that most ants spend a huge percentage of their lives doing absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. Not even moving. Which if they really are self-aware, terrifies the living bejesus out of me.

Was reminded of this last night after a daddy longlegs spent most of the evening annoying me by flying between our two sets of lights like a maniac. Impossible to catch until it tired itself out and landed on a nearby wall (several hours after it's appearance), I was struck by how utterly ridiculous it was that I didn't just bash it with something nearby, as I'm probably more than entitled to given my much larger brain.

Still rescued the little sod though didn't I.

All you need is love (and a lot of plastic instruments)

2009-09-10T22:26:00.004+01:00

Should I buy it.. Shouldn't I buy it? It was a massive dilemma considering my current situation. I'd already turned down Batman : Arkham Asylum this month despite a very impressive demo and it getting great rave reviews. Did I really need another Rock Band?

I was mainly undecided because it seemed to go against everything I liked about the Rock Band concept: you buy the software once (okay maybe twice - Rock Band 2 was a pretty upgrade), and then all you buy after that is songs you want. Alarm bells sounded when they buggered it up with the AC:DC branded version, whereby they provided a severely crippled version of Rock Band, which even if you export the tracks to Rock Band / Rock Band 2 worked out much more expensive than a track pack would have been. Then I head the bad news that the Beatles version would go a step further and not allow you to export the songs, or play any non-Beatles DLC.

Not good. I decided I wasn't going to buy it. Then the trailers hit and I realised this wasn't going to be a crippled version of Rock Band, but an entirely rebranded, re-worked game. It showed a proper story mode. Lots of unlockable photos and videos and stuff. Plus: It's the frigging Beatles.

Combine this with a sudden discovery of a cache of Tesco Clubcard vouchers and of course I caved.

Do I regret it? Not at all! I have to say this is the slickest version of Rock Band so far, the presentation is gorgeous and there's lots of neat interface tweaks, for example a difficulty display on the screen where you choose between Guitar & Bass which is a huge help for avoiding tedious bass lines / obscenely tricky guitar tracks. So far we've only played a little way through the Story mode (Cat's still suffering with post-viral fatigue, we have to take things easy) and browsed the track listings but we've really enjoyed it. In fact I practically had to wrestle the controller off her last night and use the classic parenting line "It'll still be here tomorrow" ;).

The bonus content really is something special. We've only unlocked a little, but so far the photos and accompanying text are very interesting and we've learnt quite a few suprising things already. An impressive "prize" extra we unlocked today was the content of a very limited edition Christmas record that was sent out to Beatles fan club members in... 63 I think? Was very silly but incredibly fun to hear, the quality of the recording was outstanding!

Need to have a gathering at some point and see if we can get enough xbox microphones to try out these 3-part harmonies some of the tracks support. Then again I think most of me and my friends struggle to find the right pitch when solo :D

But is this going to happen? I honestly don't know. Even with 45 greatly varying tracks, I don't know how this would go down with my Rock Band buddies. The only couple of friends I know that are definitely Beatles fans don't normally touch Rock Band, and the friends I have really into Rock Band definitely aren't Beatles fans. Perhaps this isn't a match made in heaven?

For me and Cat though it's going to be a fantastic experience, and that's all we need.

WHUPS - got distracted

2009-08-07T09:43:00.003+01:00

Oh dear, very late with this post.

Got really into a new PHP project I'm using to get back up to speed. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and before I knew it it was 10pm. Have a quick game on the xbox and then went to sleep, completely forgetting that I have a daily blogging challenge.

Ah well I've not done badly to keep going as long as I did, and I won't give up just cos I missed one!

If you're interested the PHP project is just a simple card game that you can play against the computer, I'm hoping it'll include all the different technologies I want to make sure I remember how to use with PHP. Stuff like XML, Databases, File streaming etc.

Once I get it in a usable state I'm sure you'll see more details about it here :)

Why do we enjoy messing with our heads?

2009-08-05T22:13:00.003+01:00

Today I have finished Uzumaki, watched Dead Man's shoes, and nearly finished reading Grotesque. All three with very dark themes making for an uncomfortable read / watch.

I'm certainly not a very dark and gloomy sort of person overall, I'm just as likely to watch Spongebob Squarepants or read a manga involving a kung-fu fighting panda as I am to watch a horror movie, but sometimes I just get in the mood to get all dark.

Why do we enjoy this sort of things? What is it in us that makes us seek out these kind of experiences?

They don't make them like this anymore - EVIL

2009-08-04T21:27:00.004+01:00

A friend of mine used my laptop whilst he was over, and when I turned it on I found this on one of the tabs: Rick Dangerous - Flash Remake.

It's incredibly faithful, i.e. totally unforgiving with death often striking from nowhere. There's no way to beat the game but to memorise every trap, every enemy, and get those pixel perfect jumps right every time. Everything that would be flagged up as bad design nowadays.

I love it.

How appropriate, you fight like a cow!

2009-08-03T21:46:00.002+01:00

So tonight me and Cat finished playing Monkey Island - Special Edition.

Point and Click adventures are one of the few games that Cat enjoys playing with me, so when Monkey Island appeared in the xbox live arcade I couldn't resist buying it again for us to play. We weren't dissapointed as it's a very good remake. The graphical style works well and is a good bridge into the style used for the 3rd game. It was very clever of them to include the ability to switch back and forth between the original graphics and the new, both for nostalgia's sake and the fact that on some of the screens it's easier to spot items in the old graphics (how did that happen developers?).

As far as gameplay is concerned there's not much to complain about, Monkey Island was always one of the better designed point and click games of the 90s, so there's very few frustrating puzzles and only one part in the game where you can die (and frankly if you do die at that point you deserve it, in fact you actually get an achievement!). There's a couple of bits later on in the game that frustrated us, but luckily the remake contains a very handy hint guide. Try not to rely on the guide too much though, you'll ruin the fun of suddenly getting that light bulb moment!

If you've played it before... well actually I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have someone to it to share it with. It really is exactly the same game. Monkey Island veterans wont find any new challenges, and you'll get diminishing returns on the laughs. Pair that with the fact that we managed to finish it in less than 6 and a half hours with Cat doing the vast majority of the puzzle solving for the first time, and you don't get that much for you moneys. We also came across a couple of weird bugs where dialogue seemed to be left out, and we solved a puzzle without really knowing how it worked or what happened.

Playing it with someone new to the game is where the fun's at, especially if you're patient and let them solve the puzzles. Overall I really enjoyed it and really hope they do a special edition of the sequel as I never managed to finish that when I was younger!

weekend of fun -> so so tired

2009-08-02T21:58:00.005+01:00

Not writing much today after a monster weekend gaming (and drinking) marathon has left me exhausted!

Spent this evening brain dead in front of the TV. Luckily had the fun and easy-going Kung fu Panda to watch, and followed it with the awesomely retro and over the top Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

Might just watch an episode of Ghost in the Shell before crashing for the night.

GiftTRAP - a brilliant game for friends!

2009-08-01T21:54:00.003+01:00

As usual had a fantastic day at Beyond Monopoly in York today, played plenty of interesting and varying games.

Finally though I've visited enough to be able to borrow a game, so grabbed the one I've had my eyes on for ages: GiftTRAP. The reason I've had my eyes on this for ages, yet haven't played it at Beyond Monopoly is it's very much a social game and only really works with people you know.

The whole thing revolves around how well you know people, you have to pick out gifts from the available gifts that round for every player, then rate the gifts, then scoring is done based on how well matched the gifts are with the person.

As you need to both give gifts other players want, and receive gifts you do want to win the game this is a game that totally will not work with people you don't know, and will drag on as you receive heavy penalties if you give presents people don't want.

Amongst friends this game was fantastic. There were plenty of laughs as you can't give everyone everything they want every round, and it leads to some very strange pairings :D. It's a shame it's impossible to get hold of now, and the reprint they're doing has the adult content removed (night with an escort / year supplies of condoms / chocolate boobs - that sort of thing), as those presents probably caused the biggest laughs..

Even with those cards removed though I'm sure it will still be well worth getting. You can do far worse if you want a new party game!

Oh My God

2009-07-31T23:57:00.003+01:00

Friends over this weekend.

This is the spotify playlist (in reverse order) of what they've subjected me to so far.

Someone please help me!

Emails from crazy people

2009-07-30T20:48:00.002+01:00

Was going to write a little opinion piece up here this evening, but ended up a lot more tired than I expected after a trip to Leeds and a few chores.

So instead, here's a link to another fun website: Emails From Crazy People.

Enjoy.

SMBC Theatre - LOL Cats: 50 Years later

2009-07-29T20:30:00.004+01:00

Here's an amusing sketch predicting the future of LOLCats courtesy of SMBC Theatre, a comedy sketch show created by Zach Weiner of the awesomely funny www.smbc-comics.com and friends.

Find more here : www.smbc-theater.com and don't forget to subscribe to their RSS feed!

Are JRPGs really worth playing?

2009-07-28T21:44:00.002+01:00

I love JRPGs. Well at least I think I do.

Secret of Mana planted the seed (for anyone that's actually played it the pun was unintended), and FF7 really fanned the flames (mixed metaphors ahoy!).

12 years later and I'm trying to get back into Persona 3 on the PS2 again (clocked 60 hours on it so far, probably about 5.6 through so another 10 or 15 hours left I reckon) and I'm finding myself asking myself if it's worth my time... Persona 3 is a well-executed critically acclaimed, innovative example of a JRPG. So why am I thinking of packing it in?

It's all about pay-off for hours put in. It has a great plot, but only about the quantity you'd find in an average anime series, probably less... so if I want plot I'd be better off watching something. How about the game play? Well fun at first, with lots of new mechanics I'm not used to... but at the 60 hour mark I really am not going to see anything new. Perhaps this could have been said at about the 10 hour mark too...

I've lost that compulsive need to uncover every secret, max out all the characters skills, see every line of dialogue that I used to have when I was younger and I didn't have that many games to play. Now I don't need and perhaps don't want a game that lasts 20 hours +. My best kicks seem to come from short and sweet little indie games (see a lot of my previous blog posts), action blockbuster type games (e.g. gears of war & halo), and casual stuff (I'm beginning to think I'm Popcap's bitch now).

Maybe it's an age thing.

Bang goes the theory

2009-07-27T22:42:00.003+01:00

Finally, TV gets some science again.

Tonight I watched an episode of Bang goes the theory, it's kinda like Braniac in that you get lots of zany experiments being done, but they also have quite a lot of documentary style investigations into how tech's being used in the real world.

An especially impressive experiment was a challenge to take the theory behind smoke rings, and attempting to up it in scale until it was a vortex cannon powerful enough to knock down a wall several feet away:

Doesn't really go into the detail of the science enough really for me, but is very enjoyable and you can always delve in deeper if you want to later.

Definitely worth a watch!

I do like to be beside the seaside

2009-07-26T22:58:00.004+01:00

I live in a tourist city and this probably has contributed largely to my hatred of being seen as a tourist. Usually I actively avoid doing touristy things and don't even really know what attractions are in the area.

This isn't very helpful when I have family or friends visiting and they want to know where to go for the day. My usual answers are "the pub", "town", "Leeds", "cinema". However this week my dad's been visiting, and we'd already exhausted my normal suggestions. Luckily Cat has had a lot of foresight and had gathered up a lot of attraction leaflets, and we started by spending a great afternoon at the Yorkshire Air Museum a couple of days ago.

Today my dad wanted to go to Scarborough, having never been before. I was feeling a bit more open to the whole touristy thing but was still a little apprehensive as I thought it might be a little bit of a disappointment as the front is surprising small so there might not be much to do and it can be a pain in the ass to get to by car.

I needn't have worried. Had an easy journey in and by taking advantage of Scarborough's great park & ride service we avoided the usual problem of trying to find a parking space. As for there not being much to do, we just had a really good time slowly meandering up the sea front and taking in the atmosphere. It's amazing that despite the constant progression of technology and the tendency for corporations to take over everything independant and replacing it with identikits stores, a lot of Scarborough still feels very old-fashioned.

We saw old fairground equipment, donkey rides, deckchairs for hire, hideous traditional seafood (anyone for jellied eels or whelks?), people flying kites, and the classic bucket and spade for sale. We also partook in Fish & Chips and a Mr. Whippy 99 ice-cream. It was ace and a real nostalgic trip :)

Must go again soon. :D

1vs100 - I love it then I hate it

2009-07-25T22:08:00.004+01:00

Well this is a surprise. Today I planned to write about how much fun I'm having with 1vs100 on xbox live. But then this evening's live event was so frustrating and tedious, now I really don't know how I feel about it.

At first I loved it. I really enjoyed answering along with the questions, competing for score, the tension of whether the "One" would take his currently earned prize or push his luck. Also would I or someone I know get picked to play? However today's episode was dreadful.

They say they select people for the "One" and the hundred-strong "Mob" for him to play against based on players past-performance. But there's no way this can be true as tonight the general performance was terrible. The easiest questions were being incorrectly answered, or at least being dragged out with lifeline uses. The questions get more interesting and harder the longer the current player has been playing, so when you get people consistently being knocked out early / taking the low prize you can get very bored.

It's also feeling very disjointed. Near the end of the game I felt like I was only getting to answer a couple of stupid questions before being shunted off to see the instructional videos / stat reports over and over again.

It's still in beta, and still shows a lot of promise so I'll try to keep an open mind. Definitely recommend trying it out, especially the live shows as it's certainly a unique experience and a good indication of the new kinds of entertainment we're going to see being offered on the current generation of consoles.

Rediscovering drunken poker

2009-07-25T04:23:00.002+01:00

Today I rediscovered the fun of poker!

Too long I have been playing for money, regardless of fun. Today, me and my dad and Chris got absolutely drunk and had the most fun I've had for ages. Generally, I've taken poker a little too seriously, because of the cash I've been playing for.

This evening, we played for fun. And oh what fun it was!
Play poker. play it without money. You'll be surprised!

Mmmm curry

2009-07-23T21:49:00.004+01:00

I love curry and cooking curries, but just can't keep all the ingredients you need to cook them
so I usually have to rely on those sauce in jars.

Sometimes they just don't cut it, so then I use Rafi's spicebox. You choose the curry you want and they measure out all the fresh ingredients for you, customised for the amount of spiciness you like, and put it in an airtight heat sealed bag for you to take home.

All that's required is then for you to cook it up with the meat and vegetables of your choice, add in some creamed coconut and/or tomatoes, and preferably leave it overnight to let all the flavours come out (not compulsory).

The closest thing I've ever had to restaurant/takeaway curry. If you're even in York, pop down Goodramgate and grab a curry or order online!

Lies, damn lies, and information on PC hardware boxes

2009-07-22T22:00:00.002+01:00

I don't really understand how PC hardware manufacturers get away with writing the rubbish they do on the boxes.

Apparently, according to the box on my new wireless ADSL router, wireless G is only good for Web surfing or email.

If I want to download an MP3, I need wireless G+.

If I want to do online gaming I need wireless G+ MIMO.

Streaming video? My goodness I'll need N1 MIMO.

According to this I shouldn't have bought the router. Completely inaccurate sales spiel on a box that tries to dissuade me from buying it? Why and how do they get away with these lies?

Going to the doctors rarely achieves anything for me

2009-07-21T22:03:00.005+01:00

It often takes a lot to get me to go to the doctors. It's not that I'm scared of going to the doctors, or don't like doctors. It just very rarely produces any results for me. Usually I'll go in with something like a weird black mark that didn't use to be there, an ache, maybe problems with stomach pain or general lethargy, and I'll get a big 'ol MEH from the doc.

Today I went to the doctors for a muscle pain in my chest (resulting from buzzcocks gig moshpit) that if anything has been feeling worse rather than better. I've also got a long-running problem with feeling bloated and burping too much. Was told bumps to the chest area often take a while to settle down so it's probably nothing to worry about that it's feeling worse rather than better, oh and try eating slower and see if that sorts out the stomach thing. Not particularly convincing...

When I talk to the doctor I always feel that I get run through the "is it going to kill you" checklist. As soon as the doctor rules out symptoms that might be something dangerous you can see them instantly lose interest. Still eating? Not bleeding anywhere weird? Probably fine then, carry on, see if it changes.

At first this annoyed me and I felt like they weren't giving me proper attention or even being neglectful. Then I came to the realisation... they're tech support. They're tech support for my body and like most tech support and support programmers they don't have time for the small niggly stuff you can work around. They just want to make sure they have the time to debug the bigger problems.

When I came to this way of thinking I kinda had a bit more sympathy for them.... So I'll wait until these low priority bugs persist long enough for the priority to be increased ;)

Doing nothing is underrated

2009-07-20T18:42:00.006+01:00

Today I achieved absolutely nothing. Nothing new there you'll all be thinking, but usually I'll get done a couple of jobs I've been planning to do, or enjoy something I've planned to read or watch, or get on the Xbox with something I've been meaning to play.

Today I just didn't really do anything. I listened to what happened to be on the radio. I ate whatever I happened to have in the house. I read whatever articles happened to be in my news reader, but I didn't really do anything in a planned way and it was so damn relaxing.

Not everyone can do that. Some people when they aren't achieving something "worthwhile" start to panic and start planning the next grand ideas. Must build something. Must rewire something. Must bake something. As soon as it gets to a point where nothings left in the task queue they panic. These are also generally speaking the same people that are always complaining about how they're so busy all the time and don't have time to enjoy themselves. *sigh*

I think it comes down to one of two things.

1. People being scared. If they're not constantly doing these projects, they might start to think about things. Might start to think about what they're doing in life, and how they're not entirely happy about it. Rather than confronting these difficult questions they constantly distract themselves from them, needing an insurmountable list of things to do to avoid leaving a gap.

2. Guilt. Some people have it drilled into them if they're not doing something "worthwhile" then they're sinning or at the very least being selfish and decadent. I find this idea rubbish because in the grand scheme of things we're going to all be dust at the end of our lives. Most actions are just as worthwhile as others. Obvious exceptions being noble things like charity work and stuff, but spending time re-organising your books / doing all but the most fundamental of housework is just as worthwhile in the long run as sitting on the toilet doing sudoku. Even if there is a god, I find it hard to believe he's petty enough to care whether you spent that weekend in July building a new section of your garden or watching the clouds go by.

Take a moment. Relax. Realise that doing nothing is fine. It's very liberating. :)

Passage - proof for me that games can be art

2009-07-19T22:25:00.005+01:00

Passage is a 5 minute long game (if that) that produced more emotional response from me than 95% of the media I've read, watched, played or listened to.

Firstly go here, download the game, and play it. You might need to press B a few times to reduce (increase?) the resolution of it as today's monitors blow it up a bit too big and make it a little blocky to see whats going on.

After playing it, if you didn't really get it, try playing it again.

Then and only then read what I thought:

This is an incredible piece of art that takes a theme and explores it in a way that wouldn't be possible in any other media. At first it's confusing as the graphical style just looks a mess and you can't tell what's going on. Then you notice it. You see the way the character's position has moved relative to the passage. You notice how the the compression of the pixels has subtly shifted.

Seriously, if you haven't played it yet, play it before you carry on reading this.

At first you start near the left of the screen at the beginning of your journey. Ahead of you is everything you will experience, compressed together in a tight pattern. Gradually as you move through the passage, you encounter these things & events. You might meet someone that will accompany you through this passageway. As time goes by your position on the screen has moved further right, and the things you have encountered have become compressed in a tight pattern behind you.

The passageway represents life. This is you travelling through life. Behind you are your memories, ahead of you is your future.

Eventually you notice the characters starting to age, soon you notice that there are more past events behind you than there are future ones in front of you. That's when I started feeling a little apprehension but there was nothing to do but carry on. Older and older, less and less to encounter ahead. The girl I was travelling through the passage way changes into a gravestone. My character can do nothing but carry on down the passageway, now travelling in a much slower way until he does the same.

I cried. I started crying again when I wrote this. I think I need a drink.

A wedding in Italy

2009-07-18T21:12:00.006+01:00

So a wedding in Ravello Italy eh? Certainly a bit different!

First thing, I hope none of you ever have to wear a suit in that kind of weather. Not pleasant in the slightest. A very good job the wedding organiser insisted the service couldn't be any earlier than 5 p.m. otherwise I might have actually melted.

The service was well... religious, so not really got much to say about it. Did get a holy water shower during the unexpected "Memory of baptism" part of the ceremony. Oh and I accidentally gave Cat a fit of the giggles by saying "Mmmmm Pie Jesu" during that particular Hymn. Luckily Cat had already done her reading (and very well) so I wasn't killed on the spot.

Very nice drinks afterwards. Actually come to think of it very nice drinks was a theme of the whole day, so it's no wonder I had an amazing time ;). Fantastic 6-course wedding breakfast and some wonderful heartfelt speeches that gave me a great warm fuzzy feeling or maybe that was caused by more of the very nice drinks... A highlight of the breakfast for me was an unexpected power cut which caused a break in the music to be quickly filled by some incredible and impromptu classical singing from the brother of the bride and one of the bride's friends from uni.

So all that was left was the traditional disco part of the wedding, could this be where it goes wrong? Not in the slightest! A very sweet first dance, followed by the Baywatch theme tune (the groom being a fan of the Hof being a well known in-joke). Add in an amazing air guitar performance to "Sweet child of mine" and it was a sure thing the rest of the evening was going to be legendary.

Back from Italy!

2009-07-17T22:18:00.002+01:00

Had a fantastic few days in Italy this week, more specifically in Ravello on the Amalfi coast.

Beautiful weather, great food & drink, brilliant company, and attended an incredible wedding to boot.

Might write more details about it later, far too tired to right now.

Beautiful short art "game" - Today I die

2009-07-16T14:03:00.000+01:00

Today I die is another interesting little art game from Daniel Benmergui.

Daniel's games tend to revolve around how small changes in position or context can completely change a scene or story. I can't really say anything more about it without spoiling the experience, so dive in and have a play. They're very short so you've got nothing to lose!

Also be sure to check out some of his other games: I wish I were the moon and Storyteller.

And along the same lines Gregory Weir's amazing (I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors

Got any recommendations for games along these sort of lines? Please post them below!

Erfworld - a comic for tabletop gamers

2009-07-15T13:48:00.000+01:00

Erfworld is a fantasy web comic which takes the conventions of tabletop gaming (hexes, turns, leveling etc.) and applies them to a world with narrative and characters.

The absurdity of these rules in a real-world context is well noted by the protagonist of this story, "Parson" who has somehow ended up transported into this world from ours, finding himself in-charge of commanding the power-mad Stanley's troops.

Throw in troop types assembled from a mix of pop culture such as children's TV characters, marshmallow sweets, and Internet memes and you've got yourself a very odd-sounding cocktail that somehow works.

One of the things that really makes the story work is that the characters never break the fundamental rules of the world, however absurd they are, and this somehow gives everything a sound continuity, and makes the twists all the more clever.

Definite recommended reading, and they've just come to the end of Book 1 so there's no better time to start catching up!

Odd habits - overly complex shopping lists

2009-07-14T13:25:00.000+01:00

Since taking a break from work, I do a lot of our food shopping. I wasn't brilliant at it, it took me ages and I almost always used to miss some things we needed.

So started doing shopping lists. But I found using a shopping list meant that shopping would take soooo long, as I'd always end up travelling back and forth the same aisles repeatedly getting items one at a time. I'd still almost always forget things too, and using a pen to cross things off was a pain as I'd be constantly putting it in different pockets and having to search for it!

So then I tried doing shopping lists a different way. Starting with a traditional list I'd then write the list out again, but on a A4 piece of paper, putting the items on the page in a way that roughly mapped the location of the items in the supermarket.

Sounds bonkers and overly complicated, but it's amazing how much more efficient it's made my shopping trips.

Reading this back it sounds like something my friend Bytey would do. That's probably not a good thing. ;)

Off to Italy we go!

2009-07-13T13:20:00.001+01:00

Off to the Amalfi Coast today for a few days in Italy to attend my brother-in-laws wedding. Never been to Italy before but sun, pasta, and good wine? Sounds great. :)

Here's hoping for a straightforward flight :). I'm queuing up a few blog posts so I can hopefully keep this daily streak going! Never expected me to carry this on for so long!

Indication #134 you're getting old - Moshpits

2009-07-12T13:00:00.008+01:00

Ouch ouch ouch.

I ache all over and have at least two minor injuries :D ... Still worth it though, the buzzcocks were awesome and getting into the heart of the moshpit was great fun at the time. Always nice to get a little of the aggression out of your system ;).

The rest of the day was great too. The Ukulele orchestra did not disappoint (see yesterdays post). Captain Backfire were a fantastic new discovery bringing shed loads of funk to the festival, I'll definitely be looking out for them in the future. Aerosoul were unbelievably good for their age and I hope at least some of them carry on with playing music. The only disappointment were Chumbawamba, they've really changed direction in a big way and that's fair enough, but perhaps a name change is in order to save on the number of confused faces at their gigs? Their new more mellow acoustic sound still contains the same political drive, but you could just feel everyone there was waiting for tubthumping and it's ilk, which they not only refused to do but rubbed the crowds face in it by throwing one or two of the lyrics into their other songs.

All in all fantastic day and really great value, hope next year is as good! Oh and it's always amusing looking back at the photos and realising just how silly you looked :)

Garforth Arts Festvial's Playground Party

2009-07-11T13:13:00.003+01:00

Early post today as I'm off to the Garforth Arts Festvial's Playground Party to see amongst others the ukelele orchestra of Great Britain :)

Oh and Chumbawamba and the Buzzcocks too :D Should be fun!

Sims 3 - The odd couple

2009-07-10T21:49:00.000+01:00

Got a request to share my sims online so people can get a copy of the Nick & Bytey experience.

So here you go

Recently Bytey-sim has took up gardening. In this picture he hadn't had a chance to change from his mad scientist job, I guess the wig is compulsory.

And Nick-sim's took up painting. Though despite me giving him a brilliant landscape view, he insists on drawing stick figures:

*sigh*

RepRap will be to patent infringement what computers were to media piracy

2009-07-09T14:46:00.005+01:00

RepRap is an incredible open source project to create an affordable Replicating Rapid-prototyper. In simple: imagine you could connect a printer to your PC that could print solid 3D objects.

Sounds like science fiction doesn't it? Amazingly the project already allows you to build a RepRap that will create plastic objects for around €500, and most the parts for the RepRap can be created using a RepRap (spooky eh?), so the more people that have them the easier and cheaper they'll be to build!

Some of the objects it can already build are already pretty useful. You've got coat hangers, iPod mounts, fly swatters, door handles, shot glasses, rings, water filter inserts, and other things.

First thought - awesome.
Second thought - when the revolution happens, some corporations are going to lose a lot of money.
Third thought - corporations don't give up without a fight.

And what has the recent music debacle taught us? That's right! The way forward isn't to evolve and embrace new technology, the way forward is to sue the crap out of your customers. When RepRap takes off, whether it's this year or in 10 years time, people are going to share files online that will allow you build useful objects with your RepRap.

And some of these designs are going to be for objects already patented by big companies.

Imagine Dyson have a patented plastic doohickey that makes their vacuum cleaners work. If you started manufacturing these plastic doohickeys and selling them at a cheaper price than Dyson do, you'd suddenly find a lawyer appearing at your door with a cease & desist. Taking into account the costs involved in setting up a production run & sales channels, no-one is going to risk it.

But put a RepRap design for the plastic doohickey online and suddenly Dyson have lost a source of income. Everyone just creates their own plastic doohickeys at home. (Yes this assumes the revolution has happened and the RepRap is as common as the iPod). Other examples of grey areas include models of copyrighted characters such as Pokemon, or the latest brand-name designs for vases & glasses.

So who's going to get sued? Is it the person creating the plastic doohickey? Is it the person creating the designs? Or the person sharing the file containing the instructions for creating the plastic doohickey?

Or is it the creators of the RepRap?

It's mp3s all over again :)

Multiplayer games are great. Shame most people aren't.

2009-07-08T21:08:00.004+01:00

It's so frustrating. I love multiplayer online games like Halo, Gears of War, Left 4 dead. I was into a MMORPG for a while too.

Unfortunately at the moment I can't stand 90% of the people playing them. This wasn't always the case, I don't know whether it's got worse due to the technical barrier being lifted, or maybe my tolerance has dropped dramatically in the last couple of years.

Here's my main frustrations:

Problem 1: Kids

Can't we have some kind of adults only tickbox when we're joining games? I don't want to have to put up with someone filling my headset with random high pitched screeching sounds, or shouts for their mum to bring their favourite E-number filled snack treat.

Why are these parents letting their young children play these murder simulators anyway? ;)

Problem 2: Bad losers

Almost every time I play a game online I seem to be put on the same team as the guy who has to flood the chat with the latest injustice that caused him to die. Only a combination of lag, hacks, camping, and glitching can kill the bad loser. It's never because the other guy did something right. Face it guys, unless you're in your teens and unemployed or a student, 90% of the people out there are going to better than you. I've accepted this, you should too. No-one likes a whinger.

Problem 3: Bad winners

You won, congratulations is in order. It doesn't give you the right to really insult everyone in the lobby afterwards. Chances are they're just gonna give you negative feedback. It's just a game so enjoy playing it rather than bragging about it afterwards. Incidently bad winners and bad losers tend to be the same people a lot of the time.

Problem 4: The silent loner

If you like playing online games pretty much solo that's fine, there's plenty of deathmatch based games designed for that. Just don't join objective-based games like Left 4 Dead, and Halo's objective based game types. If you're going to play a team game plug your damn mic in!!!!

I think this is probably my rantiest post yet :D

The Ten

2009-07-07T22:53:00.003+01:00

Ran into an interesting piece of text, well just a list really, called The Ten. I found it by following some links on a fun little music video called Why don't bees go to heaven that was kicking around on reddit.

It's a really nice and positive take on atheism, stressing that just because there is no god that doesn't take any of the magic out of life. Take a look at the site and give it a read and see what you think.

I'd skip 10:9 if I were you though, that'd take a lot of the fun out of this infinite universe for me ;)

Epic weekend

2009-07-06T20:56:00.002+01:00

Weekend was fantastic. Amazingly we managed to time things brilliantly with the crazy weather throughout so it never really put a dampener on things. I say we, there was an expedition to a nearby cafe that returned back soaked after it went from sunny to stormy and back again in about 15 minutes, but luckily I was hiding inside away from the pollen so didn't get caught out. :)

Plenty of good food, good drink, and great company, with a fun day at Alton Towers to finish things off in style.

Will see what photos we have on Cat's new camera to post tomorrow.

Big thanks to everyone that organised and contributed to the weekend. You are all made of win.

If only this picture was real

2009-07-05T10:00:00.000+01:00

If only this picture was real. It would be super-epic-awesome.

That site has a lot of ace pictures on. Another one to add to the Google Reader methinks.

Ben There, Dan That

2009-07-04T10:00:00.000+01:00

An English point and click adventure.

An English point and click adventure that's funny & has good puzzles.

An English point and click adventure that's funny & has good puzzles and is FREE.

Why are you still reading this? Go play it!

Then go and buy the sequel for a measly £2.99!

WARNING (Or recommendation, depending on how childish you are):- Contains swears and fart jokes.

Off to the cottage we go!

2009-07-03T10:00:00.000+01:00

Huzzah, it's that time of year again where me and a big group of buddies go off somewhere in the countryside for a weekend of booze, BBQs, sunshine (though maybe not this time), and lots of fun!

This does mean I might not be able to put any entries up whilst I'm away, we shall see what the wonders of mobile internets allow. Might just end up with some back-dated entries once I return if not. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Wozard of Iz

2009-07-02T19:24:00.001+01:00

Having obviously no first-hand experience of the 60s, I really enjoy finding those rare oddities that give you a small taste of the extremes of the culture born in that decade.

The Wozard of Iz is one of those oddities, something a friend pointed out to me a while back, but I've just had a chance to listen to again in full. A fantastical synthesizer-driven alternative version of The Wizard of Oz. Full of crazy sounds helping to put forward some interesting thoughts and ideas.

Download it here for free, give it a listen and see what you think.

Auditorium

2009-07-01T20:34:00.006+01:00

This extended break has given me a chance to trawl through the hundreds and hundreds of starred news posts in google reader that I didn't have time to read when they first hit. Most of them weren't worth the time, the item well out of date, or the items just plain boring. Hidden amongst those however are several gems.

Auditorium is one of those gems.

A decidedly minimalist game, all you're presented with when you start playing is a thin stream of light, a circle, and what looks like a bar from a graphic equalizer. Quickly you realise you can move the circle, and dragging it into the stream of light affects the direction of the light. Experimenting further a few beams of light hit the equalizer bar, and a haunting piano melody starts to play.

OK, it's got my attention.

Next level, I have two circles, but with different direction arrows. No problem. Next level I learn that you can affect the power of your circles by dragging the edges. Oh and more equalizers for more instruments, nice. It starts to get a bit samey, I guess to make sure that people are comfortable, but I began to lose interest. Eventually they throw in some additional gameplay elements and my interest piqued again. Didn't take long before I'd finished the levels in the free flash game, and a teaser level from the levels available in the full version clearly shows the developers have more tricks up there sleeves.

I'm going to pick up Auditorium when I have the time to play it, it's a really beautiful game both visually & aurally and is a perfect puzzler for spare moments where you fancy a chill-out. Helps that the price is a very reasonable $10.99 too.

Garforth Tabletop Gamers pt2

2009-06-30T20:08:00.004+01:00

So Saturday I went to Garforth TableTop Gamers for the 2nd time and had a blast. Didn't really write much about it on Saturday as got home very beer'd up thanks to going out for a curry afterwards with a couple of friends.

First game played was the strangely titled O Zoo le Mio. Fun little game based around blind-bidding for titles to help you create a better zoo theme park than the opponent. My "Gorilla Villa" lagged behind as I paid out way too much early on leaving me in quite a weak position for the rest of the rounds, but I still enjoyed it. Be warned this game does punish you blowing your cash early!

Following that a quick round of No Thanks, a fiendish card game you definitely need to play more than once to really enjoy (you get trounced the first time), unfortunately we only had time for one game before other tables finished their games, giving us the opportunity to get into something a bit heavier, my first game of Imperial.

Imperial is a war game that isn't really a war game. You take the role of a financial investor out to make as much money as you can by influencing countries actions and movements to make yourself as much money as possible. The player with the most shares in a country gets to control it's actions (building factories, raising armies, maneuvering armies), but as other investor's invest money in the country they may get enough shares to take control themselves. In the space of one game at one point or another I had controlled the actions of Italy, Britain, and France (but rarely at the same time). It's pretty mind-bending to play a game where you have to get out of the mindset of "being" a country, and I constantly found myself thinking what I will do next with Italy well after I lost control of it! Definitely a game I'd recommend if you have a few hours to play as it's far simpler than it looks and very interesting to play!

Nearly time for curry by this point, but time for one more game. The bluffer's game Vabanque. The game is set at a casino, where you need to get as much money from the tables by the end of the 4th round. Each round the players determine how much the tables are worth by placing chips on them, place their action tokens on the tables, and move to a table to play at. The trick is the players action cards. One is a bluff and does nothing, one raises the value the of the table, one steals any players winners at that table. The catch is that you don't know which a player has played, making this a fantastic game of bluff and psychology. Great fun!

Looking forward to the next one :).

Water Brain

2009-06-29T17:31:00.004+01:00

Water Brain is a fantastic 3D animation by a Chinese animator, really unique style with plenty of influence from both steampunk and classic Chinese literature & culture.

The quality of the animation and the ideas contained in the film are outstanding, shows amazing talent and god knows how many hours of hard work. Well worth spending only 15 minutes of your time to sit and watch!

Micheal Jackson Tribute Mix

2009-06-28T15:56:00.002+01:00

Now this is more like it. No hyperbole, no drama, just a clever mix of some of Michael Jackson's best music.

Nice one Jaguar Skills.

Booze, Games & Curry

2009-06-27T23:50:00.000+01:00

Great games, great company, great booze, great curry.

All in all an ideal day. :)

More tomorrow ;)

Micheal Jackson has died, sad but that's all

2009-06-26T19:30:00.004+01:00

I hate it when famous people die. It leads to over-exposure on every media, with fans & celebrities gushing like the deceased was a genetic combination of the best bits of Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Jesus.

I'm not going to go on about allegations, mistakes, the way he lead his life etc. It's really not really relevant. A guy who created some amazing music in the 70s and 80s and transformed the music industry has died today, but today is not a life changing event. Today the world has not changed (except for the unlucky few that paid well over the odds for tickets on eBay). We're not even really that worse off for it, I think the time that Micheal Jackson could manage to have any real effect on the world was well over a long time ago.

It's sad, I get it. Especially for the family. But COME ON, get over it quietly and in private, and perhaps give some screen time to something more important like stolen elections or something.

OMFG cute

2009-06-24T21:49:00.003+01:00

Got this in my reader back in March, but only just got around to watching it

SOOOOO CUTE.

Lars and the real girl

2009-06-24T19:49:00.002+01:00

Watched an absolutely beautiful film last night called Lars and the real girl.

Initially I was very apprehensive, the films premise really does not fit in with the fact that I find it very difficult to watch embarrassing situations. In fact, I nearly had to turn it off in the scene where the "real girl" was about to make it's first appearance, the director having brilliantly drawn out the moment for as long as possible.

So yeah... it's a film about a strange introverted bloke with a full-blown mental delusion that his real doll is a real person who's in love with him. [WARNING :- link contains pictures of fake boobies]. How a film with this premise manages to be one of the most touching and wonderful films about community and friendship I've ever seen, rather than a crass smut-filled comedy disaster, is testament to the incredible job done by everyone involved, especially the actor playing Lars.

Honestly, don't let the premise stop you. You need to see this film!

All stores selling second hand media are stealing

2009-06-23T15:17:00.007+01:00

Firstly I want to avoid any (undue) criticism by stating firmly: I do not personally believe sharing files online is stealing. I'm just taking the record & movie industries' logic a little further to a quite strange conclusion.

A major contention point with the MPAA & RIAA's arguments is that they've again and again associated file sharing with stealing. Many people argue against this because it's not literally stealing (For it to be literally stealing someone who had purchased the item would have to be denied it due to the file sharer's action). However in a slightly twisted bit of logic, the stealing is explained as stealing a sale from the artist. This takes more than a slight jump in logic when applied to file sharing as it assumes that if you hadn't have been offering the file online on your P2P network of choice at that time, the downloader would have popped straight off to the shops to buy the song legally. Dubious at best, but let's stick with this and take it further.

So: If you prevent the artist/creator from making a sale you're stealing.

I can think of a much more concrete example of this than file sharing: selling second-hand media. Most media retail stores are either in or are starting to grow into the 2nd-hand market. Companies like Game in the UK and Gamestop in the US are enjoying very large profits and a large percentage isn't down to selling new games/films. It's down to selling 2nd hand ones. You see, a company can make a much much higher margin selling a 2nd hand copy than selling a new one, as the publisher and developer get nothing from the 2nd hand sale.

They're doing this very aggressively as well. They'll often check to see if they can offer a 2nd hand copy to a customer standing there cash in hand, already commited to the purchase of a brand new copy, for only a few quid less: This is absolutely 100% stealing a sale from the artist. Not only are these guys blatently "stealing" as per the definition above, the file sharer does it for free and the retailer is making millions from it.

But they're suing the single moms first eh?

The Sims 3 - another dose of digital crack

2009-06-22T23:02:00.005+01:00

So I caved and got myself a copy of Sims 3 after reading that wonderful blog the other day.

I have to say I'm very impressed with the improvements and as you can see by the timestamp on this post I'm completely addicted. The world is a lot more convincing now with no loading screens between locations as the game engine now encompasses a complete town you can zoom in and out of. The Sims have real personality and the Sims I created based on me and a friend started off very convincingly. The interface is good, although a little strangely structured at times. The Sims are quite a bit better at generally looking after themselves and will general keep themselves alive quite happily.

Here's the problem though: The developers didn't want to take the risk of upsetting any of the players of the game. Even with the Sims set at the highest level of free will they will never do anything situation changing. They'll repeatedly freak out at a broken appliance but won't try to repair it or call a repairman in without your say so lest the spend some of your precious money. They'll never take on or leave a job unless you give the go ahead. Hell they wont even let someone into their house as far as I can tell!

Half the appeal in this sort of game for me is watching the unexpected, and it first I was pleasantly surprised with the minor day-to-day actions the Sims were performing matching their chosen traits. However it's only the minor stuff that's automated. Everything else seems to be up to you to do.

Fair enough, this sort of micromanagement is what the existing user base is used to, and what they probably want. Me, I really want to just wind them up and watch them go. It disappoints me that the developers didn't add an option for true free will for people like me that primarily want to see things unfold. Also why the hell isn't the purchasing of extra content integrated directly into the build menu instead of a ruddy website? That's so 90s ;).

Still, that's complaining about the game for what it isn't. What it is,is by far the best version of the Sims so far, which I will no doubt lose weeks of my life playing with. I just can't help the niggling feeling that the developers took the safe route and it isn't quite the game it could have been.

Don't listen to salespeople about pre-orders!

2009-06-21T22:51:00.003+01:00

Heard a massive load of garbage coming from the mouths of the staff at Gamestation about how necessary it is to pre-order.

A dad was in there buying a game for his kid, and was asked if they were planning on getting the next "Modern Warfare" game in November. The dad made the mistake of saying they were, which prompted the doom & gloom warnings from the member of staff about how hard copies of the previous modern warfare game were to get at launch, and how every big game sells out and needs to be pre-ordered, and how they should put a deposit down there and then and then they would "hopefully" get a copy.

What utter crap. Other than the Wii & Nintendo DS consoles, I can't remember the last time anything to do with gaming sold-out. ESPECIALLY the big released like Modern Warfare and GTA! If anything it's the games that sell less that are harder to get (try finding a copy of fire emblem on the DS, or valkyria chronicles on PS3). Shops like Game & Gamestation buy in shed-loads of these blockbuster games knowing that they will sell, and will make sure they don't run out of copies as they don't want to miss out on sales. Pre-ordering is all a big con to stop you shopping around for the best price when the game is out. Disc-based media is NEVER in short supply as the manufacturing process is so fast & cheap, and scarcity in supply is not a good thing for the publisher like it is in the case of hardware like the Wii & DS.

So in short: Don't listen to these people, don't put down a deposit on a game that they won't even tell you how much it'll cost. If you do really want to have something on the release day use a good online retailer like www.shopto.net who guarantee delivery on release date or they'll give you money back!

Brain.... So close to exploding

2009-06-20T19:22:00.003+01:00

Today was another Beyond Monopoly meeting, and I arrived just in time to make up the numbers in a game of Struggle of Empires. Didn't really realise what I was getting myself in for, this was by far the most strategic and long running game I've played in a long while clocking in at nearly 4 hours and had a very large number of rules and different concepts to take in. Regardless, it was definitely very enjoyable and made a nice change from the relatively quick games I usually play. It was definitely good to play a game where I had to really think about things and could achieve some kind of world domination. ;)

Straight after that I got involved in a game of Tigris & Euphrates, which despite having a very small rule set is still a difficult game to learn due to the concepts & strategy being very unusual and not really intuitive. Lost pitifully but still enjoyed it and am looking forward to playing it again now I've seen the tactics involved.

By this time my brain was semi-fried, so took on some more casual fare in the shape of Tutankhamen, and Bananagram, followed by the traditional club game of PitchCar.

I feel like I need to watch a dumb action film to clear my mind now, lest I strain something! :)

The best laid plans of mice and me

2009-06-19T20:55:00.005+01:00

Today was one of those days. You know what I mean, you have a well meaning plan: Exercise, general chores around the house, get the car cleaned, do a bit of shopping, get the car fixed.

Of course I just ended up playing Plants versus Zombies on the laptop in bed all day.... Still, at least I beat Dr. Zomboss....

Oh and check out the music video. It's aces :D

Paprika

2009-06-18T21:06:00.003+01:00

Today I watched a film called Paprika, directed by my favourite anime director: Satoshi Kon. It did not disappoint!

I'm starting to wonder if he's a bit of a one trick pony though, Paprika being another film exploring dreams & reality and what happens when the lines between them are blurred. However whilst the blurring in Perfect Blue is caused by extreme paranoia & mental health issues, and Millennium Actress uses it as a brilliant device to explore the main characters memories, Paprika does it in a much more literal sense with the film centering around a device that lets you join in with other peoples dreams. I wont say anything else about the plot, as with Satoshi Kon films, half the joy is finding out / working out what's going on.

This was my first anime on blu-ray and it's a fantastic film for the format. The animation was crisp and fluid, and all the colours in the dream sequences especially were fantastic. The soundtrack is really excellent, and though I wasn't able to test the full uncompressed audio (guess my amp doesn't support it) the standard 5.1 was really good.

I'd definitely recommend Paprika to everyone. It's so much easier to follow than Perfect Blue making it much more accessible, and is more fantastical & action-packed than Millennium Actress (which is still my favourite film of all time though). I've just got Paranoia Agent to see now. Will be interesting to see what he does when directing a series instead of a film. Hopefully it wont be too incomprehensible. :)

Alice & Kev

2009-06-17T20:13:00.002+01:00

I was resisting getting the Sims 3, having got enough timesinks in my life already. :)

Then I came across this blog : http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com.

This guy's experiment with taking a couple of sims and trying to apply real-life poverty & health problems has resulted in a very captivating story. By just using a relatively simple game framework and applying an expanded & implied narrative to the events, a couple of characters far more interesting than you'll find on many TV dramas have evolved.

Makes me want to get a copy and see what other surprises this game holds.

Little Wheel

2009-06-16T13:09:00.002+01:00

Played a wonderful little browser-game this lunchtime called Little Wheel.

Like a film-noir version of Wall-E, you're the one working robot left in a world full of robots without power. It's up to you to return power to the world.

The game is purposefully short and has minimal challenge. It's all about the gorgeous animation and the wonderfully stylistic almost monochrome design. My particular favourite thing was the clumsy way your robot just falls around the place having not being designed to navigate platforms. :)

It's a point and click adventure but has a lot more in common with the recent Samarost than it has with the classics like Monkey Island. Much of the frustration involved in Samarost is avoided by clearing showing what can be interacted with in each screen.

This does mean that the game can be cleared in less than 10 minutes but I think more things should be short and sweet like this, rather than forcefully stretching out a concept. The short time frame & easy accessibility also makes this an ideal thing to play in your lunch / coffee break whilst at work. So give it a go!

Found Via [The Escapist]

So wrong,.... but can't look away....

2009-06-15T20:34:00.004+01:00

Was going to post about something else, but just now my good friend Mr Coates just sent me this link to a guilty pleasure of his: http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

It's full of terrible terrible disasters that you just can't look away from, ranging from permullets that have to be seen to be believed, to the creepiest baby photos you've ever seen.

I'm going to have nightmares about this stuff, but I just can't look away.....

Woot! new oldies but goodies!

2009-06-14T21:17:00.003+01:00

As part of my step-brother-in-common-laws clearout (see yesterday's post), I got hold of copies of the 2 Metroid games on the gamecube, and an original N64 cart of Zelda: Majora's mask.

I'm a massive fan of the old 2D Metroid games but only briefly had a go on the 3D gamecube ones, so looking forward to playing those. As for Majora's mask, despite it being one of the most unusual (and opinion splitting) Zelda games I've never even really known much about it, so getting to play it in it's original N64 format is going to be great!

Don't think I'm going to get much done this week. ;)

Foregoing possessions

2009-06-13T20:48:00.002+01:00

This weekend I found out my step-brother-in-common-law (boy do I have a confusing family) is selling the vast majority of his possessions in order to be more free to travel and move around and so on, as well as raising some always helpful funds.

Led to a lot of interesting WTFs and discussions around the kitchen table. Myself, I'm very impressed and really support the idea. It really does make sense to me as at the moment he's being very adventurous doing things like teaching English in South Korea, a visit to Iran next on the list, who knows what will follow! Freeing yourself from possessions really does open up your options for doing things like long-term travelling and working with organisations abroad.

Obviously some people have concerns about later regretting giving up all this stuff, but we're not talking family heirlooms here, it's stuff like DVDs & games and consoles and stuff that have been well used and mostly outgrown.

Personally I think it's very important to have a certain level of detachment from the things you own. Collecting something for collections sake doesn't seem healthy to me, you ascribe too much more value to something that's effectively valueless in the bigger picture. I used to spend a fortune on "special edition" anime box sets, trying to build a "collection", until I came to the conclusion that all that was special about them is they were helping earn some publishing executive their next boat.

I do still have a sizable collection of DVDs & comics & games, but the reason I keep this collection is to share it with other people. I lend my stuff out as much as possible to share the experiences these things have given me, and would rather something was seen / read / played once again and have it ruined than for it sit on a shelf forever unused. I've seen the extreme opposite of this, with my girlfriend reading a book lent to her by a collector friend, whilst constantly fearful she bend the spine. It made me worry about the lenders state of mind!

So stuff is good! Own stuff! But don't let it own you...

Countryside eh?

2009-06-12T20:38:00.001+01:00

Suspension wrecking roads.
Sheep mocking you whilst you're sitting on the loo.
Odd looking spiders.
Serial killer cat foreshadowing future events by bringing a baby bunny inside to play.
Hayfever.
Miles to nearest pub.
No mobile phone reception.
Moth flying into my eye whilst in bedroom.
Bunny entrails found on the doorstep in the morning.

Nice place to visit but wouldn't want to live there. ;)

In all seriousness, I had a really nice relaxing weekend in the countryside at the father-in-law's, but I thought the above list made amusing reading. :D

Simple Backups

2009-06-11T21:59:00.004+01:00

Okay, so I forgot that I said I'd give some pointers to simple back-ups yesterday. Hope no computers failed in the meantime!

1. Large local backup

This method keeps your data in more than one place and is suitable for backing up large music & video collections, or if you're 2nd drive is big enough most drive contents. It isn't suitable for really important data as it'll be stored at the same location and so is just as susceptable to fire & theft as your main machine. This is also not suitable for a full restore of your system as it will not save important operating system information.

For this method you just need access to a folder on an external drive or another machine via a network. Personally I use an old SATA harddrive in a cheap USB caddy. Something like this.

Create a folder on the backup location for your backed up files to be stored in.
Download and install SyncToy.
Click "Create folder pair".
For the Left folder, browse to your local directory / drive / location you want to backup.
For the Right folder, browse to the remote folder you created in step 1.
Choose "Echo" from the choice of 3 actions.

Now if you want the whole of the directory you chose copied, just hit "Run". If you want more control over what files are copied you can click "Change options" and exclude certain folders, or only include certain types of file. Turning on "Exclude system files" may speed up your backup as well.

The first time you run the "sync" will take quite a while. The next time you want to backup your files instead of creating a new folder pair, select the existing one from the list on the left. This backup will run much faster as it will only copy changed files.

2. Small remote backup

For those files you really can't bear to lose you need to store a copy of the files remotely. I find doing this with things like FTP a real faff not to mention difficult to maintain and a problem when you're on an internet connection with capped bandwidth as you end up repeatedly uploading the same files.

Dropbox to the rescue! Dropbox is a free program that allows you to have folders on your local machine that are automatically uploaded and kept up-to-date remotely. I'm not going to write steps for how to use Dropbox as it is literally as simple as creating folders and copying files into them.

I don't just store stuff directly in my Dropbox though as I find using the built in windows photos & documents folders too convenient for that. Instead I use a SyncToy folder pairing (see above) with only a few important sub folders selected to make sure the essential data is copied into the Dropbox. This helps me stay under the 2 gig limit and means all my photos & documents etc. are still stored in one main folder instead of having to split them by importance.

Hope this helps, and let me know if any of the above doesn't work out for you or have any better ideas!

Check out my new glasses.

2009-06-10T19:23:00.003+01:00

Except they aren't my new glasses. :) Click the image on the right for a bigger version. This shot was taken with Glasses Direct Virtual Mirror software, available here.

It's technically very impressive, it tracked my face pretty well considering I just used a built in laptop web-cam, and I wasn't particular accurate when calibrating it.

But with my experience of working on e-commerce software and building e-commerce websites what impresses me is that it's the start for solving a very big problem with selling stuff online: some goods just have to be tried on before you buy them.

Now I just need a website that will let me scan my awkwardly shaped feet so I can buy shoes online that fit me.

I can't believe that site is still accessible!

2009-06-09T22:07:00.006+01:00

This week I've finally got round to restoring a ton of data I had lying around on old hard drives. As well as finding a lot of my university work I've found examples of my early commercial work and it's kinda embarassing looking back at that stuff. I'm sure it's the same for anyone that does anything remotely creative, but it comes off as very simple, scrappy & naive now. :)

Looking at all this old stuff made me realise how easy it's going to be in our digital age to lose all of our records & mementos. Sure there's going to be lots of things left on the general internet we'd rather forget like old personal sites torn down ages ago that end up forever accessible, but the really personal stuff that we keep on our PCs is oh so fragile.

All it takes is a machine failure (or if you're a bit better at running backups a fire or theft) and all those photos and digital keepsakes are gone. So tomorrow I'm gonna point you all in the direction of a couple of little apps that make doing simple back-ups both on-site and off-site that little bit easier!

As for whether we *should* be keeping all this stuff, well that's a topic for another time.

CVs are weird and make me think too much.

2009-06-08T16:32:00.003+01:00

Finally got round to finishing off my CV and sending it out today. Happy with the result, but reading it back is really weird.

Because a CV is so focused and you can't allow yourself to be modest when writing it, it always feels like the person it's describing is some boring alternative you from a dimension where everyone does nothing but work.

Who is this meticulous, responsible, driven Nick Johns my CV describes? It certainly doesn't sound like me (as most my friends would agree), but when considering my employment & performance over the last 10 years it is accurate.

Which got me thinking, am I effectively two different people? Is everyone like this, or am I just particularly effective at seperating out work and play?

Maybe I should just stop thinking too much and get back to being "play" Nick. ;)

Service will resume in 3.... 2.... 1...

2009-06-07T21:30:00.006+01:00

Okay, so I learnt this weekend that I can't write a blog entry when:

drunk
with friends
there are games to be played

So next time I've got company for the weekend I'll try to do some entries in advance :D

This weekend has probably been my longest boardgaming session ever. Starting at about 8pm Friday night with a game of SmallWorld, we finished about 6.30pm today having only really taken breaks for sleeping and eating, we didn't really do anything else!

Dominion really was the big game of the weekend. Played many games of it and even I was surprised just how much fun it was and I'd been going on about it for a while! It really is an amazing game as the different available set-ups make for completely different feeling rounds with greatly varying strategies.

Also got to play a few new games with Mark bringing Snow Tails & Timber Tom, the former a really clever game based around dog sled racing, the latter a great looking mountaineering / hiking themed game that has definite potential but I think I need to have a 4-player game of it before really getting a proper feel for it.

Beyond Monopoly was ace again, the highlight of which for me was finally getting to play Puerto Rico. Despite initially looking overwhelming, it went very smoothly thanks to Robert taking the time to teach us how to play. I'm really looking forward to playing it again now that I have an idea about the tactics and phases.

Brain now feels so very full of game rules I might have forgotton how to do actual useful things like driving and stuff! But was worth it. :)

Often overlooked games : Zack & Wiki, Quest for Barbaros Treasure.

2009-06-05T16:32:00.004+01:00

For all those people that complain that the Wii's software library is full of utter crap: random family friendly mini-game collections, watered down versions of successful games of the past, and cynical film tie-ins.... well actually yeah, I see where you're coming from.

But hidden away in this quagmire are a few genuine gems, but of course no-one buys them. That'll teach them to try something different!

One of these gems is "Zack & Wiki : Quest for Babaros' Treasure". It's a bit like the classic point & click adventures of old (you know: Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Sam & Max etc), but diluted into it's core best bits: solving puzzles & silly jokes. :)

Forget ever having to search for the one item you need to solve a nearby puzzle at the other side of a massive game world. Instead, the game is split up into individual stages which means you have everything you need to solve the puzzles nearby, which greatly reduces frustration.

Is that one puzzle stretching logic a bit too far? Use the built in game hint system. It doesn't feel like cheating as you get less rewards for having use it. No-one likes staring at the same damn thing for hours anyways.

The puzzles range from the obvious to the ingenious. Some of them had me using the remote in really clever ways I would never have expected!

It's an extremely charming game, I loved the characters in it and their "Simlish" style language does the job nicely without grating on you. There's some very funny slapstick moments in it as well which I wont be spoiling for you. :)

Get it if you:

Want a proper game for the Wii.
Liked the puzzle solving parts of the classic point & click games.
Want to see the Wii remote get used in new ways.
Like thinking outside the box.

Avoid it if you:

Hate Japanese manga-type styling.
Prefer action-packed games.
Wont play anything that looks cartoony.

Where to get it from:

Available for about 15 quid from play, amazon, shopto.
Even cheaper from eBay or 2nd hand.

The Bodyguard. No not that one!

2009-06-04T21:44:00.003+01:00

Today I spent far too long cleaning. To make up for that amount of sensible I decided I needed the exact opposite of sensible. Which it turns out is the Thai action film: The Bodyguard.

Directed by and starring Petchtai Wongkamlao (Humlae from Ong-bak. You know, the cousin who's "streetwise") it's utterly utterly bonkers.

Within the first 15 minutes we have a massive body count, around 10 wire-work spinning gun shots, the guy the bodyguard is supposed to be protecting being thrown through a wall (by the bodyguard) and a totally improbable midair collision involving 4 exploding cars.

AWESOME.

Be warned. This film is probably really bad. For me it goes all the way round back to good but your mileage may vary. Some of the humour is not at all accessible for a western audience: you've got cultural things that make no sense whatsoever, Thai comedy stars you wont recognise and in-jokes that we're not "in on" at all. Still I found plenty of laugh out loud moments, a highlight for me being a "camp dance-fu" vs "Wushu style" fight.

Definitely recommend it if you don't mind subtitles and are comfortable with not knowing what the hell is going on half the time. It has great OTT action sequences in and some real funny moments. Oh and it has that cute girl from Ong Bak and a Tony Jaa cameo in, so that's a bonus :D.

Deafened Chinchillas

2009-06-03T19:34:00.005+01:00

In my many years of programming I have, as has just about everyone else I know, cocked things up on occasion.

The biggest mistakes come with that flushed, red-faced sort of feeling. But everything I've done in the past has been rectified with minimum impact: be it knocking up a quick database script to fix mucked up data or a humble apologetic phone call to a client informing them of the best course of action.

But at least I've never caused multiple explosions or deafened a bunch of chinchillas.

Puts everything in perspective really doesn't it?

Riceboy - an epic fantasy webcomic

2009-06-02T21:48:00.004+01:00

Bit of a short post today as I'm poorly organised and a bit tired after a Left For Dead session on the 360.

But here's a link to an absolutely fantastic webcomic called Riceboy. http://www.rice-boy.com/see/index.php?c=001. It's a fantasy epic with very strange characters and creatures, and a wonderfully imaginative world. Definitely recommended for people that like things like Lord Of the Rings and Bone.

Finished reading it a few years ago, and have been meaning to pick up the print version but it's a little out of my price range at the moment ;). Maybe I'll just read the online version again.

Mangafox - check it out before it's shut down

2009-06-01T20:12:00.003+01:00

Found a nice little site today that's perfect if you fancy browsing some manga for free.

Mangafox has an excellent wide-ranging collection of manga from popular stuff like Dragonball & One Piece to very obscure but interesting one chapter oddities like A Cat That Loved A Fish.

Navigation through a manga is made very easy with keyboard shortcuts to speed things up and avoid strain on that mouse hand, just use the left & right arrow keys to flick through a manga.

Unfortunately there's no way it's legit. Most of the bigger titles have a haphazard mix of chapters from different scanlation groups and I know that many of the more well know titles available on mangafox have been licensed in the US, so I don't expect the site to stay up long. So I recommend you enjoy it now whilst you can!

Oh and if you find something you really like, buy it from your local comic book store and help support the writers & artists!

I love living in York.

2009-05-31T17:39:00.003+01:00

On sunny days like this it makes me especially glad I live in York. It's such a great city for just spending a lazy day. Sure it's a tad crowded with tourists but you soon get to know the places where you can usually find a free table in the sun.

It's funny, I never really planned to live in York. I just ended up having to move here for a job straight after university. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else!

Garforth Tabletop Gamers

2009-05-30T20:39:00.002+01:00

It's a glorious sunny day. Perfect weather for going for a hike, visiting gardens, or just chilling outside with a few beers.

So of course I spent all day inside playing boardgames. :)

Today was my first visit to Garforth Tabletop Gamers, having found out about it from the nice people at Beyond Monopoly in York. Had a fantastic time there, everyone was really welcoming and despite having a smaller collection than Beyond Monopoly I still got to play a great range of games:

Hey! That's my Fish - quick and silly, but surprisingly devious. :)
Smallworld - The hot game of the moment, but deservedly so!
Pitchcar - A really fun action game to play whilst waiting for a another to start.
Manhattan - Skyscraper building game that gets very evil with everyone jostling for space.
Tsuro - A beautifully elegant game, so simple but fun to play. Quick too (~15mins).
Mississippi Queen -Loved the mechanics in this one, having to juggle speed and maneuverability was really tricky but rewarding.

As an added bonus they were celebrating their first aniversary. It doesn't get much better than gaming AND cake! I'm definately looking forward to frequenting GTG in the future and for anyone with any interest in gaming at all I can't recommend these two clubs enough!

Feeds I subscribe to: mediaeater image blog

2009-05-29T16:12:00.003+01:00

I have no idea how I came across the mediaeater blog but I'm glad I did. It's entries are always extremely sparse, only ever containing images and never having a title or explanation for the inclusion of the image.

But they're always really great images!

I recommend you start at the archive and have a browse, then subscribe to the RSS feed for a regular dose of interesting images.

Site: http://mediaeater.tumblr.com
RSS Feed: http://mediaeater.tumblr.com/rss

Spotify. Now this is the way digital music should be.

2009-05-28T14:05:00.000+01:00

I've never really been into buying music digitally for the following reasons:

1. I prefer albums to singles. A lot of the greatest music requires context and doesn't work well shuffled into a bunch of singles. For example I can't imagine listening to a track off "Rossz Csillag Alatt Született" by Venetien snares straight after a track from "Dark side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd . It would just clash too much.

2. I prefer CD quality. I'm far from an audiophile and am extremely skeptical about the merits of high-end equipment, but even with my setup I can definitely appreciate the better quality sound I get from a CD compared to an Mp3.

3. I love CD collections. One of the first things I do when I visit people's homes is browse their CD collection. I love seeing what kind of music people are into, what classics they might own, what guilty pleasures they have. :) I like the physical presence of a CD collection. It feels like I'm buying something real, rather than investing in some bits I'm going to lose next time my PC blue-screens (yeah yeah, I know I should back everything up).

4. It's not usually cost effective. How the hell can it be cheaper for play to deliver me a physical album that contains higher quality audio for cheaper than iTunes can deliver me the same album as MP3s?

But now I've stopped collecting CDs. Viva la revolution! Viva Spotify!

The easiest way to describe Spotify is to think of it as iTunes, but with someone else's music collection on. And that someone else happens to be one of the biggest collectors of music ever.

Before I continue take a moment to go and register and install it. Doesn't take long, it's a very small application, it's 100% legal and it's totally FREE. You'll then be able to click on the links I include in the rest of this entry. Linux users, you're not exempt, it runs fine under Wine.

The range of music is incredible. Here's just a random collection of artists on Spotify: Snow Patrol, Ash, Elvis, Pizzicato Five, Ben Folds Five, Chas & Dave, Flobots

Plenty of brand new stuff too: Bat for Lashes, Lily Allen, Ting Tings, Kanye West

You'll find most things on there unless you get uber-obscure, or are unlucky enough to hit one of the artists that have short-sightedly opted-out of Spotify e.g. Oasis.

Another thing I love is the way it brings music sharing back. Since the big file-sharing clampdown, people haven't been able to legally share their music experiences with other people using the Internet. Now we have Spotify playlists we can bring the fun back into sharing.

And best of all:

Here's the official Nick's blog collaborative playlist.

Spotify collaborative playlists are genius. They let you have a playlist within Spotify that anyone can listen to, & add songs to. It would be brilliant if everyone that reads this blog adds a song or two to that playlist (Feel free to also add a comment below about the song if you want!).

The sheer convenience and range of available music on Spotify far outweighs any of my grievances about digital music, I am a convert.

The Catch

There's always a catch, with Spotify it's that the money has to come from somewhere and unless you buy their premium subscription then it comes from adverts. But these adverts are so few and far between they really don't intefere too much. If you really want to get rid of them you can buy day or month passes. I've often spent a quid so I can use Spotify at a party without any interruptions.

Also the music isn't transferrable, so if you listen to music on the move using an iPod or mobile phone, Spotify isn't for you. Yet.

See also

If you're interested in listening to Spotify through your games console or media centre. See my article on streaming spotify to other devices.

Jaguar Skills - Gaming Special

2009-05-26T18:00:00.000+01:00

The always crazy Jaguar Skills throws in plenty of gaming lyrics and samples into his usual manic style of hip-hop mixing as well as some crazy obscure 80s stuff for Radio 1s Gaming Weekend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kl1wk/Jaguar_Skills_25_05_2009/

Favourite moments:

A foreign version of the Ulysses 31 theme tune (UlysseeeEEeeEEeeeEEees).
A very strange but awesome Mario / Notorious B.I.G mix.
Great chiptunes version of Golddigger.
Parrapa the Rapper!
Awesome Monkey Magic mix!
Exploder Trailer - "I'll cry when I'm done killing!".
retro Pac Man tutorial drum & bass mix.
Sesame Street pinball tune.
Cooking with Jaguar & Jamie Oliver.

VERY rough round the edges in places, but lots of fun. I have no idea how someone can manage to fit together enough stuff for a 2 hour show like this!

It's only going to be up until Tuesday 2nd June, so get it stream-ripped by then if you can. ;)

Often overlooked games : Eternal Darkness

2009-05-26T14:30:00.006+01:00

Welcome to the first of my looks at games that you really should have played, but might not have even heard of. Now I know there's lists and lists of these kind of games on the Internet but I'm going to try and do it with the following rules

The game must be available and affordable to buy. No being pretentious and going on about obscure Japanese / US only limited releases that cost hundreds of pounds on eBay (e.g. Mother 2: Earthbound).
The game should be accessible. No really obscure punishing hardcore games (e.g. Godhand, Killer 7).
Don't repeat information available elsewhere. If anyone wants to know history of the game, developer information, sales figures, that's what Wikipedia is for!

So basically I'm going to dilute it into my personal experiences with the game, a quick guide of whether it'll be your sort of game or not, and some links to help you find it.

So here goes. My first "Often overlooked game": Eternal Darkness.

I had successfully ignored Eternal Darkness for several years, despite not having a great collection of Gamecube games. Ironically I was mainly put-off by it's crashing price. I believe it was down to £9.99 new within a week or two, and eventually ended up selling for £2.99 new by the time I actually played it! This combined with a complete lack of marketing led me to dismiss it as a inferior Resident Evil knock-off.

I was an idiot.

Eventually a good friend of mine insisted I borrowed his copy and give it a shot. After it had gathered about 2 weeks worth of dust on my shelf, I finally got round to putting it in the console. I then proceeded to play through the entire thing in about 2 long sittings over a weekend, I had been completely hooked from start to finish.

Admittedly it's a very strange game and I can see a lot of people will initially be put off: the control system is a bit finicky; not much gets explained, at least near the beginning; and the regular switching between characters may leave people feeling a little disconnected from the game, but it does all start to come together quite quickly.

There's plenty of combat which luckily is plenty of fun once you get the hang of the controls. The customisable magic system is an interesting idea and in the latter half of the game it gives you a lot of flexibility. The killer hook for me though is the innovative "insanity" system. As well has the traditional health & magic bars, you have a sanity meter. Without spoiling too much when this drops down stuff gets VERY weird. It's the only game that's ever had me sprint over towards the TV in panic. ;)

If any of this interests you I highly recommend not reading anything else about the game. Eternal Darkness' best qualities are it's story and it's surprises. Reading anything about either of them will diminish your experience.

So if this sounds good to you then drop a tenner, get the Wii out, and give it a shot!

Get it if you:

have a Wii gathering dust, and want to try something new.
like "Survival Horror" games.
enjoy games with great sprawling plot lines.
love Being surprised.
want to see a game trying something new.
like H.P. Lovecraft .

Avoid it if you:

must have the latest generation graphics.
are a complete beginner to games (It can be slightly punishing in places).
scare easily.
like to stick with one character throughout a game.

Where to get it from:

Plenty of copies going for less than a tenner on eBay.
Have a look around the 2nd hand section in retail shops like Game & Gamestation. You might find it for a bargain price.
Lots of copies on Amazon Marketplaces, again for less than a tenner.

NOTE:- like any Gamecube game, if you're going to want to play it on the Wii you want to buy a Gamecube controller. Luckily these are dirt cheap on eBay. :)

Social networking syndication dilutes your messages!

2009-05-25T17:15:00.001+01:00

Okay before I start ranting I'll admit it. I'm usually late to the party when it comes to "The next big thing". So some of the below rant could be blamed on me being "behind the times".

It took me ages to be converted to Facebook.
I completely missed MySpace.
I have no idea what the cool kids are using instead now.

But I was there pretty early on for Twitter. I loved it then and I still love it today. Before Stephen Fry & Chris Moyles were getting it publicised in the mass-media me and a few friends were remarking on trivial junk like what we were doing, drinking, eating, and what we were listening to whilst we did it. It was fun to have a little app that let us frivolously comment like that.

But damn it Internet! You keep getting your Twitter in my everything else!

Since the Social networking explosion everyone has been signing up for the cool site of the moment, resulting in people having too many different sites to update. So along came the creation of social syndication sites like Ping.fm. These sites do a fantastic job of giving you the ability to write once and post to many. However in order for this to work all your entries have to work on every network, i.e. the simplest. So every network ends up full of frivolous twitter-style messages. As an added bonus I get to read the same damn message 4 or 5 times in different places.

Some networks have advantages over others and people syndicating their messages are missing out on this. Stop for a moment and think!

Why do you need to get the exact same message to all these networks?
Why do you even HAVE all these networks?

Look at the strengths of each network and use it appropriately! Bite the bullet and drop those that have no advantages over the others!

Facebook

Great for more intimate personal messages. Change your profile to private, drop all those "friends" you have no idea who they are or haven't seen in about 10 years, and now you can message about things a little more personal than: "Ate 6 slices of toast today LOL".

Twitter

Perfect if you have people interested in what you're doing but wouldn't want them turning up at your house. Link to your latest project your working on for people up to see, send a general query out to the Internet masses and see what answers you get back, or do just tell us what colour pants your wearing (a little of this is good). :)

Blog

Sometimes we do want to know a bit more about your opinions. Tell us your views in a bit more detail rather than just spewing out a convenient ambiguous one-liner.

In closing

Come on people! There is a place for Twitter but let's not let it dilute everything we do or say into a 140 character soundbite!

Incidently, follow me on twitter if you want to know things about me like what I ate for tea. ;)

I see faces everywhere :)

2009-05-24T14:53:00.000+01:00

I love faces on things.

Faces end up on my plate after a tasty dessert at restaurants:

People know that buying me things with faces on is a sure win:

If something doesn't have a face on, it might end up with one after I'm finished:

What does this say about me? :|

Listening to Spotify through the Xbox 360 (or Wii, or PS3, or media centres)

2009-05-23T15:59:00.001+01:00

I love Spotify, I love the Xbox 360. I love the way you can listen to your own music whilst playing games. I didn't like the way there was no way to listen to Spotify whilst playing games.

So with the digital equivalent of gaffer tape. I found a way. :)

I knew I needed to capture the output of Spotify, and convert it into a form that the Xbox 360 would be able to understand. I also wanted to be able to play the output live, so I could start listening immediately as opposed to recording an hour of Spotify output, then listening to that hour.

In the end my solution was as follows:

Broadwave - captures audio from any recording device, and serves it up as an "Internet radio station".
TVersity - reads the "Internet radio station", and acts as a UPnP media centre for the Xbox 360 to connect to.

Below are some tips for setting these things up. I've not included a full step-by-step install guide because to be frank this is not amateur stuff. If you need help installing an application you probably aren't going to get all this to work together!

Setting up Broadwave

During this process you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

Download and install Broadwave.
Click streams.
Click live tab.
Click add stream.
Change "Sound in" device to the general sound output of your PC (will be something like "Rec. playback", or "Wave out", or "Direct Sound Out"). If you don't have a recording device like this, see "No direct sound recording device" section below.
Click OK.
Click General tab.
Change Minimum speed for broadband to 256kbps (This will keep the sound quality at a reasonable level).
Click OK.

WARNING:- At this point you've got your own "Internet radio station" running on your computer. I don't recommend testing it on the same computer, as this would create a feedback loop resulting in some very nasty sounds. ;)

Setting up TVersity

Again, during this process, you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

Install TVersity as standard.
In the library, click "Internet Media", then "Internet Audio".
Click "Add Item".
Enter http://localhost:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&kbps=256 in Audio URL.
Enter a suitable title.
Click Submit.

If all goes well there should be no error messages, and you can now serve up the output from your PC to the Xbox 360.

Accessing from the Xbox

Simple go to "My music" and TVersity should show up as a music source. From there you should be able to select your stream within the "Songs" menu.

Connected, but no Sound?

Check you haven't muted the PC. The direct sound out recording devices literally record what gets output by the PC.
Check you chose a relevant recording device. Again if you haven't got an appropriate recording device, see below.

No direct sound recording device?

The first time I used this solution I didn't have a direct recording device built into the laptop, the only recording options were "line in" and "microphone". I got round this by using a USB sound card I had sitting around: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=34128 (other USB sound cards are available but this one definitely works). Plugging this in added the required recording device to the options.

Now I have sound coming out of both my PC and my Xbox!?

If you're like me and don't have a physical volume control on your PC/laptop, just plug in headphones, or preferably any line in cable to the head phone socket. This should shut it up ;). Don't mute it in the volume control.

Finally

Hope this helps some people out there enjoy Spotify a little more! It should work with any device that supports UPnP (Wii, PS3, Media centres etc.). Usual disclaimers apply: the above may not work for you, don't hold me libel if your PC rises up against you and eats your pets or anything.

Comments welcome. Please let me know any improvements you come up with or if this helped you at all!

Credit to http://dempah.com/innehall/18-teknik/340-spotify-till-xbox-360.html for filling in the final blank in my solution. I found their overall solution a little too complex, but the TVersity part of it was what I was missing!

Self-indulgent or Public Information service?

2009-05-22T11:45:00.004+01:00

So I was having a conversation with my good friend Bytey, who is currently trying an experiment in constant connectivity, (i.e. always being connected to the Internet, feeding back to the Internet with everything he does). He was stunned that despite being very tech-savvy I have never really blogged.

Now don't take offense at this if you're reading it Bytey, but I've never really thought that I have anything to say that anyone really needs to hear.

Taking a while to think on this, I realised that that's not really what it's about is it? Blogging doesn't need to be news reporting, it's just another way of us connecting to each other in this modern age. I don't have to produce a literary work of art each day, or provide links to obscure information squirreled away in the darkest parts of the Internets. I just have to put a little of myself up for people to see.

Currently being self-imposed unemployed (hey I needed a break), I've got plenty of time to play around with this kind of thing.

So here goes nothing. I'm going to try and post "something" on here every day. It might just be a photo and a random comment. Might be a techy how-to. Might just be my thoughts on a crappy film I happened to watch that day. But I'm going to get something on here EVERY day.

at least for today :)

- Nick