It is Christmas day. We are still “snowed in” here, with another 20 – 30 cm since last night piling up. The snow is beginning to slow down, and may be turning to rain soon.
Irene got her main Christmas present a few weeks ago: Coco, who makes cat #7 in our house: you can click on Coco to see the rest of our Christmas pictures.
I’m not dreaming of a white christmas: more of a nightmare, really…
| Title | Fallout 3 |
| Developer | Bethesda |
| Type | Action RPG |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360, PC, PS3 |
| Kelly Score ™ | 95 / 100 |
Fallout 3 is the third chapter to the Fallout series of games, brought to life by Bethesda rather than the original developers Black Isle/Interplay which went bankrupt before they could release their version of this episode. Bethesda started over from scratch, using the same underlying engine as was used in Oblivion, the most recent episode of the Elder Scroll series.
It is important to note that I have never played any of the previous games in the Fallout series. Set in a post-apocalyptic world with a rather unique blend of idealized American 1950’s “better dead then red” culture and high-technology/cyberpunk, Fallout’s strengths have always been providing players with a massive “sandbox” game world combined with a somewhat twisted sense of dark humour.
The fans of the original episodes have been rather critical of Fallout 3- it is, after all, a quite different game. I have played the game without any preconceptions, and can personally say that it is an exceptionally enjoyable and deep experience. It may not be the same game as the older entries in the series, but it stands on its own as a worthy adventure in its own right.
Google sent me an email the other day telling me that my site had “inappropriate” content:
As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with adult or mature content.
Adult? Mature? On *my* site? Hmmm, this required some further investigation. It didn’t take long to find the problem- Google even gave me a sample URL. Apparently, sometime in the last few weeks some comment spammer bot found my photo gallery and started spewing link-farm comments in random spots throughout. And of course, the only person who has to do more work in this process is me.
The massive mechanisms and constructs that keep modern society functional occasionally amaze me. A good example is this story from the New York Times regarding the efforts being made to fix a water leak in one of their main supply tunnels.
Continue reading Months of deep sea diving required to fix New York plumbing problem
A lot of folks these days have at least part of their home network on wireless ethernet, or WiFi. I have two wireless access points in my house, for example, and plan on adding a third. Wireless networking has security considerations: unless your WiFi network is encrypted, someone outside your home can use your bandwidth or, potentially worse, intercept your data. Wireless security was improved significantly a few years ago with the introduction of WPA (WiFi Protected Access) after the previous security method, WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) was “cracked”. Since then, wireless networking has been pretty much secure against any intrusion. Until now…
Continue reading Thin wedge driven into WPA wireless security protocol: TKIP compromised
The global economy has collapsed, the stock market is decimated, we are all going to lose our jobs, and the sky is falling! Oddly, none of the recent economic turmoil has scared me. In fact, when stocks bottomed out (presumably) a couple of weeks ago, I started buying shares. I’m not Warren Buffett, but I now own a couple hundred shares of GM, and twenty-some shares each of Apple, Microsoft, and RIM.
Am I crazy? I’m hearing of people selling their houses and buying gold, stocking up on tinned goods and toilet paper, and most of all desperately trying to convert any equity investments they have into or some kind of guaranteed investment. There must be something wrong with me that I keep feeling this strange compulsion to go buy more stock…
| Title | Spore |
| Developer | Maxis/Electronic Arts |
| Type | Strategy |
| Platform(s) | Mac, PC |
| Kelly Score ™ | 50 / 100 game; 85 / 100 toy |
Spore is the new creation by game “God” Will Wright, the genius behind the SimCity and The Sims. The man is recognized as a computer gaming visionary, and Spore is considered by many to be his crowning achievement: Will himself called it “Sim Everything”.
I wanted to like Spore, I really did. I tried to avoid the hoopla associated with it so I wouldn’t build up a lot of expectations. Anticipation has been building for years now, so that avoidance was challenging. Perhaps in part my success was helped by the fact that I’m not really that huge of a fan of either of Will’s previous franchises, SimCity or The Sims. I enjoyed SimCity in a couple of incarnations, but would never likely rate it above a 7 out of 10 on my gaming goodness scale. I guess I prefer games with some kind of objective rather than more open ended simulators. And Spore continued my pattern of not really liking Will Wright’s games that much… without even the redeeming “simulator” qualities I’d found in SimCity. But I can certainly perceive what attracts others to these games, and thus my double-barreled score for Spore. One score as a game, and another score as, for want of a better word, a toy.
Blizzard announced at Blizzcon that StarCraft II will be released as three separate games, one for each race. The first shipping “race” will be the Terrans. There will likely be a year or two between each release, so if you want to play all three single player campaigns you’ll have to wait four or five years at least from the date the first one ships.
What does this mean to me? Not much, really- I didn’t play the original StarCraft a decade ago, and I’m unlikely to be interested in StarCraft II either. I never really got “hooked” by the whole real time strategy genre, although I did play the original Warcraft. But for anyone who is a serious fan of the StarCraft series, waiting even longer to get the whole second release has got to be a bit frustrating. You can read the opinions of some game bloggers on the IGN website, but the truth is it will be released however Blizzard wants it.
Continue reading StarCraft II to be released as three separate games and other Blizzard news
My friend Chris and I have made going to airshows a tradition of sorts. Chris actually knows quite a lot about aircraft, whereas I am more of the “wow, that’s cool” mindset and only skim the surface regarding technical details. One thing I’ve found is that the airmen sent to these shows, presumably amongst the best in their respective forces, generally seem to be pretty nice people. At least on the surface I haven’t noted much of that “strutting arrogance” we expect to see pilots have based on movies and TV shows.
Continue reading News flash: US military pilots can be humble and funny