I read this article on Neoconservative double-speak. As far as I’m concerned, it’s really a guide to the deceptive double-speak used by all politicians on both sides of the divide. I think it makes for hilarious
reading.
And here’s another article on unwanted spyware installed by Software companies. In this case, it’s MediaMax.
MediaMax phones home whenever you play a protected CD, automatically installs over 12 MB of software before even displaying an End User License Agreement, and fails to include an uninstaller. It’s just another example of how conventional companies are failing to cope
with new technologies. Another example is Publishing companies suing Google for copyright violations, even though Google Books doesn’t reproduce entire books on its website - just enough to whet a readers appetite. It’ll be interesting to see how this whole conflict plays out over the next few years.
Just a friendly warning to any gamers looking to purchase anything from GamesMarket.com.au.
According to this Overclockers forum thread, Gamesmarket is no longer contactable. And the offices listed on their website have been vacated. Worse yet, at least one person has reported paying for an order but is yet to see his item delivered. It’s dissapointing to see a business that prided itself on their “quality service” do a runner and leave their customers in the lurch.
Based on this information, I would strongly advise anybody against purchasing from Gamesmarket again.
Of course, like 99% of the gaming world I’d heard about Civilization - the original Empire-building Turn-Based Strategy game, but I’d never really taken an interest in it. About four years ago, I gave Alpha Centauri a try, and found it was far too complicated for me to get into. As I’ve gotten older, my interest in twitch-reflex games (like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2) has waned. I’ve been looking for more contemplative strategically-fulfilling games to play. Rome: Total War is an excellent example of a game that bestrides two genres - RTS and Turn-Based Empire Building. With that in mind, I decided to give Civilization 4 a punt.
And I’ve been playing it non-stop for the last two weeks.
Being a complete and total newbie to the Civ genre, I was apprehensive about the high difficulty level. My concerns were allayed once I started playing the tutorial - which is the best I’ve ever seen for any game in any genre. It lays out all the basics in a friendly and simple manner - just enough to get you started, and pique your interest. Another major surprise was seeing and hearing Sid Meier in the tutorial. With the addition of the creator of Civ to the tutorial, it also becomes an opportunity to sell the charms of Civ to sceptical newbie gamers like myself. Sid, you can consider me sold.
The amazing paradox of Civ is that the user interface to this game is incredibly simple to use -
anyone who’s played an RTS (especially Sid Meier’s Pirates) will have no trouble with the controls.
But the underlying game rules and features add an infinite amount of breathtaking strategic complexity to this game. There are so many different tactics you can use to build your empire, but
in the end they boil down to effectively manipulating three important resources:
Productivity (Hammer icon)
Culture (Musical Note icon)
Gold (Gold coin icon)
Each civilization you choose will have the ability to maximise any two out of the three resources
listed above. For instance, Queen Elizabeth (England) has the Financial/Philosophical
characteristics. Meaning she can maximize her Culture/Gold output. The result being that this civ will have access to plenty of gold, produce Great People (ie. Historically important leaders), and expand cities borders at a very high rate. The downside to this particular Civ is that the benefits only arrive when you have access to more advanced technologies very late in the game, and your military is absolutely pitiful until you access gunpowder/rifling and get the Redcoat soldier. This perfectly reflects English history, as it was the Redcoats that allowed England to build its empire so successfully. What this shows is that the game implements civilizations brilliantly - every civ has its advantages and disadvantages.
The other aspect of the game, which I haven’t quite mastered yet, is how you interact with competing civilizations - and this is where the real challenge lies (at least for me). For instance, you’ll get along better with another civ if you have a common religion (eg. Judaism). But if you use a missionary to spread Judaism in a competing civ, you’re also giving them access to more temples which they can use to generate more culture - thereby expanding their own borders more quickly and potentially swamping your own cities. A lesson which I learned much to my own cost in a recent game.
As you can see, playing Civilization is a strategically complex affair - and I haven’t even
scratched the surface yet! This game has already won critical acclaim from many different quarters, and I’m more than happy to add my praise (not to mention plunk down my hard-earned cash) and support this game. Here’s hoping Firaxis (and Sid Meier) produce more games like it.
Thanks Sid!
PS. Some recommended links for the Civ 4 newbie -
Wounded Knight’s Strategy Guide - Everything a newbie needs to know. A great read.
Gamespot’s Strategy Guide - Not as complex, but still a good introductory look.
Much to my surprise, I was informed that today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. I realise some people will sneer and complain that there are far too many of these types of days, and then completely ignore them.
If you want to ignore the horrific impact that domestic violence has on both women and children - fine, shame on you. But it’s virtually impossible for any responsible business to ignore the impact that domestic violence has on its productivity.
The statistics show that as many as one in five women at some stage in life falls victim to what is variously described as family violence or intimate partner violence.
The cost to employers is growing year by year, and stands at nearly $500 million in lost production and nearly as much again in lost economic efficiency, according to policy researchers Access Economics.
One in five is far too high a statistic for such a terrible crime that affects so many people.
PS. I tried pinning that white ribbion to my label, but I couldn’t remove the pin properly. Bugger.
The president of the Singapore Criminal Lawyers Association has raised a valid point - why did everyone wait so long to appeal Nguyen’s sentence. I first heard of Nguyen’s case almost two years ago, and was mystified as to why there were no protests from anyone in a position of responsibility (apart from his family) regarding his plight. Where were the Human Rights Organisations? The Lawyers? The Media Commentators? As has been pointed out -
Mr Anandan, president of the Singapore Criminal Lawyers Association, said the only chance of saving Van would have been before he went to trial, when prosecutors were finalising the charges and still had the prerogative to make changes.
“What is the point in coming in now?” he said. “The President has already refused clemency and the presiding judge in capital drug cases has no discretion. Death is mandatory. It is like visiting a patient in hospital when they are already dead.”
Mr Anandan’s German client, Ms Bohl, 23, was charged in March 2002 with drug trafficking after police seized 687g of marijuana and other drugs from her Singapore apartment.
Under the city-state’s sentencing laws, death is mandatory for anyone caught with 500g or more of the drug. Mr Anandan said the German ambassador and government immediately mounted a diplomatic campaign on behalf of the young woman, meeting several senior Singaporean ministers. Within months, several charges were dropped and she escaped the gallows after the “pure” amount of drugs was found to be 281g.
It’s far too little, far too late. And now Nguyen’s family will be the ones to suffer for it.
We Aussies are about 6 months behind when it comes to the CSI shows. The only series I avidly watch is the original, which I still consider the best of the three. CSI: Miami is far too cartoony and unrealistic by my tastes, but CSI: New York has a credible lead in Gary Sinise, and the stories are often pretty entertaining.
I often catch up on latest episodes in the US via CSIFiles. Their most recent episode and synopsis really had me riled -
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: “Urban Hellraisers” is an absurd episode. The premise is far-fetched, the villains extreme caricatures, the conclusion preposterous. A videogame mogul pays kids to go out and recreate the videogames his company makes, gives the kids real guns and pretty much sends them out to kill people? Advertising has become more…creative these days (take, for instance, the Hummer-sponsored “secret scene”), but live action videogames complete with real guns and murder? I don’t buy it for a second, which makes the entire episode problematic.
That said, the theme of teens becoming desensitized by the violence in videogames, while hardly novel, is worth exploring. Though I don’t believe that the company that makes the videogames would be behind it, I do believe it’s possible for kids to want to recreate “Grand Theft Auto” because reckless driving and stealing cars seems like it would be fun. The idea that players get points for shooting people in videogames is downright disturbing as the real-life parallel in this episode illustrates. When one of the gamers smarmily tells the CSIs that raping the girl in the bank is worth 1000 points, the point is effectively driven home. Lest that seem fictionalized to those unfamiliar with videogames, it’s popular in “Grand Theft Auto” to shoot, run over, or beat to death other drivers and prostitutes.
I bought a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City when it was on special at EB Games. The driving portions of the game are plenty of fun, and the game universe itself is huge. But I found the anti-social portions of the game hugely off-putting. Sure, plenty of people play this game without any ill-effects - I’m just to sensitive to this sort of thing to ever want to play it on a daily basis. So I put GTA3 on the shelf…indefinitely.
The biggest criticism I have (based on the synopsis) is that the script writers could and should’ve put more effort into researching the gaming subculture and better integrating it into the episode. There was an episode from the previous season of CSI: Miami, which involved a game company. The upshot to that story was that a game tester murdered the developer - a reason which I find very believable considering the tension that exists within some software projects.
It’s taking an extreme situation to hammer home a not-so-obvious point with excessive force. I wish that they had taken a more measured approach, as they have in the past.
Groklaw is one of my favourite internet sites - it started as a website to cover the IBM vs SCO court case, but has since then expanded considerably to cover all sorts of open-source issues from a legal perspective. The primary contributor (and creator) of Groklaw is Pamela Jones. In addition to being a passionate proponent and defender of open-source computing, she’s also a paralegal - which means she can add a unique legal perspective to most issues that us IT guys would never even consider.
One of her most recent articles covers Sony’s rootkit controversy. Big thanks to PJ and co. for covering these issues, as it’s made me more aware of the lengths record companies will go to in order to protect against software piracy. Are they so desperate to protect their revenue, that they’ll install malicious computer software on people’s PC, and thereby punish the very same people that legally purchase their CD’s?!!?
There’s an amusing quote regarding EULA’s that comes from Groklaw’s site -
At last, a direct confrontation regarding EULAs. Perhaps you saw the joke on IRQ about throwing a brick through a window with a EULA attached:
I will write on a huge cement block “BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING.”
Words to live by. 
I’ve tried to refrain from commenting on the tragic case of Trang Nguyen lately. It’s a horrible incident but I would like to respectfully remind people that Mr. Nguyen chose to travel to Singapore with these drugs. Granted, his twin brother was heavily in debt, but surely there were better ways to generate the money needed? Were the circumstances so dire that it was worth risking his own life?
Paul Kelly (from the Australian) has, what I think, is an excellent article on the wider ramifications in today’s Australian. I think it’s a great read, and more than adequately sums up Australian-Singapore relations from the Aussie point-of-view.
And here’s some responses collated from the Crikey website. It’s interesting to note that most of the objections appear to come from Human-Rights activists in Singapore.
On a more personal note, my Uncle (and I think his daughter) from Singapore are paying our family a surprise visit next month. Unfortunately, our guest room has been used as a storage area for the past few years, and we’re going to be busy clearing out the room over the weekend. Since nobody in our house likes “hard manual labour” very much, I suspect that the task will be carried out with a large degree of cursing.
The last time I visited Singapore was ten years ago, just before I started University. I would’ve enjoyed my visit a lot more if I hadn’t come down with a bad case of the tummy troubles. Sitting on the white porcelain for the entire duration of a five-day visit to one of Asia’s most technologically advanced cities is not my idea of fun.
I must admit to being very nervous about my Uncle’s timing. According to my father, Singapore newspapers haven’t written anything about Nguyen’s upcoming execution, and neither have they written anything about the negativity within the Australian community about that decision. I’m very frightened and afraid that my Uncle might face an extremely hostile reception down here if people find out which country he comes from. My family would say I was being paranoid - I would disagree. Most Australians have an undercurrent of xenophobia and fear when it comes to their Asian neighbours to the north. “They’re not like us, they don’t think like us” has been a constant refrain for as long as I can remember.
Nevertheless, I hope my Uncle will enjoy his visit to Tasmania - it’s a beautiful place, and as different from Singapore as you can get.
I often enjoy visiting websites like CHUD.com, mostly for the snarky remarks and reviews on the latest movies. It’s not very often that I find anything politically-related on those websites tha remotely interests me. This interview with real-life ex-CIA agent Robert Baer is an exception. If you’re of a patriotic mind, you might want to prepare yourself - not everything Baer has to say about the CIA or international politics is pleasant to listen to.
