Be it the content that we choose to view, the viewpoints we wish to present or even the skillsets and subjects which we choose to study it has always been my belief that it should be up to us as individuals what we choose to view or not view and put in place our own rules and “filters” should we not wish to view or access certain selections of content
We are all well aware of the many countries which attempt to censor the freedom of speech of its people be it speech expressed person to person, in the media or now over the internet and as such it is generally accepted that such countries filter and monitor the content going in and out in order to maintain a control over its people.
I am sure that we are all aware of the Great “Firewall” of china and the and the conditions that the people of China are subjected to whenever they connect out to the WWW. I have always found it barbaric and controlling and I was always thankful to live in a country where I was sure that such things could not occur.
If however like me you read any sort of international news you will now realise that this sort of thing is now coming into our own backyards under the guise of “protection” and “saving the children”. Allow me to point out just a few resources that you may find alarming should you live in the country who will next be affected by such nonsense.
Australia: http://nocleanfeed.com/
The Government is refusing to release concrete details on the plan. However, we know that ISP-level filtering has been ALP policy for some time and is being zealously pursued by the Minister. What we do know is this:
What we don’t know is just as important.
There are a number of other articles floating around including a recent article that states Australians will NOT be able to opt out of this filtering which means that once it comes into effect the Government of the Australian people will be deciding what the nation can and can not view on the internet.
I have a number of friends who in the past have been most paranoid about the activities that they undertake online and go to great lengths to ensure that their identity was always kept private and I simply responded the same way everytime when asked why I did not and it was because I saw no real reason to doing so. More and more however when I see articles like this arising from around the world I come to the conclusion that the time is now to do something about my privacy and my right right to both freedom of expression and speech without allowing our Governments to dictate what we can and cannot say and what we can and cannot view.
Quite a large group of people would ask me what I have to hide to despise such monitoring and filtering. Their argument states that if I am doing nothing wrong then what do I have to hide? Going off that argument then I am sure you would have no issues at all with me filming you through your front windows while you shower or spend time with your family. I mean you have nothing to hide right?
In part two of this article I outline some simple steps that you can employ to get around such attempts to pervert your right to privacy and freedom of choice and I outline and give my impressions on a communitity which is attempting forge ahead in this area and offer you a space to do as you see fit without the fear of being censored or monitored.
I would ask that if you have an opinion on this article regardless of if you agree with it that you leave a comment below.
Alternatively you can discuss this on the forums:
]]>Further updates await so its off for now.
]]>Well there are another group of people displaying some similar behaviour of late however this time it seems to be the technical media who are driving this fad. On any given day of the week at any of the major technical blogs/news site you will see stories and adds promoting the “Ultra portable notebook” that every man and his major Chinese assembler seem to be pumping out of the factory these days.
What am I referring to? None other then the fad created by the ASUS EeePC of course. While there has always been a sub notebook market if one scratched under the surface of the notebook industry none were ever really affordable to the common man, they instead remained the plaything of those with enough dosh not to care about such silly things as overpriced hardware in comparison to a full size unit as the portability was it’s selling point not its high price.
ASUS saw a gap in that market and decided to strike and I gladly will give them a standing ovation for what they have been able to cram in such a small unit and for such a small price. It’s practical, sturdy, well priced and able to complete most tasks that full sized notebooks are often used for.
The EeePC has quickly become the darling of the tinkerer and the businessman due to its size, relative ease of use and the flexibility for those that look a little further under the hood. I don’t deny that the unit has a place in the market for those who do need such a small unit. Perhaps they like to travel and don’t want to carry a full size 13 inch or larger at all times, who really knows.
The problem however is that due to the success of the unit and the amount of media coverage it has generated it is now reaching a new audience, one which perhaps would do well not to jump on the bandwagon so quickly.
I’m referring to the “OH YA I NEED ONE OF THOSE THINGIES I WOULD USE THEM ALL THE TIME!” and then realise that they wont ever actually use the thing after taking it out of the box.
I have done some research into this however I will present to you how I came to this conclusion. I myself was convinced by someone who himself did not have one of these units but used the large ball of rolling hype and reviews to have me jumping up and down to get my hands on one. I was actually convinced that I had a genuine use for a notebook of such size and all of this portrayed to me by someone else who had never actually touched a unit.
Armed with no facts at all and only the unfounded claims of a friend I went right out and picked up a unit, went home and ripped it out of the box and prepared to be blown away.
Blown away? I was blown away all right. By its almost unusable keyboard, the abysmal battery life however most of all I was blown away by the realisation that it only took ten minutes of usage to realise that I had made a mistake. I convinced myself that after a couple of weeks of usage I would come to see it’s strengths, its usefulness that I could adapt to the keyboard. Well here we are a month later and I no longer have an EeePC.
Once I had realised that I had no real use for the unit I then attempted to sell it via a few forums that I am member on only to run into about 20 more auctions under very similar circumstances as mine. The story was always the same:
“Oh yeah I bought the unit for a laugh and then realised that I did not actually have a use for it, unit is only 1 week old, barely touched and comes with all these add ons, must sell ASAP!”.
If you do a bit of research you will find this almost everywhere you go. The purchase of a new unit quickly followed by a sale of that same unit within weeks usually with a vastly reduced price and various extras in order to entice you into a quick sale.
The same methods under which I bought my own unit are then used in order to try and sell it quickly to you however I often wonder why people don’t simply turn around and ask the seller the following question:
“If the unit is as good and as awesome as you say it is then why are you selling it for 300 less then you paid a week later?”.
The reality is that while it is a great little device it is not meant for everyone which I am sure a lot of people will point out that I should of known from the get go. That however is not my point, my point is that the sales of these units is being pushed by people and purchasers that have no such use for any of these products.
If you do fall for the hype or you genuinely feel that you could use one of these units I recommend that you actual spend a decent amount of time with the unit getting a feel for its keyboard and its usage before slapping down your hard earned cash.
I am constantly hearing of this new and emerging market and the competition that is heating up within in it and every time that I hear this I always think to myself what market? Now forgive me for I will admit with ease that I am not the head of a large notebook/hardware company and may not be able to predict the market or even see the current shape that it is in now with the clarity of which they do however as a consumer I just don’t see that such a market exists at this time and if it does then certainly not to the size which we are being led to believe. I just don’t buy that we all want to be carrying a notebook around that has the power of a 6 year old desktop, twice the size of my wallet that has a keyboard your average sized professional will be unable to use.
I’m just not ready yet to trade away the advancements and the work which have allowed me to have all the power and use of my desktop at my fingertips no matter where I go. I enjoy my larger screen and the ability to perform powerful complex calculations should I need to do so.
What is wrong with the current size of notebooks now anyway? When did we all become so lazy that it has become a pain in the arse to carry more then a few hundred grams of weight? Its called a bag, you can get them pretty much anywhere to fit any device that you would like. I was on a MacBook before I got my Pro and I never had any issues with getting it around the place. I simply threw it in the backpack and off I went, did not really weigh me down at all. In fact I cannot even really say that I find the MacBook Pro that heavy either, then again I could be considered a bit larger then your average person in this line of work.
Even for those that do have issues with the current size of notebooks there are still options on the market which are smaller and lighter then those which I have listed above but are still actually usable over something like the EeePC and by useable I mean that you fingers will still actually resemble fingers when you are done attempting to type on the unit for any length of time greater then entering your system login.
The sales of the EeePC have also convinced ASUS that it is a good idea to release a desktop based on the same theory of the EeePC. That is light, small and cheap and with just enough power to sneeze or perhaps power a text editor. Oh it can run Linux and blah blah and and its so cheap!
You want to know what else is cheap?! Older computers, it’s called recycling. Take that old box that has almost identical specs to the EeePC or hell even buy one for 50 dollars and use that instead of paying 400+ for the warm warranty fuzzies and funky fashion statement that you will get to make to all of your geeky friends. You know, just like apple users do.
I encourage you to discuss this as always in our forums:
]]>This worked fine for portal and I was up and playing without issue within minutes. I then tried the same process to get half-life and counter strike working and needless to say this did not go quite as well.
Everytime I would attempt to launch a game of either I would simply be presented with a validating 100% issue upon which the game would never actually launch. I decided the best course of action rather then screw around all night trying to figure out what was going on would be to google the issue and see if others had encountered a similar issue. It was during this search that I came across the following blog and another guy having the same issue as me:
http://cathodetan.blogspot.com/2008/01/steam-validating-and-validating-and.html
While the issue does not appear to of been caused by the same thing the end result is the same. I can gather from his blog that he tried a few different things including contacting valve customer support but to no avail. His path led to a few other things that you can read on his blog such as the following:
http://cathodetan.blogspot.com/2008/02/valve-says-no-refund-to-broken-software.html
Anyhow his issues are not my point just figured that I would point it out. At any rate I appear to of discovered a really simply fix for this issue which I have been able to use on multiple games to resolve this issue. At first it was so simple I could hardly believe that was all I had to the entire time.
Enough blabbering, the fix is as such:
It will go through an identical process as the initial “Validating files” process however this time it will take a little longer and what it is done it will actually work. I tried this process on each of the three games and each time it worked so while I cant promise that it will work for everyone it is at least worth a try as not a whole lot else that was recommended seemed and that includes the following:
If anyone tries this and it works let me know in the comments.
]]>Im sure I am making a point here so stick with me.
While I am sure that at the time it seemed like a great idea to make your self a profile, list all of your favorite hobbies, likes and dislikes I am here to tell you otherwise. Using giant tiled .jpg images, bright green text and blaring the worlds worst music this side of 7 tracks to poop to does not all convince me that you are a wonderful and fun loving person who I should contact without delay so I can just be OH SO cool. Oh and on another note I dont care how big you managed to blow your breasts up in photoshop, tYp!iNg L!k3 Thi$ DoEs NOt Mak Y0U c()OL. It simply reinforces my opinion that in your case “Hooker” may actually be a good choice of career even if it is your only one.
Oh and taking a picture of you and all your mates dressed like women (im referring to the “men” with this one) with more makeup then ronald macdonald on a big night out DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BAND! It also does not make you the following:
Hell the only word running through my head is GGGGGAY. A backwards baseball cap and an IQ in line with that of a goldfish does not make you a gangster, it makes you a redneck, also commonly known as “white trash” or “under achiever”. Im sure that there are plenty of others ways you can convince people that your penis is bigger then it actually is without trying to convince people the “man is getting you down” or “they holding a brother back” when the only brotherhood your a part of is the welfare line. Now do me a favor and fuck off your “myspace” and crawl back to “your space”.
]]>I have actually started work on my new CMS and I hope to god to have it running soon. It takes me so long because I can never lock down a design that I like which makes it hard for me to build all the code around it. I am deeply shocked and offended at my continued use of wordpress.
]]>I scrolled through the comments looking for anything of note when I came across a comment that really irked me, well part of a comment really. At any rate take a look at the 3rd comment down:
http://digg.com/nintendo/IGN_Mario_Kart_Wii_Review
For those to lazy to actually click on the link I have quoted the relevant part of the comment below:
“I got MKDS with the thought that I would enjoy playing games of Kart against random real people and I would have the ability to play against friends online. The reality was non-fun random matches due to snaking/players leaving/assholes”
Now snaking for those not familiar is a technique involving the “hop/drift” in the Mario Kart series that became popular originally with the nintendo64 Mario Kart title and of course has since also been used in more recent Mario Kart titles such as Double Dash and Mario Kart DS. A better description of the above is available using wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Kart_DS#Snaking
Anyway the point of my rant is that people such as the one who posted the comment shit me to no end. As they are unable to master a particular skill or move that other players may have the time or ability to master they then decide that they must turn to the degradation/non acceptance/rubbishing of said tactic or skill in question as they are unable to compete or even with participate with players on such a level even though what is being performed is 100% legit.
Stop crying fattie and man up a little, learn to step up and compete on the same playing field or dont play at all, oh wait thats right, you dont play now do you? BOOHOO!
/rant
]]>Three weeks as of today, three weeks without needing to put one of those things in my mouth at least once an hour to get through the day. Also bare in mind that this coming monday is my exact one month anniversary since I had my last smoke.
Four weeks since I have had to stick one of those things in my mouth to get up in the morning, four weeks since I have needed one to deal with others, four weeks to break a self torture ritual that has had me trapped and feeling unable to face the world for all of these many years.
Its a wonderful feeling to finally feel free, to feel as though I have finally beaten this after all of my many attempts. Please dont feel as if I am taking this all in my stride and acting cocky, I realise that there is still a chance that if I do not take this seriously there is a real risk that I could reoffend. Should that be the case however then it would be my choice to do so and a poor choice at that as I see no other reason that I could restart such an awful habit other then sheer stupidity.
I find myself now attempting to justify or even understand the time, money and effort that I had spent on my former hobby. During a visit to a friend who is a smoker I noticed a ciggerate that he had placed on the ground. I picked up and held this ciggerate as he worked and sniffed the smoke deep into my nostrils in an effort to find out why this item should appeal to me, I twirled it in my fingers to see if its shape still held a familiar feeling for me, alas I was unable to feel anything from either action to explain all the wasted years spend consuming the toxins contained within the small yet powerful object that I currently held within my hands.
It is still hard to believe that it has been almost a month since I made the decision to throw away the habit, it is even harder to believe that I am here after four weeks and my world has not come to an end. The nicotine had somehow always convinced me that I would be unable to live without it.
I was convinced that I would be unable to enjoy meals, social situations or even the company of good friends again. Nothing however could be further from the truth and would at this point also like to point out the fact that I have met a girl who is very special to me and means much more to me then smoking ever could or should of in the first place.
I would even suggest that it is with her support I was able to fight off those first few days of darkness when the urges were at their worst and for this I thank her.
To any smoker who questions their ability to quit this controlling substance, to any smoker that listens to that dark voice at the back of the head who constantly taunts you with failure and fear free yourself from the control of it and take a chance to fight back and free yourself from its horrible restraints. It is not helping your confidence, its not helping you concentrate, its not giving you strength or stress relief and is in fact causing you to simply become more stressed and less confident overtime ensuring that you remain addicted so that you can continue to “destress” with its assistance.
Meh
/rant
]]>Dont expect too much from it as I only created it when I was testing how to make steps and what not. There is also a odd glitch where if you walk under the bridge your head can be seen through the top of it. Still its a good map for a laugh, I would suggest between 6-12 players for optimal play.
Anway if you want to give it a go you can grab it below:
snatchbot.net/downloads/awp_twofaced.zip
If you wish to leave any feedback just let me know what you think in the forums
snatchbot.net/forums
]]>Behold!
snatchbot.net/forums
Feel free to join and post anything you would like, users are encouraged to annoy, fight and stir trouble. Read something in the news? Want to shove your opinion down someones throat about it? You have reached the right place. Dont forget to spread the word and what not as you do.
I will eventually add a link to it at the top but for now dont be lazy and just type it into your goddamn browser.
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