tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25710919261042430792011-08-10T12:23:37.896+01:00freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.comBlogger1181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-75638375405466480712010-11-04T03:15:00.001Z2010-11-04T03:15:43.351Z

I remember a friend showing me screens and trailers of a game in 2005/2006 he was totally jizzing his load over the lighting model and high resolution textures. It was to be the next technical masterpiece on the PC platform, something that would raise the bar for the rest of the industry the way Half-Life 2 had done a year or so previously and as Crytek have done with their Cry Engine since. 

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-86352066252549265022010-10-27T03:12:00.001+01:002010-10-27T03:16:01.035+01:00

Who’d have thought running could be so much fun? Mirror’s Edge is essentially a game about free-running (or parkour if you fancy, or are French). And rather uniquely it’s a game about free-running in First-Person Perspective. I didn’t think free-running would work in First-Person if I’m totally honest, I’ve always found the more platformy sections of FPS games to be more of a chore than a joy,

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-78425439387559860492010-10-15T02:57:00.001+01:002010-10-15T02:57:18.688+01:00

I’m a Left 4 Dead fan, and as all good Left 4 Dead fans know The Sacrifice is the newest thing in the Left 4 Dead universe. Today I got around to playing. Valve marketed the dlc via a 4-part webcomic which bridges the events between the end of the original L4D game up to the point where the L4D1 and L4D2 survivors encounter each other in the finale of L4D2 dlc campaign The Passing. It does

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-81368581806516096112010-10-06T02:20:00.001+01:002010-10-06T02:20:00.241+01:00

I played the original Call of Juarez, it was a decent Western FPS, it had its flaws but I managed to overlook those and get to the end. I rented Bound in Blood knowing relatively nothing about it, I knew it featured a pair of Brothers as the main protagonists, that’s about it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one of those brothers was a younger version of Reverend Ray McCall from the

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-43606343934625260962010-10-03T03:29:00.001+01:002010-10-05T11:57:34.148+01:00

In my opinion the introduction of "Achievements" to this generation of gaming was a fantastic idea. I look at it like an extra layer of challenge, yeah sure, you beat the game, but look at all these OTHER challenges, can you do these? There's also the potential for added longevity and replay value for titles you may otherwise only bother playing once, so that's another string to the bow as far as

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-57832258561199253732010-08-30T07:51:00.001+01:002010-08-30T07:51:14.074+01:00

At least, this is how it feels sometimes. The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, therefore when I get on the train/bus it's always always ALWAYS gonna be the same side of the train/bus that has the eye searing, brain melting sun beating down upon it preventing me from reading, pissing about on my phone or even thinking (which I find a near impossibility in any sort of heat).

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-50116939361498696112010-08-30T07:32:00.001+01:002010-08-30T07:32:08.435+01:00

Whenever you're on the train, on the bus or at their relevant respective stop or station and you can hear music emanating from the head region of some nearby and seemingly totally oblivious individual you can, with an almost 100% hit rate look for the white line and trace it to one end which will reveal a gleaming set of Apple earbuds (likely one sharp head movement away from making a bid for

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-62432856187846102662010-07-08T08:31:00.001+01:002010-07-08T08:31:54.713+01:00

Another Grand Slam passes and once again it's Roger or Rafa on the trophy - Rafa incidentally - Meh. But this time I was there! Well, not for the final, I was there on the 2nd Wednesday, aka men's Quarter Finals day. We were on Centre Court which was pretty freakin awesome. 1st up was Roger Federer vs Tomas Berdych followed by Andy Murray vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Two very high quality matches, and

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-31043252728338247962010-04-26T09:02:00.000+01:002010-04-26T09:02:21.767+01:00

Cameron unveils 'elected PM' plan: "David Cameron outlines plans for a new rule that anyone taking over as PM between elections must call one within six months." We don't elect Prime Ministers, we elect candidates from our own constituencies. This is a stupid idea, one which demonstrates that David Cameron has no intention of instigating electoral reform. There would be absolutely no need for

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-87514755858612331022010-04-18T20:25:00.004+01:002010-04-18T21:43:10.534+01:00

The UK General Election is almost upon us, May the 6th to be precise, and the big question on every set of lips is "Who's gonna win?".The press, the polls and even the average joe on the street seemed to have David Cameron and his Conservatives winning by a landslide - that was until Thursday.On Thursday the first Prime Ministerial debate took place on ITV and according to the majority of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-56010930834198872382010-04-16T10:37:00.000+01:002010-04-16T10:37:55.854+01:00

Pope says Church must do penance: "Pope Benedict XVI says the Catholics need to 'do penance', in an apparent reference to the child sexual abuse scandal." How about some jail time?

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-92131492921422005702010-04-14T11:24:00.000+01:002010-04-14T11:24:52.409+01:00

'No malpractice' by climate unit: "There was no scientific malpractice at the unit at the centre of the 'Climategate' affair, a panel says." This is entirely unsurprising it has to be said, the comments singled out as evidence of statistical fiddling were taken completely out of context and with poor understanding of scientific jargon. Score one for Science.

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-1329370165057603912010-04-13T11:33:00.000+01:002010-04-13T11:33:34.176+01:00

Dawkins backs plan to arrest Pope: "Leading atheist Richard Dawkins backs a campaign to have the Pope arrested for 'crimes against humanity'." If there is indeed a case to be answered then the case should be answered. Priests are not above the law and the Pope is not above the law. If he is covering for abusers then he should be treated as an acomplice.

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-7643822979620412422010-04-13T10:58:00.000+01:002010-04-13T10:58:28.061+01:00

Tories pledge to empower voters: "The Conservatives are launching their manifesto with a pledge to give people more control over their lives." How about instating a PRoportional Electoral System? Nah. Cowards.

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-21516092591007514522010-01-08T12:02:00.001Z2010-01-08T12:02:11.794Z

So aside from my little confession earlier I've been pretty quiet lately. Last time I posted I mentioned my new job which has of course contributed to my silence - I've got quite a long commute and I'd been putting in quite long hours in my first couple of weeks to fit around the schedules of my new colleagues who've been showing me the ropes - so the last thing I want to do at the end of a day

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-21813065654469075422010-01-06T15:56:00.001Z2010-01-06T15:56:59.103Z

To Rice Krispies Squares.I fear for my loved ones...--Sent from my mobile device

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-44958819272012506212009-12-12T21:57:00.001Z2009-12-12T21:57:30.266Z

Been working at my new job for a week now. It's new shit, interestingstuff, learning a bunch of new skills and science.We're talking pharmacology here so it's a bit left of my coremolecular biology background, but it's not a million miles away.Basically I know biologically what's happening on the plate but whenit comes to making that plate and analysing the data after the assayI'm a bit clueless.

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-35316948353483461762009-12-08T20:13:00.001Z2009-12-08T20:13:50.664Z

I don't think I've talked about books since I mentioned David Gemmell's excellent Troy series earlier this year, well, I'm gonna now. David Gemmell is very relevant here actually as it was the immense enjoyment I garnered from his Troy series that led me to Simon Scarrow. After reading Troy I decided I quite liked this historical fiction malarkey and would like to try some more. I looked at the

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-73186574309800983212009-12-08T19:49:00.001Z2009-12-08T19:49:07.146Z

I haven’t really played guitar seriously in a while, and I was thinking just last night that I should pick up the old six string and re-familiarise myself with the old girl. I was planning on working my way through one of Pearl Jam’s new (and excellent) songs The Fixer (I was planning on embedding the video there but the cunts at universal have ‘requested’ that the function be disabled on

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-54929819564227205612009-11-25T01:03:00.001Z2009-11-25T01:03:09.073Z

The Internet is Googles business, it started life as a web page indexer and search engine and has since expanded into dozens of other services in the web domain including email, personal organisation, video, instant messaging, VoIP, Office applications, picture hosting, blog hosting, web page construction, book scanning and a shit load more. We're talking about a load of services hosted 'in the

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-5459251085615169382009-11-21T14:52:00.001Z2009-11-21T14:52:42.276Z

Now that I've got a few hours of Dragon Age Origins under my belt I feel reasonably well placed to pass some comment on it, so here we go!   Character Creator   Bioware took the prudent step of releasing a Character Creator tool prior to the full release of the game, this lets you (unsurprisingly) create a character! It's a nifty thing that gives you the opportunity to jump right into the game

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-43729907526350396832009-11-18T16:44:00.001Z2009-11-18T16:44:54.035Z

Created by Oatmeal

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-88455108960002326642009-11-13T15:01:00.001Z2009-11-13T16:16:59.821Z

Earlier I mentioned the ATP Draw Challenge, and after a fairly decent start I'm afraid it's all gone to shit. Monday and Tuesday I was doing quite well, 7 points off the leaders fairly consistently, then Wednesday came... Wednesday was a big day, top 5 seeds in contention, their first matches, naturally you'd expect World #1 Roger Federer to manage to win through, right? Well he didn't and I had

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-53928496315297279952009-11-10T01:26:00.001Z2009-11-10T01:26:57.450Z

There were two big tournaments over the past week, ATP 500 events in Basel, Switzerland and Valencia, Spain. Valencia marked the first piece of ATP action World #4 and British #1 Andy Murray has seen since his 4th round exit at the US Open in August (excluding his participation in Britain's loss to Poland in the Davis Cup – which is a non-ATP event ) after injury forced him to miss two scheduled

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-55099790524385771172009-11-07T01:31:00.001Z2009-11-07T01:31:39.797Z

If you haven’t seen it already (and why the fuck haven’t you?) you should check out the latest episode of South Park. It’s a hilariously awesome attempt to reclassify the word “fag” from a derogatory word for homosexuals to a general insult for people who are loud, obnoxious and inconsiderate, because, to paraphrase the episode “it’s just so much fun to say”. The episode has the same sort of vibe

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-11861596179722994222009-11-07T01:05:00.001Z2009-11-07T01:05:54.949Z

A few weeks ago I heard of a competition to win tickets to the ATP Tour Finals in London through the ATP RSS feed from the event sponsors Barclays. I was unsuccessful My girlfriend Helen on the other hand, was So we’re going to London baby! We’ve got our travel plans organised already, so we will definitely be at the evening session on Wednesday the 25th. Can’t wait. Don’t know who’ll be

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-69936036614594101862009-11-04T20:35:00.001Z2009-11-04T20:35:13.879Z

So, you know when you're going to see a band but you don't want to seethe support, you've got to make the decision, you know thw band willprobably be on like 8.30 or 9, but do you turn up for 8.30 or 9? Ofcourse you invariably choose 8.30 because if you chose 9 and they wenton at 8.30 then you miss stuff.Well, it's about 8.30 now and the arsing support are still on, and nooffense to them, but

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-40919088650050185652009-11-04T02:53:00.001Z2009-11-04T02:53:41.484Z

One thing I really don’t get about the games industry is “preloads”. So the game is finished, you’ve let me download it to my computer, but I can’t play it until you say? Why, oh why, oh why, oh why? It makes very little sense, it’s done, it’s in my possession, let me play it! Of course not releasing finished works before a set date is not unique to the gaming industry, but it is more

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-55915239032648595352009-11-04T02:24:00.001Z2009-11-04T02:24:38.774Z

This is a game I was really looking forward to earlier in the year before its release. Games based on superheroes, comic book superheroes in particular, have a long history of sucking. Wolverine did look the business during the pre-release hype machine and it did look like it might live up to the developers claim of “best superhero game ever”. Unfortunately the game garnered nothing better than

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-3727369851067277532009-11-03T15:03:00.001Z2009-11-03T15:03:50.797Z

Having recently installed a new operating system I have of course been installing a rather large amount of software of late, and I’ve noticed an irritating trend DESKTOP SHORTCUTS!!!!! Fuck me if every other program doesn’t leave a desktop shortcut. I know what you’re thinking “uncheck the desktop shortcut option during installation” and of course I do numbnuts, the fact is there’s a shitload of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-45599790386956790932009-11-03T00:45:00.001Z2009-11-03T00:45:43.068Z

Just booted up Steam to start pre-loading the L4D2 demo and the Update News page advertised this job. Valve are looking for software engineers to develop web apps eh? I wonder what for. Know what would be awesome? If they were developing a browser-based Steam client. One of the things that is kinda shitty about the Steam client is it’s in-built Internet Browser (looks to be IE6 in a custom

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-74692519655949214142009-11-02T23:52:00.001Z2009-11-02T23:52:39.135Z

It’s the only word I have: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8339223.stm To summarise, the House Speaker (Commons, British Parliament) got his knickers in a twist because an MP read an excerpt of a letter sent to him from his smartphone or PDA in the Commons (I take it that’s what was meant by “blackberry like device”). How backwards is that? In the digital age MPs are discouraged from

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-19996688137774420052009-11-02T22:53:00.001Z2009-11-02T22:53:33.278Z

I use Pidgin to IM, I first came across it during the brief period I used Ubuntu, Pidgin was the default IM program packaged with the OS. I liked it. Minimal interface, tabbed chat window, multi-protocol, no ads, basic core features yet extensible for those who need/want extra stuff. A nice program basically. Nice, but not perfect. One thing I notice with Pidgin is that messages sent to and from

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-37768528614345213032009-11-02T22:22:00.001Z2009-11-02T22:22:25.794Z

I have this sort of a hypothesis regarding sceptics of science, basically if someone is sceptical of any one particular scientific standpoint then they are more likely to be sceptical of other scientific standpoints, furthermore these people also tend to lean heavily towards a right-wing political view. The “scientific standpoints” in question tend to be those where a certain amount of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-83285019594165605312009-11-01T21:12:00.001Z2009-11-01T21:12:54.521Z

or the point, not entirely sure which.To what do I refer? Well the Sky Player of course, an online live streaming and on-demand service that Sky have recently had introduced to the Xbox 360 and will be bringing to the Windows Media Centre later in the year.To me it sounded like a great opportunity for Sky to provide an alternative to less than legal means of watching premium TV

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-53449798591261899642009-10-30T01:25:00.001Z2009-10-30T01:25:41.799Z

Ok, that’s a bit extreme, they’re probably just a bit thick or ignorant or something. Who am I talking about? You couldn't guess? Why those charming folks over at the Daily Mail of course! Britain's worst finest newspaper! So some government type (Lord Stern) happened to suggest that abandoning a meat-centric diet might do some good for the environment vis-à-vis climate change/global warming. The

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-77913640661756944532009-10-29T23:33:00.001Z2009-10-29T23:33:25.033Z

I’ve been using Windows7 for about a week now, pretty satisfied with it, but one thing I’d noticed was that I was getting a lot of “server not found” errors in Firefox. I didn’t know if this was a Windows7 compatibility error in Firefox or some sort of networking bug in Windows7 itself, but needless to say it was pissing me off greatly. Then it struck me: The DNS server. DNS servers are

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-30120880538670719182009-10-26T17:15:00.001Z2009-10-26T17:15:46.303Z

A couple of weeks ago I had a wee rant about the Metro running a story based on a poll with a pathetically small sample size and this time it's the BBC's turn.   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8322781.stm   11,000 people, not bad, but when you consider that's spread across ten countries including the USA, China and Russia it's a fucking pathetic sample.   Get fucking real people, if you're

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-48059739366986286032009-10-23T14:16:00.001+01:002009-10-23T14:16:02.183+01:00

Wait, no, that other word beginning with c, cunt, that's the one.   So the BBC let Nick Griffin on Question Time, fine by me to be perfectly honest, the man 'is' technically an MEP now and therefore a politician so claims that the appearance on Question Time 'legitimise the party' are a bit irrelevant, they are legitimate, they have two fucking MEPs.   However legitimacy as a political party

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-61728037433859112712009-10-22T15:15:00.001+01:002009-10-22T15:15:58.639+01:00

I'll be home and making my final preparations to install Windows 7 on my machine.   Today is the big release day, and thanks to Amazons online delivery tracker I know my copy is sitting at home waiting on me,   I'm really rather ridiculously excited by the prospect. It truly is absurd that something as basic as a computer Operating System has this effect on me, but I'm a geek, this is the sort of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-53043675947658562052009-10-20T17:51:00.001+01:002009-10-20T17:51:30.235+01:00

I'm not a fan of the X-Factor, I think it's a pile of wank to be perfectly honest, but my girlfriend and her housemates do enjoy it, and since I was at their house this weekend I had the displeasure of enduring it.   One of the shows 'judges', Cheryl Cole, performed her new (possibly first) solo single in attire I informed my girlfriend was very reminiscent of the get-up worn by Street Fighter

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-13125799499579921402009-10-19T21:29:00.001+01:002009-10-19T21:29:35.293+01:00

Earlier today gaming news site www.vg247.com had a competition (of sorts) to win a copy of Dragon Age: Origins Digital Deluxe Edition. Copies were awarded to the posters of the 500th, 1000th, 1500th and 2000th comments of the article – and here is my winning 1000th post: Yup, that’s right, Jizz. Jizz won me £39.99 worth of Bioware RPG. If you’re into games and you’ve never heard of vg247 I

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-3740237019834970692009-10-15T02:15:00.001+01:002009-10-15T02:15:42.728+01:00

Decided to go for a new template. It’s still a work in progress, for example I haven’t managed to get adding comments to work under the posts themselves, instead clicking add comment will give you a blogger pop-up for commenting. So you can still comment, but it’ll be slightly different. Still not 100% certain if I’m sticking with this one, I like a lot of things about it, but some things a wee

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-36130284076318205772009-10-13T02:38:00.001+01:002009-10-13T02:39:18.291+01:00

…is a proper full ATP Tour Tennis game – preferably on Wii. Me and my girlfriend have a Wii, and we have EA’s Grand Slam Tennis for it, it’s pretty fun, but the entire season is reduced right down to the four Grand Slam events (and only from R32 – 5 matches, rather than R128 – 7 matches) with each Slam preceded by a few single-match warm-up events. The reality of professional Tennis is slightly

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-13415008479820976482009-10-10T15:52:00.001+01:002009-10-10T19:10:52.313+01:00

It's a concept most Gamers are familiar with, even if they don't think about it in those terms. It's all too easy when you're playing something compelling just to keep going a little bit further "just to the next save point" then "ok, ok, the next save point" then "ok, right, honestly, just to the end of this chapter/level/section" and on and on til it's three in the morning and your vision has

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-91461986693580724662009-10-09T03:25:00.001+01:002009-10-09T03:25:52.100+01:00

You know, I think the last time I mentioned Tennis on here was way back before the final in Montreal, which was? August? Something like that (I could find out in like 3 seconds but I’m not going to). So Murray won that, which was cool. The very next week he had to defend his Masters title in Cincinnati, unfortunately losing in the SF to Federer, which basically resulted in no net gain of points

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-25398777090840077752009-10-09T02:20:00.001+01:002009-10-09T02:29:20.119+01:00

Using our Pirate Bay standard as above we can see that there are quite a few categories encompassed by the larger heading of “Video”. I’m going to cut those down to three core areas – Movies (cinema), DVDs and TV and as before illustrate how pirates, although violating copyright, provide services legal channels are failing to. Movies Similar to the music industry the Movie industry has a long

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-24780621759985004812009-10-07T22:52:00.001+01:002009-10-07T22:52:49.307+01:00

The issue of digital Piracy has come under increasingly heavy legal fire of late. Peter Mandelson has been making noise, Lily Allen has been embarrassing herself, the entertainment industries in league with the Swedish legal system have concentrated all their firepower on bringing down thepiratebay.org, the French are determined to implement their “three strikes policy” and BT and other UK ISPs

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-58487471216597498632009-10-05T10:50:00.001+01:002009-10-05T10:50:08.060+01:00

I'm reading The Metro, a generally interesting free paper available ona variety of public transport in the UK. I've got to page 4 andalready the paper has featured news stories based on polls, one ofwhich was the front page headline. Sample size? 1100 (for both whichsuggests it was in fact the same poll).How statistically significant or representative are the opinions of1100 people out of a

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-59158029570895237172009-10-05T10:13:00.001+01:002009-10-05T10:13:22.560+01:00

When I buy a train ticket from a machine and pay by card I have tostand back from the machine two paces AND bend over in order to seewhat the screen on the card machine is asking me to do. Why? Becausethe thing was either designed by idiots of for the exclusive use ofmidgets.I'm not that tall, roughly 6', that's not far off average for mygeneration so I am quite confused as to why machines

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-43898601969090723172009-10-01T08:48:00.001+01:002009-10-01T08:48:11.717+01:00

This is the first morning since summer ended that I've gone outsideand been able to see my breath - I think.And that means it's cold.September had a fairly good run, I even played outdoor tennis onSunday in shorts and didn't feel cold, but big bad October is here andit's time for the temperatures to plummet.Next time I'll be prepared, fleece at the ready!freedoms_stain, wishing he'd brought his

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-38351060747378681512009-09-30T11:25:00.001+01:002009-09-30T11:25:56.822+01:00

Google Wave is going on public trial today at 4pm BST, 100,000 invitesare on the block, I hope I get one!-- Sent from my mobile device

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-10415339101352214082009-09-30T00:50:00.001+01:002009-09-30T00:50:15.445+01:00

Sometimes rather large amounts of time pass between my blog entries. I really should sort that, like apparently my last post before today was the 22nd, that’s really a long time, and it seems to poof away so fast. I often get ideas for posts that fizzle out or never reach a publishable quality, I’ve started maybe 4 or 5 different pieces on piracy that never reached a finished state, and

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-58160760159647983392009-09-30T00:17:00.001+01:002009-09-30T00:17:40.927+01:00

Old Skool Family Guy was so much better than the new shit. I purposefully put the TV on at 11 just to see random Season 1-3 episodes on BBC3, even though I have them on DVD and I laugh out loud for 22 minutes straight. I watched the new episode on Monday, tittered maybe 3 times. Is that 140 characters or whatever their daft limit is? either way, it’s practically a Tweet, without the inanity of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-78764088566649635152009-09-22T22:00:00.001+01:002009-09-22T22:00:54.857+01:00

or knows the whereabouts of my socks, I’d like then back please. NOW! Seriously though, what the shitting hell is it about socks that make them vanish at such an incredibly advanced rate? I wear one pair every day pretty much, but the length of time between “necessity washes” (i.e. that point where you run out of socks and therefore have to do a washing as a matter of necessity in order to obtain

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-56250232653248439612009-09-22T20:39:00.001+01:002009-09-22T20:40:47.707+01:00

Of V Water! I was given a bottle of this stuff free in Glasgow Central Train Station today, Lemon & Lime flavour. I wasn’t really listening to the dudes sales pitch, I just wanted to get my free shit and go, but from what I dimly recall it was some shenanigans about “all natural ingredients, no sugar” yap yap yap. None of that shit is really all that important to me, the consumer, it’s sort of

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-54595993394318615702009-09-19T18:09:00.002+01:002009-09-19T18:11:17.739+01:00

A while ago I published a wee guide to keeping XP in good working order in which I advocated the use of a great wee program called Ccleaner and I just thought I'd do a wee follow up to illustrate the programs usefulness.I'd been pretty lax on maintenance recently (a good couple of months to be honest) so I ran a bunchof scans, no viruses, no malware, very few extraneous registry keys, so that was

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-1929860523893398832009-09-17T13:18:00.001+01:002009-09-17T13:52:10.955+01:00

If you’re a console gamer then you’ve been rocking the Batman action for almost three weeks already, but for the humble PC gamer this game only came out on the 15th, and I’ve only had it since yesterday   *****Please note, the initial several paragraphs is a rant about GFWL, if you wish to skip straight to the stuff about the game itself, scroll down to “Anyway, I digress, on to the game”,

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-1085345597911213792009-09-16T12:51:00.001+01:002009-09-17T03:37:45.952+01:00

  As the Internet becomes more and more important to the way we live our lives access to it on the move becomes more and more important. We now have mobile phone networks capable of delivering the Internet to the tiny screens in the palms of our hands (for a price of course) which is awesome in concept, but in practice often kinda shitty.   Enter Opera Mini.   The problem in most cases with

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-86162060957704361882009-09-11T20:27:00.001+01:002009-09-11T20:27:37.724+01:00

So Steam had SFIV on sale last weekend, I wanted it, it was a good price, so I got it. Well, they call it IV, in truth there have been dozens of unique Street Fighter titles, but Capcom are going with IV so we will too. I have a couple of Xbox 360 control pads I use on my PC with games that tend to play better with a control pad.   The 360 pad is pretty decent for most genres of game, however

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-50961078764094366712009-09-09T05:03:00.001+01:002009-09-09T05:06:04.494+01:00

is a standard job application form. I have filled in a lot of job apps in my time, and especially recently, and all but maybe one of the apps I’ve filled in required the exact same information. Unerringly the first two pages cover the details of the post, your personal details, your education history, memberships to professional bodies, current employer and work history. These are then

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-33781356848854659402009-09-08T01:20:00.001+01:002009-09-08T01:20:12.863+01:00

Usually I write blogs using Google Docs rather than the Blogger HTML editor. Fairly simple reasons for this: the Google Docs HTML editor is superior to the Blogger one affording me more options for formatting text, placing images and such. It also allows me to publish directly to my blog which gives it an advantage over any desktop application, and as Google Docs saves my work to the cloud I can

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-52323362048842847062009-09-03T17:53:00.002+01:002009-09-03T17:57:10.127+01:00

Me and my girlfriend like to go walking. Sometimes trails pass through farmland or grazing areas and sometimes you'll find cows in these.Cows are scary.Most people think of them as big dumb docile creatures who spend most of their time stationary, eating grass and occasionally mooing. From a distance this may be true, but get a bit closer and this can be a very different story. The picture above

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-4776224379412273102009-09-02T16:21:00.003+01:002009-09-03T17:59:43.866+01:00

This was originally written for a friend who had problems with an aging XP system that was cripplingly slow, but since I haven't posted anything of substance in a while I thought I'd share with the world wide web.   These tips are best used on an XP system already in good order to maintain that order and a system that is hobbling like a lame duck really should undergo a full formatting and OS

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-21367425905674834282009-08-18T15:01:00.002+01:002009-09-03T17:56:05.825+01:00

manual train doors? I mean the internal ones between carriages and onthe toilets rather than the outside ones because unlike the outsideones which are fairly speedy the internal ones are fucking shite.The newer looking Scotrail trains seem to be the worst offenders tome, there are 2 doors between each carriage, the first one opensfairly quickly, but there's this delay of several seconds before

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-65169789791293810622009-08-16T14:14:00.002+01:002009-08-16T14:19:58.221+01:00

With Rafael Nadal's defeat to Juan Martin Del Potro on Friday in the Quarter Finals of the Rogers Cup ATP 1000 Montreal Masters and thus loss of his title and the subsequent progression of Andy Murray to the final of the tournament for the first time in his career the British number one will move to the world number two spot. Fuck Yeah!The final will take place tonight and Murray's oppopnent

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-31669074224963841492009-08-14T01:07:00.004+01:002009-09-03T17:55:50.389+01:00

Woman wins clothes store tribunal: "A disabled woman from London wins an £8,000 payout in a case against clothing firm Abercrombie and Fitch." Ok, yes, she was unfairly treated, yes she deserved compensation, but £6800 for hurt feelings? Come the fuck on, I think our society has to learn to grow up and get real about this sort of thing. This sort of attitude has become ubiquitous in the UK. I

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-45263507947063483962009-08-12T00:31:00.002+01:002009-09-03T17:54:52.428+01:00

So why am I seeing wastage?Let me tell you a story, a true story that pissed me off massively. There's a lot of resurfacing work being done in my area,both roads and footpaths. A couple of weeks ago on my way to work I passed a workman filling in potholes on a road along the side of a kerb. At the time I kinda felt the guys time would be better spent filling in potholes elsewhere, say on roads

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-10379148698161961562009-08-11T16:56:00.002+01:002009-09-03T17:55:13.274+01:00

BBC RSS headdline: Radiohead 'to stop making albums'me: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...*clicks link*Thom Yorke quote: None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of along-play record again. Not straight off.Read that again "NOT STRAIGHT OFF". Fuck, who's above writing a highlyinaccurate headline just to reel in a few more clicks? Not the beebobviously.freedoms_stain, tired of reading boring news reports

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-4125529694266799932009-08-10T22:05:00.002+01:002009-08-11T17:01:13.193+01:00

So, went to a free show at the Edinburgh comedy festival on Sunday,four comics all doing a short free set to plug their full shows. In general pretty good show, but one guy bugged me. Lewis Shaffer, American guy, decides to pick on the Scottish/English relationship, which is perfectly fine by me - as long as you do it for the right reasons. Lewis Shaffer did not. He seemed pretty intent on

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-64130285066909398562009-08-08T15:00:00.001+01:002009-08-08T15:00:14.042+01:00

If your dog shits in a public area it's illegal, there are fines inrepercussion for allowing your dog to dump wherever it pleases,however if your HORSE craps out 2 metric tons of fertilizer right onthe pavement it's a-ok.I live in an area fairly near horse stables. I don't like dodgingshits bigger than my head on the way to work. Horse owners, you haveno excuse, plenty of room on a horse for a

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-6920836847848913132009-08-08T12:14:00.001+01:002009-08-08T12:14:19.905+01:00

  There's a reason I haven't been posting much 1 recently - and it isn't because I've run out of thoughts, trust me, it's because of Bethesda - bastards. Bethesda make video games. Their style is the epic sprawling sandbox RPG. This style of game - if it hooks you - will eat your life. This isn't the first time Bethesda products have consumed my life, back in 2007 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-33198105516007375152009-08-07T21:02:00.002+01:002009-08-07T23:06:53.934+01:00

...Is it that my mobile phone when low on battery proceeds to vibrate and bleep every few minutes? Surely this is madness? Vibrating and bleeping use up power - the very thing I'm short on! And what's more the feature apparently cannot be disabled. It seems to me that a better system would be to alert the user until they acknowledge their lowness of battery. Less naggage too. incidentally this

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-58906375839396362472009-07-19T00:40:00.001+01:002009-07-19T00:40:50.940+01:00

So Google are developing an Operating System. Interesting move although not entirely surprising. Even less surprisingly this OS will be heavily web based in a step towards cloud computing. Cloud computing is the concept where the bulk of information, storage and processing power is stored on/provided by remote servers rather than in the box under your desk, therefore the computer becomes a portal

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-81764070818671815252009-07-01T00:37:00.003+01:002009-07-01T00:39:12.544+01:00

Wimbledon has hit its second week with no comment from me! It'll be mens Quarter Finals tomorrow (or later today since it has scraped past midnight) and we should have some damned interesting matches on the cards. Lleyton Hewitt has reached the Quarters for the first time in donkeys years and will face the USA's sixth seed Andy Roddick. I actually think this'll be one of the most interesting

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-39431543558759610252009-06-30T23:47:00.004+01:002009-07-19T00:41:20.206+01:00

Last week I noticed a bunch of my Steam games got updates - all Orange Box titles and thus quite old and beyond what one would have thought was "update age", thus my curiosity was piqued and I had to investigate what this update brought. "Support for the Novint Falcon" - what, new gun? thinks I, but a quick google search revealed that it was in fact the contraption you see at the head of the

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-11341869912777019062009-06-24T19:45:00.003+01:002009-06-24T20:10:52.516+01:00

What is it? This is the second entry in what appears to be a continuing series of Transformers live action/CGI movies. This one is set two years down the line from the original and sees the surviving Autobots from that film (plus some n00bs) working with a special unit of the US Armed Forces to track down and eradicate a growing Deceptacon presence on Earth.  What I liked Optimus is BADASS - One

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-14865594297597455972009-06-18T14:00:00.002+01:002009-06-18T14:11:58.509+01:00

If you're looking at the above image and scrunching your face in confusion then read this to put your mind at ease. For the rest of you: read on McDuff. If you are a Firefox user and that image isn't familiar then you haven't been to the FF add-on page in a while - its all changed over there, presumably in honour of the coming full release of FF 3.5, and that image is nicked from there. I can't

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-21236979420179905372009-06-18T13:57:00.002+01:002009-06-18T13:58:39.540+01:00

Firefox 3.5 RC1 came out today - well a few hours ago so technically yesterday - therefore in its honour I thought I'd write a little bit about it. If you weren't aware already FF is an Internet browser, the chances are if you didn't know that already then you're currently browsing this page using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, in which case you should immediately click the link above and start

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-49369305603053334222009-06-17T20:02:00.002+01:002009-06-17T20:04:25.113+01:00

Left4Dead 2 was announced a few weeks ago, probably at E3 or at the Microsoft pre-E3 thingy-ma-bob, not sure, doesn't really matter. The game is slated for a release in Q4 this year, which is slightly queer as the original was only released in Q4 last year. For Valve, the games developer, this is a bit of an anomaly - they traditionally like to place half a decade between sequels. Existing

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-17927469828495097992009-06-17T16:45:00.002+01:002009-06-17T16:46:22.544+01:00

I'm afraid I have cruelly neglected the fair sport of Tennis in the last few weeks - and so much has happened! The French Open took place a few weeks ago, with some fairly shocking moments and upsets. Defending Champ and World No.1 Rafael Nadal was knocked out in the early stages by Swede Robin Soderling - ranked somewhere in the mid-20's at the time. Shame for Nadal, but amazing for Soderling

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-32792466781435585172009-06-17T15:45:00.002+01:002009-06-17T16:46:43.731+01:00

Big Brother is now in its tenth year here in the UK. Ten years and only the first couple of series - which at least made pretences at scientific relevance - were actually any good. Back at the beginning Big Brother tended to feature pretty normal/average people who were interested in the concept and came along to see what would happen. The show has since descended to the status of Pig Circus and

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-73511653798331396402009-06-10T18:36:00.003+01:002009-06-10T18:49:06.380+01:00

I've come across a couple of news stories of late that pretty much confirm what I had suspected for quite some time: the UK is a wasteful shit hole.  Story number one comes from The Telegraph and I read it yesterday, it regards recycling in the UK. Compulsory recycling is now almost ubiquitous in the UK - although this development took a damned long time in coming and many councils are still not

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-29130789381204051312009-06-09T01:56:00.002+01:002009-06-09T01:57:50.747+01:00

So the European elections were held last week and the results are in. It's a mixture of good news and bad news in my mind. On the one hand there have been gains by parties who support online privacy and who take a favourable stance against harsh copyright laws such as the European Greens (who appear to be up roughly 8 MEPs at this point) and Sweden's Pirate Party who'll be getting at least 1 MEP,

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-27911206453331550942009-06-08T22:48:00.002+01:002009-06-08T22:49:08.604+01:00

Last summer I needed a new mouse, being a bit of a keen gamer I decide to go for something designed specifically for gaming. The gaming peripheral market isn't huge in the UK, but there's enough of a choice to merit significant pondering and in the end I pipped for the Saitek Cyborg Mouse (pictured above), after all on paper it looks fantastically impressive:Adjustable mouse size extends or

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-18937973217800842062009-06-04T11:02:00.002+01:002009-06-04T11:03:04.627+01:00

It rather appears like I've left it a bit too long to get involved with Gears of War on Windows, very few people appear to be playing these days. When I go looking for Versus matches to join or for Co-op partners I'm lucky if there's even one game to choose from. And then when I do find a game it's usually populated by people speaking languages I can't understand which isn't the greatest

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-16078017335226044832009-06-02T22:44:00.002+01:002009-06-02T22:47:41.183+01:00

This is Google Wave, a web app in development from the Google team that aims to revolutionise the way we communicate online. And I must say, from the developer preview they've just showcased it looks pretty damned exciting. It's like a new take at email, combining principals of Instant Messaging, message boards and email itself into something that's very much unique. Anyone who has used Gmail

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-53470027972880387202009-05-29T22:46:00.003+01:002009-05-29T22:55:52.346+01:00

Last month I was experiencing a bit of a book drought, having received no recommendations I had to find something myself, and that something turned out to be the Troy trilogy by David Gemmell. I've never read any Gemmell prior to this but was aware of him as a science fiction/fantasy writer, Troy however is something different. The trilogy is loosely based on the Trojan war from bronze age

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-90067780913220173002009-05-27T15:31:00.004+01:002009-05-27T15:37:02.481+01:00

I have noted in the past that the greed of certain license have been having a decidedly negative impact on the cost of digital music and the availability of internet based music services such as Pandora. It would seem that PRS, the group responsible for collecting and distributing royalties from online services have seen a bit of light on the subject. They have veritably slashed the cost per

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-72318836171251827202009-05-25T22:31:00.003+01:002009-05-25T22:51:33.645+01:00

The title of this post refers to this BBC report on Andy Murray Re: the French Open. The line that caught my attention was this: "The 22-year-old eased to a three-set win over Juan Ignacio Chela" because I watched that match and I don't think eased is a word I'd use. Truly 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 sounds like it was an easy match, but lets not forget that of the 5 games Murray lost 2 were service games - in

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-9243562982136352512009-05-25T22:11:00.002+01:002009-12-02T00:01:50.895Z

I'd like to start out by expressing my extreme displeasure towards Blogger who managed to wipe out around half of the original content of this particular entry sometime between its original publication (on Saturday) and my subsequent verification all was as it should be 5 seconds later. What follows is a re-write of the lost material - hopefully I've managed to replicate most of the points I was

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-58138462321982046822009-05-22T23:18:00.002+01:002009-05-22T23:37:25.826+01:00

I speculated about moving to Wordpress last week, after a bit of research however I've decided against it. The issues I was having with Blogger seem to have been largely down to the narrow column width of my previous template and my own inexperience with HTML editing. After a bit of investigation I discovered widening the old template would require the use of custom images so as not to break

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-28168279932288548092009-05-22T22:07:00.003+01:002009-05-22T23:17:13.095+01:00

This is my fourth media player, smallest in size, 2nd smallest by capacity and first non-Creative Labs player after a line including the 4GB MuVo2, Zen Touch 20GB and Zen Vision:m 60GB, all decent players although none perfect and all superseded by the relentless march of technology. The latest player - the Zen Vision:m is a bit of a brick, the battery life isn't great, the battery indicator is

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-3483250032049655392009-05-19T21:58:00.004+01:002009-05-19T23:58:46.835+01:00

Given Stephen Kings history of screen adaptations of his work it should really come as no surprise that The Dark Tower is up for a screen adaptation - but somehow it does. Before I even heard that this was in the works (which was actually some time last year) I had considered the practicalities of bringing this work to screen. First off there's scale - Seven books of varying length. The

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-19463609755658587922009-05-19T11:24:00.005+01:002009-05-20T00:09:06.441+01:00

This is another massively entertaining game by PopCap, the developers that brought you Peggle. Plants Vs Zombies is in essence a twist on the classic Tower Defence genre, a free demo is available from Steam that allows you to play 60 minutes of the full game (requires Steam install). The PopCap strategy here is faultless, thet give you 60 minutes of the full game confident that you'll be reeled

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-30841034127530369362009-05-19T01:31:00.003+01:002009-05-19T10:28:17.747+01:00

About a week or so ago I speculated (rather long-windedly)on the reasons VFX may have quit YouTube suggesting he was getting out of there before the water got to hot around his "donations" dealings. Had I investigated a bit more thoroughly at the time I may have come across this series of videos by a YouTuber previously unknown to me by the name of lordhathor. This guy took a more active role in

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-31419683862359133142009-05-18T22:28:00.006+01:002009-05-19T01:54:20.110+01:00

Yup, it's a Star Trek blog! Since1 1966 Star Trek has been through 5 iterations to varying success, and after the mediocre ratings of most of those made post-TNG and the cancellation of the latest iteration - Enterprise starring Scott Bakula - someone at Paramount decided a reboot was necessary and thus Star Trek 2009 was born ***WARNING: Spoilers Ahead*** So, a reeboot eh? How did they go

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-53101638946885623702009-05-17T20:07:00.002+01:002009-05-17T20:12:03.500+01:00

Blogger is kinda doing my nut in, formatting goes wonky all over the place, text sizes fuck up and when I post from GoogleDocs line breaks are inserted all over the place. Thinking of trying put WordPress, we'll see how it goes.

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-75304571633406520132009-05-17T11:27:00.005+01:002009-05-19T21:46:20.904+01:00

Ivory Blacks, Glasgow, 12th of May 2009, 9.15pm, singer, song writer, guitar player and frontman of The Wildhearts Ginger hits the stage with his solo band for an evening of music, fun, banter, and drunken Glaswegians. Ivory Blacks is a tiny place, the band has to travel directly through the crowd to reach the stage, they're hailed with riotous applause and when it dies down Ginger tells the

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2571091926104243079.post-17644490423815423452009-05-11T21:05:00.003+01:002009-05-19T10:29:10.118+01:00

I saw this film last night, and although I've heard a great number of largely bad things about it I thought it wasn't enormously bad. ***WARNING: Spoilers ahead*** The only real beef I have with it is that it's pretty radically different to the original Marvel story. This is pretty much the same beef I have with most of the modern Marvel movie adaptations - and the X-men franchise has proven to

freedoms_stainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10252823790470074767noreply@blogger.com0