By Tom Fotherby on May 1, 2005
XBox,Strategy Combat,7/10 – April 2005
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Think pokemon meets street fighter. This is strategy combat where it’s tactics and planning that win a battle rather than button mashing. Collect mana orbs, cast creature spells, magic spells, enhancement spells; try to do all of this and still evade your opponent’s attacks.
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I got to the pen-ultimate level and found it just too hard. The single player mode is just a long tutorial really but I’ve never felt good enough to try battleing online players (I imagine it’d be awesome). It’s a bit of a cult game but my girlfriends little brother and I love quoting Magic monsters at each other, we take it in turn to call out “Goblin sky ranger”, “Giant Growth”, “Magma Giant”, “Rushwood Elemental”, etc.
Posted in Game Reviews |
By Tom Fotherby on April 30, 2005
Having gutted our kitchen and living with a just a microwave and fridge in the dining room, we got some electricians in to do a 1st fit of the new kitchen electrics.
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One of the walls was uneven and so we used battens and plasterboard to level it out.
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We also bought our new kitchen appliances (hood, oven, hob, microwave) which take up more than half the dining room in storage.
Posted in DIY |
By Tom Fotherby on April 28, 2005
I’m very excited about VoIP technology – It’s going to change the whole telephony business-model. There are a number of killer-apps for each element of technology, email is a killer-app (even my mum now uses it), Wi-Fi is an up and coming killer-app and I think that VoIP will become a killer-app. I don’t understand how BT are going to compete with a potentially free method of talking (assuming an open-source VoIP software-suite will emerge). The only things that let the telephone-providers have control are:
Not open-source 🙁
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- People will need an ISP
- People will need to rent a physical Internet connection (i.e. ADSL phoneline, cable, satellite, Power of Electricity cable).
- People will need a telephone number
- People will need to be able to reach an emergency number (999)
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The 3rd point is debatable. My mum will need a telephone number but if two people with VoIP want to talk to each other, they can use each others usernames to set up a call without needing a telephone number. Imagine using a Wi-Fi PDA as a phone around our house? and when Wi-Fi is available everywhere, mobiles could be replaced by VoIP enabled PDA’s. The phone would be redundant, power to the computer.
Posted in Tech Journal |
By Tom Fotherby on April 27, 2005
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I think politicians should argue about how to make things better rather than spend time slagging their opposition. The current Tory election campaign is disgusting because all they are doing is slinging mud at Tony Blair.
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I know politicians always point out the other parties mistakes but they have gone too far and I’m sick of it. Calling someone a liar and disrespecting their integrity and generally being nasty doesn’t seem right. Each party and each person should do and say what they think is right and get merit from their success not other people failures.
Posted in Journal |
By Tom Fotherby on April 18, 2005
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We got Southern Electric to move our electric meter from an annoying place in the sitting room out the way into the cellar. (04/Jan/2005)
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We did the same with Transco for our gas meter. (18/April/2005)
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Posted in DIY |
By Tom Fotherby on April 1, 2005
—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—–
Version: 3.12
GIT d- s++:++ a- C++ UL+ P++> L++> E W++ N? o? K? W(–) !O !M V(-) PS PE+ Y+ !PGP(–) t+ 5? X R+++ tv++ b++ DI– D+ G e+++ h- r++ y+
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK——
For more info see www.geekcode.com
Posted in Tech Journal |
By Tom Fotherby on March 20, 2005
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This has the power of the N64 in a portable form but with the quirk of two screens (DS). The touch screen is certainly interesting and I think the long battery life, zero loading time and backwards compatibility with the GBA makes it better than the Sony PSP.
Playing Super Mario DS is certainly bringing back fond memories. I can’t believe how well that game has aged!
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Posted in Toys |
By Tom Fotherby on March 20, 2005
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These Philips HC 8520 wireless headphones are great. They are comfortable to wear and easy to use because they automatically tune into the signal. They are easy to charge up because the base station is also the charging station. The most impressive thing about them is the range that the signal can carry – I can go and get a coffee on the downstairs floor of the office and still hear the music!
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Posted in Toys |
By Tom Fotherby on March 1, 2005
Cyberpunk, 7/10 – Feb 2005
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I was quite disappointed that “the Matrix” didn’t come into this book (and might not be in this trilogy at all) but it’s still got some interesting tech ideas. The story revolves around some stolen Virtual Reality glasses called ‘Virtual Light’ which directly feed the optic nerve with EMP to create images (which is pretty much the same as jacking into the Matrix). With the VL glasses, Berry Rydell an ex-cop on the run, contacts a hacker group called “the republic of desire”.
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It was quite interesting reading about a gritty homeless underworld which has inhabited a bridge but to me, the sexy bicycle messenger (Chevette Washington) didn’t quite fit in properly. I found it funny that the day was saved by a TV show called “cops in trouble” and a Christian sect that thinks television is the ultimate manifestation of God. The sect believe that God is hiding amongst varies movies and TV shows and the more you watch, the more the meaning of God becomes apparent. The sect lives in caravans and try to watch TV all day. The book also explores the massive problem of AIDs and makes a hero out of the man that was used to produce a vaccine.
Posted in Book Reviews |
By Tom Fotherby on March 1, 2005
Cyberpunk, 9/10 – Jan/Feb 2005
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This is nothing to do with the Mona Lisa painting, it is the 3rd and final part of the “sprawl trilogy” and there’s a chick called “Mona Lisa” who bumbles about in almost ignorance. It doesn’t exactly tie all the threads up and man the Matrix is getting weird but it’s still pretty awesome.
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Bobby Newmark aka ‘the Count’ (from Count Zero) has stolen a very expensive biochip (‘aleph’) with immensely huge storage capacity in which he stays permanently jacked in. The Count is searching for the shape of the matrix! When the aleph gets jacked into the Matrix it changes things about but I don’t understand why or how or what the Loa have to do with it, or Lady 3Jane, or Wintermute/Neuromancer. It’s all a bit confusing and I thing I need to re-read the whole series. Being able to love these books without understanding them shows how good they are. There’s a good William Gibson website called “aleph” http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson.
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Cyberpunk |
By Tom Fotherby on February 1, 2005
XBox,Adventure,9/10 – January 2005
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This game has the most flexibility and scope that I’ve ever come across. To give you a clue about how varied the objects in the game are, you can buy “tofu”. Have you ever seen tofu in a game before? You can get married and divorced, dig, fish, get haircuts, tatoos, all sorts. It’s a lush environment that brings about the desire to explore and mess around as much as clocking the levels. My favourite bit was the gladiators arena which was filled with atmosphere. I thought the length was a perfect 10 hours but the storyline failed to deliver after a promising start.
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Posted in Game Reviews |
By Tom Fotherby on January 3, 2005
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Our 3rd bedroom had water running down the inside walls whenever the weather was wet. I borrowed a ladder from mum and when up on the flat roof to see what was going on. It had a tear in it, so we got it replaced. |
Posted in DIY |
By Tom Fotherby on December 25, 2004
This is the most awesome toy! It plays music and radio. It gets the radio from the internet and it gets the music from mp3’s stored on a PC. It is called a “Digital Media Adaptor”.
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It streams files over our Wi-Fi network. All you need to do is to run Squeezebox software which acts as a music server. The software is open-source, it runs on Linux, it’s easy to install and is written in Perl so I might have a go at editing it one day.
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The plan is to add a couple more Squeezeboxen to other rooms in our house and to install in-ceiling speakers. This is our plan of creating a integrated audio system.
Posted in Toys |
By Tom Fotherby on December 25, 2004
Kix gave me this Linksys Wi-Fi access point for Christmas. We use it to connect our Squeezebox to our network without needing to trail Ethernet cable all over the house.
Posted in Toys |
By Tom Fotherby on December 25, 2004
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This clock may take a few seconds to read but it’s worth the effort for the interesting factor.
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It’s a bit easier to read than if the entire time was coded into binary. Instead, each decimal digit is encoded separately:
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Posted in Toys |
