Rotten Circuits

The Power of Packaging

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:41:27 GMT

GOG, or Good Old Games is a bit of a ronseal site. They take ~~popular~~ excellent games of any era, and repackage them to work on XP, Vista, W7. They also tend to work under linux with WINE pretty well, I've found. The prices are pretty reasonable - a game will tend to be $5.99 or $9.99, and a lot of the time similar games will be bundled for a lower price - i.e. Buy Oddword: Abe's Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe's Exodus together (which I did, earlier this year.)

They're not the only company out there doing it - Steam has it's share of old games, as do gametap and the other download services. But they are unique in several ways.

Firstly, you're not just buying the game. These are games from the era where the box art was beautiful (because sometimes the game wasn't) and the manuals were detailed (because there was no GameFAQs to tell people how to play.) So GOG give you the manual as a PDF, to take home and print (this is key for games like Beneath a Steel Sky, which used the manual as DRM, and for Fallout, which uses the manual as a 2-semester module and doorstop.) They have a virtual shelf, where you can arrange all of your games and see the box art. On top of that, they give you much more - icon packs, desktop wallpapers, soundtracks - whatever quality bonuses they can scrounge up for a game, you will get access to - even if you already bought the game when they acquired the bonuses.

Secondly, you're buying *THE GAME*. This is key to why I'll buy my games from GOG over Steam for preference.

When you buy a game on Steam, you're buying the ability to download the game through Steam, launch and play the game through Steam, but all at the discretion of Valve. If the servers go down for good, you can never download the game again. You can kind of back it up, but it's a bit technical and not something that most people are likely to do.

When you buy from GOG, you download an installer specifically for the game you bought. It has no checks in it, no DRM. In fact, the worst DRM you'll run into is in-game manual lookups, which is another reason it's key that they provide the manual. Install, run. If I want to back up my game, I just pop the installer onto a CD. Need to redownload it? There are no limits on how many times you can get it from your account (pay attention, Codemasters.)

All of this makes GOG a very compelling service for me, which makes it really hard not to buy incredibly good games like Sanitarium, *even when I already own them*!

Maybe they'll have the soundtrack...?

Tired, Work, Dog News

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:38:38 GMT

Ok, so mostly it's me that makes me tired, but work contributes!

Stayed up until the wee hours on Friday playing DDO with freakwoman, fuelled by all the Red Bull that I had at the office party. It was much fun, and we were super-effective, burning through a whole adventure pack!

Of course, I then had to get up at 7 to let the dog out, so I was operating on about 2 hours sleep for all of Saturday! It was fun though - we went to the pet store to get new food for Sierra.

We were warned that she wasn't eating when we got her, and so I'd assumed initially that it was psychological and that she'd eat when she was used to the routine and the new environment. However, 5 days is a bit long, and she did eat the beef and rice we boiled for her when her stomach was upset from the anaesthetic. So at the pet store we picked up a bunch of free samples for her to try.

For the rest of Saturday, I did a lot of dog training, played some video games, and tried to watch Starship Troopers 3, but I was too tired to handle how bad it is! In the evening I did a taste test with Sierra - put out two crunchies from all the different samples in a line, to see what she ate. She hoovered them all up, except for the super-expensive, meaty crunchies we bought first!

More DDO on Sunday, full of hilarious fail - we tried a lot of really hard missions. I'd do "the pit" again maybe after I level up (it's long and convoluted, which I like,) but none of the rest. We did a couple of easy ones too, to make ourselves feel better - undead and troll smashing :V

Since the taste test, I've been feeding Sierra the free samples each in turn, and she seems pretty happy with all of them - today she finished the whole bowl! Hurray!

Umbra: Earth's Secret History TODAY!

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:45:53 GMT

Hey all - just a reminder that we're still on today!
You will all be expected to help eat our leftover Halloween candy :P You're welcome to bring yours too, and we'll all... "help" :V

Nick Griffin Question Time

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:59:48 GMT

So, I watched the show yesterday, and the thing that's been running through my head the most since then is:

"Indiginous English? What the hell are you smoking?!"

The audience were with me, too - the reaction was overwhelmingly negative and derisory. And it's pretty obvious why.

There are no "indiginous English" people. The Celts, from Southern France, trace back to Africa like everybody else. Every other country in Great Britain except England can claim some kinship to the Celts, as they were pushed out and enslaved by the Romans. The decendents of the Romans were slaughtered by the Angles and Saxons (mostly from South Germany), who created what became England on their twice-conquered land. They were mixed with Viking raiders. In turn, they were conquered by the French. Since then, the royal line has been mixed with others from all over Europe, and occasionally further afield, and sent out their mixed-blood subjects to all corners of the globe, bringing back slaves, subjects and employees from the lands that they in turn conquered. These people gained their freedoms and fortunes, and became accepted into Great Britain (an economic union, created pretty much under duress, with the Celtic countries,) too.

That's a massively shortened version of our cultural and ethenic history, and still any fool can see that there's no room for any kind of person "native" to Britain.

Umbra: Earth's Secret History Sunday November 1st

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:26:22 GMT

We are on for Sunday evening! We finish D2 at *around* 6ish, so let's say from 7.

I'm currently expecting to have 6 players, so if you fancy coming and you didn't vote in the poll, let me know and I'll do extra pregens (I'm looking at you, moonandtree.)

I'll make a scene-setting post later in the week, once I've written more of the material.

Umbra: Earth's Secret History poll reboot

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:18:08 GMT

Ok, so in the interest of maybe finding a date where more people are available, I've expanded the options, so please reanswer here (sorry to make you do it all again).

I've got enough to run, but I was hoping that mousme could come, as she doesn't get to make it to games so often, and of the previous options, she's only free on days where at least two other people can't make it (not counting those who haven't responded).

View Poll: Umbra: Earth's Secret History poll reboot

Umbra: Earth's Secret History one-shot Game next week

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:46:16 GMT

So, as previously mentioned, I'll be running a one-shot systemless roleplay game next week at our house.

I'll be making pre-gens, so all you have to do is:

1. Tell me which day you can come:

View Poll: Secret History Preferred Dates

2. Turn up and game!

A little to report

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:46:02 GMT

Work trundles on, life trundles on. My evenings with longpig are still lovely, despite us not having the money to do anything exciting - Hazel makes a lovely and generally new meal every day, and then we play games together or watch shows that we got behind on during the move. I look forward to getting home every day, and enjoy my work most days too, which is more than I ever expected of life.

The weekends are generally great - we almost always see gats, sorceror, miseri and moonandtree, and occasionally mouseme too, and then Sundays are full of D&D - either my own Planescape game or curtana's excellent Diabolotin II, and generally some DDO too.

Last weekend we got to play DDO with space_gargoyle, and with shaphron and hdimagination too. More DDOing will be forthcoming! We also went shopping with rumplefurskin, and I got a great new sweater, which I haven't yet stopped wearing since Saturday...

This weekend, however, will be extra-awesome! We're going to amaena and rumplefurskin's Halloween party in Ottawa, a new place for me :V I am super-psyched. Then on Sunday, stu_the_elder and kittyfantastico are coming to Montreal, so we'll have a friend-heavy weekend.

This week I have been entertaining myself during slooooow builds with twitter, reading about how stupid people think that "girls are ruining sci-fi" and with some philosophical pondering courtesy of meallanmouse.

I'm not sure what I just saw, but I liked it...

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:50:32 GMT

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michael-moore-schools-maria-bartiromo-capi

I just watch Joe Scarborough, loud-mouthed Fox show anchor, tell Michael Moore that he has "opened his eyes" to Republican responsibility in the unethical actions of large, deregulated companies. Then Michael Moore told Joe that he agreed small businesses are stifled by too much red tape, and that democrats were also to blame.

Brave new world.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:21:05 GMT

Ugh. IBS again. So tired.

I had a great (IBS-free) weekend, lots of relaxing, followed by Thanksgiving pot-luck with mouseme, sorceror, gats, miseri and moonandtree. We played Arkham Horror with the Dunwich expansion - the game was bewilderingly nice to us, and we did pretty well!

Yesterday was the opposite of the weekend - back to work, deadline due, IBS attack etc. Then, in the afternoon, I got an email telling me that one of the documents needed for my permanent residency application was needed by 3pm, that same day! So once the meeting wrapping up the deadline was done, I scooted out of work, and arrived, document in hand, at the office at about 15:10, and stuck around until I saw the receptionist *hand* the document to the person who needed it.

Today is much more mellow - bug-fixing, and doing some of next week's work in advance :V

DDO Guild

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:03:07 GMT

In lighter news, we've been enjoying DDO a lot, and playing enough that we decided to buy one of the adventure packs with Real Money (tm). So we picked up Three Barrel Cove (can anyone guess the content?), which contains a lot of missions for a faction that we were interested in (The Free Agents) and Hazel suggested, while we were in the store, that I pick up a Guild Charter - which just happened to cost slightly less than my remaining credit.

So I'll be sending invites to join "The Rhenean Antiquarian Society" ((tm) and (c) curtana :V) to the characters we know as and when I see them online (you can't send offline invites, for some reason.) If you want in, comment here with your character names and I'll make sure I have you on my friends list.

I can't believe that I'm enjoying an MMO enough that I spent money on it - even less that I did so for the social aspect! Has the world gone topsy-turvey?!

Farewell, V.P. Dr. P.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:33:15 GMT

I've been avoiding making this post since Sunday, but now is as good a time as any.

Dr. President Gaius Baltar passed away on Sunday. He was our hamster during the time we were living in Wales, and we had a lot of good times with him. When we left, we passed him on to Alex, who looked after him for the rest of his time.

He had a good run, I think. Qualifying as a doctor and elected President within weeks of his birth, Dr. President Gaius dedicated his life to novel food storage solutions, verifying structure integrity and peeing anywhere he wasn't sleeping. Before he was half a year old, he was (without his knowledge) nominated Vice-President of WARPSoc and won in a landslide vote, thereafter being known as "Vice-President Dr. President Gaius Baltar". A year later, and late in his life, he managed to hold on to the position for a second term, with a running partner (Mike I believe, who will be taking over Dr. President's duties as well as his own. I hope he's ready to chew on some walls.)

Alex's family have interred him under a flowerbed, in what I am told was a beautiful ceremony. I wish I could have been present, but I'm sure that he would have approved.

Happy Birthday!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:41:12 GMT

I've only got one Sister-In-Law, and I wouldn't swap her for any other in the world. Have a great day, Heather!

Stuff wot I've been doing

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:25:47 GMT

So, to catch up. Recent acheivements include:

Reassembling the media pc, which was no trouble at all, despite there being kernel upgrades and a new power supply since last time I turned it on.

Discovering how to set static IPs and port forwarding on our Bell router.

Getting many of our friends interested in DDO, which is turning into a great way to hang out and catch up, as I'd hoped, despite my buffoonery and tendency to run ahead causing problems here and there. I'm working on it, guys!

Getting back to the gym. I had two weeks on, and a skip week last week. My goal for this week is to go three times, and then I think I'm going to go for a system along the lines of: Week 1, 3 times. Week 2, 2 times. Week 3, 3 times. Week 4, skip week! That way, I might not burn out or get fed up so quickly as when I just try and go 3 times a week every week. Also, I want to go running with longpig on Sunday mornings more often - we keep getting distracted.

Run for the cure yesterday, which was pretty great :) Unfortunately, I failed to get organised in any way, which means that not only did I not get any sponsors, through lack of trying, but I didn't even register before the day, so my only contribution was my fee and the running itself. Next year, I shall be more proactive!

Some important concepts in sex and gender

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:25:44 GMT

I think everyone ought to read this paper:
http://books.google.com/books?id=NyicMIxzkUwC&pg=PA29&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

It details why our culture's current model of sex is harmful, especially to women. It's really worth reading, digesting, and thinking about.

I found it referenced by this blog post:
http://www.gamecritics.com/alex-raymond/women-arent-vending-machines-how-video-games-perpetuate-the-commodity-model-of-sex

The post is mostly about one new videogame, but it could easily be about many. It applies very well to the coverage of sex in videogames as a whole. It was referenced in turn by this post:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-want-to-play-too.html

Which is a great stream of thought on one reason why women don't want to play your game - and why it's not something you can't fix.

A few things to catch up on

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:52:26 GMT

And I'm going to post them separately! Whee!

Firstly, a fairly well thought-out letter to Lily Allen on the merits of piracy, presented by @itsdanbull in the medium of a cover of Lily Allen's "22" :V

Utter Bullshit

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:08:11 GMT

Linda Carty, a UK citizen in Texas, is due for lethal injection. I'm not too bothered about that. But what worries me greatly is that after admitting that she received inadequate defense at her trial, the Texas court is refusing to overturn the sentence.

In addition, there is new evidence which they are refusing to consider.

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2009_09_18_linda_carty_appeal_denied

It would be nice to think that the system is at least *trying* to work, but they keep proving me wrong on that point, so it's time to kick up a fuss, and make them stare at their shoes and mumble an apology. My good friend Sian has a plan, so have a look at her group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=136515034231 and do your part. You don't even need to join - just go and have a rummage on the BBC website, and, if you're up to it, send a letter.

DDO Info

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:03:44 GMT

Ok, so here's my character info, for people to add in the social plane: on Khyber, I have a Dwarven Cleric named Wurgan, and on Cannith I have a Human Barbarian named Urdo.

That's that! Hopefully, no more DDO posts :P

wererogue in MMO playing scandal!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:48:49 GMT

longpig and I picked up DDO Unlimited this week, and I was surprised to find my self... enjoying an MMO O_o

There are a few touches to the game that make it a little more involved than most, and it probably helped a lot that we were playing together, in the same room, in a party. I also think it helps that I'm not paying to do it! I always feel a little like MMOs are work, which makes it galling when I'm *paying* to "play" them.

We got wiped once, by being careless, but in general, we kicked a lot of ass!

But the fishman I really fear...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:31:09 GMT

Is the one who's in the mirror,
And he looks...
like...
xypharan!

Happy Birthday, duder! We really need to get off our arses and come visit you guys, or something!

Mm, Barbecued Weekend

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:49:45 GMT

So, a good weekend all in all - an excellent Saturday, a nice Sunday, and a Monday that could definitely have been better, but was kind of ok all the same.

Saturday we had a barbecue/housewarming/Hazel's birthday type thing. I got the Wii, speakers and projector set up on Friday night (and, as a bonus, set up HBC so I'll be able to play North American games without buying a new Wii.) A bunch of awesome people came around, and much food, drink and an awful lot of talking was done by all. Dominik and Tabitha from downstairs came up with their kids, who were really entertaining and of course ridiculously cute.

The little barbecue we bought from Syed, the landlord, did its job admirably - ready to cook in about half an hour, lit first time. The speakers work just fine with the step-down transformer, and using MPlayer through HBC we watched the HPLHS Call of Cthulhu movie, which was, as ever, excellent.

Sunday was a recovery day for me - I'd been ill all week, so I played a lot of video games and ate leftover barbecue food. I'd intended to *do* something on Monday, but in the end Hazel got ill too, and I was still ill, so we reprised Sunday, except with added garbage shenanigans (we weren't sure the garbage people were coming, but most of our stuff got taken in the end.)

[RPG] Secret History - Game 1 (Call for players)

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:14:38 GMT

So, as briefly mentioned in a post this morning, I've got it into my head that some of the Montreal folks would rather like to have someone GM some kind of "role-playing game". And I just happen to have a game lying around that I'd like to run...

As I'm already running a game every other week and am no longer young and bored enough to run two campaigns at once, I'm planning to run roughly once every two months. The campaign is made up of one-shot sessions, so except in extreme circumstances, I won't need specific people to attend to make it work, so if you can't make the first one, you can always join in later sessions, and vice versa.

The game is a systemless one - it won't be completely diceless, but it'll be up to me as to what needs a roll, and I'm likely to be inconsistent.

The settings will be historical. The first game was set in 1268, in Jaffa, Israel, and the other sessions will be set in different years, eras and locations. As above, characters will most likely not persist from session to session - players will arrive, pick a pre-generated character, maybe make a few customisations if I come up with a system I like, and we'll get started, saving on gen time and giving us more time for the game itself. I'll try and make more pregens for each session than players, so that everybody gets a choice.

I'd suggest the weeks ending October 10th and October 24th as a good time to have the first session, so if anybody is interested, let me know what times on those weeks are good times for you, and I'll coalesce some dates to pick from.

I hope that's piqued your interest! If you have any questions, comment here or send me and email, and I'll get back to you.

DDO: Planescape

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:35:01 GMT

I ran my first IRC-based RPG this weekend, and it went surprisingly well. I didn't give myself any time to prepare, and just for kicks, decided that I wasn't going to go ahead with the plot (well, "plot") until I was able to get the whole party together. On top of that, as longpig's laptop is the only PC working in the house, I was typing for her as well as my NPCs.

I managed to keep the action rolling, manage everything and even keep up a pretty good atmosphere (it helps when the player's can't see me falling out of my chair laughing while I'm building tension, and the OOC channel is worth its bytes in gold!)

I was also worried that the party dynamics wouldn't translate well to text, and yet they did, perfectly (kudos to humourcide for a perfectly executed "Where's Waldo?" and to auntielil32 for yelling "HELP! ALIIIICE!" at the most tense, sneaky moment possible!)

I'm also told that there's a big lack of in-person RPGs among the Montreal crowd at the moment, so I'm thinking that I'll do a two-month (ish) rotation with my games. I'll run Planescape for 3 sessions (one every other week, alternating with curtana's excellent Diabolotin game) and then for the fourth session, I'll run a living-room game, probably the history-based game that I trialled in Aberystwyth, which some of my Aber players will remember.

Depression's Evolutionary Roots

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:08:56 GMT

No time to comment, but I know a lot of you will be interested to read this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=depressions-evolutionary

[via raggedy_man]

TV and such

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:33:57 GMT

Still no media centre - I need to buy two PSUs now, one for the media centre and one for my games PC, as well as a new (hella-long) cable for the projector, and a voltage converter for our speakers.

My games box is becoming a saga - it's been nearly a year since it started screwing up, and budget (both a lack of income and an increased responsibility toward my spending) has kept it that way. I *could* spend ~$200 now and buy all the things I need to get it working, but as I need to spend about the same to get the media centre up that comes first - and I feel bad enough about that!

However, we did get some new (old) RAM for my linux box, so maybe when I find the time to test it I'll have a computer to browse with - I'm using Hazel's laptop all the time at the moment.

On to the TV in question - I watched half of Season 1 of Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law last night, and it was excellent. There were times when you could clearly tell that some of the people behind The Venture Bros. were involved, but that really doesn't hurt it any.

Speaking of The Venture Bros.: new season this fall! I am very excited!