Author: Maëlys McArdle

  • Record Industry… Again.

    Well they’ve done it again! The Record Industry has shot themselves in the foot; pissing more people off; making lives harder for everyone, whilst still completely ignoring why piracy is so prevalent in the current environment (see Magnatune.com for an example of how the Industry should be run.)

    The IFPI (International Record Industry Federation if you will) would like your ISP to abide by a set of policies, the likes of which are usually only seen in authotarian nations. For example:

    ISPs would put in place filtering technology to block services and/or sites that “are substantially dedicated to illegal file sharing or download services”.

    In other words, filter the Internet. But not only filter known sites that do not share the views of the IFPI, but any site that the IFPI does not approve of. That’s really creepy: filtering libraries for the sake of the interests of a corporation.

    Providers should also collectively adopt new terms and conditions, to ‘require subscribers to consent in advance to the disclosure of their identity in response to a reasonable complaint of intellectual property infringement by an established right holder defence organisation or by right holder(s) whose intellectual property is being infringed,’

    In summary: at the whim of the IFPI, your information would be disclosed to the Record Industry. Whether there is legal precedence or not. The IFPI would in essence become a power higher than that of the courts. No need to even subopeana anymore.

    To enforce terms of service that prohibit a subscriber from operating a server, or from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth where such consumption is a good indicator of infringing activities.

    In other words: they want to limit how much you use the Internet. And given the breadth of the first statement: it would be illegal for me to operate a website. Or SSH server. Or use my phone (VOIP via Skype).

    This is simply amazing. Enacting such policies would destroy so much, so much that has nothing to do with copyrights or the IFPI… for the sake of the interests of this one corporation. It’s just mindblowing that some bloke actually wrote this, and that some other blokes let it pass.

    With this, there would be no more Free Speech. If you operate a website discussing unfavourably of the IFPI, then by two claims they would be allowed to shut you down. Or if they deem that you use the Internet too much for your own good, then they would also shut you down. And then take down all your personal information for good measure. There’s a good reason why the court system is in place: its to prevent abuse of power. But the IFPI wishes to bypass that (and democracy) completely.

  • Urban Geography Students…

    Urban Geography Students can discuss their exam ideas here. Attachments (ie. word documents) can be uploaded here and viewed here [links removed]. Please warn me first if you are to submit attachments that are larger than 100kb in size.

  • Exam Season…

    ‘Tis exam season. This means that for the next 12 days, I shall be hard-locked studying Physics, Computer Science, GIS and Urban Geography through-and-through. The next 9 days after that will be spent getting Math done as well as finding a new job for summer (as my previous 35 applications go without word). What does this mean? No work on EYNTO and a very stressed me.

    Though I have done some work with EYNTO in the last few weeks. I finished a section on Internet Anonimity (which covers everything from how the Internet works, to proxies, to vulnerabilities with disposable E-Mail). I also did some work on the current chapter about Malicious Software (viruses, trojans, etc.)

    12 Days. 4 Exams. Eeek. Hop-to!

  • Lucas Films = Cheap.

    Lucas Films, the men behind the Star Wars series, suck the big one. Indeed, they must be the only movie makers on Earth that wish to charge audiences $50 to watch the full trailer for the upcoming “Star Wars: Episode 3” movie. That fee gets you some other perks too, but c’mon! $50 to get to watch a trailer?

    By trailer, I mean a 2 minute advertisement of the film. Greedy sods. I’m just glad they’re not the ones setting the fees at the theatres (if a 2 minute clip is $50, then a 120 minute movie would be…. $3,000?).

  • Silent Hunter III Review

    Made by Ubisoft Romania, Silent Hunter 3 fulfills the [WW2 subsim] niche that has begged for a decent title for so long. It does virtually everything right: solid graphics, deep and dynamic strategic gameplay, RPG elements, wealth of built-in educational ressources, interesting missions, etc.

    There are few sub sims out there. The last few to come to mind are “Sub Command” and “Dangerous Waters”, both from Sonalysts. Essentially the Tom Clancy’s of the gaming world: more like an anal manual than a work of fiction. They are fun, but the deep but somewhat obscure and convoluted gameplay is bound to irk most players. SH3, on the other hand, is rather simplistic and easy to pick up. The realism setting can be changed to count in additional factors, such as fuel levels etc. The graphics in this game are far superior than that of Dangerous Waters [which was just recently released], which is the saving grace for those that are more interested in Shoot-em-ups.

    That said, the texturing within the game is somewhat dissapointingly of low resolution, and there are no options to change any advanced graphical options. The resolution is also fixed at 1024×768. Not too good. Furthermore, nothing is editable once in-mission. You have to exit to the main menu to do anything. The ingame sound is decent, but nothing spectacular. As ships sink to the bottom of the abyss, they emit metal-crushing sounds… which is a nice feature, but one which would of been much more appreciated if it wasn’t the same .wav file(s) all the time.

    There are other niggles. The game features a “Naval Academy” to “teach you the basics”. Their idea of teaching you however comes in the form of instructions on the loading screen, leading up to simplistic missions. Once in mission, there’s nothing you can do to back-reference what was instructed. Not too good.

    The gameplay is pretty good, though can get very slow at times. The game has two ways of going about: a dynamic campaign, in which you start off with one of two U-Boats, and then go from random mission to mission. This is the brunt of the game, and is well executed. You get points for accomplishments, which can be used to buy a new ship, upgrades, weapons, insignia and/or crew. Sort of the “Need For Speed Underground” of the submarine world with its modding capabilities. Cool. Crews gain experience. Very cool.

    The missions are all excellent. Whatever action may lack in the dynamic campaign (and realistically so), the missions more than make up. Before you know it, you’re within a convoy of 20 merchant ships with tons of torpedos. Or, you’re running away from multiple destroyers. The action is absolutely fantastic in these tidbits: you hear the pings of the ships against your hull, depth charges blowing up around you, steam pipes blowing in your ship. It’s pretty awesome.

    Details are abound. When you leave the harbour in the beginning of a mission, you notice the city behind you with all its rendered buildings. The periscope blurs up and distorts the view from the water when it is raised from a submerged state. The water effects are great: waves roll about, they reflect accurately the surroundings. The sky shifts on a 24 hour cycle. There are weather effects (rain, so forth). All your men engage in some kind of animation at all times, though I wish they seemed less plastic. The dials are all illuminated in a cool manner. There are bloom effects. The list goes on. It isn’t the prettiest game out there, but it is a very decent-looking one.

    There is also a multiplayer mode via ubi.com. I have yet to try it.

    Overall, I have but the highest praise for this title. It offers something that the gaming genre has somewhat lacked: deep, dynamic, engaging, strategy games. This title isn’t for the bang bang shoot-em-up types. They’ll just be bored at the very idea. But if you enjoy something a little deeper, a little slower perhaps, something that’s unique every time: go for this game.

    Pros: Rewarding. Dynamic. Deep. Fun.

    Cons: Tutorials (“Naval Academy”) leave alot to be desired, could use more graphical/audio variety.

    Mark: 88%