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Tech Video Games

Taking games seriously is better for us all

A recent article in the Daily Telegraph shows us that in Australia (and presumably the rest of the world), most parents don’t understand how to control the video games their children play.

This really is not a good thing; as we have seen over the last twenty years, video games are depicting increasingly realistic violence and sexuality. I personally do not have an issue with this trend. As an open-minded adult, I have no problems with blood or boobs, but I do understand that parents want to control how much access their children have to this sort of thing… and to be honest, I think that I wouldn’t want my kids accessing some of that stuff until they reached a particular age.

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Categories
Tech

Facebook gets creepier by the day

XKCD 672
XKCD 672

I really wish that I was as quick as Randall Munroe. I love his brand of satire (as well as his nerd-oriented humour). The Facebook feature he mocks in the above cartoon really does bother me, and he’s captured the creepiness well.

Categories
Reviews Video Games

Dragon Age: Origins

My silence lately is actually because I’m absorbed in Dragon Age: Origins. I haven’t quite finished my first playthrough, but I’m getting pretty close so I figured I might as well put some thoughts out there.

Naturally, when Bioware makes an RPG, expectations run pretty high. With Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, and Mass Effect in their pedigree, it’s hard not to get excited about their latest title. Even adjusting for that, though, I do wonder if it’s living up to the hype.

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Categories
Books

“New Moon” – Amongst Illustrious Peers

New Moon - Amongst Illustrious Peers
New Moon - Amongst Illustrious Peers

I’m a big believer in the notion that literature reflects the values of the society that produces it. Just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean it has no intrinsic cultural value. But every so often, I  respond emotionally to the way the flavour of the month is compared to the great works of our time.

Case in point, look at the best seller list I took off the Borders Australia website. A Twilight novel in the same list as Catcher in the Rye and Animal Farm. Topping them in fact. Blows my head.

On the one hand, I think it’s great that there are books that get young people reading. I guess I just wish they weren’t about encouraging young girls to take the wrong expectation of men in relationships. Or accepting as historical fact, debunked conspiracy theories about a religious organisation.

Reading for entertainment is great, but I wish I could see it translating into broadened horizons instead of just passing fads.

Categories
Tech

No play with PlayTV

I did more research on whether PlayTV would suit my needs, and it looks like there are a couple stumbling blocks:

  • PlayTV only records to the internal HDD. Given that it doesn’t compress the files, and will be sharing the drive with game saves and installs, I can see this filling up very quickly.
  • One can copy files from the HDD to an external USB drive, but there are extreme limitations. The PS3 only understands external drives in FAT32 format. This has a maximum file size of 4GB. Normally, this is fine, but under HDTV, you can squeeze maybe 30 minutes of TV. Forget longer shows or movies.
  • No ability to stream back from the PS3 to devices on the network other than the PSP.

This is sufficient dealbreaker for me, so I’m going back to building my own PVR. So far, I’ve built up an pretty impressive machine which will cost around $600. I still haven’t added in the tuner or remote control, but still not a bad deal.

I’m also mucking around with MythBuntu in a VM to see what it’s like (lack of tuner notwithstanding).