One thing I’ve also started to do is with the help of my server provider is install AWStats, in order to process server stats locally, although unfortunately it appears I cannot access any of my past site access logs, if any were ever kept.  Shame that.  At least I’m using StatCounter to keep progress on my sites; one of my sites (Therians dot Net – TdN) actually surprised me by indicating I’ve had over 1300 visitors to it in the past month, which isn’t bad going!  This site is a little lower on the scale, but hey at least it has exposure.  This site and TdN are the only active sites on StatCounter, though I do have more planned.  I would be putting the DiggerCast in as it is an active website, but it’s moving soon and I don’t fancy complicating matters with it just yet.   Besides, I’m still testing stuff out and it’s doubtful the stats would be all that impressive anyway.  At least though I have the groundwork sorted for when I do start it all, which I should soon.  I also need to sort out my IRC network’s website and plan out a prototype chat site, which should be fun.

Moving on to the 50 things bit, as I haven’t actually updated it much, if at all.  The list of updated ones are below – I’m going to summarise them in a paragraph each:

• 9. Properly produce a Podcast/Internet Radio Show. – (75% Complete)
  
• 14. Own part of a pub/bar. – (??% Complete)
• 29. Join the Special Constabulary. – (25% Complete)
• 33a. Be free of all short term debts  – (80% Complete)
• 35. Learn to to manage my time better. – (20% Complete)
• 36. Learn to budget my money properly. – (20% Complete)
• 46. See wolves face to face and maybe help out at a sanctuary. – (10% Complete)
• 19. Visit the birthplace of my ancestors and learn more about them. – (20% Complete)

Well, by far one of the highest in terms of completion is number 9, which has 2 pending episode edits and uploads.  I also need to change the software I use because as much as I like PrettyMay Skype Recorder, Pamela is much more suited to my needs, as I can lower the filesize, though I may need to use PrettyMay for longer until I’m sure I can afford Pamela, but when I can, I can at least feel that progression has happened with my podcasting techniques.  I have also decided as well that after switching between ideas, that the podcast would be best without time-sensitive content, meaning it gets adjusted to once every two weeks instead, which makes me think that I can fit in another podcast for the odd weeks.  I have an idea of what that might be… keep you posted on that one.  It is nice to know that I’m slowly hammering out a system though it is a bit frustrating it’s not a regular thing; however by freeing up the time constraints, it can now be recorded at any time available, though I need more thought on the timings.  Anyway, that’s the podcasting bit for now.

As for 14, no idea what happened there, it seems to have gone kaput!  What else can I say other than it’s just as well I haven’t invested any money into it, or is it because I didn’t that that happened?  We may never know.

With regards to 29, I’d like to think I made some progress here, even if ultimately, I failed this time.  It appears, based upon the rejection letter that I got, I passed the written test but failed the interview, which is fair enough.  I honestly had a feeling I failed it anyway; it’s extremely nerve-wracking and I really should have attended the workshop thing to help me.  Admittedly, I think my lack of interview experience may also be a factor as well… it’s been over 7 years since I had to attend any sort of job or positional interview now, so understandably I’m well out of practice.  In fact, the last job-related thing I attended was a group screening at Asda, which I failed.  As for Tesco, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, still nothing to report there, though I think I’ll be less nervous with that compared to the Specials gig.  I intend to reapply sometime in the new year, though I might wait till I have a job first and get back into the routine of working and/or customer service, as it might improve my prospects.

33a, 35 and 36 are all tied into each other in a sense, well 33a and 36 are at least so I’ll start with them.  I’ve never been all that good at managing my money, and the fact I currently have no real “local savings” at the moment proves it.  Although admittedly, moving does actually take a lot of blame for that; it’ll be a total of about 8 months since I moved before I can start to see a slight improvement, 9 months before I see something noticable and 12 months before I see a more signifiant improvement.  At present, I’m now in month 7 since moving, meaning by the end of next month I should have increased my spending power a bit, though it wont be till sometime in November before I can plan with it better.  It won’t be until February next year that I can actually start looking long term into my finances.  I plan to move my bank account to another company at some point and also setup an ISA, but I can’t really set one of those up till next year because I was going to move the money I have in a Post Office Savings Account to the ISA and they pay at the end of the year;  if I asked for the money now, it would be October before it comes out anyway and with it being around 4 months before they pay the interest on the account, it seems silly to take it out, plus it also means I can plan it much better.

I find it a little frustrating that I have to wait a month for the money to come out, and it appears the interest rate is a bit dismal, so I may as well put the money to better use elsewhere.  It may only be a relatively minor sum, but it can earn more elsewhere; I need it to either fund my bike or trip to the USA, if not both.   I also have some Premium Bonds which I plan on cashing in and putting into the Post Office account, which seems a better use of the money to be honest, especially when you consider I haven’t a chance in hell at winning… I certainly haven’t won anything since the bonds were issued!  They’d serve me much better gaining interest.  It is a little bittersweet having to get rid of them all to be honest, as they have been around since either just before I was born or within a few years after, but I guess it’s less documents for me to manage and also, I have more immediate access to the money.  I honestly have no idea how the interest on the account works though to be honest… I may just send it off in the new year to get a balance update, though selling off the bonds and transferring the money from them ro the account would be a sensible idea first… I’m doubtful there would be all that much interest on the whole though.  Still, every little helps, right?

As for time management, I’ve gotten myself a diary and plan to continue to get one, and start writing in it.  I’m going to get an A5 one, given I never really have anything to put in it anyway.  I’m going to look at getting one from PoundLand, as they’re cheaper.  I still amn’t sure if I want one for personal, one for business or just merge the two together… actually, that may be best; I can just tag each entry with B or P, so I know what’s what, though this means that I need a bigger diary… erg, complicated!  I’ve still got a few months before the new year starts though so I can start working out the best method, though I may get 2 diaries; one for all my engagements and another for engagements that require me to be on the move, so I’ll have to have it with me at all times.  The benefit of that system is that if I have a big, central diary, if I lose the small one, I can just buy a replacement, which seems the best option, given how forgetful I am!  Still, once I start getting to use a diary more properly, it’ll work out a lot better for me.  I am slowly getting better in both of these, even if they’re not exactly related, apart from the fact I’m awful with both of them!

Lastly, and still somehow not being as verbose as yesterday’s blog entry, we come to the wolf sanctuary bit.  I’ve decided it’s best if I go to somewhere more local to me, so I’ll eventually be visiting Wildwood, which is coincidentally near Canterbury although when I eventually go around there, I can’t visit, as it’ll be for a different reason entirely.  I completely forgot I updated it!  I’ll eventually put some photos up of my visit to Wildwood, when I go, which reminds me that I need to upload rakes of more photos to my Flickr account, as there’s many old and new ones I haven’t uploaded yet.  I am rather glad though that given I have more space and a decent internet connection, I no longer have to shrink the pictures, meaning Flickr is a great backup area for my photos too, so I just need 1 more safe area, given that My network drive and desktop will be keeping the photos.

And definitely lastly, the geneology thing.  I’m taking a notepad and camera with me for notes on the family tree and also to take photos of the area and also the family gravestones, so that will be an interesting thing to do.

I think it’s only just shorter than yesterday’s post at this point!  I do have a lot to write about sometimes, and I’m going to be unapologeltic about it (as I should), given that it’s my blog, and its entire point is a place for me to put my thoughts to paper.  It is likely that I’ll end up putting the stuff I get up to as a blog of this site’s multi-blog system now, given I’m not going to have a dedicated blog for my CV & Portfolio site now.  The entire point of the portfolio site is really an excuse for me to learn (x)HTML/CSS and PHP, so in a way it’s good to have somewhere where I can just write without worrying about code.  And on the subject of writing (like I haven’t done enough already!), I’m going to be setting up a wiki off the Xeno Storm dot Net website so I have somewhere to put up some stories I plan to write.  It also gives me a chance to try out a sub-wiki system, via “subdirectories”, given I’m going to have a travel section, projects section and writing section.  Admittedly, my friend Scott (who is the other half of Xeno Storm, Broken Xeno) has a domain for a universe he is designing with a friend, which I will eventually see myself contributing to, but at the moment I’ve heard very little, so I’m just going to do my own thing, flesh out a few characters I own and see how it goes from there.  The XSdN Wiki is essentially the centralised infobase for everything under the Xeno Storm brand, meaning this site, the Xeno Storm site, Scott’s site and anything related, such as the Thames Cycle and Hop On, Hop Off projects as well as anything else I come up with now, during and before them.

I’m beginning to think my theme for the next year is consolidation, which should start to save me money, especially once I get my community consolidation project up and running.  It’s going to replace the WikiNet idea I initially had, as I realised I can just come up with a subdomain and stick a wiki, forums and other related stuff to do with that site there.  If it takes off, it’s likely to get its own domain because then I know it has enough support to get off the ground; it’s not really in my best interests to register a domain for every single idea I have, as it adds to my costs, so this is a compromise.  I’m subsequently dropping off 2 domains for renewal over the next 2 days as I no longer need them.  Those of you remember the Jammed In Project, if I ever mentioned it here would either know that it got replaced by the DiggerCast (which let’s face it, has a better sense of awareness anyway) and the st-timelines domain, which essentially is dead, but exists in small pockets.  I’m folding it into the Xeno Storm Wiki, under the writing section, so we at least have some record of its existance, as the writing there is too good to be forgotten, but maybe that’s just me thinking that.

Either way, it’s being moved so watch out for that – I’ll add an update to show when that happens.  Also expect me to write something about my character, Felix “Strider” Sheridan, as part of the Strider Chronicles.  I’m more than likely going to try to write it in a novel format, in the sense that it may be 2 book pages to a wiki page, although depending on how long each page is, it may actually end up being closer to 6; it’s going to be an even number for the most part (I’ll write it up first in a Word document, then see how much it takes up.  I’m rather excited at the thought that I’m finally getting into writing, but more than likely, the actual story will happen in installments from next year, while I flesh out the character before I start writing about him properly.  Keep in mind also that you may see a representation of him in Scott’s universe too, though different.  I intend to write up a few character profiles for him, and differing depending on the universe.   I think though that if I’ve a logical place to write in, then I’ll eventually start writing, although it’ll mainly just be text.  Also, as time goes on, I’ll be making use of the Wiki’s features in otder to make it better organised and also flow more freely.  It’ll certainly be an exciting time, all the same.

Anyway, I’m going to stop here, as I have nothing else to add, and I’m damn sure I’ve written more than yesterday’s entry >.>  I really have a tendancy to get carried away with myself, but I guess that’s by no means a bad thing… I just wish I could do it more often, especiallt with fiction.  Also, on a side-note, the XS Wiki will not be editable by anyone other than myself, Scott or my project partners.  The Wiki is more or less a place to display our ideas to the public, and not an outside collaborative effort; it’s entirely internal.  The reason why I’m using a wiki is purely because it has the features I’d be wanting for writing and showing off stuff; as much as I like blogs, I find it’s not really a system that’s good for really showing off ideas the way I want to, that is I want to be able to, without having to worry about too much coding, write a story and have it displayed in such a way it flows the way I want it to, as opposed to blog style.  I’ll most likely post an extract from a story I’m writing in my personal project blog from time to time and add in a link to the story, but that’s really the only blog exposure that anything with a narrative and is fiction will get.  The project section on the wiki will most likely be a summary of each the team/group project that is done under the XS banner, by way of a record; the gallery will be linked, as will the blog and any other info that the blog doesn’t handle, so in a sense it’ll contain things that we haven’t mentioned on the blog or in the photo gallery or other little, interesting things.

I sometimes seem a little too ambitious for my own good, to be honest, but the reason why I’m using blogs and wikis, and their multi counterparts is purely for simplicity and less hassle and remembering of passwords.  That and the fact that I can just write something and format it more easily, and not have to worry about much coding.  It makes perfect sense for me to go the way I’m going at the moment.  I’m also thinking that I may actually just make the Techie Guild Wiki the central place for tutorials and how-tos for all my websites, provided it’s techy stuff anyway.

It’s made me realise that my objectives seem to be the following:

• Don’t repeat content if you have to; if you need the same thing for another site, just link the original page you did, with a short explanation.
• If anything is related, share the base software, ie: have a multi-blog or multi-wiki system, so you only have one install, but multiple systems running off it, ie: have separate single blogs on a multi-blog system.
• Reduce the amount of coding required where possible, so it’s simple to get what you require out.
• Reduce the amount of separate logins where possible, less to remember.
• Reduce the amount of installs of the same software to conserve space and reduce headaches when backing up; use plugins to software if possible to get a more integrated system going.

It all makes perfect sense to be honest…  and while everything may be a little shaky at the start, as time goes on, the system will start to work better, especially given some of the systems are yet to be fully planned, or they’re easily integrated into a future system.  You can totally see the random randomness come in now, can’t you?  Admittedly, people may or may not understand what I have to say, but hey, so long as I understand it I guess it’s okay!  If you do understand it, then fair play to you; all I’m doing at the moment equates to a brain dump of ideas, in some possibly comprehensible, albeit readable format.  If anyone wants to make use of any of my ideas, feel free… but please let me know that you used it, because I’d be very interested to see it in action.  The problem with many of my ideas is that I think they might work, but I either am too disorganised to do them myself (quite common) or they’re beyond my ability at the moment (surprisingly common).  I’ve given out ideas freely in the past if I see a use for them in a friend’s project; in fact for the “Camelot” mIRC project I’ve worked on and off for the past 8 years is an ehancement of a MUD-like environment someone else developed, called Starbase Oceania (SBO).  The reason why I’m mentioning this is because I was the one who came up with the credits system for it; it was a system where you earned a credit for each time you typed a single line within the bot.  I also assisted with some of the descriptions as well.  Sadly, SBO appears not to be up any more, but I have plans to design a successor in mIRC 7.x although it may be a case of being too late, but to be honest I’ll more than likely use it as the basis for a prototype and then design a proper client-server system around it.

I’ll have to sort out the design for it though, which could take a while.  Either way, I want to first sort out more immediate projects before working on anything new, even if it was a preexisting project.  It’ll be a bugger to get it working, because of the network complications at my end, but I’ll think of something no doubt.  It may be that I’ll instead just use a VPS to host after and connect a website VPS to the dev server, so I can have a web frontend.  But yeah, I need to focus.

I’m going to stop here now before I run away with myself any further because I think I’ve nearly gone twice as long as the other entry without meaning to!  I could actually use Twitter as an alternate, off-site status system as well which would be useful.  Sadly though, I think MUDs are slowly being phased out, but I don’t care because I’m essentially designing a future framework and want to see how it would work at the most basic level first as I need to learn more advanced stuff.  I’ll speak about this project more in time, but for now, I’m stopping it here.

I feel that I’ll have a third entry, possibly more this month, so watch out for it, otherwise I’ll post more next month… I really need to write to my LiveJournal sometime though

Admittedly though, it won’t help your fingers get used to pressing on the strings… that’s something you’ll have to face later on and they do tend to make your fingers hurt for a while because the strings are pressing into your fingers. I haven’t played with an actual guitar long enough to be able to get protection from the strings as of yet, although the guitar isn’t my instrument of choice at present; that honour belongs to my keyboard (the piano type), which I’ve decided to learn first as it’s a little easier to get into. I’ve actually paid for the learning pack for Synthesia to help me in this goal. It’s much like Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the like, but it uses a keyboard or MIDI synthesiser instead. Admittedly, I’ve not touched it for a while now, but my Rock Band jam session has both rekindled the interest and also made me want to get Rock Band as well! I’m looking at getting the Band Hero Super Bundle, which is 100 quid in HMV at the moment, seeing as it has all the instruments I need to get me started, although the drums are a concern; would they be compatible with Rock Band? I know the guitar is compatible, and the mic should be as well, but I’m not sure about the drums. As for why I’m worried about this, I really don’t want to get another set of drums just so I can play all the games! One thing I noticed though that one of my friends would be happy with is the fact that the Band Hero drumkit has 3 drums, with 2 cymbals, I think they are those anyway. It still has the pedal, but that said, I don’t think it would be used as much in Rock Band, so his foot won’t hurt so much!

I will need to get another guitar though to complete the band though. I have been thinking long and hard about getting Final Fantasy 13, which has been out for a while and yes, C&C4 is out now as well but I’ll wait till my birthday to buy that. That’s another game I’m unsuure of, but I need to get it as it’s like a grand finale. Oddly enough, I stopped playing the multiplayer beta some time ago though that was more due to my move as opposed to not wanting to play it. Another thing I need to take back up is ST Online, which again I’ve not played in a while. The issue being though that it’s on my desktop and I need to fit a wireless card to it, given that the ethernet cable is too short, doh! Another game I recently have started to replay is Morrowind which I’ve been tweaking by installing the plugins. While I haven’t properly gotten into it just yet, I certainly think the plugins make it a better game. This is one thing that PCs excel at, that is having a lot of free mods and the like; consoles can’t compare in this case. Except for Unreal Tournament III, I can’t think of any other game that supports extension of its functionality through mods, at least on a console. I’ll delve into that shortly, seeing as I really need to get back to FF13. Anyway, on the topic of FF13, I’m not sure if I should buy it to be honest, as I’ve been reading reviews which state that it’s pretty dull for the first 15-25 hours, and I’ve had a fellow gamer tell me it’s crap. The issue is that I’m not sure if I should spend money on it, or just get the standard edition after it’s come down in price… it would certainly mean I could get Band Hero oin one go, and I do think it’s a worthwhile purchase, at least for the guitar and mic. DJ Hero llooks really tempting as well, on the basis to complete the set, or do something different though I’d most likely spend another 50 to get another guitar. I know this means more space taken up, but I think it’s worth it, especially for the range of options being available to play instrument-wise.

Moving back to PC gaming though, I’ve been thinking about getting Fallout 3 and Oblivion on PC, albeit later on when they’re cheaper. While I have them on PS3, I acknowledge that the PC versions are superior for the fact that they can look better as time goes on when you upgrade your PC, but mainly it’s because of the moddability (is that a word?) of the game, and thus the fact the game has much more longevity compared to its console counterparts. That said however, there’s less farting about with the console versions as while you still have to install them, there’s most likely less to install and there is a minimal amount of setting up that’s needed, such as driver issues or needing more space. I was talking about this in Game a couple of weeks ago, and came to the conclusion that for extended game life, PC is usually the way to go, but for being able to quickly get into the action, a console is better. And for the record, I have a PS3 and Wii though I want a 360 sometime, mostly as a development system however. I held back on getting a 360 because I didn’t want another MS system, although it seems likely that I’ll have to shell out extra money after I get it to get a few things, such as a wireless N adaptor and maybe another hard drive. Either way though, I’m gonna be getting the Elite. I do want to get both the PS3 and 360 versions of a game eventually though, so I can compare. It’s a good excuse for a YouTube video if I saw one!

But yeah, I’ll end this now, though I will say that it takes ages for me to get home… and I’m also wondering if it’s a good thing that I spotted so many police cars on my way home, round the general area I live in…

I also paid Maplins a visit as well and got some books on robotics, soldering and electronics, as well as a book on oscilloscopes, which sparked my interest since I studied at Greenwich.  I also got another set of LED Safety Glasses (which are gonna be modded, leaving the first ones I bought intact) and also an Audiophile 2496 audio card, which I was hoping to use for helping me with music composition at a later date, although it would be more nice just to have something professional to use with MIDI.  The problem is however that it needs audio cables, and while I do have them, I don’t have the space for them, so I’m either going to have to locate an external version of the card or make the space.  It’s occurred to me that I have also lost my reciept so I need to goo looking for it, damn.  That aside, I may have to just accept that this may be the best card for my price range (I don’t want to pay a lot more to be honest) and get a Game Port to USB adaptor, which to be honest may not be a bad idea, seeing as they’re cheap enough at 8 quid each!  I really only wanted that expensive card for the built-in MIDI port, and considering I can have a decent audio card with a cheaper separate bit, it may be best off just going down this route.  I have too many game controllers that require Game Ports to just drop the idea; I didn’t realise till much later that I had no MIDI port on my soundcard!  Another bonus as well is that it has some composing software with it, as well as some loops, so that’ll help me some more.

I think I could do with regorganising my PC both inside and outside, as there’s cables everywhere!  I have also been considering moving my router downstairs as well, so I can free up some space on my storage cabinet.  On that note as well, I should consider getting myself a printer server so I can use the printer with the network.  It might also be in my best interests to get an Ethernet-over-Power adaptor as well as although my desktop will have a wireless card in it, I will most likely want to wire it up too!  And if I don’t use it on the PC, it was going to be used on the PS3 as the wireless is notoriously unreliable on it, although that may be due to the fact that it doesn’t like AES encryption for some reason.  Perhaps this will be rectified in another update, but for now it’s damn annoying!  I phased out 802.11b and WEP in my network, due to both security and practicality issues… the majority of my devices are G compatible, and use WPA/WPA2 although my laptop is N, but I dunno if it’s been standardised yet, not that it’ll be beneficial to me, to be honest as most of my devices are G.  I was going to use a USB stick as an AP (access point) for my older DS games as it seems that the DS games only support B and WEP which I think is rather silly, but I can’t do a lot about it to be honest… oh well.  Moving my router downstairs would allow me to wire up my PS2 and PS3, thus bypassing the need for wireless.  Although I don’t know why I’d put my PS2 online as I’ve got no games that support the feature!  I prefer wireless (despite the insecurity of it), seeing as it means that I don’t have as many wires about and it keeps the place tidier.

Something tells me though that when I do decide to move the router, I’m going to have immense fun rearranging the place, seeing as I want to make the wires look as inconspicious as possible.  I already have a wire untangled from when I wired up my laptop (in my bedroom) to the router in the study although that just barely reached and I had to move the router as it was a foot short!  It was 3 foot short for if I wanted it on my lap in bed so I had to switch to the wireless again, after I worked out why it ouldn’t connect!  It is nice to know that I’ve learnt more about networking and computer hardware over the past few years so I know more or less what I’m doing now!  I’m best off doing all this when I return home though as the PC will be off, though I’m thinking it’ll be worth the extra hassle of moving stuff around.  The only problem is though that the router has a tendancy to reboot itself every now and again.  The other problem is that I’d have to remember to install the network card or use my laptop till I do install it in my desktop!  And while I think about it, I want another bookcase in my living room for additional storage of things although I’d only need a half-height one this time around.  That said though, the more I think about it, the more I think I might need to do some  interior redesign to be able to store stuff better.  Moving the router and my NAS drive certainly would be a few steps in the right direction, although I’m not 100% sure of where to keep them.  Either way, I think all my wires definitely need tidying up;  I could put 2 of my PC speakers on the wall behind my screen to make a tiny bit of space as well.  It does look like this will require quite a bit of thought.

The ultimate aim is to make a bit more space than I have now, or rather additional space.  It’s times like these make me wish I owned my own place as opposed to renting as it’ll be a pain having to restore everything in the future.  But enough about my living space (I do want to eventually show off some pics of the place later when I’ve organised it more), I’m going to talk more about my DC3 idea.  For those of you new to the DC concept, and also what happened to the first two, I need to talk about it some more…

The DiggerCast (DC) was a podcast that had kind of random beginnings.  Back in 2005 or 2006, my friend Sean and I were on Skype, where he was testing his audio equipment and we were testing the recording function.  I suggested we try out a podcast, and the DiggerCast was born.  I registered the domain diggercast.com and Sean hosted the site on his space.  He also produced the first podcast as well, though unfortunately we never did any more after that.  Also the original, undedited content is no longer existant. , which is a shame but it was too large to keep.  Phase II, as I referred to it as was to be revival with a new member of the team, Mark (from thelongmile.net) joining us.  We managed to record some semi-rough drafts for the series, but again it didn’t take off, despite all the hype I was giving about the releaunch.

It was between the first and second phases that I renamed the DiggerCast to the NotCast, as the domain was unable to be registered, as I let it lapse by accident.  Anyway, I subsequently re-aquired and renamed the NotCast back to the DiggerCast and I’ll be keeping the domain for the forseeable future.   Anyway, those Phase 2 attempts will be uploaded on the new site when I get that up after I return from Ireland and after the next blog entry meaning anytime between the 15th and the 28th.  The 3rd attempt is perhaps the most ambitious version of the project, and maybe the final one if it doesn’t work out.  This means I’m being both ambitious and cautious at the same time, and making sure the concept and premise are both rock solid.  This means that the official recording won’t be starting till sometime in the next year.  There’s also the fact that there’s going to be some content that needs to be put on the site first and this is where many people will be needed to help.  Essentially, the concept of this phase of the DiggerCast is thatthere will be a few blogs, he first one being the main site itself, which will have a forum plugin and also a social bookmarking plugin.

This will mean then that as opposed to getting stuff to talk about from the likes of Slashdot, Digg.com and similar sites (as was the case with the 2nd phase), we get stuff from the site proper and talk about the top 5 or 10 links posted by the users.  The format of the podcast will most likely be a 30 minute podcast about the top content for the past two weeks, though the podcast will always be two weeks behind the site content.  I’m still trying to work out the nitty grity of it all, but what will happen is the following:

Let’s say that each month has 28 days for simplicity…. not that I’m sure if this is going to be simple to explain or not!  Anyway, say we have to talk about content from the 1st-14th of the month in the podcast.  The podcast wouldn’t be released till the 28th of the month, though thinking about it maybe I can shift it to the 21st.  The idea essentially being that we get 1-2 weeks to read up on the content and associated comments, discuss it amongst ourselves a little, write it all down, then also do recording and production on the podcast.  This could possibly be done over a single week, although I’m still trying to sort out the finer points, especially in the interests of being consistant with having a podcast at a regular frequency.  Another alternative is that once a month, the podcast gets posted, at the end of the first week of each month, which summarises last month’s content and about 5 weeks of comments.  The only problem there is that we’d possibly have to do it for an hour, or just focus on the top 5 or 6 posts for the month so it can be fir into half an hour.  Bleh, so much to think about and decide!

Anyway, why I need people’s help is that I would ask you to sign up to this site when it’s released to the world officially, but only if the idea interests you.  I’m not forcing you to sign up if it doesn’t interest you, especially as the content of the podcast is based upon what users contribute to the site and it’s all well and good having lots of users, but if hardly any of them post it won’t work too well.  In this case it’s quality over quantity.  If you have any friends that may be interested as well, you can point them to the site to see what they think of it.  Perhaps the idea has been done before, but I’d like to try it out for myself.  Even if you don’t want to sign up to the site, I’d appriciate suggestions as to what I could do with the format or recommended software for using this with.  At the moment, I plan to use WPMU with a forum plugin, a social bookmarking plugin and also a podcasting plugin.  For the podcast itself, I’d be using Prettymay Call Recorder, Skype and Audacity.  The idea is still in flux atm, and I haven’t worked out some of the finer details, or how to summarise the concept, so I’m just doing a brain dump in here.  Again, I’d appriciate any suggestions or comments on the idea and if you have any questions, ask away as it might help me to focus better.

I’ll stop talking about this idea for now, as I think I’ve said enough about it for now.  I’ll reveal the name for the site in a follow-up entry, but seeing as I was supposed to post this yesterday, I’m gonna pick up the pace.  I want to mention as well that I got a good deal at Game for Lord Of The Rings Online Vols. 1 & 2, along with a 60 day game time card.  I got them both for 25 quid, which is cool.  I’ve been wanting to play LOTRO for quite a while, so this is a great time for me to try it.  I might actually report on it at a later stage as well when I get to grips with it.  I’m also reordering my blog a bit too, as there’s some blogs that I list that haven’t been updated in a while and also a few things that are redundant which I’ve not even fully looked into.  I’m also aware that this blog is a bit of a melting pot of my ideas and thoughts and everything else put into the one place, which isn;t necessarily a bad thing, but I feel I could do with some better segregation in the new future.  Something tells me that I won’t get it till at least the next year, when my games blog is up and running.  There will certainly be a reduction of categories and tags when I’ve finished with revamping the blog, as well as also checking out the links.  I’m also going to work out how to use the trackbacks properly as well and start linking people’s blog entries.  I’m relatively new to proper blogging, so I’m bound to have a few rough patches here and there.  One thing I do need to look at though is moving stuff from my Blogger blog to here, and stuff from my GameTrailers blog to my games blog.  I also intend to have a paranormal-type blog as well where I’ll muse about paranormal stuff and anything I’ve done in relation to rhat field.  Keep in mind that the frequency will be semi-regular, much like what I plan my Project and Experiment blog to be.  Still, it might be worth a look if you’re into things that go bump in the night.

It’s funny that with a lot of these things I’m doing, I’m seemingly spreading myself thin, when the actual fact of the matter, I’m essentially just streamlining and regulating my posts so there’s consistancy behind them.  I do admit I have a lot of free time at the moment, but I am gonna start occupying myself more over the next year.  I’m also, finally going to the gym, although I will miss out on about a week of it due to going to Ireland, but when I return it’ll be a bit easier to do, apart from at Christmas.  I’ll be glad when I streamline this blog a bit better though, as it means that I won’t have as many huge posts to worry about as my average post seems to run up to about 3-4000 words!  I seem to have a lot to say, that said.  If I could focus this tendancy to write 2000+ words into my academic work, I’d be doing well!  I may have to consider the 1 post a week method in the new year, so I can average out the words making sure there’s less to read, and slowing down my rambling.  It is just as well that I separate stuff with paragraphs as I write as reading this without paragraphs would be a nightmare!

I’m gonna finish off here, and continue the once every two weeks posting until February next year, where I’ll reevaluate things.  It’s going to take me some time to settle into the patterns of writing, to be honest.  I will also try to keep things a little less verbose in the future, as well as starting to include links and publishing on time!  I am thinking that once a week may become a more viable option though, especially given my short memory!  Well, thinks can only improve, especially when I’ve nailed this blog down.  In the grand scheme of things though, a blog is one of the easier sites to manage; I kept this blog simple as all I needed it for was writing mainly, although my Twitter and Flickr are linked into them for practical purposes.  Rome wasn’t built in a day though, so I can’t expect to see instant improvement.  In the future, I’ll try to make the blog more about my opinions on stuff, with some links to read, as opposed to what I’m working on.  I may actually make a blog for that on my secondary site, so I can talk about stuff there in a bit more detail, as it seems that I talk about what I’m working on more than anything else when that’s not what this blog is supposed to be about mainly… I think I’ll need to think about things a lot, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’d appriciate your comments on the DiggerCast 3 project, as well as suggestions for it (how many times have I asked that now?) as I want to start seeing what I could do to make the site as good as it could be, although requirements do change given it’s a dynamic project.  Keep in mind that I may not be able to implement the suggestion right away, or even for the DC, though it may fit in elsewhere.  I’ll inform you of this though.

Another aspect to digital downloads is that the download is just data, meaning you can’t break it! I’ve lost one or two CDs and ended up just buying a replacement, as it seemed to be too much hassle to return it to the developer (the media cost almost as much as the game would have – plus I was in Ireland the devs pointed to the UK which wasn’t that cheap to post to!). At least with this method, people can keep their media safe and also carry it around with them – all that’s needed is internet access. That certainly means less baggage for me anyway, seeing as my laptop weighs a ton! There are a couple of downsides though, at least for me… firstly, although I may physically have a particular game that’s for sale on Steam, I may not necessarily be able to add it. This presents a problem as I have to purchase an entirely new copy of the game for it to be on Steam. For a game like the X-Com collection, this was less of an issue, as I could offset most of the cost by saying that I needed UFO to complete the collection. Granted, it’s just one game, but it does make the overall cost feel a bit less. I also have my eye on the id software collection too, as the value of the games I don’t have are nearly the value of the pack itself.

Decisions like that are a lot easier to make. Of course, one thing I do plan to do is compare the prices of games on Steam over what they are retail. If they’re cheaper or the same price on Steam, I’ll get it there instead. I can’t fully move away from non-digital downloads though as It’s not very practical for me. That said however, if devs like Blizzard are also hopping onto the DD bandwagon, I’ll be happy. The new Battle.net has impressed me so far, and I’ve only just signed up! They now offer the ability to download a digital copy of their games, which is cool. My copy of Diablo 2: LOD seems to be a bit screwy atm, so this is a welcome method of downloading a copy of the media that should work! I think my WarCraft III expansion suffered a similar fate as well. One thing I am concerned about though is the fact I selected US English for StarCraft by mistake. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand US English fine, but I’m concerned about the technical issues more to be honest. I guess this just means I have to download a different patch now. Either way, I do appriciate the facility to download my Blizzard games. I’ve also just downloaded a system checker for StarCraft II, so I can opt into the beta, or at least try anyway. Either way, after much grief (the checker told me it couldn’t upload my system info), it uploaded it anyway. Now I’m not sure if it’s because the app is screwy, but I figure it uploaded the data the first time, or perhaps it did it after I moved my PC into my router’s DMZ… either way I don’t think I’ll ever know. But it’s done now, so I can rest easy. That said though, while Googling some ports for the app, I saw someone mention that 400GB is needed to participate in the Beta testing program.

I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but if it is, that leaves me out! Shame, as I was looking forward to playing SC2, but ah well, let’s see what happens.

Funny, but initially, this was supposed to be about my first impressions of the Secret of Monkey Island (SoMI) Remake which was released on Steam, but it changed into a talk about Digital Downloads, including Steam and Battle.net. I was also going to provide a few pictures as well, for inclusion in this post, but I may just knock that one on the head and just post a gallery link on my Flickr instead. Seeing as you’re reading this now, I’ve most likely already done this. The funny thing is that I was gonna let the pictures do most of the talking, seeing as I was only going to sort out a paragraph or 2 for it, as a fairly large amount of people have played SoMI already, be it on the PC or Amiga (yes, it’s that old!). I’ve actually got the original one, along with the sequel – in a dual package – so I’m one of those people who have played it. Admittedly, I don’t remember all of it, and I actually used a walkthrough to help me though certain parts, but the reason why I got this game was due to a couple of reasons:

1) I want to support the adventure games genre, especially the point & click kind.
2) I wanted to see what enhancements they made to the game – more about them a bit later though.
3) I wanted to, so there.

Either way, I am glad I did! For starters, although the game is at its core, the same… new life does get injected into it. One thing that really struck me when I saw the intro was the water effects in the game, some of the best I’ve seen so far. Granted, I’m comparing it to the likes of Unreal Tournament 2004 and Guild Wars, but they are near-enough at that level! Another thing that I was impressed with was the sound and music; the music’s been completely redone to great effect, then we have the original voice actor playing Guybrush Threepwood, which makes it feel right (all the more because he’s a MI addict!). Admittedly though, they have changed his look a bit, but that’s to fit in with Curse of Monkey Island (I had all 4 games at one point but I’m missing Curse), which is fair enough… points for keeping consistant. One thing that does bother me though is the way Guybrush walks in the remake. It’s like he has a walking animation but he slides forwards. I keep on thinking he’s doing a forward moonwalk. In the original, the walking is more smooth, but it’s a minor issue so I’ll let it pass. The game itself is good to play, even though I’ve played it before. It seems more funny with the added voices. Then again, it may also be funnier because I’m older and actually understand stuff more.

Everything certainly makes more sense when you’re older! Anyway, to use something perhaps a little clichéd, it plays exactly like the original and in no way suffers for it either. The original game was a classic and this one is a classic reborn. Granted, there may be a couple of issues here and there, but it’s nothing major to worry about. Another few things I noticed with the graphics, asides from the heatwaves with the lava – another great effect – is that some of the art in the remake differs from the original game. Another thing I should mention as well is that you can actually switch between the classic and original games through the use of a key, and it works seemlessly, pretty much continuing from the second after you switched. There was also no slowdown on my system when it happened either, so I’m quite impressed. It does feel a little disorienting switching between the two modes though, going from high resolution artwork, voices and water effects to the lower resolution, no water effects and very little sound! I’m an old-school gamer though, so it doesn’t bother me per se, it just feels a bit wierd seeing the contrasts. This is also how I was able to notice the artwork differences, because I switched between the 2 modes a fair bit. One major difference you’ll notice near enough to the start of the game is the SCUMM Bar. In the original, there isn’t a lot in the screen, but in the remake, the screen has a lot more going on in the background, such as ships docked and the like.

Changes like that really enrich the game experience, in my opinion. Something tells me that this will eventually end up becoming a full-blown review instead (I’ll obviously be editing certain things out), but as for the bottom line… if you’re a fan of the original Monkey Island, you should get it if you haven’t already! If you’ve never played Monkey Island before, you should get it as it’s a classic game that has aged well over the years, even without the graphical enhancements. The fact it’s been optimised for Windows means that it’s even more accessible to people than it would have been if DOSBox was being used. One thingthat did surprise me though was the size of it, but I suppose the enhancements are no small feat; the original game was only about 5MB, if that. This new version is 2.5GB!

If anyone was curious as to the reason why I tend to do impressions of games as to a full-blown review, it’s because I don’t have a system I can use yet, although that is coming. I wouldn’t consider the above a full review anyway, because although I went through a lot of the game stuff, I didn’t cover everything, as I’m only about 15-20% of the way through. You can’t review a game unless you’ve either reached at least one of the game’s conclusions (if it has multiple endings) or you get so frustrated with reviewing the game (usually that means it’s crap), youdecide to give up and write up whatever you have to work with. Either way, I expect that when the games blogging site eventually comes up, I’d have played the game enough to convert the impression into a proper review, with scores, rating and everything!

The more I think about it though, the more I realise that sticking to a single games blog may not be the best idea, especially for something dynamic such as the games industry. I may just have a blog a bit like this that talks about games in general, then have separate blogs for reviews on different systems. But I digress… I can think about that later on. Either way though, I expect that I’ll be changing my games-related blog entries around to fit them in the relevent sections, though that said, I’d better review what game stuff I’ve written first as it’s bound to need some rewriting, if I’m ripping stuff out to put in its own entry. I may be lucky enough to not have to do that though. Either way, I’ll be keeping the original posts archived, so I have something I can refer to later on if I need to redo the post yet again. I’ll be removing the games-related posts from this blog and transplanting them into my game blog. I will still, more than likely have some crossovers between the two blogs, in that I may talk about gaming and psychology some more, meaning I can post this twice over and hopefully get differing opinions. The reviews and previews can be a separate blog altogether, as I can then accept contributions from others, as they’re not tied to any one person. That said though, I may end up making this a gaming blog site, much like I’d be making Altered Awareness more about the arcane and mystic. So many possibilities really.

Yet again, this blog has ended up having a topic detour, but to my credit I have improved.  I really ought to start getting the games blog up and running, so I’m going to leave it at this for now.  Apologies for the length of the post – it’ll be vastly shortened in the future!

The past half hour or so, I’ve been looking at many things… things mostly to do with how the human mind works and percieves things. I have to say, there’s quite an interesting amount of stuff there, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. First of all, we come across this article, which talks about the fact that schitzophrenics are not fooled by the “hollow face illusion”, with an included video. Essentially, the “hollow face illusion” involves — as you may have guessed — a hollow face. The article describes it as:

In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain’s strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing.

Anyway, it has been shown that those with schitzophrenia are not fooled by this illusion and see the concave face as what it actually is. The rest of us (including myself, which is interesting) see the conclave as a convex face, to the extent the nose sticks out! And even if you know this already, it doesn’t matter; your brain will still percieve the back side as a normal face. I found it interesting that I saw it like most “normal” people do, because I have a type of Autism known as Asperger Syndrome (AS). Now granted, I have been taught to act somewhat normal, but I do wonder if anyone else on the Autistic Spectrum will see things like normal people, or schitzophrenics.

Why I say this is because AS was once considered to be a form of schitzophrenia… see where I’m going with this yet? Good.  Anyway, if those on the Autistic Spectrum see things like a normal person, it would mean that Autism Spectrum Disorders affect different parts of the brain to schitzophrenics. That said of course, those who are drunk and under the influence of drugs see through it too, which makes you wonder what parts of the brain intoxicating substances hit, doesn’t it?

Moving onto the magic part of the title now, but still focusing on the mind (this is the underlying theme here, everything in this entry has to do with the way the mind percieves things), we move onto magic! This article talks about magic tricks revealing the inner workings of the brain. And while the face video was interesting, the magic tricks had me enthralled. Yes, I know they’re sleights of hand and optical illusions, but still while they’re happening, you can’t help but be amazed. I’ve always wished I could perform stage magic, but as of yet I haven’t gotten around to learning so for the the time being I’ll watch everyone else do it instead. I can’t get to detailed with the videos, or I’ll ruin the suspension of disbelief involved, so do have a look yourself and comment. One interesting video is here… see if you can work out the trick and also marvel at the new YouTube interactive video feature.

Also be sure to check out Quirkology on YouTube if you have the time. It’s an amazing look at “alternative psychology”, which interests me. Dr. Richard Wiseman, who came up with Quirkology also wrote an article on luck, which featured in a men’s health magazine somewhere. I may actually upload the scans I took of the pages, if there’s enough demand for it, especially as it’s a fascinating article, and also one that got me interested in Dr. Wiseman’s research. It’d be a shame to leave it on my hard drive where no one can view it as it really is a fascinating article. There’s even a quiz at the end too, so I’ll expect people to put their results up (be honest!).

While I could go on about the science of Quirkology, I now want to move onto the gaming part of this entry. While some people may wonder what games have to do with the workings of and on the mind, others have undoubtedly worked out where I’m headed with this.   Simply put, games are an immersive experience where suspension of disbelief is required, much like what is needed in magic. However, as this entry is not about games design and playing (which I’ll write about another time), I won’t go too much into the subject of immersion in games. Anyway, the point here that I’m making is that when you get into a game (the more realistic and believeable the game is, the easier it it is to get into), you start to view the main character as an extension of your own. For instance, my mum cannot play Doom, or watch me play it when I’m running around because it gives her motion sickness! Additionally, a lot of people complained about similar while playing Descent, which is more of an… ah… “headfuck”, given the 360 degrees of movement offered to the player. This phenomena is known as Simulation Sickness, and affects people while they play games, usually of the first person variety.

Wikipedia describes Simulation Sickness as this:

Simulation sickness, or simulator sickness, is a condition where a person exhibits symptoms similar to motion sickness caused by playing computer/simulation/video games.

The most common theory for the cause of simulation sickness is that the illusion of motion created by the virtual world, combined with the absence of motion detected by the inner ear, causes the area postrema in the brain to infer that one is hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing nausea and mass vomiting, to clear the supposed toxin. According to this theory, simulation sickness is just another form of motion sickness.

The symptoms are often described as quite similar to that of motion sickness. Some can range from headache, drowsiness, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and sweating. A research done at the University of Minnesota had students play Halo for less than an hour, and found that up to 50 percent felt sick afterwards.

In a study conducted by U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in a report published May 1995 titled “Technical Report 1027 – Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments”, out of 742 pilot exposures from 11 military flight simulators, “approximately half of the pilots (334) reported post-effects of some kind: 250 (34%) reported that symptoms dissipated in less than 1 hour, 44 (6%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 4 hours, and 28 (4%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 6 hours. There were also 4 (1%) reported cases of spontaneously occurring flashbacks”.

I haven’t ever suffered from this myself, but I certainly have been too immersed in a game before! For instance, whenever I play Doom, Quake or any other FPS and get shot at… my immediate reaction is to physically dodge the projectiles, while at the same time doing the same within the game. It’s at this point I have become totally immersed. The reason for this is the realism the game has which is also the reason why people get motion sickness when their character moves fast. Admittedly though, I did feel quite dizzy and a little ill after seeing a video for Mirror’s edge, which is by far the most realistic game to date that I’ve seen. It actually made me want the game, but again that’s another blog entry. Here’s a video of Mirror’s Edge in action, which shows you why I got a bit dizzy, given the way the prespective and character movement is. I’d have looked for more but after twice being stung by a Rickroll when looking for more detailed videos, I’m kind of wary of looking for anything else at the moment… once bitten, twice shy!

Lastly, we go onto something more grounded in reality, and yet still kind of Scifi. A study by the journal Cognative, mentioned in this article showed something rather interesting:

Washington University researchers asked people to identify letters onscreen, and the test subjects fared better with their hands beside the monitor than with their hands in their laps. The presence of their hands apparently improved their vision — and this held true even when when their hands were hidden behind cardboard.

This may partly explain why games actually increase hand-eye coordination. Games also seem to sharpen eyesight, according to an article on Yahoo! Games. This fact doesn’t surprise me however, as I attribute my improved hand-eye coordination to playing masses of games in my youth. Whether or not that turns out to be wasted time overall is yet to be seen, but it certainly helps me write this megapost! Something that strangely enough is related to Mirror’s Edge is this article, which talks about experiencing someone else’s (or even a mannequin’s or other artifical body) body as their own, through the use of cameras. This stuff is both interesting and scary, especially as it talks about humans inhaviting artifical bodies, although this is something that may happen in the future, perhaps after my lifetime. That said, in some instances, it could be useful in some medical applications, at least where this article is concerned as it shows the link between the brain and the body.

As far as the artifical hand experiment goes, this will eventually enable people to eventually have working prosthetic limbs. The other experiment could be used to make more realistic virtual reality games, perhaps also assisting with fine remote control for machines. We certainly seem to be getting closer to the sort of future where you’ll be able to fly around cyberspace and feel it, ala TekWar. Max Headroom and Johnny Mneumonic also come to mind in terms of what could happen.It’s all getting rather cyberpunky now, isn’t it?

Granted, we may not have flying cars less than 6 years to 2015 ala Back to The Future (BTTF), but we’re certainly getting closer to some of the other futures predicted by science fiction movies, books and TV. This is both an amazing and scary thing, depending on what direction this could take. Thinking about BTTF though, I don’t think a lot really changed overall, despite the cars flying and not looking like they do in the film. But, a lot can happen in 5-6 years. I certainly would love to hear Christopher Lloyd’s thoughts when 2015 arrives in reality.

We still have a while to go before we reach that stage though.

Oh, by the way, does it show that I used to do academic writing?

I’m literally just after finishing watching this video, which my friend Sean (of Spoofscript.com) showed me. The vid is a good half hour, but it’s definitely worth a watch if you’re interested in id Software and Doom. The above link is actually the blog entry, so if you want to watch the video, it’s here: http://vimeo.com/4022128.

One of the things that made me smile and also impressed me was Bobby Prince explaining one of the songs from the “lost episode” of the Commander Keen series; Keen Dreams.   I won’t be looking at that particular song in the same way again, and it has subsequently made me appriciate MIDI music more.  I’m not going to ruin the surprise, but suffice to say, once you listen to Bobby’s explanation while the song is playing, it makes a whole lot of sense… provided you didn’t know that already, that is.

Either way, it’s a fascinating look at id Software in their pre-Doom days and also in general.

Edit: Apologies for the big mess of everything… WP is being retarded and isn’t making proper separations