Degrees and Joss Whedon

NEWS THIS WEEK: Contrary to what some may have expected, I actually managed to graduate this week, so it's now Anthony Finch, Bachelor Of Science, thankyou very much. Aaah, science - crunchy and delicious.

So, to celebrate in style, I settled down this evening with some beers, Burnout Paradise, and the special edition of Alien Resurrection.

Which, I noticed for the first time, is written by none other than Joss Whedon. Oh yes, the boy wonder who won me over with Firefly and Serenity, who, for a few short years, wrote the perfect pulp sci-fi. What's interesting is how many ideas he was mulling over back then which made their way into Firefly. Observe:

• Johner, the happy-go-lucky psychotic who turns out alright, is a clear prototype for everyone's favourite thug, Jayne. He's angry, stupid, and not afraid to let you know about it.
• The Betty, from it's rotating side-arms, to it's snub nose, could be an early model of the Firefly.
• The Betty is crewed by Pirates - In Space! Ring any bells?
• Earth That Was? I guess he's referencing half of science-fiction here, but whatever.

Check back here for anymore pointless parallels I can think of!

Mpthrizzle - Rave-MP

So my Iriver broke a while ago, and a friend was kind enough to give me one of these ILO Rave-MPs he had lying around. As far as I can tell, bearing in mind the company responsible for making them ceased all production and support some time ago, they were made for WalMart, so I presume this model came from Asda. There's a suprising amount of sites dedicated to the upkeep of these things - I'm not sure if this is due to some massive fan base, or the players many flaws.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter though...

To be fair, it's pretty cool that it can be upgraded from a paltry 256mb storage with it's SD card slot, and it does have an FM radio and voice recorder built in, which are still anything but commonplace (indeed, when I bought my Iriver, it was one of a very small minority with these features.) BUT:

• To use an SD card over 512mb capacity (ie. a useful capacity) you need to update the firmware. Fine.
• The updated firmware is known to fail on boot-up at least some of the time, meaning you have to take the battery out and start again. With the company disowning the hardware, this is not going to be fixed.
• The screen turns off when it becomes exposed to high amounts of light. No-one seems sure if this is a feature or a fault.
• The left channel in the headphone jack will almost definately fail.

It was this last problem that led me to take mine apart yesterday, only to discover that the connection for the left headphone channel is hidden between the the two circuitboards, making it almost impossible to re-solder. Anyway, I found many people had worked around this simply by applying pressure with a slip of cardboard in the case, so I've got it back up and running for the time being. I actually don't mind it too much now one earphone doesn't continuously cut in and out, and next project I want to strip it down and mount it in a nice little metal tin.

If you do happen to have one of these fairly obscure things, you might find this a helpful collection of information.

Recent Makes

A little friend:


Following the pattern here. I found it a little unconvincing so I added the eyes and beak detail, along with some wings.


Tarting up a new hat:




Taking the edge from a band patch, design drawn with sharpy. Complex.

BOOK REVIEW: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow - geek, activist, contributor to Boing Boing, and active voice for Creative Commons, has released his most recent book, as with his previous novels, under an open license that allows the propagation and alteration of the text, as long as full accreditation is given. It's also free to download from here now.

Little Brother is a 'young adult' novel, based in the near future where US homeland security operates on an even more intrusive level than is currently allowed. Enter the young protagonist, who gets swept up in the paranoia and treachery after a terrorist attack hits his city. It is certainly fast paced, and given it's length, can be polished off in one sitting - which is not necessarily a bad thing. Despite it's shortness, it manages to tackle themes from young love and sexuality to heavy handed governments and the politics of revolution, whilst maintaining swift plot evolution.

I do tend to have a gripe with the concept of 'young adult' writing - it seems a little insulting to think that teenagers can't deal with 'adult' books, and there are times where the text gets a little too childish. J.K. Rowling has shown the world it is possible to write perfectly accessible stories for children which do not insult the reading capabilities of adults, whereas there are passages here which I know for a fact would have almost made me put the book down had I been reading it at the age it is intended for.

Occasional problems aside, this is an absorbing read, that generates real passion from the reader for the main character's plight, while throwing in plenty of hacks and geek-culture references for good measure. The most pleasing thing is that the hacking mentioned is all feasible today, from RFID cloners to ultra-secure linux distros - in fact, tutorials for making items from the book are springing up already.

Little Brother boils down to a slick, cool adventure, with a few unfortunate slips in writing, that will appeal to a far wider audience than that of young geeks. It is to be released in printed form in the UK later this year.

GAME REVIEW: Burnout Paradise (XBOX 360)

The latest offering in this long-running series brings a new dynamic to the traditional road carnage classic - an open city to roam in the vein of GTA, within which all events take place. However, diehard fans needn't worry that Burnout has lost it's fast paced appeal - the environment is so well implemented, it's easily possible to spend a good proportion of gameplay simply driving around at break-neck speeds, looking for jumps, billboards, and the hundreds of hidden shortcuts and play areas. The decision to make the entire map accesible from the beginning means that you never feel confined or forced to go down a certain route, and it's truly a pleasure to experience the well designed and graphically gorgeous roads.

The actual events are simply reincarnations of classic Burnout play, from road rage, to racing and crash scenarios, although it should be noted that the crashes are ramped up by allowing you to sustain them as long as the power up bar remains filled, to bounce down literally miles of tarmac, wreaking havoc. All these are accessed by simple key-combos at certain points in the streets, meaning they blend fairly seamlessly with the rest of the experience.

Online play is simply more of the same, with increased possibilities - you can race against other people, instantly trigger grudge matches against rivals seen on the streets, or spend hours setting up beautifully synchronised jumps and crashes with multiple friends.

The game's failings are in general few and far between - mainly due to over-ambition, and one suspects, paying too much attention to the coding of the overall world in contrast to the individual events. The stunt event, in particular, feels overly forced and slow in comparison to the rest of the game, and is the one area of the game you feel forced down a particular course to gain maximum points. The other events increase in difficulty far too slowly to feel like real achievements until you've reached the higher echelons of driving licenses, and as a consequence tend to confine play sessions to quick hour drop-ins.

Overall, however, none of these matter much, and indeed, it's pick-up-and-play mentality keeps it fun and accesible. You can progress in whatever way you want, so it's easy to avoid the more painful events, and the online content should add hours of gameplay. The appeal of this game is simple and effective, and the adrenaline rush from hitting your first 'super jump,' watching the slow-motion, freeze-framing animation with soundtrack blasting is pure gameplay crack.