deanb

http://majornelson.com/2012/10/24/live-activity-for-week-of-october-15/ Minecraft beat out COD:MW3 as most played game the other week. Likely part of the die down as BO2 creeps upon us, but still quite the achievement.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/the-new-and-updated-games-of-windows-8/ A bunch of the new and updated games of Windows 8. The games aren't bundled into Windows any more, they're just free options to download on the Windows Store (which means they're Metro if you're not wanting that kind of thing. Minesweeper comes with an Adventure mode.

The image isn't so much the big thing, it's the fact he's dismissed the recent questioning of games journalism ethics/corruption so easily as "tired nonsense". And the fact he wouldn't want to dedicate his "reporters" on the task, while quite happily to have three of them opening up Halo 4 gear.

[spoiler]Spoilers work on here [/spoiler]

The Amazing Spiderman. Everyone is largely stupid and the film writes a lot of the plot out in big bold letters. It is also a shame that it spent so long going over the origin stuff again. I think Incredible Hulk did the whole "reboot within a decade" thing rather well by just diving straight into it being Hulk and skipping the Gamma radtion stuff. Spiderman was flash, had some good action in it, but yeah way too much stupidity. Such as And folks used to say it was stupid that Doc Ock threw a car at Peter Parker. I do like the Lizard though, the original trilogy always teased him, but never used him. In retrospect of all the films coming out between the last Spiderman, and that includes the introspective ones like Kick-Ass, it's quite amazing how not-good a film this is given all the other films to work from for advice and tips.

I don't actually know the origin of the Geoff Keighley and the Doritos, I assume it's from one of his shows he does (we don't get the US game channels over here) Also Totilo weighs in I actually thought it fake, but did some googling and turns out it's really totilo and that's really his response

http://torrentfreak.com/games-developer-gives-customer-support-to-pirate-bay-downloaders-121026/ Hotline Miami devs wanting the pirated version to have the latest patch.

That's why WinXP was the last time you hit something labelled "Start". As for brightness that's something usually dealt with by your monitor or in the odd game. You can do colour calibration, but that's not really something you'd do more than once/need to do as an average user.

Sure Windows 7 isn't massively straightforward, but doesn't automatically mean Windows 8 is. As we've highlighted it's far from it. You didn't need to adjust brightness in Windows 7. What has changed in Windows 8 that that's now the case, and that it needs to be right there in Charms? Same with looking at your computer specs. I'd rank Shutdown much higher up the "things to have access to" than brightness settings and computer specs. Also you're giving keyboard shortcuts still The look is overall meh, I'm quite a fan of Aero. Sure it's not as Fisher Price as Luna, but it's nothing much to write home about. Ribbon is an okay addition, but it really needs tabs, which are still lacking. Nor does it matter if my settings are saved online, that's only worth something if I'm expecting to own several Windows 8 PC's. Yes I'm on the "waah have to learn new stuff". Shouldn't need to, especially with something as fundamental as shutdown. Android, a completely new OS and way of using phones. Still retains the age-old method of holding down on the power button to shut down the phone. Unity is closer to Windows than Windows 8 is and it's a Linux operating system and much maligned one too. That says a lot about Windows 8. Yes a bit of a boot into 2010s is welcome, but Windows 8 is not the solution, and is largely a case of change for changes sake. Windows 7 isn't broken (They've said as much when they announced no SP2), no need to "fix" it. I didn't say it's ugly, I said there's no difference between having icons on the desktop in a grid and having the same icons on the new start interface in a grid. And both will look ugly if the icon used is still ugly (not all programs have realised Vista onwards takes 256*256 icons.) It's only the Metro Apps that come with the fancy new tiles n live tile stuff, the same apps you don't use. As already said with Eleven, it doesn't matter much how it "feels", it's how it actually is. And that makes a large impact on how we can expect MS to go forward with Windows, because that legacy stuff can so easily be ejected from the OS as it currently stands. If Show Desktop was removed from Windows 7 then I don't know what OS I'm using. Maybe I've accidentally gotten Windows 9. Hitting the button in the bottom corner to access all your programs, control panels, shut down, files etc is unintuitive? I'd say the biggest issue that Windows has, and it's still there in Windows 8, is Task Manager. It's either a right click of the Task Bar, ctrl+shift+esc, or ctrl+alt+del, or searched for via Start/Control Panel. And it's a tool that's certainly further up there in use than brightness settings and computer specs. Especially as it now takes on even greater import in running the new WinRT apps (and is about the only major thing I pine for in Windows 8, but no way is it worth the hassle). It could do with some kind of easy access, even if it's in System Tray. Also you see no issue in the new intuitive way of shutting down the computer bieng Win+C - Settings - Power - Shutdown, as opposed to the old and clunky method of Start - Shutdown? And you're the one that says I don't know the meaning of intuitive. Anywho here's Lifehackers round up of apps for Windows 8 http://lifehacker.com/5955209/the-best-new-apps-in-the-windows-8-store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rockstar.gta3 GTAIII is $1/73p on Play Store. No idea how long that'll last.

http://m.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/45851/celebrating-the-grand-theft-auto-vice-city-10th-anniversary-plus.html Vice City coming to Android/iOS as part of the 10th anniversary.

I don't know how it compares to other countries but energy prices are high enough that many would forgo heating over winter. And I'd already mentioned phones use hardly any electricity. As for powering up and powering down many would also say leaving it running constantly is just as bad if not worse, the power cycling only applies if you're turning it on for 20 minutes then off while you make a cuppa then back on again n so on. If you're using a mouse a large part of the time then it would be less efficient to then move over to the keyboard to begin typing. Though as has already been covered "you can use keyboard shortcuts" shouldn't really be used as a defence of the cruddy hidden design of Windows 8 since you shouldn't be needing to learn a bunch of keyboard shortcuts to make use of your computer. Keyboard shortcuts should only be there to speed up an existing process, not the defacto method of doing it. As you say, keyboards came before mice. Back when computers used CLI instead of a GUI, and now we have a GUI that is so great that you have to control it like it's CLI. One thing I still don't get is why you've upgraded to Windows 8 if you don't use Windows 8? You're advocating how it's so much like Windows 7 in the way you use it, so why not just use Windows 7? Why upgrade your OS to ignore everything new about it? It's your money for sure, but I don't see any reason to upgrade to Windows 8 if you're going to pretend it's Windows 7 with a weird "start menu". The jump from XP/Vista/7 to Win 8 is much bigger than it was between XP/Vista/7. The general GUI and workflow was largely unchanged with those. Now there's the WinNT side and the WinRT side, the start menu has been completely revamped, methods of interaction too, such as the context menu. Windows 8 is two new operating systems tied in one, and it won't end well. Not understanding Jump Lists, the new Task Bar, pinning stuff however is icing on top of the OS and won't impede your use of the computer if you're unaware of them. Stuff like the Start Menu, Shutdown, Control Panel etc are fundamental things in the use of a computer. And no change is not inherently bad, but change for changes sake can be. Come on, I'm a Final Fantasy fan, would I be if I hated all change? Hooray, a 3 year old can mimic what they've been taught already. My little sister can play Minecraft. And I could probably make a similar video arguing how intuitive minecraft is and have her open the inventory and walk about and stuff. Of course what I won't film is the part where I'm pointing out all the buttons to her, and how to create and destroy things and open the inventory, and even the bit where I'm changing the control scheme (WASD means nothing to children). Spoils the video a bit though. I'm sure it'll be the same with many potential future Windows 8 users, once they've had someone sit down and walk them through how it works then they'll maybe get the hang of things. But if it was as it is, they'd be fine. Everything would be how it has been the past 12+ years. The two-sided OS is going to make giving tech support an awesome task too. Icon on the desktop versus icon on the start screen, I'm not sure what's different apart from one is in cubes. i know for a fact it'll look ugly regardless of where it is if it's an updated icon. A shortcut is a link, a shortcut wouldn't be able to run legacy apps. A seamless VM/emulator however, can. I don't know why you'd say it's not even close to a VM given Windows 7 brought in the ability for XP legacy support this way. Just because it's not loading up inside VirtualBox doesn't mean it's not VM like. It'd certainly allow you to say...close it in a save state like manner and have it then open later as it was.... Anywho here's Steven Sinofsky(Head of Windows) talking about the Desktopp within Windows 8. And here's a Windows 8 structure thingy from Intel: Where you can quite clearly make out all the guts of the OS, the System Services are within the Metro side of things. "Desktop" gets pretty much enough functions to run programs it has done in the past (minus WPF as mentioned before) and that's it. It's DOS to Win95. It's there, you can run DOS programs, but Windows 8 Style/WinRT is the overriding OS, the old Win32 is just along for the ride. Also you call yourself a power user and then say that the Show Desktop shortcut was removed from Windows 7? Meh, the name "Charms" isn't too bad. At least there hasn't been a year of calling it Charms then suddenly having to change the name to "Windows 8 panel bar", so it could have been worse. WRT charms being in a place that makes sense, Win+every button combo on a keyboard is not intuitive. Rubbing the mouse up n down the side of the screen, an action which is normally for scrolling a page, is not intuitive. And last I remember it was within Charms - Settings - Power- Shutdown. As opposed to Start - Shutdown.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/10/lionhead-layoffs/ Schafer has a few words on the topic of "standard" lay-offs at end of projects.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2012/10/26/microsoft-pegi18-win8/1 They've changed their stance on certification for going on the MS Store. PEGI 18 now a-okay (as long as it's a ESRB M in US. Meaning AO games are banned globally, regardless of local rating)

http://www.texastrib...raw-warning-ag/ I'm not entirely sure on the purpose/ramifications of this, but thought it'd probably mean something to US folks.

Hmm, reading some opinions around and about that their post is likely in contempt of court (especially with the bit at the end). But I don't know enough lawyery stuff to have an opinion on that, they're certainly being assholes about it

IIRC Kenya absolutely adores Bush. I know the rest of the world sees him as a bit of a buffoon, but his administration really ramped up support for Africa. Even gifted America some cows to help after 9/11. I'm kind of between surprised/not-surprised that global view of candidates isn't taken into account at all, or certainly something not pushed by the respective campaign. Wasn't one of the talks on foreign policy? Or is that just related to the Libya bombings? I'm amazed there was no follow up on Romney taking issue with the London Olympics (while in London, who does that?) which we of course then absolutely aced. Could certainly have some spin put on it like "Romney is unable to foretell how a scheme will pan out, things he preemptively calls disasters turn out to be pretty damn good. p.s he doesn't think obamacare is any good" As for Trump I think that's shitty to do when it's game trailers in return for Facebook likes. $5million in return for command over a president is on a whole other scale. Of course that's the kind of diabolical plan that only a brain controlling squirrel could come up with.

Or a wallpaper if you're into that kind of stuff. And I've never stated it means anything (beyond GTAV's media output picking up pace)

http://www.apple.com/uk/ They've now added the judgement link up. http://www.apple.com...egal-judgement/ Of course Apple are rather pissed mind, that stinger at the end.. (Which regarding the US court finding, USPTO have invalidated one. and more I think, of the patents used in that case. Which surely means that surely Apple just got $1billion for patents they didn't actually have yet?)

I mean you end up facing off horde after horde towards the end, be it Scoi'etal and Order, mutants and bosses, or icey gauntlet. As opposed to the usual lead-up of doing quests, chatting with people, finding stuff, and so on with intermittent beast fighting. And I'm aware of who the Grand Master is reckoned to be.

By the sounds of it it's a case of "it's not my main job, I'm just not feeling it any more and some of you are going to extreme lengths to prove my point. Sayonara". I think he was pretty exasperated when he wrote the article, MCV/Wainwright reaction just broke the camels back. And yeah the MCV/Wianwright reaction is a classic case of Streisand Effect. Especially since original article mentioned the Tomb Raider twitter thing and now an eye of scrutiny has been brought upon her it turns out she's on Square Enix's freelance payroll(SE publish Tomb Raider). Of course she's listed as working for SE anymore mind. Her reputation is pretty much fucked and she hasn't got a comedy career to fall back on like Florence. Gonna make future gaming events fun to follow. Especially stuff like EG Expo and GMAs

The Witcher. It's been in my backlog for a while now, I was pretty near the end so figured I may as well finish it off. Means I can start Witcher 2:EE using an imported save too It sure changes a fair bit towards the end mind, rather hack n slashey instead of unravelling all the mysteries. Oh and for those interested I had a Neutral run. Mainly because neither faction had anything appealing about them. Oh and given recent political topics (at least in UK) this provided amusement. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104650635

I get what FDS is getting at, just pointing it out doesn't really happen much, regulation is pretty strict around these parts. We do have Fairtrade products though, especially in Co-Op. Sustainability regulation and certification is provided by FSC. And so on so forth for all kinds of food and product claims. We can get pretty stingy if you lie about your product. If you make a claim you better be able to back it up; not allowed to mislead or deceive consumers. Not that most folks care what environmental perks there are, especially over past few years. Regular is cheaper than organic & co so organic & co sales fall.