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ichi.co.uk: Bypassing The UK Pirate Bay Blocks via Proxies/Mirrors and VPNs
I would like to start by pointing out that I’m not endorsing copyright infringement with this post, however The Pirate Bay has a massive amount of totally free downloads, from music promos to open source software, which the music and movie lobby groups have managed to get blocked in the UK… -
Call of Duty vs. Valve games
The RRP for CoD is £59.99. This is not including ELITE, DLCs or your XBL membership. They release a new one every year. ELITE is £34.99, DLCs are 1200 MS points (£10.20) and I’ll assume there will be three of them, XBL is £34.99. Total yearly cost if you have everything is (59.99 + 34.99 + (3 * 10.20) + 34.99) = £160.57.
The Valve Complete Pack costs £49.99. Steam is free. This contains every game Valve has ever made (24 of them). Each and every game in this collection is individually better than any CoD game (IMO). All online playing, content, etc. is totally free and will always be. DLCs & updates are free. There is no premium membership. There is no monthly/yearly cost. Total price: £49.99.
So…
- £160.57 will get you: CoD plus all the extras. (£125.58 if you don’t include XBL)
- £49.99 will get you: 24 of the highest quality games ever made, and if you want them next year, you don’t have to pay any more.
Then on top of that, each of the Valve games are amazing. CoD gets boring and old very quickly. Add on Valve’s amazing anti-cheat engine and (IMO) the quality of the players, and CoD is beginning to look pretty pathetic.
So why, I ask… why are you all buying all these shitty Call of Duty games when you could spend a third of the money to get all of Valve’s offerings?
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Native Steam client for Linux
Came across the URL for the Mac Steam client today:
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_publicbeta_osx
Comes back with a JSON string. Wondered about Linux as have heard about it, so tried:
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_publicbeta_linux
No luck - 404. Tried:
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_beta_linux
Once again - 404. Then tried:
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_linux
Lo and behold, we get a 403. Meaning it exists but I’m not allowed to see it.
Draw your own conclusions. Seems interesting to me. (Though does seem like it has been around for a while.)
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Brendan Eich: people are not always as they seem
Obviously this is post is all very subjective and opinionated, but this is how I generally feel…
For a long time, I’ve held a high level of respect for people like Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux), for Richard Stallman (GNU) and generally the people who have done amazing things without having to pile patents or copyright on them and have worked with open source heavily, etc.
Along with advocating open source and not being evil, I generally feel they’re good with things like human equality and I like to feel that they think “open source” when it comes to equality.
Today, I heard about Brendan Eich, the man who invented Javascript - something I use on a daily basis and something which is forms key part of the work I do and the services I use.
A close friend of mine mentioned him. I said I didn’t recognise the name and he said the guy invented Javascript. Instantly I’m thinking “wow! how didn’t I know about him?” and thinking the world of the guy who has changed a LOT about how my life works. Problem is that this guy isn’t quite so lovely and nice and, specifically, he doesn’t really seem to be into equality. He’s strongly against same-sex marriage.
This surprises me. The guy works at (& is the Chief Technology officer of) Mozilla - an amazing company which works with a massive variety of people from all over the world. Their community is incredibly accepting and inviting of anyone who wishes to be a part of it. How can he fit into that?
Three years ago, California was debating Proposition 8. This was there to remove the right of gay or lesbian couples from getting married. Brendan Eich donated $1,000 in favour of passing Proposition 8. Brendan Eich is no longer one of the people I look at fondly as a “nice open sourcey guy”. (See: http://projects.latimes.com/prop8/donation/8930/)
So the friend who told me about this wrote a letter about it a while back. He couldn’t summon the courage to send it, but showed me today and gave me permission to publish it. I think it’s quite a powerful read and maybe might help some people see why equality is important from the personal feelings of someone it is important to.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I’m a human. I’m a boy. And I’m gay. I was born nearly 15 years ago in a civilized country and I’m a future webmaker. Since I was born, I always had the illusion that my future would be bright and that people would support me to become what I want to be. I’ve been growing up in a nice country and I have lots of friends who like me, not because I’m like everyone else but because I’m just myself. Diversity has always been a huge and important part in my life.
Seeing the discussions against same-sex marriages is painful. Every time I see them, I feel like someone is piercing a needle right through my heart. Years ago, I promised myself to always respect other people and treat them in a way in which I want to be treated too. But unfortunately, I’ve learned about what the world really is like and that my life will be quite hard.
Politicians already put obstacles in my way. I’m only 14 and I want to have a normal like just like everybody else. It was not my choice to be what I am right now, I just want to live in a world where I have the same rights as other people do. Although people say that marriage is only a minor thing, I strongly disagree and to be honest, it is a really personal thing that currently makes me feel misunderstood, disgusted and unwelcome.
Mozilla is a really huge community. Diversity plays a huge role. There are black people, white people, men, women, kids, Africans, Asians, Europeans, Muslims, Christians, straight and gay people. If you’re against one of these groups, you’re automatically against the whole community. Luckily, there’s no discrimination going on. All members are respecting each other, which is a very good thing. In a community, you have to respect everyone, even their opinions. But it’s important to have a border between opinions and discrimination, and in my opinion, this border has been crossed.
In a community, we need to be strong. We need to respect each other’s rights and we should never forget how far we’ve come by working in a team. Some comments highly disappointed me. In fact, sometimes, people don’t have a real reason to discriminate someone or something in general, because they don’t have their own opinions. It has happened very often in my life. At school, outside, yes, even some of my friends are discriminating to a point.
Having your own opinion is important. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons why Mozilla and many other organizations are so successful. We promote choice. We don’t do things like the others do, we do it in a way in which we think about other people, because doing something without keeping other people in your mind would be egoistic.
Mozilla is definitely one of the best communities ever. The members are very accepting, understanding and whenever I talk to them, I feel like I’m wrapped in a warm blanket made of welcomeness, joy and pride.
When I’m older, I want to look back and be satisfied about my life, my achievements. I’ve set myself some personal goals that I want to reach by the end of my life:
I’m determined to move to another country when I’m older, to find a partner and to travel around the world, and I’m determined to marry somebody I love. Yes. There are definitely politicians who can take away my rights to marry someone.
But they can not take away my pride.
Faithfully Yours,
Someone who wants to be like you
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So got this office, so here is some photographs… :)
Bit fuzzy - oh well. We’ve finally cleaned up the boxes and rearranged the desks a bit to be more collaborative.
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This is an amazing end to the week. We leased our first premises (and omg walking into it knowing it’s ours is an amazing, but also slightly scary feeling). Tomorrow, I will receive my iPad 3. On Saturday, we will be kitting out our office. Good work.
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Arguing with a Christian is like playing chess with a pigeon.
You could be the greatest player in the world, but the pigeon will still knock over all the pieces, shit on the board and strut around triumphantly.
— Sam West
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I’ve been forced to explain homosexuality to my kids (aged 3 and 4) because their uncle is gay. This incredibly difficult and traumatic experience went as follows:
Child: Why does Uncle Bob go everywhere with Pete?
Me: Because they’re in love, just like Mummy and Daddy are.
Child: Oh. Can I have a biscuit?We’re all scarred for life. Scarred, I tell you.
Wish my Mum would understand this…
— KateP, Internet commenter (via cocklordsimone)
(Source: Guardian, via redcognito)
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Erm... I actually just said this to Dylan... a bit weird.
James: Happy that I somehow seem to fit into your highly strongly typed interfaces
James: <geek />
James: Though I suppose I haven't exposed all of my methods yet.
James: We shall have to see how compatible I am with further reflection.
James: Whether I forget to implement a few bits of the interface.
James: <geek level="9000" />
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Elevation Dock: The best dock for the iPhone
Buy it. It’s amazing. I backed $170 (£107.04) for one of the green/orange ones, but haven’t yet decided which one to get. To be perfectly honest, I want both, but not entirely sure that’s sensible. Would be $320, which is £201.49. But the coloured ones won’t ever be available afterwards. Eeek… I don’t know what to do! Somebody make the decision for me.
This is the video for it:
