epic.LAN – Day 2

Late start today, funny that, but we’re all up now and we’re McD’s breakfast fuelled for fun (the Jolt Cola helps too). The story of our morning will be with you shortly, so get off the edge of your seats…

10:00
Wake time involved being hit in the head, as the ear-lugs are far too effective.

10:30 to 12:30
After hopping to my machine, still in the sleeping bag, we resolved to get Gazz on line once and for all. Owen had brought his Mac along, in place of Gazz’s now discarded machine. Cue much derision from every passing person and the supplier of said machine becoming increasingly defensive. Then we tried every Windows DVD we had so that it would take it, we got a long way with XP Media Centre Ed. then had to change discs and the Mac doesn’t have a hardware button to eject the disc (nice going there Mr Jobs, looks nice but functional it ain’t). We got there eventually though and now Editor Hayes is well on his way into the ARG, catching the leaders who had a head start due to their good performance yesterday.

With the help of Gazz’s 1.5TB external drive, I sorted out my shares and figured out how to use DC++, then I was away. Hurrahh!!
-Ado

13:00 to 14:00
Gazz is looking at videos to solve his ARG issues, I’m looking at everyone and their mother’s shares and Owen now has the side off his PC. RAM issues, it would appear, causing inopportune Blue Screen issues at random intervals. So the second member of our party has PC problems, that makes 2/3, I’m ow feeling rather lucky to have a functioning machine, but don’t want to curse it. Anyway, he seems to be running now, but reduced to 4GB RAM from his initial 6GB.

The next game I’m looking forward to is TF2 at 17:00, preceded by 1 hour of CoD:MW, which I don’t have. I have Modern Warfare 2, which we wont be playing as it doesn’t have support for Dedicated Servers at LAN events (or generally in fact), good call there Infinity Ward, you’ve managed to make people not play the latest iteration of one of the biggest gaming franchises at what is surely the fanatical level of PC gaming. Nothings says “we’ve sold-out for the casual audience” like a massive game that’s not played at LANs. Seems like terribly case of foot-shootage to me. After all, what happens at these events tends to effect things elsewhere further down the line.
-Ado

14:15:30
Well I’ve been ARGing since about 12 and am currently 11th of 50, so I still have some work to do to catch the leaders. The last puzzle was particularly taxing, involving autokeyed vignere’s, decoding video clip clues, map overlays and frantic running around the racecourse like the fillies I’m prohibited from spending on. Fun though. The next puzzle seems pretty cryptic, may need sustenance before I tackle it. Also werewolves last night was fun, there are more games due tonight so I’ll fill you all in on that later.
-Gazz

15:30-17:00
Well I finally finished the ARG, some pretty good puzzles, right up my alley. Unfortunately I don’t think I finished high enough to have won anything. TF2 will be starting shortly, and I know Mr Cooper is keen to strut his stuff in that particular forum…

epic.LAN – Day 1

Well… we’re here, we’re alive and we’re set-up… sort of. FYI; I’ve also not showered and have my PJ bottoms on as underwear… Living the dream or what??

12:00 to 13:15
My car wasn’t ready so our learned friend Mr Ashcroft kindly made his way from Manchester to Uttoxeter via Chesterfield. He arrived at 11:00 and by 12:15 we were away (“I hardly even faffed at all” – Ado exaggerated). The drive down was standard, save for the 15 mins in traffic on our Uttox approach in which our dastardly driver was heard to say “…someone better have died, else it’s not worth it”.
-Ado

13:15 to 13:45
Feeling rather famished after the morning’s efforts we stopped in at our favourite American chicken eatery. As we walked in the colonel seemed to have a rather unsettling look in his eye and we didn’t have to wait long to find out why. As we began to order we were all told, in turn, “I’m afraid we have no pieces chicken”… Yep, that’s right, KFC had NO CHICKEN… well for at least a half hour. Bemused but rendered powerless by the white-suited warriors secret special scent, we ordered our burgers and waited.
-Ado

Putting the ass back in fast food
-Gazz

14:00
Arrival at the LAN and initial set-up. Everything seemed to be going so well… until…
-Ado

15:00 to 15:45
PC break-down. The nightmare of every LANer. At approximately 15:00 Gazz changed his power configuration, simply unplugging his base and monitor from the main supply into a 4-gang splitter. Imediately tragedy hit, nothing on the monitor, no signal and no PC :o(

For the next 45 minutes we collectively tried to save her. Plugging the monitor and graphics output in to various different pieces of equipment to evaluated what the problem may be. Trying every different config we could think of but to no avail. The power was on throughout, but no-one was home with-in.

Eventually the monitor sprung to life, connected through VGA (instead of DVi) into another machine. Whilst this was good, the bad news was that the PC was at fault with the most likely suspect being the graphics card.
-Ado

16:00 to 16:30
Graphics being isolated as the possible scupper to plans of LANtertainment, Gazz struck out to resolve the issue. The guy from Kustom PC had arrived with his boxes of goodies, but upon questioning had inexplicably brought no graphics cards… One quick Google search later revealed several component shops in striking distance, a few phone calls later and we had a winner. A GeForce 9600 for £80 and just a spit away. Our chauffeur had to leave for a Motor Head gig in Manchester at 17:00 (and they call me disorganised) so Gazz and he made their way to the jalopy and sped their way to retrieve the requisite part.
-Ado

16:30 to 17:00
Upon their return the task was took in hand with speed (well, WoW Mountain Dew – Gamer Fuel/Jolt Cola (or beer for the men amongst us -Gazz)). The card inserted and the machine powered up, but still nothing. People crowded, suggested solutions, tweaked and prodded but nothing would work. Time of death was declared at 17:05
-Ado

sob
-Gazz

17:05
Our transportation master had to leave, but he would return after the gig and he promised to bring a laptop on which the increasingly unfortunate Gazz could game forth. Until that time, however, he would try his hand at the epic.LAN ARG using the machine now left vacant. That was until that all went a bit squiffey too.

17:30 to 18:30
Thought worry ye not Owen (and laugh ye not at the luckless Mr. Gazz’s plight), after a few epic.ADMIN looks at the browser and a soft reset or two later, connections were restored and displays relit. On with the gaming I say… OOONNNNNNN!!!!
-Ado

18.30-20.00
I don’t play many FPS games, quite a disadvantadge at a LAN event, however epic.LAN has a rather fiendish ARG style treasure hunt to exercise my cerebral muscles. Starting as I have, much later than my fellow gamers, I have no chance of finishing first today; in fact people finished before we arrived. However, the grand prize is won tomorrow, so all is not lost. I am currently up to a puzzle that involves locating areas shown in a video clip, presumabley for letters or clues left there. Unfortunately it is now dark and doesn’t exactly lend itself to clue hunting. I may need to return to this tomorrow.
-Gazz

20.01
Maybe it was the break and the clarity it gave but as soon as I editted this, I went back to the puzzle and it jumped straight out at me. That was the final clue too, until 12 noon tomorrow. Wish me luck :)
-Gazz

20:30
Well Gazz is happily playing a bit of Battlefield 2 on Ashcroft’s machine, and me? Me dear reader, I’m sat here waiting for the patch to be uploaded into the FTP for me to apply before I can join in. What was that? Download it you say? Ah yes, well I would but it’s a 2Gb patch from the original disc version I have. I just hope they get it there in time for me to play in the “Big Game” at 21:00. It’s one of my favourite games too, only let down by the lack of “Fritz” to fight. Now I wait in hope…
-Ado

20:40-20:45
Still waiting… and Gazz has moved on to King’s Bounty now. Much more his style I think.
Woot!! They are here, so very relieved…
-Ado

20.45-22.45
King’s Bounty was a little wordy for a LAN game, maybe when I have more time to get immersed it will be fun, just not right now. It’s ok though, the ‘big game’ of BF2 started at 9. Turns out it’s quite good fun to play as the Arabs and kill the infidels.  Right time for a bit of Champions Online to help me stop the trigger-finger-twitch
-Gazz

23:30
Ok, interesting things going on all around, but I’m not involved :o( Counter Strike Source is being played 1v1 knock-out for a trifle as main prize and there’s a group of people playing a game called “Werewolves” over at the other dies of the bar (they’re rowdy but I can’t seem to figure out why or what’s going on). A small number of folks are playing L4D2 and a growing number watching videos of one type or another. Oh and there’s a Trance DJ set on, not my thing but it’s inoffensive enough for me to ignore.

As for your intrepid Stup. Ed.s; After losing patience with the FPS style, Gazz has paid the extortionate sum of £2.99 is downloading Civ3:Complete and I’m doing an install run of Fallout 3. It was either that or Bioshock, as that’s still in it’s shrink wrap, but I was advised to finish one first before starting the other.

You see, it doesn’t matter that we’re not playing against each other, just that we’re all playing here together… ahhhh
-Ado

05:01
And now it is to bed I must go, or at least the floor about 10 yards away. I’ve watched an updated a lot of stuff in this time, prepared my shares for tomorrow and Gazz has played many games of “Werewolves”. I think it may be something you all come to know more about, I’m sure he’ll explain tomorrow. Night night…
-Ado

Tags: dead computers, epic.LAN, epic.THREE, live blog, pain

Why does the media love homeopathy?

Ok, so I’m sure many of you share my vitriol at homeopathy. I’m not going to go into all that again, many people have done it much more eloquently than I. Besides, it wouldn’t do much anyway, after all the BBC* seem to be undoing all my hard work anyways.

Homeopathy was in the news again today, as the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published their report on the use of NHS funding for homeopathy, concluding that: “Homeopathy should not be funded on the NHS and the MHRA should stop licensing homeopathic products.” Not that you’d know from watching said news.

Now I’m all for balanced journalism and there’s certainly enough of a story to warrant opinions from both sides of the camp, however this didn’t seem to happen. Sure the homeopaths were given their chance to bring up studies that cherry pick their data, avoid controls and have, at best, dubious methodologies, but why was there no scientist allowed to chip in on this issue?

Radio 4 seemed to have an MP in rationalities corner, however all the other reports I have watched or read seem to leave it at the homeopaths explanations, making it seem that there is a substantial evidence base for homeopathy. Let me just remind you all of the facts:

“Homeopathy has never been reliably shown to out perform placebo” and “ should not be funded on the NHS“

If you want to buy sugar pills fine, just don’t use my taxes to pay for them.

Interestingly the Chief Scientist at the Department of Health, Professer David Harper, seems to think that there could be something in the memory theories associated with homeopathy. It’s ok though, he gets the closest thing to a bitch slap that the committee could muster:

“63. We would challenge Professor Harper’s comment that research funding should be directed towards exploring theories that are not scientifically plausible. Research funding is limited and highly competitive. The Government should continue its policy of funding the highest quality applications for important scientific research determined on the basis of peer review.
64. The Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington, has told us in unequivocal terms that he is of the view that there is no evidence base for homeopathy. We recommend that the Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Professor Harper, Chief Scientist at the DH, get together to see if they can reach an agreed position on the question of whether there is any merit in research funding being directed towards the claimed modes of action of homeopathy.”

*Other news channels are available…

Tags: homeopathy, quack quack, rant, science

Homeopathetic; Or how the 10.23 overdose campaign will probably do nothing

Cartoon credit: worldofweirdthings.com

You may have heard about the planned mass ‘overdose’ that was done on Saturday. If not then I guess it failed anyway, but basically a group of homeopathy sceptics from Merseyside all took a massive ‘overdose’ of homeopathic remedies in a bid to “raise awareness about the reality of homeopathy.” In an open letter to Boots they state that they don’t expect to find products on the shelves of a trusted pharmacy brand that don’t work. In fact Boots’ own Professional Standards Director, Paul Bennet, has readily admitted before the Commons Science and Technology Committe that he doesn’t believe homeopathy to be efficacious. Unfortunately the very reason that people believe homeopathy to work will be the reason that Boots continue to sell homeopathic remedies by the idiots-shopping-basket-full. Let me explain…

So What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a type of medicine treatment that works on the principle that like treats like. Burnt your sausage fingers getting your frozen pizza from the oven? Don’t worry, just hold them over the gas rings, that’ll sort it right out… And it gets better, as the whole discipline is further based upon a dilution scheme, whereby the tincture is diluted first one part into one hundred parts of water (1c), then further diluted to 30c. You don’t have to be Avagadro to realise that there is nothing left of the original tincture. That’s ok though, a homeopath is able to create an energetic imprint of the medicinal substance through a process called succussion, or ’shaking it up a bit’. Presumably that’s how they differentiate the intended energetic imprint from every other substance that has ever been dissolved in water. Homeopath = magician…

That sounds mad, surely science has something to say?

Scientific literature including double blind, randomised, controlled studies have found little evidence in support of homeopathic remedies. An oft-quoted study that appeared to support homeopathic remedies (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) in which Madeleine Ennis studied the effects on basophils, white blood cells involved in inflammation, which were treated with ultra-dilute solutions of histamines was later shown to be unrepeatable and the responses that were seen were blamed on poor experimental design. (Citation needed)

Wait, I’ve heard that Quantum Entanglement explains it all…

Quantum Entanglement is the theory that a connection can exist between two objects at the quantum level that defies classical and relativistic concepts of space and time, and that measuring an observable state in one of the objects, such as spin, will give you information about the other object in the entangled pair, regardless of distance. Many homeopaths use this to postulate that the universe is all connected. Victor Stenger explains it much more eloquently than I could in his book ‘The Unconscious Quantum’ but essentially a pair of entangled photons just have the same observable phenomena, this has nothing to do with healing, and the effects will average out given the number of photons present in your average sugar pill

OK, but where’s the harm?

Ordinarily I go along with the adage about fools and money, but this can be a problem where proven treatments are ignored in favour of the homeopathic remedies. In fact there is a veritable catalogue of potential outcomes to delaying treatments. According to one such catalogue there have been 368,379 people deaths and 306,096 injuries directly attributable to homeopathy. In fact there are many children on that list that have died of treatable illnesses like pneumonia and epilepsy because their parents would rather give them a ’safe’ alternative to medicine.

Furthermore it is my taxes that are paying for £4M worth of NHS homeopathic treatments. Not cool Brown, Not cool.

So why do people use homeopathic remedies at all?

There are numerous sources of anecdotal evidence ‘proving’ that a homeopathic pill cured Aunt Margaret’s cold, or whatever. Clearly the placebo effect is a powerful one, that still needs a great deal of study before we understand what is going on, but knowingly selling a sugar-pill with only the patients belief as an active ingredient is dishonest and, for, me the 10.23 effort didn’t go far enough. Instead of overdosing (on nothing) the group should have taken Boots to court under ‘Fraud by False Pretences’ as they are selling ‘medicines’ that they (in their own words) ‘don’t believe to be efficacious’.

So why was the campaign doomed to fail?

Big Pharma may have it’s faults, and without going into tin-foil-hat territory I have equal disdain for GlaxoSmithKlein as the homeopathic snake oil dealers, however it was clear to me that no amount of media posturing was going to win over the homeopathic remedy crowd. It is their very belief in these remedies that make them work, and if someone believes that a sugar pill treated with an energy imprint can heal their ailments by exposing them to the same thing that is causing their illness then no amount of logical debate or scientific evidence will change their minds.

Tags: homeopathy, quackery, rant, science

Candiru – 1 – Emergence

I like B-Movies.

A lot.

Probably more than ‘actual’ movies. To this end my effort in the great ‘Stuporcollider Literary Challenge’ will hopefully feel a little like the b-movie. Perhaps with less cheesy dialogue but who knows.

I like Emo.

A bit.

But as the token emo of the group I have to ‘rep for my hood.’ Or whatever it is the kids are saying these days. To this end I will probably have drawn out introspectives from the somewhat emo protaganist. Bear with them, there will be killings aplenty right after.

Ultimately, it’s going to be an allegory for attitudes towards sex, relationships, promiscuity and gender roles, through the time honoured medium of monster gore fest.

So without further adieu, I give you Chapter One of:

Candiru

Emergence

Gutteral.

That’s the only way she can describe how he sounds. No trace of the jovial lilt she loves, it’s all been replaced by the low rumblings that now emanate from him.

“Please Bek.” He sounds like he’s in pain. Struggling to fight. “Go.”

Wisps of terror start to tug at her, pulling her all the way awake. She sits up sharply, her unfamiliar surroundings adding to her ill feeling.

She remains sat upright, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the blankets of darkness around them; all the time aware of his frantically increasing movements.

“Jon? Honey, what’s wrong?”

In reply he lets out another animal cry, his back arched in a grotesque parody of a spine. As she watches she’s almost certain she can see a ridge begin to form just below his neck.

She feels bubbles of panic start to rise, threatening to engulf her; confusion and anxiety eating at her. She looks around the room, her night vision starting to give her focus, and sees her scattered clothes discarded at the side of the bed closest to her. They remind her of the night before, a night that had seemed to take so long to arrive but had been worth every moment of nervous waiting; moments that now feel so far away.

His foot brushes hers, startling her from her reverie. His foot feels unnaturally hot against her skin and stirs her to movement.

She slides her feet slowly over the side of the bed, and stands. As she extends one toned leg into her underwear she glances back at Jon. What she sees terrifies her. Tendrils of steam and smoke drift upwards from his prone form, his back a writhing, fluid, mass of ridges.

She’s acutely aware that she is in danger, not least of fascination, but it’s just a fleeting thought that’s replaced as quickly as it arrived by concern for her boyfriend, but she can do little more than watch as he starts to lift himself from the bed.

She steps back involuntarily, her legs tangled in her underwear she falls with a crash and a curse. The Jonthing’s head snaps up and slowly it turns to face her.

She looks up into the twisted visage of her boyfriend looming over her and feels complete revulsion wash over her. There is nothing that she recognises; just a domino mask of pain and hunger.

She tries to scramble to her feet but her sweaty palms slip on the laminate flooring. “Please…” she starts to say but the Jonthing stops her in her tracks. Its voice is choral, as though it is not just one voice but many.

“Thank you mother.”

Candiru by Gazz Hayes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Tags: B-Movie, B-Novel, campaign, Candiru, Emo, Literary Adventure 2010, writing

Facebook Usernames and the Online Identity

The Facebook Username landrush started last night, basically meaning that instead of your facebook link looking like this:

http://www.facebook.com/friends/#/profile.php?id=561529368

it now looks like this:

http://www.facebook.com/yournamehere

Big deal, right?

Well, potentially it was for some, popular journalists and brands were spared the landrush and allowed to pre-register their desired facebook username in advance of the launch. Presumably this was a play for positive write-ups for their vanity project.

So what does it mean for us? Well it will be a little easier to do this sort of thing:

It has got me thinking about the distinction between the two worlds we operate in. The only place I use my real name on the internet is Facebook, and to a degree here. Everywhere else I am VenomandSerum, a handle that has developed from gaming, through forums and now to creative outlets. I’m fairly sure this is a common story.

In the Venn diagram of my internet connections there are very few people in the intersecting area. This made my decision to use my actual name as my Facebook Username an easy one. Facebook, whilst a powerful tool for connecting people, seems to me like internet-lite, a tranquil zone for the less geeky in a sea of nerd. It has pretty much all the other aspects of the tinterwebs, games, chat, commercials, and the friends in the Facebook circle that I also see in real life, you know, the real number once you strip away the people that you drifted apart from after school FOR A REASON, tend to head straight to Facebook when they get on the net, and rarely visit anywhere else.

For these people the Facebook Username might be a huge deal. Nobody wants to be DaveSmith637, and for these people an alternate Facebook Username is largely useless; their online persona is the same as their real life one. I guess they’re stuck with a string of numbers still in their link, pretty much negating any potential benefit of the Facebook Username.

Oh well, never mind, I got /GazzHayes so what do I care…?

Tags: Facebook Username, internets, own the internet, rant

Facebook vs Twitter

So Big Brother 10 started recently, allowing fuckwits to vote for other fuckwits, which does seem like a theme recently, but thankfully there is a reality entertainment experiment that stars normal people and is actually entertaining.

When I was younger I remember a show, I forget what it was called, but it was basically a national scavenger hunt where the contestants would be hunted the length and breadth of the country whilst having to perform simple tasks. One team of bounty hunters would recieve help from the public to track down the other team, who in turn recieved help completing their tasks and staying one step ahead of the hunters.

Finally someone has picked up the mantle for the internet generation, in the form of Facebook vs Twitter. Each team is set a daily task in a different city in the UK, and require the help of their friends and followers to complete them.

Yesterday the two teams had to perform a stand-up comedy routine using only jokes provided by their friends or followers. Today a set of photos need to be found. Choose a side and get involved…

Team Twitter

Team Facebook

Tags: campaign, internets, reality tv

I’ve been taking lessons from Messrs Spielberg and Lucas…

…on how to ruin a franchise. I did it in the first attempt. A good friend of mine put me onto XtraNormal, a site where you can create your own movies over the internets. His version is hilarious and it made me want to try it too.

I think I may be spending some time with this…

Tags: comedy, film, geeks, Joe Money Joe Problems, movies, xtranormal

M.I.A. vs the world

Timely news for some, but it makes a nice change for up and coming ‘popstars’ to give a damn about things that aren’t Jimmy Choos or Kompressors, let alone use their influence to bring attention to things people like to ignore, but that’s just what M.I.A. has been upto drawing praise and criticism alike.

M.I.A. is the daughter of a ‘Tamil Tiger’, although she has never lived with him and hasn’t seen him since 1995, and has been using her music to try to draw attention to the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka. Although she never openly gives her support to the ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’ she has been attacked by many, most notably Sri Lankan hip-hop artist DeLon for using the image of a tiger in her videos.

The conflict is an extremely complex issue and one that’s summed up definitively here but in a nutshell the minority Tamil Hindus are fighting for an independant state in the North and East of the island and have been labelled a terrorist organisation by many world governments.

In a recent blog she questions why she is also labelled a terorist because she wants the conflict to end. Clearly it will take more than this but hopefully it will open a lot of eyes to the bloodshed going on in Sri Lanka.

Tags: music, politics, Sri Lanka

Dumb and Coke…

Facepalm

Turns out we won the war against drugs this year, and the international cocaine market, like the Darkness’ fanbase, is “in retreat.”

This is based on the news that wholseale prices have increased by about £6,000 per Kilo to £45,000, recession be damned. The Serious Organised Crime Agency believe this is an idication that the supply is diminishing under the pressure of their “strategy of working in South America, the Caribbean, across the Atlantic and with European partners.”

These increases in cost have not been passed onto the punters though, the ’street’ price has remained relatively stable, take that capitalism… Instead those plucky street entrepreneurs are just cutting the blow with ever increasing amounts of cockroach insecticide, pet worming tablets and the cancer causing drug phenacetin. Figures from the Forensic Science Service show a third of the cocaine seized is less than 9% pure, the lowest it has ever been.

With more spin than the crucible this is being portrayed as a success.  THIS IS BAD NEWS YOU FUCKING IDIOTS… Great, there is less cocaine knocking around, this is not going to put off the people that create, cut or even use coke. It’s standard suplly and demand economics, the less coke there is available, the more the price rises meaning the manufacturer has a premium product. To offset the hike in prices the dealer will try to maximise his product and cut the quality of the wraps being sold. The habitual user wants more coke regardless of the danger. The mortality rate amongst coke users rises.

It’s ok though, SOCA have a plan… People that import any of the cutting agents will be ‘targetted’. Quite what will happen when they change the cutting agent to something else remains to be seen.

There will always be people that want to do dangerous, illicit drugs, that is a fact of life. Furthermore it is hard to imagine a situation where drug manufacture is completely removed. It strikes me as obvious that the only surefire way to remove the dangerous criminals that perpetuate the drug industry is to remove their customers by allowing the state to control the industry, generating income for the government and giving a safe outlet for the users, a view previously discussed on the SC.

Tags: government, mps vs drugs, politics, rant