Twitterfeed part 2

A while back, or if we should be really honest I should probably say a few years ago, I fiddled around with a service called Twitterfeed. Which essentially is a service that 'automagically' link your blog feed (as an example) to Twitter, among other things. I even wrote a quick note about it on this blog. I came to talk to a mate of mine about this the other day as he's a politician and it's an election year over here. We spoke about web presence and the lack of it that his party has according to a study that was published in a Swedish tech paper (NyTeknik). This lead to some activity from his part in his party on a local level which I guess is a good thing but it also lead me to look into it again too ... which is far more important, or possibly not depending from which point you view the world I guess.

Either way, it would seem that Twitterfeed has come a long way from where it was a few years ago. For one thing the interface is much better and for an other they have made the service a bit more dynamic so you can link it to more social networking tools then just Twitter and it also seems to accept a few different type of feeds now which, from what I can remember, it didn't do earlier. So it would seem that it is time to start using it again ... now if I only updated my blog a bit more often.

To make this post completely incomprehensible lets move back to the subject of benefit or not with linking feeds to Twitter and using Twitter. I know people speak against using Twitter as a sort of megaphone or billboard and instead believe that Twitter should be used as a way to start or keep a dialog going. I have to say that I totally agree with those people, so people that only use their Twitter accounts to link blog feeds will eventually end up with absolutely nobody following them on Twitter. Thus completely killing the purpose of linking the feed to Twitter to begin with. However I also do believe that a feed linked to Twitter can generate debate if used correctly. Which is why I do believe Twitterfeed has an essential purpose to fill for us that can't be bothered to code the whole thing ourselves.

A tiny update

I must admit that I blushed a little when I noticed a link to this blog on a mate's site. Especially considering that I haven't updated this site in about 6 months. Somebody less stubborn than me would probably come to the conclusion that if I haven't updated this site in 6 months time I really should just abandon it all together but I'm afraid I'm way to stubborn for that. So instead I'll bore you with yet an other update.

To the surprise of some people I've actually been employed for the past 10 months. I've been spending my time trying to help customers of an ISP understand why they don't have any internet at the moment amongst other things. Of course most of that time is spent tearing my hair out trying to get people to understand some basic things about how computers and adsl connections actually work and that 90% of the time it's because their equipment at home is broken and not because the ISP is an evil money grubbing devil that tries to make their lives miserable.

But while I'm not doing that I've tried to get a better grip on computer networks. That is also what led me to my mate's site since I was looking into easy and secure ways to communicate with my home computer while I'm out and about. My main objective was to get a somewhat dynamic solution so I wasn't bound to one single program since I then would be limited to waiting for that program to support the system I'm currently on. So I checked out his article on 'VNC over SSH' which is exactly what I was looking for. Even if I'd have preferred a solution where I only needed one program to achieve what I was looking for. This solution however means I can connect a Linux/Windows/Mac or what ever system to my home box in a secure manner without making any changes to the setup on my home system. An other good thing is that it even allows me to connect my Android phone to my home system.

Well, that's what I've been doing lately. Well that and being horribly bad at keeping in touch with my friends and family as usual, sorry about that everybody. I'll try my best to get my head out of the sand soon actually go visit people.

Church Elections in Sweden

In Sweden we have church elections on the 20th of September. This means that everybody that is a member of the Swedish Church has a chance to decide who will lead the Swedish church. "Representatives are elected directly to the Parish Assembly or Parish Council in parishes, to the Association Vestry in an association of parishes, to the Diocesan Council in dioceses and to the General Synod at the national level." (taken from svenskakyrkan).

People that know me will of course ask themselves why the heck I'm blogging about this since I'm most definitely not a church goer nor am I a believer but something that might be less well known is that I, just like a large majority of other Swedes, am still a member of the Swedish Church. We are about 9 million people living in Sweden and out of those 9 million over 5.5 million are a member of our church. One reason for this is most likely that when you are baptised in Sweden you automagically become a member of the church and in 2007 the number of children that were baptised were record breaking low but that still meant that 62.3% (link in Swedish) of the children were baptised. So while a majority of us are still becoming members (most likely because our parents think the cermony around the baptism is nice) most of us can't be arsed to leave the church or have other reasons for not wanting to leave it. Personally I don't believe in god nor a higher power but I do believe in heritage and history and my member fee that I pay through my tax because I'm a member goes to pay for the upkeep of all the churches we have around the country and it also pays a bit towards my grave for when that day comes. Not that I think I need a grave personally but since I enjoy visiting graves of my relatives that has passed away to reminisce about them I want people that I leave behind to have the ability to do the same in case they would like to. But I digress.

So why am I writing about this? Well it's as simple as that I watched the news this morning and they were talking about how few of the 5+ million people that are allowed to vote in the election actually do vote. I only found numbers from Lund where apparently only 11% of the people allowed to vote actually voted last time around (article in Swedish). The news this morning interviewed a priest and asked him why he thought so few people took part in the elections and he thought it's because people think the church is old, stuffy and boring. Others that participate in the elections seem to think that people in general think it's to political so they have formed sections that don't have any political ties what so ever and run in the church elections with those. Both of these things might help get more people involved in the church elections for all that I know but for me personally it won't make a difference at all. The only reason I don't vote in the church elections is that I just don't care. I'm all for keeping our old churches that has been around for hundreds of years (some getting close to a thousand years old, like this one) because they are a part of our history and our culture. But other than that they can do what ever they want in those buildings for all that I care. If they want to have rave parties in churches then go right ahead, if they want to have one priest that get all the money that are left over after the upkeep on the buildings are paid then go right ahead. The day that the churches fall apart and the priests grow to fat is the day I'll start caring about what they do and then I'll most likely work for the abolishment of the Swedish church and having the government take over as the caretaker of the Swedish churches. I will most definitely not start going to church just because you try to make it less old and stuffy, actually come to think of it that might even make me less inclined to go to church. Church to me has nothing to do with beliefs but a lot to do with traditions. And I don't mind saying a few prayers in church for the sake of tradition but I will most definitely not stand around and sing new cool tunes and I don't go to church to watch theatre ... I hardly go do theatres either for Christ sake.

So bottom line Swedish church, you don't want me to vote in your election so stop asking me to because you might end up making me not wanting to be a member just because you successfully pissed me off.

Streaming services

I spoke with a collegue at work yesterday and found that a Swedish ISP (Bredbandsbolaget) is working together with a small company in Sweden to develop a movie streaming service (Voddler). The news (in Swedish) about it so far is that it will be similar to an other Swedish streaming service called Spotify. Which in my opinion would be great as I love Spotify. Something that is still lacking though is a streaming service for TV shows, there are of course a few in the US (Hulu is one good example) but unfortunately they are developed with a very national focus, as in they are only accessible from within the USA.

There are at least a few interesting things that spring to mind here. Firstly, why is Sweden the only country that seem interested in developing these services on an international scale. This is interesting to me as we are also currently considered to be the filesharing pirate haven of the world (because of The Pirate Bay) by the media conglomerates. Don't the companies in the US (as an example) understand that they miss out on a huge market by not developing these kind of services and streaming their content across the globe? As an example can be mentioned sites such as TV.com where TV show fans come and discuss shows and also try to stop the cancelling of shows such as Jericho the other year. The network gave the show an other chance but because the number of viewers were to few they still cancelled. What I don't think they understood is that most of the people that were against the cancelling of that show didn't show up in the sweeps for that show as they were most likely not watching the show legally for the simple reason that they couldn't.

An other interesting thing that ties in to the first one is why hasn't the actors and writers and people working in the business been pushing harder for services like these. Spotify pay the copyright holder every time a tune is played on their service. Think about it, every time somebody watches an old episode of ... Doogie Howser the service would pay the copyright holder for it. I bet Neil Patrick Harris wouldn't mind that (if he gets even a dime of it of course, what do I know?).

Anyway, here is at least one person eagerly awaiting a streaming service that I can stream both day old tv episodes and 20 year old tv episodes from mainly the American networks but also from UK networks and national networks. Because if it's one thing the Americans do well it's TV.

"Oldpapers" and digging journalism

I know this isn't really new stuff but I've been thinking about this for a while so thought I'd put pen to paper or maybe I should say fingers to keyboard, rather. Which is exactly what I've been thinking about, the problem that "old" media is facing.

I listened to a program on the radio about this a few weeks back and they mentioned an old teacher of mine when they spoke about the start of newspapers online in Sweden. His name is Mark Comerford and he was involved with starting up one of the more successful online newssites in Sweden, aftonbladet.se. The point of the radio show was that the problem newspapers face today is that they are expected to have an online version of their newspaper that should update almost hourly 24/7 but at the same time people in general don't want to buy newspapers. A newspaper in the southern part of Sweden (sorry I forget what it's called) even tried giving away newspapers to everybody between 25 and 35 but not even then did people want the newspapers. Personally I can fully understand it, being just under 35 myself and having no interest what so ever in a paper newspaper every morning. The problem the newspapers face is of course that the online versions doesn't come near the revenue levels of the paper version.

So the problem here is that nobody wants to pay for the news but we still want quality newsdistribution. Today we talk a lot about the power of the new media with blogging and all kinds of social networking tools and while these things are great when it comes to getting news about what is happening in countries like Iran, Honduras, China, etc but the problem with all these new tools is that the content in them are mostly produced by amateurs. So while yes it's good that we get news at all from places like the above but on the other hand should we really trust the news we get that way? And even though we might trust it one would at least expect it to be poorly written and not all that interesting to read and quite possibly also heavily biased.

The huge plus side of the old media industry such as our national newspapers is that they can afford (at least so far) to employ well educated people that can grasp the broader points of a specific aspect and then explain it in a well written and interesting way. At least that's one of the main reasons I still occasionally read newspapers but also the reason I watch TV shows with digging journalism and listen to these debate shows on the radio every now and then. Because I enjoy good journalism and news reported by somebody that knows what they are talking about.

Good journalism also makes it easier for me to take a piece of news and read, listen and watch it from several different sides through different kinds of media and from different political viewpoints depending on the journalist. If a piece of news is only reported by amateurs then the news might not even be recognizable when you go to a different source.

Many newspapers and similar news reporting companies around the (western) world speak about this problem right now and while I don't have a solution for the problem I do think it's slightly scary that all the news we consume in the future could be like the news we read in Aftonbladet (see above) or watch on CNN.

So well yeah ...

Ok, so it's been a while since I posted something on this site. One might wonder why but then one might not know me all that well. Fact is that I usually get into stuff at a 110% and burn the candles at both end just to burn out really quick. Granted I never really went into this blog thing at a 110% but at least I did post more than I was asked to at the beginning (I did after all start this blog because of a course I was taking at Uni).

Anyway, I recently started working as a 1st line Tech Support guy for an ISP in Sweden so at least things are happening. Unfortunately that also means that I've stuck my head into something new which further limits the chances of there being frequent updates to this blog. But I think I'll actually make an effort to do keep it updated a bit more frequent for the simple reason that I actually like the whole concepts of blogs.

But for now I'm going to go to bed early and read a book and then get up really freaking early to work.

Why use Twitter?

I recently bumped into this question for possibly the 10th time in a pretty short time. When the question is posed by an every day person, just like me, you could actually answer the question with "why not?". Because if you already use other social networking tools such as Facebook or you already have a blog and on top of that already read and contribute to various online forums then what is the point? The honest answer is that there really is none. You usually create a Twitter account for the same reason that you create a Facebook account, start a blog, read rss feeds from sites that have things you're interested in, etc. Of course this only applies if you don't run a business, if you're a celebrity or for some other reason make your livelihood of the content you produce online, among other things.

That's just the simple answer though. There are of course 101 other reasons for a normal every day person to get a Twitter account. And the question that I bumped into recently was actually more precicely "What is the benefit of using Twitter if you already use Facebook?" so I thought I'd give the answer to that question here too.

Twitter and Facebook are two very different things and can't really be compared, if you ask me. Facebook is a way to keep in touch with old friends (that you long ago decided you didn't have anything in common with anyway, as some cynics would say) and share pictures, videos, interests and all sorts of other, potentially highly uninteresting and quite possibly unnecessary, things with. Twitter is a micro-blog. So instead of asking what the point is of using Twitter if you already use Facebook, you might ask what the point is of using Twitter if you're already blogging. The point would be that with Twitter you update more often and with shorter blurbs about both things that interest you or with what you do. Twitter poses the question "What are you doing?" after all. A lot of tweets (as a post on Twitter is called) are usually a link to content elsewhere instead of something you've written yourself.

Twitter is also a wonderful marketing tool, it's used by a lot of both people and businesses to give others a short update about their life or product/service. When I'm talking about people here I of course mean celebrities, as an example one of the people on Twitter that I follow is Stephen Fry, as he is a funny creative chap that is also very tech savy. He also used to be considered to have a lot of followers. Of course a competition recently put Ashton Kutcher at over 1 million followers (he's got an other over 400k followers since I checked his Twitter last). If you're interested in finding out who else has a large number of followers on Twitter than check out Twitterholic.com

So what would be the point for you or me to get Twitter? None really, it's just the same as with all these other social networking sites or cell phones for that matter. It's an invention that nobody really had a need for when it was invented but once you start using it you find that you can't really be without it. Well that might be a bit of an exaggeration but at least you might find that you enjoy reading blurbs both from your friends and from both organisations, businesses or celebrities. Personally I try to keep away from spammers though, there are some people that tweet 10+ times a day and quite frankly I don't think anybody anywhere lives such an interesting life.

Lastly I can say that the reason I use Twitter is because I'm always looking for things that can potentially bring a smile to my face and reading tweets from both my friends and celebrities has many times managed to do just that. My own Twitter feed can be found here if you for some odd reason would think that I might have anything interesting or funny to say.

The Future of Internet or Democracy ends here.

Ok, it's almost been 5 months since I've posted something on this blog. Partly because I haven't had anything interesting to say and partly because what I've wanted to say I'm not so sure I want to put in black and white on the internet and this is what leads me to do just that.

As the topic together with the above suggests I've been thinking a bit about democracy, freedom of speech, personal integrity and of course file sharing lately. Since I live in Sweden there has been quite a lot about this in the news for the past 6 months or so. It started with FRA, or the National Defence Radio Establishment in Swedish, being allowed to monitor all communication through cables that passes the boarder of Sweden. Pretty much all communication in Sweden passes the boarder of Sweden at least once on it's way to it's destination so FRA basically was allowed to listen in on all Swedes no matter whether they are suspected of criminal activity or not. This was introduced on the 18th of June 2008, since then there has been a lot written about this and there are still people working against this law (great site for information about this, unfortunately only in Swedish, stoppaFRAlagen).

While discussing this and living in Sweden it's impossible to not mention The Pirate Bay. During the end of February the case against TPB was finally brought up in court and tomorrow (17th of April) the verdict will be delivered. I suppose most people, including myself, aren't all that interested in what the verdict will be as, at least, I'm sure this case will go through all the courts all the way up to the Supreme court of Sweden before it's settled. I'm no lawyer but for all I know it might even reach the EU court before it's over and done with.

Now you might wonder what this has to do with the future of internet. Well it has to do with the power of the corporations and the fact that some of these laws goes totally against what all we Swedes know about right and justice. Because while most of us (at least I think most of us, I don't have any numbers to point at as there are none that are scientific enough to point at as far as I know) agree that breaching the copyright law is wrong, we don't think that it's all ok for private interests or the government to have absolute power over our internet activities. Which I believe to be one of the main reasons TPB has recieved so much support and also one of the reasons why some people has started using TPB recently.

Two acronyms make me shiver every time I see them, IPRED and ACTA. Both of these has been pushed upon us by private interests wanting to protect their products and politicians both in the EU and in most of the western world seem to just give in to the demands and quite frankly I can only see one reason for them to do so and it's the usual one ... money. And to put the final nail in the democracy coffin we have the EU directive about storing of data, which of course also has seen a lot of backing from private interests across the pond. So in Sweden we now have a military organisation monitoring every move we make electronically and soon our service providers will also be forced to store every 1 and 0 we produce over a 12 month period (I believe the directive says 6-24 months and it's up to each country how long to store it, Sweden opted for 12 months).

I don't know how you define democracy but Wikipedia states

Even though there is no universally accepted definition of 'democracy', there are two principles that any definition of democracy includes. The first principle is that all members of the society (citizens) have equal access to power and the second that all members (citizens) enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.

Equal access to power and enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties? As far as I know companies aren't citizens so I guess we still live in a democracy then. Sarcasm aside I personally believe access to internet is one of these freedoms and liberties that is mentioned above. Sure it might not be a universally recognized human right to have internet access but then in most of the western world everybody that want to have internet access can have it and in countries like Sweden many parts of the government take for granted that you have access to internet since if you don't it's pretty much impossible to communicate with them. So even though it doesn't say so in UN's universal declaration of human rights I still believe it to be one, at least if you live in the modern industrialized world. One I do believe in there though is the ability to freely say what you think without being afraid of prosecution. Monitoring everything we say (or do electronically) isn't really the best way to make sure we don't feel afraid of prosecution.

I guess I've made my point about democracy and the new laws and regulations now. Well maybe I should point out one more thing. In Sweden the new laws means that it's up to the accused to prove his or her innocence in the case anybody is accused for a breach against the copyright law, something that is totally unheard of in Swedish justice. Or wait a second, if you go back to the middle ages and look at the witch-trials you might find a similar way of prosecuting, at least according to André Rickardsson who used to work for SÄPO (Swedish Security Service) and today as an IT security expert at Bitsec. This is of course also the reason why I had to mention TPB earlier and the whole filesharing business at all as this is exactly what makes the big business happy when they try to get to people that may or may not breach the copyright law.

But on towards my point of this whole post. The future of the internet. Currently there is a new directive being pondered over in Brussels, it's an updated version of the Telecommunication law and again the lobyists from across the pond show up and push their agenda on the politicians that again seem to eat it all up. Of course we have lobyists from this side of the pond too that also want to see a better copyright protection. But the main issue here is whether we should let the internet be free and let anybody do what ever they want on there or whether we should control who and what has access to the internet. Of course crime should always be fought but in most countries in the EU we already have both laws in place to control this and police units specially trained to fight these crimes (be it computer crime or child pornography or what ever). Had the citizens pushed the government to fight copyright infringments I'm sure they would have marked money in their budgets for just that. What has been done in Sweden when these kind of problems has shown up earlier has been to simply add a tax on products used to copy copyrighted material and give that money to the copyright holder. So was done with cassettes as an example and there are several people that think that the best solution to the current internet piracy problem is to just add a tax on broadband to cover any losses the copyright industry might get from piracy. Problem there is that the big companies aren't the least intrested in this as it wouldn't give them the money but the money would end up in the pockets of the musicians, authors, script writers or what ever. It would also break the control the large corperations have over the market.

As you might realize by now I'm not very fond of the effect that the private businesses has on our politicians. Which is also something I believe will form how internet and internet access looks in the future. I'm sure that if the entertainment industry got their say all the way everybody that used the internet would have to pay them for just plain access first and then we'd also have to pay each time we wanted to listen to a song, read a book, watch a film or what ever. Any amateur content would be blocked as they wouldn't get a dime for something somebody without a contract with them made. Is that the kind of internet we want? An internet fully controlled by big business and the government, a web where we can't say what we think without the risk of being prosecuted for slander or undemocratic views?

Personally I view the internet a bit like a view our road network. They are both infrastructure used by a lot of people and in most cases we are still allowed to do what ever we want on them as long as it isn't a crime. In some cases we might need a special permission to do something on our roads and everybody is fine with that. So why not introduce a licens if you want to have a 100/100 Mbit connection, since after all you only need one if you want to download and upload large amount of data. But at the same time allow anybody with a 10/10 Mbit connection (10/10 since that allows you to use services like YouTube and the like with high quality) to do what ever they want within reason as that would be equalent of a pedestrian on a road. You could add to the licens that you allow the government to monitor your traffic same as is done by the police on our roads.

Just a suggestion and one that I think is reasonable. I do however think it's unreasonable to have a camera and microphone monitoring everybody everywhere, whether it's on the street, in their home or in the middle of the forest. That screams end of democracy to me and to see our politicians stand around talking about democracy and then classify negotiations about laws that has absolutely nothing to do with relations to foreign powers (CNET's story regarding this). Again something that is pretty much unheard of in Sweden, especially since this treaty has nothing to do with foreign powers or national security but all to do with copryright laws and big business.

And lastly a final example of what the monitoring of all communication can lead to. Since the beginning of 2009 the data storage law has been in effect in Germany which has lead to that some people don't dare to use the phone or email to contact psychologists and the like when they have a problem. In Germany 11% state that they have avoided to use the phone when they have needed to because they know the communication is being stored. In Sweden, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, this would in my opinion be disastrous.

Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning compared to Counter-Strike?

I've already written a review of this game but to be honest that was when the beta ended and the NDA was lifted so the game I'm playing today is very much different than it was back then. Of course the mechanics and all the other things are the same now as they were then but when beta ended I had little hope that this game would be able to compete with the, then upcoming, Wrath of the Lich King expansion to WoW. Today I must say I view this game completely differently.

I started playing WAR because a lot of my mates were saying how much fun they had with the game and I must say I envied them quite a bit especially considering several of them had played DAoC for, what in this business can be considered, many many years. So I bought the game not with the beta days in mind but with a hope that I could find a way to view the game in a different light and find a game that I could come to enjoy for many days to come.

Which is exactly what I did. I installed the game over a month ago and for an MMORPG I've played it very few hours since, maybe a couple of hours a day spread out over that time. A bit more during weekends or days I've had off from work but some days not at all. Which for me is a completely new thing when it comes to MMORPGs. If know me or have read other posts on this blog you will understand what I mean.

The big difference between WAR and other MMORPGs I've played is that I've had a completely different view on this game. I usually play MMORPGs as just that, a role play game with massive amounts of players. WAR I've played more like Counter-Strike (also called CS) though which might sound odd if you usually play MMORPGs. But the fact is that one of the things that made CS so popular was that you could jump into a game and play for 15-30 minutes and have loads of fun. Over time people started forming communities around the servers and so you got to recognize people and you started chatting and so friendships were born. Take this parallel and move it over to WAR and you have a game here too where you can jump on for 30 minutes or so and play pretty much for all of those 30 minutes against other players and in the meantime also chat with your buddies in your guild.

I realize that it might be hard to picture the similarities if you haven't played both games extensively or both genres extensively. But both things are there in my opinion, now lets just hope that Mythic succeeds with the other thing that made CS so successful and that is to cater to the newbies and not to the pros. Many FPS games has died because the developers listened to much to the professionals (or in MMORPG terms the power gamers), the developers of CS managed to not do that though and so the game had a steady flow of new gamers coming to the game.

So in conclusion, Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning is a great game for those that want a game that they can get online with for about an hour and get some good game time during that time. There are of course other parts of the game that has much more in common with the classic MMORPG genre and much less with the classic FPS genre. But the parts that made CS so successful are also there and so, at least, this blogger hope that Mythic has found a concoction that will make this game live on for many years to come.

Spotify ... just wow

I recieved my invite for the free (but with ads) version of Spotify the other day and all I can say is wow.

For a person that love music but has a pretty low income I have been batteling with rising prices on music for years and so I've ended up listing mostly to internet radio and youtube to get to new music. It was probably almost 10 years ago that I actually bought a new album (except for the occassional gift for somebody). This is where Spotify comes in, at the moment I can listen to it free of charge and I can search through tons of tunes and listen to them how ever much I want. Only downside is that it's still a bit like listening to radio in that I get ads stuck in between the tunes.

Considering it's only about €10 per month (actually less now since it's 99 SEK wich is less than €10) for an ad free subscription I can definitely see me getting one as soon as Spotify moves out of beta, or more likely when I can afford it. So yes, Spotify is currently in beta but so far I haven't noticed it to be honest. I quite often use beta software (granted it's mostly computer games though) and most of them have bugs which prevents you from using them from time to time. However this flows really good and I've yet to have any issues what so ever with it. Although I haven't had a chance to try it on any other device than my stationary computer which is running Windows.

Anyway, one can only imagine how companies that still want to sell tunes for €1 or more with heavy drm protection can survive when services like this show up. As long as I have an internet connection, a device able to connect to it and the ability to produce sound I can now get to all my favourite tunes. Which pretty much means if I have a phone. So in the words of a famous American General, all I have to say to the big record labels that hasn't caught on to the fact that the market is changing yet is ... Nuts!

Oh and one last thing, Spotify seems only to be available to the Swedish market so far but hopefully they'll open it up to the rest of the world soon enough.

Scratching the "Web"-itch

My internet connection has been down for the past 48 hours and while I have lived without an internet connection since I first got one at home back in 2001 this is one of the first times I have really felt what has to be described as an itch to get online. I can only conclude that it has to do with the fact that while it has happened before (that something has broke down and I've been forced to live without connection for several days) I today spend a lot more time just browsing the web and utilize my connection in various ways. 

As an example I start each day by browsing a handful of newspaper sites while listening to 'SomaFM Indie Pop Rocks' and having my morning coffee. And I'm sure that most people that have a morning ritual that include reading a newspaper and listening to the radio feel that something is missing everytime they have to start the day without those things.

Most days I continue browsing the web for various entertainment news (be it games, music or films) and also other news sites. While I also browse a handful of different forums. Much due to the fact that I only work in the afternoon and night these days I have a lot of time to kill during the days. So after all this browsing I usually start on one of my many programming projects which includes browsing for more tips and tricks about how to solve specific issues I may or may not have.

So while one might consider me a bit of a web-oholic (if you catch my drift) I actually do something productive with my time infront of the screen ... at least some of the time :)

15 year old collapses while playing WoW

This past weekend a Swedish 15 year old boy collapsed in his home (or his parents home rather) after playing WoW for about 24 hours straight. He was brought to hospital and found to suffer from sleep deprivation and malnutrition. Here is a link to the Swedish newspaper 'Dagens Nyheter' that runs the story.

Now as a gamer myself I really have to ask, what the hell is wrong with his parents? To me it seems like they have failed with teaching the boy the simple art of staying alive. How hard is it to remember to drink and eat really? I have myself had sessions in front of the screen that has lasted for more than 24 hours and I have gamed so much that I have lost my appetite but I have never once collapsed or been in danger of it for the simple reason that even if I'm not hungry I know to eat and drink just because of the simple fact that I like living more than I like gaming. That does not mean I'm a fatty either, I'm about 185 cm short and weigh in at about 80 Kg. So it's not like I shovel in food while I game I do however stop to get to the kitchen and grab some food or drink.

Now I do realize that a game like WoW can be addictive and I do realize that a lot of people can have trouble detaching themselves from these games (it has been argued that I have had such problems). Also the research into how these games affect us are not really done but it would not surprise me if there is a chemical released by our body that affects us pretty much like a drug. But it still amazes me that you can go to the point of almost killing yourself just by sitting to long on your behind and looking at a screen. Actually that would be a lie, I do understand how and why that could happen but a 15 year old boy that does not seem to suffer from any sort of illness or anything like that. How does that happen?

This might all seem a bit harsh but for a person that has not been down the road of long gaming sessions. But if you have read about people dropping dead or collapsing because of gaming and do not understand it then I just want to say that I do not either and I am a gamer that periodically play so much that it would probably be considered unhealthy.

On an other note, the new WoW expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) has already been played through by a European raid guild. The content of the expansion will take most people months to go through and many of the WoW subscribers will never even finish the new raid instances. The guild, that is so far called, 'TwentyFifthNovember' went through the new instances within 68 hours and 30 minutes after release of the expansion. One can only assume that these people has also burned the light at both ends.

Spotify - Streaming music For The Win!

I'm sure a lot of people has already noticed that Spotify has opened up to the public by now. It's a iTune-like thing that lets you browse through and listen to music from all over the world. However you only pay a relatively small subscription fee to get access to all this music. To me this sounds like the best way to combat piracy so far, granted that I've not red that much about the different ways to combat piracy when it comes to music.

Anyway, have a look for yourself over at Spotify to see what it's all about. Personally I don't see any reason for this to work very well for the guys that started it.

Bloody nagging Facebook ads

Ok, so I get it. I am alone. Every time I login to Facebook I'm met by the question 'Alone?' from some bleedin' ad. Yes I am alone, does not mean I'm lonely though so stop bugging me already.

I do understand that Facebook need to have ads, capitalism and all that, but if they don't want people to stop visting the thing they should either allow you to just remove the ads or cycle them more or something to stop the same ones show up every time.

So Facebook, yeah I'm alone, what is it to you?

Paul Newman has passed away

Paul Newman passed away at the age of 83 on Friday the 26th of September. He had been suffering from Cancer for quite some time and so even if I, together with many other people in the world, feel that we have lost a great man I do hope that he is in a better place and pain free.

Newman was a very interesting actor in many ways, for one he was plainly a good actor that took part in many memorable films but he was also a generous man that used his celebrity status for something good. At least during my life time. I've heard actors mention that Clint Eastwood is a man that has not been faced by his celebrity status in the way that he runs around on parties or other places and abuses his celebrity status but I have to say that I have never heard Newman do that either. I have however heard about Newman donating large sums of money from his business, so not only was Newman a great actor he was also a humanitarian.

Newman's career was as brightest during the 60's and 70's when he was part of films like 'Butch and the Sundance kid' (one of my personal favourites).


But he also received an Oscar for his part in 'Colour of Money' where he played against Tom Cruise. His last full feature was in 2002, 'Road to Perdition'.

About Warhammer's failed EU open beta launch

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had an open beta launch this past Sunday 7th of September, in the USA it was handled by the company that made the game, namely Mythic, while in EU the launch has been handled by the company GOA (sorry, that is the best link I can find for GOA).

Now before I start criticising I have to say that I have not personally been involved in this open beta launch because even though I am still a beta tester I have decided that the game is not for me and that I have better things to do with my time than to beta test a game that I do not personally enjoy. So why am I writing this then? Well I'm writing this because quite frankly I am shocked about the way both Mythic and GOA has treated their customers.

Some more background might be needed here. When you buy a collectors edition (CE) of the game you gain access to the open beta. So when the open beta failed to launch in EU on Sunday and many of the people that had paid for their product still had not been able to even register on Monday night they were essentially denied access to something they had paid for. This is something that usually only happens when it comes to software and some people even expect it to happen which to me is kind of odd but considering this is how it is all over the world it might even be considered to be expected behaviour.

If we make a comparison with a guest to a hotel that has paid in advance for a room and when they get to the hotel they are told that they will have access to the room in a moment and then 36 hours later are still waiting in the lobby most of us would not be surprised if that guest was upset and we would also expect that guest to not have to pay for the rest of their stay.

So while I do agree with Mark Jacobs (CEO of Mythic) and Ian Compton (English Community Manager for GOA) that a failed open beta launch does not warrant death threats. If we go back to my example with the hotel room, I would say that that does not warrant death threats either but I would expect the guest to make them. So while I do agree with them both on that point I do however not agree with how they have communicated with their customers. On Mark Jacobs' blog he questions his customers mental health and in a letter to the community today Ian Compton pretty much says right out that he believes the customer base to have a screw loose.

Mark Jacobs:

Are you really the kind of person who thinks it’s socially acceptable to threaten people just because you are having problems with a game? Are you and your life so perfect that you don’t have your own issues or make your own mistakes?

Ian Compton:

If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

Personally as a gamer I would not touch a product these people has had their hands on ever again for the simple fact that they are, in my oh so humble opinion, missing the whole point of what good communication is. As a gamer and a paying customer I would have had no problem with GOA telling me that they were sorry but the open beta would have to be pushed up but that they would figure out a way to repay me for not giving me the product I paid for. But I would have expect them to tell me so on Sunday and then close the whole thing down until they could open it up again maybe 48 hours later. Of course they would have caught some flack for that but giving people the hope that if they just hang around and wait and keep trying eventually tends to get people very upset. Even I know this and I only have about 10-20 previous beta tests of MMORPGs of experience to base this on. So people that run a computer game company should definitely know that.

I can make an other comparison here with an other beta that I took part in almost 2 years ago that was held by two totally different companies. That time it did not entail any paying customers but there were still a lot of people upset as it was a very anticipated title and a lot of people that wanted to try it. The problem was then was caused by a database error too that was caused much due to the massive amount of people trying to communicate with it and while I know GOA claims that the traffic was not have an essential factor in this case my guess is that either it was or they should fire the person responsible for checking the database functionality before the gates were opened. Any way, the difference between this other company and GOA was that even if it took that company almost 3 days to sort out the problem they communicated on a whole other level than GOA has done and so while people were dissapointed nobody was really angry.

So GOA and Mythic, the gamer community does not expect wonders and we do not expect these kind of products to be without errors but we do expect to be told what is happening and we do not enjoy being told to be patient and just wait. We, the gamer community, just want you to treat us with the same respect as you want us to treat you. It really is as simple as that.

Edit:
It would seem that GOA has understood that they made some mistakes too and to their favour one has to say that they admit to their wrong doings (even it takes a while) and compensate for them. In my opinion the later part of those two are the most important part. That part was also the basis of this article.

Bonus days
Due to the many problems and delays during the first few days of the Open Beta GOA's CEO decided to take action and give seven free days of game play to all Open Beta players.

• Open Beta participants: 7 bonus days

Punk rockers don't have no flowers in their hair

Ok, I know this tune isn't really new or anything but I was just sitting around browsing the genre Punk on YouTube and stumbled on Sandi Thom's 'I Wish I was a Punk Rocker' and so I watched it. In all honesty I do like the tune but what the *insert strong word here* is up with the lyrics? She sings and I quote "I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair ...". I have to admit that I wasn't a punk rocker during the age of Punk but I have both seen and known a few late 80s early 90s punk rockers and from what I know about that particular genre of music and life style the only way a punk rocker would get flowers in their hair would be if they fell alseep in a garden and the flowers got stuck in their hair.

To me it seems more like Thom is mashing the hippies (and the anti-war demonstrations from the late 60s and early 70s) together with the Punks just to get a cool sounding lyric or even just to get to the title of the tune. Not that I really mind but at the same time it just seems wrong to me. Possibly because I still have my heart and soul in the Punk genre even though I've never looked like one.

Edit:
I've been corrected by Jeffrey Lewis.

The Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning NDA has been lifted

Those of you who have anticipated the release of this game has most likely already read about this and you may also have read some of the comments from the beta testers around the world. If you have then you will have noticed that there is a huge difference between what the US beta testers and the EU beta testers have experienced. But in case you have not read anything or if you want to read yet an other view of an EU beta tester then here is my take on WAR, a game produced by Mythic by the way.

For starters I must say that I am a bit of the old school when it comes to MMORPGs to begin with, I did play WoW for a few months but I did not last long as I do not enjoy the new generation of games in this genre that is released. To me they are far to 'casual gamer' friendly and even though I no longer have the time nor have an inclination to spend the time needed to be in the 'hardcore gamer' camp I still believe that the past years of released games in the MMORPG genre has become watered down. Much because of the great success of WoW most likely.

Anyway, I started playing WAR in early May this year as a beta tester and while I recognised many things from other games such as the simplistic crafting style (even though it is marketed as a recipe free system it still has a lot of similarities with crafting in games such as WoW when it comes to complexity), the character development, the fighting and the total lack of anything else to do in game than either quest or fight other players I still did realize that this was a game totally focused on RvR (or Realm versus Realm). RvR was a concept that was developed by Mythic when they created Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC) and essentially it means that the servers are devided into "factions" and these are pitted against each other in large scale Player versus Player (PvP) fights. This is also where WAR differs from all other MMORPGs I've ever played. But lets take it from the top.

The General Frame of the Game
Might not be the best title but I just want to put down some points so we all know what we are talking about here before I start off describing details of the game. So, first off the game is divided into two factions called Order and Destruction. The Order side consists of Empire (humans), Dwarfs and High Elves and the Destruction side consists of Chaos, Greenskins and Dark Elves. Each race belongs to a racial pairing together with an other race from the opposing faction. The pairings are Empire vs Chaos, Dwarf vs Greenskin and High Elf vs Dark Elf. Each of these racial pairings are divided into four tiers each with a different level range, so tier one (T1) goes from level 1 up to about 12 and T2 from 12 - 21 and so on. Just prior to release Mythic changed T4 into a large castle at the end. When a realm holds two out of the three castles from the other side the unofficial T5 is opened up and the city siege begin. Just a few months ago each pairing was going to have a capital city for each of the races that you could fight over but now that has changed into just two capitols for the whole game. So the unoffical T5 consists of the capitol siege and the capitols themselves.

Except for all of this RvR content there are also a lot of PvE content spread out through the tiers. Unfortuantely it has a lot of gaps and, at least to me, it feels a bit detached from the rest of the game and more importantly it seems pointless when compared to the RvR aspect of the game. One thing that Mythic has succeeded in though is to create a new mechanic that they use both in their PvE content and their PvP content and that is the Public Quests. The Public Quest is a quest that you get from just entering an area of the game world. It is not instanced or anything like that and everybody in the area can work on the same quest and most of these PQs you need to be at least one group and sometimes a full raid group to be able to complete. When the quest is completed you take part in a random roll for loot from a chest. The roll is modified by how much you contributed towards the completion of the quest even though if my experience is that you can very often be the highest contributor but end up with nothing. This has however been adressed in a patch recently and hopefully that will not be the case in the current release of the game client.

Character Development
As usually this is done by earning XP to gain levels or ranks as it is called in WAR. When you gain a rank you can talk to a NPC trainer and buy one or more abilities. However, in WAR you also gain renown points which will eventually lead to you gaining renown ranks (or rr for short). You also gain points for each of your rr that you can use to buy abilities from a renown trainer. Your rr also enables you to buy equipment from certain NPCs and this equipment is specifially tailored to be useful to you in RvR.

When you reach rank 11 you will also gain access to the mastery paths, these paths are used to let you specialize in one of your characters areas of expertise. This is how Mythic hopes to give their players a chance to create unique characters. Of course we all know that that is only right to a certain extent as within a month or so there will be cookie cutter builds out on the internet that explains what abilities you should choose to be the most efficient in the game. And yes, that is the kind of sarcastic remarks you can expect while reading this post.

So bottom line when it comes to character development. There really is nothing new under the sun here, we have seen the same kind of character development in several other games and WAR does not really bring anything new to the table in that department.

Crafting
Crafting in WAR has been marketed as being recipe free and yes it is, it is also something I have pretty much avoided testing as as long as I have been beta testing it has not really functioned well or there has at least not been any game mechanic around to explain how it is supposed to function. Thus it has so far for me been an utter disapointment.

Mark Jacobs did an extensive explination through videos a while back on how crafting in WAR was supposed to work. He spoke about how there would be no grinding and how wonderful it was that the whole thing is not based on recipes but as we all know there is again just a matter of time until the recipes is posted online, something I believe (if memory serves right) Jacobs also has stated that he realize. Also the whole thing about crafting not involving grinding is of course just nonsense. The only reason to not grind would be to create items that are not top of the line and the only reason to do that would be see how they look ... or gain the next level in crafting which will of course lead to grinding out massive amounts of items that just get trashed and we have exactly what Jacobs claims the system does not include.

By the way, as far as I can tell the crafting system is pretty much of the same complexity and usefulness as in WoW. That is the top of the line items might be a bit useful but thus far the items you build up to that point will just be scrapped. This might of course change and for all I know it may already have as I have not tried out crafting in the last few patches.

Fighting
As mentioned earlier the focus of the game is RvR, which means you are meant to be fighting against other players pretty much all of the time you are logged in. If you do not do that you will miss out on the essential part of renown ranks which will hamper your ability to fight other players later on in the game.

But if we start with the mechanics then there really is no visual difference between the mechanics of WAR and WoW. The 'global cool down' is apparently longer in WAR than in WoW and the auto attack damage in WAR is much less than in WoW (so gear is less important in WAR than in WoW). Otherwise it is essentially the same mechanics behind the fighting.

An other thing with WAR is that while there are 20 different classes (or careers as they are called in WAR) in WAR they are all mirrors, which means that it actually is only 10 which then are mirrored once to produce a career in the other faction with exactly the same game mechanic. Some of these mechanics we recognize from WoW, the most similar one would be the Iron Breakers Grudge points that he builds which are very similar to the Warriors Rage points from WoW.

Realm vs. Realm
I really have to make a sub section for this as this is the essential part of the game. This is where this game shines. I have to give it to Mythic for succeeding in creating a world where "war is everywhere" (something that they have chanted for a long time now). The RvR combat is easy to get into and most importantly it is fun. I have played MMOGs for about almost 10 years now on and off and while I have not played DAoC where RvR was created I have played other games with PvP in and I have always felt that PvP in other games has been absolutely pointless. In WAR it is quite the opposite though, I happily through myself into a PvP fight even though I personally have no chance of winning the fight but I know that I can help the players on the same side as me and while my rewards might not be great I will at least get something out of it.

The RvR fights are held in specific zones of each tier. These zones include Battle Objectives (or BOs) and from T2 also Keeps. The Keeps get larger for each tier and the fights to take them and defend them can turn into epic fights where several raid groups fight on each side of the battle. Both the attackers and the defenders can use siege equipment such as catapults and other things. The attackers also has to use a ram to get through the keep gate and the defenders can then use oil to fend off rammers.

The majority of the renown points you gain are gained through taking a keep or BO in one of these RvR areas of a tier. There are however also instanced scenarios that you can queue for and join. They usually take about 15 minutes or so to play through and there is a room for around 10 - 15 players per side in them. The scenarios are played on a very limited map usually with a few flags on that you try to take and hold on to. The longer you hold on to them the more points you gain and the first side to 500 points win the scenario.

Well that should cover the basis of RvR in WAR, you really have to try the game yourself to get a feeling for it though as it is impossible to describe how it is to run together with 40 other players up towards a keep on a hill and fight your way in through the gate and eventually kill the keep lord.

Player vs. Environment
PvE is as I have alluded towards earlier in this post a big waste of time, in my own humble opinion, in this game. For starters it is way to easy to finish quests by yourself so there is not much insentitive to group up while questing and the awards you get from the quests are not really worth spending the time on getting. Compared to other games on the market the PvE of WAR is not really that different except that it does not have much in the form of instanced dungeons. That however is something that might very well come and there is a few already in the game it is just that I have not tried them and they are very few compared to many other games.

Hopefully PvE is something that Mythic intends to spend a lot of time on after release as in my opinion it will prevent those players that just want to run about with a Warhammer character and do something in the Warhammer environment from playing the game.

End Game
End game is of course RvR and more RvR and capitol city sieges. There really is not much to say about this other than if you get WAR with the intention to not partake in the large war then you will not have anything to do once you reach level cap as the whole game is built to allow players a nice experience filled with RvR on their way to level cap and once there they are supposed to take part in the epic and constant struggle to reach the point where their side can siege the other sides capitol.

Graphics
Not much to say about the graphics. Partly because my system is at the low end of the requirments but also because the game has been built with low end systems in mind so they do not differ much from an other well known game ... yes, I mean WoW now too.

Conclusion
If you believe that you will enjoy fighting against other players constantly and your only interest in a MMORPG is PvP but you have think that other games has lacked purpose in that department then WAR is definitely the game for you.

However if you want to enjoy some interesting PvE, crafting or just plainly goof around with other things then WAR is not the game for you. In that case I'd recommend a game like LotRO instead as that has set the focus on PvE. On the other hand, LotRO is also a casual gamer friendly game so I would not really recommend that either to be honest.

Lastly, I posted an article about my experience of MMORPGs earlier on this blog. You can find that article here.

News flow and critique of sources

I just red a piece by Peter Bart, the editor in chief of Variety. He wrote in his column this past Friday about 'Fear and loathing in the blogosphere', it's a piece about how the news flow works in Hollywood today. He describes how the executives marvel at the fact that they can fire somebody at 10:15 and read about it on the web at 10:14. Something that might seem a bit disturbing and something that might seem as grounds for firing in itself in an other business as, at least to me, it would seem that somebody has definitely leaked inside information.

Bart goes on to make more examples of how people has received news that affects them through internet and blogs before they have received it through the official channels and he also explains that this is how it works today and that it would seem unproductive for the executives to try to work against it even though they still do to some extent today, if they do not just simply ignore the fact that this is how it now works.

Something that struck me though when I red Bart's piece is that it seems that people has completely stopped using criticual thinking or at least simply ask themselves where the information behind the news comes from or who might benefit from the news. Which pretty much means that the rumour mill can run haywire in Hollywood because nobody seems to stop to think why the news is out there or where it comes from.

So my point is simply this. The new newsflow that Bart is talking about in his piece should not really be such a problem for the executives and established traditional newsagencies as both of these carry with them a large piece of credibility while most blogs or other online sources does not. Sure some of them have been established for so long or have links to traditional press that has been around for long enough to create credibility but the vast majority of the sites out there has not. So the executives should be able to carry on with their press conferences for a while longer if you ask me.

But there is also something very disturbing that surfaces here and that is the general movement towards not using criticism of the sources in general and that is something I have notices over a long period of time through my online activities. While I was taught about this in school when I was around 12 it would seem that people in general are not even talking much about this anymore. It of course differs a lot depending on where you are from, as an example I met a Russian in the mid 90s that said that you really had to read between the lines when you read a news paper in Russia and during the late 80s and early 90s he was most likely right but the thing is that today it might be even more important but in a totally different part of the world. Today it is not politics that try to control the news flow but rather large corporate interests and this should not really come as news as this has been the case for many decades at least.

Unfortunately it would seem as though people has become complacant and just take things at face value. Which of course makes me life a lot easier as a blogger but at the same time it makes me wonder about the world of tomorrow.

'The Cure' releases new material

As an old 'The Cure' fan it is hard not to notice that they still produce new things even if I have not really listened much to their stuff since their 'Wish' album in 1992. It is not that I do not like what they do any more but I have to admit that I was a lot more into their early 80's music than I was into their later material. Possibly because I was in my mid teens when I discovered them around 1990 and their music suited my mood a lot back then but also because I feel that they left their niche and unique sound and moved towards popular music to much with the 'Wish' album. They have not stopped moving in that direction since then either so I have pretty much stopped listening to them.

However, it is cool to see that they (or should I say Robert Smith) is still going strong and while I might not listen to their music much any more it is still nice to hear their new release 'The Perfect Boy' and realize that their is still a lot left of that old The Cure sound that I feel in love with almost 20 years ago.

If you have not seen the video for the new tune then have a look at it over at YouTube.