Computers

Okay, it’s a dangerous thing to do and of dubious use, but boy do you get loads of buttons to press, I am now the CEO of a 2-man corporation in EVE. In slightly dodgy space no less. But between us (that would be me and the other guy) our capability to defend ourselves is ever increasing.

One thing I’ve noticed is an apparent lack of information regarding running a corporation. Most of it I can work out, but what the hell is gold for instance? If anyone could point me at a guide I’d be much a appreciative.

Google Checkouts has a launched as a rival to PayPal. Competing with PayPal will be difficult, especially with the eBay integration. That could end when GBuy is released though (a competitor to eBay that will obviously integrate with Google Checkout).

On the surface Google Checkout is more expensive - 2.0% + $0.20 per transaction (PayPal is 1.9% + $0.30). However Google will let sellers have $10 of free transactions for every $1 spent on AdWords. The big disadvantage is that it’s only available in the United States. But that won’t last forever.

Well I’ve been using my Google Mail account for about a week and I have to say the spam filter is really good. A couple of hours after putting my email address on the blog I was getting spam and all but two messages have been correctly marked. More importantly, none of the messages marked have spam have been wrong.

There is one slightly entertaining fact. When I read the spam messages I still get Google ads related to the content. I thought perhaps they’d treat the spam folder as a special case. Although I guess it does make sense - I read a dodgy email with “Looking for the best value in discount software?” and get a nice Google ad offering me genuine Microsoft Office for £235.

Now Orange (new owners of Wanadoo) are offering free broadband. It’s essentially the same setup as TalkTalk but more expensive and with a more limited service. If you have a £30 a month mobile contract with Orange you get free broadband with 2GB transfer a month. Although that isn’t as good as £20.99 a month and 40GB that TalkTalk give you, you do still get the £30 a month mobile phone contract so it could still be better for many people.

OF course the advert should be banned for the same reason the TalkTalk advert was banned in theory. Or more correctly, the TalkTalk one should be unbanned…

But only 2GB a month?

After picking up a cheap blueprint (a DRMed copy of course) I am now an arms manufacturer and dealer in EVE Online.

I read that making money from selling self-manufactured items was difficult without Production Efficiency skill of 5 and I’m managing with 3. Although I’m not buying all the raw materials though. I buy the Tritanium which I needs loads of and mine the Nocxium myself. I think if I had to pay for the Nocxium then I’d be screwed…

And remember to get your free 14 day EVE Online trial.

Considering the attention that Digital Rights Management is getting these days I found it funny that DRM is actually present within EVE Online.

To build things in EVE you use blueprints. There are originals which can make any number of items and copies which are licensed and only make a certain amount. Certain blueprints are very rare and this way the players controlling them can keep them rare.

Since I joined the EVE Online affiliate scheme I figured I’d create one of my mini-themes for EVE. It has to be my favourite so far :D

The important part of the theme is the flash banner (it only appears on the actual post pages). Clicking this takes you to a free 14 day trial so you can try EVE out. Warning, it can become addictive very quickly!

EVE, EVE Online, MMORPG

I knew it would happen eventually. Once I got an income it was only going to be a matter of time before I found a massively multiplayer online game to play.

EVE Online is such a game. It’s in space, has a single persistent universe (i.e. all players are in the same world - no sharding), has a completely player run economy, has the record for most number of simultaneous players (over 25,000) and is tremendously fun. And now I have an income, the monthly fee of 14.99€ is looking very affordable.

And now could be the best time to join. The a big update is coming over the next year (starting at the end of the month and ending in 2007) called “Kali”. The big part (which won’t be added until towards the end of the updating) is factional warfare. As with most of these games you choose a race for your character to be in. Generally the race itself doesn’t make that much of a difference. There are role-playing elements that are different (different style of missions (think quests) for example) but other than your base attributes it’s not a big factor. If the factional warfare system is done well that could all change.

Anyway, go play now.

EVE, online games, MMORPG, MMOPG

Greg Egan is a “hard sci-fi” author. Hard sci-fi is a vague term referring to science fiction with a strong founding in complicated, plausible (if not real) science. He released a few really good novels that deal with several recurring themes including people living entirely as software (and the interactions between such people and those with bodies) some of the issues surrounding duplicating people if they exist as software and some exotic possibilities for life (some not even based on the idea of particle interaction).

That last part is mainly what is expressed in Schild’s Ladder - life existing based on the myriad of possible interactions between different quantum theories that are found to exist in what is originally thought to be a super-stable vacuum. Sounds confusing (and in points it is) but for anyone interested in technical mind bending sci-fi, it’s a must read.

Then go read Diaspora, another book of his following similar themes.

Sky+ and Multiroom were installed this morning and everything works great :)

First I have to say the actual installation was done well and the engineer guy wasn’t even phased by the idea of connecting up to a computer instead of a TV. He did point out that they don’t supply an S-Video cable (which came with the TV card).

Anyway MCE is talking to my Sky box fine. The only niggle is that the IR transmitter is a little in the way (it’s picky about placement - get it wrong and it doesn’t always change channel). There may be a solution though. You can buy a cable that connects from the IR unit (the box that contains the IR receiver and that the IR blaster is connected to) directly to the Sky box. This works in exactly the same way as Sky’s own remote IR receiver. The device was actually originally created to allow TiVo boxes to control Sky boxes.

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