Raithe

Not quite as bad, but the US is focusing on warrentless cellphone tracking.,. US Government's Latest Weapon: Warrantless Cell Phone Surveillance

Following on from the assorted China Hacking, and UK Bigbrother news.. Interpol: Lack of Internal Laws and Resources Hurst the fight against Cybercrime

Because it has to be slipped in somewhere... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOqHUa2LfNY&feature=youtu.be

Bioware - The Old Republic Live the Ship Droid Experience!

From George Takei..

It adds an interest that several Chinese companies were involved in some of the UK internet backbone development. Although supposedly the Government did run a lot of watchers on them to make sure they didn't put any backdoors for the Chinese government.. Paranoia makes you wonder if they were specifically keeping an eye out for developing their own versions..

Hm, whilst I'm still having some game burn out feelings.. I'm tempted to pick up a couple.. Syndicate, Kingdoms of Amalur, AC:Revelations.. they're all down to around

BBC News - Email and Web Traffic to be Monitored under new laws Yahoo News - Monitoring Expansion Proposed Oh the joys and balance of security versus freedom....

Birthday salutations then. Really didn't feel like getting out of bed today.. But the sun is shining, it seems summer is breaking out here.., The dogs are being all needy and playful. Couldn't even finish my first cup of tea in peace. Updated my antivirus software, told it to do a "quick scan" and then it spent 20 minutes doing that.. and my system pretty much slowed down to the pace of a dead cow with broken ankles for the entire duration. If I'm not careful, I'm going to turn into a "grumpy old man" a few decades early..

Hm, I have to say play style, story and atmosphere are pretty different between the Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler, Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter..

I'm cheerfully plugging away with a few characters. Although the last week has seen me take a certain absence from games in general, but I'm still enjoying ToR when I'm in a gaming mood.

Ah, but in ME3, does the strictly Paragon/Renegade actually count, or is it more based on the Reputation? They have that whole weird mixture of how Reputation is a third number which mysteriously stretches your Paragon/Renegade numbers out....

An interesting look at the reasons behind John Carter's marketing campaign.. The Inside Story - How John Carter was doomed by its First Trailer

For the random interest: Major Highlights in the History of Space Opera A nice timeline of some of the most influential stories in the sci-fi subgenre.

Yes, that's part and parcel, I was just pointing out the example of Tuchanka for how it can play and feel totally differently due to the combination of Paragon/Renegade choices you'd made in both previous games rather then go through every single potential mixture throughout the game... I wouldn't say one is more complete then the other, but I find the Paragon route more satisfying, especially for the Tuchanka area. If you have all the Renegade options adding up , it just feels like pretty much everyone you're dealing with is a really cruddy example of their species and you'd just be as happy as shooting them yourself.

I don't know, I mean, sure it plays quite differently depending on Renagade/Paragon. If you've been playing Renegade, then Wrex is dead, Wreav is alive, Maelon is dead and his research was destroyed.. and that pretty much shifts the entire feeling of the Tuchanka missions. If Wrex is alive and you're getting along with Eve, it makes sense to ignore the Dalatress.. but if you've been Renegade and you're dealing with Wreav..then it's much more fitting to do the double-dealing. Completely different experiences, but I wouldn't say one is more complete then the other. Although I would admit, that I think the path that leads to Mordin's self-sacrifice is told in a very good manner.

Heh, I originally started work on my thesis years ago on "Electronic Warfare as Applied in the Business Sector".... But as was rather thoroughly pointed out, the majority of corporate businesses won't mention or admit to the majority of cybercrimes they suffer so I had to drop it. Man, the wasted months of research in the first place.. Ah well. They don't want the appearance of weakness affecting potential investors or share prices. As such, they tend to hush it up and not bother calling in law enforcement. So unless it's blatantly obvious in the first place, the only cybercrime that really gets police/media representation tends to be the basic credit card frauds, email ponzi schemes, illegal file sharing and the general assortment like that.

I seem to be having a lull in my game playing. Paused halfway through a second play of ME3, kind of putting in half an hour here and there on TOR... but seem to be spending more time catching up on some assorted reading and tv shows I've had saved up. I keep idling on the idea of picking up Skyrim at some point, but can't quite push the motivation yet..

China has hacked every major US company So one of the prominent cybersecurity "experts" in the US is trying to raise awareness of state-sanctioned hackers in China being used to steal research and tech from US companies, then handing them over to Chinese businesses to get that competitive lead...

This does.. amuse me.

What, no love for John Woo Honk Kong action movies here?

Okay, taking a stand off point here : At present, does anyone have any actual details on the wall? Was it a crumbling, piece of mudbrick crap that gave hardly any shelter? Had it been hit by explosives before hand and have holes in it? We don't know the specifics beyond it being a "small wall" - although, since it's mentioned that it was in a mud brick compound, I don't exactly think the wall is as bulletproof as concrete... - Mention is made that it's machine-gun fire, not small-arms, not long-arms, but machine-gun.. so, likely a nice pounding, heavy calibre strike.. Was it actually in direct fire? As the combat was going on around it, that would mean bullets from both sides going overhead.. Also, battle is not static, so potentially fire might have been coming from other angles. How panicked were the kids? Were they actually keeping down, or were they looking like they were going to freak out and run into the middle of things in an effort to get away? Note, three children, aged 3, 7, and somewhere between the two..cowering there.. And the mothers pleading for help, and distressed over the fact that her kids were there.. It might not have been the safest thing to attempt, it might have resulted in the kids being killed, but it also did result in the kids being brought to safety and to their mothers. Does the attempt deserve contempt and outright cynicism? "Oh yes, he saved lives, but he did it in a stupid manner that could have gone wrong."

Didn't manage to get to sleep till post 4am.. Then had one of those odd dream sequences where I thought I'd actually gone through the process of waking up, getting ready for the day (albeit with a headache) and starting to see double of things.. only to then really wake up and still have the headache.

Heh, IGN on "Bioware's decision to rework the ending" http://uk.ign.com/vi...erous-precedent? "We asked around for someone here at IGN to support the decision from Bioware and talk about it in a positive light, but no-one here could" Colin and his "I played the game to review it before everyone else, and I understood the ending, I got it.." Geez, it's not like it's hard to understand the ending. It's just a really good ending..

Ah, if you're looking at Deus Ex, they've also got Project Snowblind going for a couple of quid. And that was originally conceived as a Deus Ex Multiplayer until they decided to have a change-around due to the failure of Invisible War. Thus, they turned it into a fairly decent first-person shooter in an alternate universe..