tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36193852024-02-22T04:06:42.812+00:00Paperghost.comThey asked me if I had a degree in theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-25284605285121149782022-11-22T13:36:00.000+00:002022-11-22T13:36:11.541+00:00Goodbye hellsite, I'll miss youI have indeed decided to leave Twitter for the time being. It's going in a direction I can't say I'm massively enthused about, and Mastodon seems like the better alternative for the time being. If there's a dramatic about face in terms of leadership, or some sort of solid sense the whole place isn't going to collapse then I expect I'll return at some point. For now, I'll see you round.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-4387411951907190572022-11-18T16:42:00.007+00:002022-11-18T16:43:42.234+00:00Back in businessWho knew it'd take Twitter going down in a ball of fire to get me back to posting on a blog. Anyway, welcome to the very distant past. I don't even remember how to change the incredibly dated template to one of a dozen other incredibly dated templates, so good luck with that.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-38417422712968618412018-07-04T12:12:00.001+00:002018-07-04T12:12:25.210+00:00Oh hey, HTTPs finally works and I remembered I have a blog
I pretty much stopped posting after realising Blogger were possibly never going to enable HTTPs on custom domains, because I figured what's the point when I'm gonna be shunted out of search results? No reason to be penalised by Google for not having HTTPs when they wouldn't let me use the damn thing.
Anyway, TL;DR is they finally enabled it as an option and after some fritzyness, I'm back and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-71566769694696961152017-04-12T05:50:00.000+00:002017-04-12T09:30:43.643+00:00Andromeda Redux Boogaloo
I've now completed Mass Effect: Andromeda, and here's my follow up post to this. Do I still like it? Got bored? Fed up with a thing? Time to find out!
Random thoughts ahoy, no major spoilers but maybe some mild ones:
* The final mission(s) was great. No spoilers, but everything major you worked towards in some way paid off - or not - throughout the long last leg, and made for a dramatic Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-49673574609278328312017-03-31T11:32:00.002+00:002017-04-02T11:49:26.967+00:00Thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda
Yeah, I saw all the bad reviews and laughed at the hilarious wonky animations. I've discovered ways to make Ryder either do a crab-walk shuffle or look like she's on rollerskates. Sometimes I load up the Tempest and she's vibrating up and down while team mates stand on tables.
My biggest concern was that after having played an hour or so of Andromeda's demo, I didn't like it. The introductory Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-49702129266713648512016-11-29T09:46:00.002+00:002016-11-29T15:58:04.832+00:00No Man's Sky Foundation update: Survival impressions
No Man's Sky has had a rather large update after months of silence. I've been playing around with it, and here's what I think so far:
1) Every single action in the game now has a lot of weight behind it, and I mean every...single...action.
The first half dozen planets I spawned on before giving up were all extreme temperature / weather conditions. If you don't craft your scope quickly and *Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-63896989995724606262016-10-26T23:25:00.001+00:002016-10-26T23:25:51.486+00:00Not the ending I was looking for...
I recently picked up the doctor who graphic novel humble bundle forgot to post this blog an absolute age ago, and was particularly looking forward to "The girl who loved doctor who". The short version of the story is the doctor of the comics crosses over into our universe and is mistaken for Matt Smith, goes to a convention and spends most of his time with a ten year old called Emma.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-34178767938621620632016-08-09T06:39:00.001+00:002016-08-09T08:57:12.401+00:0020 years of tinnitus
I realised today that it's 20 years since my tinnitus first kicked in. 20 years is a long time to put up with anything, and tinnitus is definitely at the higher end of the "what a pain in the arse" scale. What follows is a ramble about how much pain my arse is in. Uh, or something.
Hi, have some tinnitus. No backsies
[20 years ago title card, set to royalty free MIDI music because I'm cheap]
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-1416961017638707502016-03-12T13:13:00.001+00:002016-03-12T13:13:59.611+00:00Behold, a movie unicorn
Unlike half the twenty somethings screaming about how the new Ghostbusters movie "ruins their childhood" despite not actually being around at the time the original film was showing, I can actually lay claim to being someone who went to see it first time around. Additionally, I was a child at the time and - shocker - it was the first movie I was taken to the cinema to see.
I still have hugely Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-66539457470078250132016-03-05T19:01:00.000+00:002016-03-06T17:02:20.532+00:00Fallout 4 Modding, Part 1: An Introduction
It's an incredible thing to strip out all the mods from Fallout 4 and have a pop at the vanilla version. The settlement stuff feels empty, deep armour customisation choices have gone out the window and those poor old Minutemen go back to being...uh...really good at hammering the same spot of wall for six hours at a time.
There's no contest as to which version of FO4 wins, and modding has Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-90949517977378989472016-01-25T12:25:00.000+00:002017-01-14T14:29:45.827+00:00Obtaining a UK visa: no, they don't "have it easy" at all
Dealing with immigration is exhausting. It's literally exhausting. I don't mean you think you feel a bit run down or whatever - your body goes into full sensory shutdown, your muscles ache, your migraines are never ending and you develop all new forms of lethargy that you didn't previously think existed.
It's just a drain, man.
UK spouse visas are in the news due to an impending Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-55688618879288573032015-06-03T08:50:00.000+00:002015-06-03T08:50:22.034+00:00The Writey Writer's Resource Page
Hello!
Today I'm giving a workshop at BSides London called The Writey Writer's Guide to Writing Writerly, and this is the temporary landing page for a shortened URL. In the near future, this will serve as a handy resource link for those who attended.
Nothing to see here (yet), but there will be very soon...
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-80571638218529548732014-12-29T17:23:00.001+00:002014-12-29T17:23:11.411+00:00My favourite game this year was...Dead State
You need to repair the fence before raiders trash it. A quarter of your group is sick with food poisoning. The one science guy you have needs to make antibiotics for the infected members of your team, but you're low on ammo so he needs to sort that out instead. The car broke down so you're on foot for today, but if you walk to the nearest supermarket to pick up as much food as you can carry youUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-63871511427731849572014-09-23T16:47:00.001+00:002014-09-23T16:47:22.920+00:00Some thoughts on the Steam Store Update...
Steam updated the look and feel of the Store page, along with some fairly major revisions to how things work.
Some things to note:
1) A while ago, Steam altered the tabs on the front page. In terms of what was on sale, you used to see the new releases tab before anything else, then could dip into best sellers. At some point, they changed it so you'd see top sellers first. This used Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-8716082805873177562014-09-22T14:04:00.002+00:002014-09-22T14:12:03.725+00:00Videogames: The Hacking Minigames Edition
Many moons ago I took part in an episode of Gamespot's Reality Check, on the subject of Watch_Dogs and videogame hacking. Out of that came a shorter segment based around good and bad examples of hacking in videogames. Fair warning: it mainly looks at the trend of turning hacking into minigames, instead of titles which are primarily all about hacking like Uplink.
A couple of games not Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-21561068350093610732014-08-10T09:07:00.000+00:002014-08-10T17:30:04.252+00:0010 Years in Infosec: The Obligatory Blogpost
I didn't intend for the face to face meetup I had with the BBC to turn into some sort of gonzo summing up of the last ten years of my life, but looking at it - with pictures of Batman and giraffes as you scroll down the page alongside tales of Chunkylover and the Nigerian Astronaut it's difficult not to feel that your life is pretty weird.
Ten years in infosec is nothing, really, given Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-80627415366881921802014-07-31T08:44:00.002+00:002014-07-31T08:49:37.935+00:00Google+ updates policies, is still a fiasco
Hooray! Google have finally dropped their idiotic names policy on G+. Unfortunately it's a massive hack job and fails in almost every way imaginable.
I'd much rather be called "paperghost" than "Christopher Boyd" on G+. With that in mind, it should be a piece of cake to change it, right? The first problem is a total lack of clarity on the part of Google with regards how to change your details, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-37547749498875939702014-07-04T11:54:00.001+00:002014-07-04T11:54:32.759+00:00What I bought - and played - from the Steam Sale
The best of the best from the recent Steam Sale. I bought a lot of stuff, but I'm only mentioning things I've played since picking them up.
1) One Finger Death Punch
All you do is hit left or right. "All you do".
If you think your reflexes are up there with Neo then feel free to give this a shot. It's like Space Channel 5 with punching.
2) Doom 3 BFG Edition
You have to understand, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-64566266036717016722014-06-26T08:02:00.001+00:002014-06-26T08:02:39.947+00:00Current Status
A few things:
1) Yes, I'm aware I haven't posted in aaaages. I admit, I was surprised by the length of time gone. On the other hand, I changed jobs close to Xmas which is never a sensible time to change anything and I had a bunch of other stuff to sort out alongside it. Then I had to deal with six alien invasions, rescue a kidnapped Eastern European Prince and...uh...look, I just forgot. Or Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-66962470296377234332014-06-26T07:46:00.001+00:002014-06-26T07:46:51.753+00:00Videogames: The Hacking Edition
I did an interview with Gamespot a while back on the subject of hacking in videogames.
Off the back of this, I wrote a piece on the history of hacking in videogames. If you'd like to see some of my favourites (alongside a few "What were they thinking" efforts) then here comes Christmas.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-25619084976838556352013-09-09T10:46:00.001+00:002013-09-10T16:43:48.021+00:00Payday 2: doing something with the safehouse and encouraging stealthy gameplay
Problem: I have a safehouse and a ton of offshore money / loot stashed in said safehouse. At present I can't do much with either.
How to make them more interactive?
The dev team are going to bring in safehouse customisation, but I don't want to just spend thousands of dollars making it look nice. I wonder if it's possible to do the following:
1) More than one safehouse. maybe 3 or 4. I don't Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-84930044769367914232013-07-28T03:07:00.002+00:002013-07-28T03:08:39.761+00:0010 thoughts on The Wolverine (spoilers)
1) It's good to see Poison Ivy still getting work.
2) Did they even giver her a name? I thought I heard "Viper" but I could be wrong. Hot damn, that costume is terrible. Wait, she's peeling off her skin. Oh boy, she's going to look like a lizard or a snake underne-
...nope, she looks like a bald woman. Uh, okay.
3) I was massively excited to see a SEGA sign. Shush.
4) "We're going to remind Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-22080345177621693662013-06-11T10:29:00.003+00:002013-06-11T10:29:48.005+00:00E3
Flawless victory
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-51918780050616079792013-05-20T20:52:00.002+00:002013-05-20T21:08:13.367+00:00It's not me, it's Who
[Note: I'm aware the finale has now aired, but I can't see it yet due to insufferably stupid bullshit so here's a vaguely whiny rant about the new series, most or all of which may now be totally null and void due to whatever happens in the last episode of Series 7. Meanwhile, let's also wonder exactly how many people waiting to see the finale on iTunes will either sit around until they've eaten Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3619385.post-7097200488534748532013-04-04T15:48:00.002+00:002016-12-18T19:52:40.160+00:00A Sleeping Dogs OST Purchasing Extravaganza
I've mentioned Sleeping Dogs before, but one of the best parts of the game - the soundtrack - is also one of the most frustrating. A combination of low availability and baffling Amazon listings makes it a fair trek around the block to simply buy some of the music on offer. Worse still, many of the tracks are listed as being sung / composed by what I can only assume are fictitious, in-game entityUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0