Stray Dog Strut

…Apparently. Although it still sounds like “Vive La France”…*something German*… to me (I know, I know, of course it doesn’t, but that’s what I hear!). If you’re a bit lost, allow me to elaborate: Thanks to the almighty connectedness that is Twitter, i’ve been gifted with the knowledge that EA are allowing you to download the first three Command and Conquer real-time strategy games for FREE. I absolutely loved Command and Conquer in my youth, so this is news worth celebrating.

The post title is a line from the Hell March songs from the Red Alert series of Command and Conquer games (there’s been 3 Hell March songs). There’s been a whole debate on what the guy says in the early part of the song (Everything from “Eat my pants” to various obscenities). It sounds and is presumed to be Russian since the games focus on their rise to power, (hence why it can’t be what it sounds like to me). However, in the Press > FAQ section of his website, the original composer is quoted as saying it’s the line above.

I first heard the Hell March 2 song in Red Alert 2, my favourite of the series. However, typical of the way I’ve dipped in and out of franchises over the years, I haven’t actually played all of the games. I’ve got the original Command and Conquer on PC and PSX, and Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun on PC. I played them in that order though so Tiberian Sun didn’t get much attention since it felt like a step backwards graphically (Which it was, since it came before RA2!). So this is my chance to try the original Red Alert and also give Tiberian Sun a proper playtest, and maybe see if I can install the expansion “Firestorm” with my cd version. I’ve briefly played C&C Generals at a friends and liked it a lot but never added it, or it’s expansion, to my collection. I completely stayed away from C&C Renegade because I didn’t see the point of another FPS, and I haven’t tried Tiberium Wars at all. I *had* the new Red Alert 3 game in the summer, still sealed in it’s metal case, but being the generous/idiotic soul I am I gave it away in another gamer’s time of need.

Joy!

I’ve finally done it, been sucked into the evil that is Facebook. It crept up so silently too with an innocent little thought: “why not join Facebook to reach a wider audience for my dissertation?” and before you know it I was at the FB homepage giving away my life story.

Okay, bit of an exaggeration but I have to say my I wasn’t surprised at how much information FB tries to pry from you. First I had to give my name, a username and email. Okay, not so bad, that’s already out there on countless sites anyway (many of which I can’t even remember).

Then the worry started. It spewed out a list of possible friends, lots that i’d known years before. Where does this list come from? It hadn’t data-mined my email contacts afaik since that request came next (and I promptly refused) so i’m not altogether sure. Fallingstar reckons it might be other people have tried to find me in the past, but considering some of them were only a minor acquaintance that’s a bit dubious (and i’m not that likeable!!)

Then it wanted me to complete my profile – not just an ‘about me’ and an ‘interests’ blurb, oh no, it wanted every school/college or occupation i’ve ever held (and in horror i’ve since discovered many of my relations have divulged the lot). Needless to say I only gave out the minimum necessary.

I added a couple of friends – Fallingstar at her own insistence, damn (j/k) – then I did my usual and pulled up the settings page to see what was what. For starters, FB allows you to restrict access to certain parts of your profile etc to certain groups of people,’friends only’ and ‘everyone’ for example. More worryingly, there’s also a ‘friends of friends’ category which, to me, seems to imply that a bunch of randoms will see my information unless I turn it off. Oh and most of the options are set to this choice so if you’re not aware you’ll be splurged all over FB before you know it. Okay, I get that the idea is to build a community and it’s a simple way of broadening people’s contacts, but why do it in this way? Why not let people themselves decide to share their information with strangers (interestingly, there’s no ‘share with no-one’ option either).

I also discovered another option which, unless you turn it off, means that when your friends play a game or run a FB application, that software can mine your information too for reasons such as to suggest sending a birthday card if your birthday is coming up (and some not so nice reasons also come to mind).

So yeah, i’ve joined the dark side. I know, I know, it’s probably not as bad as I think. I’m a paranoid old fool, but in this day and age with identity theft as prevalent (and easy) as it is, we have to be careful. It all comes down to the question of whether I trust the intentions of my fellow (wo)man. Do I hell.

P.S. On a positive note, i’ve also joined Twitter (yay!), so now I can follow much more interesting ppl than little ol’ me, like Stephen Fry. I might consider putting a twitter badge up here, but only if I find myself tweeting often, otherwise i’m probably not worth following;-)

Dreams do come true.

I’ve been neglecting my news reading lately so this one came as a bit of a shock this morning. Apple has finally unveiled it’s multi-touch tablet, the iPad. Oh my god!

While some are already criticising the iPad for what it isn’t – in some cases dismissing it as a glorified iPod – I think what Apple has come up with is truly unbelievable. We’re so spoiled these days with iPhones and Blackberrys that I think we forget just how far we’ve come in the last two or three decades. In my lifetime, portable music has meant lugging around a walkman, then a portable cd-player, briefly minidiscs, and now mp3 players. The iPhone/iPod changed everything and I think that sometimes we expect everything on a plate because of that. For me, the iPad is as close to a real life, reach out and touch me, sci-fi tablet as you can get, and this is just the first version, i’m sure it’ll only improve with time.

Personally, browsing the web, the iWork apps, showing photos, and reading ebooks are the features that sell it for me. Add to that the cheap pricing (hopefully the UK will get a similar deal) and it’s incredible. While many of the features have already debuted on the iPhone, on the tablet they’ll be so much more, and we shouldn’t forget how recent good multi-touch is.

I suggest everyone (even the Apple haters) take a look at the Keynote presentation (no subtitles, bad Apple, but there’s plenty of imagery and live demos). If you can swallow all the typical Mac fanboy gushing at the start and the sugary sales-speak, it’s worth it to watch the whole presentation. I’m blown away by how good the iWork apps are, especially Keynote (slideshows) and Numbers (spreadsheets).

I’m sure it won’t be perfect (what is?), but good job Apple for taking a serious stab at it. The future has arrived;-)