Wednesday, January 18, 2012

PROTECT IP / SOPA


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! - http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that won't work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Adventure Lantern Issue (January 2012)

This months Adventure Lantern issue has just gone live. In this issue, in addition to co-editing, I sadly provided all of the reviews. But don't worry, we do have have more authors lined up for the future.

This time around, there are quite a few interesting articles. Most notably, an adaptation of a personal favourite of mine, Murder in the Abbey; A murder mystery set in a medieval Italian abbey and based on the novel The Name of the Rose. But surly the better adventure game, What Makes You Tick: A Stitch in Time also made it into this issue; And what a fabulous, overlooked, piece of adventure gaming this title most definitely is. I also got around to including the, disappointing, casual adventure Voodoo Chronicles: The First Sign, and to show that casual games are not all bad we have the beautiful The Tiny Bang Story in there as well.


Friday, January 6, 2012

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim: A Starting Mission Guide

While there are more then enough mission walkthroughs for Skyrim, one thing that I have found is that the missions themselves do not need a walkthrough, for the most part, but one would be very useful for what missions to take on.

Early Melee Weapons:
The absolute best place to quickly get some great, early (I am still using it tens of hours in), melee weapons is with the Champions in Whiterun. After a few easy quests you get your pick of Skyforge Weapons given to you.

Early Armour (and OK Bow):
A very good early armour set (for both light and heavy armour users) can be acquired by joining the Imperial Army in Solitude (it is quite a trek from your starting location, and you do have to take out a fort of bandits by yourself first).
Also the Imperial Bow is a good starting bow and you should be able to pick one up off of a dead comrade in one of the earlier missions.
Also this quest line yields a lot of easy missions that sees you fighting along-side Imperial troops and fighting armies of Stormcloaks.

Early Box:
I am not sure if this is guaranteed or just random loot but the best bow I have ever seen, a Supple Ancient Nord Bow, I got off a mid mission enemy encountered in an early Mage College mission. One downside is that it currently cannot be upgraded any further, so while it is one of the best bows available, many bows (with some good smiting and materials) can be made a whole lot better.