EVE Online free trial account

I've mentioned a passing interest in trying the EVE Online MMORPG a few times, wanting to explore space and a sci-fi setting, but held back partly because of the PvP nature of the game and partly because of time constraints, what with playing World of Warcraft and City of Heroes/Villains. Today looks like the day I'll thrust myself in to a space ship, as I found that CCP are offering a free 14-day trial account for EVE Online to promote their Empyrean Age expansion. [Edit: promotion has now finished]

I have signed myself up and am downloading the Mac client. I should probably take the time to read a newbie guide or two, as I am under the impression that the early stages are rather important and not terribly intuitive.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on EVE Online free trial account
Tags: ccp, city of heroes, city of villains, eve online, world of warcraft

Two weeks with my headphones

It has been a couple of weeks since I got my new Denon AH-C551 headphones, and I have had a good opportunity to test them in a variety of conditions. Not everything is good, but there are far more positive aspects to them than negative. First, the negative points.

The headphones sit inside the ear quite snuggly, and this leads to any sounds made by the head being amplified and noticed quite readily as low-frequency noise. Eating is a main source of noise in this regard, but grinding of teeth and heavy breathing can also have an effect. Whilst this can interfere with the sound quality it doesn't really swamp out the music too much, and the overall sound is still superior to my old iPod headphones.

Another source of this low-frequency noise is bumping of the cable, which occurs when walking whilst listening with the headphones. This noise may not be present were it not for the peculiar arrangement of the headphones' cable. The cable connecting the headphones is only half-a-metre long, which is surprisingly short and, unless I wear my iPod in a shirt pocket, is clearly not long enough for any practical use. The headphones also came with an extender cable, which is 0.75 m long, which certainly increases the length of the cable sufficiently, but by too much, leaving a short length dangling. The lengths of cable could perhaps be swapped around to better effect. The extra cable can be tucked away, so isn't a problem, but because the connection between the headphone cable and extender cable is rather heavier than the cable itself it moves and sways induced by walking movements and because a cause of the low-frequency noices picked up in the ears, which is why the design decision seems a bit odd.

I can only imagine that the reason behind the decision is that the extender cable is far cheaper to replace than the headphones and with the main connection to the player being set-up to be used by the extender cable any strain-relief damage to the cable won't result in the headphones needing to be replaced. In general, the length of cable isn't an issue, and the noise induced when walking, as for eating, doesn't affect the overall quality of the music too much.

The headphones offer a level of noise isolation too, reducing the level of ambient sound reaching the ear and thus providing a better environment for listening to music. My open-plan office can get quite noisy for a good portion of the working day and I was often turning up the volume on my iPod just so that I could hear my music to distract me from the noise of conversations, telephones, and photocopiers. With my old headphones I had occasion to turn the volume up so much that the loudness of the music ended up distracting me from the work, and any quieter and the office noise would do the same, which was awfully frustrating. These new headphones and their isolation don't have this problem.

The isolation is effective, offering a miniature listening room just for myself, with just muffled noises occasionally interfering with my aural experience. I can listen to my music again on the minimum volume level and enjoy wonderful clarity and fidelity. The isolation isn't so complete as to prevent me from hearing the 'phone ring or when people are talking to me, so I am still functional within the office. The only problem is that I cannot as easily talk to people with the headphones in, and certainly not with music playing. Whereas before I could answer a quick question without pausing I now definitely have to pause my music and nearly always have to take the headphones out in order to hear accurately. This is a minor quibble again and one I am happy to deal with for now.

The noise isolation is also effective in noisier environments, as I found out when I had occasion to use the headphones on a couple of trains. Previously, I would have to crank the volume up quite significantly in order to continue to listen to my music, often to the point where it was clearly too loud for me and I would have to compromise and end up only hearing my music during the quieter parts of train journeys, like at stations. The Denon headphones don't have this problem, and I although I to turned the volume up a little it was still relatively quiet compared to my surroundings, and coming through clearly. I was even able to watch to a DVD rip comfortably enough without the volume cranked up or missing every second word, which was encouraging.

Most importantly, the headphones stay in my ears. I have been frustrated so often by having to adjust and readjust headphones so that they didn't feel like they were falling out, or even to put one or other back in after they had indeed fallen out, that having headphones that stay in my ears is far more reassuring than it should be. I could, of course, have got some headphones that sat over my ears instead, negating the problem entirely, but I like the portability that the smaller headphones offer, as it allows me to tuck them in to a pocket once I reach my destination, whether it be shopping, a gig, or a friend's house. The Denon headphones sit in my ears quite snuggly, only hinting at being shifted when I take a rather big yawn but remaining steadfastly in place. They aren't stuffed inside my ear canal though, as they are removed with almost no effort when necessary, making them comfortable to insert and remove and to wear for extended periods, like sitting at the computer at work.

I mentioned the sound quality in the previous entry, but I'll mention it again. The quality of the sound that the headphones produce is amazing, offering a full range of frequencies that reproduce music with extraordinary fidelity for speakers so small. With the sound isolation they offer the headphones don't suffer from being in a noisy environment, either full of people talking or when riding a train, and music can be enjoyed anywhere with almost no compromising on quality. Whilst I can listen to the music on the lowest volume setting I have found myself turning the volume up on occasion, not because I can't hear the music but because I can. I can hear the music not tinny, with certain frequencies unnaturally attenuated, but as it is meant to be heard and I can get carried away and lose myself by my favourite songs.

Needless to say, I am certainly happy with my purchase.

Posted in Audio | Comments Off on Two weeks with my headphones
Tags: denon, headphones, ipod

City of Heroes Mac

My progress in City of Villains is coming along nicely, and my crashes have become far less frequent since both the significant tweaks I made to the graphics settings as well as the minor change I made to the audio setting. I ran through a rather long mission with Zoso the other night and only crashed after the mission, on my way to the Black Market, having played for about 100 minutes. It was about the same last night, having played a good 90 minutes and completing a mission before experiencing a crash whilst at large in Cap Au Diable. Recovering from a crash is as simple as reloading the game, and their infrequency makes this far from being a bother.

It's all thanks to Crossover Games, which is doing an excellent job of letting me run City of Heroes and City of Villains on my Mac, after already letting me play Orange Box games Portal and Half-Life 2 on my Mac. There's always the officially supported EVE Online to try too, one day.

Edit, 30 October 2008: Today it has been announced that NC Soft is officially bringing City of Heroes to the Mac, via Transgaming's Cider technology, which is also responsible for the Mac version of EVE Online.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: advocate, city of heroes, city of villains, crossover games, eve online, half-life 2, portal

Introducing Cupcake

Magnet Magnetson reached threat level 18 last night, and I was informed that my progress meant I would get another robot friend. Oh, splendid! I summoned my 'bots and, sure enough, there was Cupcake.

Because I now have three battle drones, along with Buttercup, the protector 'bot, all the battle drones are now summoned two threat levels below me instead of matching my threat level. I was a little disappointed at first, particularly as I don't have a choice, but as I've held that the power of being a Mastermind is strength in numbers I should trust myself a little.

My preparations for combat take even longer now I have an extra robot to upgrade and shield. As I still have a second protector 'bot and an assault 'bot to come under my control it's only going to get more intensive. I'll have to hold on to a 'catch a breath' inspiration or two just for the summoning and buffing process.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Introducing Cupcake
Tags: city of villains, crossover games, magnet magnetson, robots

*Pft*

Cor, it wasn't even 9 am before I had induced a failure in some expensive electronic equipment during formal vibration testing. It took me longer to set-up the test and update the test log than it did to run the test.

It's going to be a good day!

Posted in Work | 2 Comments »
Tags: vibration

Shrinkage

Oops. I'm not really one to take much note of washing labels on clothes, trying to avoid buying anything that is dry-clean-only, or with other such restrictions, so that my laundry is as simple as possible to complete. I generally throw everything in to the washing machine and put it on a general cycle, and this works out just fine for clothes, with towels and similar items getting a more rigorous cleaning separately.

I got a reminder the other day that items of clothing received as gifts should probably be inspected at least once, after a lovely jumper my mum gave me came out of the machine somewhat smaller than I remembered it to be. Uh-oh! I found the label and, sure enough, there it was: hand wash only. Urgh, that's not good. I gave it a bit of a stretch and I may be able to salvage it but it was already a bit late to notice.

It's a bit of a shame as it is a nice jumper, but not the end of the world. My mum was amused by this as well when I told her, admitting that she hadn't thought to check the label when buying it either, and probably would have done the same thing. Ah well, it's a good reminder to be more mindful of checking the label of new clothes, at least.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Shrinkage
Tags: clothes, housework, washing

Summer jumper

With hot weather upon us now I am trying a new strategy to cope with the often stupidly cold office. I don't think I should be wrapping up warm to work in a normal office environment, but wearing a t-shirt seems out of the question when I get chills in a winter jumper. I think it's absurd to have to change clothes to enter the office, particularly a modern office in a building under four years old, and although I appreciate air conditioning I am far from impressed about the 21st century if technology just makes me freeze. Even so, whilst I can inform site services that it is too cold it doesn't directly help me.

I have the added complication of commuting on my motorbike, and I am not about to ride up and down a motorway without leathers for protection, which make me rather hot to start with and if I have to wear something warm underneath for the office I will end up losing pints of precious fluids on my ride. I need to wear something light for the bike, and the suitably Summer weather, whilst avoiding ice in my veins in the office.

As silly as I consider it to be, I have decided to bring a jumper with me to the office to change in to if I get cold, and to wear weather-appropriate clothing otherwise. I won't be carrying a jumper with me back-and-forth every day, instead leaving it in my desk and probably changing it once a week for freshness. It's far from an ideal solution, but one that should help me stay warm at work and cooler outside without being too imposing.

I'm also going to get a hat to wear at work, because of the draughts blowing down on top of me almost wherever I go. I just need to find one first, which will require a shopping expedition at the weekend.

Posted in Work | Comments Off on Summer jumper
Tags: air conditioning, clothes, cold, motorbike, weather

My two suns

Summer is here again, hopefully for longer than last year's abysmal Summer. The bright sunshine means that I am wearing my sunglasses whilst riding the bike, as I have no other means to reduce sunlight glare when riding.

The sunglasses I have aren't exactly sunglasses as such. I bought some glasses some years back with a deep blue tint, mostly for casual wearing. It turned out that they weren't as useful for casual wearing as I would have hoped, as they were far too dark to be worn after the Sun had set, and I don't often care to carry around a glasses case to change. One effect of the glasses' dark tint was that they took the edge off the sunlight quite effectively, making them good as sunglasses.

Last year, I bought myself some new glasses and asked this time for an orange tint. I dunno, it seemed like a good idea and would be more distinctive than plain, clear lenses. This time, I specified that I would need them to be effective at night, as I was after a replacement pair, not another pair of part-time glasses. The orange tint is good, offering a hint of colour without washing out my vision and they are fine during night-time conditions.

The orange tint of my regular glasses makes everything look a little 'warmer', removing some of the harsh blue tones out of my vision and offering me quite a relaxed view. The blue tint, on the other hand, enhances the blue tones significantly, washing out my vision with blueness a little because of the stronger tint, and offering a harsher view. The blue glasses reduce the glare from the Sun, but at the cost of increasing the glare of everything else, effectively forcing my eyes to adjust to a relatively bright, but comfortable, view.

Switching between the two pairs of glasses, which I do when coming off my bike or getting on to it, is quite interesting. It reminds me every time of the film Pitch Black with its two Suns, one a glowing orange ball of flame and the other a really bright blue Sun, where the different light sources are represented or exaggerated by dramatic changes in the colour palette in the film. It's all rather sci-fi.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on My two suns
Tags: glasses, pitch black, sunglasses

Weekend gaming

I didn't play much in the way of World of Warcraft or City of Villains, but I did play a little of each. I didn't get to play with my usual group in World of Warcraft, because of schedule conflicts, but I popped on with Knifey for a short while. I was finding it difficult to get motivated again, and relieved my frustration this time by deciding to quest in the Outlands instead of sticking to Azeroth. I had visited Outlands briefly before, the first time for Knifey if not for myself, but didn't want to outlevel my friends. For this trip I did a couple of quick quests, to kill orcs and pick up some scrap for people in Honour Hold. For my troubles I received what would have been some significant upgrades in equipment if I hadn't already equipped myself with a few pieces of Outlands gear from the auction house. It highlighted once again the huge difference that standard Outlands equipment offers from anything to be gained from Azeroth, and I look forward to spending more time questing in Outlands again.

Magnet Magnetson was in trouble with Arachnos. I had hooked up with a new contact in Cap Au Diable and was introduced to a Seer who asked me to check some things out for her. And by 'check out' she tended to mean 'infiltrate and kill anyone you see', which wasn't really a problem except I seemed to be killing agents of Arachnos. I may be new at being a supervillain but I had this nagging thought that I had been recruited by Arachnos and that I maybe I should be working for them. This feeling was reinforced for me when I headed to the helicopter line in Cap Au Diable and was spontaneously attacked by Arachnos guards in the base where I should be safe. I wasn't entirely sure if I had taken the right turn back there.

Still, it looked like there was no going back, so I continued to work for the Seer against the Ghost Widow and Wretch, and some other names I forget now. I was getting in quite deep too. One fight in an Arachnos base saw Fluffy fall after taking too much damage, so I resummoned him, then Buttercup experienced a critical failure and had to be called back, and then it was Snowflake's turn! I bet if the other two 'bots jumped off a cliff then Snowflake would too. At least I managed to deflect attention away from me during the fight, and I was able to recall all of my robot friends and, by taking care with them, prevailed. It was only half-way through the fight with the boss that I realised I'd also been ambushed from behind by some minions, which was why the rate of attrition was quite high, and it wasn't just my Malicious status. I also couldn't hang around to gloat in my victory as usual, as more and more minions heard about my defeating the boss and came to avenge him. A few even chased me out of the base and all the way to the trainer where I gained a new level. Erk!

After a couple more missions, heading to even more dangerous if not quite so overwhelming places, the truth was revealed. A conspiracy was unearthed, one that exonerated myself and the Seer I was working for of all charges against Arachnos. I had completed a small story arc, and was rewarded a little more than usual, which was quite pleasing. I would hope this means I can wander around Arachnos bases again without fear of being attacked, although I haven't tested this yet. I also gained a badge or two during my questing, one for visiting the Ghost Widow's tower and one for acting as shark bait after landing on an interesting looking island during my travels.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Weekend gaming
Tags: city of villains, knifey, magnet magnetson, world of warcraft

Weekend report

I had quite a full weekend, with surprisingly little gaming. I socialised with family, as it was my niece's birthday, watched some MST3K, made Jambalaya, got some Sun on the appropriately rather hot Sunday, finished reading Feersum Endjinn, and poked my head in to a couple of games.

It turns out that the region encoding on the MST3K film that leads me to have to use my less-than-healthy DVD player is present on all the box sets as well. I've only checked one or two, but I am assuming that the encoding will be the same across the collection. That's a little frustrating, but only because I haven't got around to getting the DVD player fixed yet. I watched both Pod People and The Cave Dwellers this weekend, with entertaining company.

I used the same recipe for Jambalaya as before, with the addition of some jumbo prawns and crayfish tails for added seafoody goodness. The dish turned out really tasty again, so is definitely one I'll continue to prepare occasionally. I burnt a bit of rice on the bottom of the pan again, but that just adds to the flavour. I had the same problem when I learnt a new method of cooking rice years ago, and preventing it is a matter of working out what level of heat to use. If too much heat is used the fluids burn off the bottom more quickly and leads to the bottom layer of rice burning on the pan whilst fluids remain suspended higher up. If too little heat is used the fluids take too long to be absorbed or burnt off and the rice ends up burning from being cooked too long anyway. Something like that.

Stirring may not help either, as it releases all the internal heat from the food and can prevent the fluids from evaporating. It's all about finding the right heat to leave the dish simmering on, and the right time to let it cook. Letting the food sit in the pan with the heat turned off for a couple of minutes could help too. I'll get it perfect within the next few attempts, and until then I still produce a tasty meal. The prawns and crayfish add more texture and flavour to the dish too!

I finished reading the introduction to contemporary political philosophy a couple of weeks back, and decided to read some fiction before moving on to the book on free will. Reading text books takes a lot of effort compared to fiction, as more of the words need to be digested and understood for the full meaning to be gained, and in order to gain properly some benefit from reading the book it's necessary to remember as much as possible about it, which adds to the mental overhead too. Fiction, on the other hand, can have every fourth word skipped without too much being missed, and the plot isn't always too necessary to remember as novelists tend to advance it fairly often, leading it to be its own reminder of what's going on. Fiction is a lot easier to read, which is why I decided to read some and have a chance of reading more than two books this year.

I picked up Iain M. Banks's Feersum Endjinn along with Infoquake by David Louis Edelman, and read Banks's book first. The idea of the Encroachment, once I realised what it was, was awesome and horrific, and made for a good background to work against. All of the characters were interesting, and the technology presented was again interesting and engaging, firing my imagination. Bascule was my favourite character, perhaps because his inability to spell understated his capability, particularly as he clearly had a penchant for turning a phrase, but maybe because he was effectively addressing the reader directly. Either way, I enjoyed the book greatly and will no doubt pick up the next book at some point. Infoquake next.

Posted in Creative, Personal, Print, Video | Comments Off on Weekend report
Tags: book, cave dwellers, cooking, david louis edelman, dvd, feersum endjinn, iain m banks, infoquake, jambalaya, mst3k, pod people