Archive for February, 2006
Is Gaming Like Drug Addiction?
Posted by: Mark Hogben in Gaming on February 28th, 2006
There is much garbage spouted about the damaging nature of computer games, and the terrible effect they have on our children’s personalities, etc.
This article demolishes some of the more common nonsense spouted by certain self appointed experts on the subject.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060227-6278.html
Will someone please think of the children!!!
World of Warcraft – and what it REALLY teaches us…
Posted by: Mark Hogben in Gaming on February 22nd, 2006
Fascinating article that has much to say about the genuinely far reaching extent to which a well-designed game can develop life-long skills… or wreck them:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml
The most intriguing question here is actually… does World of Warcraft, the single most successful (in terms of active subscriptions) MMOG that there has ever been, actually teach lessons that could be damaging in the real world?
I am inclined to say: OF COURSE NOT!
But… on the other hand, my days in Everquest taught me much about genuine real-world leadership. That game rewarded players with progress on the sheer strength of natural leadership abilities… and quickly destroyed those would-be leaders who simply talked up a good fight. (I also learned I prefer to be led by genuine genius, than to confidently lead a swathe of idiots 
What do you think?
Blood Bowl Renews My Interest In Warhammer 40k
Posted by: Simon Wood in Lifestyle on February 22nd, 2006
When I was younger, roughly between the ages of 13 and 17, I was very much into Warhammer 40k and it’s various spin off’s. I have not played with any of this stuff for about 9 years and it has been collecting dust in my parents loft, but last night I had a game of Blood Bowl and now I want to dig out all my Warhammer 40k stuff again!
A couple of nights ago I was chatting to a mate about routing round in our parents lofts and digging out old stuff, he mentioned that he wanted to retrieve Blood Bowl from his parents house. Upon hearing about a game that I enjoyed in my youth we got chatting and he asked if I wanted to play sometime. Well last night was the night we only had one game of Blood Bowl due to time constraints, and I got beaten 2-0, but it was great! I really enjoyed it and we chatted about playing it more in the coming months.
I also text another mate today who I played with years ago to tell him I had enjoyed a nice game of Blood Bowl. He replied all joyful and excited, which lead me to spending most of today trying to catch up on 9 years of not following Warhammer 40k at all. From what I can gather there have been some new releases of the rules since I stopped playing. I think we can play with our old rules but either way I may have a Warhammer 40k battle in the not to distant future, once I have dug all my bits out my parents loft.
I’m really excited at the idea of routing through my painted figures, and if a battle does happen soon you can be sure I will post all the details here!
Nintendo DS Gets Me Hyped About Mario Kart Again
Posted by: Simon Wood in Gaming on February 20th, 2006
The latest game in the Mario Kart series has just been released. Mario Kart DS is being hyped as being the best Mario Kart games so far. Until today I was not convinced, but now all I can say is WOW!
Last week one of my fellow work colleagues came back from lunch announcing he had just bought a Nintendo DS and Mario Kart DS. We got chatting and I realised I had owned every Mario Kart game to date and enjoyed them all. I don’t still own them all due to the fact i have sold my SNES and N64, but I play Mario Kart Double Dash on my Gamecube and Mario Kart Super Circuit on the GBA on a regular basis. In fact I bough Mario Kart Super Circuit as it reminded me of the SNES version. This colleague and I chatted some more and agreed to bring our GBA SP’s in this week and a link cable so we could play Mario Kart Super Circuit at lunch. Playing this game in multiplayer reminded me how good this series of games is!
After a few wins a looses I got offered the chance to play a couple of levels on Mario Kart DS. I had heard a lot about this game and when it was released a little while ago I nearly rushed out and bought a Nintendo DS just for this game. I played one of the new tracks and one of the Gamecube tracks, it has a great retro mode where you can play SNES, N64, GBA, and Gamecube tracks! My initial opinions are that this is the best game in the series, and if I was not waiting for the New DS Lite to be released I would be rushing out to buy a Nintendo DS now!
Looking back on playing the Gamecube & GBA in multiply recently, both racing and in battle mode, and having experienced the DS version, I now realise that Mario Kart is one of the best series of games in console history! If you have not yet experienced this fun yet then go out and buy a Mario Kart game and you will have hours of fun.
Now please Nintendo hurry up and release the DS Lite, and then start working on writing us a nice Mario Kart game for the Nintendo Revolution!
Our Pet Leopard Geckos
Posted by: Simon Wood in Photos on February 20th, 2006
Last year I ran out of ideas of what to get Faye for Christmas. We had chatted about getting some kind of reptile as a pet for a few months and after some reading on the internet Leopard Geckos seamed like an easy reptile to start with. So November 2004 we visited Jay’s Exotic Pets in Ashford and looked at some Leopard Geckos, I told Faye of my plan to get them as a Christmas present and that idea went down well.
When we bought them they were approximately 9 months old. They are called Leo and Gemini and they are both Female Leopard Geckos. We have had them for over a year now and they seam very happy in their enclosure.
Enjoy the pictures!
Sound Mirrors Of The Kent Coast
Posted by: Simon Wood in Photos on February 16th, 2006
I couple of years ago I went on a hunt to find Kent’s Sound Mirrors. I had seen an album cover of the new Turin Brakes album that was out “Ether Song”, the cover art features a picture of the band members sitting in front of a Sound Mirror. Being curious I searched Sound Mirror on the internet a came across Andrew Grantham’s Website. He has one of the best Sound Mirror sites on the internet with information about Sound Mirrors all over the world and some pictures of them as well. I found information on where the Folkstone and Hythe Sound Mirrors are, but was struggling to get information on the location of the Three Denge Sounds Mirrors. After a couple of email chats with Andrew I had the locations, and so the quest began.
On 18th April 2003 I set out with friends of mine, Faye and Mike on a mission to visit Folkstone, Hythe and Denge Sound Mirrors (in that order). It was a great day out that just got better and better as the locations we visited became more impressive. The highlight of my day was capturing many good pictures of the Sound Mirrors that are on the Kent coast. I have recently read that the Denge Sound Mirrors no longer have public access, this prompted me to write this short piece and display some pictures so that all can now enjoy what I have been able to see. These really are impressive feats of engineering and visiting them made for a great day out!
My new style site is finaly LIVE
Posted by: Simon Wood in Computing on February 15th, 2006
Hi All, Those of you that know me will know I have been trying to update my site for a long time.
In the end I decided to host a blog style site at www.hpoom.co.uk. The idea behind this is that I can update the content of the site more easily and also allow other people to contribute to hpoom as well. Being a web programmer I did not want to use current blog code and instead decided to go about writing my own blog engine.
So here I am 7 weeks later and I have finally finish coding (well not finally as I am sure I will keep adding features). This is the site in all it’s glory, I hope you like it. Please leave comments so that I know what you like and what you don’t and maybe I can fix some of them in time. Hopefully now I have an easy way to update content on the site I will be putting new stuff up here frequently.
In the mean time Enjoy
Simon Wood