james-ravenscroft.com

With the help of a few friends and a commenter, I decided to change my blog theme today. THe old one was getting a bit annoying to look at and it had lots of CSS bugs anyway! So here it is, my new look blog. I’m starting to learn how to use wordpress alot better now so I should be more able to write more useful content instead of just blabbering on about daily life etc etc. I’m working on a money-saving article at the moment so keep your eyes peeled for that one! Hope you guys like my new look!

Uncategorized cool, money, new, saving, theme

After reading an article on copyright law over at The Locus Online, I was inspired to inform the world on my opinion on the matter.

Cory Doctorow writes “Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you’re not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you’ve violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement.”

I think that the way that copyrighted material is handled now is wrong all together. Knowledge and entertainment are things that should be shared for free amongst those who want to be in the know/entertained.  Its a shame that the film industry only produce films simply because of the money they make rather than for entertainments value. I am also a musician and it is my belief that if you create a piece of music purely for the money, you cannot be called a musician. This is unfortunately why we have super-commercial films and musical-artists who’s only appeal is to the zeitgeist.

People worship The Beatles and classic films like “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. However, will people really be looking back on today, knighting the lead singer of Scouting for Girls and talking about how “Zach and Miri make a porno” changed culture for the better? The answer, in short, is no. If films and music were made purely for the love of making films and music, they would be much higher in quality, free for the world to enjoy and remembered. At this point, critical comments will be being made about “where the funding for these activities could be coming from”. Well, the answer is to look at someone else who is doing something similar well, and copy them.

Wikipedia is a well maintained, brilliantly designed piece of Internet history that is run by donations and voluntary work.  They are currently working on a campaign to collect $6 million, and, are amazingly, well on their way to this achievement.

This just shows that if people are interested in something, or believe in a cause, they will be more than happy to donate to it. Thus, solving the funding crisis.

Another alternative is a “pay what it’s worth to you” scheme like Radiohead famously carried out. I consider £10 ($15) for a 10 track CD to be an absolute rip off when there are probably only 4 or 5 tracks on that disk that I’ll listen to.  That’s why I pretty much never buy an album. However, if everyone followed Radiohead’s fine example, I’d be more than happy to donate £3-4 ($4.5-6) to their cause. The record industry have just gone from making no money at all to £3-4 per album. That is an infinite increase of money.

The media industries currently have an incredibly messy fight on their hands. Its controversial and I appreciate that not many people will like my extreme views. However, I know who’s side I’m on and it isn’t the corporations’.

Music, Politics copyright, cory doctorow, infringement, law, locus, online, piracy

Since last week when it arrived, I have been heavily addicted to Red Alert 3 and its rather attractive acting cast. The game is a brilliant mix of intuitive gameplay, cheesy story-lines and over dramatic cutscenes. The whole game seems to focus on people who are mad at essence. Tim Curry’s character is the soviet premier who lets power go to his head. Gina Carano is a bonkers sniper who likes executing people. George Takei wants the world to bow to him. Jenny Mccarthy is a gloriously violent field officer. A clip of Jenny in character can be seen below:

Jenny Mccarthy as Tanya in RA3

The units involved in the gameplay are just as crazy as the characters in the story. There are trained fighting bears, human-cannonball-firing tanks that allow your troops to parachute over enemy lines. The Japanese have a giant samurai warrior which is essentially a battlemech with a gigantic sword.

Perhaps the best part of Red Alert 3 is its fantastic soundtrack. This was the aspect I was looking forward to the most in the game and I was not dissapointed. Frank Klepacki did a brilliant job as he always does, taking full advantage of the game’s dynamic sound-system. There’s lots of ambient tracks with a lighter feel to them which are immediately transformed into heavy, pulsing, instrumental rock when you enter into a large scale fight. Frank is one of my musical heroes along with Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani.

Red Alert 3 is an incredibly fun game and I’m heavily addicted. However, if you are to truly enjoy it, you have to try not to critically analyse the story or the acting too much.

Gaming Reviews frank klepacki, george takei, gina carano, jenny mccarthy, red alert 3, tanya adams, tim curry

So its that time of year again where people get dressed up in silly costumes, drink a little bit too much and start bobbing for apples.

I’m attending my friend’s halloween party which also doubles as his birthday party. Its being held on thursday which is a refresher because its mid-term break from college at the moment and I don’t have to go to work the next day

My very stylish costume is as… a whoopie cusion… very well planned and thought out designers came up with it and I couldn’t resist. Problem is, its like an implicit invitation for people to punch my stomach every 5 minutes.

General costume, halloween, party

“Currently Playing…”

This week, I have been almost totally absorbed by Spore. It arrived on my kitchen floor last Wednesday and since, I’ve not done anything else: just lived and breathed it. Many people have said that it appears boring and its “not for them”. However, I beg to differ. Each stage is reminiscent of a different game and the final “space” stage is totally free and open ended.

The first bit where you are a single cell is a bit like pacman but on a more complex level. You have to swim around and eat the little blobs while monsters chase you and try and eat you. However, you can collect weapons and then the monsters run from you: sound familiar?

The second stage is potentially like a shoot ‘em up crossed with “The Sims”. Your pack of creatures must go and either, socialize and make friends with, or wipe out the other creatures.

The third stage is like the dark ages on Age of Empires. You have to forage and hunt to get food and build tribal buildings. You can use the supplies kept within these buildings to help you kill and destroy the other tribes (again you can socialize and make friends instead but wha’ts the fun in that?)

The civilization level is where all the action takes place. I would describe it as like a stripped down version of Red Alert 2. You have cities or ‘bases’ and you have to defend them from the other civilizations whilst trying to capture theirs too. You mine ’spice’ for currency, as far as I’m concerned, a direct Dune parody.

The space stage is by far the most open and, I think, the most fun. After the first few missions(obligatory I’m afraid), you are given an interstellar drive which allows you to zip across the solar system, marketing spice to other civilizations, dropping bombs that destroy entire planets and abducting creatures, 200 parsecs from your home planet. This is what gaming is all about.

“Next month’s award goes to…”

Red Alert 3 is due out mid-october and as far as I’m concerned, it looks absolutely fantastic. The most attractive aspect of it (aside from Gina Carano, yum yum…) is that Frank Keplacki is back to do the sound track. This was the big thing that I missed when playing Tib Wars and Kane’s Wrath. I’m looking forward to hearing Hell’s March 3 all the way through. Here’s the trailor:

Red Alert 3: Official Trailer

Uncategorized

Its been quite a while since I last wrote an article here and I felt like I should say something now (better late than never as they say). So anyway, A lot has happened in the last few months. The summer was great and a very enjoyable period for all. I have done all sorts: from camping in wales to putting a wrench in the gears at the LHC in Switzerland. I did promise to give you an update on that when I first went so here it is:

I got to CERN on Thursday the 3rd of July. The rain wouldn’t stop pelting down and our college tutor got us lost so we walked for an hour and a half in wet jeans. We got to the hotel and everyone was a bit happier. As per usual, as soon as we stepped in through the foyer, the rain stopped. Nobody felt like doing much so everyone relaxed and I went to sleep quite early that night.

The following day, the sun was blistering; what a transformation from the previous day. We all went into Geneva while our tutor went to make sure our reservation at CERN was still ok for the next day. We sat in the park for a while and chilled out. We then decided it would be refreshing and exciting to take a boat trip around Lake Geneva and see the sights of the city and surrounding area. We set off, wind blowing through our hair and spent a good hour 1 and 1/2 hours cruising around.

We then went to a lakeside bar and sat down having a cool drink and listening to the waves lapping next to us.

The next day was CERN day. Everyone was quite excited by this as it was the main reason we had travelled to Switzerland. Yet again, the weather was roasting and nobody was looking forward to being shut in a boiling hot bus and ferried across the different zones in CERN. Luckily, this wasn’t a problem and we were given the VIP coach with a minibar and coffee machine. The main attraction of the day was visiting the LHCb Detector which searches for the bottom quark. The scale of the thing was amazing and I couldn’t really take it all in. The whole place was just.. huge…

Finally, on sunday, we took a last trip into Geneva and saw a museum about the history of science. We saw all sorts of fascinating instruments hand crafted in the 19th century by hobbyist scientists. We then broke off into 2 groups, some people going to see “Sex in the City” at the cinema, our group went back to the hotel to sleep off the hefty walking that we’d been doing. On the final night, we had a party in one of the hotel rooms and watched the final wimbledon match between Federrer and Nadal.

On monday morning, everyone solemly made their way to the airport and readied themselves for the flight. We all really enjoyed our trip and I’m already planning my next European excursion for 2009.

[Show as slideshow]

Exploring, General

I have finally finished college for the summer. I’ve been waiting for this day for weeks and weeks and now its here I don’t know what to do with myself. I think I’m just going to chill, play games and enjoy my first day off. I have got alot of work to do later on this holiday so I need to be ready for it.

I’m also taking my first driving lesson on monday. I’m hoping that will turn out well but you never can tell with these things, updates soon.

Also, I’ll be posting about last week’s cern trip soon which was the most fun I’ve had in my life!

General cern, driving, lesson, relax, summer, trip

Last night I went to see my second favourite band of all time (for the first time) at Wolverhampton. The Support act was John Parr. He was brilliant and played his most well known materials (for those who don’t know him, he wrote the theme to St. Elmo’s Fire, a classic film). Then the big boys came on. Journey were fantastic and still at their best after all this time! The former lead singer Steve Perry would have been proud as his replacement, an uncanny soundalike from the Philipennes belted out all their best materials including “Any Way You Want It”, “Don’t Stop Believing” and some of their other classics. They also took the opportunity to advertise their new album ‘Revelation’ which I recently purchased online. I can’t believe I actually got to see my Idols and they were right in front of me, right there, right then. This last few weeks has been one of the most memorable time periods of my life. I will be off to CERN in switzerland next week too, what a todo!

Exploring, Music exciting, john parr, journey, Music, st elmo's fire

Yesterday was the day of the hot air ballooning Grand Prix in Winchcombe (The home of my Dad and Wife). We decided to get up really early this morning to go and see the balloons. We were pleasantly suprised by the number of balloons that  were about and took lots of photos. This afternoon we got a suprise phone call from a woman at the Ballooning festival saying that they had 3 spare places on a balloon flight, would we like to go along? We jumped at the opportunity and without further ado went to the festival in our jumpers and coats (it’s cold at 2000 feet) and started helping them inflate the balloon.

It was one of the most enthralling things I’ve ever done and I don’t think I’ll ever forget today. Even if I do, here is some of the photo evidence that I can use to jog my memory.

[Show as slideshow]

Exploring, General air, balloon, experience, Exploring, festival, flights, fun, hot

Whilst taking one of my “Ergonomic Breaks” yesterday from coding 360Sigs, I decided to go off on a walk around the back of the houses in town and un to the top fields. I also went down to the brook which was beautiful as ever.

As I only recently had my new digital Camera delivered, I decided to take some pictures of what I saw and attempt some professional looking photography. You can see all of the pictures that I decided to save by clicking on the collage below:

Exploring artistic, exciting, exploration, photography