rich.ie

The LA Riot Squad & Landon Donovan - Complete nutjobs?

2009-07-20T23:49:00.008+01:00

Now the average American is typically not held in such high esteem, and people often wonder why. Here's a story about David Beckham and the LA Galaxy, that doesn't do anything to improve this reputation....

Beckham went online to AC Milan, one of the biggest clubs in world football, along with Manchester United and Real Madrid, for 3 months during the "off-season" in the MLS. He was asked to stay on for an extra 2 months until the end of the Italian season which, of course, he wanted to, because Serie A is one of the strongest leagues in the world, and the MLS is probably the equivalent of the Championship or League one (second and third tier of English football).

When he returned, he was given a pretty poor reception in his first home game, ironically a friendly against AC Milan, the very Italian side he was on loan at. The Galaxy fans had banners with weird messages such as: "23: repent" and my personal favourite, "Is evil something you do or something you are?".

Why is a footballer "evil" for wanting to play in a top club who play in a top league, instead of playing for team who struggle in a low standard league?

One of his own team mates, Landon Donovan, actually questioned Beckham's professionalism. If I was Beckham, I would have laid out my 6 Premiership medals, 2 FA Cup medals, 1 Champions League medal, 1 La Liga medal and say, "Unprofessional? So Landon, what have you won of any note? What teams have you played for, Manchester United? Real Madrid? AC Milan?" but unfortunately, that wouldn't be his style.

You don't impress Sir Alex Ferguson, win over Fabio Capello (twice) and Carlo Ancelotti if you are unprofessional.

These people should be delighted that Beckham joined their team to help raise the profile of football (yes, its called football, not like your American "foot"ball, which you predominantly play with your hands!)in America.

Beckham even tried to shake a fans hand who was giving him abuse (which, surprise, surprise, just provoked more abuse and swearing). He is really too good for the MLS, too good for the LA Galaxy and has too much class to have a bunch of abusive handicaps for "fans".

UFC Undisputed 2009 Demo

2009-05-20T12:10:00.002+01:00

So about a month ago, I got to play the UFC demo. It was released earlier to America, than to Europe, but by following the instructions on the UFC Undisputed forum, I got to burn it to a disc and play it at the same time the rest of America did.

The demo is very, very good. It really feels like the UFC. You only have two playable characters (Chuck Liddell and Shogun Rua), but both have their own styles as in real life. Liddell being a kickboxer, and Shogun using the muay thai style. So, naturally enough, Chuck is great when he's standing up, but Shogun has the advantage when the fight is taken to the floor. You won't see Chuck doing a rubber guard!

There are a lot of controls, and the tutorial will probably take more than one run through to take it all in, but it is broken down into small enough 2-5 min chunks. knockouts can happen at any single moment just like the real life. Although, when you are hammering your opponent, and he KO's you in one kick, this has the potential to get very annoying (especially for online play).

The ground transitions are done very well, the standing combat has all the standard kicks you'd expect to see normally and the graphics are unbelievable good.

There are so many moves you can pull off in so many different situations that if you just go in and bash buttons, you'll be knocked out easily by someone who knows what they are doing. That can only be a good thing. I'd rather have the ability to do lots of moves with lots of controls than to have a small amount of controls and a small move-set.

Its released on 22nd of May, going to buy it then. No doubt!

Emmanuel Adebayor - Funny

2009-04-27T23:56:00.003+01:00

Emmanuel Adebayor recently drew a fairly unusual comparison between AC Milan and Beyonce. I don't think his English is great, but I think I get his point.

"I am happy playing for this club and to be honest I am happy AC Milan, one of the legendary clubs in the world, were looking at me," he told ESPN.

"For me that must be something special. It is like a boy being told Beyonce is looking for them." Not exactly a textbook comparison, eh.

Another of his quotes that I remember really well, is the following: "Milan are interested in me, in myself, in Adebayor". I think he likes to emphasize his point.

Perl

2009-04-27T23:32:00.004+01:00

I have just been on a two day training course which introduces the basics of Perl. I've heard good things about it before, and I get paid for doing it, so I said why not. Turns out, its actually incredibly useful. They have tried to make it as OS independent as possible (eg: chomp() strips off the appropriate end line characters whether you are on Windows or Linux, etc).

Also, the regular expressions engine make it very nice to parse text. I also discovered a regular expression checker tool, which has a nice GUI that can help you come up with regular expressions by showing what they match. You can provide a regex, and a input string. The variables in the lower pane actually show you what your regex matches. Very handy, and very useful.

I was surprised how quickly I could do some useful things, and in only two or three lines. I'm not the best programmer in the world, and it takes a notoriously long time for me to pick up on certain constructs, but I found the basics were very easy to pick up. Perl likes to pack a lot of functionality into a couple of short lines of code. It can look cryptic, but once you understand it, it's not so bad.

Having said that, it seems like if you don't use it regularly, you'll quickly forget certain elements. Some of the ideas/syntax for such things as hash tables, sort functions, $_, file I/O, can easily be forgotten if you don't use them regularly I'd say.

Dublin Bus - Can they go one week without a strike?

2009-04-27T23:22:00.006+01:00

Dublin Bus drivers are planning another strike tomorrow. It seems like every time I watch the news in the past 2-3 months, either the taxi drivers are on whining, complaining, protesting or striking, or the Dublin bus drivers are doing the same.

Whoever refuses to work tomorrow and go on strike, simple, sack them. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people looking for a job at the moment, people who are struggling to get by, pay the mortgage, pay the bills (etc), and here are these idiots refusing to do the job they are paid for.

Rafa Benitez - Excuses, Excuses, Excuses.

2009-03-03T15:25:00.007Z

So, as we all know, Rafael Benitez - Liverpool manager is completely full of crap, often to the point where, what he says lacks any logical proof whatsoever, and leaves himself open to so much criticism, I almost feel sorry for him.... almost.

His latest attempt at conning Liverpool fans comes after they lost 2-0 to Middlesborough, giving Manchester United a 7 point lead with a game in hand. He has made the excuse that if it wasn't for injuries to Fernando Torres, Liverpool would be much closer to United in the title race.

Do the facts support his claim? As usual, the answer is: no. Liverpool have gained 31 points from 15 games with Torres. This is an average of 2 points per game. Liverpool have gained 24 points from 12 games without Torres. This is an average of 2 points per game. Same form with him, same form without him.

Perhaps he is forgetting that Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo missed the first two months of the season? But of course, he didn't happen to mention that. It's amazing that Liverpool fans don't see through wave after wave of excuses. Again, poor old Rafa talking through his rectal cavity like the con-man he is, and that's a fact.

Smackdown vs Raw 2009 Review

2009-03-03T08:58:00.002Z

I ended up shelling out €47.99 for Smackdown vs Raw 2009 which is the cheapest I've seen it, any where except Manchester where it was being sold for a ridiculous £20. Anyways, I have to say it was €47.99 well spent.

I think its a vastly improved game from last years. The Road to Wrestlemania mode is absolutely brilliant. It places you as Jericho, Triple H, Cena, CM Punk, Undertaker, Batista/Rey (co-op). This basically means that you have Jericho acting as Jericho, Triple H acting as Triple H, instead of the generic feel which previous story modes had in the series.

Without giving too much away, Jericho has to find out who the masked man behind a serious of "codes" are, and is determined to interrogate everyone he meets. Triple H has to choose between two well known "paths", which every even remote wrestling fan will love.

Create a finisher mode is also new, and works very well. You have a serious of up to 10 actions you can combine to put your finisher together. You can have taunts, kicks, salutes, punches, lifts and anything you wish before you actually execute the move. Depending on what actions you pick, your options for the next stage will be narrowed down. (i.e: if you position someone for a Tombstone, there are only so many moves you can do from there). You can also select a pre-set name which the commentators will use when you perform that move which is a nice touch.

Some minor annoyances are apparent, but these can be easily rectified. For example, Jericho doesn't have his correct music, no problem, you can just burn his proper music onto a cd, rip the track from your cd to your xbox, and then go to the create an entrance mode, and change Jericho's entrance to the track thats sitting nicely on your xbox.

Another problem I found was the difficultly. Normal is ridiculously easy, where hardly any moves are reversed. Hard is "tough-ish", but the cpu will reverse 9/10 of any grapple moves you try (if you are against any kind of decent opponent). Seeing as grapple moves make up a vast part of your armory, you would imagine this would be a massive problem? Wrong. The game provides sliders for almost everything. You can tone the frequency which the cpu will attempt to reverse grapple moves, and bring it in line to a more realistic value.

All-in-all, its a very good game, much better than 2008, and much better than what I was expecting.

IGN - Inaccurate

2009-02-26T22:14:00.003Z

I was looking forward to playing UFC Undisputed 2009 for the Xbox360. I looked up IGN's release dates for the UK (No IGN, the Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK, it should really be UK/Irish release dates - but anyways), it said that UFC Undisputed was out on 27th of Feb. I generally trusted IGN up until now, but it turns out that the real release date for UFC's debut on the 360, is (as of writing this), 2th of June. So instead of getting the game tomorrow, I now have to wait another 3 months. Great.

Idiots Using Custom Teams On Xbox Live - FIFA'09

2009-01-19T09:49:00.006Z

FIFA'09 is fast becoming an absolute joke online. There is a massive bug which more and more people are taking advantage of, which gives you the ability to make up your own custom 11 and then play online...so that basically means everyone has Cristiano Ronaldo, everyone has Fernando Torres, everyone has Lionel Messi... so the game becomes completely pointless.

If you can't beat someone with a normal side, then you shouldn't play the game. Whats worse, is that then when you are beating someone with a custom side, they quit. Total, total idiots.

I came across one lad, who kept hammering "Ready" when i was setting up my team. He had a custom side and so consequently, he didn't have to do any team setup, and wouldn't even give me a chance to set up my own side.

I was only Schalke... its not like I was United. So he basically has the best 11 in the game, playing a poor German side, and wouldn't even wait while I set up my own team. How much more of an advantage do you want?

Anybody I come across with a custom side is instantly getting reported for tampering -> cheating. It's a bug that people shouldn't be taking advantage of. Only retards who have absolutely no skill, use a custom side.

Unhelpful Posts On Forums

2009-01-10T21:33:00.005Z

If there is one thing that annoy me, its unhelpful forum posts. Any time you google some technical problem, you find a guy who has posted your exact problem, but then you find 10 replies that say "Wrong forum", "I dont know", "Throw it out the window", "Post in some other thread", "This has already been asked" (and then not provide any link - people do not have the time to search every forum - maybe the idiot replying does - but normal people dont)

If you search for the question on the forum which someone has said that it has already been asked on, invariable you can not find it. If you don't have something constructive to say, then shut the fuck up.

Rafa Benitez launches attack on Fergie

2009-01-10T20:07:00.008Z

So, Rafael Benitez decided to pull out a prepared written statement at his weekly press conference about how Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager is the source of all evil in the world.

Lets take a closer look at what exactly he said and whether he presents a logic argument or not.

"But I have seen some facts. On November 1, they played Hull and Mr Ferguson had a two-match touchline ban and a £10,000 fine after confronting Mike Dean, the referee, for improper conduct."

Oh, ok, so he is unhappy with Fergie's comments towards the referee which he was punished for. This is not his business, it's the FA's, but this is fair enough I guess.

"Mr Ferguson was charged by the FA for improper conduct after comments made about Martin Atkinson and Keith Hackett.
He was not punished. He is the only manager in the league that cannot be punished for these things. "

Oh, ok, so your gripe is that Fergie is never punished. Well, I guess you might have a point...but...wait a second Rafa. Didn't you explicitly point out less than 30 seconds earlier than he was punished earlier in the season?

"Then he was talking about the fixtures. Two years ago we were playing a lot of early kick-offs away on Saturdays when United were playing on Sundays. And we didn't say anything."

Well, I'm not sure why you would say anything Rafa. If you play first and win, it puts pressure on the other team to win their game in hand knowing that they need to win or they will lose ground. Putting teams under this pressure is an obvious advantage

"And about his behaviour with referees. The Southampton manager he knows how Mr Ferguson works and how he works, he was very clear. I am not playing mind games, just facts."

Sorry Rafa. You have already made an incoherent point earlier with regards to his conduct towards referees. This is beginning to sound suspiciously like a nonsensical ramble.

"If he wants to talk about fixtures, and have a level playing field as you say in England. There are two options if we don't want more problems with fixtures. One is the same as in Spain, the draw for the first part of the league is known, everyone knows which weekend. In the second half everyone plays the opposite, so you all know. Sky and Setanta have the right to choose their games and it will be the same for everyone. So Mr Ferguson will not be complaining about fixtures and a campaign against United. Or there is another option. That Mr Ferguson organises the fixtures in his office and sends it to us and everyone will know and cannot complain. That is simple."

Lets not get silly and childish now Rafa. United had to play away from home against every team that finished in the top 10 of the league last season, in the first half of this season whilst all the other sides have to play an equal balance of weaker and stronger teams throughout the whole season. This included playing BOTH Liverpool and Chelsea (two of the top 4 sides) and away to Portsmouth (the FA Cup winners) in their first four games which may have seen them 9 points behind the leaders before a ball has hardly been kicked. Having 3 of your first 4 games away from home is crazy, even more so when they are the top sides in the league.

"All managers need to know is that only Mr Ferguson can talk about the fixtures, can talk about referees and nothing happens. We need to know that I am taking about facts, not my impression. "

Again Rafa, you have said that Fergie is never punished, whilst earlier pointing out his hefty punishment earlier this season.

"The result does not matter to us, if we win at Stoke that result (United vs Chelsea) does not matter."

There are no trophies handed out in January, so United's game against Chelsea does matter. While its important to keep winning games, other games are obviously relevant to Liverpool's hopes. Its a very odd comment to make about a side who are within a hair of Liverpool in the league, without even playing well.

"It is a massive difference to play early on a Saturday, say, after a European match in midweek"

Again, it depends if you are playing on Tuesday or Wednesday in Europe. Its not as if all European games are on one night, exactly the same as all Premier league games are not on the same night. Also, it has been historically proven that teams who play games away from home domestically after a European game are statisically more likely to drop points in the Premier league. Yet, United play away from home domestically after EVERY European game this year. Yet, Liverpool were at home domestically after playing in Europe FOUR times, which is a massive, massive disadvantage to United and advantage to Liverpool.

"But they will play the second half of the season with home matches against the other top teams, and that is a massive advantage to them."

By which time, after being crippled by difficult away fixtures, they may have already have been too far behind in the title race to have a realistic hope of winning the league. Again, not a good point.

So, what have we learned? Every point was flawed, and he made contradictory statements. This is worrying seeing as this was a prepared statement. It is worrying how he could spend time thinking about these things and not see flaws in his logic. Perhaps, if he prepared his team for todays game against Stoke City instead of preparing an illogical argument about Manchester United, his team may have won today.

Its also shocking that he is outraged by Fergie, but not by Joe Kinnear whose conduct is arguably the worst of any manager in the league? Perhaps it is because Newcastle don't pose a thread to Liverpool winning their first league title for 18 years or perhaps its because he is not jealous Newcastle's success or lack thereof? Its another anti-United witch hunt.

Perhaps Rafa is trying to deflect attention from Robbie Keane, who he paid £20 million for, but is now struggling and is only good enough to be an unused substitute most weeks and who had three of the misses of the season in one game against Preston last week?

Who knows? One thing is for sure, Rafa Benitez is a con-man, who is living on a reputation based on a Champions League win which was surrounded by so much luck, it was beyond belief.

Saints Row 2 is better than GTA 4

2009-01-05T12:12:00.004Z

So after getting quite a few games over Christmas (Call of Duty: World at War, Left 4 Dead, Grid, Saints Row 2, Gears of War 2, Far cry2, Fallout3) I was kept pretty busy.

I think I've come to the realisation that Saints Row 2 is better than GTA. Might sound stupid? But there are a couple of reasons for this.

I've never been a fan of the way you get missions in GTA. You seem to aimlessly bounce from one random character to another, not caring who they are, or what they are doing, once they give you money. I found myself asking "who the hell is this guy?" quite a lot. Saints Row 2 cuts out this problem. You work for your gang against the rival gangs to make Stillwater your own once again. Gang wars I can understand, mostly random characters I don't. Kate is an important part of the story in GTA4, but I had hardly any interaction with her whatsoever even though she was supposed to be Niko's actual interest. Didn't make much sense when you already had two girls that got rid of your wanted level and restored your health.

Overall, the missions are more enjoyable than GTAs. Even the side activities are a good laugh (spraying shit from a van onto Ultors businesses, breaking up a women's rights protest with a chainsaw, or causing as much damage as physically possible in a short space of time etc). You don't get to do these things in GTA. It takes all the stuff that you do in your spare time in GTA and throws them into the actual gameplay. You need to do some of these things to advance the story.

Another good thing is the in-mission checkpoints. In GTA i found it very frustrating when you were near the end of a reasonably difficult mission (eg: killing Dmitri), when someone completely random happens and you die (eg: shot a barrel that landed beside a crate, after a cutscene I was placed behind the crate and supposed to be in cover, but they placed me on the barrel and clearly visible to the enemy who quickly shot me in the face multiple times in under a second) and have to go get more body armor, restart the whole mission again which may include driving back to it, basically it was a pain in the ass. The in-mission checkpoints gets rid of this frustration and makes Saints more enjoyable. The regenerating health is also very nice too. Again not realistic, but at least you know if you are in trouble and have a long way to go in a mission, you can go hide. In GTA you know that if you have little health left and have a long way to go in a mission, you might aswell just step out and get shot because your screwed anyways.

One thing that I find difficult though, is to aim while driving. This goes for both games but more so for Saints. Its difficult to press A to accelerate, the right stick to aim and the right trigger to shoot all with the same hand.

Overall, I loved both games, but Saints has the edge for me. Initially it took me a while to adjust to the look of Saints, as it is not as pretty as GTA, but when it all boils down to it, it is GTA with a massive amount of fun things injected into it.

Champion League Draw - Last 16 - '08/09

2008-12-19T11:32:00.003Z

Chelsea v Juventus
Villarreal v Panathinaikos
Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich
Atletico Madrid v FC Porto
Lyon v Barcelona
Real Madrid v Liverpool
Arsenal v Roma
Inter Milan v Manchester United

It is an absolutely horrible draw for United, Inter with Jose Mourinho at the helm were by far and away the strongest side we could have been possibly drawn against. Great draws for Chelsea, Villarreal, Bayern, Barcelona.

Setanta Sports lack of moderation on news stories

2008-12-18T21:53:00.007Z

The Setanta Sports news site has become shocking recently.

I've just read how Manucho is not impressing Sir Alex Ferguson despite scoring a "25 yard missle" against Stoke City at Old Trafford. Manucho didn't scored that, Danny Welbeck did. You really would think that they would check their facts before they post such a story. If they want to be a credible alternative to Sky Sports then they will really have to sort things out.

Another thing that I don't like about the site is the complete lack of moderation on the user comments at the end of each story. Go to any United story and you will have 50 jealous idiots posting such intelligent statements as "Man U sux", or an poor attempt at being a smart ass such as "Im a man u fan but they lost so now im going to support Arsenal".

I think I'll choose to get my news from a site that doesn't have a load of childish shite at the end of each story, thank you very much.

Avoid This Player (Xbox Live)

2008-12-17T20:47:00.003Z

As most people know, you can choose to give a player good or bad rep on Xbox Live. One thing that I don't like, is the reasons for giving someone bad rep (or "Avoid this player"). You have to select one of

1. Communication
2. Game behaviour
3. Player skill

Those menu's are further broken down into another level of categories. When will Microsoft add the much needed fourth option....

4. Twat

It is badly needed. Very badly needed. While playing some guy on FIFA'09, he's 0-5 down after a couple of mins, he decides to quit (surprise, surprise). I send him a message afterwards......"Don't play or don't quit". His response: "yeh wot eva fuck off".

He is perfect for the twat category: Quit's a game when he is losing and then speaks in unintelligeable English. The reason I want to avoid the player is because he is a twat. Its not too much to ask for.

Games Left Field - FIFA'09 Online League

2008-12-15T17:51:00.005Z

It seems a lot of people don't understand what the games left field means on the standing table of an online FIFA '09 league.

EG:
Gamertag: Games Left
RichieMUFC : -
Larry LarLar : 1
Jimmy JimJim : 0

This would mean that I'm RichieMUFC (I can't play myself obviously enough), I've played Jimmy JimJim, but haven't played Larry LarLar. I guess when you see it with 28 other people in the league with all 1's and 0's it can get confusing.

How to fix blurry text after installation of XP

2008-12-15T13:02:00.006Z

After reinstalling XP on my PC over the weekend, I noticed that some text (especially bold text) looked to be very, very blurry. Maybe blurry isn't the right word but it was very difficult and uncomfortable to read.

Normally this is the kind of stuff that I notice and nobody else does, and I was preparing to live with the problem (as I do with my other 50 display related problems). As it turns out this can be fixed very easily...

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Click Properties
3. Click on the Appearance tab
4. Click Effects
5. Change the dropdown "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts" from "ClearType" to "Standard"

You should notice an immediate difference. For some reason things like Google Talk (the desktop application) still appeared with blurry text. In that case, you can't be a good old fashioned restart after changing that setting.

Adobe Flash Player 9 - Where is the debugger or host Application Running

2008-12-13T02:57:00.003Z

For the past while I have been getting this annoying pop that says "Adobe Flash Player 9 - Where is the debugger or host Application Running" and gives you two options to choose from, especially on sites with a pretty large amount of flash such as xbox.com

Well, i've finally found the fix, if you are using Firefox, just download this to solve the problem.

Not sure if it will work for Internet Explorer. I expected this problem to go away with a fresh install of XP, but it came back again. At least all the other troubles I had are gone though!

Count lines of code in a file on Linux

2008-12-10T10:39:00.003Z

Handy tool I found out about yesterday to count the amount of lines in a file:

wc -l yourfile.c

This will print out the number of lines in the file. It would be nice if it worked in a directory (especially as I had to give a rough count of a fairly large piece of software), but wc is better than doing it by using vi.

For more information: man wc

Shannon, Co. Clare

2008-11-27T11:12:00.003Z

One thing about Shannon is that the friendly locals are always willing to offer exciting opportunities and ways of spending an afternoon. Sprawled on the side of Supermacs in big writing was: "Steve May will bum you 4 spare change".

Classy.

FIFA'09 bug

2008-11-18T10:30:00.003Z

Playing FIFA'09 against a mate when something very strange happened. Rooney killed an opponent from behind, but advantage was played for about 10 mins of the 90, then when the ball finally went out of play, Rooney got a "second" yellow, and then a red.

He never got a first yellow card, and remained on the pitch after being shown the red. I guess the tackle was so bad it deserved a straight red, but the ref only gives yellows after the ball goes out of play? I dunno.... never came across such a massive screw up before.

Barrack O'Bama

2008-11-05T00:36:00.007Z

This is a very funny tongue in cheek song about Barrack Obama. A lot of Americans claim to be Irish through long lost relatives (etc, etc) and Obama actually has long lost roots in Co. Offaly, so we'll claim him. Its well worth a listen - clicky, clicky:

Barrack O'Bama - Irish Funnyness

The main line goes as follows: "O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara, there's no one as Irish as Barrack O'Bama!!!"

Mirrors Edge Demo

2008-11-02T18:23:00.002Z

The Mirrors Edge demo is very good. The demo is ~1GB to download for the 360 and ~900mb for the Playstation. It basically plays exactly as any of the trailers portrait.

You are basically jumping around roof tops, using everything you come across to get to your destination in a very, very nice looking environment in first person. Anything that you need to use in order to get to your destination glows red. There is a lot of tapping LB though, as you pretty much use it for most actions. Some of the moves, like rolling in order to avoid a nasty landing require pretty good timing.

The demo is pretty short (played through it twice) but it gives you enough of a hint as to what the final game will be like. This quick clip from YouTube walks through a tiny part of the demo. As you can see, the visuals are unreal

Mirrors Edge gameplay

Xbox360 Motion Blur With HDTV

2008-11-02T14:38:00.003Z

For a while now, I have been noticing a lot of "motion blur" with my 360 on my 26" Samsung HDTV. I know the reason for most of this is because I'm using 1080i (the i standing for interlacing). When i change the 360 to use 720p (the p standing for progressive) then this gets rid of 95% of the motion blur.

The only problem being - the 360 looks like crap on 720p compared to 1080i. I mean, there is absolutely no contest what so ever. I'm not sure whether this is the tv itself, or the 360.

Moving to 720p isn't a option because the quality is so poor. If its rubbish quality vs great quality with motion blur, while neither of them are ideal, I know the winner! While playing the mirrors edge demo on 1080i, while panning the camera left or right while in the room looking at one of the doors, I can clearly see a ghosting of the handle (black outline) against the wall while panning right. In FIFA 09, while running in the shadow at Old Trafford with Ronaldo, any quick movement or turns, he leaves behind a red blur as does the red diamond above his head.

All this seems very, very noticeable (especially during the first 30 mins of play).

It seems that the following reduces the motion blur as much as possible:

Xbox360:
1080i - 60Hz (select no when asked if it displays properly at 50Hz)

Samsung HDTV:
Mode: Dynamic
Contrast: 93
Brightness: 61
Sharpness: 44
Colour: 48
Tint: G50 - R50
Color Tone: Cool1
Backlight: 8
Size: 16:9
Digitial NR: Auto
Active Color: On
DNIe: On

The only long term solution is to buy a 1080p tv/monitor...but none of us are made of money!

Football Manager 2009 Demo

2008-11-02T14:01:00.005Z

I've no idea why they have decided to release a demo on a Sunday, but who cares. You can download the demo using the links below.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MF1OVFMA - PC Version
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QE32WICM - Mac Version

Anyone who links the Football Manager series will be guaranteed to like this iteration as its largely similar to previous versions. The menus are laid out similarly (but this can be changed with skins). There are a few nice improvements....

The match can now be viewed in 3D, but this isn't like watching a game on Fifa Manager which basically uses the Fifa engine. Its a more primitive, but its perfect for a management game. It certainly doesn't require an incredibly expensive graphics card to run. It seems to work the exact same as the old match engine, with player playing nice patterns of passes. It doesn't seem like Fifa Manager where you get the feeling that the match will have two completely different outcomes if you play it in text mode or in 3D. The only minor annoyance about the match engine is the fact that you can't see any stadium around the pitch. You can always revert to the traditional top down, 2D approach. Another nice addition here is that your assistant will tell you a whole range of things about the game. Whether he is right or wrong probably depends on his stats for each aspect.

Press conferences actually take place now rather than before a game, you just answer one question and thats it, this time around you answer a series of questions, you can choose to select one of the answers, decline to comment or storm out. When you answer a question there is also an option to enter text (free form) as well as your selected answer. I'm not sure what effect (if any) this might have. (I haven't tried it as entering text is a little buggy - probably intentionally so - duplicates of letters you type, etc)

Interacting with players also sees a slight improvment. For example, when interacting with Wayne Rooney, I can ask him, or tell him a series of things I'd like him to focus on. One of which made me laugh - "Ask Rooney to stop blasting the ball towards goal!" and another one "Ask Rooney to stop throwing himself into tackles!". Theres a lot more detailed things...and the range of options depends on the player. For example I can ask Nani to try and riffle free kicks or to stay in the channels.

The player ratings aren't just a flat 6, 7, etc any more which is nice. Before it was difficult to know that if a player is playing 7 out of 10, would he go up to 8.... etc. Its a lot easier to tell when your dealing with decimals.

If you liked any of the previous Football Manager games, then you will definently like this one too.

Release Date: 14 November 2008

Change Hostname of Linux box

2008-10-31T15:38:00.004Z

If you want to change the hostname of your Linux box after installation, its really easy to do so.

Step 1: Edit file /etc/sysconfig/network (i.e: vi/etc/sysconfig/network)

Step 2: Add or change HOSTNAME=your-desired-name-here

Step 3: Save your change (i.e: type :wq in vi)

Step 4: Restart the network daemon. (i.e: service xinetd restart). You can alternatively just type reboot on the command line to restart your box.

Maybe there is a different way to do this also, but this is fairly quick and easy!

Flat tires = No fun

2008-10-30T15:00:00.005Z

Whoever thought of designing a car ('99 Ford Fiesta) so that instead of traditionally holding the spare tire in the boot under the mat, and decided it would be a good idea to instead, have the tire held underneath the car so you would have to open a big fuck off bolt with no space whatsoever, should be shot.

While driving down to Shannon town center on my lunch break my back right tire became as flat as a pancake. Tremendous. Trying to pull in, in a packed car park so you have enough room to change the tire, whilst at the same time, not looking like a complete idiot driving on a flat tire, is a fine balancing act.

Its a bit ironic that on Monday I had gotten a new jack and was talking about swapping the tires around on my car so I could know how to do it when the time comes, and its even more ironic that I was looking at buying a new car last night! Changing the tire is easy. Whats difficult is unscrewing the bolt in the boot with no room when its freezing cold and your hands are numb and then pulling out the tire (which is covered in muck and filth) because its UNDER THE CAR. Design, unreal.

Call of Duty 5: World At War Beta Review

2008-10-20T10:17:00.003+01:00

After finally getting my hands on a beta key for the Call of Duty 5 multiplayer beta from some generous guy at ExiledGamers, I think the beta is pretty decent.

As you may know already, it is being developed by TreyArch, the same developers of Call of Duty 3, as the developers have realised that 1 year is not enough time to create a decent game and its an infinitely better idea to have a two year development cycle, even if it means consecutive games will be produced by different developers. I know a lot of people have been against COD5:WaW from the start as they dislike TreyArch, but wasn't it not long ago that EA churned out a rubbish Fifa every year, and now look at what they had to offer this year: a top quality football game. This is further testament to the fact that people who judge a title or have preconcieved opinions about a game should not be listened to.

COD5 keeps the same multiplayer format as COD4 which includes levelling up, unlocking different weapons and perks from levelling up, and completing various challenges. It was one of the most entertaining and durable multiplayer experience from any game to date, so immediately Call of Duty 5 is on the right track.

There are 3 maps on the beta. There is one "Roundhouse", which is very entertaining and includes the ability to use tanks. It is set in the ruins of what looks to be an old railroad station. Makin is a very dark setting on a beach, where you can go across walkways to various huts or underneath them. It seems to be to be a snipers heavan which I'm not terribly fond of. The last one, Castle, is set of a large slope around the remains of a Japanese castle. Like RoundHouse, this map is a very, very good.

Lookswise, the game is very similar to COD3, which isn't terribly surprising. Going back to world war 2 may not have been a great idea, but there are still a huge variety of guns, something to suit everyone, there are new perks also. A 3 kill streak will allow you to see your enemies on the radar, a 5 kill streak will let you call in yoru artilary (same as an airstrike in COD4), and 7 kills in a row will allow you to call in dogs (instead of a helicopter in COD4). The dogs don't look very visually appealling but hopefully this will be fixed for the final game.

I've seen a couple of glitches too, such as somebody lying flat on a hill, but being able to see and shoot right through it.

All in all it looks to be shaping up as a good game. Now if only we could get rid of those annoying Americans which all they seem to do is whine about people using juggernaut (extra health perk). If its in the game, its ok to use it. Just because I'm smart enough to use it, and you're not, you shuoldn't be moaning. Thats an indictment on your intelligence.

I still haven't recieved my beta key from callofduty.com, but if I do, I will post it up here.

American presidential election overview

2008-10-14T11:56:00.003+01:00

So...the American presidential race in a nutshell, Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin. To be honest, I have no idea why this is even as close as it is.

McCain made an absolutely horrible choice of running mate. Sarah Palin has since been caught out multiple times. Firstly, she tried to regurgitate a Ronald Regan speech about the American troops being "on a mission from God", and then when quizzed on this, tries to backtrack horribly and ends up contradicting herself.

Then in the vice presidential debate, her winking and constant attempts to avoid the questions she was asked, along with her sickening fake smile, cheesey lines, should easily have turned voters against her.

If that wasn't the final nail in the coffin, then surely her being found guilty of using her position as Govenor of Alaska for her own personal benefit in a family feud, is.

I don't see how any intelligent American could honestly vote for her. McCain talks a lot about his judgement, but his judgement is more than questionable after picking Palin as a running mate. Not only that, but also his constant contradictory answers on numerous questions, surely should give the American people a hint that he is not the right man for the job.

Obama missed the chance of a knockout blow at the second presidential debate in my opinion. When McCain refered to Obama as "that one", it was incredibly disrepectful and showed a huge amount of distain for Obama. And McCain wonders why people are shouting "kill him" in reference to Obama at his rallies. Well, it tends to happen when you show your opponent no respect. I think if Obama had interrupted him after he said "that one" and replied with something like "Please Senator McCain, show me the same respect I show you", it would have been a huge blow, but Obama may have been a victim of his own self-restraint.

Another McCain own goal, happened when a woman at his rally said, "I can't trust that Obama, he's... he's an....an ARAB" and McCain replied with "No Ma'am, he is a good family man....", whats the implication here? Arabs can't be good family men. Another political own goal.

Part of me wants McCain to be elected because of the comedy factor, but anybody with any shred of intelligence and an unbiased opinion towards either party, should clearly see Obama is by far the best man for the job.

Pro Evolution 2009 to ship with outdated squads

2008-10-11T21:06:00.009+01:00

Konami have announced that the squads that appear on the Pro Evolution 2009 demo will not be updated when the game ships on October 17th. This is disappointing for a number of reasons. Not only will online play feel dated before you ever play a game, but it is made all the worse due to the fact that EA updated all squads (including lower league squads) of all leagues available on FIFA'09.

However, Konami are unable, or indeed unwilling to update the squads of just the very, very small selection of leagues they provide. This could very well be the final nail in the Pro Evo coffin after last years poor showing. Nevertheless, the have decided to release the following statement which makes matters even worse

"It has come to the attention of Konami that the fans of PES are passionate enough about the PES series to require console updates on the latest features, details and improvements of PES 2008. Because of this, Konami are due to release PES 2009 downloadable content that will be available in February 2009 that will enhance Konami's potential. Any downloadable content will be chargeable on all formats"

Right, so that basically means, "If you want updated squads, not only will you have to wait 4 and a half months, but you will also have to pay for it too"

Thanks, but no thanks. What an absolute joke. First Konami football game I won't be buying since ISS.

Update: All may not be yet lost. Konami have announced a "November update" which will add more licensed teams (Atletico Madrid being one of them), so presumably, this will update squads and put Berbatov with United, Robinho with City, etc. It also seems that Konami have backtracked on their decision to charge people for updates aswell. What difference a week makes.

Linux/Unix Quick Commands Quick Reference Cheat Sheet

2008-10-06T12:57:00.013+01:00

Some vital commands (and some explanations) to help navigate (or bluff!) your way through Linux/Unix. Anything between the square brackets you will need to fill in to the command as appropriate.

Kernel Modules:
Insert a kernel module: insmod [path to kernel object]
Remove a kernel module: rmmod [path to kernel object]

Shutting down / Rebooting:
Shutdown system with no reboot: Shutdown -h now
Shutdown system with reboot: Shutdown -r now
Reboot system: reboot

Network:
Connect remotely to machine: ssh [ip address or machine name]
Connect remotely as machine as a different user (i.e: root): ssh root@[ip address or machine name]
Manual pages for a topic: man [topic]
View I.P address: ifconfig
Restart network on machine: service network restart

Administrative:
Update Linux filesystem (useful after install): Updatedb
Add user account: adduser [the desired username]
Give user account a password: passwd [username you wish to add password for]
Log in a superuser (i.e: root): su
Execute current command as root: sudo [command as normal]

General:
Close mode/connection of current terminal: exit
Mount/Unmount device graphically: usermount
View current processes (selective): ps
View full list of processes: top
Kill process: Kill [process id]
Get listings on a topic: apropos [topic]
Install a program (Look at the README first)but, generally: make or make install
Extract a .tar or .tar.gz: tar -zxvf [path to tar.gz archive]
Install rpm: rpm -ihv [path to rpm]
Compile a C/C++ program: g++ [path to a .c file]
Redirection: ./program > programoutput.txt (run the application called program and redirect the output to the programoutput.txt file instead of displaying it on the terminal)
Get absolute path to program using an alias: which [program name]

Files/Directories:
. (dot) means the current directory (./a.out means execute the program a.out in the current directory)
../ means back one directory (../../ means back two directories, etc etc)

Change Directory: cd [path to directory]
Go back one directory: cd ..
List contents of directory: ls
List contents of directory including all files: ls -a
Copy a file: cp [path to file you want copied] [path to directory you want file copied to
Move/Rename a file: mv [path to file you want moved/renamed] [path to directory you want the file moved/renamed to]
Remove file: rm [path to file]
Remove file and stop asking me questions: rm -f [path to file]
Remove directory: rm -r [path to directory]
Remove directory and stop asking me questions: rm -rf [path to directory]
View file on terminal: cat [path to file]
View and file and show me any updates in real time: tail -F [path to file] (eg: tail -F /var/log/messages to view the kernel log in real time)
Search directory for filename: find [path to directory] -name [filename]
Search directory for file containing specific text: find [directory] -name "[containing text]"
Change permissions on file or directory: chmod 7 7 7 (gives all permissions to all users)

File permissions confused the hell out of me at first, when I looked at "drwxr-xr-x" as the permissions, I haven't a clue what was going on. It breaks down as follows: d stands for directory. If its not a directory (its a file!), it will appear as -. The other 9 are dividied into 3 groups of three, Owner, Group, Others. In the case above the Owner has rwx, read, write, execute. Group has r-x, read and execute, and Others have r-x, also read and execute.

Bash:
Start bash: bash (complex!)
Run a script within bash: source [path to script]

FIFA'09 Review

2008-10-06T11:15:00.005+01:00

So after having a couple of days to digest FIFA'09, I think that the 8 out of 10 it recieved on Eurogamer is very harsh. Last year's offering also recieved 8 out of 10 and to say there has not been enough improvement to warrant at least a 9 out of 10 score is crazy.

Firstly, the gameplay is significantly improved on what was already a very solid base that was delivered last year. The gameplay is slightly faster so build up is the perfect pace to reflect real life, you can attack as quickly or as slowly as you would like using the vast amount of sliders for customising tactics. The small things are also a significant step forward, from the A.I making intelligent off the ball runs and pointing where they want the ball so you can deliver a killer through ball (through balls are much, much more effective than before), to the fact that players will actually leap off the ground in a number of increidbly realistic, new animations for heading the ball. Players will actually try to climb, jostle and land awkwardly.

The tackling has been reworked also. It feel's a lot more like tackling in UEFA 2008 in wet conditions, where the players will slide for long and take longer to get up. The physical part of the game is also more realistic, Ronaldo is likely to fall to the ground when jostled, Nemanja Vidic is likely to push a smal forward like Sergio Aguero off the ball pretty quickly, but expect him to be left for dead in a straight face against Aguero. All in all, very realistic!!

Shooting is very similar to last year's version which in my opinion, was absolutely perfect. It is significantly difficult to score a 35 yard thunderbolt, but it can be done with some skill (or luck!). The tricks don't really seem to be very effective, especially against the CPU, but the rainbow flick can work a treat if you can perfect it.

The achievements list seems very easy for the most part, although the sheer volume of them makes it a challenge to complete all of them. Mostly they are worth 5 or 10G, which is fair given their difficult.

One the coolest things I've ever seen in any game happened last night while playing on XBOX Live, a few weeks ago, Guille Franco of Villarreal hit the post against Man Utd with a back heel flick from a low cross with his trailing leg which is incredibly difficult but, my low cross from Ronaldo brought the virtual Berbatov to do the exact same thing.

The only negatives are that the UEFA Cup holders, Zenit St. Petersberg aren't in the game which is a bit of a disappointment as if there were included they should be a four to four and a half star team. Apart from that, I don't like how the unranked quick match is buried so deep in the menu structure, while ranked quick match is at the very top. I generally like to have one unranked game after turning on so I get into the swing of things and don't get my ass handed to me.

Another minor annoyance is the attacking/defending pattern online, I always seem to be controlling the game, pushing forward leaving absolutely massive gaps at the back making it much easier for you're opponent to build attacks. Thankfully I've perfected my tactics (well, still needs a little tweaking) so I'm hard to break down but still get to push on quite a bit!

Overall though, this game is class, I'd easily give it (at the very least and being stingy), 9/10. The bar for Pro Evo (October 17th) has been raised!!

Pro Evolution 2009 Demo Review

2008-10-02T20:43:00.007+01:00

After waiting for the 1.18GB demo to download from Xbox Live, my first thought was: "this isn't very good!". This is yet more proof that you should never jump to conclusions. After getting used to the strange first touch that players seem to take, Pro Evo 2009 is much, much better than last years version. It's still not incredible by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time, after you play 4 or 5 games, and get back into it, it feels more like Pro Evo. The more you play it, the more you'll like it, don't give up after 1 game. After having less than convincing first thoughts, two hours later I'm still playing the demo....

They have gone back to basic's a little and the game is much more about thinking and finding a way through, like it used to be in the old days. It's difficult to outrun any one when you have the ball (even with Cristiano Ronaldo), so you've to really work for an opening....just like how it used to be..

The replays aren't as disgracefully slow from a framerate point of view as they were in 2008, but then again, they would still be categorised as slow. After a match (...after EVERY match..), you are forced to watch a ridiculously long video which demo's the "Become A Legend" mode, but this is okay the first time, because the mode does look absolutely unreal. It seems much better than FIFA's "Be A Pro" and that was pretty damn good!

The squad's seem to be out of date (Silvestre, Simpson, Saha, Dong, Campbell are all still at United), but one can only assume that they will have all the transfers up to the end of the transfer window in the final version (now confirmed here, there will be no squad update). I mean, it's not a big job to do it yourself, but it's incredibly annoying when it comes to online play where you are forced to use the default squads. Konami have also promised that there will be no lag online (well, at least not due to the actual game itself), which was an absolute shambles last year. I lived online with PES6, but I've played about 5 games online (if even!) on PES2008.

One major, major problem is the ease at which you can get sent off. First game i played, I got sent off for an innocent challenge, I go down the other end of the pitch, and Puyol gets himself sent off for nothing. Then next game, playing against Madrid, they have two players sent off, Marcelo, the left back for a nothing tackle wide on the right. Crazy. I then have a man sent off for a foul on the end of the box. 3 red cards for 3 slide tackles. Does Konami not see a problem with this?!

How does it compare to the FIFA 09 demo? Well they are pretty much like chalk and cheese. They are completely different games. Comparing them is pretty much pointless. There are NO comparisons, gameplay is different, sound is different, first touch is different, graphics are different. If you're a real football fan, then you should probably get both. If you're a hardcore or a reasonably loyal PES lover, then Pro Evo is obviously for you (It amazes me that no matter how bad PES2008 was, they will still maintain it was great and "much" better than FIFA'08), otherwise FIFA 09 is your game.

Release Dates:
FIFA 09: 03 October 2008 (EU)
Pro Evolution: 17 October 2008 (EU)

Removing the windows return carriage

2008-10-02T00:02:00.008+01:00

If you have ever edited a piece of code on Windows (i.e: with Notepad or Wordpad), and then looked at it on Linux or FreeBSD, depending on your VI settings, chances are you will see the Windows return carriage (represented as "^M") after each and every line. This not only makes a mess of the file, but it can be tedious to clean line by line, especially if your dealing with a large chunk of code! Thankfully, the following line will remove the ^M Windows return carriage, removing whats in the quotes with your own file name(s):

tr -d '\r' < "myfile.c"> "mycleanfile.c"This saves a lot of hassle, especially if you've edited a lot of files and haven't realised you've introduced ^M's every where. Although you could just use eclipse or Notepad++ which avoids the problem altogether on Windows!

Pro Evolution 2009 Demo out Thursday

2008-10-01T00:20:00.004+01:00

It's been leaked that apparently the Pro Evolution 2009 demo is due to be released on Thursday, with 4 playable club teams (Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid & Barcelona). The playable teams aren't confirmed yet though. I guess we will just have to wait until Thursday to find out. Seeing as Konami have gained the license for United and Liverpool, it immediately appeals to a lot more people, as they are two of the most supported clubs in the world.

It's a pity that they lost the license for La Liga, but at least they have Real, Barca, Deportivo, Espanyol and Mallorca. I can't wait to play the demo as it should be a massive improvement on last year's effort. I've been a fan of Konami's efforts since the days of ISS on the playstation one, but FIFA '08 was the first time that as regards gameplay, EA was the victor over Konami. In Pro Evo 2008, the gameplay was too fast, all the players ran with a form of strange limp, and the online gameplay was broken due to lag, which was no fault of Xbox Live users connections.