Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

I’ve been getting hit hard by spammers recently. Essentially they are sending email claiming to be from my domain to others and when these messages bounce due to the address not existing or spam filters rejecting them, they get sent back to me. I have a “catch-all” on my domain so essentially all of the messages for the entire domain end up in my inbox. A while back I had attempted to setup a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record in my DNS zone so that ISPs could differentiate between the spam and valid email from my domain but it didn’t seem to be helping things. It appears though I had actually set it up wrong. This morning I have fixed it and verified that it is now doing what it should so all going well I should start getting a lot less junk from ISPs that support SPF. On top of that, I have been working to remove the need for my catch-all, hopefully sometime soon I can just switch it off.

I completed Oblivion a while back now. When I say completed, I mean completed all the major quest threads, virtually all the minor quests I could find and then eventually, the main quest itself. No spoilers but the main quest felt rather short to me. That said, I liked it and thoroughly enjoyed my time playing the game. One thing lacking for me though was the real feeling of discovery that was present in the previous game, Morrowind. In Morrowind there were some places where it felt like no one had been there for a thousand years. Obstacles like swamps, lava flows and dangerous wastelands made reaching some of these places feel difficult and dangerous. Oblivion on the other hand looks so pleasant that anyone could find most places with a short walk across over the gentle rolling hills bathed in sunlight. The AI is also rather terrible considering all the hype. Oddly, Fable took a beating for not living up to it’s hype but ironically when I look at things Oblivion does wrong (not just AI) and try to think of a game that does them better, Fable often comes to mind.

Recently finished watching disc 4 of Maburaho. It can be summed up simply as “Three episodes of filler”. It wasn’t even that good filler and with only three episodes it’s essentially robbery. Might as well have skipped that DVD. @_@

Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

It seems the new 13″ Apple Macbook is out. Hardware-wise it’s pretty much exactly what I expected and unfortunately also as expected, it replaces not just the 12″ iBook but the 12″ Powerbook as well. I don’t know what others think of this but for me it means there is no longer an Apple laptop I feel meets my needs (And this was the generation I was planning to upgrade in too). The new Macbook is too underpowered (The Intel GMA950 graphics chip being the main issue) and the Macbook Pro is just too big to really be considered portable. A 15″ or 17″ is fine for many people that only want limited portability but when you want to carry one of these things around in a backpack and walk, 13″ or less is the only practical size. Many probably wouldn’t care about the graphics performance of the new Macbooks, I mean no one plays games on Mac right? They don’t even make games for them right? LOL. I can’t speak for other Mac users, but mine have been heavily used for gaming and I intend to continue to do so. If the graphics chip is not made by ATI or NVidia then it doesn’t cut the mustard. I’m not being brand elitist here, in the current crop of graphics hardware, they are the only viable options for respectable 3D performance. I for one won’t be buying a machine lacking this feature, it’s too important to me.

Personally, I plan to wait for the next Macbook Pro with the Memron CPUs and see what they shape up like. I expect they’ll have an ATI X1700 or better for the graphics hardware. I could probably get used to a 15″ (Not that it wouldn’t be a pain) but the price difference is just plain ridiculous. For roughly NZ$2000 more I’d get a better video chip but I’d also get a bigger screen (that I don’t want), a DVD writer (that I don’t need) and a bigger hard drive (That I’d replace with a faster 7200RPM one anyway making this an expensive paperweight). As you may guess, there’s no way I’d pay $2000 extra for that.

MacOS X performance

On a mostly unrelated note, it seems the world is finally starting to realise that MacOS X has performance issues. This is both in terms of speed and memory management. I still see disbelievers around who think that everything must be faster than Windows now that MacOS X is running on Intel hardware but as I predicted here quite a while back now, the comparison is proving to be in favour of Windows and the PowerPC CPU architecture was not at fault (doubly obvious with all the games consoles going with PowerPC).

What is actually wrong here? The MacOS X kernel of course, specifically the Mach microkernel. Stepping back in time to the birth of MacOS X, at least two kernels could have been used. The Mach Microkernel with a BSD personality server and the NuKernel originally derived from Apple’s ill-fated Copland project, otherwise known as the original “MacOS 8″ (Not the one that actually shipped as “MacOS 8″). Avadis “Avie” Tevanian who had come to Apple from NeXT along with Steve Jobs was a co-creator of Mach and essentially the NuKernel was never really considered as an option despite being built from the ground up for use with PowerPC processors. Not much is known about the NuKernel but supposedly it’s power management, real-time support and overall performance were superior to Mach. This was an understandable decision in many ways as NeXTStep, the Operating System on which MacOS X was based was already running on Mach and Mach has good support for multiple processor systems, something Apple has been pushing for a long time now. At this point though this decision is turning around to bite them.

So, where to from here? There’s surprising number of possibilities I feel. Now that these problems with Mach are becoming visible Apple has to do something. Avie Tevanian has recently retired from Apple at the end of March. I’m not entirely convinced that this was something he just decided to do. Will Apple just outright replace Mach? It’s possible I feel. They could go for the NuKernel (I expect there’s still people at Apple who have ported MacOS X to run on it), they could go for a more traditional BSD style monolithic kernel or they could even license the Windows Kernel although I expect that option is very unlikely. They could also just write a new kernel from scratch but this is not something I can see a company doing in this day and age.

The downside to using a new kernel is that all the drivers break. The current reliance on the BSD server would have to be allowed for or broken too. These issues are probably something Apple would consider acceptable but is enough of a problem that they won’t do it unless they have to. At the very least, I expect modifications will be made to Mach making it less of a pure and clean microkernel design, and instead it would be tuned for outright performance. Such things would certainly be hard to stomach for a co-creator of Mach such as Avie Tevanian, in his position anyone might leave if a project you have spent much of your life working on was being conceptually debased.

Personally, I expect to see a new kernel in the upcoming MacOS 10.5 and my money is on it being a hybrid of ideas rather than any one of the current replacement options but I feel at the very least, Mach as we know it is dead. How dead? I expect we’ll find out on August the 7th (8th for NZ) at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, I’ll be looking for the phrase “You’ll have to rewrite your drivers”.

Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

I finished the last DVD of Samurai Champloo on Saturday. As usual I won’t talk spoilers but I had heard from others that the ending was rather lacking. Personally I was pleasantly surprised by it. It made sense and was rather fitting. Maybe it could have had some more flashiness but I didn’t feel that it was in any way lacking or was in any way a let down (such as Midori Days was). Overall I’d say I enjoyed it a lot.

I was also starting DVD #4 of Maburaho too. I have to give them some Kudos for actually taking the plot in the direction they have. I started out lukewarm on this series but it’s just been getting better and better as it goes on. If it can keep it up it’ll be rather pleased.

I got in some multiplayer Dead or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360 too. It’s a lot better game multiplayer than it is single player. The game AI in single player often feels like it’s cheating. It plays attacking full on the whole time and as countering and grabbing requires more perfect timing than in previous games, it can be hard to respond. This is one of the few games I’ve ever seen where an experienced player can be totally beaten by a Level 1 AI in normal mode. It also feels quite often that the AI just looks at the buttons you just press and much of the time will come up with an appropriate counter that it will use in the few milliseconds it isn’t attacking you. It’s not that I don’t like it hard, I’ve played the previous DOA games on the highest difficultly settings, but this AI does not feel very human at all in most ways. The one way it does feel human is how it seems to play harder when it’s losing. I’ve seen more comeback wins by an AI with hairline health while playing this game than in any other fighter in recent memory. It does add a degree of frustration to the game. Of course in multiplayer mode against real people these problems don’t exist and the game is a lot of fun all round.

I’d heard ages back that a movie based on the Dead or Alive game franchise was coming out. I expected it would be terrible and I still do but now I feel it’s even worse. I was reading an interview with Itagaki Tomonobu (Head of Tecmo’s Team Ninja) recently where he felt Kasumi and Ayane should have been played by Japanese actresses (they are being played by Devon Aoki and Natassia Malthe respectively). It’s the kind of thing you might expect him to say but when he was asked who he would pick, he suggested Ueto Aya as Ayane and Gotoh Kumiko as Kasumi. Now I’m not familiar with Gotoh Kumiko but after a quick google image search(Google’s safe search will have to be off to return proper results, not that there is any NSFW pics) I can see why he would suggest her, she has a certain look about her that would fit well with Kasumi. When it comes to Ueto Aya though, that has to be one of the most brilliant casting suggestions I have ever seen. Anyone who has seen 2003’s Azumi will know what I’m talking about (She played Azumi herself). As far as looks go, I’d personally go with Leah Dizon for Kasumi myself but she isn’t Japanese either. Of course none of this is going to happen and the movie will probably suck like almost every other video game movie. It is times like this I really hate Hollywood. *sigh*

Edit: Fixed typos

Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

I’ve been going through the games lists and first impression posts (as well as downloading trailers on Xbox Live) and here’s what interests me so far…

PS3:
*Heavenly Sword – Sounds somewhat like 99 Nights on the Xbox 360. Also sounds like it might have an interesting story.

*Golden Axe (also on Xbox 360) – A nextgen sequel that appears to keep the spirit of the original classic!

*Eyedentify – Could be interesting, makes use of the eye toy and microphone attachments in what appears to be a spy-type genre game.

Nintendo Wii:
*Super Smash Bros Brawl – Not due till 2007, but otherwise looking very cool. Apparently the Wii remote is not suitable for this game so you need Gamecube controllers or Wii-classic controllers. Glad I’ve got three Gamecube controllers lying around.

*Red Steel – Sword fighting, looks like a really appropriate use of the Wii remote and the people who tried it seem to like it.

Xbox 360:
*Fable 2 – The trailer on Xbox Live is very light on details or gameplay but I feel the game is promising. It appears to be more of the same but with them listening to customer feedback and Lionhead being able to implement more of their original vision having a more capable platform to work with.

*Alan Wake – Looks like a thriller, kind of “Silent Hill”-ish. Apparently Steven King is involved in some way. Gameplay footage looked like it could be good.

*Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 – This seems to be expanding out into a party game franchise and is one of the few series on Microsoft consoles that has no real peer elsewhere.

PSP:
*Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories – GTA doesn’t normally excite me that much but VC was so good that a PSP spinoff sounds very appealing.

*Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded – Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and Commando with other games too? (i.e. Street Fighter II). Win.

*Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core – Yes, this is old news but it seems that unlike original stories about this game suggested, this is actually a RPG after all. A prequel even. It could still be really bad but for now I am cautiously optimistic.

Nintendo DS:
*Elite Beat Agents (Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan) – Probably best you google it.

*Final Fantasy VI – A DS port of one of the very best Final Fantasy games. Shame the DS probably won’t have the storage space for the extras added in the PS1 version but the DS will be capable of handling the rest of the game no problem.

Windows:
I didn’t see much news for Windows games coming out from E3 (other than the ports of console titles) but the Civilization IV Warlords expansion is looking rather nice.

Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

Well, this year’s E3 has been and gone and there’s been some interesting announcements. It seems every one of the press events by the big three (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony) was a dissappointment. The Sony Playstation 3 is copping a lot of flak over the price but I suspect many don’t remember or realise how expensive the PS2 was upon release (over NZ$1000) and the PS3 seems to be pretty close in price. It is expensive for sure, but it’s not like they’re breaking any trends here. The Xbox 360 had surprised me personally by being much cheaper than the general trend upon release, but the cost a 360 with the newly announced HD-DVD drive will be up around the price of the low-end PS3 anyway. Nintendo will be cheaper with the Wii of course, just as they were with the Gamecube, but they’re not really aiming at the same market I feel.

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Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

Well, my new LCD monitor has been and gone. It’s not that I was unhappy with it’s performance when it was turned on and running, it was more an issue of getting it to turn on in the first place. More specifically, after a few hours of use the monitor went black, the power light went out and it never turned on again. Needless to say it is being returned and hopefully one day I will have one that works. In all other ways I was happy with it (Well, other than it detecting the resolution 1280×720 as 832×624 and cropping).

It’s a Viewsonic VP2030B. 20.1 inch, 1600×1200, 8ms and 1000:1 contrast ratio. The default settings were overbright and looked washed out but with some colour calibration and fiddling with settings it looked very, very nice. The quality of the VGA input also wasn’t anywhere near as good as the DVI input but that’s to be expected. The scalers in these things are still a bit flaky and in a game like Oblivion you could see scaling blur without too much trouble.  On a monitor that big 800×600 just looks too blocky even if it is a mulitple of the native res. Oblivion at 1600×1200 did look very, very pretty and Dead or Alive 4 in HD was so great that I could just not stop playing it (Well, until the monitor stopped working that is). I just wish I could be using it instead of having to wait for replacement.  @_@

There’s been yet another big scandal in the gaming industry recently over a topless mod for Oblivion. At this point the game has been re-rated in the  US, largely because of this (but not entirely) and it has been described as hidden content that pre-existed within the game. Now I’ve been trying to find accurate information on the internet by sifting through all the uninformed posturing and it’s very hard to get to the bottom of whether this content really is in the game or not. From what I can piece together, the mod alters the 3D meshes that define the models so that the bra is no longer attached to the body. The skins needed are apparently pre-existing but without the mesh modification, nothing would be seen.

To me this indicates that this is not really hidden content within the game at all as it probably indicates the same to anyone who’s ever played around with a 3D modelling tool. If that definition of “hidden content” was accurate then someone could just modify the meshes in any game to be totally different and claim it was pre-existing. No game would be safe, even games for young children. Of course this is kind of redundant anyway since anyone who actively downloads a topless mod doesn’t really care how the content gets there and the end result is the same either way. If the only way to access such content is via a mod then why should the developer be held responsible at all? Must we be protected from such things to the extent that we are not held responsible for actively downloading and installing mods on our games or monitoring games played by our children? What is the next step on this slippery slope?

I have to wonder why this is even such a big issue for a game that has defiled headless corpses hanging from ropes and burning as well as quests that encourage stealing and the paid assasination of people. No, not that any of that matters either, the fact that this is a work of ficton and is *just a game* should really be enough. I really have to wonder how mankind has managed to exist for this long when it seems we are so mentally fragile that things in our imaginations can scar us for life.

Originally published at Garden of Thoughts.

Yes, it seems the New Zealand government has seen fit to unbundle the local loop! What does this mean? Well, right now, probably not a lot. In the long term though it should mean faster, cheaper and generally more competitive internet services in this country. Hopefully in the short term it’ll allow some more flexibility in terms of the plans that ISPs can offer.

I’m currently in the middle of hosting changes. I had mentioned recently that I was changing my hosting for the second time this year but I had only taken it so far and hadn’t actually gone ahead with the actual change over until now. I’m currently waiting for the DNS changes to trickle through the system and all going well, nothing will break. *crosses fingers* I like my new hosting a lot. The bandwidth and disc space limits are lower than I’ve had in quite a long time but the flexibility is far superior and I don’t believe I was anywhere near the limits anyway.

I’m kind of disappointed about not making it to the recent Armageddon expo in Wellington, I wanted to go but a number of factors conspired to prevent me from doing so. From the sound of it I didn’t miss a lot but it would have been good to meet up with friends, online friends, family and support MK1’s first appearance at the expo. Ah well, not too long till the Auckland expo.

In terms of games, I’m still playing Oblivion mostly and enjoying it a lot although there’s a few other goodies I plan to move onto once I start to bore of Oblivion. I really want to resist talking too much about Nintendo’s recent announcement that the official name of their upcoming console will be the “Wii” since the internet has gone mad about it. I will say that in my opinion it is about as bad a name as could be conceived off. Irrespective of the actual merit of the console and it’s games, Nintendo have managed to turn something that should have been a non-issue into yet another obstacle for this console to get over.

I’ve finally decided to make the jump to a LCD monitor. All going well it should be arriving tomorrow. I had been looking for a long time but never found one that I felt was truly a good all rounder. Most likely I’ll post more once it has arrived and I’ve had a chance to try it all out.