Merry Christmas

A Merry Christmas from the Gaming Community. (I know a little early)
Here are videos made by the Gaming Community (of course I did include the console people) since we do not judge people for their faults. n_n
A note before you watch any of these, they might contain some language that you do not like...so don't watch them in that case. Second, Yes they all contain some degree of violence so if you don't want to see that either do not watch.
Otherwise have fun watching n_n.

HMV Hell Trailer...watch this first. (Halo)


HMV Hell the movie...n_n (Halo)


And now to the PC. (CSS)


Enjoy the Holiday season n_n and if you did not like the clips you should not have watched them n_n...anyways as you know my e-mail account and the Forum have moved to avoid any further angry comments or mail...so do not even try to sent them...since they would never arrive...yeah ok I admit that was lame.
So simply put angry comments as well as happy comments and of course the same counts for mail is still allowed and neither e-mail nor Forum have moved.
And with this I will take a break from posting for sometime...maybe until early next year or until the first of you begin to miss me so greatly that you have to send e-mails to me asking when I will be writing again n_n.

Iraq..again...

Iraq has been a hot issue with Iran pressing the US to leave, the US population doing the same as well as many other countries. Now this of course has been answered by President Bush with the statement that the US-Troops would remain in Iraq until 'the Job' is done. Further a recent survey showed that 90% of the Iraqi population (Al Jazeera) believe that their country is worse off then it was before the war in 2003.
This and many other concerns such as the enormous strain on the economy which the war is causing indicates that the leadership of the US is the only party really wishing that the US-Troops remain, why is unclear.

Here is a relating article
Survey indicates Iraqis in despair

Guantanamo

What is in Guantanamo? A Prison which is run by the US government, this prison has been criticized repeatedly because of human rights violations. Further the many countries asked the US to close the prison and to move the inmates to other more humane high security facilities.

Recently a Prisoner appealed to the US Supreme court and won that appeal, sadly the case was dismissed on the basis of a new Anti-Terrorism law which took juristiction from the Federal court.

Here is the full article
US judge dismisses Guantanamo case

Halo?

Many have argued that warfare in Games and in the Movie world supports violance in real-life. But I know in this context no-one wants to hear that or rather you want to watch most likely the Halo3 and Halo Wars Trailer. Halo3 is the net sequel to the Halo series while Halo Wars is a strategy game based on Halo.

Halo WARS


Halo3


These are the Advent Presents for this Week...enjoy n_n

Israel

Now Israel is facing two great conflicts, the conflict with the Palestinians and the brewing conflict with Iran over whether or or not the Holocaust actually took place. In the latter conflict Israel has the support of European countries as well as other countries around the globe.
The Conflict with Palestine has been wearing on for many years now and claimed even more lives. Many countries have spoken against this conflict and that Israel 'would not be doing enough to settle the conflict' and some even suspect that Israel's ambitions could be compared to those of Austria in 1914 when Austria tried to destroy Serbia to get rid of a threat. If any of those allegations are correct is hard to say since the conflict has been wearing on for many years. Recently South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu wanted to shed some light into this issue by starting a 'fact' finding search in Israel as to why the conflict with Palestine began. Israel declined his request, which does put Israel in a disadvantageous position in International relations. Further the UN has been criticizing the Israeli human rights abuses by shelling the Gaza Strip.

Articles relating to this event:
Israel 'blocks Tutu Gaza mission' (BBC)
Israel 'turns down' Tutu mission (Al Jazeera)

Further the conference in Iran concerning the Holocaust or rather it's concern with the non-existence of it. Has caused great concern and many have spoken out against the conference as well as questioned how anyone could ever question that event. Which cost millions of lives which further was also well documented. The survivors which were able to tell the tales where then once more support the events actual occurrence further one has to remember that the facilities speak for them self. Labor and concentration camps by the way they were constructed clearly speak for them self. This then again begs the question why would anyone doubt the events actual occurrence. The participants of this conference are among others people that have been convicted for certain related crimes in France and Germany.
Here is a link to another article
Iran defends Holocaust conference (BBC)

Yeah...well...the un-geek you know?

Let me start off by saying that this is a rant and not an article. As the Label says, just to clarify...this way I might get fewer e-Mails.
So now I recently was told that I' am geeky now that was not told me because of my appearance but rather because of what I said -_-. So now I recently a good number conversations in which the following words or combination of words appeared. "LAN-Party, IP, HD, CPU, Sci-Fi related quotes and references that were not understood, e-Journal, Blog and many other similar things." Now why am I telling this? Well simple those things were often answered with unknowing, blank stares or some also came up with nice, very interesting new meanings to those abbreviations. For example "IP? Oh right that is that new license plate" Yes, I was laughing quite hard after hearing that. Now I realized that I have to address this issue with some form of response. Which is I will define people that do not know what the hell I' am talking about as 'un-geeky' now being an 'un-geek' is not a positive thing as matter of fact it is bad,...very bad. The 'un-geek' is the opposite of the geek they are often the once screaming that you have to fix their PC because it does not start and their papers are due tomorrow. When you then finally ripped yourself loose from the screen and are already annoyed by having to leave the game that was just running so well or the code where you finally had found the error until this 'un-geek' appeared and screamed into your ears that you have to fix their PC. Of course you will spend the next several hours finding that error again...-_-. Then when you finally find the PC and try to start it...and indeed it does not start. Then more out of routine then actual believe you check the power connection and what do you notice? Well interestingly enough the power cable is not plugged in, and since a PC needs electricity to function it could logically not start. That is what an 'un-geek' would do now of course I might be a little judgmental here since I really am a...geek. (u_u sniff.) Now we have to consider that there are some studies that do tell us that Geeks are better parents, why? Because they keep their children up to date on new developments and confront them with new technology with which the children learn to deal with at a young age which then makes it easier for them to deal with technology en-mass. Like it becomes more and more today. Now that I have said my bit I want to point out that Geeks are the really cool people...lol...and the 'un-geek' is simply not. n_n
I know most of you people are now looking at this last sentence with shock widened eyes, similar to this O_O and saying 'This guy is not just a geek he is also crazy...crazy I tell you' and you are free to think that since who is to say what sanity is anyhow? n_n

P.S. I have a feeling that either I will get no responses and people will stop visiting this Blog after that article or they might come back to see what 'crazy' stuff I say the next time or they might flood me with e-mails. Now at this point I would like to say that this Blog has a Forum and a comment option as well and you are welcome to use either or both...n_n.

Iran presses the US

Iran presses the US to leave Iraq for many month now, this began with the US asking Iran for help in Iraq to insure the safety of the civilian population. Initially Iran declined but then stated later that they would be willing to support Iraq as an independent nation without or with only a reduced number of US soldiers. Which as the Iranian leadership termed it were intruders which would, because they were intruders never be able to insure peace in Iraq. But rather create more problems. The US leadership responded by insuring that the US support for Iraq had not changed and the US president stated that US troops would remain in Iraq until 'the Job is done'. Which if the Iranian prediction is true will never occur. Iran now offered to help the US withdrawing by supplementing the reduced US troops with Iranian troops. Iran states that since their men are more closely involved due to the proximity of their homes to the problem zone and due to greater social, ethnic and religious similarities Iranian troops would have a greater chance of not being seen as an occupational force. As which the US troops are often seen internationally at this point. The Iranian leadership attempted to communicate directly to the US population and the US government was repeatedly attacked for its policies further the letter stated repeatedly that the 'noble' people of the US were not responsible for those problems at this point because their leaders had made the mistakes leading here.
How the US will react to the increasing pressure is to be seen.

Here are links to some related articles
Iran 'will help US to leave Iraq' (BBC)
Iraq Policy (Paladin101)
Iraq (Paladin101)
Iran and Iraq (Paladin101)
The US government uses 'the' term now too (Paladin101)
Iraq... (Paladin101)
US-Jet Down? (Paladin101)
Trail Flawed (Paladin101)

Wii mania

Nintendo shipped Globally four million Wiis of which in Europe nearly none are left int the stores, North America and many other areas suffer under the same problem. Four million Wiis gone almost instantly people left wanting more because the market was not covered sufficiently. Nintendo expects that all Wiis should be absorbed by the market by today, and states with some luck (for the consumers) Wiis will suffice until Sunday.
This extreme boom does make the Wii a rapid starter and is likely to put it into direct competition with the current sales leader the XBOX 360.
Yet there is still some ground to cover since the XBOX 360's sales are close to 20 million units sold Globally.

Here are some related articles
Wii shortages frustrating gamers (BBC)

A Mars with flowing water?

The National Space Agency or NASA has been looking for flowing water on Mars because that would make the Colonizing or creation of an outpost easier. In the past years it was understood that there was water on the Mars but that this water was in a frozen state due to the low temperatures on the Mars. The NASA has continued to monitor Mars to gather general information concerning the planet. Recent pictures of a crater on Mars show a surprising picture which shows a crater with a small amount of frozen water there, water which had not been there in 1999. This brings an old question once more, which is there life on Mars since if there is a flow of water it is likely that there would be some sort of life form on the Mars. Further flowing water would make colonization and/or an outpost a great deal easier.
Colonization and an outpost differ in the following ways a colony is a collection of civilians living in a new territory claimed by a certain group while and outpost is a military and/or scientific installation which usually is rotated with other crews in a certain cycle which means that they a) do not live there and b)are being payed to sit there or make certain experiments but not produce anything.

Relevant articles to this issue
'Flowing water' found on Mars (Al Jazeera)
The first Space colony? (Paladin101)

And here is a link to Google Mars (Google)

First Advent present...

Here is a small gift to bring you slowly into a more 'Christmasy' moot, I will provide a video Clip each week until Christmas...n_n...I hope that you can enjoy them. This also might help you to relax after those other articles... The Music Video is titled: Weird Al Yanlovic-Amish paradise

Who owns the world?

Supporters of the Capitalistic principles over the Socialistic and/or communistic ones always promote the freedom of choice that it possible to work your way out of being poor. Now this might be true for the occasional lucky one but on the average that fairy tale does not come true. Why should it? How would it be economical possible? First there is no reason as to why it this should happen second economically it would mean extreme inflation, if most people are rich, then everything gains in value since you can ask for more, but that means that someone has to be paid more as well. Now this always happens but at a very slow rate now say that suddenly everyone would be rich, technically it is not that the worth of the environment changes but rather of the money which then loses value extremely fast since everyone has it. It is basically not economically feasible to have the fairy tale come true for a greater portion of the society. So why is this believe there, as a tool for more power? Maybe but that question goes beyond the scope of this article. What are the effects of this believe? It induces the feel of comfort and assures you that there is somewhere out there a put filled with gold under your own private rainbow. Does this necessarily reflect 'reality' apparently not. This believe is then supported by such things as lotteries and gambling which emulate the chance to win something or to 'achieve' something that would allow one to escape this society.
A recent study of the UN found that 2% of the world population owned more then half of the world wealth, this wealth is in land, technology etc. Those two percent see no need for gaining more they have everything and the ones that do not have as much see it and believe that they can reach it if they just work hard enough.
This allows these two percent to continue owning as much or more as they have without the threat of someone taking it away from them.
Of course now the question is posed would the solution be to redistribute the world's wealth to everyone more or less equally? That is unlikely since such a sudden change would be to extreme and create problem with people that never had such resources available to them.
I will now leave with the question, why did this develop and why did people let this go this far?

Here is a related Article
Richest 2% own 'half the wealth' (BBC)

The first Space colony?

NASA now officially declared that, the plan to land on the moon and establish a base will reach its critical phase with the first landing and the establishment of an outpost. This of course sounds more like something out of an Sci-Fi novel or movie then reality. The benefits that NASA envisions from creating a base on the moon are several. First they want to use this base to increase the knowledge about the universe and the creation of the planet and hope to answer some more questions relating to where live comes from. Further this expedition is likely to increase international cooperation since this is a multi-national effort. Further it can increase our 'economical sphere' or simply put we can use the moon for resources. Further the moon project would allow for a Sandbox which relatively close for manned missions to Mars. Further it could then be used as a launch platform for manned missions to the Mars and eventually to other planets.
Is all that just a nice dream? It is unlikely since NASA and other Space Agencies seem to be very motivated to complete this mission and succeed in creating this colony. All this sounds as id our Sci-Fi fantasies are coming true, or at least some of them are. Of course one has to remember that this would be true for many technologies we use today such as the car, the Internet or simply the Computer and most other technologies we use today. Were considered 'Sci-Fi' or impossible to achieve this is a very ambitious project which is likely to consume a great deal of resources, yet this gamble might well pay off.

Here are links that offer some information concerning this issue.
Why the moon? Poster (NASA)
Moon, Mars and beyond (NASA article)

Nuclear Submarines to stay in UK?

Tony Blair stated that it would be dangerous for Britain to stop having a contingent of nuclear weapons, this would not reflect a Cold War way of thought he says but rather the facing of the reality that nuclear weapons can be obtained by many forces today. This indicates that the new school of thought is that we are surrounded by nuclear and/or other catastrophic weapons aka Biological and chemical weapons. That everywhere one of those weapons could wait and that the only protection against that threat are more of those weapons. That then in turn are placed in 'strategic' positions which allow us to shoot anyone who might be responsible for the devastating strike against us. Further this school of thought does not indicate action but reaction, that the strike can and will happen, and that all we can do is to be able to destroy anyone who might be responsible.

A Link to a related article
UK nuclear weapons plan unveiled

Al Jazeera and BBC

I have used both as sources for recent events quite often, and both seem to me to be good sources. Yet, both differ in a very interesting point, which is style, they both cover similar events and both do in a manner that allows the reader to follow comfortably. Now Al Jazeera has bold titles such as 'Rumsfeld admitted Iraq failings' this is not wrong but it does but a aggressive note on the article before it is being read. While the BBC on the other hand supplies more diplomatic titles such as 'Rumsfeld urges Iraq tactic shift' now both these headlines cover the same event, yet the BBC one puts a very different light on the issue without having read either of the articles.
I would like to add two things here, first the BBC is a British governmentally owned and Al Jazeera began as Qatar governmentally owned, while Al Jazeera is now privatized the BBC to my knowledge still is owned by the British government.
The BBC takes a very diplomatic approach while Al Jazeera takes aggressive attacks to do the same as the BBC attempts to do which to tell the 'truth'.

Iraq Policy

The US-governments answer to problems in Iraq was that the troop number should be increased, President Bush stated that the US-forces would remain in Iraq until the 'job' was done. Iran has pushed the US towards the leaving or at least reducing their military presence in Iraq arguing that peace would not be achievable as long as US troops would remain in Iraq. Further the Iranian leadership stated that it would be willing to aid Iraq, once the US-troops had left, because before that it would be a wasted effort. Since the US-forces were an outside force, that had invaded the daily lives of the Iraqi population. One also has to consider the territory in which Iraq lies changed hands very often and this created an area which had no cultural roots. In the 30's the western powers drew the map for the middle east and did not let the regional population create their own countries. This might have created some of the conflicts in the middle east artificially. Rumsfeld the 'almost' ex-secretary of defense stated that it was apparent that the current Iraq policy was not working, that it might be better for the peace in Iraq to reduce the number of US-soldiers in Iraq and focus more on training the Iraqi police and military force. So that those could eventually deal with the challenges they face. Rumsfeld the person that is facing a legal challenge concerning war crimes and that was often criticized for his 'gun-ho' behavior is now also the first member or 'almost' ex-member of the US government to state this. It is an odd development, it could reflect his lack of risking a political carrier since his has already suffered greatly, maybe that he his trying to get around the legal challenge, but independently of those possibilities he might simply be saying his mind. This is a very new course for Rumsfeld and a challenge to the current administration.

Here are two related articles
Rumsfeld admitted Iraq failings (Al Jazeera)
Rumsfeld urged Iraq tactics shift (BBC)

WoW trail

World of Warcraft is being offered for free for a ten-day trail in which you can try the entire game out for ten days for free...n_n...I must say I have wanted to check WoW out ever since it came out and after a few hours on there I can understand what all the hype was about it is a fun and engaging game. If you have some time to spare and a decent internet connection you should definitely try it out!!!

WoW Trail site

have fun and enjoy...n_n

Gamers to buy their own world

Gamers are aspiring to buy the source code to a online based, game and, the gamers already managed to collect more then 60.000 euros.
This is a very interesting new development in the area of gaming, the Gamers want to begin to distribute the source for free. This if successful could show a great shift in the gamer to company relationships. This is shows that some Gamers do not wish to be subjugated by the companies.

Here is the full story
Gamers aspire to take over world (BBC)

New Form of war

The US has warned that banking websites and and the stock market could be attacked by the Al-Quaeda. This is the beginning of a new form of warfare, orienting itself on economics instead of of the military or the civilian population this would aim directly at the economic base of the enemy. Making even an army of 50 a very dangerous one which could circumvent the entire American military, and yet still cripple it if successful.
Of course this makes it sound very easy, but the websites are protected by firewalls and heavy encryptions, further those sites are monitored by administrators, that are supposed to stop hackers. This and the fact that the hackers would have a limited amount of time to hack successfully and evade tracking, or be gone from the point at which they would be hacking. The hacking itself is one not easy secondly it would require people with a working knowledge of the programs employed, and of course of the programming language employed. Further the hacker would have to have a working knowledge of security protocols used, all this is not easy, then again it is cheaper then fighting a shooting war. This is a most interesting development.

Here are related articles
US issues cyber attack warning (Al Jazeera)
US warns of al-Qaeda cyber threat (BBC)