Mass Effect

A burning sensation

2009-01-16T20:44:01+01:00

The head of the UN's relief agency in Gaza City, UNWRA, has stated that the UNWRA HQ in Gaza was hit and set on fire by three shells fired by the Isreali Defence Forces. He continued to say that the shells contained white phosphorus. Under the UN Covention On Certain Conventional Wepons, the use of white phosphrous is banned in built up areas. The British Army uses it as a smoke screen, as do many others, which is legal. The US has admitted to using it against people in Iraq, but the US is Not a party to the treaty.

Isreal is.

The law is a donkey, but when it is not enforced it is an ass. When it's contravention is ignoredby the 4th estate (ie. the press), truth becomes stillborn.

Luckily the shells missed some fuel trucks in UNWRA HQ, because the trucks were bravely driven away while their garage was on fire, which adverted many deaths.

Nevertheless an official of the UN has clear evidence that a country has been lying to the UN, breaking its Treaty Obligations and grandstanding to the world armed with lies. The truth is an ugly beast but its all we have between science and art (+relgion)*

White Phosphorus is classed as an incendiary weapon as it burns at 30c. If inhaled it blisters the lungs causesing suffocation. If in contact with the skin it burns the flesh until removed while the blood is poisoned. While most people regard a gas that inhaled and burns you from the inside out as a chemical weapon, the world currently doesn't.
That must end.

*Science gives us observable knowledge, truth is what the invidual knows to be knowledge, art dispenses with knowledge, religion claims knowledge through faith.

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D-Y-S-L-E-X-I-A and Educashun

2009-01-14T16:01:51+01:00

£78 million pounds is the alleged cost of specialist Dyslexia teaching in the UK. Waste of money. Yes says MP Graham Stringer:

"Certified dyslexics get longer in exams," he said. "There has been created a situation where there are financial and educational incentives to being bad at spelling and reading.

"It is time that the dyslexia industry was killed off and we recognised that there are well known methods for teaching everybody to read and write."

First of all, I have to declare an interest. I am dyslexic. I believe that I was born that way and that my children might faces similliar problems. Secondly, I wouldn't be wrting this blog where it not for the help of the 'dyslexia industry'.

At primary school a visting physiotherapist was taken aside by a teacher who asked why would it be that the child with the highest reading age in the class was the 2nd worst speller and was still unable to read his own handwriting. Was there anything physically wrong with him?
Luckily for me her sessions at the school, which were for children with serious medical conditions such as Spina Biffida etc, took place during 'reading time', too basic for me so i found myself playing games with people with degenerative diseases and the physically handicapped.
Great Fun.
What quickly emerged was that I was phyiscally ok, (the intial idea was it was motor co-oridination, a hand-eye problem) and seeing that i could throw, catch etc perfectly., I was referred to a Education Psychologist who eventually issued a diagnosis of dyslexia. From then on I recieved specialist support from my secondary school, it had a specialist teacher attached, and privatly via the Dyslexia Institute (saints each and everyone of them).
For my exams i recieved 25% extra time and the use of a computer. While the extra time was rarely used, the computer allowed me to do my exams. I doubt i would of passed my GCSE's if i had to have hand written them, (ive now got 13, 4-0levels and a BA).
I never really learned how to write, in the sense of forming letters, but my spelling imporved alot via the phonetics system but crucially it was the confidence and ability to identify my strengths that allowed me to move on. Computers solved the letter formation problem, teaching + spell checkers eased the spelling issue and if you don't like my bad paragraphing, overlong sentances, missing words or dodgy grammer then you can just fuck off, that includes you Mr Stringer... but it would of been a lot worse otherwise.

P.S Stringer (MP Blackley, Manchester) mentions the sucess of Niguragua in achiving " literacy rates of nearly 100%". The UN Human Development Report of 2007/2008 lists Nicaragua has having a literacy rate of 76%. (CIA says 67%)
A man who lets rants in his local paper about education, (who has not spoken about, asked about, or sat on any comittees about education, while in parliament), while citing figures he does not source and are plain wrong - must be a politician.

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Games In Review

2009-01-06T18:55:46+01:00

2008 - oh what a lovely year..or was it? Lets take a look at last year's gaming highlights.

FPS- or First Person Shooter.

Crysis Warhead - PC

For £15 this gem of a shooter incoperates standard FPS conventions and a measly 7-8hr gamplay on the single player mode. However the multiplayer mode comes with a large number of maps and will provide great gameplay for a while to come. Vehicles such as heli's and tanks play apart but this is no Battlefield 2. Crysis is fast and frantic and requires 1gb Ram and realistically a 512MB graphics card to keep up with the award winning graphics. Great value for money on a FPS, Crysis fits the bill. Available via Steam and Games For Windows now.

RPG
Two massive releases this year. One set in Washington the other in Liberty City, aka New York. The crucial difference lies with the settings. Post- Apocalyptic Washington provides the backdrop for Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3. Described as Oblivion with Guns, Fallout 3 provides around 80 hrs of gameplay. A massive world, a interesting shooting system and decent voice acting, including Donald Sutherland's. Fallout 3 is a lovely, well crafted RPG that again rasies the bar for RPG gaming. With a wonderful attention to detail the world created above and below ground bleeds atmosphere through the restricted colour palettes of the nculear wasteland. While not a perfect game it gets everything sufficiently right to mean you can spend 40 hrs of game time in the wasteland and never be bored.

Casual / Puzzle

There is only one possible contender for this prize. Simply because it has grabbed so many non gamers with its gameplay, art style and price. For £15 World Of Goo is the is simply, tricky but always logical. Think of it a Meccano meets Lemmings with an art style stolen The Nightmare Before Christmas. Good clean fun.

http://2dboy.com/games.php

Children and War - Reflections on War (2)

2009-01-06T16:50:32+01:00

As I write this the Isreali Defence Force is sending tanks into the Gaza. In an effort to stop rocket attacks on southern Isreal. Nobody with any knowledge of the issue will claim that there is a millitary solution to the conflict. They hope that there might be, but in reality there won't be. Gaza is a a large prison. Containing 1.5 million inmates, the entrance and exits are controlled by the IDF, who decide what and when people can eat, drink and heat their homes by controlling the flow of goods to the area. This daily monotony, is the real tragedy of the middle east conflict. The curtailment of dreams, massive unemployment, lack of educational and health facilities and restrictions on travel, mean that Palestinians are forced to live shortened, restricted lives. If you believe in freedom and self determination then you must support the state of Isreal's right to exist but equally the Palestinians' too.

Television screens are now showing imags of maimed children, killed by Isreali bombs. while in the name of balance an Isreali home is shown with a small rocket crater outside and the reporter ernestly saying that a baby was inside at the time. Children are often seen as the victims of these conflicts and indeed they are. However spare a thought for the a man who lost his wife and his children in a bomb attack yesterday. He was once a child who had his future in front of him. He grew up, got married, had children and lost it all in an afternoon. Where is this man's life now? He is undoubtedly easy prey now for Hamas, and I would not be surprised if he is later firing rockets. After all what has he got to lose? His country? His family? His home?

Children are our future, but peace will only be achieved if they have a future to grow up to.

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Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism

2009-01-06T03:06:12+01:00

"I am on the rock and then I check a stock
I have to run like a fugitive to save the life I live
I'm gonna be Iron like a Lion in Zion"
-Iron,Lion, Zion -1973

So sung Bob Marley back in 1973. For him and the Rastafari church, Zion lies in in Ethiopia and represents a utopia as opposed to Babylon. Zion is also a hill in Jerusalem where the Rastarfari drew their inspiration. Zionism however, is a lot younger than that and has nothing to do with Bob. Theodore Hertzl, noted as many European Jews did, that the relative populations where falling during the 19th century. With increasing urbanism, and increased travel, many Jews were marrying out of their traditional Jewish communities and not preserving the faith and customs. 'Jewishness' is passes only through the female line, which again contributed to the relative decline. Anti-semitism in parts of Europe and Russia brought the issue more urgency and Zionism was born. Zionism basically aims for the creation and protection of a homeland for Jews. So far so straight forward. In a time when nationalism was sweeping the world, uness you were being colonised of course, it was unsurprising that a call for nationalism would find resonance.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Its off to Isreal we go!

Lets skip foward the best part of a century and we find the world at war (again) and the brutal evidence of the most horriffic crime perpetrated that century and possibly any other. The Nazi Holocaust. This represents the greatest failure of European civilisation. What has compounded that, has been Europes willingness to continue with the language of the 'Jewish Question'. In essence, what shall we do with the Jews?, a reflection that Jews have been in the minority, and so have often been subject to the whim of others, but this rejects the fundementals of the Enlightenment Nationalism that help propel the Zionist dream into a possible reality. No nation state lays claim to being in habited by a single race, nor aims to be. This includes Israel, in practice as Arab Israeli are recieve, on paper, full citizenship. This is more enforced that not. The langauge though used is Zionist, which makes no reference to Arabs as part of the Jewish state.
The post war European response, support for Isreal, has been cloaked in veil of democracy. While the formation of Isreal has been portrayed as the result of the self determination of Jews, most Jews don't live in Isreal. Most Jews have self-determined themselves and are in the United States. A signficant percentage also remain in Europe (20%). (Figures obtained from the Jewish People Planning Institute - a partisan body.)

What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!

In all districts bar Jaffa, Non Jews outnumbered Jews in 1946 in what is now Isreal and the Occupied Territories(UN1947). Today, despite the massive exodus of people from their homes in 1946-48 and again afterwards, Isreal is left with an Arab population of around 20%. In the Knesset, the Parliament of Isreal, they have around 8% of the seats. But 20% is still a lot of people. In the land of the highest Jewish concentration, a question has loomed since the Zionist dream started to take physical reality.
That question:

Its now what shall we do with the Arabs?

"We the People in The Land Of god"

This question was asked recently by the Central Election Comission, which is made up of Isreali political parties. On a motion sponsored by two parties, described by the BBC as 'ultra-nationalist', two of the largest Arab parties were accused of "not recognise(ing) Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state." A vast majoirty of the other parties voted for the motion. So they are banned from standing in elections. This not a judicial decision it was the other Jewish parties ganging up to stop Arab voters voting for parties that represented their interests.

"I am the Law. Put down your weapons and prepare to be judged." -Judge Dredd (1995)

Many populations have occupied the east bank of the Mediterreanean, following the tides of its maritime fortune or traversing the lands of asia beyond. The Palestinian Mandate given to the British, resulted in a document that solved the Jewish question. The area that was Palestine would become a homeland for the Jews. This is different to a Jewish state. After violence broke our after the second world war, a comission was set up to decided the future of the land, and a partition plan was decided upon. 56% was given to the new Jewish state, and 44% to the Arabs. The UN agreed. This is despite the fact Jews had recently asassinated the UN mediator, the first ever appointed and of course killed. After the UN vote, Jews celebrated and the Arabs complained, that the UN couldn't impose the creation of new states against the objections of the majority of the people involved. They didn't get anywhere. The UN resolution (181) is even mentioned in Israel's declaration of independance. Since that time, Israel has expanded through the use of force, while never being able to answer its' own 'Arab Question'. The cause of the tragedy of Isreal lies in the famous phrase used to describe the Zionist project. -

" A land without people for a people without land."

Its just not, and never was, true.

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Reflections on War (1)

2009-01-06T02:18:30+01:00

A while back, when Lebanon was invaded by Isreal inorder to shut down Hizbollah, I went to a festival. I was carrying a large Palestinian flag and a Italian peace flagm both on the same pole, I had been at a demonstration calling for a ceasefire earlier in the day. Within minutes of passing the festival gates, a Palestinian man came with his family to say hello, thinking i was
Palestianian. He then talked ernestly about the war and condemned (Isreali Prime Minister) Olmert for the attacks. All the time waving his raspberry yoghurt precariously over his child. " My family all live around there, we are not Hizbollah but Israeli bombs don't care". I thought about the bombs dropping in Lebanon and the yoghurt about to fall on the little girl's head and said nothing about the it. Stumped for anything to say I watched as the yoghurt dropped and as the little girl cried out, before saying goodbye.
            With yoghurt on the brain I decided to head for a stall before joining my friends. While vainly enquiring if they had "any goats?", i was approached by a elderly gentlemen who was suprised by a latino trying to poke his eye out with a 8 ft poll with the palestinian and, what looks like the gay liberation flag on it. I apologised and we fell into conversation about middle eastern yoghurt. I know nothing about it and fessed up to being latino, whereupon he told me about middle eastern food to the point i thought he was going to invite me to his restaurant. When he reliesed that he had lost me - he started to explain.
"I was stationed there, after the war. I was there when they blew up the King David Hotel.". This revelation threw me. To meet someone who was at an actual historical event intrigued me, so i kept asking him questions. It was when he was talking about the death of his collegues in the rubble, that I realised that it had been one of the major moments of his life. He had been on duty that day and was on the street when the hotel exploded. Fifty five years later he could still see it clearly in his mind.
      Sadly my interrorgation was cut short by the arrival of his children, with their children in tow. I smiled and said goodbye, thinking of the British and Palestian families, both who survived the mess of the formation of Israel to continue their lives, one able to return to their homeland in 1948, one not.

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Ask Not What Your Internet Can Do For You But What You Can Do For Your Internet

2008-10-22T22:15:06+02:00

An old friend of mine once had a postcard with the slogan 'Use your vote - u know they will' coupled with a picture of a homophobe with a placard. On a similar note several of Al Qaida related sites have been taken down, probably by US intelligence services, though that would be illegal.... Anway, the internet is a rich source for activism. Its key features of (now ever decreasing) anonymity, range of reach and breadth of depth means you can find someone, somewhere who agrees with you even if its about what the rightful colour of a amazonian poisoned arrow frogs shold be, or more commonly about the best place to buy an Ipod. Either way these are often receptive or 1-1 conversations. Even forums which allow many users to post are little more than a modern way of leaving a urine trail across the internet.

Ah But!

"The point is not just to understand the world but to change it."

Most of us work to live, while some live to work we still infuse each sphere of our lives with our personality as much as we think is appropriate. Each of us is aware of the time we have on the earth and wish to spend some of it living out our own take on existance as we see fit. Many of use the internet to chat, arrange and share various things but few of use the internet to contribure to the wider world. We just use the net to find different, pre-determined points of reality to latch on to. A virtual tube that connects us directly to the info we seek, be it in airlines in spain or friends in Nepal.

I ask you to find something via the internet, that requires the internet, that you can do to contribute something towards something that is greater than those around and yourself. We each have skills and knowledge
Good examples would be:

Become a Wikipedia editor! - Requirements - Internet, brain, lack of axe to grind
Become a Gutenberg Proof reader - Compare scanned pages to text and proof read so that out-of-copyright books can be re-published for download, for FREE! FOREVER!

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life -SETI- allows you to download programs that speed up the decoding of all sorts of space noise, find an alien, win a cuddly toy...
************
Leave a comment below or email me with your on-line 2nd job or fav pastime and I'll plug it. :)

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In The Beginning...

2008-10-14T04:17:41+02:00

There are gonna be two types of people who are going to read this. The first are going to know what Spore is, so if you want to know my opinions, come and ask me, but it's the second group who rarely, if ever, play a computer game that this article is for because that is who the game is aimed at.
Spore is a simulation that could possibly double for several chapters of the national ciriculum. Its a game where you guide your player created species through the five stages of Spore evolution; soup, creature, tribal, civilisation and finally, space. Coupled with most of the stages are editors the allow you to design your creature and some of its houses, cars and clothes. The early stages in the primordial soup, and later, the creature stage are cute and endearing but boil down to collection and the repeation of a narrow range of actions. The consistant repeating lets the game down, even in the later and broader, space stage. However they serve as an plesant entry to the game, paced much around 20Mph in a 30Mph zone.

A Kordita & Family

Stages three and four involve moving your much loved creatures to employ violence, or the power of religion and occasionally music to win over your neighbours. The space stage has you in a trading empire to ally, conquer or buy out your fellow space species.
Have I bored you yet. Suspect so. Spore is a computer game but crucially it is a simulation which means that it owes more to its source material and gengre than normal computer games rules. Spore, on the other hand, has tried to incorporate normal computer gamer achetypes, collect, build, kill etc, and wraped then around year 8 science.
At the core of Spore are two things, its ability to let you create your own creature and follow them as the develop through the five stages and the its concept of evolution that links the experiance together. Keeping with evoltuiton, Spore encourages you to collect items that serve as body parts that can then be added to your creature. Extra eyes, legs, arms and heads can all be placed but the game encourages sensible rules. More teeth and claws lead to a better carnivore where as the ability to sneak is useful for herbivore. Not very complicated or deep but it stops the player making obviously stupid looking animals. Sadly the game lacks any real flying or swimming animals but I expect the former to be included in expansion pack.
So is it fun? Well yes it is. For a regular gamer all the gameplay elements are limited and unoriginal, but the newcomer will probably appriciate the straight forward nature of progressing throught the game. The real joy with Spore is creating your creatures and letting them loose on your galaxy and in other people's.
How?
-Hair Ad moment alert!-
Spore allows you to creature your creature and upload it to Spore.com. When you get to the Space stage of Spore you are in a galaxy with several thousand planets, some with animals. Where do all those different animals come from? They are all copies of other people's creations. As you play the game it quietly downloads them from the web or you can check out the massive selection and find something suitibly wacky or tasteless from the massive database. Somewhere, someone is trying to befriend, bribe or extermiate my dear Jaksters or Korditas.

The possibilties of the editors are endless

In fact the game even updates you if someone else encounters one of your creations and commits genocide for example. It means nothing for your game but nevertheless it induces a 'you b'stard' every time you check. (Takamax - I know who you are!)
Spore's space stage revels the masterplan. Each planet can be coloured and shaped as you desire. It can be populated by the plants you choose and the animals you download or abduct. As there are millions of creatures available, the galaxy can be designed as you want it.
Spore tries to tell a story with your creature at its centre and it does this with stylish graphics and groundbreaking animation but is it fun? Yes, but mostly in proportion to how much you care about your creature.

Scoring:
Normally the five elements would add up to a 6 at best. Saying that, the animation and editors are groundbreaking and the great take on the evolution theme can't be ignored. Coupled with Spore.com always providing new creatures, buildings and vehicles, Spores scores a:

8.2/10
Verdict: Good, but not Godlike

Summary: Graphics from Pixar, Gameplay from the Learning Channel.

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The Haider they come, the Haider they fall!

2008-10-11T15:58:14+02:00

Jorge Haider, former leader of the right wing Austrian Freedom Party was killed in a car crash, no foul play is suspected. He and the party he led was often seen as anti-european, anti-semitic and pro nazi. Israel pulled its ambassador form Austrian when the party became part of the federal government in 1999. Someone once said that if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all - so I won't.

Thankfully Stepan Pletz, Haider spokesman and party secetary, filled the gap.
"For us, it's like the end of the world" he said.

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Where's the beef?

2008-10-11T15:41:29+02:00

No beef here!

Not in Caracas.

McDonald's Corporation, purveyor of burgers and chips to millions has been forced to shut its doors in Venezuela for 48 hours. In a drive unrelated to the rise in obesity or yankee imperialism, the Venezuelan authorities ordered the temporary closure for 'irregularities' with their books. For two whole days the country was McDonalds free!
Ten years ago McDonalds exploited children with its advertising, was culpably responsible for cruelty to animals and that Mcdonalds workers did badly when it came to pay and conditions. How do I know? - because a judge said so.
Then a more important judge said if one eats enough McDonald's food, one's diet may well become high in fat etc., with the very real risk of heart disease."
Yes, it took a two massive hearings to conclude that eating shit can kill you. Biritish Justice at its best.
Anway that was a long time ago, McDonalds has stopped all that child exploiting advertsing. Look at the their annual report and you can see that they've moved on to adults.

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An Elephant in the room.

2008-09-03T20:31:42+02:00

But this time everybody is talking about it including uber scholar Lindsey Lohan. Seventeen, yes 17!, year old Bristol Palin, daughter of Vice presidential Republican candidate, is pregnant and the father is a local ice hockey star (he's from Alaska) and they are going to get married. So that's all right then.
NO its not!
Teenage pregnacy in the US is the higher than anywhere in the 'developed world' despite it falling from over 10% of births. The age of majority in the United States is effectivly 21. However on life and death issues then it is seen as acceptable to die for the flag or add another citizen to its numbers below that age. The United States is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the rights of the child, the only country along with Somalia (who has no govenment who can sign) who not have ratified the treaty. Indeed the World Health Organisation states:
"More countries have ratified the Convention than any other human rights treaty in history?192 countries had become State Parties to the Convention as of November 2005."
Indeed the US's focus on preserving young life led it to abolish the death penalty for those under 16 in 1988 and for under 18's in 2005, and only at the behest of the Supreme Court.

My grumble, is not with a culture of double standards, or the stupidity of abstinence based sex education but to paraphrase Maude Flanders (deceased) of Simpsons fame - "Won't someone think of the children!" In this case that, sadly, means both mother and child. Youthful indescresion or sex and drugs as its better known can wreck lives but usually don't. However if caught with drugs (and especially if you're black and male) this indiscretion can lead to long prison sentances. Bristol, on the other hand is white, rich and well connected. She will be fine as will her child. Youth is wasted on the young, true - but that is no excuse to throw it away.
****

Trig Palin - Bristol's brother... or not?
Babble.com has listed a few interesting facts, devotees of Desperate Housewives will understand the plot here...

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The Month Ahead - September

2008-09-03T02:02:23+02:00

Introducing a regular feature of Mass Effect, a monthly preview of gaming, with the fabulous month of Septmeber.

First up, the PC!

South Asian tradition tells of the Blind Man and the elephant, a tale about a man trying to describe an elephant to his blind friend. I feel much the same this month. The reasons for the is trepidation is that this friday Europe braces itself for Will Wright's new magnun opus, Spore. Billed as five games in one, Spore seeks to live up to the description of "evolutionary biology in a box." Don't cancel the BSC quite yet but don't expect too many elephants either....
Spore is due for release on Friday (UK & Europe) but 3.2 million user created creatures can be viewed at Spore.com. My contributions can be viewed here!
Expect more updates and picutres plus a full review!

Warhammer Age Of Reckoning

Yes its another fantasy based MMORPG. Yes it uses the Warhammer license, from Games Workshop but will it be any better than World of Warcraft of even Lord of the Rings online? The answer is... we'll wait and see. With any MMO the launch months are the most critical. Conan suffered from incomplete content but Warhammer claims to be finished, however they did some major changes last minute. Check back after release for 1st impressions.

Honorable mention- Flight Simulator X -Complete Edition - for all those veteran flight simmers out there...or the perfect software for budding pilots. Please note: flight simming can lead to serious hardware addiction.

Nintendo Wii -Tiger Woods 'bla bla' '09.

Another year and another round of EA sports titles with '09 slapped on them. Having fond memories of pitch 'n' put in Leytonstone I took the plunge to relive them via Tiger Woods and the Wii. Tiger Woods '09 is a quality game but a very heavily US game whose overbearing tone can quickly irritate. A case in point would be the addition of a condescending trainer whose sole purpose seems be to get you replay your own worst holes and be the focus of your swearing. If you thought golf on the Wii seems appealing then Tiger Woods '09 delivers the goods with robust single, multi and online play, get it. Best played drunk with friends as many of the best Wii games are.

Samba De Amigo -
A very strange remake of a rather strange game. Essentially a rhythm game where you shake your controllers like maracas to match beats. Best for children or university studies on hallucinogens. Start waving like a mariachi on Sept 23

Xbox & PS3

Viva Pinata

While maracas are from Puerto Rico, its Mexico's Pinatas that feature in Rare's mini masterpiece. Viva! is essentially a game about between garden design for multi coloured roaming pinata. This games didn't get the sales it deserved so go lavish some attention on it later this month.

Program of the Month: Punkbuster
Punkbuster (P is a program that runs in the background with some FPS. It detects and kicks players caught cheating and griefing.

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Welcome To Mass Effect!

2008-09-03T01:43:43+02:00

Welcome to the Mass Effect blog. New Today!

This blog hopes to contribute to the milleu of information and opinion that is the internet. Please email Mass-Effect-blog@hotmail.co.uk for with any questions, comments and corrections. Please enjoy.

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