Cute little seasonal game from the folks at Nitrome. Thin Ice involves skating a loop around the monsters on the frozen pond to make the ice beneath them fall away.
So when I wrote cute I meant cute in the way that causing monsters to freeze and drown to death in a frozen pond is cute. 
A new enquiry into harmful content on the internet and in video games was launched by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 5 December 2007, Session 2007-08.
The Committee is announcing today a new inquiry into the potential risks from harmful material on the Internet and in video games, with the following terms of reference:
The benefits and opportunities offered to consumers, including children and young people, and the economy by technologies such as the Internet, video games and mobile phones.
The potential risks to consumers, including children and young people, from exposure to harmful content on the Internet or in video games. The Committee is particularly interested in the potential risks posed by:
– Cyber bullying;
– user generated content, including content that glorifies guns and gang violence;
– the availability of personal information on social networking sites;
– content that incites racial hatred, extremism or terrorism; and
– content that exhibits extreme pornography or violence.
Very similar remit to the Byron Review which is examining the risks to children from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games. Though I think the Byron Review is more concerned with videogame violence than the DCMS Committee’s enquiry.
Talking of videogame violence a new bloody trailer for Ninja Gaiden II is out
It seems like there’s almost nothing you can do in this game that doesn’t result in an enemy losing an appendage and spewing forth a geyser of blood.
and Rubbish Pixels has listed The six biggest arseholes in games
The King of All Cosmos, Katamari Damacy
Nothing’s ever good enough for this bearded, carpet-headed bell-end. No matter how big your Katamari is he’ll complain about it being too small. Maybe you shouldn’t have accidentally destroyed the entire cosmos then, you giant regal fuck.
The last character on the list is a bit of a surprise. but on reflection I think I do agree with the assessment.
Since Michael died earlier this year we’ve had real difficulty finding a decent cleaner to replace him at the cinema.
We’ve tried two different cleaning companies but they both turned out to be unreliable. You’d think that if the cleaner was ill or wasn’t able to work for some other reason that the company that we’d hired would find a replacement to do the job for that day as it is the company we have a contract with not the individual cleaner. But no.
So we gave up on them and tried to hire and employ some cleaners directly. We had no trouble in hiring a couple of people to do the job (let’s call them Bob and Margaret, not their real names) splitting the week between them , they both seemed reliable and keen and so we thought our troubles were over.
Until the ghost.
I got a text message yesterday morning informing me that Margaret wouldn’t be able to come in as she was ill. So I ended up having to come in early to give the place a quick once over before customers arrived for our free morning screening of The Assassination of Jesse James.
I come in today to discover that the real reason why Margaret didn’t come into work was that she was afraid of our ghost. But all is not lost as Bob upon learning about Margaret’s fears has decided to exorcise the ghost by burning incense and will accompany Margaret for her next shift to alleviate her fears.
I find that the place is spooky when no one else is around at night, it’s a creaky old building, but it shouldn’t be that bad during the morning because at least it is light outside.
Coudal Partners have published yet another fiendish logic puzzle after their previous doozies such as Einstein’s fish and Which Porn Star Ate the Most Hot Dogs?
However I’m convinced that Let’s Do Lunch is missing some information as I’ve come up with four viable solutions.
The Set Up
Four movie actors are in a cafe, sitting together at a square table, like the one shown here with the seats numbered. They are discussing their most recent projects while waiting for their salads. Each has just returned from a different location where he or she was shooting a different type of film, one of which is a costume drama.
From the information provided can you figure out where each person sat, his or her full name, the location he or she had just returned from, and the type of movie each had shot?
The Details
1. York (who isn’t sitting in seat #1) shot a science fiction movie.
2. The person sitting in seat #2 didn’t just return from Tokyo.
3. Julia is in seat #3.
4. Hannah (who isn’t sitting in seat #4) is across from the person who just returned from Hawaii.
5. Marks is sitting next to the person who just returned from Spain.
6. Moon did not shoot an action thriller.
7. Glory and Robert are sitting next to each other; one of them is surnamed Smith and the other had just returned from Ireland.
8. Robert (who isn’t Moon) shot a romantic comedy.
My solutions
The words in bold are the ones I’ve managed to fix down as being the only possible solution but the rest are variable to some extent.
Seat 1, Glory Marks, action thriller, Ireland
Seat 2, Hannah York, science fiction, Spain
Seat 3, Julia Moon, costume drama, Tokyo
Seat 4, Robert Smith, romantic comedy, Hawaii
Seat 1, Glory Marks, action thriller, Ireland
Seat 2, Hannah Moon, costume drama, Spain
Seat 3, Julia York, science fiction, Tokyo
Seat 4, Robert Smith, romantic comedy, Hawaii
Seat 1, Robert Marks, romantic comedy, Ireland
Seat 2, Hannah York, science fiction, Spain
Seat 3, Julia Moon, costume drama, Tokyo
Seat 4, Glory Smith, action thriller, Hawaii
Seat 1, Robert Marks, romantic comedy, Ireland
Seat 2, Hannah Moon, costume drama, Spain
Seat 3, Julia York, science fiction, Tokyo
Seat 4, Glory Smith, action thriller, Hawaii
After the England football team’s abysmal performance against Croatia last night resulted in them failing to qualify for the Euro 2008 the coach Steve McClaren has been sacked.
Croatia played for and got the win even though it was irrelevant as they were guaranteed to qualify and to top the group unless convincingly beaten by England.
A series of defensive errors cost England the match and apart from a short spell of good play at the start of the second half the players’ underperformed.
England shouldn’t have really been in the position of needing a draw from last night’s match but failing to win matches against lowly ranked Israel and Macedonia earlier in qualifying set them up for the possibility of failure.
Gameplay footage from the new Ghostbusters game which features the voices of the original cast and has been scripted by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
Looks damn awesome! I had the original game for my Spectrum 48k back in the day so this makes me very nostalgic and happy.
In an effort to secure my replacement tax disc so that I don’t have to suffer another break in to my car I’ve used the Secur-i-disc as recommended by both the Police and the DVLA. They describe how it works as follows.
If a thief breaks into a vehicle and steals the tax disc, the unique Secur-i-Disc encapsulation will prevent any alteration for use on another vehicle. Any attempt to alter the details on the tax disc will result in its destruction, thereby preventing the thief from “selling it on”.
Hopefully the result will be that the thief sees the warning and will not even try to break in now.
Damnatus an ambitious fan-film produced by German fans of the Warhammer 40K game, made by the company Games Workshop, may never be seen by an audience according to BBC News due to copyright issues.
The German producers of Damnatus had tried to make the film as professional looking as possible and spent over 10 000 Euros and months of filming on the project. Unfortunately Games Workshop say that due to German copyright law there is a danger of them losing control over their Intellectual Property should they let the fan film be distributed.
Andy Jones, legal and licensing head for Games Workshop, said this law confers rights on the creators of works that cannot be given away.
This means that the creators of Damnatus cannot assign their rights to Games Workshop even if they wanted to.
But by sanctioning the release of the film without this “assignment” Games Workshop would essentially be giving up the title to the Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property.
In a lengthy response explaining the ban on Damnatus Mr Jones wrote: “To lose control of Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 is simply unthinkable.
“So we must be vigilant, and perhaps sometimes seemingly heartless in our decisions to safeguard the IP for the future success of the business and the hobby.”
I have to say that I’m dubious about the truth of Games Workshop’s position here. I’m no expert on German copyright law but I can’t believe there is no possible work around to this obstacle if Games Workshop truly wished to help their German fans release the movie.
If German law is like any other countries’ copyright law then there must be provision within that law to licence the copyrighted works of others to create new works. How else could the movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer have been produced unless their licensed the right from the book’s author Patrick Süskind?
A contract could surely be drawn up to licence the copyright of Games Workshop on a limited basis for a nominal sum of 1 Euro to the German film producers that would allow the movie to be released on a non-commercial basis.
Mr Jones said despite Games Workshop’s “admiration” for Damnatus it could not change its policy and allow the film to be shown.
He said Games Workshop was not acting “malevolently” but that this was a case where an agreement has “failed to be reached”.
Said Mr Jones: “This is perhaps to be regretted, nonetheless in the final analysis we simply have no choice but to say ‘no’.”
I have a feeling that the BBC article does not tell the full story, either there is some genuine confusion here or Games Workshop is saying one thing in public and trying to muddy the waters with talk of copyright issues but is in reality opposed to the release of this movie.
Edit: A commenter at TechDirt with some familiarity of German law suggests that the company find a new copyright lawyer as like I wrote above it’s perfectly possible for them to grant a limited licence to use their copyrighted works without losing control over their Intellectual Property.
Also another commenter suggests that there might be some confusion and it is actually a Trademark issue instead, I could believe that this might be the case but surely there is a workable solution if this is the case too.
How’s your vocabulary?
