Monthly Archives: June 2011

Watching as Greece falls apart

Athens has become a battlefield of late. The country has to save 28 billion Euro by 2015 or risk default. I’d ask how the hell that happened but then all you have to do is look at the mess Ireland is in. Sure, they’re very different situations but the end result is the same. Recession and austerity.

How did things get so bad in Greece? This post might go some way to explaining things.

You see, as precipitous as the rise in national debt has been over the last couple of years, it is still amateur stuff compared to the way we piled on the debt between 1981, the year of ??????, the Change, ushered in by a massive 48% majority, (Time coverage here) and 1993, when the Maastricht rules finally started to bite and we were forced to pull the handbreak on our burgeoning government budget.

Didn’t the Irish Government do something like that in the 70’s? Borrow and borrow and borrow again? Cue Charlie Haughey’s famous quote in 1980. Even though he was living the high life the rest of the country suffered through a bad recession in the 80’s, as it is now..

I don’t know what’s going to happen in Greece. The impression I’ve got from the media here is of a country of self employed people who mostly don’t pay taxes and where jobs go to family members (rather than on merit), of a massive civil service that people aspire to join rather than go into private business (due in no small part to the fact that family members get the best jobs). How depressing but as an outsider looking in I don’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction!

For more, follow some English speaking Greek people on Twitter:

Photos of the protests: 1, 2, 3, 4.

These days will pass, but I have a feeling the EU and the world at large will be a very different world.

The Wonderful End of the Minecraft World

I just found out about a new mod for Minecraft, Kataminey Damacraft or Katamari Damacy for Minecraft. I have to be honest and admit I’ve never played that game but I have played “The Wonderful End of the World”, the same sort of game on PC. Basically you’re a little ball and have to collect as much of the world as possible.

I’m not going to install it on my Minecraft server but I will give it a go on a local world. (via)

Here are a few settings you should change…

Here are a few settings you should change to improve your game of Team Fortress 2.

Also while we’re here, some spy advice, a config to use if your machine is a bit old and some scripts that might help you but I haven’t tried any of ’em myself so YMMV.

Kinda regretting not taking an offer to get weapons in the Reddit armory now. When I had the chance there were a handful of noobs, now there’s all of you lot too! 🙂

Respect the PC Gamers


(via)

It’s a well known fact that console gamers are scrubs, they’re abusive and unhelpful and rude. They’ll cheat and hack their consoles given half a chance. Isn’t that right?

PC gamers on the other hand are enthusiastic and helpful. They’re mature and civil about their communities. They delight in the strategy and skill required to use a mouse and keyboard. They never call anyone names and accept games as they are, because nobody ever does anything underhand. Isn’t that right?

Oh yes. Gamers everywhere are all the same. No matter what platform they use.

Relevant

Proun will make you dizzy!

Proun, a simplistic but colourful and fun racing game has been released on PC. You can download it for free or support the developer by “paying what you want” and you get access to a new track too.

Check out Joost’s history post about the game. I didn’t realise he was the original author of De Blob!

So, six years of development, how did that even happen? It’s not like Proun is the size of a game like Love, so six years may seem a bit long. In short, there are two reasons:

  • I created Proun in my spare time;
  • there were long intervals during those six years when I didn’t work on Proun at all.

Since Proun pretty much evolved around my life and many projects during the past six years, I feel it makes an interesting story to tell how it came to be. 🙂

Just spotted the RPS review and I’m sure Quintin won’t mind me quoting him:

Wot I Think: Proun

I am a leaf on the wind ball on a pipe – watch how I soar.

Buy Proun.

Cut the Rope and Burn the Rope for…

Cut the Rope and Burn the Rope for Android can be downloaded for free from getjar.com, but get them soon. Cut the Rope at least will be free for only a week according to this post. Both games are ad-supported. The ads don’t show up on the game screen in Cut the Rope but do on Burn the Rope.

No direct link to the getjar.com game pages unfortunately as it asks for your mobile phone.

Cut the Rope plays just as well as it’s iOS version though I do wonder how well multi touch actions will work on the smaller screen. (Spoiled by the iPad screen and I have big hands!)