Thirteen years in the making and finally Duke Nukem returns.

I’ve just spent an hour or so gunning away on the new Duke Nukem game. Now, bear in mind, I ain’t no hardcore gamer, I’m just an old nostalgia freak. That said, here’s my initial reaction.

Meh!

By today’s standards the games graphics are disappointing. They’re not the worst, but they’re not fantastic either. They are (that worst of condemnations with faint praise) okay.

The sound track is fine too. Lots of noisy explosions. What do you expect.

The voice acting it fine too.

See what I mean. It’s all ‘fine’, but that’s about all you can say really.

The game certainly has the shade of Duke past. And that’s a good thing! At least they haven’t balls up the franchise (like the Tomb Raider lot did eventually). The whole game is (so far) a set of mini scenarios loosely tied to the storyline. Lot’s of things to play with within each scenario (and you’re actively encouraged to investigate every nook and cranny to discover stuff that boosts your maximum Ego (the Duke Nukem equivalent of life) and pick up rewards (although additional weapons seem to simply be supplied through the main game). Side games and the old Duke Nukem attitude are all present and correct. I found myself grinning at several points with flashbacks to the old game. Again, that’s a good thing for old timers like me.

If you’re a hardcore gamer, or if you don’t recall the old Duke Nukem, I’m not sure how much you’ll get from the new Duke Nukem Forever. It’s certainly not going to wow you with its graphics or its gameplay as an FPS. If you just want a laugh, a few base jokes, some innuendo, and half-dressed or naked girls, then you’ll probably find Duke Nukem Forever a bit of fun. If you do recall the old Duke Nukem, I guarantee you’ll find yourself smiling and recalling the old game fondly.

So, not bad, but not outstanding. Fun, but there’s no ‘WOW this is fucking awesome’ to it.

This books is rather an odd fish. Part autobiography, part thesis on human behaviour, and part commentary the book’s core is the tale of Derren performing a trick in the early days of his career when he worked as a close-up magician in a restaurant. During the course of the story of the trick the reader is taken on a meandering series of observations about human behaviour and expositions on other formative events in Derren’s life.

These meanderings all flow nicely and Derren is very open about some quite personal failings and foibles , but I found myself nodding in agreement with many of them. I suspect many of you will find the same, although perhaps not the same subset as myself.

All-in-all the book is fun, engaging, interesting and ultimately satisfying. The unusual narrative structure adds interest to an already interesting life.

My criteria for selecting audiobooks is simple. First, it has to be an audio production of a book I actually want to read and, secondly, it has to be (wherever possible) unabridged. It is a bonus when the book is read by the author and that author has an engaging manner of presentation.

So, I feel perfectly justified in including in my reviews audiobooks. When the audiobook is unabridged I shall often review it without distinction from the book itself, abridged audiobooks I shall always indicate. If I have read the book as well as listened to it, I shall indicate which I prefer and why (most probably because the reader’s presentation seems off or that it benefits the experience).

So what is it? It’s one of these.

I’ve only had time to unbox it and take it for a very quick test drive but DAMN it’s good!

A quick explanation for those not inclined to dig through their web site. The Pulse pen is one seriously neat piece of technology. It is about the size of a slim whiteboard marker and weighs about the same. The tip of the pen consist of a Biro style nib and a small camera. It operates as any normal pen until you write on paper that is marked with very tiny dots. The pattern of the dots communicates to the pen (through the camera) the precise position of the pen tip. The pen also registers when the tip is in contact with the paper. These two pieces of information allow the pen to record exactly what is being written (and, as we shall see shortly, much more besides).

The accuracy of this recording is impressive.

If that were all the pen did I would be recommending alternative, cheaper, solutions. But the Pulse does more. Much more.

The first, and most significant, party trick is that the pen also records audio. So it is a pen and dictation machine in one. This in itself is neat, but the if you write while recording the pen synchronises what is written with what is recorded. Once you finish recording you can play back the audio that corresponds with any piece of the written notes simply by tapping on or close to the written note. Audio playback starts 5 second (by default) before the point you wrote the note you tapped.

The audio recording is outstanding (although on quiet recordings you also get some background from the sound of the pen on the paper, but this is a minor issue). The audio recordings I have made so far with the pen’s internal mic are excellent.

If the internal mic is not sufficient (and Livescribe themselves do not recommend the internal mic when recording in high noise environments such as a large auditorium) you can plug in the combined stereo mic and headphones. This provides full binaural recordings that are synchronised with your notes.

So, we now have record and playback of both written and audio notes. Both writing and audio facilities can also be used independently too.

I said earlier that the camera did much more than simply track the pen’s movement on the page and so it does. Each page is uniquely identified. So if you write a note on the first page of your notebook, then write in another notebook and return to the first to add some notes to the first page, the pen knows that you are writing on the first page of the first notebook again and integrates the new note into the original page recording. The audio is similarly synchronised.

If you make an audio only recording and then later decide to make some written notes you can play back the audio and, as the playback proceeds, write notes into your notebook. The audio is synchronised with the new written notes.

As if this were not enough the Pulse has another trick up it’s sleeve. In the cover of the larger notebooks are printed representations of a calculator and a keyboard. Tapping the buttons on these with the tip of the pen results in the pen display showing the results. So, tapping the calculator buttons causes the calculation and its result to be displayed on the pen’s OLED display. Similarly tapping the keyboard results in typed text.

And there’s more. The pen contains contains some applications (and there is an application store to add more). These applications include a calculator that once initiated will recognise a written calculation and will produce the result once the ‘=’ sign is written, through to a piano. To use the piano you draw a piano keyboard on the page and then tap out tunes on the drawn keys. Okay, not especially useful, but kinda cool in a geeky way.

Another application is the translator. With this, you select the target language, say Spanish, then write out the word to be translated and the pen then speaks the translate word. Probably not a feature I will use, but a neat tool if you need it and a geeky tick if you don’t.

The special notebooks come in a variety of sizes and though not cheap are not ridiculously priced. Additionally the desktop tool that accompanies the pen can be used to print new pages providing your printer is sufficiently high quality to produce accurate 600dpi output.

The pen’s 4Gb of memory allow for about 400hrs of stored audio and many, many pages of notes, to be held on the pen itself.

When the pen is connected to the desktop software all the notes are uploaded to the desktop application where they can be subsequently viewed and played back much as they can from the pen.

A third-party add-on to the desktop application provides handwriting recognition. Once notes are in the desktop application a single click converts them to type. This feature is useful because it makes your notes indexable by the OS X spotlight system. The recognition is incredibly accurate for straightforward linear notes written on the lines of the paper, but falls apart when text is written at an angle. It did a creditable job with my spider scrawl. If you mainly write linear textual notes then the handwriting recognition will probably work well for you (it’s available on a 30-day free trial).

Notes and accompanying audio can also be uploaded to your private area on the LiveScribe website where they are rendered into interactive Flash so that they work much the same way as they do on the desktop. These Flash versions of your notes can be made public and available to others, sharied on Facebook or embedding in websites.

When a physical notebook is full you upload it from the pen to the desktop application and archive it. This allows that notebooks identity to be reused. (Notebooks are numbered and you can only have one of each number and type active at a time. So if you are using A4 notebook number one you cannot use another A4 notebook one at the same time. You must open, for example, A4 notebook number 2 or journal number1.)

When all said and done this product has, so far, impressed me immensely as a well thought out and useful piece of technology.

Here’s the story.

I was informed, by someone I trust but who shall remain nameless in case this all blows up in my face, of a movie download site http://iwatchfilm.com that offered very cheap downloads. Now, I am usually wary of such offers, but as I said, I trusted the source and they reported they were happy with the service they had received so I signed up with iwatchfilm.

So far, so good.

I downloaded a few films, each in standard definition (or close enough) and played them on my home cinema system. They all looked and sounded indistinguishable from DVD playback on a 52" screen. I tried an HD film (which took an age to download but was otherwise okay) and it was similarly successful, very good quality.

Still looking good.

Only later did my ‘little grey cells’ kick in. I started to wonder how on earth they could offer new releases at $2.99 for DVD quality. Yeah, I know, “if it’s too good to be true…”. I decided to do a simple test (one I should have done before!), I searched for Avatar, and it came up! Avatar. You know, the one that is still showing in the cinema theatres. The one that is not yet available on DVD. Suspicious, no? So I did some digging.

A google search for iwatchfilm.com shows up confused results. One poster has put the same complaint on several sites claiming iwatchfilm defrauded him, but that’s the extent of the complaints so far as I can tell. This has put me on alert though, so I am checking my credit card statements more carefully than usual for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, this will be a false alarm raised by someone who confused themselves over some credit card charges because there is certainly not a flood of complaints one might reasonably expect for a real fraud/phishing site (also none of the usual fraud report sites, such as McAffee, are reporting any problems with iwatchfilm).

There is also a claim that iwatchfilm is associated with zml.com. The sites are essentially identical albeit with different window dressing so this is a credible claim. zml.com has garnered something of a reputation for making excessive charges, but I suspect this is as much stupid people not understanding ZML’s charge policy and once again many of the posts are identical so evidently submitted by the same person to several sites. ZML state that for 99cents you get one day’s downloading or 10 films, whichever comes first, but you are committing to monthly charges of $39.90 thereafter. The way the fees are presented (after you have signed up for a free account) and the fact that the $39.90 charge is taken on the second day not being highlighted (although it is mentioned) is disingenuous but not fraudulent. People complained about the monthly charge after taking the 99cent offer, believing they were victims of a bait-and-switch. I remain sceptical and think they simply misread or misunderstood the ZML charge model.

iwatchfilm works differently. You place a deposit in your account against which films are charged as you select and download them. No monthly fees. Simple.

So, there is some small indication that iwatchfilm and zml may not be all they claim but on balance I do not think there is enough credible evidence to suggest they are actually fraud sites.

Some people seem to have the idea these sites are run out of Russia because both sites are attempting the same trick that AllOfMp3 tried, using licensing from the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS) to avoid paying studios excessive (or any) royalties. This tactic did not work for AllOfMp3 and it probably won’t work for iwatchfilm either. Worse, if iwatchfilm is operating out of the US then they are probably not covered by ROMS.

Jeff Bardin has done the heavy lifting on tracking down ZML. It is clear in his piece that Jeff disapproves of the site and he implies heavily that it is a fraud while carefully avoiding a direct statement to that effect. iwatchfilm.com has a suspicious domain history with many relocations and changes. Suspicious, but my no means conclusive of purpose.

The fact that a company it registered in Cyprus, operated by someone in France, and the site served from the US may be no more sinister than an attempt to veil the operators, confuse jurisdiction, or simply be practicality (I have hosted websites in the US when the price was right). International operations like this are commonly used to exploit legal jurisdiction or, in this case, to make is difficult for organisation like the MPAA to pursue the company and its operators. This all makes iwatchfilm legally questionable but does not suggest any nefarious intent toward their customers.

On the flip side, Jacqui Chang reviewed zml.com for Ars Technica back in 2007. Although Jacqui raises the obvious question of legality there is no indication in the article, nor is there any follow up, that the site is engaged in fraud or phishing.

So where does all this leave us?

Firstly, I am wary but not overly concerned about these sites being outright fraud sites. The reports of ‘fraud’ are actually related to the monthly charge mix-up, not out and out fraud. There is simply not enough credible evidence to support the idea of these sites being used for fraud, but I will keep a closer watch on my credit card bills for a few months just to be sure. If it were not such a monumental hassle I would cancel my credit card but since I have no evidence of actual fraud this seems like a bit of an overreaction at the moment.

Contrary to a couple of claims on-line, the movies I have downloaded so far have been excellent quality. Download speeds seem to have improved since some people complained since I easily achieved 200-300kB/s, which is typical for my line.

As for the issue of legality. Jury is still out (probably literally given the very muddied water around this whole issue) with regard to the licensing, but there is absolutely no question that the newer releases are being obtained by questionable means.

My advice? Caveat emptor. If I knew at the beginning what I know now I would have played safe and avoid the sites iwatchfilm and zml. Since I’m involved now, I will keep you posted if anything happens.

This film has everything. Natives presumed by the human invaders to be primitives. The arrogant humans exploiting a worlds natural resources, with careless disregard. Gung-ho marines. The dedicated marine who sees the light and joins the natives to fight of the humans. In summary, the story is trite, preachy and packed with cliche. Don’t get me wrong, this alone does not make Avatar a bad film and Cameron produces enough visual interest to distract from the lack of originality in the story. I cannot help but think that Cameron is tipping-the-wink to audience that the plot is weak by calling the material sought by the invading humans Unobtainium. (Unobtainium is term used by writers for a substance necessary to move along the plot, but serves no other purpose.)

If your taste in films is for eye-candy then Avatar does not disappoint. WETA Digital have produced another masterpiece. The visuals are stunning and nothing less than we have come to expect from big budget films. It is easy to forget that you are, for most of the film, watching an entirely digital world. The soundscape is similarly detailed and beautifully constructed.

I watched Avatar in 3D and true to his word Cameron resisted too many of the obvious ‘ooh look, it’s 3D’ moments. On the whole the 3D aspect of the film worked well. The problem with 3D films, and this one is no exception, is that the director controls the focus of the image. We accept this in normal 2D films, but in 3D films it tends to be distracting. In normal life we choose the object of focus. Objects in real life do not go in an out of focus on their own account. A 3D films attempts to present a 3D world, but the director then forces objects in this world in and out of focus. The dissonance this causes throws me out of the film and is migraine inducing when too vigorously applied.

The performances are excellent and, storyline aside, the script tight and, to be fair, largely character driven once you’re past the Unobtainium. Casting is spot on and each of the main characters is believable.

Is this film a revolution in the cinematic art as many are claiming? The technology used to produce Avatar will undoubtedly be used in future films. It is a natural progression from previous technology and the one thing we can depend on from Hollywood is that a novel cinematic technique will be flogged until dead (bullet time anyone?).

From an audience’s point of view it does not matter how clever the technology used to produce a film is, it is the product that is important. Cameron has invested a great deal of time and effort in creating Pandora. The Na’vi language invented for the film is interesting if you know it is a language created for the film and not just noises made to sound vaguely like a language. Similarly, it is rather obvious that everything in the film was constructed specifically for the film but the additional information that Cameron had experts review the flora and fauna to ensure it was feasible is interesting but hardly contributes to the film otherwise. The point is, all this background work may have helped in the making of the film, but it is hard to see how their omission would be a detriment to the final product. I just wish Cameron had invested some of the care lavished on the visuals on that pesky distraction called a story. This film is like a stunningly beautiful woman. With the IQ of a table lamp.

One day the friends, on one of their regular sorties onto the common that lay just beyond the woods, came across an odd sight. Indeed it was also and odd site, because a large area of their common had been covered with a low scaffolding structure just two feet above the ground but covering a large area. What, they thought, could be going on here?

With time to spare, it was after all the summer vacation, they returned to the odd site each day and observed with increasing fascination as, day by day, a street appeared on their once wild and open common. Yes. A street. Supported just above the heather by the scaffolding, appeared a mid-western American street.

Closer inspection revealed that the marble stairs to the bank were in fact painted wood. The buildings all lacked, well a building. Each house, shop and bar consisted of nothing more than a wooden facade painted to look like stone, or brick, or in some cases plain old wood. The flowers were plastic and the church on the distant hill was actually at the end of the street but much smaller, no more than ten feet tall in fact.

Finally the boys plucked up enough courage to ask one of the men working to build the street what it was for. His reply surprised and delighted the group.

“Their filming Superman two here.”

Wow! How frickin’g cools was this. Superman. Here. In England. Superman!

The boys continued to visit the site, or as they now rather sophisticatedly referred to it ‘the set’, each day hoping to meet Superman.

They saw many wonderful things. A man being pulled on a wire through a wooden wall. A man having a gun ‘shot’ from his hand by a baddie using laser beams from his eyes (this required some imagination from the boys because there was no laser, in fact there was no baddie, just a man throwing down the gun and pretending by be blasted backwards). A building was burned too, well, even more interestingly, a build was made to look like it was burned without actually being set on fire. And, perhaps best of all, a car was launched through a building and landed on a car sales lot.

Emboldened by their earlier encounter and their growing sense of familiarity with ‘the set’, the boys began to chat with the workers on ‘the set’. Later the boys would increase their kudos among friends unable to attend by referring to their ‘friends on the crew’. This bold familiarity brought with it another bonus – doughnuts!

After ‘the crew’ had finished with the tea trolley that was delivered to ‘the set’ each afternoon by (oh how the boys enjoyed this piece of insider jargon) ‘craft services’, the boys were allowed to feast on leftover donuts. This caused some puzzlement and small concern with mothers when the boys regularly announced that they were ‘really not all that hungry, so could we please have a small dinner?’

All too soon, the summer drawing to a close, ‘the crew’ packed up their things, dismantled the street and left. Leaving behind no trace more substantial than a small boys memories that either the street, or ‘the crew’, had ever been present.

Did the boys ever meet Superman? Sad to report that they did not. It seems that in this scene Superman was absent, much to the disappointment of all concerned. But, despite this, that summer remains one of the most keenly remembered among that small group.