Helios 43 - To Whom the Death Bell Tolls

[Freddie]

Circus Maximus by Stalins Ghost
Political Mudpit by Яome kb8
The Curia by Soulghast
The Basement by Freddie
Thema Diva by Rebal6666
Editorials by The Black Prince, Lord Rahl, Boeing & The Sundance Kid
Page 3

I’m proud to present to you Helios 43, this edition is jammed packed with content including a return of Helios Stalwart Lord Rahl, former editor n chief The Sundance Kid and a report from the Circus Maximus courtesy of Stalins Ghost.

Also I would like to welcome onboard new writers Boeing who is a current member of the Coliseum de Civitate and site award winner Яome kb8. Also I would like to give a big thank you to Y2day who had produced some new banners for the Helios, he is much better artist then I am so checkout his work for the Thema Diva in this issue and if we ever get a VV writer you can check that out as well.

Now then to start the balling rolling Stalins Ghost updates us with the goings on in the Circus Maximus.

Circus Maxiimus

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's been an interesting month this month, with a number of high profile releases and plenty of upcoming games to be discussed.

More on the return of Aliens versus Predator

I know AvP featured extensively in the last issue of the Helios with a Circus report, but the thread seems to have lost none of its steam, particularly in the wake of the release of a "Marine" trailer.

I've got many fond memories about the first AvP. Not only was the main set of missions authentically and faithfully in line with the much loved license - far more so than either of the two recent AvP films - but it was a game that kept on giving. There were numerous "cheats" to unlock, from "Pigsticking", which turned the Predator Speargun into an obscene shotgun with infinite ammo, to turning the Alien head bite into a lethal Sniper Munch. It let you go back to some of the levels as different races, turning them on their head. There was the excellent skirmish mode - I think everyone can look back to the ever excellent level "Stranded" with fond memories. Then I remember many hours editing the game with fan made tools to go through levels with some surprisingly advanced friendly AI.

So the announcement of a new AvP game made by the original developers, Rebellion, has definitely gone down well here. And it certainly has on the TWC.

To start with, we've Danny has done a sterling job keeping the opening post going, and even if you read it back in Helios 41, there's a lot of new images, trailers and information to peruse:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rebellion will be reviving their 1999 classic Aliens vs. Predator. players will have the chance to take the role of the three infamous species; the Colonial Marine, the Predator and the Alien. Each of the three species has its very own distinct story-driven single-player campaign mode that interweaves with the campaigns of the other two species. Aliens vs. Predator will also feature unique 3-way online multiplayer, allowing gamers to pit the three species against each other in the ultimate battle for survival and for the right to be crowned the deadliest species.

The story takes place on planet BG-386 a colonist mining group discovers an ancient pyramid containing a dark and horrible secret. Across the stars a race of warriors is alerted to the discovery of their pyramid and a hunting party is dispatched to ensure that it remains sealed at all costs, whilst deep inside the ruined pyramid a malevolent intelligence awakes from centuries of dormancy.



The Marine’s story is an incredible fight against the odds, and the horrors lurking in the dark. Beset on all sides yet armed to the teeth, the Colonial Marine represents humanity’s last stand with the firepower to fight back.



As the Alien, players will discover what it’s like to be the most murderous and lethal creature in the universe, with the ability to traverse any surface with awesome agility in order to get close enough to unleash its deadly teeth and claws.



A master of the hunt, the Predator grants the player a suite of exotic weaponry and equipment with which to stalk its unknowing prey. Earn the greatest honour by ambushing prey up-close and butchering them for a gory trophy kill.

If all goes well they are hoping for an early 2010 release on 360, PS3 and PC.

All taken from Segas blog.

Videos:

Gametrailers gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZCwqqNnZRA&
Teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cM5dpnqwMM&
Predator Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnc81ASjeoo
Predator gameplay 1: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-aliens-vs/50382
Predator gameplay 2: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-aliens-vs/50380
Marine Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ma...liens-vs/53511

Screenies:

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The new Marines trailer
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ma...liens-vs/53511
The ending is just epic.

Thats officially the greatest thing I've seen this month, I love this game already.

Looks like they got the scary down pat. The sad thing is this trailer just mainly shows the Marines getting raped lol.

WOW....

This is gonna be AWESOME.

+ Rep for you TB my man.

I've watched like 4 times already... I can't wait!

I love the way the predator comes out of nowhere, you just here the little noise the make and he got owned. The glowing eyes were awesome lol.

I think I may just go a marine few times now for the thrill of it.

Game over man, Game over !

On the contray i loved how those aliens solid snaked the marine instead of rushing at them head on as a horde of brain dead death wishing cockroaches. Atleast the guy your playing manhandle an alien like some dangerous animal in a crocodile hunter show .

Imo Fox should take some note on this in how a PROPER avp movie should be made. This one minutes of trailer just outdo the movies by a very freaking long shot!!!

Btw did you guys notice a girl marine in the squad :S. Her scream was haunting when she's being dragged off by an alien.

@ken: Get avp2 you get to play as them in the first 2 stages.

I think we like it somehow. There's been plenty of interesting discussion throughout the pages regarding multi-player and how it will turn out. I think it's safe to see AvP might be one of the most hotly anticipated FPS's in development at the moment.

The "1000 thing you have learned from video games" came back from the dead recently

Here's some of my favorites from the newly reinvigorated compendium of "knowledge":

296. You are able to get people to repeat the same thing over and over again just in case you missed it (Mass Effect)

297. Walking around with your Vibroblade out is perfectly acceptable when you are a jedi (Kotor 1 and 2)

I guess people are more patient/tolerant in space...

317: Aliens hate the human race.

318. Humans hate alien races.

319. aliens hate other aliens (alien vs predetor)

... or maybe not.

- The game called Doom is not only a game, but a prophecy, a vision from the future.

Beware the foresight of Carmack!

342:Humans have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better asses than aliens.

Freelancer

355-In the future all characters have nice butts that jiggle when they walk
356-If you get out far enough there is a planet of robots and monkeys
357-Britain will make the same mistakes in the future as it did in the industiral revolution
358-Germans are evil -always
359-All planets stations w/e have a bar and a weapons shop

AOE 1

360- If you enabled all techs - everyone built horse archers
361- Building War Elephants for some reason always got your allies to attack you
362- Once trees are exhausted in an island map its game over man

X3

363- You can explore everything, but why would you want to.
364-despite building different stations the world stayed entirely static
365- In the future people are uglier
366- You can spend hours playing without advancing anywhere

Barbie Horse Adventures

367- Never buy games for your sister

What is it about space and arses this month?

400. Everyone hates you(Serious Sam 2)

Left 4 Dead 2 invokes the wrath of bleeding heart liberals.

http://www.destructoid.com/left-4-de...k-139960.phtml

Yeah it's stupid when people play the race card over nothing.

It's also stupid that we give them this much attention.

Too true.

Hmm...that makes even less sense then the racism-card being pulled on RE5...I mean how could the infected populace NOT be black in RE5...it takes place IN AFRICA!!!!!

If anything, isn't Valve being more progressive by lifting the zombie segregation veil - letting both whites AND blacks be zombies now...no?

Ya know, I'm actually VERY sick of this crap...honestly - yes we get it...slavery was bad...segregation is bad...inequality is bad...but why must contemporary society still keep this mindset that we NEED to remind ourselves of that. Truthfully are we not furthering the concept that whites and blacks, asians and latinos, etc are different through our constant hounding of each races' differences and by constantly pulling the race card? If we truly wanted to consider everyone EQUAL we wouldn't even pay ANY mind to the fact that we are different (if only in skin color and body structure).

If there were no black zombies in the game he'd be crying racism on the grounds of their exclusion.

I actually thought that about the first Left 4 Dead...

Pathetic, however I really wish journalists wouldn't report this kind crap from a left wing glorified 'rent-a-gob', it give him exposure which he doesn't deserve.

This is reminiscent of when a left organisation (Black Looks) called out Resident Evil 5 for being racist.

You know what's racist?

That the blacks were poor in New Orleans and without means of leaving.

You know what's racist?

That whites got to get out of Katrina's path long before the disprivileged, disenfranchised blacks.

You know what's racist?

That blacks--poor blacks-- are all that's left in New Orleans because they have no where else to go.



Don't tell us about what's racist...

This I totally agree with. If anything, I applaud Valve for bringing New Orleans back into the public eye. I read in a couple of previews that Valve took visits to the city to find it still an absolute mess. It wont be racist in the slightest. It'll bring the truth that the city was almost left to its fate back into frame.

- White man knocks out black man. RACIST. Brutal treatment of blacks.

- White man knocks out white man. RACIST. Excludes blacks.

- Black man knocks out white man. RACIST. This is propaganda portraying black men as a threat to white society.

- Black man knocks out black man. RACIST. This portrays black men as violent and undisciplined.

This is really what things come down to. Whenever someone makes an article like the above, chances are it's being just as racist for pointing it out as an issue that isn't really an issue at all.

AAR of the Month

Wulfburk's Company of Heroes AAR

I was genuinely impressed by the amount of effort Wulfburk went into getting his images arranged along with the narrative. Great work!

Review of the Month

HorseArcher's review of ArmA II

But let's just agree in this: The game needs serious patches up to be playable. Not one, but at least 2. At least.
Don't ask me how Gamespot or other sites were able to give this game an 80%, it's beyond me to understand their reasoning. Perhaps they never really played the game to the end, I doubt it...it's almost impossible to finish it, so I'd say they are biased or just don't give a damn. I'm not surprised, this wouldn't be the first time as you all well know, how various "professional" game reviewers just hand out cookies left and right, driven by whatever purpose, with the exception of being honest.

In all honesty, I totally agree. I've been playing the hell out of ArmA II, and it really is an exercise in frustration. It's a great game, but in its current state it's all but unplayable. You can have fun with it, but at the expense of the time you spend just working around the bugs.

Other Stuff

Blood Bowl was released. Apparently great, but it seems quite a few of us are put off by the dubious price tag...

Apparently there's a Twilight MMO in development (because we all really needed one)

Does this mean the fangirls will get even fatter?

Oh dear.

Thanatos also observes:

This game is, by far, the worst I've ever played. I don't even know how it got released on the market with all the bugs it has. I mean, the list of why this game sucks could be never-ending, but here's just a few problems I've found with it.

- Unintuitive controls require years to master. Years!
- 12+ years of level-grinding in "Schools", just to up your intelligence stat (One of the biggest bugs in the game: On almost half of the copies released, once you pass the 6th or 7th year, your intelligence stat actually starts to drop. I mean, what the heck, man)
- Multiplayer sucks. Random inventory stealing, and sometimes even PKing in what's supposed to be a peaceful environment. Not to mention all the annoying noobs that you can't mute or kick from the server.
- No notice of random encounters. I'd have been able to defend myself if I had some hint that a dog was coming. Music change, dog growling, something.
- Overcomplicated health system fused terribly with "Everything trying to Kill you". Seriously, I'm supposed to exercise, watch my carbs, sodium intake, calorie burning to keep myself alive (And in shape, for that matter. All of my physical stats suffer a severe drop if I don't keep up with a good exercise routine), all while one little bullet from some idiot thinking he's funny could kill me right there. I mean, jeez, dude.
- The fishing mini-game is a bit boring.
- No apparent goal. Seriously, it's like a whole bunch of sidequests put together. I don't know what I'm playing toward, what's the ultimate goal or final boss or anything.

How would I go about contacting the developers? This game needs a patch.

Thank your for that Comrade Stalin. Now just in case anyone reading this doesn’t know the new Aliens Vs Predator game is expected to be released in February 2010.

Now from the world of video games to world to of politics, Helios debutante Яome kb8 gives us a run down of the latest plots, conspiracy theories, who Russia is upsetting and just about everything else you can think of.

Political Mudpit

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

POLITICAL FORUMS

Rush Limbaugh, the Grand Old man of the Mudpit, made an explosive return to the Political forums this month, after months of mysterious quiet absence, with an all guns blazing thread picking up where he left off accusing his new President of the gravest of crimes, not being born American enough. Specifically the eligibility birth requirement to be US President. A pretty serious allegation of course which has been met with that old traditional Mudpit heat and spit. Farnan delivered what I thought to be the killer blow early on, and so fittingly; " Since he came from an American vagina, he is a Native Born Citizen''. Rush nonetheless, in an astonishing man against the tide performance persists in his conviction.

Ah, no Mudpit would be complete without the weeks Israel and Obama threads, and oh did we have them. With the news that Amnesty International, rather expectedly condemning whoever it was for whatever crimes they did in January, we have our Israel thread. It took a peculiar journey, with people questioning the worth of AI in general, others pointing out bias and discrepancies in Amnesty's past proclamations, eventually making it to elaborate and complicated analogies involving the Atomic bombings of 1946. But no Israel thread is really an Israel thread without eventually devolving into an ''origins'' debate. As usual, this one did not disappoint. What was unusual though was a little bit of humour amongst the usual mud slinging and hyperbole.

Jesus will have his vengeance on the IDF.

And about everyone talking about jesus coming back to kill all the jews is not true. The jews are still Gods chosen people and he does not intend to come back and wipe out the jews.

Turns out the Arab plan is to hold off the IDF long enough until Colonel Jesus takes the 5th round the right flank in the half pincer movement.

Suffice to say, it did not disappoint expectation, and the thread is still young, with the average life for an Israel thread normally more than 77 pages! Now to move to the other Mudpit cash cow, a certain Barack ''The Red'' Obama.

Obama's foot must be delicious...
Do You Still Like Obama?
Obama of 2004 scrutinized Bush for rushing bills

Obama's foot must be delicious.....because he can't keep it out of his mouth

This month we have the pleasure of three, yes three, delicious Obama threads. These threads are the perfect arena for the resident Republicans to rip the Democrats, vica versa, and on-aligned coming down on everybody. Nasty business, muddy business. Now amid the exaggerations and finger pointing in the first of these threads, the arrest of a Harvard professor, there exists a lone wolf, boofhead, fighting his corner adamant to the end that the police acted wrongly finding fault in everything they did, with an acute attention to critical detail.

There were however some serious debate points buried within that Obama thread mainly centred around the topic of the day in every newspaper and country, the Economic downturn. Lefties and Righties slugging at it each blaming the other, each pointing the finger at different people. JP, and justicar going at it, each one refusing to back down or turn away from their fierce protestations in a series of back and forths, witty rebuttals and defiant declarations. This is common in Obama related threads, he is certainly a love-hate figure who clearly divides the participants into two, giving the impression of Congress itself.

Lately we’ve also had an influx of Health care related threads from a range of angles, from whether or not it is a Right, to discussing public systems of Australia, Canada and the UK, to critiquing the American Insurance system. I do enjoy these threads, they always have a certain personal feel to them. We’ve all had health problems, and to see the passionate and principled debating on both sides in favour of their system and its benefits, is often more refreshing than the usual partisan mud slinging which occurs elsewhere on issues of Foreign policy and Immigration etc.

So Aussies, how is socialized medicine working out for you?
Does everyone MUST have health insurance?
Healthcare, a Human Right?

Яome's quote of the month.

The Mudpit is full of strange sayings and unorthodox views and suggestions. Some are funny, others shocking, and some downright incomprehensible. So beware of what you type.... you may just find yourself on this wall. This month I must announce the following as the most Shocking quote of the month;

Sometimes I think the only solution to all these problems is to take 10.000 muslims who spoke out openly racist in every eu country and put them against the wall in front of the firing squad to serve as an example.

_______


It is still subject to change.

Kb8 leaves the perhaps the most extreme POV til last ‘…..put them against the wall in front of the firing squad to serve as an example’. I’ll say one thing for the general content on the mudpit, it takes no prisoners.


Now then for my favourite part of the Helios I personally present to you the Basement! So far no new DX11 cards yet however an unconfirmed launch date of ‘September’ is the most likely time.

The Basement

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's August and for a lot of us that means it's summer time, hot lazy Sundays and long cool drinks to sip whilst baking in glorious sunshine. Now whilst that maybe nice for us your poor computer on the other hand is praying for the autumn and it's cooler temperatures. Now is a good time to do some hardware maintenance on your PC, firstly get yourself some compressed air, take of the side panel of your computer and blast away any dust you see around the CPU's fan and heatsink. You can then do the same for your video cards cooler and any case fans you might have.




Has it been a few years since you last upgraded your PC? Well for TWC member Shamus it's been 7 years since he last bought a computer and he feel a bit out of the loop when it comes to current hardware and after reading his first post he needs crash course in current PC hardware urgently!

It’s been about 7 years since I bought my last computer. I’m in the market for something new, but am finding myself a bit confused by some of the newer terminology. For instance, it used to be that higher and higher CPU speeds were desired, but now I see that CPU rates are lower, but there are apparently more than one processor onboard? I’m not sure what to make of these new rates, and how they translate to current games (i.e. Medieval 2 TW). For instance, would two 2ghz processors give me a 4 ghz equivalent?

What should I be looking for in a gaming computer now?

I have posted an example of some of the things I am seeing now.



Intel® Core™2 Q8200 (4MB,2.33GHz, 1333FSB)

Memory
6GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs

Hard Drive
500GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache

7 years ago when you bought a PC it was easy to tell which one's were the faster ones, you looked at CPU speed and the greater the Mhz the quicker the PC. Easy. Well due to hardware heat and power limitations semi conductor manufactures have to find other ways to make there processors faster, one way is to make the CPU do more work/calculations per cycle hence it's more efficient, other more dramatic solutions are the emergence of dual and quad core CPU's (now sextuple on server PC's) which means your processor can two twice the work at the same time. Clock speeds still matter but it pays to do your reading before you buy. To make matters more complicated games are just as dependant on video cards now as they are on CPU's, do as well as learning what CPU's there on the market you need to know what video card your buying and how good it is.

I see you have already figured out some nice items there. The q8200 is a very good quad core.

core2 @ 4.0 ghz >10 times at least pentium 4 @4.0

Hardly a scientific calculation there Mr Hayasbusa but I think we get your point. The CPU Shamus has pointed out is based on Intel's Core architecture which when released in 2006 was twice as quick as the Netburst based P4's now add on the fact it has 4 cores instead of 1 then that advantage is multiplied quickly.

As previously mentioned CPU's now have two, three or four CPU cores. Now just because you have 4 cores instead of 2 (if you bought a quad core) that doesn't translate in to double the performance in games, typically a quad core will return on average 25% better frame rates (running at the same frequency) then the same CPU that has 2 cores running. In liner applications like video encoding you will see almost double the speed (so long as the application is encoded correctly for quad core CPU's)

I just thought I would pop in another question to this thread. I’m wondering what people’s thoughts are on the usefulness of Dell computers in the gaming world. I live in Canada, and out in the boonies, hours from any major retailer. Generally I prefer to order a computer from a larger company, as the smaller independents around here don’t tend to stay in business for more than a few years. With my computer before this one, I bought at a local store. Six months later they went under, and with them went my extended warranty and service.

Oh no the big D has been mentioned..........Dell. ...........hold one what's this....

Theres nothing wrong with Dell really. You just pay a bit more thats all but you do get warranties etc. They also don't use all the best parts, they usually stick to lower end hardware. That being said, stay away from custom builders like IBuyPower.com.

A decent Canadian retailer is NCIX.com. You can purchase pre-built systems from them as well as build your own.

It staggers me the amount of abuse Dell gets on tech forums, I use Dell at work and I can only say good things about them. Now the PC's I get I don't use for gaming but Dell's are keenly priced and highly configurable and the one time I had to use their service department I found it helpful and efficient (I'm using that word a lot in this report).

I'll leave the word to ChasobSiroc.

You pay a liitle more for cheap systems and a lot more for high-end systems through Dell. You get a 1 year warrenty from Dell, when you buy the parts individually, you typically get 2-5 year warrenties.

Windows 7 is released on the 22nd of October and right now you can try out a free version (fully supported by MS) of it until next June next year all you need to do is go to the Microsoft website, register and download the image and burn it to a DVD. You can currently pre order Windows 7 from all major distributors and the Home Premium and Professional versions are all currently half price! If you worried Windows 7 will be another Vista then don't worry, I've been using the Release Candidate for two weeks now and I can confirm what a lot of people have said about it and that it's the operating system that will finally get you to upgrade from XP. It's generated so much excitement we have a thread on it which can be found here.

I'm deciding whether change my OS to Windows 7 since I read this review here:

http://www.techradar.com/news/softwa...5167?artc_pg=4

Here is my specs.. e2220 2.4 ghz, 4 gb ram 800, hita 500 gb, ati 4650. What do you think will Win 7 perfrom much worse than XP? I want to upgrade cuz xp is good but almost 9 years old, there must be sth new coming with the new OS's. What do you think..

To summarise the review linked above Windows 7 kicks ass in just about every scenario you can think off inculding gaming where it's consistently faster then XP and much better then Vista. If you are going to run Windows 7 then it pays to get a cheap hard drive to run it from, don't bother trying to partition your main drive as it can lead to problems if something goes wrong (like a power cut or memory failure).

In my books, reliability comes before performance. Windows 7 is in the release candidate stages, which is still ironing out bugs. I would recommend to use a full OS over an incomplete OS, regardless if it is said to dominate in performance or not. Is there any reason why you aren't using Vista if you want something newer? It's recently received it's second service pack, which is a bonus. I recommend to either stick with XP or use Vista until Windows 7 is fully released.

7 is aimed to bring overall performance improvements over XP and Vista. If something takes up more disk space and uses more RAM , that doesn't necessarily mean it is slower (although I don't mean to assume this is your logic, but it is a common thing I see).

Your system would not struggle at all with using Windows 7 (or Vista).

In terms of reliability I haven't had any problems with Windows 7 but I have received about 20 updates from Microsofts Windows Update service which I guess it to be expected and lets not forget how many patches XP has received over the years.

Ive been using the beta since early spring as my only OS and ive never had a problem with it

Always be careful. Have an extra hard drive with either vista or xp installed. I got all 3 of them and while I have to say that I was burning a movie to a dvd, i used windows 7, because vista kept giving me an error for some reason, but anyway, I have all 3 installed and each 3 on a separate hard drive, and it depends on my mood and what I wanna do which one I want to load into , but 70% of the it's Vista, due to all the stuff set up regarding my browser links and installed software. (and I'm too lazy to import/export and set everything up 3 times)

So have win7, it' free right now, but do have another OS available anyway, preferably on another hard drive.

Now that's some sound advice from your former emperor! You can never have enough hard drives in my opinion, I have two internal one with XP and the other with Windows 7, it always good to a have spare hard drive with an OS waiting to go in case of problems with your main hard drive and you need to back up your data urgently.

My advice - don't install Windows 7 over your initial OS installation. (I.E, XP or Vista usually.) I have tested it out, and I would not deem it worthy of being your only OS. For me it was too unstable, and I had to pull 3 all-nighters trying to fix it all.

My keyboard just doesn't have the characters to type your new name Mr Clone. Now this is to be expected with some installations as they don't always go smoothly for whatever reason (normally hardware issues or incompatibility).

I myself am using Windows 7. I have suffered no performance problems actually. That, and It can play RTW fine.

If you own an Xbox 360 this is what you don't want to see, sadly for many early adaptors this what greeted them after just a year of use, some say it's because the heatsinks weren't set properly others say it's Gods way of punishing people for not investing in a graphics card for the PC's. Either way Microsoft did respond to the problem, extended the warranties and fixed all the broken 360's however for some of us that's just not good enough.

Xbox 360 broke... I'll never be a Microsoft customer again. period. honestly, I can't BELIEVE they still have brand loyalty after all the 360s that have broken.. it's absolutely disgraceful

hopefully I'll be able to afford a PS3 b4 too long =\

I bought my 360 used, and the guy had ALREADY sent it back to Microsoft to be repaired one time... so in fact, it's now broken AGAIN

effing pathetic.

my brother's broke as well..

anyone have a 360 that didn't break??
[/COLOR]

Now I should point out his post did contain swearing that was filtered out. Now should we fill sorry for him? He knew the console had problems when he bought it so why does he complain when it goes wrong again?

Yup, I Believe the 360's have went through 3-4 motherboards in their lifetime. You probably got one of the first ones (Failboat ones)

Don't be mad at microsoft, right when you're friend said he already sent it back it should have been a red flag right away.

Bang on the money there Zainy, if you buy something that you know has had problems you shouldn't moan when it goes wrong again. Now as ZainyAntics has mentioned the 360 has had new motherboard, the latest features 65nm designs for the CPU as GPU which should hopefully solve any heat related issues.

Microsoft is great. Send it in and you get a new one. Mine broke after two years, sent it in, a week and a half later I got a new one and its worked 100% fine since.

10 days is a good turn around for a big company like Microsoft which must be dealing with hundreds of thousands of broken units.

Aion comments have been echoed by a few other members as well who are happy with the service that they received.

I got mine when it came out and i did have to send it to be fixed once. But its been a couple years now and I have not had a problem...

I had mine for a year before it broke. It wasn't really a problem though, I emailed them and arranged to send it back and they fixed it, with all expenses covered.

You can't expect everything to work 100% time failure free and if something goes wrong then the way that company handles that problem is how they should be judged.



Backing up your data is probably the most boring thing you can with a computer yet it's one of the most important things to do as well. master412160 asks how often you backup you data.

I did 3 day's ago, it is very important if your windos gets a virus or gets bugged that you have a copy of it.

So when do you do it ?

It takes of cours much free space but it's worth it.

Confession time for me.

The honest answer is I don't backup as often as I should despite having an external hard drive right in front of me all it would take is 5 minutes just to copy the My Documents Folder across to it. Generally I backup my hard drive and files either when I'm clearing up my hard drive to free up space or when I'm about to format the hard drive.

To put to further shame onto my name TheAnonymous tells how organised he is with his backing up.

In my experience, under the optimization and maintenance I do, I keep my OS installs running without any performance or stability hitches and malware free. Things stay like that until I have some sort of hardware failure, in which then I have to replace the failing component, dependent on what actually failed, I can still keep my old Windows install, unless the OS disk died or my motherboard died, which in that case I then do a full OS re-install. I've actually never had random OS failure or file system corruption that was not due to some experimental procedure that I undertook. Right now I use a Windows XP / Vista dual-boot setup and I sometimes triple-boot with a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu.

I backup only truly essential data onto blank RW disks, such as long text documents and game savegames. This procedure is done once a week. I also create a system restore point and backup the registry, which I also do once a week (windows). I've never used a hard disk or flash drive for backing up, as those are prone to random failure. I keep the blank disks in enclosures, so the only time the data is not accessible is when my DVD-drive dies, but I still have my data. I also ensure I burn disks at a slow speed so that they do not get damaged.

Personally I don't trust RW discs, data often gets currently during the burning process and discs get scratched easily making them hard to read.

In my current PC I have done only the backup of My Documents and that was in Febrary. In general I don't backup the files often. If my PC gets a malware (in fact the last time I got one was 1 year ago) I would just reformat it since my files are almost the same with some small exceptions(music, pictures etc). I have all my programs to disks though. Generally I don't care about the savegames and such things, but the combo Firefox+no script addon helps much in the malware area.

ive never backed up because i have nothing i can backup to

JakethX likes to live dangerously, for the cost of and USB stick it's just not worth not having a backup solution in place.

I backup to an external hard drive every so often. I used to backup to DVD's and CD's but I kept finding when it was time for me to read the data of the discs often files would be broken which was very frustrating so I invested in an external hard drive which has worked wonders.

I advice anyone hear who takes backup semi seriously not to rely on optical discs, apparently disc quality is very low which is something I've know for the past 5 years, I just don't trust optical discs. If you worried about failure of an external hard drive then invest in several USB thumb sticks, their cheap as chips these days and capacities are more then enough for backing up your My Documents folder (although you might need a separate one for music).

I have had the same experiences, you can’t beat a good external drive. Although they are mechanical they are very durable and it’s not like there in use all the time like your main hard drive so the ware on them is a lot less.






Ok, so your computer has gone pear shapped and you have no choice but to reinstall Windows but there's one problem, you can't find the darn disc that shipped with your PC. Well since I have several versions of Windows which I have accumalted since Windows 95 I've never had that problem but it has happened to sabaku_no_gaara.

I have vista home premium, but I had to install a new hard drive because the old one was toast. Annyway it's an empty harddrive and I lost my boot disk. is there any way to download it llegally? if possible to a usb device? and boot that way?

On the face of this doesn't look good, those Windows licences costs a lot of money to replace.

Do you know your licence key? Try calling the big M are see if they can help, if not then you will have to either buy or obtain another licence or install Windows 7 RC1 which is good until March next year.

As it transpires he does have the licence key stuck to the front of his PC so it's not all bad news.

You should be able to borrow the disc from anyone who has the same OS and then enter your license key.

Sounds like a good idea, but..............

the 3 people I know with a pc have xp

Vista comes back to haunt another person, he does have wise friends though but that doesn't help him with his problem.

Go here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=326246

If you have some pre-built PC from Dell or some other company(and it sounds like you do if your license key is on your PC), then go to their support site and there should be an option to order a new boot disk.

Well when I saw this I have to give the man rep, I never knew MS would replace an OEM disc if it was lost or damaged so kudos to Eddit291 for pulling that rabbit out of the bag.

That's all she wrote for this issue, I'm hoping by the time the next Helios comes out I will have some news on some new hardware from Intel and ATI. Stay tuned!

Freddie

Well I can’t compete with Soulghast’s coverage of the Helios but there are still a few things in there that you can all learn from. Remember, summer = heat, heat = bad for your PC.

Now then we have a marathon of editorials to get through, well 4 to be precise. The Black Prince brings another anciadote of life a gay, Star Trek fan Lord Rahl makes his return alongside The Sundance Kid and we have a new editorial from Boeing (can I call you 747?)

Editorials

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ramblings of the Kid
I've forgotten what episode I'm on...four? Probably.

Many people have made glorious returns after short careers. Meatloaf returned in 1991 with Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, a Platinum album that launched him right back up amongst the greatest power rockers of the genre. John Travolta, paling into obscurity after the smash hit Grease, found new fame years later in the cult classic Pulp Fiction. The Looney Tunes gained newfound fame for young audiences with their successful basketball-themed blockbuster Space Jam.

In a similar vein, it's been a long hard road back to the top for ol' Sunny. After temporarily leaving my frankly nonsensical Editorial post here on the Helios back in March to make way for my exams, I have several times attempted to reclaim my former poise, only for other factors to once again deprive me of my goal. However, I have finally succeeded, and with this long-winded and ridiculous introduction, I am back in business.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Skeptidelphian, #1: Idiots? On My Local News? It's More Likely Than You Think!



Hey everyone, Boeing here. I was watching my local news, 6 ABC (WPVI) last Monday. WPVI is my local news of choice, the anchors have good chemistry and they are generally half-decent (for Philadelphia anyways). Philly news is generally regarded as a police blotter, opening each broadcast with the latest in murder and rape. That's followed by our bombastic weather "teams". Our local NBC affiliate has yellow and red alert lighting for whenever there are severe weather watches or warnings, respectively. I was always half-expecting Captain Picard to come through a side door with his commanding gait, knock down the anchor and take the Conn. But I digress.

During this particular newscast, the health report came on. Typically this is a fluff piece, no real journalistic credibility is ever invested into them. They're usually the latest obesity scare, pandemic threat, or local child with cancer. Those types of stories are usually harmless, besides getting the more gullible amongst us worried for about fifteen minutes. But this latest one was promoting alternative medicine. Or as I'll refer to it, SCAMS (supplements, complementary, and alternative medicines, the acronym coined by Mark Crislip of the QuackCast). Probiotics is one of the newer fad SCAMS, and this health report was on this new pseudoscience. I'm not going to go into probiotics itself, except that there isn't much scientific evidence for its efficacy. You'd have to eat a hell of a lot of Dannon bowel-bacteria yogurt for it to actually colonize your bowels. By the way, their "activia regularis" or whatever they call it is just a trademarked name of a regular bowel-bacteria, whenever the commercial comes on it gives my microbiologist mother a laugh. Your body has it's own bacteria in your crapper. It works fine, it's co-evolved with us, it doesn't need our help (unless you've been on major antibiotics, which you will have more pressing concerns at hand). This report was presented by a registered nurse, which at first made me wonder why a medical professional would present this nonsense. But then again an RN invented therapeutic touch.

Anyway, they present the findings of a study that claims that probiotics ease the symptoms of the flu. How bacteria help combat viruses, I don't know, I'm not a virologist and I can't get access to the actual study. But, to their credit, the news mentioned the fact that this study was sponsored by a probiotic manufacturer. Heh, that should be raising the red alert in your mental news studio. Now, this is where it gets really stupid. They then go to their "medical expert." You're expecting an M.D., probably one that teaches at Jefferson or UPenn. Nope, they go to a HOLISTIC MEDICINE PROVIDER. Holy hell, do they do research or not? Holistic medicine is not real medicine (feel free to PM me so I can explain what real medicine is if you disagree), and their "expert" was probably subjected to the rigors of a 12 week correspondence course. They may have well cut to footage of my "reiki master" cousin hovering over cats healing their chi. After they talk to this jackass, who sings the praises of probiotics, throwing out the usual claptrap, it "boosts" the immune system (impossible), it supports digestion (how our ancestors digested their food without DANNON® ACTIVIA^TM yoghurt we will never know), and other stuff. I don't really know since I blacked out a bit from high blood pressure.

When I came to they were talking to a bearded, sceptical looking MD who basically said what I said: there aren't any good studies out there that say probiotics have any use in normal, healthy individuals. Ah, the token sceptic. Making sure the news is fair and balanced! After they cut away from the good doctor the reporter said some nonsense about both sides having their merits. And that was it, cut to Eagles training camp. E A G L E S, EAGLES!

This is my problem with the media today. They don't report real science or medicine, they report fantastical findings from third-rate studies and unverifiable claims from SCAMS practitioners. The old adage goes, "if it bleeds it leads". I guess that could be applied to science and medicine, if it's fantastical it's going to bump out the real science, because the media thinks that people have no interest in real science. Which is a shame, because real science is far more interesting than the pseudoscientific nonsense out there. Not to mention it's irresponsible. SCAMS kill people. Don't believe me? Go here: http://whatstheharm.net/

Have any similar stories to share? Disagree with me? Agree? PM or profile message me, I'm interested in a dialogue and article fodder for the next editorial from the Skeptidelphian. This is my first editorial, and is rough. I'm still finding my voice, so bear with me. See you next time TWC.

Love,
Boeing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rahl's Rants: Long Time, No Rant!

To all of my loyal readers, all four of you, I want to apologize for not contributing to the Helios and offering you all with my oh-so-borish rants on nothings as of late. Alright, since my apology is over...time to rant!

For this Helios I wish to start of by ranting on something that has been troubling me for quite sometime. You see, I was born into a very devout Christian family and I went through a spiritual transformation, as some call it, through Christianity over about a 20 year time line. There was a time when I thought that God was real and that everything I learned in church (ok...not everything) was true. But after awhile my faith began to falter and eventually I began to doubt my beliefs. Being in college away from my usual Christianity-scheduled life (church, bible study, youth group, etc) offered me a different view of the world. I didn't have the same Christian support but college allowed me to learn about a lot of new things, including religions. I took a class on Islamic empires and learned about other religions through other history classes that I took. It was then that I realized Christianity isn't as unique as I had thought it to be.

Yes, there are some radical theological differences between Christianity and other religions but I see religion in a different perspective now. When I was struggling with my faith one question I would ask myself was, "How is Christianity true over other religions?" I kept trying to figure out the answer and could not come up with one. Every major religion has their own prophets of sorts, their own religious texts, and their own claim that their religion is the true one. If they all have and claim the same...then how can anyone decide which one is right? One simple answer is that the decision is already made for them once they are born into their family. One argument I've used against my parents when discussing religion is that people who are born into a religious family will grow to believe that religion (to some point) simply because their life will be based on it (to some point again). I was born into a Christian family and that's why I believed in Christianity. If I was born in Iran then I'd most likely have believed in Islam. It only makes sense. My point is that not all people actually decide their religious beliefs 100% because their life has already been based upon it. Why would I change and believe in Buddhism if I was so comfortable living a Christian life? Get my point?

But to get back to my original point, how can one religion actually claim to be the true one? Basically, a religion can't make the claim and in my opinion can't actually be true. Think about it, what does Christianity have over Islam in terms of being the "true" religion? It doesn't! They both have prophets and holy texts. Ultimately, it comes down to a believer telling you that their religion is the true one. Using this reasoning NO religion can be the true religion because none of them can definitively prove theirs is right. So far my parents haven't given me an answer that makes sense to me. My father will often quote Jesus or something else in the Bible but all I have to say is that other religions have their own texts that they claim are the actual truth.

One other thing that confuses me is the whole relationship with God. I guess this includes such religions as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. None of us has actually seen or heard God (unless you claim that and it can't be proved) so how can we ever think that we have a good relationship with Him? It doesn't make sense. Every other relationship we've ever had on this Earth is built upon communication, compatibility, perhaps attraction, interaction, among many others. So how can anyone actually believe that they have a relationship, especially a good one, with God? There is nothing direct that we receive. We never see or hear who we're talking to. We don't have anything in common with a being who is omnipotent and omnipresent! Maybe it's like Stockholm Syndrome. If there really is a God then we all feel trapped in some way or held hostage and many of us become attached to our "captor", real or not. It's not that I'm wanting proof of a religion so much as getting some sort of logical argument of why one is better or true...or...something that makes sense.

There is my rant for this Helios. I hope some enjoyed it, found it interesting, or at least had some deep thought after reading it. That's what I want people to do: THINK!!!

Until next time,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Queer Concern


OK, own up, who here has seen Bruno?

If you’re expecting me to mince through the fora and proclaim that I loved it, think again.

I actually have no intention of seeing the film at the cinema, maybe on DVD to see what its about, but this is so not my kind of film.

Its not that its gay (we’ll come to my gripe about that later) its that its crude. It really is, Cohen is. He’s part of a generation of comedians who seem to think the only way to make us laugh is to make vulgar and explicit jokes about sex and swear a lot. Since when did that become funny? The art of double entrendre is one thing, but this is something else besides. I’m no prude, as any of my friends and the Say Cheese thread will tell you, but much as I enjoy talking about sex and other explicit stuff, I don’t get amused by crude jokes about it. It’s a sad reflection on modern teen humour that this stuff is considered to be top comedy rather than seedy trash.

But the film also does concern me on a gay level too. I’ve not seen the film, and from the gay activists corner, it’s getting mixed reviews. I think the kindest has possible been that it tries for irony, but in its push for sexual humour at the same time, misses.

To quote Peter Tatchell “If Cohen’s intention was to mock prejudice, this film doesn’t always pull of the money shot. Compared to Borat, it is more hit and miss” (Source: Attitude, July 2009)

Trouble is, if the film is trying to be ironical about gay stereotypes and failing, then what is it actually achieving? Is it making fun of gay people? Or is it simply reinforcing a stereotype? Commentators at The Advocate have noted that people likely to be offended by either gay people or gay stereotypes aren’t likely to go and see the film anyway, and that smart people going to see the film will see its clearly obvious that Bruno isn’t taking the entire gay community and reducing it to stereotypes, its demonstrating how absurdly silly the stereotype is. Thing is, this film isn’t aimed at those kinds of people.

I guess, ultimately, that this film isn’t likely to or intended to change minds or opinions. Which is good. But on the whole, I’m not comfortable coming out of a cinema with my boyfriend and having people think that we’re anything like Bruno.

Which brings me on to the next issue I want to address today. I’m not especially camp, particularly when I’m sober. I’m not effeminate, I’m not “gay acting”, I meet next to none of the stereotypes. I’m well dressed and fashionable for my age and cultural grouping, but no more so than plenty of straight men from the same group. I don’t stand out as being gay, and neither really does my boyfriend.

So how do I describe myself? At an LGBT Police Community Forum, the local Sergeant told me a story about how the Force’s highest ranking gay officer addressed a group of trainees undergoing diversity training, and he started off with much the same introduction I did, that he wasn’t a stereotypical gay, he went on to say he liked cars and sports, like any other man, he was just a normal guy. And it was at that word that the diversity co-ordinator put her head in her hands and groaned. Just a normal guy, downplaying the differences, down playing the diversity… I can see where the officer was coming from; I’m a “normal guy” who happens to be gay. OK, so I’m a Government official and a local councillor, maybe not that normal, but you get my point right?

But do I want to be normal? Isn’t the whole point supposed to be that I can stand out, be queer, be proud, not care and not have anyone care about me? Well yes, yes it is. So why do I try and shield myself from standing out by saying I’m just a normal guy?

It’s a tough question actually, and one that many people find involved in activism find hard to answer. Normality is defined by the majority, by trying to be, or considering ourselves normal, we’re accepting the majority’s views and burying our diversity and our deviance. “Normal” is about acting straight, accepting “normality” is accepting the fact that its ok to be gay, so long as you don’t act it.

But what then is acting gay? When straight people talk about acting gay, they really mean acting camp and effeminate and that’s not me and never will be.

I like to consider myself normal because it sets me apart from the extreme edges of the queer community, which I’ve never been entirely comfortable with. Some levels of campness just grate across my entire being so very badly, and in part because I know its an act. In Cardiff once, there was this fat, ugly young lad in a gay bar who was really camping it up with his friends, the works. And then his phone rang and it was his mum… and on the phone speaking to his mum, the inflection went, the volume went, the voice dropped an octave at least, and the pressing need to use the word “darling” once a sentence seemed to have vanished. Call over, it all came back. It was a complete act, a put on, but why? Everything that annoyed about this guy stemmed from his desire to act like that, drop it, and I wouldn’t have given him a second glance.

Society’s attitudes are too well ingrained though, and herein lies the problem. I’m gay, I’m happy being gay (now) and I have no desire to be anything else. But I’ve been brought up in a world that has strict gender behaviour codes, and despite coming out and throwing some of that baggage out the window, you can’t get rid of all of it, its there. I’m gay, but part of me is still stuck with the idea that feminine males are wrong and I don’t like them. I guess my personal sexual revolution was quite limited.

I dislike Bruno because its bad enough being labelled gay, but at least I can still lay claim to masculinity and I resist being labelled for being something that’s doubly wrong to the majority.

I’m happy being “normal” for a given definition, but at the same time, I’m happy to defend those people who choose different, or who can be different. The Queer community is about being who you are, not what society tells you to be, and a large part of our history relates to ignoring the social trends and traditions of the mainstream. Sure, many young gay men are highly promiscuous. Biology aside, so what? You’re reasons for frowning on that are based on heterosexual social mores that don’t apply to us. We have our own codes. You called us Queer and deviant and we embrace those terms because we embrace our differences and recognise that we’re not bound by the same societal traditions as you.

But equally, there’s no reason to define ourselves solely by our differences, and in that respect, I do think some activists take things to far (Queer Nation theory for example). As much as there is that is different, we have many other things in common, I’m also British, I’m also conservative, I’m also English, etc. I define myself not as a gay man, but as a man who happens to be gay, among other things. I also happen to be a gamer, a historian, a politician and many other things besides. Who I am, as a person, stems not just from my sexuality, but a combination of everything.

Coming full circle then, some of us use the “normal” definition because we recognise that yes we’re gay, but that doesn’t set us completely aside. Yes we’re gay, but yes, we also may love football or rugby, we may love going down the pub and drinking a pint or 8 with our mates, then getting curry on the way home before puking up in the canal…

Ultimately, we are who we all, each of us individual, different and perfect. The sooner society stops worrying about such things as diversity and social groups, gender groups and anything else that labels us and divides us, the better.

And if you’re looking for a funny movie this summer, try Ice Age 3 instead of Bruno, that truly is comedy!

the Black Prince

The above was supposed to be the ending for this month’s article, but as I write this I read the news that 3 people have died and 11 people injured after a lone gunman walked into a gay nightclub in Tel Aviv and opened fire with an automatic weapon. Israeli police are treating this crime not as terrorism, not as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but as a criminal act, homophobic violence of the most tragic kind. The victims as I understand it were young gay people, killed in act of mindless violence because of their sexuality. Sickening and tragic though this sort of act is, its also reassuring to remind myself that people who do this sort of thing represent a very small minority of the straight world and plenty of straight people will join me in condemning his actions, not because of a shared revulsion to mindless killing, but out of shared sense that homophobia is wrong. Superstar celebrity Daniel Radcliffe recently stated that “I loathe homophobia. It’s just disgusting and animal and stupid and its just thick people who are scared”. Daniel, I agree with you.

I’ve also just counted up, and this will be my 33rd Article for Queer Concern, I think that’s quite impressive.

Once again I find myself agreeing with just about everything The Black Prince has to say, I have to admit I didn’t know about the incident in the Tel Aviv night club that sounds truly horrific lets just hope who ever committed those acts will not escape justice.

The Helios continues on below!