Peer Blocker

Since the new laws in New Zealand regarding peer-to-peer have come into play, torrenting has become a little bit trickier. Basically, if a copyright holder thinks you have been using peer-to-peer to download and share content illegally, you can be charged. Gone are the ways of innocent until proven guilty. While the most effective way to prevent getting a fine is to not download illegal content, the phrase "You only have to run faster than the other guy" comes to mind. That being said PeerBlock is an effective way to remove yourself from the grid.

That's a wallpaper by the way. PeerBlock allows you to restrict which IP addresses your computer will communicate directly with. This is by no means a perfect system. Without the knowledge of which IP addresses to block it is pointless. PeerBlock comes with a decent set of default options that include government agencies and related companies, which will help a lot. Fortunately for anything missing iBlockList has a large list of well lists of IP addresses for various things. Definately worth checking that one out. But, if you want to be even more cautious, I have found a list of every large IP address block allocated to New Zealand. Beautiful isn't it. Copy the page into a file and rename it NZipRanges.p2p then add it to PeerBlock using the List Manager. Simple.

PeerBlock is not only a good thing for blocking peer-to-peer tracking, but also for blocking ads and spyware. So regardless of what you are planning on doing, you should get this.

DOWNLOAD LINK - not spam.

As a side note, you may find you cannot connect to some of your favourite websites or game servers. You can see which IP is being blocked by PeerBlock and then add it to the white list. Planning a future post about Tor to help further protect your anonymity.

Cheers,
Milk

Internet

New Internet Game - Pardus

As you may or may not know I love finding random games on the internet, getting really involved in them and playing them (usually for no more then a week).

Earlier this week a friend introduced me to a new (if I haven't heard of it, it's new to me) game called Pardus.

Here is a couple of screenshots and a banner. FYI I don't earn money from advertising this banner, only the Google ads.

What the navigation looks like. Isn't my ship awesome looking? It's not really.

A great community telling me all the things I'm doing wrong. :)

Lots of meaningless statistics.

Look I made the news!

The game is turn based, so you earn a certain number of 'Action Points' every 'some period of time'. This means you play for about ~20 mins a day. 

Let's see how this fits my requirements for a good game:

+ Free

+ Low system requirements

+ Overly complicated tech tree and/or options

- Time played not necessary equals game skill

+ Single player (You don't have to interact with others)

+ Multiplayer

+ Short gaming sessions

- Long gaming sessions

+ Quick to start a game (loading internet is faster the Halo game lobby)

+ Fun

Not bad. The reason I like games like this is that you are forced to only play a little at a time, so you are forced to study / complete that assignment that is due in 3 days. Though this game isn't for everyone, if you can get through the tutorial you are off to a good start.

If you add me 'Screaming Hawk' and say you came from my blog I'll be stoked.

Also this is me at work today:

Cheers,

Milk

Internet Game / General Update

So I've started back at University this week. It's pretty boring so far. Seems that a lot of the code writing stuff is going to happen later on. Which is gay. It means no exciting content for this blog for a wee while.

Also I have recently moved house, which means I can only get online at University, and so haven't been on the blog or anything exciting for a while. Should have internets by next week though.

Supposed to be learning about networking this semester so hopefully, I should have a nice network game to stick on here for you all. That would be awesome.

Something fun:
Has anyone tried to play QWOP? You are Qwop, our small nation's sole representative at the Olympic Games. Ideally you will run 100m but our training program was under-funded. Remember, it's not about whether you win or lose.

Basically you have four buttons, Q, W, O, and P, with which you control the runners thighs and calves to make him run 100m. Sounds easy right? Shit no!

Woo! Straight away instead of running, I decide to do a backflip... Not good. After a decent amount of gameplay my record is 5.5m. Good job Qwop.