Dan_Dare

I like their products, just not parts of their business model, which can be really restrictive in terms of user agreements and the degree to which people genuinely own their products. that said the designed user experience itself is really quite something.

Sad news, not least of all because he was just 56. That's no age and pancreatic cancer is no way to go. I'm not massive on a lot of what Apple do but I always greatly admired Jobs for being the man who recognised that design (in every sense) was of greater importance than raw technology in the computer business. Mass market usability and accessibility, driven by Apple, has been the cornerstone of computing and web development for the last decade and Something Jobs is largely responsible for. He redefined how we engage with electronics in our homes and beyond and for that we can all be grateful, regardless of whether or not we actually use Apple products or not.

Horde and private vs, apparently. Probably not balanced for ranked play I imagine (or just not going in to the bumpers for penniless heathens.)

Kyle Walker went to my school. Absolutely loved seeing him seal the deal today- couldn't have been better: Sheffield lad from my neck of the woods on his first game for Spurs making Arsenal look like dicks

so Ultimate Spider-Man #2 was fucking great again. I'm really enjoying the nods to Bagley's old panel compositions too. There was one coffee splutteringly weird panel of bendis-speak but I can forgive it in an otherwise great issue. He had another dig at forum trolls too which I enjoyed / hated.

It's a shame we'll probably pay double over the yanks though. I'm betting all they'll do is switch the $ for £ on the price tag.

Won't lie: Basically want this thing exclusively for comics and magazines. It's perfect.

Tell you what I fucking love about this game: Frags. Specifically that frag grenades feel really, really dangerous. Lob an explosive in to a confined space and it should kill everything in range. In so many games nades are a bit weedy, but in this the way you can clear machine gun nests and stuff with these big weighty explosives is incredible. Feels like an action movie every time

Here in Sheffield things are bad. Very bad, and getting worse: You guys remember the public sector, right? It's that thing the tories have taken a fucking hatchet to since day one of their term. Anyway, up here in The Former Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, public sector is everything. The four major employers are the two universities, the council and the hospitals. Now that the Fucking Tory Bastards have bent the whole sector over a backstreet alley all those employers have made big redundancies, frozen new recruitment and slashed their budgets. The result is a totally moribund job market city wide. I went for a junior position in the University a while ago and I was told that nearly 600 people applied- one of whom had 18 years experience in the field. It's basically impossible for me to get a job now, and there's no public sector to pick up the slack. because... ...The city centre is a wasteland. Sheffield acquainted forumites Shorty, night wolf and Jayseven will back me up here. The first problem is Meadowhall, the out of town shopping centre. It dominates retail in the region and has basically been a parasite on city since it was built in the 80s. This would be bad enough, and believe me it's awful, but there's now a bigger issue thanks to the recession: Sheffield Council had a rejuvenation plan for the city which would have radically transformed an area of town called The Moor, which is a working class high street. It would also have moved the aged city markets in to the centre. Beyond that, it would have revitalised the other shopping centres nearby and given city retail a boost. Notice the past tense: 'austerity measures' have collapsed the budget and made it impossible to carry out for, I'd guess, at least a decade at best. But not before the council shortened the leases on every shop in the affected districts and started knocking a few buildings down. In a recent study, Sheffield was found to have fully one third of the commercial properties in the city centre empty. The situation is so poor that there council have actually put fake shop fronts in to make it look like the city isn't totally and utterly shitfucked.

Happy Pike day Mr_Birthday!

Brilliant was excellent, you bloody heathens. Reminds me of The Social Network actually; Bendis' dialogue feels more natural in a dorm than in Avengers Tower just like it fits a high school in Ultimate Spider-Man because that's how young people actually talk. Really cool concept anyway. I liked it.

I'm looking forward to Brilliant. It's been getting good reviews and I like Bendis when his decompressed style doesn't clash like it does on Avengers. I mean, look at how much better Ultimate Spider-Man #1 was.

I know what you mean. I refuse to admit I'm really tried when I should go to bed (around 11, usually) and stay up for another couple of hours out of pride or whatever, by which time I'm absolutely shattered, sometimes to the point of actually being too tired to sleep.

Wicked -- I read Wonder Woman! I need to write a couple of blog posts today to update but I absolutely loved it. Totally nailed the horror behind greek myth, the petty, selfish gods and then gave it a smart modern twist. Yes. Come on! I'm left wondering (lol) how she'll fit in to the JL books though seeing how violent her own title is. Hmmm!

Yeeesssssss. Best ending. I watched it again on youtube recently and welled up a little. It's absolutely perfect and that montage at the end really hits you. It's a testament to the quality of the show that I genuinely felt for the Fisher clan and watching it all come to an end felt like the end of an actual relationship.

That costume = sick as bawls.

aye, probably. Out tonight for a gig but might be on late if I can be bothered :P

Probably the bit when you annihilated most of the team by yourself in the pistol spawn on Old Town. That was some spectacular shit! I was all over the place. Had some good games getting 4 odd kills and kicking ass with frags then I'd have a game of no kills and a series of absolutely absurd deaths. Oh well.

If anyone's on later I'll be playing this. All day.

Have you read it all Rez? I'm picking it up again and just to

new profile is all kinds of awesome. New news feed is fucking AIDS.

Anyone read Schism? Really good stuff. The Fight finally kicked off and the reasons felt good. In character, reasonable on both sides and powerful. The way Aaron finally brings them to blows is really powerful and vicious too. The words are as brutal as the fight itself. Great stuff.