Day: March 24, 2009

Hinterland

For the most part, I’ve tried to give up computer games. I’ve got the XBOX in the living room and like to reserve that for gaming these days, so when I sit down at my desk I’m actually working on projects rather than firing up World of Warcraft to look for some hapless huntard to gank.

I had to make an exception for awhile for Hinterland, which crosses a Diablo clone with a city building RTS. So your goal is to take your village and upgrade the buildings, etc., to turn it in to a thriving settlement.

But rather than send out the villagers to gather wood or stone to build things, you have to take your adventurer out, killing things and steal their stuff, and then use the resulting treasure to build things. If it were board game it’d be Munchkin Carcassone.

It’s a fairly addictive little indie game that delivers plenty of fun for just $19.99.

Hinterland Screenshot

Fireman In Thailand Dresses up as Spider-Man to Coax Boy Off Ledge

Fascinating story from Agence-France Presse,

A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said.

Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities when an autistic pupil, scared of going to lessons, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant said.

Despite teachers’ efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son’s love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.

“My fireman rushed back to the fire station and took out his Spider-Man costume… The boy immediately ran into his arms with a smile,” sergeant Virat Boonsadao said.

He said the fireman keeps the costume at work to liven up school fire drills.

Wow. I can’t even coax my wife to dress up as Wonder Woman to … uh … coax me off a balcony  … yeah, that’s it.

Disturbing Attacks/Trade in Albino Body Parts In Tanzania

The BBC ran one of the more disturbing articles I’ve read so far this year, with its report on the murder of albino men and women in Tanzania by people who want to sell their body parts for use in ritual medicine.

According to the BBC, at least 40 albinos have been murdered since the middle of 2007,

The killers repordly sell albino body parts — including limbs, hair, skin, and gentials — to witchdoctors.

. . .

In the most recent case last Wednesday an albino man — named as Jonas Maduka — was killed in Sogoso village in the north-western Mwanza region.

He was reportedly eating dinner at home when people called and asked for his help.

When he went outside he was strangled, before his assailants chopped off his leg and made away with the limb.

The Tanzanian government has responded by revoking the licenses of all traditional medicine practitioners, effectively outlawing them, but there are apparently so many practitioners that the ban is being ignored.

Moreover, the BBC reports that at least some of the traditionalists feel they are being made scapegoats for a government that has been unable to stop the wave of albino killings.

Insanity.

New AreMySitesUp.com Premium Plans

AreMySitesUp.com recently rolled out a more sensible set of premium plans at $25/year to check 25 sites, $50/year for 50 sites, and $75/year for 100 sites.

Of course the nice thing about the way AreMySitesUp.com handles sites, is you can have it look for specific text, so not only can I check to see if brian.carnell.com is up, but it is also fairly easy to monitor to make sure the site is not only up, but that the database hasn’t crashed, etc.

Now if they would only add subdirectory support so I could also reliably test if brian.carnell.com/gallery2 is also up and working properly.