Aargh, stupid terms of service, I really should read this stuff but God help me, I have better things to do with my time (actually, that's a lie, but whatever) than read legal documents. I cannot believe some people do this for a living.

Anywhoo, case in point was admitting to piracy, now, I love swashbuckling as much as the next guy but apparently Gamespot doesn't, and the mods didn't take too kindly to my modded xbox from way back when. 

Piracy is like a one night stand, there's something that feels wrong about it, but once you start, it's hard to stop (Like I would know ;)) but thankfully good old RROD was there to curb my addiction, oh we do love this guy, and I enede up buying a second Xbox as MS refused to replace it for less than 120 quid (nearly 200$) so F*** that, and now i'm squeaky clean and legal. 

But despite this, I still got modded, which is odd as I think I justified my case for admitting to piracy by saying I did ages ago, so yeah, technically I broke the rules, but in the context of my post, I felt it was justified. I admitted to piracy to make astatement about piracy, which begs the question, do mod's moderate on technicalities or do they read your post and decide whether it's acceptable or not. I seem to be very unlucky when moderated, and it angers me. but yeah i'm back

Having not done any work yesterday, and knowing I will do little today, I have been given time to muse over things. Here's an interesting (Or at least I think so) argument that attempts to prove the existence of God.

First let me start with my own beliefs, I am fundamentally an aetheist, but at the same time, I have incoporated element of spirituality into my beliefs. I do not believe in God, an afterlife or the principle of religion as a control tool, but I do not find it possible that something can:

• Come from nothing
• Exist at one point, then not exist at another.

I'll just break this last point down a bit. I'm not talking about a physical object being broken or dissolved when I say 'not exist' I'm talking about a force. So for example, energy, matter, or an eternal deity. They must have always been present, they can't come from nowhere, and they can't just stop existing, they are the one eternal, essential foundation that upon which, everything can subsequently be born.

Hopefully you followed that, whether you agree or not is your call, and i'm open to discussion here.

Now, a popular, and religiously sound argument to prove God's existance is the Ontological argument.

Basically, the Bible describes God as perfect. Perfection in philosopihical terms means 'without flaws' God is an omnipotent (all powerful) Omniscient (All seeing/knowing) Omnibenevolent (All loving) being.

From here we can then say that 'to exist is more perfect than to not exist.' This is tricky so bear with me here. For God to be perfect, surely he must exist, a non existant thought is inferior to anything that exists, surely? One of your socks that exists in the real world is surely greater than an imaginary being in your head?

So for God to be perfect, he NEEDS to exist, otherwise is inferor to any real object, (including those that are imperfect). If God doesn't exist then he is not perfect, surely?

So from here we can conclude that God exists because his perfection neccessitates that he exists.

Do you follow? If not then i'm sorry. If you do, then i'd like to stress that this is a CHRISTIAN argument, not mine. We can quite easily pick this argument apart, but i'll only do that if someone wants me to, otherwise, what are your thoughts?

Well, seeing as i have reached level 20 and embraced my inner geek, I've decided I want a personalised image to work as a banner/sig, can anyone help, or does anyone know of anyone who can help?

As if anyone cares :D

Well, I purchased saints row 2 today, and I have to tell you that my initial reaction is mixed. Saints row is definately going for the fun factor that i missed in gta.

In Gta, i spent the first 10 minutes without a pistol or a decent firefight, In saints row I was messing about in my carefree way as soon as I got out of jail. It just seems more like a game than a frustrating gang sim. While rockstar may have created a technical masterpiece, they seemed to have lost a certain degree of the carefree killing spree that epitomized san andreas and its predecessors.

While it's easy to bash GTA now I do think that Rockstar have made a stellar effort with the game. And the multiplayer is FAR superior frim what i can tell. GTA just doesn't capitalise on it's own strenghts, the gunplay is solid and fun, yet you frequently find yourself in huge fights with the police on one side and a gang on the other. Additionally, I find myself doing escort missions relentlessly to appease my friends.

Saints row takes the F*** realism approach to sandbox, I worked for crackdown and it worked here, while the gunplay on display here is somewhat weak in comparison, it's never frustrating thanks to the inordinate amount of damage your character can sustain. While I admire GTA for what it's done, it's grown tiresome. The feds have a lot to do with it and they bug me in stilwater as much as in Liberty city. GtA has by far the better system for evading the cops at low levels, but they're damn near impossible to shake off after 3 stars, andthey're so bloody relentless. Saints row is rather more fun when things all go into moshtastic mayhem, where it's all a big old as we nail people left right and center.

I'm tired, but i will continue this at some point soon

Thank god he won, I mean. I liked claire, but she just didn't ever shine for me, I was torn between Lee and Raef at about week 4, and I was so happy for the man when he won.

For those who don't know, The apprentice is pretty much the most watched show on English TV, yes we nicked your idea...but let's be fair...Alan Sugar > Donald Trump, for not being a total Bell***.

Lee McQueen was energetic, a great leader, salesman, passionate...and he thouroghly deserved a win, well done that man!

Anywhoo, congrats, and Shinida Twin needs a headset...

Well, I joined a new union, GRU (Game reviewers)

Interesting stuff,a union that is focussed on reviewing games on a game reviewing site. Although having said that, gamespot hardly has an impeccable reputation...

Still, hopefully i can keep active and no-one reads my fifa and NFS reviews, which at this point i am morbidly ashamed of :(
Some nice people there, and It encouraged me to finish my COD 4 review (You have to go to the union board to find it) and do a guitar hero review.

I was thinking Mass effect next. OR viva pinata, or Hitman blood money, as i want to do a review of a game i didn't love to bits.

JJpenguin

So, i have decided to slowly post how i went about fixing my xbox:

now, bear in mind this WILL void your warranty, on the other hand, if you can't wait, or you have a warranty-breaking fetish, here goes:

You need to dissassemble your xbox 1st; here is a good guide showing you how:

along with a helpful youtube guide

At this point, you can take the DVD drive out (the grey box) it lifts right off, just take the wires out. Next, you will need to take the large white plastic thing out, it should come out easily just by pulling it.

After you've lifted the white thingy out, there are some fans revealed, first, pull out the wire that connects them to the motherboard, then take the fans out, it can be a little tricky.

Now you need find the smaller circuit board attached to the front of the xbox (where the RROD would be) simply pull of the white light mount attached to it. undo all 3 screws on the circuit board to remove it.

Lastly, you need to lift the motherboard out of the casing.

here's some help if you need it

Well, I bought a guide for fixing my RROD xbox off the good ol' internet, the guide was crap.

Not only was it unclear and hard to follow, but it only briefly mentioned how to do the most difficult part. however, i persevered, and lo and behold...my xbox works again!

essentially, it seems that if your xbox breaks 'randomly' (i.e. while you were playing normally) chances are the thermal compound has gone, and needs replacing, this is a simple job to fix, and cheap to boot.

In essence, the CPU and GPU chips on the xbox gets VERY hot (to 100 degrees celsius plus) above them are heatsinks, to cool them down, however neither the surface of the heatsinks, or the CPU/GPU are perfectly smooth, so the imperfections trap little pockets of air, air is a bad conductor of heat (it's used in clothing to keep you warm) so the chips reach a critical temperature. Thermal compound fills these gaps with a conductive material, to stop this happening, however the thermal conductor can seemingly need replacing...

Fortunately for us, the good old RROD is there to say: STOP! if the heat reaches too much.

Anywhoo, I'll post a blog sometime of exactly how to fix this problem.

JJpenguin

My halo 3 disk, new and polished...now it has fallen to the great devourer...

My bloody Xbox ate my disk!

I was all ready to build a maze on foundry...then it goes and buggers up for no reason. There were a number of concentric circles around the outside and towards the centre it looked like a bomb had gone off.

So; Understandably pissed, I look up on the internet if I can get a refund, no, but i can get my disk replaced...for ten quid.

Apparently the issue is with the xbox being faulty, this is a real pain in the glutius Maximus as Microsoft are charging ME for their mistake, Hardly seems fair does it?

So, my Parents are coming over for the weekend, and me and my dad are going to open the xbox up, and test if we can fix it. If so, i will post my findings and hopefully save you all the trouble of getting extremely annoyed like me.