The past couple months have been filled with some unique experiences for me in terms of piracy. Historically, I have downloaded content. I think most of us have. But these strange events have nothing to do with pirating content. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. There have been multiple times where I have legally purchased an item, but due to “protection” features, have actually been denied my product. Today I am going to discuss one such occurrence and what it means to consumers. In a round about way, this all started when I showed my mother the new Nexus 7…
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Two weeks ago, my country lost three soldiers in a single attack in Afghanistan. This may not sound unusual to those from other countries who’ve seen regular losses among their military, but New Zealand’s role in the Bamyan province since 2003 has primarily been the Provincial Reconstruction Team, rebuilding infrastructure and educating the locals towards self-sufficiency — we have lost 10 soldiers during our time in Afghanistan. The impact of these three deaths on our nation was made more heartfelt by the loss of two more soldiers in another attack only two weeks earlier, and the fact that one of…
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As you may have noticed, Guerrilla Geek has been idle for most of 2012. Life happened to us and we couldn’t keep up with the punishing schedule we’d set for ourselves, so we folded. However, the time has come (the walrus said) to speak of many things, and we’re launching Guerrilla Geek 2.0. The most obvious change you will see is the format. Gone is the magazine-style that once you knew; we’re now presenting ourselves as a collection of geek-related blogs run by the various authors themselves. In the “Our Blogs” section in the right-hand sidebar, you can see the…
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Earlier in the week, I saw that the reoccurring debate about “real geeks” cropped up again with a notable geek girl publishing a post on Forbes called “Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away”. For those not in the know, there are three groups within the geek culture who are involved in this debate: people with supposedly questionable geek credentials (usually “fake geek girls”); people who hate the questionable geeks for their presumptive intrusion into the culture; and the people who hate on the haters for being elitist and exclusive. This debate provides an ugly undercurrent that circulates throughout all…
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As a fan of Shearwater, I was understandably full of anticipation when I heard that they were to release a new album. But how would they follow up their masterpiece triptych of Palo Santo, Rook, and The Golden Archipelago (collectively known as The Island Arc Trilogy)? Would the new album have the same magnetism and power; would the band maintain their ineffable musical presence? Thankfully, Animal Joy did not disappoint. This album embarks down a new path for Shearwater, leaving me not just impressed, but actually excited by what I was listening to. Animal Joy is Shearwater’s eighth studio album…
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After seeing this film one of my friends made the innocuous comment “That was pretty good but almost all of it was scientifically impossible” to which I replied “What were you expecting? Its called Mission: Impossible. Not Mission: Scientifically Accurate”. In a nutshell that is the main draw of the Mission: Impossible franchise, they’re big, crazy and kind of stupid, but you get the feeling that the people making the film know that and are really just going out of they’re way to make an enjoyable action film. If nothing else Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is most definitely that….
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I’ve found that when it comes to Hack/Slash your either a fan or your not, nobody really falls in between. Incidentally the same can be said for the Hatchet series of horror films starring everybody’s favorite Jason Voorhees knock off Victor Crowley. Now whereas I am very much a fan of Hack/Slash, I have always been a bit lukewarm towards Hatchet. Still, when I heard that both of these decisive titles in the world of horror were going to be occupying the same thirty six pages of sequential splatter action I knew I had to check it out. For the…
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The phenomenal Who is Jake Ellis? has finally been collected. If you missed it while it was coming out in single issues, it’s time to rectify that grievous mistake. The first 6 pages of Nathan Edmondson and Tonči Zonjić’s spy thriller might be the best opening sequence of the entire year. There’s some hyperbole mixed into that sentence, but not enough to make me feel uncomfortable opening with it. Jon Moore is on the deck of a cruise ship off the coast of Barcelona, presumably cutting a deal with some shady criminal types. The proceedings quickly go south as Moore…
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I think it’s safe to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most anticipated Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games to come out in nearly a decade. When you look at the pedigree, it’s hard to deny that there are a lot of high caliber forces coming together to make this game. Star Wars is one of the most beloved Sci-Fi franchises of all time, Bioware is one of the premiere RPG developers, and Electronic Arts has one of the biggest coin-purses in the video game industry. So with all this expectation and fawning, can the title…
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“Colonel Steve Austin. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.” If you grew up in the mid to late ’70s then you probably watched The Six Million Dollar Man starring Lee Majors. I missed out on watching the series by a few years, but eventually watched it in syndication and the television movies that followed.  As a kid, Col. Steve Austin was a favorite of mine and a character I pretended to be every chance I got as a kid playing with friends. I have always had a place in my heart for this…
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