I was just looking through the ships and found the most specialized ship in there. By “most specialized” I mean one that is suited really well to a single task and really badly to anything else.

There is vaguely a choice of four (one for each faction) so I went for the best one. It is the Charon. The Charon is a freighter designed for carrying stuff. And that’s basically it. It’s very good at it though. A Badger, the Caldari industrial can carry about 5,000 cubic meters of stuff. The Charon can carry 785,000 cubic meters. All this comes at a price. Firstly, it’s very slow - 60 m/s without skills. And you can’t even put a microwarp drive on it. And it’s not that the Charon has limited CPU or power or anything (which it does) but that it has no fittings. That’s right, not a single slot. There are a couple of other sneaky uses for it though. It has high shields and very high armour and hull which means it might distract the enemy in a big fight. You’d hope that they’d assume it was carrying something important. Or along the same lines you could use it as bait maybe but there are much better ways to do that.

A new post has been made in the EVE Dev blog by a guy called Redundancy about the EVE economy. Lots of interesting thing about GDP and stuff. The most interesting is that GDP per capita is on the increase - that is the average amount of money a player earns is going up. In fact is has double since January.

I’ve been reading about MythTV and considering it as a replacement for Windows Media Center. Overall it has more features, has better support for multiple computers and is completely free. Unfortunately it’s only available for Linux. Which also means you have to be picky with hardware because of the lack of drivers. I’ll write more about it shortly.

MythTV.

Firstly, some of the posts about TalkTalk problems are getting a little heated, especially now some TalkTalk call centre workers have posted. Try and keep everything vaguely cordial.

Secondly I have an update (sort of) regarding unbundling. I recently posted that the unbundling dates were 31st August. Well another post on Sam Knows said they were the dates Carphone Warehouse originally posted and haven’t actually been updated since. As such some people already are unbundled - most people aren’t.

I just downloaded an excellent little program called EVEMon. It’s basically has an item/skill database for EVE and tells you how long it will take you to train skills. You can either select the skills specifically or select an item and it selects the skills necessary for that item. It also reads the XML format that the EVE website makes available so it knows which skills you already have. It also tells you if training any learning skills would make things quicker and the optimal order.

To fly a Leviathan and be able to operate an Oblivion (the Caldari doomsday weapon) will take, at best, 298 days.

PS. Just having an item and skill database readable outside of EVE in an app instead of on a website is quite handy.

The next big update in EVE will be called Kali. This will include a few things, including contracts - an overhaul of the missions/escrow/market system as well a big graphical update. The thing that I think most people are waiting for is Factional Warfare. All I knew about it until recently was vague implications that the name give. But I just received issue 2 of EON (the quarterly EVE magazine) which has a more in depth description of what the developers are hoping for with Factional Warfare.

Firstly, it looks like all the factions will be involved. There’s a two page graphic that has the four big ones in the middle, Gallente, Minmatar, Caldari and Ammar. But the others are scattered around, including Jovian Directorate, Khanid Kingdom, Angel Cartel, Thukker Tribe and even Concord.

But what will it actually involve? Well it seems the big part is the ability to do a “tour of duty” with a faction. This gives you access to special missions of a fairly grand scale involving the factions. This has major downsides. I’m assuming it would also make you a valid kill target for anyone doing a tour of duty for a faction at war with one you’re working for.

Also, factions may eventually be valid targets for war declarations by alliances. Could we see Band of Brothers marching in and taking out a faction? I’m guessing completely destroying a faction would be impossible, but taking large chunks of space would be a laugh….

Remember the magazine is six months old and a lot of it is vague. But exciting things are definitely on their way.

Steve Irwin, Australian wildlife expert most famous for his TV series Crocodile Hunter has died after being stung by a stingray. Although appearances can be deceiving I would have considered stingrays fairly low down on the list of most deadly animals he’s faced. In fact he’s apparently only the second person to be killed by a stingray in Australia.

Find more info from BBC News.

Besides missions, deadspace complexes can be a good way for a new player to earn money in EVE Online. If you completed the tutorial (which you really should) you will already have visited a deadspace complex. If you haven’t, they’re basically EVE’s version of dungeons*.

I wouldn’t suggest trying deadspace complexes (complices?) if you’re really new since level Is aren’t really worth it. And to be honest I never tried level IIs, but level IIIs definitely are. I can do them in a badly-fitted cruiser without much of a problem so a well-fitted Frigate shouldn’t be out of the question, and if you can get a friend in there with you you’ll be fine.

Inside you’ll find lots of drones which unfortunately don’t have bounties on them and they don’t drop much cool loot. What you will find though is a couple of interesting containers with “Overseer’s Effects” in them. Although it may not be guaranteed, the ones I’ve seen are 5th Tier Overseers Effects and 7th Tier Overseer’s Effects - the latter are worth 600,000 ISK if sold to the right people. The right people being DED (a division of Concord). It may take you a few jumps to get there but 600,000 to a new player should make it worth it.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about an advert for ntl:Telewest offering unlimited broadband that was unlike other providers - despite small print saying their services were subject to a fair use policy. Since then I have discovered that their unlimited service is actually unlike others. The fair use policy actually makes no reference to bandwidth limitations at all.

The reason I bring it up now is there is one part of the issue I didn’t mention. I actually sent a complaint to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) about the advert. Yesterday I was amazed to actually receive a reply about it. Not only that but a personal reply.

The irony in all this is that ntl:Telewest seem to genuinely offer unlimited downloads but say in such a way that broadband savvy users wouldn’t believe.

I recently said I might need a visa to visit America because of new rules regarding biometric passports. Well it seems I’m okay. You’ll only need a biometric passport for passports issued after October and not just for traveling after October.

This page at the UK US Embassy site has more info.