I don’t really do the whole classical music scene. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for these works - my favourite would have to be Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ - but it just isn’t part of my listening routine. So it was with somewhat curious interest that I saw an article on the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

Last week, the RSPO opened up the European leg of the Play! tour, which features music from legendary computer games like Final Fantasy, Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda. Accompanying the music are various clips from the relevant games, projected on giant screen s suspended above the orchestra. Oh, and did I mention this tour has a choir as well? No? Well it does!

“PLAY! A Video Game Symphony, the spiritual successor to the Nobuo Uematsu “Dear Friends - Music From Final Fantasy” tour, was an amazing success. Not just a greatest hits amalgam of the last 20 years of video game music, it was a glimpse at the future of a new genre of orchestral entertainment. The idea for PLAY! started back in 2004 when the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra, led by Arnie Roth as conductor, was the host of the second “Dear Friends” show. There in Rosemont Illinois, he and Uematsu-san began planning stages of what became one of the largest public gatherings of talented game composers the world has ever seen – not to mention a spectacular night of music!” - from Music4Games.net

Follow this link for a review of the Chicago opening last month and an interview with a couple of the Japanese composers. The tour will be heading back to North America in July and should hopefully be in Australia by the end of the year. While classical music is, as I have previously stated, not really my thing, I’d definitely be interested to see this.

At the moment there seems to be a huge school of thought out there that very low unemployment is good.

Granted, it feels great to be able to work in a job or profession you enjoy enabling you to live a certain lifestyle and meet interesting people. But spare a thought for the percentage of people out there who haven’t found a niche, haven’t felt good about a job, or just don’t know what they want to do. They are always going to exist, and they are an essential part of our society. Dave Hughes has made a lot of money based on his dole based past. (more…)

I was trying to kill time before the Italy v. USA match the other night (that game had everything) when I stumbled across a hacker’s guide to getting busted by the FBI. The guide was written by one Agent Steal, a hacker convicted of rigging a radio station’s ‘Win a Porsche’ competition and electronically pickpocketing $150,000 from a financial services company. Then, while working for the FBI to hunt down other hackers as part of a plea bargain, he was on the run again when it was discovered he was hacking into banks.

After spending three-and-a-half years in prison for his crimes, he now works for Insane Records as their Chief Technical Officer of Internet Operations (what a cool title). Oh, and he’s retired from hacking. Below is the start of the foreword by Netta Gilboa, publisher of Gray Areas Magazine.

“Nobody wants to get involved in a criminal case and I’ve yet to meet a hacker who was fully prepared for it happening to them. There are thousands of paper and electronic magazines, CD-ROMS, web pages and text files about hackers and hacking available, yet there is nothing in print until now that specifically covers what to do when an arrest actually happens to you. Most hackers do not plan for an arrest by hiding their notes or encrypting their data, and most of them have some sort of address book seized from them too. Most of them aren’t told the full scope of the investigation up front, and as the case goes on more comes to light, often only at the last minute. Invariably, the hacker in question was wiretapped and/or narced on by someone previously raided who covered up their own raid or minimized it in order to get off by implicating others. Once one person goes down it always affects many others later.”

Read the rest of the guide, edited by Netta Gilboa, here.

Also, Mike Bowen offers an interesting article with Agent Steal in Phrack Magazine.

If you want to find out more about the man himself now, check out his webpage.

Kids, just say ‘no’ to hacking… sorry, felt the need for a tacky moral at the end. Promise not to do it again.