XBox One Controller Not Working After Anniversary Update

I've just applied the Windows 10 anniversary update and found my XBox One controller no longer worked. The controller appeared to switch on, but would then almost immediately switch itself off.

10 Top Tips for Leaving Comments on the Internet

Here I present 10 Top Tips for leaving comments on the Internet!

1. Start by calling the content creator an idiot.
2. Announce that you couldn't make it to the end of the article, video, podcast, whatever due to a pedantic reason, such as a misspelling or mispronunciation.
3. Question the political motivations behind the content and call the creator a Commie, Nazi, or traitor.
4. Find one minor fact within the content to disagree with and make sure you tell the creator that this one minor bone of contention invalidates the entire argument.
5. Introduce some irrelevant or tangential argument that bears no relation to the subject at hand.
6. Ask questions that nobody could reasonably know the answer to or, alternatively, ask questions the answer to which could easily be found out but aren't relevant.
7. Use anecdotes to prove that any statistics used are completely without merit.
8. Start arguments with other people to completely flood the comments, preferably being as rude as possible within the limits of the commenting rules.
9. Make sure to "thumbs up" your own comments and better yet have plenty of sock-puppet accounts to do likewise.
10. Finally, threaten to never darken the doorstep of the website you're on ever again/cancel subscriptions/boycott etc. 

Continental Circus was not a mistranslation

In 1987 Japanese arcade game manufacturer Taito released a racing game called Continental Circus. Internet legend states that this was a mistranslation and that the game should have been called Continental Circuits, and indeed for its US release the cabinet artwork was changed to use this name.

Was this really a mistranslation, or could it perhaps just have been a misunderstanding or a marketing strategy?

Humble Indie Bundle 8 Review

The latest pay-what-you want, charity supporting Humble Indie Bundle has been released and will be available for the next fortnight or so. Is it any good? Well here's my round-up of the games included...

I'm sorry console gaming, I'm leaving you. We've grown too far apart.

Today marked two things:

1) The reveal of Microsoft's forthcoming system, the XBox One.
2) Something I've long suspected coming true: my relationship with console gaming is at an end.

Given Sony's lackluster introduction of the PS4, concentrating as it did on 8GB of RAM!, I had hoped Microsoft's reveal of the next XBox would do something to rekindle my interest in console gaming.

Improving PlayStation 2 Picture Quality on HDTVs

Recently I decided to pull my trusty old PlayStation 2 out of the cupboard to re-play some of my favourite games from the early-to-mid 2000's. Whilst I was initially very pleased that the machine still worked after 6-7 years of inactivity, I was surprised how poor the picture quality was on-screen and started wondering whether or not all these years of HD gaming on the PC and 360 had altered my memory of how good graphics really were back then (rose-tinted glasses syndrome!).

Happily, after a bit of research and tinkering, I managed to improve the picture quality quite dramatically. So here I present some handy-dandy tips on improving your PlayStation 2 experience on an HDTV!

Why Britain Sucks: Fuel Taxes

Welcome to the first in a new series of posts, Why Britain Sucks... And What We Can Do To Fix It. In this post I'm going to tackle the question of why fuel in Britain is so expensive. 

Fuel in Britain is expensive. Very expensive. A 2012 article by This is Money placed Britain as the 7th most expensive place in the entire world to buy fuel, calculating that more than 10% of people's income is spent at the pumps.

But why should this be the case? What is it about Britain that makes fuel so expensive? What are the implications for the wider economy? Why does Britain suck? What can we do to fix it?