Mixed Bag

A variety of topics for today's post, and there were going to be more but I've managed to forget a few. No doubt they'll pop up soon enough.

First up is one of the mini-rants that seem to pervade this blog. This time it's the turn of HDR in Oblivion. Now, I know HDR provides an enhanced gaming experience by reproducing far more realistic effects for an intensely immersive experience and blah blah blah, but seriously, what's up with it in Oblivion? It seems that every light source, every piece of metal, and indeed every freakin' tree in the game becomes bright enough to both blind you and cause severe sunburn. Highly polished metal I can understand, but when it's every damn thing you look at I can only assume they were going less for realism and more "this is all a dream....". I swear I saw uber-reflective stone walls.

Moving into the domain of "random things I've seen", how about this one. The Dunelm in Loughborough (hate the green logo on the site btw, it's meant to be more of a tan colour) has a big uber Main Power Lever Of Doom upstairs on the wall, publicly accessible. If only it was a video game where I could throw that switch to cut all the power off without the police grabbing me.

And my final point I can remember - a quick pre-use evaluation of my new PC case. I went for Jeantech's Phong II (protip: get a new site designer) because reviews mentioned it was pretty damn good value for money. Anywho, it arrived and t'was all in order, which was nice :-) The thumbscrews are a welcome change from my usual "spend half an hour finding a screwdriver before doing anything", as are the pre-installed and nicely large fans. It comes with a 140mm fan in the front and a 120mm fan in the back, which should be substantially quieter than the 2 or 4 90mm fans that I'm used to. Also very nice was the compartmented box of colour coded thumbscrews and other miscellaneous parts it came with, as well as the pre-installed rubber grommets in the hard drive bays to reduce vibrations that would normally be transmitted to the case. Pretty much the only change I'm going to have to make to it is a simple swap of the side air duct for another fan as it won't line up nicely with the Freezer Pro 7 anyway. If I'm feeling adventurous I may rig this fan up to direct air over the graphics card rather than just straight into the case, we'll see. Overall I love my new case :-)

Calm Down Dear

Quote the Sun:

Evil dictator Saddam Hussein goes to hell for his crimes

Is it just me or have they forgotten how to report without huge excesses of emotive language. Personally it doesn't work on me anymore because they just go way over the top.


Edit:
I also like the fact that our "impartial" news reporting outlets assume that Christianity is The One True Faith. What if god likes people like Saddam? Or if (s)he doesn't care about such petty human affairs? What if there isn't a hell to go to? Or if the criteria for entry are completely different? What if hell isn't a place of eternal damnation and suffering? What if there isn't a heaven/hell distinction and there is just one place where the dead hang out? What if our souls continue to inhabit this plane of existence rather than passing on? What if god's plan just didn't include anywhere for our souls to go after our death? What if we get reincarnated?

And when you come down to it, what if there is no magical (wo)man in the sky and when we die we simply stop existing?

New PC :-D

Well the parts have started trickling in, though some are going to be delivered after I go back to Coventry so I'll have to wait to pick those up :-( Quick specs below, and yes there's some odd choices but I have my reasons :-P

Case: Jeantech Phong 2
Motherboard: Asus Striker Exteme NF680i
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache)
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
RAM: Crucial CT2KIT12864AA667 2GB kit (1GBx2)
Graphics: XFX 512MB GeForce 7950GT XXX (overclocked - Mem 1600MHz, GPU 610MHz)
PSU: 600W Seasonic S12-600

PSP Games

My PSP is now on firmware 2.71 under DevHook so I finally have the ability to do a load of things that I couldn't under basic 2.0. One of those abilities is to boot game ISOs from the memory stick. Now this is technically illegal I guess, but I'm doing it for a good reason : make sure games are worth buying before I shell out cash on them. My basic plan is to try the game out and if I play it a lot then buy a real copy of it as the people who made it deserve the money. If I'm not impressed by the game then I won't buy it (and nor will I continue to play the rip of it). Contrary to how various organisations see it, I have actually made more purchases of real music, dvds and games based on my impressions from rips than I would have without them, my default stance is not to bother buying something unless I already know about it.

Anywho, my thoughts on various games so far:

Armored Core : Formula Front (Own)
This game has two of my favourite things - Mechs and insane amounts of customisation. Not a game for someone who just wants something they can pick up between doing other things, this takes actual concentration and a will to get right into the customising of your war machines. The ability to do matches on manual control or using the (customisable) AI is nice as well.

Wipeout Pure (Own)
This was the first game I owned for the PSP and I played it near obsessively for quite a long time, I in fact have gold on a substantial number of the races. If you've played previous Wipeout games then this is definately one to look for, if you haven't played one previously then it's still great fun.

Lumines (Own)
The first (and arguably best) puzzle game released for the PSP, kind of a tetris clone with a twist and really nice graphics and music. It's also very addictive as I'm sure Gina can tell you (having played it about as much as I played Wipeout). If you can find it cheap then go for it, or even full price but I just don't like paying £20-£25 for puzzle games.

Mercury (Tried - Buying)
This is another fun puzzle game, again one to try if you can get it cheap. Take this games where you have to tilt a marble/ball bearing around a maze and then take it to a whole new level. You're tilting a ball of mercury around a level (so it's almost fluid and can split up and recombine) involving conveyor belts, gates, moving platforms, etc etc. Very fun to pick up and play at random intervals. This one is on my buying list if I can get it for under £15.

Infected (Tried - Not Buying)
I can't say I was impressed with this game, maybe the first level isn't a good indication of the whole game but it just didn't grab me, didn't give me any hooks to make me think "Yeah, I want to keep playing this". This one is off my buying list unless I happen to pick it back up and find the rest of the game is orders of magnitude more interesting.

Coded Arms (Tried - Buying)
Unlike the above, this is actually a decent shooter. In fact, I've got it paused while I type this post up and I plan to go back to it afterwards. There's not much room to innovate in a first-person shooter, but this game had just enough to interest me and keep me playing, plus it's fun and takes place inside a computer simulation. A computer simulating a computer simulation, don't you just love it? It's like a Matrix game... This one's on my buying list.


Still To Try
Ghost in the Shell
Grip Shift
Dead To Rights : Reckoning
Ridge Racer
Starwars Battlefront 2
Fired Up
Twisted Metal : Head On
Gundam Battle Tactics


Edit
Overlord advised me to check these games out:
Sonic Rivals, Lemmings, Loco Roco, Pyuo Pop Fever and Outrun 2006

Now I just need to find sources for them :-P (the list above only included ones I currently have access to and was thinking about possibly buying, plus a few that I figured might be interesting)

Awesomeness

You know what's freakin' awesome? The trailer for 300, specifically the International Trailer marked "(12.13.06)" as found here. It's based on one of Frank Miller's graphics novels (remember Sin City?) and done in a similar awesome style. I haven't used the word awesome enough yet : The awesomeness is strong with this one. Indeed it is awesome as the critics have forseen. etc etc. The story of 300 Spartans defending Sparta against a million or so Persians. My powers of describing appear to be failing, watch the trailer.

"Madness?! THIS IS SPARTA!"

Save or Export?

Today's challenge to programmers is to explain to me exactly what the difference is between saving a file and exporting a file. I used to believe the following definition:

• Save : Save to a file type that you might want to transport the data around in. For example, a spreadsheet application saving in Excel or OpenDocument Spreadsheet format.


• Export : Save to a file type useful for displaying the data, or for processing. For example, a spreadsheet application saving in HTML, PDF or CSV format.

This always made sense to me, the formats were always where I instinctively expected them to be. Then today I went to save a spreadsheet to CSV format in OpenOffice Calc. I went to the export menu and no CSV was there, it was in the normal save list. This isn't a problem really, CSV was designed to store this type of data so it's up for interpretation where to put the option to save to that format. One thing I did notice during this however was that you could export to XHTML or save to HTML. Considering they are effectively the same (*), how can they split them like that? Is there some deeper underlying truth I've missed about how the two are mostly used or something?


(*) XHTML is basically just slightly stricter HTML that doesn't let you ignore the standard and still have it work, how it should have been in the first place really.

Newbies and Free Things

I'd like to start off an excerpt from a conversation on IRC:

<bracks> vlc is just for newbies that dont know how to install codecs
<Kemp-> ... I honestly can't answer someone who can come up with that line of reasoning
<Kemp-> operating systems are just for newbies that can't manually adjust the processor state by shorting pins out to ground or vcc

This was the guy who couldn't get videos to play properly due to a problem with installing codecs.

Is usability in general so bad that we've accepted this sort of thing? That if a program anticipates your needs and lets you just do what you want to without jumping through hoops then of course it must be for newbies and not good enough for Real Users?


In other news, I got some free goodies today from Crime Generators, sorry... Cash Generators. I bought a TV about a month ago (strangely not cheaper than buying a brand new one really, but they're pretty much next door so I didn't have to drag it across half of Cov) and it died the Thursday just gone. Not even an impressive death, it just turned off and refused to come back on (it wasn't the fuse). Anywho, I took it back and they tried it and confirmed it was dead, so they got me a replacement. During this the woman put the remote control in the bag which is kinda good because they couldn't find one before, so already I had gained something I didn't get originally, and they didn't ask why there was no remote there. Then they notice the TVs have been reduced since I bought them and it's now £10 less. I expected them to not do anything about that as it's a straight replacement and to my knowledge shops don't refund differences for that. However, the manager guy who happened to be nearby told me that he wouldn't mind if I grabbed a couple of DVDs to make up the difference. Win. :-) So because my TV died, I now have a remote for it and a couple of free DVDs. I'm quite happy with the transaction overall.

NaN? That's Far Too Easy...

This thread on TheDailyWTF linked here and much hilarity ensued. Basically this guy has taken existing concepts (NaN, division by zero, infinity, etc), rewritten it slightly in a way that makes things basically suck and called it his amazing new invention that will revolutionalise everything in maths, computing, etc. He's even taken it upon himself to teach it to children at school. Here are some choice comments (and bear in mind the Wikipedia article on his new maths was put up for deletion barely 2 hours after its creation):

So, in order to avoid causing math errors from division by zero, this idiot has created a new batch of entities which requires special rules which are even more complex (which means less intuitive and more difficult to implement) than just "don't divide by zero". Obviously a major human accomplishment.

If math were medicine, this guy just invented a special new pill which, if you take it, one Planck Time unit before you die, puts you into a coma-like state in which you do not eat, breathe, communicate, or think, and in which you eventually decompose. Your legal status becomes hopelessly confused, and your doctor has to spend twenty times as much effort to deal with it as he would have to sign a death certificate. But it sure beats dying!

[...] the "inventor's" example of the calamity that would ensue if an autopilot system were to crash because of a divide-by-zero. Now, if instead we received a null, how would this carry through the equations/program used within the autopilot? Then the settings for the thrust, alerones, elevators, and everything else would become null. What do you do with a null? Nothing! It's just as indeterminate as the divide-by-zero you were originally stuck with. So if the resulting values are of no use, then what was the point of continuing with the calculation? You gain nothing by continuing past the null condition.

In CS, we have a term for this: an exception. When something happens that stops the show, you back out and try to recover from it. How does a null change this? Instead of immediately backing out (as the divby0 interrupt on any processor would do), you have to constantly check the "nullity" of your return value and manually back out. Congradulations, you've reinvented the square wheel.

What really scares me though, is that he's teaching this to his high school class. This isn't yet an accepted mathematical representation, let alone part of the curricullum that he is required to follow. So why is this being taught to high school students who will blindly accept his useless nonsense?

The part mentioned above is this:

"Imagine you're landing on an aeroplane and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it divides by zero and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your heart pacemaker divides by zero, you're dead."

So how does he suggest it deals with a nullity condition then? Should the heart rate be increased? Lowered? Should the plane bank? Dive? Eject the motherf***ing snakes?


This theory is full of fail.

Linux + Usability

Further to my previous posts about gradually liking Linux more and more, I do have to point out that Windows has one thing on its side. It may be bloated, slow, unreliable and targetted by every virus/spyware writer in existence, but it's usable by (almost) anyone. The problem that Linux has, and will always have until the programmers start to pick their game up, is that it's simply not possible for the average computer user (ie, someone without a degree in computing) to pick it up and use it. Sure the basic functionality is fine, but once you start doing anything useful that Windows handles for you, like printing to a network printer, you start hitting the machine with large blunt objects. The problem seems to be a combination of two things:

• No will to create decent documentation


• An assumption that not only will you be familiar with the internals of Linux, you will be familiar with the internals of the tool that you only just picked up


• Fancy graphical interfaces that actually don't help you at all

Until developers think in terms of usability, the approaching time of mass adoption will never, never, appear.

As a case in point, I have this article about one man's attempts to set up CUPS. I personally have been exposed to a similar task in CUPS and even with instructions from someone who's already done it, it wasn't nice at all.
Part 1
Part 2

I'm sure Sarah will have a cunningly persuasive rebuttal, but you know it's all true really :-P

Still Alive

I'm still alive, I just don't seem to find the time to post much. I'm going back and tagging random posts though (yay for Blogger Beta) so at least I'm doing something here. Real post soon, I promise.

Annoying Software

Just a couple of points about annoying software recently. First one is the Ringo screensaver do-hickey that downloads your network's pictures so the screensaver can rotate between them. I never actually use it so I disabled it from running at startup (via the option in the program) - problem solved you'd think. Oh no, that would be too easy. Turns out it still runs anyway, it just hides itself. I found this out when out of nowhere it started updating itself. It didn't even tell me, no sign it was running, no sign it was updating itself, the only reason I knew was because my firewall tells me when programs are launching each other and it caught this happening. I make that two offenses in one: running hidden from the user after being told not to run, and auto-updating behind the user's back.

Second would be Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. This is not an expansion, I'll say that again, not an expansion. It is a complete game in itself which I don't have too much of a problem with as it is pretty good. What I do have a problem with, however, is the 4GB it makes you waste for no reason. You see, it has all the data for all 7 races including the 4 from the first game and the one from the (real) expansion Winter War. The problem is it requires you to have those games installed in order to use those races, even though it has all the data itself. That's copy protection gone mad, a sequel that requires you to have the original installed. I'm going to uninstall the original and hope that when the readme said

if you have Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War or both Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault installed, you will unlock more multiplayer features in Dark Crusade

it actually meant

if you supply the CD key for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War or both Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault installed, you will unlock more multiplayer features in Dark Crusade

(it does ask you for the appropriate key). Why it requires it for multiplayer and not single player is beyond me, they are roughly equivalent and need the same data.

Crazy Tabs

The post I've been meaning to make for weeks will come later (possibly without half the stuff I was going to blog about due to forgetting what they were), but for now I present you with a little "WTF?" moment...

I clicked a link from here to go here, middle-clicking in Firefox to open in a new tab. It didn't open a new tab for the page, it in fact opened 244 of them all open at that page. I was quite puzzled, especially given that there is no javascript or other pokiness involved as far as I can see.

XPensive Software

Recently I've been getting much more enthusiastic about using Linux, having used Fedora Core something (4?) the summer before last while working on a project for the Cogent Computing ARC and doing a lot of work over the last few months with Gumstix (which come with some Linux distro, can't remember what) and Ubuntu. Then there's Knoppix which I'm using in its LiveCD form as a host system to develop my own distro based off of the guide at Linux From Scratch. Basically, I'm thinking of migrating almost all the things I do over to Linux in some form or another, possibly only keeping Windows (specifically XP, not Vista, see below) to play various games on and stuff. Besides, all the useful tools are written for Linux anyway...

This decision has been helped slightly by my discovery of various items in the Vista EULA, as mentioned here (3 pages for you =P ) and here, and I won't even go into the "Trusted Computing" nonsense or the related insane pushing of DRM at the system level (right down to the hardware itself).

As a side-note, I'd like to point you to this purely because I hate iTunes with a vengeance.

Anyway, I think that's enough to read for now. My feelings towards Windows have moved very fast towards dropping it recently, and that doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon.

Deja Vu

It turns out that Overlord can't post to his blog as LiveJournal looks at the timestamp, decides he's posting from an alternate reality, and rejects him faster than Lordi at the Hilton. That of course means I'm posting here to annoy him =P For those not in the UK, we're transitioning out of/into (I can never remember which) daylight savings time, so we have just had our second 1am for tonight. I think he may just be trying to post an entry before the time on the last one he posted though, whereas I'm not, which may be why the system isn't liking it.

Last night we had pink pancakes. Yes, pink :-D We decided to mix some red food colouring in for wierdness value. Not much else to say about that really.

This morning brought a nice surprise for me. At about 11-ish I think Gina answered her mobile and then suddenly hopped out of bed and ran off, "I have to go, I'll be back in about 20 minutes". Anyway, I dozed off back to sleep and when I woke up there was a wrapped package on the pillow next to me. Intrigued, I unwrapped it and what did I find? Megatokyo volume 4 :-D :-D I tried to get it ages ago but the Forbidden Planet here wasn't stocking it. Turns out Gina got them to order one in for me without me even knowing, I was rather insanely happy for the rest of the day.

That's all for now I think, time to read more of MT 4 :-D

Sony = Ultimate Lose

Sony have sued Lik-Sang out of existence, I guess that's about where I stop buying anything Sony. My only planned purchases were some PSP bits and a PS2 which I doubt would make any impact on their profits, but still, the principle is there and they're plummeting anyway, which is probably why they felt the need to be this retarded. Info.

According to Sony they are "trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera". That would be the hardware that includes genuine Sony power adapters with the appropriate safety markings for various countries would it?

Lik-Sang is a huge loss, not only to people who regularly import, but also apparently to Sony employees:

Sony Europe's very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang Mugs or Lik-Sang Badge Holders, starting just two days after Japan's official release, as early as 14th of December 2004 (more than nine months earlier than the legal action). The list of PSP related Sony Europe orders reads like the who's who of the videogames industry, and includes Ray Maguire (Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Alan Duncan (UK Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Chris Sorrell (Creative Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Rob Parkin (Development Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited), just to name a few.

I can only hope that Lik-Sang come back under a different name, or that the courts see that Sony are only doing this to desperately grab money and prevent themselves from going under due to their own dumbass decisions.

Job Ad

Preference will be given to handicapped applicants if equally qualified.

Yay for discrimination against able people *rolls eyes*

Death Metal Druids

Two conversations (IRC followed by MSN). What can I say, everyone loves the idea.

Kemp: I love that the Pope declared rock to be anti-religion, thus vindicating a lot of people's music choice
Kemp: he seems to have also forgotten that Christianity isn't the only religion
Kemp: what if there's specifically a religion related to rock, how would that fit his anti-religion idea?
Kemp: also all the religions that just don't care what we listen to
NYRelics: i believe stonehenge was just a giant amphitheather :)
Kemp: f'ing yes
NYRelics: they powered their instruments by the earth lines *g*
Kemp: can you imagine a druid death metal band
NYRelics: hgahaha
NYRelics: nope :)
Kemp: they have the long hair to flail around :D
NYRelics: that would be a good act to bring out
NYRelics: yea
NYRelics: surrounded by little evil figurines made out ofwood
NYRelics: and entrails
NYRelics: :0
NYRelics: We're Druids! ROCK ON!

Overlord: LMAO DEATH METAL DRUIDS
Overlord: Dude, that would be so awesome to see
Kemp: yes, yes it would
Overlord: GAIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *death metal solo*
Kemp: this must happen

Other Death Metal Druid posts:
Overlord

Me and Overlord are now the only results on Google for "Death metal druids" :-D

Robin Hood

I've been watching watching the BBC's new Robin Hood series and I must say I am rather impressed by it, against my expectations. If we ignore the use of hair gel and synthetic fabrics in that time period, along with making it slightly cleaner than it would have been (presumably due to it being the BBC), and some cases of "interesting" physics, then it's quite a good series. I have no idea how historically accurate it is but I like the angle they took with it, and I'm glad they didn't start at the usual place of Robin being the "stealing from the rich to give to the poor" guy with no backstory for how he actually got there, for once he is something other than a random guy who just wants to be nice. Basically he's been away fighting with King Richard in the Crusades (thus his access to Saracen weapons) and when he gets back he sees how corrupt the local authorities have become, gets stripped of his titles (the fact that he was a noble is something that isn't mentioned a lot in other tellings, though the Disney cartoon probably isn't too good a reference for me to use =P ), and ends up making life as hard as possible for the Sheriff and Guy (of Gisbourne), who coincedentally is believed to have had his own legend going on which got absorbed into the Robin Hood one. For more info on the Crusades hit your favourite info source (Wikipedia is always useful), though a summary of the particular one going on here (if my interpretation of the information is right) can be found here:

The Third Crusade, 1189–92, followed on the capture (1187) of Jerusalem by Saladin and the defeat of Guy of Lusignan, Reginald of Châtillon, and Raymond of Tripoli at Hattin. The crusade was preached by Pope Gregory VIII but was directed by its leaders—Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.

(Emphasis mine)

If I picked out the wrong Richard then feel free to moan at me, my knowledge of our old rulers is at about the same level as my knowledge of structural engineering, ie virtually zero.

Anyway, definatly something to watch if you have some time or bandwidth* spare.


* I do not endorse piracy, download from legitimate sources only =P

BBC News

Just some random BBC News posts pulled off my news reader (and a couple that were linked to from them).

Experts create invisibility cloak
This one is fun. They managed to get what they call a "metamaterial" to redirect microwaves around an object and recombine on the other side, thus making the object near-invisible to a detector. They say that with nano-scale engineering it could be made to work with visible light as well. How would you know where you put the thing though?

US Congress steps into cyberspace
Apparently they're appointing people to check out online transactions (which occasionally involve real money) in the interests of understanding them better. They say there's no plans to start trying to tax these, but I think we all know how much their word is worth. Which leads smoothly onto...

China's full-time computer gamers
These dudes build up gold in games like World of Warcraft and then sell it for real cash. It's a (more than) full-time job but I guess it could be fun...

And finally, Basra troops 'on another planet'
When the US can support our troops better than we can then maybe we need to rethink how we treat them.


Update:
Single on memory stick for Keane
I'm quite impressed by this, releasing a single on a USB stick. You get the video for the single as well, and it's on a 512MB stick that you can use as per any other stick. Not bad for £3.99.

Food and Thought

Last night me and Gina ate at Nandos. We went there last Sunday because the Chinese had stopped cooking things for the buffet and what was left wasn't really worth it (even with the generous discount they offered us). When this Sunday rolled around we decided to go there again as it really is a great place as long as you like lots of chicken. Long story short, we ordered quite a bit. We had a chicken breast burger and chips each (mine the least hot possible of course), along with two pittas, garlic bread, and five chicken wings. I had the idea of buttering half a pitta (the butter was completely melted and thus rocked) and rolling it up with chicken off one of the wings in it, the wings being a very nice barbequed/flame-grilled flavour. That was possibly my favourite thing I ate that night, I had another two of them and Gina also had one and decided she would have more next time. We in fact had to order another pitta to make the last two, bringing the total count up to three pittas consumed. I was quite full at the end of it all. I probably won't be getting garlic bread next time as their ones taste different to the frozen store-bought ones which I'm so used to (they have corrupted my taste buds), it is something you should try at least once though as the different flavour might be something you like.

Someone we discussed momentarily while we were there was the diminishing quality of our leaders and suchlike. We started off on Martin Luther King and moved onto the fact that we don't hear any good speeches these days, I commented that the last good speech I remember hearing was in the movie Independence Day =P It also occured to me that the most famous philosopher of our time is one Tyler Durden, who isn't even real in any sense. Oh well, maybe things like that are meant to gradually become virtual, who knows?