I'm off on holiday from tomorrow.
I'm actually going to a wedding reception on the Friday (I'm not attending the wedding itself, just the reception afterwards). They're having it in the middle of nowhere, and the Travelodge I'm staying at is a fair distance away, so I've a horrible feeling it could cost me a fortune in taxi fares, as well as being heavy on the wallet for the more obvious reasons.
Then the week after I'm building the PC, as mentioned yesterday. I'm also hoping to get some stuff watched, both in terms of recorded programs so that I've a bit more of a cushion of free space and I'm not constantly watching stuff in a panic so that I don't run out of room, but also in terms of Blu Rays.
I've stacked up quite a pile of Blu Rays to watch and I don't have any means of ripping them so I can't sell them on until I've seen them. There's a handful I think may be keepers, but mostly they're not things I'll want to hang on, but as I say, I can't sell them until I've watched them.
It's then my birthday and I'll be off down to my Dads to install the PC and also to see him as it's been ages since I have. Not sure how long I'll stay, but I expect I'll come back on the Sunday or Monday - the Monday is the bank holiday, so I'll be back to work (and blogging) on the Tuesday.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
dad PC
I've made a bit of a potential minor catastrophic blunder.
Well, actually I've made a series of relatively small blunder that have combined and could give me some fairly serious problems.
I should start at the beginning.
My dad currently uses my sister's old desktop PC. It's very old - I built it for her more than a decade ago, and it was only mid-spec when it was built. It's therefore getting quite creaky - particularly as my dad is a bit of a one for installing random bits of software and doesn't know how to optimise the system.
So, for example, his penchant for saying yes to installs he doesn't actually want/need/know what they are means he has to have the virus checker doing constant scan and that of course uses up a good chunk of the available resources (virus software seems to be quite prone to becoming bloat-ware under the assumption that everyone is running the latest-spec equipment), slowing it down further.
He's also been getting into digital photography and so wants a system that could handle processing and manipulating big digital photographs. He therefore asked me a while back about getting a new machine and I recommended either buying one from PC world (or similar) if he wanted a cheap route to upgrade or me building one if he had a bit more cash as I could build one with specs that would help him, rather than lots of rubbish he didn't need that you get if you spend a lot of money in such places.
He agreed and went with a budget of £1,000. I then put together some suggestions and we refined it and it came in at about the right budget. It was a bit of a beast of a system in terms of processor, ram and hard-drive, but nothing special for the graphics, case and other bits (he's already using a bigger monitor, so he's keeping that, and we're also re-using his DVD burner - both are recent additions to the old machine so aren't that old, but also he doesn't need anything more).
Anyway, that was all fine and good, but I had a bit of an issue with timing, but also with finances, so he transferred the money, but I didn't have the time to buy stuff, plus some of it wasn't in stock at the time. However, I did something particularly dumb with the money too.
I prefer to use credit cards online for the additional protection they give, but instead of putting all the money onto one card and therefore freeing up an appropriate slot, I spread it across multiple cards. Why the hell I did this looking back I don't know - it means multiple orders and therefore multiple postage, so will cost me more.
Also, rather annoyingly, I've now come to buy the bits and the price of every single bit has gone up slightly. Not a lot - a few pounds, or tens of pounds- but enough to give me some additional issues.
It also doesn't help that I didn't really think sensibly about my car tax and insurance: I should have done 6 months instead of 12 for the car tax and split the insurance into monthly payments - both would have cost more in the long term, but wouldn't have taken big chunks out of my cash reserves. The stag do also cost a lot more money than I thought it would - I haven't added it up, but it was at least £500, all of which had to be paid in cash as it was all paid for by the best man and then re-paid by us: I couldn't book anything individually, which I could have put on a card and therefore given myself some free-space for my Dad's PC.
The upshot of all this is that I now have an annoying situation where I am going to have to pay more for my Dad's PC than he has paid me, but I can't go back to him with the above problems because he's under the impression I've already bought it all. What I might do is make a substitution - there are one or two bits that I picked as slightly better than he needs (the GFX card in particular) in order to make the budget up so I may go cheaper so it cancels out the additional cost. Not 100% honest, but he will never play a game on it so he doesn't need anything with any grunt.
Well, actually I've made a series of relatively small blunder that have combined and could give me some fairly serious problems.
I should start at the beginning.
My dad currently uses my sister's old desktop PC. It's very old - I built it for her more than a decade ago, and it was only mid-spec when it was built. It's therefore getting quite creaky - particularly as my dad is a bit of a one for installing random bits of software and doesn't know how to optimise the system.
So, for example, his penchant for saying yes to installs he doesn't actually want/need/know what they are means he has to have the virus checker doing constant scan and that of course uses up a good chunk of the available resources (virus software seems to be quite prone to becoming bloat-ware under the assumption that everyone is running the latest-spec equipment), slowing it down further.
He's also been getting into digital photography and so wants a system that could handle processing and manipulating big digital photographs. He therefore asked me a while back about getting a new machine and I recommended either buying one from PC world (or similar) if he wanted a cheap route to upgrade or me building one if he had a bit more cash as I could build one with specs that would help him, rather than lots of rubbish he didn't need that you get if you spend a lot of money in such places.
He agreed and went with a budget of £1,000. I then put together some suggestions and we refined it and it came in at about the right budget. It was a bit of a beast of a system in terms of processor, ram and hard-drive, but nothing special for the graphics, case and other bits (he's already using a bigger monitor, so he's keeping that, and we're also re-using his DVD burner - both are recent additions to the old machine so aren't that old, but also he doesn't need anything more).
Anyway, that was all fine and good, but I had a bit of an issue with timing, but also with finances, so he transferred the money, but I didn't have the time to buy stuff, plus some of it wasn't in stock at the time. However, I did something particularly dumb with the money too.
I prefer to use credit cards online for the additional protection they give, but instead of putting all the money onto one card and therefore freeing up an appropriate slot, I spread it across multiple cards. Why the hell I did this looking back I don't know - it means multiple orders and therefore multiple postage, so will cost me more.
Also, rather annoyingly, I've now come to buy the bits and the price of every single bit has gone up slightly. Not a lot - a few pounds, or tens of pounds- but enough to give me some additional issues.
It also doesn't help that I didn't really think sensibly about my car tax and insurance: I should have done 6 months instead of 12 for the car tax and split the insurance into monthly payments - both would have cost more in the long term, but wouldn't have taken big chunks out of my cash reserves. The stag do also cost a lot more money than I thought it would - I haven't added it up, but it was at least £500, all of which had to be paid in cash as it was all paid for by the best man and then re-paid by us: I couldn't book anything individually, which I could have put on a card and therefore given myself some free-space for my Dad's PC.
The upshot of all this is that I now have an annoying situation where I am going to have to pay more for my Dad's PC than he has paid me, but I can't go back to him with the above problems because he's under the impression I've already bought it all. What I might do is make a substitution - there are one or two bits that I picked as slightly better than he needs (the GFX card in particular) in order to make the budget up so I may go cheaper so it cancels out the additional cost. Not 100% honest, but he will never play a game on it so he doesn't need anything with any grunt.
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
version two point oh
So yesterday they launched the version 2.0 patch for SimCity.
I haven't tried it out yet - they took the servers down for quite a while to do it - but also I try not to play during the week too much. Plus I figure that a lot of people will have played in order to see if the new patch has really helped to fix things or not, so I'm guessing it would have been quite busy.
I don't think it will fix everything that needs fixing. Indeed, I don't think some of the things that should be fixed ever will be. Or at least, in order to be fixed, they would need some serious redesigning of the game engine/mechanics.
Having played a fair bit and sat down and studied what's going on in places I think traffic in particular is quite badly broken.
There are two big problems - the rules they've set for how vehicles drive on the roads and the "behaviour" of the Sims that driving is a function of. The first would require a total change of the engine. The second would also require some major changes but I think they may be able to "tune" the game around it or the bits that need changing might be changeable.
In the first the problem is that vehicles are very much "on rails". When you drive a car on a normal road there is nothing that stops you from changing lanes (going into the side of the road oncoming traffic uses). Well, I mean apart from the oncoming traffic itself and solid white lines - what I mean is, if someone stops in the road you can move into the oncoming lane in order to overtake them. This doesn't happen in SimCity - all vehicles are on rails.
But in SimCity they do not do this - if a fire engine stops to put out a fire then all vehicles stop behind it, causing a huge traffic blockage. And conversely, if an emergency vehicle gets stuck behind something it won't go in the oncoming lane to overtake. Now also there are (unrealistically, given the permitted density of roads and types of junctions allowed) so many vehicles on the roads in SimCity there wouldn't be that much opportunity to overtake, but that's not the point - it's unrealistic behaviour that leads to clogged streets.
There's other stuff as well, but that's the best example. There is a solution - you can upgrade the roads to multi-lane jobs and vehicles will overtake, but building density is linked to road density, so you then get buildings upgrading (there's no way to stop this) and so there are more cars, leading to clogged streets again!
The other issue is behaviour - no Sim has a fixed abode or fixed job, they all just go to the nearest free house/free factory/empty school/etc. This is simple to code and I'm sure minimises memory requirements, but it means that all Sims head off to the same destinations all the time - they all try to go to the nearest job, leading to huge jams.
And only once they reach the warehouse and the jobs fill up do they all suddenly then decide to go to the next job. This basically applies to everything they do, which is why you get huge lines of buses all following each other about and why vehicles perform a staggering number of U-turns (which is also another reflection of the previous issue - they can only perform a U-turn at a proper junction, rather than randomly, which also clogs up the roads!).
Now as I say, this second one is the sort of issue that I think they may be able to tweak the algorithms to give a bit more realistic behaviour, or even perhaps replace the algorithm for that sort of behaviour without needing to fundamentally rebuild everything. So I'm hoping this is what v2.0 helps to fix.
If it doesn't then I've been playing about with some workarounds. One in particular that seems to help is to construct your entire city as one big loop. It can be quite fun working this out, but boy does it lead to some unrealistic cities.
Another thing that helps traffic is to think of things as mini cities, so each small bit of residential has easy/close access to commercial and industrial, so they don't do too much long-distance driving (they don't care what the commercial/industrial is, remember, so they don't need go further than their nearest job). Again, horribly unrealistic cities, but at least your entire city doesn't grind to a halt!
I haven't tried it out yet - they took the servers down for quite a while to do it - but also I try not to play during the week too much. Plus I figure that a lot of people will have played in order to see if the new patch has really helped to fix things or not, so I'm guessing it would have been quite busy.
I don't think it will fix everything that needs fixing. Indeed, I don't think some of the things that should be fixed ever will be. Or at least, in order to be fixed, they would need some serious redesigning of the game engine/mechanics.
Having played a fair bit and sat down and studied what's going on in places I think traffic in particular is quite badly broken.
There are two big problems - the rules they've set for how vehicles drive on the roads and the "behaviour" of the Sims that driving is a function of. The first would require a total change of the engine. The second would also require some major changes but I think they may be able to "tune" the game around it or the bits that need changing might be changeable.
In the first the problem is that vehicles are very much "on rails". When you drive a car on a normal road there is nothing that stops you from changing lanes (going into the side of the road oncoming traffic uses). Well, I mean apart from the oncoming traffic itself and solid white lines - what I mean is, if someone stops in the road you can move into the oncoming lane in order to overtake them. This doesn't happen in SimCity - all vehicles are on rails.
But in SimCity they do not do this - if a fire engine stops to put out a fire then all vehicles stop behind it, causing a huge traffic blockage. And conversely, if an emergency vehicle gets stuck behind something it won't go in the oncoming lane to overtake. Now also there are (unrealistically, given the permitted density of roads and types of junctions allowed) so many vehicles on the roads in SimCity there wouldn't be that much opportunity to overtake, but that's not the point - it's unrealistic behaviour that leads to clogged streets.
There's other stuff as well, but that's the best example. There is a solution - you can upgrade the roads to multi-lane jobs and vehicles will overtake, but building density is linked to road density, so you then get buildings upgrading (there's no way to stop this) and so there are more cars, leading to clogged streets again!
The other issue is behaviour - no Sim has a fixed abode or fixed job, they all just go to the nearest free house/free factory/empty school/etc. This is simple to code and I'm sure minimises memory requirements, but it means that all Sims head off to the same destinations all the time - they all try to go to the nearest job, leading to huge jams.
And only once they reach the warehouse and the jobs fill up do they all suddenly then decide to go to the next job. This basically applies to everything they do, which is why you get huge lines of buses all following each other about and why vehicles perform a staggering number of U-turns (which is also another reflection of the previous issue - they can only perform a U-turn at a proper junction, rather than randomly, which also clogs up the roads!).
Now as I say, this second one is the sort of issue that I think they may be able to tweak the algorithms to give a bit more realistic behaviour, or even perhaps replace the algorithm for that sort of behaviour without needing to fundamentally rebuild everything. So I'm hoping this is what v2.0 helps to fix.
If it doesn't then I've been playing about with some workarounds. One in particular that seems to help is to construct your entire city as one big loop. It can be quite fun working this out, but boy does it lead to some unrealistic cities.
Another thing that helps traffic is to think of things as mini cities, so each small bit of residential has easy/close access to commercial and industrial, so they don't do too much long-distance driving (they don't care what the commercial/industrial is, remember, so they don't need go further than their nearest job). Again, horribly unrealistic cities, but at least your entire city doesn't grind to a halt!
Monday, 22 April 2013
bahrain
Well, how wrong was I?
Bahrain turned out to be a really interesting race. It was virtually non-stop, with lots of overtaking and good on-circuit action (and a bit of not so good action).
I think a big part of it is the DRS, which really works here - it enables them to get into a position for overtaking but doesn't make it a simple drive-past like it does at some other circuits. That's why it actually made China a worse race - if it's a circuit where there are already a few chances to overtake then it either makes those areas too easy or shifts the overtaking from that area to the main straight (why battle it out in a corner when you can just wait and drive past on the straight).
It wasn't all clean battling in Bahrain. Perez trying to overtake Button was a bit close to the mark (he even hit him a couple of times). For team-mates it's good that they were keen to fight and not ordered not to at all, but it needs to be totally clean - taking out your own team-mate (and, worse, yourself as well) is an absolute no-no as it basically ruins the work of the team and could cost valuable points.
However, that wasn't the only action - there were good fights between plenty of other cars too and some interesting results - the Force India of Paul Di Resta, for example, got up to 4th. The Lotus is looking extremely consistent - Vettel won, but Kimi and Grosjean were in 2nd and 3rd. The Red Bull therefore looks less comprehensively dominant than in previous years and we know there are circuits it doesn't suit as well given the design philosophy. However, the Lotus looks like it may be a good performer whatever the circuit.
Ferrari also look strong, but Alonso and Massa were horribly unlucky. Alonso's DRS failed quite early, which meant he couldn't use it, effectively tying one hand behind his back. This was having had the issue with the front wing last time, so he's dropped a lot of potential points. Massa had two punctures, which is almost unheard of - both it sounded like came from cuts in the tyres and there were a few smashes that would have left debris on the circuit, but very unlucky to get two.
There's a bit of a gap now until the next race, which is Spain, I believe. I think we also go into a stretch of alternate week races, rather than double-headers, which is better, I feel. The odd double-header is okay, but when they happen a lot I find it quite disruptive to my routines and plans.
Bahrain turned out to be a really interesting race. It was virtually non-stop, with lots of overtaking and good on-circuit action (and a bit of not so good action).
I think a big part of it is the DRS, which really works here - it enables them to get into a position for overtaking but doesn't make it a simple drive-past like it does at some other circuits. That's why it actually made China a worse race - if it's a circuit where there are already a few chances to overtake then it either makes those areas too easy or shifts the overtaking from that area to the main straight (why battle it out in a corner when you can just wait and drive past on the straight).
It wasn't all clean battling in Bahrain. Perez trying to overtake Button was a bit close to the mark (he even hit him a couple of times). For team-mates it's good that they were keen to fight and not ordered not to at all, but it needs to be totally clean - taking out your own team-mate (and, worse, yourself as well) is an absolute no-no as it basically ruins the work of the team and could cost valuable points.
However, that wasn't the only action - there were good fights between plenty of other cars too and some interesting results - the Force India of Paul Di Resta, for example, got up to 4th. The Lotus is looking extremely consistent - Vettel won, but Kimi and Grosjean were in 2nd and 3rd. The Red Bull therefore looks less comprehensively dominant than in previous years and we know there are circuits it doesn't suit as well given the design philosophy. However, the Lotus looks like it may be a good performer whatever the circuit.
Ferrari also look strong, but Alonso and Massa were horribly unlucky. Alonso's DRS failed quite early, which meant he couldn't use it, effectively tying one hand behind his back. This was having had the issue with the front wing last time, so he's dropped a lot of potential points. Massa had two punctures, which is almost unheard of - both it sounded like came from cuts in the tyres and there were a few smashes that would have left debris on the circuit, but very unlucky to get two.
There's a bit of a gap now until the next race, which is Spain, I believe. I think we also go into a stretch of alternate week races, rather than double-headers, which is better, I feel. The odd double-header is okay, but when they happen a lot I find it quite disruptive to my routines and plans.
Friday, 19 April 2013
bahrain grand prix
Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend.
I'm not expecting it to be a particularly good one, as it's not a circuit that generally produces much overtaking. Saying that I have a weird memory that it did produce a good race last year (one of these Arab races did, but I forget which).
I've grown increasingly behind with my recorded TV. I would usually listen to the practice, qualifying and race when they're not showing it live, but that eats up quite a lot of time. As such I made not do that this weekend in order to spend some of that time catching up (or working out if I can delete a few things - I found a few duplicates the other day).
Most of the stuff recorded are dramas. I've gotten into a bit of a habit of recording all the episodes for dramas and then marathoning them. The stuff I tend to watch live (or as close to live as I tend to get) are one off things and documentaries.
Part of my logic for that is that dramas you need to follow the plot so if I watch the first few and then can't watch the last few until weeks/months later, it spoils the fun a bit. For the things I do watch they're obviously self-contained as a program and while there may be multiple episodes it doesn't matter if I watch the next one weeks later.
I've actually got some leave coming up and I'll use some of that time to plough through some of these dramas. I'm only really going away for a couple of the days (the wedding for the guy whose stag I went to and down to my Dad's - more on that next week) so I should have a chunk of time available, though I wanted to watch some of the Blu Rays I've been building up. Unlike with DVDs I don't have a mechanism for copying Blu-Rays so I can't really e-bay them until I've watched them so they're starting to take up a huge amount of room that I don't have.
I'm not expecting it to be a particularly good one, as it's not a circuit that generally produces much overtaking. Saying that I have a weird memory that it did produce a good race last year (one of these Arab races did, but I forget which).
I've grown increasingly behind with my recorded TV. I would usually listen to the practice, qualifying and race when they're not showing it live, but that eats up quite a lot of time. As such I made not do that this weekend in order to spend some of that time catching up (or working out if I can delete a few things - I found a few duplicates the other day).
Most of the stuff recorded are dramas. I've gotten into a bit of a habit of recording all the episodes for dramas and then marathoning them. The stuff I tend to watch live (or as close to live as I tend to get) are one off things and documentaries.
Part of my logic for that is that dramas you need to follow the plot so if I watch the first few and then can't watch the last few until weeks/months later, it spoils the fun a bit. For the things I do watch they're obviously self-contained as a program and while there may be multiple episodes it doesn't matter if I watch the next one weeks later.
I've actually got some leave coming up and I'll use some of that time to plough through some of these dramas. I'm only really going away for a couple of the days (the wedding for the guy whose stag I went to and down to my Dad's - more on that next week) so I should have a chunk of time available, though I wanted to watch some of the Blu Rays I've been building up. Unlike with DVDs I don't have a mechanism for copying Blu-Rays so I can't really e-bay them until I've watched them so they're starting to take up a huge amount of room that I don't have.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
sherlock holmes: game of shadows
This wasn't a rental but a film I got for Christmas (which shows how long I take to watch things and then write a review!).
I've actually recently been listening to the Sherlock Holmes stories on audio book while I do my walking. Only a handful of them are novel length, which I haven't been listening to, and the vast majority are short stories. As such you can kinda see why they tend to stick them together or come up with original stories when they make films.
In the case of these Downey Junior films in some way they're more of the "inspired by" the originals than adaptations. The Moffat BBC series is similar in this sense - the stories are inspired by Holmes and just take bits of the original plots and weave them together. One of the big differences is that the BBC series is set in the modern day where the Downey Jr ones are set in the correct time period - turn of the century England. This gives them both a distinct feel, but also makes you think the Downey Jr ones are somehow "closer" even though really they're more divergent.
However, one thing that has struck me about the originals is how inconsistent they are with each other. In the stories themselves the chronology of events is confused (cases are referred to in the wrong order of occurrence on multiple occasions - to the degree that it's really noticeable), but also the character of Homes is all over the place.
One thing I particularly noticed is that early on he's referred to as going round solving mysteries that relate to royal houses in Europe - something that would surely bring him a degree of fame - but in later he is shunning fame, going so far as to get Lastrade to pretend he'd solved cases, and later still he's so famous in the fictional world that everyone knows who he is.
A particularly frustrating thing for anyone creating an adaptation must be the inconsistency and short-lived nature of key characters. So Moriarty, the apparent arch-criminal and rival is basically only referred to in one story (Reichenbach Falls) in an active sense and then referenced as the ultimate bad guy in subsequent stories - yet he never appeared before that. Irene Adler, who is inflated to a love interest in a lot of stories, is in just one story. There are also the Baker Street Irregulars who pop up in a vague handful of stories but are inconsistently used and then basically forgotten about and then in later stories he acquires a page, an assistant and all sorts, even though many of these stories are apparently set during others where they're not mentioned.
I appear to have gotten very side-tracked. The point I was trying to make is that when you really read the stories you can kinda see where they're getting a lot of the stuff from in these films. In particular, the plot of this second film is grown out of short story that appears quite late on and dabbles with political intrigue. It blends this with Moriarty to form what is a quite satisfying story.
On that front, and in others, this film is actually much better than the first. By using Moriarty and tying it to a meaty plot it feels firmer and is more enjoyable than the first. There's also quite a bit more humour than in the first, some of which is surprisingly surreal, and the action is just that bit more satisfying.
One thing the first did well was that the action was often quite grounded and physical - people beating each other up, rather than flying through the air on wires - and this continues, but it's also tied with a more clever take in some scenes. There's also a part in a forest I won't spoil that is probably one of the best action sequences I've ever seen.
The only thing I was disappointed by was the treatment of the aforementioned Addler - the way that part ends is very unsatisfying. Again, I won't spoiler, but I thought it undermined the first film quite badly, though when you think about it, it wasn't definitive, so it could be developed further, but if it's taken as face value (and little hints otherwise) then I found it quite disappointing.
I've actually recently been listening to the Sherlock Holmes stories on audio book while I do my walking. Only a handful of them are novel length, which I haven't been listening to, and the vast majority are short stories. As such you can kinda see why they tend to stick them together or come up with original stories when they make films.
In the case of these Downey Junior films in some way they're more of the "inspired by" the originals than adaptations. The Moffat BBC series is similar in this sense - the stories are inspired by Holmes and just take bits of the original plots and weave them together. One of the big differences is that the BBC series is set in the modern day where the Downey Jr ones are set in the correct time period - turn of the century England. This gives them both a distinct feel, but also makes you think the Downey Jr ones are somehow "closer" even though really they're more divergent.
However, one thing that has struck me about the originals is how inconsistent they are with each other. In the stories themselves the chronology of events is confused (cases are referred to in the wrong order of occurrence on multiple occasions - to the degree that it's really noticeable), but also the character of Homes is all over the place.
One thing I particularly noticed is that early on he's referred to as going round solving mysteries that relate to royal houses in Europe - something that would surely bring him a degree of fame - but in later he is shunning fame, going so far as to get Lastrade to pretend he'd solved cases, and later still he's so famous in the fictional world that everyone knows who he is.
A particularly frustrating thing for anyone creating an adaptation must be the inconsistency and short-lived nature of key characters. So Moriarty, the apparent arch-criminal and rival is basically only referred to in one story (Reichenbach Falls) in an active sense and then referenced as the ultimate bad guy in subsequent stories - yet he never appeared before that. Irene Adler, who is inflated to a love interest in a lot of stories, is in just one story. There are also the Baker Street Irregulars who pop up in a vague handful of stories but are inconsistently used and then basically forgotten about and then in later stories he acquires a page, an assistant and all sorts, even though many of these stories are apparently set during others where they're not mentioned.
I appear to have gotten very side-tracked. The point I was trying to make is that when you really read the stories you can kinda see where they're getting a lot of the stuff from in these films. In particular, the plot of this second film is grown out of short story that appears quite late on and dabbles with political intrigue. It blends this with Moriarty to form what is a quite satisfying story.
On that front, and in others, this film is actually much better than the first. By using Moriarty and tying it to a meaty plot it feels firmer and is more enjoyable than the first. There's also quite a bit more humour than in the first, some of which is surprisingly surreal, and the action is just that bit more satisfying.
One thing the first did well was that the action was often quite grounded and physical - people beating each other up, rather than flying through the air on wires - and this continues, but it's also tied with a more clever take in some scenes. There's also a part in a forest I won't spoil that is probably one of the best action sequences I've ever seen.
The only thing I was disappointed by was the treatment of the aforementioned Addler - the way that part ends is very unsatisfying. Again, I won't spoiler, but I thought it undermined the first film quite badly, though when you think about it, it wasn't definitive, so it could be developed further, but if it's taken as face value (and little hints otherwise) then I found it quite disappointing.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
the ides of march
The 15th of March.
Technically that's what the title means. The romans used to count dates in a bit of a weird way and the ides was (basically) the middle of the month.
However, what the title is really referring to is the assassination of Julius Caesar, which happened on the ides of March. I have to confess the title is a little esoteric in relation to the plot - nobody actually gets assassinated, as such, though there is a bit of metaphorical assassination, and perhaps a bit of "death of faith".
Ides is a political film. It's surprising how few big political films there are. I guess a big part of the reason for that is that if you come down on one political side you're essentially alienating half (or more) of your audience. I don't mean films with politics in them, btw, I mean serious films about politics - set in the world of politics and exploring it.
It's like The West Wing is one of only a handful of political TV shows. Comedies are more common, I think, particularly as satire is generally focused on politics.
Ides of March is quite complex, but there's not a lot I can say that won't give the good stuff away. It's not too complex that you won't understand it, though.
I've kinda already mentioned the crucial bits - the meat of the plot is about ideology hitting reality and faith in a person hitting the reality of people. What is quite clever, though, is the way that actually two plots are inter-linked and intertwined in such a way that they are together, but can also be compared and contrasted.
The differences between them are intriguing, but the similarities more so. In particular the way in which the main character treats the plotline that affects him directly and that affects him more incidentally is very revealing. When you think about it the film then boils down to hypocrisy, both willing and forced.
And when you start to look at it in that way it's clever how the film sets up all sorts of mirrors at different levels to make the same point. I mean, it's not really judgemental about it, it's just presenting a reality.
I mean many people will say they hate politicians; that the way they flip-flop and compromise is terrible, yet that is the heart of politics - you compromise on things to achieve consensus. It is the essence of us as social animals.
I've gotten quite deep there, and a clever thing about the film is that you can enjoy it without having to delve too deeply into that side, although in some ways that is also its flaw. Because you can enjoy it in this way it could seem relatively flippant - the depth needs a bit of teasing at to really be apparent.
Also, it's not really saying anything you probably didn't already know, unless you were relatively new to this sort of thing.
Technically that's what the title means. The romans used to count dates in a bit of a weird way and the ides was (basically) the middle of the month.
However, what the title is really referring to is the assassination of Julius Caesar, which happened on the ides of March. I have to confess the title is a little esoteric in relation to the plot - nobody actually gets assassinated, as such, though there is a bit of metaphorical assassination, and perhaps a bit of "death of faith".
Ides is a political film. It's surprising how few big political films there are. I guess a big part of the reason for that is that if you come down on one political side you're essentially alienating half (or more) of your audience. I don't mean films with politics in them, btw, I mean serious films about politics - set in the world of politics and exploring it.
It's like The West Wing is one of only a handful of political TV shows. Comedies are more common, I think, particularly as satire is generally focused on politics.
Ides of March is quite complex, but there's not a lot I can say that won't give the good stuff away. It's not too complex that you won't understand it, though.
I've kinda already mentioned the crucial bits - the meat of the plot is about ideology hitting reality and faith in a person hitting the reality of people. What is quite clever, though, is the way that actually two plots are inter-linked and intertwined in such a way that they are together, but can also be compared and contrasted.
The differences between them are intriguing, but the similarities more so. In particular the way in which the main character treats the plotline that affects him directly and that affects him more incidentally is very revealing. When you think about it the film then boils down to hypocrisy, both willing and forced.
And when you start to look at it in that way it's clever how the film sets up all sorts of mirrors at different levels to make the same point. I mean, it's not really judgemental about it, it's just presenting a reality.
I mean many people will say they hate politicians; that the way they flip-flop and compromise is terrible, yet that is the heart of politics - you compromise on things to achieve consensus. It is the essence of us as social animals.
I've gotten quite deep there, and a clever thing about the film is that you can enjoy it without having to delve too deeply into that side, although in some ways that is also its flaw. Because you can enjoy it in this way it could seem relatively flippant - the depth needs a bit of teasing at to really be apparent.
Also, it's not really saying anything you probably didn't already know, unless you were relatively new to this sort of thing.
Monday, 15 April 2013
china
The Chinese grand prix was quite a good one.
I have to say I think the DRS actually doesn't help in China. The problem with it is it makes overtaking too easy and on the straight, rather than proper battling overtakes into the corner. This is particularly the case on the long straight that then goes into the big horseshoe corner.
This has always been a place where overtaking has been possible, but with the DRS it means they overtake on the straight before the corner, rather than going into it. Now I don't think it means there's more overtaking than there would otherwise be, but it does mean the overtakes aren't quite as interesting.
There was also plenty that happened in the race. When it turned out one of the tyres behaved more like a qualifying tyre than a race tyre I was a bit worried it would be fairly predictable - if the tyres are closer or there's more of an advantage revealed during the race then it can throw strategy into disarray, which makes things more interesting.
However, as it happened it didn't seem to be a problem. Indeed, the end was made quite exciting because Vettel changed onto the soft tyre and was hunting Hamilton and Kimi down at the end.
The BBC coverage was also quite extensive. It's weird - they seem to have ramped up the coverage on the races they do in full, despite supposedly scaling it back previously to save money. The practices were even shown live on BBC 2 where usually they would be on the red button, so they had to ramp up what they did. Usually when it's just red button they just commentate on the broadcast - no extra bits.
I'm increasingly convinced that a big part of their decision was the Olympics - both in terms of airtime available and the expense of having to give them full coverage sucking cash away from other sports.
Anyway, it's a double header next weekend with Bahrain. Bahrain is usually a pretty dull race, and it's one the BBC is just doing highlights of.
I have to say I think the DRS actually doesn't help in China. The problem with it is it makes overtaking too easy and on the straight, rather than proper battling overtakes into the corner. This is particularly the case on the long straight that then goes into the big horseshoe corner.
This has always been a place where overtaking has been possible, but with the DRS it means they overtake on the straight before the corner, rather than going into it. Now I don't think it means there's more overtaking than there would otherwise be, but it does mean the overtakes aren't quite as interesting.
There was also plenty that happened in the race. When it turned out one of the tyres behaved more like a qualifying tyre than a race tyre I was a bit worried it would be fairly predictable - if the tyres are closer or there's more of an advantage revealed during the race then it can throw strategy into disarray, which makes things more interesting.
However, as it happened it didn't seem to be a problem. Indeed, the end was made quite exciting because Vettel changed onto the soft tyre and was hunting Hamilton and Kimi down at the end.
The BBC coverage was also quite extensive. It's weird - they seem to have ramped up the coverage on the races they do in full, despite supposedly scaling it back previously to save money. The practices were even shown live on BBC 2 where usually they would be on the red button, so they had to ramp up what they did. Usually when it's just red button they just commentate on the broadcast - no extra bits.
I'm increasingly convinced that a big part of their decision was the Olympics - both in terms of airtime available and the expense of having to give them full coverage sucking cash away from other sports.
Anyway, it's a double header next weekend with Bahrain. Bahrain is usually a pretty dull race, and it's one the BBC is just doing highlights of.
Friday, 12 April 2013
chinese grand prix
Chinese Grand Prix this weekend.
I haven't really blogged much about the Grand Prix season so far. This has primarily been due to time issues - by which I mean I've not really had time to pay a lot of attention to the Grand Prix, rather than not having time to do blog posts. Well actually, truth be told, both have been a little difficult to devote the time to.
Indeed, if I'm totally honest, I haven't really watched either of the two Grand Prix. I've had the coverage on, but I haven't actually watched it in the sense of sitting down and giving it my full attention.
Now I used to do this to some extent last year, in that the practice and the radio coverage I would have on as background, but then I'd watch the qualifying and race coverage (be that highlights or live) properly. However, this year I've backgrounded those too.
Part of the problem has been that the first Grand Prix was when I had the stag do. Although even then I could have watched it, but the other problem has been SimCity. Even though I've been posting about how I've found it frustrating that hasn't stopped entire days disappearing to it.
For example, in my post about Cheetah speed on Monday the thing I didn't say was that, having finished cleaning the bedsit, I sat down at 11:45AM to have a quick go to check if a post I'd read about Cheetah speed being back was true and to install the Nissan Leaf thing and didn't stop playing until 11:45PM.
Which isn't to say I played solid for 12 hours - I had my lunch, put stuff back in the kitchen once the floor was dry and re-arranged the bedroom bits, had my dinner, etc, but basically I did nothing else with the rest of the time other than play SimCity. So I didn't watch recorded TV programs or DVDs/Blu-Rays or read any manga/books.
So I've struggled to find the time to properly watch the GPs. However, China is usually a good race as the circuit offers some good opportunities to overtake. It's also on in the early morning, though not so early as to be stupid, and the BBC is doing live coverage, so I will hopefully watch this one!
I haven't really blogged much about the Grand Prix season so far. This has primarily been due to time issues - by which I mean I've not really had time to pay a lot of attention to the Grand Prix, rather than not having time to do blog posts. Well actually, truth be told, both have been a little difficult to devote the time to.
Indeed, if I'm totally honest, I haven't really watched either of the two Grand Prix. I've had the coverage on, but I haven't actually watched it in the sense of sitting down and giving it my full attention.
Now I used to do this to some extent last year, in that the practice and the radio coverage I would have on as background, but then I'd watch the qualifying and race coverage (be that highlights or live) properly. However, this year I've backgrounded those too.
Part of the problem has been that the first Grand Prix was when I had the stag do. Although even then I could have watched it, but the other problem has been SimCity. Even though I've been posting about how I've found it frustrating that hasn't stopped entire days disappearing to it.
For example, in my post about Cheetah speed on Monday the thing I didn't say was that, having finished cleaning the bedsit, I sat down at 11:45AM to have a quick go to check if a post I'd read about Cheetah speed being back was true and to install the Nissan Leaf thing and didn't stop playing until 11:45PM.
Which isn't to say I played solid for 12 hours - I had my lunch, put stuff back in the kitchen once the floor was dry and re-arranged the bedroom bits, had my dinner, etc, but basically I did nothing else with the rest of the time other than play SimCity. So I didn't watch recorded TV programs or DVDs/Blu-Rays or read any manga/books.
So I've struggled to find the time to properly watch the GPs. However, China is usually a good race as the circuit offers some good opportunities to overtake. It's also on in the early morning, though not so early as to be stupid, and the BBC is doing live coverage, so I will hopefully watch this one!
Thursday, 11 April 2013
shave update
I thought I'd do a quick update of the shaving today.
Last time I posted I think I was basically at the stage of using the DE blade, doing the prescribed 3 passes for each shave.
Well I'm not currently doing that. Unfortunately the results were not all I'd hoped for and the time issue became a real pain.
I mean, the results were okay - I could get a reasonable shave doing the 3 passes (with, across and against the grain) - the problem was that it was giving me a lot of razor burn. I'm not sure of the root cause of this - when I did with and across I was getting little burn, but then I wasn't getting a particularly close shave. As soon as I added against the grain I got lots of burn (a lot more than with my Mach3), though the shave was acceptably closer.
It could of course be technique, but I was rather unsure how to really improve the technique. It worked okay with 2 passes, but not with the third one. Also I found that adding the third pass seemed to eat through the blades - if I used them for 3 shaves I would get nicks. Now, to be fair, this is not a new phenomenon, as my beard is so tough it basically kills any blade. However, it did mean that the cost wasn't quite as much of an improvement as it could have been.
The other issue was time - it was taking ages to do 3 passes. 2 took long enough, but adding in the third meant it seemed to take a small ice age. I actually tried switching so that I just did across and against, but this gave poor results (yet still with burn!).
As such, I have basically switched back to my Mach3. I still do a 3-pass DE shave on Sunday mornings when I have plenty of time and can take a very long shower to help soften the beard further.
I may still have another go at the DE blade, but for now I'm happy with the Mach 3.
What I think the DE shaving experiment has done is improve my technique. The additional beard prep and just generally how I hold and manipulate the blade and the way in which I shave my face has been considerably improved, I think.
Last time I posted I think I was basically at the stage of using the DE blade, doing the prescribed 3 passes for each shave.
Well I'm not currently doing that. Unfortunately the results were not all I'd hoped for and the time issue became a real pain.
I mean, the results were okay - I could get a reasonable shave doing the 3 passes (with, across and against the grain) - the problem was that it was giving me a lot of razor burn. I'm not sure of the root cause of this - when I did with and across I was getting little burn, but then I wasn't getting a particularly close shave. As soon as I added against the grain I got lots of burn (a lot more than with my Mach3), though the shave was acceptably closer.
It could of course be technique, but I was rather unsure how to really improve the technique. It worked okay with 2 passes, but not with the third one. Also I found that adding the third pass seemed to eat through the blades - if I used them for 3 shaves I would get nicks. Now, to be fair, this is not a new phenomenon, as my beard is so tough it basically kills any blade. However, it did mean that the cost wasn't quite as much of an improvement as it could have been.
The other issue was time - it was taking ages to do 3 passes. 2 took long enough, but adding in the third meant it seemed to take a small ice age. I actually tried switching so that I just did across and against, but this gave poor results (yet still with burn!).
As such, I have basically switched back to my Mach3. I still do a 3-pass DE shave on Sunday mornings when I have plenty of time and can take a very long shower to help soften the beard further.
I may still have another go at the DE blade, but for now I'm happy with the Mach 3.
What I think the DE shaving experiment has done is improve my technique. The additional beard prep and just generally how I hold and manipulate the blade and the way in which I shave my face has been considerably improved, I think.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
transformers - dark of the moon
I seem to have missed something with these new transformer films.
In the original comic book series the Ark crashes on the earth millions of years ago. It crashes in a volcano, from memory, and the robots on the ark are from both sides - autobots and decepticons. I seem to recall that the ark is revived by the volcano re-activating and proceeds to repair all the robots utilising modern man's technology as the template for their rebuilding.
Reading the Wikipedia entry this isn't quite what happened in the first film - there's a crash landing on earth, but it's only Megatron. It's also not millions of years ago, but probably hundreds.
I mean, I'd twigged that it was not millions of years (no Dinobots ever :() but I dunno - for some reason I'd thought the film was closer to the original, and not just Megatron. The problem for me is this makes the stories in the films even more confusing. I mean, I'd found them a bit confusing and non-sensical the first time, but having missed that it wasn't the ark that crash landed, I was very confused to find that in this third film the ark crash lands at the beginning :/.
I mean, why do the autobots and decepticons look like human cars and planes, etc, if they've not been remade in the image of our machines? It gives them a stealth quality while here, but surely that would have been ridiculous on their home world? But also does that mean they can change what they transform into?
Anyway, point is I hadn't realised the films were quite so divergent. When I did realise this, at the start of this third film, I think it kinda made me see this third one in a slightly different light. I mean, I don't think it's a good film in the sense of having a deep plot and well written characters, just that the fact that it was different to the comics/cartoons didn't bother me as much - I judged more on its own merits.
I think this film is the best of the three, though as I say, I may be judging it slightly differently. The plot is certainly more coherent in my opinion. Also, rather than try to be a direct sequel, it seems to simply be "later on" so you don't get so much in the way of those rubbish bits in the second one where they try to fudge things to get Megatron back to life.
And I think that's its main strength - it's not really carrying any baggage. The first film you had all the issues over what they'd changed (which clearly I missed some of!), the second they were trying to make it a 'proper' sequel, but this third one they don't care so much and just spend the time blowing as much stuff up as possible (well, it's still a Michael Bay film after all).
I guess it's more playful is the point, so I found it a bit more enjoyable.
In the original comic book series the Ark crashes on the earth millions of years ago. It crashes in a volcano, from memory, and the robots on the ark are from both sides - autobots and decepticons. I seem to recall that the ark is revived by the volcano re-activating and proceeds to repair all the robots utilising modern man's technology as the template for their rebuilding.
Reading the Wikipedia entry this isn't quite what happened in the first film - there's a crash landing on earth, but it's only Megatron. It's also not millions of years ago, but probably hundreds.
I mean, I'd twigged that it was not millions of years (no Dinobots ever :() but I dunno - for some reason I'd thought the film was closer to the original, and not just Megatron. The problem for me is this makes the stories in the films even more confusing. I mean, I'd found them a bit confusing and non-sensical the first time, but having missed that it wasn't the ark that crash landed, I was very confused to find that in this third film the ark crash lands at the beginning :/.
I mean, why do the autobots and decepticons look like human cars and planes, etc, if they've not been remade in the image of our machines? It gives them a stealth quality while here, but surely that would have been ridiculous on their home world? But also does that mean they can change what they transform into?
Anyway, point is I hadn't realised the films were quite so divergent. When I did realise this, at the start of this third film, I think it kinda made me see this third one in a slightly different light. I mean, I don't think it's a good film in the sense of having a deep plot and well written characters, just that the fact that it was different to the comics/cartoons didn't bother me as much - I judged more on its own merits.
I think this film is the best of the three, though as I say, I may be judging it slightly differently. The plot is certainly more coherent in my opinion. Also, rather than try to be a direct sequel, it seems to simply be "later on" so you don't get so much in the way of those rubbish bits in the second one where they try to fudge things to get Megatron back to life.
And I think that's its main strength - it's not really carrying any baggage. The first film you had all the issues over what they'd changed (which clearly I missed some of!), the second they were trying to make it a 'proper' sequel, but this third one they don't care so much and just spend the time blowing as much stuff up as possible (well, it's still a Michael Bay film after all).
I guess it's more playful is the point, so I found it a bit more enjoyable.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
i could be cruel
Margaret Thatcher died yesterday.
I could be cruel and give a link to the sequence in the Wizard of Oz where the munchkins (are they munchkins? I forget) sing the song celebrating the fact that Dorothy has killed the wicked witch. Suffice to say I'm not a fan.
She's a bit of a puzzle Thatcher - the conservatives seem to hold her up as some sort of beacon of conservatism, but in reality she was actually the opposite. Thatcher was a Libertarianist, which is she believed in individual freedom, freedom of the market (basically unrestrained capitalism) and small government. She had more in common with the Tea Party in the US than she did the conservatives. Yet she was also the leader that took us into Europe, which is essentially about the opposite.
Conservatism is about the maintaining of the traditional social structures - in our case that particularly emphasises a royalist structure, though tempered nowadays towards a democratic version. Conservatism is about the old guard, lords and ladies, the idea of 'social betters', that rank has meaning and that there are elites.
Thatcher was, in essence, more opposed to these ideas that with them. She often railed against experts and "old boy's networks", though I think with a desire to maintain the basic ranks - she would never have done away with them, but would prefer they had no actual influence.
Of course neither of these are in synch with my own political beliefs.
I'm more left leaning, probably ending up most squarely in the "democratic socialist" camp, due to an acknowledgement that communism is unlikely to work until technology progresses to such a degree that it renders much of what we squabble over mute. Imagine if you could buy a machine that would be able to manufacture anything you need (think Star Trek replicator) - what use would money, gold and jewels be if your machine could simply make them? These new 3D printers are a step in that direction.
The worst thing that Maggie did was deregulate the markets. That, in essence, is the root cause of the huge pickle we have now found ourselves in.
She didn't invent the idea of a deregulated market, but began the implementation of it in this country during the 1980s, with a similar process going on in the US (the so called "Reagenomics"). The up-side is that very clever people get to find extremely inventive ways to make money. The down-side is that the market wrap themselves in such knots that one failure causes a massive cascade of failures and also, those clever people who are making money are also then not constrained by things like morals and ethics.
The fundamental flaw in the system is also the central belief - that deregulated markets will not act in such a way as to be self-destructive. I don't see how this could ever have seemed like a sensible or logical thought process. It's like saying that people who drive cars will never be reckless enough to have an accident. Firstly it ignores that external forces may cause an accident, but it also ignores the fact that the market is underpinned by people, and people can be just as moronic as you imagine - indeed, more so.
Of course it's not entirely her fault - others did the same thing and successive governments had ample opportunities to reverse the policy or otherwise rein it in - but the implementation all traces back to Maggie.
I could be cruel and give a link to the sequence in the Wizard of Oz where the munchkins (are they munchkins? I forget) sing the song celebrating the fact that Dorothy has killed the wicked witch. Suffice to say I'm not a fan.
She's a bit of a puzzle Thatcher - the conservatives seem to hold her up as some sort of beacon of conservatism, but in reality she was actually the opposite. Thatcher was a Libertarianist, which is she believed in individual freedom, freedom of the market (basically unrestrained capitalism) and small government. She had more in common with the Tea Party in the US than she did the conservatives. Yet she was also the leader that took us into Europe, which is essentially about the opposite.
Conservatism is about the maintaining of the traditional social structures - in our case that particularly emphasises a royalist structure, though tempered nowadays towards a democratic version. Conservatism is about the old guard, lords and ladies, the idea of 'social betters', that rank has meaning and that there are elites.
Thatcher was, in essence, more opposed to these ideas that with them. She often railed against experts and "old boy's networks", though I think with a desire to maintain the basic ranks - she would never have done away with them, but would prefer they had no actual influence.
Of course neither of these are in synch with my own political beliefs.
I'm more left leaning, probably ending up most squarely in the "democratic socialist" camp, due to an acknowledgement that communism is unlikely to work until technology progresses to such a degree that it renders much of what we squabble over mute. Imagine if you could buy a machine that would be able to manufacture anything you need (think Star Trek replicator) - what use would money, gold and jewels be if your machine could simply make them? These new 3D printers are a step in that direction.
The worst thing that Maggie did was deregulate the markets. That, in essence, is the root cause of the huge pickle we have now found ourselves in.
She didn't invent the idea of a deregulated market, but began the implementation of it in this country during the 1980s, with a similar process going on in the US (the so called "Reagenomics"). The up-side is that very clever people get to find extremely inventive ways to make money. The down-side is that the market wrap themselves in such knots that one failure causes a massive cascade of failures and also, those clever people who are making money are also then not constrained by things like morals and ethics.
The fundamental flaw in the system is also the central belief - that deregulated markets will not act in such a way as to be self-destructive. I don't see how this could ever have seemed like a sensible or logical thought process. It's like saying that people who drive cars will never be reckless enough to have an accident. Firstly it ignores that external forces may cause an accident, but it also ignores the fact that the market is underpinned by people, and people can be just as moronic as you imagine - indeed, more so.
Of course it's not entirely her fault - others did the same thing and successive governments had ample opportunities to reverse the policy or otherwise rein it in - but the implementation all traces back to Maggie.
Monday, 8 April 2013
cheat-ah
So cheetah speed returned to SimCity just recently.
It makes the game infinitely more playable. You can now slam it into cheetah speed and it eats up the time like nobody's business. You may still have to sit and wait of course (for that budget payment to come in or for your buildings to finish upgrading, for example) but now the wait is a fraction of the time.
Indeed, cheetah speed often means you can spend the time pondering where is best to place your new water treatment plant and by the time you've decided you've got the money to place it. Which is how it should always have been, but it's remarkable how much it helps the game play.
Of course it brings problems as well - bad stuff can happen and be in full swing by the time you even realise there's a problem when it's in cheetah, but that's to be expected.
Not that it totally fixes the game. There's still a whole load of bugs and stupidity in the game. While the bugs will be fixed in time I'm not sure the stupidity will be without them completely overhauling the underlying mechanics. So they've already tweaked the behaviours of agents like garbage trucks and buses so they don't all drive round in a single train, but they now drive around in several mini-trains and often are actually simply taking different routes to the same destination.
But to fix that will take significantly different game logic. They're all heading to the same place because they're all operating on the same list of priorities that's in the same order. To have them behave differently you would presumably either need different logic sets for each agent or for the agents to be assigned differently to the priority list or for the list to be worked up differently. I mean, there are a number of options, but my guess is that to do many of them they would need to rely much more on storing stuff in memory. And storing stuff in memory means having using of memory if there are lots of them and then you're into system restrictions and presumably they want the game to work on as many systems as possible.
It's a bit of a catch 22.
The real shame is that these things kinda force you to do certain things in the game that are either illogical or make things less flexible. So, for example, with the incredibly simplistic way that traffic junctions operate (so traffic lights simply rotate around the junction switching to green depending on the type of road, rather than factoring in traffic conditions like real lights) cross-roads become a no go. If you have a cross road - particularly if all the roads are at the same density level - it virtually guarantees a grid lock.
As such you have to ensure you use T-junctions. Now if you're clever with it you can still get about the same number of buildings in the space, but the point is why should you have to be clever? Why are you being forced to avoid cross roads? Particularly for a game that's essentially recreating the US where the grid is king.
So despite the return of cheetah I'm still hanging on for the 2.0 patch that's hopefully going to iron out a lot of this stuff before I really play it 'seriously'.
They also released the first new DLC for the game. This was a Nissan Leaf charging station. So it's basically an advert.
Obviously this has caused some umbrage in certain circles, but I'm really not fussed by it. The station has a benefit for the game and isn't massively in your face. Also it's optional - you don't have to install it or use it. About the only downside is it takes up space in your tiny cities.
It makes the game infinitely more playable. You can now slam it into cheetah speed and it eats up the time like nobody's business. You may still have to sit and wait of course (for that budget payment to come in or for your buildings to finish upgrading, for example) but now the wait is a fraction of the time.
Indeed, cheetah speed often means you can spend the time pondering where is best to place your new water treatment plant and by the time you've decided you've got the money to place it. Which is how it should always have been, but it's remarkable how much it helps the game play.
Of course it brings problems as well - bad stuff can happen and be in full swing by the time you even realise there's a problem when it's in cheetah, but that's to be expected.
Not that it totally fixes the game. There's still a whole load of bugs and stupidity in the game. While the bugs will be fixed in time I'm not sure the stupidity will be without them completely overhauling the underlying mechanics. So they've already tweaked the behaviours of agents like garbage trucks and buses so they don't all drive round in a single train, but they now drive around in several mini-trains and often are actually simply taking different routes to the same destination.
But to fix that will take significantly different game logic. They're all heading to the same place because they're all operating on the same list of priorities that's in the same order. To have them behave differently you would presumably either need different logic sets for each agent or for the agents to be assigned differently to the priority list or for the list to be worked up differently. I mean, there are a number of options, but my guess is that to do many of them they would need to rely much more on storing stuff in memory. And storing stuff in memory means having using of memory if there are lots of them and then you're into system restrictions and presumably they want the game to work on as many systems as possible.
It's a bit of a catch 22.
The real shame is that these things kinda force you to do certain things in the game that are either illogical or make things less flexible. So, for example, with the incredibly simplistic way that traffic junctions operate (so traffic lights simply rotate around the junction switching to green depending on the type of road, rather than factoring in traffic conditions like real lights) cross-roads become a no go. If you have a cross road - particularly if all the roads are at the same density level - it virtually guarantees a grid lock.
As such you have to ensure you use T-junctions. Now if you're clever with it you can still get about the same number of buildings in the space, but the point is why should you have to be clever? Why are you being forced to avoid cross roads? Particularly for a game that's essentially recreating the US where the grid is king.
So despite the return of cheetah I'm still hanging on for the 2.0 patch that's hopefully going to iron out a lot of this stuff before I really play it 'seriously'.
They also released the first new DLC for the game. This was a Nissan Leaf charging station. So it's basically an advert.
Obviously this has caused some umbrage in certain circles, but I'm really not fussed by it. The station has a benefit for the game and isn't massively in your face. Also it's optional - you don't have to install it or use it. About the only downside is it takes up space in your tiny cities.
Friday, 5 April 2013
wait, did i miss something?
Did I miss summer this year?
We seem to have skipped straight from winter into autumn... again. I'm really getting bored of this, tbh.
I've never been a fan of hot summers as, being a fat person, I get overheated very quickly and tend to just sweat constantly. However, spring and autumn are usually good - temperatures sufficient that you might only need a jumper or a light coat when you're out, but occasionally nice enough for a t-shirt.
I mean, I like winter as a season, overall, but you have to have the other seasons in order to appreciate it. It's the contrast thing, otherwise, when it's cold all the time it just becomes grinding and miserable.
Not to mention the heating bills - about this time of year I should only be putting my heating on when you get the odd chilly evening or morning, but I'm actually having it a lot and it's costing me a fortune.
What's particularly dispiriting is that, bar a few meagre blips, there doesn't appear to be much prospect of the thermometer rising in the next few weeks and possibly even beyond that into next month.
We seem to have skipped straight from winter into autumn... again. I'm really getting bored of this, tbh.
I've never been a fan of hot summers as, being a fat person, I get overheated very quickly and tend to just sweat constantly. However, spring and autumn are usually good - temperatures sufficient that you might only need a jumper or a light coat when you're out, but occasionally nice enough for a t-shirt.
I mean, I like winter as a season, overall, but you have to have the other seasons in order to appreciate it. It's the contrast thing, otherwise, when it's cold all the time it just becomes grinding and miserable.
Not to mention the heating bills - about this time of year I should only be putting my heating on when you get the odd chilly evening or morning, but I'm actually having it a lot and it's costing me a fortune.
What's particularly dispiriting is that, bar a few meagre blips, there doesn't appear to be much prospect of the thermometer rising in the next few weeks and possibly even beyond that into next month.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
well that's a shitter
I wasn't going to post today.
I didn't pre-write any posts over the Easter weekend and I have to confess I'm struggling a bit with motivation (in a general sense, as well as in terms of writing a blog post), plus I'm way behind on reviewing rental DVDs so I couldn't just slap one of those up either.
However, browsing the BBC site I've just encountered some rather crappy news - Ian Banks has final stage cancer and is not expected to live for more than a year or so. Here it is on the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175 ; and on the Guardian website - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/03/iain-banks-gall-bladder-cancer
I'm a big fan of Banks - his Culture novels are some of the best SF I've ever read, and I enjoy his mainstream stuff too - so this is particularly crappy. He'd actually just started writing new Culture novels having not done any in a while, but it seems that the most recent (Hydrogen Sonata) will be the last. A great shame.
I don't think I've ever blogged about it here, but my mother died from Cancer. This was some time ago, but when hers was diagnosed it was "late stage" as well. Cancer is a complicated (and odd) disease, but late stage is basically where the original cancer has spread to the degree that it's uncurable - and I mean that in a definitive sense.
My mum's original cancer was breast cancer, but by the time it was diagnosed it had spread to a quite catastrophic degree - it was in her bones, lymph nodes and liver. It was actually the liver that delivered the final blow as it was essentially total liver failure that she died of.
Interestingly with my mum it was actually several years between the point she was diagnosed and the point she finally passed away and you get to late stage by having it for a long time without detection. She didn't have chemo (there's little point when it's like that - it may add a few months but you feel awful for ages, so it's just not worth it), but I seem to recall she had a bit of radio-therapy, though nothing major. I think they just wanted to knock a bit of it out to help extend life a bit and so she was in less discomfort. She also had some other experimental treatment, though I don't recall what this was - whether it helped or not I have no idea.
One thing about this period that was different to what you'd expect was that she wasn't really in pain as such - she was fully active until the very last week and without being told you wouldn't even have known. That's part of the problem with this sort of cancer - like Banks it's something that is discovered by a symptom that isn't directly related.
So my mum had breast cancer, but there was no big lump in her breast (it was a load of tiny cancers and she wasn't quite old enough to be having regular screening anyway) and it was actually a fractured bone in her spine that was the point of discovery. She'd been riding with my sister while on holiday and been thrown off. It wasn't a big fall particularly, but because the cancer had weakened the bone it fracture so she was in a lot of pain and went home on the train (I recall this day vividly) to see our GP. That triggered a battery of tests to try to ascertain why the bone was so weak, eventually leading to the discovery of cancer.
I didn't pre-write any posts over the Easter weekend and I have to confess I'm struggling a bit with motivation (in a general sense, as well as in terms of writing a blog post), plus I'm way behind on reviewing rental DVDs so I couldn't just slap one of those up either.
However, browsing the BBC site I've just encountered some rather crappy news - Ian Banks has final stage cancer and is not expected to live for more than a year or so. Here it is on the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175 ; and on the Guardian website - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/03/iain-banks-gall-bladder-cancer
I'm a big fan of Banks - his Culture novels are some of the best SF I've ever read, and I enjoy his mainstream stuff too - so this is particularly crappy. He'd actually just started writing new Culture novels having not done any in a while, but it seems that the most recent (Hydrogen Sonata) will be the last. A great shame.
I don't think I've ever blogged about it here, but my mother died from Cancer. This was some time ago, but when hers was diagnosed it was "late stage" as well. Cancer is a complicated (and odd) disease, but late stage is basically where the original cancer has spread to the degree that it's uncurable - and I mean that in a definitive sense.
My mum's original cancer was breast cancer, but by the time it was diagnosed it had spread to a quite catastrophic degree - it was in her bones, lymph nodes and liver. It was actually the liver that delivered the final blow as it was essentially total liver failure that she died of.
Interestingly with my mum it was actually several years between the point she was diagnosed and the point she finally passed away and you get to late stage by having it for a long time without detection. She didn't have chemo (there's little point when it's like that - it may add a few months but you feel awful for ages, so it's just not worth it), but I seem to recall she had a bit of radio-therapy, though nothing major. I think they just wanted to knock a bit of it out to help extend life a bit and so she was in less discomfort. She also had some other experimental treatment, though I don't recall what this was - whether it helped or not I have no idea.
One thing about this period that was different to what you'd expect was that she wasn't really in pain as such - she was fully active until the very last week and without being told you wouldn't even have known. That's part of the problem with this sort of cancer - like Banks it's something that is discovered by a symptom that isn't directly related.
So my mum had breast cancer, but there was no big lump in her breast (it was a load of tiny cancers and she wasn't quite old enough to be having regular screening anyway) and it was actually a fractured bone in her spine that was the point of discovery. She'd been riding with my sister while on holiday and been thrown off. It wasn't a big fall particularly, but because the cancer had weakened the bone it fracture so she was in a lot of pain and went home on the train (I recall this day vividly) to see our GP. That triggered a battery of tests to try to ascertain why the bone was so weak, eventually leading to the discovery of cancer.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
tired
I always really struggle when the clocks change.
I have quite fixed routines and am very much a creature of habit. I mean, I can do things as I need to - get up really early on stay up really late, it's just that I can't do these regularly and consistently without paying the consequences. Heck, nowadays I pay some sort of consequence even if I just do these things once or twice.
Anyway, the point is that the change of going an hour forwards is pretty disruptive for me and I'll likely be really tired all week.
Easter was okay.
I'd obviously put together a to do list, though remarkably for me it was relatively light. I'd therefore basically achieved everything on the list by Sunday morning, and that was without trying.
Actually, it turned out I'd made a bit of a cock-up and should actually have cleaned the flat over Easter (Grand Prix season is now in full swing and has gone for lots of double-headers again, so it buggers about with my usual pattern of cleaning very fortnight). However, this cock up was actually that I shouldn't have cleaned wen the Malaysian Grand Prix was on and did, so it didn't matter.
Anyway, point was that Monday I did nothing except watch TV and a few Blu Rays. I needed to catch up a bit with TV as my PVR was filling up quite badly so this isn't as decadent as it sounds. It's now at about 50% full, down from about 80% full (I deleted a few bits as well since it turned out they were a bit rubbish).
One of the things I got quite far with was the George Orwell season that Radio 4 did a little while ago. I'd recorded all of it and listened to about half of the programs (not half of the stuff - I mostly focused on the stuff they put out in small chunks). It was quite interesting, though clearly of its era, so it had historical interest as well as political interest.
I have quite fixed routines and am very much a creature of habit. I mean, I can do things as I need to - get up really early on stay up really late, it's just that I can't do these regularly and consistently without paying the consequences. Heck, nowadays I pay some sort of consequence even if I just do these things once or twice.
Anyway, the point is that the change of going an hour forwards is pretty disruptive for me and I'll likely be really tired all week.
Easter was okay.
I'd obviously put together a to do list, though remarkably for me it was relatively light. I'd therefore basically achieved everything on the list by Sunday morning, and that was without trying.
Actually, it turned out I'd made a bit of a cock-up and should actually have cleaned the flat over Easter (Grand Prix season is now in full swing and has gone for lots of double-headers again, so it buggers about with my usual pattern of cleaning very fortnight). However, this cock up was actually that I shouldn't have cleaned wen the Malaysian Grand Prix was on and did, so it didn't matter.
Anyway, point was that Monday I did nothing except watch TV and a few Blu Rays. I needed to catch up a bit with TV as my PVR was filling up quite badly so this isn't as decadent as it sounds. It's now at about 50% full, down from about 80% full (I deleted a few bits as well since it turned out they were a bit rubbish).
One of the things I got quite far with was the George Orwell season that Radio 4 did a little while ago. I'd recorded all of it and listened to about half of the programs (not half of the stuff - I mostly focused on the stuff they put out in small chunks). It was quite interesting, though clearly of its era, so it had historical interest as well as political interest.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
easter
Easter this weekend so this is the last post of the week.
I’ve no particular plans for this weekend other than to relax, given how busy these last couple of weeks have been. I think the main challenge will be to stop myself from playing SimCity constantly. Really it’s the perfect opportunity to catch-up on a lot of recorded TV and watch and read some other stuff - particularly since the weather is forecast to me more of this cold stuff.
One thing I didn’t mention from the last few weeks that I thought I should record in the blog was how I locked myself out of my car before the stag do.
Basically I went to the driving range (I haven’t played golf in 4 years and wanted to “warm up” and there’s a course with a range just up the road from work) and managed to lock the car with the keys on the dashboard.
I’ve done the same basic thing loads before - I sit in the driver’s seat with the door open to change my shoes, dumping the keys on the dashboard. Once changed, I then close the door, obviously, walk around and get in the driver’s side.
Well I guess on this occasion I hit the lock button as I took the key out of my pocket (it was in my trouser pocket, where I usually put them in my jacket/coat pocket). So when I closed the door that meant the car was locked and when I went round to the driver’s side I couldn’t get in.
Luckily I’d kept my phone in my jacket pocket, which I was wearing, so I was able to call work and explain and then call for help. Basically I called the RAC and the guy came out fairly quickly. The big problem was that the keys were clearly visible on the dashboard, so I couldn’t leave the car, which, even though he was still quick, it was a couple of hours before it was all sorted.
The RAC guy had the car open in about 10 minutes. Basically he slotted some airbags into the car and slowly inflated them to create a wedge where he could slot a long pole with a hook on the end in and fished the keys off the dashboard.
It really did take him just 10 minutes. Of course, it’s not something you could do without attracting attention, but it just goes to show you - it he’d used a stiffer rod he could have used it to pull the handle, which would unlock the door.
I’ve no particular plans for this weekend other than to relax, given how busy these last couple of weeks have been. I think the main challenge will be to stop myself from playing SimCity constantly. Really it’s the perfect opportunity to catch-up on a lot of recorded TV and watch and read some other stuff - particularly since the weather is forecast to me more of this cold stuff.
One thing I didn’t mention from the last few weeks that I thought I should record in the blog was how I locked myself out of my car before the stag do.
Basically I went to the driving range (I haven’t played golf in 4 years and wanted to “warm up” and there’s a course with a range just up the road from work) and managed to lock the car with the keys on the dashboard.
I’ve done the same basic thing loads before - I sit in the driver’s seat with the door open to change my shoes, dumping the keys on the dashboard. Once changed, I then close the door, obviously, walk around and get in the driver’s side.
Well I guess on this occasion I hit the lock button as I took the key out of my pocket (it was in my trouser pocket, where I usually put them in my jacket/coat pocket). So when I closed the door that meant the car was locked and when I went round to the driver’s side I couldn’t get in.
Luckily I’d kept my phone in my jacket pocket, which I was wearing, so I was able to call work and explain and then call for help. Basically I called the RAC and the guy came out fairly quickly. The big problem was that the keys were clearly visible on the dashboard, so I couldn’t leave the car, which, even though he was still quick, it was a couple of hours before it was all sorted.
The RAC guy had the car open in about 10 minutes. Basically he slotted some airbags into the car and slowly inflated them to create a wedge where he could slot a long pole with a hook on the end in and fished the keys off the dashboard.
It really did take him just 10 minutes. Of course, it’s not something you could do without attracting attention, but it just goes to show you - it he’d used a stiffer rod he could have used it to pull the handle, which would unlock the door.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
simcity thoughts
So I've been playing SimCity quite a lot and enjoying it a great deal, but also mentioned before finding it a bit frustrating.
My main frustrations have centred on how I'm meant to achieve stuff. I've basically focused on two city types, trying to use and unlock all the bits relating to the mining and drilling specialisations. I've done this in several different maps but I've found it all a bit confusing.
If this were another type of game people would complain about the difficulty of the learning curve. However, "learning curve" implies that you have a path to learn that they've created. For the new SimCity it's more like a learning orienteering adventure.
By that I mean there's probably a basic set of points that you have to find in order to learn, but you're simply given end-points and kinda expected to find your own way there. I mean, there's in-game information stuff and challenges that I think are meant to push you in the right direction but the information is often generic and therefore often unhelpful. The challenges get you pointed in the right direction, but often without any clues how you're supposed to get there. And your advisors just bleat on about the same stuff.
So, for example, it will challenge you to unlock the next level of the mining HQ (you're merrily drilling for ore and coal) and you're told you need to make so much in daily profit. It will then shade this bar in as a percentage of how far you are away.
Well that's all well and good, but how do I increase the profit? Open more pits? What if I'm already mining all my coal and ore seams with the maximum number of pits? Is there a way to make things more efficient? I generally add in the maximum number of delivery trucks so stuff doesn't build up at the trade depot. But is this the best way to maximise profit?
I've actually found the mining one not too bad - it doesn't seem to take too many pits to make the required amount. However, drilling is a different matter. You seem to have to open up at least 3 (and usually 4) oil extraction places in order to make the required amount of money. This makes it much harder to achieve your goals. And it's not clear to me if you should open a single field with lots of derricks or lots of separate fields. It will tell me a field is producing x barrels a day, but I've no idea how this works or what it really means.
However, I'm also doing all this with the game partially disabled. All the global market stuff seems to still be disabled and I've no idea whether there will be a tendency for the price to go above the level it currently is or below. If it will tend to be much higher than that will make these elements easier to achieve, but if it goes lower I can imagine it would make the game rather frustrating.
The game also lacks cheetah speed still, which again makes it rather frustrating. SimCity has always been one of those games where you have to sit and wait a bit for your new budget to arrive so you can buy that extra thing you need. Yes you can take out bonds, but only so many at low value and of course you have to pay them back with interest.
Also you might want to whack it in cheetah speed to wait until your city develops - until all those big apartment blocks have finished building and your revenue settles down. Or just to watch things unfold, but not take all day about it.
My other real frustration is that the game is still very buggy. I won't go into all the details as you can search online (YouTube in particular) and I personally haven't had too many annoying issues (I think partly because what I've been trying to achieve doesn't rely too much on the areas where the worst bugs are) but I find some stuff in my cities bizarre.
In particular the guy winging on about zoning is quite tedious and the whole RCI system is either broken by accident or they've designed it such that you can never achieve perfect balance. If it is intended, then presumably it's so the game is "never finished", but with such tiny cities you can easily fill them and it's still moaning about you to provide RCI for everything (how can there be huge demand for all residential types, all commercial types and industrial - it makes no sense).
It's also quite frustrating when the police advisor is moaning about "crime having the upper hand" and people are protesting city hall about all the crime, but when you go to edit the police coverage you see there's actually only 1 criminal in your entire city. 1 criminal = crime has the upper hand? What?
But then it's difficult to know what things are bugs, what is simply down to poor tuning or bad design and what is deliberate.
Roads in particular are very frustrating. You lay down all these roads and they just seem to fill up for no apparent reason. The whole logic system seems horribly simple. I think this is because it's simulating Sims in an incredibly simple way and everything rushes about going to the next "event", irrespective of it that makes sense or not. And if that changes while they're on route then they all decide to go to the next most important event at the same time.
You can really see this with the buses. You lay down buses and set stops for them, trying to get the best coverage (it shows green). You instinctively think this means lots of stops with stops on both sides of the road and lots of buses to service them all.
In reality what happens is all the buses set off at exactly the same time and go to the exact same stops in the exact same order. And because they're going in some sort of priority about number of people waiting they wander all over the map in a great chain of buses, making ridiculous U-turns and going up and down the same street over and over, clogging up the traffic.
I mean, why can't I just set the bus routes? If the AI is going to be dumb, let me control it. Bus stops can simply be waypoints - something that's been in games for donkey's years. I can buy a new bus route and it lets me put down 10 stops and the AI simply path finds to them in the order I put them down. If I've done something dumb then it's my fault.
The solution to bus spam is therefore contradictory - you need fewer buses with stops a good distance apart and that are all on the same side of the street if they're on the same road. Of course your public transport claims to carry less people, but that way at least your buildings don't all die because all your Sims are sat in their cars while 50 buses undertake millions of U-turns.
The region stuff is even worse - all the buses from all other regions turn up at the exact same time and try to go to the exact same stops in the exact stuff. Then add in the police cars, ambulance, fire trucks, garbage and recycling trucks and it's like your neighbours are trying to cripple your city, even though they point is they're meant to be helping.
Wow - longest blog post ever!
My main frustrations have centred on how I'm meant to achieve stuff. I've basically focused on two city types, trying to use and unlock all the bits relating to the mining and drilling specialisations. I've done this in several different maps but I've found it all a bit confusing.
If this were another type of game people would complain about the difficulty of the learning curve. However, "learning curve" implies that you have a path to learn that they've created. For the new SimCity it's more like a learning orienteering adventure.
By that I mean there's probably a basic set of points that you have to find in order to learn, but you're simply given end-points and kinda expected to find your own way there. I mean, there's in-game information stuff and challenges that I think are meant to push you in the right direction but the information is often generic and therefore often unhelpful. The challenges get you pointed in the right direction, but often without any clues how you're supposed to get there. And your advisors just bleat on about the same stuff.
So, for example, it will challenge you to unlock the next level of the mining HQ (you're merrily drilling for ore and coal) and you're told you need to make so much in daily profit. It will then shade this bar in as a percentage of how far you are away.
Well that's all well and good, but how do I increase the profit? Open more pits? What if I'm already mining all my coal and ore seams with the maximum number of pits? Is there a way to make things more efficient? I generally add in the maximum number of delivery trucks so stuff doesn't build up at the trade depot. But is this the best way to maximise profit?
I've actually found the mining one not too bad - it doesn't seem to take too many pits to make the required amount. However, drilling is a different matter. You seem to have to open up at least 3 (and usually 4) oil extraction places in order to make the required amount of money. This makes it much harder to achieve your goals. And it's not clear to me if you should open a single field with lots of derricks or lots of separate fields. It will tell me a field is producing x barrels a day, but I've no idea how this works or what it really means.
However, I'm also doing all this with the game partially disabled. All the global market stuff seems to still be disabled and I've no idea whether there will be a tendency for the price to go above the level it currently is or below. If it will tend to be much higher than that will make these elements easier to achieve, but if it goes lower I can imagine it would make the game rather frustrating.
The game also lacks cheetah speed still, which again makes it rather frustrating. SimCity has always been one of those games where you have to sit and wait a bit for your new budget to arrive so you can buy that extra thing you need. Yes you can take out bonds, but only so many at low value and of course you have to pay them back with interest.
Also you might want to whack it in cheetah speed to wait until your city develops - until all those big apartment blocks have finished building and your revenue settles down. Or just to watch things unfold, but not take all day about it.
My other real frustration is that the game is still very buggy. I won't go into all the details as you can search online (YouTube in particular) and I personally haven't had too many annoying issues (I think partly because what I've been trying to achieve doesn't rely too much on the areas where the worst bugs are) but I find some stuff in my cities bizarre.
In particular the guy winging on about zoning is quite tedious and the whole RCI system is either broken by accident or they've designed it such that you can never achieve perfect balance. If it is intended, then presumably it's so the game is "never finished", but with such tiny cities you can easily fill them and it's still moaning about you to provide RCI for everything (how can there be huge demand for all residential types, all commercial types and industrial - it makes no sense).
It's also quite frustrating when the police advisor is moaning about "crime having the upper hand" and people are protesting city hall about all the crime, but when you go to edit the police coverage you see there's actually only 1 criminal in your entire city. 1 criminal = crime has the upper hand? What?
But then it's difficult to know what things are bugs, what is simply down to poor tuning or bad design and what is deliberate.
Roads in particular are very frustrating. You lay down all these roads and they just seem to fill up for no apparent reason. The whole logic system seems horribly simple. I think this is because it's simulating Sims in an incredibly simple way and everything rushes about going to the next "event", irrespective of it that makes sense or not. And if that changes while they're on route then they all decide to go to the next most important event at the same time.
You can really see this with the buses. You lay down buses and set stops for them, trying to get the best coverage (it shows green). You instinctively think this means lots of stops with stops on both sides of the road and lots of buses to service them all.
In reality what happens is all the buses set off at exactly the same time and go to the exact same stops in the exact same order. And because they're going in some sort of priority about number of people waiting they wander all over the map in a great chain of buses, making ridiculous U-turns and going up and down the same street over and over, clogging up the traffic.
I mean, why can't I just set the bus routes? If the AI is going to be dumb, let me control it. Bus stops can simply be waypoints - something that's been in games for donkey's years. I can buy a new bus route and it lets me put down 10 stops and the AI simply path finds to them in the order I put them down. If I've done something dumb then it's my fault.
The solution to bus spam is therefore contradictory - you need fewer buses with stops a good distance apart and that are all on the same side of the street if they're on the same road. Of course your public transport claims to carry less people, but that way at least your buildings don't all die because all your Sims are sat in their cars while 50 buses undertake millions of U-turns.
The region stuff is even worse - all the buses from all other regions turn up at the exact same time and try to go to the exact same stops in the exact stuff. Then add in the police cars, ambulance, fire trucks, garbage and recycling trucks and it's like your neighbours are trying to cripple your city, even though they point is they're meant to be helping.
Wow - longest blog post ever!
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
a course of course
I mentioned yesterday that I spent Sunday and Monday basically playing SimCity and this wasn’t a particularly great idea.
The problem was that SimCity's the sort of game where you sink hours on end into it, and I had a lot of stuff to catch up on, plus I stayed up incredibly late to play. Unfortunately I also picked up a cold - where from I’m not sure. No-one on the stag had one that I could remember but then they could have been carrying it. But also my landlord had a cold and when I got back to work some people there did too so it could have been caught any time.
It turned out to be a wimpy cold - I’m basically already over it - but as I say, I’d not really slept after a heavy weekend, so Tuesday I was like some sort of sniffling zombie. Of course, rather than just go to bed when I got home I played more SimCity... (More on the game tomorrow probably.)
Wednesday and Thursday I went on a course for work. It was really good and I learned a lot, but it was also very frustrating. It pretty much confirmed a lot of the stuff I’ve been worried about at work. However, there’s some stuff I think I can implement without too much fuss.
Friday I was back in the office. It was a very bity day, but I also discussed the course with a few people at work. It was interesting and also confirmed many of my frustrations.
This last weekend was really weird. I had a bunch of domestics to do but I also had to clean up all the clubs and stuff from the stag. And I woke on Saturday to find it snowing...
It wasn’t forecast for here and it wasn’t deep, and on Sunday it pretty much cleared up, but I mean seriously - it’s nearly April, how comes it’s snowing and settling at all? It’s Easter next weekend!
It feels like summer hasn't really happened for about 4 years and I have to confess it's getting a bit boring. I'm not much of a one for hot weather, but a bit of it is good each year - it makes me appreciate the times when it's more to my liking. Plus if you have a hot summer then it tends to mean autumn is more pleasant and to my liking too.
The problem was that SimCity's the sort of game where you sink hours on end into it, and I had a lot of stuff to catch up on, plus I stayed up incredibly late to play. Unfortunately I also picked up a cold - where from I’m not sure. No-one on the stag had one that I could remember but then they could have been carrying it. But also my landlord had a cold and when I got back to work some people there did too so it could have been caught any time.
It turned out to be a wimpy cold - I’m basically already over it - but as I say, I’d not really slept after a heavy weekend, so Tuesday I was like some sort of sniffling zombie. Of course, rather than just go to bed when I got home I played more SimCity... (More on the game tomorrow probably.)
Wednesday and Thursday I went on a course for work. It was really good and I learned a lot, but it was also very frustrating. It pretty much confirmed a lot of the stuff I’ve been worried about at work. However, there’s some stuff I think I can implement without too much fuss.
Friday I was back in the office. It was a very bity day, but I also discussed the course with a few people at work. It was interesting and also confirmed many of my frustrations.
This last weekend was really weird. I had a bunch of domestics to do but I also had to clean up all the clubs and stuff from the stag. And I woke on Saturday to find it snowing...
It wasn’t forecast for here and it wasn’t deep, and on Sunday it pretty much cleared up, but I mean seriously - it’s nearly April, how comes it’s snowing and settling at all? It’s Easter next weekend!
It feels like summer hasn't really happened for about 4 years and I have to confess it's getting a bit boring. I'm not much of a one for hot weather, but a bit of it is good each year - it makes me appreciate the times when it's more to my liking. Plus if you have a hot summer then it tends to mean autumn is more pleasant and to my liking too.
Monday, 25 March 2013
long time no see
Feels like months since I last blogged.
It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.
So the first thing that happened was the stag do. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I was a little worried that there would be some uncomfortable stuff - you hear all sorts about stag dos, but there wasn't anything like that.
I mean, they gave the stag something of a hard time - they stole his clothes and he had to wear a skirt they bought him, for example - but nothings spectacularly bad or that made me feel uncomfortable. The planned events were also good.
The stag was in Bristol and on the Friday we played golf. This harked back to when we were kids (I’ve known him since school) and was a good idea, except for one thing - the Great British weather. As I arrived at the course it started raining and got steadily worse. Not only was it raining hard but it was windy and cold too so it was truly horrible to be out playing golf.
We ended up only actually playing 9 holes and calling it a day. We then ate at the clubhouse and found the house. This was a mess - no-one knew where the house was and only some people had directions/sat nav. I tried to follow someone and it worked okay for a while, but he was rubbish at it - he dashed through a red light and that was t, I was lost.
However, after a dozen phone calls for directions I eventually found the place. And it was a weird place.
I mean, the building was a bit unusual - a huge mansion - but also it was oddly furnished in that it looked like some students lived there. As in still lived there and they’d been murdered and buried in the back garden. It was weird.
So we then got drunk - and I drank much more than was probably sensible for the first day. On the second day we went clay pigeon shooting. This in particular I was rather unsure about, but as I said, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I dunno - it’s difficult to explain, but I was rather nervous around the gun. I mean, that’s understandable - it’s a 12-guage shotgun, after all - but I dunno, I was really worried about doing something stupid. And it didn’t help I was tired and it was cold and drizzling again. But as I say, it was more enjoyable than I expected.
We then went out on the town. As it happened it was the last game of the six nations (he decider between Wales and England - England deserved to loose) so we watched that and then went for a curry. Then it was back to the house for more beers.
This second evening was a bit weird. We got back fairly late and I started drinking, but suddenly it was 1AM and we had to be out of the house by 10AM so I went to bed. I think quite a few sloped off to bed early - certainly I didn’t see as many people about as in the first night.
I drove back on the Sunday and it was the journey from hell. I wouldn’t say I was hung over particularly, but I was extremely tired. So I was shattered and when the weather played up - driving snow and all sorts.
I'd taken the Monday off to recover and should have used that stuff to do stuff like watch the Grand Prix and tidy the flat. Unfortunately I basically just played SimCity solid.
I’ll continue with more about the intervening time tomorrow.
It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.
So the first thing that happened was the stag do. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I was a little worried that there would be some uncomfortable stuff - you hear all sorts about stag dos, but there wasn't anything like that.
I mean, they gave the stag something of a hard time - they stole his clothes and he had to wear a skirt they bought him, for example - but nothings spectacularly bad or that made me feel uncomfortable. The planned events were also good.
The stag was in Bristol and on the Friday we played golf. This harked back to when we were kids (I’ve known him since school) and was a good idea, except for one thing - the Great British weather. As I arrived at the course it started raining and got steadily worse. Not only was it raining hard but it was windy and cold too so it was truly horrible to be out playing golf.
We ended up only actually playing 9 holes and calling it a day. We then ate at the clubhouse and found the house. This was a mess - no-one knew where the house was and only some people had directions/sat nav. I tried to follow someone and it worked okay for a while, but he was rubbish at it - he dashed through a red light and that was t, I was lost.
However, after a dozen phone calls for directions I eventually found the place. And it was a weird place.
I mean, the building was a bit unusual - a huge mansion - but also it was oddly furnished in that it looked like some students lived there. As in still lived there and they’d been murdered and buried in the back garden. It was weird.
So we then got drunk - and I drank much more than was probably sensible for the first day. On the second day we went clay pigeon shooting. This in particular I was rather unsure about, but as I said, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I dunno - it’s difficult to explain, but I was rather nervous around the gun. I mean, that’s understandable - it’s a 12-guage shotgun, after all - but I dunno, I was really worried about doing something stupid. And it didn’t help I was tired and it was cold and drizzling again. But as I say, it was more enjoyable than I expected.
We then went out on the town. As it happened it was the last game of the six nations (he decider between Wales and England - England deserved to loose) so we watched that and then went for a curry. Then it was back to the house for more beers.
This second evening was a bit weird. We got back fairly late and I started drinking, but suddenly it was 1AM and we had to be out of the house by 10AM so I went to bed. I think quite a few sloped off to bed early - certainly I didn’t see as many people about as in the first night.
I drove back on the Sunday and it was the journey from hell. I wouldn’t say I was hung over particularly, but I was extremely tired. So I was shattered and when the weather played up - driving snow and all sorts.
I'd taken the Monday off to recover and should have used that stuff to do stuff like watch the Grand Prix and tidy the flat. Unfortunately I basically just played SimCity solid.
I’ll continue with more about the intervening time tomorrow.
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