see nerd) blog
2009a
another boring bossman battle
The first time I played it through, I got stuck at the big battle. It was so boring, I gave up. It was more and more of the same but slightly different. Mmmm … I’m not going to be giving anything away, really, given the game’s been out for quite a while … one or two striders to battle with, ok, but much the same again and again, not ok. Well, I’m back at the same scene and it’s just as boring as it was before. I’m only forcing myself through it because I want to see what happens afterwards. I wish computer games were like novels, when you can simply skip the bad parts and jump ahead to where the author’s remember to get back to authoring. This battle is as dull as a bossman battles which ruined the end of many an Id game, the repetitive bit to play just so you can say you’ve finished the game. Shoot the same way and dodge the same way and shoot the same way and dodge the same way and shoot the same way … again and again and again until the big bad bossman finally expires. I don’t think the Valve game designers have quite grasped how strong their narrative has become, that it’s now the main part of their game, for me at least. I don’t thing they’ve grasped the shooting and the adventure are interludes to help make the story work. They’re the comedy scenes in a dramatic play. The irony is they’ve clearly put a lot of effort into making this battle work. There are clearly many possible tactics you can use to shoot down the enemies. If I wanted to explore all those tactics, I’d much much prefer the option of replaying the scene. I don’t want to do that, it’s just not something that interests me. Please, Valve (and many other games manufacturers), include a mechanism to bypass scenes that don’t interest us. You can do that in simple desktop games; import the feature. Now, ok, you might be saying these are first-person-shooters, so you should expect to do some shooting! That’s true, that’s very true. It’s also true I enjoy the ordinary shooting scenes, the sweet and simple puzzles, and so on. But what appeals to me about these games, really, is not the shooter, but the first-person. It’s the only way to truly immerse yourself in the game world, for me. The shooter bit is how the games evolved, it isn’t history, but perhaps could be. To be fair, I think Valve are onto this, hence one of the other games that came with this one, Portal. It’s still stuck in shooting and silly bossmen, but most of the game is fun. I wish they’d put the effort into getting the player into the narrative that they put into these big battles. Right now, the player’s a mobile couch potato; (s)he gets talked at, but communicates nothing. I understand why they’ve not done that; it’ll be very very difficult to make work. But surely, with the same effort in the huge battles, they could find a way forward for narrative. Let’s see what happens in Part 3. Oh, and incidentally, I’ve given up on the game again. The battle scene wore out my determination to see what happens next. Ah well. 21.2.9 |
bye bye flight simulator
Now, I don’t play Flight Simulator. My only use of it was in the early days of PCs, when it was a good tool to use to make sure a PC worked properly. But I’m still concerned by this decision. You see, there is quite an industry of little companies that have been built up around Flight Simulator. Those companies, no doubt carefully cultivated by Microsoft over the decades, have been abandoned. There are quite a culture of developers around other Microsoft products too. Might these products be abandoned if Microsoft can’t find a way to keep that product profitable? The obvious self-interest is that I’m a Windows developer, although I certainly don’t see Microsoft abandoning Windows. But Windows has got components that many people specialise in. If some of those are dropped, then a lot of people will be in difficulty. I’ve tried to avoid being trapped in such places; I try and specialise in products or skills that are independently specified. I’ve kept myself out of a dependency on one manufacturer’s products; I’m also a unix developer. My memories of the UCSD Pascal debacle have kept me away from programming tools that tie you in. That tool’s sudden commercial death destroyed a number of software products, and damaged the careers of those products’ developers. This is why I’ve avoided Java and .NET, for example. But you can’t help the risk of being trapped. You get work where you can, and you have to accept your client’s strategy. They might have a dependency. And now is a bad time. I believe this is the first time that Microsoft have abandoned a product that has dependent industries around it. I don’t like the precedent. 7.2.9 |
french classes
It turns out I can thoroughly prattle in French. Don’t take my word me: one of my fellow students, Lily Brown, wrote me this little ditty. She made me promise to post it here, too. My ego won the conflict with my reticence over that, so voila! Ok, so I was told I was awful at languages at school, & I love this kind of trumpmanship, even served warm, so posting it was a dead cert.. :-)
In my French class a man called Dylan To be absolutely honest, I probably should have been in the next class up. But I really do lack confidence in languages, and I needed the boost of success to motivate me to keep working at the French. This I’ve now got. And now (thanks Lily), I can come back to it. I did enjoy the classes. I hope I didn’t hog the conversation too much. Thanks to everyone who was in the group; I shall remember it, and you, fondly. I didn’t collect nearly enough contacts, idiotically. 6.2.9 |
making software annoying
Get something subtly wrong. Windows Explorer screws up file sorting. Here is Windows Explorer’s alphabetical order: E D I C F H I L M C D O B P Q R S I T L T L T L T L T L T A X. I listed files in the Windows directory of XP, by type. The flaw is that it doesn’t by file type, it lists by file comment, despite the fact it’s called list by type. To rub in the error, it doesn’t even show the comment when it lists files. Microsoft introduced this bug in Windows 95, and have yet to fix it, the silly bureaucratic arses. Attempt to second guess the user. iTunes regularly stops updating podcasts because “I haven’t listened to them recently”. So fucking what, iTunes? You are told to update those podcasts, and you should keep updating them until I say otherwise. It’s not your damned job to tell me what I want to stop updating, it’s my job to tell you. It’s not actually possible for iTunes to change my choice and be correct, yet it keeps doing it. What on *earth* is this feature doing in a product, a feature that cannot produce better results than if it wasn’t there?! I constantly have to go through the damn thing and correct its errors. Why, why, why?! Please, just drop your presumptions of stupidity, Apple. I hate having to keep going through your damned software to correct presumptions. As an aside, I suspect iTunes software is pretty awful because Apple have something of a monopoly with portable MP3 players. It’s a pity they haven’t taken the care with iTunes they took with iPods. I’d love to see Apple open up the specifications of the iPods interface, so owners, like me, might use better quality alternative software. This won’t happen, of course, the iTunes store is a cash cow. Default to features that don’t work. Every bloody mobile phone I’ve used defaults SMS text writing to an idiotic predictive texting feature. I’ve never come across a version that correctly predicts the text I intend to type. They seem to have a vocabulary of about ten words, in one language. Even the iPhone gets this wrong. Don’t do what’s instructed. After I don’t know how many years, Word, and it’s imitators, still insist that if you select some pages of text, and hit Page Numbers, you actually meant a different set of pages to those you specifically selected. Why? I selected those pages and those are the pages I meant. If I say where the page numbers should be added, that’s where the page numbers should be added. Not somewhere else, where instructed, and only where instructed. It’s simple, Word, et al, just do as you’re fucking told, will you? No more, no less, just do it. This is why I still use Word Perfect for bigger projects; it gets these kinds of thing right. Indeed, there’s a common theme behind all these design errors: to write software that annoying, simply have it do something wrong when it’s told to do something right. 5.2.9 |
a political was
I used to be very active in the British Liberal party, particularly the Young Liberals. There’s a reunion being organised, which should be fun; hence the contact. Like me, many friends of the time have dropped out of politics, many more are politically doing the same now. A few have progressed to make a greater contribution, whether as MPs, MEPs, campaigners, etc.. I wasn’t unsuccessful myself, for a youth politician, I ran things. But I dropped out. One contact has reminded me of the big decision I made many years ago, why I dropped out. I had the opportunity, the unexpected opportunity, to take part in running IFLRY, the international liberal youth organisation. This would have been a full time, paid role, and would have required me to give up my career as a software engineer. The probable three year gap would have been fatal to that career at the time, given the pace of change in computing. I already felt that politics was no longer right. But this was the crunch. I had to chose. I believe I could have been quite successful in international politics. Even so, I made the right decision, for me, to stick to engineering. I am a computer nerd in my bones, I would have deeply missed the process as a politician. I miss politics, but not so much. But I gave the politics up, and gave it up to the extent that I very much try and avoid politics even now: that’s politics with a small ‘p’, the corporate variety. Politics always has ego in it; but at least politics with a capital ‘P’ has belief and principle and right as well, whichever right you believe. Corporate politics is plain self-interest, it’s evil and extremely adept. The moral pain of me-me-me just isn’t worth the gain in the pocket. I like to think I might have made it in capital ‘P’ politics. I’d have gone down the parliamentary route, to Westminster or Strasbourg. But being a Liberal MP in Westminster is as far as you get if you’re liberal, and I am; you don’t become Mr. Minister, you don’t run things. I’d have got stuck into parliamentary committees, and done some good there as another Mr. Critic. I’d have probably been more effective in Strasbourg, because that place is not so catastrophically partisan. Whatever happened, I’d have been stuck representing one country, still having to fight for the corner where I was born rather than the corner where I’d like to be. Worst, of course, that one corner would have been for the UK’s (England’s) frankly myopic nationalist culture. I wouldn’t have been able to wander around Europe, living in different countries, living their culture, as I am now. This national stuckism is a severe weakness of the democratic system, and is unavoidable; people rightly want to be represented by parliamentarians whom they believe understand their concerns, someone who understands their culture. I wouldn’t have a clue how to resolve it, except by continuing the development of the European Union. Schuman’s solution, integrating a war-prone continent, is a very long term one, but it is at least slowly bringing positive change. I couldn’t go back to politics now, I’ve long since lost my perspective, my knowledge of the variety of positions and motivations for various beliefs and wishes. I have learnt, through poetry, that the emotional causes of many political beliefs are usually the very wrong place to find possible solutions, but that you won’t get a solution that’s accepted if you don’t appear to address those causes. So, yes, I’ll go along to London in the summer and enjoy myself meeting other youngsters who are now as old as me. Then I’ll come away again. 4.2.9 |
a foreigner observes dublin
Driving standards here can be very poor. Every week, newspapers report more slaughter of the innocents. The Irish government is now doing something about this, requiring drivers to pass something called a driving test. The average Dublin driver is very polite to the average pedestrian, stopping gallantly when someone walks out into a road, whether they’re entitled to or not. The trouble is more than a few Dublin drivers are oblivious. It does not help that traffic lights are advisory, judging by the driving standards. Cyclists seem to see a red light as an opportunity to get across the junction before the cars, never mind people on foot. I’ve been about to cross a green pedestrian light only to have a bus shoot through. Part of the reason for all of this is that the people who put up the lights do a bad job. That bus zooming through the cross-now pedestrian lights would have gone through a green light itself (such as at the lights by St. Patrick’s cathedral). It’s common to see road traffic lights hidden behind direction signs, or trees (such as the lights by Christchurch Cathedral). So, if you’re walking around the city, do not take green lights as an instruction, see them as a suggestion. Keep your eyes open, especially for aggressive cyclists. The pubs; well, this is a first order generalisation, and there are numerous exceptions, but basically Belgian bars are conversations, English pubs are homes, and Irish pubs are parties. Unlike the UK, and especially unlike Belgium, it is very difficult to find a pub here that serves good beer. Almost all Irish pubs restrict themselves to chemical concoctions that leave dreadful hangovers, partially because the locals seem quite proud to get them. If you like good beer, and you’re in Dublin, I suggest you find a Porterhouse. There’s one in Temple Bar, one on Nassau St. by Trinity College, and others. They stock a decent range of international beers, including a good hand pump bitter. Talking about the pubs, the Irish seem rather fond of their drunks, regarding them affectionately as ‘characters’. As a Brit, I’ve been bought up to see them as idiots who can’t control themselves, who damage the community. Here, they add colour to it. The Irish are slowly upgrading their railway system to bring it up to the very latest 1970s standards. A train might soon get to its destination before the equivalent bus (e.g. Dublin to Cork). Oh, how I miss the TGV! In fact, the lack of decent long distance transport is one reason why I want to move on. Sitting in an aircraft feels like unjust punishment compared to sitting in a TGV. Still, perhaps the talk of a new network of high speed railways in the UK, and the estimated cost of a bridge from Galloway to Belfast at €3.5bn, might just mean the TGV comes here before the next century. 1.2.9 |
collection reprise
I’ve been travelling this route for ten years. The EFF have been driving for twenty five. 8.1.9 |
coffee machine
I use a clattering old nespresso machine, which can evidently be heard at kitty wander range through closed windows. 4.1.9 |
an interesting realisation
It is true that a lot of angry poetry is appalling drivel, but that doesn’t mean it’s the anger that makes it drivel, rather it’s the failure to control the anger poetically. Equally, it’s very easy to only see the anger and miss the poetry. A lot of them need work, but I now know they’re as good as any other poems of mine. 3.1.9 |
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I’ve finally gone back to finish Half Life 2 Episode 2.
Microsoft have got rid of their 
I’ve been attending various languages classes, to improve my Foreign. Since autumn, I’ve been consolidating my French in 
Here are some common features, with examples, to add to software to make it annoying.
I’ve been snatched into facebook by some old friends, and I have to admit I’m very glad about it.
These are some observations that stick in my mind about Dublin. They don’t make a whole.
Half the argument of 
Do my kitties come when I call them? No. Do my kitties come when I open a window? No. Do my kitties come when I make myself a cup of coffee? Yes! They don’t even like the stuff!
An interesting realisation: a lot of the poetry of mine that I don’t like is because it captures an emotion that I don’t like, whether it’s immature, or embarrassing, or shameful, or whatever. That doesn’t make it bad poetry. Mmmm … given the popularity of the twee out there, the scarcity of scarred poems, this isn’t just me.
