Month: January 2012

The computery thing that has my attention at the moment is Deus Ex Human Revolution. It’s a pretty new A List game that came out last year. It looks awesome.

Just look at the view :

I was heading up to Upper Hengsha from Lower Hengsha and caught sight of that out of the window. That’s a cheat though as what’s outside the window isn’t as dynamic (doesn’t change) as the environments you play in so not as much computer work is needed. But that doesn’t change the fact that pooters have improved considerably from the early days of 3d cards … Back then that stunning vista would have been blurred out by fog to hide the lack of detail.

I have to admit that I’m getting considerable enjoyment out of this game. Some of my regulars feel like a grind. I enjoy Moo2, MoM and Settlers IV but the Big Fun of those happens just for a fraction of the time you play them for. This one, it maintains an excellent pace keeping the action going along with a decent storyline. I’m glad I waited before playing it though, as the lack of grunt from my last PC would have marred the experience.

The writers have a sense of humour too :

Wasn’t me ! Honest guv.

(click piccys for something closer to the original full 1080p goodness)

One thing I’ll do when I get home is dive through a series of websites having a look at what has happened over the day.

(Some people do that at work all day instead of doing work … but I can’t see how they find the time outside lunch or tolerance to suffer the limitations of internet at work)

Anyway. Latest one to cause a twitch is this one from Tomshardware – MIT Scientist Demands Gas Tax to Make Cars More Efficient.

There’s not much in the story (Tomshardware is a bit of a lite news site which is ok cos lite = variation). But there’s enough in there to tweak me into a rant mode. One thing that regularly hits the news is Green Taxation. Things like charging a congestion charge based on what people drive and where they drive. This usually gets touted as something needing devices to track exactly where you drive and thump you in the wallet if you dare to venture down the wrong alley.

I have a simple line when it comes to position tracking Congestion Charges. It’s RUBBISH !!!!

The one in London is relatively ok but that’s because it depends on number plate recognition for when you enter or leave the Forbidden Zone. But tracking people’s cars is crazy in all sorts of ways. Every car would require a tracking device and that device would need to be monitored with the results translated into charging you for where you’ve been. Plus there’s the Orwellian aspect of nabbing people for speeding based on the info from the tracker.

Device based tracking of cars for congestion charging is an awful way to go. I doubt whether the revenue raised would match the cost of the administration. It’s too heavy handed and rather unnecessary.

So – this brings me to the article (which is ok and doesn’t deserve a rant). It’s looking for a gasoline tax, the idea being that vehicles that use more petrol get hit by the tax more. Petrol tax makes a huge amount of sense :

It’s a charge on petrol used
People with gas guzzlers get hit hardest
Which makes Eco people happy
Driving on congested roads makes you burn more fuel
Doing Idiot speed is directly more expensive
It doesn’t need any tracking devices

There’s a lot of good reasons for it. In Britain, we have 2 main forms of tax associated with our cars : Road Tax and Petrol Tax. Road Fund Tax is a 6 or 12 month fee that gives you a disc that all cars over here need to display. To get one you need valid MoT (annual roadworthiness check) and Insurance. It has a sliding scale based on the car’s emissions :

1999 Puma – £210 per year (actually £215 because it’s old)
2002 Focus ST (hot one) – £260 per year (or £130 for the same age turbodiesel)
2011 Lexus CT hybrid – no charge
2012 Bentley Mulsanne (example!) – £460 per year with more in the first year

There’s more charged in the initial years for the nasty cars. And that’s not always the 4x4s … The sporty cars tend to be nastier on emissions than the SUVs. Nissan’s Juke SUV is the same tax as the Mk1 Focus turbodiesel.

Ok – how about petrol tax … This is where the Greenies should wake up and realise there’s already a massive congestion charge. More info here but it boils down to the government taking 80p out of every 133p per litre. (60%)

All those reasons I put above apply to petrol tax as a congestion charge. But that’s not the end of the story. The Tomshardware article attacks the overriding trend of modern cars : More solidity leading to more weight, more power included in smaller engines being pushed harder. What cars have I had ?

Astra 1.6 – not too efficient carburettor engine, gave about 36 mpg. Light car, light engine – 90bhp/tonne.
Belmont 1.8 – fuel injected, gave 40-45mpg. Probably 110bhp/tonne. No catalytic convertor.
Puma – saddled with catalytic convertor – 36-40mpg. 110bhp/tonne.
Focus ST – 28-32mpg. 130bhp/tonne (maybe)
Lexus CT – 47-55mpg (expecting more in summer). 95bhp/tonne.
(bhp/tonne isn’t the whole story – diesels develop less power but extraordinary torque. BHP = top speed, torque = acceleration. The CT has almost double the torque of the ST170 so acceleration is comparable)

The faster cars have been going Munchies on the fuel. Modern fuel injection gives better economy but it’s taken away by the catalytic convertor. The engines have got more powerful but weight added for improved safety has kept them the same speed.

Yeah – cars have been getting more efficient (and consistent!) over the years with better and smaller engines … but. Without innovative stuff like Toyota’s hybrid system or the well intentioned stop/start devices, we’ll not get more actual efficiency in our cars. Maybe it’s a call for a return to light weight shopping trolley cars like that Mk1 Astra.

Oh my god I’ve Wall Of Texted again …

Tax on fuel consumed = good (although I do remember buying fuel for a quarter the price we pay now)
Congestion charge by tracker device = nasty, unworkable, cost more than it could ever bring in.

Been spotting a few hits in to this post …

Gotta admit that I've given up League of Legends. It's a good game, very well supported by the developers and mercifully bug free across the wide range of PCs.

But … it's crippled by the community of players that inhabit it. If you can do a regular team of 5, this would be an awesome game. However, randoms as a solo player are too painful to contemplate.

So I've been concentrating my gaming time on stuff that's guaranteed fun, instead of LoL which is a fun game let down by its community.

Hi Anon – I guess where the Elkie collection falls down is that there's possibly too many tracks in it. The not-so-good ones get in there as well as the great ones. And there's some outstanding tracks in there 🙂

BK – lots of variation in what I listen to helps me avoid getting bored with what I have 🙂

That's quite an eclectic collection 🙂

Elkie Brooks can rise above singers like , Coolidge and Streisand. Her ability to sing all types of music is excellent. The other two cannot sing Rock or Jazz as well as Brooks.

Not quite sure why I picked that title, except that it’s the track playing in iTunes at the moment …

The library’s expanded a fair bit over the past couple of months. Some old, some new, some rediscovered and some given a second chance.

The old are Rita Coolidge, Barbra Streisand and Elkie Brooks where I’ve acquired a few “greatest tracks” type albums. All 3 of them have amazing voices, they’re from a musical era which demanded its stars could sing and not just dance. Autotune hadn’t been invented when these ladies were singing their hearts out. Of the 3, my pick has been Barbra Streisand as the choice of tracks is consistently outstanding when it doesn’t break through into stunning. The Rita Coolidge album is good but not as brilliant while the Elkie Brooks collection is very patchy. It’s a shame, there’s the excellent voice and the well written songs but something goes horribly wrong in the middle. Bit like when Kate Bush tried to sing Candle In The Wind and somehow ended up butchering it.

That’s the trouble with cover versions, you’d think a great singer would combine with magical lyrics to make something unforgettable but you end up with something horrific instead. I’d pick out an example but I don’t think I want to go there in case it sticks in my head and makes me go ~wibble~ at work tomorrow.

Rediscovered :

Just listening to the Once More With Feeling soundtrack from Buffy. It’s the actors and actresses singing so it’s rather different to commercial manufactured pop. It’s a hell of a lot better. There’s so much feeling put into the singing that you can’t help but sing along.

Ok – maybe behind locked doors where noone can hear you try to sing along (I’m a wuss like that) but you know what I mean 🙂 Under Your Spell is most definitely the highlight there and I think I’m going to take a little interlude to watch the vid on Youtube … Oh – forget any disparaging remarks about the singing quality – Amber Benson could easily beat any X Factor wannabe.

Something new :

Evanescence’s self titled 3rd album appeared … This is an ok album. It’s not as good as their first two but still hangs together as an album. There’s just no stand out tracks like My Immortal or Hello. (And my brain just triggered a memory of a bad cover – Katherine Jenkins should have left Bring Me To Life well alone)

Something old (but not stale) : Meatloaf’s Rock N Roll Hero is always good for a listen. This kinda goes in the 2nd chance box but I’m saving that for later … Everyone will know what follows the words “On a hot summer night …”

Something given a 2nd chance : I have to thank our Klingon Spirited RCA for this one. I’d written off Snow Patrol’s Fallen Empires as a) More of the same and b) Pretty bad. That’s what random youtubing can do … But our RCA had me listening to Fallen Empires in the car … and guess what appeared in the library not all that long after :-). No stand out tracks on this one again but that doesn’t make it a bad album.

Past & Present :

I’d been missing a Cardigans album … To be honest, half the tracks on Emmerdale I’d already got with their Life album. So I’d been missing 7 tracks that were easily worth the price of a cheap album. That’s Past, as the Cardigans split up a few years ago. Lead singer, Nina Persson, went to a new band called A Camp which makes Present with the appearance of the Colonia album in the library.

Future ? Not got that yet. But I’m looking keenly at it in the hope it becomes available over here for a respectable price. The temptation is coming from getting Edie Brickell’s Volcano album which is more excellence from a criminally underrated artist. Hey – why future if I’ve got the album ? Cos I’ve not got the next album yet … There’s a self titled Edie Brickell album which doesn’t seem to be too available over here, I can’t get it on iTunes and it would be £12.30 from Amazon. I don’t like paying that for movies, let alone cd’s.

Weird – the magical music box of Hannah Peel is a must check out. He says going off to Youtube to find Tainted Love to sing along to (which has actually turned into being an album track Don’t Kiss The Broken One).

The Wall Of Text alarm just went off so I’ll just summarise the others … Cults, White Stripes and The Rasmus are worth checking out if you’ve missed them. Kaiser Chiefs Employment was ok but not up to the hype. Dirty Vegas (Days Go By acoustic is a stop n listen), Diamonds And Pearls and a whole heap of random classical has turned up too.

It’s definitely enough music to keep me busy for a while 🙂 The library is up to 5202 tracks taking up 27 GB of my laptop now and I’d need to have the laptop playing for 14 consecutive days to listen to it all.

Deadliest Roads had Lisa … definitely watched that 🙂 Alabama Dave came over better in Deadliest Roads too.

The Ecuador series should be good.

Sounds like you had a good break 🙂 I needed one too as 2011 was hell on toast work-wise.

I enjoy Ice-Road Truckers too. have you seen the new series 'Deadliest Roads' where they sent them to drive in the mountains of India? Hairy stuff!

So much for 2011 Xmas break 🙂

Back to work tomorrow. I needed the long break as the batteries were running down. I’ve filled it with some gaming, taking advantage of Steam sales to get a few more for the collection. I managed to resist going berzerk on getting games I’d rarely play too.

It’s not all been gaming though. Itunes tells me I’ve listened to at least 844 different music tracks since being away (recently played list doesn’t count duplicates) and I’ve been struggling to stay ahead of all the recorded Xmas telly so much I’ve only watched 1 blu-ray. Hanna is a film very much worth watching although it earns its 12. Oddball characters, bonecrunching action backed up by an excellent soundtrack and a decent plot.

What have I been watching ?

Well – I currently have about 12 films recorded with Megamind and Dawn Treader being the highlights so far. There’s also been :

Buffy – now at end of season 5
10th Kingdom – wonderful theme (Wishing on a Star) and passable story. Worth a second watch.
Deadliest Catch – this had a series break during the last season and I missed the second half. Caught up now 🙂
Shaun and the Dead is on now – moderately amusing.
A Bridge Too Far – World War 2 film of the failed Operation Market Garden.
Sherlock season 2 – loved the first episode, likely to preorder the blu-ray.
Terra Nova – enjoyed this series, hopefully there will be a second.
Ice Road Truckers – still decent although it might be outliving its time and wearing itself out.
Puss In Boots – saw this one at the cinema, it’s a good laugh. Well worth catching before it disappears …
Doctor Who Xmas special – was ok but nothing brilliant. The strength of the current writer is in setting up series arcs, his individual Xmas episodes can be a bit weak.
There’s been more too as I try to keep the box clear.

Stuff I started to watch but abandoned :

Snow Queen – first heard of this a few years ago and it inspired a nickname. The Snow Queen of the story steals the heart of the bellboy. I sadly gave up on the TV miniseries after being bored for an hour. Besides, the shallow one on screen doesn’t compare to our Snow Queen.
Season of the Witch – Nicolas Cage film. Didn’t last long.
Brain Dead – not sure when I’ll learn that cheap flicks on horror channel will rot your brain.

Think there were a few more abandons too but I’ve managed to banish the memory.

Managed to get out to the Mall for the sales, although I didn’t actually pick anything up. I think I’ve already bought the stuff I actually want or need.

Still – back to work tomorrow. And right back into keeping ahead of the game in terms of what’s been going on over the Xmas break. It’ll be good to catch up.