A blog about the road that led us to where we are. And where we are going.

Monday 20 February 2012

Great answer to Pascal’s wager

Rage (2011)

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After getting bored with Skyrim, I decided to try and find another game that will fill the time between now and the release of Mass Effect 3 (March 9th). After a recommendation for Rage, I thought I'd give it a go. After all it looked like it could potentially be an entertaining game and it is from id Software who aren't known for making crap computer games.

Mutant-Bash-TV-Is-Id-Softwares-First-Rage-Game-for-iOS-Games_gM-ot_0So after getting this game I discovered it required an amazing 25GB of hard drive space for an install which is to say the least probably the largest amount of hard drive space of any game I've ever installed. To put this in perspective, Skyrim required 6GB and that game is vastly more impressive perhaps not necessarily superior graphically but definitely in terms of game play and the open arena, open ended nature of the game. Bethesda put this down to the superior way in which the textures are compressed. I feel that id should probably have applied this to Rage since the game was in no way graphically leaps and bounds above any other game of the current generation. So this monster took me two hours to install and then a further hour getting my graphics drivers up to date so I could play the game. And then how long did it take me to play it through to completion? Just 10 hours. In all honesty though that was enough because the storyline was a little boring and nowhere near as in depth as the last several games I've played.

RAGE-Game-4So the plot? In truth there isn't one, or at least one that is interesting. Basically the game starts out with a massive asteroid hitting Earth and during this time you are put into cryogenic sleep to wait it out whilst the surface once again becomes inhabitable. When you do eventually reawaken 106 years later, you awaken to find a post-apocalyptic planet where gangs and mutants have taken over the world in a style not dissimilar to Fallout. But this is really where the similarities end. The game is impressive graphically but it feels a little clunky and unrefined and the characters are very one-dimensional. You must fight the hoards of bad-guys to accomplish what are mostly simple linear fetch quests and find yourself up against the main antagonists of the game - the authority whom it is never made clear or at least wasn't during my play through exactly what makes them the bad guys. They are supposedly responsible for the mutant threat but even this doesn't seem to be confirmed during the game.

1358-1169rage_fpscrossbowIt had some perks such as the ability to partake in races in dune buggies and trucks and race across the wasteland in style but somehow it just lacked the immense enjoyableness of other Bethesda games. I really feel that if this game had been more of an open-world RPG it could have been much much better. The game uses the idTech 5 engine which does make for stunning visuals and does allow you to customise just about every aspect of your inventory including the ability to build items such as sentry bots and remote control toy cars which explode. The enemies you face also utilise a degree of intelligence such as ducking behind walls and objects to prevent giving you a direct line of sight, usually meaning that you'll have to employ cunning tactics to defeat them. At its core though, this game is really just a standard FPS, nothing more, nothing less.

Overall, it's worth a dabble but it's nothing special.

Saturday 11 February 2012

German air traffic control

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."

Sheffield Riots

Sometimes I think people just get too violent around here. View discretion advised.

Asinine Christian Arguments against atheism

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Interesting…

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This would be a world beater if politicians could ever be convinced to fund it.

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/skylon.html

Friday 10 February 2012

Climate change denialists

You personally may believe that no evidence exists for it but just about every serious climatologist on the planet disagrees with you,

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somehow you seem to think that taking a good proportion of the carbon that has been locked up in the earth's crust over the course of millions of years of geological time as coal, oil and natural gas

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and then releasing it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide over the space of a couple of centuries

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whilst at the same time deforesting vast areas of the planet which soak up this carbon dioxide locking up the carbon and releasing the oxygen back into the atmosphere,

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will have absolutely no effect whatsoever?

I lolled.

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Dare to Know–Dawkins & Hitchens

Monday 6 February 2012

Just a random randomness

I’m not doing enough with this blog…. time for that to change me thinks.

There’s just too many bat shit crazy people out there for me not to set the record straight. Like the one I was arguing with earlier who deleted the thread because he lost. And the complaint by creationists is that evolutionists don’t debate?! In my experience it’s creationists that run like the devil’s chasing them when faced with evolutionists. Or perhaps it’s just because I present them with a new level of pwnage to which they are most unaccustomed.

Maybe it’s time to become a true evangelical atheist as well. Worth thinking about that one. Spread the good news, there is no God. Sorry about that dear readers.

Plus I also need to learn Flash because my Actionscript sucks donkey balls big time.

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