Christmas? What christmas?

Just watched the christmas special of Doctor Who. Matt Smith has to be the worse screen presence in all of England - god i miss David Tennant. Or even Ecclestone, would have been better. Writing on the series is pretty bad as well, but it was never really brilliant, except maybe in Midnight, Forest of the Dead, Army of Ghosts, Impossible Planet,  and ...thinking about it, more or less the whole Tennant series was awesome. Ecclestone, was ok. Loved Rose Tyler's big juicy ass. Matt Smith's choice of personality for the Doctor is easily comparable to The Phantom Menace's choice of script. Just unbelievable that nobody yet has gone to him and told him "look here mate, its just not funny. or serious, either".

Amy Pond in policewoman outfit and red hair is really sexy. (attack of the obvious statements). Maybe even *too* sexy, i'd say that any companion that goes above Tegan-level sexyness is too sexy for the show. Hey, call me a prude, thats just how i feel. Would love to see her in the buff, sure. Even privately. But she's not really the type you expect as a companion.. in a bad way. not revolutionary a choice, more of .. awkward. and mister fish face (whatshisname, Amy's husband) is the second most pointless companion since that guy with the Kilt from 30 years ago. Look, Doctor Who *is* a children's show. It's all true, *that show with the puppets* sums it up perfectly. Without good - grim, captivating - writing, better acting, and good pace of direction the show just falls apart. This last series is just bleeaurgh, not even worth watching. And FFS, the continuity, writers *really* should know that scifi serials are very strict on continuity, you just can't have a room filled with every enemy the Doctor has ever had and not expect some raised eyebrows.

And the story ?

Honestly i can't even say what the story from S5 is. Did he spot a crack in time, that he then closes? Well? Where are the twists ? The intwined plots? Well?
And how can you fuck up a character so deep as Professor River Song?

She is the ONLY person alive to know the Doctor's true name (something quite big for the show.. i would say .. the biggest revelation that the show has had since day one ????).
She can fly the TARDIS, better than the Doctor can. She is also a person of courage and someone who the Doctor loved - she sacrifices herself to save him in Forest of The Dead.
This person was the one who changed Doctor Who, a real catalyst of years of the show.. and then they went and gave her the manga treatment, where she is a ... what, intergalactical thief who travels trough time? She was supposed to be just a human that he would fall in love with, like Rose almost tipped him over. Good character stories do have to come to a closure, it's an unavoidable fact.

And - everything else apart - how can the Doctor now be such an idiot? Remember that personality may change but capabilities remain unaltered. Meh. Another example of the voice of reason going lost to the wind.

Anyway, show is crap. Even the new tune they have is worse than the one from last series. And Christmas always seems to the a good excuse to not have to write anything, just do a toss-off of Scrooge McWritersux
and be done with it.. What has the world of television come to ...

*sad*

a final edit. In Waters of Mars the Doctor goes to a base on Mars; he then discovers that the people who he is trying to help will die regardless, because it's a event fixed in time, a key Doctor Who continuity element that has helped the series develop with some interesting hardships along the way, rather that a one-button-solves-all solutions you would imagine associated with owning a time-traveling machine. The key element of the - rather bad - episode is that the character is faced with a dilemma spurring from his own nature - he is a Timelord, and therefore he cannot "afford" to love those who he knows cannot be saved.. That is what is happening in the episode. Not "he wiggles the screwdriver"; he does that, but those are just filler actions, not plot or story elements. Series 5 HAS NOT GOT a story. that, is the problem. or teh problem, as they say.

My BTEC part 1 of many.

When my BTEC course began, we were presented with a series of questions to be answered in writing - some essays - explaining the nature of sound and simile. I had trouble with them not because of the nature of the material, as i told my teacher, but because i did not know who i was answering to; Did this person who wants to know what phase is(or reverb, or vibrations, or kinetic energy, or amplitude, or frequency, pick one), knows *anything* at all about sound, physics and the like, was he a learned person, or a complete ignorant? To an acoustician who asks me the same question i could answer with three words, to a schoolboy i would have to explain lots more, in a long and extensive manner which explains terminology, basic physics, and so on.

Explain it to an idiot, the teacher said.

As the course went on the questions got more complex, more in depth, and also reflected on what we wrote before.
On one side you must assume that anyone who asks a question so specific must have a knowledge of at least certain particular elements, so the answer you give is appropriate to that person - too short for the BTEC course to be good. But if you assume that you must explain a very advanced acoustics concept to someone who doesnt know anything at all, a simple "what is the Doppler effect" becomes a 30 page essay, instead of the simple answer "compression of soundwaves".

And furthermore if we advance in a course we cannot be expected to not reference earlier work on the same subject; the idea that your "examiner" has forgotten everything you did yesterday and you must explain it again is ridiculous.

Look : an unrelated link : explaining why the new Skype is bad and how can a group of programmers screw up so badly. But my course is exactly the same, how can professionals do so badly something they are specialized in, when a student knows more about the art of teaching than the national board of BTEC examiners does.

That link speaks the truth and, if you read it, you will notice that it does so RIGHT ON  THE MAKERS' OWN FORUM. Do you think they fixed it? They went "oh no, we screwed up, we must fix this embarassing thing double-time!".

They didnt. (nerd rage follows).

QL

I play Quake because there is nothing better to do - lots of times - on the internet.

QuakeLive is a in-browser version of a game i used to own in 1998 (Quake3Arena) as i was a Doom fan, but could never get my head around. Q3A was extremely hard, and my first game on a instagib server while on 56k was my last. But as it turns out, Quake is brilliant. The engine is ultralight, very fast and quite complex. Learning how to play can be a frustrating experience, since there are so many "hidden" rules concerning the physics, and mastering these is key to playing the game decently. To get any better, since Quake is quite possibly the second most popular - and first in difficulty - eSport in the world, with the crown going dubiously to Starcraft, you need more than patience, you need superhuman reflexes and extreme precision. Surgeons will have nothing on you.

Anyway, i sometimes get frustrated at QL even though i have gotten pretty good at it, because of some faults (or at least i think they are faults) within the game engine.

Unfortunately, the QuakeLive community is the biggest bunch of douchebags ever assembled on the internet, so trying to get help - or even a shoulder to cry on - from them is impossible. So i vent on this here blog.

I apologise to anyone who reads this and understands nothing of it. I especially apologise for what is coming next. It will make no sense whatsoever.


The LG (and everything else, really) is screwed up.


I have recently found out what mouse acceleration is, and turned it off, to the expense of everything else on my desktop. Turned down the sensitivity, which has helped but fucked my rockets.
Already i wonder why the fuck the QL website doesnt have a big "THIS IS HOW YOU TURN YOU MOUSE ACCELERATION OFF ON XP" sign on the login page. Since having it on stops you from possibly playing this game decently.

Yet still i cant get results with the LG.

This is because.. bear with me .. the client-server packets lose some informations about the hitscan location on some cells.

I have ran right behind newly spawned players (not glowing) and wasted 60 cells on them.. that 420 damage, and they didnt die.
I wasted a whole clip of MG on a player, hitting with every shot, and he didnt die. newly spawned, no armor or health pickup.
I have hit people 4 times with the shotgun while with Quad, and they didnt die.

On the other hand, i have been killed by gauntlets when hit twice. I have been hit for 70 damage from the other fucking side of the room with a shotgun, while i hit the same guy from the same distance 4 times with no avail.

I HAVE SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES the beam of the LG hit a model, the white spot of the crosshair in the middle of their hitbox, and no hit is recorded. for a cool quarter second, then the bells begin.

Since over a second your opponent might get in and out of the beam maybe 5-6 times, a quarter second bug makes the LG pretty much useless.
And since this is arguably the second most powerful gun in the game, of three, playing without it means i'm bound to lose no matter what.


Different reactions from playing against different clients.

Some players in the same arena, same server, have a hitbox as big as a house. i have hit people who were well gone behind a corner, while some other people have a hitbox that disappears from time to time.

hey sure, its a fun game, but when the community agrees that a ping above 60ms is too high for professional gaming, didnt you think something was wrong ? That maybe you should change the physics model to accomodate the reality of technology? And remember, this is a 1998 game, was even worse back then.

As it stands now, Quake is only playable properly in LAN. And i know it cannot be fixed, and i am sad. But it is still the best FPS out there, and its free.