Halleluya

Finally, Windows 7 has a proper application audio mixer - allowing me to turn down the output of individual applications (more useful than you'd think); kudos to Microsoft for implementing this - long overdue - change.

Audio on Microsoft computers is still many years behind what i expect from a home machine.. but never mind that. Windows 7 is a really great OS, just as good as XP was many, many years ago. The main strength of W7 lies in the fact that as of now, every piece of XP software i had to run runs fine - even if my system is 64bit.

Well, Duh you might say, but the fact that i can function just as well as i did on my ultra-tweaked XP, and i can do so by just popping in the W7 install disk (i didnt need to install *any* driver this time around) is  agreat advantage. Also, i'm not just having the same experience, as W7 fixes some long-standing kernel bugs that XP had, making this "2010 XP" version of windows a no-brainer choice. The loss of performance for using a more modern OS (more stuff running on it) is .. negligible. seriously.  When i installed W7 i just *knew* it was going to suck, but it didn't ! What a surprise..

So, W7 is good, but is it great (yeah, i know i said it was great, but the question stands)?

Well, only time will tell. I can already see a couple things about it i don't like, but all together i say it's promising.
Sure beats working with OSX.

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.

Garrow's Law

Season one of Garrow's Law was the best thing i had seen on television (hermm.. on my BBC iPlayer) in a long time.

Now season two (here) is back, after the network announced last year the series had terminated (after a mere four episodes) and that no new seasons were planned. I cannot be brought to believe that the many protests (i read many ) at Garrow's being the best thing on and worthy of continuation have actually led to season two;
I am more of the opinion that holes in the schedule have blessed us (and a few film crews) with this wonderful show's continuation.
It does looks like the production values have come down quite a bit since last year. I like to interpret that as a confirmation of the series being brought back as programming filler. It's still great, though.

Production Value(s) - the cost of, and results obtained, from the technical skill and equipment used in film production: lighting equipment, cameras(quality and number of), film quality, software hours, and so on. In short, what makes an expensive movie look better, more polished, and so on. Always used (in the real world, whatever Wikitionary says) in the plural.

A post full of Meaning™

The circulation of money is something i dont give a crap about; What i care about is the circulation of goods, the facilitation of which is the original purpose of money. From the way economists talk these days, you'd think the purpose of money is its own circulation.

Tuesday the twenty-third is the beginning - for me - of yet another "course" at a group called Action 4 Employment (yes, the name has a number in place of the word "for") where (i just received the form) the first step will be to review my Cvrricvlvm Vitae for the .. fourth time, this year ?

Yet it is amazing, in a bad way, how people will blatantly ignore whatever is written in it, mark my words and may i be wrong.

Example : Jobcentreplus, four weeks ago (again) : "hello mr. Bokken(not my real name), i see here you have listed you were a PA for the head of the Left Wing in the government, and handled confidential information; how would you like to clean dishes for a living ?"

Moving to England has destroyed me. This was the worst idea i could possibly come up with; Or maybe i would have fared just as badly in Italy, but one thing is for sure, i should have stayed in Boston, no matter what i had to do to make it happen. This, is not America.

And so i find my unedited posts starting with "the circulation of money..." where i would have written how the anachronistic monetary system we all use cannot survive overpopulation, the age of information, a salaried population and a slew of other sociogeographical changes that have come about since the 30s. And at the same time i am getting turned down for jobs peeling potatoes and answering telephones. If i had a dollar for everytime i read the phrase "must have excellent communication skills" i would be well off to owning a Core i7 system by now.

To make a point about the recession, i like to quote how the Mafia takes only ten percent, so with them in government i would have an extra 18% of money left after taxes. Taxation at 28% for the lowest strata is ridiculous already, when considered that the average rate of pay has declined in three years from almost £8/h to barely £6/h, resulting in a wage that earns you two-thirds of what is poverty level, so the fabled change has to happen, now.

When i first came in the UK, in 1990 (a country i more or less expected to find unchanged, it was), there was a pub on the corner of Tottenham Court Road i used to go to that would charge £2.85 for a pint of Guinnes. Today, they charge £3.20. That is fucking ridiculous. England used to be mythical for how expensive it was. In the same days, a can of Coke in Italy was 300lire, while now its 2000. that 7 times the moneys. So, a pint of beer should be £20, wages should be at anything between £20 to £35 an hour, basic, and everything would be OK. No one would be offended by a £460 weekly rent for a studio flat.

The reasons for these discrepancies are evident to me - and i wouldn't blame you for not knowing them - but if they aren't to you, i am sorry but i will not explain. Not got time, you see.

My real problem is that the society that created me, who demanded well learned young boys who could tackle any problem and understand the intricacies of class relationships, simply does not exist anymore. Just as the proud Athenian warrior who bravely chatters nonchalantly to his Trojan opponent  as bronze-tipped ashen spears fly by his head has been replaced by the grunt, whose education level is better when is lower, the workplace reflects the same ideology: "We don't need them smart, we need them stupid".

I recall a saying by famous German dictator, "don't give me men of intellect, give me men of violence".

So, what is it relevant to if i know the Dust Bowl and how the Ghost of Tom Joad relates to our modern education system.. proper-waged jobs don't exist anymore, they have all been replaced by more efficient low-wage workers Not only does automation dehumanize the work rhythms, but also overpopulation drives the need for work as it becomes no longer an activity, but a commodity.

Think how the recession is once again helping the rich against the not as rich: as my money influx lessens, i must resort to shopping at Tesco discount supermarket. Less earnings for the local butcher means that he will have to fire the girl who works for him and then she will too have to go to Tesco for food.
Poverty is the best thing a rich man can hope for.

Earlier in our history it was not thus, for we worked the land - i know, a lot of idiots with a degree will think that this is a simplistic view, although it *is* shown how in 80 years we have gone from 70% self employed to 30% self employed, but in substance what we need to survive is not money, but goods.
I can't, for the life of me, get any food if not from a shop. I have no access to wildlife and even if, i have no weapons or hunting skills, and am also not legally allowed to hunt. Then it makes me mad at* the stupidity when a conglomerate says it has created jobs -
(*poetic licence)
Jobs are not created - they are controlled.

A timbering factory doesn't create jobs - the trees create jobs -

More specifically, they create work potential, by letting you work on cutting the trees, you have some activity to invest time on, and the invested time can then be exchanged for goods from those who need timber but spend time on a different job, and this, is called Work.
If a company "creates 300 jobs" they in effect are "controlling" 300 jobs that could have been performed without the need of a company in the first place - i don't need the company, all i need is the trees.I have trees, i cut trees.I Work.

Services are even more stupid: the whole concept of "service" is translated to "superficial". ie, i am so rich i can afford to pay someone else who does this "service" for me. We as a technological society have an overabundance of services, which are a drain to society and do not produce anything - forgive my marxism - and thus are a false hope of Work, as in practice we have too many skilled workers and no real Work to put them to. Sure we can have a Wage, but what future does a Wage hold?
Will i ever buy a house with it, much less two? Will i be able to retire and own a business?
I assert that no, Wages do not bring about a successful life, simply because there is no chance of career - because there are no careers - they have all been filled up: over a territory of control, all the resources already have long since a controlling entity attached to it, and they aren't budging... and from the way i see it, i doubt there will be many new resources coming to the fore.

Forget what they say in school that the more talented become the upper crust, it's the ruthless and criminal.

Do you know what it takes to be the successful manager of a large company? Do you know what it takes to be the PA of a politician, the Director of a production unit, the Sales Advisor of a group, the Buyer of a society?
Takes nothing, that's what.
Maybe i have been "excessively" educated but i haven't yet found anything challenging in any work situation i have been, yet. As today, keep your eyes and ears open, your hands and clothes clean, and do your homework, and *holy cow* the job always turns out right, for some reason. The only times i had any trouble was when confronted by dishonesty and crime, but when the business is serious it's all plain sailing.

So what is it?
I have know of the recession since 2007, long before it was in the papers. All the sudden, people just didn't have the money anymore. Because, they had no way to earn it. EVERYONE was trapped into a slave wage situation.

Why didn't the smart people who are much smarter than me by definition, since they *are* in power while i am obviously not, not noticed that the waged population was becoming excessively large, then increase the minimum wage *severely* to make THE WORKERS a commodity, and not THE JOBS ??

I was going to say something about the banks, but it would be fucking stupid. The problem is more extensive, it's how we got to be a world of slaves. If i owned a farm, i would care nothing about the money - if it went, you'll get some more. And you still have the farm. But seems people have already thought of that, and arable land is all taken up. And every other resource.

We are, gentlemen and Ladies, Royally Screwed. Me more than You.

Nov 2010 (my b-day, couple days off), 5:18 AM,

Good Luck.