Lies, Damn Lies

On welfare

2012-01-27T19:44:00.000Z

Long time no post. Lots to write, but I think I'll start with politics. So the govt have been impressively mean on several levels recently. I'll discuss benefits for now.

The coalition has the country on their side here. British people, and indeed most people, dislike the idea of unfair play. The idea that someone should get something for nothing does not sit well with most citizens, and, indeed, it seems like many people are doing this in our economy. But a few pointers.

The key argument has hinged around the £27,000 benefit cap: the median household wage. That sounds reasonable: why should someone get that benefit if they are not working? Well. Households vary in size and cost. A household with 10 members will have far more costs than one with 3, and households in geographic locations vary in cost. London costs a lot more than Liverpool. Housing costs, and particularly rent, have only been rising, thanks to poor housing policy in general, and lack of social housing in specific. Whenever sweeping laws are made to simplify a law, they ignore the reasons that the complications arose in the first place.

Also, there is an argument that cutting someone's benefit will force them to work. I am not aware of evidence for this assertion, and some weak evidence to its contrary (the 50s, which saw some of the highest benefit/wage ratios, saw very low unemployment). If said individual fails to get work, do we just let them starve? No, because we have a requirement to not do so, and we will often end up paying in other ways- particularly local councils may be forced to take up the slack.

On the other major arguments. No money for cancer patients past the first year. Really govt? Really? And charging people money for not getting money off their wealthy partners? Stay classy coalition, stay classy.

That the Lords have noticed all this (and many conservative peers have rebelled!) and not the Commons seems to be a massive indictment of the primacy of parliament. Too often parliament is simply a vehicle for the legislation the govt wants to pass, whether it makes sense or is workable. I had hoped that with the liberal democrats in the coalition we might see some sensitivity, but their tactic has been to blindly vote through laws and occasionally let their lords deal with it. This is not healthy for democracy. A parliament with no/weaker whips would be a parliament which makes better bills.

If Clegg cannot stand on these issues there is little point to the lib dems in the coalition. I don't want to have to see these kind of laws passed by a party that claimed to represent me.

A brief rant on the use of language

2011-10-20T11:44:00.000+01:00

Apparently totalbiscuit, a fairly popular online caster of starcraft games and reviewer of video games, recently used a homophobic slur when referring to someone online. A sc player, somewhat disturbed by this, made a thread on a popular sc2 forum (team liquid). Now TB has apologised for his remarks, and while I'm not sure he's entirely clear on why using such language is bad, he's not my main target here.

In that thread, I discovered this comment "You've gotta be joking OP, this is beyond ridiculous. Faggot doesn't even mean homosexual any more, it's just a generic insult. Grow up."

The notion that the term "faggot" and "gay" have become disassociated from homosexuality, and are merely words without the impact that they used to have, is an argument I have been confronted with more than once. Distressingly, even the BBC attempted such an argument when their golden boy, Chris Moyles, used such words.

Let me explain why such an argument doesn't really work. If a word is currently used to refer to a particular subgroup of people, and also to indicate that something is bad, then it is rather difficult to disassociate the two. If I and my friends were to use the word "Jewish" to indicate that something were bad, and were to insist that the word had been used so much that it didn't have any racial connotations for us, I suspect you would believe that I was an idiot.

Worse yet, at least when I sit with my friends, calling things "Jewish", I am relatively confident none of them are. One of the many issues with using homophobic slurs in mixed company is that we do not live in a society where all homosexual people feel free to say that they are. We are not in a post-prejudice society. There are many places in the world where being openly homosexual can prove a threat to one's health and welfare. Even in the more liberal UK, intolerance does indeed exist, and admitting that one is homosexual can be damaging to one's career and relationships. And, indeed, in some extreme cases, potentially be damaging to one's health.

Every time you use a homophobic slur, you contribute to a culture where such language, such framing of homosexuality is frequent, and unfriendly, where homosexuals feel less comfortable. In short, you make the world a little worse.

Now language being what it is, of course, some insults do get stuck in the vocabulary. Idiot was a technical term for mental retardation and has now become a word which applies to anyone who shows a particular mental failure. It is possible that "gay" may become stuck as an insult for something that is bad. If that becomes the case then it is likely that the homosexual community will have "lost" the word, because it will be difficult to self describe as gay when the word has such a pejorative meaning. This has not yet happened yet, however, we are currently in a battle of usage. I know which side I am on.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-10-01T13:44:00.000+01:00

I went into this film pretty much blind, with the knowledge that it had received universal praise from reviewers. I have to admit I expected it to be a cold war spy thriller, and while, technically, it is that, what it truly is is a slow, cold character study of the ruin caused by spying on the character's lives. On some level one could even call it a satire of Spooks.

The film opens fairly excitingly, with a spy sent off to get information on a mole, and a mission gone wrong. We then see Control (I was never clear as to whether this was his code name, or had the greatest spy name ever) get ousted, along with George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman. The film then takes several minutes to show Smiley's empty, dull retirement. During which period, there is absolutely no dialogue. Smiley does not utter a word throughout all of this, his face offering very little as he settles into a routine without life.

If one had, as I had, been expecting a spy thriller, even a classic one, one could easily be disappointed. This is not a film that paces itself up to modern standards. It takes its time, and it feels like quite a while until Smiley finally goes into action. But as a character study, its terrific. As the story unfolds, you see everyone's lives unravel. Even those with more exciting backgrounds, like Tom Hardy or Cumberbatch's character, find themselves ruined by contact to spying.

One of the key speeches is given by Oldman, recollecting what he had said to Kara, the name for the head of the Russian spies. In it he outlines the dangers of the life they lead, and the emptiness of alleigance. It was meant to be persuading Kara, but its clearly depicting Smiley's feelings on the matter.

There are some great performances here. John Hurt as Control is hilariously angry, Tom Hardy is just blindingly charismatic, and Oldman is of course brilliant. The plot is not what will keep you going here. The denoument is understated, and fairly predictable, and there are some weird turns (seriously, owl murder? What?) along the way. But as a taking apart of the spy lifestyle as heroic or exciting, its spot on.

A heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

2011-09-30T15:28:00.000+01:00

(I am attempting to consume lots of new stuff recently, so this blog may devolve into multiple reviews. Also, statistics is being frustrating and I need a break!)

AHWOSG as it shall henceforth be known, is quite an astounding novel, written by David Eggers. I went into the book pretty much blind- the title had amused me, and I knew he had written the lukewarm Away we go. The book opens with an amusing prelude of notes and prevarications, which will be familiar to anyone who has browed to McSweeney's, a website Eggers edits. Its pretty funny, and sets you up for certain parts of the book- in particular the habit of the text to occasionally break the fourth wall, for the characters to have a conversation about how the story is going.

And then the book begins properly, with the death of Egger's mother. Its pretty damn painful, and visceral, as we get to see precisely what Egger's is thinking as his mother is in the other room, and they can't stop a nose bleed that has been going on for hours. Egger's uses a device while writing in that the style of writing changes to reflect his emotional state, so once something distressing happens we get jagged, run on sentences that work surprisingly effectively.

It transpires that AHWOSG is mostly autobiographical, and Eggers has had some difficult times. In the space of a year both of his parents died, and he was left, a 20 year old, with primary responsibility for looking after his eight year old properly.

Its an incredibly honest piece of work, even when you feel like its lying. There is no doubt that Eggers is bearing his emotional breast at several points in this book, and some of his writing is incredibly cruel about who he was- we get to see his most unworthy thoughts and behaviours, his failures and some successes. He has particularly cruel about Might, a magazine he worked on for several years, the text is expertly pulled apart. Its a painful piece of work, but its also funny, and very well written, which kept me reading it all the way through.

The habit of the book to occasionally break the fourth wall, while it might be offputting to some, actually proved very effective. It allows Eggers to point out where he is distorting the truth on occasion, and with one suicidal character who appears later in the book, it allows Eggers to point out that, while he is using the suicidal character as a metaphor, he is a real human, and is much more than he is allowed to be in the book.

I loved this book. It communicates the pain and difficulty of life incredibly effectively, and while it might be a bit pretentious, its actually very aware of that, and somehow manages to get away with it.

A challenge for G-plus

2011-09-22T09:58:00.000+01:00

When I first joined facebook, it prompted me to find my friends via email. Dutifully, I gave it my hotmail account, which had all my school friend's emails, so it added all those who were ready there and sent invites to others. Annoying, perhaps, but efficient.

So now G-plus is getting started, and its time to invite all my friends. Except... huh... I don't have their email. Since I started using facebook, I don't really have people's emails anymore. Why would I? I have their number, and I can facebook them otherwise. So when g-plus went through my gmail account with suggestions, it mostly just found proffesional emails, plus family members. For g-plus, the gold mine is your friend list on facebook, but it won't be able to access that (at least, without someone creating a hack of some kind).

I want people to move to G-plus, but right now I don't post there- theres no-one to see it, and its a lot of effort to write my status', or share interesting links, on two different websites. I will copy this note to G-plus, but I don't usually.

Riots, searching for a narrative

2011-08-09T11:31:00.001+01:00

I think a lot of what people want to do when an event occurs is search for a narrative. There has to be a reason for why things happen, and usually its going to be a reason that fits the political sensibilities of the person watching. I was reading an article suggesting that the reason Japan capitulated in world war 2 was the Soviet Union declaring war, rather than the nuclear bomb. The two events happened very close together, so that its rather difficult to piece them apart, but for a long time now the narrative has been entirely about the nuclear bombs, because it suits lots of people for it to be that way.

When the riots started, I'm reasonably confident in saying that they were about the police response. The Met has a history of lying to save its own officers when they do wrong- with Jean Menezes there was a whole host of mistruths let out by the Met as the story emerged, until finally the real story was that a man had been shot dead for doing pretty much nothing at all. To date, no real justice has been brought there. The same happened with Ian Tomlinson, and the same may have happened with Mark Duggan. Certainly the impression people may well have had was that IS what happened, and facts can easily get distorted very quickly. I know this is a terrible lefty thing for me to say, but the police being friendly with the community it serves is really vital, and things like the prevalence of stop and search have made populations criminalised, so that there is general dislike of the police.

However, there is again no doubt in my mind that the majority of the people causing trouble right now do not give a fuck about Mark Duggan. They might have hazy justifications in their heads based on a general dislike of the police, but criminals often do have justification. Because that what we've seen, criminals taking advantage of a situation, and then, when they've seen that they've been able to get away with it, a string of other criminals doing the same. Now perhaps some of those looting are not "career criminals", but they have a disrespect for their community enough that they are willing to steal and burn, causing damage and risk of death (and it seems like a miracle that there are no reported deaths in all that happened last night). They deserve to be caught and charged precisely for their crimes (no, they don't deserve to be hung or shot, silly people on facebook/twitter. We live in a civilised country, and we shall remind everyone of this).

I think its worth giving the police a bit of praise at this point. We don't fire rubber bullets, we don't use tear gas and water cannons. We had the riot police, who are not used to these kind of disturbances, dealing with the disturbances the best they could. They clearly failed, but to those watching news reports on tv, loudly calling for the police to just arrest looters rather than just watch.

1)The police are outnumbered. Yes, a stick and a shield and good training will get you some of the way, but if you turn a crowd against you you are going to make things to much worse.
2)Arresting people isn't the end of the problem. You have to actually get them to the cells, which I suspect is a tall order when the full force is deployed across the city!

I am going to go ahead and say that the police may need assistance from the armed forces, if tonight reflects last night. They were outnumbered and under resourced last night, because the looters were highly mobile and reasonably well organised. I hope that the response isn't going to get more violent, because I worry about escalation. I hope that we can deal with these problems in a way that makes our nation look good, because we could really use that right now.

And yes, it is worth thinking about the root causes. These people didn't have an attitude which thinks stealing is fine, which thinks burning and hurting is good, from nowhere. They are a product of our society, and we need to think about whether we can make it so less of these people are produced. I honestly don't know the character of the majority of the people involved last night. My instinct says these are likely to be impoverished kids who have been socialised into gangs and a lack of respect for social norms, but I could well be wrong in this. After all, apparently they were using fricking blackberries to organise themselves! I don't know what produces this kind of attitude where looting is just fine, provided you think you can get away with it. Maybe its mob mentality, maybe its just inevitable, but I do think we need to look at it. The answer isn't just harsher police tactics, or more police, because there will always be more of these people than the police if we just focus on fixing the symptoms.

Of course all this is my narrative, my feelings from having watched London erupt. I could be dead wrong on every point. I suspect we won't have real answers for a long time- I worry we might never get them. It was a fucked up night last night, and it may well be another one tonight. It felt different, and disturbing, to incidents like this in the past. Here's hoping we can work out how to stop it happening again.

Lost season 6- A review (spoilers, but of course)

2011-07-25T11:41:00.000+01:00

So I felt that season 6 did provide a reasonably coherent answer to what happened on the show. What did I feel about the season in general? (this will, of course, contain spoilers!)

Well, it was a mess, no doubt, but Lost is always a mess. The flash sideways sort of worked to introduce an extra mystery to the show without over burdening it, while the main show continued with a reasonable sense of urgency. Certainly not-Locke was a compelling presence, who oozed threat, and made good on his promises, and there was some fairly good journeys this season. Yet the flash sideways, which I'll take about in a minute, meant that some of the journeys just didn't really conclude. I'm gonna take a look at individual characters and see what worked and what didn't.

Sawyer, who had lost Juliette, was clearly a man who had lost his way for a while, but was still pretty decent- the show did not forget the growth this character has experienced since the first season. He was mostly compelling throughout, and a lot of fun to be with. Unfortunately I really want to see what life he got off the island. Because the show shows us who leaves the island, then has them in the afterlife (and way to explicitly state that show..), it doesn't give us time to finish off their arcs when they leave the island. A little closure here would be nice. After all, Sawyer never did leave the island. We can assume he won't go back to being a con man, but it'd be nice to see what.

I have the same problem with Kate and Claire, although slightly less so- we can sort of guess that they'll work together to raise the child, but after Kate finally declared her love for Jack (oh, and show, we don't fucking care about Kate and Jack. We have not cared since the second season.) it seems a bit funny that she's never gonna come back to the island to check on him. I guess she left with the impression that the island was going to collapse, but she didn't know.

Claire and Sayid were also a mess. Why on earth did the show introduce that stupid infection thing? It doesn't actually make a great deal of sense- the infection was pretty clearly shown before as being the Dharma initiative basically lying, and introducing another element during season 6 seemed so pointless. Both Sayid and Claire seemed genuinely deranged and evil, until they weren't. Sayid suddenly sacrifices himself, having been utterly evil up to that point. What was going on there? He rose from the dead long after the restoring waters were meant to help him. For that matter, the entire scenes at the temple were a distraction. For a season that was meant to wrap the show up, it seemed to have a lot of time to waste. Every single scene in the temple was a waste of time that didn't further the plot, and added another needless level of confusion (wait, how come no-one has EVER mentioned this before!). The show did this when it simply didn't need to- why introduce that bodyguard only to blow her up? It just wastes time. I guess there was an attempt to get some emotional weight from Kate feeling guilty about Claire's state, but Claire literally vanished (this wasn't explained either), so the audience sympathies are hardly with her.

On needless death, I felt like the Kwan's deaths was just mean. Its my strong belief that main characters should almost always be killed in emotionally compelling ways. For instance, the redemptive death of Charlie- he has betrayed many people, and dies trying to save everyone. Thats compelling because it has meaning- he is being karmically punished to some extent, but he also chooses the death. The Kwans, however, spend the entire series wanting to be together. They get their wish in death, I suppose, but its an arbitary element- Sun gets trapped, and there aren't enough oxygen tanks. This isn't something they brought on themselves, and their death doesn't help anyone. They just die. Its nasty. It sort of sets up a motive for the others to kill not-Locke, but that was pretty damn present as it was- Sayid's death would have done it.

On characters that did work, Jack and Hurley were pretty good all season. I usually don't like Jack, but I actually think his frustation, then acceptance of the island was pretty damn nifty. I enjoyed it a lot. Hurley, who is always good value anyway, settles into the role as the new Jacob in the most natural way- he seems a sensible fit, for a more caring island.

Finally Ben was sadly a bit of a mess anyway. While he's always a fun character, it was pretty damn clear that the writers did not know what to do with him. Still, his terrible pain at having lost his daughter, and his final revenge on Widmore, was splendid fun.

On the episodes themselves, they were mostly fun. I actually wish they'd replaced the flash sideways with the flash back back episodes. i'd have much prefered to see the plot exposition spread out across the series than dumped into some pudgy episodes in such a clunky method. The main problem with the flash sideways is that its claimed that these people are all soul mates and will find each other in the afterlife to go heaven. Well fine, but that would have happened no matter what happened in life, so do I really need to see it? And I can live without another sodding slow motion hug, thanks a lot Lost. Jack seeing the plane fly off is carthatic, everyone smiling at each other in a church... not terribly. That said, earlier bits, when lost lovers found each other was genuinely pleasing, and it would have been a shame to miss lovers reunions.

So, a conclusion? I think this series could have been a lot better. It had some right ideas, but it padded badly in places, and didn't so some characters the justice it could have. But it was fun, as Lost always has been, and could have been so much worse.

Lost season 6 an explanation (obviously contains spoilers)

2011-07-21T18:13:00.000+01:00

Yes, spoilers will abound from here on out. I will be unapologetic, so leave now lest I be forced to mock ye for not reading properly.

I went into this season incredibly late, but unspoiled, with the strong impression that this season wasn't very good. The mysteries were not, apparently resolved, and the show turned into a bit of a mess. So I was set up for disappointment, and as can sometimes happen with this preperation, I found myself mostly enjoying it.

For the most part, the mysteries are resolved, or at least a convincing narrative can be done to explain the mysteries. I've seen some blog posts which dismissively call the solutions magic, to which my response is

a)what scientific response for mystic numbers would make you happy?
b)magic is a fine solution as long as its relatively consistent.

Now I'm not sure the explanation entirely works throughout, but for most things its pretty good. So here's my impression of the answers behind the show.

Some time in the past, an island was created which was the source of good and evil for mankind. Whether it existed before humans did is not terribly clear. Still, once humans existed the island needed protection, because it (or its creator) knew that humans might want to abuse the source for their own gains. So a protector was appointed. This was potentially the mother, but it could have been someone before her. The protector was capable of setting rules for the island, was incapable of death by aging (and maybe by physical harm. This is not incredibly clear). The protector was not all knowing, but had an intuitive connection with the island which gave them an idea of what to do. In particular, they could certainly be wrong about things, too mean or mistrustful. The mothers attitude towards people is very different towards Jacob's for instance. When a protector felt that their stewardship of the island was coming to the end they could pass their powers on to a worthy succesor.

We skip to 44 AD, where the mother sees the chance to raise children who she believes she can make "good" (she is convinced that men are evil and venal creatures), and thus good enough to replace her. She favours the man in black, who is an extremely smart child. Jacob sees this, and is filled with sadness and jealousy. Eventually the man in black realises that his true mother was murdered by the protector, and he decides he wants to leave the island. He teams up with some men on the island, who have investigated the properties of the island.

While the source of the island cannot be accessed directly by anyone other than the protector, it has an impact on the island itself. In particular, the island is almost impossible to get to or leave, and has some crazy physical properties. In certain places the sources reaches up, causing massive electromagnetic fields. These can be harnassed to do various things- possibly giving free energy. The man in black has accessed one, and is planning to use it to move the island, which will presumably give him his freedom. The mother cannot allow this, and kills everyone in the camp (I'll note here that I'm not sure the man in black leaving the island is awful at this point, but accessing the source will be. Also, the mother is a leeetle crazy). The man in black kills her in response. Jacob, outraged by his actions, makes a massive mistake, and hurls the man in black into the source. Such an act, fueled by Jacob's envy and anger, creates a monster where a man once was.

For a time Jacob and the man in black coexist relatively peacefully, with Jacob trying to prove that man isn't as bad as his brother and mother believed, and his brother trying to prove him wrong. However, with the coming of Richard, the man in black actively tries to kill Jacob. Jacob realises that if he dies, its possible that the man in black (incidentally, thanks SO much for not giving him a name, show) could leave the island and cause much suffering. Jacob realises he needs to not just search for a replacement, but for someone who can finally kill the man in black. As a result, he recruits Richard to aid him in this, and to set up an active community of people who work for Jacob. He also hires some bodyguards to try and protect against obvious attacks on his life.

Fast forward, and the Dharma initiative has discovered the island. They intend to manipulate the island for its properties. They probe hard, and cause the incident by drilling into access to the source, which nearly destabilises and destroys the island, forcing them to set up the hatch. Jacob, at this point, appears to have become non-communicative, leading the others to sieze on to a new leader, Ben, who notices the obsession with Jacob and pretends to be able to communicate with him. Ben wipes out the Dharma initivative and changes the Others into a religion worshipping the idea of Jacob. The notion of lists comes from Jacob's candidates, but I believe that its basically a religious copy of the notion, without any help from Jacob. I'm not entirely sure why Richard doesn't step in here- presumably Jacob has stopped talking to him, or he's too busy doing research into the Oceanic flight passengers for Jacob to notice the others being subverted, and by the time he gets back its too late.

Meanwhile Jacob, who has gone through a long list, only has the oceanic passengers left. They are his lost shot at finding a replacement, and he directly inteferes to make sure they land all at once. Every time he has tried before the shadow monster has manipulated the candidates into turning on each other. And again, with the landing of the survivors, the smoke monster tries to do the same, and when that fails, endeavours to have them leave the island.

Then, with Ben, mad with jealousy, murdering locke, the shadow monster has an opportunity. Locke had been positioned by Jacob to replace Ben, who had corrupted the others, and as such was considered a prophet like figure by them. With his corpse to copy, the monster was able to finally engineer Jacobs death.

Events follow as on the show from now on, and are pretty straight forward for the most part. By depowering the island Jack depowers Locke, which allows him to kill the smoke monster, then save the island.

The only thing left is the flash sideways. Thats pretty explicitly explained on the show, but I have my own little pet theory. The explanation of it seems to take any agency out of the hydrogen bomb, which apparently didn't work at all. I prefer it to mean that the hydrogen bomb allowed the central cast to draw themselves into this meeting place before they moved on, a fantasy that they created together, to retreat to in death. If its just something we ALL go to, it hardly has any significance for the show, so this gives it some relevance. (hint, this was not my favourite thing about the last season)

So theres the explanation. Some thoughts on what I felt about the show in my next post. I think this explanation covers most of what needs to explain. There are a few holes

-why didn't Richard know Ben was faking it?
-The whole Claire's baby thing was apparently a red herring
-The infection nonsense makes no sense, and doesn't even seem to be true! (both Claire and Sayid act nobly in the end) I'll talk about this alittle more in my next post
-The numbers are technically not explained, but I think thats ok- they're just numbers with mystic significance. I'm not sure what explanation would suffice here
-I've skipped some points on Widmore and Juliette, but they're pretty self explanatory, I think.

Bridesmaids

2011-07-03T17:29:00.000+01:00

Bridesmaids is a splendid little comedy. It owes more to Knocked up than it does the Hangover, being a collection of set pieces and improvised comedy. As always with such films, the quality is dependent on the quality of the performers, who are all very funny and engaging.

A long the way theres some emotional truth- the notion of losing friends you've had for life, and people growing past you, is an interesting one, and a fruitful one. Its also really, really funny in places, and just enjoyable to watch.

There are some flaws. It feels a little too long, and Megan is a little too broad for me, it actually feels like its hit the lowest ebb (which films like this always have) twice (although it does comment on this), which makes it feel a bit oddly paced. Still, it wins itself back. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

X-men, first class

2011-07-01T09:56:00.000+01:00

I give the most up to date reviews.

I am going to go ahead and give the new X-men a thumbs up. It gets the fundamentals correct, with the main thrust of the story being about a battle between idealism and pragmatism, with Xavier thinking the best of people, and Magneto the worst. Both McAvoy and Fastbender do splendid jobs, although the latter slips into an Irish accent somewhat into the film, which is a tiny bit embarrasing. Still, their stories are compelling, and this is what drives through the film, and powers past many of the flaws that the story possesses.

Along the way there are other effective tales- the younger x-men are mostly forgettable, but Raven and Beast's struggle reflect their "parents", and as a result are the most interesting. The other mutants are, sadly, decoration, and they are given paper thin personalities- the film probably spends more time with them than necessary, as we have no real incentive to care about their struggles.

The script is probably the films weakest part. While its fine when dealing with Xavier and Magneto, everything else seems to have come from film cliches 101

"God help the russians if they cross that line."
"God help us all."

"Can you fly this thing?"
"Fly it? I built it!"

URGH. Not only are both those selections terrifically cliched, they actually add nothing to the film. Theres no reason to actually have them there other than to fill dead air.

But, for the most part, the film works. It could have been better, but it could have been worse, but the central conflict is compelling and fun, and worth a watch.

Now for nitpicking time!

-Kevin Bacon was a lot scarier with a moustache, rather than a groovy submarine dwelling villain who wears a goofy helmet.
-January Jones can't act. Also, her diamond form can be crushed by metal. Huh?
-The CIA agent wears ludicrously sexy underwear to work
-Apparently Kevin Bacon can absorb all force except a shiny penny. I guess he was killed by the force of irony?
-Xavier decides to hide from the government. In his massive mansion, under his own name. Lets hope the CIA didn't do any paperwork!
-Urgh, every single time they had to say someone's name, it felt like a massive wink at the audience. "No.... X-men!"
-I love that Azreal and whirlwind man (did he even get a name?) have NO lines in the film.
-Beast's face mask looked really, really silly.
-When magneto decided to cause an international incident by invading the Russian base, Xavier looks utterly powerless. If only he had some way to control Magneto's actions!
-I love that the expert in genetics they choose is a newly graduated phd student. Man his supervisor must be PISSED. Admittedly his supervisor doesn't have mind powers, but thats just sheer blind luck on the cia's part.

Apprentblog

2011-06-19T10:03:00.001+01:00

7th season and its feeling a little tired. Despite the new prize for the winners, the format is essentially the same, with some tasks, where the candidates need to do one on one selling, making even less sense than previously. Still, its got the silly fun that it always has, and its a good viewing.

That said, I'm sick and tired of bullshit firings. When someone is obviously responsible for the failure of the task, its pretty ridiculous to fire the one Alan has decided he doesn't like. Edna for being in HR, and then Glenn for being an engineer. Those were both essentially his entire bloody reasons, and Jim, who was UTTERLY responsible for the team's failure can only have been kept around for entertainment value.

One thing I found weird about the magazine task was that I didn't really understand their responsibilities. Did the apprenti really have to write the whole magazine? That seems an unlikely task for them to succeed at, unless they've all got secret histories as journalists. Yet each team had articles clearly at least pitched by that team. Oh well.

So who do I want to win? Well currently I despise Natasha, who deserved to have her seedy little porn mag get her fired fired fired, Zoe is miserable and Leon is a homophobe. Susan I find kind of amusing, because she is ready to declare how unfair everything is every 5 seconds. Helen is just generally competent thus far, and is dead on to win currently, simply because I don't see her competition. Tom... Tom is wonderful. He's generally right about everything he says, even though no-one listens to him, and actually comes across as a decent human being, a rare task on the human freak show that is the Apprentice. He's even right for the position- yes he can't sell worth a damn, but he's starting a business, which I suspect he'd be fine at. He almost certainly won't win though. Likely winners in my mind are either Helen or Leon, unfortunately

Glee, a bit of a damp squib

2011-06-15T20:29:00.000+01:00

So as my facebook status indicated, I was deeply disappointed with the season finale of Glee. As a stand alone episode of glee it wasn't actually that terrible, but as a wrap up of a season? Distressingly poor?

Season 1 closed with the wonderful intercutting between bohemian rhapsody and Quinns pregnancy. This season closed with.. well a whimper frankly.

Season 2 in general has been a mixed bag. It irritatingly reset the clock on several relationships which had been key last season, in particular Rachel and Finn and Mr Shue and Emma. This is always a really bad idea, as it takes the audiences victory away from them, and sets up the possibility of the audience simply losing interest.

Simply put, the show has not known what to do with the adults this season. Shue has been tedious in the extreme, with his boring boring love life, and his patronising speechifying. Coach Bieste was actually reasonably interesting, but she didn't have much to do, other than buy Artie magic legs (SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?). Sue, while always funny, has also been a mess, changing from one extreme to another. Yes, shes had some good moments, but the show has lost sight of who the character is. I certainly don't know anymore.

If wild character inconsistency had been present only in the adults then I'd probably be ok with it, but unfortunately the sickness spread to the kids as well, with Quinn becoming rapidly ill defined. She basicaly forgets any character growth she might have had, and becomes set upon a dream of prom queening, and keeping Finn at home with her. This has kind of come from nowhere, but as I'll get to, the show doesn't even follow through on that.

Worse are the kids the show hasn't known what to do with. Tina has been relegated to occasional gags, not even getting solos anymore, and Mercedes? Good grief. Her plots were wanting to eat tater tots and being a diva or something. The latter plot was just embarrasing, as it involves Rachel helping the poor misguided Mercedes be a star (this exact same plot is basically repeated in the finale with Sunshine).

So has there been good things about this season? Well its still pretty funny. The show still gets a lot mileage out of how small these kid's world is, and Brittany has been incredibly funny throughout. More importantly, there are plots that worked. Puckerman and Laurens romance has been hilarious and sweet at the same time, along with being unexpected.

More importantly, the main plot of Kurt and Karofsky really worked for the main part, and evoked some decent emotions along the way, which led to the even more of a slow burner of Brittany and Santana, characters we could really root for, with the other romances being damp squibs.

So finally we get to the finale. Which of these plots does the show decide to focus on?

1)Mr Shue is going to broadway
2)Finn wants to get back with Rachel
3)Quinn has an evil plan
4)Rachel is worried she can't be with Finn because she's moving to new york.

1 was utterly tedious and pointless, and rather self indulgent (and seriously, a guy was waiting to tell him that he was really talented? For fucks sake)

3, carefully set up beforehand... was resolved by Quinn getting a haircut. Right. I don't really know how to respond to that.

2 and 4. Now Finn wanting to be with Rachel is kinda stupid, considering he desperately wanted to be with Quinn before, but sure, I'll go with it. But 4? Rachel has spent the whole goddamn season pining over Finn, so introducing a dilemma JUST for the finale just didn't work at all. Annoyingly Rachel's desire to move on (which, again, magically appeared), and Quinn's desire to stay at home could have worked really well to introduce drama, but that would have involved semi-decent writing...

And the subplots I actually care about? Well they get mentioned in the last 5 minutes. Great.

Now down to nitpicking

-the "my cup" song, while funny, is basically the exact same joke as "my headband".
-The songs, were, in general, dull. Wicked song was kinda fun, but the original songs were tedious. I get that the network makes more money from them, but if they keep doing original songs they'll kill the show
-Speaking of the original songs, the plot required that the glee club write them the night before the performance. WHAT? How did they practice it? How did the band know what to play? How were they any good? How did they even come 40th, let alone 12th?
-Jesse has no point in this show
-I actually forgot Sam existed. But he's with Mercedes now. Well I guess its something to do with the new character....

Season 3 is going to sky. I can't say I'm going to miss it greatly.

Pride and Prejudice

2011-06-13T18:54:00.000+01:00

So I recently read my first ever Jane Austen. I'm not sure I've ever had a terrible resistence to reading miss Austen, other than my general reluctance to read the classics, which is that they can be harder to work to read thanks to the language. Still, I had been told I would enjoy some Austen, so I gave it a try.

All in all? Pretty good, but it does suffer (for me) from the time it was written in. Its a very arch writing style, and its pretty clear that Austen likes some of her characters, and frankly despises some of the others. The style of writing is different to what I'm used to, and takes some getting used to: Austen will frequently describe dialogues which have occured ("Miss Bennet described her feelings on the subject as briefly as possible" for instance) rather than explicitly detailing them, which gives a detached feeling to the book initially. Indeed, while the book is generally amusing from the get go, I didn't really feel an emotional attachment for a while, until its quite clear that Elizabeth Bennet is very fond of her sister Jane, and walks (3 miles!) to visit her when she is ill. Once theres emotional hooks the story, unsurprisingly, becomes more effective, and while you are fairly aware of whats coming, its still satisfying to see it realised.

Theres some things I didn't like. I think for the most part we are meant to agree with Elizabeth, other than her mistaken impressions on certain characters, but I found myself generally disagreeing. The book details a genuinely unpleasent form of society, filled with the idle rich who have nothing to do but to romance each other and worry about their status in life. Frustratingly, while it was impossible for women to earn a fortune at such time, even men are obsessed with finding money via marriage rather than through actually going out and earning it.

(some spoilers now!)

Worse yet for me was the section with Lydia and Mr Wickham. This dates the novel, because frankly if a man in his twenties ran off with a 16 year old girl these days the family wouldn't be happy to see them married, they'd be happy to see the man put in jail, regardless of what the silly young girl might think on it. While I appreciate that that was how the world was in those days, its a rather depressing end, where part of me was hoping that someone was just going to stab Wickham in the face. Theres even a slight notion of Lydia getting what she deserves towards the end.

Still, all in all I had a lot of fun with Pride and Prejudice, and imagine I will take some time to read Austen's other novels.

Injunctions and superinjunctions

2011-05-27T09:13:00.000+01:00

Yes, I am trying to blog more. Whether I will succeed... we shall see. So theres been a lot of furore about Mr Giggs and his wicked ways recently. People want to make this an issue of privacy, or an issue of freedom, but as with all issues its a bit more complicated than that.

Mr Giggs job is to kick a football around. He has rather good at this (or so I'm led to believe), and is paid handsomely for the privelege. As part of his fan base comes from children, one could argue that it behooves him to act in a way fitting to a role model. I don't fully agree that deciding to kick a ball for a living means you have to act like a saint, but certainly in one's public appearances one could make an effort to be polite and decent. Of course behind closed doors it is of course your business.

Those tabloids, and people, arguing that it is in the public interest to know that he had sex with a former big brother contestant are wrong. The public might be interested, because we all have that gossipy part of us that wants to know, but there is no way in which this private action of Giggs affects his public action. If he was actively campaigning for marital fidelity then perhaps there might be an argument, but, once again, he kicks a ball around for a living.

Now suing twitter wasn't the smartest of options, and led to the "I am sparticus" actions on that website, thus pretty much ensuring that he would become public in the long run. However, frankly, the first person to leak him on twitter should probably be prosecuted. The law was very clear, its pretty obvious the first person was aware of the law, and deliberately breaking it. Injunctions (not a super injunction actually, this has been drastically mis-reported) do exist for a reason. I might have more sympathy for the law breaking if it had been for any reason other than spreading muck. As mentioned, Giggs private life is not in the public interest.

Obviously you can't sue twitter, just as you can't sue the phone company, and once information is out there, you can't prosecute every user. But you really can prosecute those who initially break the law.

Do I think injunctions/super injunctions are terrible things? I don't know. I don't think our society's fascination with affairs is at all healthy, but I also don't think injunctions are the way to fixing that particular cancer. And injunctions can be abused, as Trafigura showed (although, as pointed out, got MUCH less coverage than this story, despite being several times more important), but we do have a mechanism now to deal with that, thanks to parliamentary privelege allowing politicians to intervene in a case of abuse.

Twitter is an echo chamber, where one opinion can bounce back and forwards unchanging, and 140 characters doesn't feel terribly nuanced sometimes. The story is usually more complicated than people think it is.

On AV, the monarchy and consitutional reform

2011-04-22T12:06:00.000+01:00

tldr: the system is broken, but AV is better than FPTP.

AV is, indeed, a miserable little compromise. The truth is that it may well not make a huge difference to our system. Its possible we might see more coalitions, because the liberal democrats might win more seats, but then again they might well have destroyed themselves as a party by entering into a coalition (more on that in another post I think). It might also see the emergence of some smaller parties- places with strong green representation may end up actually electing one or two representatives.

But heres whats really great about AV, and why you should go for it. You can go into an election booth and vote for the candidate you want to win, with no fears that this will cause the candidate you don't want to win to succeed. You can vote labour/conservative even if they are third, or green even if they are fifth. And, indeed, if you are a big ol' racist you can vote BNP and then switch to a party with electoral hopes. And thats just nice. If you really want no-one other than your chosen candidate to win, you can always put them as your first preference and then no-one else second, but usually we have a ranking of candidates in mind.

To address the no to AV arguments

250 million is, of course, nonsense. It includes the cost of the referendum, and the cost of electronic machines which we won't necessarily need. Its also actually not that much in the grand scheme of things if we get better democracy out of it. Imagine someone campaigning against museum funding by saying its killing babies. Its absurd.

Theres no evidence that the BNP will win under AV, as their campaigning against it might suggest by itself. But even if they did, we have two choices when dealing with extremist parties. Let them run, or ban them. To let them run but then cheat so they don't win is so ridiculously anti-democratic its absurd.

Coalitions are terrible things. Now I know a lot of people hate this coalition, but imagine this govt without the lib dems in it... do we imagine a better government for this country? A fairer and more democratic one? Hmm. Strong govt is not that great a thing, it really isn't, it means bad bills get passed (more on this in my next post)

People get to vote twice. No, no they don't. What happens is I vote labour, you vote conservative. Labour get knocked out, so I vote lib dem... and you vote conservative. So yeah, it just means I'm not ignored, not that you are.

So yeah, vote AV. But do bear in mind that even with the perfect electoral system, our consitution is so utterly fucked up. I shall speak more on this in my next post.

fixing twilight

2011-04-14T18:55:00.000+01:00

[this is a post I wrote absolutely ages ago, but never got round to posting]

Inspired by this I decided to try re-writing Twilight. So my main issue with Twilight is the lack of conflict, and the lack of agency on Bella's part.

The film opens as before, with Bella moving to a part of the country she's never been to before, a dead end town, with an uncommunicative dad. Her conversations with her Dad are stilted and awkward, and she finds herself bored and lonely sitting in her room while her dad watches the game.

She goes to school and finds most of the kids agressive to the new. She has a quick wit and an acid tongue, and while she finds that most of the kids hate her she makes a couple of friends with the dweebier kids. The biggest bullies in the school are the Cullens ('cause vampires always rule the roost), and during one exchange where she makes several vampires wither from sarcasm she sees Edward being noticably amused.

Edward, while a member of the bullying clique, is obviously less enthusiastic about it, and soon seeks out Bella alone. He tells her that he's tired of his siblings attitude, the way they look down on the others, and really admires her. Bella is initially wary, but agrees to go on a date with Edward.

The date goes well, although there are strange incongrituities (he's reluctant to go for food, for example), but then they bump into several of the Cullens. They look actively mad that Edward is with Bella, and make pointed comments. Bella asks whats its about, but he demurs.

The date continues, and goes so well that they end up kissing, at which point Edward loses control, and attacks her. She knocks him back, and runs off scared.

Bella goes away and puts together evidence on whats happened (potentially a nudge from Jacob might help here), and realises what he is. Along the way she also reads that vamps have a sensitivity to loud sounds. She confronts Edward, and a scene somewhat similar to the one in the woods occured, although less stupid. Edward tells her that he is a monster, and shows his strength. He explains that he and the other cullens are not really related, but are vampires who have chosen not to drink human blood. None the less, most of them consider themselves superior to humans. Edward is the only one who thinks of it as a curse- most of the other vampires decided to stop drinking human blood for safety's sake, and still take enjoyment in petty cruelty. He says that despite his attitude, he finds it hard to control himself with her. She tells him she doesn't care, and kisses him. When he is about to lose it (lets say fangs come out), she backs off, gives him a second, and he retains control.

So they go into school hand in hand, as in the film, and this causes a social tidal wave- most of the kids suddenly start treating Bella better, although her friends are a little distant from her, thinking they've lost her. One of the Cullens, lets call her evil Cullen, shows active hostility towards Bella, although some of the others are slightly more sympathetic.

We then have crisis scene, where Bella is on her way home with Edward when evil Cullen appears with a couple of lackeys. She threatens Bella, who responds that they won't attack her, because they don't want trouble with the police- after all, she's the daughter of the police chief. They respond that they won't attack HER, then make off with Edward.

She tries to pursue, but can't keep up with the super fast vampires. She goes home and has mandatory pep talk from her dad, which is also a chance for them to be emotionally reunited. Realising she knows just where the Cullens would go (some snippet of conversation earlier in the film), she pursues them.

Bella appears, finds Edward abandoned on the floor beaten and bloodied. From nowhere the Cullens appear and surround her, saying that they are in the middle of nowhere and the police will never find out what happened. Bella pulls out of her pocket a rape alarm/fog horn and blares away. The vampires stagger back, but are mostly unaffected, and laugh, saying that that is just a stupid story, and move forward to attack. Bella smiles, and says "yeah, well theres one other purpose of producing a loud, wailing noise" at which point the entire police department bursts through the doors. Most of the cullens get away, apart from evil cullen who manages to escape, and promises revenge.

Bella and Edward exhange romantic sweet nothings, with hints of worry for the future. Roll credits.

My main goal while writing this was

a-introduce far more conflict into a slow and turgid film
b-make Bella a far more active character

You can't judge a relationship from the outside, or why Scott Pilgrim must end up with Ramona Flowers

2011-01-22T12:28:00.000Z

This post will be spoilerific, both for the comics and the film. Indeed, the title actually is, but I like it so much that it stays.

[Before I begin, an aside. I adore Scott Pilgrim, I think its a splendidly inventive and funny film that never fails to entertain. Its just visually lovely, and it brings many elements of the comic to life in a very profound way: I love the way music is portrayed throughout the film. That said, theres no doubt that the central romance is flawed. I am going to argue that Scott must be with Ramona, but the film fails to sell that. Apparently the original ending was to have Scott end up with Knives, which explains, perhaps, why the film is a bit tonally strange in this regard, with lines that make little sense in the final version. The films biggest crime is its portrayal of Ramona, who is, in the comics, clearly very into Scott. I actually blame a lot of this on Mary Elizabeth Winstead. In the comics the lines she speak come across as affectionate and wry, but in the films they come across as a little dispassionate. Even in the scene where Ramona fights for Scott, she seems mostly annoyed rather than interested in Scott. This does undersell the ending, something the comics definitely do not do.

Nonetheless, the film supports Scott's relationship with Ramona far more, and is an excellent example for what I'm about to say, so I'm going to go ahead and say it. I just wanted to make clear that I was aware of the flaw in my own argument]

So, some people, who will remain nameless, believe that Scott should get with Knives at the end of the film. Indeed, Edgar Wright thought so as well, his thinking being informed by just having read Scott Pilgrim Vol 2. Its certainly true that theres some parts of the film that reinforce this idea, and Knives is very much into Scott. They work together well towards the conclusion of the film.

But heres the thing Scott isn't into Knives. I'm sure everyone has known friends that they think should be together, but aren't, because theres not a mutual attraction. When you get down to it relationships need that mutual attraction. Not to mention of course that Scott has been a dick to Knives throughout the film, so has hardly proved himself worthy of her. She IS far too cool for him.

People need to be in the same place mentally for a real relationship of equals to work, and Scott and Ramona have that- they both have baggage from past relationships weighing them down, and the emotional maturity that comes with that. Knives has none of that, making Scott distant from Knives automatically.

Its very easy to view a relationship from its exterior and not understand how it works. One makes the assumption that how the couple are individually is how they are with each other, and thus head to erroneous assumptions. You don't fully know people, because you don't get to see how they're like in every situation.

10 O Clock Show

2011-01-21T10:16:00.000Z

The 10 'O Clock Show is Channel 4's new live show, in which 4 talented performers embarrass themselves with sub-standard sketches standing alongside not terribly insightful political discussion. Or at least that seems to be the point, anyway.

The show stuttered from one segment to the next, with some sections feeling excruciatingly short, and each interview being cut off just as it was about to get interesting. There were some pieces of amusement- Mitchell's look, which was basically David Mitchell's soapbox, was the funniest part of the show, it being a format that Mitchell is very suited for. Charlie Brooker's piece on Tunisia was the closest the show came to satire, and rather under cut the really unfunny sketch by Jimmy Carr earlier on.

The actual political discussion was... ok, but to be honest Mitchell needs to go in with more preperation. When talking to David Willets at the end Mitchell seemed genuinely surprised that Willets is ideologically in favour of students paying for their university education, and let Willet's idea of the working man paying for university students go unchallenged.

For the really bad parts, the gags about the week were generally poor, most of the table discussion between the hosts was stilted and unfunny. Lauren Laverne had nothing to do all show; I'm not entirely sure why it has to be 3 men and 1 woman, with the woman just sheparding the boys, basically. Lauren Laverne is a talented person, but she's not really a comedian, and surely picking a female comedian would be smarter.

There also seems to be no reason for the show to be live. The audience didn't seem to be enjoying themselves enough, partially because I expect most of them didn't know what was going to occur, so missed some jokes which were actually funny. I don't see why a pre-recorded show filmed wednesday wouldn't work. It would lose a little immediacy, but would gain a lot of polish.

It could well get better, but I imagine I'll wait until it does. Right now its a bit of a mess.

Sometimes YOU are wrong on the internet

2010-11-22T11:31:00.001Z

So someone writes a blog on the internet on feminism, homophobia, or racism. They don't think much of it, but then discover that someone has written an article vehemently disagreeing with them. Worse yet, the other article declares that some of the sentiments in that article are actually sexist/homophobic/racist.

The original author of the article thinks a little. They know they're not any of those things, and they obviously didn't intend to say any of those things. How dare someone accuse them of being prejudiced. They get angry, and retaliate, and, seeing as this is the internet, some of their followers get a bit heated. So the wheels on the internet turn round and round.

Its pretty hard to take critisism- I know this to be true because I have difficulty doing it- but its vital. Not everything one says will be correct, and its quite easy to say something that is genuinely a bit regressive. But expressing something which reinforces sexist/homophobic/racist trends does not necessarily make one a sexist/homophobe/racist. So when someone is calling you out, its worth taking a step back, taking a breath, and wondering if they had a point. Sure, you didn't mean it that way, but once you've written something it gets fired into the wild for everyone to interpet. I'm not saying you have to apologise, but its possible you could learn. Now obviously there are rude crazy people on the internet, and you can't take everyone sensibly, but when someone makes a reasoned, non-inflammatory article calling you out, maybe theres something there.

Lots of people fail. Joss Whedon can occasionally be hailed as a feminist writer. He has written some strong female characters, for sure. But there are episodes of Firefly that are pretty sexist, and Dollhouse is uncomfortably so on several levels. He introduced a beatuiful gay relationship in Buffy, only to have it turn into a wronged lover revenge trope at the end. Race is worse-count the number of non-white characters in Buffy up til season 7 please. Or asians who turn up in Firefly. This doesn't make him an evil person, but I would argue that occasionally he has failed. Why may be for complicated reasons- with Buffy I expect partially it'll be studio pressure, but I suspect sometimes its simply unthinking.

Sometimes its YOU who is wrong on the internet.

Some musings on board games

2010-11-16T13:39:00.000Z

Its not that easy to obtain the ideal board game experience. It first of all requires a decent game which rewards skill and rational play. It also requires all players being aware of the game being played to a level that they do not make easily avoidable mistakes.. it can be frustrating to lose a game because another player benefited from a new players mistakes. Both Puerto Rico and Chaos can suffer from this quite badly, the old joke about wanting to be left of the new player in Puerto Rico being very accurate.

Still, even when everyone knows what they are doing, its really important that they are playing to win. Yes, yes, one should be playing to have fun, but in any skill based game it is inordinately frustrating who is playing for their own objectives. Sometimes this can be due to misunderstanding- an over focus on millitary in Antike leads to a pointless arms race that helps neither player (actually its usually better to try and launch surprise assaults, as vps are only awarded for temple destruction). Sometimes this can be from players being annoying, and over-interpreting "bash the leader". Many games require players to attack the leader, and might be encouraged to do so, but it is vital that when one bashes the leader one is still trying to win- you hurt the leader, but not to the extent of hurting your own ability to win. If you start doing that you are just not allowing that player to have fun, and thats a jerk move. Ideally one should always seek to better one's position. I know it can be frustrating to be in last place, but if you choose to decide to play kingmaker you are taking away someone's victory. Its just not on really.

As a game has more and more players it becomes less and less vital to attack other players. In a 2 player game hurting the other player is equivalent to helping yourself, but as more and more players join in you end up being the prisoner who keeps defecting in the prisoners dilemma, while everyone else is co-operating.

One of the reasons I enjoy Dominion is thats its actually immune to these problems and yet does have player interaction. Dominion attacks all other players equally, so its impossible to pick on any other player particularly. While new players will make mistakes, its rare for those mistakes to stop someone else from winning. The interaction in Dominion is subtler, and I know thats why people are put off from it, but it is there- following what people are buying will give you an idea of when the game is going to end and thus when to buy victory points, or defensive cards to protect against crazy attack group think.

A quick note on testing research

2010-11-15T16:26:00.000Z

"So when you use a test that has no bias whatsoever, i,e, a double blind randomized placebo controlled trial, homeopathy always fails. Always."

Uh. This is from a comment on Andrew Collin's distressingly misinformed blog post on Gillian Mc Keith. Throughout the comment thread produces comments which indicate a complete misunderstanding of science and alternative medicine (short story- individual doctors may be bad, but alternative therapists are almost always worse). I've mostly agreed with what people who disagree with him say, but I have to disagree with the commenter here.

Whenever we conduct a double blind randomised placebo controlled trial, we must be aware of certain things. First of all, while the scientists involved will do their best to randomise, they will not have done so perfectly. They probably recruited from a sample space that wasn't the entire country, and there will always be a non-compliance issue- firstly with people refusing to take the trial and some failing to follow the drug regime properly. The former is typically controlled more than the latter, which is much more difficult to measure. However, having a blinded placebo should theoretically protect us against most of those effects, but its true to say that all studies are not a truly random sample of the population.

Now, even if we ignore those issues (which, to be fair, we often can), then every single study we do is balanced to have a false positive rate. That is, when we calculate whats called our test statistic, we obtain the probability that we would have seen that result by mere chance. Usually, if there was a 5% or less chance of that occuring, we say that its likely that there is some difference between placebo and the active treatment. This means that if I was to conduct a perfect study 20 times on a homeopathic remedy, even if it was ineffective I would expect to think it was effective in exactly one of those studies. Be aware that sample size shouldn't affect this, because I have explicitly designed my study to HAVE a 5% false positive rate. Of course the fact that I needed to run 20 studies to get a positive is rather telling, but it does contradict the quote above.

But heres whats worse, and this is something that the excellent Mr Goldacre often forgets. When I run my experiments I make certain assumptions. In particular I usually assume that the mean of my outcome is normally distributed (effectively the probability of seeing a particular value is shaped like a bell curve, so I'll see less and less on either side of the mean). Now this is always not true. Unless we set up our example very carefully its unlikely that we'll actually get a perfect normal distribution (height is a stereotypical example of a normally distributed variable, but a normal distribution assumes one can have negative values, and one cannot have negative height). This means the theoretical probabilities that we've calculated are not going to be exactly true in practice. That said, theres a theorem, called the central limit theorem which says the more observations we get, the closer our means get to being normally distributed. This means that the bigger our survey gets, the happier we can be with our assumptions.

Yet this comes with an even bigger disclaimer. For most drugs its not actually hard to show a difference. The standard statistical test assumes that the outcome is identical for placebo and a drug. If the treatment and the placebo are physically different in some way this will almost never be the case (indeed I suspect that it is almost always true, which is a probabilistic statement we don't need to worry about too much here), so we need to worry about clinically significant differences- thats the standards most drugs need to meet (actually, they usually need to beat their competing drug).

So whats my point here? My point is that while double blinded placebo controlled trials are a good standard for the industry to have, theres an argument to be had that they can be misinterpreted, and caution must always be used when applying their results. In particular, pointing at any one study with an impressive result is a terribly bad idea. We can become confident when several such, independently conducted studies, get the same results. The fact that these trials can be misinterpreted is why homeopaths can mislead by pointing to studies where they have succeeeded- when actually looking over the body of research the trend is the reverse.

The Social Network and the necessity of truth

2010-10-30T14:26:00.000+01:00

The Social Network is a terrific film. Its a film about the quest for power, and the corruption inherent in it. Its beauty is in its refusal to assign motivations. Other than its final shot, which seemed a little too simple to me, it never allows you to guess exactly what Mark Zuckerberg's motivations are, and merely provides potential answers. His actions seem confusing and contradictory, and thats the inherent beauty in it. The writing is, as you might expect, splendid, seeing as it is Aaron Sorkin doing the work. It is definitely a film one should see.

There has been, however, some controversy over pasts of the film. Elements, at least, are supposedly complete works of fiction. This can bother some, but it really should only bother you if you are looking for something that the film is not. The Social Network is not a documentary, it is a film based on a real life story, and as such isn't trying to give an insight into the real life Mark Zuckerberg, but rather the fictional one the film creates. No doubt there are similarities there, but one cannot really inform the other. The important question to ask is whether the character they create is fascinating, and that is certainly the case.

I can see why one might be off put by a documentary that deliberately misleads, because there is a sense of betrayal there, and perhaps certain film goers are leaving the Social Network thinking that they've learnt something about the creation of Facebook. They have, but probably not what they think they have. Citizen Kane is no less interesting for being a work of fiction, and neither is this.

A typical roleplaying session

2010-10-22T14:24:00.000+01:00

Frequently during any roleplaying rules book there will be an example of play. I've often found these quite unrealistic, so I've decided to create my own

GM:Right, so last session
P1:Hey, did anyone see lost last night?
P2:No I'm waiting for it to come out on DVD, so don't say anything
p3:Man, I hate that show
GM:..guys
P1:Well I won't spoil anything, but Hurley... lets just say Hurley is changed forever.
P2:Will you shut up!
P3:Urgh, what kind of name is Hurley anyway?
P1:And there was this really funny moment whe-
P2:STOP!
P1:Bu-
P2:NO!
P1:Fine, did anyone see Futurama?
P3:Oh yeah, that was hilarious
GM:GUYS!
....
GM:So, last session you met Baron Vondelsnit
P3:Who?
P1:The pirate
GM:No... Vondelsnit wasn't the pirate. That was Darkclaw
P2:Was he the one who stole that golden statue?
GM:No.. there wasn't a golden statue. You met Vondelsnit at the tavern
P1:Oh hey, thats where I got drunk and dueled that elf
P2:Yeah, that was awesome, then didn't we just leave?
GM:No... You met Vondelsnit, who informed you of the Prince's plan to start a war by having the princess kidnapped.
P3:I don't remember a prince or a princess?
GM:Well you haven't met them yet, but the Baron told you about them. Anyway, the Baron told you of the Prince's plot, and entrusted you with stopping the Prince's plans before they came to fruition.
P2:Oh thats right, and then we got the golden statue, right?
GM:there... was never a golden statue
P1:Oh hey, that reminds me of in Indiana Jones when he gets that statue by switching weights. I've always kind of thought that those traps wouldn't have worked because they had been there so long
P3:Well they're pretty mechanical
GM:I love those films. Best one gotta be Last Crusade.
P1:Are you nuts? Raiders is easily superior
P3:I always kinda liked Temple of Doom.
P1&GM:You are nuts....
GM:So uh, yeah, anyway, you were going to stop the prince, you went to talk to the duke, who turned out to be in on the plan and set his dogs on you, and we ended the session before the combat started. So if everyone can roll me initiative.
P3:Wait, we're in combat
GM:Yes, with the dogs.
P3:Do we not get a chance to react or anything
GM:YES, but you did that last session
P3:I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have let myself got put in this situation, I've got animal training 5.
GM:It doesn't matter, you don't have any time to train them
P3:Do I not get a roll?
GM...fine, roll at -100 penalty
P3:K... Yup, I succeed.
GM:What? I... fine, you talk down the dogs, the Duke looks pretty impressed
P3:Wait, theres a Duke here?
GM.ARGHHHHH!

Coalition

2010-10-12T17:53:00.000+01:00

I hate this government. I disagree with its policies on cutting, and believe we should be raising more income via taxation. I don't believe all these cuts will lead to long term growth- cutting transport and science are short sighted in particular. Worse yet, the government is engaging in social experimentation on a grand scale with things like the free schools, which will lead to more segregation (thanks to faith schools in all probability making up a good proportion of them), and haven't been very well tested at all. Its radical, and I'd rather like the Conservatives to be conservative with a small c too.

But getting angry at the lib dems seems to miss the point. Its easy to forget that funding helps one get elected. The conservatives are always more well funded than both Labour and the liberal democrats, because the majority of political funding currently comes from either wealthy donors or large organisations such as the unions. So if the liberal democrats had refused coalition with the conservatives (who did, after all, have the largest parliamentary representation), seeing as coalition with Labour was pretty much sabotaged (and probably would have failed), they would have forced the conservatives to rule as a minortiy govt. Well the cons would then probably announce a new election fairly sharpish, as ruling in minority rarely lasts, and then, being the only party with any funding, and good media support (seriously, their media support is currently astonishing. Labour has been pretty much abandoned for now), they would have managed a much larger majority. Arguably as well, the country DID need some strong govt during that time- while the crisis was never as bad as some made out, it wasn't non-existent.

So the lib dems got into government, and as a result affected some change- they certainly pushed for stronger civil liberties, and while they have failed on some counts, theres no doubt they have an influence. Not an all powerful influence, and certainly a lesser one. but thats how it should be. This is how coalition government WORKS. I don't like the conservatives, but they have the largest parliamentary representation, much larger than the lib dems, so they get the lions share of power.

Whats more, under any electoral reform, which practically every lib dem is in favour of, this is exactly what one would expect to happen. If we do get more proportional representation, then we will have more coalition. Thats inevitable.

I'm not saying I'm not going to disagree with the coalition, or indeed the lib dems, or be disappointed or worried by changes being made, but I'm not going to stop supporting the party just yet. Its much harder to support a party in government than in opposition, after all.

The lovely bones

2010-10-11T17:55:00.000+01:00

So why didn't I love the Lovely Bones? I know I caused some controversy by stating such on the book of face, so I had better justify myself.

This book actually made me angry. I wanted to hurl it across the room as it continued, although I must admit most of my frustration is devoted towards the later parts of the book. So lets begin with the positive.

The idea of the Lovely Bones, a dissection of a family's grief from the perspective of the girl who has just been killed, is a powerful and an interesting one, and is initially well done. The unsentimental yet disturbing description of Suzie's death certainly draws one in, and the initial grief suffered by the family is certainly moving, and feels realistic.

But then... well then it gets a little bit silly. The plot, such as it is, meanders somewhat. There is a subplot based around the catching of Suzie's killer, which failed to grip me. The main issue I had was that the father used his magic dad sense to divine who the killer was (yes kids, its the creepy guy who lives down the end of the road!), and is so convinced of his correctness that he gets angry at the police for not believing him. I know, he is racked with grief and is thus not acting rationally, but it is extrordinarily frustrating that in his irrationality he is UTTERLY correct. If the police were to ignore due process and base their decisions on dadfu then they'd stop the murderer from killing many more. Its annoying- it seems like the point should be that he is acting irrationally and needs to let go, but its completely undercut by the father being correct in his absurdity.

The plot jumps in time quite frequently, and rarely sticks to characters long enough for you to get to know them- you get a feeling for the fathers grief, but little else about him as a person. Susie's mother gets a bit more time, but theres a sense of detachment even with the most well drawn characters, as the narration is all done by Suzie, who is only really interested in things that affect her. There are several characters who feel honestly pointless- Ruth and Ray Singh, respectively an arty girl who becomes obsessed with Suzie, and the only guy she ever kissed, barely have any point in the story, apart from a really disturbing end sequence I'll get to later. Ruana, Ray's mother, has a couple of sections about her, which feel even more useless. To be honest, even Susie's sister, Lindsey, isn't well drawn enough (she is apparently awesome at everything).

The book spends quite a bit of time with Mr Harvey, Susie's killer. Initially this makes a certain amount of sense, as there is a slight tension implying that he might be caught, although his motivations are tedious and obvious. Later on, however, he really becomes secondary to the narrative, and a final bit of 'tension' involving him and Lindsey feels unnecessary.

Of course, my main issue is with Susie, and the depiction of heaven. Heaven, is, apparently, an incredibly bland place where nothing much happens and everyone gets to come (the version of religion this book ascribes to is probably a kind of spiritualism at best), including, presumably, Mr Harvey, although thats not completely clear. Susie spends her time moping and watching her relatives, at some points willing them to die, and apparently feels all tingly every time someone thinks about her. Ruth is considered a hero for remembering all the dead, who, despite being in heaven, are apparently desperate to have the living wreck their lives by obsessing over those who have gone.

And theres the rub. Death is a horrible thing to deal with, especially in such a horrific manner as Susie's death, but the healthy thing to do is to move on. Thats not easy, and thats what (in my opinion) the book should be about. Remembrance, but not obsession. Instead Susie seems to egg on the characters into remembering her, in a manner I found most frustrating. Yes, towards the end there is an acknolwedgment that people will move on, but its simply not evident in the rest of the text.

I will end this rant by moving into spoiler territory, so please don't read any further if you've yet to read the book, and still have interest in doing so.

Towards the end of the book Susie manages to swap places with Ruth (a lesbian) so she can have sex with Ray Singh (the boy who kissed her), some 7 years after her death. Apparently Ray has failed to move on so much that he's willing to have sex with this weird possession, and its genuinely disturbing. Only post coitus does Susie attempt to contact her family, which is what one might hope she'd do. I suppose the idea is that she has never grown up, and this activity allows her to do so, but I found it a bit distressing to be honest, and feel like Susie's epiphany (if you can call it that) could have come in any number of different ways. As it is, this just feels a little nasty, to be honest.

Oh, and Mr Harvey? Killed by a magic icicle... Sigh

Board games

2010-09-26T18:30:00.000+01:00

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I applied a binary tree sort to games that occured to me (excluding party games and monopoly and risk and a few games I've played few times to have an impression of), to order them. Here we go:

45)Zombies!!!- the theme is willing, but the game is weak. Why are the humans competing to win? Its essentially random and goes on far too long
44)LOTR game. The dullest co-op game I've played, most decisions feel unimportant and the theme is just too weak.
43)Hare and Tortoise. A kind of applies optimisation problem. Makes my head hurt and doesn't feel fun while doing so.
42)Origins of World War 2. It could actually be so much better. Theres a lot to like about this game- the mechanics are actually pretty clever, and it can feel quite challenging, but ultimately its just too unbalanced to play.
41)Brass- this is a technically great game, but doesn't grab me. I think maybe more plays might make me like it more, but I've played it maybe 3-4 times and just don't feel in control of it. It doesn't feel elegant to me. Its really hard to express quite why I don't like it.
40)Glory to Rome- this.. could be good. The game is poorly written in terms of clearly showing what the cards do, in a similar way to race. Its a bit clunky, and the fact that I was able to pull off a win on my second attempt in a rather cheesy way didn't really endear me to it.
39)Warcraft 3-This could actually be good. Once again this should be fun, but is a bit unbalanced (certain factions feel better than others), and the victory condition is always the same. I suspect the expansion pack might have made this more fun. This is a game I could play more if I could persuade more people to play it.
38)Pandemic. This is an elegantly designed game, but as a pure co-op game it feels too much like a shared logic puzzle. Theres usually a best move for everyone to do, and theres no reason that you need 4 people to work that out.
37)Bohnanza. The mechanic of forcing people to play their hand in order is kind of clever, but makes for a very artificial feeling game thats never really hooked me.
36)Caylus-I think I may like this game if I play it more. Its a bit awkward in the way it plays, and seems to have been designed to be a bit obtuse,but theres a good game in there.
35)Blokus. Yes its elegant and fine. I just don't like geometry based games. I will never be able to understand how I'm losing or winning in this game, and as a result cannot like it.
34)Indonesia. This is actually a beautiful game in many ways, with some fun decisions to make that really hooks me. Sadly the way the game executes kills it for me- running through the turns can take a VERY long time late in the game, and most of it is taken up with stuff that isn't hard. Its mechanically flawed.
33)Heroscape. Fundamentally unbalanced, certain factions feel a lot stronger than others. Its still a lot of fun, but the set up time is just absurd.
32)Neuroshima Hex. This is a pretty fun game with some nice tactical choices, I just wish it had more strategy. The lack of information about upcoming pieces prettty much cripples and tactical play, and adds too much randomness.
31)Robo-rally. Good chaotic fun, but if you make a mistake you're basically out of the game, to the point where you can have absolutely no effect on everyone elses chances.
30)Shadows over camelot. This is a fun game, the element of hidden information makes it a better co-operative game for me. Its interesting enough, but a little bit slow, and it feels like the traitor doesn't have enough to do (I have yet to be the traitor though)
29)Ticket to Ride. This is an example of lovely design. Easy to understand and certainly fun to play, with too many players theres a sense of lack of control, and I feel like theres too little interaction in it ultimately. I do enjoy it, however.
28)Liars Dice. I maybe shouldn't have included this, but this is good simple fun. Its too basic a game to be ranked too highly, but I do enjoy it.
27)Scotland Yard. A competitive co-op game, this is pretty fun. Another logic puzzle, but the competitive element makes it feel worthwhile. Its probably just as good two player though.
26)Betrayal at House on the Hill. This is all about the theme really. Its not much of game in terms of playing- the choices are usually obvious, but the atmosphere and style does make this good fun.
25)Fair Means or Foul/Hoity Toity. Basically rock paper scissors, it can be a little simplistic, being a guessing game at its core, but its simplicity means it plays quickly. The choices are meaningful, but not very deep.
24)Thebes. I really haven't played this enough. There are some really nice mechanics here, but its maybe a little too random
23)Lost Cities. A lovely two player game, its only ranked low because its only two player. I also suspect that there may always be a "best move" as well.
22)For Sale. This is a fun simple game. Another guessing game mechanic behind this, its pretty enjoyable and plays very quikly. Its also pretty simple to understand as well.
21)Evo. I guess the only reason I don't like Evo more is that I'm terrible at auctions. Maybe the choices are also a little shallow, but this is a solid game, and solid fun.
20)Alahambra. I really like this game, although I'm not terribly good at it. The wall building aspect can frustrate, and maybe theres a little too much luck, but its quick and fun.
19)Last Night on Earth. This is how a zombie game should be. There are interesting choices on both sides, and its thematic and fun, and often pretty funny. It can be cripplingly random at time, but its definitely good fun.
18)Container. Definitely not a game for everyone, but that clever little economic system is surprisingly fun. That theres several routes to victory makes it quite enjoyable, and carving your own economic niche is pretty cool.
17)Power Grid. A mammoth game, and it can be too long, but its interesting and theres lots of nice decisions to make. The end game can come down quite unexpectedly.
16)Chicago Express. I really like this game. Its deep and interesting, and can play a bit differently depending on what certain players choose to do. Its main flaw is that the opening bid, if done poorly, can absolutely cripple you, which is not a good feature- it can screw new players out of the game.
15)San Juan. Basically a card version of Puerto Rico. Feels a tiny bit random, but is fast, elegant, and fun.
14)Railroad Tycoon. Another mammoth game, this is really splendid in style. The openess of building trains is just cool, and there are lots of different routes to victory. Pretty epic.
13)Carcassonne. A nice simple tile based games. A tactical game mostly, but pretty neat and fun. Its brief, easy to explain to pretty much anyone, and interesting enough to captivate me throughout.
12)Antike. As long as everyone playing realises this is a game about gaining points rather than conquest its fine. Futile arms races hurt both sides, so group think is dangerous here, but the fundamental game is sound, and pretty clever along the way. There are several routes to victory. It does feel like certain starting positions are superior to others, however.
11)Starcraft. A hard game to think about, planning your turns in reverse order can be difficult, but theres no doubting that this game is deep and interesting. Its potentially a tiny bit unbalanced, but superior play matters more.
10)On the Underground. A fun little game which is elegant, simple, and fun. Plays quickly, and has no particular flaws I can think of, other than a possible lack of depth.
9)Pompeii. Its got a toy volcano! I haven't really got past that. I know its not that deep, but I find it such an enjoyable experience playing I somehow don't care.
8)Race for the Galaxy. Yes, it does take a LOT of plays to get to grips with, but once you're there its a deep game with a lot of plays to victory. Luck does play a part, but less than one would think. My only frustration with it is that produce consume seems to be a dominating strategy almost all the time.
7)Settlers of Catan. The classic game, and classic for a reason. A simple game with some nice depth, theres some interesting choices to be made, and the turns actually feel different to any other game I've played. I like this game because everyone likes it, which means its nice common ground to turn to.
6)Imperial. A more elegant rondel based game than antike, the share holding mechanic is clever and fun, and jibes nicely with the war element to produce a really fun game. The last few times are a bit clockworky, but this is true of a lot of games.
5)El Grande. A beautiful territory control game, I love games that blend player interaction in so well, along with lots of interesting decisions to be made at every stage.
4)BattleStarGalactica. The be all and end all in co-op games as far as I'm concerned. Its great fun being a human or a cylon, the choices are interesting and meaningful, and the games are often hilarious and tense. A perfect blend of theme and mechanics.
3)Chaos in the Old World. This game is superb. It really is a lot more deep than some might think on first glance, and theres a lot to be learned. It really does require 4/3 players who know what they're doing, however, as it can be frustrating otherwise.
2)Puerto Rico. A beautiful game, the player interaction is lovely, and having two main routes to victory (money and shipping), makes it interesting and fun. Like it lots. Deep and fun.
1)Dominion. It has to be. Every game feels quite different, and even without attack cards you need to be watching what your opponents are doing. I love trying new things and seeing how they pan out, and the feeling you get when you've managed to built a beautiful deck is just terrific.

Tamara Drewe

2010-09-24T15:07:00.000+01:00

I have many blogs and rants to write, which I will do so when I find the time. First, a film review.

To start with the positive, this can be a very funny film. The teenagers are excellent, and provide a lot of the laughts. Theres also some good emotional character work, in particular Tamsim Greg and her background is, at least initially good.

Sadly, however, this film. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it establishes several characters which it doesn't really know what to do with, for example the rockstar Ben is either a complete arse in one scene or a decent human being in the next, and to be honest his entire sub-plot could probably be removed from the film. This is exemplified by Tamara Drewe herself. She probably has less lines than the afore mentioned teenagers (who are also, inexplicably, given semi-character arcs that don't really work), and as a result we really don't get a handle on her decisions. Does she love Ben? We wouldn't know, they barely speak to each other. Does she love Andy? They speak even less! Why does she choose to make the poor choices she makes? Well she's very sad, according to Tamsin Greg's character, and other than a random speech at the end, the film never shows us this, it just tells us.

Secondly, the film doesn't really know what it wants to be. Its broadly comedic in tone with a central romantic drama grounding the action. Yet the ending is astonishing in its tone, and without spoiling much, pretty much ruins anything the film could have been. It was a startling choice. I think this tonal difficulty probably comes from wanting to adapt the graphic novel. Not having read it, I strongly suspect that many of the scenes I issue come straight from it.

I ended up not enjoying this film. Alice absolutely detested it, and while I don't have the utter hatred for it that she did, I certainly can't recommend it. I'm surprised its done as well critically as it has.

TIME FOR SPOILERS

I think that this film could actually have worked. I would have removed Ben entirely from the film, and spent a little bit more time on the affair between Tamara and Beth's husband, to make it make a bit more sense. The teenagers could have been the fuel towards the plot if necessary, but I don't think giving them a subplot really helped the film- they're better off as Shakespearian fool figures, leavening the drama as we go. I almost certainly wouldn't have killed off the husband at the end, and I'd probably have Tamara leave at the end, rather than getting together with Andy (who'd probably be even more sidelined in my version). I think this would emotionally centre the film, and give it a bit more time to focus on the characters- taking what worked and making that the film.

Pandering

2010-09-10T18:41:00.000+01:00

One of the issues with playing Nintendo games has been the insultingly childish plots. Zelda and Mario I'll give a pass to. The former has always been light on plot, and any has been told in a reasonably artistic and fun way, while the latter has its roots in an older time, when gaming wasn't that adult anyway.

I'm more glaring in the direction of the gameboy advance, and advance wars and advance wars tactics.

The first game is an unrepentant turn based strategy game... with bright and colourful visuals. I actually think the visuals actually add to the look, but the main plot... urgh. You have to skip through mountains of dialogue which reads like the worst kind of children's televion- stuff written by adults who think children will enjoy it, but couldn't spot a joke if it hit them in the face. Its painful.

If anything the plot of final fantasy tactics advance is worse. Some kids find a book which ends up transporting them to a fantasy world. The main character takes this all in his stride, and inexplicably becomes the leader of a clan with no trouble. He then bumps into some crystals which he thinks will revert the world back to normal. He has no particular reason to think this, but jumps to conclusions, bringing along a bunch of people who will presumably cease to exist when hes done this.

Both of these games are very adult in the way they play- they'd be pretty hard for kids to understand, although thats another post, so changing the story to an embarrasingly bad plot is just distressing.

using your components effectively

2010-09-09T20:59:00.000+01:00

One of the big down sides to the wii's motion controls was that developers obsession with using them. The incredibly irritating Sonic and the Secret Rings was a sign of this- a game which was reasonable in using the wiimote for steering sonic, just as in mario kart, but then required you to push the controller forwards to jump. Why? The controller has some perfectly functional buttons which are in reach, and its not like the speed of your thrust increases your jump, or the style matches the manner in which you do it. Its a gimmick, and a gimmick which made the game distinctly less fun.

This is a constant theme with new controls. The motion controls are great for games which, unsurprisingly, capture motion. Resident Evil and Zelda used the mote to do shooting, which worked perfectly, and was a good idea. They also used the swiping gesture when a button press would have worked just as well.

Unless there is a specific reason to do so, one should not make controls worse than they could be. Doing things like forcing the player to flail the controller instead of pressing a button is stupid, and a poor use of tech. I shouldn't have to explain this, because the game designer is actively making my play experience work for no benefit on their part. I can understand wanting to use the wiimotes capabilities, but do it where it makes sense for your game. If waving my wiimote swipes my sword, make is to that different kinds of swipes matter. THATS interesting, and an actual use of the technology. The alternative is just infuriating

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

2010-09-07T10:29:00.000+01:00

Geeks owe it to themselves to see this film. There was never a film made more for those of us who have gamed all our lives, and many of the logic and jokes work from those.

This is a splendid film. Its visually inventive and lovely, blending video game and comic visuals in a stunning manner which is both amusing and impressive, with each fight scene being a joy to watch. Its very funny, with most of the humour deriving from Scott being an arse or the utter incogriuity of the fight scenes being blended into normal life. It definitely made me want to check out the books.

There are some flaws. The film has a lot to pack in, and certain sub plots, such as Envy, feel a bit unfinished, as if there was meant to be something more and the film maker ran out of time. Also, there could have been a little more time spent on Ramona- while apparently in the books she has her own journey, here she is merely someone to be chased after. She does have her own personality, but it would have been nice if she'd had a little more to do.

Still, this is such a fun piece of film making I really do think its worth checking out. See it!

Another rant on luck (a pointless shout against the void)

2010-09-06T15:12:00.000+01:00

It is a subject of some amusement among my friends to chide me on dice beliefs. Many gamers become superstitious about dice, and attempt to convince me that they are unlucky or lucky, and that they have seen strange things.

So, here is an admission. Luck does, of course, exist. Random results are not always ``fair'', in a uniform way. There will be games where most rolls go against you (actually we'd expect that to happen about 50% of the time with two players), and perhaps even a run where this will happen. So yes, one can have bad luck in a particular instance or game. But there is no such thing as someone being intrinsically lucky or unlucky. If someone has had a terrible run of luck, in life and dice, then I would probably call them unlucky, but going forward I wouldn't expect them to be particularly unlucky in the future.

This is the gambler's fallacy, the belief that after a coin has flipped heads 10 times it is now extremely likely that it will flip tails (if anything, from a Bayesian point of view its rather more likely that it will flip heads!).

For those of you who are convinced that you are just unlucky, and can give me countless anecdotes of it, you just aren't. Focusing on dice here, here are the possibilities:

1)You keep using the same dice which are actually biased
2)Your opponents are cheating, either by using biased dice, or tricks
3)You are rolling the dice in such a way that they roll lower
4)You only remember the good times and not the bad
5)You have an inherent universal property called "luck" which inflicts you and causes you to magic dice to bad results.

4, is of course, the most probable situation. If we were to apply occam's razor, we would go with it. Luckily, we're all scientists here, so we can do some experimentation!

1 and 3 can be eliminated together. Get your dice and roll them repeatedly, making sure to record each result, trying to roll as you usually do. Then count up the frequency of the result, and apply something called the chi squared test, where you sum up the squared difference between the number you expect and the number you acheived, and test it against a probability distribution. If you make your sample large enough, and your significance level low enough, you can be pretty certain of seeing whether your dice are biased or not.

If they are not, then 1 and 3 are eliminated. Hoorary! Supposing they are, and we want to fix the problem, we can conduct further experimentation- simply try rolling with some different dice, ideally produced by a different company, and see if your results are different. If they are, its your dice. If not, its your rolling. Both problems have simple solutions. For 1, buy new dice, for 3, buy a dice cup to roll your dice in- that should prevent you from having an unhealthy influence (or, alternatively, use your skills to win at games of dice!)

Number 2 can be tested in much the same way. You will need to meticulously record every single roll your opponent makes, and do so without alerting them that you are doing it. This isn't an easy target, but is vital to ensure that your test is fair and unbiased. If you discover that they are cheating... well the solution isn't easy there, but thats a whole 'nother post.

I've actually cheated a little here. I've yet to eliminate 5. Its a little harder to get rid of. But it can be done. What we need to is make sure that if we are getting bad results, that we eliminate any possible other cause. So we need to roll a range of dice, and we need to roll them using a range of different methods, on a range of different surfaces. We can also start dealing ourselves hands of cards, as we are apparently looking for a universal luck reduction principle here. If all of these lead to a bias, then perhaps the universe is truly against us....

Bioshock 2

2010-08-26T20:55:00.001+01:00

Continuing the ongoing series in which I review games many months after their release (I'm thinking it might have managed a year actually), I recently played Bioshock 2.

Its pretty fun. Rapture is a gorgeous world to explore, and playing as a big daddy was cute, and also gave you a clear motivation, something that wasn't entirely obvious in the first game. The story is adequate. There are no real twists and turns, and the main villain's plan is basically nuts- there is an attempt at the notion of a competing philosophy with Lamb's collectivism, but the reason it fails is not as evidenct as with Ryan's plans. It does the job. One nice element thats added in is that along with the little sister choice from before you can now choose to spare several npcs, which is a really nice touch (although I don't know how any humans survive in rapture- one thing the game never makes very clear is how they manage to command the splicers at all), and has a fairly interesting impact to the game ending. Its certainly a bit more nuanced than the original game.

The action is a lot more fun, than the original. You end up fighting over the same areas a lot, and with the ability to use plasmids and weapons together it can get very good. The game has a habit of throwing hordes of enemies at you, which is mostly fun. It doesn't always work. Part of the game is protecting little sisters as they gather adam, but you can't choose which corpses you gather from. This is probably a way to make sure you don't use the same part of the level repeatedly, but it would have been far better if there had been multiple choices, each in a different area. There are certain corpses that require defence from all angles and end up being incredibly frustrating.

Also the completist in me likes to do these sections all at once, and they eat up ammo and health, which the game is a bit stingy about to be honest, so the only real choice is to wonder and explore, or just keep coming from the vita chamber. The vita chambers make a mockery of the little sister fights, which are my least favourite part of the game. The big sister appears after you have saved the final little sister in any section, which means you are usually low on health and ammo, and thus often get sent to the vita chamber and have to fight again... while being even lower on health and ammo. Their health reduces, so you wittle them down, but its hardly an epic fight. I suspect you can turn the chambers off, and its probably the best idea, to force you to re-load and fight better, as the alternative is just boring.

Still, at a certain point in the game you find yourself with massess of ammo and powers, which makes the last third of the game immense fun as you conduct massive battles, harnessing all your considerable power.

on censorship and taste

2010-08-25T18:58:00.001+01:00

Liam Fox wants the latest medal of honor game banned. Well, he is our defense secretary, so I suppose his ideas on freedom of speech don't matter that much, but it still makes him a reactionary idiot.

Banning stuff is bad for society. It drives bad ideas underground where they can't be quashed, and raises the eternal question- where is the line? What is acceptable and what isn't? A healthy society can deal with horrid content by not consuming that content. If a film or game is offensive, it is your right not to watch or play it, but it really isn't your right to stop other people from doing so! When we begin to talk of what public money is spent on, then perhaps we have a clearer argument, but even then I would prefer to err in favour of freedom of speech.

For me there are precisely three exceptions to freedom of speech: libel, profit from illegal acts and genuine public health risks. If you deliberately spread malicious mistruths that can harm another person's reputation, then you should be controlled. If you attempt to film genuine illegal things in a gratiutous manner then you should be censored (because criminals shouldn't profit from their acts), and if you are doing something that could pose a genuine health problem, such as inciting violence (and this has to be pretty DAMN clear), then you should be stopped.

Medal of Honor, to my knowledge, will disobey none of those. None the less, its a pretty tasteless enterprise. A game set in a conflict that is still going on is pretty poor taste, especially an action game. MOH is hardly going to be an insightful look at either side of the conflict- it'd just be as bad as Stallone creating his next vechile there.

If the game is as tasteless as I suspect it is, I have an excellent choice over calling for it to be banned. I'll simply not play it.

Evangalism

2010-08-13T19:03:00.000+01:00

Tom wrote a nice post on extreme atheists recently, but I think he got the title wrong. The people he's talking about aren't extreme atheists, because that conjours up images of bloodshed and violence. Instead, evangalist atheist is a more accurate title.

Evangalists are, from my personal experience, people who have often converted later in life- they have mostly either been a fervid believer of something else, or been surrounded by people of that belief system and felt constrained by it. Finally they discover something new and empowering, whether thats god or the lack therof, and they are so astonished by this revelation that they want to tell everyone. They can't believe quite how stupid they were before, how they swallowed their previous belief systems ideology, and are happy to make their decision known to others, by pointing out those failings.

Sadly, most evangalists are obnoxious. Their inability to talk about anything other than their new faith (yes, I'm going to call atheism a faith for the purposes of this post), and to force it into every conversation, is extremely tiresome. Most, I suspect, calm down after a while, and learn that being rude to people is not an effective way of changing their opinions. I want to change minds, and I'm happy to engage in a discussion, but I am fully aware that ranting to every non-atheist that I meet about how stupid I think their beliefs are are not going to win them over.

I know I've discussed evangalism before, and I do think its a dangerous habit, because evangalists tend to exaggerate the problems of their old beliefs way past what they are. But my primary reason for writing this is to point at this post by John Walker.

John Walker is an excellent games journalist. He is freelance, and has worked for several magazines. I am mainly familiar with him thanks to the splendid pc gaming blog rock paper shotgun, plus his and Nick Mailer's podcast, Rum Doings, which I would heartily recommend (Nick Mailer is not a video game fan, so be not put off by that!) He writes on various subjects, including skeptisism and television. He's a fun and interesting writer with opinions that are worth reading.

This latest post on his blog is very much about his belief in God, and how he thinks an advert for church is exceedingly misleading. Now some people have disagreed with Mr Walker over said advert- indeed I sounded a note of caution as well, which I'm not going to discuss here. Incredibly shockingly though, one person threatened to unsubcribe from his blog, and another actually did.

Good grief. This is an astonishing reaction to have to discovering someone's beliefs. I understand why people might be disappointed, certainly, to discover that someone they enjoy reading believes something they do not agree with, but to decide to never read that person again (and announce it to them, in a rather rude manner)... thats bizzare. He hasn't changed. He was never not a christian, he just hadn't mentioned it on his blog before, and theres absolutely no indication that that is all he will ever write about again. I literally cannot imagine doing that on such a harmless discovery. If he had revealed that he was a holocaust denier, perhaps, but he revealed a very personal faith- he's made it quite clear that he doesn't impose his beliefs on others, and in most indications he's a very liberal minded gentleman.

I really have nothing more to say on this matter, only disappointment that there exist people who would act in such a manner.

The Beschel test

2010-08-05T12:40:00.000+01:00

I posted a link to this, with the Beschel test, which asks

1. Are there at least two women characters in the film?
2. Who talk to each other?
3. About something other than a man?

So out of curiosity, I decided to apply this to imdb. In interest of fairness, I shall apply this to both men and women. (note that this is done from memory, so mistakes may be made)

[note: I started writing this list a while ago, so places have shifted slightly. In particular, 25-50 were done about two weeks after 1-25]

1.The Shawshank Redemption. Does not feature any female roles.
2.The Godfather. Does have female roles, but they rarely converse with each other, and if they do, its talking about men
3.Inception. Does have some strong female roles. When Adriane and Mal chat, however, they are only talking about Cobb
4.Godfather part 2. Same issues as the godfather.
5.The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Been a while since I've seen this, but i'm not sure there are any female roles at all in this film.
6.Pulp Fiction. Lots of female roles, but they are often passive. And none of them talk to each other.
7. Schindler's List. Not much for women to do in this film. I think it technically passes from certain scenes in the film.
8. 12 angry men. Faiiiils.
9. One Flew over the cookoo's nest. a strong female role (although a villain) in Ratchet isn't enough to pass. A couple of girls do join in later on, but I don't think they have a terrific amount to say to each other.
10. Toy Story 3. I'm going to say a sort of pass here. There are lots of female roles, and they do talk to each other a bit at least.
11.Star Wars Episode V. Fail. Unless we count C3PO as a woman.
12.The Dark Knight. Nope. Only one woman here, move along please.
13.LoTR: Return of the King. No. Definitely not. The women get more lines than they do in the book, but that is not hard.
14.Star Wars, a New Hope. With Lukes foster parents, the film does manage two women at least, but they are rather geographically seperated.
15.Seven samurai. Nope. There is a romance subplot, but nothing much else of women in this film.
16.Casablanca. No.. This is beginning to get depressing. Certainly there is an excellent role for a woman here, but theres only one of her.
17.Goodfellas. Mostly men. There are several women, and good roles, but once again they don't really talk to each other.
18.Fight Club. Once again, men men men. A big female role, but she's got no-one to speak to.
19.City of God. Fairly small roles for women... and they're talking to the men.
20.lord of the rings, fellowship of the ring.Fail
21.Rear Window. I thiink this passes. Its been a while since I've watched this, but thanks to his nurse and Grace Kelly being in the film, I think it makes it. There are very few roles in this film anyway. It comes close to failing for both men and women (note, this would be the first film that would have failed for men. It didn't).
22.Raiders of the Lost ark. Nope. One main female role.
23.Psycho. This does fail, but again almost fails for men as well. There are some strong female roles in here, to be fair.
24.The Usual Suspects. Biiig fail.
25.Once upon a time in the West. Yet to see it.
26.The Silence of the Lambs. Been a while since I've seen it, it fails for women, but does have an extremely strong female lead
27.The Matrix. This pretty much fails. Theres a snippet of conversation between Trinity and the other one, but its very, very brief.
28.Se7en. About two guys on the hunt of a killer. Does have Brad Pitt's wife, but shes got no-one to speak to
29.Memento. Fail. Christopher Nolan tends to fail this consistently. Theres a reasonaly large female role here, but meh.
30. Its a wonderful life. Its been a long time since I've watched this, but seeing as the entire film is about George Bailey, I suspect it'll probably fail. There may be snippets of conversation between female characters along the way I suppose.
31.The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Fail fail fail.
32.Sunset Boulevard. I really need to get up on the films of Billy Wilder.
33. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb . Distressingly there are no female roles at all here.
34.Leon. Well this fails for both men and women, seeing as theres really only a female and a male role. I think a double failure can usually count as a success.
35.North by Northwest. Fail.
36.Forrest Gump. Fail
37.Citizen Kane. Fail. The females in this film do not get much of a look in
38.Apocalypse Now. To my shame, not a film I have seen. I'm gonna guess failure, but obviously won't count it.
39.American History X. This just about passes, but really, the conversations between the mother and Ed Norton's girlfriend don't really count.
40.American Beauty. This passes, although most of the conversations the female leads have are about boys.
41. Taxi Driver. A fail here
42.Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Faaaaaail.
43.Vertigo. I... can't remember if this passes or not now. I don't think the two females are congruent at any point here.
44.Alien. Major pass. Alien was written genderless, and is one of the few on this list that manages an excellent female character. Ripley becomes more feminine as the series continues- Aliens is about motherhood to some extent.
45. Saving Private Ryan. Guess what. A faiiiil!
46. Lawrence of Arabia. Haven't seen it.
47. Amelie . Pass. This is the first pass with a male fail on the list here, I think.
48.WALL-E. While Wall-E can be viewed as male, thanks to the voices, if you actually go in without expectations you can view the reverse as true. I'm gonna let this past.
49.The Shining. Faaaaail
50.A Clockwork Orange. Guess what... fail!

So lets see, of 50 films we have

SIX passes. And thats including Leon, which really doesn't count
I haven't seen 4 films on the list.
Its also worth nothing that we can divide films into ensemble films, or films driven by a strong lead. There are 17 films that are pretty much all about their male lead. There are 2 about their female lead.

Seriously. Thats really a bit depressing. To be fair, I suspect imdb is a male dominated data base- look at the number of sci fi/fantasy films that manage it in to the top 50, but there are a LOT of classic films here that just fail that test.

Look, theres no reason to think that we must have a male lead- Alien is the case in point, Sigourney Weaver wasn't unique, she was just given a good script. I'm not saying EVERY film needs to meet this test, but I am saying that it really sucks that there are less leading roles out there for women then there are for men. There are a lot of reasons this happens, and I don't think anyone goes into making a film hating women, but we go in with preconceptions, and these shape our culture. This is what frustrates me when people say women have it fine- our culture simply does not reflect that, and women are simply not at parity at men. Theres work to be done here.

The most striking point for me is not only that this fails for women, but it barely ever fails for men. I thought I'd see both a lot more, but it just doesn't occur.

Inception, a review and discussion

2010-07-23T10:31:00.000+01:00

So, I shall start with a non-spoilered review. Its an excellent film, of a level you simply do not see for blockbuster films. This is up there with the Matrix quite easily as a massive, big budget film, that has actually thought about what its doing (yes, I know the Matrix's ideas have been ripped off other things, but its an ultimately clever film despite that). I am pretty confident that it will go into my list of favourite films that I've seen.

At its core its a heist film, but by setting it in dreams it gets to explore a lot more. In particular, its a heist with astonishing, inventive active sequences that is actually mostly about DeCaprio's emotional status. This film is about things, more of which i'll explore in the spoiler section.

Are there some flaws? Kinda- some of the film drags a tiny bit- in particular I don't think the snow fight works entirely, because its not entirely clear where everyone is in connection to each other, so it feels like a sequence of disconnected fights. Its still pretty breath taking along with that, with some lovely moments, but I think it could have been better done. Theres also a couple of moments of unnecessary exposition later in the film, but for the most part these are well done and explain the film well.

Whats terrific about this film is that while its complicated, and at its climax a lot is going on, its sufficiently explained its world that you should be able to follow whats happening at any point.

A must see film. I really want to see this film do well, because as Mark Kermode said, if it does well it'll show that blockbusters really don't need to be brainless to succeed.

And now, spoilers. Please see the film before reading this next part. Seriously. totally going to spoil the film.

You better have seen the film if you're reading this part. It would be a real shame to not experience all the joys of this film by itself.

OK, so. What I love about this film is that its all about DeCaprio's guilt. One thing the Matrix did not really explore was the idea that maybe staying in the Matrix was fine. Cypher was the only character who wanted to, and he clearly wasn't meant to be someone the audience was meant to like. Inception, however, is actually fine with the idea that maybe reality isn't all its cracked up to be.

The film does appear to reject the notion of staying in dreams- Mal (had to look up the spelling for that) would seem to represent the notion of staying in fantasy. Yet really she doesn't. Its made sort of explicit, but Mal represents Caprio's guilt. Consider his only dream space, where each level contains a memory of his past live. But, crucially, these aren't good times, happy moments- these are his failures, the moments he desperately wishes he could change, so much so that he keeps coming back and looking at them. Staying with Mal, on the level she wants, would be to give in to his guilt about his wife's death, not to succumb to a healthy fantasy- its not just that the dream of Mal is unreal, its that its a horrifying dream of her.

To me, the final spinning top, with its ambiguous nature, is the entire point for me. It doesn't MATTER if that final moment is a dream or not- the point is that it is a healthy one. Getting to see his children means that Leo has moved on from his wife, and accepted emotionally that he is allowed to see them. His exile from America, is, on some level, self imposed, and only by letting go off his wife is he able to end it.

So, was it all a dream? Possibly, but I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with this explanation. For it to work, I think it has to be Caprio's own dream, with Mal having successfully escaped, but he is still trapped.

Why? Well in the "waking moments" of the film, the spinning top settles. I suppose its possible that Caprio has so accepted the dream that he has given up on his totem- stealing his wife's, which won't work for him. I'll consider both cases, and point out issues with both.

The first scenario is an incredibly dark one. It implies that Mal is now awake, but her husband is still trapped. Worse yet, this means the entire film is not about Caprio dealing with guilt, but accepting the fantasy. After all, Mal has escaped- she was right, and he was wrong, yet Caprio is instead struggling to ignore that. This scenario explains the other characters lack of back story. The film is all about Caprio, of course, but the only other character (excluding Mal) to get back story of any real kind is Fisher, which is interesting in of itself. What Fisher represents here I'm not sure. Potentially Caprio's own father issues? Or merely a clever puzzle for him to solve?

There are some issues with this theory- the darkness of it is a little off putting, as the message of the film is overwhelmingly positive, and this would undercut it heavily, which would be an odd choice to say the least. Also, in the "real world", Caprio comes under attack. But this theory would imply this was own subconscious attacking him. This still can be explained- obviously his subconscious is attempting to protect him, to draw him from the dream. If so, Saito represents temptation to stay- note that Mal actually attempts to stop him from doing this.

The other theory is that this isn't Caprio's dream. He's the subject, or possibly the dreamer (but the latter doesn't make much sense). In which case, its not entirely sure who the dreamers ARE. Who they are matters a lot, as it changes the tone. Saito and Aradaine (Ellen Page) seem the most likely in this situation. So, in turn, whats their motivation?

In Saito's case, the same motives might apply. How on earth could he get the US to drop the charges? So instead he takes Caprio into a dream level, (which means the film starts in the third level of dreaming!), and convinces him and his partners to do this job. He then brings Fisher in, and the scenario plays out as in the film. The ending is then definitely a dream, which makes sense.

This is quite nice, and clever on Saito's part. It certainly makes sense, with the agents in the "real world" once again playing the part of Caprio's unconscious trying to wake him up, and ties up any holes that the film might have. The only issue with this as a theory is that thematically its a little disappointing- Saito would be doing it out of greed, and thematically thats not really very interesting, and doesn't really tie in to what else is going on.

Finally we have Ellen Page. This is stolen from another site, which sadly I lack a link to, but she could be Caprio's therapist. Caprio is in need of saving- he needs to badly deal with his guilt, and at every stage Page manages to push him to deal with his problems. In fact, she even goes in to investigate his subconscious (within his own unconscious!). She claims this is because she wants to know the truth about him before she works with him, but it also makes sense that she is analysing him. This would also explain her rapid pick up of the concepts of the dream world. There are a couple of issues here- Fisher becomes a bit of a cypher then, and also it makes the ending difficult to explain- why is Caprio still in the dream, and not woken up?

I'm not sure which explanation I accept, but I like that there are so many of them, and that the film is open enough to allow all of them.

Twilight

2010-07-12T09:58:00.000+01:00

So I had certain preconceptions going into this film. I certainly didn't think I'd enjoy it all that much- after all, it wasn't targeted at me- but I did think that it would be competently made. After all, this was a fairly high budget film, and had a lot riding on it. Remarkably, the film failed to meet even those standards.

Theres a lot to go over here, so I'll break it down

-The acting

Twilight is, at its heart, about a romance (although I'll get to to this later). To sell such a story, you must have decent actors. Sadly our leads fail utterly here. I don't know if they have put in good performances elsewhere, but here they feel like they are desperately trying to over act every scene. Watching Kristen Stewarts face in every scene was really very funny, as her face went through a gamut of expressions in an attempt to display emotional complexity. A lot of the lines came out flat and emotionless, and while I get that they were going for awkward conversation between her and Edward, it came across as if they had forgotten their lines and needed prompts every 10 seconds. I've seen better performances in the Hills. Of course, performances can often be blamed on:

-The direction

The entire film has an irritating colour filter put over the top of it that makes it look like the characters are in the matrix. I don't entirely get why this choice was made, as it gives the entire world a sheen of unreality- but not in a fantastic way, as one might expect with the gothic romance tone that one might imagine this film could aim for. The action in this film looks kind of shoddy and cheap, and feels like its escaped from a music video.

-Bella

Now I have no idea what Bella is like in the books, but in the film I don't see why we are meant to like her. She is our protagonist after all- she gets a voice over for crying out loud- but she comes across as utterly unlikable. She doesn't appear particularly smart, or funny, and rarely talks, yet everyone at school likes her. Initially there is an indication that maybe she is going to become an outcast, after her car gets mocked, but very shortly everyone in the school decides they like her despite Bella rarely ever talking to her. This is the female hero we're meant to like? She does or says nothing to earn our affection, and spends most of the time mooning over Edward. Bella is actually the central reason this film fails, and I'll come back to her later.

-The romance

I have a serious issue with this kind of romance, it has to be said- Buffy the vampire slayer has exactly the same problem. A 16 year old (Bella might be 15, not sure), fall in love with a century (or more) old immortal being. A bit squicky, certainly, especially as both in Buffy and in Twilight the love is not based on any kind of deep connection, rather the "love at first sight" thing. That is a hard thing to sell, and Twilight fails at doing so- Edward and Bella have mostly awkward conversations, split up by (admittedly romantic) dates where Edward does something impressively super human. It doesn't feel like a real relationship. Of course the failure of the leads to act is a big issue too.

Note that this kind of romance can be sold. Romeo and Juliet is a good example- their romance is really based on sand, but, in, for example, the Baz Lurhmann version we get a good feeling that THEY believe it- there is a strong sense of infatuation at least, which just isn't sold here.

-The script

One reason we don't buy many of the relationships is that the script doesn't sell them. People really only talk in this film to advance the plot, which sounds fine, but this film should be about relationships, and if everyone is having exposition dialogue, you don't get a feeling of a relationship between characters. Which is disastrous for you caring about them.

-The plot

This is a major failing of the film. Where is the conflict in this film? What is it about. Lets summarise the plot (OMG spoilers!)

-Bella comes to a new town, feeling like an outsider, but its ok because everyone there thinks she's awesome
-Bella spies a hotty named Edward, and wants to get into his pants
-She's meant to sit next to him during Biology, but he becomes uncommunicative and then doesn't show up for their remaining classes
-A car almost crashes into Bella, and Edward saves her
-Turns out, he's a vampire
-She's cool with that
-he saves her, again, from some thugs in town
-They get together
-She meets his family of vampires, who are actually utterly supportive. One of them is a bit moody about it but nothing comes of it
-They make out a bit, and Edward mumbles that apparently he can't control himself, but its not very well sold.
-Edward meets her dad, who, again, is FINE WITH IT
-They bump into some evil vampires (this is very close to the end of the film)
-One of the evil vampires decides to kill Bella, primarily because not only is he a dick, he's a really stupid dick
-He tricks Bella (not hard to do, folks!) into coming alone to a dance studio alone, almost kills her but then Edward turns up and saves her
-The film keeps going on, the audience dies of boredom

So, wheres the conflict here? There could be an issue with a new school, but, as mentioned, there isn't. There is a minor conflict with Edward not liking her, but its done really poorly, and I'm not sure why we're meant to care. Bella cares, but only because hes a cutie, as far as I can tell- after all, the rest of the bloody school loves her.

The romance itself should have a conflict at its heart- Edward has to hold himself back from hurting her. But bear in mind Edward isn't the protagonist, so we don't care about his pain. What should be happening is that the romance is palpably dangerous, and Bella has to make a choice to continue it- it should be about Bella having to change and emotionally grow, but Bella really doesn't change. From the moment she sees Edward she want to be with him and this desire is utterly constant. This is why she makes a terrible protagonist.

This theme of Edward being the only character who's actually changing remains constant to the end of the film, where the bad vampires, who have been built up a tiny bit (in a sub plot that feels disconnected from the rest of the film), decide to kill Bella. Yet again, the threat feels dulled- theres one bad vampire against 7 good vampires, after all- it'd be a hell of a lot better the other way round- and feels tacked on, as if the film needs an exciting conclusion. The threat is an external agency, and I think would be a lot more tense if it had, perhaps, been one of the Cullen family.

so Bella goes to save her mother, not telling anyone else in an act so appallingly stupid she should really get a prize, and then Bella gets beaten up in a surprisingly distressing film. Then Edward has to save her, as she has vampire venom in her, and will turn. So Edward has to show self restraint, and fight against his instincts to save her.

So once again theres the problem that while this should be Bella's film, the only person who has to become a better person is Edward. Bella doesn't change. She doesn't treat her friends or family any better, she doesn't become more or less active, she just continually mopes. You cannot have your protagonist do this and expect the audience to care. She has to have something about her to care about. Its just insane.

I was really disappointed by Twilight. I understand thats its not made for me, but it doesn't seem to be made for people who understand stories, for crying out loud. It just feels terribly incompetent. Now I've only seen this film, so defences that tell me that the book, or the sequels, are different, are not terribly convincing. As a stand alone piece of film, this is absolutely, unremittingly, dreadful.

Why the last epsiode of Buffy the vampire slayer is the worst, and best, episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer.

2010-07-09T10:37:00.000+01:00

The final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chosen, is a great piece of television. It brings together themes that have existed in the show from the beginning, and the victory is entirely about female empowerment.

The episode begins with Buffy splitting Caleb, the embodyment of misogny (and a terrific villain) in two, and a quick unification with Angel reminds us of Buffy's journey. She returns home triumphant, with the spoils of war, and forms her plan for the final fight.

The final battle is triumphant and epic. Hordes of vampires descend on to girls who quickly become women as the power of the slayer is finally taken from men (in the form of the watchers, who are usually male), and given to all the potentials there. This is the reason why they win, because they have dared to do something different, something unthinkable.

Along the way we tie together loose ends, and we have a lovely moment with the original 4 which ties directly to the start of the series again.

In a moment of sheer genius, the whol of Sunnydale gets dragged into the earth, meaning Buffy has to make an exciting roof top, leading to that final moment of joy as Buffy realises she is finally free of the burden of responsibility she has carried for seven years.

Of course, thats all nonsense.

Caleb is a terrific villain who brings a sense of pace this series badly needed. So he is killed at the start of the show, a massive mistake. Next, the conflict set up only last episode is apparently resolved, but not well- the writing basically resets half the characters to earlier status (including Giles). While this means that we get back our likable cast, it makes no goddamn sense. The magic axe, and plan associated with it, seems to come straight out of the writers arses, and worse yet, its not even the item which ensures the heroes victory. Instead a magic amulet found in a different series is what really kills off the horde of evil vampires.

The entire episode sacrifices sense for theme, with vampires who were originally incredibly hard to kill going down more easily than standard vampires and Buffy collapsing from a fatal wound and then apparently being fine. With the main villain dead, the First evil, represented by a ghostly Buffy, lacks menace, as she has all series, and while her army presents a threat, its a somewhat mindless one, and certainly has no deeper thematic meaning behind it.

While Spike's death makes sense, Anya's does not. Understandably Joss Whedon wants to show that this is a battle where people will die, but by having the deah off stage we have to be fine with it in the space of a few minutes, which is more than a little frustrating.

Ultimately the final episode of buffy is a blending of the problems and successes of the rest of the show. It doesn't really hold a candle to the Gift, an episode which was originally intended to be a possible end to the show, even if the ending to that was a lot darker.

A mini-rant

2010-07-05T12:38:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged in a long while, thanks to holidays, conferences and workloads. The latter hasn't changed, but I don't like not blogging. So, a small comment on the lack of rationality some people demonstrate. In this comment thread, after a typically tiresome article by Andrew Brown which I shan't get into now, someone says this

""If people consider all the options, they will arrive at the same conclusion as me". Dawkins is ridiculous!"

Given the same information and perfect rationality, on a matter of fact two individuals should come to the same conclusion. If we accept there is one truth on the matter of the existence of a deity then if everyone had the same information and thought rationally, they would come to the same conclusion.

Now obviously this isn't actually going to happen in real life- people are often not rational, and individuals are not presented with the same information. However, if you believe yourself to be rational then you must suppose that the factual position you hold is one others would come to given the same information and rationality. If you don't, then why are you holding that position? If you are uncertain, then you should step back and become agnostic, for example.

Positive Discrimination and glee

2010-05-26T11:11:00.000+01:00

Positive discrimination is a dirty word. It seems unjust from the outside, and tends to be generally opposed. I'm moderately in favour of it.

Why? Well our society is unjust. The representation of women and minorities in high paid workplaces and parliament is poor. Worse yet, this is a situation that reinforces it- women don't want to become engineers because women don't become engineers. If we make no action then it will take a very long time for society to become equal- there is no real trend for it without pushing. We know that positive discrimination works- the all female shortlists massively increased the amount of women in parliament, until it was decided that such lists were wrong, and now there is no such increase.

By being white and male, I have priveleges that others don't have. I am the default- anything else in media or work is considered the other. This is an unequal situation.

Bear in mind that positive discrimination is obviously still discrimination, but that doesn't necessarily matter. White males do not need to have the scales balanced- they are already tipped in their favour.

Look at this link. Avatar (I'm going to call that rather than the airbender bit), was very much a show which celebrated Asian traditions... and was casted for white people. Such actions should be unacceptable.

Worse yet was Glee's choice to hire an able-bodied person to play Artie's role. The casting crew make the usual excuses about how wonderful the actor was, he was just right for the role. I'm always a little curious about such declamations- they stink of laziness to me. Frankly, unless there is a serious reason why a disabled person could not play their role, a disabled person should play that role. Why? Well disabled people would not be able to play any of the other roles. Other people auditioning had many options, but disabled people had ONE role they could apply for, and an able-bodied person got it instead. There was really no-one else? Theres a lot of talented people out there, I refuse to believe the actor who plays Artie was very good. Something like this simply should not be acceptable.

Barriers fo entry

2010-05-23T11:22:00.001+01:00

Heroes of Newerth is a paid for game based heavily on the hugely popular defence of the ancients mod for W3. It was reviewed recently, and the reviewer reasonably pointed out that the game doesn't help out at all- there are no tutorials, no single player mode, you are dropped into an unfriendly environment where you are shouted at for making mistakes, which you are bound to do, as the game is excessively complicated.

Of course, the comments thread is full of people attacking the reviewer, some claiming that she is simply not hard core enough. Now theres a term. I would consider myself a fairly "hard core" gamer. After all I've been gaming for nigh on twenty years, and play a variety of genres and consoles. Yet I find games such as DOTA unpleasent. I'm certain there is a good game there, but I would have to stagger through hours of painful work before getting good enough to enjoy myself. Why would I do that? Why would I do what is effectively homework to access the good stuff? The thing is, theres so many OTHER amazing games that do allow me to play without having to work first.

These games aren't bad, but by having high barriers to entry they exclude perfectly good players who are happy to give said game a miss. This is precisely my issue with dwarf fortress. After playing a follow on game for around 4 hours and realising I STILL didn't know what the hell I was doing, I decided that the interface and lack of guide was obnoxious.

[mini DF rant here. The creator has focused on creating an absurdly simulationist game which means that some lovely emergent behaviours arise. However, given the choice between having individual bones modeled, and having an interface that is not excruciating to use, I know which one I would prefer].

An important point is that playing one game for hundreds of hours is no more hardcore than playing dozens of games for dozens of hours- its just a different approach. Fair play to those people who can get past those barriers- I'm sure there are terrific experiences waiting for them, I'm just happy to get my terrific experiences elsewhere.

The true value of critisism

2010-05-18T11:18:00.000+01:00

Its rather easy, and entertaining, to be negative. Many popular critics exist who's main goal is to tear down terrible enterprises. Its enjoyable stuff, and very funny in the right hands. The true art, however, is to explain what is good about a film.

The ability to express, in an articulate and interesting way, what makes a piece of art worthwhile is magical. Look at Amadeus, where we have the beauty of Mozart's music laid out for us in such a way that enriches the experience. At their best, a critic should be able to provide ways of seeing a piece of art that you were unable to before. This is one of the reasons why I love film spotting, a film podcast from Chicago. Both critics are able to explain very well what makes a film worth seeing, in such a way that makes me want to watch it again, so I can appreciate the things they see that make it special.

We will not always agree with critics. Many things are subjective, and while there are objective measurements one can apply, how you rank them may vary (I might prefer a beautifully crafted shot over a carefully constructed narrative, for example), but a good critic should allow you to understand why they have taken the position they are at, even if such a position is not true for you.

Gerrymandering and the new coalition

2010-05-17T16:32:00.000+01:00

So politics has a new face, and its one of coalition. Good stuff. Coalition is, I suspect, healthier for democracy. Strong government isn't a good idea if most people don't want it. I'm not convinced no government is worse than a government nobody wants. Lets ignore the irony of the conservatives rather desperate campaign against the hung parliament (at least they kept up the promise of deals behind closed doors eh?)

So, we're not going to get PR this election. But we should get AV (although some conservatives will campaign against it, and I will be utterly intrigued as to what those arguments actually will be- see my next post), which will mean more lib dem seats, and will give the lie to the notion that different voting systems are repellent to the voters. We shall see anyway. I will campaign robustly for AV.

Meanwhile, there have been some rather paranoid cries about the tories already gerrymandering, and the 55% rule being a way for them to grip onto power.

OK. First of all, gerrymandering. Yes, the conservatives want to reduce the number of seats so that they have around the same number of voters per region. Yes this may benefit them electorally. However Labour did EXACTLY the same thing, and the system is currently rather biased against the tories (it is of course most biased against the lib dems. Also, any rejiggering, by nature of the parliament, will not be able to be unilateral- at the very least the lib dems will have a say, and will undoubtedly oppose a situation where the tories rule for ever (which many blogs have ludicrously suggested- the conservatives aren't actually oozing evil people!).

The 55% rule. Lets be clear, while the details are not clear, this is how it will probably work. We will have fixed parliaments, which are generally speaking good things, and to dissolve parliament before that we will need 55% of the vote in the house. However, votes of no confidence will STILL require the same simple majority- a government that has lost the support of parliament will not be able to govern, and either a new government will need to be formed, or there will need to be concensus on getting parliament dissolved. If anything, 55% is a bit too low- a government with a decent majority could easily whip their party into dissolving parliament early, thus negating the fixed term, but hopefully the change in rules will mean that such an option would only be politically tenable if it was clear that the government could no longer rule.

I don't know what people were thinking a government without a majority which failed a no confidence vote could do- it wouldn't be able to pass anything!

One thing it is worth worrying about is that the lib dems and conservatives are apparently planning to appoint an absurd amount of peers to take away the Labour majority in the Lords. Why they're doing this rather than working immediately towards PR there is utterly unclear. Labour promised reform in the HOL as well, and utterly failed to deliver- if anything they produced a situation worse than the hereditary peers.

Urgh, election results

2010-05-10T16:59:00.000+01:00

[I'm covering a lot in one post, as theres a lot I want to say about the election]

So traumatised by the election results was I that I felt unable to comment. Previous to the elections I had felt energised, believing that the Liberal Democrats were not only a party offering a real alternative, but they might be in a real position to deliver change in the next election. I knew the system was broken, but with the numbers the lib dems were polling I thought they stood to make substantive gains. Under a hung parliament, which looked exceedingly likely, they stood in a good position to demand electoral reform.

Then polling day came. The exit polls appeared, and while, like the politicians in the studio, I wanted the results to be wrong, I knew that the methodology behind them was exceedingly solid. So I wasn't surprised, but was disappointed, to see them mostly accurate. In particular, the liberal democrats have managed a gain of 1% of votes, while losing 5 seats. For fucks sake.

The British electorate had spoken, although what it was saying is not clear. Each politican will claim the narrative here- some might claim they wanted a hung parliament, the conservatives will claim that they wanted the conservatives in. Neither is clear- after all a vote does not allow one to express these opinions (incidentally, this is why political engagement beyond voting is rather vital, but thats another day). The one thing that seemed certain was that the voters didn't really want Labour around anymore. 29% isn't as bad as some people thought for Labour, but its still a fairly large slap in the face, disproportional number of seats non withstanding.

So why did the lib dems do as badly as they did? I don't think one can underestimate the utter media blitz directed against Clegg. The Murdoch press were unrelenting in their attacks (often ungrounded and utterly misleading) on the lib dems, and both the Labour and Conservative parties focused their ire on the lib dems. No doubt the lib dems lost vote for unpopular policies such as immigration (which, while smart, is not a vote winner sadly). Its also worth pointing out that the liberal democrats simply have so much less money than Labour, and certainly the conservatives.

There isn't much of an ethos of member donations in this nation for parties- the internet actually provides a neat tool for members to donate to a party they want to get in, but I don't think most do it. Instead parties get a lot of their funding from shady millionares, or the unions for Labour (who are just as shady really). This is a fundamentally undemocratic problem, and is not going to be fixed by the conservatives. One person having a massive influence on a parties direction is not a good thing, it is not good for democracy, its not even good for rich people- Murdoch having power over the parties only cements his position of power.

Of course working against the liberal democrats is their broad base. The electoral system is just cripplingly unfair. I understand the notion that we need strong governments, but there are countless governments in Europe that manage to produce them, and they are just so much more fair. Labour shouldn't be able to talk about coalition right now- if we were in a fair system it would be the conservatives and the liberal democrats.

So, what coalition am I in favour of? Now unlike many of the left, who are angry at the very idea of a coalition between the conservatives and the liberal democrats, I think it is kind of absurd to dismiss the conservatives out of hand. To do so assumes that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are a block of one. They're not. Many lib dems voters did want Labour out this election, and voted accordingly. Clegg is right in that the party with the most votes and seats DOES have a right to govern. The only issue is, that its clear from this election that we need electoral reform, and funding reform. The conservatives offer neither.

Its true that the parties act in their own self interest. The lib dems want proportional representation and a fairer party funding system because it would benefit them, but in this case it does happen to be the right thing to do. I am distraught by the notion that we may not acheive that.

Why electoral reform

2010-05-06T09:56:00.000+01:00

Today I will be casting my vote in Southampton Test. My choice is a bit bleak. I could vote labour, a party I have no faith in anymore, and I feel need time out of power, simply to keep the tories out. Or I could go with my heart and vote lib dem, and possibly contribute to a tory victory here. The latter possibility is unlikely anyway- I doubt power will change hands here.

I'm pretty sure I'll vote lib dem, as every vote counts as an argument for electoral reform- the more absurd the results look (and I'm fairly sure they will)- the more the main parties might actually have to face up to the need for a change.

Worse yet, if I lived 15 minutes up the road, then my vote would be FAR more important. I would be in a marginal constituency which has been tirelessly campaigned in (indeed I helped a little last night, participating in one way even if my vote doesn't count). The people 15 minutes away are members of the group of voters who will actually decide what happens this election.

So vote today, and hope that next election your vote might count.

Top 5 films of the decade

2010-05-05T10:24:00.001+01:00

Inspired by film spotting, that most excellent podcast, I've decided to post my top 5 films from the last decade.

Its a tough one, and I have some honorable mentions that I'll share at the end. Note, I will in all probability spoil each film that I talk about here.

#5 No Country for Old Men: The Coen brothers have often shown an obsession with showing characters falling because of their obsession with riches. Here the main character is actually damned for his pity- he could have gotten away if he hadn't come back to give a dying man some water. This is a cruel film, about the harshness of the world. Our protagonist does not die during INSANELY tense scenes earlier in the film, but is murdered off camera. Anton Chigurh, who gives a brilliant performance, does not get caught, or punished, and the only misfortune he suffers is due to random chance.

#4 The Incredibles: Yes, I know, on some level, that WallE is better. Except I have seen few things that have managed to accurately capture the family dynamic as well as the Incredibles. I have seen few films with action as kinetic as this film. Its a brilliant, funny, family story, and I will hold it above other Pixar films for a long time to come. The moral at its core is a tiny bit muddled, but otherwise I find this film flawless.

#3 City of God: Wow. Now this is one hell of a film. Filmed using actors from the slums of Rio De Janiero, this tells the rise of a gangster with no soul, and the war erupting when he decides to take control of the entire region. As the narrative proceeds, and we see a monster take more and more control, we also follow our protagonist, who is learning how to be an adult, falling in love, and doing his best to escape the slum. Of course, his escape only underlines all those who failed to do so, and instead took up a gun, dying before their eighteenth birthday.

#2 Memento: Still probably Christopher Nolan's best film, the central conceit here is brilliant, and is vital to underline the mystery at the heart of the film. We follow the film from the perspective of one who has forgotten all he has done, and it leads to moments of hilarity, and moments of tension. A splendid film that should be watched by all.

#1 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Well it had to be, didn't it? The perfect marriage of Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman to make a film about love and memories, and how forgetting does us no good. The imagination, the wit, the soul on display here is splendid to observe. I don't think Gondry has been as good since- Science of Sleep explores the same themes, but felt a lot more empty than this work. Great performances here from everyone- I love both Carey and Winslet in this film. We get to see the best and worse of their relationship, and even the ending works (something that often lacked in Kaufman's earlier films).

Honorable mentions- The Dark Knight is the best super hero film so far, but is outmatched by other films on this list. Amelie is a beautiful fairy tale, and could easily be on this list. Children of Men would definitely be on this list if I had watched it more than once- I absolutely loved it, but am worried that my memories might be unfairly fond. Spirited Away is amazing, and was really just pushed off here. Slumdog Millionare is fantastic- a dark fairytale in the slums of India.

What's everyone elses' top 5?

Are genres unhealthy for games?

2010-05-04T10:16:00.000+01:00

What sort of a game is Pirates? Is it a strategy game, an action game, perhaps even a mini-games game. There are two things we can certain about Pirates. One is that it does not fit easily into any genre, the other is that it is bloody brilliant.

Pirates isn't about being in a genre, its about capturing the idea of being a bucaneer. So it does its best to simulate the important parts of that. You can sail the ocean, fight other vessels, seduce the governers daughter, even become a hero for a particular nation. You can dig for buried treasure, or (in the original at least), get lost at sea, and have to deal with endless mutinies as your food runs out and theres no coast in sight. Pirates is a game of ambition and scope that you don't really see nowadays.

Perhaps such gems are, and always be rare, but I do wonder if the strait jacket of genre limits game creation. I wonder if developers these days, were there to be no game of Pirates, creating a new one would feel limited by the current games in existence.

Does it help us to shoe horn games? There is something to be said for wanting to make the best of a genre- a honed fps, a well crafted platformer, and that approach yields fruits. Yet for something new, and exciting, you really need to start wiht a concept- an idea. Populous is remembered as perhaps one of the earliest god games, which have now become to be regarded as real time strategy games. Yet there is an incredibly under explored mechanic in Populous. For all the exciting spells available, what you spend most of your time doing is leveling and misshaping territory, depending on your particular needs, shaping your people by either forcing them to spread out (on hilly ground), or settle down (on nice level plains).

The history of gaming is littered with games that displayed a surprising amount of ambition- carrier command, the remake of which looks timid, Hunter a 3d person action game for the Atari ST which I'm pretty sure only I remember...

I guess I don't have a point with this ramble, just a wondering that maybe strait jacketing ourselves isn't the best of plans.

I am an evil sleeping genius

2010-05-03T14:54:00.000+01:00

Upon sunday morning we had a christening to attend. Said christening was near Worthing, and would require traveling. So we would need to get up at 6:30, an unholy hour indeed.

The night before we had been out, and while we left relatively early, I had foolishly decided to have a couple of drinks. This led to a rather disturbed night.

I woke up at 10 past 7, with Alice asking me whether we should be up yet. In a panic I declared we only had 20 minutes to get ready, and rushed to be ready.

Now thanks to my massive amount of paranoia against such a situation, we arrived at the station with 10 minutes to spare, rather than the half an hour I might well have thrust upon us, but it was quite the rush to do so. It emerged, however, that this situation was not, as I might have thought, caused by the alarm going off.

Instead, at 6:30, when the alarm had gone off, I reached over and turned it off. Alice asked me whether we should leave. I replied that it would be fine, and went to sleep.

At 5 to 7 Alice woke me up and asked if we should get up. I said no, and went back to sleep.

Finally Alice's attempt at 10 past 7 succeeded.

The worrying part of this narrative is that I have absolutely NO recollection of this conversation. This is not the first part that this has happened. I do things while asleep that I not only forget later, they are utterly counter to my natural instincts.... Thats more than a little disturbing.

Electoral change and Immigration

2010-04-30T09:48:00.000+01:00

A hateful moment last night. David Cameron will be or next prime minister. Unlike some lunatics on the left, I don't think that this is avoidable. Theres a very, very small chance that the lib dems will garner enough support to break through. Theres an even smaller chance that Labour are going to reverse everyone's dislike of GB. The notion of a third place labour party ruling in coalition is absolutely absurd, and it really speaks of the arrogance that many labour voters have gathered. The country can't have one government for a sustained period of time, and while I'm not happy about the prospect of a conservative government, at least it will be in a hung parliament.

Of course, the conservatives have given little evidence that they've changed, and have given me two main reasons to still be fearful about their government.[note, actually looking through their manifesto in detail gives me countless reasons to dislike them. They really are still the same old party...]

1- Cameron and his party are obsessed with maintaining the current electoral system, despite obvious evidence that we need a change. Its almost guaranteed that Labour will get less votes than the lib dems, yet get more seats this election. Thats absurd. If Cameron gains enough power, however, I don't think he'll support electoral reform.

2-Immigration. Last night both the conservative and Labour party spouted hateful, pandering nonsense. And they wonder why the BNP is doing better. Fearmongering is not a sensible political tactic. Lets look at the lib dem's policies, shall we?

"Immediately reintroduce exit checks at all ports and airports."
"Secure Britain’s borders by giving a National Border Force
police powers."
"Introduce a regional points-based system to ensure that migrants
can work only where they are needed. We need to enforce any immigration system through rigorous checks on businesses and a crackdown on rogue employers who profit from illegal labour."
"Prioritise deportation efforts on criminals, people-traffi ckers and
other high-priority cases. We will let law-abiding families earn
citizenship. We will allow people who have been in Britain without
the correct papers for ten years, but speak English, have a clean
record and want to live here long-term to earn their citizenship.
This route to citizenship will not apply to people arriving after 2010."

They also have excellent things to say on asylum seekers, as we do not treat them terribly well right now.

So, the lib dems plan is

A-making sure that anymore illegal immigration is kept to an absolute minimum
B-Dealing with illegal immigrants in this country so that we can actually make a profit from them, rather than keeping them in the shadows.

If Cameron is correct about his 600,000 figure, then NOT doing this is far worse, because then we have 600,000 people draining the system. Illegal immigrants will not pay tax, and will not have fair wages, thus damaging our economy. Deporting 600,000 people would be impossibly difficult, and ridiculously counter productive.

So the lib dems are saying "been here 10 years? Speak decent English? Want to join the system? Good, well you can, but you have to pay taxes."

That is brilliant.

Note that this policy is a one time measure. It would not extend past 2010, so anyone claiming that this will lead to a rise in illegal immigration is just lying.

Gah. In a world with any sense and decency, every party would be adopting this sodding policy, rather than attempting to smear Clegg for it.

Aspiration, and why 50% at university isn't as mad as it seems

2010-04-28T10:45:00.000+01:00

One of the biggest obstacles to creating real equality in this country is that children have parents. Inheritance is an oft loved target of the redistributer- taxing inheritance (or, as the conservatives ludicrously call it, the "death tax") is inherently redistributive and metriocratic- being lucky enough to have rich parents really has no connection to your skills or drive. Yet this isn't actually a massive cause of inequality.

The main issue is that people with better educated and better off parents are going to be better off. They will have a financial safety net that other children do not have, which will allow them to study more, take masters courses, excetera. Perhaps more importantly, they will be driven to succeed. The reason people go to Eton isn't just because of the contacts, or excellent teaching standard, its also because of an instilled belief that said graduates CAN do anything they like, which really is invaluable. Its certainly possible for anyone to succeed (financially), although much more difficult for some- aspiration is part of the motivating force that will lead people to change.

Now we can't really cut out most of this inequality: I don't see a solution that isn't absolutely horrifying. What we can do is ensure that children do have as much educational support as possible. So decent schools with inspirational teachers, and the ability to get to university if they want to go. And this is where the governments 50% target is important. Yes, its arbitary, and meaningless, and also tied to an increase in fees, but it does underline a goal to get people who do not have parents that attended university attending university. There is an issue there, in that there should be other routes of aspiration- apprenticeship courses and so on, but I do think the government supported those too.

The thing about privelege is its subtle and unthinking. The reason people get angry at feminists, or when the are accused of being racist (hint, we are probably all racist to some extent, and probably say and do racist things occasionally), is that we don't notice the privelege we have. The aspiration we get from knowing that our parents, and people similar to us, have succeeded, will help us succeed in turn.

Why I will be voting liberal democrat

2010-04-27T10:58:00.000+01:00

I consider myself a progressive, liberal person. I have socialistic tendencies, with a strong blend of pragmatism. I prefer not to think in absolutes, and am willing to compromise to get a result. Pragmatism is a good philosophy to take, and I think many of the left ARE pragmatic. The reason prison rehabilitation is important is not because the left love criminals, its because we are aware that said criminals will be RELEASED from prison one day, and we'd quite like them to come out reformed rather than just as bad as they entered.

I would always have described myself as a Labour voter, but Labour has failed me more than once. They came into power on a massive electoral mandate, yet were simply not bold enough. They have played to the crowd far too many times, and are in the pocket of industry and media influence. Labour has had some good affects during their time in power- the NHS simply would not exist without them, and there IS peace in Northern Ireland.

But lets look at their failures. They started reforming the house of lords, but failed to show the political will to finish it, leaving it arguably worse than it started. They reneged on their MANIFESTO promise not to introduce top up fees, and did so anyway. They went into a war with demonstrably false premises, supporting the US unnecessarily. Despite introducing the Human Rights Act (clearly a good thing, and I don't trust the conservatives wanting to replace it), they went on to reduce civil liberties more than ever, using 9/11 as an excuse to pass draconian laws just as bad as the Patriot act, and are probably complicit in torture in foreign nations.

They have become accustomed to government, and were so afraid of losing it that they hung onto Gordon Brown even though he is nationally disliked. They continued the economic policies of Thatcher, leading to the crisis that we are living through, and show no evidence that they will change their attitude (sadly, theres no party that will do this that much, but lib dems get the closest).

They passed the Digital Economy Bill, a terrible piece of legislation that was clearly created with the music industry and no-one else in mind. They have helped create an incredibly unequal position between us and America. They are not scrapping trident, a weapon system that will not help us in ANY way shape or form (bear in mind that trident is designed as a retaliatory strike weapon. i.e. if Britain is annihalated by nuclear war, we can annihilate another country. Yay? Iran and North Korea will never possess the capability to do such a thing, and if China wants to hurt us then its going to be the US that protects us).

The liberal democrats have policies that would make things fairer. They would give us back our civil liberties. They would cap donations, and reform politics to proportional representation (although to STV, which I may rant about later. Still, its better than FPTP), they would even phase out tuition fees. They are willing to issue policies that make SENSE. Policies based on evidence rather than headline grabbing, on sensible, liberal ideas. I'm not happy with their whole manifesto. I think they pander too much on immigration, and I think they could go further on their drugs policies, but for a party that actually promises real change, a government with some sense for once, I would love to see the liberal democrats in charge.

Kick-Ass

2010-04-23T10:00:00.000+01:00

This is, in my humble opinion, the film that Watchmen should have been. Yes, its nothing particularly like the film or the comic, but in a way Kick-Ass graps what the comic is about a lot more firmly than the film of Watchmen did. Superheroes have been in need of a decent satire. They have had parody- see Mystery Men for that, but a satire is a bit more subtle and interesting.

Kick-Ass has a lot going on. Its about a geeky guy discovering girls, about a boy trying to be a man, trying to make a difference. Its about an old cop taking revenge. Its about a young girl who's had her childhood stolen. Its about a relationship as messed up as the one found in Leon. Its even about one childs desperation for the approval of his father. And its also about some funny and kinetic action scenes.

For the most part it succeeds in balancing all these- the plot moves along fairly pacily (it drags a tiny bit to begin with, but its forgivable), with a blending of the surreal and the realistic- a kid tries to dress up as a superhero, but soon discovers why its not a good idea. The only real misstep in the blending of these elements was the conclusion: I felt like the main characters motivations were a bit weak to take part in the conclusion, he simply hadn't grown up enough.

There has been some kerfuffle about Hitgirl in this film. First of all- her story is a tragedy, and we know its a tragedy, but nothing simple is happening here. Nicholas Cage plays Big Daddy well, and its clear he has affection for her, even as he destroys her life. The film knows this, but also knows quite how cool she looks when fighting bad guys. The scenes are simultaneously a comment on comic book action, and just plain awesome.

As for the notion, suggested by some, that she is a "paedophiles fantasy"... well she's not that sexualised. At one point she does wear a school uniform.. but shes an 11 year old girl! Her super hero outfit is in no way sexy, she does not strike sexy poses... She certainly participates in violence, but the film addresses that- at no point is she sexualised. Its certainly possible a person with a deranged mind might find something there, but are we to cut out 12 year old girls from films on the possibility that people might be aroused?

I'd definitely recommend seeing Kick-Ass, its a splendid film, and well worth your time.

Gaming, an artform?

2010-04-22T10:32:00.000+01:00

Ah, what the hell, I'll throw my hat into the ring. Lets work with wikipedia's definition:

"Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions."

From this we got most art. There is a slight issue with this definition, in that it includes what we might call "low art": excitement is an emotion easily elicited from films we might not want to call art. So for the purposes of this discussion we need to be able to elecit more than simply excitement to qualify our work as art.

So, next, what makes a video game? This is an important distinction, as, if films can be art, then we could just put the godfather in and make the player press A occasionally. That really wouldn't be a game. So for our video game to succesfully be art AND a game:

-it must require input from the player, which can affect the events that occur- either a simple success/failure or something more varied
-it must require some level of skill from the player
-The game elements must have some impact on the artistic message

I hope that our gentle reader that something that satisfies this is a video game that is art.

So, for a simple example, lets say we play out an opening scene of a game, and, depending on the actions we choose, we then watch a short film depicting the consequences. There, i've just created a small piece of art. It still qualifies (loosely) as a game- to get all the potential consequences I would have to try different, perhaps unexpected things, which would force me to think laterally- basically an adventure game. Its video game art because our actions are having an effect on the narrative, we are seeing consequences from what we are doing. For an example of this see air pressure, a simple game that plays with our knowledge of the form to present a story that is a little more complex than we think.

It has to be said that games generally speaking DO detract from art. Braid might be an artistic look at the effect of the time, but most of the time you'll be swearing repeatedly trying to complete a really bloody hard puzzle. Thats fun, and al good, but I'm not convinced that experience has anything to do with art. Final fantasy might be considered a piece of art, but I'd argue that what it is is art intertwined with game- the game part has no influence on the story, the true art that you are experiencing, so you are basically playing a game to be rewarded with art. Most games that qualify unreservedly as art in my mind tend to be smaller, lower scale, and have their gamist parts integrated into the gameplay- the Path is another example of this.

Does it matter that most games aren't art? Not really- I don't think most games should strive for that, because a lot of what makes games fun is disconnected from art in a way that they can't be joined. In a funny way Ebert is a little right- I don't think most games will every be art, but his ignorance of the form means that he misses all those games that clearly ARE art.

Why spoilers matter

2010-04-21T12:22:00.000+01:00

(I have a sense that I might have said this before, but never mind).

I was reading Sandman: The Kindly Ones recently. At the start of the book a prologue spoils the end. It then belittles the reader, claiming that the end was obvious, and they should have seen it coming. Well. While the ending made perfect sense, it wasn't the only ending that would have done so, and to know it was coming DID detract from the experience.

Listen, books and films, narratives of all kind, aren't ruined by being spoiled. There is still something to be had from experiencing the narrative no mattter how much you know, otherwise we'd never watch that thing again. Nevertheless, experiencing narrative for the first ever time is something that cannot be replicated. The joy of discovery, astonishment at twists and turns, even if they were narratively sign posted- just because something was likely to happen does not mean it will. Authors do change their minds as their stories go in an unexpected direction.

So spoiling does take a little from that- just because it was probable that a certain character might die, we did not know when, how, or who, and to have that taken away from us is a pity. I was fortunate enough to be unspoilt for planet of the apes, for an example of something its practically impossible to see without having being spoilt for, and it DID improve my experience.

Why not donate?

2010-04-20T10:48:00.000+01:00

There is more to democracy than voting. Outside of an election, you can lobby and write to your mp, join marches, enter debates, get involved in both local and national democracy. Our ability to alter this nation is only as weak as our will to commit to making a difference.

During an election, its a bit different, especially in this one. There are a lot of floating voters around, dissatisfied with the current government, mistrustful of the conservatives, and not convinced by the lib dems. Maybe thats you- well the record of each party, their consistency, their members voting promises, and their manifestos are all available. Get educated- I guarentee there is a side you will favour. For those of you who want a party in power, there is voting and campaigning. But there is also donation. If you are a steadfast green party member in a safe conservative seat, theres not a great deal of a point mounting much of a campaign.

But if you're that involved, why not donate? Your funding could help the party you support campaign in consituencies it can win, and increase the chance that there will be a sitting member of your party, even if not in the constituency you are in.This is especially true for the smaller parties- the conservatives have an overwhelming funding advantage this election (I wonder if they'll cap election donations...), but smaller parties are forced to focus on specific consituencies. Political funding has stopped being about support from members, but merely courting the most wealthy. We can stop that. If you believe in a party, then vote with both your wallet and your.. uh... writing hand.

To put my money where my mouth is, I donated 10 pounds to the liberal democrats. More on this later.

Dancing on a tightrope

2010-04-19T13:26:00.000+01:00

I am positively overjoyed to see the liberal democrats doing well. They will not, of course, form the next government, but if they gain sufficient momentum they may be a part of it, and hopefully push this country into some form of electoral reform.

I do wonder how permanent the liberal democrats support is, however. A you gov poll gives them actually leading, but we discover as we scroll down that on several policies they support, most people are opposed. A lot of people are sadly reactionary in this country, so when they see a proposal to ban penal sentences less than 6 months they are instinctively opposed. Same with an amnesty for 1 million illegal immigrants who have been present in the UK for over ten years.

Both these policies are excellent ideas, by the way. We have a serious problem in this country with politicans talking tough talk on drugs and crime rather than making policies based on facts and pragmatism. We KNOW prison doesn't work- the reoffence rate is absurdly high, but rather than sensibly thinking of ways to reduce this, we spout out about more policemen, more prisons, longer sentences. If we're going to let people out of jails, then its probably for the best that we encourage them NOT to reoffend, yes? Rehabilitation is not a wishy washy liberal goal, its a pragmatic goal which aims to see less crimes on our streets. There will be a hard core of criminality, this I am sure of, but we don't need to write off everyone, and we need to realise that the vast majority of prisoners will be coming out of prison at some point.

The second policy is just as sensible. If there are a bunch of illegal immigrants working in this country, we could either

a)spend a fortune attempting to get rid of them, causing untold distress and doing nothing to help our economy
b)make them citizens, meaning that we then TAX their income, AND stop employers from getting round charging less than the minimum wage.

These arguments are sensible, pragmatic, and the right thing to do. I am very glad that the liberal democrats are willing to make those pledges. I worry, however, that the television debates are not a good place to defend them. The leaders have a minute each to defend their policies, and its much easier to focus on crowd pleasers (more police on the street), than genuine reform which might make a difference.

so Nick Clegg's goal will be to offend as few people as possible, as all must leaders must do. Trying to make radical, yet sensible arguments during an election is probably suicie- theres no chance that it will win many votes. The time to make the argument is possibly AFTER an election, ridiculously enough.

leaders debate

2010-04-16T10:12:00.000+01:00

I watched this with some interest, not so much as to from my political opinions, but to see if it might shape others. The specific set of skills required to take part in a television debate are not equivalent to those needed to govern the country, and while most people have praised the debate, I do worry that it could trivialise politics.

That said, the level of the debate was fairly healthy and interesting, and went at a reasonable pace. All of the leaders did pretty well, the biggest losers probably being itv, who's opening graphic was god awful, with the show starting late, and Allastair Stewart being a clunky host (more than once cutting people off far too early, and not giving politicans a chance to respond to points the others made: his cutting between leaders seemed moderately insane at times).

There were no big mistakes from the leaders, other than Clegg repeating Cameron's assertion about 4000 pages being sent to schools each year (there were a few smirks in the audience at that) without realising it. (note.. is this that bad? What are these pages? Over a year thats not all that much, and these could just be health and safety things...)

So Clegg did best, and he always was going to- he represented an alternative to the others, and they did their best to ignore him, probably thinking attacking would be counter-productive. The lib dems stood to gain from last night- most people will now know what Clegg looks like, and have an idea what the lib dems stand for. They will probably have a misguided idea of what Cameron stands for (the conservatives policies do not match their current rhetoric...), who could have done better (for the love of god Dave, stop thanking people). Brown could have been awful, but I felt like he came off pretty well- not enough to change opinions, I suspect, but to remind people that he is a fairly substantial politican, and not some ogre. He will poll the worst simply because most people do not like him.

I have many posts to write on politics in the coming week or so, so you can view that statement with the dread or joy that you think it deserves.

Multiple occupancy

2010-04-08T13:51:00.000+01:00

Alice and I currently live in a converted building. Originally a rather massive victorian households, it has been changed into 4 flats. Is this a bad thing? I know that many cities have made quite an issue about areas getting ruined by being converted to rent, bringing property values down. Another fear, of course, is students. Students can ruin properties; there are properties that I do not think anyone would rent unless they were students, who tend to have lower standards. Students also bring finance into an area, for example- I was often amused by local complaints about students ruining an area back in Bath, and while students can be terribly obnoxious, students tend to have a lot of spending power that they bring to an area which would probably decay otherwise.

One major issue with opposing multiple occupancy buildings is that you are discriminating against the young and the poor. The older generation all have mortgages, but getting on the property ladder in the first place involves a massive investment, especially with 90% mortgages- 10% of a property's value is not an inconsiderable sum, and without any aid from relatives, probably impossible without a consierable effort in making savings on the part of the people attempting to get such a thing. This generational discrimination is a dangerous thing, because it helps reinforce inequality- those who have parents that can pay their way are better off, espeically if there aren't enough places to rent. Many places in the UK are protected, thanks to the green belt, listed buildings, excetera, meaning that opportunities for new flats are actually quite rare. We can't have it all sometimes. We can't preserve our green spaces, our buildings, and expand. We certainly can't lower property prices while preserving property prices, as seems to be the stated goal of most politicians.

I'm sure that when I'm old and have a mortgage, I may well feel differently. I'm not sure I'll be right. I'm not sure I'm right now, but I like to think its a little less open and shut than some might be inclined to suppose.

critics, e4, and the curse of trailers

2010-03-29T12:09:00.000+01:00

"Why would you base your decision to see a film on the opinion of a critic?"

This is a question that has been asked of me more than once by several people. They point out, quite reasonably, that there is no guarantee that said critic will be correct. I might well enjoy the film anyway. Its true, I might, and if I had infinite time and money, I'm pretty sure I'd see practically every film that was on. I don't, however, and must make targeted choices. What do these people base their opinions on? Trailers. Trailers are the devil, as I shall expound later.

A good critic should not just give you their opinion for a film, they should also give their basis for it. If you understand them, and a good critic should be able to communicate effectively, then you should be able to appreciate whether you'll agree with them. This won't always work- you can see cliches as fun or awful, depending on your particular take, and two very smart people can see very different things in the same film. Still, good reviews (I should really seperate critisism and reviews, which are seperate things), should give you an idea of what someone would like or dislike about a film.

Trailers do none of these things. Trailers are DESIGNED to misleading, and, even worse, they can often mislead you in the wrong direction. Trailers are designed for a demographic, and to appeal to that demographic only, to the point where they can be actively offputting to people not in that demographic.

e4 is my favourite example. As far as I can tell, they assume their audience are half wits who find the twaddle they consider "humour" amusing, to the point where they will undersell perfectly good shows. Watch a trailer for any of e4's comedys, and find me a bit where they actually manage to indicate any of that shows merits. Quite frequently they will simply take snippets from the show and pretend that they are having a conversation. This might be fine to someone familiar with said show, but to someone new, they have utterly failed to give me a reason to watch the sodding thing.

A case in point is the Big Bang Theory. I had assumed from the trailers that it would be devoid of laughs, so imagine my surprise when the other night I decided to settle on an episode. Heaven forbid... it was really quite funny! It wasn't the greatest example of comedy ever found by any means, but it was enjoyable, and certainly a lot better than certain other imports. Thanks to e4's genius, I had been denying myself a perfectly good show.

Trailers are the devil. They will mislead, and they will not help. Avoid them at all costs.

Immigration and all those other fun social issues

2010-03-24T10:48:00.000Z

I'm of the opinion that the worth of a human being is roughly equivalent no matter where they come from. I would tend to value people I know more, and people I love even more, because I have some kind of emotional connection there, but other people? Well a stranger from Africa is just as strange as a stranger from Europe. I suppose the latter is more likely to speak my language, but I'm not convinced that gives them more value.

Countries are, of course, a fiction. The borders of nations are arbitary, decided by the course of rivers, diplomats drawing lines, and armies marching to war. My connection to England is an accident of birth. Countries are, in general, useful fictions- its good to have an adhesive notion that keeps civillisation together, as civillisation is usually a positive force.

So, onto immigration. Is a British person more worthy of a job in Britain than a person from, say, China, who has flown here to take said job. I wouldn't say so, and, in the balance, can we say a net harm has been done there? I would agree that it is not useful to bring more people to this country than it can sustain in the long term, as that would end up being unecessarily harmful- if there are positions available elsewhere there is no need to overcrowd this country. Of course, this is not the case. Our country needs to grow in population, to support itself in the way it is accustomed to, and immigration is an important part of that.

An important addendum to this is when does this stop? At some point our population pyramid IS going to get messed up, so we have more people above retirement age than we can sustain. What ARE we going to do? Because growth cannot happen indefinitely- we are on a planet of finite resources and space, and eventually, even if it is not for another century, we will run out of room. Are people planning for this? Is there a solution to having to having more people requiring support than there are working? Can there even be a solution? I don't know, but I'd be interested to find out.

A defence of violence in media

2010-03-23T11:39:00.000Z

So I've linked to this on facebook, a rather depressing and infuriating segment from that hallowed font of wisdom, Alan Titchmarsh. Distressingly, despite Tim Ingham's reasoned argument, Peasgood is happy to make some moronic sound bites. Video games, are, of course, as rated as dvds, and as such, should not be in children's hands. Now they will, of course, find their way into the posession of minors, either through adults ignorance of their content, or their approval (more on this later). However, the notion of infantalising media so as to protect children is a disturbing one.

Censorship is a frightening thing. I'm of the opinion that the only content that should potentially be censored is that that is clearly slanderous and misleading, that distorts facts and tells lies. Such media is not defensible, unless it has some artistic context that indicates that such slander is not true (satire comes under this). Art produced illegally- by performing illegal acts, should also be restricted for obvious reasons.

Censoring media for violence or extreme sexual practices (which is something the BBFC does do) is not something I approve of. Who are we protecting with these methods? Yes, children should not see such extreme things, but stopping adults seeing something simply because children shouldn't is, again, absurd. It may be that not many people want to see such extremes, but i'm not sure we have a right to stop those people from seeing it.

A question asked in this video by Titchmarsh is why Tim Ingham enjoys violent content. Ingham hedges a little, and talks about the players place in the narrative. This is probably true, of, say, call of duty. There is a clear plot goal, and you must kill enemies to do so. There is not much (at least in the first modern warfare) reveling in the death of your opponents, instead merely defeating those things that get in your way. The point he missed is that games present challenge- the challenge is to defeat enemies here, by using a simulation of real life combat, and the joy is, of course, in the challenge. Again, no reveling in violence.

So do we never revel in violence in media? Of course we do. In Evil Dead 2, there is a moment in which an absolutely absurd amount of blood pours out of the wall at our hero, Ash. in context it is absolutely hilarious. Just as with the knight in monty python, and the enemies with their limbs in Kill Bill, we are enjoying the violence here, primarily because it is such surreal excess. The vomiting scene in Team America isn't funny because he's vomiting, its funny because he is vomiting a ridiculous amount. A simple joke, but a funny one none the less.

Note that in many ways these jokes are meta jokes on violence- they play with your expectations as to what would happen when something nastily violent happened, and take to extreme levels. In the relief of that tension comes laughter. Such humour depends on an expectation built from media where violence IS taken seriously of course.

Can violence become uncomfortable? Of course it can, but that line is different for everyone. What might be a ridiculous black comedy for some becomes just disturbing for people who find any level of violence unpleasent. Final Destination is very clearly a black comedy- see the scene in the kitchen. The manner of the death is absurd, yet a tiny bit unpleasent along with that- the reactions feel real, despite the absurdity of the situation. For me, that was enough to make me feel put off, but for those with more experience with gore in horror, it was undoubtedly rather amusing. After all, none of this is REAL. We are reminded of this by the filmmaker, who cleverly points out the absurd, either in the situation or in the gore presented, which draws us out of the narrative enough to be sitting beside him, and realise quite what he is saying.

There are, of course, violent films that revel in their violence without giving the audience an excuse to escape. There are no winks at the audience, no attempts at humour. We are simulating someone's death. Taboos are made to be broken, and thats what film makers do. With us being desensitised to violence (watch Clockwork orange again and count how much violence is actually shown. Now watch a more recent violent film), some film makers still want to horrify. Are they reveling in the pain, or forcing us to acknowledge that this pain exists? I don't know, and it probably depends on the watcher.

To decry such expressions as meaningless is dangerous. I don't consider myself the arbiter of taste and decency, and neither should anyone else. If I have a line I don't want to be crossed in films, then I simply will stop watching films in which that line is crossed. Not all forms of entertainment or art are for everyone, and nor should they be, but to decide that ones limits on the acceptable are the same as everyone else's is incredibly dangerous, and exactly what the censors of this society would like you to think.

Roleplaying:My campaigns

2010-03-22T11:27:00.000Z

[Yes, more self indulgence. Thats really what blogs exist for...]

I blogged about my campaigns at the time, so I'm going to be a bit more focused here- a brief summary of what happened, what I was going for, and my favourite and least favourite moments.

My first ever campaign was in Dark Heresy, a system I'm not terribly fond of. It followed some acolytes eventual fight against a daemon that had plagued their inquisitor for quite some time. As it was my first campaign, I was eager to try new things, so there were several distinct mini-arcs which only tied in to the main plot tangentially. Most of the campaign was getting the inquisitor the kit he needed for a ritual (which, of course, went horribly wrong).

The good My favourite part was definitely the player's attempting to acquire an aspect warrior, imprisoned for illegal fighting in one of the richer estates. The method of acquiring said warrior was left open, and my players managed to rise to the challenge admirably. A particular moment I liked was when I threw in a random npc as decoration, then Nick chose to question him in a way I didn't expect, which worked really rather well.

The bad The opening adventure didn't quite work- I liked the idea of an assassin stalking the players, but had a hard time thinking of a way to kill the bastard. I needed a few more ways for them to defeat it than the vortex grenade. I really need to a sample adventure doing this sort of thing, to get an idea of how to work it properly. The final session was excessively long (also apparently under fluff there are only, like, 10 sisters of battle, but 40k fluff is so impossibly stupid i'm willing to ignore it), as often happens in my campaigns.

The next campaign was a mini-summer arc, which then turned into a published adventure. The summer arc was an idea I'd had in my head for a while, born of my collecting blood angels when younger. The idea of a blood angel who embraced the red thirst they were supposed to fight, but was not necessarily a minion of chaos, seemed fun to me, with a Chaplain attempting to hunt him down, and the inquisition getting in the way.

The good This campaign was in many ways the most open I've made. The players were plunked into a city with a specific objective and left to get on with it. They did have a contact in the administratum (ah, now that was a joy to run!), but were mostly on their own. The clues were there, and thanks to the Blood angel actually trying to attract attention, weren't too hard to track down.

The bad Once again, the final session. It was another "players need to kill hideous monster" thing, this time with an npc telling them a plan- I maybe should have given the players more agency here. They still had agency in how they chose to lead the blood angel to the factory, but maybe they could have come up with a better plan? As it was they managed a spectaculor failing of driving rolls, then a detonated frag grenade did them more damage than the space marine, at which point the psyker managed to keep the hulking monster busy by making him... trip over several times, at which point the npc pretty much had to save them (she was originally going to live). Maybe I should just stop being obsessed with the notion of a boss monster. Is it always necessary? I don't know.

(to be continued)

What is a child

2010-03-22T10:26:00.000Z

An excellent article on the legal absurdities we have created in order to "protect" children

Roleplaying- how much is too much

2010-03-19T16:01:00.001Z

I am a sucker for punishment, and find myself drawn into the order of the stick forums. There an argument has continued about the Stormwind fallacy. Other than the tiresome nature of needing to give certain "fallacies" names, its a bit flawed. Its essential thesis is to argue that roleplaying and optimisation are seperate things, and thus do not effect each other.

This requires a careful definition of optimisation. An "optimal" character usually means one who is optimal given constraints. One classic example of D&D abuse is Pun-Pun, a kobold with the powers of every single god ever. No player would try to run Pun-Pun, for obvious reasons, but one could argue that in power terms, that character is optimal. Usually optimisers want to make their character as mechanically effective as possible without irritating their dm, and possibly sticking to a character concept.

So whats wrong with that? Well often it creates characters in the wrong order- the character is created to look at a particular mechanic, and then a back story is layered over the top of that. Ideally, if one was creating a sentient being, one would start with the character and make choices that make sense for the character. The point being not to make an ineffectual character- most people are good at what they do after all- but that most people do not always take the "optimal" choice. They are held down by society, their own personal distractions, and other things that stops them taking the perfect feat or spell at every level.

Of course, once you start playing it might not matter- a good enough roleplayer could probably justify a character who has taken those optimal choices, and might even make an interesting character out of it. I haven't actually seen that happen, but I'm sure it can.

The question remains, of course, does it matter? If I create a barely roleplayed character because I like to hit things, why should anyone else care? Well, obviously it depends on your group. A poorly roleplayed stereotype won't fit in terribly well with a more heavily roleplayed character, but the same happens if the situation gets reversed. As long as the players are happy with what they are playing, it doesn't really matter.

It does seem to me though to be slightly missing the point- the unique selling point to roleplaying games for me is the roleplaying: I can get joy in tactical builds in other games designed for that. One could argue that D&D is sort of set up for such tactical builds, and that is one reason why I am more inclined to play in games where optimisation is not really effective or even possible.

So yeah, do what makes you happy, of course- the game part is always more important than the roleplaying part, but it might be worth giving oneself over to a character once in a while (I do indeed give in to the allure of mechanical characters as well, in case you are wondering).

I'm aware that this essay may come off as slightly patronising- I don't intend to pretend to be the arbiter of all knowledge, even if I come off that way.

Roleplaying, characters I've played-part 2

2010-03-18T10:54:00.000Z

The summer time brought two of my favourite characters so far.

for Nick's WFRP campaign we created character in their second careers. Both Ant and myself ended up with Vampire hunters, who had reached the career in different ways. I played a halfling with absurd ranged prowess, and Ant a human killing machine. We decided that we probably knew each other, and indeed Gollina, or girl as she was to become known, the baber surgeon would probably have helped us out in the past. Our names? Max and Felix.

It occured to me that the career of vampire hunter was a little strange, especially for two characters who had never been to Slyvania. After a bit of improvisation in one session between Ant and myself it soon became clear. Max and Felix were idiots. Exceedingly dangerous idiots who would kill anyone at the first sign of being a vampire, but idiots nontheless.

There was a reasonable indication that the campaign was meant to be dark. And dark it probably was for anyone who met Max and Felix, who brought destruction in their wake. Including:

-Killing an old man for the crime of shooting at us when we broke into his house. He was probably evil
-Killing a mayoral candidate with poison given by his clearly criminal opponent. He candidate was probably evil.
-Finally encountering a vampire.... and allying with it, declaring it a force of utter good. The vampire was definitely evil.

Max and Felix were astonishing fun to play as- absurd beings who were not actively malevolent only because they simply were not smart enough to be so.

The other character played over the summer was Isawa Chomei, who I had a lot of fun with. One of the cute things about L5R is that you can roleplay a character who has absolutely no desire to be doing their current task, but is compelled by society. In other campaigns this often doesn't make sense- why wouldn't they just leave? In Rokugan the social structure is such that if your superiors tell you to do something you pretty much have to do it.

This led to Chomei. A lecherous shugenja, he was a bit of a court mandarin, spending most of his time socialising, and making friends with women. Sadly, he was also married, and his wife got increasingly frustrated with him, causing several scandals at court. So Chomei was sent away from his beloved Phoenix lands, and forced to help an Emerald magistrate. This set up a lovely tension- my character was genuinely ready to run away during the final fight of the campaign, because he was tired of having to fight people all the time (being a Tensai he had appropriate spells despite not being a fan of fighting- he knew all the water spells he needed to), and also he had tried to sleep with the nemesis of the campaign... All in all, a fun character play.

I have two current characters. One is a zealot of Ulric. I have to say, its not a particular stretch for me to play boisterous over the top characters, although this is my second religious fanatic. Albert is a devout, loud man, prefering to go the straight forward way. Sadly he has been forced to take the path of deception recently, and feels a bit bad about it. Still, he is in Estalia now, and is a friar, his goal is clear. Defeat the forces of evil, certainly, but bring the cult of Ulric to Estalia as well! I'm liking Albert a lot: he's no idiot, even though he can act like one occasionally, and is a lot of fun to play.

Finally Jake is the first WOD:mortals character I've played. Its really fun to play a vanilla human- its possible to apply real life experience. Having initally thought of an idea of a lazy student who was funded by his parent, I discovered everyone else had gone the same route.... A little more thought gave me a boxer who wanted to be famous. After foolishly indulging in match fixing he has been asked to quit, and has gone back to the course he dropped out of at university, media studies. Seeing an opportunity to be on television, even if its only internet television, he jumped at the chance. He has since encountered disturbing things- not a man to think about the supernatural, Jake has never really defined his belief in the strange, but is forced to deal with it now. He's a man who will tend to stoop to violence without too much trouble, after all its what he's done for most of his life, but isn't necessarily bad natured. He has a foul tongue, but thats more due the company he used to keep. He's a bit lonely now- most of his friends were in boxing after all, and he finds the lazy students he's been saddled with mostly frustrating. Still he persists, hoping for a way out of his situation.

I hope this round up of characters was vaguely interesting- there was no point behind it, maybe to organise my own thoughts on playing characters. Roleplaying is something that comes mostly naturally to me,

Roleplaying, the characters I've played-part 1

2010-03-17T10:38:00.000Z

So, this will be a splendidly self indulgent post, as I review through characters I've played as, both in one shots and campaigns. We will ignore npcs for the purpose of this, as my npcs are rarely as fleshed out as a pc (most npcs have "plot" motivation, rather than character motivation).

I first roleplayed when I was around 12-16, playing every thursday afternoon after school for an hour, with a teacher as a DM. It was a fun experience, but I really didn't do a tremendous amount of roleplaying. Never getting beyond level 1, I tended to play wizards who really had very little do after casting their spell for the day. We seemed to face overwhelming encounters that butchered us all. I'm not sure anyone ever leveled.. all in all it was a little sad as an experience.

While at Bath I didn't roleplay at all. Bath doesn't have a games society. It does have a sci-fi club. To my mind the societies at Bath were a little less vibrant. There were some good political societies, and I do miss that scene a little. Oh well.

When coming to Southampton I looked ahead, and was pleased to see a gaming society. It seemed like an opportunity to meet likeminded people, and also to roleplay again. I am quite good at having infeasible amounts of knowledge about cultures I don't actually participate in, but its more fun to actually be participating in them.

My first ever character of note, then, was Borthas. A character for WFRP, he was an entertainer, barely an adult (aged 16!), he was swept up by events into a fight against a conspiracy to summon a powerful daemon of chaos. As he progressed, both he and I became more outspoken, as I became more comfortable with roleplaying and the character I was playing. I like to ground characters, at least first characters in a system, in stereotypes. So Borthas was a typical member of the Empire- racist, a devout follower of Sigmar and with strict notions of justice for mutants and criminals. I had no great notion of the character initially- his siblings had gone to fight in the Storm of chaos, leading him with an abiding hatred of the forces of chaos, and anything associated with them. Typically characters need to grow with the events that happen to them, and Borthas was exactly this. After a while playing him, it was fairly clear as to what he would do in any given situation. One of the most unfortunate aspects of his character was his prejudices were often proven correct- the wizard DID betray the party, and the halflings WERE serving bad food... As for the countess of Nuln... well...

Along the way were a couple of one shots. Its pretty hard to get past just a simple concept in one shots, and on reflection I do think its best to try and come to a one shot with a good idea of who your character is, as you don't have time to learn during the session, and shifts in your personality will be more noticable. So I played a reserved mage who had little to say (and tried to kill a lunatic paladin who was getting in his way), and an infuriated monkey samurai who had to deal with the most sociopathic bushi anyone has ever encountered ever. Both were little more than basic ideas. The Monkey worked fine for the session- there weren't many situations where his choices weren't obvious, but the mage could have used more thought.

Kakita Mito was next. A kikata duelist, he was, perhaps, the least equipped for the intrigues of Winter Court than any of the others there. This campaign ranks as one of my favourite that I've played in so far, being almost entirely based on intrigue and discussion. The ONLY fighting occured in the confines of duels (which I enjoyed, but wished there were a few more options to make them more tactical- Mike has made some changes to the dueling system to make it more system, however), which Mito was tasked to do. Mito's character was entirely changed by a roll for random generation. With the result of driven, I decided I needed to completely change many of the characters drives. Still brash and jealous, Mito's main goal now was to find some way to kill his ancestor who had dishonoured his family. Assuming that the reason I hadn't just gone myself yet was that my great uncle controlled a fortress in the shadow lands, I would need to gain enough political favour to gather an expedition. Having been outwitted in the courts of the crane (having focused most of his life on begn a duelist, Mito hadn't had much time for the intrigues of court), he had learnt more, enough that he might survive winter court.

Survive he did. Mito remained true to my initial vision of him throughout- the stuck up, honour ruled, driven bastard, who disapproved of others, and became jealous of those he felt bested him when they shouldn't (leading to an obsession with Go, then helping bring about the destruction of a poor Phoenix duelist...) He was a fairly simple character to play, happily alienating his allies as he acted the "perfect" samurai...

Steven was a promethean tammuz. Prometheans are kind of interesting to roleplay. They are effectively blank slates- they have in built skills (which may or may not have been inherited from their previous bodies, the rules are distressingly unclear on this), language and understanding, but little concepts of social norms, morality, the way to act in any situation. Steven was a tammuz, so intrinsically opposed to notions of servitude, something he was forced to struggle with throughout. He didn't get a good start- his first lesson was that of vengence, from his insane creator, and he was angry initially, determined to right what he perceived as wrong. As he grew and learned, he became calmer, and his initally demand for wrathful justice mutated into the desire to protect those who had become his friends- particularly Judy (Gemma's character, I think the name is correct?) whom he failed once before. Following this path went well for him, he felt that following the path of righteousness would lead him to humanity. There was a dangerous moment when he became connected to power- the staff of the first golem threatened to corrupt him, but he managed to resist, and used it to defeat Osiris in the end, and got his progeny (something he had initially resisted, but gave into when he realised it was the only way) to return the staff.

Promethean is at the same time an excellent system to roleplay in, and at the same time frustrating- its really not clear how much of who the character is should be decided by experience, by the type of promethean they are, and who they were. I guess its left up to the player, but it'd be nice to have a little more guidance on that.

Right, this post is long enough for now, and takes me up to the summer of 2009. Concluded in next post.

Neptune's Pride

2010-03-16T11:03:00.000Z

Neptune's Pride is an online strategy game. Set in space, it is very simple- every 24 hours, every star that has economy produces 10 currency for each level of economy, and each star with industry produces each ships for each dot of industry every 12 hours. You can move your fleets to capture new stars, by spending 25 to buy a carrier. A carrier can hold any number of ships. The ship can jump as far as you have range technology, and move as fast as you have speed technology. You research a rate proportional to the amount of science you have. When combat happens its all a numbers game- your attack is your weapon tech, your health is the number of ships, with the defender striking first and getting a bonus point in weapons.

You can exchange many things in the game- tech, stars, fleets and money, but you can never have a full alliance. As most combats come to a numbers game, alliance is necessary.

The game plays... strangely. As mentioned, production is slow, as is fleet movement, so you initally only need to check once or twice a day. However, once conflict begins its important to not miss any times- if you have ships sitting idle while your enemy assaults you then you are going to lose a lot of ships. This is extremely frustrating. The clock is always running. You cannot miss a day and hope to succeed, which means that despite there being precious little to do, you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time on the game.

In the end, this feels like a failed experiment. A mix between real time and turn based, it just doesn't succeed for me. Still, it is in beta currently, and I have only played the free version. Maybe things will be different in future...

Roleplaying and the nature of evil

2010-03-15T10:39:00.000Z

[I've got in mind a handful of roleplaying posts to make, this is the first one.]

One of the greatest mistakes ever made in D&D was the alignment system. Defining a character as good, neutral, or evil, is just an astonishingly stupid thing to do (lawful and chaotic slightly less so, but still). Why?

-It strait jacket characters into acting in a certain way, simply because of an alignment choice
-It encourages meta thinking rather than character thinking. Your character performs an action not because they are invested in it, but because they are "good"
-The nature of evil is nebulous, and encouraging players to take it as alignment produces a host of raving lunatics.

What is evil? I originally wrote this with a rather emotive example, but have decided to withdraw that. Hitler is the obvious example for evil. Yet he, as far as we know, did not believe his actions to be evil (he had some screwed up notion of manifest destiny and seemed to believe that he had only been wrong in thinking that germans were ubermen). He had rages, certainly, but could be kind, apparently had a form of love, and was certainly charasmatic enough to charm those around them.

Simply put, human beings are complicated. You can be hideously horrible to some people, and delightfully pleasent to others. Even sociopaths can be charming, although they live effectively amoral lives, and will kill without compuction, many of them are smart enough to realise that while they find no value in morality, others do, and its worth pretending that they do (this is similar to the realisation Belkar came to in Order of the Stick recently).

A completely untrustworthy lunatic who acts "evilly" at every opportunity will soon be unplayable. Not only does a character make little sense, they simply do not play well with others.

If you want to play an evil character, you need to think what has driven such a person to the extremes they go to. Look at, for example, the Operative in Serenity. There is a man capable of acts of utter evil, who has been completely indoctrinated to believe in the world he is building by his acts. We know that he will go to any length to defeat his enemies, often depraved ones, but can also be entirely charming whenever he needs to be. So you need to decide what drives your character. What is their motivation, their goal in life? What lines will they cross, and why? Who do they trust, and who do they hate?

Playing an "evil" character should not be a target. Ideally one should come up with a character concept of someone who happens to be "evil". Someone who, for whatever reason, has made choices almost all of us would disagree with, and is willing to keep on making those choices.

More than ever, as an evil character you really need to think "whats my motivation", something that should be on every roleplayers mind when their character needs to make a choice of any kind. When an evil character is about to do something wrong, you do need to question why- it can't be just because they are evil, it has to be something that drives the character to perform that particular act.

Reviewing games before the end: Asssassins Creed 2

2010-03-12T09:51:00.000Z

I really must stop doing this. I get excited about something I'm enjoying, and review it before its finished. Just as with Arkham Aslyum, the ending feels a little sloppy.

Its still very good, but a disappointing amount of the game is spent in Venice. The game will occasionally cut off parts of a city until you reach a certain point in the plot, which is mostly fine, but they do it with Venice 3-4 times, which is just insane. Rather than crafting a new city, they merely slightly expand Venice, which is just disappointing. In addition there are some really bad missions in Venice, some involving suddenly forcing you to acquire new skills, and some that just weren't thought through (capture the flag indeed!). Its interesting to complain about a game being too long, but the game does seem to drag in Venice, in terms of plot too, with more and more npcs introduced.

Now for some plot spoilers.

There are some irritating hanging threads in the Venice plot. There seems to be a building up that Ezio has become so obsessed with revenge he will kill anyone, which is never adaquetly resolved, and a potential romance with Rosa is just utterly ignored. The ending was.. well silly, and I expected it to be, but I was a little surprised when Ezio was surprised that he was an assassin. Mario told him so bloody ages ago, if anything I was rather surprised that the game inexplicably got rid of Mario, only to have him turn up (oh, and every npc you have met so far is also an assassin). The final section of the game was surprisingly fun- infiltrating rome was fun, if a tad too easy, but the final fight was stupid, as boss fights usually are. Take the sword fight, where apparently Ezio has created the magical ability to make 5 of himself. huh? This, relatively tricky, fight, then turns into a fist fight, which you'll just win, because no-one is good at fist fights.

I also have to complain about the structure of the final fight. You dive down and assasinate Borgia. But he survives thanks to wuju magic. So you fight, and kill him, but then he survives due to wuju magic, and stabs you, and leaves. You then get up, surviving due to wuju magic, go into the room, and declare that it is over. Apparently it is, as Borgia has discared all his weapons for some, inexplicable reason, and then you have the fist fight.

Then you discover the sun is going to explode. Sigh....

The very last section, going back into the real world for the credits was absolutely fantastic, a brilliant idea that was well executed.

linkage

2010-03-11T11:50:00.001Z

A film trailer for all time

A strange moment in gaming

2010-03-09T14:42:00.000Z

In Baldur's Gate 2 you can romance some of the other characters in your party. This is a smart idea- it allows more attachment to the non-player characters, and makes you care more about the story. Its not brilliantly scripted, but its a pretty good effort, and somewhat fun. If you continue your romance with one of the characters, in the expansion she becomes pregnant, and eventually bears the child, provided you play for long enough.

Aerie (the mother of your child), calmly explains, having become pregnant, that while her unborn child can be killed along with her, the magic that will bring her back to life will also bring the fetus back to life. Well, thats ok then.

When the child is born, it then becomes an inventory item. Thankfully you can't equip it...

Why so cheap

2010-03-09T10:32:00.000Z

Dear expensive restaurants everywhere.

I am paying a small fortune to eat your cuisine. No doubt your chef is extremely experienced, and your food will taste delectable. So why do you feel the need to penny snatch? When I ask for water, I want goddamn tap water. I don't want to have to spell it out to you to prevent you charging me for mineral water, I want freaking tap water. If you fear that some of your clients would be offended by being brought tap water, you could always ask them.

And why, god why, do you feel the need to give me a morsel of bread with my soup. Bread improves soup. Its great to have a decent chunk of bread to absorb my soup- I do not believe I am alone in my regard. If it really sets you back that much, then charge more for the soup- its already outrageously expensive anyway! Even worse is those of you who, instead of just providing bread while I wait for my starter, actually have the cheek to charge for the sodding thing!

Also, and this is a more general outcry, but what happened to mints at the end of the meal? Bah.

Difficulty and Assassins Creed 2

2010-03-08T14:43:00.000Z

I've blogged on this subject before, but thats not going to stop me doing it again. Quinns, the 5th member of the 4 member blog rock paper shotgun. He has different opinions on difficulty to me. He points out that in Assassins Creed 2 it is very hard to fail, at least in combat. I too, only died while jumping, and never in combat.

First of all, while he dismisses it, one can make the game harder if one wants to, by setting challenges- never buying medicine, for example, would make the game much more difficult, and would be terribly easy to impose: improving your armour only does so much, as you can take a lot of damage quite quickly in this game, its just you can heal it faster than you lose it. If a game is too difficult, however, there is absolutely no way to make it easier- most games don't even come with cheats these days (for, as far as I can tell, little reason).

Second of all, is a game hard if you can't fail? Well obviously a game in which you can fail is often hard, but it can also be frustrating. Having to repeat oneself will necessarily take you out of the role you are playing, and remind you that you are playing a game. One of the smartest parts of Assassins creed 2 is that while there is a whole bunch of gamist interface, its actually explained by the story- you are in a simulator, experiencing the past through a machine, and thus have these interfaces added for you. So failure does remind you that you're playing a game (although its reasonably well integrated), and repeated failure is frustrating.

Well note that the game DOES have repeated failure integrated into it. The platforming sections of the game, where you need to climb high, are classic platforming. You usually won't die if you fail at a point, but you'll usually have to start again. The platforming is the best built part of the game, and its no surprise the designers focus on that.

The combat, however, isn't so great. As I mentioned in my review, its kind of dull, and each combat resolves into the same moves, unless you choose to use smoke bombs etc to kill the guards. Its still actually challenging. You don't die, but you do need to kill these guards to proceed. In fact, combat is essentially turned into a puzzle here- you're not going to be destroyed, but you need to find a way round your enemies defences if you want to keep going. Whether thats done by fighting, running, or using smoke bombs/ pistols, its an interesting dilemma. Would this be improved by failure states? Maybe. In occasional combats it might make sense for some of your solutions to be bad, and those might result in failure, but I don't think it ruins it- if combt isn't working, then the game lets you try something new, rather than force you to restart, go to the same combat, and try something new. It's an interesting style of game design, and, to my mind, better than forcing the player to keep doing the same task over and over until they have read the designers mind, and acquired the muscle memory to perform the particular task.

Assassins Creed 2 will not send you back to the start again very frequently, but it does challenge you. You must fight to progress- there is no easy button to get past (contrast to MGS3, where a legitimate tactic at easier difficulties is to just run away from guards until you trigger a cut scene). I honestly think this style suits the game as it is intended to be played.

Grah politicians rah!

2010-03-08T10:56:00.001Z

We do stand in danger of losing the woods for the trees. Simon Jenkins wrote an eminently sensible comment (the man varies from being utterly correct on politics and disastorously incorrect on science), which I broadly agree with. Political funding, as it now stands, distorts our political system. The politicians are not reliant on the people to get funding, and are stead fast in not wanting that to happen. It'd certainly be harder work, and it might force them to be- gasp- more democratic! The conservatives get their money from wealthy donors such as Ashcroft, a person who is clearly going to have an undue influence on politics. The person with the purse strings often does. Labour is equally beholden to the unions, which really aren't a terribly democractic way to get ones funding either.

This is important, this is vital. Changing this would make politics fairer. It would vitalise politics, because fund raising amoung ordinary citizens would be completely essential if there was a donations cap.

Sadly, we get focused on other things, such as politicians riding first class. Apparently, after politicans have undoubtedly abused the funding system they had, they should therefore be given practically nothing. These people are meant to be running the country, I don't think its too much to ask for them to be able to work on long train journeys. The anger people have is incoherent and unfocused, and too easily distracted and stirred at obvious targets- we obssess over Fred Goodwin rather than the entire system which means that the richest remain rich even in such a crisis.

Half Life 2 and the silent protagonist.

2010-03-05T13:22:00.000Z

For me, Half life 2 is still the best single player first person shooter. In terms of level design, variety, invention, its just superb. Compare the experience of Ravenholm to the assault on Nova Prospect, the fight on the bridge to the final strider battle. What half life manages to do with its resources is nothing short of incredible. I've experienced good FPS, but nothing with the scope and inventiveness of HL2. Fear is enjoyable, but the level design is samey and the enemies mostly identical (more health does not a different fight make). By having three different enemy types, and each of those varied as well, HL2 has a massive toolkit to create varied fights.

Its storytelling is also incredible. For the most part the story is told in game, and the characters evoke an emotional reaction which can be difficult to elicit. Yet, as you might be able to tell from the title of this blog, there is a major issue. The protagonist never speaks. Never. It made sense initially, as in the original game you barely had any interactions with anyone. Yet it has got more absurd as you continue, to the point where you spend an entire episode hanging out with Alyx Vance and don't say a word. Are you actually mute? Is you character vocalising but the player isn't allowed to hear? Its a problem, because it strains believability to think that Gordon can talk, but just doesn't.

How does one resolve this? It seems a betrayal to have your first person character speak with a different voice to yours, but the alternative is just as ridiculous. Half Life has always led you- player agency doesn't really exist at all- indeed theres no real indication that Gordon is at all invested in the conflicts he's involved in, as the only reason he shoots at one set of people is that they're the ones attacking him. All the way through he reacts, and yet is considered a revolutionary hero. I suspect this issue isn't going to be resolved for episode 3, but one does wonder if Half Life 3 might be being held off for the specific goal to get voicing to a point where we can use Gordon. After all, L4D has suceeded in doing so.

It must be noted that Gordon not speaking is less insane than the protagonist in Fear, who fails to mention to his special operative team... well... anything whatsoever. Worse special agent ever?

Pompeii

2010-03-04T10:28:00.000Z

Reading this book, I began to wonder about Robert Harris' other books. Were Enigma and Fatherland actually good, was my memory incorrect? Because this book certainly wasn't working. Set just before, and during, the eruption of Versuvius, Pompeii is an incredibly well researched piece of fiction, tracking a character dealing with his own personal crisis as the world falls apart around him. Certainly the central idea is an interesting one, but Robert Harris fails to do anything of note with it at all.

We follow an engineer, who appears to have had a lobotomy at birth. I assume so anyway, as thats the only thing that can explain his actions. Despite knowing that speaking out of turn to the rich and powerful men he meets could result in his death, he does it anyway. Technically one could argue that he does so because he finds them despicable, and is heroic enough to tell them so, but to be honest it just makes him seem like a moron. He's a dull protagonist, and while he cares about what's happening, I never felt like caring about him, or the woman who he supposedly falls in love with. The narrative takes place over four days, so theres no time to develop any characters, which is disappointing. The bad guys remain bad, the good guys remain good, and the events continue to splutter to their conclusion.

The eruption, when it comes, injects some much needed urgency to this story, but the first 200 pages are just a chore.

Assassins Creed 2

2010-03-03T11:20:00.000Z

Another review before finishing a game, but this one is a little more justified, as Assassins Creed 2 is a rather larger experience than Arkham Asylum. A comparison between the two games isn't particularly fair- they have different goals, but generally speaking Assassins Creed 2 is better (more on this later).

This is a game into which some serious effort has been put into making things fun. The main focus of the game will be jumping over roof tops in gorgeous looking levels set around Italy. The controls for this are intuitive and easy, and mostly work exactly as you wish. There is a plot, and while it is your usual conspiracy theory nonsense, the writers understand that the best way to sell a ridiculous story is by making good characters who you care about, and make sure they believe in the story. Ezio's path of vengence is plausible and interesting, and he guides you through the story deftly.

The game is delightfully non-linear in a pratically perfect way. From a few hours in you are able to go off and do your own thing, completing the hugely enjoyable additional tasks that the game sets you along the main plot. When you do get to the plot, the missions are varied and fun for the most part, and can be approached in varied ways.

One of the smartest pieces of design in this game is the many tools it gives you to complete your objectives. If you want to sneak, you can clamber over roof tops, taking out guards before they can say anything. Or you can mingle with crowds, darting between one and another as you approach. Or you can throw money which can distract guards. Or you can hire groups to distract these same guards. Or you can throw a smoke bomb. You could even leave a body a little way down the road and they'll go investigate...

And, if you really want to, you can fight them. Sadly this is the clunkiest part of the game. Theres a lot of options there, but they mostly boil down to holding block and counter attacking at the correct moment, which results in a kill. Arkham Aslyum has a similar system, buts its far more fluid and easier to track when a counter attack should be made, making combat seem more natural and fun. Still, as mentioned, combat doesn't have to be a chore- you can always hurl a smoke bomb and kill people in the confusion, or get hired help to engage them and then stab them in the back.

Spiderman 2 was another game which really captured the joy of darting round a city: its one of the greatest things to do in a video game, but the game play was never integrated into the main plot. Assassins Creed does it perfectly. It really is just a fantastic game.

Other than the combat there are few frustrations. The context sensitive jumping can be annoying occasionally, when you cannot persuade Ezio to do something you yourself would be capable of doing, or he enthusiastically leaps off a building rather than continue climbing as you had intended. You load back fairly quickly, however, and quickly become strong enough to surive all but the most easy of falls. I suppose one might argue that the game is a little easy, but who cares when its this much fun?

Emotional Cues

2010-03-02T11:02:00.000Z

You're watching a film, or a television program. Its an emotional moment, your buying it, being drawn in, possibly even becoming a little dusty. And then here it comes. The music, the goddamn music, telling you you should be sad. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, otherwise a fine little film, is often utterly despoiled by the music cutting in, over heaping moments that really don't need to be over heaped. Battle Star Galactica also has this problem, with celtic music coming in at every single moment.

Long running series have a serious problem with it becoming a pavlovian thing- in Buffy there was the "Buffy and Angel" tune which would play, and make me want to die. Its exceedingly frustrating. Music isn't always bad, of course, but when its hitting you round the face and declaring that you should be feeling a particular emotion at some point, then that can be exceedingly frustrating.

Libraries are now officially made of magic.

2010-02-25T14:10:00.000Z

So I went to my local library to get some books (well, graphic novels, but same difference). There I discovered that they had updated it, so instead of a desk, there was a self check out machine. Used to such gadgets, I placed my books on the table in front of me, selected check out, and waved my library card (which was well hidden in my wallet, as it always manages to be). I reached for the first book, preparing to scan it... when the machine scanned them anyway! OK, yes, theres some chip in the spine or something that makes it work, but to my mind, thats basically magic.

Brown's a bully?

2010-02-24T11:05:00.000Z

So the media have taken this one and ran with it. Some woman from a charity has claimed that certain people have claimed that Brown is a bully.

Now, this charity.. is certainly a little dodgy, and barely seems a real organisation. Even if it is real, the notion that appearing in the news is a good way to deal with the situation is just obviously false, which puts in to question the motives of the woman who brought it forwards.

Even if all this is true, does it matter? The news is making a big deal of it, in a matter that, to be honest, feels more than a little wrong, but is it surprising that Brown might have bullied someone? He's the prime minister, the ruler of the country, its, perhaps, not surprising that he has qualities similar to that of a bully's.

Bear in mind that the structure of politics in this country encourages bullying. Party's have whips who's entire job is to bully party members into voting with their leader! Thats what parties need to do to push forward their agendas, and that is just accepted. Is this culture wrong? Perhaps, perhaps this isn't the way a country should be governed, but the notion that Brown is some unique tyrant in this is absurd. Politicians are not going to be very nice people, mugging for the camera aside, and I'm not sure picking out one person is a very sensible or fair thing to do. We all know Brown needs to go, but is this really the issue to pick at?

"Scientists say"

2010-02-23T10:12:00.000Z

Ben Goldacre of bad science has constantly pointed out this rather major failing in science reporting. The news seems to think a story has been told if an argument from authority has been made. i.e. "a scientist said this was extremely unlikely".

This is bad, bad science. If a scientist is making a scientific announcement, then they have reasoning behind what they are saying, reasoning that anyone should be able to verify, given enough time. If they do not, then they should no more be listened to than Prince Charles does. By using "scientist says" you are underlining this idea of scientists as untouchable people in lab coats who conduct hidden magic rituals. They don't, usually. They publish, they produce results and arguments, which can be looked at and assessed.

I understand one can't explain the whole science, but usually there is a basic argument that can be made.

Take a report on the news on homeopathy.

"One part of a hundred is taken out, and mixed with water, and this process is repeated many times. Scientists say that this means its just water".

Well... they don't say it. Its just a bloody fact. If you distill something multiple times, you will begin to run out of particles of that substance. There exists homeopathic remedies which have been distilled 24 times. Or more than Avagadro's constant, the number of particles in a mole. In other words, once you've distilled 24 times, then theres only a 60% chance of there being a single original molecule left in the water. This page provides a table given the relative substances- at only 8 distillations we have the acceptable amount of arsenic in drinking water.

This is a factual argument. Its just the case that if you dilute something enough, all that remains is water. It may be magical water, but there is absolutely no mechanism that would transfer the properties we know of. If it were true that this happened, we'd all be in an extreme amount of trouble, as water is being diluted all the time with hundreds of substances...

The point of this is not entirely to rant about homeopathy, but to underline that its not hard to make these arguments. There is no controversy here, this is not some obscure scientific discovery, this is basic fact, that I could demonstrate with numerous experiments. If you dilute a substance enough you'll no longer have that substance anymore. Theres no need to say "scientists say" as if theres some kind of confusion here. There just isn't.

Lost Season 5 (will obviously contain spoilers)

2010-02-22T13:28:00.000Z

I will start with the positive. Since towards the end of the third season, Lost really notched up a gear. By creating a strong plot, and a time limit to tell it in, this forced the writers to stop being quite so self indulgent, and made Lost action packed television. Yes, there is still crazy nonsense, but it is mostly internally consistent nonsense now. There will never be a real reason why the numbers are important, but the fact that they ARE important is enough.

So, now to the issues. Season 5 started with a central conflict which was resolved relatively quickly. Several of the cast were zipping about in time, seeing the island in its past, until finally getting stuck in the 1970s. This device was used brilliantly, with Daniel Faraday explaining the kind of time travel we were existing in (its impossible to change things), and gave us some lovely snapshots of the island in the past. Sadly, the final conflict.. sucked.

While Locke(?)'s quest to kill Jacob was generally excellent and a lot of fun (seeing Ben confused was wonderful), the other plot line just didn't work. Faraday had come back, with a plan to change the future, so the plane never crashed. This would wipe out all the bad (and good) stuff that had happened over the last few seasons.

Heres why this plan sucked:
It obviously won't work. The notion that the writers are going to spend their final season with the previous 5 erased is just absurd. If they do, I'll just be very angry. So in other words, the viewer certainly wants it to fail. We have no emotional attachment to the characters goals, because we're almost certainly opposed to them.
Worse yet, the characters clearly wouldn't want to do it. While Jack, and indeed Daniel, wanting to do it made perfect sense, the other characters very reasonably did not, which meant the writers had to somehow bludgeon in a reason for all the characters to come together.
This led to Juliette acting like a lunatic, with her motivation changing every 5 seconds. She came out as pathetically weak- shes been with Sawyer, happily, for three years, but when Kate come backs, because Sawyer looks at her for a minute, Juliette decides their love isn't meant to be. Sigh writers, just sigh.

So yeah. Now I haven't seen 6 yet, and I don't want to be spoiled, but if they've erased everything that happened I'll be both astonished and really, really fucked off.

RSS feed

2010-02-12T12:53:00.001Z

Did you know I had an RSS feed? Apparently I do. Its here

WFRP:Shallya's Light, a big long essay, discussing combat and adventures

2010-02-12T10:26:00.000Z

I have finished running my very first WFRP campaign. So, thoughts and feelings?

This campaign lasted a long time in genesis. I was actually going to run it the previous academic year, but ran out of time and decided to delay. It went through a lot of iterations, initially starting as a mystery with the high priest of Shallya being the villain, and trying to delay the players as long as possible by sending them on pointless quests, and against her enemies. Sadly the betrayal by leader theme was a bit of a common one for wfrp, and I decided that as a twist it wouldn't be terribly good.

I needed a way to link my adventurers to several ideas I had- intrigue in the noble quarters, dealing with criminals, a rogue group of Shallyans. Initially the quest could have been more open, and possibly should have been, but I was attached to some of the ideas and needed something to tie them together.

A macguffin was an obvious choice. To my mind adventures can be crafted in several ways-

A mystery that requires revelation. This will involve the players interrogating the enemy, trying to get to the heart of some plot. Its often a bit more open for the players, and can be awesome. It requires a lot of effort for the gm, however- the mystery cannot be too obvious or the players will feel no succour at having solved it, but if its too hard the players will stall, which is absolutely no fun.

A quest for a macguffin. This is actually fairly broad. The macguffin doesn't have to be one thing, and is great at driving plot. The quest for it can actually be as open or as railroaded as one would like.

So the book, leading to the grail, was crafted. By having several factions interested in it- the rogue Shallyans for obvious reasons, the criminals for financial, and Tzeentch mainly to lure the players to it, this neatly pulled all the threads together, and encouraged the players to follow through. The natural lead meant I didn't have to railroad too much. The mercenaries following the players was the most major part of railroading, and I could arguably have just had the book taken from the players, but its a classic trope to have the heroes get the macguffin only to lose it minutes later (I suspect this campaign was unconciously and sometimes very consiously inspired by Indiana Jones).

There were some issues I had with my design here. I rushed too many sessions. I had a point I wanted to get the players to get to, and made things too easy for them to get there- this was notable in the noble's quarters, which really could have lasted a little longer. The final combat with the Tzeentch could have been a bit better also, with a couple more cultists to help the leader. If I'd been more relaxed about where the players needed to get to I think it would have made for better sessions. Combat is something I had a big issue with. It needs to be set up carefully to be interesting. The best examples were the attack on a gang, where there were multiple antagonists at different points, and different approaches for the players, and the final combat. Many of the other combats just didn't work, however. WFRP is not a terribly exciting combat system, and making them interesting is hard work.

The combats that didn't work where generally against one type of enemy with an objective to engage in close combat with the players. This is a fairly dull objective, and denies player choice- no matter what the players do they're probably going to be all in combat within a few rounds, and be stuck in the cycle of aim and attack that combat ends up as.

To improve combats, one either needs- multiple enemies with different types of attacks, at the most simple this can just be ranged and melee. The terrain should be interesting enough to present tactical choices to the players- cover for them or the enemy to use, items that might be used to disrupt the enemy, high and low ground. I think if the enemy is just going to be melee, ideally they might have interesting objectives. The fight against the beastmen would have been a lot more interesting if their principle goal had been to kill the weakened shallyan, which would have made a reasonable amount of sense anyway (the nurgle cultists had persuaded beastmen to attack). This would have forced both the enemies and players to fight differently, and added tension- while the players were never going to lose the fight, they might have lost the sister, making some portions of the rest of the campaign harder.

I need to think more about combat in rpgs- often they're an after thought, but in systems that don't give many combat options one really needs to work hard to make sure that combat remains exciting.

The final session went pretty well. The players were given lots of choice as to what do in the city. I possibly shouldn't have given them the hint about Beatrix, but the way the conversation was going I was worried they wouldn't think to enlist other npcs help. The remaining possible support was the palace, which was about to be assaulted by a great unclean one, and Morris, who would have been an interesting source of help. I shouldn't have attacked the players with the nurglings, as it was an utterly pointless distraction, but I felt i needed to demonstrate the desperate state of the city.

The players found their way in to the temple well, but did alert the people in the main altar room, allowing them to wait in ambush. If they'd manage to take down the cultist silently the enemy would have been caught by surprise.

The final fight was reasonably balanced. Martha was a monster, with 3 magic, two attacks a toughness of 6 and 16 wounds, but the other combatants were not as powerful. The plague bearers, despite effectively ambushing the party, lasted too long. This was partially my fault for underplaying Maria- she had more tactical options than she used. I really don't like having npcs along with the party because I forget about them and don't use them properly, but the party persuaded her to come along with reasonable logic. This was another reason to try and off her before they got to the room! Still, while it did go on too long, I think the actual combat was reasonably interesting, even if my players did manage to prove astonishingly inept throughout.

All in all my take away lessons from this campaign is to not neglect prep time for any aspect of a session, and to make sure not to rush a session unecessarily. It can almost always be split in two.

Bars

2010-02-11T09:42:00.000Z

Bars have always baffled me. I've never been a crazy wild party animal, but I have been to a fair few clubs in my time, and even managed to be drunk enough to enjoy myself on some occasions. Clubbing, you see, I get. You have a specific purpose that evening, and that is dancing wildly in a club (and possibly hooking up with someone equally drunk as you, but that certainly was never my purpose). Pubs have an obvious purpose, of course: you get to hang out with your friends, relax, chat, and drink a healthy amount (not necessarily medically healthy, mind).

So whats the point of bars? Bars are typically rather full, and exceedingly loud. There is usually not much space to dance, and not much encouragment to do so. However, if you wish to converse with your friends, you have to pretty much shout. So instead one finds oneself drinking and not saying much. And to be honest, if it was just drinking alcohol I wanted to do, I might as well do it at home where there isn't offensively loud music and awkward lack of conversation imposed on myself.

This has genuinely always baffled me, as I know several people who actually want to go these bars. Whats the point?

Battle for Wesnoth

2010-02-10T10:09:00.000Z

Coming back to this game I couldn't quite remember why I had ever stopped playing it. Battle for wesnoth is a free turn based strategy game. It's a beautifully crafted game, with enough variety between the units to present interesting strategic choices. I've only played the single player campaign so far, and have yet to experience multiplayer, but I'd love to give it a shot.

There is a lot of intricacy to it. Each turn you can move each unit, and if you are adjacent to an enemy unit, attack. Different types of terrain penalise different types of units- horsemen are best on the plains, while dwarfs prefer the mountains, and elves are utterly lethal in the forest. There is a day night cycle throughout turns, and certain units are better at day than they are at night. Units have different kinds of attacks, ranged and melee, with different kinds of damage which effect units differently- impact damage is better against the undead, piercing damage against humans.

The campaigns are great fun, the plot weak, but the challenges interesting and sometimes extremely difficult. And therin lies the rub. Wesnoth is a game with a loyal fanbase of players who have played the game to death, and are looking for more challenge, and the creator is happy to appease them. Sadly this means that certain campaigns, even supposed novice ones, have their difficulty gradually amped up. A scenario which was already quite hard to complete has been made even harder since I last played it, which is just a nightmarish choice.

The main issue this can drive away newcomers is that its quite possible to doom ones self in early missions without realising. Units level up throughout the game, and you can recall them in later scenarios, so the game assumes that you have a back log of these units. If you don't, certain missions become practically impossible as you only have very weak level one units to fight your enemies with. The tactics then are somewhat counter intuitive- you want to let lower level units get kills as they get more experience for that (why kills give more experience is not really clear from a design perspective, as it leads to stupid behaviour), and also to preserve very carefully high level units. Also, finishing a level well usually gives a bonus in terms of your starting gold for the next mission, which sometimes you really do need. The problem with all these systems is that bad players are going to find the game get harder and harder, while good players will find it easier and easier. This is the opposite of what the game should be doing, and is a serious flaw in the game design.

That said, if you do play carefully and well, the game is rewarding- provided you realise the game is structured that way, and are prepared to replay levels or turns (the game does let you rewind at least 5 turns back, which can be a life saver if you accidentally lose important units), its a lot of fun. Its also free, so its hard to go wrong.

Disappearing buses

2010-02-09T09:21:00.000Z

One of the strangest phenomona while waiting for buses are those that disappear. The electronic board gives an update of which buses will be next, and dutifilly you follow the countdown until it reaches due. And sometimes, with a depressing amount of frequency, the bus just does not turn up. No explanation, no nothing- its gone from the board, and the next bus will be coming in twenty minutes. Indeed, after one bus failed to turn up, the next one along kept stopping at places because it was too early!

What happens to these buses? Are they abducted? Did they even exist in the first place, or was the timetable just taunting me. We wouldn't except such a thing from the rail service. Trains rarely get completely canceled, and if they do, its with apologys and explanation, rather than a numb little display that just makes them go away.

What is most frustrating about this tendency is usually it is possible to walk most places in Southampton, but it will take a little longer if you need to be somewhere. So you get the bus to go a little faster, which makes it more than a little absurd when instead of waiting three minutes you are forced to wait twenty three.

Secret moans of the unimpressed

2010-02-08T15:15:00.000Z

is the name of the livejournal blog that exists purely so that I can comment on other livejournal accounts... Thats a far better title than this blog!

Alternative vote

2010-02-08T10:24:00.000Z

So Gordon Brown is having a death bed conversion to alternative voting. The timing is, of course, hilarious, and rather implies that GB's principles depends on whether those principles will make it easier for his party to be elected, but the system? Pretty solid.

It is exceedingly tiresome to live in a constituency where one's vote matters very little, but many British people have this experience. Unless you live in a swing seat, your vote counts very little to the politicians of this country, and even then you'll probably have to tactical vote. The alternative vote does something to alleviate the problem of wasted vote, and pretty much annihalates the issue of tactical voting.

Want to vote lib dem but want labour our? Well put lib dem first, conservative second. If everyone else shares your viewpoint then the lib dems may surge forth, if they don't, well the vote won't be wasted, as it will still go to a party opposed to Labour. Incidentally, if one really only wants to vote for just one party, one can, the additional preferences are only optional.

Its not a perfect fix, I'd prefer something much more proportional, but its a step in the right direction. It certainly won't lead to coalition governments or weakening the constituency link. One can certainly argue that Gordon Brown is the wrong person to be affecting this change, but I believe that its difficult to argue that the change is a good one.

Plagiarism

2010-02-05T14:45:00.000Z

One of my least favourite parts about marking (and I have very few favourite parts), is discovering plagiarism. It of course needs to be reported, and then the individuals will be disciplined, and depending on the level, expunged from the degree. Plagiarism at this level really can ruin you for the rest of your life. While my part in the process is fortunately small, its still quite a heavy burden to carry.

The most depressing part is that typically the plagiarists in question will have essentially worked together too much, producing near identical solutions. The individuals in question will probably be a little desperate, which means that despite cheating, they won't get a very good mark. Thats a sad way to jeopardise one's entire life career.

One does wonder if the individuals who do such things really weigh the gravity of the situation, whether they are so utterly desperate that they do not believe they can acheive even a passing mark without resorting to cheating.

Roleplaying theory

2010-02-03T17:46:00.000Z

This is an interesting read, and has given me some ideas. I've never run a sand box game, but have recently been growing a desire to do so. This article reads true for me, and I may well end up applying it.

Another reason to quit smoking?

2010-02-02T16:42:00.000Z

I have a mind blank on things to blog on today, so I give you news that apparently a cigarette... exploded in a mans hands in Indonesia. The mind boggles

"We are communicating with the police and still waiting on the forensic laboratory tests," Iwan Sulistyo told the Jakarta Globe.

"We do not put any strange materials in the cigarettes, so we think that this is a weird case. This is the first time for us."

Arkham Asylum

2010-02-01T11:38:00.000Z

This is a terrific game. I always enjoy a licenced game that makes me feel like the character: I took great joy in swinging round New York as Spiderman, and I take a great deal of joy in beating up criminals as batman.

The game is a rather neatly made combination of action, stealth and platforming. When fighting enemies, there are two versions. When the criminals are unarmed you simply get amoungst them and demolish them. The combat system is simple and mostly intuitive, with your main moves being to either attack or counter, and is a joy to watch. Batman is mortal, however, and if his opponents are holding guns he'd be a fool to assault them head on.

So he doesn't. Instead you sneak around, taking out the criminals one by one. As each criminal goes down the remainder become more fearful, and even easier to take out. I'm not a massive fan of stealth games, but this is just a great experience.

These are the basic experiences of the game, but the creators go to great lengths to mix things up. You encounter new enemies wielding different weapons who demand different tactics, and each stealth encounter will yield new challenges. A long the way there are some delightfully inventful moments: Scarecrow messing with your head, meaning you experience the envirnonment in totally different ways, Ivy transforming the entire island, the enjoyable challenges set by the Riddler.

The plot is great fun- its very comic book like, in that the threats are magical and strange, but have weight. The joker is creating monsters, but leaving corpses as he does so. Lives are at stake, and the Joker is delightfully psychotic.

Flaws? Well the context sensitive control system doesn't always work: sometimes the same button does the opposite thing depending on the situation, which can be more than a little counter-intuitive. Also, the death screen is frustrating. I really don't want the game to mock me when I mess up, especially a game like this, where repeating certain sections is inevitable. Still, very few that spring to mind, and all are very forgivable. It is rather short, but aren't all games these days?

Funny People

2010-01-29T14:48:00.000Z

Its another review of a film that was out months ago! Woot!

Funny People is probably the most filmic film that Judd Apatow has ever made. He has made some good films- the Forty Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up spring to mind, but both suffered from improvisation: Apatow allowing actors to freestyle and say whatever came to their minds. This often detracted from the pace of the film, with scenes that added nothing to the characters or plot, just the occasional laugh. Thats fine, but it doesn't really make a film. Even worse, some of the more emotional scenes in Knocked Up feel improvised, and that undermines their impact somewhat.

Funny People doesn't have that problem. It probably has some improvised content, but clearly some scripted stuff too. The comedy often tells us something about the characters, and for once we have a strong plot. Adam Sandler as George Simmons is excellent, an absolutely horrible man who has abused everyone around him, and now he realises he is dying, is trying to change... except he doesn't. A lot has been said in other reviews I've read or heard about how the final act of the film doesn't really work, and while it is a tad clunky, the point is to underline quite how selfish Simmons is. He intends to destroy a family, claiming it is the right thing to do. The way this part of the story is told is a bit clunky, but the point is there.

Apatow's comedy only blossoms when it has a strong story hook to attach it to, and the more discipline he subjects himself to can only make his films better. This is probably his best film yet.

Frank Miller is a lunatic

2010-01-28T12:15:00.000Z

Frank Miller is a bit of a legend in comics. He has written many classic comics, and some less classic ones. He has a habit of being utterly misogynistic, and, in some instances... utterly insane

Gleeeee

2010-01-27T11:04:00.001Z

This is the most curious piece of television I have yet to witness. A musical drama set in a high school, it presents cliche after cliche- we have the high school football star with inner depths, the shrewlike wife holding the lead back, the gay kid who loves singing... I could go on. At times the sentiment is piled on in an unholy amount, leading to a sometimes saccharine environment.

Yet theres something to it. There are few plotlines here you haven't seen before, but the telling mixes between the joy of the musical numbers and an overwhelming underlying sadness. The story here is kind of about how much life is holding all these characters down, how the town they are born in appears to be dictating how their life will be. The show can be delightfully surreal, and genuinely hilarious at times (with Jane Lynch providing many of the laughs).

There are some serious flaws here at work. The songs feel a bit overproduced at times, which is sad, as everyone there is clearly very talented, so it'd be nice if they'd just be allowed to sing now and then. The biggest problem is the pace the story goes at. Some of the episodes have had arcs that should have taken three episodes conclude in one, which feels rushed and unecessary- part of why the show has been so absurd so far is it has had to reach for more and more ridiculous plots because it keeps concluding stories earlier than it needs to. The show does appear to be settling down, however, and the fourth episode was great. I will continue to watch with interest.

Flickchart, and issues with

2010-01-25T14:47:00.001Z

A recent hit to my productivity came in the discovery of a website called Flickchart. This tries to create a list of your favourite films by comparing them one by one. A laborious process, and a fun one, with some extremely tough choices at some points. Its certainly occupied me for quite a while. There are some irritations to the website though:

1.Its clearly not capable of coping with the traffic it has managed to generate, and sometimes drops to a crawl. The design of the website is a little clunky, and its hard to tell if its actually responding to user input at some points, which is just messy
2.I am not happy with its sorting algorithms. It likes to match up similar films, but this isn't always useful. Films might be similar if they have the same director or genre, but if I have to compare a great film to three poor films of the same genre, the maximum rank my great film can acheive is fairly low, meaning a film I greatly admire may languish at #400 for a long time. In addition, this can mean that when I find another film I love and try to rate, it might compare it to a great film that hasn't been sorted properly yet. Ideally new films being added to the list should only be compared to films that have been compared at least 10 times, as otherwise their current position in the list may be a complete fluke.
3. I can't stop using the damn thing.

America

2010-01-20T12:45:00.000Z

So Obama no longer has a 60 seat majority in the sentate, and may find it difficult to pass his health care reform. One thing it is easy to forget about Obama, and I have been guilty of it, is that he is not overwhelmingly powerful. The US constitution is a rather crafty thing, and is designed to make change slow for the most part- one needs a majority in the senate and the house of representatives. Its actually been a while since I studied it so I don't remember exactly how it works off the top of my head, but one thing the US does that we no need is to seperate legislature, the executive and the judiciary. For a while over here we had all under one roof. We've actually created a supreme court, which is probably a good idea, but the formally and carefully created US political system is pretty smart.

It is, sadly, not perfect. If there is a powerful enough president, and the right circumstances, laws can be passed quickly- look at the Patriot act, and all the other ridiculous changes Bush made, which will take longer to undo. Of course in the UK we have even less checks and balances, and far more power concentrated in the prime minister.

America can be frustrating from the outside. It honestly baffles me that many people in the country are currently fighting very hard to prevent universal health care, but sadly a democracy should probably work that way. There have been outright lies and ludicrous nonsense spread around the US, but if you cannot convince a good majority of your fairly radical changes then maybe those changes should not be happening, even if they are for their own good. There are probably some advantages to having one of the least efficient health care systems in the world, I'm sure. Hell, rich people do well by it.

If you think about quite how much land mass north America takes up, it almost shouldn't work. Like Russia and China, you are talking about so much land, where people will have stunningly different lifestyles. How much does someone who spends their life on a farm in texas really have in common with a polyamorous transexual from new york . This is probably the case for every country, but in the UK we are all pushed a little closer together. Its much harder to have never left your home town- practically impossible really, and most people who live in villages commute to a city these days. Yet somehow the country remains united, even when one side seems to hate the other (sometimes for the most pathetic of differences). Being the most powerful nation in the world probably helps- it tends to unite people.

The last century saw the British Empire finally lose its sheen as the most powerful, and, with the two world wars, the whole of Europe lose itself to the newly ascendant US, probably due to us spending a whole lot more on the war than the US did, and then being heavily in debt to them as we rebuilt ourselves. One wonders what this new century will bring. Its easy to think that things will stay the same, and certainly most visions of the future seem to have imagined the socio-political structure being the same. But China is only going to get more developed, and currently holds most industry. Lets just hope any upheaval in power doesn't come with wars of the scale that the last century saw. That seems a political impossibility to us right now, but with enough factors I imagine it might well alter.

[apologies for the ramblingness of this post, it was not planned....]

Up in the Air

2010-01-19T12:25:00.001Z

This is definitely a film worth seeing. Jason Reitman has put out three magnificent films with Thank you For Smoking, Juno and now this. Its very funny, certainly but the emotional undercurrents are more than a little astounding. I had expected a traditional narrative structure to this film, and felt a little disconcerted when the film continued to defy it. These characters are humans, not hollywood characters as you might expect at the start. There is not necessarily going to be an easy change of heart that will make the character happy.

Its a film that warrants repeat viewing, I suspect. I was so disconcerted by the ending that I think I need to watch again to decide how I feel about it. It wasn't where I felt the story was going, and some of the ending scenes felt a little rushed- the story shuddered a little towards an ending. Its experimental, and its interesting, and needs to be watched again.

Physical compliments

2010-01-18T15:26:00.000Z

I'm sure they think they're being nice. After all, they paid some lady on the internet a compliment. Everyone likes to be complimented after all. I mean, yes, they chose to do it in a you tube comment thread, but so what? Shouldn't such an act be rewarded? Well what was the woman doing in the video in question? Was she modelling? Was she expressing a deep quandry about her looks? Was she exerting her physical attributes?

Or was she singing? Or saying something funny? Then ideally the compliments should be about those attributes. Imagine doing such a thing to a man, or a woman feeling the need to do such a thing? What you are paying is not a compliment, but a veiled insult. By ignoring the attribute the woman is trying to display and focusing only on their looks, you are reducing them to just that, something to look at.

I'm not saying that women can't be contributed on their looks. Of course they can, and as I say, if done correctly I imagine it may even please them. But it should not be the first thing one should go for, and when a comment thread to an excellent and amusing song has nothing but people commenting on how hot the women in question are, then it just underlines their lack of respect for the women in question.