Dirty Fun

I've only just got around to playing Colin Mcrae, "Dirt" on my Xbox 360. I got it for my birthday ages ago (at least it seems ages ago) and I've been too busy with other things to have a go. But tonight I put aside a couple of hours for fun (it is Saturday after all) and fired it up.

I love it.

I've not been that keen on Colin Mcrae games in the past because they seemed too focused on technical accuracy and genuine handling for me. (translation: I crashed all the time). But the new one seems to have toned down real life to a level I can cope with, albeit at rookie level, and I think it is great.

I had a go at the truck racing stuff, which seems to have taken several leafs, nay perhaps a whole bunch of chapters, from the PS3 Motorstorm game. It has the same bouncy handling, insane opponents and funky vehicles, but without the charm or sheer improbability of the tracks, which all look a bit dull to me.

But the proper rally championship is another matter. Me and my little Clio have been tearing up a storm, hurtling through very impressive looking locations in the UK, Italy and Germany. The handling is just right, very believable but sensibly forgiving. And the bonnet cam view is wonderful, until you go off the road onto the verge, where I found myself flinching as foot high plants smashed towards my face.  One of the best features is the co-driver who calls out instructions as you hurtle towards the next blind jump. Once I'd learnt the grading scheme (the smaller the number the nastier the curve - get that the wrong way round like I did at first and things can get very frightening) he really helped me get the car into position for the next part of the course.

And it was nice to have a rumbly gamepad for a change. For a variety of technical and legal reasons Sony left this out of the PS3 and I see it as a huge omission. Nothing brings home just how hard you've just hit that tree like a controller that suddenly tries to leap out of your hands. I notice from the instructions that Dirt also supports the Xbox force feedback steering wheel, which is looking very tempting.....

Until now I'd regarded the rally mode of Gran Turismo as the ultimate in off road driving fun, but Dirt, with its superior graphics and greater variety, is the new rally king.

Always Something Wrong

I remembered to bring my lunch to work today. But I forgot my glasses.

I would worry about these oversights being due to my advanced age if it was not for the fact that I've been doing stupid things like this for the last forty years.

Dental Imagination

Went for a check up at the dentist this afternoon. It was slightly enlivened by the fact that I needed to have a couple of X-Rays. And one of them didn't work. So they had to ask me in to take another. The good news is that the second one turned out fine. The bad news is that I have an overactive imagination:

Dental Nurse: "So there's no doubt at all then?"
Dentist: "I'm afraid not. The second X-Ray was quite conclusive."
Dental Nurse: (shudder)"So, how long before it breaks out of his tooth and eats his brain?"
Dentist:"A month, maybe two if he's lucky."
Dental Nurse: (looking over at me in the waiting room, where I'm trying to look relaxed whilst reading a two year old copy of "Top Gear" magazine) "But he seems so young...."
Dentist:"It's better he doesn't know..."

Wrong Shoes Equals No Lunch

I always put my lunch bag next to my shoes each morning. That way I don't forget it and end up with nothing to eat. Today I decided to wear a different pair of shoes. Which means I'm going on an impromptu diet...

Elite Beat Agents

I like silly things. Always have. And the more out and out daft that they are, the better it is for me. Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS is definitely silly. We are talking "FBI style agents with big hair solving problems through history by the use of dance" (including helping someone who looks suspiciously like Leonardo da Vinci get the Mona Lisa). Deeply silly and perhaps a bit strange too.

You control the game with the stylus, using it to tap out beats, follow notes and twirl things around. The action takes place via a sequence of little stories, each of which is illustrated by animated cartoon sequences. There is no reason on earth why any of this should work. But it does.

If you think that video games are designed by percentage players, who use focus groups and cunning market analysis to decide what will sell and what won't, then Elite Beat Agents will come as a bit of a surprise. There is no way that something like this could have come about in that way. Sega must have just locked a bunch of programmers in a room with an X-Files DVD, a pile of manga comics, a copy of Parappa the Rapper and a children's encyclopedia.

 If you like silly games, this is for you.

Antique Bondery

We got off the boat at 8:30 this morning. That's the only snag with the mini-cruise, it ends at a most peculiar time. Anyhoo, we got some almond croissants on the way home (breakfast of champions) and had a most restful day.

In the afternoon we went out to Beverley and had a look in the antiques centre there. If you ever go to the town you must take a look. It is a bit like a mini-museum where you can buy stuff. Although it is rather upsetting to find things that you had as a kid being sold of as antiques.

They had a James Bond Goldfinger Aston Martin, in its original box. I had one of those. It came with a henchman that you could shoot out of the roof using the cars ejector seat. Needless to say, my henchman vanished quite soon after I got the toy. The one in the museum was not only as shiny as new, but it also had henchman and everything. Mind you, you've got to feel something for a kid who got a toy like that and then doesn't seem to have played with it. I ended up using mine to see how far I could flick a Malteser with the ejector seat roof. Great stuff.

Promiscuity in Amsterdam

After rising bright and early we set off from Europort to the city. I don't know Amsterdam very well and there were some places I wanted to visit. Fortunately I had a plan.

I was going to use my Nokia 770 (a neat little web-terminal thing that I bought cheap a week or so ago) and its matching sat-nav, which was fully loaded with Netherlands maps and had all my destinations carefully favourited. All I had to do was kick the thing into life when we arrived and never be lost. Well, that was the plan.

On the bus as we approached the city I fired up the 770 and the GPS device. Because of the rather stupid software it seems you have to pair the GPS device and the 770 each time you try to use it. On first attempt the navigation software found a Bluetooth device called "Dave" and then crashed. After a reset, and with the faint inklings of foreboding I tried again. This time I found a veritable plethora of Bluetooth partners who all wanted to talk to me. One was called "Land Rover". I looked out of the bus window and sure enough, there it was in the traffic alongside us. Of course the GPS device was nowhere to be found.

By now we had arrived at our dropping off point. My plan was to add this as a favourite so we could easily find our way back to the bus, but things were not going well. The GPS device finally paired with the 770 and told me I was standing in a canal before losing the signal. Not good.

I tried to find my favourites and set the destination, but of course I couldn't see the screen in daylight and the stylus was a pain to use. By now the patience of number one wife was starting to fray a bit. We started walking in order to try and get a better signal and now the direction indicate pointed back the way we'd come and it started to rain on the screen. So that was game over for Mr. Satnav. As I put the whole thing back in my pocket I heard a muffed "At the next intersection turn left.." We bought a map (price 2.5 euros) and used that very successfully for the rest of the day.

The good news is that the GPS device happily paired with my Smartphone and works a treat with Live Search (but I was not going to pay roaming GPRS prices to find my way around Amsterdam).

I'm going to upgrade the Nokia software first chance I get, with a bit of luck this should improve things.

Of course, I'd taken the cameras.

Early morning ships

Actually, these are made of wood

satnav, pah!

Beer marketing with horses

Canal mural

Multi-storey bike park

Container stacking

Industrial Skyline

Down the decks

There are more pictures on Flickr.

Update on 2007-08-22 08:46 by Rob

I think I may have been a bit harsh on the 770 SatNav. Everything happened in the order I described, but I don't think you have to do the pairing thing every time. I tried it again and it just worked.

Testing with Live Search navigation on the Smartphone has left me thinking that for foot navigation a GPS is not as good as for car. In a car the software knows that you are on a road, and can make deductions using direction of movement about where you are.  The fact that you are moving at speed probably helps remove some of the noise from the location values. On foot things get a lot more tricky, particularly if there are buildings around which block the signal.  Having said all that, if I go anywhere in the UK I will now take the GPS puck along with the Smartphone, and probably the 770 as well.

Night Boat

Tonight finds me on a boat on the way to Amsterdam. P & O do these wonderful little min-cruises, which for only slightly more than the cost of a return ticket to London will put you up for two nights on their luxury ferry and take you to Amsterdam for the day to boot (or should that be clog).

Anyhoo, we set sail tonight and, in spite of poor weather, spirits are high.

View of the estuary

Leaving port

We are to be up bright and early tomorrow (5:00 am)...

Jolly Boating Weather?

Jolly Boating Weather?
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Helicopter Girl

One other thing I had my my uber posh hotel in Korea was a soundtrack. Sitting in the Bose CD player in my room was a disk called "Warmth of Cool_Interlude", a pretentious (and somewhat meaningless) name. Out of interest I pressed the play button.

There were some good tracks on there, including the wonderful Imogen Heap. There was also one from someone called Helicopter Girl. The song, called "Umbrellas in the Rain", seemed very appropriate, since that is what we had been all about that morning in Seoul.

Once back in the UK, I tracked down the album that it came from. The album is called "Voodoo Chic" and is completely wonderful. Very tuneful and atmospheric. If you can get hold of a copy, I think you'll like it.

Seoul Moments - Calculator Haggling

When you have no common language, but you want to agree on a number, a calculator is a very useful device. Having decided on a suitable present for number one wife it was all down to the price. The lady in the shop smiled, bowed, entered a number on a big calculator and handed it to me.

I looked down, clearly I now had to do something to move the situation forward. A smaller number seemed like a plan. I examined the calculator carefully. It had clearly been involved in a lot of haggling. Several of the keys had worn so that they no longer had any markings on. Feeling that I had to do something, I stabbed at some keys, typed in some digits and handed it back. The woman's eyes widened in surprise, apparently I had just offered her the entire gross national product of Korea for a necklace and a bracelet. The calculator was handed back to me.

By now I reckoned I was gaining control of the situation, having worked out how to clear the display by the simple process of pressing all the unmarked buttons until I got a zero. I entered a number only slightly larger than the original one, handed over a wad of notes and made it out onto the street with my purchase.

Now that's what I call Silly

I've just spent 24 quid. That is probably what some people spend on drinks on a Friday night. I could have got half of Bioshock for the 360 (which number one son says is worth a punt). I could have bought "Elite Beat Agents" for the Nintendo DS (but I don't have to because number one son got me it for my birthday). Instead I've bought:

www.verysillygames.com

- for two years. I know I could have got it cheaper, but I like to have all my domains in one place and I've used my favourite company for years and they have a very easy to use interface.

It occurred to me that I'm going to need a place to put all the silly XNA games that will form part of the book. So I bought the domain. At the moment it points into this site, but that can change. Anyone fancy setting me a site up for 25% of the equity, a profit sharing scheme and fringe benefits (in other words no money at all)?

Oh and Chapter 3 is coming along nicely. I should have it on the site some time next week. Prepare yourselves for the gaming sensation that is "Color Nerve" (note American spelling in vain attempt to increase market penetration).

Windows Vista Performance Patches

There are a couple of patches that you might want to apply to your Vista machine. I've put them on two of mine, and whilst I've not noticed a huge improvement, they haven't made things worse....

KB938194:Improves the compatibility and reliability of Windows Vista
      <http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194>
KB938979: Improves the performance and reliability of Windows Vista
      <http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938979>

XNA Book Chapters

I've posted a second chapter of the XNA book (actually I put it there on Tuesday). Remember that you can keep up to date with the book progress by subscribing to the RSS feed for the book journal. You can find my feeds here.

Radio A Levels

Went up town first thing today to do a paper review for Radio Humberside. We had a chat about the UK A-Level results, which are out today. Apparently everyone has done better than ever, and this is a national scandal. Although if everyone was doing worse, that would be a national scandal too. And if everything stayed exactly the same, that would be regarded as deeply suspicious because someone would obviously be fiddling the results....

I've seen modern A-Levels at first hand. I've know the amount of work that kids have to put in to get through them. All I would say is kudos to anyone who has got good grades, I hope they take you where you want to go.

Early morning Hull. Don't you wish you lived in a place that looked like this?

The BBC building

Last Imagine Cup Pics

These are the last few pictures that I've just pulled off the camera. Korea seems an awfully long way away now, even though it is really less than a week.

 
On the way to the airport. Not sure what the red stuff is

Lottery burgers. Guess which one is for the Microsoft person....

Simpson's Movie

We went to see the Simpson's Movie tonight. It was good, but not great. Around 2 episodes worth of good stuff spread over three episodes worth of time. Worth seeing though, just for some of the one liners. And I'm sure that if I watch it again I'll find a whole new bunch of things to laugh at.

Stephen put me on to this, which seems very appropriate. After some fiddling I came up with a Simpson's version of me which I'm reasonably happy with...

...perhaps because it doesn't look much like me at all.

Sample XNA Book Chapters Now Available

I'm writing another book. If you want to learn how to program an XBOX 360 using C# and XNA it might be just what you want. You can find out more, and get your hands on the first chapter, here.

Wish me luck....

Raw Power

My biggish camera can take pictures in RAW format. This means that rather than compressing and processing the image data when it takes a picture, the camera simply dumps the output of the photo sensor into a file. It results in rather large files (around 14Mb in my case) for each picture but it does represent the epitome of quality, as you get all the data from the picture. It also means that you can do things like white balance compensation (making sure that things don't look yellow, or blue or whatever) after taking the picture, rather than at the time.

I was taking pictures of Seoul at night, and unsure about the white balance, so I took a few RAW pictures as well. The bad news was that when I got home, I now had to convert them into proper images. Fuji, who made my camera, supply a truly horrid set of programs to do this. They don't work very well on Vista, and I've lost the disks, so I thought I was stuffed. Until I found this.

These folks have written an image decoder for Finepix cameras that does everything I want. It is free and it works. If you want to play with RAW images and get the maximum quality from your camera, you should download the program and have a play.

Raw Seoul

Go Steam Punk

Alan sent me this link. Check out the Steampunk LCD monitor. Wonderful.