Right as rainy

If you want someone or something to ruin your day in 5 minutes flat, there are a few ways. Try to phone Telkom. Or go to the Licensing Department. The taxman is always an entertaining choice. Oh, been there done that? Well, here’s a new approach. Why don’t you try HP South Africa for size? I did this morning – and I still wish I hadn’t.

Not only have their consultants a rather ‘flexible’ idea of customer support – one time I tried to get a repair status update and was passed on through nine people before I lost my temper – if you want to, the fun starts before you even speak to someone. (continue reading…)

Back in the day of the point & click adventure games, a lot of titles had a scoring system. Every correct action in the game, every successful dialogue, every useful item (and some less useful ones) rewarded the player with a number of points. The objective, of course, was to finish the game with the maximum score, or to get as close to it as possible. It was something that added to the game (or tried to do so), provided for some bragging rights and maybe even made it worthwhile to play the game again.

For some time, as the classic adventure games lost popularity to other genres, the concept was forgotten. Until the console world picked it up again in a slightly different fashion. On the XBox 360, every retail game is worth 1000 points in so-called gamerscore. Since not every game comes with enough story or dialogue or items to adapt the concept 1:1, they had to come up with a few other ideas. The answer is Achievements – milestones scattered throughout the game, each worth a number of points.

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The other night I started reading a book which gave me a lot to think about. It opened with the following quote:

“Why waste time discovering the truth when you can so easily create it?” ¹

The first chapter describes how quick a story can spread through the world. A video was seeded on the Internet, made its way through blogs, forums and chain mails before ending up on BBC and being picked up by the mainstream media. It told a story so horrible yet believable that people could do nothing but believe it and spread the word. But it was a fabrication – an elaborate lie, spread out for disinformation and distraction.

One of my favourite authors once said in one of his books: “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” ² This is especially true since the Internet became widely accessible and used. It is so easy to create stories and spread them – as long as it sounds credible, more people will believe it than question it. That opens doors to all kinds of abuse. Scams are only one of the possibilities. The more worrying ones include targeted and deliberate disinformation, and that can come from anywhere. Governments, companies, organizations – few people would be above spreading false information if it suited their purpose. (continue reading…)

There has been a number of films with a political background in the last few years – many of them are trying to create awareness for current or past, forgotten problems in the world. Ridley Scott’s recent circuit effort ‘Body of Lies’ joins the ranks of these, and sits right up there with the likes of ‘Lord of War’ or ‘Syriana’. It tells the story of an undercover CIA operative, who tries to infiltrate terrorist groups and network in the Middle East. A dangerous game, in which no-one can be trusted.

I don’t know if the writers tried to follow the zeitgeist, or if it is actually a story someone wanted to tell. Let’s face it, Muslim terrorists are hardly an original idea these days, and the danger of succumbing to stereotypes and propaganda is very high. But this one is not about the big struggle, the War on Terror. That’s only a background motif. Essentially the story is about a man who wants to do the right thing, who wants to make a small contribution so that some day the world can be a safer, better place. He believes that things need to be done the right way, not whatever it takes. That puts him in direct opposition to his boss, for whom all that counts is results, and anything goes as far as achieving them is concerned. That’s the kind of thinking that puts the operative at risk.

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So the question asked itself a while ago – how to build a home entertainment system on a budget? The project took about half a year to be finished, but now the setup is pretty complete. A 3Ghz DualCore PC running Vista Ultimate supplies Media Center functionality – Videos, DVDs, the works. The XBox compliments it on the gaming side, and a Samsung T260 takes care of the visuals. The last missing component was a decent sound system, i.e. one that can do an acceptable job for an acceptable price.

Now I am neither too much of an audiophile nor overly knowledgeable when it comes to Hi-Fi and all those things. I know that there’s people out there who would balk at even the notion of spending less than a month’s salary on a sound system, but that’s beside the point. I have to go with what’s affordable to me at the time. That being said, I laid my eyes on the Divoom Comet A1 some time back, and just before Christmas I finally took the plunge. The A1 is a 5.1 system, coming with 4 satellites, one center speaker and an 18 inch sub woofer/amplifier. What sold it for me was the fact that the system has got discrete audio, both optical and coaxial – which was extremely suitable because both my systems have got discrete outputs. (continue reading…)

Good old James Bond is back on stage. “Casino Royale’ was arguably one of the finest movies ever to grace the franchise, and ‘Quantum of Solace’ missed that bar only by a couple of inches. So logically enough, and going with the zeitgeist, there has to be a video game as movie tie-in – by the title of ‘Quantum of Solace’. And remarkably it’s the first James Bond game to make it to the PC since ‘Nightfire’ which was released in 2002, and also the first modern PC title to be directly based on one of the movies. Needless to say it is obviously present on virtually all other mainstream platforms as well. Enough reason to give it a try.

About 5 hours later the conclusion was somewhat sobering. I watched the credit roll (which seemed to be almost as long as the game) and thought to myself ‘Is that all?’. ‘Quantum of Solace’ is clearly trying to appeal to the mainstream FPS crowd, leaving a lot of potential unused or ignored. Level by level is spent doing run&gun scenarios and chicken shoots in the style of the early ‘Call of Duty’ titles, with a bit of hand-to-hand, some minute pseudo-hacking, a bit of pointless stealth and some irritating awkwardness in a few scenes. Most of it is just Bond-unworthy, as he usually has smarter means to outwit his opponents than shooting everything that moves. To add to the frustration, there is exactly one way through each level, each event is scripted, and the  execution of the objectives is as flexible as a railway track. No alternate routes, no silent way, nothing. (continue reading…)

They’re a funny bunch over there at Hi-Fi Corporation. I walked in there today to get an air cooler – in this heat you need at least something to create the illusion of fresh air. They had two models on display which suited my budget – and noone in sight to help me with them. 5 minutes later someone showed up, clearly desinterested, just to tell me that they had no stock of the model I wanted, only the one on display – and no box either. How that person knew all that without even checking the system, I am quite surprised. But she was clearly not interested in being even slightly helpful.

Oh, and on a sidenote: maybe I am being presumptious – but if I find stuff in a bargain bin, packages dented and clearly put there to attract attention – I also expect it to be somewhat marked down. That wasn’t the case with both an XBox Wireless Gaming Receiver and a battery pack, both clearly having been on the shelf for quite some time, but the system spat out the regular prices for both. Sorry guys, no sale.