Author Archives: Lukeh

#252; Movie Reviews XI

  By Lukeh | April 10, 2012 - 7:13 pm | films, General, motorsport, reviews
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It’s been a long old time since I threw out a few reviews of movies I’ve recently given a viewing so better now than never to bring three more to you! This time out I’ve gone for the classic Carrey film that is The Truman Show, Isle of Man TT documentary TT3D: Closer to the Edge and last but not least silly British comedy Johnny English: Reborn. Three films that come from three quite different areas so as always I encourage you to comment below on if you agree, disagree or think I’m talking total silliness. Which I probably am, but that’s what makes the comments so great! To the reviews!

There’s not much I can really add about this classic film that hasn’t been said but I gave it watch earlier again in the week and after all these years it still continues to be a wonderful two hours of film to watch. Who knew Jim Carrey, who at the time was more relevant for stuff like Dumb and Dumber, could star in such a film like he does in the Truman Show? Of course he would eventually go onto star in the equally wonderful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but there’s so many reasons why this film stands up after two decades or so. It doesn’t seem like it’s aged at all; it still feels completely modern and if anything feels more relevant into today’s Big Brother-influenced society. As a film though it’s just an absolute joy to watch and I can’t count on both hands how many times I’ve watched it. The main focus is of course Carrey’s character of Truman Burbank as he discovers his life is just a giant reality TV show that millions around the world are watching. His story of discover just totally drags you in and it’s a sign of how well produced and written the story is in how you genuinely feel for Truman’s world being torn apart.

I’ve already spoken about Carrey’s starring role in the film but it can’t be underestimated how good he is in the Truman Show. He is the man for being silly and goofy and funny but he absolutely blows these stereotypes of his usual role as Truman. The film also feels like the first time you play The Sims – it’s an ordinary life, an ordinary world, an ordinary set of circumstances and yet you cannot take your eyes away from it as the ordinary life unravels. The story of an over-watching power watching down, controlling your every move as a TV producer, with millions watching on wanting to see what you may do next, only needed waiting a few years for the Big Brother phenomenon to give an odd sense of reality to the film. Ideological comparisons aside, it’s the film as a whole that makes it so wonderful to watch and it’s one of those rare examples where everything seems to fit in the world of the Truman Show. The casting, the direction, the writing, the acting, it all comes together to make an essential watch that’s absolutely criminal if you’ve not watched it by now.

Summary: Whether it be Jim Carrey shining out amongst a goldmine of greatness or a film that seems to tick all the boxes where it should, the Truman Show needs to be one of them films on your must watch list. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s endearingly sweet and strangely relevant, and it’ll still amaze after many watches too.

Despite my love for motorsport and how much I adore my racing, motorbikes have never been something I’ve had a huge interest in. Don’t get me wrong, they tend to sound and look beautiful but as a motorsport it’s something I’ve never felt that attached to. This attachment to motorbike racing isn’t necessary to know about the historic Isle of Man TT, and it’s this that TT3D studies, celebrates and informs in many ways within this fascinating documentary. When TT3D was released it was somewhat overshadowed by the beautiful Senna but no matter how good of a film that may be motorsport fans would be insane to simply stay on the side of Senna and not dip their toes into TT3D too. The documentary follows TT rider Guy Martin in his preparations for the event and everything that envelops his world of bikes. Outspoken and determined, it’s easy to see the passion in Martin for what he does but despite his almost selfish behaviour at times he’s a strangely lovable character to follow. I think it’s his Northern-ness as he may just be the most Northern person I’ve ever watched. There’s some brilliant bits where he’s just muttering away and you just can’t hear a thing yet weirdly enough just from his body language and attitude you can completely understand what he’s pointing out. Little things like that make him a great watch and a perfect star for the film in terms of highlighting someone who wants to win their first TT victory.

If we were comparing it to fellow documentary Senna I don’t think it does its job as effectively as a documentary but as a stand out film on its own plinth it’s certain effective story telling. For me what really makes TT3D worth watching is some of the beautifully shot scenes of the bikes roaring around the Isle of Man’s thin, claustrophobic streets and the hillsides that surround the towns. There are several times where I’ve sat back watching the film in total awe at the cinematography in these shots and almost lost myself in what was actually happening with the voiceover or that part of the film because of how lovely it looks. It certainly doesn’t hold back with what it shows too. Expect to see devastating crashes that had hurt TT riders in many ways over the years, both from archive footage and from current footage in the TT event being studied for the film. Ultimately it’s the story of Guy Martin that takes the film by the saddle and drives it along but there’s plenty of asides to keep entertained and inform the more casual viewer to a bit of history, depth and insight into who makes up the grid for the Isle of Man TT and what it means to them too. For me it was learning about such an event that has that legacy and history to it and discovering just what makes the Isle of Man TT so special from both a spectator’s view and from the view of Guy Martin.

Summary – It may not have had the universal exposure of Senna but don’t let that put you off giving TT3D a watch if you love your motorsport. Thrilling, exciting and often fascinating, it doesn’t hold back from showing you the dangers of the event. Plus Guy Martin is brilliant fun to watch.

I’ll be honest – Johnny English: Reborn is a film I’ve held off from watching for a long, long time. Not because I don’t want to watch it, but because I enjoyed the original so much I feared it was one of them things that really didn’t need a sequel. It’s kind of like Portal – the original was so sweetly done, that Portal 2 brought a slight apprehensive attitude to it. Luckily, Portal 2 turned out to be almost perfect and even though JE: Reborn doesn’t hit the same highs, it’s still a cracking sequel and just one of them films you can sit back and relax to. It’s still silly and it’s still such a Rowan Atkinson romp but it’s also surprisingly deeper in the characters it offers and the humour it presents too. It’s more of a ‘film’ than the original ever felt – Johnny English was wonderfully silly but almost Carry On-esque in its nature where-as this sequel doesn’t feel anywhere near as cheap and I promise I mean that in a good way! Johnny has been brought back into action from the wilderness by MI-7 and it’s his job, and his only of course, to help avert the death of a Chinese premier up in the Swiss mountains. Where else, of course? It’s your normal spy action story with the obvious clichés but it doesn’t detract from the film and of course brings in its own special Johnny English touches.

As I mentioned what’s strikingly obvious by the film is how much more of a ‘film’ it feels. It#s strange to explain, but whilst it doesn’t delve into the realms of serious action flick, there’s some bits where quite frankly Johnny is a total badass even if he doesn’t realise it. The one that stands out is the rooftop chase in Hong Kong and Johnny just casually walks through the battle from set piece to set piece. It’s kind of ridiculous and at the same time charmingly good fun to watch. Rowan Atkinson doesn’t disappoint as always too which is always a good sign, but when does he? His often complete lack of self awareness just makes Johnny’s character a huge amount of fun to watch as he affects the world around him without even realising and it’s a huge credit to Atkinson that he manages to do so many scenes with a straight, mute face that I’m not sure many comic actors could achieve in the way that he does.

The only real massive disappointment about Johnny English: Reborn was the lack of Bough from the original film but I suppose he’s gone off to make dodgy sketch shows with that chap from Pointless. Nevertheless, it was a shame not to see him pop up at any point because Bough and English had such chemistry in the original, you don’t quite get the same feel from the young apprentice that joins Johnny in his travels. He’s not bad, it’s just he’s not Bough. And I can’t even remember his name. Ultimately though, if you’re expecting Johnny English: Reborn to be a cheap cash in of a hugely popular original film then prepare to be surprised as it’s definitely worth a watch. It develops on what made the original work and pushes it further whilst holding the humour, silliness and unique British-ness of the original that made it ever so charming. And no, no bad French accents from John Malkovich this time. That’s definitely a good thing.

Summary – Where I was expecting a reasonable but disappointing sequel, instead I got a wonderfully funny, charming and very well done film. It could’ve been a bit of a disaster but never rule out Rowan Atkinson’s greatness. Better production values, a deeper story, and characters with plenty of character and cliché’s galore. I do love a good surprise!

#251; Saturday Nights, We Hardly Knew Thee

  By Lukeh | April 7, 2012 - 8:38 pm | 2012, television
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It’s kind of frustrating how much Saturday night TV has fallen. I’m sure plenty of people will think ‘Well, just go out!’ but I’m not really a going-out-y kind of person as I’m sure is quite obvious. Tonight I turned on the TV to see a program called the Voice. It involved several ‘judges’ who decide whether a person can sing or not depending on their voice only. The problem is, pretty much every person who was on it had the same warbling noise and the same singing style, and all the judges looked completely to just be sitting there doing nothing except nodding their head. Over and over. And over again. Every. Single. Audition. The same.

Is this really entertaining television? Do people genuinely really get their thrills over stuff like this?

It’s presumptuous and stuck up I know but it really blows me back a bit as to how popular these things are. Maybe it’s because I’m in a little bit of a ranty mood but I don’t understand the appeal of shows like this at all, the dreaded surge of reality shows that infest television now. It just makes me a little sad that growing up on a Saturday night you would have variety shows, game shows, Noel’s House Party, and so on. I used to love the Brian Conley show in the early 90′s – it’s a puppet! And The Generation Game was one of my favourite things to watch because it offered variety as it’s purpose; then there’s stuff like Big Break and Krypton Factor too. Of course, Noel’s House Party was silly and fun and fresh! And it had Mr Blobby! The only Mr Blobby you get now is Simon Cowell’s cash infected facelifts staring angrily at a poor northern teenager about to be humiliated. But hey, that’s entertainment these days. I got shown a clip last week of a guy on Britain’s Got Talent from Germany who, when he said he was from our European neighbours, caused the entire audience to boo him for being German. I just found that kind of staggering and I know it’s not necessarily related to my rant here but it’s good to see Britain’s Got Talent is happy to show that off.

There’s not much I can think of that really stands out as to anything that remotes to watch-able on Saturday evenings within recent times. Doctor Who blows every other thing out of the water with Merlin also getting a shout even if it’s not my thing, but that goes as far as I can think. It’s a bit worrying when the next thing that comes to mind is the Eurovision but at least that’s once a year and not washed through reality in various Factors or Talents or Idols on Ice Dancing or whatever. Even Blind Date would be more interesting! On another note, do people actually watch Take Me Out? Upon watching 5 minutes of it a few weeks back I actually felt a little bit stupider. I’ll never get those few precious minutes complaining about the state of Saturday night TV again and that is a shame!

Maybe it’s the nostalgia, maybe it’s the rose tinted glasses but goodness me, I’ll take nostalgia and good times over the never ending cycle of reality TV shows infesting my evening. Thank god for Doctor Who and the 12 weeks of the year it sticks around but for now, to the DVD collection!

#250; When Fast Wasn’t Fast Enough in Rallying

  By Lukeh | April 4, 2012 - 8:40 pm | 2012, motorsport, rallying
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Earlier this week I got round to watching a new BBC documentary entitled Madness on Wheels: Rallying’s Craziest Years, a look at the heydays of the Group B category of the World Rally Championship during the 80′s. I’m an absolute sucker for Motorsport documentaries; anything historical in general presented through a documentary or in a museum I’ll pretty much happily watch so when I noticed this was on the iPlayer I knew it would be a better of time before I gave it a watch. Growing up I watched a lot of rallying on Eurosport – we’re talking Tommi Makkinen in that wonderful Lancer, Richard Burns, Colin McRae and his Subara-then-Ford days, Carlos Sainz and Didier Auriol and so on – much like the BTCC in the 90′s it was something I watched quite a bit before I got bitten by the F1 bug. So having a chance to learn about an era before I was born sounded like an excellent opportunity to learn a bit of history about the WRC and the infamous Group B era.

The programme itself is an hour long look at what brought this change of ultra-powerful rally cars into the sport and what pushed it into huge levels of popularity at the time. It also doesn’t hide from the fact that these changes, of bringing the fastest rally cars ever seen into the sport, brought much catastrophe from spectator injuries to much, much worse. It goes without saying that rally drivers need balls of steel to do what they do – even though modern rallying is a lot more controlled, it still blows my mind to see what can be doing in a rally drifting along a snowy hairpin or chasing a Monte Carlo mountainside at 150mph. However, I was totally unequiped for the shock that seeing what WRC was like in the 80′s.

It's my old friend Ari!

It’d be fair to say there’s not much I knew about this era before watching the program – going as far as knowing about Ari Vatanen and seeing some of his videos from over the years (the on board Pikes Peaks drive never gets old), Stig Blomqvist and Henri Toivonen and some of the classic Quattros and Lancia Deltas too – but that’s quite about it really, so the documentary provided a real level of insight and depth to someone who loves learning everything about motorsport. There’s plenty of footage from the time included and what really gob-smacked me throughout was some of the rallies having spectators not even lined up along the track but in the track itself, and huge crowds to say the least as well. Can you imagine having rallies these days with a huge crowd of people millimetres away from the side skirting of a car? Crazy, crazy sights to see. The crowds at the time really take the sport to the edge and I really feel for the drivers having that extra element to take into consideration into a sport that is already crazy enough.

What I also found interesting was how car manufacturers seemed to jump on the sport and take the advantage of it’s exposure for their own interests rather than the interests of safety. The programme talked about how Peugeot seemed down and out as a company before they brought in a little French designed known as Jean Todt (recognise him?) and with the new Group B rules de-regulating the power of the cars, you had these big names creating cars that were bound to cause tragedy before too long. Throughout I was pondering to myself ‘Surely the designers knew that these cars would just be simply too much?’ and it was only a matter of time before the banana skin started to unwrap from the sport sadly. Henri Toivonen’s tale is especially sad to see especially when it was clear he was one for the future of WRC. But with the sport being so popular and the rules being de-regulated, it was their chance to create cars they could dream of and show them off to a huge audience.

There’s some incredible footage included too, some astounding for the bravery of the drivers, some shocking for what you see. One scene in particular shows an amateur Portuguese driver losing control and barrelling into a crowd of spectators who, again, pretty much have the tips of their toes on the road. For someone who’s been brought up in a motorsport world so focused on safety it’s really shocking stuff. What didn’t surprise me however was the mentions of the ever-controversial Jean Marie Balestre – it seems it’s not only F1 that he was a total dick in, pardon my French, as his stubbornness and lack of knowledge as a leader shows evident as ever throughout. There was also a great degree of irony seeing Ari Vatanen and Jean Todt standing side by side during their Peugeot times. Although I knew they were both at Peugeot in their own roles, the future-based irony of seeing them work together still doesn’t wear thin on me it seems!

It’s a really good watch and I very much do recommend giving it a go. Plenty of drivers, designers and team owners from the time explain their actions, talk about the era and show great remorse in how certain things turned out during that time in the various interviews within. It does feel like it skips over details at times and provides huge detail in certain things but then simply glances over another but it’s just minor flaws against an overwhelming interesting hour of television. It’ll make you thankful for the advances in safety we have these days and that. As exciting as it looks, as crazy as it sounds, as ridiculous as the fans make it, the inevitable outcome of events showed just how much safety seemed to be paramount at that time.

#249; And We’re Back

  By Lukeh | April 2, 2012 - 8:19 pm | 2012, General
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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FG7eRWyYOo

Hello again.

It’s good to have you with us. But maybe not just for the day, as Brandon may sing, because I’ve really missed blogging and now’s about a good time to get things going again. It’s strange when you take a hiatus how much you miss something but I can’t deny how many times I’ve looked at something and discussed within my mind about blogging about it. But sometimes you need a break, a moment to refresh and refocus and then come back better than ever and with cake too.

I don’t have cake but I did have some last week so that counts.

Anyways, I just wanted to quickly express this brief announcement and hope that I can produce many things once more that are worth reading, sharing and discussing. There was also the real temptation of posting this yesterday (April 1st) but that would be a bit of an evil April Fools, one of them ones where you don’t think it could be real but at the same time think maybe it could. Alas, my conscience got the better of me. I remember when I had a Myspace (to quote Uncle Albert “During the war…”) and changed my entire page to a James Blunt tribute page for the day. Clearly that life changing day completely broke me from making April Fools pranks in the future.

So, hello again!

#248; A Temporary Hiatus

  By Lukeh | February 18, 2012 - 10:19 pm | 2012
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After much consideration and thought to myself over the past 2 or 3 months, I’ve decided to give Thoughts of a Trying Atheist a bit of a rest for a while. In all honesty, when it comes to personal blogging I’ve grown a little spent both expressing my thoughts as blog posts and creating ideas that are both fun and interesting to read. Rather than keep driving myself mad about it knowing the publish count has been falling month by month, I’ve decided to step back for a little while and let myself find that mojo again because I really do love blogging but quite frankly it’s teeth grittingly frustrating when you can’t find something to talk about.

This most certainly isn’t the end though. As I say, I do love to blog and express opinions and thoughts through words in such a way so I certainly don’t plan on not returning. I just need to refocus and come back at some point with plenty of good stuff. For those interested, I’m still raring and ready to go with my F1 blog Gridwalk Talk, with the prospect of a new season providing much excitement and chances to write good things! As for my own stuff though, maybe it’s good to have a breath of fresh air and just find my way back to being able to write things up that I’m confident I can publish. One of the worst feelings with blogging is writing something, reading back and thinking it sounds like utter crap and leave it as a draft. Over the past few months, that has occurred far too much and the published output has really dwindled on here sadly. I hope you understand my point of view though; I just apologise if it’s a little disappointing.

I’ll be back in 5.

#247; It’s a Double Fine Adventure!

  By Lukeh | February 16, 2012 - 8:15 pm | 2012, double fine, gaming, tim schafer
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Psychonauts. Brutal Legend. Iron Brigade. Monkey Island. Grim Fandango. Day of the Tentacle.

Just some of the wonderful titles and names from the mind of Tim Schafer, whether it be his time at LucasArts or his running of Double Fine. It’s not the first time I’ve gone on about Schafer; he’s someone I look up to hugely and Double Fine are easily my favourite games developer. Over the years he’s brought me much laughter, joy and pretty much awesome times playing games created from his seemingly endless creativity and over the past few weeks, things seem to have gone very exciting for the man who clearly stores all his creativity in that grizzly beard of his.

You see, two major things seems to have popped up that have got me incredibly excited both as a Double Fine fan and an admirer of how Schafer goes about his work as a name within the gaming industry. The first regards one of my all time favourite games in Psychonauts. Just the thought alone of Psychonauts and how criminally underrated and unknown it is to the wider audience of the world makes me a sad panda, and to this day I still often play the wonderful game that it is even if it’s a generation behind the times now. As a platforming title, it does the job. It probably offers nothing more than any normal platformer would. What makes Psychonauts so special though to me is the charm; the character, the personality that oozes out of it’s every orifice; the fact it offers something completely differently and blows away anything that could come close. Just like the many titles Schafer spearheaded before hand, it’s just ridiculously fun to play and with so much detail and joy coming out of the game it instantly became one of my favourite titles. Yet, it sold so little and did so badly commercially. Over the years, since 2005, it’s sold 400,000 copies worldwide. Let’s compare this to Gran Turismo 4 which sold 1.5 million in 2005 alone. OK, so the two games are a world apart in how well known they are, but it goes to show how little exposure Psychonauts got from a selling point of view. Basically, Psychonauts was made to look bad because it sold horribly bad, when in fact it was easily one of the better games of the era personally.

But that was then, and now it’s fondly looked back on by those who know of it. No matter what games Double Fine have brought out, you’ll see people asking Tim on Twitter ‘When is Psychonauts 2 coming out?!’. I’ve never really expected anything. It did too badly commercially to initiate a sequel being release no matter how good it was. Maybe it’s a good thing, left something unspoilt and special as it is instead of risking with a crappy sequel, right? But then again, what is life without risk? The umm’ing and err’ing of a Psychonauts fan like myself could go on and on but a few weeks ago, something staggering happened. Hell, something happened – that’s enough without being staggering! Markus ‘Notch’ Persson revealed on Twitter that he would help fund Psychonauts 2 to finally make it happen. And he was serious too.

Oh my.

It’s very early days though. Maybe he won’t but he certainly is interested. If you don’t know who this mysterious Notch is, he’s the mind behind the mega-uber success that is Minecraft. But just the fact alone that something COULD finally happen is really quite exciting, it’s a moment I’ve been waiting for for years now and something could actually happen! I can understand why there would be a little bit of apprehension to a sequel though. Like I’ve mentioned already, carrying on the weird and wonderful world of Psychonauts onto a sequel could be a complete disaster but you really don’t know; with the cult status it’s gained over the years it would surely do better than it did back then and, quite frankly, I have all the faith in Schafer and Double Fine to make a sequel just as good as the original. Should it happen? Hell yes it should! Will it happen? Who knows.

 

Then you have the tale of the Kickstarter project that came to life within the last week or two. Kickstarter is a platform that allows for public funding towards creative projects, no matter what form they may come in, whether it be films, gaming, whatever – creativity is the name of the game and it allows people to support a project they want to invest in. Random little twittering from the mind of Schafer wondering about starting up a Kickstarter project resulted, within 6 hours, in fans raising $400,000 towards funding a new game. Just within a few hours of it being considered for god sake! At the type of writing, the fund stands at a staggering $1.4 million, again just from donations from fans around the world. It’s an incredible turn of events and the money is being put towards creating Double Fine Adventures, which will be a return to classic point and click adventure gaming such as the Monkey Island games or Broken Sword. I think this, and get plenty excited over this idea alone, then I think back to how quickly the money’s been raised and it’s genuinely blows my mind how quickly this has all happened.

And who’da thunk it? A new point and click adventure game from a big games developer in 2012. Sometimes I really love how life turns out even when it seems like a genre is dead and buried!

So, two very exciting things coming out of the pipeline for this company that I do so love. It’s impossible not to be excited, even if the Psychonauts 2 thing leads to nothing. It goes to show some of the reasons why Double Fine hold such a high status of regard in my eyes – they not only make wonderful games and have a fab sense of humour I connect with immediately but this level of interaction with fans, this ability to gain a following and not have hugely massive games with a mainstream audience like Call of Duty of Battlefield, and to create games that are just downright excellent to play from a gameplay point of view and through how much love and effort are put into them.

Let’s just see what happens next!

(oh, and go and buy yourself Psychonauts. Do it do it do it! It’s even on Xbox Live, Steam and Gog.com for cheap if you can’t find it in the shops. You won’t regret it!)

#246; Homer Skiddly-biddly-doo-wop-a-Donso­n

  By Lukeh | January 20, 2012 - 6:52 pm | General
2 Comments

I still can’t quite get my head around this. It just of both amazes me and shocks me at the same time but I love it.

Here in the UK, Channel 4 have had The Simpsons for plenty of years now. As I’m sure you’re all aware you get this little ‘sting’ before most shows introducing them before they come on. It’s that bit that would usually say ‘Coming up next on BBC1, Peggie slaps everyone… in Eastenders’ or whatever, just the little 20 second explanation of what’s coming next. Now, how I and so many people have missed this completely gobsmacks me but I really do advise watching the below video and then wondering how on earth Channel 4 have been doing this for the last few weeks as they introduce The Simpsons…

I would also like to note that this is completely real and taken from Channel 4. Nothing has been messed around with, as unbelievable as some of it seems!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS7be8PqktI

To quote the Tenth Doctor… what?!!!!!

It’s both equally brilliant and utterly ridiculous at the same time. Apparently it’s been going on for a few weeks now, where the continuity announcer has been saying different names. We have the Carlsons, the Hixons, the Dimpsons, even the Cheese and Onions. How on earth has this passed us all by for weeks? I personally really like The Flinstones. Perhaps it goes to show just how little attention we pay to the little strings before an episode with these announcers. Clearly they could say anything and get away with it!

I still can’t believe they said The Skiddly-biddly-doo-wop-a-Donso­ns. I guess it’s easy to get the two mixed up.

#245; School of Coding

  By Lukeh | January 19, 2012 - 9:42 pm | coding, General
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Coding something and getting good results from it is really good fun. Now I can appreciate there will be people reading this who have seen blocks of code in the past and just immediately checked themselves into hospital in fear of going insane at trying to understand it but that’s a fair point to make, as when you don’t know, it can be slightly terrifying. Whenever I studied various languages at university our goal within our little group of friends was to create something but make it easy for ourselves by actually understanding our own code if we look back at it in years time. To accomplish this though, we had to build up from an absolute level of zero knowledge and go from step to step in building up what we knew about the lives of visual basic, C++, java and so on. So to discover Codecademy and offer the joys of coding to the masses in such a wonderful way fills me with much happiness.

 

As if you haven’t worked out what Codecademy does yet, the purpose of this wonderful website is to encourage the basics of programming through free step by step online tutorials that are not only interactive but constantly drive you on to delve deeper into the lessons it offers. It starts with the basic ‘Hello World’ instructions and output and whatnot as it would and starts delving deeper into the likes of variables, strings, functions and so on. What I particularly like is the fact it incorporates ‘achievements’ into the courses on the site too, basically giving you a virtual pat on the back and despite their meaningless purpose you’d be surprised how nice it is to get this sense of achievement just from the site telling you you’ve been awarded a new achievement for what you’ve done. It’s very reminiscent of the Achievement system introduced into gaming properly on the Xbox 360 and has since found its way into games on all formats, and amazingly today into Microsoft Visual Studio too again awarding you achievements for doing certain things in C# and Visual Basic. For something like Codecademy though, which will take completely newbies hand in hand and help them through the daunting basics, it’s such a motivational factor to keep going and a fabulous inclusion.

Having studied plenty of coding at university I find the whole process of getting stuck into programming something really rewarding and real fun to get stuck into. My knowledge, in all honesty, is pretty poor at the moment in comparison to when I was constantly doing stuff at university and always surrounded in books and sheets of code, functions, tips, tricks and stuff I’ve picked up. So even for someone like myself who’s already splashed about in the pool of programming it’s a really refreshing and encouraging way to jump back into the pool so to speak and find my feet again. Again, getting achievements is just awesome. Have I said how much I like that side of it?

I realise it sounds like a mega advert of a post for Codecademy but I can’t help but be incredibly excited for something that offers such a service to a mainstream audience in such a wonderful way. The word needs to be spread and I really do recommend you spend some time over there if you’ve ever looked at programming and been a little bit scared or put off by how daunting it looks. Just remember that everyone has to start somewhere with something new, so what better way than to have a site like this allowing you to understand without looking down on you and being such a useful source of help? Give it a go and let me know what you make of Codecademy in the comments.

Who knows, maybe you’ll see too just how rewarding and fun programming can be too!

 

#244; The Modern Nostradamus

  By Lukeh | January 11, 2012 - 8:24 pm | 2012, predictions
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Earlier today I came across an article on the BBC website that was looking at the predictions of John Elfreth Watkins, a civil engineer from the turn of the 20th century who made many bold predictions and the like, with some coming out eerily accurate. We’re talking about predictions about colour photography being transmitted and created digitally, the rise of mobile phones, televisions, and of course, bigger fruit. Because life definitely needs bigger fruit. It really interested me to see how some of his ideas could come out so accurate to his descriptions, in particular the technological creations that we’ve invented over the years. What wasn’t so impressive was some of his total misses though. I mean, no longer using the letters C, X and Q? Well, it’s uite ontrived to eagerate uite what impact this razy uery of his ould ome to.

It got me thinking though what predictions I would make now for a 100 years time in the year 2100 and how different life would be now to then. Of course, I could just say that everyone will be in flying cars and we’d have Star Wars holograms everywhere but, as we all quite clearly know, this doesn’t happen until the year 3000 thanks to Matt Groening’s genius. There’s so much you could predict about the year 2100 though, so here’s a few of my predictions in the spirit of John Elfreth Watkins:

Humanity will have itself on another planet – In a hundred years time we’ll have people rocking it on Mars and chilling out in their space home suburbs. I reckon we’ll have people up on Mars perhaps on a scientific level for NASA (if they still exist then) doing spacey wacey stuff at least. But I definitely reckon we’ll have people on Mars by then, yes. I’m hoping there will be self sustained environments and schools and Mars University and, of course, Mars Greggs. But there will definitely be Life on Mars by then and it won’t be John Simm. Unless he coincidentally turns up there.

Television networks will no longer exist – By the time 2100 comes around there won’t be anything like ITV, Channel 4, and the billions of Sky channels. Instead, we’ll simply be an on demand society with different studios bringing out different things for their own personal profit. It probably makes no sense at all but a lot can change between now and then! I just reckon the whole channel thing will get horribly outdated by then and people will be more interested in getting content when they want and how they want rather than dependant on timetables.

Buses will no longer exist – I shall see to this one myself.

Glasses will have the internet and life will have a HUD – You can get the change to get glasses that not only bring up internet searches no matter where you are and what you’re doing, but also brings up information on your vitals, heart rate, fatigue, all this stuff you’d see in a game like a constant Sims experience or something in your very view. Technology will advance to the point where subjects can be analysed and detected and it’ll be friggin’ awesome. You really should have gone to Specsavers in the year 2100.

Human population will rise about 20 billion – Will we even have enough space in the world with that many people? Luckily, with the new human centres on Mars and possibly beyond millions are heading for a new life away from Earth but we’ll still find ourselves with hugely populated cities, slums beyond the eye can see and also Swansea.

The England Football Team still won’t have won a second World Cup – 140 years of hurt.

Artificial Intelligence will be geniunely intelligent – The normal Japanese Christmas present come 2100 will be a new human robot friend who goes about their every day life at home waiting for you to get home, to be your friend, tidying the house and letting you win on the Nintensoft Woobox 2000. Ultimately, artificial intelligence will be researched to the levels of human intelligence, where AI can be measured on genuine IQ and find themselves within shops as stores assistants or able to do the normal job of a retail operative. Basically, smart as hell robots.

Average age will rise to 120 – We seem to be living longer as time goes on so why not? We’ll go on beyond 80, 90, and 100 will just be another rave down the local hall after a round of bingo. So, 120 will become the average living age for developed countries with more people becoming healthier and more awareness of healthy food and cultural differences in what’s being eaten being the reason for the upping. That and bloody great vitamins.

Currency will be a universal chip – Everyone will grow utterly sick of all these currencies and the exchange rates, bankers will get their ultimate downfall thanks to a Wall Street catastrophe of epic proportions and it’ll be decided that the world will run on one currency determined by a chip that stores all your money within it. Notes will go out of fashion saving millions of trees and the term ‘penny’ will merely be associated with financial museums around the world, currently known to us as banks.

Windows will still crash a lot – You think that’s bad, they installed Windows Centurion Edition into Cyborg Steve Ballmer.

#243; Into Another Dimension

  By Lukeh | January 7, 2012 - 1:07 pm | 2012, 3ds, gadgets, gaming, General, nintendo
1 Comment

At the moment we’re currently going through an era in technology where all the major technological developers are playing about with the concept of 3D. Sony has their headsets and TV’s, there are phones coming out with the whole 3D thing too and, of course, there is the Nintendo 3DS. Last week I thought I would treat myself on my birthday by going out and picking one up after a long time considering getting one or not and now seems a good time after a week or so to look back and review what I’m thinking so far of this nifty little piece of hardware.

The 3D doesn't appear in photos. But I can promise there are various dimensions.

Now if there’s one thing I love it’s playing about with some new piece of technology. You really can’t beat the excitement of getting your hands on something new to play about with and just explore! The main selling point of the console obviously lays in its name – the 3D. If you’re unaware, with the 3DS it does not require any glasses to achieve the effect. Instead, a slider on the right hand side of the console triggers how ‘strong’ you want the effect to be and it works surprisingly well considering it requires no glasses or anything. I’ve not been a huge fan of 3D stuff in all honesty so it’s nice it’s grown a good impression on the console with me but it must be made aware how fussy it can be. You really do need to hold it in the right place to get the right effect. Move a bit to the left and you get double screen mayhem and a really odd effect, and if you’re a lot like me playing Mario Kart, I tend to do that thing where you want to get around the corner and you find yourself leaning left or right. You must remember that leaning definitely contributes to the driving! As I say though, the 3D works but it definitely comes with its flaws.

At the moment I only have two games and a few downloaded titles, with the retail games being the wonderful Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 7 which, somehow, after all these years still refuses to get old. Plus I’m still utterly dire at it so you can tell it’s consistent. I’ve been really impressed with how the games play. There’s no real huge change from how a DS game would play admittedly but the games do look better on this handheld without a doubt. The thing I do really, really like though is the analog slider on the left hand side of the console that has finally  been added to a Nintendo handheld console. for far too long they’ve been dependant on generic D-pad controls, which can still be used below the slider should you wish, but analog just makes things so much better to play. Even better is that the analog slider works with original DS games too which is a big bonus. Going back to the games, both have really impressed me. I never owned a Nintendo 64 back in the day so Ocarina of Time is all very new to me and extravagantly lovely to look at in 3D as well as being a pleasure to play, and Mario Kart is, well… Mario Kart. You certainly don’t need me to tell you how good the Mario Kart games always are and, again, it looks lovely in 3D too.

This does lead onto a concern of mine though I must admit. At the moment, the 3DS game library appears to be staggeringly thin on the waters. There doesn’t seem to be a huge amount to go by if you enjoy your games – there’s the usual casual nonsense that Nintendo so love to endorse, and what major games there are really are top games, but the problem is there’s just not much of either at the moment. Hopefully this is something on Nintendo’s part to prevent the flooding of market with utter tosh. Both the Wii and the DS suffered from an absurd overload of titles that were just really, really poor quality casual games (stuff like Babyz first Day 3 or Horse Carer 7 or whatever) that really lowered just what both consoles were capable of. They appealed to the casual audience of gaming vastly and certainly didn’t hinder the popularity of the Wii or DS but you look in games shops at the titles on the shelf and it just makes you think who on earth would buy 90% of the stuff there. Of course, Nintendo now have a hell of a rival in the constantly emerging market from Apple and Android regarding apps and games on your phones or iOS devices for pennies compared to titles on the DS that go for the full £40 whack. To say these apps aren’t competition now would be pretty ignorant and Nintendo really do need to find a way to compete with these. Things like Zelda or Mario are worth the £40 because they’re fully fledged games but it does make me wonder.

This is Saturo Iwata. Look how happy he is with his 3DS.

I’m really pleased that Nintendo have picked up from where the DS suffered immensely and that’s area such as online and the network in general. The 3DS really does feel much more accustomed to wireless activities in the various forms it utilises wireless, from recognising other 3DS consoles nearby to obviously playing multiplayer with people around the world. To be honest I have no idea why Nintendo are still going down the route of ‘Friend Codes’ when they’re so laborious but at least the system works from a Home hub this time instead of every single game having different friend codes as was the norm previously. Even down to things like the notification list within the Home hub that keeps you up to date with updates or news and the hugely improved eShop to download new games, DLC and apps all shows just how much Nintendo has learnt from their mistakes in the past. the DS almost felt a little bit apprehensive with the idea of playing a game online or even going near online capabilities but this is way different and a real satisfying update. The same can be said for the fact the 3DS actually utilises SD cards properly now whereas, again, the DS could support it but never really found a use for SD cards. Big change now and so much better for it.

So early impressions are really good. Nintendo need to get the ball rolling with more first and third party titles for the system that will attract more people in but the recent price drop has much it much more worth the money. For myself, I’m really pleased I picked one up and can’t wait to see what games come in 2012. I would be lying if I said Rollercoaster Tycoon 3DS didn’t influence my decision when it eventually comes out because – let’s face it – Rollercoaster Tycoon in your own hands!!! But from a technical standpoint it’s a nifty piece of kit and I’m pretty impressed. But there is more, from the likes of Luigi’s Mansion 2 to the wonderful Metal Gear Solid 3DS and way beyond, the system will soon have plenty to cheer about but it’s a good start at least.

Oh and if you’re wondering, my friend code is 3823-9120-0241. Feel free to add me!