Double post today. Just an FYI. Im being made redundant from work next month. Why? Apparently a focus on customers isn’t as important as a focus on sales. I’ve said my piece so Im not going to repeat it here but it is possibly the dumbest argument I’ve heard in a long time.
Corporations eh?
<note this is a geek heavy post>
Well today I finally did something I thought I’d never do. Yes I have gone to the other side… I have switched from Nvidia to ATI! 
I’ve been using Nvidia graphics cards since it became clear that having a 3DFX card wasn’t the way forward (which was back in 1999 I believe). Nvidia have done me proud over the years but part of me was scared to try new things and ATI was ” the other side” of graphics cards.
For those who don’t know what Im talking about, ATI and Nvidia are the Coke and Pepsi of the graphics card world. Both big, both good but you tend to side with one or the other.
Anyway I found my 9600GT just wasn’t pulling its weight anymore and decided it was time for an upgrade. After a lot of research into the new GTX 200 series from Nvidia I was conscious that ATI always seemed to have more cards in the top 20 performing cards that Nvidia. This was confirmed when looking at specific application tests such as Far Cry 2 and the like. So I decided to see what ATI had to offer. I thought I would aim for a DirectX11 card as Dx10 is (in theory) on the way out, however ATIs HD 5700 and 5800 series didn’t seem to pull the same punch as their older 4800’s. IE for more money you can get a 5750 graphics card over an older 4870 and get WORSE performance all round. But it will do DX11. I figured I could live without that for now
So whats it like? Huge is one word. It fills two PCIe bays and sounds like a hairdryer when starting it up. Whats it like? Don’t know yet. Haven’t put it through its paces. BUT I will say this. ATIs drivers are about 50MB smaller in file size than Nvidias which is a bonus
Well another year has gone and a new one is upon us. I looked into my cinema ticket archive from the last year. It proved interesting reading (well at least to me).
I only saw 11 films at the cinema this year, and 2 of those were the same film
Defiance
Slumdog Millionare
Watchmen
Star Trek
Star Trek IMAX
Harry Potter 6
Moon
Surrogates
Up
An Education
2012
Of those I think I only really loved 4 of them and some I didnt like at all. Some months I saw 2 films others none.
The point of this? Absolutely none whatsoever
Anyway for the new year? Well Ive just seen Avatar in 3D. Very good but made me feel very sad for some reason.
And for myself? A job would be nice, a continuing growth in my relationship with my girlfriend (whom Im quite enamoured with as it is! ), and oo something even more adventurous !!
Some of you already know, but just to fill the rest of you in In Feb next year I will be made redundant from my part time job.
In some respects this is not a bad thing as I didnt intend to stay there forever and this is a good excuse to head on another direction. The practical downside is that I need to have the money coming in to make rent etc.
Things are not top gloomy tho. I have several applications in the pipeline and Dave Hops new DVD should hopefully maybe financed by the end of this week. I have options plus trusting in God is where I hope to be, free from worry
Been playing a lot of PC games recently. Could be for a number of reasons but escapism springs to mind.
Anyway the two which have caught my attention are Borderlands and Warhammer Online. Now yes I did work on the old Warhammer Online many years ago (and left before it got canned I hasten to add) so its been amusing to see what they’ve made of this version… and its pretty much a shifting of the World of Warcraft model. Yes there are significant differences and things I really like (such as different ways to get XP etc).
It falls down slightly given that this kind of game demands a high userbase. Realm vs Realm (or massive PvP to put it another way) only works when you have a large player base online at the same time which is not usually the case I’ve found. So much so that they seem to have lumped all the races on the “Destruction” side into the same newbie area (Chaos). This fails to work for me playing an Orc, but you are given a nifty scroll to teleport you to the right area. Sadly its not actually explained when the best time to do this is and as a consequence I’ve now done nearly 2 newbie areas!
Its a pity as there are some really nice touches but it seems … lacklustre in a way. Also of note is how on earth Paul Barnett (a man brought in to the original WO project as an advisor but his CV only listed text based games as his experience) landed the job of “Creative lead” on the project after he had a hand in the originals demise…. Suspicious? I think so. Bitter? Nah I would have liked to see my stuff come out but the project had more than one issue
ANYWAY the other game of Note is Borderlands (by Gearbox). A nice little meld of RPG and shooter with some 4 player coop action thrown in. I quite like it. Sure it has its quirks and some things are a little broken but its good fun (which is all you can ask from a game). I’ve not tried the online content yet but the single player is gripping enough to warrant continued play. I love the characters in the game and theres some great humour and film / game references in there.
Yes sad but true, I am wishing myself a happy birthday <sigh>.
32 today and feeling.. quite old actually.
Was amused the following also happened today :
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Interesting a number of good and terrible things happening at the same time, but I guess thats true of any day. Poor day at work again. In for dinner then out for drinks later. More sociable than my last few years efforts anyways.
Ok the quick quick version.
Length of the land trip went fine. Painful but fine. Had to leave the bike in Scotland as I injured my hand and was unable to ride it back. I now have it back but am having to sell it as I don’t have any cash for the next insurance injection. More info on the Length of the Land Website (I think).
I am ok. Cold but ok. Work is … work.
Got back into wargaming recently (egged on by the interesting Blood Bowl game on the PSP, which forced me to dust off my BB models). Im currently trying to encourage a friend to assemble and paint a new army he’s just started by assembling miniatures of my own. So far its 20 to “a sniff inside the box” (in my favour). Doesn’t bode well. Would like to post progress here but you know how these things go.
Other than that, not much else to report. Some little things brewing but we’ll see what they produce.
OH almost forgot. Thanks to the Financial Ombudsman, Paypal have agreed to credit and restore my account after that fiasco months ago. Nice to find some small justice in the world of mega corps. Now hopefully those debt collections agencies that Paypal set on me (oh yes) will finally piss off.
Ok this isn’t as out of the blue as it sounds… only slightly out of the blue. I have decided to do a
marathon 906 mile trip from Lands End to John O’Groats on my little Yamaha YBR125. Im still L plated so can’t use any motorways (but who’d want to on a trip like this?)
Im hoping to raise money for UNICEF in the process too!
My route looks something like this. At present I reckon its going to take 3 days, stopping somewhere near Shrewsbury and again near Stirling. Thats based on averaging about 300 to 350 miles a day. It could all go wrong if I end up doing more
Am I worried? A little bit. I should probably get the bike serviced before I go but no money for that at the moment (it will be iffy if I can afford the fuel but thats details ). I think I just want to do something more than just the little tootles I’ve been on (even up to North Derbyshire and back isn’t enough).
Edit : This trip has had its own website for a while now. Check out www.lengthoftheland.com
Had a lovely Happy Easter message from Paypal today… in the form of a note saying “you remember that item you posted but got lost in the post and wasn’t insured as the buyer was too tight? We’re gonna blame you and take £87 off you.”
Apparently its a case of guilty until proven innocent (what the buyer has to do to prove he actually didn’t receive it I have no idea). I have a proof of posting and email conversations with the buyer admitting he should have chosen the insured route but apparently they didn’t see the right proof of posting (I initially posted a different proof by mistake but as Paypals system doesn’t allow you to delete any “proof” I had to upload a 2nd pic and note on it that it was the real one).
I find it incredulous that a company as big as Paypal are completely unable to actually look at the individual case and can only look at their set criteria of “evidence”. The whole reason I sold some stuff was so that I could actually eat this month. No money to pay them their “refund” and as they took a cut of that money anyway its a fair cheek to ask for it again!
Don’t think I’ll be using Paypal/eBay ever again. Sad given my 9 years of use (and 100% positive feedback I might add) but something this ridiculous should never have even happened in the first place!
Spotted this on iPlayer this morning :http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jkry6/Japan_A_Story_of_Love_and_Hate/
Ok not seen it all the way through and the camera work so far is terrible (as is some of the guys assumptions about Japan) but an interesting look at real life japan away from a major city.
Gods been getting on my case again about going out there. Im looking into options but I’ve no plans (nor no way) to go out there for at least a year or two yet so we’ll see what becomes of that. Interestingly the things that keep popping up when reading Kings 1 & 2 recently are obedience and how vital it is. I feel I may not be so good at that when it comes to Japan mostly due to my lack of seeing how I can do it. But then again I guess my limited vision shouldn’t limit Gods potential