Sunday, 07:56 pm, 11 July 2004

No Apologies

I went to see Fahrenheit 911 with my wife this morning. Readers of the log will be familiar with my views on Moore's previous work. Patchy. I feel the left in the US is really cent(re/er) right in reality.

I don't think you should support something purely because it opposes something you don't agree with. To blindly follow anyone seems to be open to folly. Moore's objectives in Bowling... were apologist to the gun companies and the gun culture - he's a life-long member of the NRA.

When I went to see the most recent Harry Potter I braced myself for another poorly acted formula as the previous two snoozefests. But having seen the hippogriff, I realised that anything that got people thinking or experiencing some traditional mythology can't be all bad.

I felt similarly about Fahrenheit. Anything that at least gets people thinking about the issues is better than nothing. The first half of the film was better than the second. I thought the links and more information on the Saudi/bin Laden connection were needed. In fact, al Jazeera's review of the film commented that the information on the Saudis and bin Laden should have been fact checked as thoroughly as the rest of the film. al Jazeera went as far as saying it was fantasy.

The second part of the film apologised for the first part of the film.

I have been reading a lot about the SS in recent weeks. I purchased a book on the history of the SS because, I hoped, it would help me understand the mindset of ideologically driven soldiers. Particularly brutal ideologically driven soldiers. The images of good kids going off to fight in a bad war may be accurate when they leave home. But after extensive violence, torture and a kill on sight policy, one has to wonder about the ideologically driven soldier.

Moore apologised for this. He notes throughout the film that the soldiers were under-educated from poorer America, but this seemed also to be a part of the problem in the film. The issues with regards to killing civilians has nothing directly to do with Bush. In fact, although if they weren't there they couldn't kill civilians, the shoot anything that moves policy and the lack of importance of the Geneva Convention on the ground is something else.

Aside from the musing on the ideologically driven soldier, it seemed surreal to see a political opinion in the cinema. A political opinion about a current event. To pay to go to the cinema to see Moore's political views made me think that the choir had turned out. People who don't agree with Moore's politics won't go and see the movie.

A Small Postscript

I removed the previous listed image from the site. I didn't want to maintain this picture on the site. I have better things to do with my bandwidth.

Good evening.
Sunday, 07:05 pm, 04 July 2004

I spent the afternoon working on Noble Warfare and watching Max with my wife. The beauty of the laptop in terms of working in all times and in all places. To be fair, I think I shut the laptop down to watch the film. I wanted to see Max for some time. It touches on a number of themes of interest and Noah Taylor as Hitler! Why hasn't Noah seen any statues yet.

Yesterday following my log entry and some more work on Noble Warfare I played two games of Rise of Nations. I had slept on Rise of Nations. In the genre, it had some features I liked. Invading the cities was cute. The use of nuclear weapons to the mutual detriment was good. The main problem I had with it was FPS and general jerkiness. I have a well over speced machine and I was quite disappointed with the general responsiveness of the game. I was getting 3 FPS at best. In general, more jerky than that. I think a game engine should maintain 15 or better. If the game can't handle 15 FPS, it needs work.

It was visually stunning, but managing the art assets was clearly too much. In terms of engine priming and improvements, every real time strategy game I have played feeds back into my views and work with Noble Warfare. That is a luxury. I still have Age of Mythology in its box. It needs to be played.

Good night.
Saturday, 09:57 am, 03 July 2004

Thanks to a missing spelling and format check, I thought I would add a little more.

The past couple of days I have been working through the Noble Warfare code fulltime. I took time off my 9-5 to finish Noble Warfare to a point where I can beta it. It is almost there. A lot of the development time is going away and thinking about the various issues.

I am completely reworking the battling code and this is producing much more code than I originally expected. The beauty of all this AI code is that it tests itself. All you need to go is create two armies and watch them fight it out. The first issue is avoiding crash conditions - more importantly identifying crash conditions and removing them. Then the real fun begins, because you can tweak the code to test battle conditions.

I'm expecting about a month worth of tweak testing where I will work on the documentation in parallel. All in all I don't want to speculate about when it will be released. But if I was betting I would say Q4 is safest.

Good morning.
Saturday, 09:35 am, 03 July 2004

Tammy Haye Figure

I know this space is usually the exclusive realm of Fred Reed figures, but I commissioned a couple figures from Tammy Haye and here is the first one.

Miniature fans will already know Tammy's work as a former Eavy Metal painter at Games Workshop. This figure combines her earlier work in the gem and her post GW work in the possessed faces on the flat sections. The second figure has a storm trooper weapon. I am curious if she will go with the same tentacles or do something more surreal. In any case, stunning figure.

It seems like all my figure painters will be going to Games Day this year. I suspect this may be the one convention to attend. If for no other reason, to meet Fred Reed. Lots of digital images required.

Loe Pesci and Behold

After two and a half months the Nine Majesty Mix Tape Volume One has arrived. I have mixed feelings about the CD. Some tracks are standout - Blackbook and Loes Needs to Eat are great. But a number of them are the same style with the same beats. If they changed the style up a little, I think it would be much more listen-able.

The Iraqniphobia track too poses more questions than it answers. In fact, the main question it raises is what are middle class Canadian Muslims doing claiming to be like Atta. The image of fundamentalist Islam as fundamentalist capitalism is something that is missing. The payment requirements and the wealthy controlling the poor - this narrative is universal and boring. Fundamentalist Islam - just another form of economic suppression.

Good morning.

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