Colourful Stuff

Matt Ridley's Francis Crick biography is at times quite an exhilarating read. The race between various labs to find a model for the structure of DNA makes a great centrepiece and the smaller, less well known details are often quite surprising. The details of his role during WWII, calculating the power of magnetic fields used by German minesweepers to detonate mines is a particular highlight.

I'm into Amanda Palmer at the moment. There's an album launch thing streaming tonight http://www.youtube.c...d?v=Lz7uCiTtV4E. Here is her latest video for your ears and eyes. She is also married to Neil Gaiman, which pretty much confirms her as cool. Update: Archive of the gig. It really was an amazing show, featuring three saxophones. I stayed up to 6am watching it because I'm a bad person.

Vertigo is screening at my local art house tonight. I'm an enormous fan of the film and have been since studying it in A level film studies. I really obsessed about the film for about a year, to the point that I got a perfect score for the exam essay I wrote about it. It remains my favourite Hitchcock film and getting to see it projected properly for the first time should be incredible. It has been one of Hitchcock's more divisive films since its initially poor critical reception. I'm please Sight and Sound have now recognised how good it really is. If it is screening near you please go and see it, regardless of whether or not you have seen the film before or particularly like Hitchcock. It is quite distinct from his other films. The only problem I have with the it is how much it makes me want to visit San Francisco, more than Driver or Chris Remo's twitter feed ever could.

The new series of Only Connect started on BBC4 two weeks ago. If you have't seen it before I'd describe it as a Times crossword handed to you by an attractive woman. I have no idea if it can be viewed outside of the UK but it's worth tracking down if you like logic puzzles. It is the only quiz show I have ever really enjoyed or watched on a regular basis. You can play the Wall segment of the show online. My flatmate and I lost an entire Sunday afternoon playing them in the kitchen.

We all know the moon has an atmosphere, why else would the flag wave?!

Chris, do you have any Kerouac on the list? I feel like On The Road is one of those books that everybody thinks they should read but never get around to. That is my UK perspective anyway, most people here know what it is but have never actually read it. I've been reading a little bit of it every time I'm on a train this summer (it doesn't feel right to read it while stationary). More than anything it just makes me want to visit San Francisco.

I found that getting hold of a car with a mounted 50.cal before making any cross-country trip helpful. The big white APC type thing is particularly good. The checkpoints didn't bother me as I enjoyed engaging from long range with the 50.cal and picking them off as they tried to make up the distance (this tactic is made obsolete by enemies with RPGs). The thing that began to wear me down was the random Jeeps that would tear around a corner, crash into my car then unload into my face. They made driving any vehicle without a mounted weapon suicide.

Finishing the game wouldn't make you like it more. The ending really doesn't make much sense and has a pointless decision you can make. Also something happens that is quite unpleasant and forces you to do something really awful.

Well there goes the rest of my evening.

The floppy arm aiming is like the Far Cry 2 ammo-grabbing offhand combined with Octodad.

I'd say Black Dogs is a good place to start. It isn't as grim as a lot of his books. Amsterdam for example could really turn you off him if you approached it with the wrong frame of mind. Black Dogs manages to tell the entire story of a sixty year marriage from the perspective of both parties in about two-hundred pages. It's sort of about how truth isn't the same as memory and how maybe it doesn't really matter. It really is a very interesting read. Amsterdam would be a good place to go after that, just be prepared to hate everybody in it. The only sympathetic character in that book is dead.

That is an interesting hypothesis. This paragraph from the strategy guide toblix linked describes their behaviour. "When it comes down to it, Blinky and Pinky are the most dangerous of the four ghosts. Blinky tries to attack you by taking the shortest path that he can find to Pac-Man's current position. Pinky, on the other hand, tries to ambush you by moving to the location that you seem to be headed in. Compared to these two, Inky and Clyde just don't have that "killer instinct". Inky won't really pursue you too strongly unless Blinky is around, and Clyde just seems to be in a world of his own." Maybe they realised they had to give them distinct routines then decided to continue elaborating. I like that Clyde is specifically programmed to be an idiot. Also the implication that Inky's behaviour is dependent on Blinky is amazing. It seems like they had a lot of fun with the ghosts.

Is that the Jurassic Park game with the health bar on the boobs?

The ghost AI stuff is really fascinating. It shows an attention to mechanical detail that isn't often associated with that era of video games. I wonder how the developers came to the decision to program specific behaviours for each ghost.

Yeah, he moves slower while eating.

I can't handle that image. It poses too many questions about Pac-Man's motivations. It does explain why eating pills slows him down, he needs time to chew.

I got this yesterday (the dev commentary and GB inclusion left me with no other option). What a wonderful little thing! I felt remarkably invested in the love interest. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm away from my girlfriend right now and especially sensitive to anything remotely soppy. The rooftop scene was just perfect though. I'm sure most people can relate to the experience of talking to somebody at just the right time as to change your lives. Also those little moments of happiness and ease that punctuate our lives are really what matter to us. I've never had that exact felling evoked for me by any medium other than literature before (I think Ian McEwan really writes around those perfect little moments and the darkness in his novels is really just a strongly contrasting background for them). One little bug that I ran into though; on leaving the hideout in the Death Knocks and transitioning to the late tittle card I think I loaded into the geometry or something and was instantly killed A message informed me that I had been crushed. I though this intentional at first, reloaded, the same thing happened, reloaded, everything was fine.

I thought M&K worked really well with Space Marine, possibly because it demanded frequent weapon switching. That is what is usually comes down to for me. With Skyrim I played with M&K for my wizard and mapped my magic missiles and spectral blades to the number keys. My warrior seemed better suited to a controller as the mapping of the left and right arms to the triggers feels more tactile. The other thing that dictates what I use is where I'm going to be playing a game. If its on the TV a controller just feels more natural (maybe because I played consoles for so long).

I agree, it should have stuck with the Ligeti from the beginning. On the theme of Kubrick's unsettling direction style, I wouldn't advise sharing a 70cl bottle of value gin with a friend while watching 2001. I had to leave the room because I was so uneasy and almost fell down the stairs.

I'm shocked that there are still PC gamers that don't own a wired 360 controller. It seems like an essential accessory at this point. Didn't Ubisoft hint that Ass Creed 3 will require a controller?

Damn the Witcher 2 has some stupid boss fights. Not the fights themselves but the fact that they are preceded by cut-scenes making it impossible to meditate beforehand. It sounds like Dark Souls doesn't break its own rules so I don't see myself getting too frustrated. I'm not really interested in optimising so I'll probably just bumble through like the tourist I am.

That's okay, I grew up in Merseyside.

This may be a silly question as I haven't played it, but is Dark Souls actually that hard? The Witcher 2 has a reputation for difficulty however all that means in there are a few systems to learn and the prologue is poorly balanced. Is playing without a guide or wiki viable?

I'm currently eyeing up War of the Roses on Steam. Beta access and pre-order tat seems worth £25 (£20 if you own Mount and Blade). The Mount and Blade multi-player was a fun distraction but lacked the trappings of a modern deathmatch game, and most servers had ill-conceived settings that didn't support the Counter Strike progression system. I'm always happy to give Paradox money so that they can continue making strange games and I hope this turns out to be the sword fighting game Mount and Blade almost was. Here is a video in which some people are killed with swords: Have any Thumbs played the beta? I hope some of you can join me in slaying those pesky Yorkists.

I like those little revelatory moments. I had a much less dramatic one yesterday. I had just begun my hike northward. I had three full water bottles and wasn't thirsty, but as I ran past a pond the voice of Ray Mears popped into my head, "Always fill your canteen when you get the opportunity, you never know when you will find your next clean water source...". I drank one and refilled it, thanks Ray. I've always liked to believe that his programs give me some minor competency in a survival situation, I never thought it would manifest in a video game.