My view of the world

I saw my first Smart Car over at Best Buy this week.

They are distributed by the DaimlerChrysler division of Mercedes.
I had read that they weren’t due out until September.
Pricing should run between $12,000 for the cheapest model, and just over $20,000 for a convertible with all the available extras.

These little blighters are two seaters and are only about 8 ft long by less than 5 ft wide and are supposed to get 60mpg.
When I read the safety reports, DaimlerChrysler was saying they were very safe because if you were hit from the side the other car would likely hit an axle.
Right, they really get 60 mpg?? and being a dinky little piece of tin is really a safety factor.
I believe them, I mean, after all, when has a car not gotten the gas mileage the company promised? And do you believe that a car manufacturer would lie about safety? Please ignore the Ford Pinto.

In Europe’s five-star crash rating system, the smarts get three stars.
Adrian Lund, of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, isn’t impressed, saying that “every carmaker advertises that they have the state of the art design” on safety.
But he adds that as long as the imports meet with federal approval “they’re not unsafe.”
“On the other hand,” he says, “they are small and lightweight and cannot protect you” as well as a larger car. “Fatalities are much higher with small, lightweight vehicles.”

On the up side, I suppose you could get two of them in one parking space, and if it breaks you can pick it up and carry it to the nearest repair shop.

There are at least two Canadian versions that have some sort of new diesel engine, unfortunately the engine has not yet been approved for use in this country.
UnitedAuto Group has been designated as the exclusive distributer for the Smart Car.

I don’t know how fast they go or how well they accelerate, but on our freeways, especially with the new ramp lights, acceleration and top end become important.
Except on a Friday afternoon, on the 15, heading for LA.

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Remember the Subaru 360

Two of us used to pick up the back end, while our friend shoved cinder blocks underneath, leaving the driver stuck.
Although, one big guy could have gotten it off the blocks.
The only problem with that, is that the driver still had to wait for help, because a big guy couldn’t get in to one, without the liberal use of a chainsaw.

I finally bought and installed this latest mod from Bethesda.
I’m running Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul and Natural Environments 2.1.2, and have had only one lockup, we’ll blame Winblows for that.

I’ve only completed the main quest, and I got to be Sheogorath. I haven’t played beyond my ascension?? to the throne.
You don’t get all of Sheogorath’s powers, but you get some of them.
All the critters and treasure seem to be leveled, so going in at a level 3 should be fine.

The staff is interesting, it freezes things in time, I’m sure there’s a use for it.
Sheogorath’s outfit would make a door to door salesman rich, but I prefer good armor and Umbra, this combination make negotiating easier.
Haskil’s attitude remains the same after the change, I don’t care what other people say, I like the character.

The dancer may have been intended to show off someone’s skills as an animator, but she sucks.
You know that sooner or later someone will write a mod that includes an anatomically correct pole dancer. In the mean time, call the dancer once, just so you can see why you won’t do it twice.

The most annoying part, thus far, is the lack of proper dialog once you become Sheogorath, I mean what’s the point of (mostly) becoming the Madgod, if there’s no option for madness, or at least silliness.
On the upside, when you first meet the Duchess she sends you out to find out who’s plotting against her and you get to torture people.

To defeat the Gatekeeper, I waited until mommy dearest visited him and he started to lean towards her, this is when he’s weakest.

I decided to become the Duke of Dementia because it didn’t require jumping through too many hoops. You just hunt the duchess down, kill her minions, and then kill her. (Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out… It may lack subtlety, but it’s a great way of relieving stress.)

If it’s silver and moves -kill it.
Three hearts overload the obelisks, but those damn wizards can restart them, so kill the wizards first.
After you stop the obelisks in the courtyard Jyggalag appears.
Hit him with everything you’ve got while he’s still surrounded by the shiny clouds.
He’s no harder to kill than the Gatekeeper.
His sword is just a claymore in the player’s hands, so sell it.

You can go back and forth between the Shivering Isles and Cyrodiil, but some of the magic stuff doesn’t carry over and you can’t summon Haskil.

I’m currently playing a Nord in heavy armor.
He’s slower than glaciers and at this level, absolutely useless at sneak, but since getting lucky and defeating Umbra and taking her armor and sword, he can take one hell of a beating.
(If you weren’t aware of it, as long as you don’t complete the quest, Umbra remains at a weight of 0.)

So far, treachery is appreciated, almost all the townspeople hate me, I got to be the Madgod, and there are supposed to be an almost unlimited number of combat related quests.
Oh yeah, I can change the weather, Haskil says I effect the weather and the weather in turn effects me, this should be fun. .
I saved Oblivion at level 1 just before the tunnel gate so I could try different characters.
Soon it’ll be time for a Dark Elf in light armor, then I’ll try sneaky.

This from the NYT:

Photo by Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

In 2006, its first full year open, Tao did $55.2 million in business, or $16 million more than its closest competitor, Tavern on the Green in New York.
Richard Wolf, who with his longtime partner, Marc Packer, created the multilevel complex as well as Tao Asian Bistro in New York, which ranked fourth with $26 million in revenues.

They recently opened Tao Beach Club, home of the $1,000-minimum poolside cabana stocked with food and drink, and equipped with high-definition plasma screen televisions and Xbox gaming consoles. Preprogrammed iPods are available, as well as staff members who look plucked from the fashion runway and whose attentions extend to cleaning your sunglasses or massaging your muscles.
Keeping all these parts in motion is a huge endeavor. The $20 million complex employs more than 700 people, many of whom are constantly moving like ninja — dark clothes, ear pieces — through the shadows.

Mr. Wolf concedes that Las Vegas is probably the only city that can sustain a venture like this. Some 38.9 million visitors came to Las Vegas last year, and a local population base has grown by about 18 percent in the last six years. In fact, Las Vegas now accounts for 21 restaurants on the list of the highest ranking 100.

With business expected to generate 65 million dollars in the coming year, even given that a large number of their employees work mostly for tips, I’m curious what their operating costs are.

I found this on Al Jazeera:
There is little doubt what would happen if US forces in Iraq were to kidnap an Iranian scientist involved in Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

In the real world, Iran’s foreign ministry would probably launch a diplomatic campaign and demand the Iraqi government’s help to have him released as soon as possible.

But on Monday, the Iranian students’ Islamic association, which is affiliated to the education ministry, unveiled “Special Operation”, a Farsi language, three-dimensional computer game that offers a different scenario.

The game follows a special forces officer on a mission to rescue Iranian scientists from the US [Reuters]

Iranian video game designers have released a computer game in which the player attempts to rescue Iranian nuclear experts kidnapped by the US military and held in Iraq and Israel.

There is little doubt what would happen if US forces in Iraq were to kidnap an Iranian scientist involved in Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.

In the real world, Iran’s foreign ministry would probably launch a diplomatic campaign and demand the Iraqi government’s help to have him released as soon as possible.

But on Monday, the Iranian students’ Islamic association, which is affiliated to the education ministry, unveiled “Special Operation”, a Farsi language, three-dimensional computer game that offers a different scenario.

The game follows a special forces officer named commander Bahman who conducts a covert rescue operation inside Iraq to find Saeed Kousha, a nuclear scientist and the son of a “martyred” war-time friend, and bring him home.

The release of the Iranian digital counterattack was delayed, partly because the makers wanted it to be comparable to its international competitors, paving the way for its appearance on the international market.

“This game is unique in Iran and even in the Middle East, so if our colleagues concentrate on translating it to other languages it may now be released in other countries as well,” Alireza Masaeli, one of the game’s designers, told Al Jazeera.

But “Special Operation” has been designed over three years on a budget of only 300 million Rials, or $32,000, and that has taken its toll on the game’s overall quality.
“We have installed the game in our game-net here but its controls are not complete. I don’t see it as becoming a major hit as it is,” the owner of a computer game parlour in Tehran who preferred not to be named told Al Jazeera.

OK, overall the game is still a little sucky. If it was available in English I’d buy it, as long as it worked enough to be playable and so long as they kept working on it.

If they could get it up to the level of Castle Wolfenstein, it might be fun, if only to annoy those folks who will inevitably take it seriously. It may have started as a political statement, but, at the end of the day.. it’s just a game.

I saw the promo video for Fallout III and they will forgive me if I am unimpressed.

After having seen the potential for exceptional graphics in Oblivion, I expected something more from Bethesda.

Of course the putz they chose to put in charge of this project made a statement to the effect that the graphics on an Xbox are exactly the same as the graphics on a pc.
This guy hasn’t got a clue. Nobody is going to convince me that a game like Oblivion running on a high-end mb/cpu with lots of memory and a x1900xt video card, or two, is going to look the same as it does on an Xbox. The Xbox simply doesn’t have the resources to max out the game.

Judging by the quality of this promo, we are not going to see anything in graphics improvement, in spite of earlier hints.
Lets hope the game play and character interaction are much improved over those offered by Oblivion.
I’m afraid the character interaction in Oblivion got boring fast, there were too few options and the responses were too predictable.
Not to mention that having to listen to someone mutter about mudcrabs ceased to be entertaining the very first time I heard it.
I admit that most overheard conversations out in the real world are also boring, but this is supposed to be a carefully thought out game, designed to entertain.
And what’s up with that “wheel of disposition,” or whatever they call it? Talk about wasted development time, I tried it a couple of times, decided it wasn’t worth figuring out and just bribed everyone.

Given the basics that have been established by the Fallout series, I hope the game, that may not be as pretty as Bethesda’s current best, will be more fun to play.

Anything you see or hear about this latest offering in the Fallout series is purely speculation, and with a proposed release date of fall 2008 none of it matters, because we won’t see the finished game until 2009.

It would appear that the next single use computer I build will be for Fallout III.
The rights were purchased by Bethesda and the development seems to have been given to Todd “Nuke-apult” Howard.

According to an interview with Mr. Howard, they are still in the messing with stuff phase, so it will be difficult to determine what hardware will be required.
I did run across a reference to it being through the player’s eyes along with some sort of over the shoulder view.
This, combined with an apparent willingness to spend large sums of money, imply the possibility of graphics equal to or better than those of oblivion.

So for now I will base my hardware choices on a single high end processor, whatever video card works best in the beta tests, lots of memory and 10,000 rpm hard drives.
This should keep the cost of the project around $3k.

I’m probably going to be receiving a laptop with Fallout and Fallout II installed.
While I know that the new game will have very little to do with the old versions, this should give me a chance to get familiar with the basic feel.
Not to mention, kill every thing in site.
I’ve been told that Fallout II even has a flaming child icon, this is cool. Not because I have an urge to kill children, but because I get annoyed with unkillable npcs.

Three Chinese men have been charged with human trafficking here in Las Vegas, according to FOXNews.com.
The arrests of You Zhi Li, 38, Yang Shen, 21, and Jun Hu, 43, this week came after one woman who worked as an interpreter for China Star Acrobats escaped late last month and contacted authorities, the FBI said.

The troop said that they were fed very little, had had their passports and visas confiscated by Li, and that they were told that any phone calls home would be monitored.

When the acrobats were not performing, they were forced to do chores for another Chinese man, who was identified as “Benny.” The acrobats cleaned or renovated homes and did lawn work, the complaint says.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Bork, said Li owns a $320,000 home, has paid off a $170,000 home and has $110,000 in his business’ bank account. In addition, Li has $30,000 in his personal bank account and owns four vans worth approximately $25,000 apiece.

When you hear about human trafficking you tend to think in terms of prostitution, not circus acts.

Nevada is second in the nation, led only by Arizona in ID thefts.
So you can imagine how people feel when they think that someone else is using their ID and all they get when they call is an answering machine.
By the way: The State of Nevada refers to this 877 number as a hotline.

The State says the matter is caused by a lack of funding, and that they were going to send cards to the 300 odd folks who had the patients to wait through the bullshit message, just as soon as the printer was fixed.

A story in the Sun on Tuesday revealed that the program had not helped a single person of the 300 who had applied since it began in January 2006.
Once again –Lack of funding.

According to the Las Vegas Sun:
Keith Munro, chief of staff at the attorney general’s office, said Wednesday that up to 40 of the 300 people who have applied to the program would soon get letters saying their applications have been processed.

The cards themselves, however, would still take some time - because the printer is broken. Munro said he hoped the printer would be fixed soon, and added that he aims to have work on all 300 applications completed by the end of July.

Liz Jeckewicz of Las Vegas may be among the newest members of the waiting-for-a-call-back club.
She wound up leaving a message. “I felt like it was useless to talk to a machine,” the 72-year-old said.
Undaunted, she got the Las Vegas number for the attorney general. A woman answered the phone. And how did she try to help Jeckewicz?

“She gave me the 877 number.”

Welcome to Nevada, the state who’s government is run by… sorry, when I called to ask, I was given an 877 number and told to leave a message.
The Legislature and the Governor come up with grandiose schemes but haven’t got a clue about how to actually implement said schemes.
They fund their pet projects, but God help you if you should happen to be the average Joe, with a mundane problem and no money, and would like someone in this state to do what they say they’ll do.

In the matter of this problem there may be a change.
On Ziff Davis Government they blogged about this unfortunate state of affairs, and if there’s anything a politician or political appointee hates, it’s the world finding out just how incompetent they really are.