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Thundery wintry showers

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  1. Thundery wintry showers

    Update

    By Thundery wintry showers,

    The 8-week period before starting the PhD is down to 5 weeks- trying to make the most of what I'm up to now, while part of me is looking forward to the PhD and another part is apprehensive.
    Been continuing with the level episode I'm doing for Doom 3, with only one level (a short level as well) to go, I hope to finish that last level before I start my PhD as I'm aware I won't be spending as much time on level editing once the PhD gets underway! It will most likely be a 'beta' product, for as most amateur level designers know, level editing skills tend to advance as one progresses through the episode- so the earlier levels aren't as good as the later ones. Thus I expect to be tinkering around a bit with the earlier ones.
    It's all very much a hobby- ever since I first got the original Doom, I had always wanted to create a Doom-themed level episode. I have no intention of becoming a professional level designer.
    As for the weather, it looks like the pattern of downgrading of settled spells is continuing. To be honest, the first third of August wasn't too bad at all in the North East, indeed sunshine was much above average, but we're starting to return to the sort of summer we got used to in June and July. Haven't had any thunder-days yet either up here.
    Had to get a new power supply for my computer as the fan was deciding to pack in, but fingers crossed, it's now fitted.
  2. Thundery wintry showers
    I've seen quite a few debates on so-called "man flu" which is basically a swipe at men saying that they exaggerate how ill they are whereas women just "get on with it". I don't know how much truth there is behind this stereotype.

    Basically we have two extreme positions in circulation- one being "I'll have a day off work if I'm even slightly ill, e.g. a few sniffles" and another being "It doesn't matter how ill you are, you should just get on with it and come into work through thick and thin". I suggest that both extremes do more harm than good.

    I also think that it's too black and white, for instance, to try to encourage people with colds to come into work, because colds come in hugely differing degrees of severity. This weekend, I've had a headache, coughing and sneezing fits, sleep deprivation, sapped energy, asthmatic complications and a slight temperature. I don't think it's a good idea to encourage people to come into an office while suffering these symptoms- they genuinely do affect one's ability to work, just "getting on with it" can make it take longer to get over the symptoms, and the coughing and sneezing are the perfect recipe for spreading it around the entire office. But I never have qualms about coming into work while I have just sniffles- they don't have much of an effect on my ability to work, and as long as I wash my hands from time to time, I am unlikely to pass them around.

    I suggest that a similar analysis applies to other illnesses- people should be expected to work through mild illnesses, but not pronounced ones.
  3. Thundery wintry showers
    The holiday in France was actually quite a good one- mainly spent around the swimming pool and messing about, sitting around in the sun (though I usually went in the shade to avoid sunburn) and playing table tennis. And also, getting lots of posh ice-creams. The first week was spent in the eastern Dordogne near Perigueux, the second not far from Magny-Cours.
    Some good visits to various places- my favourite was Chenonceau, which had a good castle and outdoor area, a boating area and a maze.
    The weather was very hot, especially in the second week. In fact, the second week, at 35-40C, was a very close approach to the ridiculous heat of my French holiday in August 2003, and I generally spent very little time outside between 1 and 5pm on those days. The first week (Dordogne) had scattered thundery showers dotted around but we missed them all; however the second week had two big thunderstorms, of similar nature to what the Dordogne storms are supposed to be like (strong gusts of wind, then a few hours of frequent lightning strikes and heavy rain). Without doubt, the biggest storms I've experienced so far. Although 35-40C is still far too extreme for my liking, I think I coped a lot better with it than I did three years ago, when I felt ill after going out into it for just two minutes.
    In Leeds, there's not much going on, most of the other students are stressed out with worrying about getting their projects finished on time, though I had an evening out playing pool and drinking Coke yesterday.
    Allegedly, Cleadon (Tyne & Wear) has not experienced much in the way of sea-fret, unlike last month, so when I get the July records in, it could well turn out to have been a scorcher. I reconstructed my earlier weather records by comparison with nearby stations to work out how hot the months of 1994-1997 were, and came out with August 1995 as the month to beat (estimated max 22.7, min 11.9, mean 17.3) so that's what July 2006 has to beat.
  4. Thundery wintry showers
    As time goes on I am fearing that the Model Output Discussion is going to degenerate into the usual summer fare, where the UK's weather is over-simplistically divided into two types: "settled" aka "good", and "unsettled" aka "bad".

    The main problem is that the desire for "settled" weather, for most people, is tied in with images of clear blue skies, warm sunshine by day, and evenings spent in the garden with the barbeque going. Of course, high pressure can bring such weather, and many of us will have memories of that phenomenal spell at the back end of March this year.
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2012/Rrea00120120326.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00120120326.gif[/url]
    But in fact we only need to think back to the last third of July 2011 for an illustration of how we can be "bitten" by being too simplistic about this association. The forecast models showed a fairly sustained settled period with high pressure close by to the west, and the model output thread was buzzing with posts insisting that we were in for a lot of barbeque-type weather. In reality, though, for many of us the spell turned out dry and cloudy with a chilly northerly wind which left those BBQs gathering dust indoors.

    The problem is that for high pressure to bring us "BBQ weather", it really has to be in the right place. Here's one synoptic chart:
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1991/Rrea00119910515.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00119910515.gif[/url]
    Let's be brutally honest, how many people would look at a chart like that and not think, "sustained settled spell- barbeque here we come"? In fact May 1991 was one of the dullest Mays on record as well as one of the driest and most settled.
    Another stark counterexample occurred during June 1988. This was an often-forgotten warm sunny month across much of Scotland (leading into that infamous washout July) but also an often-forgotten dry cloudy one across most parts of England, characterised by high pressure in the wrong place:
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1988/Rrea00119880610.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00119880610.gif[/url]
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1988/Rrea00119880625.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00119880625.gif[/url]

    Also, you don't actually need a sustained strong area of high pressure to bring this sort of "barbeque weather". The last week of June 2010, for instance, had a lot of this type of weather, but was only weakly anticyclonic:
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2010/Rrea00120100623.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00120100623.gif[/url]
    And on relatively rare occasions, you don't even need any high pressure at all. I remember that in Tyneside (where in some summers, like last year's, we struggle to justify getting the BBQ out at all) I had a nice BBQ on the evening of the 4th July 1999:
    [url="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1999/Rrea00119990704.gif"]http://www.wetterzen...00119990704.gif[/url]
    ...and how many people would see a chart like that and think, "oh dear, dull wet unsettled dross"? That spell in early July 1999 turned out generally warm and sunny but with sharp thundery downpours, so as long as you timed your BBQ well you were okay.

    In fact it isn't all that unusual for the most "settled" spell of a month to end up being the cloudiest, if the unsettled weather is mainly bright and showery and the settled weather has high pressure in the wrong place. The dullest spell of this April so far was the relatively quiet one over Easter when high pressure (in the wrong place) ridged across from the west. It can even happen, more rarely, during a generally dull unsettled month (the dullest spell of August 2008, for many of us, was actually the relatively warm settled one near the end).

    Some of it probably stems from how we were brought up. I know that when I was at school, we were taught, "high pressure is settled (good) weather, low pressure is unsettled (bad) weather".

    I realise that, as a big fan of convective type weather, I am always going to be less enthusiastic than most others about sustained spells of high pressure (which have a habit of being convection-free). However, that consideration shouldn't affect the above analysis- I've deliberately looked at it from a "hoping for warm dry sunny BBQ weather" perspective, and shown how flawed/over-simplistic it is even from that perspective.
  5. Thundery wintry showers
    I've been quite a big critic of the F1 penalties for wheel-to-wheel incidents this year, although having recently seen the "Senna" movie, we are still in a much better position than we were a couple of decades ago, when inconsistency was rife, relatively minimal penalties like drive-throughs didn't exist and some drivers got away with a lot while others got banned for multiple races.

    While the introduction of lesser penalties such as drive-throughs and time penalties are a positive thing, I think they've led to the rulemakers feeling compelled to give out penalties for the slightest infringements. I think this fails to acknowledge the fact that, if drivers are racing wheel to wheel and have to make split second decisions, there will always be the occasional misjudgement, and that while dangerous driving is unacceptable, a modest amount of controversial collisions helps to increase interest in the sport by generating talking points. There is also a lot of "penalising by result" going on, i.e. if you try a risky pass that might cause an accident if the other driver doesn't get out of the way, you get a drive-through if the driver refuses to give way, but nothing if he does.

    The latest Hamilton-Massa incident, where Massa got a drive-through because "he could have avoided the collision by giving way", used to be known as a classic example of a "racing incident", even though Massa was primarily responsible for the collision, because traditionally if the other driver isn't fully alongside you, you aren't obliged to give way. The current drive-through regime appears to have led to a subtle change in that code of racing ethics. I wouldn't mind so much if it was just a one-off change, but in reality we are seeing a slow incremental tightening of the rules regarding what racing ethics are and aren't acceptable.

    Thus, my proposals are as follows:

    1. Dangerous and/or deliberate causing of collisions- grid drop for the next race, ranging from 5 place drop to starting from last place, open to stewards' discretion depending on the extent to which the incident was dangerous and/or deliberate.

    2. Inadvertantly causing a collision without mitigating circumstances (e.g. not trying a pass and not slippery conditions)- drive through, plus one "penalty point" against driver's name.

    3. Contributing to collision or inadvertantly causing one while trying a bold pass or during slippery conditions- stewards to take no action, but give one "penalty point" against driver's name.

    4. If accident was not easily avoidable, no action and no penalty points.

    5. More than a certain number of "penalty points" within a season- 5 place grid drop for the next race. I would suggest a total of 3 or 4. After a grid drop the counter is then reset to 0 and the process rinses and repeats to the end of the season.

    The idea of this is to allow "racing incidents" to happen without resulting in a long series of drive-throughs, but to also ensure that drivers who get involved in a disproportionate number of them, in which they are at least partly to blame, face punishment after an accumulation of them. For instance, under my proposals, Lewis Hamilton might well have seen out the 2011 season with just one or two drive-throughs, but he would have amassed enough penalty points for two, maybe even three, 5 place grid drops. Michael Schumacher would probably only have seen one 5 place grid drop while the likes of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button would probably have seen out the season without any penalties at all.

    I have no objections with the penalties for things like speeding in the pitlane and ignoring flags though.
  6. Thundery wintry showers
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1219753/GRAHAM-POLL-Sorry-Fabio-referee-spot-Robert-Greens-red-card-Ukraine.html

    Some comments here highlight a key problem:
    [quote name='Graham Poll']...stated at half-time that he felt that both a dismissal and penalty are too harsh in such instances.
    But given that only 75 per cent of penalties are converted in the Barclays Premier League, you can see that if the penalty was the only sanction then more players would be tempted to bring down opponents as they were about to score.
    It is vital that referees correctly differentiate between a goalkeeper bringing an opponent down with a mistimed tackle and an attacker forcing contact with a prone goalkeeper.
    [/quote]

    [quote]The idea of a penalty being enough punishment always annoys me. It isn't punishment. The attacking player is in a position where he can score. That get's stolen from him by a player breaking the law. The penalty gives it back, but it doesn't mean the other player has been punished for breaking the law.
    If someone steals your car, the police give it back, how is that punishment for the thief?
    Cards and sendings off have to be used to punish the player for cheating. The penalty has to be given to give back to the attacking team what the other side tried to cheat them out of.
    [/quote]

    The main defence of this rule appears to be the automatic assumption that if a defender or keeper commits a foul on someone who is through on goal, it must be a deliberate attempt to cheat by stopping the other person from scoring.
    In reality there's such a thing as a mistimed effort to get the ball, or an accidental collision with a player, and I can't see how this can suddenly cease to be the case just because the person who commits the foul happens to be the last defender.

    The mind boggles at how effective the "the rules are right because the rules say so" approach can be at removing logical thinking from the equation.

    I actually think the idea of making professional fouls a sending off offence is sound, but the implementation of this rule has resulted in the term "professional foul" being defined far too libertally. Imagine if, in Formula One, they brought in a rule to stop moves like Schumacher on Villeneuve in Jerez 1997, where if A tries to overtake B and gets the line into the corner but B doesn't allow enough room and they collide, B must be disqualified for three races for denying an Obvious Overtaking Opportunity... Even the FIA wouldn't be so stupid as to pass a rule like that, but that's what the Obvious Goalscoring Opportunity is like.
  7. Thundery wintry showers
    The 2013 World Championship is underway. I'm particularly intrigued as to how Ronnie O'Sullivan will fare after his sabbatical from the sport, but if anyone can come back "rusty" and put in a fine performance, it would have to be him.

    I have the players as most likely to win the tournament as Neil Robertson, Mark Selby and Mark Allen. I think Judd Trump has been going into his shell a bit recently so he has slipped from my list of pre-tournament favourites.

    In last year's blogs I commented on who I regarded as the greatest player of all time, concluding that it was between Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan (I think Hendry has the edge as things currently stand, but O'Sullivan still has time to change that, if he can pick up some more ranking titles in the next 5 years or so).

    My top 10 all-time favourite players are:

    [b]#1- Jimmy White[/b]- found his all-out attacking style very entertaining in the early to mid 1990s in particular, shame he never won any of his world finals.
    [b]#2- Judd Trump[/b]- entertained me a lot during the 2011 World Championship, though if he keeps going into his shell (as he has in some recent matches) he might slip a few places on the list.
    [b]#3- Steve Davis[/b]- marvellous ambassador for the sport
    [b]#4- Stephen Hendry[/b]- admirable for his achievements, and entertained me with his attack-minded approach and desire to clear the table at every opportunity
    [b]#5- Ronnie O'Sullivan[/b]- a genius on the table, especially at break-building, the best "A" game that I've ever seen. I don't think he's quite as attacking as Jimmy White/Alex Higgins these days, but certainly up there with Hendry. Marred by attitude and off-table antics, but nothing like as bad for this as Alex Higgins.
    [b]#6- Mark Williams[/b]- for his laid-back attitude and ability to pull off spectacular long pots, always remembered for the black-ball final between him and Hendry in the 1998 Masters
    [b]#7- Mark Selby[/b]- involved in a lot of great matches, sometimes pulls off great shots
    [b]#8- Paul Hunter[/b]- sadly died of cancer at age 27, another attacking player, involved in some great matches in the Masters in particular
    [b]#9- Peter Ebdon[/b]- No, I haven't taken leave of my senses! He can certainly be dull to watch when he plays very slowly, but he has an unorthodox shot selection and intensity which, for me, has made him entertaining to watch in the past when playing relatively fluently, as he did when he won the 2002 World Championship.
    [b]#10- Dennis Taylor[/b]- for his role in that 1985 black-ball final, and as a pundit and commentator

    Also-rans:
    [b]Alex Higgins[/b]- almost as entertaining as Jimmy White but his off-table antics kept him out of my Top 10
    [b]John Higgins[/b]- involved in numerous exciting matches (e.g. 2006 Masters vs. Ronnie O'Sullivan)
    [b]John Virgo[/b]- I'm a fan of his commentary, but don't remember him as a snooker player
  8. Thundery wintry showers
    At the moment I think there is a 70% chance for eastern coastal parts of the North East (yes that means my area!) and 80-90% for inland parts of the region. The current snow cover doesn't look like thawing significantly until Christmas Eve, and unless that channel low gets far north enough on Christmas Eve to draw in a modified easterly, it probably won't thaw significantly on Christmas Eve either!

    In the coming days I expect many media forecasts to be expressing a desire for a warm-up by Christmas, so here's my latest revision to the "At least it will be mild" version of Bing Crosby's song:

    I'm dreaming of a mild Christmas,
    Just like the ones we usually know.
    Where the stratus glistens
    And children listen
    To hear south-westerlies blow.

    I'm dreaming of a mild Christmas,
    With every Christmas card I write,
    May your presents please every child,
    And may all your Christmasses be mild.

    Personally I am hoping that this snow does stick around till Christmas- but I won't mind if it melts on Boxing Day.
  9. Thundery wintry showers
    In some discussions on this forum I've often displayed a questioning attitude towards rules and laws, and refused to accept without question that "rules are rules". I think I know where this attitude comes from.
    It's by analogy with being picked on for being "different" (years of experience of it at school, and also at Lancaster University to some extent). If you complain about being picked on for being different, you often end up with a discussion like this:
    I: I'm being bullied.
    A: Well, just fit in then. The peer group make it clear where they draw the line; everyone knows what the rules of the peer group are: you fit in and get accepted, you don't fit in, you are bullied. It's your problem not theirs; fit in, and the problem is solved.
    I: No, the problem is the suppression of my ability to be who I am.
    A: That's life. You've got to fit in to help give a sense of community, and you've got to abide by what is considered socially acceptable; if everyone chose to abide by what was socially acceptable just when they felt it was right, you'd have the equivalent of anarchy. For example, you could say "it's socially unacceptable to beat people up, but I think that's suppression of individuality, so I think I'm entitled to beat people up".
    I: But there's a difference between deviating from social norms in a way that is harmful (e.g. beating people up) and doing things where the only thing "wrong" is its difference (e.g. having unusual interests, such as the weather)
    A: Doesn't matter. The peer group have their rules. Rules are rules- if you don't fit in, you get bullied. That's life. There isn't a problem with the rules of the peer group; we know this because if everyone abided by them there wouldn't be a problem.
    I: But there is a problem- you can't be who you are, you get ostracised for doing harmless things and treated as you would if you'd beaten someone up!
    A: That's life. It is necessary to penalise responsible people because of the actions of irresponsible people, because the minority spoil it for everyone else and that's life.
    I: It doesn't have to be that way- you can differentiate harmful different activities from harmless ones.
    A: (defensively) HOW do you? You can't, because the minority spoiling it is unavoidable; if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a fact of life.
    I think that's the kind of analogy that makes me a bit more questioning of rules and laws than most.
  10. Thundery wintry showers
    I wonder where I would appear in a typical assessment of "climate change believer" vs "climate sceptic". I certainly appear more towards the "believer" end in the climate change discussion threads, but on the other hand I remain sceptical about the ability of computer models to predict the future (they have improved a lot in recent years and will probably continue to get better, but even so, there are all kinds of areas where they could go wrong).

    As per usual, while most of those with strong opinions on the subject take up one side or the other, I've formed a strong opinion that is somewhere in the middle, though perhaps further from the "sceptic" end than the "believer" end.

    It's rather odd, though, how the definition of "sceptic" seems to have migrated away from its dictionary definition, which is merely someone who is sceptical. By this measure, given the first paragraph, I would actually classify as a "sceptic", and some of those with anti-AGW positions would be better categorised as "disbelievers". I prefer that term to "deniers" which has a strong jibing element to it.
  11. Thundery wintry showers
    In the past I have had a habit of purchasing one of those football games for PC every few years (there's little point IMHO of buying one every year or two as they are usually just incremental upgrades).

    The first one, FIFA 2000, was accidental as I was given two PC games for Christmas but accidentally got someone else's in the post. FIFA 2000 was the game that got me interested in football. Since then I took some notice of PC ZONE's ravings over Pro Evolution Soccer, tried it and immediately preferred it to FIFA, so I went on to get PES 3 and PES 6.

    This year, both FIFA [i]and[/i] PES 2010 have impressed me, so I am seriously considering getting one of them- the question is which one? Well, it seems clear that as far as consoles are concerned FIFA, which has made big strides relative to PES's slow incremental changes in the last couple of years, would be the better choice. But for PC, EA have decided to leave the PC out of its next gen capabilities, whereas Konami have chosen to make the PC version as good as the console versions. EA's official line is "we want it to run on a standard PC" but I wouldn't be surprised if their real argument was "PC games are heavily pirated so we would rather people used consoles instead".

    I am increasingly convinced that PC games are heavily pirated partly because DRM measures and tightening of copyright restrictions, and now this, are resulting in paying consumers being increasingly ripped off. For example, consoles encourage 2-4 player multiplayer with one copy of a game, whereas on the PC companies have greedily abused the "war against piracy" to recategorise it as "piracy" and insist that you must buy 3 copies to play 3 player multiplayer or be a "cheapskate".

    The neglect of the FIFA 2010 PC port may well mean that I end up getting Pro Evolution again. It does have a much better edit mode, and I like to play with custom teams.
  12. Thundery wintry showers

    Dawdlers

    By Thundery wintry showers,

    There's usually a clash of "rights" when it comes to people being slow, say, at the front of a queue in a supermarket. There's the right of the people at the front to be leisurely and not be in a rush, vs. the right of the people behind to be able to progress in the queue without being heavily delayed.

    The need for consideration towards others works both ways and both sides can be guilty of being inconsiderate. We know about the impatient people who put pressure on those in front of them to hurry up, but there are also the dawdlers who feel that others should just let them take as much time as they like and have infinite reserves of patience and allow an infinite amount of extra time for their day-to-day activities- some of whom get a boost from watching others get annoyed in the queue behind them.

    I think all too often, the "dawdlers" get the benefit of too many doubts. There's a perception that people just need to slow down, be more relaxed, allow more time for everything and be more patient, and then it will be better for everyone, and thus that "dawdlers" are well within their rights. However, there's a difference between being slower because you aren't in as much of a hurry, vs. being slower because people dawdle more in front of you- the latter is a recipe for [i]more [/i]frustration and impatience, not less. There should be limits as to how much extra time people should be required to allow, and how much inconvenience and discomfort it is OK to subject them to.

    This issue is relevant to some motoring-related discussions that I've been involved in on this forum (the belief that people should be entitled to drive as slowly as they like, fuelled by the war against speed) and a similar argument can be put forward for the slow-walking people who walk 6 abreast down an alleyway.

    Personally I think that if possible, if you want to be slow it is good to occasionally let other people past. For instance if I'm walking down a pavement and someone is going for a jog, I'll step out of the way, I won't stand in his/her way and say, "stop being in such a rush!". Similar with people who want to drive very slowly- when holding up queues of 10 vehicles down a country lane it would be good to pull over once in a while instead of saying, "they should all have to bow to my right to slow everybody up". Of course, this often isn't possible in the likes of supermarket queues, in which case the only considerate thing to do is not to take a lot more time than you really have to.
  13. Thundery wintry showers
    This blog article will explore the future of PC gaming using DRM on the one hand, and online extras/support on the other, and how things may pan out if we see numerous competitors such as "Origin" compete (if that's the right word for it, as we will see below) with Valve Software's "Steam".

    As many will already know, I am a strong opponent of forcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) on consumers because of the vast potential for abuse (as DRM basically gives the DRM owner scope to set whatever restrictions that he/she wants). On the other hand, I support the use of account-based activation to access online extras, as it's a good way of rewarding paying customers and creating a difference between a pirated copy and a legitimate copy.

    I've been using Valve Software's "Steam" quite a lot recently, which is an interesting case in that it follows both models (it uses DRM but is also pretty good on the "rewarding paying customers with online extras" front) and as of November 2011, in my experience the benefits have at least counterbalanced the reservations about the DRM. For instance, the "you can't play 2-4 multiplayer with 1 copy of the game" issue pales into insignificance when I pick up the games for 2-4 times less than the retail price due to taking advantage of Steam's offers and "5 for the price of 2" type "game packs". But the main subject of this blog is, would it be better for PC gaming if we were to have Steam as a near-monopoly on clients and digital distribution or better to have a lot of competition? There are those who say competition is better, while there are others who are dead against it because they want all their DRM-authenticated titles on one platform. I actually think both sides have a case, and will outline two relevant scenarios below.

    1. If gamers get a free choice as to which client they use for their games, with at worst a one-time activation on the developer's own service, then I think it will certainly be a good thing. PC gamers will have a choice as to whether they use multiple clients for their games or are happy to stick everything on the one client. Competitors would have to become good in order to get many PC gamers to flock over to them and away from Steam, and if they succeeded, they could offer benefits that Steam doesn't currently have, prompting Steam to improve. Gamers will get a better all-round experience.

    2. If we get the competitors selling titles exclusively on their own systems and making the games exclusive to their own clents, then I think it will actually be a bad thing. The likely scenario there is gamers getting no more choice (as each game is tied to the developer's own client), having to use lots of different clients just to play their games. The more powerful companies (such as EA with Origin) could well take a lot of market share away from Steam by forcing essentially inferior imitations of Steam onto their customers. Valve has opted not to heavily abuse the control that Steamworks DRM gives them, but if competing companies choose to abuse the control that the DRM gives them, and manage to eat heavily into Steam's dominance by doing so, it may well make Valve feel they have to use bully-boy tactics to avoid losing a lot of custom- so even Steam ends up an inferior version of what it is now.

    In my view, it would be most ideal if these services only required account-based activation in order to access online facilities, and not to install and play the game (going back to my first paragraph). Then, companies wouldn't be able to force people to use their clients with DRM, so it would be harder to "push" the second of the two scenarios. Companies would have to seriously consider both making their online facilities as good as possible and offering access to patches and DLC via alternative clients including Steam, so as to encourage gamers to buy their products for the online extras instead of pirating them, all of which would "push" the first of the two scenarios. I don't really see that happening though, because of the "copying is theft" mantra, the desire to "push" clients on consumers, move away from gamers "buying" games and towards "renting" them, and scupper the used games market, all of which companies address with DRM- although if Good Old Games.com (a DRM-free digital distribution outlet) gets more successful, you never know!

    I'm not at all sure which direction the PC gaming industry will go when it comes to clients, digital distribution and DRM, but it is unlikely to be my problem anytime soon, as a large majority of the PC games I get are produced by Valve, Bethesda or id Software (now taken over by Bethesda's parent company incidentally), and the latter two seem quite happy to either use no DRM at all or use Steam.
  14. Thundery wintry showers
    I've been seeing a few comments floating around recently about how we shouldn't hope for thunder and lightning because of the problems that it causes and that we shouldn't discuss looking for the "best" storm, instead using the traditional terminology of "worst", and also that we "need" rain but we don't "need" thunder and lightning.

    Rather than going into an in-depth analysis, how about the following question: why don't people get pulled up for hoping for the "best" heatwave or prolonged dry spell? After all, the European heatwave of August 2003 caused well over 10,000 excess deaths, and the 1995 summer drought caused myriad problems as well, and we don't "need" heat and dryness in order to fulfil the mundane bare essentials of survival. Actually, let's take that further, we don't even "need" more than 1000 hours of sunshine per year in order to survive, using that rather political, economic and mundane definition of "need". I rather think it's because it's considered "normal" for people to want hot dry sunny weather, and "different" for people to want thunderstorms, and "normal" behaviour tends to be exempted from that kind of scrutiny. Also, I sometimes cynically detect hypocritical stances of "it's alright to hope for extreme weather but only as long as I want it".

    True, most of the people wishing for heatwaves aren't after something as extreme as an August 2003 in France, but then again most of the people wishing for thunderstorms aren't after something as extreme as the catastrophe that recently hit Alabama. It's fair to say that there's a tradeoff between exciting weather and associated danger, and that some of us have higher thresholds than others, and that "careful what you're wishing for" may apply to some of those hoping for ultra-extreme events and not thinking of the magnitude of the consequences, but I tend to object to any significant advance on that.
  15. Thundery wintry showers
    My piece of insight for the day: when it comes to the erosion of our freedoms, watch for the "small incremental measures add up" problem. When deciding to curb a freedom, no matter how small, before thinking, "well this loss of freedom is a small price to pay for 'doing something'", we need to think, "are our arguments for this measure case-specific, or can they be used as arguments for curbing most other freedoms?".

    Why? Well, typically, we don't accept an "all in one go" curb on 100 activities to legislate for idiots, but we do accept a curb on any one of those activities because it seems like just a small price to pay, and then rinse and repeat individually for the other 99, thus unwittingly achieving the same result as an "all in one go" curb. It just takes longer to get there, that's all, but most of us fail to recognise this.

    Arguments like "you don't need Freedom X to be able to enjoy yourself or survive, so what's wrong with banning X?", "X is non-essential so we have no right to complain about its disposal" and of course "prohibition is necessary because that's life" are common arguments with huge "slippery slope potential". The biggest one, though, is probably the rejection of alternatives because they aren't flawless (e.g. "you can't always tell if something's being abused") while not subjecting prohibition to the same "it has to be flawless" requirement on the basis that it's a "necessary evil". Since there rarely is a flawless way of dealing with misbehaviour, this double standard can be used as a basis for prohibiting almost anything. However, if we can show that a particular act of prohibition is probably less flawed than the alternatives, then OK, we do have a good case-specific argument that doesn't lend itself to a slippery slope of incremental curbs on our freedoms.
  16. Thundery wintry showers
    In recent years Philip Eden has repeatedly voiced a concern that as a society, our reactions towards normal wintry weather have become more and more intolerant, and it could get very ugly if we were to get a severe wintry spell. The latest wintry episode has shown that it isn't the general public who are intolerant, it is the media, which makes an enemy of the weather and wants us all to do the same.

    News broadcasts around 4-8 January were full of stories of the misery and inconvenience that the snow causes, footage of people telling the reporters how disgraceful the snow is, and how lovely it would be to enjoy two weeks of drizzle, 3-5C and hardly a glimmer of sunshine. They clearly chose their cross-sections carefully. Had they gone to UEA they'd have had a much harder time getting their message across, amidst the hundreds of people sledging, chucking snowballs, building snowmen and laughing their heads off.

    Meanwhile, there are far more than just a few childish weather enthusiasts getting sick and tired of the current dull drizzly spell and wishing that we could have the bright snowy weather back. The news and tabloids and weather forecasts seem blissfully unaware that those people actually exist. But they do.

    The bright, snowy weather was perfect for alleviating symptoms of SAD, with the combination of sunlight and reflective snow cover. It helped gather communities together, playing out in it, appreciating the impact it had on our surroundings, and helping out the less fortunate among us that were heavily inconvenienced by it. For many weather enthusiasts, in the meantime, there was a lot to discuss and a lot to appreciate.

    In our world of market economics and Health & Safety we are becoming too disconnected from the physical world around us, and losing sight of the social factors which contribute to making people happier. Weather enthusiasts are doing society a service by illustrating that there is value in appreciating the asthetic and pleasurable things in life, things that economics alone cannot measure, things like the awe of an electrical storm, the beauty of a double rainbow, the eerieness of a misty, hazy, bright red sunset shining onto layers of illuminated cloud. They should not be made to feel guilty for appreciating unusual or dramatic weather out of "respect" for those who suffer from it- this is otherwise known as martyrdom. Why are those who love mild dull drizzly weather not required to feel guilty because of the misery it causes to snow lovers, sun lovers and SAD sufferers alike? Because mild dull drizzly weather doesn't damage the economy, that's why.

    So, by all means, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Not just because it keeps snow enthusiasts happy, but because it continually highlights the fact that our world is too focused upon money, and that we should really start taking more notice of the other things that help to make the world tick over.
  17. Thundery wintry showers
    We are increasingly looking like being locked into a prolonged cold spell, which may be snowy in the east and south- similar to January 1985. February looks at this stage like being somewhat milder, but whether it will be mild throughout, or a mix of mild and cold spells, remains to be seen.

    I reached 12cm snow on New Year's Day and had 2 large snowmen built in the front garden- 12cm is the deepest snow at Cleadon, alongside February 2004, since February 1991. There is more chance of snow on every day through to the 5th, when I head back to Norwich, as long as there isn't too much disruption on the trains (oo-er!). The 4th looks quite marginal, but less so than the 1st/2nd.

    There probably won't be much snow in Norwich before I get there, but after I get there, with a pronounced easterly or north-easterly flow likely to set in for a week, that is likely to change. I may miss out on the largest snow depths in Cleadon, as there will be more accumulating snow there after I leave, but similar depths may well be reached in Norwich by around the 10th January as prolonged ENE'lys are ideal for snow streamers in the Norwich area.

    The question is, when does the point come when I get sick of all of this cold and snow? I had initially assumed it would be about a week or two, but in practice it is proving to be a lot longer than I'd expected. I'm becoming less averse to the idea of a pattern change to milder weather as time goes on, but it isn't approaching the stage where I start actively hoping for one. Perhaps the fact that we've had such a long run of mild winters, the sense that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness an 80s style cold spell, and the fact that the snow depths haven't been extortionate, are contributing to this.

    As John Holmes has often indicated, in a cold spell like this people need to take care of elderly and fragile people they know of, as many of these will suffer, particularly in areas hit by heavy energy bills. Cold/snow lovers should not feel guilty for enjoying this cold snowy weather, or for wishing for more of it, especially as the weather is something that we can't control, and making an enemy of snow or suppressing one's desire for it doesn't achieve anything positive (contrary to what the media seems to think!). But the health of those who struggle to cope in these situations is something that many of us can and should help.
  18. Thundery wintry showers
    As a non-driver who studies climate science and takes a strong interest in environmentalism, rather contrarily I'm also a bit of a petrolhead.

    I like motor racing (especially Formula One), have been quad biking in the past, enjoy motor racing games on the computer, and like "sporty" style cars (the ones with rapid acceleration/brakes, rapid cornering and stiff suspensions to make for a ride more akin to being on a rollercoaster instead of gliding along polished glass). I am also a big fan of Top Gear, which is probably my favourite TV program of all at the moment.

    However I also condemn the boy racers, the mindless idiots who drive recklessly (whether for pleasure or otherwise) without regard for safety- of which there are many on the roads, particularly prominent in 17-19 year old macho males. This ties in with my usual recommendation of clamping down on the idiots first and only then thinking of casting the net wider- though it's my usual stance on these kinds of issues anyway.

    As well as being into cars, I also like buses and trains when they're reliable, and I like cycling when there is a decent segregated network available. Cycling is also good for exercise, and getting on a bus or train can be very relaxing. So ideally I would like those to be improved. My favourite example of a good transport system is that of Strasbourg.

    It strikes me that current orthodox transport policies address both issues with a simple and neat solution: clamp down on everyone to legislate for the idiots and also deter car use, with road humps, lower and more absolutely enforced speed limits etc. However I argue that they are simple neat and wrong. They will improve safety but at much larger cost to responsible people than is necessary, and they will achieve a transport equilibrium at a much lower level than is necessary. Many for instance don't want a segragated cycle network because it won't deter car use whereas increasing their rights on the roads will- not good news for me as a prospective cyclist!

    I tend to come in for a lot of stick for my views on transport- like with climate change I have beliefs that incorporate views from both sides of the debate and in between, so it is easy to be lumped together with one side or the other. But in the case of transport it should be easy to see why I have these kinds of contrary views- because I come from a rare background of being an environmentalist, a non-driver, a former bicycle lover, a bus/train lover and a car lover.
  19. Thundery wintry showers
    One popular misconception that's ingrained in our society is the idea that productivity is a linear function of working hours. Even at a scholarly level, it was generally assumed that the more hours you revised, the better your exam result. There was even a maths module where they stated "A person's performance in a piano exam can be expressed as y=mx where x is the number of hours per week the person practiced for, and y is the exam performance..."
    The problem with the "productivity = working hours x constant" is that it ignores two areas of inefficiency. If people are working longer hours, it only means they are sacrificing more time for their work, it does not necessarily follow that they use that extra time efficiently. People naturally tire out if they're working long hours (so when the relationship does hold, it's a diminishing returns curve, not linear). In addition, it doesn't take into account how useful the work is. Extra layers of bureaucracy, laborious methods of solving problems and finding useless extra work to fill in time with, results in longer working hours and more effort being put in, but no extra gain.
    It strikes me that the social norm of rewarding and judging people for the number of hours they spend at work is rewarding them primarily for the amount of self-sacrifice they make, rather than how well they address the work, and to some extent encourages inefficiency (there's no reward for working efficiently as you still need to fulfill regimented hours regardless). It encourages the long hours culture, and the inefficiency has the double whammy of wasting employees' time that they could have taken off or spent doing more constructive work, while employers have to pay them for working inefficiently.
    I believe that a good way forward would be to move towards rewarding people for their performance and effort applied, rather than the number of hours they spend at work. Less of a need for regimented working hours and a pronounced rush hour, more scope for working from home, and encourages employees to work hard because if they work very efficiently they may get paid more and/or get extra time off. By reducing inefficiency we may be able to reduce working hours without offsetting productivity. Some work does physically require people to be around certain premises for certain hours, so regimented hours are sometimes necessary, but even in those cases, an element of performance-related pay can sometimes be smuggled in.
    I wouldn't advocate abolishing working hours altogether though- we'd need to be sure that everyone was getting a fair workload under such a scenario, and the easiest way to ensure this would be to give them an estimated number of hours' worth of work over a time period. Thus, people would still be expected to work a certain number of hours on average, but in many cases it wouldn't have to be as regimented as is the norm today.
    The main barriers to the above initiatives being more widely used are, I think, the "productivity = working hours x constant" assumption, and as per usual, social inertia (the idea that a job should, by definition, mean working regimented hours in an office, because "that's the way it's always been done"), but there are signs of a slow trend in this direction.
  20. Thundery wintry showers

    Piracy

    By Thundery wintry showers,

    Here's one topic that often gets up my backside, in particular the way we only ever hear one side of the argument ("piracy is killing our industries") and rather poor counterarguments from downloaders which can generally be refuted in two seconds flat. There is a middle ground to be charted, and as is my nature, I'm one of those to chart it.
    It's far from clear that copying in moderation actually erodes sales (such as the "casual copying" that dominated in the 1990s, when people made copies for friends and 'shared' copies around a household). The potential lost sales, which arise if someone gets a copy of something they would otherwise buy, may be outweighed by the increased brand awareness and exposure that the industries receive. On the other hand, mass copying/distribution probably does erode sales, for if copies are very widely available, many people just snap them up instead of buying anything.
    The biggest problem is counterfeiting- people creating copies of products and selling them, which is essentially a form of theft, as the money goes to the pirate and not the creator of the product.
    However, the main focus on anti-piracy measures has been to crack down on the "casual copying" using intrusive copy-protection measures, and only recently has the efforts expanded significantly to address the organised piracy. The definition of what constitutes "piracy" has expanded with time. So, legitimate users have been punished, criminalised and treated like thieves, so many turned to the stuff the organised pirates were using (hacks, peer-2-peer downloads etc) to reclaim their previous activities and by-pass the copy protection. This will have contributed to the current culture of downloading copyrighted material which is distributed on a wide scale.
    The notion that "piracy is killing the industry" is backed up by statistics. But why aren't there any statistics on the contrary? Answer, because they made it illegal to conduct research that questions the correctness of copyright law. It doesn't suggest they're very confident in the correctness of the law if they defend it by making it illegal to provide evidence against it! Computer gaming forums are littered with arguments like "All forms of piracy should be lumped together under one brush, because it's all illegal, all illegal activity is bad, therefore it should all be illegal", which is essentially a circular argument.
    With systems like Valve Software's Steam in operation (requiring online authentication to play computer games), we may well cut piracy to very low levels in the near future. But, if the industries continue to follow the mantra of zero-tolerance and punishing the many because of the few all the time, we're only ever going to eliminate piracy by eliminating 90% of liberty- which may mean customers being cheesed off, and thus, ironically, lost sales.
    In conclusion, while piracy is a genuine issue, the industries' anti-piracy measures have probably been harming their sales more than piracy itself.
  21. Thundery wintry showers

    UEA Norwich

    By Thundery wintry showers,

    I arrived on Saturday to UEA, and have been getting to grips with the campus. With being here for Fresher's Week I can get my bearings for a week before the PhD work starts on 1st October.
    I'm going to see what sort of societies are about tomorrow. Of course I'm going to need to do plenty of work for the PhD, but hopefully I should be able to fit work and social events around each other so I can both get the work done to the best of my ability, and have a good social life (which I managed to do pretty well during that fantastic year at Leeds University). I'm also hoping that, as in Leeds, 'work' and 'leisure' may overlap to some extent; the work I did over there often didn't feel like work, and I sometimes did work-related things in my leisure time.
    So far I've been very impressed by the UEA campus. The student's union is very good, the IT facilities look good, and there are plenty of good restaurants and pubs around the campus.
    As for the weather, I may as well quote an extract from Trevor Harley's site here:
    I don't know if Norwich really is the thunderstorm capital of Britain, but I've only been here four days, and there was thunder today.
  22. Thundery wintry showers
    I have just finished my MRes course in Physics of the Earth and Atmosphere- got a Merit in it as well, so all in all a positive result.
    The positive result summed up a very positive year- the period September 2005-August 2006 probably represented the best year of my life so far. The course was very good with a lot of meteorology content, and it was good to be able to get involved in research into convective storm initiation and converse with the Environment department, the lecturers and PhD students who were all well-versed in the academic side of meteorology. At first I questioned whether academia was really something I would get into, but in the end, I certainly did.
    Not just that, but it was also excellent socially. There was very little of the suppression of individuality ("you have to fit in with the norm or you get ostracised") stuff- people generally respected each other as individuals, rather than putting pressure on them to conform. Consequently, forming frienships was remarkably easy. I also found the city of Leeds to be surprisingly good- I expected it to be just another city, but it has a very vibrant atmosphere with a wide variety of things to do, yet does not suffer from overcrowding, even on a Friday or Saturday night. There was also ample scope to do things other than go to nightclubs and get drunk- playing pool and going tenpin bowling were two favourites.
    I certainly have far more confidence in making friendships than I've had for at least a good ten years. In Lancaster and my old school I learnt how to deal with social problems; in Leeds I learnt how to deal with not having social problems- a very welcome experience indeed.
    Now for the bad news- I'm not there any more, and I'm in the position of looking out for a combination of job and PhD/research opportunities from my parents' home instead. On the research front the main thing will be to apply for the next batch of research funding early next year (or something might turn up before then; some PhD projects are available all year round, but funding is a problem). However, paying the odd visit to Leeds is certainly on the agenda, especially since three of the people on my course still live around there (two are doing PhDs). Ideally I'd love to be back there again doing some kind of research next year, but you can't put all your eggs in one basket- I have to look elsewhere as well, and for jobs as well as research courses. I guess that if I don't land anything in research by mid-next-year and haven't found a job in an area of my interests in the North East by then, I will have to put more emphasis on jobseeking and search outside of the North East region for jobs.
    People might be thinking "why do you want to go into research, or jobs in environment/meteorology, when they don't give much money". They may well not, but my main priority in life isn't to get loads of money- it's to have a happy life with an enjoyable work and home life, and to get enough money to sustain a basic living. Work isn't such a burden if you're working in something you take an interest in anyway.
  23. Thundery wintry showers
    I haven't updated the general section of this blog for quite some time.
    Essentially things in Leeds seem to be going quite well, but I don't have my coursework marks yet; I need to get above 50% average in all modules to be able to continue with this CSIP project analysis. I am also messing around on my computer quite a lot, and having some social events. It's no exaggeration to say that friendship-wise, the period September 2005-May 2006 in Leeds has been the best of my life so far, all I can say is that I hope it continues!
    As for the weather outside, it certainly seems to have recognised that summer has arrived. Although my favourite weather types are of the dramatic convective variety (sunshine and showers, thunder events and snow events), this kind of warm dry sunny weather is a very close second. I did make use of it to some extent, eating outside in Hyde Park this evening.
  24. Thundery wintry showers
    I don't have the time (or will) to put in complete summaries for Jan, Feb and Mar, but here is a brief outline.
    January 2006: Max 6.6, min 1.4, mean 4.1, precip 30mm, sleet/snow falling 2, snow lying 0.
    It was a benign, and rather uninteresting month, and very dull until the final third, which was relatively sunny. The least warm January since 2001.
    February 2006: Max 7.1, min 2.0, mean 4.5, precip 22, sleet/snow falling 3, snow lying 1.
    Quite similar to January, with an easterly non-event during the last week- temperatures were no lower than average for the time of year! The only cold snap of note occurred on the last day, with a northerly bringing some snow flurries and a dusting of lying snow at 0900. The month was slightly duller than average. It was the least warm February since 2003, and the driest since 2003.
    (Note: I say "least warm" because temperatures were, if anything, slightly above the long-term normal)
    March 2006: Max 7.2, min 1.4, mean 4.3, precip 57, sleet/snow falling 11, snow lying 5.
    It was the snowiest March for snow falling since I started taking records, beating the previous record of 10 days in March 1995; for snow lying it was equal snowiest since 2001. A cold, bright snowy first week was followed by a brief mild interlude. Then after a classic mild vs cold battleground around the 12th, with the coldest day maximum in March since 1996, it was generally cold and cloudy. The sun re-emerged around the 22nd/23rd, then the last week was very mild and unsettled, but not mild enough to offset the cold weather of the first three weeks.
    Overall, it was the coldest and wettest March since 2001, but the average maximum was the lowest since 1996. It was slightly duller than the long-term normal, but less so than last year, sunshine totals certainly boosted by the exceptional first week.
  25. Thundery wintry showers
    I had two projects to hand in on the 18th November- one of which was a Project Proposal for studying convective cloud initiation (a bit technical I'm afraid, but very much down one of my main interest areas)
    Went to a couple of parties the last couple of days. I nearly didn't go to either of them because it was difficult to find where they were, but Friday's was particularly good once I got there. I saw some of the people connected to those on my course- close friends, sisters, boyfriends etc and got on generally with them. It also helped that some of the pubs were open until late so I didn't have to leave until 0:30am (well it was either that or go to a nightclub) Hangovers? No way, I don't drink anywhere near enough alcohol- I consumed one Bacardi Breezer and one Vodka & Orange, and that was my lot for the last two nights!
    One thing about Leeds is that they seem to put out burger stalls at early hours in the morning. I have been tempted twice so far, including the night of the 18th/19th.
    I may have sung Lancaster's praises in previous years, but I have to say that for me, so far Leeds appears to be considerably better in almost every area of consideration.
    And now onto the sunshine. My main associations with November are anticyclonic gloom and mild damp windy weather, so to have six days on the trot of non-stop sunshine is almost surreal. I may not be a SAD sufferer, but there's no doubt that I tend to feel much happier and more contented with life when the sun is frequently shining.
    I remember November 1996 and early November 2001 being quite sunny where I was at the time, but nothing like what we have now. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that parts of NE England might have more than twice the amount of sunshine they had in October.
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