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Some Photographs

Just a note to say that I've added some photographs of a friends' wedding, and of our (relatively!) new born son Daniel Edward to the Gallery.

Derby and Peak Rail

I've added a few photos to the gallery of a recent trip to Derby and on the Peak Rail steam railway.

Skiing in Andorra

Here is a map from @Trip summarising my recent skiing in Andorra, with the tracks from each day consolidated, and a few geotagged photos. You can also see the same thing in Google Maps here, or just download the KML file for Google Earth, or a CSV file.

Skiing in Les Arcs and La Plagne

Here is a quick map from @Trip summarising my recent skiing in Les Arcs and La Plagne. You can also see the same thing in Google Maps here with images and videos, or just download the KML file for Google Earth.

Fallout: New Vegas

The Christmas computer games haul included Fallout: New Vegas, Assassin's Creed II, Mass Effect 2, and Mafia II, so it's a testament to Fallout: New Vegas, that I'm only just writing up my impressions of it.

And that's the first thing to say - the game is vast. Don't get me wrong, you can plough straight through the main storyline with blinkered vision, and do so in the matter of just a few hours game play, but to do so would be such a waste.

Whilst the map may not be any larger than Fallout 3's, and in some ways feels a little smaller, it is much richer. It rather felt in F3 that exploring the wasteland was a chore involving vast treks across large distances in the vain hope of finding something interesting. Once in the ruins of Washington DC, the map became fairly linear, but was at least a bit more rich in content, and as a result I spent most of my time in this area in F3.

Not so in F:NV. The map is positively littered with things to find - towns, settlements, military camps, mines, caves, trading posts and more. From any given position on the map you can spot a couple of "undiscovered" pointers and wander off to explore them. Each of these locations is rich in its own right, generally offering a side quest or two, or at the very least some reasonable loot. The New Vegas Strip and its environs actually becomes rather dull in comparison to the fun to be had exploring the rest of the map - a place to visit to progress the major missions, rather than to enjoy. Perhaps my opinion is warped, though, since I didn't bother going there until I'd got a good 40 hours game play under my belt!

That's not to say that the map doesn't have problems. There are on occasion vast mountains between you and your objective, which are not particularly easy to trace on the map. All too often I'd go wandering off in the direction of an undiscovered map marker only to find a huge mountain range in my way, and then try to walk around it in the wrong direction and waste twenty minute of game play. Just as frustrating is the over-use of "invisible walls" - often you can pick your way up a mountain and near the top, for no reason, find you simply cannot continue. There is the odd clipping error as well, but nothing too serious given the vastness of the map.

Internal maps I found were often very confined and confusing, particularly in the vaults, where everything looks the same. On at least one occasion I got so fed up of trying to figure out which parts of the vault I'd already explored and which I hadn't, I just gave up and headed straight for the exit. This is not improved by the lack of height information on the Pip-boy local maps, a problem also present in F3.

The quests range from main plotline quests, to major side quests, to minor ad-hoc quests. There is also the usual range of "collect these" quests which can, for the most part, be ignored. There are a number of companions available to you through the game who each bring their own side quest, often with a detailed back-story that becomes apparent through conversation with your companions. All of the quests are interesting and entertaining.

As you play, it becomes apparent that the game's quest logic is also vast - choices you make will close off avenues of storyline to you, and it's hard not to feel a little remorse for all the content you've missed. Of course, there is nothing you could do about it other than play the game again and make different choices - some of the content is simply inconsistent with other content. While that seems unfortunate at first, it does enrich the game play as it's far more reflective of real life, and forces you to think at each stage about what sort of route you want to take through the game. The only criticism of it I might have is that you can occasionally close off avenues unintentionally - it would be nice if the plot flagged through the dialogue that this was about to happen.

Aside from that, the game is just as playable as F3 but in a different, and prettier setting. There is much less focus on karma in F:NV, but a lot more on your reputation with the various factions in the game. There are new elements such as the ability to cook things up at camp fires, craft a wider range of things, recycle ammunition, and so on, but most of these things are fairly irrelevant side issues. The game is a little less stable than F3, with perhaps 20 crash to desktops over the 50+ hours I probably spent playing, but that might be expected from a new game, versus one that has been through a number of patches and additional content installs.

All in all, Fallout: New Vegas is even better than Fallout 3 - and we all know how good that was!

Student Fees

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. - Joseph Goebbels

Here are the lies we seem to have been assumed to believe:

1. "Progressive" in all cases means the same as "good"
2. That the Liberal Democrats retain power is more important than that they stick to the principles on which they won their seats
3. We have to maintain current students numbers and we cannot afford to without charging individual students for their education; the only question is how we do that?

To take the second of these, I'm tired of hearing Liberal Democrats explain how, while they would have liked to have not increased fees, they're forced by the coalition agreement to compromise on this. Why exactly do these Liberal Democrats feel that it is more important that they are in government than to stand up for the principles on which they won their seats? Why do they seek to convince us that dropping out of the coalition would be a bad thing? I would have rather seen them in opposition, I believe that between the Labour and Liberal Democrat opposition, acting independently and upon the basis of their own beliefs, the Conservatives might have been forced into a more moderate way of dealing with the country's financial situation.

As to the third point, while I believe that general taxation could pay for the current number of student places, I accept that the nation might have no stomach for that. The concept that 50% of people should attend university is arbitrary, and unnecessary, so perhaps we should abolish that as a target, and fund only the courses, places, and individuals that will bring benefit to the country. Here's my model:

1. The government decides what skills are needed and to what extent in the UK over the next X years (25?), accepting that "soft" subjects do have some value to the economy. This balance is reviewed every Y years (5?)

2. The government fully funds the courses and reasonable maintenance of students on those courses to the number of graduates required, allowing for a typical drop out rate.

3. A framework is put in place that ensures that only the most able students are given these government-sponsored places, regardless of background (easiest way to measure is by grades or by examinations perhaps?) I have heard and reject the argument that this unfairly disadvantages those from backgrounds where they might have had a poorer pre-university education; I do not think you solve a problem in one area of society by unnaturally skewing another.

4. Universities are then free to try to sell extra places on these or additional courses at whatever rate they can get from the market

5. Government funded places are performance measured, and if student performance drops below a certain level, funding is removed and students then have the option of dropping out of university or funding the rest of their education themselves. This is important to ensure the commitment of those being funded by the government.

6. Government funded places are paid for out of a fair income and corporation tax system across the entire populace, one which does not tax people until they have exceeded a liveable wage, and which is stepped according to the quality of life your income could afford you.

How about we explore that as a model, instead of just believing the lie that we have to find some way of charging people for their education, or the lie that anything that is "progressive" is good, or the lie that it's more important to retain power than to stick to your principles?

Poppy

I sat down here today to write a post about why Laurie Penny is wrong in this blog post for New Statesman, expecting it to be quite complicated, but I quickly realised that the answer, for me, is quite simple. There's nothing mutually exclusive in both being involved in war, and in honouring the dead and injured of war.

Laurie Penny accuses various companies involved in the arms business, and the administration of Great Britain, of being hypocritical by supporting the Poppy Appeal whilst manufacturing arms, and sending people off to fight and die in war.

Now, let's look at hypocrisy, as defined by Dictionary.com:

1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

2. a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

3. an act or instance of hypocrisy.

These definitions all require a pretense by the object being described.

Now let's look at what the Poppy Appeal is all about. The Royal British Legion, the "custodians of Remebrance", have this to say:

Remembrance Day and the Two Minute Silence have been observed since the end of the First World War, but their relevance remains undiminished. When we bow our heads in reflection, we remember those who fought for our freedom during the two World Wars. But we also mourn and honour those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts. Today, with troops on duty in Afghanistan and other trouble spots around the world, Remembrance, and this two minute tribute, are as important as ever.

The stated purpose of Remembrance is to "remember those who fought for our freedom" and to "mourn and honour those who have lost their lives." No mention there of remembering the horror of war, or the futility of war, or remembering that all war is bad (though no harm in bearing that in mind either!) I see nothing in remembering, mouring and honouring that is mutually exclusive with the belief that some wars are necessary, and to give Laurie Penny her due, she even acknowledges that "particularly in the case of the Second World War, there were clear moral and practical reasons why conflict was unavoidable."

So in supporting the Poppy Appeal, are BAE Systems and the British administration indulging in a "pretense" that they wish to remember, mourn, and honour the dead? To my mind, that case is unproven. One could be cynical and say that they are well aware that their support is a "desirable or publicly approved attitude", but that still would not necessarily imply that they are holding that attitude as a "pretense." Again, I see nothing to stop one believing in something, whilst still recognising that there is public approval for the attitude one holds, or even that one is benefitting from that public approval.

I suppose what it comes down to is a level of cynicism. I choose to believe that the likes of BAE Systems, whilst making money out of arms, still has it in their corporate soul to spare a thought for the victims of those arms. I choose to believe that the British administration, whilst still sending people to war, might believe that conflict is for "clear moral and practical reasons", and still honour and mourn those who are lost. Laurie Penny unfortunately, seems to be a bigger cynic than I, and would rather believe that, because she doesn't believe in the current conflict, the administration must be sufficiently cold hearted as to only pretend to remember, honour and mourn those lost in it.

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