Thoughts on elections

Well, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Senator Barack Obama has become the first African-American president of the USA. For me personally, I hope that this does not become an instance of be careful what you wish for. The President-Elect has always struck me as being glamorous, in the original sense of the phrase - someone who you can project all of your hopes onto. I hope the glamour doesn't fade. However, the one thing that has struck me personally - whole racism seems to be on its last legs in the US political system misogyny still seems to be going strong. Many of the comments directed against Sen Clinton and Gov Palin would be unaceptable if made towards a man. Hopefully the next election will give rise to a viable female candidate.

However, South Africa is also holding elections in the next year. It promises to be a very interesting election, with the possibility of a viable alternative to the ANC competing. Let us hope that it isn't also a case of be careful what you wish for.

Blows off some dust

Hmm, now where did I put that duster...

I got my first comment ever, and realised that I've been very slack with this, so onward!

Electoral compass USA

I've seen an interesting link that gives you an idea where you fall on the political compass in the USA, particularly with regards to the presidential candidates.
http://www.electoralcompass.com/page/0/thema%20s/

Now I've always thought of myself of fairly conservative, and probably on the right in terms of politics, so I was a bit surprised to find myself bang in the middle of the graph at the origin. The nearest person was Ron Paul, not someone who I have much interest in, and even that was right at the edge of the curve. I'm close to none of the other candidates.

I was very surprised to see just how far apart the candidates are - there seems to be no middle ground between the Republicans and the Democrats, and that strikes me as a pity. If the two main parties and their supporters are so polarised, that does not bode well for getting rid of the incredibly polarised nature of American politics and the complete disdain each side holds for each other.

Interestingly another friend of mine, who is a lot more liberal then I am, got almost exactly the same position. Maybe it just means that South Africans are less polarised then Americans?

Proof reading for "fun" and "profit"

I’m the proof reader in my group. I can spot split-infinitives at 100 paces, can move between tenses without blinking, and can prettify your document in a single sitting. So as a result I’m proof reading a friends Masters degree. She’s due to go on maternity leave in the next month, and this really needs to go in before then.

It’s not going to happen though. Her introduction is ok, and the methodology will be fine with some more work. Her results section is nowhere near complete – it’s just pages and pages of graphs right now with no text, and much duplication of data. Her discussion is two pages, most of which probably belongs in the results section. And as a result, now I feel awful. She’s under a lot of stress with her pregnancy and I’m going to have to tear her whole write-up to pieces. Basically, she is going to be registered for this degree for another year, which is not good career-wise; this is going to be facing her when she gets back from maternity leave, which will probably only be in May or June and finishing this degree will be the last thing she wants to do. This is really not good.

Gaming: The Witcher - First impressions

First impressions of The Witcher are very positive. I have the feeling that this game is likely to stay in play for a while yet. I've just managed to start Chapter 2, and I'm loving the the fact that the choices that I make in the game are starkly lawful good vs chaotic evil. Apparently, chapter 3 is even more neutral in that way. I have the European version, which is the apparently uncensored version - I can understand the rating on this game. But yeah, so far so good.

Games: Neverwinter nights 2 – Mask of the Betrayer

I was so excited for this expansion pack – it promised to fix a lot of what irritated me about the original campaign. It didn't help that it seemed to take forever to get here. And I got it, and I've played about the first half hour.

The camera angle is stuffed. It takes about 10 minutes to get to the save / load menus. It has impossible battles, which become more frustrating when it takes longer to load a game then it did to die. I can't quicksave.

So I downloaded some new mods for Baldurs Gate 2.

Spent more time, and more enjoyable time, starting a new run through on that then on Neverwinter nights.

I don't think I'll be going back to NWN any time soon. I've just got the Witcher, and first impressions there are very good. I've also got some new quests for my favourite game ever, Baldurs Gate 2.

It's a pity. I don't know why the save/load times are so long; I haven't had the energy to go and look at the forums. I do know that I play games for the story, for the puzzles – I don't play at the tactical level. So a game that forces a highly tactical style of play, and makes some battles almost unreasonably difficult is going to frustrate me. I think this is the biggest problem with NWN – the makers lost sight of the fact that not everyone is going to enjoy the fights, and that some people want to play on easy level. NWN had so much promise, looked like it could be such a great game, but there are so many good games out there, why must I waste time getting frustrated, when I can load up Baldurs Gate, or the Witcher, or Icewind Dale, or even some of the old school adventure games such as Quest for Glory.

Relatedly I must give some serious credit to the makers of the Keto (http://www.pocketplane.net) and Kivan (http://www.gibberlings3.net) mods for Baldurs Gate 2. They feel as though they could be part of the original game, and as yet don't feel out of place. The Keto mod in particular is likely to be part of my default install for a while yet.

Monday morning

Came in, checked my transformations - nothing worked. The bacterial strain I'm trying to transform doesn't like the transformation procedure so I now need to find another method.

Sat down, checked my mail.

Got told that our freezers went down sometime over the weekend.

All of our restriction enzymes - gone
All of our PCR kits - gone
All of our other molecular biology kits - gone.

I hate Mondays.

Mask of the Betrayer

Finally have my grubby hands on it. I have been looking forward to this expansion pack for a while. NWN2 was, in general, better then the original; the castle upgrade thing was seriously cool, as well as having a game with party interactions. However, I found the last section incredibly annoying. I have played role playing games for years, but when I go out of my way to find a cheat code to put on God mode, when I'm playing on easy level, then there is something wrong with the game balance. Even the final fight in Baldurs Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal, while tough, could be beaten. The only time I can remember being as frustrated with a game was with Titan Quest.

MotB has gotten some good reviews, so I'm going to be interested to see how it compares to the original game. I'm just hoping I've still got all my original save games.

I love XKCD

This cartoon just sums up why they are so fantastic.

Gaming

Why does it take so long to get some games here? The Neverwinter nights expansion pack was due to be here beginning of October; that was pushed back to mid-October. That got pushed back, and now the most recent news is that it will be out mid-November. In the mean time the Half Life 2 Orange Box is out, the Witcher is out, the Oblivion complete pack with the expansion packs....

While not a first person shooter fan, I'm still very tempted to get the Orange box - I've heard very good things about Portal! Still deciding about Witcher - looks interesting, but I have quite a few games sitting on my shelf that looked interesting and I got nowhere with. But I did get Heroes of Might and Magic 5 today, which has taken up a fair bit of the afternoon. But I would still like the NWN expansion! Oh well, next week hopefully.