Interesting Links for 04-02-2014

[andrewducker]

• The FT chimes in on Scottish Independence and the viability of an Independent Scotland
  (tags: scotland independence )
• What is it about the Lib Dems and Sci Fi?
  (tags: libdem scifi viaJennieRigg )
• When restaurants get ridiculous
  (tags: food restaurant )
• More and more we are immersed in our past.
  (tags: history technology archive )
• This review for

Comments

[artkouros]

I can't wait for smart cars and smart roads. I want to be able to nap during my commute.

[randomchris]

The paranoia about car surveillance is ridiculous - anyone who's got a satnav system is already sending out a large amount of data on their driving habits, including speeding. I spoke to TomTom at one point in a previous job; for a few thousand quid licensing fee, I would have been able to access data on what speed every car was going when it passed through a given area.

[philmophlegm]

The LibDem SF thing is interesting, although the correlation doesn't seem overwhelming

[tobyaw]

Maybe LibDems like Star Trek because all the heroes are state employees? They see a bit of themselves in it. And wouldn’t the social democrat (rather than liberal) side of the LibDems warm to a government that provides everything for its citizens?

On the wider issue, I do wonder whether the LibDems are just more accepting of minority interests; perhaps science fiction fans of other political persuasions have learned not to admit to their preferences, even when answering questions for YouGov’s online polling.

[philmophlegm]

The state employees thing makes some sense, but wouldn't it apply more to Labour supporters?

On the other hand, in Star Trek, we never really see any working class types - all the good guys are solidly middle or upper class. You occasionally see some maintenance guy in overalls, but he's rarely a named character. For Old Labour supporters to like Star Trek, maybe there would have to be an Enterprise shop steward.

Come to think of it, the urban proletariat seems under-represented in TV SF...

[tobyaw]

I think you have to go to Buffy for real working class credentials… didn’t Buffy work as a waitress, and Xander on a construction site?

[bohemiancoast]

I think Dungeon Keeper has set the record for the shortest amount of time an app has ever stayed on my iPad before being deleted. Basically, I downloaded it, played through about the first 90 seconds in mounting disbelief "how can *DIGGING TUNNELS* be a premium activity?", and deleted it.

Edit: having said that, I wouldn't want to suggest that free-to-play is an inherently bad way to design games. Nimblebit I think get it spot on. I'm also pretty relaxed with benign timer-based games like Hay Day and Pixel People, both of which I got excellent value out of before deciding the timers were becoming a bit tedious, and watching my five-year-old niece managing her Hay Day farm is quite extraordinary.

But Dungeon Keeper is something else entirely; a ruthless and cynical defiling of a beloved game.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - games which give you some levels to play, and then let you play more levels when you pay for them are fine by me.

Games which ramp up the difficulty level (or annoyance level) so that you pay in order to make the game easier/less annoying, on the other hand...

[bohemiancoast]

I'm even relaxed about the timer-based games in principle if the timers are benign. In the case of both Hay Day and Pixel People, I was playing them for about half an hour a day or so, for months. Until some of the timers were getting so long that not much changed in a day, and then they start to get tedious. Similarly with Pocket Frogs and Tiny Tower. The difference is that now I spot this when I start playing, and generally don't start.

if you're looking for an awesome strategy game with some humorous elements, check out Skulls of the Shogun. Turn-based rather than RTS but that's my preference anyway. Disclosure: it was free over Christmas so I got it then. But it's a couple of quid; about as much as digging out two rooms in DK.

[andrewducker]

Happy to pay for it! And will do, as soon as it hits Android :->

[apostle_of_eris]

• More and more we are immersed in our past.
"The dead past isn't dead. It isn't even past."
Everything ever all the time is the crest of a wave which began with Edison's phonograph. I've been watching this for a while.
There's a simultaneous Great Forgetting: if no one has uploaded it, it never happened.

• All human behavior can be reduced to four basic emotions
There are more emotions than physiologic states. There's some complex mediation in the brain's interpreting. I was first introduced to this as the "high bridge effect".