Men from boys.

This is what a true simulation is about:




Tire wear is 100x for display purposes. But it's still an amazing feat. Tire modeling is the most important aspect of sim racing. Just like tires in real life: "it's where the rubber meets the road". The one thing that will connect you to the feel of the road surface and eliminate that "floaty" or "ice-skating" feeling. Here the rFactor guys accurately simulate deformation, wear, heat/friction and it's affect on grip, and flat-spotting. The flat-spotting is especially impressive since no one that I know of has accomplished it this well. With iRacing 2.0, rFactor 2 and Forza 4 coming out, it's a pretty damn good year to be a sim racer! Flight sims, where you at?

Churn of Duty.

Good article on bit-tech.net about the next Modern Warfare. Speaks my thoughts exactly. Check it out here.

Fiat 500 Abarth coming to the US!

We finally get a good version of a European staple:

According to Fiat's twitter feed it will be introduced at the LA auto show. Some autosites have even speculated a power bump for the US Abarth. Why is the Abarth's introduction to the US so noteworthy? As Americans we always get the dumbed down version of nicer European cars, due to tough emission and safety standards. With automakers like Fiat and Alfa Romeo just now beginning to re-dip into the American market, it's slightly worrying that they would not bring their A game and eventually 'cede from these shores again. The Abarth is Fiat's A game. By sheer fact that it is going to be introduced, gives hope for enthusiasts to maybe see other staples on these shores. The future seems positive. Now at last, we can start the long healing process and maybe forgive Ford for not introducing this:

Bastards. Here are some other superfluous shots, but of the Fiat 500c:

Mini should be very worried.

Crazy Aussie cars.

Love the VXR8. It's actually an Australian HSV Clubsport R8 Supercharged by Walkinshaw Performance or SuperClubby for short. Love the whine from the supercharger. Skip to 1:07 to hear it. I don't know what is with Australians and superchargers. Must be because of Mad Max's car. We got a version of this car in NA under the Pontiac G8 GXP badge, but to create this car on these shores you'd need a custom hood,then a Walkinshaw Supercharger and tune. If I had the money and wanted something unique this'd be it.

The loss of sense of scale gaming or the Call of Duty-ing of our gaming subculture

TLDR: FPS multiplayer is moving away from innovation and just sticking to CoD-like deathmatch, which wasn't inherently where CoD came from in the past.

With Battlefield 3 soon to be released in October, I wanted to take time to reflect on the lineage of vehicle-based multiplayer gameplay. Back in 1999, if you were playing any PC games chances are you remember a little game called Codename Eagle.

Codename Eagle

This was DICE's first attempt at an online multiplayer game with an emphasis on vehicle based combat. Though I didn't get a chance to play the game when it initially came out, I played it a couple years afterward based on recommendations of Battlefield 1942 lineage. Suffice it to say, it really seemed more like a beta-test of 1942 than a real game. Buggy and the controls were not good. Around the same time as Codename Eagle, team-based multiplayer was alive and well with the Counterstrike 1.6 mod. In fact, most multiplayer games of the late 90s early 2000s were based upon deathmatch and team deathmatch modes i.e. Quake & Unreal Tournament; with a little CTF thrown in for good measure. Most of these games were fought on smaller scale maps with an emphasis on fast-paced, close-quarters gameplay. Of them, Counterstrike became the staple by which others were judged by. It could also be argued Counterstrike was the first game to successfully implement objective-based rounds (Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists). But going back to vehicle-based multiplayer: around 2001, Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis was released.

OpFlash still ugly in it's day.

This, like Codename Eagle before it, allowed you to control several vehicles in singleplayer and multiplayer including coop. Flashpoint also introduced players to a huge sense of overall scale in their gaming environment with the original island measuring over 100 sq miles. But unlike Codename Eagle, Flashpoint had a high learning curve to it, it was after all an infantry simulator first and foremost. So while a great game in it's own right, it's popularity remained only for the hardest of hardcore. The following year riding the high of an E3 2002 trailer comprised of "live ingame action" EA released Battlefield 1942.

The original trailer, trust me it was amazing back then.

Here was a game that revolutionized the multiplayer arena. All vehicles, ships and gun placements were player-controlled, 64 players were available on most maps with the maps retaining a great sense of scale, it introduced conquest: a multiplayer mode that simulated an ongoing battle by relying on a respawn ticket pool affected by the amount of captured flags. Now you didn't have to just kill another person to win the game, your whole team had to pull together for a common goal. This was a breath of fresh air for me and others like me that grew tired of the frag or be fragged games of the time. Those were fun for a while, but innovation felt like it was the only way to move forward the FPS genre. Battlefield 1942 enjoyed many years of popularity involving two expansion packs: Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WWII.

More to come...

Older drag vid.

Not the best run for me:



R/T.......1.367
60'.........2.469
330'.......6.459
1/8........9.743@74.96mph
1000'...12.584
1/4.......14.985@94.24

Was running the APR Stage 1 100 octane program on street radials with the spare tire removed. Lining up in the car was hard due to the DSG. I'd have to stop, roll a little to set the christmas lights, stop, engage launch control, look up, realize I was too far back, roll forward some more, wait a second to engage launch control again, then go. Not as easy as a manual. Engaging and re-engaging launch control is a huge pain in the ass. It always took a few seconds before engaging. That green light comes up hella quick too. Several times I was caught messing with launch control when it dropped. Still fun though. My best of the night unfortunately wasn't videotaped: 14.811@95.80mph. In the future, I will definitely just be using 91 octane gas. The extra HP and torque from 100 octane doesn't necessarily mean faster 1/4 mile times for FWD cars. Too much wheelspin off the line.

Some Arma II vids

Found this one on my hard drive the other day:



Never posted it because of the frame rate issues. So I made another one on Saturday. This was the best one. It's only 42 seconds but I like the unscripted death.



Nothing like Arma II fireworks to cure the workday blues!

The search continues...

Finding Captain America to watch online has been friggin aggravating. Harry Potter and Thor were easy enough to find. Captain America is proving difficult. Most of the ones I find are the 1990 Captain America film starring Ned Beatty. I remember watching that film on cable with Chris. At the time, we thought it was alright. Man, how wrong we were. Anyways, enjoy the trailer:

Harry Potter 7 part 2

So just finished watching Part 2 online. Whole moral for the Snape backstory? Weeman loov bastards!

Pic

Also I've posted this picture of Cameron Diaz for all you that went to see Bad Teacher this weekend.

She's so hot!

FB friends amount

This one completely baffles me. Everyone always seems to have a problem keeping up with acquaintances on FB. Having a friends list of over 50 people is absolutely ridiculous. Like you really want to see everyone's updates of inane bullshit. "Went to MacDonalds two secs ago. Had a Big Mac! Yum!" Dwindle that list down to the people you really care about and want to hear from. Block everyone else. Be selective with that shit. Pull a DeNiro, let only a few people in the inner circle. Periodically evaluate everyone on your friends list. "Okay, way too much cut and paste political viewpoint from you...[Delete] Too much whining from you...[Delete]" Leave only the people you would actually call, care about, make you laugh or are separated by incredible distances. It's a good thing that you'll never see or hear from that summer camp lover again. "I fucked this guy? He's a goddamn tea-bagger." Nostalgia has it's merits. Do your part, get your list to double digits! Quit whoring your social network out!

Sounds like promiscuity

Apparently, I'm getting married to some girl tomorrow. Well, renewing our 10 year vows. I have to say a few sentences in the ceremony. I don't really like being in the spotlight though, so it may be harder than it seems. Don't know where the nerves came into effect. Probably has something to do with being in the military and having all creativity and individuality beat (mentally) out of you. I seem to recall memorizing plays in one day in elementary school, performing solos for JV band in middle school and not being nervous. Sucks having a lifetime of foibles that determine the amount of nervousness you get in front of an audience. Before I would be too cocky to get anything like that wrong. Something along the lines of, "Fuck these people, I'm gonna nail this speech." But siphoning off my jesus-fire to other people has left me a hollow shell of the person I once was. That and going against everything that ever made me a person and re-enlisting. Still remember that one call back home. "Hey, Dad, my enlistment is coming up. I'm thinking about getting out. Can I come home and live there till I get on my feet?" Few seconds of hesitation told me all I needed to know. "Well guess that door's closed." Still, I should've gotten out and hit the ground running after 4 years in. Could have gotten an air traffic job then too. Mais, c'est la vie. But you know what? "Fuck nerves, I'm gonna nail everything from now on"

+1 Internets

I thought about explaining the name of the blog, but figured someone could google-guess it. Suffice it to say, I seem to read books with the some common themes in them, be it Repairman Jack, the Hyperion Series etc. Good reads. +1 Internets for the first one to google-guess it.

It's a smart match.

Since getting out of the military I have been toying with the idea of facial hair as a standard fashion accessory. Originally opting for what I consider a Margera-like goat, I settled on extended chops. But lo and behold, after a year of chop action, their placement seemed to be steadily lowering to neck beard territory. This was enforced by the comment of a few people on FB. I have currently decided on the trimmed straight sideburn/goatee combo for a few purposes. One, the goatee nicely covers up an unsightly double chin, two the straight sideburns are an automatic step up from the grungey-ness of the neck length chop. (No matter how you trim chops you'll always look like you could use a shower.) And finally, with the darkness of the beard and me eyebrows, I consider myself looking rather dashing. I call this look the Will Turner. Named after the venerable protagonist in the Pirates franchise. See observed examples. And yes, it is a smart match.

The Margera, Neck Chops, The Will Turner

No you dant'nt!!!

Yes. Blogosphere descruction not so imminent. Creation of new blog to expedite evolution of logosphere-created supreme AI. AI god by name of Netron. Posts begin...now.

May god [sic] have mercy on our souls. (Netron)

Netron circa 3405AD