May Contain Spoilers

Jack Nicholson in the famous “Here’s Johnny” scene (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I dislike movies that try and change a written story.  Sorry, scratch that.  I hate it.  I’m not one of these people that will always say that the book is better than any movie adaptation and I’m not one of these people that says that a director cannot have any creative licence with a story. What has really annoyed me recently comes isn’t a new film representation of a well known book.  It’s quite an old film.

Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining is a modern classic of modern cinema and of the horror genre.  The imposing Overlook Hotel, ’Here’s Johnny!’, the axe wielding drunken insanity of a husband hell bent on murdering his family and of course the famous scene of Jack being a snowman.  However, everything is not as it seems.  Whilst the film still tops the best horror movies of all time, the real story is somewhat different.

I have been reading the book ahead of this year’s follow up, Doctor Sleep, and I was very surprised when I watched the movie afterwards.  Surprised in a bad way.  You see, in the first half hour of the film, it is clear that the story is going in a totally different way to what the original story tells.  There are numerous changes ranging from small details to key plotlines.  The majority of the iconic scenes found in the movie either don’t exist in the book or are substantially different.

For one, Jack is portrayed as a husband who seems to have no (or at most a smidgen of) love for his wife Wendy after settling into his play, but in the book, this is not exactly the case.  Jack still loves Wendy and although they have their disagreements, this is not shown at all in the movie.  There is also no real indication why Jack Torrance and family are in the deserted hotel in the first place!

The same is seen about Danny’s gift, The Shining.  Danny is seen as having a croaky voiced split personality who is capable of giving other people migraines by pulling a face like someone trapped in a windtunnel.  Of course, Danny’s telepathic powers are shown throughout the film but it doesn’t explain how it works or who the mysterious Tony is (whilst the book actually does).

The film in my mind just shows a man who has gone mad with cabin fever who decides suddenly that he wants to kill his family with no real explanation.  It was designed just to shock and just be what most modern horror films are now.  They don’t really scare you, just make you jump and feel sick because of gory images.  Real horror is something that lulls you into believing that the horror may actually be capable of transpiring in real life.

Although I agree that the film was entertaining, I can’t help but feel disappointed actually knowing the story and subplots of the original book.  Fans of the movie who haven’t read the book may be in for a few surprises if they do choose to read the follow up and I dare say, they would probably feel confused and cheated by what they’ve seen in the movie.

So, to all those who really want to know what is going on in the silver screen adaptations of famous stories, I urge you to read the original version before watching it in the cinema.  Not only will it allow you to get a better picture of the characters and the world they live in, the book adds continuity to a story without the chopping and changing you may see in a  movie.  I understand that a film has a finite time to tell it’s story and make an impression on the viewer, but by changing the story into something which is only pale comparison (or completely different) is unforgivable.  I am not totally against Kubrick’s interpretation of Stephen King’s classic, I just feel confused at the the way the final product turned out.

Five questions for The Shining lovers:

1. What was the room that Danny was warned not to enter?

2. What was Jack’s weapon of choice to pursue Wendy with?

3. How was Jack stopped?

4. According to the book, what was the hotel built upon?

5. What was Jack’s original job?

Related articles

• Scary Good: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (shugarlove.com)
• The crazy, chilling theories behind Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (baddiesboogie.com)

The past and future of the Dirt franchise?

So it’s been recently announced that the cockpit view of Codemasters‘s Grid 2 has been axed.  This has caused uproar in the gaming circles, so much so that the Executive Producer had this to say.

I am one who accepts that compromises have to be made and if they benefit the game as a whole, I am for it.  So maybe it’s too late for Grid 2 to change as the release date draws ever closer but what about it’s sister title, Dirt?

Look! Even in 1998 they had helmet cam. Image: http://www.deafgamers.com/

First some history.  The story of Dirt starts way back in 1998 with the first Colin McRae Rally (CMR) game.  It has since had eight reincarnations and one spin off.  This series has seen so many features axed and reintroduced proving that things really do come and go.  Let’s take a look at some of them now.

The first Colin McRae introduced us to Rally school.  What would be called now a mini-game, I feel that this feature is something that Codemasters should really think about reintroducing.  It does what it says on the tin.  It introduces you to the world of rallying and car control.  Something like this hasn’t really been seen since.  Ok, maybe the Gymkana school in Dirt 3 but you had to complete the first season to unlock that!

I think that this feature would be a good addition to the latest Dirt because new gamers are introduced into the world each day and us old veterans would like to go up against some new talent.

A new millennium, new graphics. Image: IGN

Skipping ahead to Colin McRae 3 was released in late 2002 (early 2003 if you were in the US) and was the first game of the series to introduce the concept of a career mode.  You played as Colin McRae over 3 seasons to become the World Champion.  This was also the first game that  introduced part upgrades.  Most were introduced after the completion of each rally and they could be swapped in and out for each stage when you liked.

The damage modelling of CMR3 was also the most realistic at the time.  You weren’t restricted to windows smashing and the odd bumper flying off; no, you had to contend with tyre wear and the subsequent blow out with sparks adding to the chaos.

The Xsara (which understeered like a hog) on the rolling road. Image: http://images.mob.org/androidgame_img/colin_mcrae_rally_hd/real/2_colin_mcrae_rally_hd.jpg

CMR 4 followed and the seasons mode was tweaked in favour of picking a car and racing it for that season rather than just being Colin all the time.  The parts upgrade mini-game was also introduced that broke up the monotony that could happen by just racing.

I feel that this would definitely add some more replay value rather than just picking another car as it is slightly better (although nothing could be done about the Xsara’s poor handling).

CMR 5 followed in a similar vein but added a lot more cars and championships.  You got the feeling that you were starting a career as you started in the Super 1600cc class (2 wheel drives) and as you got better, new and more challenging events were unlocked. This leads us nicely onto Dirt.

Dirt with it’s new upgraded blurry graphics. Image: http://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/62000/62704/3_cmrDIRT_rally_04.jpg

Dirt (2007) was really designed for the american market and in my mind had many plus points, but also many bad.  Dirt used the Neon graphic engine (that would later become the EGO engine) which introduced HDR, bloom and also a lot of blur.

The graphics engine is not as optimised as it is today.  My system struggled with this but copes beautifully with Dirt 3 which we’ll come to later.

What Dirt was good were the variety of competitions.  You not only had the vanilla Rally, you had new events such as hill climb and rally cross.  Each discipline added another layer onto the game play and refreshed things.  Although many of us would have liked to have seen more Rally events, there was some longevity in the title.

One of the other main changes between this and the previous titles was the introduction of money.  You won a set level of cash depending on what difficulty you picked and this would go towards new cars and liveries.  This meant that your garage was not full of cars you would never use like the said Xsara.  This was actually an encouragement to go back and replay some events to make some more cash and increased the length of playability.

Dirt 2. The prettiest and wackiest so far. Image: http://www.guru3d.com

It wasn’t until Dirt 2 (2009) that we say the integration of an explicit career mode.  You started as a Rookie and made your way up through the X Games ladder by winning races and getting famous drivers on your side for the odd teaming up events.

It was also the best looking so far.  There was however a few issues.  Rally played less of a role in favour for circuit style races, the damage that was sustained was miraculously fixed in time for the next event automatically and other drivers comments mid race became monotonous and annoying.

Call me a die hard purist and stickler for realism but damage is quite important.  In previous games, you had to balance taking risks to win with being careful not to total your vehicle and not being able to finish.  It directly affected how you would approach an event.  It stopped people from just treating the event like a destruction derby.  Why put so much effort into making sure the damage models are as impressive as they can be if there is no real lasting consequence?

This trend continued in Dirt 3.  Albeit that the career mode, handling and graphics have been vastly improved, the game is still not perfect. It drops the whole money aspect for gaining XP and teams wanting you to drive for them.  Sponsor events feel a bit empty and pointless (although I will admit that racing the bobsleigh with the Mini like in Top Gear was pretty fun). It however makes up for this with less annoying voice overs and more events for each discipline.

So if I had to make a wishlist for the new Dirt, what would I include?

1. Lasting damage between events.  Give us a reason to run a clean race.  Let us fix the damage we have caused rather than having so miracle performing mechanic on hand.
2. Give me a reason to race.  I want to be convinced that if I don’t win, there would be consequences. i.e. make us win money which we can use for useful things.
3. Carrying on from the above point, why not introduce a similar system as Grid where you have your own team (as there aren’t many works teams left in the WRC) and you are out to make money by winning and sponsors.  Hell why not include into the mix a shop to buy parts that you have won with your in game money.
4. Make us feel like we are making progress.  Starting from the bottom to become the all time greatest will mean that we can’t start off in high powered 4 wheel drive monsters.  Go back to the roots like in CMR 5 where we were racing in 2 wheel drives and working our way up from there.
5. I would like to rally in the British country side again.  Any one else agree?
6. Keep the graphics smooth and spend time ironing out the kinks.  No one wants another repeat of F1 2012 when that came out.
7. Rally! It’s what most of us are here for!
8. [EDIT] Hill climb on the Pikes Peaks.

I know many of the points I have made puts me in that 5% of Codemasters Racing gamers, but I do honestly feel that with each new Dirt game that something is becoming more polished and another important aspect of the genre is being forgotten.  If any of you guys have something to add, please feel free to add anything that you would like to see in the latest Dirt.

For those who are interested, my computer specs:

Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2, Intel i3-530 @2.93 Ghz, Gainward GT240 Gold Sample 1GB, 2x 4GB Corsair Vengence Ram, Seagate Barracuda 500GB HD, Novatech Black Edition 750watt.

Lack of power

Any one in the know will tell you that the power supply unit (psu) is one of the most important component in a computer. In lay man’s terms, it is the thing that makes all the other things work.

In some cases, their decline is epic with enough smoke and explosions to satisfy Michael Bay. In other times, they have a slow and steady decline.

A week back, a grinding noise began to break the usual whooshing that accompanies the start up of my desktop. In part experience, I knew that this was from the psu a fact later confirmed during a few tests. I did the usual tests, making sure the innards of my computer was clean and dust free, however this didn’t shift the issue.

So with a heavy heart and a lighter wallet, I have decided to buy a new psu and fit it myself. Last time, the process took over 3 hours. The majority of that time was spent removing the main power lead from the motherboard (mobo) as it was fastened so tight that I really struggled to remove it. I am hoping that I will not face the same issue this time.

I will be uploading progress updates on Twitter and write a full report here once I have it all working again. I will start prep tonight and await my new component on Monday!

Nippers last time to hear His Master’s Voice

HK Central Building HMV Group shop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I  recently wrote a post on my feelings of losing one of my haunts on the high street and here I am again writing a (possible) obituary for another.

HMV is somewhere that I hold close to my heart.  It was the place where I brought my first CD, although what one it was escapes me.  I have been a supporter of HMV for a long time.  I usually shop on their online shop as I tend to find it a bit stressful trying to locate a specific item in the vast swaths of other tempting products in store.

The announcement of HMV going into administration was only a matter of time.  Digital sales are ever growing with Amazon and iTunes being the digital champions.  I admit that I will rarely buy a physical CD bar a few exceptions from bands that I especially like such as Feeder and Yellowcard who usually have inspirational artwork.  I can often find the same album (or some times the enhanced albums) online cheaper without having to worry to rip it to mp3.   It makes sense to download rather than trundle into town, search for the blasted thing, queue up and then trundle off home happy with purchase in hand.

But of course, HMV not only stocked music but also DVD’s, band merchandise, audio equipment and other games.  In each of these fields Amazon and iTunes have devoured much of the market.

It’s the same for Blockbuster that announced that they were entering into administration very recently too.  Their market has been affected by iTunes (yes them again) and services such as Netflix.

It seems like the majority of high street stores are simply not able to compete with the influence with online stores.  Stores such as GAME who last year had a scare and Waterstones face a stiff competition from companies such as Amazon and this will only continue.  Will we soon to live in a world that the only shops that will remain in our high streets are the clothes shops, newsagents and fast food chains? It’s becoming a scary reality and will probably further hamper our economic recovery.

 

Related articles

• Nipper the Dog Trademark Seen as Most Valuable HMV Asset – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• 4,500 jobs at risk at HMV as it calls in administrators after rescue talks fail (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘No refunds, no exchanges, no gift vouchers’: Collapsed HMV under fire as it refuses to accept vouchers it was selling until MONDAY (thisismoney.co.uk)
• The place where you bought your first CD (bbc.co.uk)
• In praise of … Nipper the dog | Editorial (guardian.co.uk)
• Losing HMV is a body blow to music, say Everything Everything (metro.co.uk)

Jessops to be snapped shut?

English: Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘I love Jessops. I love photography and as a store that always has the newest and most diverse selection of cameras and equipment, why would I shop anywhere else?’

That was my opinion four years ago when I first started to ‘get into’ photography more seriously.  I still share that opinion to an extent and it does pain to come to the terms that soon Jessops will not be there on the high street to browse or pick up a replacement bit of kit.

It was the shop where I brought my first macro lens, a superb Tamron 90mm F2.8 which produced the most amazing bokeh’s.  Unfortunately that has been lying in the bottom of my camera gear drawer for the past year alongside an unusable tripod and many small capacity SD cards.

Jessops has become the same way to an extent.  The world of photography has really opened up in the past decade with SLR’s, advanced micro four third cameras (even Bridge/superzooms to an extent but not as much now) and even mobile phone cameras with them being much cheaper and easy to use.  The cheaper and easy to use part is a bit factor here. You can now buy cameras in most supermarkets, Asda’s and Tesco’s stocking some pretty impressive kit and entry level SLR’s such as the Canon 1100d for silly money.  It is however Amazon that is driving the last and most prominent nail into the coffin.

Amazon is a wonderful resource.  It is like a catalogue of pretty much everything and anything you may want to buy.  It is easier to check prices, specifications and make comparisons in your own time anywhere than making a special trip to a camera store.  This is a far departure from the early 1900′s when Jessops was first established.  Time and technology has moved on since.

The one thing that a computer can give you is a straight answer to any camera woe, the touch and feel when trying a new camera (trust me it matters greatly) and of course the satisfaction that you know that your new expensive toy hasn’t been bashed and knocked around whilst in transit.

This may or may not mark the end of all high street camera stores, Camera World and LCE (London Camera Exchange) are still going but losing the biggest and most well known leader in the field is still devastating.  According to the Guardian, high street music are likely to follow.  This is a sad time for all those involved.

I will close this with a quote from the Guardian’s piece.

Richard Hyman, a retail consultant at Patel Miller;

“This is the Pandora’s box that the internet has opened for retailing. I don’t for one moment think that retailing’s going to disappear, but I do think that its future will be quite different and that some really fundamental revisiting of the model needs to take place to establish scalable and sustainable businesses.”

Related articles

• Jessops In Trouble (aperture64.wordpress.com)
• Another High Street Store Bites the Dust as Jessops Calls It Quits (gizmodo.co.uk)
• Jessops is latest High Street name to fall into administration (independent.co.uk)
• Jessops: Purchases Halted on Website (SkyNews.com)
• Camera chain Jessops collapses ino administration (thesun.co.uk)

Head in the Cloud

Cloud Computing for those who really want to be confused by tonnes of lines (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is always someone in your social circle that is the computer whiz. Usually that person is me (unless Steve is available. He does it for his day job). I am called on to trouble shoot problems such as, ‘why is my computer so slow’ or ‘ why can I fry an egg on this thing’.  However I am not the same guy who has every latest mod con or gadget out on the market.

It has taken me a while but I have now broken my cloud computing virginity.  I have like most twenty and something year olds grown up with rapid technological development.  My primary school didn’t have a dedicated computer room until two years before I left. I grew up with the three inch floppy disk being the main component of removable memory. In the space of two decades, usb pen/stick/flash/that goddamn things replaced the floppy disk. I am pretty sure that if I showed my potential children a floppy disk, they’d probably think that it was some crap frisbee. There were of course the zip drives (the floppy disk’s bigger, less popular brother), the SD cards (the smaller brother) and the external hard drive (the black sheep of the family).

Now that is all gone. We have cloud technology or witchcraft or some form of telepathy if you are my dad.  Cloud technology isn’t exactly a new invention either but when you don’t have a need for it, what would be the point of using it?  It will become like that Youtube account that you use to look up videos of cats doing stupid, but quite funny things.

I never really saw the point of Cloud computing prior to updating my four year old phone a few months ago.  My tattered notebook has been replaced by a phone app which now allows me to sync all my musing or random thoughts to my laptop or desktop when I am near a Wi-Fi hotspot.  It saves me time copying up notes and deciphering my rushed handwriting which can (and often has) caused much head scratching.  Skydrive, Dropbox, One Note and Evernote have become tools that have enabled me to continue my life whilst on the move or away from the desk that I sit at for the majority of the day.

With these advances and more accessibility to this technology, I do worry about if it fails.  A lot of the world is now controlled wirelessly and many programs and documents now do not exist in physical form (which is good for the environment) but what would happen if the servers that have become places where we store our lives suddenly go down or become breached? What if I find myself in a meeting in a place where I cannot get any signal?  Many a time when a network connection error or just reaching your data allowance on your phone can become tiresome and makes you question why we do it all for?

Call me old fashioned, but I would still rather have something on a hard copy just in case.  I do love the idea of cloud computing but of course it still has its limitations.  Hell, if everything became cloud based, I would love to see what excuses kids in the future would conjure up for not handing in their homework on time.

Related articles

• Why disc drives are an endangered species (cnn.com)
• I’m Sad That No Kid Will Ever Know What This Coffee Table Really Is (gizmodo.co.uk)
• Clouds and mists and floppy disks (terrymadeley.com)
• Google Drive vs Dropbox vs Microsoft Skydrive (Te
  

_DSC0535

_DSC0535, a photo by Donovan Hand on Flickr.

I have taken many photos inside the NHM over the past two years. Even though it is from the late 19th century, the place is still relevant even with today’s technology such as augmented reality, interactive online displays and the huge wealth of papers and other literature floating around the web.

It does indeed sound a bit odd but hear me out.

The museum to many people is a tourist attraction. Somewhere you can go to see dinosaurs, see a legendary piece of architecture and maybe buy a t-shirt on your way out. Many people don’t get to see what usually goes behind closed doors.

I was a part of the project called V factor. There were many goals that it had, one being to try and dismiss the notion that the museum is just a home for rocks and fossils to collect dust and for the happy tourist to come and see.

Not many people realise that the NHM is still a major research hub in the UK for natural history and biology. There are many scientists that contribute through their research to enable us to understand the world better.

Throughflow is the project that V Factor has been closely linked to. To many people who come to the Darwin Centre and watch the volunteers, toothbrush in hand and buckets full of muddy corals, the question I was always asked was, ‘do scientist’s really do that?’. The simple answer is yes. Although there are much less messier fields out there, all science requires getting your hands dirty in one way or another.

But that is just one example. An acquaintance, who shall remain anonymous, once asked me, ‘many people can find the answer to their questions on the internet. Why would people come to see stuffed animals?’

I then pointed out to him that how many animals can you really see in detail or to scale on the web. Sure, maybe the majority of domesticated animals but what about a hippo or an elephant? All you may get is a little stick man produced along side for scale.

I can see his point though. The wealth of photos on Flickr is testament to how much of the world can be seen in pictures.

To answer the question he posed more correctly, I believe that although there are masses of papers and literature on subjects, a person with little knowledge in the subject initially may find this hard going. I did my degree in earth science but I still find it hard to get my head around the applications of laser ablation on meteorites for example.

I find it much better to ask questions and have an answer tailored to your knowledge in response. Many visitors to the NHM would see staff walking around with a variety of animal skulls or other body parts. They are trained to approach people and ask them questions to try and inspire curiosity. I believe that this feature is lacking online at times.

As a tech geek, I do believe that some museums feel out of date. They need to be modernised to cater for this new tech loving generation however, we cannot remove museums out of the fray completely. They are still the places that when we bring our children to will blow their minds. Presenting a child face to face with the life sized autonomic T-Rex was always an interesting sight if I had ever seen one. It isn’t just seeing that we should be concentrating on here.

Investigate is an area of the museum devoted for younger children to come and have a hands on approach to learning. The big kid in me had fun with the various light and digital microscopes that the benches had to offer but I think it is the ability to feel which is the strongest part of its arsenal.

I will use Investigate’s Fox for example. As you can imagine, it is a fox. The main idea is that not many people have ever touched a real fox in their life (apart from animal handlers or the people that have domesticated them somewhere in Russia). The fox has an interesting feel to it. The fur on its back feels like that of a rabbit; soft and quite light. Other areas are like that of a dog’s coat and others are quite wiry feeling. This is what you cannot experience online.

To live and learn to its fullest, I believe you must activate all senses. This is the only way to fully comprehend and I would even go as far to saying really understanding something. You can learn a lot from books but you can’t learn everything from them. This goes with online web applications and fancy interactive exhibits, you can do so much on one platform, but you are still limited to what you can really see, touch, smell and feel in the path of your hand. (Ed – I wouldn’t suggest doing this to anything that has just come out of a volcano or would provide any other detrimental effect to ones health).