Minimum Redundancy

_{My new PC one week after ordering!}

For quite a while now have I been toying with the idea of building a new PC. And finally at these last throes of summer, I have been given the means and time to build it. So on August 28th I placed an order, which I expected on the 29th, or if worst came to worst on the 30th. Sure enough, I got about 60% of my order on the 30th. Yet As I write this on september 4th, vital elements of my monster order have yet to arrive. The question that has been echoing through my mind for the last week has been: how could this happen?

A mental block is preventing me to do anything else but write this post. An attempt to vent my frustration that won't cause physical harm. I have been phoning numerous services and institutions and informing them about how their services and institutions, unbeknown to them, aren't working as advertised. Sadly I have gained little, save contempt. I have been getting one excuse after another and people pointing to someone else. Though it's quite clear that the whole system lacks efficiency. Belgium's motto: 'power in unity' is a terrible joke. May I suggest 'slowly but surely*' ?

The order I placed was with my favorite PC shop Forcom. I had used their services in the past, been to their shops and had nothing to report but praise: excellent range, quick deliveries, friendly service. So I called on them again for this order, expecting the same. But the expectations they had set in the past remained very much so. Browsing their site I made sure all the items I selected were in stock as to ensure a quick delivery. I wasn't fussy about price because I was convinced that less fuss would be good for all parties. Little did I know the inverse was true. Rarely have I paid such a large sum of money for the lesson that good service really is priceless.

Rarely have I paid such a large sum of money for the lesson that good service really is priceless.

The reason why, I found out while chatting with the very reasonable Forcom employee, is that Forcom was recently bought by a bigger chain of PC hardware stores called EuroSys and how they changed the delivery system to a system that couldn't quite deliver. You see, the way it used to be was that Forcom would build one big package which included all parts before sending it by courier. In contrast Eurosys sends all parts separate using separate couriers, which will arrive at separate times, hopefully during the same day. Which is what I experienced on the 30th. Eurosys also doesn't use its stores (including those of Forcom) as places to send from, voiding all the guarantees that items are available as shown on the website. Rather they need to be available in the general storehouse which is not indicated online. Making it impossible to judge if an item is available, and since their general storehouse appears to be a lot smaller and limited than either one of the stores dotted around the country a '24h delivery of available items' on www.forcom.com is just false advertising. Plain and simple.
While Forcom's man agreed with me that getting 60% of my order within 48 hours and having to wait for the rest to show up for another 190+ hours was absurd he was unable to do something about it. As it stood, a further 20% would arrive on Wednesday and the remainder would arrive on the next Friday. To my surprise he managed to allow for both deliveries to arrive on Wednesday September 4th. As he would send them all at once, using the post office's 'within 24h delivery guaranteed!' service.

Things were looking up, I received a notice that my order was sent on Tuesday, set to arrive on Wednesday morning. As I got up early to eagerly await my long overdue goods, I waited...
Annoyed I went to go see if the mail had arrived at all and found two blank receipts on the floor (eg: not in my mailbox), left there by the mailman. The receipts for the '24h premium delivery' sent yesterday told me my order would be available in the nearest post office from tomorrow onwards...

Now, parcel delivery usually works like this: a mailman carries a package to the address and delivers it. If no one is there to receive the parcel, a receipt is left to inform the addressee that the parcel is available for pickup at the nearest post office. The receipt also specifies when the door was rang unanswered. I my case; I took the day off (again, and will be 4 in total when all said and done), I was home, I was waiting, I did not hear anyone ring the door. I found receipts on the floor with nothing on it save the name of the illiterate (the receipts are personalized by the company) on who I would have to direct my scorn.

As I stood there fuming for a little while, my world shrank to the slip in my hand and it got very quiet. I'm only a very violent person within the confines of my own mind, but the walls very nearly came down. I had to act.

Minutes later I was stomping my way towards the local post office, only a few hundred meters from where I live. I imagine the look on my face must not have been very pleasant but the case of tunnel vision I was suffering was too bad to mind my fellow man. I was near blackout as I finally swung open the door at the post office, where pleasant, conditioned air presented me with the vision of one pretty, young girl and one hunched over postal crone at the desk, either one of which would have to deal with me. I had to get in line with one of those numbered slips made to ensure order in the picking line, a feeble instrument to make me wait even more. I wished I would get the old crow at the desk to resolve my case, because otherwise the frail young thing at the other desk would have to bear the full brunt of my indignant rage. Yet, so it was. I took a deep breath and slammed the fistful of excuse-notes on her desk. Within a few lines of my vitriolic complaint the crone directed her attention away from her business to save princess's first day at the post office by telling me there was little I could do apart from filing a complaint on the website. Which to me meant I could do nothing at all. Because it wouldn't solve my problem. All I got was a reassurance my package was 'in a protected circuit within the posting company', which I thought was rather funny.
I did make a formal complaint to complete this elaborate exercise in futility. In the modest conversation I had with the post office customer service, "chain of incompetence" is the only harsh sentence I used but I don't think it fazed the telephone operator much.

I can understand that in their eyes I am a madman who can't just wait another night, what they don't know is that I've been waiting all week and am now asked to wait another day where it should have been just the other day, given the expectations I had when forking over a month's worth of wages. Not to mention all the time that was lost waiting.

All I can do now is hope the delicate electronics get here in one piece, if not: expect my next blog from a mental hospital.

All I can say right now is to stay away from Forcom and Eurosys until it's made clear they have fixed their faulty system. As for the Bpost, the Belgian Postal company: please send your employees to school before you send them to customers, even if that's beyond the scope of requirements.

Whiskey Tango

I write to you a broken man. Before we get into the word man let me focus on broken. Because I have been unable to tear myself away from this game. I strain my brain searching a dusty vocabulary looking for words outside the narrow track of what words fighter aces use. Point in case, I hope not too many of you use the words 'boogie', 'yak', 'bingo fuel' or 'all banged up' on a regular basis. But if you do, do I have a game suggestion for you!

The game is called War Thunder. A game by the creators of Wings Of Prey of which this, basically, is a F2P MMO version of. I'm endorsing another F2P game? I have my reasons.

Yes, I'd repeat this till I'm blue in the face but I'd make a fantastic fighter pilot! In an earlier post I confessed to my deep desire to be a one, if you remember. Since conviction is half the work, the remaining requirements are filled by my basic understanding of physics, eg: stuff falls down when dropped, knowledge of aerial maneuvers: I was learned to 'do a barrel roll' from a very early age, and a keen eye which has since become an artistic eye by which I mean a painting done by me would be blurry and smudgy in the classic impressionist's way. Needless to say, my natural height advantage, which is mostly confidence or arrogance, over other people would make me the Top Gun's Tom Cruise of the Belgian Air Force.
I should attribute part of my aptitude for piloting to my father, who recognized this very potential at an early age. The thought of Falcon 3.0 still makes my knees shake from emotion and the memory of the heavy box that nearly crushed my ambition right there in the software store when I tried to lift the game's box.
Spurred on by my personal fanatical fighting of the Iraq war on my PC, the next step was being prepared. I was promised glider lessons if I kept my school grades up. I had to give up the simulator for study but managed to best my own grades the very same year. The sight of which reminded my father that two more siblings needed food and clothing and a compromise was made in the form of glider models. Which I flew flawlessly. And in this I can be modestly proud by saying I was a natural. Contrary to the norm, I didn't crash my first model. And didn't crash any further models. Except that one time when a freak wind tipped my glider upside down. It dove nose first into agricultural grade barbed wire which pretty much tore the plane in half. As I bit back the tears my father laughed off the incident, but I realized I may have been a bit too emotionally invested in flying. I dialed it back a notch but never lost the interest.

Which is the reason I'm so hooked on War Thunder. If you doubt my word on how good this game is, feel free to try it yourself. All I can still add to the argument that it really is good. War Thunder has gathered a pretty rabbit fan following, the forum is a hive of activity about everything you'd imagine and it has even spawned a couple of Youtube stars. No doubt the game has a bright future because fanatics like me keep pouring cash into the game, which is still even only in beta.

Since this is a free to play game, I should mention the business model. It's not too bad. The game has 2 sorts of currencies: Silver Lions and Golden Eagles. Silver Lions are gained by playing the game, and buy you all the normal planes, repairs, upgrades and ammo belts.
Golden Eagles allow for some luxury. Such as additional plane slots, remember: one slot is one spawn - if a plane is damaged, it has to be repaired, either by time or with lions. Eagles also buy premium planes, which yield additional lions and XP. As of writing, there doesn't seem to be a way to buy yourself an advantage over other players, since the premium planes often have a 'normal' counterpart and some of them are oddities or experimental planes history forgot for good reasons. Eagles also let you pour 'free XP', begot by simply playing the game, into faction progression.
Since this is an MMO, it pretty much adheres to the standard €15/month model. But there is no subscription model as such. Instead there's the option to pay for a time limited premium account - a prepaid system. This doubles XP and Lions income, so progression is faster than that of a free account. Again, the way I like it. Provide people with less time (but arguably: more money) a shortcut to speed up the rate of unlocks. Another nice thing about this game is that losing your premium status doesn't penalize you beyond the lack of the bonus XP and Lions multiplier. And should you fly a premium aircraft, or multiple, the lack premium is slightly offset by their higher income.

_{The German Canadair CL-13A Mk.5 Sabre's cockpit}

One big question remains however is premium progression fast enough? And sadly this is my biggest gripe with the game thus far. It's a rather slow affair, at least compared to progression in other games.
I say this as someone who plays with both a premium account and premium planes. In fact, I couldn't see myself progressing at all without the premium stuff. You won't be convinced unless I share a few statistics. As of writing I have played the game a total of 280 hours. Which is rather a lot. Given the game is nothing more then flying planes in areas, completing an objective. Which can make it hard to justify the price if you're not into flying. It's like Call Of Duty with the slow progression of a hardcore MMO. So what have all these hours netted me? Considering the level 20 cap: both my USA and USSR faction are creeping their way towards level 13. My Germans are halfway through level 16. Britain, my second biggest faction is at a nearing 16. And bringing up the rear is Japan, at level 8.
I could spend a pretty hefty amount of eagles to convert my millions of free XP to get most of my nations to the very endgame. But I'm not yet that desperate. The good news is that having played that much has me sitting on a healthy amount of lions. So I have very few limitations other than time.

At the endgame you get to play with the big boys. Flying jets that cost a fortune to get and maintain. But as someone who got terrorized, even from such low level as 14, by jets in past matches. The big lure is to have insane power. Jets are so fast and hit so hard, that they are almost invulnerable against all but other jets.

The gameplay itself though, which is in essence air combat, remains interesting even after all this time. Maneuvering, dueling, tactics, energy management, getting hits on an enemy (bullet drop is a major thing in this game - and each calibre has its own trajectory), it's all so much more intricate than other games in which you need to hit a target with some sort of projectile. The difference with War Thunder is that it's not a shooter or arcade game. Below the hood is a flight simulator, with rules based in physics. This is game where even the weight of fuel makes a pretty big impact on plane performance.

To be clear. This game has consumed me. I have stopped reading fiction in favor of my old WW2 air combat and history books. I have watched some WW2 movies, countless documentaries... Down the street I pause just that bit longer in front of display window of store that sells model kits. How much longer till the glue and pincers for assembling model planes the way I did when I was so much younger? And that's exactly how I feel. These last few months I have been playing out my boyhood fantasies. I am once again a fighter pilot. When I first saw this game in motion on Youtube, nostalgia sprang to life. Materializing from ashes and smoke, a prop driven Phoenix, its grin mocked my graying mane. Its fires scalding me for the lack of airtime.

Seeing these old planes again brought back memories from Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. Chuck only had a few planes from both Axis and Allies on offer but War Thunder seems to want to include about every warplane from the mid 1930's up to the Korean war. All of them with their unique characteristics.
Flying these things is a challenge. Winning battles in them even more so. For the history nerd inside me, this game is settling the argument the like of 'who would win, Batman or Superman?' on a daily basis if the heroes' names were replaced by names such as Spitfire, Mustang and their contemporaries.
It does it in great fashion. At times you can spot an incoming duel literally miles away and you'll need to plan ahead for the confrontation. If you're ballsy, or stupid, you make it a joust-like head on shootout. Gun on gun. Get lucky and you may survive. But if you're smart. You'll set up the situation to your advantage. Even if your plane is inferior, there's always a fighting chance. This dynamic is what makes this game so rewarding. Spending minutes outflying, outsmarting is tense in ways I haven't felt in an online game since lightsaber duels in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, this is no exaggeration. War Thunder demands knowledge of the individual planes, air combat tactics, patience and situational awareness in its highly fluid 3D emergency. As with many arena style games no two games are ever alike and War Thunder's regular content updates help the game even more in this regard.

Convinced? Then join this old boy (31 as of today!) and get into the mix before his premium runs out. Again. And if you want be a wingman, register an account using this link, you'll get 50 Gold Lions right off the bat and I'll get a little kickback once you reach certain milestones. It'll be terrific fun.

Maximum Redundancy

Installing and playing Crysis3 on my pc has made something crystal clear: my gaming PC is an ancient machine. This is somehow ironic. First of all because I am a big PC gaming advocate boasting about power and secondly, because this machine was assembled to play the cryengine (in the form of Crysis). Which ran like treacle on my previous PC, causing me to had a mental revelation that it desperately needed a replacement. And so I invested one of my very first wages into a new PC.

Back then, I also got the chance to get my hands on Windows Vista. I liked the rock solid performance of the thing, it never crashed. It was however, quite a memory hog. Making it clear that from day one that I wasn't quite done upgrading. After a RAM update, from 2 to 4GB, I upgraded my Nvidia GFX 8800 to a ATI 4780, which I had to replace later on with a Nvidia GTX 460. The CPU got upgraded from a Intel duo E8200 to an Intel q9505. This last upgrade almost didn't happen because the line of processors had become obsolete at that time, it had been for a while, and as such wasn't being sold except for reparations. That was only just two years ago.
Yes, this is by far the oldest PC I've ever had. If I keep it around for another half a year, it'll be 6 years old. But it's still going, pretty much without a hitch if not a chug. From the Vista days I noticed that the HD would sometimes tick, tick, tick and tick, making programs hang until the ticking ceased. At first I thought nothing of it. This was a new PC, what could possibly be wrong? So I ignored it. However, Vista picked up a few issues and got less dependable. The system files got broken and repaired a bit too frequent.
To fix it, I got Windows 7! installing it over Vista may have been a mistake but for a while, all was well. The ticking HD however was still there. A minor nuisance! Or so I thought. It started lasting longer. It certainly sounded mechanical enough to worry me slightly. So the inevitable happened and I got a blue screen when the system started ticking on the windows startup screen. This would have sent me in a vengeful panic, BETRAYAL MOST FOUL, if I didn't have most of my data backed-up or in the cloud.

BETRAYAL MOST FOUL!

However I was slightly ticked off at the delayed start-up. When the windows repair process ticked to a grinding halt as well, I was rather more annoyed. I started making plans to deal with this PC.
So I switched it off and twiddled my thumbs for a while in a suitably malicious manner. This happened on a hot summer evening, so I tried really hard to keep my senses in the simmering swampy city heat. Later that evening I had cooled down. I switched the PC back on. Mercifully, it booted just fine and I was relieved. I blamed the heat for the ticking problem. And it never got that bad again.

Until last January.

It finally dawned on me: the many reboots, error-checking and error repairing the system had to do, seemingly without reason, have had their toll on the files on the disk. Many important system files were 0kb in size. I could no longer adjust my keyboard and mouse settings because the configuration windows no longer existed. A DISASTER!

A DISASTER!

Because this was the middle of Black Ops 2 season and I wanted to toy around with my Razer Imperator's sensitivity settings. My indignant rage instantly returned in full force. THE HUMANITY!

THE HUMANITY!

A full system scan of whatever prompt command launched it showed me that there was no easy way to repair this avalanche of system errors.

That was the drop. On my hands was a PC that didn't have all the necessary (or unnecessary) functions and that couldn't go on. So I considered just getting a new PC, as I figured an upgrade was long overdue. But of course I had another option: reinstall windows 7, the 64bit version this time. The more economic option too. And in a way a small upgrade if it meant I could access the full 4gigs of ram. So I backed up all my remaining data and I mentally prepared myself for the fresh, blank windows desktop I'd eventually reach - and the experience of a most profound horror vacuum you only get when you see your own Personal Computer devoid of all the personal stuff.

the experience of a most profound horror vacuum you only get when you see your own Personal Computer devoid of all the personal stuff.

But also, happily, free of errors. Efficient. And this time I was surprised to see, or rather hear, no more ticking.
The system performs well again. But enough to keep it for another year? I think not. As I mentioned up top, Crysis3 isn't good to this PC. I play on LOW everything and even had to dig into a few custom configurations to disable default high-end features, just to try to keep the frame rate near 60fps. Truth be told though, 30fps may even be too much to hope for. Crysis3 is of course only one game, and I can play other games that aren't Crysis3 just fine.

As a new console cycle is revving up and new game engines are about to appear. It makes sense to get a new PC now and aim a fair bit higher than the new console specs. A guarantee it'll be able to play whatever game comes out in the foreseeable future. And I don't intent to skimp on the budget this time. A good PC can last a very long time even on a budget, so It's well worth the investment. At least that's what I think.
I'm still holding off upgrading for now though. We already have definitive info on the Playstation4: it's very much like a PC. But we still need to see exactly what Microsoft will do with the next Xbox console. Already it seems that the AMD dominated console hardware could influence PC game performance - the next Xbox and WiiU both also use AMD-made silicon. Should games be coded for the AMD graphics cards like the latest Tomb Raider was, it might not be the best idea to get an NVidia graphics card. It may be a bit too early to tell. More research is needed, as it is every time I purchase a piece of hardware. I am curious though, to learn what has changed.

Thoughts after Skyfall

This will come as no surprise to many of my readers - most of my family and friends know this - when I say that when I was a mere child, I always wanted to be James Bond. Good with the ladies, knows how to be a gentlemen even when plowing a T55 through Moscow, shoots straight while looking cool, retorts with wry humour and even knows how to fly a plane! This last one closed the deal for me. Today, I am of an age where I can finally almost afford my very own Bond Watch, I feel as though my aspirations haven't changed much.
We have a vengeful maniac on the lose, threatening to use new and scary tech against us? Rolex, I mean relax, Bond is on the case to save the western world. Begging the question: "what still threatens the western world?". The curious fact that Bond remains useful even after al this time is aptly commented on by M in Goldeneye, 'a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the cold war'. An affirmation that a character like Bond can only really exist in the outrageous world portrayed in the movies (or also: the testosterone driven past), where secret global threats still exist too. The threats usually take the shape of new technology, or new global phenomena that become super weapons in the hands of super villains.

Not so with the new Bond movies that set a whole new standard for the franchise. The stories are more personal, grittier and a whole lot more painful for Bond. I really enjoyed Casino Royale. Its sequel wasn't quite as phenomenal but in the end I liked this new beginning. Daniel Craig is introduced as a springy athlete doing half an hour of spectacular parcour to catch a bad guy. Quite the contrast to stiff-assed Pierce who was growing a few too many grey hairs.
Daniel Craig's Bond is quite different from all the ones who came before. He has less of a poker face, and from time to time emotions seem to gleam through the cracks of his secret agent mask. My girlfriend described Craig as 'A hideous lump of a man with too much muscle'. Which was a stinging answer to my confession that I really like him in the role, and even wish I could be a bit like him. Including his looks. This is a different Bond, with a few more flaws, which makes him more likeable. A man behind the monster? The new films shine a new light on the character, about what's happening with the man himself. The insinuated infertility of Bond at the end of Casino Royale 'you are still a man, no matter what anyone says' as a particularly personal detail no one saw coming (or even noticed - so let me be the one to point it out). The movie made us see that there was more going on beneath the surface. And it's nice to know that when describing Bond, we can go further than the description of his job. Though we still didn't know too much. As M, writing Bond's obituary at the beginning of Skyfall 'What do you write about a man like Bond?' He also comes over as a much younger bond, with less experience, fitting the theme of an origin story.

Funny that. Because in Skyfall, just 2 movies later, Bond is once again an old warhorse who needs a justification for existing in the present world. A world filled with faceless, nameless terrorists armed with laptops, not guns or nuclear missiles, who post sensitive information on the web - a bit like Julien Assange or Anonymous. Bond isn't much of a hacker himself but there are still a handful of reasons why he should stay. Tracking, catching and/or assassinating bad guys requires an agent in the field. Whether the bad guys are Cold War era Soviets or modern day Terrorists, we need hitman Bond to deal with them.

But right there, I come to a point that makes these new set of films different from the old. Though the threat of cyber terrorism gets enlarged, this time, the antagonist isn't out to destroy, conquer, enslave or sell the world but has a personal vendetta against M. Like the previous two movies, The plot is much smaller in scope so, aside from a destructive romp through downtown London, the world at large and its population stays relatively safe. I think this is what makes the Craig movies so interesting - Bond isn't a superhero set to save the world by single-handedly retrieving the nuclear warhead or preventing a World War. Rather, he's a talented individual who needs to win a poker game... or prevent M from getting assassinated.

Raoul Silva, played by Javier Bardem, is an ex-agent given up by MI6 after capture who took this rather personal and turned rogue. In this he almost serves as the evil twin to 007, because Bond is duty-bound. So much of his self confidence comes from the job, that without it, his drive is sapped.
Silva is, simply put, insane. A monster behind the man. He's quite good as a villain compared to Le Chiffre. Quantum of Solace didn't have a villain worth mentioning. Aside from Silva's colourful characteristics, he is very interesting as an avatar of, presumably, the filmmaker's comments (or even scorn) on the Bond movies of old. He's a destroyer of Worlds (and now I'm talking about M's world, not planet Earth). Silva mocks the old way 'How old fashioned of M to send a spy to catch another spy'. The perceived disrespect for the older bond movies doesn't end there however, because baddy mcBad is on a personal revenge quest to kill the only remaining character from before Craig: M as played by Judi Dench. He also goes out of his way to blow up the classic silver Aston Martin DB5 in a volley of gratitious gunfire as if to say 'That's for ever casting George Lazenby!'. The movie doesn't stop there however, Q chips in by saying, rather disdainfully, that Q-branch doesn't do those silly gadgets anymore. But wait, there is more. product placement is notoriously present in Bond movies. Almost a trademark. Yet, Skyfall has a rather on-the-nose scene in which Bond destroys a bunch of 'VW beetles, I think'. Of course, I rather took that as an extra amusing comment.

The film keeps going as a ritual cleansing of the franchise by reverting back to some of the more familiar Bond tropes. In the final stand at the Bond estate our protagonist, curiously sans backup, hopes to defend M from Silva who comes a-knocking with a small private army including a gunship. This is another little twist on the formula, like a snake eating its tail. Usually it is Bond who can spearhead an assault, aided by king and country, endless ammo clips, shark repellant spray and the US army, to confront the cornered villain.

In the end, and against a backdrop of old school over the top guns, fire and explosions, Bond manages to defeat Silva, but not long before M succumbs to her wounds and dies in the arms of the son she never had: James Bond. Bond in turn looses his surrogate Mother at the very place were his biological parents are buried. Bond seems to be forced to relive the past again (and again). And I stress this because the film then sets up the new Bond universe proper with the reveal of Moneypenny and the transferring of the M title to the new head of MI6: a man, just like the Bond movies of old. The snake has shed its skin, lo and behold the same snake emerges. Only newer.

In the final scene, Bond is encouraged to remain an agent in the field, despite recent hardships, failed medical and psychological tests and worst of all: his age. No, I'm not saying Daniel Craig is too old to play Bond in the next film and I hope he stays, rather the film itself when it goes at length to show how Bond's age and physical condition is impeding his efficiency as an agent.
Personally, for the next movie I really hope they keep the smaller scope of the new run and puts Daniel Craig through the wringer once again. More of a thriller than an action movie, more serious and believable than the gadgetry of exploding sandwiches and homing missile ballpoint pens.