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The Videogame Straitjacket
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2–3 minutes·
1 comment on The Videogame StraitjacketLike many others, when I was kid, two of the games I had the most fun with were Lego and Meccano. It would be trite to go into the reasons why, and it’s enough to say that construction kits like these offer kids a unique place to use their imagination to build anything they want,…
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Blind Light
Imagine walking in a mist so thick that you can’t see further than an outstretched arm. That’s what it was like to be inside Anthony Gormley’s Blind Light exhibit in the South Bank Centre. It’s a very odd experience. There are 24 other people walking around inside the exhibit, which is about 10 meters squared,…
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The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
One of my favourite authors is Ted Chiang. I’m not entirely sure what Ted does with his time, since over the course of seventeen years, he’s written fewer than a dozen short stories, the sum of which would easily fit into a typical novel. Of course, this has nothing to do with the quality of…
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After Our Time
After listening to an edition of In Our Time about the Jacobite Rebellion, I found myself writing yet another post on this weblog inspired by that wonderful Radio 4 programme. As I was finishing it, I thought that with all the posts I was making relating to In Our Time, I should really make a…
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Food Miles
Sometimes, when I come across a particularly interesting article, I try to find the research paper that it’s based on. I don’t always read the entire paper (in fact, I normally skip over huge chunks) but it’s always instructive to see the results and analysis as the original author wrote them; it’s not rare for…
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Homemade scales
Last month, I mentioned that I was selling a lot of stuff using eBay – mostly games, but also DVDs, books, phones, etc. By using the Royal Mail’s online postage printer, I was able to avoid visiting the Post Office. The only problem is that I don’t have my own scales. For most items, you…
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Bookmooch
Along with selling a whole bunch of games, I’ve started addressing the problem of my overflowing bookshelves. Granted, I only have two bookshelves, but I’m not really at a stage in life now where I have the space to keep hundreds of books. A couple of weeks ago, it was getting so bad that I…
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Ratatouille: A terrible experience
Update: Jen Winter has contacted me and apologised for the email, which I’ve accepted. All sorted now. Ratatouille is, by all accounts, a magnificent movie. Potentially Pixar’s best, and that’s saying a lot. And of course, it’s a very important film – these movies cost a lot to make and if they fail, that’s tens…
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A Dream of Madness
During a tour of the Pearl River Delta region of China, for one night I stayed at a place called the Ocean Spring Resort. It’s a new holiday resort surrounding a famous hot spring, with hotels, a theme park, spas, health centres, water features, pretty much everything that a resort needs. Oh, and it’s massive.…
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Oasis Hong Kong – a review
There are a few reasons why I decided to go to Hong Kong for my holiday. Relatives, culture, shopping, food, gadgets, China, Macau and Disneyland were all factors. The biggest factor, however, was a new airline called Oasis Hong Kong that was selling return tickets for £275 (including everything). £275 is significantly less than flights…
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