Time for SCIENCE! It's fair to say that I'm not a fan of the more recent social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook since I believe that they serve to complicate and devalue communication rather than aid it. I also don't like a lot of the things they stand for.

I thought I'd try a little experiment though and, for one day, "tweet" in the same manner as most Twitter fans do during their waking hours. Throughout the day, I will add short updates of 140 characters or less to the bottom of this post, for the most part devoid of context and meaning. I will then revisit this post in a week or two so that I can look back and try to decide whether my "tweets" were socially beneficial to myself and others or, as I suspect, were an entirely pointless endeavour.

I'm not really doing this for any particular reason. I have nothing to prove to myself since I already have a firm belief that Twitter is a poor social tool. I am a little interested to know exactly how much sense my comments will make a week from now though.

If anyone happens to be following along, feel free to participate in this random experiment and add a comment - I shall do my best to "tweet" a reply. Bonus points awarded to comments of 140 characters or less.
 

 
An interesting experience. My thanks to those who participated. I shall leave this here and come back to it next week.

THANK YOU, W0lfeh, for bringing this to my attention. \o/ It's a sad reminder that I don't have much time to regularly spend catching up on game news that a release like this managed to sneak by me. Not only is Fat Princess due out tomorrow but Puyo Puyo 7 too!

I've had a quick skim through the Puyo Puyo 7 website to see what the new game has to offer. It looks as if there will be a few changes to the character line-up with more Madou Monogatari characters than have appeared in a Puyo Puyo game since Yon. Several of the characters made a return for Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary after taking a break for Fever, but it looks as if most of the main cast is back this time around. The core gang of Arle, Satan, Schezo and Rulue are all back together. And, for the first time in ages, Draco! A few of the classic secondary characters are back too, including the iconic Suketoudara and Skeleton T. However, Zou, who was brought back for 15th Anniversary, appears to have vanished again. :(

I wonder if they'll ever make a new Madou Monogatari game. I'm sure it would sell well given that Puyo Puyo remains quite popular in Japan, and they have enough new characters in the series now to allow them to do something fresh and vibrant. A kind of Madou Monogatari Fever, if you will. There are probably some licensing complications with old Compile IP though.

As with all new Puyo Puyo games, there have been a few rule changes. Seven's featured mode is Daihenshin, which appears to be an unnatural cross between Fever mode and 15th Anniversary's DekaPuyo mode and a ChibiPuyo mode I haven't seen before. I'm not sure quite how well it plays. It doesn't seem much like a major rule change in the way that Fever was.

It's coming out on the DS tomorrow and PSP/Wii later in the year, so I don't have anything to play it on at present. Although that's not really an issue as I expect it will take its sweet time making its way over to the UK. Assuming it ever does. The networking features like 8-player online play look fun though. Maybe I should think about upgrading my ageing GBA SP next year.

Oh, and be sure to check out ぷよぷよのうた too. :)

ばよえ～ん～～～☆

After a series of production delays, Fat Princess will be bursting (eww, horrible image) onto the PlayStation Store tomorrow - to the delight of many PS3 owners, I'm sure. The game looks like good fun and no one can deny that the concept is a little different. If I had a PS3, it's one I suspect I would snap up.

Last week, I mentioned a self-indulgent post I had wanted to make on the Moon shots of the 1960s and early 70s. It's a little later than planned, but here it is.

40 years ago this month, humans first set foot on the orbiting ball of rock we call the Moon, a moment that will be remembered as one of the defining moments of the 20th century. But four decades on, just how historically important are the Moon landings? How might things be different today if we hadn't gone to the Moon? The media have been pumping out countless articles, TV documentaries, etc. that look back on those events in a modern day context. I've been following some of them, and while most are feel-good fluff, a few made some very interesting observations. I thought I'd touch on a small selection of the latter here with a few of my own thoughts thrown into the mix.

Even if I didn't have an interest in space exploration and therefore in the space program directly, the person I am today would still have been in part shaped by the events of 40 years ago. The space race gripped the world and turned a decade of depression (Vietnam, assassinations, crime waves) into something inspiring. It was about hope, vision, exploration, humanity and a dozen other buzzwords that the people at the top of NASA still liberally scatter about their sentences when trying to secure funding from the government. Without the Moon shots, science fiction would have remained a niche interest for the few who were open to it, rather than being the popular fiction genre it is today. Star Trek, which originally ran from 1966 (the year which saw the first launch of the Apollo program, Apollo 2) to 1969 (Apollo 11 on the Moon), harnessed the popular interest in Space at the time. Gene Roddenberry would almost certainly never have had his idea and had it accepted by a TV studio had it not been for the Apollo program. I don't think it had as much impact on my life as some people claim it had on theirs, but I'm quite certain that Star Trek played some role in shaping my thoughts as I was growing up and in my interests and the way I think today. So that's one indirect influence of the Apollo program on me.

Even to those with no interest in space and science fiction, the "drive" of the space program still resonates today. True, in many ways, it was ultimately a disappointment; the space program faded away due to a lack of funding and public interest. The flying cars and space habitats that were promised in the 60s failed to materialise, but the dreams of something better and what can be achieved through determination and effort survive; they have surely influenced a great many ventures and individuals over the past 40 years and will continue to do so for some time.

Of the flights that took place during the Apollo program, the two most socially influential were probably those of Apollo 8 and Apollo 11. A short television broadcast during Apollo 8's journey around the Moon probably had more impact on the people of the Earth than the Moon landing itself and possibly the rest of the space program combined. On Christmas Eve in 1968, around a quarter of the world's population tuned in to watch a live broadcast from the only humans ever to have left the safety of Earth's orbit. Timed to coincide with a lunar sunrise, the three crew members performed an impromptu recital of the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis followed by a personal message. Viewers also saw a small, grey (for the TV cameras were black and white) sphere slowly rising above the Moon's horizon. One can only imagine what those families gathered together in their homes, seeing their planet for the first time as a tiny ball suspended in the vast blackness of space, the haunting words echoing in the background, felt during those moments. I suspect it would have been hard not to be moved, regardless of religious alignment. To me, the often-neglected social and emotional impact of the space program is just as much a part of its legacy as the technological feats and the fact that they did what they did.

Of course, one should not forget the other side of the space program. While it will be remembered for its achievements, for "furthering humanity" and all of the nonsense buzzwords I mentioned earlier, the space program was a purely political endeavour. When fully broken down, the space race was just a plain old wang-size contest where, to embrace the analogy far more than I should, the USA and USSR spent vast sums of money on erecting giant steel phallic constructions and thrusting them deep into outer space. The cold war was well underway and both sides were keen to demonstrate their superiority. Space exploration was of interest to both sides; not only would it boost morale and be a chance to show off to the world, but military control of space would give one side a major tactical advantage over the other. The USSR took an early lead with the launch of Sputnik and, by the time of Kennedy's Moon shot announcement in 1961, the USA was still barely able to compete. The bold goal set by the USA helped it steal a little global interest from the USSR's achievements, but it would be late in the decade before the USA surpassed the USSR technologically.

One of the more interesting hypothetical questions to ask is what would have happened if the space race hadn't taken place - if neither side had shown an interest in space or if one had opted not to compete with the other. Now that some time has passed since those events and previously concealed information held by both sides has been made public, historians have been able to get a much clearer look at what was going on at the time. One very real possibility is that if the space race had not happened, much of the Earth's surface today would be irradiated and cratered. Were it not for the harmless competition of the space race, one side may have eventually decided to prove its superiority by engaging in open conflict with the other. Conflict that would have made the second world war look like a minor border dispute. Considering how close to war both sides came, it's not hard to imagine the second half of the 20th century turning out very differently.

As it happened, this "competition" in space didn't just potentially diffuse open warfare but also led to the first peaceful cooperation between both sides since the cold war began.

I'm sure I could ramble for a while longer, but I'll spare you the pain. ^^ Instead, I shall leave you with this YouTube video of a photo taken by Bill Anders on Apollo 8, as well as some recent footage of an Earthrise and Earthset taken by JAXA's lunar orbiter, Kaguya, that was retired last month.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the day that man first set foot on the surface of another world. I had hoped to write a little bit about this rather significant historic event but I haven't managed to find the time. Maybe later this week.

I went to see Waiting for Godot on Saturday, currently running in the West End and starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I knew from the outset it was going to be a little different and on that front it certainly didn't disappoint. I may have somewhat unfairly compared it to a Yorkshire-based British sitcom that generally features a small group of old men who stand around, idling their time away, waiting for something to happen. The truth is, I quite enjoyed it - much more than I thought I would going in. It managed to keep my attention for the duration which I wasn't expecting it to.

It is left largely to the audience to interpret the meaning of the play. I'm sure I'm going to get another look of disapproval for this (^^) but in many ways it reminded me of Haibane Renmei, the TV animation based on concepts by Yoshitoshi Abe. Both present the audience with a world where people are waiting, but aren't sure for what/whom, and in fact have little idea about where they are or how they got there. I also find it curious that the popular interpretation for both is a religious one: Waiting for Godot is sometimes considered to be a story of two men nearing the end of their lives, waiting for death. They are waiting for God(ot) to save them and lead them to something better, but their lives drag on with no end in sight. The popular interpretation of Haibane Renmei is as a representation of Purgatory, the walled city lying somewhere between the world of the living and the world of those who have passed on. The faint memories of the Haibane and the views of the representitives of the Haibane Renmei (which seem to borrow from Catholic concepts) give this argument some credit. However, both Samuel Beckett and Yoshitoshi Abe deny that their message was supposed to be a religious one. There are plenty of interpretations for both, but ultimately it's up to the viewer to decide what the spectacle meant. In the case of Godot, I'm not sure I've decided yet.

A couple of interesting sights around London on Saturday:

In Trafalgar Square, the One & Other art installation was in full swing. For those unaware, the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is currently empty. Rather than install another statue or static work of art, the Powers That Be commissioned an unusual art project which sees a different person stand on the plinth for a period of one hour, every hour of every day over the summer. When we passed, the plinth was home to this jolly Scotsman.

We also spotted this on the south bank of the Thames:

...which had us a little puzzled until we came across this:

All in all, an unusual day.

Since I'm not creative enough to come up with many original, blogworthy topics, I shall borrow this one from a friend.

A little context for anyone reading this who hasn't been following along: New Covent Garden Food Co., a UK producer of hearty, fresh soups, have released a new Soup of the Month. They do this every so often - I would say every month, but their idea of what a month is seems to be very different to mine. Anyway, irrespective of the frequency, this ingenious scheme allows them to strengthen their brand and experiment with new products without disturbing established product lines. This "month", NCG are promoting their unusual-sounding Summer Pea & Lettuce recipe. There's something rather odd about it though.

When the SotM (not a new Castlevania game) page for Summer Pea & Lettuce went live, it did so with pleasant images of the soup and carton, along with a paragraph promising delicious summery flavours. Oddly though, for a lettuce soup, the ingredients listed on the page did not contain lettuce. Note that both pea and leek are major ingredients though; their importance will become clear in just a moment.

The soup that appeared on supermarket shelves at around the same time, replacing the previous Minestrone Verde, was the curiously similar Pea & Leek Chowder. Now one might assume that this was a case of NCG's marketing department getting their wires crossed, but note that the ingredients in Pea & Leek Chowder do not match up with the lettuce-less list of ingredients for the Summer Pea & Lettuce recipe on the website.

Further investigation provided answers to a few questions but also raised others. On a trip to Sainsbury's yesterday, I spotted the elusive Summer Pea & Lettuce sitting on the shelf next to Pea & Leek Chowder, both claiming to be the current Soup of the Month. That in itself isn't too unusual. Supermarkets often clear out last month's stock with this month's, leading to two Soups of the Month on sale at the same time. However, from what I can ascertain, Minestrone Verde was last month's Soup of the Month, replaced this month with Summer Pea & Lettuce. So where did the Pea & Leek Chowder come from? Also, why does the list of ingredients for Summer Pea & Lettuce still not match up to the recipe on the website, which reads more like a combination of the two soups?

One mystery has now been solved, that of the difference between the list of ingredients for Summer Pea & Lettuce soup on the website and on the back of the carton. It would appear that a simple copywriting error led to lettuce being omitted from the list of ingredients on the website. NCG have updated the SotM page so that the ingredients listed there now match the carton.

So, it would appear that Summer Pea & Lettuce is in fact the rightful Soup of the Month. That only leaves the question of where the Pea & Leek Chowder came from. Was it a pretender to the SotM throne? There are some questions to which we may never know the answer...

I picked up a new mouse for work a few months ago after my previous mouse, an early Microsoft wireless mouse, suffered a fatal fall from my desk one day. It wasn't a fantastic mouse, to be honest. It was one of the first with those "clickless" or smooth-scrolling scroll wheels, something I was never too sure about to begin with and quickly grew to despise as it made middle-clicking next to impossible - hence the reason it ended up at work where I rarely needed to middle-click on things. It has served me well over the last 5 years though, so I was sad to see it go.

When looking for a replacement, I drew up a list of requirements and "would be nice"s. I'd grown used to wireless, so even though it wasn't an essential, must-have feature, I was leaning towards wireless for the replacement too. I'm not sure about those rechargeable mice with docking stations, since they rely on the user remembering to dock the mouse at the end of the day. My Microsoft mouse took a pair of AA cells that kept it running for about a year. I kept a spare pair in the drawer, but the "low battery" pop-up gave around a month's notice which would have been plenty of time to source some more if I'd run out. I know some people who hate the concept of wireless mice running off replaceable batteries, but to me, spending thirty seconds each year swapping out dead cells for new ones and having the mouse "just work" for the rest of the year seems much less fuss than having to remember to charge the mouse weekly or daily and having to replace the whole mouse when the non-user-serviceable battery finally expires.

Another requirement was "no stupid buttons". Manufacturers these days appear to be in a competition to see how many buttons they can cram into a mouse, leading to devices that are close to unusable since you can't point, click and do other mousey things without accidentally hitting a random button which closes your application or turns off your computer. Why do mice need these buttons? Surely they don't save time if you have so many buttons that you have to look up what they all do before you can click one. Comfort, too, was essential, although most mice these days are a vast improvement over the square bricks of the past.

I eventually settled on the Logitech MX620, in part because Amazon had a half price offer on at the time. Again, it's not a perfect mouse, but I've been quite happy with it over the past few months. I wasn't sure about the three extra random buttons, but they are located out of the way and can be disabled quite easily.

The other week, the even older 1997 Microsoft Intellimouse that I use at home started to show its age and refused to scroll properly. Since I was quite happy with my mouse at work and had very similar requirements for home, getting another was the obvious choice, especially since Amazon were selling it at half price again. Sadly the mouse that arrived was defective - the middle button didn't work - so back it went. Amazon was quite helpful though and had another shipped out the following day. I'm breaking the new one in now and it seems to be working fine, everything clicking as it's supposed to. Even those three random buttons have proved to be quite useful. The buttons can all be remapped to various things, so I have made the up/down buttons on the side a volume control - very handy as a headphone-user when running a game in full-screen where on-screen volume controls may not be readily accessible.

I did encounter one oddity when trying to set up my replacement home mouse though, my only real gripe with the device so far. Being wireless, the mouse and RF receiver need to be paired before use. This seemed to happen automagically the first time, but when setting up the replacement mouse, perhaps because I had installed the same mouse and software previously, I had to perform the pairing manually. In other wireless devices, including the old Microsoft wireless mouse I had at work, pairing was performed through a "synchronisation" button on the receiver and the device. My Logitech mouse doesn't have a dedicated button though. Instead, the sadistic engineers at Logitech devised the following hand ballet for pairing new mice to their receivers:

Oh yes, and just in case that wasn't enough of a challenge, you have thirty seconds to read all of the above and then perform the steps on your mouse before the pairing application closes. Is all that really necessary? Obviously you don't want pairing to be triggered by two buttons you're likely to depress together in everyday use, but the current routine feels like overkill.

I'm not looking forward to the next version that incorporates two full forward scrolls of the scroll wheel followed by half a scroll backwards to add an exotic flourish at the end.