Ghosts.... From the BBC (A Fan Theory)

 Talking about Ghosts.... Sorry, I mean... 

I've gotten quite into this, watching them all over a couple of times, and I've come to a bit of a fan theory; which I'd love to think is true... Alison can seem to only see Ghosts whom have been murdered...

That's my whole theory, here's the thinking.

Mary - Burned at the Stake

Thomas - Shot in a duel

Fanny - Thrown from a window

Pat - Shot with an arrow

Humphrey - Beheaded by accident, but whilst hiding from being wrongly accused of plotting against Queen Elizabeth I.

Then secondary ghosts, she see's:

Luftwaffe pilots - you could say were murdered, killed in action, they're still "mid-flight".

Civil War (Round Head) - appears to have been skewered by a pike.

Hitch-Hiker - Literally says she was murdered.

60's Architect - looked like he had been stabbed in the head as he waved from the window.

And the whole basement plague pit are all found to have been killed by Mick bringing the plague back with him.

So, murder or killed, each has a known perpetrator of their death.

This leaves a few holes in my theory, which I would like to plug...

Kitty - It does seem in Series 3, Episode 5, we have the lead up to her adoptive sister murdering her... We're yet to hear the full truth, but it seems to be the way that is played out.

The Captain - Well, he's a soldier, stationed at the hall we can't rule out a bomb or accident taking his life, he certainly was willing to sacrifice himself by throwing himself over an explosive device; and his love interest subordinate had been posted to the middle east, so there's something there to be explored.

Assuming the above this only leaves us Robin and Julian... Robin lived in pre-history, the stone age, a brutal time, his death may very well have been at the hands of another, be it animal or human; it does not seem likely with his describing wolves removing faces and eyes, and keeping his fathers skin, that he met his maker from his fur bed.

Julian is perhaps the biggest stretch for my theory, as we know a lot about his death, "the perfect death, booze, bit of rumpy pumpy and out".

But it wasn't alone, clearly the woman with whom me was in congress had a literally deadly effect on him, and he found the whole episode to be the most traumatic event in his life...

So there's my theory, the persons who remain are those who meet their end at the hands, or by cause, of another; and they can't resolve it.

The only two I can't answer this for are Annie the maid and the Ghost Doctor.... We shall see.

Control Minecraft with only your Eyes

A beautiful story, really liked this....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-43998773/i-play-minecraft-with-my-eyes

Great British Bake Off... All Hands to the Pumps!

With the bake off heading over to Channel 4, it's been interesting to see one of the most talked about programmes in our office be re-discussed... It's also extremely interesting to get the inside track on some things, since I work with an Bake-Off contestant... Jordon Cox

So this morning, as we stood in the kitchen getting our coffee talking Networking issues, it was very interesting to see his reaction of non-surprise that Mary Berry would be staying with the BBC rather than going over to Channel 4.

We can all guess she was offered a large slice of the millions Channel 4 are going to be paying for the show, but what did Channel 4 think they were paying for?... TGBBO is a format, the music, the set design, the title, the sections, the format is the concept Channel 4 are paying for.  Indeed it was a little farcical recently when Jordon here appeared on BBC Radio Nottingham, but they couldn't play the theme tune to the show as the BBC don't have the rights.

But were Channel 4 paying for this format, for the crew of camera, set and sound operatives of so many shapes and sizes?... Or where they bidding for the whole package, where they bidding for Mel & Sue, with Mary & Paul?  I think they were.

I think there may very well be some squeaky bums over at Channel 4 towers right now, as they realise that not only have they potentially ruined the show, but that the millions whom will be tuned into slate the very hard acts to follow.

Paul Hollywood has, as yet, to comment on his position.  Jordon assures me he's not as dour as he is portrayed in the shows editing, he's a quite bright, funny guy.... I of course know this, not for his cakes or bread, but for his excellent taste in dogs (Labradors)... I'd like to think his announcement has not come because he will stick with the Beeb, and he has allowed, in his gentlemanly way, ladies to go first.  But he may just be wasting the cash register light up as more dough is coughed up for his approval and perhaps the last shred of a link to what was "The Great British Bake Off".


Addendum: Nope, seems Paul went with the Money... Humpf, gallantry is not in the pantry.

More on GTAV - Review

I got stuck into GTA5 last night, and on some levels I was impressed, but on others wholly unhappy.

The controls, in my opinion, are far too twitchy, the AI traffic getting in your way is more annoying than ever, especially when you see the run through and you go to do it and ludicrously your car slows, or their car accelerates totally out of place for the situation.

I also hate the aiming mechanics, the aiming dot on my TV is so tiny as to disappear in the background most all the time, also the set pieces of missions, some of them are so annoying, I was in a car chasing my boat being towed; for example; and the car would literally slow just to give time for the dialogue to be played... and then when one character had to leap from the car onto the towed boat, I was behind the trailer, pressed against the boat for like 2 minutes... No jump, I finally move, so there's no boat to jump onto... the AI character leaps forward and under my wheels for the big fat "Mission Failed".

It just feels so glitchy, I'm going to let the game update tonight, by attaching to the internet with the console at last, but I've purposefully played the game away from updates to see how they let it be released, and you know what, it's not as impressive as the news coverage would have suggested.

There are bugs... Like you get a visual crash with static and then the system resolves this and recovers, but its very jarring.  You have floating and moonwalking animations, you have really rather poor facial animation of the characters going on.  Some of the mouths don't sync at all, especially on prominent supporting characters, like Michaels wife Amanda.

And then there are problems with the character switching mechanics, like I was Michael, I was told to change to be Franklin, so I did... The game changed me back to Michael and informed me to change to Franklin again... because it was mid-tutorial... in the mean time... "Mission Failed"...

The wife was sat there watching "Mission Failed"... "Mission Failed"... and my frustration showing, and she was saying... "just turn left"... on the motorbike.. yeah, sure it don't turn it just pirouettes, no finesse.

Then the map in the bottom left, yes its showing me where to go, but its 21 inches from the view point I'm looking at to the map on the bottom left, at least on my screen... And you can't take in the map without actually staring at it, the reason... its slightly transparent, so you can see textures through it... Road textures especially look like static on the mini-map, it looks like the sat nav is having a hard day with static... and that distracts from being able to take in the mini-map's information.  Also the oblique angle its at (isometric) is not as easy to read as perhaps a 2D top down mini-map would have been, especially with fast moving car chases...

And that's the big appeal, the big world in this game, but until you get to know the place - and its a big place! - you're going to have to use the mini-map, and its too short sighted, too small a heads  up of what's coming in the early game to plan where you're going.

So to be fair the game's good, but not as spectacular as everyone would think.

The other problem I have is the jaggies, I've watched the YouTube, I've checked out how it should look, on both PS3 and Xbox360 before buying the console just for this game, and it looked ace.

I've had it, seen it, checked my display settings are good... all to no dice, it looks so jaggy in places on this PS3... I dunno, maybe I'm spoilt by my PC which easily out performs this PS3 by 3 or 4 fold, but right now GTAV on the PS3 does not look like any of the footage I've seen recorded... And this isn't to start a flame war.  I'm just saying is all.

Late Night News Flash = PS3

The £14.99 PS3 from ebay...Lives, I take all the credit for this, its taken two strip downs, soldering, heat gun, thermal paste, luck, a new Hard drive and the latest firmware update...

But she works...

Had her on the big plasma down stairs just now, signed up to the PSN, went through some pages and things.

Sooo... I just put a few quid bid on an old game or two... Next to see if the other machine can live... Now I have an idea how to fix 'em....

If the other lives, I'm going to have to make a profit and sell it on...

PS3 Strip

So, the PS3's are here.  One is powering on but just black screen, I reckon its either a broken Blue-Ray or a bust HDD.  The other, three beeps and red flashing light.

So, I started with the £14 machine, this is a 60GB version, with the lift up flap expansion ports available, and it just powers on and sits there, having entered recovery mode it reports it can't access the HDD inside, so I swapped the HDD with the other machine, no dice.

I plan to test the drives for both and strip out an old HDD I have in a 2.5" caddy to replace into that one machine and give it another whirl.

Anyway, I set that machine a side.

Now, I'm sorry for no pictures here, I really need to get a camera in here, or sort something out because I used to take pictures all the time - check out my silent fan review and fitting series!

Anyway, I set that machine aside and set about the other... This was the first one I bid on, because it sounded like it needs the classic reseat of the CPU & GPU and new thermal paste job.  I stripped the machine down, and there was lots of dust inside, many dust bunnies and even a spider had made a home in one end.

This machine was a cheaper model.  A 60GB one to be precise without the front panel connectors.

With it stripped down I cleaned everything up, I've actually run out of isopropyl alcohol doing this... now the thermal paste inside was crusted to hell, it was just lumps all out the side of the chips and over the top of the CPU it was just an oily film with patchy coverage - so I'm pretty happy that this may just be the problem, and I need to reset everything.

I have cleaned it up, and put my order for some decent thermal paste in.

I'll get some more iso back from the father-in-law tomorrow and finish cleaning her up and then get the heat going on her.

WarThunder - Patch 1.35 - Economy Fixed!

The latest patch of War Thunder... Hmmm... Yes... Yes....

THEY FIXED IT

*cough* sorry, I got a little excited there, yes after walking away at 1.28/1.29 with the terrible changes they made to the economic model, I've been back with 1.35 and I've made a profit.  I've even lead the score board a couple of times, and I've had fun doing it.

I've bought the new BF109E-1, which complements my German Fighter line where I'd rather have been using the Do-17's than try to use the BF110, or the Italian shite.

I've also upgraded a couple of my British crates with all their upgrades, as I can afford to, and from 250,000 lions at the start of the weekend, I spend down to around 95,000 and I've played only a handful of games and got back up to 200,000.  I consider this a miraculous turn around.

And its made the game fun again.

The visuals are just as good, though on the latest build I am seeing some horizontal tearing as I'm scanning the camera around, but then this is the first time I've run WarThunder on this rig with Windows 7, it used to run flawlessly on Vista on the same hardware, but I've not even bothered mucking about with the settings (yet).

The other new plane I bought is the Spitfire IIa, new in line, and I took it up for a spin on the Battle of Britain Event Mission, now I posted my Spit Mk I success as a youtube video some time ago, however, things did not go as swimmingly in the brand new - low crew skilled - Spit IIa.  No, I climbed to altitude in the usual way and then got bounced by four 109's of various models, the final blow going to a BF109E-1, but I managed to take one with me even with a shredded wing.  Dowding would have been proud - well, perhaps not, but I tried.