Alex Stanhope - fun

Record set for most profitable Sim City

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 20:41:13 +0000

I've been playing Sim City 2013 a bit recently and while irked by some of the bugs, I have enjoyed it. I've worked out how to turn a profit and then scaled that up to claim the top spot on the trading leaderboard. My city 'Plasticity' earns near four times the income of the second place.

Now if I can just work out how to scale my start-up in the same way....

Simcity (2013) ruined by bugs

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 06:48:29 +0000

I love Simcity. It's like programming, but substantially easier and more rewarding in the short-term. Maxis has produced some great versions of the game over the last 30 years, and Simcity 2013 is almost no exception. Unfortunately it's let down by the bugs.

This screenshot shows a theoretically impossible situation: two oil mines with full storage and two fuel production lines at the oil refinery in dire need of oil. This situation persisted for a Sim month. The two sites were properly connected. All local trade depots were capable of exporting all the affected resources and all were empty. This came about after I upgraded the density of the road outside the depot.

Registered with Walt Disney studios for PR material

admin — Mon, 30 May 2011 15:21:25 +0000

When I do get round to film reviews, I thought it would be nice to be (legally) allowed to show some stills from the film with my review. I'm discovering that many of the big studios have dedicated PR sites that you can register and download preview content from.

Here's a shot from the latest 'Cars 2' movie:

Where once there was complexity, now an installer

admin — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:52:12 +0000

I'm consistently bowled over by the way communities of users solve each others' problems and share their solutions. I race online in SimBin's Race 07 / GTR Evolution. Following the release of MMG's F1 mod, I'm playing more custom games, which necessitate the installation of additional mods (tracks/skins etc.) To participate in the latest games means spending time surfing the forums looking for the right download, then installing it. There's usually a lot of trial an error.

Tardis safe violates the laws of physics

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:41:22 +0000

I can almost read the newspaper headlines now; "Tardis discovered in Cambridge"; "Doctor Who mystery in UK town"; "Physics no longer Safe". Alas they won't be written about the Arundel House Hotel's security devices, which while magical to a naive mind (like mine) don't actually bend the space-time continuum like Father Christmas.

Extraordinary fruits of openness

alex — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:47:16 +0000

The value of open source software is much talked about, both in terms of the direct and indirect returns to those that give their time to its construction and those that build composite services upon it. Really interesting things happen when we stop associating open source with lines of code.

First day in Texas, a wander around Austin

alex — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:30:37 +0000

I arrived in Texas for South By South West (SXSW) without my UK plug adaptor, so I walked across town to OfficeMax on 5th street.

Cool things

alex — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:01:46 +0000

Here's a fairly random collection of cool, and sometimes silly things I've seen online recently.

A 3D coke can rendered entirely in CSS.

Did you know series update

alex — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:44:03 +0000

The social media update is brilliant, but for me the original is still the best.

Firefox's creative error messages

alex — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:56:39 +0000

That's the spirit! Software can be far too serious.