Andy's Blog

  "Good morning, sir, I'm calling from RTA Legal Solutions as a follow-up call, regarding a transport incident you may have been involved in."   "Oh really, do go on."   "Yes sir, a claim was filed for damages following the incident."   "When was this?"   "Within the last three years, sir."   "You're going to have to be more specific than that."   "Well, this is the question, sir."   "Ah, so you don't have a specific incident in mind? You're just fishing."   "Not at all, sir, we don't fish, I actually take exception at the use of that word -"   "No, you have cold called me and are now trying to trick me into giving up information. Your use of the phrase 'follow-up' suggested a pre-existing relationship, when in fact -"   "It is a follow-up, there are people in need of legal advice and - I don't have to listen to this from you -"   ...

Been thinking about Emmett from the Lego Movie. Spoilers, duh.

Back in the mists of time, Companies on Facebook would run promotions where you could share their content in order to enter a competition - effectively getting customers to advertise their product in exchange for the chance of winning one. Advertising costs were slashed, and everyone was happy. Then Facebook said to themselves, "Hang about, why are we letting customers advertise products for free, when we can totally charge them for that?" So they added the option for companies to pay them money in exchange for increased visibility. The Companies said to Facebook, "You are having a laugh, why would we pay you to do this when we can get punters to do it for free?" and continued with their viral-style promotions. The cunning Facebook replied, "Because we have made it illegal under our terms and conditions .  Personal Timelines must not be used to administer promotions.  See, right there." "Oh," swore the Companies, and scratched their head ...

I played through the "Beyond: Two Souls" demo this weekend. Yahtzee's review seems pretty fair - it's an extended quick time event disguised as an awkward, disconcerting, hard-to-control shambles of a game. Bumming around as a ghost could have been fun if it wasn't so fiddly and, bizarrely, restricted; the ghost-centric demo level was initially fun but it soon became apparent that it was really a matter of sweeping the area for all the little interaction hot spots, then moving the joysticks in or out or down, and sometimes (if it's a "possession" hot spot) tapping a few prompted buttons. There was no sense that I could properly roam and chuck shit about at will. On the other hand, the human-centric sequence is (as Yahtzee says) confused and disorienting. The camera switches angles as dramatically appropriate, which is nice and cinematic, but when running down a train it leaves you confused about which way you've just come (and when driving a ...