Freeday 31 March 2000

Pic of the day: Would I normally buy this kind of magazine? You bet I wouldn't, except they had a review of The Sims. Well, and a demo of Railroad Tycoon II Gold. But I recommend you borrow it at your library instead. See last section of today's entry.

Got a surprise call at work today. SuperWoman wanted to grant me a favor I once asked of her: To help me to find new glasses (spectacles, eye glasses, the stuff people used before contact lenses were invented). She has taken to wearing glasses part time herself, and she doesn't look half bad with them either. However, she has assured me that I look like something out of the previous century with my solid steel frames. Hmf. They were the height of fashion in the 80es, when Treholt wore the same type. (The last Norwegian spy caught before the end of the Cold War.)

Then again, I have repeatedly thought about getting something less heavy. I have permanent sores on my left ear and my nose from these heavy glasses, and the alternative now is to not wear glasses at all. I find lenses way too creepy. Putting stuff in on my eyes? Eyaargh! So mainly I just endure.

So the first thing I said about the new ones was that they must be lightweight. I had heard that there was a new type of titanium frames, and sure enough. Those frames are little more than wires, and light wires at that. They can be bent without breaking and are likely to last for a long time. We liked the first pair she found for me, and even though I tried several others, those was what I ended up with ordering. They are almost invisible, just a hint of an outline.

For glasses I intend to order the newest photochromatic lightweight plastic, nearly invisible indoors but darkening to near sunglass in bright light. I looked at a test specimen and SuperWoman liked it too. She has a lot more opinions on such things than I. Then again, I only look out through them. Can you get any insight by just looking out?

She is going now. Back to her family first, and then back to Germany. We said goodbye and I went back to work. We did not hug and certainly not cry. Even I still have some dignity. I did thank her heartily, though. It is going to cost me approximately kr 5000, or $600.

Speaking of outlook, there is also Microsoft Outlook, which we have at the workplace. (I don't use it at home, as I am the happy owner of Agent 1.5 and also trying out the free Pegasus mail program.) Outlook does its jobb well enough, and until recently it opened automatically each morning. But (much against my will) we have been forced to boot up to a clean screen, and the users must now open Outlook from the Start menu. Not all are motivated to do that every day, which is a shame since useful e-mail is sent fairly regularly. We have written to the central office and asked for the decision to be reversed.

Our office (and the others around the country) uses a lobotomized version of Windows NT, severely restricting the ability of each user to customize his PC. Not even the color of the desktop is open to change, much less the program groups where we could have put Outlook in the startup folder. I am sceptical to this policy. I think that distrust in employees is a sure sign of incompetence. The extra work incurred by letting people customize their desktops is rather marginal compared to the feel-good effect it would have had.

For instance, yesterday I showed two of the coworkers how they could turn off the blinking of the cursor in the terminal emulator window. Today one of them had figured out by herself how to get faster printscreen than the official method. There is no lack of creativity, once you give them the basic understanding; and now I see that she has taught it to others again. I like that. People want to be able to do things with their computers. It makes them feel in control, and this is known to improve health as well as morale. Our big bosses would do well to take note. They may need a new outlook, too.

In other news, the Norwegian gaming magazine Incite PC Games has reviewed The Sims. (Yes, the magazine I read was definitely in book Norwegian, despite the name. Probably it is released under the same name elsewhere in the world, as it is owned by foreigners.)

4 out of 5 stars? That's the last time I buy that rotten magazine. That's like the idiots who gave the original Civilization a similar rating years ago, and complained that it was "too addictive". Hello? Anyway, I think it is obvious that The Sims should have at least five stars out of five possible!

Yes, I too wanted an even closer zoom level. But not only would that have demanded much larger graphics files in itself (and probably put the game out of reach for a lot of people), it would also have led to new demands: Changing facial expressions, moving lips while talking, realistically swimming gold fish etc etc.

Yes, multiplayer is always fun to have. But it would have changed the very character of the game, turning it into Sim RPG. This is a good enough idea, but a different game.

Yes, there is too much micromanagement. If you want your Sims to behave in a very spesific way, that is. Of course they will pee their pants if you set them to do something else when their bladder is full, or if you invite a pack of guests and have only one bathroom. That's why it is a strategy game, for slightly extended values of strategy.

End rant. I am working on my own Sims tribute site off and on. But it is still more fun to play it than to write about it... And I do have other interests, too. Believe it or not.