Yes, yes I know it's an MMO and technically the spawn the Satan (the bad Satan, not the good Satan of heavy metal, D&D and alike) but it was a massive £5 on Steam for the ultimate collection. And £5 to try the game for a month because I feel like it, not really a bad deal. As of yet, I don't really see myself forking out for monthly play time. Maybe if I get really hooked over the next month, maybe...
Downloading it took a LONG time. 8gig install over Steam. Fair enough, it's the game plus all the expansions and add ons, that sort of stuff adds up. So left that to run over night. I come to try the game... the PlayOnline launcher has to patch. Sigh, ok that's normal. That updates, then the sign up process is long and the menus load really damn slowly. Its almost like all the menu data is download every time. Just so odd.
The menus in the PlayOnline loader are not slick at all, menus within menus "fractal spreadsheet nightmare!" to steal a quote from Zero Punctuation. However, I do finally get signed up up and get into the FFXI menu. Which is just as slow and the stuff about game time, characters seem to have subnames just for no reason, like "ContentID" and again, managed to register my free gametime.
After that, I try to launch the game, boy that was a bad idea. 18,000 (yes eighteen THOUSAND) patch files to download. It took about 6 hours to download all the patch data. And this is with the combined ultimate edition as well! So that took another night as well.
Once I finally got playing, I found out a very hard lesson, the intro tutorial stuff isn't auto marked on your map or anything. So I didn't pay attention to the name of character that would give me my start up quests. I actually had to go and look up a FAQ to find our who and where he is! Possibly my own fault but still. It doesn't really seem that user friendly and really expects you to have read all the manuals etc. Nothing wrong with having to read the book but really, a little help.
I shall keep playing and see if anything really interesting turns up at least.
Friday, 23 July 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
The Department of Health Whitepaper ... and Choose and Book r5.0
I made a chunk of comments on the white paper was I was reading it, which can all be found in other places. While this blog is a place to air my thoughts to the empty space of the internet, not all my voices are the same.
Overall, at first glance, I think its a good thing. Which is odd as I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Maybe its the working inside the NHS on the secondary care side as blinded me to a few things. Or maybe I'm just flat out wrong, which is a good possibility.
Though I do have a dislike for PCTs in some areas, in addition to the fact that the whitepaper pushes the uses of Choose and Book, which means hopefully I get to keep my job. It does work for the NHS, it does do what it should. People just need to be made to do it right.
If GP health commissioning goes through and Choose and Book is the one of the few ways and the most direct for all regular services, that will really push the usage up. Victory will be mine! However I will give to the point that cut masses of admin not directly tied to healthcare has downsides. Like all these lovely reports that get produced and I love to read.
Data is important. Treatment patients might be the front end of the NHS and its a very big front end, but its nothing compared to all the data you can draw out and work with. Though that's just my own personal thing and really, so much of the data is way beyond me anyway. I just like that fact it's there and one day I could play with it all.
But in other, way way more exciting news, the details for Choose and Book release 5.0 hit today. Its been coming for a while, but now there are actually pages up and a solid list of changes are there to see. I'm really looking forwards to. Should makes a few bits of work a lot easier and give hospital's a few new tricks to play around with.
Of course, every CaB update cause a few things to break, but fixing them can be sort of fun. Though I don't really trust the date, it'll probably slip back a bit as it always does. Which is a shame as its the first major Choose and Book update I've been around to be excited for. I did a lot with 4.2 and SNOMED, but that wasn't really fun, just hard work.
As with all, time will tell
Overall, at first glance, I think its a good thing. Which is odd as I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Maybe its the working inside the NHS on the secondary care side as blinded me to a few things. Or maybe I'm just flat out wrong, which is a good possibility.
Though I do have a dislike for PCTs in some areas, in addition to the fact that the whitepaper pushes the uses of Choose and Book, which means hopefully I get to keep my job. It does work for the NHS, it does do what it should. People just need to be made to do it right.
If GP health commissioning goes through and Choose and Book is the one of the few ways and the most direct for all regular services, that will really push the usage up. Victory will be mine! However I will give to the point that cut masses of admin not directly tied to healthcare has downsides. Like all these lovely reports that get produced and I love to read.
Data is important. Treatment patients might be the front end of the NHS and its a very big front end, but its nothing compared to all the data you can draw out and work with. Though that's just my own personal thing and really, so much of the data is way beyond me anyway. I just like that fact it's there and one day I could play with it all.
But in other, way way more exciting news, the details for Choose and Book release 5.0 hit today. Its been coming for a while, but now there are actually pages up and a solid list of changes are there to see. I'm really looking forwards to. Should makes a few bits of work a lot easier and give hospital's a few new tricks to play around with.
Of course, every CaB update cause a few things to break, but fixing them can be sort of fun. Though I don't really trust the date, it'll probably slip back a bit as it always does. Which is a shame as its the first major Choose and Book update I've been around to be excited for. I did a lot with 4.2 and SNOMED, but that wasn't really fun, just hard work.
As with all, time will tell
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Judging books by their covers... well actually CDs
Books and covers, the old saying. Now, I'm not that sure what goes into book covers and who has creative control. Because control is a big issue and I wouldn't be surprised if some book covers are horrible as a result of a marketing guy saying "It should look like this." Maybe I'm wrong, though book covers aren't attention grabbers for me. Plus, books are a certain sort of investment for me. I wont pick up any random author, I'll find things out, check out views and reviews first before I try.
But music, music is a very different thing. I do like the fun of picking up CDs, never having heard of the band and being able to gauge what it will be like based only on the packaging. Now, this is a lot easier with music, if you get into music a lot there are lots of tell tale signs. The label, the year, the name of the band and album, the font/logo, song titles, any pictures of the band and of course the cover art.
And when it comes down to cover art, I'll take a nice painted art any day. Screw this all made in photoshop stuff. Yeah ok a lot of album art I really like is just old paintings (specially Romantic era stuff) with a band logo and a title slapped over the top. That aside, there is a wealth of great art out there. Classic Yes and Iron Maiden covers, the early Death albums, things like that.
Of course my taste in music probably influences my taste in album art. Black and white photo of some ruined northern European landscape, awesome. Folksy, lo-fi scribble art, oh god it must burn! Maybe its a really bad thing, but I will continue to judge albums by their cover. There are great albums I like with bad artwork, but in those cases, I'm going to have heard of the band/album before hand, rather than something I'm picking up a random.
This hasn't really turned out to be my thoughts on album art like I expect. Oh well, more distracted by good music.
But music, music is a very different thing. I do like the fun of picking up CDs, never having heard of the band and being able to gauge what it will be like based only on the packaging. Now, this is a lot easier with music, if you get into music a lot there are lots of tell tale signs. The label, the year, the name of the band and album, the font/logo, song titles, any pictures of the band and of course the cover art.
And when it comes down to cover art, I'll take a nice painted art any day. Screw this all made in photoshop stuff. Yeah ok a lot of album art I really like is just old paintings (specially Romantic era stuff) with a band logo and a title slapped over the top. That aside, there is a wealth of great art out there. Classic Yes and Iron Maiden covers, the early Death albums, things like that.
Of course my taste in music probably influences my taste in album art. Black and white photo of some ruined northern European landscape, awesome. Folksy, lo-fi scribble art, oh god it must burn! Maybe its a really bad thing, but I will continue to judge albums by their cover. There are great albums I like with bad artwork, but in those cases, I'm going to have heard of the band/album before hand, rather than something I'm picking up a random.
This hasn't really turned out to be my thoughts on album art like I expect. Oh well, more distracted by good music.
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Things from the weekend
Work has been fairly quiet at the moment. Well not quiet, just been a lack of anything that new or interesting. Though I will remind myself of the curse "maybe you live in interesting times" as interesting can usually be a very bad thing.
Amazon have been speedy and delivered my fresh new copy of Judas Unchained to me. Which along with Pandora's Star makes for a fair sized book two with just the two of them alone. As much as I want to sink my teeth into it, I actually have another book in my sights first. I've started Cryptonomicon. I've only read Stephenson's Snow Crash because it's his famous work. Or at least, interenet famous anyway. I had forgotten what his writing style is like, but I have no problems with being hit over the head with the information stick. My final views might pop up here if I remember to air them.
Also I've had the change to try some American chocolate. The stuff is.... ok. Very odd and more like some sort of chocolate based thing rather than actually chocolate. I can't say I'm much of one to talk as I don't like real, high coco chocolate. But still, I certainly wouldn't swap out British chocolate for Hershey's.
A few other purchases from the weekend. Watain's Lawless Darkness, now this is what I call summer music. Plus it has some very awesome album art and I will once again say that hand done album art is generally the best there is. I might have to blog on my views about album art (oddly enough metal and prog art good, lots of other styles bad. Shocking that). Also picked up the first series of Dexter because I haven't re-watched it in years and the show it good.
Amazon have been speedy and delivered my fresh new copy of Judas Unchained to me. Which along with Pandora's Star makes for a fair sized book two with just the two of them alone. As much as I want to sink my teeth into it, I actually have another book in my sights first. I've started Cryptonomicon. I've only read Stephenson's Snow Crash because it's his famous work. Or at least, interenet famous anyway. I had forgotten what his writing style is like, but I have no problems with being hit over the head with the information stick. My final views might pop up here if I remember to air them.
Also I've had the change to try some American chocolate. The stuff is.... ok. Very odd and more like some sort of chocolate based thing rather than actually chocolate. I can't say I'm much of one to talk as I don't like real, high coco chocolate. But still, I certainly wouldn't swap out British chocolate for Hershey's.
A few other purchases from the weekend. Watain's Lawless Darkness, now this is what I call summer music. Plus it has some very awesome album art and I will once again say that hand done album art is generally the best there is. I might have to blog on my views about album art (oddly enough metal and prog art good, lots of other styles bad. Shocking that). Also picked up the first series of Dexter because I haven't re-watched it in years and the show it good.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Online food shopping
Just a quick and simple comment on this one.
Online food shopping, the fact I can sit at my PC, press buttons and have food come out at my door. That is the sign that we as humans have reached a marker point in culture and progress as a race!
Oh sure, you might have horror stories about online shopping but its not that bad. I certainly welcome it over having to walk to the nearest supermarket and carry it all back. Only having my own two legs for transport can be an issue.
But I for one welcome progress. Considering I've grown up through Tesco taking over half the world, the birth of online shopping and "that'll never catch on" to "online food, who doesn't do it?" Its just makes me feel like I'm in the future.
Progress is here and it is good! With that, I shall be sitting here, eating strawberries and cream because I can.
Online food shopping, the fact I can sit at my PC, press buttons and have food come out at my door. That is the sign that we as humans have reached a marker point in culture and progress as a race!
Oh sure, you might have horror stories about online shopping but its not that bad. I certainly welcome it over having to walk to the nearest supermarket and carry it all back. Only having my own two legs for transport can be an issue.
But I for one welcome progress. Considering I've grown up through Tesco taking over half the world, the birth of online shopping and "that'll never catch on" to "online food, who doesn't do it?" Its just makes me feel like I'm in the future.
Progress is here and it is good! With that, I shall be sitting here, eating strawberries and cream because I can.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Writing about the NHS
Oh the joy of working in the NHS. I was originally thinking of having this blog has a rant space about some of the “fun” I have within the NHS. But this probably isn’t a very good idea.
While my contract says things like patient details and money stuff are a no-no, I’m sure complaining and calling people stupid is bad form too. Oh well! But I figure there’s still plenty of infrastructure, operation and such issues I can safely give my views on.
One thing I have been thinking about is the plans to cut spending. I’m a little worried this might hit a lot of the NHS back office functions that I consider really important. Yes there is waste in the NHS, yes there can be too much management and yes treating patients really should come first.
However, there is a MASSIVE amount of data in the NHS. Not just clinical data, admin and statistical data that is both interesting and necessary. Look at the open government data that you can now access. It’s not private, it won’t let anyone steal your bank account but it provides insights for those that are interested. Place like the NHS Information Centre hold data on so many things can help people better plan NHS services, or work out things that can be address the in the way public health is delivered.
With any organisation so big, the behind the scenes stuff will always be huge. And I for one will be feeling good about the fact things like training, average wait for appointments, referrals to different part of the country and much more are all recorded and analysed.
That and I enjoy the nerdy thrill of being able to pipe up with “Did you know that....” spout off some figures and know I have this mountain if data to back me up. Yeah, I’m just that nerdy.
While my contract says things like patient details and money stuff are a no-no, I’m sure complaining and calling people stupid is bad form too. Oh well! But I figure there’s still plenty of infrastructure, operation and such issues I can safely give my views on.
One thing I have been thinking about is the plans to cut spending. I’m a little worried this might hit a lot of the NHS back office functions that I consider really important. Yes there is waste in the NHS, yes there can be too much management and yes treating patients really should come first.
However, there is a MASSIVE amount of data in the NHS. Not just clinical data, admin and statistical data that is both interesting and necessary. Look at the open government data that you can now access. It’s not private, it won’t let anyone steal your bank account but it provides insights for those that are interested. Place like the NHS Information Centre hold data on so many things can help people better plan NHS services, or work out things that can be address the in the way public health is delivered.
With any organisation so big, the behind the scenes stuff will always be huge. And I for one will be feeling good about the fact things like training, average wait for appointments, referrals to different part of the country and much more are all recorded and analysed.
That and I enjoy the nerdy thrill of being able to pipe up with “Did you know that....” spout off some figures and know I have this mountain if data to back me up. Yeah, I’m just that nerdy.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Killing time
As the weather currently means I'm also too hot to even live, now is the time for me to do as little as possible and enjoy trying to stay cool.
I'm mostly calm on the NHS front at the moment. Though I do need to get around to reading the new framework sometime soon, just not right now. Remember kids, not all targets are bad.
At the moment I'm working my way through Pandora's Star. It’s the first Peter F. Hamilton book I've gotten around to picking up. The sense of epic scale and massive, massive amounts of world (galaxy) building going on are really good in my view. He paints pictures of this world he has created then keeps on painting. The chapter where he just outlines the history and growth of an entire species, while technically being an infodump, is a window into a very alien world and certain one of the most inhuman set of aliens I've read in sci-fi lately. I'll certainly be picking up his other stuff soon.
On the less high culture side, Steam currently has an epic summer sale and I can feel my bank balance dying already. Shiny new ways to blow things up? Yes please!
My other currently big time killer is new Internet media. Falling prices of recording equipment and video capture/editing software, plus increased home computing power and space make it all possible. Internet fan movies have been a slow growing thing, and I really need to start watching some.
But what really peaked my Internet was a few Internet review shows I've been watching. Along with just interesting me as a nerd, seems more than a few people are using them to backdoor their own creative ideas. And I really like this. Booking shows with skits of various natures and showing off a little film making talent. Sure its amateur backyard stuff, but some of it is really cool.
From the internet fame of series like Red vs Blue, to things That Guy With The Glasses does, I just approve. Nice to think "hmmm, nothing on on-demand TV, but that's ok, because there's an entire web series I've been meaning to watch!" While I can only speak for the more geeky fandom stuff, I'm sure there will stuff out there doesn't use video games / sci-fi as a creative source.
I'm mostly calm on the NHS front at the moment. Though I do need to get around to reading the new framework sometime soon, just not right now. Remember kids, not all targets are bad.
At the moment I'm working my way through Pandora's Star. It’s the first Peter F. Hamilton book I've gotten around to picking up. The sense of epic scale and massive, massive amounts of world (galaxy) building going on are really good in my view. He paints pictures of this world he has created then keeps on painting. The chapter where he just outlines the history and growth of an entire species, while technically being an infodump, is a window into a very alien world and certain one of the most inhuman set of aliens I've read in sci-fi lately. I'll certainly be picking up his other stuff soon.
On the less high culture side, Steam currently has an epic summer sale and I can feel my bank balance dying already. Shiny new ways to blow things up? Yes please!
My other currently big time killer is new Internet media. Falling prices of recording equipment and video capture/editing software, plus increased home computing power and space make it all possible. Internet fan movies have been a slow growing thing, and I really need to start watching some.
But what really peaked my Internet was a few Internet review shows I've been watching. Along with just interesting me as a nerd, seems more than a few people are using them to backdoor their own creative ideas. And I really like this. Booking shows with skits of various natures and showing off a little film making talent. Sure its amateur backyard stuff, but some of it is really cool.
From the internet fame of series like Red vs Blue, to things That Guy With The Glasses does, I just approve. Nice to think "hmmm, nothing on on-demand TV, but that's ok, because there's an entire web series I've been meaning to watch!" While I can only speak for the more geeky fandom stuff, I'm sure there will stuff out there doesn't use video games / sci-fi as a creative source.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Changes to NHS Targets
Hmmm only a short thought at the moment.
Maybe its because I'm young in NHS terms and I only really know the post 18 Weeks world, but I like it.
Yes targets lead to some bad things, but they have good things for a lot of patients. Helps stop people get losts in the shuffle which can happen.
Eh, pros and cons. Have to see what it all turns out in my Trust. And write up some more serious ideas later.
Also, damn you Amazon, hurry up and deliver my CDs! *shakes fist*
Maybe its because I'm young in NHS terms and I only really know the post 18 Weeks world, but I like it.
Yes targets lead to some bad things, but they have good things for a lot of patients. Helps stop people get losts in the shuffle which can happen.
Eh, pros and cons. Have to see what it all turns out in my Trust. And write up some more serious ideas later.
Also, damn you Amazon, hurry up and deliver my CDs! *shakes fist*
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