Grand Prix (1966)

A day ago I was privileged enough to catch viewing of an old film entitled Grand Prix, which is quite possibly the first and only movie to have use Formula One as the backdrop and have complete approval and compliance with the Formula One community. This film is directed by John Frankenheimer and is purportedly his first coloured movie as well as the first to show onboard shots of real Formula One cars. Being a fan (although lapsed) of Formula One, this movie has certainly piqued my interest. This movie captures an age of Formula One that people will never see again. The cars, the circuits, the dangers involved.

John Frankenheimer flexes his prowess to capture racing footage and the footage he does show gives F1 fans plenty to like in this movie. In fact, there is a lot of good things in this movie, and some story content that are certainly worth talking about in the world of grand prix racing. However, there's also a lot not to like in this movie. There are a lot of unnecessary subplots and unnecessary characters, not to mention a total mismanagement of time and story telling.

The movie opens with a breathtaking recreation of the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix and this has been really spectacular as you see the 1966 configuration of the grand prix and all the really nice racing footage that Frankenheimer captured. Interesting note here for F1 buffs is that the Rascasse is missing and in its place is the Gasometer hairpin. It is unfortunate however that the lead character of the movie is an American Grand Prix driver, Pete Aron. In the course of the race he experienced a faulty gearbox which meant eventually falling back and being on the verge of getting lapped by his much quicker teammate and race leader, Scott Stoddard. You immediately despise the American for blocking Scott for an entire lap despite blue flags being waved. Going into the swimmingpool complex, Pete attempts to give way to the English man only to brake test and wipe out both cars out of the race and send Scott to the hospital in pieces. This despicable action makes me totally be apathetic to his plight, especially after being so defiant and defensive when Jeff Jordan, team boss of the BRM fires him for his stunt.

The races that Frankenheimer does show properly are exquisitely done. For the uninitiated, this shows some of the inner workings of a grand prix weekend. John Frankenheimer had captured onboard driving footages of F1 cars being driven by grand prix drivers such as Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, John Surtees, Graham Hill, Joechen Rindt, and Jack Brabham. The racing shots that their actors do drive in are F3 cars modified to look like F1 cars. There are also some race footages used and it does properly recreate the racing. There is a lot of F1 history in this movie and a lot of nods to special events and F1 fans will surely won't want to miss them.

The movie is also at its best when it tackles driver issues like team preferential treatment, driver safety issues, lavish lifestyle etc. I especially love the scene with Pete Aron and Comandatore Manetta, head of the Ferrari F1 effort while having access to the real Ferrari building. My feeling is that Ferrari as a team there seemed to reflect the mindset Ferrari has now in modern times which makes it seem like that Ferrari has always operated in that fashion.

The movie has its own problems and frankly the movie is at its worst when they crop up. For one, the story is just too thick even at approximate running time of three hours. There are story arcs that are complete waste of time and others that simply take too much time to accomplish. Several of the more compelling plot threads take a backseat and seemingly have been forgotten for a good portion of the entire movie. John clearly seems to have trouble with his time management. He also seems to have a great deal of trouble keeping the audience with him as he takes them for ride in the races as well as into the offtrack drama. At times, there is an F1 commentator that gives you context to the action happening on screen, but there are also a lot of time when John attempts to let the driving do the talking. Don't get me wrong, listening to the engines roar and seeing Jackie Stewart fly on the limit is nice to watch, but sometimes you aren't even sure if it's him running. There are strange scene cuts and awkward scenes that further confuse whether they are still in the same day or have time lapsed. One major problem with the film is the fact that an entire F1 season is very difficult to capture even at three hours. A lot of the races were compressed and only two races were allowed to breathe in this movie, Monaco and the finale at Monza. The Nuerburgring is woefully represented by a single dialog and Watkins Glen is only shown as a trophy in a scene. Speaking of the lack of racing, this also brings up my final gripe of this movie. There just isn't enough of the racing story. Ultimately, the movie is about 4 grand prix drivers and deals with their struggles and passions throughout. While I'm fine when the story goes off track, I find the romantic story arcs completely predictable and boring.

Grand Prix is a very flawed movie and it caters to a specific audience. If you can forgive its problems there is a lot to like here. But you need to dig deep to find them and I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to do that now. F1 fans will have plenty to sink their teeth in, but others may find the movie plodding and the story ultimately standard fare.

Dungeons and Dragons Online Linux

Introduction

As you may have noticed with the blog posts, I have been quite a gamer for a number of years, especially in my younger years. For the most part though, I have always been more of a solo player, which is why Massive Multiplayer Online games barely cross my mind in terms of gaming options. I have played some online games before and they never seem adequate. Great games have that special element that is not quantifiable. Things that you just know are there when you play it.

I have avoided MMO titles like the plague but what caught my eye was Dungeons and Dragons Online which has been running for a few years now. The title is now launching, or more aptly relaunching, as a free service and since D&D has been a huge game in my youth, I thought to give it a shot.

I write this article for two reasons: First to address this issue for Linux gamers looking to get this running, and second, my recollection of the experience.

Getting It Running

Linux has always been my platform of choice for personal computing, entertainment and everything else. Of course, on the gaming side, Linux has very few options although the landscape now has improved tenfold. Inspite of this however, much of the solutions in the horizon are not for the feint of heart. Sometimes, it just seems you have to earn your way to getting the game you like to play. So it comes as no real surprise for me that DDO does not have official support on Linux. I always knew that from the very start there was no free pass.

To start of this sojourn, I started browsing forum threads and articles discussing this and was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the game is running already, with emphasis on MOST. You will need several resources at your disposal to getting this game to work. The most fruitful resources I have seen are from the Wine Application Database and the Codeweavers Tips section. I presume that the free WINE flavour will work just as well as described in the Wine documentation, but I was fortunate to get CrossOver Games off the Lame Duck Promotion.

The first thing I noticed with most resources was that to get the game running, I needed to install and copy the files from a Windows box. OUT OF THE QUESTION. I do not use Windows and will not get Windows just to see this game. I searched and read even further and noticed an interesting detail. The old installer might work, so I began to look for that. and with a little guess work, produced download links to the old Stormreach installers. Fortunately, you do not have to look harder than I did. Here are the two download links for the Standard Version and the High Resolution Version.

As expected, the new installer did not show any signs that it was working and almost immediately, I had switched to plan B. These installers on the other hand worked very perfectly. I had downloaded the entire installer which had taken half a day and proceeded to install the game. The installers went on without incident and then I proceeded to apply the PyLotrO launchers (look at the Wine documentation earlier). From there, you need to spend more time waiting as you need to update the game to the latest version. MMO games can be such a tedium when it comes to these updates and frankly, I was having trouble remembering why I bothered to play this game. It took so long that I had decided to leave it running and went to bed.

Playing the Game

So alas, the next day comes and I have finally been able to get it running. My hunch proved right also. The Stormreach installation would update itself into Eberron Unlimited. I am pleased of the mere fact the game works on Linux, if it means more options for the Linux gaming public. In my opinion, finding out that little bit more information on the installers is reward in and of itself. Now it was time to try it.

I spent the next few days squeezing a little of the game into my free time and finished a couple of quests. I have come up with a word. Inadequate. In two? Inadequate again. MMO games are funny in that apart from what players do, it has always been NPCs standing around to give quests and monsters to slay. Roleplaying in these parameters are very crude at best and left solely to the players themselves. I have often wondered why paper and pencil games were more fascinating and I think it has been because of how much what you do or say matters. The Dungeon Master makes the world react to you, and you react based on the world. That has been severely lacking in DDO. It has hardly been an immersive affair, with a village choking full of players running and leaping, and how you know that all the players are going through the same quests and going through the same narrative as if they are the only heroes in the game. And for all the narration of the so-called DM, there has been nothing more to do than to slaughter and kill. I also found it funny that as soon as you leave the village, you come across even more monsters and cultists that are probably camping nearby just to see if they can get a jump on you. These game worlds need the little things to make it work. Not this lack of spontaneity and tremendously archaic style of play.

I have always enjoyed single player RPGs and only from a select few. DDO is functional, but lacks aspects that take it to the next level. I do not particularly rate MMO games very highly and chances are I do not ever see myself spending more time on another.

On the bright side, I have taken my loot from this endeavor and hope that for those who are looking to get this game running on Linux can see some value in what I have written.

VS System - What? Is this another card game?

Here's a few pointless rambles...

Magic: The Gathering was an incredibly popular card game where players honed their playing skills and produced decks of cards based specific strategies to win. With the success of Magic, came a slew of other card games. The proof of success, after all, is by the advent of its clones. Each had its own rule set, and seemed to attempt to carve its own niche. I found it funny that the normal scene of gaming session would have coin flipping, as well as other convoluted rules. I came to regard these games as the 'Yet Another Card Game' category. There was just too many. There was just no freaking way I would ever consider playing any other card game.

Reminiscing about it made me look for pure software mediums to play Magic, being the only game I could and wanted to play. Unfortunately, never really affording to dive into the specifics of the game meant that I was never really that good with playing nor was I good at constructing a deck. I sought an audience with a long time friend and card game enthusiast, Joem Argao, who you may or may not have heard of. His life seemed to be a living Magic card game playing machine. If there was one person who could help hammer my deck to working condition it was him.

When I did manage to track him down online, things took an unexpected turn. The person who I thought had spent hours of his day meditating on what deck to play, the person who I thought would spend idle moments playing Magic against an imaginary opponent had stopped playing. Instead he was now spending his time and energy on this defunct fancy card game called VS System, which I presume was meant to be some sort of reference to Marvel vs DC.

Good grief. Yet Another Card Game and one that had died before I even heard about it, I remarked. I was not all too crazy about learning a new card game, but I could also feel the enthusiasm with just how quickly he carried the conversation discussing details about it. Since he was nice enough to point out a DS version of the game I could try, I figured it was worth a shot just to see what he dubbed as 'the game Magic should have been' was all about.

I took the game for a spin and was greeted promptly with a game tutorial that just simply overwhelmed me. The rules seem convoluted and I had been so tuned to Magic that any semblance to the aforementioned game, I would attach the same game mechanics. This card game clone was not easy to learn. To add to that, the DS was also by no means an easy introductory tool. Two screens and tapping micro cards to zoom the cards up close was not as simple as taking a card and browsing it. I also realized part of the problem was that the interface was extremely cumbersome and the tutorial had very poor presentation (Not to mention horrible art too!).

Deciding it was simply better to just play the game, I played the first game and subsequently lost. Half the time I had no idea what was happening and the other half, was me knowing that my endurance points just kept dwindling. Okay, that was fun. I tried and lost again and I was no better than the first time I played it. I must have lost more than five games when I decided that it was just not working out. Mayday, mayday! The ship is sinking! And so was my interest.

I managed to get a hold of Joem again and wanted a piece of his brilliant knowledge. This time he managed to clear up the basic rules with me. And he gave me a shopping list of cards to obtain and build my deck. This is what he gave me.

4 Human Torch, Johnny Storm
4 Boris, Doom's Caretaker
4 Medusa, Inhuman
2 Darkoth
4 Titania, Mary MacPherran
2 Volcana, Raging Inferno
4 Ghost Rider, New Fantastic Four
4 Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
2 Thing, The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing

4 Signal Flare
4 Finishing Move
4 Flying Kick
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Shrink
4 Common Enemy
4 Mystical Paralysis
2 Marvel Team-Up

One of the things about learning this game is that they can keep talking about how this deck is going to be good, but I had no idea how it was going to happen when half the time, I had no idea what the cards did. And I had trouble also because I could not find Shrink and upon hearing Joem's advise that it was not as critical, I replaced it with The Time Keepers which I think was like an even weaker version.

I gave the deck a test drive and I wanted to play against an easy opponent. I'll rattle off on what I remember. The first opponent I played kept playing Doom Guards and Dr. Hauptmann. For those wondering how this newly minted deck worked, it flowed very brilliantly. Boris came to play at turn two as expected and inspite of the opponents constant harrassment and team attacks, Boris survived thanks to the Acrobatic Dodge. Joem had told me that playing 1-Drop characters was not always an effective strategy and having many of them was not necessarily tantamount to winning the game. When I attacked, I realized that as long as the player controlled those 1/1 and 2/1 midgets, they were little windows of opportunities. Even if the opponent had the tougher characters in play, these weak characters would continue to let my assaults through and hurt him very badly. Hammering and hammering opponents seem to be the basic strategy of this game, and this deck certainly exhibited that same ability. The game was very easy and it was certainly a nice change from the usual 'L' column.

After the victory, I decided to put the deck on a tougher challenge, the game I kept losing. I drew Ghostrider and Dr. Doom at the first turn and had no characters for turns two and three. I decided not to play a mulligan and keep the hand half hoping that my next two card draw would yield Human Torch or Boris. As luck would have it, I had none of them. All I had was Mystical Paralysis, Flying Kick, and Acrobatic Dodge and no characters to play. The opponent kept bashing me with his cards and there was little I could do about it.

In the succeeding turns I managed to play Medusa, and Ghostrider which gave me some meager defense. I was down on endurance and I thought the game was certainly over. When the opponent played Puppet Master, I thought I had ran out of luck but I was surprised to see that my two characters were quickly levelling the game. I was mildly surprised that the game was starting to turn to my favour. On the next turn, I looked at my hand and I had another Dr. Doom and Mystical Paralysis. I thought about using Mystical Paralysis and exhaust Dr. Doom and recruit the Doom in my hand to effectively unexhaust him, which delightfully worked. Now, I do not even think the tactic was smart in any actual game, but I was happy to know that I had understood some part of this game rules. I exhausted Puppet Master to keep him from limiting my options and with Doom and Ghostrider, I managed to beat the opponent.

I came away with interesting thoughts on the VS System from those two games. First, unlike Magic, the battle tactics are more emphasized and that there is simply no easy way to beat the opponent consumately in such a short time. You had to establish your advantage incrementally until you totally take victory. Second is that the starting endurance points gives ample time for the you or the opponent to make a comeback or to at least give you a fighting chance.

Now, I do not claim to be a good player at all and I am still learning the game, but as far as I can see, VS System may not be the most original, but it certainly earns its own merits. I enjoyed the game but without Joem's help, I probably never would have. Hats off to you.

Some thoughts of the day with Don King's Prizefighter

I went back to playing Don King's Prizefighter on the DS. At this point, I have totally beaten the game and have moved on so to add a little spice, I decided to played an exhibition match on hard mode using Archibald Moore vs Rocky Marciano on the classic 30s ring. I wanted to put everything as authentic as the game could to present the classic Marciano vs Moore battle and put myself on a real stiff challenge. Marciano on Easy and Medium is a cakewalk but on hard, he is deadly lethal. I really had to fight my heart out to a 12-round unanimous decision. I did not realize I had set the game on twelve rounds so I was really wondering while slugging out with Rocky how long the fight was and boy it was a thrill to get the final round and beat him.

At the opening bell, Rocky hurt me with some real lethal combos and I was in real trouble. I had not put my fighting cap on and that was a real wake up call for me to keep my defenses up. To literally walk into his combinations is not the smartest thing to do so I paced myself and worked on more defense and unloading shots and jabs when it was really open. I could tell at round one I was barely hurting him but I kept on the peppering jabs, focusing on the body mostly. I was able to rest a bit and keep most of lethal powershots at bay. That was survival mode and I survived round one without kissing the canvas.

As it turns out, the judges called the round even. I was surprised when my cornerman called it an even round. We had to work on slowing Rocky down and keep on hitting him when he was open. The plan was to wear him down and have the damage accumulate, focusing on the body combinations more than the head. It was foolish to try and go for the head when there was still a lot of power in his shots. For rounds two to six, this was the approach and I did not deviate from the game plan.

By round seven, I got my first knockdown and I noticed his power punches were getting slower. That was the first real sign for me that Rocky was getting hurt (also the first time I realized the game emulated this). I needed to start pouring in and opening up with the combinations because going in on the defense will allow Rocky to recover. Rocky did get a few hooks and uppercuts in but they did not do as much damage as they did before. I started to balance out my assault on both the body and the head while still maintaining a good defense. Rocky is darn dangerous at any point in the fight if you let him have his day, so do not forget about defense!

I started to get more power combinations in and hurt Rocky more and more. Still, I did not forget to apply defense. Rocky was getting a bit discouraged and frequently bobbed, and weaved instead of throwing his attacks. For rounds nine, ten, and eleven, I had Rocky backed on the ropes for a good half round, hurting him and giving him the time of his life. I finished round eleven with two knockdowns knowing full and well that I had control of the fight and I was way ahead on the scorecards. With round twelve I knew I had it and I sealed the deal with another knockdown.

The score card read Moore - Marciano, 360-302. I racked up a total of six knockdowns. The first few rounds were a bit of a knife's edge as Marciano had some powerful shots. As the fight wore on, it got a bit easier. I have no doubt that on another day, Marciano would probably knock me out. Today though, was my day.

No good.

This wireless problem seems to really be tenacious. I did a spot check a few minutes ago and yeah, the wireless was not working at all. This is very annoying that I have to keep reloading the driver, but well, I guess this is the only thing I can do. So much for Linux for Humans.

I don't want to update my kernel as that would might break my nvidia driver, so at the end of the day, I am stuck with this piece of crap driver.

Intel Wireless Update

Today, I checked dmesg and this is the output I got:
[432892.672000] iwl4965: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN driver for Linux, 1.1.0
[432892.672000] iwl4965: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[432892.676000] iwl4965: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
[432892.968000] iwl4965: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 19 802.11a channels
[432892.968000] wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-4965-rs'
[432893.592000] iwl4965: Error sending REPLY_SCAN_CMD: time out after 500ms.
[432893.592000] iwl4965: TX Power requested while scanning!
[432944.556000] iwl4965: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN driver for Linux, 1.1.0
[432944.556000] iwl4965: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[432944.556000] iwl4965: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
[432944.816000] iwl4965: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 19 802.11a channels
[432944.816000] wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-4965-rs'
[432945.396000] iwl4965: Error sending REPLY_SCAN_CMD: time out after 500ms.
[432945.396000] iwl4965: TX Power requested while scanning!
[433072.148000] iwl4965: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN driver for Linux, 1.1.0
[433072.148000] iwl4965: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[433072.148000] iwl4965: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
[433072.392000] iwl4965: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 19 802.11a channels
[433072.392000] wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-4965-rs'
[581993.352000] iwl4965: Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x2000000.
[581995.384000] iwl4965: Can't stop Rx DMA.

Seems like there were a few errors on the iwl4965 driver. I tried to connect to a wireless network and it still seems to work. Hopefully, this means that the problem is solved.

The IntelPro Wireless Saga Continues

If there is one thing you learn from life, is that nothing is ever straightforward. That was the case when I lent out a hand over the Ubuntu/OSX dual boot, that certainly is the case now. As fairly evident with the previous entries, Ubuntu 7.10 support for the Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN has been nothing short of pitiful. This is a problem because of three main aspects.

The first is that Ubuntu opted to use the obsolete ipw3945 driver. This driver yielded very uneven results from what I gather online. My experience with this driver has been rather awful. The second is that the bundled official iwl4965 (and iwl3945) drivers are out of date. I have gotten far better results with these drivers than the obsolete ones, but the driver sputters out after a few days of operation. The third main factor is that Ubuntu chose not to fix it and instead peddle their fixes on the next release. This is not an issue of 7.10 falling out of support. This is an old issue in the Ubuntu bug tracker and one of which they were nice enough to mark as "Won't Fix".

Firstly, if the OS has old drivers, that is forgiveable if there is a fix coming, ideally providing a release with the same kernel. Second, if the folks opt not to fix this, the least they could do is provide an official workaround for poor old folks like me. If there is no official support, then that just makes the Ubuntu life that much harder to live with.

That being said, Ubuntu is still a fine distribution and one I intend to keep using. Maybe I was unfortunate to have picked hardware where Linux support is not what it is cut out to be.

Now, to push this particular problem forward, I found this comment on the Ubuntu bug tracker, one that I hope finally erases this bug forever.

Anton Khokhlov wrote on 2007-12-20

Yesterday I had found the solution. Ubuntu seems to use old Intel firmware and the issue will be resolved if you perform the following steps:
- Download the last firmware archive from http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi&n=Downloads . The file's name is iwlwifi-4965-ucode-version number.tgz
- Unpack the archive tar xvf iwlwifi-4965-ucode-what version you got.tgz
- Copy iwlwifi-4965.ucode from the unpacked folder into /lib/firmware/your kernel version/iwlwifi-4965.ucode and /lib/firmware/your kernel version/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode (you should overwrite two files with the same data)

After that you need to reboot or just to say
rmmod iwl4965
modprobe iwl4965
Now on my computer it have been working for the 24 hours continuously without any disconnect. But I can not guarantee it works everywhere.

Of course, when I followed his instructions to the letter, I broke my wireless support. This is the warm and glowing message dmesg greeted me with.

[432944.556000] iwl4965: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN driver for Linux, 1.1.0
[432944.556000] iwl4965: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[432944.556000] iwl4965: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
[432944.816000] iwl4965: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 19 802.11a channels
[432944.816000] wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-4965-rs'
[432945.396000] iwl4965: Error sending REPLY_SCAN_CMD: time out after 500ms.
[432945.396000] iwl4965: TX Power requested while scanning!

You vermin! I am utterly irrate by the constant headaches this driver problem has given me. All is not lost however. It is a good thing I normally keep a backup of all things before fiddling them. So by checking the dates, and making sure to use the iwl4965 firmware in the context of the comment, I gave the iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.1.20.tgz (posted November 27, 2009) firmware a try. We will see how this one goes. So far it looks like the driver is working after the good old modprobe -r/modprobe reloading trick. We will see how this one fairs.