Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

« ? Blogging Brians # »

Book Plug:

Buy it and I get
money. I think.
BSD Mall

10/6/2003 -  10/8/2003
9/29/2003 -  10/5/2003
9/22/2003 -  9/28/2003
9/15/2003 -  9/21/2003
  9/8/2003 -  9/14/2003
  9/1/2003 -   9/7/2003
8/25/2003 -  8/31/2003
8/18/2003 -  8/24/2003
8/11/2003 -  8/17/2003
  8/4/2003 -  8/10/2003
7/28/2003 -   8/3/2003
7/21/2003 -  7/27/2003
7/14/2003 -  7/20/2003
  7/7/2003 -  7/13/2003
6/30/2003 -   7/6/2003
6/23/2003 -  6/29/2003
6/16/2003 -  6/22/2003
  6/9/2003 -  6/15/2003
  6/2/2003 -   6/8/2003
5/26/2003 -   6/1/2003
5/19/2003 -  5/25/2003
5/12/2003 -  5/18/2003
  5/5/2003 -  5/11/2003
4/28/2003 -   5/4/2003
4/21/2003 -  4/27/2003
4/14/2003 -  4/20/2003
  4/7/2003 -  4/13/2003
3/31/2003 -   4/6/2003
3/24/2003 -  3/30/2003
3/17/2003 -  3/23/2003
3/10/2003 -  3/16/2003
  3/3/2003 -   3/9/2003
2/24/2003 -   3/2/2003
2/17/2003 -  2/23/2003
2/10/2003 -  2/16/2003
  2/3/2003 -   2/9/2003
1/27/2003 -   2/2/2003
1/20/2003 -  1/26/2003
1/13/2003 -  1/19/2003
  1/6/2003 -  1/12/2003
12/30/2002 -   1/5/2003
12/23/2002 - 12/29/2002
12/16/2002 - 12/22/2002
12/9/2002 - 12/15/2002
12/2/2002 -  12/8/2002
11/25/2002 -  12/1/2002
11/18/2002 - 11/24/2002
11/11/2002 - 11/17/2002
11/4/2002 - 11/10/2002
10/28/2002 -  11/3/2002
10/21/2002 - 10/27/2002
10/14/2002 - 10/20/2002
10/7/2002 - 10/13/2002
9/30/2002 -  10/6/2002
9/23/2002 -  9/29/2002
9/16/2002 -  9/22/2002
  9/9/2002 -  9/15/2002
  9/2/2002 -   9/8/2002
8/26/2002 -   9/1/2002
8/19/2002 -  8/25/2002
8/12/2002 -  8/18/2002
  8/5/2002 -  8/11/2002
7/29/2002 -   8/4/2002
7/22/2002 -  7/28/2002
7/15/2002 -  7/21/2002
  7/8/2002 -  7/14/2002
  7/1/2002 -   7/7/2002
6/24/2002 -  6/30/2002
6/17/2002 -  6/23/2002
6/10/2002 -  6/16/2002
  6/3/2002 -   6/9/2002
5/27/2002 -   6/2/2002
5/20/2002 -  5/26/2002
5/13/2002 -  5/19/2002
  5/6/2002 -  5/12/2002
4/29/2002 -   5/5/2002
4/22/2002 -  4/28/2002
4/15/2002 -  4/21/2002
  4/8/2002 -  4/14/2002
  4/1/2002 -   4/7/2002
3/25/2002 -  3/31/2002
3/18/2002 -  3/24/2002
3/11/2002 -  3/17/2002
  3/4/2002 -  3/10/2002
2/25/2002 -   3/3/2002
2/18/2002 -  2/24/2002
2/11/2002 -  2/17/2002
  2/4/2002 -  2/10/2002
1/28/2002 -   2/3/2002
1/21/2002 -  1/27/2002
1/14/2002 -  1/20/2002
  1/7/2002 -  1/13/2002
12/31/2001 -   1/6/2002
12/24/2001 - 12/30/2001
12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001

Wednesday, February 13, 2002
23:40 - He may like the Xbox, but at least he thinks like me... http://www.lileks.com/bleats/021202.html	(top)
A couple of days ago, James Lileks expressed dismay over the fact that modern driving simulators are lavishly rendered and geographically accurate, but you don't get to enjoy any of it because you're too busy racing. I want a relaxing driving game. I want to start in New York and end up on the Santa Monica pier, and I want to stop at motels, watch local TV, step outside and hear the crickets before I go to bed. Flight sims give you this sense of real-time ordinary life; why not driving games? Bingo. This goes right to the heart of what my fantasy has been for years and years: a driving simulator where you can just travel freely on any road, going wherever you want to go, exploring the entire world-- the same kind of thing you could do in real life if not for the realities of having to buy gas, pay for hotels, take time off work, deal with car trouble, get pulled over for speeding in strange states, and so on. It's getting to the point where that's possible, if not inevitable. Flight simulators now map very crisp satellite imagery onto selected regions of the world; it'll only be a matter of time before everybody has enough disk space (if the map detail is kept locally) or bandwidth (if it's streamed from a server on demand) for the entire world to be mapped, and you can explore any area you feel like without the terrain expanding into big flat bitmap chunks as you land or suddenly giving way to generic "filler" terrain. That's coming, and it's only a couple of years away. Likewise, and this is only likely to be a little further off, a driving simulator could map all the roads in the country-- terrain and elevations and vegetation would have to be modelled a lot more finely, but it's doable-- and buildings and bridges and mailboxes and retaining walls and other cars could all be modelled fairly simply. The barriers standing in the way of doing that today, or with any given level of technology, is simply a matter of storage space and CPU power and RAM availability and bandwidth, and those things will all increase with time. But there's a slightly more annoying problem, too: national security. Flight simulators like Microsoft Flight Simulator and Fly! are apparently barred from going into more detail with their terrain maps than GPS units are allowed to display, because of the possibility that such detailed locating mechanisms could be used for targeting in, oh, a terrorist attack involving a guided missile. Legal regulations limit the precision of GPS devices (as used in cars and hiking gear) for precisely that reason, and so presumably any further detail to which sim games might go will be hampered by this little issue. Unless, of course, all the roads and map elements are given a certain, imperceptible amount of mapping jitter... just take the map layout, apply a grid to it, and do a very slight deformation to all the points on it, warping the map to fit. That way the location data would be useless for anything real. This would be less feasible for flight sims than for driving sims, but not insurmountable. Even the tiniest of warpings to the map would put the uncertainty of the accuracy of any given point well into the hundreds-of-feet range, which is comfortably beyond the feds' limits of discomfort. So, yeah-- don't worry, James. It's coming. Yeah, I was disappointed as hell to find that 4x4 Evo denied you the pleasure of just driving around in beautifully-rendered mountains exploring in favor of reckless racing; but one day it will all be here-- the game where you get to drive to Santa Monica, the game where you get to fly to Great Slave Lake, the game where you get to walk around town and talk to storekeepers. That's the future of gaming that I'd like to be able to enjoy.