Computer games that don’t make sense
I found a new computer game recently.
It's not a car simulator nor a flight simulator. It's not a submarine simulator nor a city simulator.
It's a smoke simulator.
Yes indeed, folks, this is SimSmoke that allows you to set conditions to see how choked up you are going to be under various situations.
I gave it a go.
It's a bit of a wonky site but I finally settled on driving a moving car with the windows wide open, and enjoying a virtual fag at the same time. [They didn’t have a simulation for pipes]
It gave me a nice little graph showing my virtual exposure to virtual smoke over a period of virtual time –
Now I am a little confused.
Herself likes to strike up on a car journey and if the windows are closed, the place can fug up a little. As I have an aversion to cigarette smoke I like to clear the fug out as quickly as possible. I have discovered that opening my window just draws the smoke across my face, so I close my window and open hers, just a few millimeters [or an inch] will do the trick. There is a sucky noise and whoosh – all the smoke has vanished. The smoke from her fag then proceeds to travel in a dead straight line from her fag-end to the open window leaving me to puff my pipe in peace [the smoke from which now travels in a line across Herself to her window. Heh!].
But the graph above tells me that I will be driving for a full twelve minutes or so, while the smoke fills the car to capacity when suddenly, with a bang it's all gone?
I checked the simulation to see if they were trying to fool me by leaving the windows closed for twelve minutes before opening them [which would have given the graph above, by my experience], but as far as I can see the windows were open all the time. What the fuck is going on?
I can only conclude that there is something seriously wrong with either my car's windows or the fags Herself smokes. Somehow our smoke is dispersing much too quickly.
After all, computer simulations are far more accurate than the real world?
The same with the computer predictions of warble gloaming. Rubbish in = Rubbish out.
As someone who has a passing acquaintance with the infernal machines, I can say that they lack any sense of reason. They will only tell you what they are programmed to tell you.
Actually now that I think of it, I might install Basic on this machine and whip up a programme that will disprove the Warble Gloaming scam. Sometime when I have half an hour to spare……
yeah and don't forget to comment it up like "this is a crap bit" and "no no there's no limits!"
And a little module to delete the bits of data that might give me the wrong result?
Oh, no, Gramps! This is just another bullet-point for you to add to your recently-suggested “magical qualities unique to tobacco smoke” list. As well as being able to pass through solid walls, travel in a direct line – despite surrounding air movement – straight from the end of a cigarette directly into the nose of innocent sleeping children, time-travel through more than three generations to strike people down with hideous lumpy cancers if their grandparents smoked (even though their parents didn’t), and lurk maliciously on every single solid surface it ever encounters for hundreds of years, resisting all efforts at cleaning, fumigating, refurbishing or redecorating, it’s now developed yet another “magical” quality – that of being able to resist the universal laws of slipstream! Amazing!
I really must start making a list of these and keep it up to date – the amazing properties of smoke!
A smoke simulator game? WTF? A product of 'Son of SAMMEC'. (ta-da!) perhaps?
Hah! Good one. I hadn't heard of SAMMEC before. I learn something new each day.
Computer simulations are also heavily used in economic forecasts. Nothing can truly predict human behaviour – which is the basis of economic activity. Forget computer games as an indicator of real human activity.
Wasn't there a major problem in Wall Street when computers suddenly started wildly trading in shares? Some smartarse decided that computers are better at trading the stock market than mere mortals? Frankly, computers make me nervous……
"Frankly, computers make me nervous……" Me too, and manifold morons who use and rely on computers.