Notice: Trying to get property 'term_id' of non-object in /var/www/html/themself/wp-content/themes/mesocolumn/lib/templates/headline.php on line 4
Notice: Trying to get property 'name' of non-object in /var/www/html/themself/wp-content/themes/mesocolumn/lib/templates/headline.php on line 5
Archives for August, 2014 - Page 3
Guardians of the Galaxy
I took Alexander to see this the other evening. It wasn't my idea, he'd gone to see How to Train Your Dragon 2 with his mum but while they were in the queue to get tickets it sold out. Guardians was a consolation prize and I made sure to book the tickets online before I told him we were going. I've not read the comic book that this is based on, and I had no prior knowledge of any of the characters or the plot. That said I am a fan of science fiction and I read some British comic books (mainly from the 2000AD school). It starts with a prologue, Star Lord as a 9 or 10 year old boy in 1988 listening to his Walkman while waiting outside the hospital room where his mum is dying. A poignant…
Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/html/themself/wp-content/themes/mesocolumn/lib/functions/theme-functions.php on line 502
Investigate Centre – NHM
I'm a friend of the Natural History Museum and I go there a lot, especially with the kids. Both of them love the place. Today though we found a new part of the NHM that we'd never been in before. Hidden away in the basement, under the green zone, there is the Investigate Centre which is generally open to the public. As the demonstrator told us "Everything in here is real, except the human skeleton, because we're not allowed to let you handle human bones". Alex finds out about a toad grasshopper in the Investigate Centre @NHM_London (Photo credit: James Kemp) In the centre there are a lot of artefacts that you can handle, look at with magnifying glasses, video cameras and microscopes. As well as that you can look them up on the computers in the centre that use…
Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/html/themself/wp-content/themes/mesocolumn/lib/functions/theme-functions.php on line 502
2D Morale Chart
Further to the previous post Faith in Morale I've tried to synthesize the varioius readings on military psychology into a set of morale rules that might give a realistic ebb and flow to an engagement. I've not had a chance to test these yet, but here's what the chart looks like. v01 of the 2D Morale Chart, (c) 2014 James Kemp Reading through the various OR type publications it seems to me that morale is affected by proximity to both friends and the enemy. The closer solders get to the enemy the more they seem to do things other than follow orders. This is not really a surprise, but it's nice to see the research back up the gut feel. Where I can find hard numbers for things I have used them to construct the 2D morale chart. In some…
Faith in Morale
I've been reading operational research on the psychology of combat recently. It got me to thinking about the role of religious faith in maintaining soldiers' morale. I'm not personally religious and don't have an axe to grind on this. Does having faith help soldiers deal better with combat? What I am trying to do is build a game design model that properly accounts for relevant factors. The thought that struck me was that combat is very stressful and that soldiers are called on to do unpleasant things to others. This isn't an every day thing but it does happen. The after effects can be very severe, PTSD isn't pleasant for anyone and can last for years after the traumatic events have finished. Psychological casualties are as real as the physical ones, they just have a delayed onset and are harder…