Tag: wheel’
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: the Talking Simulator remains gaming’s most exciting genre
Deconstructeam, the Spanish microstudio responsible for iffy-but-interesting Gods Will Be Watching and beloved cult hit The Red Strings Club, have returned to the point & click genre with The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, a game that swirls with mysticism and Wiccan fantasy lore like a Brighton pop-up shop swirls with Nag Champa.
And, let’s be clear, it’s great. The demo we’ve been given access to covers the opening act, essentially a tutorial, which introduces us to some of the characters and the core game mechanic that sits alongside the conversation system. Essentially you are a fortune teller, cast out of your witches commune by a corrupt leader for the crime of being far too good at your job and prophesying the group’s downfall. Sentenced to imprisonment on a comet for 1000 years, you summon an ancient spirit/Behemoth/multi-armed scorpion man thing after two centuries of isolation because, frankly, you’re bored. Understandably so.
So, there’s a lot of talking. Those familiar with The Red Strings Club, or similar games like Coffee Talk, will find this very familiar. Via the medium of conversation and speech checks you can tease out information about the wider world and win favour with certain characters via charm or intimidation. You can also, presumably, upset people, but I didn’t during my hour with the game because I’m too much of a shitebag to go renegade. But the tl;dr is that it’s a choice and consequence visual novel about love, magic, fate, and reality, and the writing is snappy enough to keep your eyelids open while you wade through all the text dialogue (there’s no voice acting, and it’s frankly for the best, because all it does in games like this is spoil the flow).
The Wheel of Time Locks in Some More Actors for Season 2
It’s been a bit of a wait for season two of Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time. The adaptation of Robert Jordan’s (and later Brandon Sanderson) fantasy novel series ended its first season towards the tail end of 2021, and has had a gradual drip feed of information about its second season, mainly as it relates to casting.
New Stick In The Wheel single – The Cuckoo VIP (EAN remix)
Security driver who handcuffed himself to steering wheel during fake heist is jailed
Driver on phone gave finger to motorist before horror realisation of who was at the wheel
Mum-of-two, 39, got behind the wheel after downing wine in a bid to find her boyfriend who was out late
A MUM who was four times over the drink-drive limit took to the road to find her boyfriend after he stayed out late, a court heard.
Kerry Green, from Macclesfield, Cheshire, was pulled over just after 1.30am when cops noticed her driving without headlights on and narrowly missing lampposts.
Kerry Green, a frustrated stay-at-home mum, was caught drunk at the wheel of her car at 1am after she had an argument with her partner[/caption]
Park Green in Macclesfield, the area Green was pulled over and arrested[/caption]
The 39-year-old was so intoxicated on January 15 that she could not complete the entire breathalyser process and kicked out at officers as they tried to search her.
Her defence barrister argued the drinking stemmed from her partner staying out later than planned, and frequently leaving Green alone to care for their children aged 12 and 14.
As reported by Manchester Evening News, Clare Oliver, prosecuting, told South Cheshire Magistrates Court: “Police officers saw a vehicle being driven erratically. There were no lights on and it was swerving to the side of the road.
“It nearly hit a number of items of street furniture.
“Fortunately, nothing appears to have been hit but the vehicle was stopped.
“There was a strong smell of intoxicants, her eyes were glazed and her speech was slurred.”
The former bistro assistant measured 136 on her breath test, which led to her being arrested, cautioned and taken into custody.
Ms Oliver said: “When being searched she lifted her right leg and kicked out at a PC Nanchollis,
“The defendant’s foot connected with the officer’s right shin causing pain and discomfort.”
The court was told the defendant claimed to have drunk two and a half glasses of wine before getting behind the wheel.
She maintained she was driving to a pal’s house for a catch up.
A second breath test revealed a 152 sample, the court heard.
The prosecutor continued: “She remembered getting angry when being searched but did not remember hitting out.”
Stuart Flood, mitigating on behalf of Green, expressed to the court that his client was incredibly embarrassed about the incident.
He said: “There are no previous matters recorded against her and there is nothing on her driving licence either.
“It is a serious matter. There was a high level of impairment in terms of driving and she was driving without lights in the early hours.
“I think she assumed the lights would come on automatically. Thankfully there were no further incidents.”
The defence barrister argued Green had cooperated with the roadside breath test, and any further resistance could have been caused by her asthma.
“There was a strong smell of intoxicants, her eyes were glazed and her speech was slurred”
Clare Oliver
“Being taken to the police station for the first time in your life can be very traumatic,” he added.
“I think that was a reaction to being arrested. She got upset and kicked out at the shin and that is something she bitterly regrets.
“She has an awful lot of time alone.”
Her solicitor explained to the court that the defendant’s partner had been away and his movements on the night of the event may have been a catalyst for Green’s actions.
He said: “He had been away but had returned and had gone to watch a football match in Manchester. He went in the morning and came back later.
“She starts to drink in the evening and that has led to an argument between them.
“She felt she had spent very little time with her partner in the last fortnight and did not expect him to be out as long as he was.
“She stupidly got in her car to see a friend, to break away from the tension in the house.
“She had booked a taxi but the taxi did not arrive and she made the extremely grave decision to drive. It was a massive mistake.”
A probation report about Green read at the hearing said: “She said she is a social drinker usually on weekends.
“She is remorseful, her partner works and she is the sole carer for the children while he is away.”
The report also concluded Green was at low risk of re-offending.
The mum-of-two admitted charges of failing to provide a breath sample and assaulting a PC.
She felt she had spent very little time with her partner in the last fortnight and did not expect him to be out as long as he was.
Stuart Flood
She has been banned from driving for three years and ordered to wear a ‘sobriety tag’ for four months.
Green is also required to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, be made subject to 120 days of the alcohol abstinence monitoring programme, and participate with up to ten days of rehabilitation with the probation service.
She was also ordered to pay £50 in compensation to the PC Nanchollis and made to pay £224 in costs and a victim surcharge.
What is the drink driving limit in the UK?
The drink drive limit differs in the UK depending on which country you’re in.
There’s one rule for motorists in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and another rule for drivers in Scotland.
The limits for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are:
- 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood
- 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath
- 107 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine
In Scotland, the limits are:
- 50 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood
- 22 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath
- 67 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine
The Scottish rules mean that just one drink could put you over the limit.
How To Use An Egely Wheel For Paranormal Investigations
Cruise’s robotaxis have driven 1 million miles with nobody behind the wheel
For autonomous vehicle developers, every mile driven serves as proof that their technology works and as an opportunity to gather data for further improvement. Which is why Cruise, which has just announced that it has completed 1 million fully driverless miles, calls the achievement one of its biggest milestones yet. A spokesperson told us that those were miles driven with no safety driver behind the wheel and that most of them were collected in San Francisco.
If you’ll recall, the GM subsidiary started testing fully driverless rides in the city back in November 2021. It was also the first company to ever receive a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, allowing it to charge passengers for robotaxi rides by June last year. Based on the disengagement reports it submitted to the California DMV, it only had around 30 cars or so operating at the beginning of 2022. CNN said it was maintaining a fleet of 100 vehicles by September last year and was seeking to add 5,000 more.
Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s SVP of engineering, said each one of those miles “has been packed with complex scenarios that have set Cruise up for rapid scale.” Since San Francisco streets are often chaotic and packed with people, the company was able to gather tons of useful data it can use to better its technology. “For example,” Elshenawy wrote in a blog post, “stop sign blow-throughs are 46x times more frequent in San Francisco than in suburban areas.”
Cruise has been feeding data from each drive into a continuous learning machine that creates millions of permutations of real-world scenarios on the road. That allows the technology to learn from simulated drives and then apply what it learns in real life. “When you consider our safety record, the gravity of our team’s achievement comes into sharper focus,” Elshenawy continued. “To date, riders have taken tens of thousands of rides in Cruise AVs. In the coming years, millions of people will experience this fully driverless future for themselves.”
Cruise’s announcement comes almost a month after San Francisco officials sent a letter to California regulators, asking them to slow Cruise’s (and Waymo’s) expansion plans. They reportedly wanted a better understanding of autonomous vehicles first and were worried about “the hazards and network impacts caused by planned and unplanned AV stops that obstruct traffic.” As The New York Times said in a recent report, stalled Cruise and Waymo vehicles have caused traffic jams in San Francisco several times in the past. Officials believe these companies have to significantly improve their technologies before expanding, or else they “could quickly exhaust emergency response resources and could undermine public confidence in all automated driving technology.”