{"id":281051,"date":"2021-10-30T10:16:50","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T10:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/?p=281051"},"modified":"2021-10-30T10:16:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T10:16:50","slug":"2013-nics-best-picks-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/?p=281051","title":{"rendered":"2013: Nic’s best picks of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Distill an entire year of products, technologies and experiences into just five ‘best ofs’? Almost impossible, you might think. But nigh-impossible or not, it’s happening. So here are the five ‘things’ I feel had the biggest impact on my 2013.<\/p>\n

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Much gun. Very sword. Such pirate.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Credit: Ubisoft)<\/p>\n

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Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag<\/h2>\n

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In cognitive psychology you might hear people talk about the primacy effect and the recency effect. These describe the tendency people have to remember the first and last things in any group.<\/p>\n

I bring this up, because there’s an argument to be made that is here only because of how late it arrived in the year, that perhaps Tomb Raider or Far Cry 3 or Bioshock Infinite could be here instead. It’s possible, but I’m not entirely buying it.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a big fan of the Assassin’s Creed series, especially all three of the AC2 games. Sadly Assassin’s Creed 3 happened, a game I personally found interminably boring and buggy. Black Flag was not just a great return to the series, but <\/span> \u2014 packed with side-quests and collectibles, a plot that didn’t need spreadsheets to follow and characters you could really enjoy playing and meeting. <\/p>\n

It’s telling, to me, that I’m still playing it \u2014 well after I’ve needed to do any more writing on it. If we did Game of the Year awards, this would be it for me. Instead, I’m just going to stop writing about it now and try and get that last Legendary Ship \u2014 it’s what Kenway would want.<\/p>\n

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(Credit: Jawbone)<\/p>\n

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Jawbone Up<\/h2>\n

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I spent a lot of time with a few different fitness trackers<\/a> over this (and last) year, but it’s the that I think has had the biggest impact on my fitness regime.<\/p>\n

For one, there’s a lot to be said about the simplicity of something that just sits on your wrist \u2014 it’s certainly a lot harder to lose <\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Up tracks your steps constantly, but that’s probably the least interesting thing it does. It’s also a sleep tracker, using your movement during sleep to work out how much deep sleep you’re getting compared to light sleep and even calculate any time you’ve spent awake. <\/p>\n

On the back of this, it’s also a great ‘silent’ alarm \u2014 you specify a time you’d like to wake up and give the Up a window of time (for example, ten minutes) before that. The Up then senses when you’re at your most shallow sleep in that time frame and wakes you up by vibrating.<\/p>\n

It also works a great short sleep alarm \u2014 only starting to time your nap when you fall asleep. Actually, there’s quite a lot it can do: it’s able to monitor your specific workouts (e.g. weights, running, cycling etc.) and the app has great social functionality \u2014 share steps and sleep time with others to get encouraging comments (assuming you got the right ‘team mates’).<\/p>\n

It’s not perfect, of course \u2014 the food diary isn’t overly well optimised for Australia, for example. Possibly the worst is the battery \u2014 failure rate is, anecdotally at least, quite high, with my current Up being my third.<\/p>\n

But for all that, the Up remains a very valued part of my exercise planning and an often depressing reminder that I really need to get more sleep. <\/p>\n

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There is nothing wrong with this picture.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Credit: Warner Bros.)<\/p>\n

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Pacific Rim<\/h2>\n

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copped a lot of flak from some critics and viewers. Some objections leveled against the film included calling it “wafer-thin psychodrama” and complaining that the action was lost in a sea of “plot talk”. Giles Hardie on the SMH was particular vicious, suggesting that “a monster ate the script writer” and criticising the intelligence of the film, giving it “5 IQ points out of 5”.<\/p>\n

To its critics I ask just one question: “did you not see the part where a giant exoskeleton controlled by mind power punched a monster in the face? Because I did and it was magical”.<\/p>\n

I like intelligent cinema as much as the next man in cowboy boots and a flannelette shirt. I’ve even watched a couple of the ones that have the words down the bottom \u2014 “sub titles” I believe they’re called? I’m even fairly confident I could point to Hal Hartley in a police line-up, although I’m not sure what he’d be doing in one. <\/p>\n

But all that lefty intellectualism doesn’t mean we can’t still appreciate cinema as escapist artform. And it’s hard to imagine anything more escapist than this. At the very least, it proved that you can direct CGI action scenes that makes sense and don’t look like a bucket of engine parts being flung in front of a camera, thank you very much Mr Michael Bay.<\/p>\n

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In no particular order, here are the best things about Pacific Rim<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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