Ah, the joy of blogging

I intended my graveyard shift to be a productive one. For the most part it was, but I spent more time on blogs than what I actually wanted to. I supposed to be organizing my 809 bookmarks, but oh well. I have added some, but more importantly, validated the ones that I wanted to keep.

I went through my Blog folder first and that was my pitfall. Each blog had to be extensively analyzed for worthiness. In the end, I only got rid of one. I have refreshed my memory on the others and ended up watching an hour long keynote by the Flickr creator Cal. I have had www.iamcal.com bookmarked for some time now and I know I have enjoyed his links in the past. I am becoming a fan of his website and will continue to follow.

Some of them are out-dated, but that is ok. Some are up to the minute and those are great too. I have a range from Burbia, to Autoblog to Ramblomatic. The mix is nice and I would recommend them.

That is all for now. Time to go home and sleep.

Technological singularity

I have become very interested in this topic and I want to start off by letting you read a couple of articles and then watching a video. Just glance over the articles to get a sense of what they are. Definition, Opposition and a video composed in 2008 for Sony Executives Did you Know 3.0. Also Economic.

Although it is impossible to predict the future, I do find this topic interesting as it is expected to happen in my lifetime. Being as these are exponential times, I feel that to completely deny this topic would be ignorant, but I don't feel we will see the rapidness of this change for some time. Infrastructures change too slowly and money is always an issue. It takes too long for companies to come up with a business model for changes and this slows everyone down. Sony has been hurt badly as well as other companies because they did not adapt well enough. Retail stores will be a thing of the past because they are no longer needed like we see them today. The ONLY store I go into anymore is Kroger or Walmart and it's usually just for groceries. But here in Bloomington, I have two choices for websites that will deliver these to me. Amazon even sells groceries. The point I am making is that for 1: people need to adapt and this takes time (still need retail stores for people who do not order online) and 2: businesses need to make money and come up with models to do so and this takes time.

Next thought: I do not think people will be able to live forever in my lifetime because I do not think computers will be able to solve everything that can go wrong in a human in my lifetime. But as far as AI being smarter than humans and creating their own smarter AI, I do believe we will see this in my lifetime. We are on the start of the curve for Nano technology and it increases at unimaginable rates, but again, in the lab is different from in the marketplace. I do not see products available at this time that operate at speeds we have achieved. But there are certainly more rapid gains than history and that's a fact.

Leave your comments or thoughts if you'd like.

If Ubisoft would have released Left 4 Dead

Let me start by saying that I only reflect the opinions of myself, some of my friends and some internet literature I have read along the way.

If Ubisoft had released Left 4 Dead, it would have been a very tragic day. Like the post-apocalyptic time that the game represents. The only four survivors to actually buy the game would have probably given up after only a couple of days with no mercy left for the blood sucking, air heads running a dead end company like Ubisoft; leaving it to its death. Only the harvest of games it created would be left to show for its efforts and when the bell tolls to summon the dead, Ubisoft will be the first to lay down in the trenches and be forgotten forever.

But, because Valve released Left 4 Dead, we forgive the bugs and lack of content. We know in our hearts that Valve loves each of us. Valve is like that grandpa that gives us free candy for not telling anyone he ate some too. We expect Valve to go above and beyond to release free-content add-on packs for its games. EA does not understand this concept when looking at the Sims as an example. Valve lets us host the servers and in return they give us more content. Servers available to the public for free means they can sell more games. More free content for us means we get our money's worth and an increased replay value. Left 4 Dead is missing content, no doubt about that; a $50 game means more than 4 hours of game play. Of course the online game play is good too, but with the bugs in the lobby and server searching, we can look into that later.

I don't mean to completely bust Ubisoft's bubble, but come on. They really failed the industry by franchising the name Farcry into a sequel without giving us a real game. I don't want to point out specifics about why Farcry 2 fails, because Blogger does not have the storage space for my rant. What I will do is say that Ubisoft should stick to consoles where details don't matter as much and people will blame the controller. Example: LOST Via Domus; not a horrible game, just an obvious Ubisoft game.

EA and Valve

Recently, Steam announced the addition of EA titles to its store. I feel this is a huge deal for both Valve and EA. EA being the largest and one of the oldest publishers of game titles, agreeing to let Valve sell its games through its online store. Steam was originally created as a DRM and store for Valve's games only.

I remember the early days with Steam and those were very dark days. Steam was buggier than a lamp post on a cool summer night. But time passed and because Valve is so well regarded, we overlooked it and put up with it. Steam became a very good means to purchase games from other developers. No CDs meant no CD keys, no scratched discs, no long, tedious installs. Steam was quickly becoming a convenience application because no longer did a new desktop or laptop mean going through a whole collection of game discs to install them all.

Steam has changed its look and feel to accommodate the increased library of titles and continues to increase it every week. Weekend deals are something to look forward to and the package deals are fantastic! It is so easy to just open Steam everyday, see what's new in the store or what updates are being downloaded (did I mention going to a developers website to download updates is a thing of the past :) ). I will then usually open the friends window to see who is playing what. Steam is GREAT!

In conclusion, EA on Steam makes my one wish for Steam one step closer to coming true. Back in the days of 2005-2006 (Freshman year of college) I played the Sims2 religiously. Having every available object at my sims' disposal was my top priority. A new "stuff" pack or expansion meant happy days for my Sims and I. For anyone who has ever installed close to 30 discs for a game, knows how this is a huge PAIN IN THE ASS. Needless to say, I have not installed them since my newest configuration of hardware on my PC. But if the Sims is released on Steam and I can just click "Install" on each of the packs or "Install All" I will be the happiest gamer alive :). Who in the world wants to install 30 discs worth of content? Not I!

Connecting Band

Here is a name that needs help. I am opening up discussion to anyone that is out there listening. A new website that I am a part of is being created to connect bands across the country. The connection is geared toward planning tours and filling venues with bands that want the gigs. We will also allow people to browse the website to check out the band's profile and listen to any music they might have uploaded. Fans of the bands will also be able to view upcoming shows that the band may have.

The biggest problem we have run into so far is a catchy name. Also, the name should be available as a Domain name and should not already be taken as a copyright, but that should be a given, right?

Popularity of a Videogame in Relation to its Abbreviation

I have been wondering lately about this topic and have put enough thought into it to make it worthy of a blog post. Games that come to mind are WOW, CSS, DODS, AOE, DOTA, L4D, GTA, NFS and many many more. We know what these are because of their popularity and common usage. What we don't hear about are games with names like TimeShift and Railroad Tycoon. And these are good games, but without a simple easy to say name, how can they be expected to catch on. I know there are many exceptions to this, such as Guitar Hero and Starcraft, but there has to be some correlation between an easy to say acronym and hard to say game name without an acronym. Marketing is all key when naming your next hit title, so spend the extra time to do so. Any other ideas on the topic, make a comment.

It is also worth mentioning that the rule applies to most things across the board, not just games, but that is where my interest is, so there.

GTA IV

So I have been anticipating Grand Theft Auto the fourth. I stood in line for about 50 minutes at Walmart starting at midnight (Tues) for the release and managed to buy their last Special Edition copy. I did not play it however until later that day because I had an 8am final exam. With some Will Power and motivation I limited my game play to almost none until my final project was turned in on Wed. afternoon. Thus begins a Summer filled with GTA. Well, until yesterday (Sat). My game would not load after the initial loading screen. After much troubleshooting, I was able to occasionally get my game to load. Even, so, the loading of my save data was not working. I had tested my save data on a friend's PS3 to make sure it wasn't corrupt and I was correct. I have read online that there is a bug with the online service and that I should unhook the Ethernet until further updates are sent out to patch. I will attempt and update my Post with my findings.

-->"Only in America do they let blind people drive" -Niko

Kirk Fox video clip

Clip courtesy of Comedy Central.

Copper Beech FTW!

My apartment complex never ceases to amaze me. They are so poorly managed that truly any management would be an improvement. They recently handed out a newsletter along with a bill and a letter. This is the most correspondence we have gotten from them in the almost two years we have lived here. The newsletter was about their new property manager (the third since we've been here) and other new people they had hired. Apparently, (according to an article in the newsletter) since they did not have a property manager, they had not been keeping very good records of transactions; so very little if any. Examples will follow. The actual letter was about inventorying our furniture (we have a furnished apartment) because they did not know who had a furnished apartment and who didn't. Another article in the newsletter was about how corporate came down to audit and fix records that they had not taken. The article went on to mention that some people were behind on rent, but they didn't know who or how much. They also decided to inform us that our water bill has finally been tallied and totals 9 months worth of tally. The amount, $495, yeah not to bad considering we have 10 days to pay it. Now, granted we should have known this was coming and put money away each month, but we're college students, who puts money away for a water/sewage bills. If my math is correct it is only $13.xx per person per month, but it is still over $100 per person right now. Well, someday they will figure out what they are doing wrong and hire competent people and maybe that day we will get our floor in the kitchen fixed (lol that'll be the day).

YAY! My own URL

So you heard it, I now have my own URL. I am pretty excited about this and it shows the nerd in me a little bit, but oh well. IU is changing their web servers over the summer and all websites will be dumped. They are giving us a significant increase in space from 10Mb to 10Gb. Yeah I know, wow. But since I only have a year of school left anyway, I won't need to utilize the weird, possibly different url that they give us. I have my own piece of the internet to myself that I can post many things or not. So, the url, well you'll need to look to the left of my blog page for 'Website' and click the link and admire the nice clean url, although probably not as much as I do.

Rubik's Cube

I have solved the Rubik's Cube. It took me all week and the directions, but I can finally solve it in a decent amount of time without help. Of course I am talking about the standard 3x3 cube, nothing too fancy. I also have to say that I just wanted to make a post on Leap Day; so Happy Leap Day people!

Interesting Music Video

I am in a music video class this semester at IU. It's called Tel-T195 Music Video and Visual Music. We watched an older video today that has a good meaning. It also has some ridiculous parts in it that make it quite funny at moments. The video uses stop animation and is in color. It was created by Norman McLaren in 1952. Watch it on Youtube here.

The Video Game Cabinet

The video game cabinet is almost complete. I am only one console shy on the installation of them. I also need to put the LEDs in when I receive them all. I ordered some cheap ones from Asia, so it may take awhile. Once they are installed I may install a fan in the bottom part, although probably not. I have not made up my mind, yet, obviously. It is looking pretty cool so far, but I will take pictures once it is complete to my stringent expectations. This has to be one cool cabinet (according to its cost). VGC Rules!

What's in a number?

Try this little game to have it guess your number. Here. The faster I did it the more accurate it got which I guess is because I fall into it's math formula better rather than when I think about it and try to out smart it. (run-on sentence alert!)

Can you make XP look like Vista or like OS X?

The answer is yes, for the most part. I challenged someone to make their desktop look like the two completely different OSs and it seems they have succeeded. Here is their website to view their newly renovated desktop. This is the reason I have a picture of my desktop in a previous post. I also feel like a desktop is an expression of self and shows a unique creative side of people.

Veesta OR V(i) 'h' sta

How do you pronounce it? Just thought it was interesting that people pronounce many words many ways. I heard someone pronounce it both once and could not tell you how to try and repeat it.
On a second note, I got my computer working fully again. It has had issues recently that are hard to explain. Things such as not having access to all of my programs and it turned itself into power save mode (turns off after 60 minutes). I was able to reverse these newly changed settings, but why did they happen? Who turned them on? I also did not have sound. I have speakers and two sound devices with drivers installed and "working properly", but at the same time "No Devices Found". I ended up just reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling. It works fine now, so it was either a weird virus or a bug in Vista. I assume it was a bug. First time I have had a problem with Vista Ultimate! Recommend except for the occasional bug (wait for SP1).

Movies!!!????!!!!

What movies did I have?? I am having trouble remembering what movies I owned, but maybe you remember watching one at some point. If you can think of something that I might be missing then just leave me a comment. Thanks for the help and feel free to just look at a collection that was. You can view this said list here.

Rock Band

I love this game, but I have a couple of problems with it, so here is what I like and don't like about it. I really love the download able content available and coming soon which you can see here. I do not like the fact that the guitars and drums are junk. They break easily, come with a sleazy 60 day warranty and are priced far from measly. Junk = Here. So there is my 2 cents. I think that the black wired GH3 controller is the best. Best Buy has it for its display model and I love it; unfortunately you can't buy it yet for the 360 - only Sony consoles.

New Website I Found

So I find many websites while at my job, but this one peaks my interest. I like it because it is all about videogames and is not sponsored by any videogame company (treats all games equal). You can make a profile and then add games that you own to your profile. I like it because you can see how random people get and also who likes similar titles. It is essentially a networking site for gamers, but if I had to give a more detailed description: Gamers of Nintendo and older generations and/or mostly console gamers and I believe the website is based in the U.K. With that said, I am a PC gamer mostly and can tell that most people on this site are not. Check it out here: VGChartz

Burlged! (Burglarized)

Yeah so my Apt got burgled (much better form of the word) over Thanksgiving break here at IU. My roommate called us all Saturday to tell us. We all came down later and took inventory of what was missing. They broke my bedroom window and then unlocked the front door. Only two of the four of us had stuff missing and we reported it to our insurance companies on Monday. On Tuesday they caught them. They pawned a guitar they stole from our neighbors and one of our neighbors found it and called the police. When they pawned it, the guitar shop copied their drivers license (their real one). Turns out they had already gotten rid of a lot of things and won't fess up as to where. They burglarized three Apts that night all in the same complex they live (Copper Beech Town homes) . I am still missing some stuff and my room mate's computer and classical guitar are still MIA. It has been and continues to be an interesting 'Life Event' as the sims would put it.