my.bicycle

I'm less of an Adobe evangelist than I used to be, since they slacked on Photoshop for OS X for 100 internet years, and have failed to really innovate for several revisions of said product (caveat: I'm waiting to get a copy of Photoshop CS, and am inexplicably hopeful). Its ridiculous that they didn't adopt user-defined key shortcuts FOR EVAR. Ah, but this was going to be a request, not a rant or whine. So: Anyone here toying with Adobe Atmosphere? I'm pondering abusing the educational discount, just to see what it does. It seems like, well, everything.

Two short and fun quizzes:


You're the United Kingdom!

You're a much weaker person than you used to be, but you still act like you did when everyone looked up to you.  Despite this, you're probably a better person than you were when you had so much power over those around you.  Though you do have a strange fascination with jewels and monarchs, which lets you play in castles, but also end up leading a sort of tabloid lifestyle. You really like the Beatles, even more than you like Oasis.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid



You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.
(both via sdemory's LJ)

I admire Marc and Mike for their cunning 1992 stunt against Oliver North. Truly classy and full of verve. Since neither of you guys has Comments support on your page, I'll fawn over it here. Though Mike notes, "Great God was that fun, Marc. I know we live in different cities now, but we should do things like that more often," don't you sometimes feel like you're both together, but in an entirely different country?

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Death penalty for Japan cult guru: His crimes included ordering another sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994, which killed seven people, and the killing of several wayward cult members or their relatives.
But it was the Tokyo subway attack at the height of the city's rush hour, which most shocked Japan.

• This year's Tokyo Game Show will be open to an even wider range of participants and guests than last year.
  The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) has announced details on the 2004 Tokyo Game Show. This year the TGS will take place from September 24 to 26 at Tokyo's Makuhari Messe convention center. The show will be open to the public on February 25 and 26, while February 24 will be for press only. Tickets will be available in advance for the price of 1,000 yen ($9.11) or 1,200 yen ($10.94) at the counter.
  This Year’s Tokyo Game Show aims to expand its coverage of the gaming industry outside of the traditional platforms and hopes to go in to such areas as network games and mobile phone games. CESA also hopes to call in more exhibitors who don’t directly develop games but who do support the industry, such as chip makers, peripheral makers, Internet service providers, and game developer schools. Continuing last year's trend, the show hopes to bring in more exhibitors from around the globe.
  Who's coming? Let me know, and I'll bake a cake.
  
• The PSP has been postponed; people who are surprised, please raise your hand.
  In an unexpectedly candid announcement at the Destination PlayStation conference, Sony officials have said that they plan to delay the launch of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in the US and Europe until next year – apparently to give developers a chance to prepare more launch titles.
  The company still plans to launch the machine in 2004 in Japan (where hardware launches are traditionally only accompanied by two or three games), although some analysts are dubious as to whether even this will actually happen.
  According to SCEA the North American division is now looking to launch the PSP by March 2005, with a similar launch date also expected for Europe. (text from Gamasutra; free registration required)

What ever happened to the Neverhood gang? I just realized that I got them confused with Neversoft, who make Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater and Underground titles. It looks like they haven't done anything since Boombots. Casualty of Gamespot's remarkably harsh grading? Everyone who actually bought the game seems to hold it in high regard, when one compares the official GS score to the User score.

Update: Ask and I shall receive, apparently. Doug TenNaple has quit with games and is doing movies and comics. A group within the Neverhood crew tried to make a go of it as Monkeytropolis, but it didn't work out.

Because I had the day off, I saw two movies today, pretty much sweeping the emotional spectrum.

First was Love Actually, which I saw with my wife. It was great. Hands down, the smartest, funniest, most complex romantic comedy I've ever seen. I was expecting a chick-flick, and worse, a Christmas-themed chick flick (opening in February here). However, when Richard Curtis' name was revealed in the opening credits, I was suddenly infused with hope for the movie. He's responsible for the writing of Blackadder past Season One; you know, the good stuff. By and large, Love Actually is a typical comedy-romance; to some degree it was formulaic. However the dialog is hilarious, the pacing is brisk, and the editing is challenging to keep up with. The music used in the movie was spot-on as well. I give it a big, fat recommendation for watching with yer honey. Though I further recommend waiting to take your potty break until after Rowan Atkinson's scene, which is apparently (I'm told) flawless, but about the length of a quick piss. (I'm also told that Rowan Atkinson looks just like Lee.) The movie has sad and happy moments, and a less-than-perfectly happy ending. Overall the messages about various kinds of love, and what they mean to us, how our choices affect our lives, and how we treat others is wondrous and thought provoking without breaking into cliché or pedantic exposition.

After dinner, I went to see Takashi Miike's new movie, Chakushin Ari. It's a horror movie, in the same quasi-urban-myth vein as "Ringu," but with more mainstream production values and a cellphone instead of a videotape. Before I get into that though, let me say the trailers for movies coming up were pretty exciting. I'd not noticed previously that there were so few trailers for Japanese movies in front of the Hollywood stuff I've been going to see. This is the first Japanese movie I've seen in a theater since "Mononoke Hime," and I arrived late for that. So it was surprising to see a long run of trailers, including Devilman the Movie, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Hayao Miyazaki's upcoming Howl's Moving Castle and oddly, My Lover, the Sniper. I noticed a lot of things in the trailers that an online, wee quicktime vid is not as capable of showing as the silver screen. Now I am all kinds of jazzed to see Innocence -- the CG/cell integration looks just stunning. I take back the mean stuff I said about Production IG relying on simulated shaky-hand camera effects; this stuff looks great.

Chakushin Ari was good, but not mind blowing. It is creepy as hell. There are a couple scenes where it feels like things are just slightly off, but one can't tell what's wrong until the thing that... shouldn't be there... moves. It has the most effective use of sound in a horror movie that I've ever experienced. There is a sequence where a chacter is being lured by a ringing phone, which kept moving around the theater, according to how she was facing, then it moved slowly closer to her, until it finally reached her location on the screen. There's tremendous subtlety as well, for instance in the opening, at a crowded bar, when a friend is telling about the death of a friend, everything is muted except the story, though the soundwork still matches the acoustics for the izakaya/saloon. Miike gets extra scare points against me, in the same way Tim enjoys spiders, for putting the climax in an abandoned hospital. Which is to say: dirty, empty hospital + flickering fluorescent track lighting + main character moving slowly toward someplace she shouldn't = 10X bonus scare multiplier Let me be clear about Japanese horror films: for scares, they are about as far in advance of American horror movies as Japan is ahead of the States in, well, cellphones. The end was confusing, though apparently it's even confusing to Japanese people who are accustomed to vague endings in horror movies. There's nothing wrong with that, though. I was happy to dodge the standard, formulaic ending bullet two times in one day.

Check also this spoiler-heavy synopsis, or this wondrous babelfish of the story from the official site (just for laughs): Yumi woman Oobu Nakamura (shibasaki kou) with the seat of combination KON, the portable telephone of proton of the friend hears and sounds with the arrival sound which does not have remembering. When message of the "arrival ant" is verified, as for dispatching with portable number of main person of proton, furthermore the message like the scream which is thought as main person of proton is left to incomprehensible thing. As for arrival time time of 3 days later.... And, the time after that 3 days, proton screaming same as message, falling dies from the bridge. Several days later, even in carrying Kenji which to the seat of same combination KON is with number of this person message of the "arrival ant" is left at future time. Scream of main person of Kenji has entered in the same way as the time of proton, increasing similar scream to also the time of several days later and it dies. And and Konishi of the close friend of the one person and Yumi stacking (blowing stone one blessing) message reaches with the same arrival sound as the time of proton. There with image, was the hand of the person who extends to the stacking and the back blankly has appeared in fear. As for stacking you take largely in notice of death and disturb, in spite even in Yumi's stopping, or in the time from TV station birth performing you do not do in program that you ride in the invitation. Yumi whom it tries to pinpoint the truth of incident encounters Hiro man Yamashita of the funeral house (the embankment truth one) with. Yamashita the younger sister in a similar way the dying/fleeing paragraph て time, two people start chasing incident together. And, more and more it is air time of program, but while being broadcast raw, cruel death is accomplished in the time when also stacking is notified same to as that. And, arrival of death is left to Yumi's carrying finally...

Fætal: Yes, sir. May I have another? (found two steps away from DeathBoy)

What does Bush find so incredibly threatening about homosexual marriages? Bush urges amendment on marriage - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics: 'All Americans should be concerned when a president who is in political trouble tries to tamper with the Constitution of the United States at the start of his re-election campaign,' Mr. Kerry said yesterday. Something I didn't previously know, from the article: In 1996, Congress overwhelming passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act, which legally defined marriage under federal law as the union between only one man and one woman.

Update: The BBC demonstrates the British gift for subtle understatement: "Bush accused of anti-gay stance"
Update: JP pipes up.

Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work.

DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z's the Black Album and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z's record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time") and the Boston Globe (which called it the "most creatively captivating" album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.

Danger Mouse’s album is one of the most "respectful" and undeniably positive examples of sampling; it honors both the Beatles and Jay-Z. Yet the lawyers and bureaucrats at EMI have shown zero flexibility and not a glimmer of interest in the artistic significance of this work. And without a clearly defined right to sample (e.g. compulsory licensing), the five major record labels will continue to use copyright in a reactionary and narrowly self-interested manner that limits and erodes creativity. Their actions are also self-defeating: good new music is being created that people want to buy, but the major labels are so obsessed with hoarding their copyrights that they are literally turning customers away.

This first-of-its-kind protest signals a refusal to let major label lawyers control what musicians can create and what the public can hear. The Grey Album is only one of the thousands of legitimate and valuable efforts that have been stifled by the record industry-- not to mention the ones that were never even attempted because of the current legal climate. We cannot allow these corporations to continue censoring art; we need common-sense reforms to copyright law that can make sampling legal and practical for artists. (via Warren Ellis' Bad Signal mail list)

Seattle Weekly - tech: Recasting the die: This article talks about how the internet has reinvigorated tabletop gaming. It's a good read, though I was hoping it was going to tell me how to run a pencil and paper game across an instant-message application. It mentions Steve Jackson Games, and has a quote from Evil Stevie himself, but doesn't go so far as to mention how SJG has embraced the internet, such as transforming their former dead-tree magazine into the best online gaming mag, evar: Pyramid. Or the fact that their beta test process is open to all subscribers, and is debated in their hosted forums. (That does it, I'm going to renew my subscription.)

"Nokia CEO concedes N-Gage sales slow; Jorma Ollila concedes sales of his company's game deck have been disappointing." -- in other news, I concede that the sky is blue. ' Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila made to a Financial Times reporter during a 3GSM prebriefing. The topic? The N-Gage. "The sales are in the lower quartile of the bracket we had as our goal," Ollila told the FT reporter.'
Uwe Boll, the German who inflicted House of the Dead on us, #28 on the Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time, is wrapping up "Alone in the Dark," starting "Bloodrayne," and is lined up to make a Far Cry movie next. This calls for the cinematic equivalent of "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything." Uwe, d00d. If you can't make something respectable...
(both via gamespot)

Update: Penny-Arcade's Tycho rants more extensively and eloquently on the Uwe topic than I've managed.

"Happy Sabrina" ...This movie-widget and homepage (too disturbing for work) fit in nicely with the running weird sheeeit from Japan theme. The shots of solitary cosplay in public make me think the guy is getting the same kind of visceral thrill that comes from streaking. Not that there's anything wrong with that. To clarify though, most Japanese people have the same look on their face about this that you're probably wearing. If you're not yet weirded out, here's a thong-backed shot.The subject line comes from a clasic caption from jwz (thanks, slinka!)

For the people who are still drinking the Apple Kool Aid (like me), here are iChat tips and tricks, and then some.

Take this popular (though a little old) Insanity Test. (Warning: Audio)

Warren Ellis' pre-Columbine, unpublished Hellblazer.

Marc writes that the Bush II regime wants to take the (intentionally) largely unskilled fast food and reclassify it as a manufacturing job (NYT, free reg required).

Classifications matter, the report says, because among other things, they can affect which businesses receive tax relief. "Suppose it was decided to offer tax relief to manufacturing firms," the report said. "Because the manufacturing category is not well defined, firms would have an incentive to characterize themselves as in manufacturing. Administering the tax relief could be difficult, and the tax relief may not extend to the firms for which it was enacted."

Having read Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, this is doubly troubling. Once for Marc's stated concern, which is that the current US regime wants bigger numbers in more desirable jobs, and are basically sodomizing the numbers to do so. The other concern would be that it gives any more advantage to an already overindulged corporation structure: that of the fast food franchise. (e.g. These corporations enjoy a sizeable tax credit for "training" their employees, despite the fact that workers do not learn skills at at a burger joint that carry into future employment, and the fact that all McD's machinery is designed for as-close-to-zero learning curve as possible, and despite their remarkable employee turnover rate.) It makes me want to run in the street and shout "Soylent Green is your economic future!" (via Misanthropicity)

Here is Casshern, a "live-action anime" with an intriguing trailer. Useful info from Eternal Gaze:
Live action Casshern movie, an adaptation of the Shinzo Ningen Casshern anime TV series(...)
Incarnations:

• 1970s live action super hero programme
  
• 1973: 35 episode anime TV series.
  
• 1993: 4 episode anime OAV series in 1993.

It looked familiar, and now I know why; this is an adolescents' cartoon that's being given a gritty update, à la Batman's first two cinematic treatments. Very exciting. I'm reading the Japanese site, a pre-caffeinated process that is open to much definitional slippage, and it appears that Kiriya Kazuaki is managing the story, photography, and directing. Previously he was in charge (Japanese google-cache, FWIW) of the group doing Utada Hikaru's most recent (read: "best") music videos: Sakura Drops, Traveling, and Final Distance. This gives me new hope for what otherwise could be another schlock aidoru-movie. (I encountered this twice in 24 hrs, first via DPH (I was dumpster-diving in the archives), and once by JP)

Lisa Jonte and MP Mann's Arcane Jane, a webcomic in the vein of Kiki's Delivery Service as rendered by Matt Wagner (via Girl-a-matic)(Thanks, Justine!)

This is not Knoppix-for-Windows-fans, but BartPE, a CD-ROM bootable version of Windows may be useful in all kinds of data-recovery and diagnostic situations. (via ShellExtensionCity)

This service offers an autoconverter from Atom to RSS. Readers using non-Atom-compliant aggregators may now use the new link provided in the sidebar. (via Lockergnome's RSS Resources)

Labels: administrivium, web

Barenaked Ladies is using exclusive Red-vs-Blue footage in their concerts. Usually when people find out I like BNL, they make a poo-poo face. Now I can say, "No, they're cool. They use existential parodies of war, made from videogame footage, in their concerts. And it's funny. And they've got an RSS feed. So they're cool." (via fark)

Traffic Island Discs is a radio programme about music, people and spaces. We roam the streets looking for people wearing headphones, stop them, and interview them while recording whatever they are listening to. The result is a half hour tour of an area of London, heard through people's personal tastes and rhythms. (via Futurismic)

The Maxim UK issue featuring Christina Aguilera's pool photoshoot, the bikini briefs she wore (mistakenly referred to as a "thong" -- it's not a thong; hiking my shorts into my ass doesn't turn boxers into a thong), and some of the water she sat in (in a small sealed tub) are for sale on eBay. (via fark)

Update: the auction's gone. I peeked back one more time, and the seller was posting a number of backpeddling comments about how it wasn't guaranteed to be the same panties as the ones from the photoshoot, etc, etc. If there's anything worse than used bathwater and panties, it's FAKE used bathwater and panties. Sheesh.

The JSDF troops deployed to Iraq will be stationed in a new, high-tech compound, part "Fortress of Solitude," part Korean bang. (via fark)(yes, this is a duplicate of my Futurismic post; I'm rationalizing it since this blog has been on a Japan tear lately...)

I'm a fan of Elf Only Inn, so I was sad when it went on hiatus. I had meant to check back in, but apparently flailed the Snooze Bar, since it came back with new stuff in November.

Coca Cola's Japanese branch will soon be making a beer-flavored drink. Since I'm a fan of somewhat more flavorful beers, I'd argue that most Japanese beer only qualifies as a beer-flavored drink. This one has less than 1% alcohol though, so it is to beer as "Hi-C Orange" is to Odwalla orange juice. (via fark)

And just to compensate for the subject line: Hyakugojuuichi! (Turn up those speakers, space-monkeys!)

iDuck USB Memory Storage Device

An aged museum of sexual oddity in Japan. Yes, they're weird. Yes, they're uncommon. No, they're not popular. (...or they'd be common. Yes, somehow the weird j-stuff is flowing heavily this week.) (random LJ via Tribe via TheOtherMichael)

Labels: nsfw

Bastard Pop is the mixing of two or more songs with each other, and/or adding new content to the mix. This is still just catching on in the US, from what I hear, as opposed to Europe where it is old news. The recent, oppressive activities on the part of copyright industry are likely to blame. Or maybe there are just so many versions of Missy Elliot's "Work It" that the average human can hear on the road to finding gems like Freelance Hellraiser's "Just Can't Get Enough Pills," Dsico's "Block Rockin' Woman," or the anonymous, joyful Eminem vs. Magnum P.I. mashup "Without Magnum." To those humans, I feel their pain, but say unto them keep digging long enough, and you will find gold.

Friends in San Francisco have been able to attend BOOTIE! (photos, photos, photos) - a club event championing this outlaw music form. The last one was on Feb. 10th, and the next one will be Wednesday, March 10, Cherry Bar & Lounge. There's also a new club thing starting (from the maillist): "And for those of you looking for a little mash-up fix before our next BOOTIE party on , be sure to come to the GRAND OPENING of our new club, GUILTY. GUILTY is happening this FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20 -- and every Friday after that -- at the STUD, at 9th & Harrison in San Francisco. It's being presented by ourselves, along with Suppositori Spelling, and it's gonna be a "bastard pop rock electro hiphop whatever" party. Mr. Anthony from Glama-Rama will also be spinning. Adrian and the Mysterious D will be sure to throw quite a few mash-ups into their sets!"
I'd go if I could, but I'm not even on the right continent. (thanks, astra)

Labels: mashup, music

Wired News: If You Come, They Will Build It - Few things get my motor going more than Legos. Reasonable, friendly news coverage with professional photos of Legos are as welcome as they are rare.

The Technoman track, from Infrared Riding Hood reminds me a lot of Strongbad's techno "The System Is Down..." (go to the musical note menu).
DPH is featuring all manner of odd, independent musicians all this week. Get over there and find something you like!

Update: I really like Thalassocracy's Fever Dreams.

Labels: music

Japanese Giant Boner Festival. I don't know where this festival is, and I suspect it's real (not some product of an industrious photoshopper). (via The Stealth Tribe)

A good list. (thanks, TimK!)

Photoshop farkfest of Disney changing pwnership. (via boingboing)

I enjoy Powell's Review-a-Day feature, which send a review each day to an address of my choosing. I get mine on my phone, which frequently provides me with a brief read when I've forgotten to bring a book with me somewhere. R-a-D is a frequent source of insight into things that I would otherwise not be reading.

The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers -- and What They Expect in Return
by Charles Lewis
(A review by Gerry Donaghy)

In a publishing season that has seen the number of George Dubya books published explode exponentially (love him or hate him, the man is a publishing gold mine), it is quite refreshing to see what, in my opinion, has to be one of the most non-partisan books on politics out there. The Buying of the President 2004 by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity is essential election time reading.

To set the stage for the upcoming elections, Lewis examines the many mistakes that were made in the 2000 presidential election. From Republican election officials who greeted with a shrug the accidental purging of thousands of eligible voters from the voting rolls, to the Democrats who attempted to have absentee ballots cast by overseas military personnel thrown out, few stones are left unturned.

From there Lewis examines the financial entanglements that mire the political process. This book is like having a smoke-filled room in the palm of your hand. Not only does it reveal who donated money to which candidate, it also illuminates a little discussed practice called bundling, where individual contributors can skirt their way around the $1,000 maximum contribution by agreeing in writing to raise $100,000 by soliciting 100 friends and family to contribute $1,000 each. In the George W. Bush parlance, this makes you a Pioneer, if you can get 200 contributions, you can be called a Ranger. Everybody has an agenda, and it's easy to see whose favors are being returned through legislation.

Without explicitly stating this, the authors drive home the point that politics in America is a flawed system, where voting means finding a candidate whose agenda closely matches yours or at least picking the candidate that disgusts you least. In an election where it seems like the Democratic nominee will be picked solely on the basis of whether he can beat George W. in the fall or not, this book is required reading. ...

Things that I'm about to read, but haven't yet. (Using my blog to bookmark later stuff):
Technorati generates a listing of the most-blogged items on Amazon.
StandAlone RSS aggregator for PalmOS (though Plucker seems to do a similar thing for free with HTML)
O'Reilly Conference notes: Why tech/dev/research teams need more women on them.

Things I've Looked at But About Which I Haven't Formed Anything Clever to Say
For those who are interested, Hedr's Book List.
On the other end of the scale, good christ, can't we go kick North Korea's ass, please? Crimes against humanity, and biological weapon research, ga-fucking-lore. If Saddam was in need of having his people liberated, Kim Il Jong's subject are all up for free trips to a buffet and a day-pass to Disneyland.

(via p-a)

Ghibli's next film is Howl's Moving Castle, based on a western novel. Out in November here. (via Japan Tribe)

This guy rants about DRM better than I can. (via boingboing)

Finally, a shop for all my wayward needs.

TV ad-vert-is-ments that should be real: Turnpike Films: Spots (thanks, JP!)

What is RSS? - Lockergnome's RSS Resource I enjoyed this happy, though slightly flippantly ended response to the common question "What is RSS?" I hope it becomes just "Subscribe" as a link on pages, and that proper RSS handling happens soon. On my Mac, clicking on an RSS feed in Safari drops me into my separate aggregator (NetNewsWire Lite) and opens the Add New Feed dialog with the link in it. Now if someon could point out to me what the MyYahoo! RSS module is, and how I can use it, I'd be obliged to go back to that site instead of directly into Yahoo! Mail everyday.

[+] 0 comments  

(via fark)

Pierce Brosnan may not be coming back to the role of 007 for the 21st James Bond film. I'm probably the only guy who liked Dalton better than Brosnan in the role. (via fark, which now has an RSS feed)

Cory Doctorow has released the text of his "eBooks are Neither E nor Books" speech for free, under a Creative Commons license -- before even he left the stage. (via futurismic)

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Second Gig (Season 2) is just about to have its DVD release in Japan. There is also good news for American fans: Bandai is distributing it with Manga Video come June 27, 2004. There is also a promotional site planned, but its currently only a placeholder. (thanks, m. christian)

Slashdot | Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo Released: Great! Another game that won't run on my less-than-one-year-old PC. This sub-thread points out

There must be about as many PC's that can actually handle this game as there are macs. It's not like my dad's P-II 400 with a matrox G200 is going to be able to handle this.

That's actually an interesting point. The specs on games these days are pretty insane compared to the average PC in the family home. Even if a family has a, say, 1.4GHz machine in the home (and I'd guess way less than half of homes is at that level), it probably has a really crappy video card in it.. or even on-board video. This means that 90%+ of machines out there can barely play these games at 20fps in 640x480.

Given this, it really seems like the PC games industry is propped up by gaming die-hards.. whereas the console gaming market is propped up by everyone who owns one. Perhaps we should all remember this when we start bitching about the gaming freaks who mod their cases crazy all the time.. it's these guys who keep the PC industry in games ;-)

I disagree with this stance. I think PC games makers need to realize that by requiring bleeding edge technology, they're limiting their potential consumer base to the people who are willing to be caught in an endless cycle of hardware upgrades, replacements, patches, and Windows reinstalls. Basically, PC hobbyists, as opposed to console owners, whose demographic more likely resembles a standard consumer group. When I first loaded HalfLife on my 333MHz PC, which had not been altered a lick since I'd purchased it, it wouldn't run. I had to install new graphics drivers for my videocard, and the latest version of Direct X. The moments spent downloading and installing those over dialup, then crossing my fingers during the reboot, hoping that it hadn't flonked my machine, were very harrowing -- and I'm reasonably comfortable fooling around with my machine! How do tech-normals feel about messing with their machine? Most people who buy a PC are going to get a few games from that season, then never play PC games again, because developers are shooting for TOO HIGH a spec.

Turning 51 tomorrow. You may now insert tried and true reflections on mortalityin the form of homilies about aging well, the beauty of autumn, a mature perspective on life, and how while one blossom from the tree falls, another blooms, and all that crap. I just read in Patrick O'Brian: "the caution of the elderly, proverbial" or something very like that. I'm not elderly yet, but getting more cautious. It's a desire not to screw up so much as in the past. One cliche I fully embrace, like a grandma kissing a hallmark card from her granddaughter, is "If only I knew then what I know now." This cliche is not however fraught with Hallmark-card-style sentim entality, but is instead redolent of regret, ruefulness, even remorse. If I get into that mood, reflections on my past become one long HOmer-Simpson-going-"DOH!" Man if only I'd known how to speak to editors, record producers (John Hammond Sr for Christ's sake! He wanted to make a record with me and I fucked it up!), if only I'd known to watch myself, to observe myself mindfully, so that I *think* before blurting, why then, two of my former best friends (one quite famous) would still be my friends.
What's that you say? Unattractive whining in a public forum?AN utter waste of time? I'm supposed to say I regret nothing, I did it MYYYYY way? Horseshit. Remorse is the first ingredient for self transformation. It's like an alchemical solvent that softens material otherwise too ossified to be re-shaped. I believe in regret--up to a point. NOt to the point of self destructive wallowing, no. But there's a kind of personal Lent or something at times in life. (read more...)
-John Shirley

Bitter late than never:

1. Jedi's lie | Anakin gets examined by Qui-Gon for midichlorians. When Anakin asks why he's being examined, Qui-Gon lies to him, saying he's just checking for an infection. Why not just say, "I'm looking into something," or "I'm curious about your lucky nature," or anything other than just outright lying to him. And if Anakin's so down with the Force, why can't he tell the old dog is lying to him?
   
2. Midichlorians | The Force that Obi-Wan promoted in 1977 was an egalitarian, come-one-come-all affair that anyone could benefit from. Now it's based on some scientifically quantifiable critter that only a few people possess. So who's in the club, and who's out, George?
   
3. Home Alone Syndrome | Star Wars, the first movie that came out, in 1977 managed to appeal to kids just fine. I know; I was 9. Why do we need to see a little kid's wish-fulfillment fantasy writ large this time, only included to so transparently appeal directly to kids?
   
4. Jedi's lie | Included again for good measure. It's hard to describe how much this bothered me. Though it's not like Obi-Wan was entirely truthful in the first movies, you know, "from a certain point of view."
   
5. Bad tech | The first three movies that were made may have invented some science like "hyperspace" to deal with shooting all over known space without relativity affecting them. And sure, we've never really figured out how lightsabers work, as contained beams of solid plasma. These are high-order mysteries that are beyond the ken of the viewer to judge. Instead of following that high road, Lucas made some simply horrible tech in the prequels. Because Anakin is good with jet-go-carts, he is able to fly a military craft from the surface, into a pitched, multicombatant battle, into the interior of a command ship, and take it out. Okay, no problem. Luke did similar stuff in the first movie, rapidly upgrading from Landspeeder to X-Wing. What kills me is that once the command ship is gone, the Battle Droids and all their gear stop working. Maybe there was some desired symbolism there, but it just looked like stupid tech.
   
6. No one is actually acting | Lucas assembled a number of talented actors, then cobbled them through some inhuman-tech-editing means. There's one scene with Liam Neeson nodding at the words of Anakin's mom. It looks like he has NO idea what he's nodding at. Most of the movie feels this way to me.
   
7. CG for CG's sake | Computer graphics are all over Ep. 1 like white on rice. Except for some of the photo-matting in the original, the analog FX from 1977 don't look horrible today. Not great, sure, but not horrible. Putting so much CG into the movies just because really dates the look of the movie. There is no subtlety or grace in their application. Which brings me to:
   
8. Jar Jar | Perhaps a mandatory inclusion, and perhaps covered sufficiently in both "CG for CG's sake" and "Home Alone" which answers the rhetorical: for what reason was this ass-hat included in the movie? His lighting looks bad, the movement of the body is unnatural, his accent is equal parts offensive and incomprehensible.
   
9. Inbreeding | From the first Star Wars movie onward, the background was lush, and continued getting more complex. Mon Mothma's line "Many Bothans... died... to bring us this information" inspired a slew of backround speculation. Who are Bothans?! Where do they fit in?! In contrast, every scene from Ep. 1 feels like a replay from the first movie. By sending us to Tatooine for most of the movie, it feels more tired than a nostalgic. Why does Anakin have to be C3PO's "Maker"? Every plot turn only serves to make the world seem more claustrophobically confining.
   
10. L.......A.........G......... | George Lucas made us wait 16 years for a sequel, re-released all the Special Editions of the first three movies just to practice special-effect-fu (managing to fuck up the Greedo scene in the process), and somehow screwed up almost everything he'd previously got right.

I think Episode Two was a lot closer to being a "real" star wars movie. Most of the crap in the list above is not present in Ep. 2, so maybe Lucas will go back and cut a Very Special Edition of Ep. 1, and fix it all... Then erase my memories, and help me regain my lost sense of childhood wonder. (imdb)

Update: GL talks about additional changes he will be making to the classic movies for the DVD release.
Update 2: Exclusive, leaked shot of the new footage from SW:ESB Hoth sequence. (via boingboing)

An interesting, critical, and honest essay on copyright by Orson Scott Card. It is particularly of note, because Card relies on copyright to make his living; his insight on the motivation of large corporations in protecting "creator's rights" is funny, in a causing-crying-on-the-inside kind of way. If you strip out all the reason, and leave the rant and maniacal laughter portion of it, you'll be left with my take on it.

The RIAA wants to sue anyone who is sharing a significant number of copyrighted songs on their machine. They've started. As is mentioned in this article, some people are not even aware they're committing a crime; KaZaA's interface and commercial availability make it seem to be some form of subscription service; it's certainly not unthinkable. If stopping file trading, and raising public awareness was their goal, one would think they'd be more interested in pursuing solutions, instead of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt, while treating potential customers and allies as criminals. While a few groups strike back a the organizations that seek to dictate what we can hear or see, and how we can do it. But by and large, while the RIAA and Hollywood studios author the next "filesharing as theft" meme, and add more and more broad definitions of ownership and property, and what accounts for damage against them in an already legally oppressive environment, the public myself included is sitting in stunned silence.

What is wrong with this picture? We are on the brink of a new world, with new definitions of things, and how to interact with them. We should be exploring the myriad of ways that we can personally control media, and share it with others. Though I'm not a fan of the end product, Evolution Control Committee's Rocked by Rape is an impressive, artistic commentary, combining of the overly present media in our lives, and the effect that it seeks to have on each and every one of us. But the distribution of that commentary is seen as "infringing" by the source of the samples. Is it fair legal use? As parody, it should be. As each of the samples is short than 3 seconds, it should be left alone as well (obligatory IANAL insert).

Meanwhile, radio has been overtaken by a monopoly -- the purportedly public airwaves have been leased and bought out, dominated by Clearchannel, a single ruling company who now has control over most of what is available to hear for free on the radio. Along comes internet radio, offering nearly unlimited alternative channels to anyone with an internet connection. Finally, with the advent of a new broadcast medium, choice is returned. Do Clearchannel and the RIAA want their long-ago established two-man flim-flam scam to lose its only-act-in-(any)-town effectiveness? It seems unlikely.

SCO wants money for intellectual property rights to UNIX, and have invented a new "IP license" to Unix, so even if a user is not using any SCO UNIX on their linux boxen, they are paying for the IP-rights to use a UNIX-style OS on their machine. Or is that right anymore? SCO changes their professed motivation at least once a week, so I don't know if the above is true anymore.

The Japanese X-Box campaign that focuses on delivering X-Box style pizza boxes has several problems. First, the actual X-Box is larger than a pizza box; someone might get on them for false advertising. There is a new zen koan here: "There is a shelf of poor construction in the used game shop, and an X-Box of infinite weight; how does the shelf remain standing?" Second issue: "The pizza will be split into four parts from the middle to mark an “X” on the pie. Customers can chose different preset topping combinations on each of the four separated pieces (including the interesting-sounding but very common egg and tuna or chicken teriyaki and mayonnaise combos; relatively normal toppings on pizzas in Japan)."

USA Today reports that software sales have been plummeting for some time, though they are careful to note that this is a retail storefront phenomenon. "On the software side, the messy numbers may suggest more about the state of retail than about the programs, maintains Jeffrey Tarter, editor of the Softletter industry newsletter. "If you go to a store with a particular product in mind, you almost never find it," he says. "Buying software online is about the only serious option if you know what you want."" What's more, virus protection software sales are up, but educational s/w sales are wayyyy down. The NPD-oid states that educational s/w doesn't lend itself to a constant stream of upgrades, and is frequently just used as a hand-me-down. Knowing what a large portion of the market young gamers play, and how computer-savvy they can be, it's hard to agree. It's more likely that educational s/w development simply isn't benefiting from the budget and marketing effort that is put behind entertainment s/w, and new types of educational s/w are being insufficiently researched.

The Other Michael is a constant source for legacy technology; remnants of the past that appear in the present, standing out like a sore thumb in some cases, coasting under the radar in others. Most recently he pointed me at two items of interest:

• ElectriClerk, a prop for a Call of Cthulu game that is a mixed-signal of UI if there ever was one: it looks like the user-hostile, arcane machines from Terry Gilliam's Brazil, but has an Apple Macintosh at its heart.
• A working manual typewriter, modified to be used as a PC keyboard. "It works."

In characters the same size as you see them here, Gamespot's DLX, has denied me the exclusive content for Dungeon Siege. Essentially, it appears I not only have to own the Dungeon Siege game and its "Legends of Aranna" expansion, but also have to be running Windows XP. It doesn't matter than I'm a Gamespot Complete subscriber. Can anyone explain this in a way that won't make me angry? I hope all five people that have XP, DS, LoA, and GameSpot access enjoy the patch.

Tower Records has declared bankruptcy:

Over forty years later stiff competition from retailers such as Wal-Mart, Virgin Megastores and Best Buy, coupled with high lease costs, drove it into heavy debt.
This was compounded by the growing problem of digital downloading and file copying which has been plaguing the music industry.
BBC article

It is difficult to muster sympathy when Tower, who has leased extensive floorspace in some of the most expensive cities in the world, trots out the Piracy bogeyman to blame. Instead, the whole record biz needs to look at a pricing restructure, roll-your-own album options. How cool would it be to have an iTunes kiosk in a record store that would burn a CD of the tunes you want, and spit out a customized cover? Instead we get DRM'd discs that will lock up our computers, and not allow us to listen to tracks in our own local MP3 libraries. The drop in sales is arguable according to some people, but even if it's true, is it any wonder that no-one's buying?

Labels: music

46.153855 - Super Geek. I think there are points awarded just by being willing to finish the damned thing.

My soon to be nephew is 2 years old, and stalks the house taunting the word, CREEPER. With his eyes wide open, and his hands up in claw fashion, he makes his presence knows as one of the cutest creepy kids on the planet. I remixed his CREEPER taunt, and rubbed a little funk in it.
--aub32 | page, song

Labels: music

10 Technologies That Deserve to Die was only a moderately interesting piece compared to some MIT TechReview pieces. However, the follow-ups in the forum are more abundant than expected. Trust outdated tech to bring out the hordes of luddite nitpickers...

Sony has introduced the Qualia line of goods for people with more money than God. The Shinsaibashi Sony Tower has the 6th floor devoted to this new line of technophile goods. The most impressive item so far is the Qualia 016, a 69 x 24 x 17 mm (2.7 x 0.9 x 0.7 in) camera. It is apparently the realization of a 2000 prototype.

I'm reminded of the only funny line in the "I SPY" movie trailer, where Owen Wilson exclaims something along the lines of, "In the spy world, size is everything! Except it's the opposite of the penis thing; for spy stuff you say, 'o! my god, that's so sexy; it's so small!'"

Promotional, life-sized pillow of DOA's Kasumi in a bikini. (via source)

I just finished Beyond Good and Evil (I played the PS2 version, though it's available on everything except WonderSwan). I still don't know what the title's reference to Nietzsche's treatise is all about. Maybe the French got confused when they were in their Marketing sessions? Apparently it didn't sell well in the otherwise swamped Christmas game market. I've read that it's marked down to US$29 for all platforms. If you haven't bagged it yet, I recommend picking it up before it's swept off the shelves.

It's the most fun I've had playing a game since GTA, and I don't even have to feel weird about the kind of thrills it provides. There are several types of gameplay represented, and each of them feels well represented. The primary style is stealth gameplay, with some exploration relating to puzzle solution, and taking pictures. None of the puzzles was so difficult as to require checking an online FAQ, but some were a close call. The primary goal of all levels is to stealthily get Jade, the main character, into an otherwise well-guarded spot, and take a picture as evidence for Jade's underground newspaper report. This involves R1-triggering the camera-mode, moving both analog sticks for framing and zooming in-or-out, a