2008 [chat]

A new year. A new pulldown menu. A new [chat].

Real ID

Real ID

This is going to be a nightmare...

Rez - Most of a Decade Later

Over Christmas break I happened to find a used copy of Rez (PS2) at a GameStop, and I did not hesitate even a moment before I picked it up and walked to the register with it. I knew I was lucky to find the game, but that's all I really knew about it. I'd never played it or seen it played or really even read much about it. I just knew that it's one of those games that you seize at the first opportunity.

Now I've "finished" the game, that is to say, played all of the levels included in what can liberally be called the story mode, and I think that the game is rather well worth the hype which was sufficiently positive to cause me to buy it as though programmed to do so.

For those of you who are, as I was, largely ignorant of how the game works, I would say that it is at it's core a rail shooter. Your character flies ever forward and your task is to move the targeting reticule and press the fire button to shoot down enemies that enter your field of view. Holding down the fire button while moving the target over enemies will queue up to eight shots, which will fire simultaneously when the button is released and hit all eight of the targets you selected. There is also an overdrive which, when engaged, will automatically target and fire upon all enemies on the screen for a few seconds.

And that's about it in terms of game play. The appeal of the game, however, is in the music and the sound effects. There is a pulsating beat that underlies each level, and a bit of pre-recorded tecno music running throughout the game, but the music is played largely by the player. Pressing the fire button makes a sort of synthesized clapping sound and your ammunition sounds like notes played on a synthesizer. Instead of making an exploding sound when they're shot down, enemies make the sounds of different instruments, the result of all this being that during especially pitched battles you are in effect free styling a bit of techno over the existing beat.

There is one boss fight in particular where a large disco-ball looking thing is floating around and the player shoots out the mirrors, which make an interesting sound, and sometimes missiles fly out of the top, and they sound like synth-drums when they explode, and then tentacles come out and they sound like cymbals, and when you've shot out half of them, the pre-recorded music beings to crescendo and when the last of the tentacles explodes, the music climaxes and the disco-ball reforms and the process begins again. That boss fight encapsulates, I think, what is so appealing about Rez.

It's so awesome, and it's on the XBL arcade soon, so please find a way to at least give it a try.

Which is the bigger problem - knowing what is the right thing to do, or doing it?

I just had an email conversation with my sister-in-law that started with her asking the Title and ended with the question below. And, at this point. I don't know what to say anymore.

I wonder to what extent people are more burdened by their weakness of will than by their inability to determine the proper action. Furthermore, in the case of akrasia, where does the breakdown take place? Has the agent misevaluated his own desires when he says "I want to stop smoking" but continues puffing away? Does he indeed not really want to stop smoking? Or does he want to stop smoking, he has adequately determined the right thing to do...the problem lies in implementing that desire?

WUSB and Transferjet

Sometimes I think that a universal adopting of BetaMax would have been a good thing. Sure, for home video use BetaMax is far worse than VHS. But perhaps if the world had adopted BetaMax then Sony would not have developed their asinine inferiority complex which makes them constantly release new proprietary systems to replace technology we already have.

This is what happened. Agere Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, NEC Corporation, Philips and Samsung got together to develop WUSB, a new wireless USB standard to solve the "problem" of using wires to connect things. So, guess what Sony did. I'll give you a hint: Sony Developed their own wireless USB system.

Rather than tell you, my faithful readers, what is wrong with this I'll simply post the stats for these systems.

Wireless USB
Frequency Band: 3.1 GHz～10.6 GHz
Transfer Speed per distance: 480 Mbit/s (3 m) / 110 Mbit/s (10 m)

TransferJet
Frequency: 4.48GHz
Transfer Speed per distance: 560Mbps (max)/ 375Mbps (effective) (3 cm)

Note: "Mbit/s" and "Mbps" mean the same thing. "m" and "cm" do not mean the same thing.

Did you see the problem? Wireless UBS works over distances of 10 meters. TransferJet works over distances of 3 centimeters. And if we level the proverbial playing field and use each from a distance of 3 centimeters? Well, TranferJet will transfer at 375 Mbps (or 560. I'm not sure what "max" and "effective" are supposed to denote) and Wireless USB will transfer at 480 Mbps, if not faster.

If the tech specs alone were not funny enough we then get to read Sony's Press Release.

"Just touch two electronic products together and files are transferred automatically."

Wow! Rather than connect two devices together via a wire I instead get to touch them to one another?! I don't know if my heart can take such a gigantic technological leap forward!

"TransferJet eliminates the complex setup procedures required by existing wireless systems, and no access point is necessary."

I plug my digital camera into my laptop and Windows automatically loads the drivers and allows me to browse the camera as an external drive. To whom is this process complex?

"Furthermore, users are also able to register their electronic products to enable TransferJet to recognize specific products. For example, by registering only the devices within their household, users can prevent external data leakage."

So, wait. You've replaced Windows automatically loading drivers, which was apparently complex, with a new Sony Registration system? Oh boy!

"Operation is also very intuitive"

When Sony says something is "intuitive" what they mean is that it is intuitive for a Sony employee. So you have to remember that when presented with WUSB Sony's intuitive response was to develop their own system.

Hopefully one of these days Sony will release a new proprietary type of oxygen to compete with our mundane, functional variety of oxygen. Then they can require their employees to utilize the new Sony brand oxygen, they all die of asphyxiation, and we won't have to deal with them fucking things up anymore.

LoL Weebles.

Optimistic.

Last week it was "news" when Bush said he was optimistic about the economy despite, you know, reality. Today it is "news" that Bush is optimistic about his Mideast peace treaty despite, you know, reality.

NEWSFLASH: Bush is always optimistic!

Ok? It's not news. In all situations George W. Bush will always have unaccountably high levels of ditch-fucking-stupid optimism. ALWAYS.

War in Iraq? Optimism. Economy? Optimism. Global Warming? Optimism. MidTerm elections? Optimism. Howard Dean is standing behind him with a spiked dildo and a ball gag? Optimism.

This is not to say that optimism itself is detrimental or problematic. It can be useful to have an optimistic attitude. The problem is when baseless optimism is the manner by which decisions are made. "I'm sure the economy will turn around." is not a strategy. "I'm sure there will be peace in the middle east." is not a plan; it is not a basis for making decisions or determining policy. It is a comment about an attitude, a viewpoint.

It is also not informative. "I'm optimistic about the economy" says not one god damned thing about the economy. When George W. Bush says that he is optimistic it does not mean that he knows something; that he is informed and upon that information is based his viewpoint. No. He's just always fucking optimistic.

So stop fucking reporting Bush's optimism. It is in all ways meaningless. It does not give us a basis by which we can guess at what will come. It does not give us facts. Reporting Bush's optimism is merely reporting that our jackoff stupid president is still, in fact, jackoff stupid.

Fuck, if planes were headed towards the World Trade Center? Bush would still be optimistic. Though, in that case, the resulting catastrophe would give him something to exploit. So maybe in that one particular case his optimism is well-founded and useful.

If only for himself.