Author Archives: Filemon

May 14 2009
Technology

On the go

Mobile blogging. Not just pico blogging or sending email to a secret address in wordpress. No, I’ve really wanted a solution for a while.

Getting a phone with a qwerty keyboard, while a start, isn’t exactly the most ideal way of writing a long piece.

The more I play with the e71, however, the more I find that I’m really enjoying the unlocked aspect of it.

Take this post, for example.

I’m using an Alphasmart NEO, which is essentially a word processor. It’s got an IR port on it. I’m going to send this text via infrared to the phone where it will be saved as a note.

From the note, I’ll select all (ctrl-A) then copy and paste (ctrl-C, and ctrl-V, respectively) into the wordpress mobile dashboard in the phone’s web browser.

If you’re reading this, then it worked.

How awesome is that?

May 13 2009
Uncategorized

Star Trek

The earliest memories I have of Star Trek, are of me watching The Original Series.

I remember the lazy Sunday afternoons where the Channel 6 would air Star Trek.  They were reruns, but I watched it every Sunday.  Occasionally, it would be back to back episodes of Star Trek followed by a Godzilla movie.  Those were really good days.

I remember Spock’s Brain, and the creature made out of silicon.  Mudd’s women and Charlie and his crazy powers.  I remember the Pon Farr and crazy goateed versions of the crew.  And then there was the Nazi Germany episode.

Yeah.

Most prevalent in my recollections is the fight music.  I recall hearing that quite a bit in Trek “Classic.”  Bum bum BUM BUM BUM BUM BUMBUM bum bum.

Star Trek was my first real introduction to the deeper themes that could be explored in science fiction.  The people who were white on one side and black on the other hating the other “race” of people that were white and black on the opposite sides.  Not too subtle, but probably fairly controversial in the late 1960s.

Kind of similar to how BattleStar Galactica managed to have an entire season based in Palestine New Caprica.

Ahem.

But Star Trek, the new movie has none of that.  That’s not a strike against it by any means.  What it does have is a solid plot, characters that manage to be both faithful and new at the same time, and they manage to do a little trick which works it into the canon while managing to act as a reboot.

And I bought that bit, which was astonishing to me.  I mean, they presented it in such a way that I couldn’t stop from chuckling in the theater, but I still gladly suspended my disbelief and had a great time with the movie.

This is a day one purchase for me, with a showing at movie night that week.  It’s that good.

May 12 2009
Uncategorized

City of Heroes: Going Rogue

I’ve been playing City of Heroes, fairly regularly for five years now.

What keeps me coming back?

I think part of it has to do with the setting.  Superpowers in a modern day city.  Hero or Villain, you can choose either side.  Its comic book sensibilities appeal to me in many ways.  There is an insane amount of customization, so I can get characters to look the way I want.  A space for you to write the character’s biography in game that other people can read.

Then there’s the fact that I can play the game and not be bored.  The combat, while simple, is just fun to play.

I guess another aspect that keeps me coming back is that I’m often entertained by the other players, as opposed to fed up with them.  Every now and again, I’ll meet another Hero or Villain with a real background to them.  I’ll look at their carefully constructed character bio and they act in game accordingly.

And now they’ve announced the second full expansion to the game, Going Rogue.  Now characters have an alignment system and can fall somewhere between Hero and Villain.  Additionally, in true comic book style, they reveal a mirror universe as an entirely different game world.

Looks like there are a few more years in the City of Heroes for me.

May 11 2009
Games

Killzone 2: Multiplayer

I didn’t really get into Killzone 2’s multiplayer until recently.

As befitting a game titled “Killzone 2” you are invariably and unregrettably placed into a zone where you are then encouraged to kill people.  It’s true, the title hides no secrets.  One can also deduce that it’s a sequel, if you scour the text carefully.

As a sequel, the game is definitely in that rare category where it excels in every way from its predecessor.  It is a remarkably polished title.  Even the loading screens are innovative, using the sixaxis controls to just barely tilt the image, so that you can see that it is a three dimensional diorama.  Killzone 2 has jumped a console generation in its journey.  It benefits from both better hardware and better design choices.

Visually, I was most impressed by the little details.  Other players would kick up dust as they run in some of the desert levels.  If there were enough people, I could not see through it until the wind blew it away or I waited for a moment for it to settle.  You can shoot nearly everything and see some form of damage on it.

Multiplayer matches are 32 player, well, let’s see.  You’re placing 32 people into a confined area, dividing them into teams and giving them firearms.  I think you can see how this pans out.  Initially,  this many players sounds overwhelming, but very quickly, I saw that they had designed the game with this in mind.

The way that Killzone 2 handles these large groups is with squads.  Joining a squad provides many benefits.  The most primary of which is the capability of spawning on top of the squad leader.  If you’re working with a decent squad leader, that person will generally wait for their squad and move as a unit to perform their objectives.  If they run into unexpected resistance they’ll try to stay alive as long as possible and wait for the squad members to spawn back in.  Additionally, squads get their own channel, at least on the radar, my squad members were clearly marked so I knew where they were.

Overall, it’s a fun distraction from the single player portion of the game, which I have simply walked away from.  I really disliked one of the characters and I really just lost interest since he was there for so long.

But at least the multiplayer is good, for now.  Unlocking additional classes and abilities will probably keep me coming back, at least for the next couple of weeks or so on the weekends.

May 10 2009
Uncategorized

Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day!

Really there’s not much to say to all of the mothers, expectant mothers, mothers of mothers and everyone else that falls into this category other than people really should be treating them better every day.

I know that we all grow up and leave the nest, but we don’t need to regress into our former roles as child and parent.  Maybe we can, through dialogue and our actions show that we are coming int0 our own.  We are, in fact becoming equals in our society and should be treated accordingly.

That is, if our mothers let us.

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