Videogames: Gears of War

I purchased Gears of War last Wednesday but didn't get a chance to play until Friday night. Visually, it's fantastic. The audio kicks butt and the gameplay is very different.

I am used to First Person Shooters, starting with Doom and Marathon by Bungie (developers of Halo) on the Mac. This is a "third person shooter" and requires you to re-gear your brain a little bit. As one of the main engineers on the GoW development team, "Cliffy D" said, you can't do things on your own, you have to work with a team. Providing covering fire is more important than brazenly getting ahead of everyone else. Once your squad is killed, you're pretty much a goner too. I know because I've been slowly adapting from FPS to TPS the hard way.

All in all, GoW is a great "2nd year launch" title for the Xbox 360.

Next up, The Nintendo Wii.

The Launches Are On

On Saturday, November 11, 2006 Sony officially launched the Playstation 3 (PS3) in Japan. In two days, their entire supply of consoles were completely sold out! Wow! Oh...wait a minute...the real numbers are coming in...

88,400 PS3 systems sold. The big selling games were Ridge Racer 7 at 30,300 copies, Gundam Crossfire at 30,000 and Resistance: Fall of Man at 15,7000. According to Famitsu magazine in Japan, that's a ratio of 0.98 games for every PS3 sold.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo tend to sell their consoles at a loss or with extremely narrow margins and make up for those losses with game sales.

By comparison, Microsoft's Xbox 360 launched in Japan earlier this year, selling 62,135 units sold during the first two days.

The first person to buy a PS3 was a Chinese national and it turned out that most of the people in line at the store were other Chinese nationals, paid to buy the systems by someone. Later, a gentleman claimed to have 100 units for sale on eBay.

Oh yeah, and the next shipment of units for Japan aren't due until 2007.

It is claimed that 400,000 units will be available for the U.S. launch this Friday. Not a large number at all.

Nintendo will launch the Wii this Sunday in the United States. They are said to currently have at least 2 milliion units ready for launch. One report said that production was going so well, there should be over 4 million Wiis by Christmas, possibly 6 million.

Brand Bigot

I've been working with computers and electronics for a long time now. Like many tech geeks, I've become something of a "brand bigot". In other words, I like Netgear consumer-grade networking stuff, others out there prefer Linksys. I like Mac OS X, others like Windows XP or Vista. This is not to say I think one brand is soooo much better than the others. It means I like that brand for a particular set of reasons, mileage will vary.

That said, here are some brands I like in particular product categories:

Telephones: Panasonic
Cell Phone: Motorola, Nokia, Palm
Wireless Phone Service Provider: Verizon
Computers: Apple, Dell
Videogame Console: Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii
Printers: Hewlett-Packard
Cars: Honda
Televisions: Sony, Toshiba
PDA: Palm (but the PDA market is dying by way of smartphones)
MP3 Player: Apple iPod
Clothes: L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer
Department Store: Target

Kerry Is Obsessed

This Monday, he said this:

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Wow. Yes folks, once again, a politician does his able best to insert his foot into his mouth.

President Bush and others lost no time slamming Kerry for the comment, rightfully so.

Kerry went on the defensive asserting that the statement was actually a "botched joke" intended to focus on the president and not our troops.

According to one of his aides, Kerry was allegedly supposed to say,

"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

Even what he was supposed to say is stupid and callous. And all of this wasn't helped by his response to the White House.

"The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe..."

He's made this accusation many times and my response is always the same. How aren't we safe and name another terrorist action in the United States since 9-11-01.

And the rest of Kerry's response to the White House had problems as well.

"I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed-suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium..."

Hmmm...and Mr. Kerry isn't a stuffed-suit politician?

He further expressed disgust with "Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country."

Well, sir, John McCain not only wore a uniform, he was a prisoner of war who was tortured by the enemy. What a silly statement to make.

I'm going out on a limb here and would agree with Foreign Policy that Senator John Kerry seems to be a bit obsessed with regard to whether or not he is smarter than President Bush.

It is the kind of quote that the Republican machine feeds on. Personally, I buy Kerry's explanation that he was trying to insult Bush's intellect - not that of the troops. Any politician knows that bashing the men and women who serve is the dumbest thing a politician can do and Kerry himself is a veteran. Kerry also seems slightly obsessed with the question of whether he or Bush is smarter. Indeed, one can't help but wonder if he didn't release his Navy records during the campaign because they revealed that he actually got slightly worse grades at Yale than Bush did.

Indeed, Republicans are running wild with it and I expect Democrats to do the same if a Republican made a similar statement. Some Democrats are upset with Kerry for making this statement so close to Election Day and giving free ammunition to the Republicans. James Forsyth, who wrote the above-mentioned article, stated

Today there must be even fewer Democrats keen on Kerry '08.

Now, Democrats running for office this year have to go on record saying Kerry needs to apologize because they don't want to appear to be anti-soldiers. Oh yes, Kerry has clearly shot himself in the foot...again.


SOURCE

Armitage Says Sorry...Yeah, Right.

Richard Armitage says he's really sorry for leaking Valarie Plame's identity. To me, it's all crocodile tears.

The original Bob Novak news article naming Plame as a CIA operative was printed July 14, 2003. A major investigation was launched, a grand jury was convened. Several charges were handed out and only in September of 2006 did Armitage finally come forward and 'fess up.

Still, the original question that Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation was to answer remains unanswered: was the leak illegal? Sure, he handed down some charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying against Lewis Libby to look busy but if the answer is "No" then it was all a waste of time. Libby, of course, has had to spend money on a lawyer and has been steadfast in his claims of innocence. This seems to be largely borne out by the revalation and subsequent admission by Armitage of his role in the whole deal.

But hey, he's really sorry and he feels just terrible. I can only imagine what Libby must be saying to people and I'm sure it's not printable here.

SOURCE

When Good Boardrooms Go Bad

Not only did HP launch an investigation to find out which board member was leaking information to the press, the private investigators posed as board members to get access to those board members phone records.

This bit of action is known as pretexting. Here is how the federal government defines pretexting:

Pretexters use a variety of tactics to get your personal information. For example, a pretexter may call, claim he's from a survey firm, and ask you a few questions. When the pretexter has the information he wants, he uses it to call your financial institution. He pretends to be you or someone with authorized access to your account. He might claim that he's forgotten his checkbook and needs information about his account. In this way, the pretexter may be able to obtain personal information about you such as your Social Security number (SSN), bank and credit card account numbers, information in your credit report, and the existence and size of your savings and investment portfolios.

In other words, this is a major tool used by identity thieves and under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, is a federal crime.

Unfortunately, the P.I.s didn't stop there, they went after the phone records of journalists who were talking with the moles.

The state of California is investigating the crime and we'll see if arrests are made. This could lead all the way to the top.

A top Hewlett-Packard official indicated earlier this week that the effort to obtain phone records had begun in January 2006 after an article appeared on CNET with accounts of a Hewlett-Packard management meeting. Those revelations prompted H.P.’s chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, to order an investigation of leaks, and the company has conceded that subterfuge was used by a subcontractor to gain phone records in the investigation.

More than likely, we'll probably see Dunn announce that she will step down. And this is after the mess with the previous CEO. Oh so very messy.

In May, that investigation identified the board’s longest-serving member, George A. Keyworth II, as the source of the leak. He rebuffed a request to resign, but the company said he would not be renominated. Thomas J. Perkins, another board member, resigned in anger over the way the investigation was conducted. His efforts to get the company to acknowledge the reason for his departure led to this week’s disclosures.
[...]
CNET said Thursday that phone records of two of its reporters, Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit, had also been obtained. It said access to Ms. Kawamoto's records had been gained from the same Internet address used by the person who accessed the phone records of Mr. Perkins. A caller used the last four digits of her husband's Social Security number to establish an online account with AT&T to view the records. Access was gained on one date, in late January 2006, it said.

A CNET spokeswoman, Sarah Cain, said: "These actions not only violated the privacy rights of our employee, but also the rights of all reporters to protect their confidential sources."

Help take a bite out of crime, stop the pretexters!

Read

Woo Hoo, Woo Hoo-Hoo

Last Friday afternoon, I finally jumped on the Vonage bandwagon and signed up for service. Tuesday afternoon, I recieved the special hardware to connect between my computer and cable modem internet service. Tuesday night, everything was operational.

For roughly $27 per month (after taxes), I have unlimited local and long distance (U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada and some European locations) along with voicemail, caller ID and some fancy call forwarding options.

To get roughly the same service from my telephone service provider, Verizon, I would have to pay $50, and most of that fee was made up by local, state and federal taxes. Granted, it remains to be seen how long Vonage and other Voice over IP services will be able to keep their fees low but for now, I can deal.

So far, voice quality is great and even though Vonage supplied me with a virtual phone number for people to dial while my old phone number is ported from Verizon, I can dial to my old phone number and it will ring through.

Conceivably, I can take my Vonage router on the road with me and connect with a high-speed internet access point in the hotel or someone's house and still use the same phone number. Conceivable but not practical, especially since my cell phone provides unlimited long distance across the country. Then again, if I go overseas, this would be a cool thing. I really wish though, that a "soft phone" which would allow me to use my computer as a phone through the service was available without having to set up a whole new account.

My big question though is whether or not Verizon, while it still has ownership of my phone number, will try to tack on a charge for when I dial a long distance phone number from my Vonage service.

I decided to go with Vonage because some people I know already have the service and love it, there's lots of positive user reviews about voice quality at Cnet.com and other places and they are probably the most common consumer VoIP provider.

RIAA wants to go after dead defendant's children

Saw this at slash.dot:

..."In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to "grieve", after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury's children. Recording Industry vs The People have more details"

Seriously, what a bunch of cold-hearted bastards. I have seen the enemy and they is the RIAA.

Over 3,333 Launched

Hezbollah is said to have now fired 3,333 missiles into Israel.

James Joyner over at outsidethebeltway.com put it mildly, "That a terrorist group could amass such an arsenal is stunning."

Clearly, these jaspers are funded by big, big pockets.

Source: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/08/hezbollah_has_fired_3333_rockets_/

Get A Big Mac for $1

Order a Double Cheeseburger off the McDonald's Dollar Menu, take generous liberties with their "have it your way" motto to add the sauce, onions, sesame seed bun and the $1 double cheeseburger is transformed into the Big Mac. Toss in some fries and it all becomes, The Ghetto Big Mac.

The bonus is that since the Ghetto Big Mac doesn't have bread between the two patties, less carbs. After all, when eating fast food, this counts.

I love America.

Back Seat Driver's Manual

Back seat drivers of the world, rejoice! Volkswagen, as part of an advertising campaign, has come out with a (humorous) back seat driver's manual. Someone has taken the time to scan the pages and post them online. Find it here.

Bush Drops The S-Bomb

Oh, dear me. The press is all over this one. While attending the G8 Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia today, President Bush was unaware that a microphone was still on and picking up his private conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair as they discussed what the UN and other international leaders should do regarding the situation between Israel and Hezbollah. This is what Bush said. Be warned, this quote contains adult language:

"See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit."

See the video footage.

Ooh! Somebody send Barbara Bush to Russia to spank Georgie and wash his mouth out with soap! That's all he said? Big deal. What he said to Blair was absolutely correct. Syria or Iran need to step in and tell Hezbollah to stop it.

Tony Snow, press secretary told reporters that he mentioned to the president about what happened.

"Actually his reaction first was, 'What did it say?' So we showed him the transcript, then he rolled his eyes and laughed."

One British newspaper said that Bush was "more like a rapper than a statesman." Blair on the other hand, really seems to be getting the worst end of it.

Most UK papers agreed that Blair had fared the worse over the microphone mishap. The remarks provided a unique insight into the relationship between the two men, said The Independent.

It had "done little to rebuff suspicions that the prime minister is something of a Washington poodle." said the Opposition Conservative-supporting Daily Mail.

SOURCE

Pirates Treasure Trove

In spite of all the bad reviews, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is raking in the money. According to CNN, the sequel has,

...earned $62.2 million in its second weekend, raising its 10-day total to $258.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The movie has quickly become the year's top-grossing film, rocketing past "X-Men: The Last Stand," which has taken in $232 million in eight weeks. The "Pirates" sequel has grossed an additional $125 million overseas.

Arrr, Matey, 'tis a treasure chest for Johnny Depp and crew. Arr!

Solving Sudoku

The Brain Age game I have for the Nintendo DS includes a great implementation of Sudoku. It's so good that people are calling for it to be on its own. The only nit I have about the game is that I am only allowed 5 mistakes before the game calls me a loser boy. Nonetheless, I'm starting to really get used to Sudoku and finding it a nice waste of time.

Here's a great guide on how to solve Sudoku puzzles:

http://www.wikihow.com/Solve-a-Sudoku

WikiHow.com has other great how-to articles so rummage around.

The View From Here

To prove that there are no true friends in Hollywood...

"I hope you'll stay with us as long as you want." - Barbara Walters, to Star Jones, on the day Jones announced she was leaving The View.

"Regrettably, Star will no longer be on this program." - Barbara Walters, the next day.

Not only that, the opening credits for the show the next day were sans Star Jones. The website is the same way. Stalin still inspires.

Teddy Bear USB Drive Gets Stuck In Computer

I can understand why someone would want to make a USB flash drive inside a teddy bear but while everything looks good on paper, the final product didn't. In this case, you take the teddy bear's head off to reveal the USB adapter, plug it in on the computer and it can look like the cute bear is stuck in the computer. READ

James Woods Poker Face

James Woods, one of my favorite actors, is a serious poker player.

11:52 a.m.
Clad in all black, wearing aviator sunglasses and a HollywoodPoker.com shirt, and carrying a white iPod Nano cranking Rolling Stones, Bob Seger, and Aerosmith ditties, Woods settles in: table 3, seat 3. Here, he's known as Jimmy. "I don't need luck because I'm going to win the f---ing thing. I'm serious."

I'd love to see the playlist he has on that iPod. I've heard Woods is a cool guy and the Entertainment Weekly reporter who was there for the tournament noted that Woods said hello to everyone he could, stopped playing to pose for a photo with a fan and danced a jig later in the evening. Seriously had fun.

Swigen Is Back!

Deadwood has returned to HBO for 12 episodes. Unfortunately, it looks like season 3 will be the last. HBO and David Milch, the show's executive producer, writer and creator, said there will be two two hour movies to wrap up the series.

In the meantime, check out the real versions of the various characters here.

With the demise of Deadwood and The Sopranos, maybe it's time for me to really think about getting rid of all the movie channels and explore services like Netflix and Blockbuster's similar offering as an alternate.

Cell Phones Don't Lie

al-Zarqawi (on cell phone): Eh? Can you hear me now?
NSA Agent tracking call: Sure can, bud! Sending my calling card right now!
F-16 pilot overhead: Yippee-Kiyay Mo-Fo!
Bomb: boom!

Apparently the military was able to track al-Zarqawi to his location at the safehouse via his cell phone. Read.

Cell Phone: Free with new service.
Tracking bad guy to administer justice: priceless.

Nintendo's Game

This Sunday, the Nintendo DS Lite will be officially released in the United States. I mentioned that Sunday, June 11 is the official release date because some Target, Toys 'R Us and Walmart locations have broken the release date by putting them on the shelves shortly after Memorial Day.

This dual-screen handheld game console is total redesign of the Nintendo DS released in 2004. While the original DS was pretty good, the industrial design could have been better and the Lite intends to remedy all that. The biggest change is a much smaller and slimmer case and a brighter screen.

In the good ol' days, you hooked up several Nintendo GameBoys to have multi-player action in Tetris. Now, it's all wireless and you can even connect with a special server to play people all over the internet for free.

While I like my Sony PSP handheld game console, I find the Niintendo DS to be a better gaming handheld. Sure, the PSP can play video, display pictures, connect to the internet with a web browser and play music and the graphics may be better than the Nintendo DS but it tries so hard to be everything. The DS is simply a gaming console and tries not to be anything more. I originally thought the dual-screen to be a novelty but instead, has turned into something very useful. Not only that, at $129, is a better price point for kids than the PSP.

The one thing the PSP has that I wish the DS had is expandable memory. That memory card slot has made the PSP a favorite with hackers who have come out with homebrew games. Sony is trying hard to combat the homebrews but maybe it will be worth it to embrace the hacking community. Both could tolerate having a small keyboard for entering text.

Personally, I don't like comparing one videogame system to another. They all have their pluses and minuses. I also think the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are targeting different things.

Now, back to those stores that broke the June 11 street date. Some folks have come up with crafty ways to pry the DS Lites out of the stockrooms at Targe and Walmart. I checked at my local Target but the electronics department manager is wise to the whole thing. He won't pull the DS Lite pallet out of the stock room until Sunday morning because he wants to make sure he has enough units on hand that day because the DS Lite will be in the Target ads included with the Sunday newspaper.

Unlike the Xbox 360, I'm pretty confident there will be units available for purchase Sunday because the handheld games are not as popular as things like the Xbox 360, PS2 or the soon-to-be-released Playstation 3.

Nintendo will release their new gaming console in Novmeber. The development project for this new console was called Revolution. The release name will be Wii. Don't let the stupid name fool you. I've been reading up on the Wii and it looks to be something to check out.

Aside from being cheaper and smaller than the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, the Wii will be sporting a unit hand controller. By moving the controller in a certain fashion, you can, on-screen, wield a sword, hike a football, swing a tennis racket or aim a futuristic rifle at hostile Martians.

A product manager at Electronic Arts said the new controller system is challenging their game programmers in a positive way. You have to take games like Madden Football and totally rethink the controller code.

Speaking of new ideas in videogaming, there is a new game for the Nintendo DS called Brain Age. This is a videogame of sorts that allows you to exercise your brain. There are also some word and number puzzles. I might pick this game up to check it out. You can find out more about Brain Age here.

Wikipedia.org, of course, has some nice write-ups on the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, and Sony PSP.