Kevin's Musings

I loved Diablo and Diablo II. I loved Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege Legends of Aranna, I enjoyed Dungeon Siege II. I even spent some time re-playing Dungeon Siege over the last week or so. Space Siege, by the makers of Dungeon Siege, should be a game that is right up my alley. One minor problem, though, it is a PC / Windows game and most of what I have been playing are Xbox360 games. No problem, I’ve been running PC games since ye olde 256KB 8088 running DOS on an 8mhz CPU. I have a dual core AMD 4200+ machine with an nVidia 7600GS video card. While nobody would mistake my computer for a hardcore gaming system, based on the game specs, my system should plenty fast enough to handle this game.

Last night when I saw that the Space Siege demo was available (a whopping 900MB) I immediately starting it downloading. Thankfully, the download went really quickly. I got the game installed and immediately I noticed the mouse was incredibly laggy and the menus was slow. I fired up the game and overall it played “ok”, but the mouse laggy-ness made the game somewhat difficult to play. A quick Google search showed that others are having this same problem. I tried lowering the video settings and resolution, restarting the game, installing updated video drivers, etc. and nothing really improves performance. While the mouse is less laggy if I run the game in a window, the game is harder to play that way. I am sure this is a minor bug, but they won’t get an of my money until the mouse / performance problems are ironed out.

But, aside from the mouse and performance problems, I think the game showed some definite promise. While I miss the “inventory” screen and I miss having an overlay map (via the Tab key), the 20 or so minutes of the demo was fun and the gameplay relatively intuitive. The graphics were nice, the sound was good. If they can solve the problems and make the game perform well, I can imagine playing this game. While the gameplay is completely different, the concept of making a “less human” cybernetic hero feels a bit like Too Human.

Ultimately, these problems are the reason I switched from playing PC games to playing console games. I have a firm believe that one should be able to get a game disc, pop it in, and the game should “just work”. PC games always seem to have these little “gotchas” that keep the game from working correctly – they always require a lot of fiddling to work correctly. Since Space Siege will probably be a Windows-only game, I hope they solve these problems

I have had my Treo 650 for a long time… a quick search of my blog shows I got my Treo in early February 2005 (yay blog). The Treo served me quite well, I have always liked Palm devices. The Sprint service, notably text messages and voice mails have gotten incredibly unreliable – text messages could take hours to come through, voice mails often taking hours to days for the notification to arrive. I’ve wanted to switch from Sprint for about a year – I watched the various phones released by T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. but none of them really appealed to me much more than my existing Treo. I looked at the original iPhone last year, but the lack of 3G was a deal breaker for me and “1.0” products often need to get their kinks worked out of them before they are usable. The reason I owned a Treo was to have the web “in my pocket,” and the idea of going from a slow-ish Internet phone to another slow-ish Internet phone just wasn’t appealing me, despite the other iPhone features.

I am glad I waited, the speed of the 3G web on the iPhone is quite acceptable and the mobile Safari browser is by far the best mobile browser on the market. It isn’t perfect, but it’s really close. The only real issues I have found are that some sites have tailored their site specifically for the iPhone, which is great, but in many cases, sites like Google Calendar don’t go far enough. Sure, I get a iPhone friendly display of my calendar and I can add events, but they don’t appear to provide a facility to edit calendar events. Since there is no way to view the full Google Calendar web page, I am left with half of an experience. I am sure this will chage, but it is a drag for now.

For email on my Treo I have been using ChatterEmail (an amazing program) which provides “Push” email using IMAP. “Push” email is email that arrives on your device within seconds of it arriving on the server. Supposedly this is possibly on the iPhone if you use Exchange or MobileMe, but if you use anything else (such as Gmail) your email will only be delivered (at best) every 15 minutes (or if you manually request it). Most people probably think every 15 minutes is “fast enough” but I really got used to having my email show up immediately -  I got spoiled. I can only hope in the near-ish future the iPhone will support true “Push” with IMAP.

The “soft keyboard” on the iPhone is a bit trickier to use than the Treo’s physical keyboard, but the learning curve isn’t too terribly steep. After about a week with the iPhone, I am “fast enough” on the iPhone. This is aided by the fact that when writing emails and such the iPhone intelligently fixes your “fat finger” typing mistakes. If you type your messages and just ignore mistakes as you go, you will find that the iPhone seems to be able to correct most of your typing mistakes. This isn’t helpful for punching in email addresses, usernames, passwords, etc. but for extended text it works very nicely.

Just like the downloadable Xbox Live Arcade games, demos, etc. the crowning capability of the iPhone is, in my opinion, the App Store. There are now hundreds of programs (most ranging from free to reasonably priced) that can be downloaded to augment the capabilities of the iPhone. I have found some great games and utilities that really make the iPhone the most feature rich phone on the market. The Treo had lots of great apps, but the iPhone 3G has quickly come into its own. Honestly though, it probably isn’t amazing that the AppStore exists, but that it took a year for it to exist. I don’t know how the people who bought original iPhones lived for a year without the AppStore, and the short answer is many probably didn’t thanks “Jailbreaking”.

Google Maps is bundled with the iPhone and was available as a download for the Treo 650. While the mapping part of the application works roughly the same in the two devices, the iPhone’s larger screen is nice and the iPhone’s 3G makes the maps and searching really snappy, but the real win on the iPhone is the integrated GPS. Within a few seconds of starting Google Maps, the iPhone will show me exactly where I am on the map. If I do a search for Starbucks it will show me all of the locations nearby. I absolutely love Google Maps on the iPhone.

So, after my first week I really like my iPhone. The user interface is extraordinary. It is a great size. I love that it is a great iPod, a really solid phone, and a fantastic web browser. There are lots of great downloadable apps and games. The battery life isn’t amazing, but it is adequate if you don’t mind charging every day (which is fine, I use it on the iHome IH9 Alarm Clock for iPod (Black) clock every night, so that charges it up). But, I do have a few complaint (no deal breakers):

• The iPhone has no method for persistent notification. If I miss a call, text message, or email I have to physically turn the phone on and look at the screen. The Treo had a small light to notify me of missed events.
• Apple’s philosophy is “they know better”. While most users have no need to change configuration options, I am “old school” and love when apps have tons of configuration options. iPods and iPhones (and Mac’s) allow almost no customization how their software works. I’ll assimilate, I guess.
• While the Dock connector on the iPhone is the same as with my older iPods, older chargers (and sync cables?) just flat out aren’t supported. If I plug in my old (OEM) wall charger or car charger they flat out don’t work. In fact, I get a message that the iPhone doesn’t support the charger and that charging is disabled. This is really annoying. I would love to hear the rationale for this decision (other than Apple’s greed). Happily, my iHome IH9 clock works perfectly with the iPhone.
• There is no obvious way to sync my calendar with Google Calendar, although I can easily sync my contacts with Google Mail.
• Writing (non web) software for the device requires a Mac. Distribution of apps you write is only possible through Apple’s App Store. I am going to explore how to customize some of my own websites to be more iPhone friendly, but if I want to write native applications and I can’t do that until I get a Mac.

The game Too Human has been getting a lot of hype. The games creator, Denis Dyack, has reportedly been working on this game (in various forms) for 10 years – the first demo was for the original PlayStation at E3 in 1999. Over roughly the last six months, Denis has seemingly appeared on every videogames podcast or event that would have him to talk up his game. To be fair, he has (at least in his opinion) an uphill climb. He believes he is making a genre-busting action / rpg / ?? game with a revolutionary control scheme, somewhat akin to a stylized Diablo with revolutionary controls and camera, a feat that Hellgate: London (more or less) tried to accomplish, but failed at, and on a console, no less. The the forums, fanboys and haters of this game are both incredibly vocal either believing the game will be the second coming or the next Daikatana. Even though the game is a month from release, the downloadable demo came out on Xbox Live for the 360. I took some time to download the demo and play through it last night and have slightly mixed opinions. I will discuss a few important points of the game.

The graphics were generally nice, somewhat Mass Effect-ish (especially during cut-scenes). They are definitely 360 quality graphics. The game has a very stylized look, a pleasing variation of muted colors (caves) and colorful items and enemies. They are not the best graphics seen on an Xbox 360 game, but the are good.

The “revolutionary” camera often works well, it is just unusual to (largely) not able able to control the camera. After spending so many hours playing games where the right stick controls the camera, it is odd to use it for anything else. The game generally made the right decisions about camera angles, but occasionally the game just didn’t understand my intentions and fought me. For instance, I was trying to attack a large, difficult-ish enemy near the end of the demo. I wanted to attack from the top of a set of stairs (using guns), but once I got to the top of the stairs the camera would absolutely not face the enemy no matter how hard I tried to convince it otherwise. I worked around this by not fighting from the top of the stairs. Perhaps there was some “lock-on” button that I was missing? Anyway, generally it is nice to not have to babysit the camera but sometimes it is a pain.

The skill, weapon, and armor upgrade paths seem very promising. When playing RPG-ish games, I enjoy finding new weapons, armors, upgrading my skills, etc. and this game seems like it will have that in spades. My complaint with Mass Effect was it was tedious to make lots of little customizations to your weapons, etc. I can’t really say if this will be better, but I can hope. From what I have seem, the customization / advancement UI as just a touch unpolished (compared to in-game graphics), but easy to use. They have promised gazillions of fancy, unique items, so I look forward to finding those, assuming I play the whole game.

Finally, the meat of the game: control and gameplay. The demo is roughly an hour long, which is pretty long as game game demos often go, but they intentionally made it on the longish side so one could really get a feel for the controls. The game control is different from anything I have ever played before and that takes a touch of getting used to. The left stick moves your character and your right stick performs melee attacks, such as with your sword. The triggers shoot weapons. If you have played lots of console games, such as first or third person shooters, action games, or other RPGs such as Oblivion, your initial reaction is to move with the left stick (ok so far) shoot with the trigger (ok so far) and move the camera with the right stick — this is where it gets a bit awkward. Since first 3D games, we have been taught that the camera must be babied. This works well once you get used to it, but new players have a difficult time controlling both the action and the camera. Too Human believes the game can control the camera better than you can and that doing so will give you a more cinematic effect. Since the right stick no longer has to control the camera, you just press it toward the next enemy you want to attack. Initially this is a bit odd, but once you learn the timing you can use this to make some visually stunning and fun combo attacks, zipping all around the battle field and doling out pain at a dizzying pace. Me me, this fast paced action was a lot of fun. Instead of making every enemy harder to kill, they provide lots and lots of enemies to fight. If you tap the right stick twice quickly at an enemy, the enemy will be thrown into the air where you can use your guns against it. Overall, I am glad the demo was as long as it was. It took some time to really master the controls and to be able to tie all the pieces together. By the end of the hour I really felt comfortable playing the game and had a good idea why it was different from other games.

Will I buy the game? I haven’t decided yet. Yes, it was fun, but the camera did have the ocassional problems, there were some cue scene issues, and ocassionally it seemed like the game cut out of a scene faster than it should have, but I did enjoy the demo. It wasn’t as much of an OMG demo as Crackdown or BioShock, but few games are Crackdowns or Bioshocks. I anxiously await reviews from people who have played the whole game.

I went to see Hellboy 2 in the theater – I rather enjoyed it. It won’t win any awards, but it was a fun story. The characters are interesting and quirky (which will be no surprise, assuming you saw the first movie). If the trailers interest you, so will the movie.

We watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly which was very interesting. It is based on the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby and is a fascinating film of a man who lived  with the most severe of handicaps and does some incredible things. I don’t want to say anyting more, and I would discourage you from reading much about it before seeing the movie. It is in French with English subtitles. The movie is somewhat slow, but very much worth watching.

(Please excuse the soap box, feeling cranky.)

First, if you know me, you know I don’t agree with the Iraq “war”. It is my personal belief we are in Iraq because of oil and (sadly) I am paying near twice as much for gas today as I was a year ago. Over four times as much as I paid in college (early 90’s). This just aggravates me. Enough said, as I have no desire to be marked as a protester and visit Guantanamo by the Bay (a fine Boston Legal episode).

Second, related because it is politics and money: It is no big secret that I am backing Obama in the upcoming presidential election (like we need four more years of republicans to take us into another war). If anybody can introduce change, Obama can. For those who say “The president is just the president and he/she cannot effect change” I encourage you to think about the pre-G. W. Bush USA and the current USA and ask yourself if there has been change. If you aren’t aware of any change, I encourage you fill the tank, take an airplane trip, surf the web. What percentage of your paycheck goes to just filling your gas tank? It is a sad state of affairs that only visiting Europeans think we have reasonably priced gas.

I had nothing against Hillary Clinton during the race, she just wasn’t my personal pick. A good race takes multiple candidates. I have read Obama’s books. I have listened to Clinton and Obama speak. I just happen to feel, of the current contenders, that I am the most closely aligned with Obama. If Hillary had gotten the nomiation, I could have lived with her, but my preference is Obama. I think he is the most “genuine” of poiticians in a long time. Just my opinion.

The problem I have will Hillary is that it was clear months for before she resigned that Obama was going to take the nomination. Not hours, not days, not weeks, but months — yet, she stuck it out until the end. I can appreciate her competitive spirit, her dedication to her supporters, but she was borrowing money (from herself — because she didn’t have adequate contributions from her supporters — a first clue to drop out) for a long time to fund her campaign. Now she is stuck with a huge debt from her campaign. This is all well and good, but now she is begging and pleading and crying and asking Obama supports to pay her debt (and asking Obama to cry for her). WAH! She should have her supporters pay down her debt, or if it is money she “borrowed” from herself, she should just lump it – she should have dropped out earlier when she clearly didn’t have the financial backing. If I borrow money to get “X”, >> I << have to pay that money back. I don’t ask my neighbor to bug his friends to pay that money back. Why should Hillary get to ask Obama’s supports to pay back her debt? Sure, she can ask, but should she expect Obama supports to pay down her debt?

If random people out there have a burning desire to pay off other people’s debt, please get in touch with me!! I will gladly take your “contributions” (no strings, please). What kind of president would Clinton have made? Borrowing millions of dollars to pay for an obviously failing campaign that even her supporters wouldn’t adequately contribute to? Scratch that, that is clearly the sign of a “good politician”: how many people, if it were optional, would choose to have their tax money fund the current war then pay $4.23/gallon for gas?

Our apartment building outsources the billing for our various utilities to other companies. One of the companies recently changed, so I have been awaiting our first bill. When a friend who lives in the same complex informed me he had already received a bill and paid it some two or more weeks ago, I got anxious and the missus said she would call and get our account number, outstanding balance, and try to determine why we had not yet been billed.

When I didn’t hear from her before I knew she had to leave for work, I figured she ran out of time or wasn’t able to contact them so I called them myself. While on the phone I discovered they had only recently sent me my bill. I asked for my account number and login formation. She happily (with no verification other than my name and address) gave me my account number and created a website password for me. The password they gave me was rather flimsy so I logged in to my account and changed the password to something at least a bit better (and that I would remember). While I would have liked them to do a bit more verification to determine who I was before handing out this information, I understand national secrets aren’t stored in my utilities billing account.

Interestingly, the missus called them an hour or so after I did. With no more identification than her name (which is probably not on the account, althought I could be wrong) they happily informed her that I had previously called and obtained the billing information. They also readily gave her the account number and my (new) password. Quite obviously their employees have the clear-text passwords to all the accounts by just punching in an apartment complex and apartment number (and they seem to be quite willing to give these passwords out to almost anyone).

Again, no national secrets here, but shouldn’t they do a bit more before just handing out my account number and website password? I would argue the nice people on the phone (and they were very pleasant, I certainly cannot fault their telephone demeanor) shouldn’t even be able to see my password and at best they should send a “password reset request” to my email.

Oh well.

At the time of this writing, there is only 198.33 days remaining in the current presidential administration. Everybody grab a beer, a shot, or whatever you like in celebration that we have passed the 200s remaining day mark. Take deep breaths, it will be over soon.

No, not the wrestler, the big green gamma radiation induced monster. I went to see The Incredible Hulk yesterday. It stars one of my favorite actors Edward Norton. It was a fun movie. It wasn’t as good as Iron Man, but it was worth seeing. Now that I have seen this new Hulk movie, I would like to re-watch the Ang Lee (of Brokeback Mountain fame) movie The Hulk again.

Last night, I watched the local fireworks from our big 6th story window, which was nice. Today, I grilled a tasty steak in the rain using this tasty method. The missus and I are spending our weekend playing Lego Indiana Jones and having a good time with it — just having a nice, lazy, long weekend. Still no extensive plans. We thought about doing some camping, but we’re watching the neighbors cats this weekend and we both imagine most campgrounds would be uber-crowded, so we’ll wait a couple weekends.

Toward the end of August, we’ll probably visit the New York Renaissance Faire and New York State Fair – make a long weekend out of it. They were both fun last year, I think it will be a nice way “birthday getaway” with the missus (her birthday, not mine).

I decided my previous “home page” wasn’t really serving much purpose, so I have just changed things so my blog IS my home page. This required making a few additions to my blog’s sidebar, redoing my “countdown timer” so it fits in the sidebar, and a few other minor tweaks, but I think I am happy with it. I lost my “Frappr” map and my GamerTag as they don’t fit, but I don’t think I was really using them, so…

No big plans for the long weekend, probably play some games, see some movies.

In my seemingly never ending search for the ultimate Instant Messenger client, I recently discovered Digsby. I used Pidgin for a while (but stopped, thanks to the thick-skulled developers). I tried Trillian but decided I didn’t think it was worth, to me, what they charge for it (the free version doesn’t meet my needs), and MSN Live Messenger has frequently has problems communicating with Yahoo IM folks.

Digsby takes most of the features of a Trillian or a Pidgin but goes several steps further. Sure, they support all the major IM services (MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc.) but they also allow you to integrate your email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. right into the client so you can see when you get new messages or updates of what your friends are doing on facebook. Plus, Digsby has a very nice and highly customizable user interface. If you use IM, you should check out Digsby.