Nekomimi Mode

Spotted this on Slashdot. Apparently the GOP Chairman in San Diego is allegedly a Fairlight co-founder. Who is Fairlight? To put it simply they cracked copy protection and distributed Commodore 64 games back in the 80’s and early 90’s. Their logo and theme song would pop up when you loaded the game itself - Here’s an example on YouTube. That tune is basically the theme music from a pretty old game called Druid.

Now keep in mind I don’t mind that he did this - actually its quite cool. Its just funny to think how people turn up sometimes.

I’m working on a blog post - Aden vs. Azeroth (or Lineage vs. World of Warcraft) to kind of compare why one game is falling off the MMO radar and the other is seemingly getting larger and larger.

First of all I have to apologize for not updating this blog lately. Its just I’ve been so busy… I’ll just run down the list. Pretty much the only people who will even see this are those who have this blog on rss.

Work:

I’m kind of neurotic - at work things are falling off the table (figuratively) left and right for quite some time now. It’s been almost a year since they did the re-org and fired most of the team. We lost one member, almost lost another and will probably lose another at the end of the year. I scramble around to get things done to look good because sadly if stuff doesn’t get done I get the blame. Certain people I work with seem to think engineering can fix every single bug they escalate no matter how big or small the customer. It also seems no-one there knows just how long researching, testing and writing up these issues takes.

Taxes:

Trying to find the insurance paperwork on the stolen motorcycle, which is stressing me out - I know its in my mess somewhere.

WoW:

Its fun - plus it helps take the edge off life. Its especially fun to play with friends. I should probably cut back though - I realized this as I have 3 level 70 characters (max level in the game) and 2 level 60+ characters. I quit the guild Dragonfire because I didn’t think they took it seriously, but then what does that mean (its supposed to be a game after all)? They usually chose players who were in their immediate family over those who had better gear and better skills for raids. I’d like to do some of the more challenging 25 man instances, but to be honest with my job I really think it would be more of a burden right now - however fun it may be. Lately I’ve been playing Alterac Valley on my warlock - its fun, and you can do it solo, but you do have to check your dignity at the door because you go up against other players - often better equipped than you.

Screwing around:

So… (I’m being silly here) I found out a way to browse the net on my phone… I’ll have to write that up on here. The Nokia N95 is rather capable - it even works with Youtube and has a full Internet browser (I say this because if you watch Apple iPhone ads you’d think they have a monopoly on this). Oddly enough playing with your phone during boring meetings looks far more suspicious than playing with your computer during boring meetings.

Apple:

You’d think I’d have a general disdain for Apple products in general. I’m typing this on a Powerbook actually - so there you go. I’ve never been baptized in the church of Apple however and I’m not afraid to point out their products flaws. The Powerbook (and Macbook by association) are flawed in a lot of different ways. The glowing light when its on standby is annoying if the computer lives in your bedroom, the lack of a second mouse button, and the fact that I frequently open it up - upside down (at first glance its hard to tell which side is up) are some of the minor annoyances these machines have. The computer is freezing at first to put on your lap, and gradually becomes extremely hot is another major flaw. I’ve actually gotten in the habit of putting a blanket on my lap before putting the laptop on my lap. It also seems to stuggle playing back video - especially Flash videos which is unfortunate as I love to browse Youtube for fun.

Anyhow there you go - have a wonderful week :).

Tools for Wellness is one of these sites that sells expensive cures to problems we all have in life. This sounds simple enough, however most of these things are placebos at best, dangerous at worst. It may sound innocent, but someone is getting rather wealthy off these items. They removed it, but they had a copper bar on their used to protect land etc - for $300.

BTW - if you want to protect yourself from electronic fields, my brother in-law has a copper  clad room (at Intel) that works quite well. To be honest standing inside it with the door closed felt no different that standing outside it, except my cellphone quit working.

Krispy Cream Cheeseburger… As if Krispy Cream’s weren’t gross enough - someone had the brilliant idea of putting a cheeseburger, with bacon in a glazed doughnut.

People wonder why American’s are so obese…

So I’ve been a State Farm customer for a while, but recently I missed a bill. I probably lost it during the move :(. Anyhow they dropped me as a customer - and told me frankly that I’d be better off getting a policy with another company since they were going to sign me up as a new customer - for a considerable amount. Then she told me - "I’ll be honest you’re probably better off with another provider" - so I switched, but its not cheaper than what I was paying. Oh well - live and learn :(.

World of Warcraft there are several battlegrounds (or bg’s as the locals call them). They are cross realm instances (meaning they cover a huge amount of people) where players of both factions (Horde/Alliance) do battle. Every player you “kill” gives you honor points (usually which you can save up and buy stuff with. Horde almost always win… Not sure why, but lately I’ve been taking screenshots and I have a theory:

See the patten? The Alliance is inherantly lazy. The first screenshot I came in late at the last flag capture - still managed to get 23 hk’s (honorable kill), and come in pretty high in damage done.

I saw this email in my junk folder:

Normally I’m like delete, but then I was like - I did give the IRS a lot of money and I’m always short a bit of cash. Turns out it takes you to a site hosted off http://int.touritour.com - they probably rely on an older security flaw in your browser.

Why was I fooled? The email doesn’t even have a To:  line :(. I’m getting rusty.

Computer History Museum in California has its own Youtube channel. To kick it off - they put a 92 minute celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64. Thats not all - the main event -they interview Jack Tramiel. Jack has in the past had a no Commodore interview policy - so this is one of the first interviews I’ve ever seen with him since the downfall of both Atari and Commodore (in 94).

Check it out,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBvbsPNBIyk

For those of you who know me - I’ve always had a certain fondness for the Commodore 64, and the Commodore 128. While they may have been hacked together machines, there’s something about them that demands a lot of respect today.

When I was in Scotland I read about a new bike from Suzuki GSX650F - which is a budget sport touring bike. You can read all about it here - or search Youtube for videos of it. I like the way it looks, I like the riding position and it has good economy (around 55-60 mpg). Its also very comfortable.

I’m thinking maybe I should get one to replace the Yamaha that was stolen :).

There’s a lot of snake oil when it comes to stereo equipment and Hi-Fi retailers. This one however takes the cake - Machina Dynamica.

Of their offerings I find the following the most hillarious. Intelligent Box: what this is supposed to do is treat cd’s (and DVD’s, SACD etc) and improve the audio quality. Anyone who thinks this actually works - doesn’t understand how a cd works.

The Clever Little Clock - basically a 200$ timex (from the pictures I’ve seen on the net) digital clock that is “specially tuned” so that when you place it near Hi-Fi equipment it clears up audio and pictures. Mmmkay. There’s even dire warnings on replacing the batteries it come with regular ones.

Codename Turquoise - how do I put this - basically some cardboard paper you glue in your CD player tray to reduce the “stray scatter laser light” inside the player. Again - you really should read up on how CD players work before buying this.

I could go on. If you do any research into the quotes they source (they are rare, but exist) - you’d find they are largely made up. For instance I can’t find anywhere where Hi-Fi news has reviewed any of their products - or if they did the reviews were pulled off their site, but Hi-Fi news is quoted repeatedly.

I think these sites are perpetuated by the same people who think tube amps, or vinyl records sound better than their solid state counterparts. The fact is - a cd is made of binary information - its either on or its off. Digital sound is made up of thousands of samples per second stored in this binary information. If you did have an issue with light scatter in your cd player, and for some reason that was an issue - your cd would simply not play properly. The Intelligent Box is supposed to (from the reviews I read - not on the site itself) change the way polymers adhear to the disk to increase fidelity. Again - binary information. There’s no real way to change what is on a cd already. If the information cannot be read properly the cd will not play.