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Entertainment: Got me an Xbox, woowoo!
Fri, 24 Apr 2009

I've generally been a pretty low stress sort of fella.. things come at me and I've rolled with them, or just gotten my head down and survived hard or tedious things without freaking out. Its one of my super powers - Everyone has a super power, just that most people's power is being an idiot :) Alas, more often the last couple of years I've had my stress-outs - which is just not my style - but such is life right now. Hopefully I can return to form this year .. lose a bit of weight and if not relax, at least be cool.

My wife, bless her heart, allowed me persuade her to get us an Xbox for my birthday. ("Don't worry about my birthday this year.. we're too busy and I have pretty much all that I want", "You can get an Xbox" "Oh, this birthday is very important, we absolutely must get something.. Xbox you say?" ) She's not much of a gamer (though does adore her DS on occasion), so this is more a gift of compassion.. help for my ailing creeky old soul maybe more than its technical merits (rent movies direct to it, etc). She knows I've been a bit of a wreck of late, and this might help.

Also she knows I'm not one for relaxing too too much -- I love a lot of things, but I tend to just 'work' instead or even when into entertainments, I'll try to over-do them -- with free time so tight, trying to max what you get done in your moments is just a new way of stressing. I've often joked the ultimate gaming is software development itself since I enjoy it so much -- the fact of it is that I barely know how to relax, since my 'entertainment' is really a form of work. I guess its the same as people bringing their work home. I enjoy rolling up my sleeves and digging into writing a new game or handheld app.. wtf?! More though -- we all know the distractions the Net can offer, so when I'm working away on some code for this or that when I should be relaxing, its easy to just waste away the time.. so maybe with an Xbox I can learn to relax a bit, kick back with a rum and coke and play a game while sitting on the couch. Or maybe watch a show or DVD or movie without alt-tabbing to email every 10 seconds. Cool. Awesome. (In the evenings.. during the day if I get a moment, I'm going to sit on the back porch, damnit!)

So with all of these and many more over-thought factors, I've wanted an Xbox despite having a capable enough PC, despite half the XBox 360's library being available on PC, and despitehalf the 360's games being arguable better on the PC. (Games that are better played with a mouse, such as an FPS shooter, say.) Well, that and pure gadget lust of course.. the 360 can drive an HD TV, and its a new toy!

The Cons to the gadget-lust of course are the price of the machines -- not cheap, especially during this economy, and the apparent risk in the production values. And the fact that the games are so utterly good looking that they're destroying my interest in building games .. no way I can keep up with those production values! Anyway, if you listen to those on the Net you'd assume that its on the order of 50-100% of them failing within a month of purchase. Of course, most of us just realize this is the usual Net BS -- the grit in the system is most felt.

But it turns out, the production issues of the 360 and the bitching online is much deserved! But despite the scratched disks, the red-ring of deaths and other curious failures, people come back. The content is that compelling.

The purchase and install: So I went to a local store with a relatively easy return policy (a little wary at this point, but not much) and picked up the current 2-game bundle. Got it home, set it up and ignored it for a day until it was my turn for a 'night off' and set to playing. Noticed some curious sparklies in the TV display (and took a couple pictures for proof), and got pissed as hell. (I mean, we got this machine for the de-stress right?) Still, as a good friend of mine in IRC instructed, there was no need to get so PO'd and the store was quick to swap me another machine. (I read later that the issue was likely related to the 1080p resolution I was having it drive - I've a pretty respectible TV so I bloody well wanted 1080p. Apparently there are a number of issues that many 360's can't handle well at 1080p, but were I to drive it at a lower bandwidth output I'd not have had _that_ issue. But no way I'm laying down that amount of cash with a defective unit day zero, right?) This was an "older model" unit - I learned later about the many various internal improvements Microsoft has done over time, and how to pick them out in the field. The older ones run hot and have louder DVD drives, and tend to fail a lot more.... so just as well I had it fail first hour, rather than blow up in another more serious way down the road and get me into the refurbish cycle of hell.

Anyway, upon returning to the point of purchase the next day I found it highly odd that the EBGames (a variant of Gamestop for Canada) fellow gave me a naked 360 unit as my 'new replacement.' "The box is pretty beat it, I just picked it out for you." I mean, if the box was so badly beaten up then may I don't want that one for my replacement unit, but more to point .. with GameStop's well known 'switcheroo' issues, I don't want a naked unit. But whatever, by this time I was resigned to expecting it to also be bad and I was ready to come back for XBox #3. By this time I was mighty good at hooking the unit up and trying various cables to test, so it took only moments for me to hook up and find out Xbox #2 was flaky in a similar way -- it would not even do 1080p at all, just blank out in that mode. Peachy! Perhaps I could've settled with 720p like perhaps most users are, but again.. no way I wanted to settle on sub-par on a brand new purchase.

I did find out one could go to a different EBGames outlet with returns so headed to a more convenient location that was bursting at the seams with fresh new units.. and by new I mean in sealed boxes without damage and the latest system revision (running quieter and cooler I'm told, and with better overall reliability.) XBox #3 turned out to be the one, and has worked perfectly for a week or so now.

The lads I spoke with did suggest they'd seen a very high (30% or more) return rate on some models of the XBox, so the Net moaning is quite possibly well deserved. Or maybe I had been getting screwed by GameStop trickery, them playing the odds I would be happy with a used or screwy unit and didn't have a 1080p TV? *shrug* Who knows. (I do like EBGames .. usually a pleasant experience, as far as game stores go.)

The Content -- so, with all that really really annoying shenanigans out of the way, that I'd not have put up with normally -- the XBox 360 is amazing kit, if a little loud when the drive is spinning. (You can copy games to the hard drive if you have one, to make that moot. And to mitigate the risk of scratching your disks, that people talk about.. *sigh*)

XBox Live Marketplace, where you can get free or rental or purchase video, previews, games and downloadable content is fantastic. As usual we Canadians get the shaft so theres not much in the way of Hollywood movies up, but theres some. Still, theres a fair assortment of indie video (The Guild, *laugh*) and a huge variety of Xbox Live Arcade games, including demos and 'downloadable content updates' for games, free to nab. Pick a game, queue up a download, and go play or watch or something and it'll happily suck down the queue in background. Theres retro titles and redone retro (Pacman and new competitive Pacman, for instance) and quite a pile of great quality new games. *Really* impressive for gamer noobs like me.

The actual on-disc purchased games.. again, while existing in overlap with PC gaming, there is still quite a bit of really good stuff. I'm playing with Fable 2 now.. simply gorgeous and pretty cool.

I do find it very odd that a couple of games I've looked into have weird "family bullshit", that I can't help assume is poached from Sims or some shit. I used to be a bit of a hardcore gamer (more a hardcore gamer wannabee as I went back to my compiler), and I just can't take this stuff seriously. When I found out in Fable 2 you could get your character and go pick of game characters (NPCs, not real humans) for dates, sex, etc, have kids, buy a house or rent them out, and that you should 'go to work' (minigames) to get cash .. I was more than a little W-T-F. I go to work and have a family in RL, I don't need that stress in-game, thanks :) But fine you can mostly ignore this stuff without losing some pieces of the game.. but _seriously._

A few days later, I found out you can do similar stuff in GTA IV, which is really just about loose driving around a city and causing mayhem. Getting on your in-game cellphone to call people and arrange dates... .... .....

I'm told again that perhaps this is just in these two games, two very high profile Xbox 360 games, but still. *BLEH*

In summary -- all told, I'm pretty damned impressed. Wireless controllers with remote on/off is way cool for flopping on the couch. It seems a capable machine graphicly, and the library of both Live Arcade and real store purchases seems fantastic. Accessory options seem good -- with a baby sleeping upstairs I was curious if there was a wireless headphone set (not a headset for gabbing with 12 year olds) and sure enough, and even pretty cheap. So now I can nerd out on the couch with my wireless headphones and controllers and chill a little bit without disturbing anyone. Cool bones.

Aside -- For a long long time I've been saying that things will get to be 'good enough' for the average consumer soon. Its been a long time coming for video card technology, but audio seems to be a much simpler thing. We got "good enough" in the Sound Blaster 16 days imho, so nowadays a good enough audio solution in a computer is pennies. Video is still expensive as heck (couple hundred for a 'good' video card for a PC), but we're getting there. With the current console generation (PS3 and 360) we've got HD consoles in the home, and the graphics are pretty damned good. Maybe this generatoin or next will be 'good enough' that people will not need to upgrade much.. except of course for the artificial stuff, when the company retires its machines and makes new content only for the new one. I just hope the XBox 360 lasts another 5 years... we're not buying another console for quite awhile.

[ Category: / entertainment / gaming / xbox ] [link] [Comments]

Cygwin: Using console Emacs in cygwin under Windows XP
Thu, 23 Apr 2009

On occasion I install cygwin on a Windows box so I can do some text processing with perl or other mundane tasks. (Usually I keep a VM with a full Unix distribution, be it Linux or FreeBSD on a USB keychain or on the disk.. but Cygwin can be handy, not to mention they've got an XServer and other crazy stuff working very nicely in Windows :)

One thing that always gets on my nerves is that regular Emacs doesn't seem to work quite eight .. more to point, I can't seem to quit it using the usual Emacs sequence of C-x C-c. Instead I've been using Xemacs, and being careful to launch it to background so it doesn't mucker things up. Rather annoying, if the tinest of things.

Turns out you can just add a Windows env var "CYGWIN" with value "tty" to clue Cygwin into working correctly; Emacs can be exited and works as expected. Apparently the issue is Windows is capturing C-x and buggering things up.

(Perhaps this is a well known thing to the Cygwin hardcore, but I don't frequent the message boards or mailing lists for it.)

[ Category: / technology / windows ] [link] [Comments]

PhoneSpam: I must admit a certain joy..
Tue, 21 Apr 2009

.. in mistreating these fellows. I used to just be nice to them as people are hard up and need work. But after they so often crossed the line or border-lined on harassment I've started to treat them as they deserve - Nothing in the decent persons code of conduct 2009 requires support of their broken business model or to condone their lack of ethics. The more we answer and deal with these people, the more we validate the mode of operation. (The actual guy on the phone, I know, you get your paycheque; but the guy who runs the company, how do you sleep at night? And how do you treat the telemusketeers who call your house?) Anyway, todays ever so slight amusement has provided a specific indulgence.

You see, they play in the gray area where you assume they're lieing, but you rarely really have solid proof. But we have recently moved, so we very much do have proof, and there in lies the guilty joy of the catch.

Bastard: "We've drawn a coupon here in our very office; a coupon you filled out last year. Do you remember it? It has been a long time.. back July of last year sir? It has your address and name! "

(like an address and name are some sort of secret thing? I'm not so quick to cleverness on my feat so I really should prepare a statement for such situations, but thankfully I am not _that_ anal :)

Nonetheless, it is a great thing to inform them that I know they're lieing this time, that they're out to scam me of something, and that I now have their phone number (since they didn't block it), and furthermore can look it up online or call it back, or set a fax to call it all day and night for the next year. I almost wish I had one of those trap programs that picks up the phone and plays receptive-sounding messages at them to keep them on the line all day..

Lieing bastards.

[ Category: / day_by_day / spam ] [link] [Comments]

Ebooks: Another door shut .. ereader?
Mon, 20 Apr 2009

It is an odd world where you want to buy, but you simply cannot; or worse, that after you do buy something the entity may just pull the plug on it and you're out of luck. Its an odd world when your newly purchased full price car only works at 10 miles an hour except on certain entity friendly roads, or when you can only buy entity-branded seat covers. Or you are driving down the road, and yet violate some new term in the Terms and Ungreements that was just added, and they shut you down. Fun times indeed!

I think I have blogged often (or if not, should have, as this topic is close to my heart.) about the horror of DRM (or 'dieing rights movement') -- now, as a content producer myself I certainly don't have a problem with restricting content movement in ways I see fit, but as a consumer it sure makes me mad that I simply cannoy buy anything. The DRM is used to supposedly prevent piracy by the casual user, and to enforce region locking and so forth.. and I must admit in this day and age, region locking does seem a bit silly. As a Canadian I'm forever lamenting that these companies are turning my business away or generally making my life annoying as a consumer, which certainly seems backwards. Go talk to anyone, and they always ask me 'why do you even try so hard? just go download..' -- but its because I am a content producer, and if I want peopel to buy my stuff, it certainly makes sense for me to buy their stuff. And its the right thing to do. But gorramned, 'they' make it hard!

I know we've been burnt a few times by DRM .. buying a book and it later becomes 'unfunctional', or buying music only to have it vanish and be not-downloadable again by the company you bought from, or stop working when the company pulls the plug on that license or service (haha!) or disconnects your account , or be stuck with lower quality encoding value and thus need to rebuy, or any number of issues. I can grin and bear those issues for I've a fairly rigourous backup regime so I tend not to lose my files and I nowadays steer clear of software or platofrm lock-in DRM (ie; I simply will not buy ebooks in a form that ties you to one specific platform, since there is too much risk that platform will go under or be instructed to stop supporting you, or not be carried forward to your new platforms over time. These are not mythical but very real scenarios that _have occurred_, forcing people to lose their media collections. And of course, buying DRM-laden music from iTunes so you can only biuy iPods in the future just seems silly to me..) If you buy all Kindle books, you're stuck with Amazon in the future. If What if you want to buy from 5 different stores (god forbid!), are you supposed to buy 5 players for the media, and carry them all with you? No way. Shouldn't the industries create a common DRM, so people can buy whatever player they _prefer_ and then buy content as they see fit? I mean, you used to be able to buy a ghetto blaster stereo from Radio Shack or Sears or whatever, and it would play any tape casette or CD you bought at any store. Not now.

Anyway, the reason I post today is after reading some news about eReader turning on (or turning more carefully on) region locking, and even more content becoming unavailable to me to buy. ie: As time goes on, my options as a Canadian get less and less.. not more. w-t-f?!

This is really DRM-aside, but comes up in the same breath really. Now we all know there are a fair number of people pirating media out there (and it is a complex topic, where downloading music is entirely legal in Canada, if morally wrong. Thank our government for allowing things to go so wrong :/), but here I and so many people are -- ready to spend real hard won dollars on music, TV, video and ebooks.. and we simply cannot. We can't buy physical Kindle's here, despite the fact you can load your own media onto them. We can't buy the Kindle iphone software here either, nor use the Kindle books/newspapers, etc. We can't buy mp3s at the Amazon music store. We can't get shit-for-all movies on Xbox Live or iTunes Movie Store due to the old school contracts not permitting those outlets to sell. We can't buy books from hardly anywhere. So in Canada we can barely buy music, or books, or TV shows, or video. We can't use Netflix (US only). Seriously, is Canada so irrelevent? And the UK? Its only slightly better to the USians -- they _can_ buy, but of course they're DRM'ed all to hell, so we just pray their media keeps working down the road. People don't want to buy anymore, they want ease of rental and access .. but at least when you 'buy' a DVD, it shoudl keep working for a long long time.

It annoys the heck out of me, but it annoys me more to find over time the restrictions are only getting worse. In this enlightened day and age, and in the face of a bad economy.. you would think they want our money, they want the wider option of distribution. But alas, instead they're stickng to old models, to old agreements and trying to put back the ever popular region lock and enforce 'scarcity' and control on the digital world. They may win, I don't kow.. but whatever. I just want the option to buy something. As a content producer, I have sold my software anywhere that would take it, and given it away when I couldn't. The important thing is having my work, my art, my tools be out there, and I'd like a few bucks when I can. It doesn't make sense for me not to sell it to those with money, does it?

I hope they do not wonder why people are driven to piracy; sure, there are those who do it for various reasons, but I am sure a large base in there do it for there being no other choice. People want to consume, and if your model makes it impossible or impractical or a terrible experience, they will find some other way to do it. If you can go download something with 2 minutes of clickng, most will.

[ Category: / technology / ebooks ] [link] [Comments]