Now, I haven’t seen this ad on TV, and seeing as it’s 1.5 minutes long, I doubt I ever will…
…but seriously…what is it even about?! Are they saying that Microsoft products are so bloated, they feel like you’re eating cake? Or that during all of Vista’s development cycle, Bill Gates was off buying shoes at a mall with Jerry Seinfeld?
I’m very confused…
Wow, two posts in a day…after a drought of a few weeks… What’s the world coming to?
Penny Arcade had a nice comic up today, referencing Spore, a new game from the creator of Sim City, Will Wright, to be released later this year. I remember Stu bringing this game up a few years ago when its development was in infancy, but it’s finally coming together.
The idea is pretty straightforward: you design/create your own organism (and environment?) and watch it evolve through the millenia. As in, you can start it from the single-cell stage and watch it grow into an intergalactic powerhouse. It will be Windows and OS X compatible, but I thought I heard it would be coming to the Wii/360/PS3 in some form or fashion – just might be later than the projected early-September release date for computers…
The neat thing is that the game is fully adaptable and unscripted, so if I start up a single-cell organism the same way for two different games, it could end up evolving into two separate beings with two separate “views” on the world…which is crazy to think about, especially for people like Stu that think about the programming involved in having everything generated on-the-fly, rather than having it lined out on the DVD it comes on.
The “creature creator” piece was released a few days ago and the internet is abuzz about it, although I haven’t tried it yet. Perhaps this weekend…
Either way, I found the comic amusing… 😛
Wow, two posts in a day…after a drought of a few weeks… What’s the world coming to?
Penny Arcade had a nice comic up today, referencing Spore, a new game from the creator of Sim City, Will Wright, to be released later this year. I remember Stu bringing this game up a few years ago when its development was in infancy, but it’s finally coming together.
The idea is pretty straightforward: you design/create your own organism (and environment?) and watch it evolve through the millenia. As in, you can start it from the single-cell stage and watch it grow into an intergalactic powerhouse. It will be Windows and OS X compatible, but I thought I heard it would be coming to the Wii/360/PS3 in some form or fashion – just might be later than the projected early-September release date for computers…
The neat thing is that the game is fully adaptable and unscripted, so if I start up a single-cell organism the same way for two different games, it could end up evolving into two separate beings with two separate “views” on the world…which is crazy to think about, especially for people like Stu that think about the programming involved in having everything generated on-the-fly, rather than having it lined out on the DVD it comes on.
The “creature creator” piece was released a few days ago and the internet is abuzz about it, although I haven’t tried it yet. Perhaps this weekend…
Either way, I found the comic amusing… 😛
…and not “Chad” as in “a person”…but “Chad” as in “the country…
Firefox 3.0 was released mid-afternoon yesterday and the Mozilla Foundation is going for the Guinness World Record for most software downloaded in a single day (thus, it ends at 1:16 pm today). You can follow the downloads at Spreadfirefox.com.
I’ve been using the Beta and Release Candidate versions for over a month now and absolutely love it. I’d kinda like the new default theme for Vista and XP to be transferred over to Linux, but that’s a small gripe. Otherwise, it seems faster, is a smaller download (7 MB!), and is a bit less RAM intensive than previous versions.
So yeah, if you check this out before 1:16 pm today, go download it and help out! Or if you check this tomorrow, download it anyway! As of right now, they’re sitting at 6.7 million downloads!
(oh yeah…and the title reference…in the global map on the Spreadfirefox page, you can see how much each country has downloaded…and Chad has downloaded 1 copy…)
Edit: The final tally was over 8 million downloads…they were apparently shooting for 5 million… And Chad ended up with 6 downloads, in the end… 😛
Get it…Anderson Cooper 360…but it’s not a 360 (i.e. Xbox 360)…it’s a Wii!
Yeah, he got a Wii and Wii Fit for his birthday…
Now, don’t forget…my birthday is June 20th… 😉
I upgraded Ubuntu yesterday to version 8.1, “Hardy Heron” (which is awesome, by the way!). I ended up having to reformat that partition of the drive because Automatix had broken my system…at least, as far as global distribution upgrades go.
Anyway, in doing so, there ended up being some kind of problem with MySQL, PHP5 and Apache2… I could get WordPress installed, but it couldn’t access the database. I ended up fixing the problem with a somewhat “unsecure” workaround, but then found out that all my link and post categories had been lost. I’ve restored the links, but now I’ve got 350+ posts to recategorize to file…grrrrrrr…
Regardless, “Hardy Heron” is an excellent release. I’ve had it on my laptop since it was available to download and has worked flawlessly… You should all check it out, if you haven’t already!
Ars Technica has a neat little blurb about a book that’s out by a psychiatrist titled “Video Game Play and Addiction.” In the blog posting, the writer highlights a few key points from one of the chapters that he finds “how gamers are different in terms of problem solving and how they approach problems and even social situations.” You can view the full list at the link above, but for now:
Gamers do not view a failed attempt as failure; rather, they view it as a critical step in learning how to succeed. This is a fundamentally different approach from that of prior generations that value success as the only option—an outlook that can paralyze the intent to learn.
These kinds of things have always intrigued me, mostly because while I do enjoy playing video games, I prefer playing the so-called “real-time strategy” games…as in, the ones that involve selecting military units of specific types to counter different onslaughts by your opponent(s). While many would consider this to be “just a game,” I would argue that it’s more of a “faster-paced chess” in that there is a large amount of strategy to consider and mastering such a game can take just as long. You also have to think well in advance as to which units you’ll need at a given time, which ones to build first and what advancements to obtain to reach your goals in the minimum amount of time.
I kinda think gamers tend to get a bad rap from those that think that “gaming is just shooting people,” when in actuality many games (arguably…) involve more thought than other activities (like reading?) that are generally considered to be “more worth a young person’s time.” I’m not saying that parents should allow their kids to play video games from the moment they get home from school until they go to bed, but it’s worth considering that there are games out there (examples: “Civilization” series, “Zelda” series, etc.) that can be very story-driven and engaging, yet also challenge the gamer to think about what puzzles they are completing or what strategies to undertake in order to accomplish their goals.
Just a thought…
Ars Technica has a neat little blurb about a book that’s out by a psychiatrist titled “Video Game Play and Addiction.” In the blog posting, the writer highlights a few key points from one of the chapters that he finds “how gamers are different in terms of problem solving and how they approach problems and even social situations.” You can view the full list at the link above, but for now:
Gamers do not view a failed attempt as failure; rather, they view it as a critical step in learning how to succeed. This is a fundamentally different approach from that of prior generations that value success as the only option—an outlook that can paralyze the intent to learn.
These kinds of things have always intrigued me, mostly because while I do enjoy playing video games, I prefer playing the so-called “real-time strategy” games…as in, the ones that involve selecting military units of specific types to counter different onslaughts by your opponent(s). While many would consider this to be “just a game,” I would argue that it’s more of a “faster-paced chess” in that there is a large amount of strategy to consider and mastering such a game can take just as long. You also have to think well in advance as to which units you’ll need at a given time, which ones to build first and what advancements to obtain to reach your goals in the minimum amount of time.
I kinda think gamers tend to get a bad rap from those that think that “gaming is just shooting people,” when in actuality many games (arguably…) involve more thought than other activities (like reading?) that are generally considered to be “more worth a young person’s time.” I’m not saying that parents should allow their kids to play video games from the moment they get home from school until they go to bed, but it’s worth considering that there are games out there (examples: “Civilization” series, “Zelda” series, etc.) that can be very story-driven and engaging, yet also challenge the gamer to think about what puzzles they are completing or what strategies to undertake in order to accomplish their goals.
Just a thought…
(Courtesy of Friday’s Penny Arcade cartoon, of course…)
So, I’m very much looking forward to Mario Kart Wii, which should be arriving on Tuesday. There aren’t all that many video games that Brooke will consistently play with me, but this is one series that she’s always enjoyed…or at least seemed to… 😛
We also grabbed a Nintendo DS this past week, just to complete my collection of modern Nintendo products… More seriously, we got Mario Kart DS and Brain Age 2 to help entertain us for the likely long car rides that are coming up this summer, whether it be spent down to southern Florida with Brooke’s family, or whether we make a trip down to Houston (Brooke seems to want to visit Liz…I figure I could tag along and visit Brett/Andy/Nierling, as well). Either way, 19+ hour car rides warrant a video game system, especially when I get headaches when I try and read in a car. That, and I saw how useful a DS is when you’re waiting at the airport to catch a flight…or while actually flying, for that matter. Anyway, if you’ve got Mario Kart DS, lemme know…I suck at it…but I’m trying 😛
So, I saw this blurb on Wii Nintendo Fanboy, referring to a press release discussing how the Medical College of Georgia has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the National Parkinson Foundation to test 30 individuals for improvements in their Parkinson’s symptoms by playing the Wii.
More specifically:
“‘Occupational therapy looks at how the illness affects the patient’s whole life, from the psychological, cognitive and sensory motor standpoints,’ says Dr. Ben Herz, assistant professor of occupational therapy in the School of Allied Health Sciences and a study principal investigator along with Dr. John Morgan, neurologist. ‘Our therapists are responsible for helping someone maintain or gain their independence with functional activities.’
“While occupational therapy is frequently used in the comprehensive care of Parkinson’s patients, evidence is needed to support its short- or long-term effectiveness, says Dr. Herz.
“’We’re hoping to show a slowing of the progression of the disease and a decrease in medication while increasing function. If we can teach patients to exercise and do functional activities, maybe we can have them take less medications,’ he says.”
Anyway, this is an idea I had…but…didn’t write a grant for it. I’m wondering if I could have gotten such a thing past my Prelim committee, and have Dr. Westfall playing Wii Sports during my exam…would have been more fun… 🙂
