A Bit Eclectic

I wrote this post back in February and forgot to published it.  The events may have passed, but I still feel it is worth posting.

Great article over at Daring Fireball about Best Picture nominations. I strongly agree with John Gruber’s take on the situation:

PuttingWALL-E up against Bolt and Kung Fu Panda rather than letting it compete against Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button is like requiring a 13-year-old chess prodigy to compete only against other children, regardless whether he could stand his own against adult grandmasters. It’s a dismissive pat on the head.

Three episodes in and Dollhouse is starting to call dibbs on my attention. During last weeks episode, I noticed one of the characters (Topher Brink) using a Drobo. I am a huge fan of Drobo and totally geeked out when I saw it.  I grabbed a clip off Hulu for proof.

I own a Drobo and firmly believe that it is one of the best ways to store data. I will write a review when I find time.

Too many people are just passing through life. To them, it is a chore. There isn’t anything interesting or intriguing, you just wake up and move on. No purpose or goal and everything seems mediocre. The problem is passion. They lack a driving force in their life.

Passion

Passion is a corner stone for a prosperous life. Passion for anything and everything you do. Seek out projects and get involved with them. Feel a personal connection to them. Build value in your life by surrounding yourself with things you care about. The world will look bland if you never look up.

Take on things you care about. It means nothing to fill your life with stepping stones. Don’t seek out a job only because it will lead to a “better one.” That can be a factor but not the factor. That better job may never come and you will settle with what you have.

We have a limited amount of time and there is no need to waste it. Seek out what you are passionate for and don’t be ashamed of it. If you like taking pictures, then take pictures. Don’t spend time thinking about how goofy you look or how bad your photos might be. If your friends and family are important to you, then spend more time with them.

Boredom

Every so often someone will tell me they are constantly bored. They sit around and complain about it and refuse to take a step in a different direction. This is shocking. There are so many opportunities and they can’t even find one that interests them. The problem may be linked to respect.

Respect

Respect your passion and the passion of others. One reason people don’t follow their passion is because they are too worried about what others think. This shouldn’t be an issue. Your passion is for you and no one else. Respect it and pursue it. Passion is solely for the one pursuing it. Don’t judge another’s passion. Let them seek it out and enjoy it.

I have a passion for technology, photography, numbers, writing, movies, and books. What are yours?

There is a growing problem in the gaming industry. The game developers and hardware creators are trying to protect their future profits and as a result are putting an extra burden on their customers. This isn’t new, but it seems to be getting worse.

One recent example is Spore from EA. EA is so concerned about protecting their “intellectual property” that they have an extremely restrictive DRM on the game. The DRM limits the buyer to 3 installs of the game. They can put it on three different computers, three times on one computer, or any other combination. This may not seem like a big deal, but there are other things that would take up one of these installs.  If you uninstall the game and want to reinstall it later on, that would take up one. You also have to re-authenticate the game (using another one) if you change a piece of hardware. If you go beyond your alloted three, you have to call EA and ask for permission to install a game you paid for.  It is ludicrous to think that I can be locked out of a game that I spent money on.  Also, EA only allows you to create one account per purchase. This means a family would have to purchase multiple copies if multiple people want accounts. The most ironic part of this is that this didn’t stop pirating. In fact, some people say it actually increased the number of pirated copies.  If you don’t believe that people are upset by this, then take a look at the game’s 1 star Amazon.com rating.  Most of the reviews complain about the DRM.

All that this DRM accomplished was burdening those who purchased the game.  My guess is it didn’t guarantee more profits for EA.

Now I am reading more reports of this stupid crap. Nintendo’s new Wii Speak is being shipped with similar insane restrictions. According to Ars Technica:

The package came with a surprise: a 16-character code is needed to download the Wii Speak channel from Nintendo. The fine print is clear: the code will not be replaced if lost. There is no other way to download the channel. Without the channel, the Wii Speak hardware is just a useless microphone.

The main difference from EA’s approach is that this could actually work. It is much easier to pirate Spore than hack the Wii Speak.

This still presents issues that could affect those who are honest and purchase it legally. If Nintendo won’t reissue the code, what happens if you buy a new Wii or get a refurbished unit under warranty? It is unclear if there will be any exceptions, but as of now it doesn’t look like it.

The Ars Technica article points out that Nintendo’s motive is to reduce the used game market. I feel that too much time and energy is being spent creating ways to lock in users and not enough is put into creating good games. The best way to make money is to create an outstanding product.

Photo by Ian Muttoo

When I was a young lad, on New Year’s Eve I would watch cartoons on Cartoon Network. The whole family would be over. The kids were in the basement watching TV and the parents upstairs enjoying some tasty beverages. It was a blast, especially the cartoon part.

The one year that comes to mind, Cartoon Network was previewing a number of shows that were being considered for full time. Among them were (if my memory serves) Power Puff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Dexter’s Lab. Throughout the night you could call in and vote for the one that you thought was the best. I never called, mostly because I thought it was silly and didn’t make a difference. In hindsight I was most likely right.

That year as I sat and watched these shows I started to get a little down. You see, I didn’t have the knowledge I do now and had some interesting thoughts about the TV studios. In my mind there was a single man in the studio who had to put in the tape (this was back when my family owned a VCR) to start the next show. He would manually load all the shows and commercials and take all the calls. I started to feel bad for this person and wonder why I was so lucky. I imagined that he was sitting there in this dark room all sad that he had to do this while his family was having a party at home. I wondered what he did to pass the time. He must have already seen these new shows since he worked for Cartoon Network. I could only guess that he sat there staring into space with a bottle of juice. I really wished we could invent a robot to switch the tapes so he can go home with his family.

I now know that it is mostly automated and there is no one manually changing tapes in a VCR. There probably is someone who is working there during New Year’s Eve, but I don’t think it is anything like the scenario I imagined. Looking back, I find it interesting that I never felt this way on Christmas.

I realized something when watching this weeks episode of Heroes (Season 3 Episode 5). I get really frustrated that the characters never ask what powers someone has. It will get mentioned in a conversation that (insert character name) had powers and everyone just kind of leaves it at that. If I were in the room, I would want to know what the powers were before I let the conversation continue.

I understand that discovering the powers is part of the suspense and I wouldn’t expect the writers to reveal it at that time. It just feels like it is the elephant in the room that no one addresses. I think it would be just as effective to have someone ask and then cut to the others face, which could possibly have a look of horror, and then cut to another scene.

This is just one of the things that frustrates me about the storytelling in this show. There is a bag full of others, but that is for another time.

I just finished watching Act 1 of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” and had an absolute blast. Dr. Horrible is one of the latest projects by Joss Whedon, who you may know from Buffy, Angle, and Firefly (one of my favorites).

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is a web based mini series starring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible and Nathan Fillion as his arch nemesis Captain Hammer. You can view Act 1 (of 3) now with the others releasing on July 17th and 19th.

So far this is an excellent light hearted series. I hope this sparks some interest so we see more like this in the future.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.