A Bit Eclectic

Cozy Computing

Shawn — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:09:29 +0000

via kung fu grippe, photo by Bekathwia

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Are Video Games Heading in the Wrong Direction?

Shawn — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:14:52 +0000

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

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Google’s Incentive with Chrome

WordPress 2.7: Hot New Features

Shawn — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:25:50 +0000

I am really psyched for WordPress 2.7. It is really looking great and I love the face lift. Instead of listing all the new features, I’ll let this great video cover some of the hottest.

[via wordpress.com]

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Dorky Mittens

Shawn — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:47:57 +0000

It is starting to get cold outside and I am hoping to have a very white and snow filled winter. The cold air seems to bring back a memory from my childhood. When I was younger, around 3rd or 4th grade, I believed that gloves were cool and mittens were dorky. I wouldn’t be caught dead going out to play with mittens on. All the cool kids wore gloves. At home we had a pair of mittens that were never taken out of the hat and glove box.¹

Then I advanced into middle school and high school. Magically, mittens were cool. It seemed like everyone had a pair of those knitted mittens. They would wear them all the time: indoors, outdoors, summer, and winter.

In hindsight all this was pretty silly. Hand garments aren’t a status symbol. It is crazy how young people put a coolness factor on everything. Mittens are more practical because they keep your fingers together to maintain warmth. Gloves are practical because they allow you to use your fingers. They both have their advantages but I wouldn’t consider either one dorky or cool. People can and have devoted lifetimes to understanding these social trends.

In case you are wondering, I had planned this whole post to be about gloves and mittens. That is dorky.

Photo by kathrynivy

Notice that my family called it a hat and glove box, not a mitten box. ↩

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Sympathy on New Year’s Eve

Shawn — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:27:23 +0000

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.

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Clean Your Mighty Mouse

Shawn — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:59:43 +0000

I love my Apple Mighty Mouse, but I have had one gripe. The scroll ball’s utility has declined steadily over time. It gets gunked up the more I use it and eventually stops scrolling down. This makes it annoying to use and difficult to read web pages. Recently I found a remedy.

Take a clean white sheet of paper. Set it on a flat surface and roll the scroll ball vigorously on it for about a minute or so. Roll it up and down, side to side, and in circles. The purpose is to dislodge all the gunk and free up the ball.

After this my Mighty Mouse works like new. The scroll ball functions better than it has for the past year. I tried this on a mouse at work and you wouldn’t believe the crap that came out. If you are seeing a decrease in performance then give your mouse a little TLC.

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What Is Your Power?

Shawn — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:51:16 +0000

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.

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Useful Eject-Key Shortcuts

Shawn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:15:53 +0000

Here is a quick tip for all my Mac wielding friends. The eject key does more than just spit out disks. Using the modifier keys (command, control, option, shift), the eject key will give you more control over your Mac.

Put screen to sleep: Ctrl - Shift - Eject
Put computer to sleep: Option - Command - Eject
Restart computer: Control - Command - Eject
Shutdown computer: Control - Option - Command - Eject

[via Tekzilla Daily]

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A Brief History Lesson

Shawn — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:28:09 +0000

I find it interesting (and often scary) to look at other peoples computers. You always find the oddest things installed and configured. One of my coworkers recently had to fix his friend’s computer. He found some interesting stuff while digging around looking for problems.

I booted up her computer to see what she had installed. To my surprise, she still had the original Napster. As I looked a little closer I found Morphius, BearShare, Audio Galaxy and almost every other file sharing program that I knew existed. It was like taking a trip through the history.

He ended up reinstalling Windows to fix everything which probably would have been my first step. All this makes me wonder, what does your computer say about you?

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Sunk Costs and Software Development

Shawn — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:56:02 +0000

On this weeks episode of gdgt weekly (iTunes), Peter Rojas and Ryan Block discussed the new Android based phone. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Android is Google’s new cellphone OS. It is hailed as an open platform with very little restriction on developers and users. I haven’t used the phone so I can’t provide any input on usability or comparability to other phones.

On gdgt they claimed that Android is better than Windows Mobile. They brought up the fact that Windows Mobile has been around for awhile (currently on ver. 6.1) and this is Android’s first release. They seemed pretty shocked/impressed that a the newcomer can outdo the old timer. Personally, I don’t find this all that shocking. If anything, I think it makes some sense that the first version software can be better than the seasoned veteran.

Google’s advantage comes from the sunk costs in a project. The sunk costs are what you have put into a project that should be irrelevant when making future decisions. Since they are already in the project and can’t be recovered there is no reason to consider them in future decisions. The problem is that sunk costs often lead to commitment bias. This bias causes a someone to stick with something because they have already put in time and money. An example is putting a lot of money in a stock that then starts to lose value. If you fall victim to the commitment bias then you will feel the need to stick with the stock because you have already “come this far”.

A commitment bias isn’t always caused by money. It can develop because of the amount of time invested or even from irrational feelings. This can manifest in software and OS development. A team will spend a lot of time and money developing a UI. Over time, the original idea may not be the best approach. To fix it up, the team decides to do little fixes and enhancements. The idea is they have already put in so much energy that minor fixes is all it needs. Sometimes a better idea would be to scrap the design and start over. The longer they stick with it, the harder it is to just start over. This will eventually put the software at a competitive disadvantage as the competition implements a better UI.

Those developing a ver. 1.0 has less of a commitment bias because there will be less sunk costs. They can test out different ideas with less guilt if they change directions. They can also evaluate the competition more effectively. If they see something wrong in the competition’s UI, they can leave it out early on instead of having to make drastic changes later.

It isn’t that shocking that a version 1.0 software can beat out a 6.0 or 7.0. In fact, we have seen it at least twice over the past two years with both Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone. The question now is whether Microsoft will pull away from previous biases and sunk costs to create something that will push the platform forward.