I almost didn’t click on a news article saying that Adobe had hired the co-inventor of Image Resizing technology. I thought “Wow, that guy must be old. We’ve been resizing images for ages.”
I was so wrong. Prepare to have your mind BLOWN:
Archive for August, 2007
30
Aug
Image Resizer Technology
27
Aug
Bioshock
I just finished Bioshock for the PC, and it’s one of the best single-player game experiences I’ve ever had. I’d suggest everyone rush out and buy the game but you’ll need a pretty hefty computer to play it. A better option for those that don’t stay updated with gaming PCs is to finally get yourself an XBox 360 and get Bioshock for it.
Before I put my meagre writing skills to the test to explain why it’s so good, just go read all the reviews from Metacritic (96% average rating for PC, 97% for 360 — AVERAGE!)
Graphically the game is gorgeous. It doesn’t just have the latest-and-greatest in graphics technology — one of the reasons your PC should be pretty good to run it — but the art direction is some of the best I’ve ever experienced in a game. The game is set in 1960 and has an incredible art-deco look, with brilliant shades of steampunk that convince you that all the marvelous technology you experience is actually possible in that setting.
Note that this commercial isn’t using actual gameplay footage but instead gives you a compressed idea of what you’ll be doing.
Moving past the graphics, the gameplay is deep, intense, frightening and at times incredibly emotional. You’ll have lots of hard decisions to make — your “powers”, weapon upgrades, skills and abilities as well as a choice between what is morally right but less profitable and… well, something horrible I never did and possibly paid a price for in game ease. Yeah, yeah, I’m a good guy in video games.
There’s a free PC demo available through Steam, and if you have a 360 it’s available to download from the XBox Live Marketplace. Both demos are the first 45 minutes of the game and are well worth trying out.
PCs will need at least Windows XP, a P4 2.5 GHz (or equivalent), DX9c compliant video card with 128MB, and 1GB of RAM.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of my favorite movies, and I really enjoyed “Win Ben Stein’s Money”. I liked Ben Stein’s dry sense of humour and thought he was a pretty smart guy.
Until I saw the site for Expelled, his new pro-Intelligent-Design-in-the-classroom movie. They’re framing the ID crazies as cool underdogs to “Big Science” as the schoolyard bully, bemoaning how unfair it is that they are ridiculed out of science class. And Ben Stein isn’t just an unknowing poster boy, he’s right there leading them!
It’s ridiculous! Intelligent Design has only to bring evidence supporting their theory, publish it in a peer-reviewed journal and let the weight of that evidence prove their “theory’s” legitimacy. Of course they don’t have evidence, they just have questions.
Science loves questions, of course, but without any evidence to back them up they don’t get into the classroom, or even get acknowledged as theories. This is the point this movie is trying to spin to try to gain support. People in the trailer are saying they were told to shut up and stop questioning “Darwinism” as though they were asking legitimate questions, and that nobody in Science has ever questioned it. It’s bunk. Science is constantly questioning and refining its own theories, but that’s based on evidence, not wild speculation.
For shame, Ben Stein, for shame.
The first episode of Richard Dawkins’ new series is up on Google Video!
14
Aug
Time Warp
This is awesomely great… and nerdy. Found on Pharyngula who found it here.
13
Aug
Stardust
Hey you! Why haven’t you see Stardust in the theatre yet? It’s great! I think the best way to convince people to go see it I’ve heard is to point out that if you liked The Princess Bride you’ll love Stardust.
Now go! Quickly! And spread the word!
10
Aug
Logitech Comes Through
A few years back we splurged and bought ourselves a Programmable Universal Remote. As I always do on such purchases I did my research online, comparing features, prices, and customer satisfaction, and decided on the Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote. That’s it to the right, beside its charging station.
The remote worked great, allowing us to easily switch between our digital cable, XBox, PS2 and DVD player. Every function was supported, every piece of hardware was recognized. When I got an XBox 360, the remote software was able to update it to fully control it too.
But right from the start we had a problem — the charging station was finicky. In order to get the remote to sit on it and charge, it often had to be on a slight angle. Even then I’d often have to monkey with it for minutes to get it to start charging, and once it was you had to let it sit untouched and unbumped or the whole dance had to start again. I googled for an answer to this problem and noticed that many others were having the same problem and at that time Logitech didn’t have an answer for them. I sucked it up and waited. The battery lasts long enough that one overnight charge per week was plenty, so we just put up with the hassle.
About a week ago I was having even more problems getting the remote to charge and finally decided to google for a solution again. By now we were out of warranty, but I thought that perhaps some kind of sandpapering or even soldering could help the contacts meet properly. I didn’t care, I just wanted it to work. I was surprised to find that not only had Logitech owned up to there being a problem with the charging station, but that they had fixed it and were sending out replacements to those that asked for it. There was even a report online by someone who was out of warranty that managed to get it.
So I gave Logitech support a call. The “Tier 1″ woman I got was very helpful and after going through her support script — I’m technically savvy so I wanted to skip past it, but she couldn’t — she acknowledged the problem with the base but reported that because I was out of warranty she didn’t have the authority to get a replacement sent. My heart sank, but she followed it up with, “but Tier 2 support can, so I’m going to bump you up to Tier 2 with a note that you’ll need a new charging station.”
And she did. And when I talked to the Tier 2 guy, he listened to the problem, asked a few specifics then went on hold and came back to tell me he’d be sending out a replacement charging station! Out of warranty!
And today a courier arrived with a big box and inside it contained not just the charging station but a whole new remote as well! Of course I have to ship back the defective one, so no, I don’t have a spare for someone that wants it. With support calls normally a real pain in the butt to get anything done with it was a real pleasure dealing with Logitech, especially since I acknowledged the entire way that I was out of warranty and should have called right away.
The new remote is charging on its station right now. I carelessly dropped it down and it instantly made the “charging” sound and the charging light came on. One less tech annoyance down. Thanks Logitech!
Recent Comments