HDMI what?

I think HDMI is some kind of cool new video cable or something. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure what a gigbit router would do to better my life. I consider myself a pretty technical person, but when it comes to a lot of consumer electronic technology, I can be pretty clueless. So my approach to the console war is more from a layman's perspective. I focus on the end product. What do I get to do with it? How fun is it? My focus is really on the basic fun factor. You don't really get points from me for technical achievements if it's not backed up by a great experience.

Gig on the other hand is very proficient in all the latest consumer eletronic technology. And he's the kind of guy who really loves watching the badest and the greatest of graphics and listening to the surround sound technology from the future. It really gets him going to see trillion triangles (or however many is impressive these days) rendered on the screen.

We've had this difference for a while. Even dating back to college years playing Half-Life. I focus on frame rate, I want to be able to play as effectively as possible. Everything else is subservient to that game play. Often my screen would look like someone threw a pizza on it and smeared it all over the screen. For Gig, he absolutely had to turn on every graphical bells and whistles even if it meant the game started looking more like a slide show.

So... Sony with ... HDMI... blue laser thingy... giga... what...? All this jazz marketting people go on and on about... hurts my head. I really don't care about any of that. What will it do for me, the end user? It all sounds like all that power is supposed to give me the baddest graphics and sound effects and most expansive and immersive gaming work. But I look at the demos to the PS3's game line up and I really don't see any evidence that they look much better than the next wave of XBOX 360 games. Why should I care about all the power when it gets me nothing new? Like Gig says, Sony has a lot of convincing to do before I shall out 600 bucks for their machine. It's going to get close to 1 grand after extra controllers and a few games.

In this way I see Wii definitely winning out over PS3. I can clearly see the benefit of owning a Wii. It will be a very different experience from XBOX 360. I really look forward to partying it up with my buddies and making it a group activity that anybody can jump into. And it will be cheap.

In a way, I see PS3 appeal being similar to that of PSP. PSP is technically superior to the Nintendo DS, but let's face it, there's not that many good games to play on the PSP after all this time. Who cares if you have Wifi, if none of your games really make good use of it? Who cares if you have amazing resolution if the artistic direction of the games are flat and uninspired? I say let's forget about all the marketting about horsepower and look at it where it counts. Which consoles will have the games I want to play? Right now it's definitely XBOX360 and looking to be Wii.

PS3 - More smoke and Mirrors

I am not a fan of misleading marketing, and this is why Sony has struck a particularly bad chord with me. They don't have a particularly good track record when it comes to treating the consumers well, as we have seen with the rootkit fiasco (when you buy some Sony Music CDs it installed harmful spyware that allowed other spyware to piggyback and be completely hidden and unremovable from your system).

During E3 2005, along with vastly overstating the power of the PS3 and understating the power of the X360 by showing images that were clearly not possible in real time on the PS3 (despite the fact that the media swallowed it hook-line-and sinker), they also went so far as to inflate the feature set of the PS3.

In 2005, the PS3 would support 7 controllers. It would have 3 Gigabit ethernet ports and act as a gigabit router. It would have 2 HDMI jacks and be capable of outputting dual-screen. It would have 6 USB jacks. They blasted MS for not having HDMI and thus, not being able to output a digital 1080P signal. The media quickly ripped Microsoft apart and praised Sony.

In forums, I said that it was going to all get cut. I listed all the features that would be removed. Every single one was dead on, except one, I also said that there might be a clockspeed reduction of the GPU. Oh well... sue me. (But I still wouldn't be surprised if this one came to pass)



























Take a close look there. There are 3 PS3's. 1 from 2005, and then the two models announced, the $500 and the $600 one.

There is only one ethernet jack.
There are ZERO usb jacks on the back (and on the front it was reduced to 2 from 4)
The $500 PS3 has ZERO HDMI jacks and the $600 PS3 has 1.

Also notice that the PS3 just got fatter. The 2005 model was larger than the X360, the new fatty PS3 will be even larger.

And I'm going to say right now, that it still hasn't gotten big enough. In another slander tactic, Sony stated that, unlike microsoft, "they build consoles right", and they will be including the power supply in the case. It's funny because I believe the president of the company forgot that their new PSTwo's don't have built in power supplies.

Also funny that most Japanese cited that the reason the Xbox isn't appealing is because it is too big. The X360 is smaller than the Xbox, and the PS3 will be BIGGER than the Xbox. I wonder what half-assed excuse the Japanese will use now to justify their nationalistic pride in their home built electronics.

Of course, those cases aren't actually working PS3's. At E3, the PS3's used were all dev-kits which were in the form of a large server rack style case (easily 2x larger than the case shown). With the amount of heat generated by the huge CPU and GPU and now toss in an Internal HDD (the X360 has the HDD clipped to the top of the box), and worse yet, internal powersupply, that case will either need to get bigger still, or it will sound like a jet engine taking off as the fans desperately try to keep it from melting.

Yes, I'm not happy with Sony and the PS3 if you couldn't tell by now. And sadly, people are still so influenced by branding rather than by quality and features, that Sony will likely still obliterate Microsoft in sales as soon as they ramp up production.

They still have time to impress me, maybe their online service will rock, maybe their content delivery system will usher in a new age of entertainment. But, I won't hold my breath, and I won't buy it until they prove that they can do more than just bait and switch.

Xmen 3 - Worst Movie Ever?

I personally nominate Xmen 3 the distinction of getting the "Worst Movie Ever" and "The Best way to destroy a beloved series" awards.

If you aren't a fan of the Xmen and don't know too much about the comics/cartoons, then maybe, just maybe, the movie might have been entertaining.

I wouldn't know.

Because right from the start I sat there and watched as one of my favorite IPs was torn apart and destroyed with no hope of recovery.

That trilogy is dead to me. I will never purchase those DVD's. I will never watch them again.

In fact, I eagerly await the "Xmen Begin's" trilogy that will probably be made 15 years from now where they redo the Xmen right.

That movie was an atrocity.

If there is a hell, I think the only people that should be sent there, are the ones that were involved in the creation of this abomination.

Bastards

X360 - Microsoft's Evil Trojan

The company everyone loves to hate. Doesn't matter what good they do for the industry, because everything they do is evil. We all eagerly await the destruction of Microsoft by the likes of Google, Apple, Sony, and anyone else who can tear the company limb from limb.

To be honest, I didn't expect much from Microsoft at E3.

The system already launched last year, and the release of new hardware is always far more exciting than a list of games.

But Microsoft surprised everyone, it of course didn't hurt Microsoft that people were still reeling from Sony's conference.

It's a pretty even toss up between Nintendo and Microsoft as far as "victor" of the show is concerned.

The biggest surprise?

Live Anywhere

It seems Microsoft is wisening up to the PC platform and is "consoleizing" it. I'm sure some people won't be happy with this, likely out of hate and disgust for MS, but the fact is, it's a good thing.

"Games for Windows" is the new logo.

These games will connect to Live, games will play across X360 and Vista. Games won't install on vista, they will run directly from disc. You will be able to make mods under vista and upload to your X360. The connectivity between X360 and Vista is extreme.

Of course, then there were the games, the HD-DVD player, a whole slew of wireless peripherals, and:



















In all it's real-time glory.

The small Japanese Wii

The system is tiny.

It is the size of two DVD cases stacked on top of each other.

Yeah, think about that.

The Wiimote (the controller) is pretty freaking brilliant.




















This is the wiimote (on the right) with the "nunchuck"(on the left) attachment.

























"Wiimote"

Completely different from any controller ever made before. What does it do?

First off, the system knows where the controller is in 3D space. It knows how far it is from the screen. I knows what the orientation of the controller is. The wiimote has a speaker in it as well. This little speaker will be used for something they call "Depth of Sound." For instance, if you shoot an arrow in a game, the sound will originate in your hand in the controller, and then when it hits its target on screen, it will come from your center channel of your surround sound system.
Even the nunchuck attachment is more than just an analog stick. It also houses an accelerometer. When you move it, it can determine how fast it has been moved (though it is incapable of knowing where it is).

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that the Wii might make the ultimate party machine. Getting a bunch of people standing up swinging the remote to simulate hitting a tennis racquet, or playing air-drums, is actually a possibility. Pointing with the remote and shooting at the screen as well is a possibility, imagine shooting with the trigger, and then swinging the remote to perform a melee attack... yep, all possible. Pretty damn cool.

Is it going to replace current controllers and kill off the competition? Hardly. There are definitely new things that can be done with the controller, new experiences, and crazy whacky fun to be had, but it is hardly something that can replace a standard controller for serious competitive gaming, or even long play periods. I mean, sure, they say gamers don't get much physical activity, but this wiimote is certainly not going to suddenly make gamers love physical exertion. Good for parties, not good for clan matches.

In fact, this has spawned a whole new concept. The Wii is being viewed as the ultimate "second" console. Hence the creation of the term "Wii60" which is a combination of the names Wii and Xbox 360. I mean, heck you can even buy both machines for the cost of 1 PS3.










But not all is perfect in the wii small world of wii.

The machine is, without a shadow of a doubt, seriously underpowered when compared to the big boys X360 and PS3.

In fact, it is little more than a souped up Gamecube in a smaller case. A little bit more RAM, a little bit better GPU, a higher clocked CPU.

If you were looking for "next generation" graphics to go along with the new nifty controller... the Wii will not be able to provide. It will not even support HDTV in any way, shape, or form.

But it will be cheap. All rumors hint of a $200 price point, which would be a record low price for a launch system.

Nintendo knows they can't compete with the huge money backing that Xbox and Playstation have, so they went in a completely different direction, one so different that they aren't even considered competition but more of a companion system for whichever of the "standard" consoles you might choose.

Very smart of Nintendo, and in the end, we win because we get to play something new, even if it doesn't have the flash and sparkle of crazy eyepopping graphics.

For the tech heads out there, who like me, would be scratching their head as to how the hell the system can figure out where the remote is in 3D space, well, it is finally known.

There is a sensor bar that you place below or to the side of your TV. Of course, everyone knows that to determine an object's location, you need at LEAST 3 points (and that's only for 2D); "Triangulation." You'd need an additional point on another plane for 3D.

But there are only TWO points here... the bar, and the remote itself.

Well, it turns out that the bar is about a foot long, at both ends of the bar are a series of IR TRANSMITTERS. That's right, transmitters, not receivers. The entire time I had attempted to tackle the problem assuming the wiimote would be doing the transmitting, but it isn't.

The wiimote instead has a IR detecting CCD camera. The camera "looks" at where you are pointing the remote, and when it sees the two "points" of the sensor bar, it can measure the distance between the points to determine distance. Factoring that it knows what angle the remote is at, and can determine height (at least relative to the sensor bar). And voila, a very simple, inexpensive, and IMO brillant solution to determining relative location. Good stuff!

I'm definitely looking forward to picking one up. Even if we look like silly retards jumping around the house with it.

Sony Dropped the Ball

I've watched the videos.

I've sat through 5 hours of conference feeds from 3 companies.

My conclusion.

Sony blew goat chunks at this E3.

Last E3, in an effort to steal Microsoft's thunder, Sony played a bunch of video at E3 that represented what games would look like on the PS3.

They claimed at the time that those videos were representative of gameplay. They made other claims, in magazines and on TV that the videos were running on real PS3 hardware.

The videos they showed blew everything away. They made the Xbox 360 look like a childs play thing. People walked out of E3 calling the Xbox 360 the Xbox 1.5. Sony openly claimed that the X360 was competing with the PS2, not with the PS3 which would be out of its league.

E3 2005 Motorstorm: "Real Gameplay"






















E3 2006 Motorstorm: Actual Gameplay






















E3 2005 Tekken 6:"Real In-Game Model"



















E3 2006 Tekken 6: "WTF?"





















E3 2005 Killzone: "When you play it.. it will look like that"



















E3 2006 Killzone: "Where did you go?"


















Fast forward to this E3.

Sony had to show real games.

Not a single game even came close to the videos they showed last year. Killzone disappeared completely. Motorstorm looks good, but hardly anywhere near the target video (you especially have to see it in motion to see how far it strayed). Tekken 6 doesn't even look like the same game. Heavenly Sword (not shown) is now confined to tiny little rooms.

In fact, so downgraded they are, that the next wave of X360 games look BETTER than anything that will be launching on the PS3. Gears of War alone blows everything the PS3 had to offer completely out of the water.

Now, mind you, the games look fantastic. They really do. Especially Metal Gear Solid 4 (due late 2007 thus no where near a launch title) But Sony lied, raised expectations, and prayed that everyone would forget a year later.

They didn't.

And then, at the end of their conference... they announced the price.
$499 for the tard-pack
$599 for the full-featured product

The feature stripped version of the PS3 costs a full $100 more than the full featured Xbox 360.

The controller is identical to the PS2 but lost the rumble (remember my blog post about Sony and their lawsuit with Immersion?) and added a tilt-sensor and wireless.

Why?

Bluray. Sony is pushing so hard for this format to win, that they are desperately including it in the PS3. The problem is... bluray is Very expensive. Even at $600, Sony will be losing somewhere in the ballpark of $150-250 per unit. (Microsoft loses ~$175 on the premium X360 right now)

But perhaps this isn't such a bad idea? After all, there will be shortages no matter what, and early adopters are willing to pay. X360s were going for over $1000 on ebay after all...Is Sony's strategy then to milk the early adopters for all they've got... and then when they have enough inventory to sell, drop the price?

Sounds like a good idea to me... hell, why should all the ebay freaks make all the money?

But Sony's in a tight spot. The other problem they have is... their friendly neighborhood bluray manufacturers. There are 14 manufacturers lined up to make bluray...

But how can they sell their drives at a loss? Bluray drives will cost $800-$1200 through early 2007... but you can get one for cheap in a PS3. But the PS3 isn't THAT cheap now. Is this high price also in place to not scare away all the other manufacturers, who would just as easily jump ship and start making HD-DVD players, driving down the cost of HD-DVD further and making it an even more dangerous foe?

Will Sony be able to drop the price on the PS3 soon after launch? They will lose more per unit, AND piss off other bluray manufacturers. It's a tough spot.

Their claims that the X360 isn't in the same league fell flat at the conference. Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, all games that showed that the X360 is MORE than capable of standing toe to toe with the almighty PS3, AND at $200 less. When the PS3 launches with somewhere between 12-20 titles, the X360 will be swinging with 150.

The war has started, the players have showed their hands, and the only gun in Sony's court is their brand name with 100Million PS2 owners looking for an upgrade. I wouldn't put money down that none of those people won't buy a non-Sony console. Especially since US is only getting 1 Million units this year. A lot of parents will walk out of the stores with a different console.

Wii be jammin next.

Take Control!

Woah, sorry about the disappearing act there.

I've been digesting E3 for a while now. There was just too much stuff to download and watch, and I wanted to give everything a fair chance.

But before that, I have got to say, I just bought the most BADASS remote control ever.

It's a Logitech Harmony Universal remote. (the Xbox 360 Variant)

It is just amazingly cool and worth every penny. (And no, you don't need to own an X360, it just happens to be themed around it, and has built in support for all X360 media features)

You organize things not by device, but by activity, which is pure brilliance.

For instance, I chose from the little screen the option "Watch TV"

The remote then powers on the TV, the surround sound system, and the cable box.
After it does that, it will:
- Switch TV to Component 2 input
- Switch Surround Sound system to AV 1 Coax input

From that point forward, each button is intelligently mapped. If I hit the volume buttons, they will raise the volume on the surround sound system. If I hit the channel buttons, or menu, or info, those will all access the various features of the cable box. If I hit the display button, it will change the aspect ratio of the TV.

BADASS.

So lets say I want to change activities. I hit 1 button. Press "play Xbox"

The remote will then:
-Turn off cable box
-Turn on Xbox 360
-Switch TV input to Component 1
-Switch Surround Sound input to AV 1 Optical

That's it. 1 button, which would have required 4 different buttons on 4 different remotes.

How hard was it to set up? HA! It was freaking brilliant. All I needed to do was type in the model numbers for my devices, and it already had all the IR codes for everything. Except one thing... I couldn't figure out the model number for the cable box.

And this blew me away too...

The software told me to go grab the remote to the cable box. The Harmony has an IR receiver at the base. It said:
-"Point the remote at the base, and press power"
-"Press Channel Up"
-"Press #1"

As soon as I did that, the damn thing TOLD me what model I had. It's like "You have a Time Warner Explorer 8100a"

I was like "HOT DAMN!"

And of course, you can map ANY button on the remote to ANY function on ANY device.

Hell, once we find the remote for the air conditioner, we're going to add that functionality to the remote too.

I'm telling you, if you have 3 or more remotes lying around, GET ONE of these. Logitech has a whole line of Harmony, but according to reviews, this is actually their best one even if it is themed around the X360. But even so, the look is not bad at all.

Is this thing on?? About them Macs

*tap* *tap* Hello? Is this thing on?

Gig, I think there's at least half a dozen people out here DYING to hear what you have to say about E3.

I'll leave it up to Gig to start that off. So instead let me talk a little bit about the new MacBooks. I am in the market for an "ultralight" laptop. So far I've been lusting after the Lifebook P1510D. It's a Tablet PC that has the profile of a regular school notebook and weighs only 2 pounds. It will blow you away.

But now the 13 inch MacBooks have entered the market. Integrated camera, DVD burner, and of course the chance to play with the Mac OS is extremely compelling, especially given that I can bootcamp to run Windows software when I need to. Ah, the siren call of Apple. The marketting genius that is Apple never ceases to astound me.

Let's look at their pricing scheme for instance. MacBooks come in three varieties. The budget white 13inch priced at $1,099 (which your mind easy tones down to 1 grand), the supped up white 13inch priced at $1,299. That's all pretty normal. But they also have the BLACK 13inch MacBook priced at $1,499. All that's different between the black and the white 13inch higher end model is that the black one is black and has 20 more gigs of hard drive space. You can get 20 more gigs of hard drive space on the white one for 50 bucks right there when you order it on line. In other words, they are charging $150 dollars more to get the laptop in BLACK. But when I consider getting a MacBook I can't help but want... no... NEED the BLACK MacBook. More I look at them side by side, more sexy the perfect black color becomes.

How are they doing this? It's amazing. Of course they are not even really trying to get me to buy the black one. The presence of the ultimately desirable black one gets me so much closer to buying the higher end white one. Extreme aversion at its best. Bravo Apple.

E3: Lost Planet Demo

So the Live servers have been getting slammed by all the downloads, but Gig and I've been slowly downloading every single content up there.

If you have to pick one and only one thing to download on your XBOX 360 though, I would say it would have to be the Lost Planet playable demo. When I saw the video trailers I thought it would be an eye candy game with clunky graphics and poor game play, but if you play the demo you will be a believer. Gig and I have played two scenarios that comes with the demo at least fews time through each, killing everything there is to kill and still wanting more. I found myself destroying the end boss scream "nooooo, don't die. i want to play some more."

Check it out. The explosions are amazing, body movements are real, and game play is actually quite good. Love the grappling hook.

E3: Crazy Boobage

Courtesy of XBOX360, we can watch E3 videos directly on our TV via XBOX Live.

Gig and I'll be covering those and other videos regarding Sony PS3 and Nintendo's small Wii. Before we begin however, let's get our priorities straight and talk about the really important development at E3. In an attempt to garner more respectability E3 this year has banned "Booth Girls", those voluptuous young ladies who bring the vital boobage factor to the event. (Well, in all honesty I think it was a good move on E3's part. It's about time the electronic entertainment industry gain some maturity.)

However, fear not! Our good friends at Tecmo comes to the rescue with their video of DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball 2.

If you have a set of balls, the first time you saw DOA and you saw the bounce factor you have paused with a "woah". Didn't think it could get better? Well, it turns out that so far both cleavage have been linked together, and both boobs have been linked as one unit, bouncing together.

Now comes DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball 2, with independantly controlled boobs that bounce along all axis. That's right folks, these boobs bounce in all directions and independantly of each other. When you see it for the first time, it is truly mind boggling.

Mind boggling is really the only way to describe it.

Alright now that we got that out of the way, Gig will start you off with a quick overall description of what we feel about the E3 showings overall, including our theories about Sony's price strategy, and move on to individual games worthy of attention.

Gig, stop playing UNO on the 360 and get writing! It's just freaking UNO.

Weekend Update

I have been shamed. I hope someone out there has pictures of our "Cinco de Mayo" party because it was great.

We started with the Female armwrestling match which won me some money cause I bet on the victor.

The most boring match turned out to be the "main event" that everyone bet on... the event that cost me my pride and honor as OMalekan proceeded to beat me out 2x in a row. I want a rematch and I want one without any of that BS thumb grabbing crap... you hear me?

Then we had the heavyweight match, which was PHENOMENAL, if only because we were worried that the table wasn't going to survive that one! That was intense.

We were surprised, and pretty happy that everyone really got into the armwrestling thing. Good times, good friends, liquor and junk food. Yep.. a good Friday night. Cat, do you have any pictures to post?

Oblivion Video Game: Re-Rated M

This country has some serious issues.

The video game Oblivion has just received a new rating of Mature from the ESRB. All sales will be halted in the country until stickers are shipped to all retailers to be placed on the game boxes.

Wal-mart has a strict policy of not carrying M-rated titles, so they will be returning the game to Bethseda.

Now, I'm not saying this game shouldn't be rated M. It definitely has some very adult content and disturbing imagery and topics. So be it. The ESRB doesn't actually play the games they label, they just get a video of the game from the developer, they sit down, watch it, and slap a label on the game. A game that is as large as Oblivion (200+ hours to see everything), I can definitely see some stuff being missed.

But is that why they changed the rating?

Haha. Nope.

Apparently Bethseda, locked away in some files somewhere in the game, has textures for nipples. You can't actually EVER see a nipple in the game as the closest you will ever get to nudity is granny panties and a very non-revealing bra.

But oh... hackers found the textures, and they hacked the PC version of the game (illegal), and managed to remove the textures for the bra and panties and released this hack of the game on the internet.

ESRB decided to rerate the game "Mature" because Bethseda included these nipple textures in the game, which can only be accessed if you hack your game.

We have ultra-violent games and movies that receive Teen and PG-13 ratings respectively, but you get a Mature rating if you even THINK to include a file of a nipple that cannot be accessed through normal play.

Our country is amazing.

Of course, this is great for oblivion. The publicity alone will send sales skyrocketing once those stickers hit the stores.

Automated Blogs?

Ok, so you though that the whole Homepage -> Web Log -> Blog fad was crazy enough.

Then we got the friendsters, and the video blogs. We have sites that host pictures for free, videos for free.

And now... we have blogs that write themselves. WTF?

That's right. www.360voice.com

So basically, the Xbox servers communicate with this site and this site writes a blog about what you did/played the day before.

Mine: http://www.360voice.com/blog.asp?tag=theGigaflop

It's amusing for a couple of minutes... but I forsee bad things for guys that have girlfriends. Can't cancel the date anymore and go play xbox if you sign up for this site... cause she will know!

Useless Meme = Side Effect

Gig and I had a bit of offline chat about this. Basically our body has been designed to prefer certain things and lot (but not all) of those tendencies that is built into the body (such as love for sweets) can be traced back to some kind of function it served in helping us survive better.

Gig is suggesting that pattern solving is one of those traits we have come to derive pleasure from over the years. I agree with that. Now that human being have developed a "taste" for pattern solving, lot of patterns that gives us the most pattern solving "pleasure" will spread amongst us. These "pleasurable" patterns may or may not increase our survivability. My suggestion is that music maybe one general sort of such patterns. It gives us pleasure, so make more, we spread it to others, but does it make us more or less survivable. Is it our P element?

Of course survivability isn't the only way human beings pass judgement anymore. This is how we trascend the brutality of nature. There is value in it being pleasurable, whether or not it helps us survive longer.

Useless Meme or Side Effect?

Cataclyst proposed in his response to my music question that we are looking at it the wrong way:

That music does not increase our survivability, and thus isn't really part of the evolution argument. That instead, it is a meme that has been passed on from generation to generation because it is, itself, a highly adaptive and survivable "entity."

I am not convinced though that "music" and "art" are "memes." I do believe however that individual songs or works of art would be memes. These can be grouped together by genre, and the ideas that tag along with them, styles of clothes, culture, spawn and die on a whim. And so, following a particular song's influence on a group would fall right in line with Cataclyst's explanation.

I think the ability to create music however is something entirely different. We often use art as the measuring stick that separates humans from machines.

"We can be creative, machines cannot."

But what is art other than another form of masturbation? A collective way of pleasing ourselves?

A certain combination of sounds evokes a certain response in our brain that we enjoy. So what do we do? We play that combination of sounds. We continue to alter it to get greater pleasure. The complexity of the combination continues to increase and change with each new song, but in the end, it is little more than an attempt to stimulate ourselves.

Now, the question as to WHY it stimulates us is best left to a neurosurgeon and it is answering this WHY which would give us the best understanding as to how music fits into our brain functions. Suffice it to say, music is little more than a mathematical pattern, and given our massive pattern recognition abilities (one of our greatest strengths over machines), when presented with the complex pattern get to work unraveling it, and in the process we enjoy it. (That enjoyment is what I think ultimately is a by-product of our brains evolving their phenomenally huge pattern recognition abilities) There are some key things that we enjoy more than others, likely due to evolutionary conditioning (constant beats, deep bass). But in the end, we do receive pleasure, and the birth and rise of music is the result of our quest to increase our pleasure, not unlike the great lengths we go to attract other humans to get a little play.

My Friends Know Kungfu

Lot of our friends have been doing Wushu for years. Gig and I tried it out for a summer, but we decided it's not quite for us. But damn, it looks so cool. (link courtesy of Colleen)

Quick TIme Video

Real Life Counter Strike

Just... wow. But yes, I'll admit I've gone through this phase in my life also. (thank Switch for the video link)

Maximum Impact

How does one write something that can not only consistently entertain and keep one occupied for the duration of their visit to your blog, but also encourage them to come back again and again?

Short, fast, hard.

Toss the ego. Toss any desire to flex your vocabulary. Blogging is a form of entertainment. Hit them over and over again. Every sentence should be carefully crafted for maximum delivery and impact.

Dry sucks.

Give them something to read frequently. Give them interesting facts and links. Convey your points and ideas in as few words as possible. Use images whenever possible.

Looks Good

Too many words will kill a blog. My Xanga died a slow and painful death by sheer quantity of verbage. Give them something that looks light and airy, that moves quickly, and doesn't strain the eyes. Your audience is staring at a computer monitor for 8+ hours a day. Don't give them something that stresses their eyes like their excel spreadsheets.

Comments welcome. Posts that you don't feel like reading, mention that! Negative feedback very useful.

Weekend Report: Beer, Biking, Bodies Exhibit

I've been getting killed by allergies this weekend. Pollen count has been INSANE. But that didn't stop us from having fun.

Friday night: Beer and sausages at Zum Schneider. Schneider Weisse and Kolsche are simply too tasty! Gig and I met up with my NYU friends. The night slipped into bar hopping in ABC land eventually leading unconsciousness, but fun times were had by all!!

Saturday: Grand tour of NYC on bike! Gig, one of his coworkers - Sam, Malekan, Chris and I went for a long bike ride. We made a loop around the island following the coasts and turning at 125th. It was an amazingly beautiful day.


Sunday: Bodies Exhibit. It was fun and educational. I think Gig and I got into it lot more than some of the other people there (i.e. we were being the slow pokes). I didn't know my liver was in my rip cages. For some reason I always thought it's in my left side near the pelvis. The coolest part of the exhibit must have been the circulatory systems where they plasticized the blood vessels and melted away rest of the body showing dramatic displays of how circulatory system is inside our body. It's definitely a bit too trendy and crowded for my taste, but it's still worth the trip.

Now I am hiding in my room with my brand spanking new Vornado Air Quality System 35 that I picked up from Bed Bath and Beyond this morning. If any of you guys have allergies, I am telling you, this system is VERY worth it. I noticed a difference almost immediately. Now I can actually function without my eyes poofing shut from allergies.

Anyone tried Flonase? Or are on any allergy medication they found to be highly effective? Claritan's been my best friend, but I am wondering if there's anything else better out there.

Coming up next, I believe Gig's going to bring his XBOX 360 to life or something. Stay tuned!