Ooohh-kaaaaay...
That's definitely one movie poster that doesn't give anything away.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Obama forces out General Motors CEO
I said Friday afternoon that I was leaving the blog until Monday. Anytime I take a respite, I'm serious about it. And it's gonna take something really damned bad to drag me back here.
If this ain't bad enough, then I sure as hell don't know what is...
President Barack Obama has effectively FIRED Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors.
What this means is that the United States federal government has pretty much nationalized and taken over a private company. It's likely not going to be called that officially, but the policy is still the same.
Has a President of the United States ever done anything like this, in the history of this country? Certainly not in recent memory. The closest I can think of is what happened between Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers' union... but not Reagan or any other President in living recollection ever seized enough control of a company to call the shots about who it hires.
Scary stuff.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Off for the weekend
Will probably be Twitter-ing some, but otherwise I'll return to the blog Monday, following a few days' rest and working on mysterious new projects.
Go out and play now! :-)
What should we call the UN's global currency?
So not only are several countries wanting to ditch the U.S. dollar as the main instrument of international trade, but a United Nations panel is now calling for a new global currency. Officially it's being touted as a "Global Reserve System".
If this new money becomes a reality, it's gonna need a name, just like for the dollar and the euro and the yen, etc.
"Global Reserve System", eh? Well then, how about we call the base note of this proposed cross-borders currency...
- the greaserMy favorite pick is the grue. Like, you can have several grues in your wallet (where they like it dark). And just like the grues of the Zork games, they are always eager to devour the unwary.- the grisly
- the gross
- the grue
- ?
Got any ideas? Let's hear 'em! :-)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Follow me on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/theknightshift
It's actually my second attempt at "Twittering". Yeah, like I've said before when it comes to new technology I'm much like the Amish: I have to come to trust it first, before I adopt it. Hence why I let the last go at it lapse. I'm gonna keep that one as a "personal" line for friends and family. But theknightshift one will stay public.
MYTHBUSTERS shakes town with explosion
The Discovery Channel's popular show Mythbusters gave a fright to the residents of a small California town when a detonation being performed for an upcoming show wound up making a bigger bang than expected. They set off 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. A mile away, people in Esparto were literally thrown from their couches and the bang even shattered windows of houses (which the Mythbusters staff had replaced the same day).
The purpose of the explosion was to see if socks could literally be "blown off" of a mannequin. Can't wait to see that 'un :-)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Amateur astronomer's uber-kewl photo of the International Space Station
Manually tracking with a 10-inch Newtonian telescope armed with a video camera, amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh captured this amazing photo of the International Space Station, with the Space Shuttle Discovery docked alongside it...
Reaction to tonight's LOST: "He's Our You"
I've got one thing to say about that ending:HOLY #&$@!!!
Well, Sayid's done and gone scrooooooowed things up now, hasn't he?
"A twelve-year old Ben Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I am?"After half a season of reconfiguring its style every which-away, Lost returned to familiar roots tonight with a Sayid-centric "flashback" episode. Didn't make it any less of the thrill that we've come to expect lately. "He's Our You" was the payoff for last week's show, which a lot thought was a step-down from the recent intensity.
Leave it to Lost to crank it up again and break the needle right at the end of an episode.
It's always good to see William Sanderson in anything. But his role as the torturer might have been the creepiest character that I've ever seen him as. I thought it was one of the more inspired bits of Lost casting that we've seen (and that's saying plenty good). Also loved seeing the circumstances of Sayid's presence on Ajira 316 being revealed.
And did anyone else catch the DHARMA logo on Hurley's jumpsuit? Heh-heh... wouldn't it be nifty if an official Lost: Hurley's DHARMA Initiative Cookbook wound up on bookshelves? :-P
Excellent episode, as usual. Can't wait for next week's, titled "Whatever Happened, Happened".
(And the Internets will be burning up for the next seven days about whether he "lives or dies", no doubt...)
WOLFENSTEIN 3D now available for iPhone
I'm thinking of getting an iPhone in the next few months (probably after the next version is released, now said to be in June or July). If/when that happens, id Software's classic Wolfenstein 3D might be the first thing that I buy from the iPhone App Store. You can now take B.J. Blazkowicz's one-man war against the Nazis with you anywhere. Kotaku reports that the iPhone version is "better" than the original. Some of the coding for this port was done by id's John Carmack, who is now also saying that Doom will be coming "fairly soon" for the iPhone as well.LOST Season 4 soundtrack set for May 12th release
All of y'all who've been wondering when the soundtrack for Lost Season 4 would be coming out: be of good cheer! According to the Varèse Sarabande website, Lost: Season 4 Original Television Soundtrack is due for release on May 12th, just before the Season 5 finale.
Here's the pertinent info that's on the site...
It's here! Michael Giacchino's brilliant soundtrack, which follows every mysterious twist and turn of Lost's addictive Fourth Season. Exploding with excitement, Lost reached new heights in the fourteen episodes of its fourth season. More than three months after their fateful crash, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 discover that the only thing more dangerous than the island might be the people who have come to rescue them. The mind-blowing story was told with original flashbacks and mind-bending flash-forwards. There was no shortage of drama in Losts thrilling Season 4 ... just what you would expect from one of the most groundbreaking shows in television history.More than anything else on this CD, I want it to include the music from when Ben is turning the frozen wheel in the season finale. I thought that was the single best track of the season and one of the all-time most wonderful from the entire run of the show.Michael Giacchino's music has played a huge role in the series from the very beginning and fans have been dying for our latest collection of Lost musical highlights — over 75 minutes of Season 4's emotional and thrilling score.
LOST: Season 4 is now available on DVD and BluRay from ABC Home Video.
Varèse Sarabande Catalog #: 302 066 964 2
Release Date: 05/12/09
The 4,900 calorie hamburger
The Class A West Michigan Whitecaps have added the following gastronomic monstrosity to their ballpark menu: the Fifth Third Burger.
A heart-stopping (perhaps literally) 4,889 calories of beef, lettuce, tomato, salsa, sour cream, chili and Fritos on an 8-inch sesame seed bun. Total weight: nearly 30 ounces.
The ballpark management suggests that one of these hamburgers can feed four people. But if one person manages to eat the whole thing, he/she will earn the right to wear this t-shirt:
The crisis thus far...
The head of the European Union has described President Obama's plans to spend the United States out of recession as "the road to hell".
Great Britain is running out of money.
China wants to dump the U.S. dollar as the de facto global currency.
And now the United States Postal Service is beginning to beg for a bailout.
What's that Chinese curse? "May you live in interesting times", or something.
Here it comes: nationalizing of newspapers
Remember how years ago we used to laugh at Pravda, the government-run newspaper of the Soviet Union? It would only print whatever news that the state deemed fit... and only with whatever spin that the Communist Party wanted it to have.
Here's one more reason why the United States will soon have to owe the old Soviets an apology: there's now a bill in Congress to "bail out" the struggling newspaper industry. If it becomes legislation, print news companies that accept government aid will be restructured as nonprofit, and will be banned from making political endorsements (very much like how churches are granted nonprofit status so long as their ministers don't endorse candidates).
What the hell is happening to this country? I mean... government-managed newspapers?!?
Hey, I've worked in the newspaper industry. As a reporter. Twice. And there are a lot of reasons why newspapers are dying. And almost all of 'em are the fault of the newspapers themselves. They've failed to keep up with modern technology, in a time when ever-increasing numbers of people are turning to the Internet for their information. And what was the biggest reason why that has happened?
Because I hate to say this, but too much of the newspaper industry has grown spoiled and complacent. The alleged "bias" that a lot of people ascribe to traditional journalism? I honestly don't know if it's political favoritism as much as it is that the age of the hard-nosed investigative reporter for "the big daily paper" has come and gone. Too many reporters don't want to work hard for the story. They want it given to them pre-digested, without the risk of asking the serious questions.
So lemme be succinct: if newspapers are dying, let 'em die.
They more than earned it. The newspapers no more deserve our money to stay afloat than do the auto companies or the investment firms.
Besides, does anyone really want the federal government managing the funny pages? I sure as hell don't.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
PITFALL II: LOST CAVERNS: Ruined industry's saving grace still innovative 25 years later
1983 was the start of a disastrous period for the once-seemingly indomitable video game industry. With the market overly-glutted from too many competing systems (and a similar brawl wrecking havoc among the nascent personal computer business) many individuals and families completely abandoned home video gaming out of sheer frustration. Neither were matters helped by corporate bungling that has since taken on legendary proportions: witness E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and the Pac-Man port for the Atari 2600. And yeah, the "Atari Landfill" story is completely true. Let's not even begin to talk about turkeys like Porky's and Custer's Revenge (I'm telling y'all kiddies who weren't around then, that you missed something else...).
All of which makes it the more astonishing that in the dying glow of video gaming's first burst of prominence, one title was produced which a quarter-century later is still hailed as one of the greatest and most groundbreaking games of all time.
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns was released by Activision in March of 1984. It was the sequel to 1982's Pitfall!, one of the biggest selling titles for the Atari 2600 system and still considered one of the most classic video games ever produced. Activision programmer David Crane designed and wrote both games. But for the follow-up Crane abandoned Pitfall!'s tried and true formula, and instead opted to change things up a bit.
And what changes they were! Pitfall II: Lost Caverns wound up being the largest game ever produced for the Atari 2600. And in the process it introduced new elements that are now considered to be standard fare for most modern video games. Gone from the original was the twenty minute time limit: you could now play as Pitfall Harry for however long you wanted.
And you were gonna need all that extra time too, because no other console game of the time boasted as big a geography as Pitfall II. Whereas the original game had Pitfall Harry trapped running horizontally, the sequel was but eight full screens across... each made of twenty-seven vertical levels. Most of those had Harry plunging into the pitch black of a long-lost subterranean network beneath the mountains of Peru. Just make sure that you've explored all eight screens of the ground above before you enter the underground, 'cuz there's no going back. But once you've gone deep, Pitfall II: Lost Caverns plays much like any modern "sandbox"-style game. You can run, jump, swim and dive (another addition from the original) through two rivers, all the while avoiding the underworld's treacherous wildlife (bats, poisonous toads, the classic Pitfall! scorpions, Andean condors, and electric eels). There is no one single way to win the game: you have all the freedom you could possibly want in order to reach the end.
Speaking of endings, Pitfall II featured a definite finale: something that was extraordinarily rare for video games of the time. The game manual has Pitfall Harry looking for his niece Rhonda and their cat Quickclaw, and being hired to recover the stolen Raj Diamond. You only need to find those three things in order to win the game (at which time Harry will jump jubilantly). But more dedicated gamers will be driven to gather all twenty-some gold bars hidden throughout Lost Caverns, and also nab a rare cave rat that will stymie your early efforts to catch it from the front. Finding everything you possibly can will escalate your high score toward a possible 199,000 points... but falling onto a hard surface will cost you points. So will getting hit by one of the beasties. But unlike Pitfall! you can not die in Pitfall II because there are no "lives" to speak of. Injury results in Harry being transported to the last ancient Incan "healing spot" (marked by red crosses) that he touched: probably video gaming's first-ever use of continue points. If you're very good, you will get all of the prizes and end the game without a single loss of points. And yeah, it's possible. I've done it a bunch of times before. Hard, but possible :-)
One of the things about Pitfall II that a lot of folks still remember fondly about the game is its soundtrack. When you start Harry off on his adventure you get a heroic theme that eventually tapers off to a more subdued tune. Collecting a prize restarts the theme again. Getting hit by something bad gets a more downbeat tune playing, for however long it takes Harry to get transported back to the last healing point. And if you catch a ride on a balloon (really specimen bags that Rhonda filled with steam from a geyser) you're treated to a rousing rendition of "Sobre las Olas".
All of this came at a curious price: the Atari 2600 system's hardware could not, by itself, handle all of Pitfall II's technical demands. Game creator David Crane engineered and patented a special component that was embedded in the cartridge along with the game's ROM. Called a Display Processor Chip (DPC), it enabled Pitfall II to be capable of much more than any other cartridge for the console. Crane had hoped that the DPC would extend the shelf life of the Atari 2600, but the deepening game "recession" along with the age of the system (nearly eight years old at the time) meant that the DPC never got a chance.
But Pitfall II: Lost Caverns did. And even today, the game holds up surprisingly well. If you want to play it, it was included in the Activision Anthology for the Gameboy Advance a few years ago, and I've seen it packed with some of those fancy "plug-in" joystick controllers that you can find in toy stores. I've seen a few other official releases of it as well in recent years.
However you find it, whether you're new to the game or you've been underground many time before, Pitfall II: Lost Caverns will keep you entertained old-school style.
Obama wants extreme power to seize businesses
Can we call it "national socialism" now?
In the name of preventing damage to "the broader economy", President Obama and his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are now seeking power to seize a wider array of businesses, and not necessarily banking/finance-related firms either.
I was afraid this would happen.
The regulation pendulum has been swinging wildly between both far ends of the spectrum. During the administration of George W. Bush there was a lot less regulation of such businesses, and that's a big reason why we're in our current economic mess. Now the Obama gang, exploiting public outrage like that about the AIG bonuses, is going to drive us toward too much regulation.
When the American government begins seriously talking about nationalizing businesses, start worrying. One way or another, if Obama and his bunch gets this kind of "authority", it ain't gonna end well.
Podcasts I Like: DAILY BREAKFAST with Father Roderick
It took me awhile to discover podcasting, but ever since I bought my first iPod a little over a year ago I've found quite a few podcasts that I enjoy on a regular basis. They're especially good listenin' in my car while driving around on business and such. So I thought it might make a fun lil' feature, every now and then, to write about the podcasts that I'm especially fond of.
There was no question which one I wanted to spotlight first: Daily Breakfast with Father Roderick. It's considered by most to be the #1 Catholic podcast on the Internet. And though I'm not a Catholic this is bar none the most rollickin' fun and captivating regular podcast that I've ever come across. In addition to his theological perspective as a Catholic priest, Father Roderick Vonhögen also comments on pop culture and trends such as Star Wars (he and I used to be on TheForce.net staff together, where he did the amazing "Virtual Prequels" feature), music, video games, iPhone apps, and health and nutrition. Avid runners will especially find Father Roderick's reports on his personal training to be of great interest. No matter who ya are, Father Roderick offers up something for everyone!
If you've got iTunes on your computer, click here for the Daily Breakfast podcast.
Mississippi bans red light cameras (YAY!!)
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has signed into law a bill - which passed overwhelmingly in that state's legislature - that bans those treacherous "red light cameras" at intersections. The new law sets a deadline of October 1st to have the cameras taken down.
I hope and pray that this will be an ever-increasing trend. Especially since some cities using the cameras have been found to be illegally altering the traffic signals so that the yellow light is shorter in duration, in an attempt to make more money from the cameras.
