Sad beer and whisky news

As you may or may not have heard, Michael Jackson, famed beer and scotch whisky reviewer, died today. I have his books Ultimate Beer and Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch.

Great reference works from a knowledgeable man. He will be missed.

Archival post -- Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2005

In anticipation of this week's glorious beginning of PAX 2007, I am reposting the full report of my visit to PAX 2005. The current host of my PAX 2005 article is going through a portal upgrade and the articles are currently down, so I thought I'd put the full text and pictures here.

From August 2005:

Penny Arcade Expo: The New Videogaming Mecca

I flew up to Seattle, WA last Thursday night to attend the Penny
Arcade Expo (PAX) 2005. The expo was actually in Bellevue, WA, took
place Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, and turned out to be
quite an event. I didn't know what to expect, yet somehow I was not
surprised by what was there. In short: tons o'geeks, consoles, PCs,
board games, arcade games, and plenty of good-spirited gameplay. The
focus was obviously on bringing people together to play games.


The full spectrum of gamers were present, from the casual puzzle game
player to the person who was in full character costume and had brought
his 4' x 4' custom-built and intricately detailed tabletop game board
with full complement of pewter characters to populate it. I don't mean
literally a board that just folds out, I mean a fully-realized 3D
landscape with trees, stone walls, altars, mountains and whatever else
was necessary for full immersion in the game. The cool thing was, even
with this wide range of different types of people, everyone got along,
was considerate and just plain nice.

It was the type of environment where everyone felt comfortable being
themselves and weren't embarrassed, for example, to cheer out loud
when one of the Omegathon contestants increased his Katamari ball past
another diameter milestone. If you're not familiar with what the
Omegathon is, this year it was a six round tournament, with a
different game each round, to test the stamina and skill of its
participants, or Omeganauts. A videogame sextathlon, if you will, that
took place over the course of the entire expo. The grand prize was a
classic gaming cornucopia consisting of every classic Nintendo NES
game and all of the hardware and accessories ever made for the system.
Seriously.

The layout

One floor was dedicated to "free console" play. Xbox, PS2 and GameCube
consoles were all available for play with nice plasma flatscreens
somewhere in the 40" range. You just checked out the game and
controllers and off you went. We played Mario Party 6 and Mario Kart:
Double Dash on the first day.


On this same floor is the Exhibition Hall, where sponsors set up their
various booths to show things off, and the Theatre, where seminars and
some tournament finals were held. At Nintendo's booth I saw the new
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in action, Nintendogs, and Mario
Kart for the DS.


Another floor was dedicated to several different types of gaming. Two
large rooms were used for tabletop gaming. These were places where
people could bring their boards and gear and just play. Some of this
stuff was pretty amazing when you consider the effort involved to
create the boards they used. The boards ranged from about 4' X 4' to
4' X 8' and often looked like a model train layout, but covered with
pewter characters, cards and various other paraphernalia which I did
not understand.

This same floor has another huge room dedicated to PC gaming. Players'
own rigs were welcome, and the neon light from countless case mods
bathed the room in a blue glow. Another large room was where the
console gaming tournaments happened.


This is where we played the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory tournament on
Xbox, but more on that later.

Worth the price of admission

The best event I attended was the "Make Monday's strip with Gabe &
Tycho" seminar. Not only was it fascinating to have a window into part
of the creative process for the strip, the guys kept an auditorium
full of gamers entertained for an hour and a half. They were both up
on stage, Gabe at his PC with his desktop projected on two screens on
either side of the stage. Tycho did the initial typing of the comic's
dialog and then managed the Q&A session for the rest of the time.


You know a guy is a great writer when he can make an auditorium full
of people laugh out loud just by typing sentences on the screen. We
were then able to watch Gabe as he inked and colored the strip from
initial sketches he had done and scanned in earlier. Gabe uses a large
pressure-sensitive touchpad and pen to create the comic and finished
the final art during this seminar that became Monday's comic.

The competition

Sunday morning my friend Shawn and I played in the Splinter Cell:
Chaos Theory tournament. There were 16 teams of two, and each player
had his own flatscreen TV. That's me below.


The luck of the draw went our way the first round. There were two
teams that consisted of a pair of single walk-ons who had never met or
played with each other before, which left them at a distinct
disadvantage as far as communication and strategy went. We were
matched against one of those teams and pretty handily defeated them.
The second round was against a good team, but we played the map called
"Factory," which a lot of players on Live don't like to play because
of its large size and layout. These guys didn't appear to like it too
much, but it happens to be one of our favorites, so we also won the
second round.

The third round was against the team that eventually won the whole
tournament, so we didn't feel so bad about losing. It was a decisive
loss, by the way. They smeared us all over that "River Mall" level.
All we really wanted to do was make it past the first round, so
everything beyond that was gravy. We came in third place overall and
actually won the equivalent of $25! With our winnings we picked up a
copy of last year's PAX 2004 DVD and a t-shirt.


The best sponsor

One of the sponsors of PAX 2005 was Bawls, an energy drink. They had a
booth and sold individual bottles for $1 a piece. This was great
because these things are loaded with caffeine, and a $1 a pop, you
can't lose. Plus, the name lends itself to endless jokes:

"Dude, you're drinking Bawls!"

"I've never had Bawls this cheap"

"These Bawls are nice and cold"

We never tired of it. There was also a variation the company called
Sno Bawls, which was basically an "icee" version of the drink, and
that just added another variation to our jokes.

"Your Bawls are frozen"

You get the idea.

Oh, and did I mention the bottles are blue? We didn't use that in our
jokes, probably because it would've been too obvious. And the place
was full of guys.

A real-world hack

Late Friday night we were all lagging and looking for some caffeine.
The problem was the Bawls people had packed up and gone home at 10p.
However, the booth was still there. My friend Mish somewhat by
accident found an unprotected opening in the Bawls booth procedures
and architecture, which he fully exploited.

The "Sno Bawls" icee machines were still set up at the booth. An
exploratory pull of the lever on one revealed that they still had
Bawls flowing, though by this time the icee part had melted. At the
other end of the table was an empty pitcher, which seemed to provide a
convenient way to avoid spilling the cold Bawls on the floor. Pull,
pour, zip, zip and you have yourself something to drink. I managed to
catch this hack in action.


The woman on the left is one of the PAX volunteers, all of whom had
"ENFORCER" emblazoned on the backs of their shirts, and all she could
manage to say to him was "That was frightening." It was quite funny.
I'm not sure what they did to "patch" this opening, but this volunteer
may have radioed for assistance because a full pitcher from the Sno
Bawls machine was quickly taken down the escalator and shown to a
waiting group of other volunteers, presumably to show the magnitude of
the potential exploit.

A complete experience

This event had something for everyone. One of the things I didn't see
was the musical concerts held both Friday and Saturday nights. The
music was of course videogame-related, and apparently lots of people
enjoyed it as there was a line halfway around the entire building
outside in order to get into the shows. There were also many seminars
and panels with industry pros discussing online gaming, breaking into
the industry, marketing games, and gaming and controversy (think of
the recent Hot Coffee mod and GTA: San Andreas).

According to one of the organizers of the event there were 7,000
attendees as of the end of Saturday and a total of 8,500 to 9,000 were
expected for total attendance by the end of Sunday. This is a serious
event that I hope the videogame industry continues to support. What
sets PAX apart from others like E3 is that it is not "only open to
industry professionals." Anyone and everyone is welcome, and as an
attendee you are made to feel that way. If you can make it up to
Seattle next year, I highly recommend it.

Do we have a Wii visitor?

Alright, who's using Opera?


For that matter, what's up Camino-using Mac person?

Gotta support the little guys.

Most may ignore you, but I see.

I see and I appreciate.

Xbox 360 new price comparison spreadsheet, clarified

For some reason (embedded Google Doc?) when I go back in to edit my previous post I just see a blank, so here's an addendum.

One particularly astute friend of mine pointed out two things about the Core model of the Xbox 360:

1. It comes with a wired controller
2. It comes with basic composite/RCA cables which are incapable of component output

Taking this information into account, and focusing purely on a utilitarian view of being able to enjoy the Xbox 360 experience, my price comparison changes somewhat. My friend suggested some changes to my wording and I don't think I could have said it better myself, so I'll quote his email:

"to equal the Premium model you'd have to buy a Core model
($279) and a 20 GB hard drive ($99). That's $279 + $99 = $388, so you're better off buying the Premium model ($349) and saving $39." To further confuse things, the Core model comes with the standard (Composite/RCA) cable, so if you bought the Core model and wanted to output in Component, you'd actually have to shell out an additional $39 [for a component cable], basically making the Core model cost exactly the same as the Premium model, except you'd have no HDMI and a wired (instead of wireless) controller. It
therefore makes no sense to buy a Core model unless you know for sure you have no plans to upgrade. [I added "RCA" above and moved the last parenthesis from the end of the sentence to the right of "wireless."]

This observation about the controller reveals my bias to have a wireless one, but functionally for gameplay the wired and wireless controllers are identical. The ultimate conclusion is that the Premium model looks like the best deal, particularly if there is any possibility you'll want to play games or watch movies in high definition at some point in the future. The Premium model comes with Microsoft's HD/AV component cables instead of the basic composite/RCA cables included with the Core model. Even if you will only ever use a standard definition TV, however, the Premium is still the best value considering what's included in the package.

Thanks, Shawn.

Xbox 360 new price comparison spreadsheet

I put this together for myself and thought other late adopters might find it useful too. I packed a lot of data in here, so check below the spreadsheet for further info. You'll need to scroll around using the slider bars to see all of the data.



Along the top is each type of console, from the Core model through the new Halo 3 Special Edition. The left-hand margin lists a breakdown of the components included with each console. These are listed cumulatively, from Core to Elite, and the breakpoint for what each console comes with is in the right-hand margin. The only exception in the cumulative component list is the play and charge kit included with the Halo 3 Special Edition because the Elite model does not include that.

Along the bottom I did my best to compare the cost savings of buying one of the more expensive console models versus buying the Core model and then purchasing each component separately to equal that more expensive model. For example, to equal the Premium model you'd have to buy a Core model ($279), a wireless controller ($49) and a 20 GB hard drive ($99). That's $279 + $148 = $427, so you're better off buying the Premium model ($349) and saving $78. These comparisons are not exactly equal because the Core model does not include HDMI and that feature cannot be added separately, but I'm just trying to compare overall relative value.

Interestingly, you save the same amount of money, $78, buying an Elite model versus buying a Core and components individually. The Halo 3 Special Edition turns out to save you the least amount of money as a bundle, even though it includes a play and charge kit for the wireless controller. Now that newly-manufactured Premium models include HDMI output I'm hard-pressed to pay $30 ($78 - $48) for a green color scheme and a Halo 3 picture pack. To make the Halo 3 Special Edition a great value, Microsoft would need to bundle in a copy of Halo 3 at the same price.

Pleased to meet you, my good man

Xymyl ("zai-mull") lives somewhere near Tucson, AZ. He's an artist, a thinker, a brewer, a writer, and some would say (indeed have said), a nonconformist.

I've known him for about 9 years. We worked together in Phoenix at a software and Internet company. I'll leave it at that as at this point he maintains a semi-anonymous blog presence aside from his professional web design, logo, graphics and marketing business which I leave to him to promote as he chooses.

Though he's had an online presence in some form or another since this whole world wide web thing began, he has fairly recently jumped into the world of blogging with two sites, evil nature and nothing, which I have added to my list of friends' blogs over on the right.

Evil nature is the more personal of the two, with no real theme but good stories and thoughtful writings on topics ranging from art, the institution of education (emphasis on institution) to logic, music and blogging.

Xymyl is an accomplished artist and recently began selling some of his work. Check out his online gallery and I think you'll be impressed with the vibrant creativity of his work.

The nothing blog is very much a modern Federalist Papers, except instead of exploring the finer points of Constitutional meaning and interpretation through an exchange of written correspondence, it promotes a fuller understanding of nothing through the wonders of his response to submitted inquiries via email.

Now you must go beyond the plain meaning of nothing and consider its deeper implications. These are no mere tautological, empty pseudo-philosophical ramblings as some others have done. Do a search on nothing and you'll see what I mean. He has thought, and continues to think, deeply about nothing and is happy to clarify any questions you may have.

Penny Arcade Expo 2007

[UPDATE2: added link to archival repost of my 2005 report.]
[UPDATE: added link to my 2005 report.]
I received this in the mail over the weekend:

August 24-26 is coming soon. You can expect a full report.

I went to PAX 2005 (UPDATE2: link down, but see here) and it was a great time -- totally oriented toward the gamer and not overrun with the glitz of hollow corporate promotion. There were great discussion panels, including one with Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins walking through the creation of a PA comic that was actually published the next week.

An exhibit hall, gaming tournaments music concerts and free play with console, PC and tabletop games will all be there. Also, this is the first year the event will be in downtown Seattle at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, a significant square footage upgrade from the previous location at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, WA, so what new and exciting things will be possible is anybody's guess!

Happiness in Pictures

Stone Brewing Vertical Epic

Sony's PS3 "price cut"

So now Sony is going to replace the recently discounted $499 60 GB model with an 80 GB model that includes a game and costs $100 more?

Let's forget for a moment the confusion caused by multiple contradictory announcements from different and apparently reliable company representatives last week during E3. What factors go into the thought process of deciding to actually maintain a $599 price point for a game console? I'll tell you what: arrogance and a disconnection from consumers.

I hear and even understand the argument that the PS3 includes a Blu-Ray high definition DVD player as a reason for a higher price, but now that stand-alone Blu-Ray players no longer cost $1,000 (even Sony sells one for less than $500) this argument simply doesn't hold water.

Yes, the PS3 has a lot of potential, but that potential has to do with playing games and when those games simply don't exist there is absolutely no reason to lay out that much cash.

The home electronics market looks much different than the one that existed when the PS2 was released and standard-definition DVD movies were just taking off as a format. The "PS2 is also a DVD player" argument worked then because you could realize all of the benefits of DVD without buying a new TV. Now, in order to fully realize the benefits of high-definition DVD movies you need not only a new player, but a new HDTV also. For a decent HDTV you're talking an additional $750 to $1,000 for even a basic setup.

Put simply, HD-anything is not a mass-consumer product category yet.

This may be a smart way to clear the shelves of the now-discontinued 60 GB PS3 inventory, but as far as public relations goes, this comes off poorly.

Gaming site Next-Generation takes a more positive view on the price than I do, but they hit the nail on the head with the consumer confusion caused by, and the corporate miscommunication and confusion evidenced by, the conflicting announcements.

Gekkeikan Sake (USA) brewery tour

I usually only drink sake when I have sushi at a restaurant, but one of my friends in Vancouver, Washington has taken an enthusiast's interest in the fermented rice beverage that I have slowly been acquiring myself. My friend found a great sake store in San Francisco called True Sake that, as stated in its history statement on the web site, "is the first dedicated sake store outside of Japan, and is also the first sake store in America." The owner of that store, Beau Timken, is often present there and has such an enthusiasm for sake that it's difficult not to feel it yourself if you talk to him.

I'm not in San Francisco that often, so unless I'm having sushi at a restaurant, I'm left to the local supermarket to find any sake. Pickings are slim, but a few months ago in my local market I found a decent (by American and Sacramento standards) sake brewed by Gekkeikan Sake (USA). Gekkeikan Sake is one of the largest sake brewers in Japan. I didn't realize until I looked at the bottle a few days later that Gekkeikan Sake's one and only American brewery is located right here in Folsom, CA. Turns out they let visitors take self-guided tours, so I went.

The tour

My first impression was that this location was a nice mixture of traditional Japanese style and the modern efficiency necessary for large sake production. Right up front in the parking lot are two large rock gardens, neatly groomed, with a view to the beautiful pond behind and beside the main administrative and visitor center building and tasting room.

This was a Thursday afternoon and I was the only visitor. I walked through the administrative building back to the actual brewery production facility for the self-guided tour. The tour is a hallway down the middle of the production floor with windows on each side and signs at each window describing what process one is observing. I saw that the brewery's koji mold for fermentation is grown on-site by an automated process.

The door to the laboratory area was open and I spoke with a technician who brought out the Brewmaster /Production Manager to answer my questions himself! He said that their rice is bought right here in Sacramento and is grown in the nearby Sacramento Valley. Also, this kura (sake brewery) is situated on the American River and their water is taken from there and filtered on-site.

The lab:The brewmaster said the yeast they use initially came from their parent company in Japan. Interestingly, he said once the yeast was in the Sacramento area it changed character slightly, in a good way, and that now they make different sakes with both the original and changed yeasts. He said the change in character of the yeast happened to be an acceptable one as opposed to a bad one (the usual case with such changes), not that the yeast was necessarily better than what they originally received from the home office. So at most it gives them a little flavor or character variation with the sake produced here in the states. He said a sample was sent back to their parent company for naming and classification but that they do not use the changed yeast in Japan, preferring to keep to the traditional strains. I thanked the Brewmaster profusely for his time and exchanged several bows with him.

After the tour I walked around the pond surrounding the visitor center. It was quiet and peaceful with a waterfall and many Koi and other colorful fish clearly visible. The landscaping was impeccably maintained.

Finally I did visit the tasting room. They made three sakes available: 1) Gekkeikan's "Black and Gold" sake, which is made in the United States, 2) Horin, a very nice Junmai Dai Gingo (indicates a highly polished rice grain used for fermenting) imported from Japan, and 3) Zipang, a Junmai sparkling sake which is naturally carbonated, imported from Japan. All very nice, though the Horin was of course the best (in general, the more the rice grain is milled prior to fermentation, the higher the quality or grade of sake that results), very clean and crisp. The Zipang seemed almost like a sake wine cooler -- definitely a modern variation!

It takes a bit of work and research to become familiar with sake and how to choose one, but with the help of informational web sites and enthusiasts like Beau Timken, it can be a rewarding journey. For reference, True Sake's web site (subscribe to the newsletter for great monthly info and specials); and Sake World, an exhaustively thorough site by another American enthusiast and expert, John Gauntner.

Satellite radio -- without the antenna

So here is my current setup, necessitated by the fact that either my roof-mounted antenna is busted, the cable that connects that antenna to the antenna jack is cranked, or the jack itself is worn out. Whatever the reason, I have been using what is normally a "home" antenna for my tuner, in my truck:


This necessitates placing said antenna in my glove box when I am going to be parked for any appreciable amount of time, so sometimes if I have several minutes stored up in the tuner's memory I will unplug the antenna and keep listening to Howard Stern while I'm coiling the cable up to put it away. That's when I discovered this:


Don't see anything unusual? Let me show you more clearly:


I can receive the satellite radio signal without the antenna being plugged in. That top jack there, labeled "ANT," should have something plugged into it. At first I thought it was just that there was some signal still left, recorded in the tuner's memory, but even after that ran out I was able to rewind, skip forward again, and even change channels. I still thought it was a fluke, so after my appointment and dinner (having taken the tuner with me) I came back about an hour and a half later, tried it again, and it still worked.

These pictures were taken in midtown Sacramento, around 20th and Capitol. I first noticed this phenomenon at 19th and J Street. I was able to drive around midtown and receive a fairly good signal, with an occasional dropout, but serviceable. I checked the signal strength meter and this is a signal only from a terrestrial repeater, not the satellite directly. As soon as I start to leave the downtown/midtown area I completely lose the signal and have to plug in the antenna again.

So what's the deal? Is the terrestrial repeater signal in midtown Sacramento so strong that one doesn't need an external antenna to receive it? Are there special atmospheric conditions that bounce and focus the repeater signal? Has this always been the case but I've just not had occasion to try listening to my tuner without an antenna plugged in? I prefer to think it's just me and that I'm special, but that's less than 100% likely. A quick search of the SIRIUS Backstage Forums yielded no similar experiences.

Anyone have any ideas?

GPLv3 release - LIVE VIDEO FEED!

[UPDATE-2: failure watching *streaming* Theora content on Windows]
[UPDATE: success watching Theora content on Windows]

Hi nerds! Everyone going to log on for the release announcement by Richard Stallman?

Live video feed at 12p Eastern Standard Time on Friday, June 29 at fsf.org.

Video requirements here. They will be using the Theora open video codec (interestingly, released under a BSD license). Compatible media players are here. It is possible to use Theora on Windows, though I haven't tried to set it up yet.

[UPDATE]
As much as I have an aversion to RealPlayer because of its system-resources hogging nature and sometimes overbearing self-promotion while using its player, I did get it to play Theora-encoded files with no problem after downloading the appropriate plugins.

I first tried the Directshow filters which were supposed to work with Windows Media Player, but I could only hear audio and encountered an error when I pressed "stop." Maybe WMP wasn't appropriate for tomorrow's event anyway.

Some fun and short Theora-encoded videos to test your installation are here.

[UPDATE-2]
I can't explain it other than to say the obvious, which is that decoding and viewing streaming content is a different animal than decoding and viewing a fully complete movie from a hard drive. The short of it is, it didn't work. However, I don't think I missed anything earth-shattering. This should be fairly straightforward, however, and this type of failure is one reason open source, or as Stallman would prefer, "free" software is not quite ready for prime time mass consumption.

The Police reunion tour

(Edit: added link to concert review)
I received a text message from my brother in Phoenix this past Monday night with a picture attached, which is now my wallpaper:It didn't occur to me right away that this picture might have been taken _AT_THE_SHOW_. I didn't know the tour schedule and only knew that a reunion tour was *going* to happen. Once I found the tour schedule I thought it was a possibility, and indeed he called me a about an hour later and confirmed he had been at the show.

I've been a huge fan of The Police for years, so this was just amazing to see. I saw Sting as a solo artist once, but I really would've wanted to go to this show. Here is a review of that night's show from The Arizona Republic, including a set list. I leave you with a few more pics. Be sure to click on them for a nice 1024 x 768 version:

An incredible view...


Big video screens:


Mr. Stewart Copeland and Sting onscreen:


Mr. Andy Summers:


Sting again:


Except for this guy's head, a great stage shot:


Copeland and Sting:


Sting:

The functional Schroedinger equation as applied to the Schwarzschild metric of spacetime

It's all quite simple, really, when you think about it. Quantum physics and general relativity are two aspects of the science of physics that lead to a paradoxical result when applied to information "lost" in a black hole. This is known as "the black hole information paradox" and is such because general relativity theory says if information crosses a black hole's event horizon it is lost forever into nonexistence, but quantum mechanics says information cannot be destroyed.

A team of physicists at Case Western Reserve University have come up with a possible solution to this paradox. I don't pretend to understand the complexities involved, and the article linked to on ars technica above does a superb job at explaining this for non-math types, but basically the new proposal is that, from the point of view of an asymptotic (distant) observer, an object or information approaching the event horizon of a black hole will never pass over it and hence, not be lost.

Wow. Kinda like the thought experiment from high school physics that concluded nothing ever really touches anything else when you bring two objects closer and closer by dividing the distance between them in half over and over again.

I also learned a new term that I'm going to have to use more often: dumbhole. I only fear the full implication of the word will be lost on its recipient.

A dumbhole is the sonic equivalent of a black hole, and is mentioned in the article because the physicists who are proposing this theory need a way to actually prove it, and in the absence of being able to create a black hole on earth, they can attempt to create a dumbhole, which is apparently much easier. All they really need to do is "create the beginning stages of collapse towards a dumbhole" to make their observations. Who knew?

The ars article caught my eye because I remembered a small story from the Feb 2007 15.02 issue of Wired in the parent article called "What We Don't Know" by John Hodgman, called "What happens to information in a black hole?" Actually, several of those small stories relate to this topic.

Multiple geek layers

Even I was surprised at the multiple layers of geek embodied in this site: Wookieepedia.

Internet | Wiki | Wookie | Star Wars | 49,355 articles since March 2005

I heard Howard Stern mention it on today's show in connection with a funny interview one of the Stern show's correspondents, Gary Garver, did with a man at a recent Star Wars convention who was in costume as Darth Nihilus. In the "Wookieenews" section of the site, for June 19, 2007, there is already an entry that states:

• Howard Stern—an influencial radio shock jock mentioned Wookieepedia, and proceeded to read from the Wookieepedia entry on Darth Nihilus.[1]

Gary Garver took a pretty hostile, "how long have you been living with your mother" attitude toward the guy and several others he interviewed and the variety of reactions was quite entertaining.

A little recognition...

You may remember my comments about the layout of a recent article in Wired and the interesting contrast I noted between the print and online versions and the resulting irony. At the time I separately submitted a summary of my thoughts to Wired's "Rants" section, which is the equivalent to writing a letter to the editor.

To my surprise and glee they actually published my comments! They are both on the web and in the current print edition, 15.06, June 2007. My comment is titled "A Revelation," which is something the Wired editors came up with. I don't know if that title implies a revelation on my part or on theirs, but I suppose it fits in the context of realizing a print article represents the feel of an online experience better than the same article on a web site.

I was hoping for a link to my blog, and actually fantasized about them doing a graphical comparison with pictures and a link to my blog, but I'll take this.

I am now an internationally published author... or commenter.

Or ranter.

Thank you.

What do you see?

This is a picture of an area of sidewalk near where I live. I have walked past this for weeks and finally decided to capture it. What do you see?

I am reminded of Don Quixote's faithful nag Rocinante, wandering riderless near a tree, likely recovering from the overexertion required of his master's latest escapade of knight-errantry.

Impressive guitar simulator for Nintendo DS

In addition to providing a hilarious comic involving Patrick Swayze, yesterday's Penny Arcade revealed to me a very cool guitar simulator to be released in the U.S. this June. Apparently one can even play the DS's touch screen with a real guitar pick, though I imagine more control might be possible with the standard stylus.

Jam Sessions goes one step further than the likes of Guitar Hero in the sense that there is a "free play" option, the ability to add effects like reverb, chorus and others along with the ability to save the songs one creates. No word on whether the DS's wireless capabilities will be exploited. I would love to be able to create .mp3s of songs and email them around. Take a look at the video at the linked page above to see the mechanics -- the D-pad and shoulder button appear to determine the note or chord played and the touchscreen determines the rhythm and tempo of the song. The sounds are sampled from a real guitar and are quite impressive.

Colin Hay in Sacramento

If you're any fan of music from the 80's surely you remember the band Men at Work. Last Thursday the former lead singer of Men at Work, Colin Hay, had a tour stop here in Sacramento. What's so great about this tour is it is just him playing solo acoustic guitar. He played songs from his library of solo work in addition to acoustic versions of some Men at Work favorites. A tribute to the songwriting of Men at Work is the fact that the acoustic versions are just as good, and in some cases better, as acoustic guitar pieces. His use of a 12-string guitar on a few songs added a beautiful fullness.

Mr. Hay is, in addition to having one of the most iconic voices of 80's music, a terrific guitar player. One might not expect the lead singer of what was essentially an 80's pop band to be so accomplished a player. Also, his voice is still in prime form. He hit all the familiar high notes clearly and with confidence.

Mr. Hay is also quite funny. His show was part standup routine and storytelling. Several times during the set he would talk for up to 10 minutes, regaling the audience with stories of touring recently with Ringo Starr's band and his various experiences over the years touring the United States. Apparently he's been mistaken for the singer from Flock of Seagulls (by a policeman who pulled him over) and Sting (by a gas station attendant who, when Colin told her he wrote the song "Down Under," said he didn't remind her at all of Sting.)

Be sure to check out his web site and buy something from his record label, Compass Records.

Halo 3 til daylight

This past week, thanks to the generosity of my friend Eric, I have had the pleasure of playing in the Halo 3 multiplayer beta using his Xbox 360 and gamertag. Photographic proof of this on my "gaming tower of power" is below:

I've had a lot of fun with it, as the gameplay is familiar enough for Halo 2 players to be easily picked up, but it has enough new strategic items and weapons to make it a game with a distinctly different balance than Halo 2 was online. The weapons are balanced such that at any time any player can beat any other, relieving somewhat the unbalance in Halo 2 of the "power weapon monopoly" that a player or team could obtain and hold onto.

What I haven't done in a long time was what happened last night and this morning. I played for at least three hours straight, out of about six hours of gameplay, with a great, skilled, and complete team. That's the ideal for Halo online multiplayer -- a group of friends who cooperate, are skilled players, and just cool in general. Halo allows a party that wants to stay together to keep playing together as a team. As you run into other people or other friends become available, you just keep adding them to your party. The time literally disappeared. I remember someone asking the group what time it was where we each were and it was 2:30a for me, and then I didn't notice the time again until it was 5 in the morning and I could start to see daylight. Apparently, as of 12:15 this afternoon, my friend NaughtyDawg is still playing!

There are several benefits to playing so late into the night: 1) few 13-year-olds screaming that they want the sniper rifle; and 2) international players start to come online. We had one team member playing from Australia and I believe another was playing from France.

I'm looking forward to Halo 3 this September. The single player campaign also promises to be a great experience, plus this beta is only a few of the final maps for online multiplayer, so there is much to still be revealed.

Related post: Halo 3 warmup

Stat summary of visitors: the first 21 months

General curiosity and a desire to use Google Docs' chart feature have led me to this point. I created the Google Docs charts by downloading the raw data from StatCounter and then plotting from a spreadsheet. Google Docs saves these charts in .png format and they are less than 6kb apiece.

I signed up for a Blogger account in August 2005 in order to comment with an identity on my friend Eric's blog before he migrated to using TypePad. The first thing I felt a desire to blog about was my trip to Seattle, WA with some friends to attend Penny Arcade's Penny Arcade Expo 2005.

So, a brief summary of some numbers as of May 2007:

Total pageloads: 5,327
Average # of
pageloads per month: 242

Total unique visitors: 4,080
Average # of
unique visitors per month: 185

The first big spike is January 2006, which was Howard Stern's debut on SIRIUS satellite radio, garnering 326 unique visitors that month. The middle spike is July 2006 with 321 uniques. I'm not sure what happened then, but I posted about having not posted for almost a month and also about Carson Daly, so obviously something else was going on.

The last spike is December 2006 with 325 uniques. Howard Stern went on a Christmas TV media promotional blitz for SIRIUS and I posted his appearances. Other than huge events that I specifically wrote about and others specifically searched for, it is difficult to make many correlations with this data, but I still love seeing the numbers in vibrant color form. I can see the search terms that visitors used to reach my site, but only for the 100 most recent visitors. This is only because I use the free version of StatCounter and not due to any deficiency in the stat code or its featureset.

Just for fun, here is the data broken down by quarter. This chart and the one above are from Google Docs:
For comparison, here is a graph of the same data from StatCounter:


Related post: Using Google Docs

Warm-up for Halo 3 multiplayer beta

[UPDATE on Halo 3 release date in last paragraph]

In anticipation of the upcoming multiplayer beta and in the spirit of reuniting with my Xbox 360-owning brethren I purchased the redesigned Halo 2 maps this week ... for my original Xbox.

Thought I was going to say I bought a 360, didn't you?

Both Xbox and Xbox 360 owners can download and play these two new maps, so I thought I'd check out the new content and maybe play with some old friends. I was happy to see that my wireless connection worked well last night -- 56Mbps with "good" to "very good" signal strength. No lag here.

I'm going to be able to play the Halo 3 multiplayer beta thanks to the generosity of one of my gaming buddies, so I figured I should hammer the rust off of my skillz before then. Before last night, the last time I had played Halo 2 multiplayer over Xbox Live was 12/3/2005. At the end of that day I had played 704 total games and reached level 16 in the Big Team Battle game type. Adding last night's nine games, here is a summary of my stats:

Total games: 713
Total kills: 3,274
Total deaths: 5,837
Kill/Death ratio: 0.5609
Total assists: 1,928

If you add my assists to my total kills my kill/death ratio rises to a more respectable 0.8912. My mere presence in the game contributed or directly caused the virtual deaths of 5,202 players. That sure is a weird thing to say.

I am reinstituting a feature I used to have on my blog, namely a link to my recent Halo 2 stats via an RSS feed from bungie.net. The link is in the right margin underneath the link to my Technorati profile.

I found the link to this video montage of Halo 3 multiplayer beta gameplay in a post on Eric's blog. Read the little interview before watching the movie for some interesting tidbits about the guy who made the video. Pretty impressive gameplay from the internal beta at Bungie. The release of Halo 3 will certainly be a "drop dead" purchase event for me to buy an Xbox 360. No date is set for the release yet [NEW INFO: Sept. 25], but it will be 2007.

Why the record companies must accept and adopt digital distribution

It hit me tonight while switching between channels on satellite radio during my drive home. People have put forth ideas like this for awhile now, and I thought it was probably true, but now I know for sure: targeted (even omnidirectional) specific narrowcasting for small audiences is the future of music.

It just has to work this way, and here's why:

1. What people want

Very simply, people want what they like. Not necessarily what they already know, but almost certainly something similar to that. This isn't restricted to particular bands or artists. The way I listen to music on satellite radio is determined by my mood, which is affected by everything around me. After a stressful day at work I might like to listen to jazz standards. Late Friday or Saturday nights I often love driving to electronica/techno. Other times I might be feeling nostalgic and want to listen to 80's hits. Almost any artist within these particular genres will accommodate my mood.

What is so great about satellite radio for me is the variety of music I hear within the genre-channels. Every day I hear something I haven't heard before along with the familiar favorites that drew me to that particular channel. My music nerd friends who either have or have recently dumped satellite radio tell me they've heard everything that's in rotation and have higher quality audio on their iPods anyway, but it's still fresh to me.

2. How people want it

Easy, portable and cheap. Bulky, physical discs are not easy to obtain (it still requires a trip to brick-and-mortar retailers or delivery via postal mail) or cheap to buy. In an ideal distribution world I will hear something I like while driving or at home, flag it for immediate or delayed download and once the song is downloaded it will either be available for streaming or be pushed in its entirety to every one of my music/media devices, ready for immediate and infinite listening. The streaming or pushing can be done either peer-to-peer among my devices or from a central server.

99 cents a song is ok for now, but once this is the primary method of distribution we'd better be looking at 25 to 50 cents a song or better yet, unlimited downloads for a flat monthly fee. I'm also ok with the way satellite radio currently works, namely, a constant stream of genre-specific music with no local physical preservation for a low monthly flat fee. I don't particularly care whether I can hear any one specific song at exactly the time I want it as long as I know the music will keep coming. I know I'm going to hear something I like and my artist/song presets will notify me when one of my favorites is about to be played.

3. What artists want

I'm stretching here as I am no expert on this, but these are my thoughts and opinions. All of you pros, amateurs and hobbyists please let me hear yours. Ultimately, artists want people to hear their music. The Internet is the most efficient distribution mechanism yet known for digital music. We know it works, people use it every day for just this purpose. So, if artists want people to hear their music they should use the Internet to distribute it. Notice the absence of "record company" in that equation.

Artists also want some sort of recognition as authors of works, and hopefully some amount of compensation for the effort and creativity expended in order to create such works.

4. What record companies want

In a word, money. From what I've seen, heard and read it is rare for a record company to actually care about an artist beyond what the artist can contribute to the record company's bottom line. About the only thing record companies seem good for these days is "big media" promotion and in some cases, distribution. See Internet, supra.

So what's an outdated, desperate, old-guard, head-in-the-sand pre-Internet industry to do once the effectiveness of lawsuits fade and people are sick and tired of paying multiple times for the same song just so they can play it as a soundtrack on their game consoles and walk around with it on their digital music players?

Hopefully, come to its senses and rethink the business. Otherwise it will die.

What can happen

Apple has demonstrated with iTunes that people are willing to pay to download digital music if the price is right. Microsoft has demonstrated with Xbox Live that people are willing to pay to download digital movies and TV even though the prices may not be quite right yet. There are still issues with Digital Rights Management, but I am hopeful the market will help relax these unreasonable restrictions once it is realized that the sky will not fall if a song is transferred from PS3 to PSP to Xbox 360 to PC to Zune to iPod and back again.

Some ways record companies can adapt to this new permutation of the consumer-driven music industry are:

• provide the highest quality, "official" versions of songs for download;
• add value to "official" versions by including lyrics, album art, concert promotions, etc.;
• create song "extras" for particular media devices, e.g., an interactive rhythm game for the Nintendo DS touchscreen, Xbox Live achievements if a preset number of others download your original remix of a song, or a podcast interview with the artist for digital music players;
  
• at the artists' individual discretion, make raw tracks available for remixing by consumers or DJs;
• allow consumers to participate in new album or single song releases by designating particular (or randomly selecting from a list of unique identifiers given for "official" purchases) consumer authorities who will receive pre-releases and be allowed to review and promote them via their blogs, affinity groups, or otherwise. These authorities could track what they've helped to promote, thereby creating a sort of Xbox-less achievement system;

All of these form a sort of self-eating watermelon of promotion, sales, feedback, reputation and reinforcement that could allow record companies to remain relevant, albeit in a much different and less bloated form than they exist now.

Consumers

The recording industry is not the only one in the path of this runaway train. Consumers, too, must change their perception about what it means to "own" music. Possessing multiple sleeves in a binder containing slabs of plastic with dots stamped into aluminum foil is nice, I suppose, but consider whether it even matters that you don't "have" a particular song if your downloading plan allows unlimited song downloads for a small monthly fee. This way the whole "filesharing for free" cycle is short-circuited: it is simply easier and faster for me to obtain a reliably encoded high-bitrate song, exactly the version I want exactly when I want, than it is for me to coordinate with someone else to obtain a copy of the same song that may or may not be of an acceptable quality.

Next?

Whether distribution happens via satellite radio, Internet radio, municipal wi-fi or promotional USB thumb drives by postal mail really doesn't matter. The ideas are here and they are catching on. Consumers have made their preference known, so record companies had better decide if they're going to take a swing or let the ball zip by as it kisses the inside of the baseline.

Print innovation and editorial competence at Wired

[5/29/07 - updated with specific link to Clive Thompson's blog entry where he requested comments from readers regarding the Wired article prior to its publication.]

Print Innovation
Wired has always been a forward-thinking publication, both in subject matter and presentation and layout. An article in the April 2007 issue stands out as particularly innovative, though. The topic of corporate transparency is interesting, but it's the layout that I'm most impressed by.

The article is now online and is titled "The See-Through CEO," but interestingly, and this is a rare case where I feel the term ironically is appropriate, the online presentation doesn't translate the innovation. The print layout has nice wide margins of about 1 3/4 inches, where the margin notes are placed for this article. The irony comes in when you consider the article's author, Clive Thompson, blogged about the article as part of his creative process, reproduces some of his readers' input as footnotes in the margins, and the dead-tree pulp outdoes the pixelated electrons for readability and, dare I say, structural transparency.

The part I really like, and that makes the print version eminently easy to read, is that the portion of the main text the margin note refers to is highlighted and the corresponding margin note is right there on the same page, with credit given to the reader who contributed it. In addition to simple readability, how cool must it be for one of Mr. Thompson's readers to see an idea and comment credited in print like that?

Editorial Competence
On to the editorial competence, in the same article Mr. Thompson correctly uses the expression "take a different tack" (end of the third paragraph) to indicate one of the subjects of his article decided to change course and try something different. The presence of the word tack was what spurred me to make this entire post.

That's right. Tack.

I hear and see the expression misused so often I thought the fact that it was used correctly warranted mention. The worst misuse I hear is "take a different tact." Also spotted in the wild is "take a different track." No, no, no, no ...

No.

The expression originates from the sailing term "tack," which is used to describe the maneuver that occurs when a sailboat changes the direction of its bow relative to the wind. This maneuver allows a sailboat to move forward while heading into the wind. Wikipedia has a nice diagram.

Bravo Clive Thompson and bravo Wired for a job well done all around.

As you were, readers.

Kurt Vonnegut is dead at 84

He was truly a unique voice in American literature. He mixed satire, humor and sometimes science fiction to create scathing social commentary. The first book of his I read was Breakfast of Champions, as a high school student. The off-the-wall storytelling and ideas interspersed with the author's own line drawings made for sometimes hilarious passages.

Since that time I have read the classic Slaughterhouse-Five as well as his final novel, Timequake. Almost all of these novels involve somewhat flawed or quirky characters in usually improbable or absurd situations, dealing with life the best they can. Vonnegut's voice comes through, often with irony and humor, sometimes hitting you in the face with our own reality without you noticing because you're laughing so hard.

It's been years since I've read his work, and as one of my all-time favorite authors, I'm going to have to start a few more of his novels I haven't read yet. I'll never forget one of my favorite scenes in Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School, in which Vonnegut makes a cameo appearance as himself to deliver a paper which Thornton Melon (Dangerfield) hired him to write about himself for Melon's English class. Rent that movie sometime, it's a classic.

Today's New York Times has a good piece about Vonnegut and his life.

I voted for Sanjaya and it's Howard Stern's fault

I've been working an evening job to bring in some cash, and when I turned on Howard 100 tonight at 10:30 after my shift ended, I saw that on the second line of the display on my radio, underneath "Howard Stern Show," it said "Vote for Sanjaya 866-436-5708." Here on the west coast American Idol ends at nine, meaning viewers can vote until 11p, so I dialed the number and ended up voting five times in the parking lot before driving home.

Without even watching the show, knowing nothing about the other performers/contestants. Apparently Sanjaya actually did ok tonight.

I'm not sure when the Sanjaya movement began, but a few weeks ago Howard brought up the web site VoteForTheWorst.com on the air and interviewed the founder of the site on the show. Howard was digging what the guy was doing and has stated several times since then that he thinks it's great to destroy something, meaning the show American Idol -- to take part in such a disruption and distortion of what the show means as to make it worthless as a concept.

I have to agree the idea is hilarious. Sanjaya isn't the worst I've heard, but there is no way he is the best singer on that show right now. Just the fact that he made it into the top 10 and will be a part of the forthcoming American Idol live tour is sweet justice. Last week, even Simon gave up criticizing Sanjaya's performances because he knows it's useless, calling his performance "brilliant."

Of course all of this Sanjaya mania isn't due to Howard Stern alone, but Howard's name is being mentioned in connection with it. The publicity certainly can't hurt. Is this the first true test of the power of satellite radio? Is the fact that this is the first true test of such power a sad commentary on what millions of Americans are focused on? Am I actually typing this?

Results of a fitful sleep

I had a bizarre dream last night.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and I were making a disturbingly large ottoman, sometimes known as a footstool. Only this was no stool. We could've eaten dinner on this thing, it was huge. John and I were stuffing a fabric tube with cotton which we were then going to cut into four pieces for the legs. I don't think it would've held up.

But I wasn't worried about that. I was laughing hysterically at Jim while I was searching for a pen I could use to mark up the fabric tube. Lying on my side, much in the same position I usually sleep in, I couldn't get up or move I was laughing so hard. I don't remember what he said.

The only benefit I've seen to intermittent sleep is that I seem to dream more, or at least remember what I've dreamed. Jim Gaffigan has been making more frequent appearances on Comedy Central and you might also recognize him from recent Sierra Mist commercials.

PS3 and Resistance: Fall of Man

I went over to my friend Vic's house this weekend and played Resistance: Fall of Man on his PS3.

Before I go on, I have to say that even though I have been disappointed (and predicted as much) with the price of the PS3, the lack of games for the PS3, the lack of innovation in gameplay on the PS3 and the arrogance of Sony and its corporate representatives regarding the supposed superiority of the PS3, I was still excited to have some one-on-one gameplaying time with it. When someone says they actually have one of these things, that in itself is impressive. The mere possession of such an electronic beast signifies a weighty committment to gaming and to the belief in future potential.

I played Resistance for about an hour, making it through maybe four or five levels after struggling a bit to learn that the button that fires grenades is always the button that fires grenades, never becoming the melee button when next to a wooden box, and I have to say it is extremely well done. The graphics are superb (I played on a 720p CRT TV), the small details like foliage and surface textures were pristine, and the framerate was always solid and smooth. The story is interesting, the weapons are cool, and the gameplay is compelling enough to keep me interested. The quality of graphics and type of gameplay were about equivalent to Gears of War for the 360.

I did not try online play, but Vic said it's a lot of fun to play a deathmatch with 20+ people. He also said though, that there's no real "matching" system, that you pretty much are just thrown into a game with people you may or may not know. Maybe that's not a problem once you have a list of friends built up, but since Sony doesn't have a centralized "friend" management system that works across all games like Microsoft's Xbox Live service, your "Resistance" friends can't easily be your friends on any other games.

He showed me all of the media bar options and we surfed the web a bit. That sucked without a keyboard. Typing user names and passwords with a Sixaxis is not fun. Also, it appears that if you don't have a widescreen 1080p television you have to "pan and scan" to see entire web pages. We visited this very blog and couldn't even read the entire column of text across because it stretched beyond the width of the screen.

Last week's Game Developer's Conference (GameSpot's coverage here) revealed more about Sony's Home service and at least one promising new game, seemingly revitalizing interest in the PS3. Even Gabe and Tycho had to admit to being intrigued. Gabe lists some interesting observations he made upon experiencing the PS3 once he had it home.

I can see the potential, but I can almost guarantee it'll be 2008 before I have one. Late 2008. An Xbox 360 will be first, then a Wii. I have too many friends to catch up with on Live and there are too many great 360 and Wii games to play for me to buy some other console with mere potential.

On using Google Docs

Over the last few weeks I've been using Google Docs & Spreadsheets to great effect. Having documents-in-progress at a centralized network location is simply convenient, especially for those like me who haven't jumped on the USB thumb drive bandwagon. I still carry around 3.5" discs. It's nice not to have to worry about which version of a document I am carrying with me or which version I emailed yesterday. GDocs also appears to keep a complete archive of revisions which can be reverted to at any time.

The sharing is cool too. Right now I'm collaborating with two different people on separate documents that I want each of them to be able to see and/or modify at their convenience. GDocs tracks who you have shared with, what privileges they have with that document, and ties that collaborator's contributions or modifications to an identity so you can see who contributed what, where and when. Collaborators do not need to have a Google Account to have access, you just "invite" them to share your document using their email address. There's also a real-time chat window next to the document for instant discussion.

Also, current documents you're working on offline can be uploaded, modified and then exported (yes, you can export as a PDF) at any time, all major formats (including OpenOffice's ODF) accepted. As far as I can tell all formatting and formulas come through ok. There are publishing options I haven't explored yet, including adding documents to your blog. Maybe this calls for a chart.