Economy of Effort

February, 2005

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Illness, New Games, and SOCOM III

February 25th, 2005

I have been sick since last Thursday night. I’ve had a nice cough going for a week so far. Today, it eased up a bit during the day, but anytime I start talking, it flares up again. So I’ve been rather silent for the past few days, as you might imagine.

I have continued to play Knights of the Old Republic II on the Xbox. I would really appreciate it if the game would stop freezing and making me lose progress.

I also picked up a copy of Frequency, and a copy of Amplitude – two rhythm-based music games that are quite a blast to play. I think of them less as competitive games and more as enjoyable experiences. Your button-presses activate a certain track in the song (a drum track, a synth track, etc), and you essentially mix it together on the fly. Very creative.

Battlestar Galactica was picked up for a second season. Good news for fans of intelligent sci-fi.

Sony and Zipper Interactive have finally, finally announced SOCOM III, due out in Q3 of this year. The new game will feature player-usable vehicles, as well as swimming (for water-based landing zones a la the movie “The Rock”, I’m sure). Also coming over the news wire is a follow-up story indicating SOCOM III will feature maps up to 6 times larger than previous games, thanks to “a specialized streaming environmental technology”. After months of speculation, it’s finally nice to get an official SOCOM announcement, and some sweet looking new features to boot. One news article calls the game “the PlayStation 2′s online swan song”. It will most likely be the last great online PS2 game. I hope they cook something up for the release of the PS3, even if it is something akin to “SOCOM 3.5″.

Halo 2 will keep me busy until then. Would be nice to see some new Halo 2 maps soon.

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Podcasting

February 14th, 2005

I’ve mentioned podcasting before, but as the phenomenon takes off, it’s come time to mention it again. The super short version: podcasts are radio shows recorded in MP3 format, and posted online in RSS feed blogs. Listeners use special software to subscribe to these RSS feeds, and the software downloads new radio shows automatically and adds them to the user’s media player (and portable MP3 player if they have one). In essence, it’s like TiVO for radio.

A few days ago, the USA Today ran an article on Podcasting on the cover of their “Money” section, and another one in the “Life” section, and even another one in the “News” section. Obviously, the USA Today is quite smitten with this new form of broadcast media.

As well they should be. In the last few weeks, the number of podcasts available has skyrocketed. Searching Podcast Alley yields an army of shows, vying for podcast listeners’ attention. There are some great ones that don’t yet show up in Podcast Alley’s directory, though. Here, Google is your friend. Some shows are recorded in peoples’ basements. Others, however, are real commercial radio shows that are recorded and then placed online (some radio stations are more permissive/progressive than one might expect).

I’ve added links to some of my favorite podcasts in the links menu on the right (if you’re reading my journal on Livejournal or Xanga, go to my actual journal to see the links).

BendingCorners: a monthly podcast featuring themed “jazz-n-groove” mixes, often sprinkling in electro-jazz, post-rock, and anything else jazz-inspired that fits the theme.
The Metal Show: a weekly recording of a late-night metal show that airs on 92.3 FM Xtreme Radio in Cleveland, OH.
A Night Drive Through Babylon: a weekly set of electro, IDM, techno, and obscure electronic music
The Linux Link Tech Show: a weekly tech talk radio show from Lehigh Valley, PA, about the Linux OS and software
Brainwashed Radio: a weekly hour-long show featuring post-rock, electro, and other experimental artists from the Brainwashed family of artists & labels
E-MUSIC: a weekly radio show on WDIY 88.1 FM in Bethlehem, PA, featuring hour-long soundscapes of electronic, ambient, and space music
Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy on KFI: a weekly tech radio show on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles, featuring ex-TechTV personality Leo Laporte doing what he does best: answering tech questions with explanations even the newbie can understand
The Laporte Report: Leo Laporte’s not-quite-daily tech news blog, usually in a quick 5-10 minute format

I’m still looking for even more interesting shows. The one show I would like to find but haven’t is a weekly progressive rock show. Particularly one that doesn’t just play cuts of the mighty Beard and Flowers and Porcupines. I would love if Sean McFee’s Progressive Shores show would release podcast archives of its weekly streams, but Mr. Irish Bastard is getting too old and falling too far behind the times to keep up with such newfangled technology. (Between you and me, I think he still hates MP3s – ssshh!)

USA Today seems to think that eventually, every radio show will be available as podcasts. Given how relatively small an audio show can be, in terms of data size & bandwidth needed for retrieval, there’s little reason for it to not take off. To me, the most exciting prospects are the shows on AM & FM radio in various parts of the country (and rest of the world, for that matter) becoming available to people outside of the paltry broadcast ranges of terrestrial radio stations. Shows like The Metal Show are conventional, but I don’t live in Cleveland, and there’s nothing similar to it near me. Likewise, I’m only a highway drive away from where Leo Laporte’s show plays but it’s too far for the FM broadcast to reach me.

Not to be overly dramatic, but podcasting is the unlocking of radio (IMO). Podcasting is radio no longer bound by either broadcast times or broadcast distances. Anyone can download any podcasted show, from anywhere, and listen to it anytime (and anywhere if they have a portable MP3 player). Plain, shackled-by-schedules and short range AM/FM radio seems downright quaint by comparison. I can easily imagine my future children growing up and being shocked at the idea of a time where you couldn’t listen to any radio show anywhere/anytime, however you see fit.

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Battlestar Galactica

February 12th, 2005

The new “Battlestar Galactica” series on SciFi Channel is easily the most surprising newer TV show I’ve seen. Given the franchise’s pedigree (the original cheesy ’70s Star Wars ripoff TV show), I didn’t expect to be watching this show. But given the amount of hype in non-scifi media leading up to the new show’s debut, I decided to watch the 2003 mini-series that led to this show. What I found was something pretty good. So, I added the new show to the TiVO Season Pass, and it has not disappointed.

To me, quality sci-fi shows and movies are the ones that succeed in being believable, given their premise. “Sliders” is an example of this. The sci-fi of the original seasons was the premise that the characters could move between realities. The result was a show that was more of a historical game of “what-if” rather than a sci-fi show: the first two seasons were mostly about what Earth would be like if certain events had never happened, or happened differently (like, if the American colonies hadn’t broken away from the British empire). If we can accept the sci-fi premise of the show, everything that resulted from it were things that were conceivable.

Then there are the other kind of sci-fi shows: the ones that use the fact that they are sci-fi as the basis to do anything they wish, no matter how inane. These shows essentially use pseudo-technobabble as a way of justifying what is essentially no better than voodoo magic. They use “scifi” as a blank check to do any stupid thing they wish. An awful lot of scifi shows do this. To go back to “Sliders”, as that show progressed into its later seasons, it became obvious that the ideas were tapped out. So, a lot of extra junk was introduced to the show, and explained away with various half-hearted scifi explanations.

Battlestar, so far, mostly falls into the former camp. The show is based on the idea of space travel and AI that turns against its creators. Accept those ideas, and the rest of the show (so far) is reasonably believable. They haven’t tried to introduce any “magic” dressed up as sci-fi or anything. I mean, there is always an element of suspended disbelief. But, to me, the mark of a good sci-fi show is one that doesn’t require you to throw good sense out the window and accept any more ridiculous sci-fi “magic” than is absolutely necessary.

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Knights of the Old Republic II

February 11th, 2005

I’m currently about 15 hours into Knights of the Old Republic II. Today at work, I was listening to Yankidank’s Gamer’s Radio podcast, and he went on about how much recycling of content Knights II uses. Not only is the core gameplay essentially the same, with only very minor additions, but a lot of the settings are right out of the original game (though more deserted and run-down since the first game).

I have to admit that the game has been fun to play. I almost feel guilty, given how much repackaging the game uses (at least up to the point I’m at). There’s also a character from the original game that appears in cutscenes in the new game, and I’m guessing there will probably be an encounter with the character at a later stage in the game.

Even if it is a major cash-in for Obsidian (they didn’t even make the first game, but they sure had no problem using as much of Bioware’s work as possible), if it’s fun, does it matter?

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Jaguars shun Moss

February 11th, 2005

As a Jaguars fan, I am somewhat split on the decision of the Jacksonville Jaguars to rebuff the Vikings advances for a possible trade for Randy Moss. On the one hand, Moss is a game-changer. Jimmy Smith and Randy Moss would make the best receiving combo in the game. On the other hand, Moss brings baggage, and it’s far too early to give up on the two Jags rookie receivers: Reggie Williams and Ernest Wilford. Both showed promise this season. But again, the idea of having one of those guys develop into a #3 to play alongside Jimmy and Randy is awfully enticing. Plus, Jimmy has only a couple seasons left, and if both rookies develop, it could be a Moss/Williams/Wilford trio for a few years.

The interesting part is that owner Wayne Weaver’s replies to the advances had nothing to do with Moss’s on-and-off-field problems. Instead, all he commented on is that the asking price (two 1st-rounders or a 1st rounder + starter) is too high. That is an awful lot to give up, but when about half of 1st-round picks fall short of expectations, one has to wonder if Moss would quite possibly outperform two 1st-round picks.

Unlike Minnesota, Jacksonville has a hell of a defense, and Moss would be one mighty spark for a young offense. I would be more excited than worried if the team did roll the dice and take the risk. But if they’re not going to, then they better hit home runs with those 1st round picks.

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Unification!

February 11th, 2005

I have replaced my old homepage with a new WordPress-powered journal, with snazzy new features to come. Finally time to replace my old static page.

What’s more, WordPress allows me to mirror my journal posts there on my LiveJournal and my Xanga journal. So if you read my posts on either of those journals (the Xanga one has been just a placeholder until now, really), my wonderful musings and other crap will continue to appear there too.

It’s pretty nice, with a lot of plugin features for me to explore. But I can still take advantage of the Livejournal and Xanga communities (a feature of questionable value sometimes, but regardless…)

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