Repetitive Redundancies

And Boredom Ensues

2009-04-17T10:41:00.003-05:00

So, here I am counting down the minutes in my last day of work here. There really hasn't been anything to do today, but I've managed to keep myself busy getting everything in order for the opening position. Anyways, about the site, I'd expect a few reviews to start popping up. I've been consumed with some old favorites (TF2, LFD) and a new one I picked up recenetly (Burnout Paradise) in my free time, and figured I should add in some content while I'm thinking about it.

Greasemonkey

2009-03-02T09:44:00.003-06:00

Greasemonkey is a firefox addon, that allows the user to customize the way any webpage looks, through some simple tweaks to the HTML actually running the website. Brought up in the news under negative press, most recently for the illegal "purchase" of items from Amazon, this is far from the norm. Currently, I'm using Greasemonkey for some simple interface tweaks/features for Google Reader, in order to give me some keyboard shortcuts and the ability to click the title of a post to open up an iFrame to see the original webpage, Google tweaks (to have my homepage include a link to this blog and some interface lifts), and a few other random websites. The addon has a pretty large following of user-created scripts, and is well worth a look if you've ever hated the way a website looked.

Rockbox & Last.fm

2009-03-02T09:27:00.003-06:00

Well, for those of you out there who still have more than one mobile device to perform actions such as playing music, I give you Rockbox. Rockbox is simply a replacement firmware for your mp3 player, so long as it is in the following list (Copy Pasta'd from their homepage)

Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd/4th gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
Olympus: M:Robe 100
SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the AMS models)
Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

Not limited to iPods this simple to run/install/use firmware is richer than the default Apple firmware on my iPod video, while maintaining the old firmware's integrity. The ability to switch between firmwares is a definate plus, but the advantages Rockbox brings are numerous.

Beyond the interface lift, that it's given my device, it's also added a number of audiophile features, such as an equalizer, crossfade, playback gain, and scrobbling. That's right, the Rockbox firmware keeps a log of tracks played, allowing the user to upload this log to last.fm, for a more accurate protrayal of their listening habits. Linked here is the site that I most commonly use to upload.

Overall, it's an improvement over the Apple software, but you may run into issues with some devices, like my FM transmitter, which refuses to transmit in Rockbox. But, since my Apple firmware is still intact and I only use the transmitter in my car, the firmware works excellently for what I need. Give it a look if you're at all curious.

Things to Ban in Lieu of Video Games

2009-02-23T21:23:00.003-06:00

An interesting list of things which details the list of deaths in relation to several other legal substances, such as soccer, religion and alcohol. Personally, I'd like to see tobacco in relation to these other topics, but contains a number of very good points. Alcohol is one item which has been banned and gone south before; however, it does make an interesting point regarding the hysteria in relation to video games in general. It is well, worth a read just to consider dangers with video games.

Internet Censorship

2009-02-20T09:31:00.003-06:00

The title link to this post leads to a very detailed, and targeted, video regarding internet censorship. The video contains many details and tid-bits regarding internet censorship around the world, and provides them all with a very negative connotation.

I'm not stating that I'm for Internet Censorship, nothing could be farther from the truth, but the video goes so far to imply that it is a group of American companies which are enabling them to do this, which, itself, is false. Although companies like Google and Microsoft are acquiescing to requests from governments (such as China) their choices are down to 2. They can either do as they ask and get some of their potential income from the mass population of China or whatever the country in question, or they can deny them and themselves be censored from their country's internet access. From a business standpoint, it only makes sense to listen to these governments. These companies are not doing as China asks for no good reason, it is very clear as to why they are doing these things, to ensure financial gain, and, honestly, what more could you ask of a company?

Wallpaper Juggler

2009-02-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

A very simple application which I am currently running to give my computer a little variety. With some built-in wallpaper websites, it allows the user to download all desktop images with a certain resolution (very handy) from either InterfaceLift or WallpaperStock. After a few days of downloading (as a result of campus downloading limits) I have downloaded every 1920x1200 wallpaper present on both sites.

Beyond this downloading, the software serves its main purpose as a "Wallpaper Juggler," switching your wallpaper at random based on which folders you provide to the application. This allows you to configure wallpapers based on theme, source, or whatever organization criteria you have to store wallpapers, and change them on a timeline.

Pro-hint: You can set the changer to times other than those in the drop down. Simply type the desired time interval (in integer minutes). EX: "5 Mins" or "1 Min" each work as intended.

AeroSnap

2009-02-19T20:34:00.002-06:00

Such a simple application which takes my favorite of the Windows 7 features (the window resizing/snapping to halves of the screen) and implements it in XP/Vista. Overall, this is a very useful application, which will be replacing the previously mentioned WinSplit Revolution on my machine. It's just easier to grab the title bar and throw it to one side to resize the wondow than to alternate between windows I want to split, press Ctrl+Alt+f and continue from there. Although it does not allow you to choose splits other than right up the middle, it's a fairly simple, useful app well worth a download for the low, low price of free.

Power Menu

2009-02-19T06:51:00.002-06:00

Well, after a few more interesting blog posts on something called PowerMenu, I've decided that it would be worth my time to check it out, and as it turns out, it is a very powerful application. I love using this one in combination with my current desktop, as it means that the clock shines through web pages in Firefox, and every other application in which I care to keep track of the time.

This application is well worth a look, regardless of your technical level. If you've ever wanted to keep a certain application on top of others while you switch to perform other tasks, adjust the transparency of a window, set a task's priority without entering the task manager, or something so simple as minimizing an application to the task bar - this is the application for you.

Lightweight on resources and on size, I recommend this to anyone with any of the above needs.

Color Theory

2009-02-17T10:29:00.002-06:00

Stumbled upon this one today while sitting with nothing to do at work. It's a great tutorial for anyone who knows, or doesn't, know anything about colors in a descriptive, interactive style. If you are into Web Development, art, or images in general, this may shed some light on why (or why not) you like a certain picture. Also, at the end, there is a wonderful little layout template, which reinforces the content. Well worth a look.

Darkfall

2009-02-12T09:04:00.002-06:00

For those of you out there who don't know what Darkfall is, and are into playing MMO's / RPG's in general, shame on you, but have a look at the title link, and be prepared for what may be the greatest thing to happen to MMO's.

Darkfall is a skill based MMORPG, in which there is no leveling, full loot PvP, and a plethora of other neat features. Although it has been in the works for, oh so long, they finally have a developer ready to ship this out, and the game has been gaining steam for awhile.

I have bolded skill based because I feel that it's about the most important part. The game doesn't come down to rock, paper, scissors from tester reports, instead, it relies on a player's ability to outwit and outperform their opponent. The combat doesn't come down to scoring lucky critical hits, or having a certain amount of hit rating to fight something, it relies on your aiming of the bow, on your swinging of the sword, and on your aiming of a spell. What this means is that things like a 10 V 25 player battle can occur and the side with 10 can win (yes, it actually happened; I'd link the source, but my source had their blog removed). There are certainly many more example of things like this, but to understand them, you'll really just have to go have a look for yourself.

FooBar 2000

2009-02-06T09:38:00.004-06:00

Foobar 2000

This is perhaps the most full-featured audio play that I have seen. Completely open to the community, with developers creating addons for a COMPLETELY customizable audio player experience. There are a number of "must have" addons, which will make this all a little easier, while building your UI from scratch. ColumnsUI is one that does about everything I have done above. Like my previous post, there is support for automatic integration to last.fm should you choose to make an account, and it will even allow you to set up a proxy for communication.

There are a large number of pre-made UI's that come packaged into a exe file for automatic installation, but I prefer the one tha t I created from nothing. Call me weird, but this does everything that I need it to do and then some. I have lyrics scrolling at left, album art, channel visualization, full featured playlist management, simple audio controls, and the ability to change ANYTHING at a whim and iPod support via an addon. If you're tech savvy, this is the audio player for you. A necessary component to any of my Windows installations now.

Have a look for yourself.

Last.fm

2009-02-06T09:23:00.008-06:00

I know, this may be a little bit behind, but I thought I would plug last.fm This website tracks your musical preferences by looking at the songs you play in a whole host of media players for your PC. Currently, I am using foobar2000 and will give a review of that sometime soon with my current setup. Anywho, last.fm also allows you to listen to any tracks online that you've listened to in your media player, so even without having your music with you, you can log in and listen to some of the tunes you like. With a whole host of statistics and configuration information, if you haven't heard of it, you really should have a look. It is well, worth your time.

Back to Business

2009-02-03T11:04:00.004-06:00

As promised (long ago) here is my current desktop layout. This is little more than the previously mentioned flip-clock desktop, with a few applications running on the side. Hopefully this will prove to be helpful to some.

Amongst anything that could be different are a different config to RocketDock and the addition of the To-Do DeskList shown at left. It's a pretty handy piece of freeware which can be found here.

I think that's about it, I'll include an edit if I've forgotten anything. Oh, and I'll be updating the feed at right, with some more recent things, as soon as I get around to sorting through the things that I've starred.

Rather Minor Update

2009-01-06T11:13:00.002-06:00

As you may or may not have noticed, as I'd like to make posts in this blog original content, I will be trying to keep all references to outside material found on other blogs/sites in my Google Reader section of the page at right. Any items found that may be of interest not located on my Google Reader may still be added, as well as if I have an awful lot to say about something. Anyways, just thought that you'd like the update. As news comes out, so will my comments/views if you care to read them, as well as anything else I find interesting.

PacDesk V1

2008-12-06T15:13:00.007-06:00

The above picture is of my desktop. This is one of the more theme oriented images which I go to more often to provoke a reaction from classmates/groupmates and others in a very non-formal setting (obviously). Just as people change clothes based on the mood/setting in which they appear, I also adjust my computer, depending on the meeting place I will be attending. So, for an interview, I take a much more formal approach (to be posted later). Anyways, this, as with all these desktops, utilizes RainMeter, Launchy and RocketDock. Overall, it makes for a very playful approach to my computer as a whole.

EDIT: Almost forgot, this rainmeter config utilizes the kit provided by projectVirus as featured on Lifehacker, so a majority of the background work for this was actually his/hers.

Fallout 3 Toolkit Announced

2008-11-26T08:07:00.003-06:00

So, Great news for all Fallout 3 fans out there, Bethesda has done what, at least I, we all knew they'd end up doing and released a game editor to add to the fun of Fallout 3. This was announced yesterday while I was at work, so it got pushed back until now. Sorry about that. Enjoy the anticipation.

This is why I purchase games for the PC. According to the Escapist! this will be a PC only utility, so 360 / PS3 owners will have to make due with what they have. Which, I think, is the blight of consoles. PC content will be expandable, where that made for consoles will always be limited by the releases of the whims of the original developers. As a Computer Science major, this is a bad thing in my eyes. It prevents me from having my fun with a game like this. Anyways, enjoy this little tidbit with more to come today.

Free iPod Backup Manager

2008-11-25T09:06:00.003-06:00

So, in an attempt to make life a little bit easier for the majority of individuals using an iPod as their own personal MP3 player, here are two utilities (discovered via Lifehacker) that I had a VERY hard time finding out about, and likely wouldn't have if not for Google Reader.

So, here are two iPod managers which are worth their weight in gold.

The first that I'll mention is YamiPod which has all the features that I wanted in an iPod manager (backups) and then some that I found useful, such as Duplicate file removal and others. I prefer this application, as it comes as a portable application, which means you can throw the application onto your iPod and run it from there. I deal mainly with Windows PCs so I have the exe there, but just in case I also grabbed the Linux and Mac application files as well, should I ever find myself in need of them. This really is the application that I would suggest should you find yourself with the desire to backup your entire music collection (as I did) or even just a subset of that (since I have over 4000 files on mine I can see this being useful). This subset would allow incremental backups, as I can easily lookup when I attained something and get it from there. Anyways, this is my first recommendation for a free iPod manager.

SharePod is my second choice for a manager, as it provides a subset of the features in yamiPod and yet still includes all of the features I need. I ended up trying this one out on a weekend when I got lazy and didn't want to bother picking out new files and just wiped my most recent backup and redownloaded them all to give it a try. It worked well, enough just didn't provide some of the extras that yamiPod gave. If you're looking for something a little smaller (still portable) and a little bit cleaner UI wise, this would be the manager for you.

Anyways, hopefully this will help get these applications out there and in a little bit wider use. I know that searching Google for free iPod manager didn't help me one bit from all the spam.

Recently...

2008-11-24T12:34:00.007-06:00

So, as I sit here at work longing for something more interesting to do, I decided that I would, along with listening to music, provide you with a bit of background on my recent developments in the gaming world form most recent to slightly older, and provide a bit of a recap of the good, the bad, and the ugly as it were on each of these games.

Fallout 3

The Good - Very immersive - much in the style of Oblivion with many improvements over my main complaints in the game. Your character progresses through a post-apocolyptic world much in the fashion of Oblivion and progressing through the Fallout series style of humor and a great feeling for the game overall. Much like Oblivion, the modding community has already begun working away, even without a released tool, and have been performing minor UI tweaks and other things of the like to improve their own minor complaints.

The Bad - It is much in the style of Oblivion. At times the gun controls can feel kinda clunky. That's about it. The game is well balanced and a blast to play.

Stealing (unlike Oblivion) you can pick up (using 'z') and carry without placing in your inventory any item which you please (within weight constraints) without anyone getting angry that you're walking off with their stuff. After you're out of their sight range (the don't follow you) you can simply steal whatever it is you were carrying.

The Ugly - NONE

FarCry 2

The Good - Great FPS, free - move at your pace story, with well balanced weapon sets and a great AI - Map editor is amazing as well

The Bad - Travel, even with a fast travel system - i.e. the busses, the game requires you to travel all over, all the time which gets tedious when every enemy camp respawns when you get little more than a 15 second drive from them.

The Ugly - Malaria - the most annoying part of the game for me... you have malaria, which, in real life would require medical attention frequently, and FarCry 2 took this into account. In between (what felt like) every mission I found myself on a quest to get Malaria pills which takes us back to the bad.

Multiplayer - Takes the "Matchmaking" approach with the exception of the ability to form parties and play with people you choose, on teams you choose (even on Team Games). It is more than a little annoying when you're trying to play with a friend (my roommate) and you don't want to face each other because you know you're of the same skill level and will end up killing each other's score. The mechanics are fine, and fun, but it's a pain to try to get on the same team as even a single other person's team. It involves both people waiting until one team has more people and then switching teams to get to the same one. VERY frustrating, but still fun if you're by yourself.

Anyways, more to come later, posting so I can get out of here and actually get some work done.

WotLK

2008-11-19T18:38:00.003-06:00

Okay, so, through StumbleUpon I have come to the following website under the title. It appears my initial belief in the game not changing at all for the betterment of casual gamers was false, it instead appears that they made the entire expansion to that sole end as a team of individuals of cleared the whole of WotLK PVE content already.

The guild that beat this content has a few concerns even with their own ability to have done this so quickly likely the same as mine, what made this so much easier, and why, oh why didn't Blizzard test these bosses in a manner that would have prevented this.

Regardless of whether or not they played for 96 hours straight, part of what made the game interesting in the first place was that it was a gradual transformation from a level 1 to 70 character that gave the game a sense of accomplishment. Even knowing the fact that all of the content can be cleared within 96 hours of gameplay makes me awfully glad I stopped playing before this.

Take it with a grain of salt however, these two guilds working together means something, as they were the top rated guilds prior to Wrath and were always on the cutting edge of progress as content was released, but it used to take them days/weeks to complete individual raids back in the day, so for this much supposed content. Make your own decisions, but it just reinforces my decision that it wasn't worth playing.

Blizzard, and why they've lost my support

2008-11-17T17:11:00.006-06:00

WoW

Now, I know that there are a large number of individuals greatly awaiting and rejoicing at the release of WotLK that was released last week, and so I find myself looking over my time spent playing WoW and find very little that I miss since quitting over the summer. In my time between posts about WoW a good number of things happened. My warrior continued to raid and tanked Rage Winterchill in Hyjal on the guild's first time downing him, and I created a mage, from level 1 to 70 on a different server, who raided through Serpenshrine, and was, better geared for raiding than even my warrior.

However, once you reach such a tier, there really is nowhere to go. When the guild I was raiding with fell apart on my warrior's server, I transfered over to join my mage (who had not yet reached 70) and with some friends, we created our own guild, which did admirably in the start and in the end, joined with another guild to do Serpent Shrine.

Sure, one can continue raiding and progressing, but when it comes down to waiting a week before you can make any progress, the game just losses all sense of accomplishment. Furthermore, finding that many people is a little rediculous to have on a regular basis, and let alone, finding that many competant, geared individuals is near impossible unless you have 25 real life friends, with the same exactly schedules, and nothing better to do than play WoW.

I know, Wrath is supposed to be putting more emphasis on 10 mans, but in the end, it will regress to the same thing that has bothered me so much with the old system... A brick wall with no way to progress beyond it. Adding 10 levels is great for forcing people to start anew, but when you put the same people through the same challenges, the game loses all it's appeal.

Sure, you've adjusted the classes (taking out all the things that made tanks unique and making miniscule changes to things "spellpower" instead of spell dmg or healing) and "balanced." But there's no real sense of accomplishment. Attempting to integrate an achievement system is great and all, but in the end, it just feels like giving a gold star to a child for remembering to use the toilet instead of just going wherever they please. It gives you a sense of instant gratification, but continue that chart for 10 years and each one of those stars just seems a little pointless.

Diablo III

Now, I've played this series for quite some time. I even went ahead and purchased Diablo II (again) so that I could play with my brother and some friends over Battle.net half for the nostalgia and because WoW was no longer eating up all my time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game as much as I'd remembered, which brings me in this rant to Diablo III.

Now, if you've been following the game as I have, you'll have heard about the "rainbow" fiasco as I like to call it, where they made the game more colorful when compared to the previous Diablo games, and I actually like the change. I hate playing games with the only variations in color being in the saturation range, or, even worse, in various tones of grey.

Anyways, back to the things about the game that I dislike. It seems that Blizzard is attempting to draw individuals from their past success with Diablo I & II and bring them to Diablo III while implementing things that they have "learned" from WoW. So if you read the previous rant, I'll save you the time in my arguments from that and expand on them. I don't want this game to become a bastardized version of WoW. Sure, environment damage looks cool, the implementation of AoE effects looks great, but hearing someone say they're taking aspects of WoW and putting them into the game frightens me more than a little, and, after announcing that they're taking out some classes I begin to get more and more worried about the game's progress as a whole. The gameplay video still looks like it's something that I would enjoy, but more than a few annoyances can make a game not worth playing. Without a good bit of key information, my stance will remain: worried for some time.

Starcraft II

Another of the games that I own and remember from my earlier days as far as games are concerned is Starcraft. I remember playing Starcraft for hours on end, and still find the game to be amazlingy fun. At it's announcement I was thoroughly excited and really couldn't wait for the game, but after the announcment that the game will be released in 3 installments, my excitment has died significantly.

Part of what made Starcraft such a great game to me was the ability to play as whatever race I wanted at any time, in or out of a multiplayer environment, and playing through the campaigns were really the best way to get a grasp of what each race was capable of. With each campaign being released at different times, for an additional cost each time, the appeal has significantly died for me, as a college student.

My ability to pay for games is limited as it is, which is why I look to so many various news sources before purchasing a game. I don't have the money to spend on a new game every other week and not play half of them. Let alone when I look over at my neglected Wii in the corner, since I've beaten all the games I own for it, to the extent that any further play is beating a dead horse.

And, as a CS, I know exactly how Blizzard will go about producing the game. Since after purchasing one of the games, multiplayer is supposedly unlocked for each race all balancing has to be done by this point anwyays, so what it comes down to for Blizzard to package all this into one, is the production of campaigns with some story elements, and, this is frighteningly easy if they produce the same kind of a map editor that they did in the original Starcraft. If you've ever clicked the "Use Map Settings" in the game type menu and looked at the variety of maps available from the first Starcraft you'd understand exactly what I mean.

Conclusion

And so, this is, as I like to think of it, a trifecta. My interest in Blizzard's operations has sharply died with time, and, unless some miracle occurs, letting me know that everything will be allright with Diablo and Starcraft, I don't plan to be purchasing any of the games Blizzard is currently producing. If you don't agree with what I've said, fine I wish you the best of luck and the most fun in the world playing these games, but for me, I'll sit back and await the release of Darkfall.

Edited for formatting only

Sloooow Doowwwn

2008-08-21T13:40:00.004-05:00

Allright, in all seriousness, this one made my day, easily. It simply made me take a deep breath and relax a little, while rushing through a little bit of work in between these posts, and it was refreshing. I will admit that it has been some time since I have found the time of day to read in between work and maintaining a relationship, but I just might run out and get this book to give me a little somthing to read before returning to school. Watch the video, and relax.

The "Mojave Experiment"

2008-08-21T12:48:00.007-05:00

First off, I have a few choice words to describe the experiment and let me say that the first of them is "Bull".

You cannot sit a person down in front of the computer, push a few buttons for them, and say that it is the entirity of the operating system. That isn't the user "experiencing" the operating system, it's a demo.

Second of all, the major issues with Vista were those that could by found in typical applications, like Windows Explorer, and personally, I doubt the user had too much time to fiddle around with Windows Explorer to find out that it crashes every 15 minutes.

Thirdly, I have no idea what "features" they disabled or ran the real cost of the operation earlier. Like, for example, their "search enhancer," which I found to be very expensive on the CPU. Not only that, I had better search results with it off, as whenever I was searching for something the darned thing was too busy caching some other part of my hard drive to look for what I actually wanted. There's a problem there.

Finally, the hardware used, although not exceptional, is above average for the standard PC these users (who have never even seen Vista mind you) have likely never been on a machine with 2GB ram and a dual core processor. When 14% of those tested are on something pre-XP, you can't exactly consider them your "average" computer user.

http://mojaveexperiment.com/#/?video=v17
Question: Then why is it faster?
Answer: They gave you better hardware and tuned it for efficiency...

Users are amazed by the simplest of things...
http://mojaveexperiment.com/#/?video=v3
He's amazed by the fact that it comes with a remote control. (Which has nothing to do with Vista)
and there are more than a few programs that allow the user to watch TV regardless of OS.

Those are two of the ones I brought myself to be able to watch before I nearly stabbed my eyes out...

Internet Radio Death?

2008-08-21T08:36:00.003-05:00

This one is a little bit of bad news, which if you cared I'm sure you've heard elsewhere, but it most certainly doesn't mean I wouldn't like to put my 2 cents in. This article takes a slightly different approach than other articles, focusing more on Pandora's side than on SoundExchange, but throws some light on both sides of the story.

In a nutshell, SoundExchange simply wants internet radio to contain advertisements to pay for the royalty fee, which isn't completely unreasonable, but brings internet radio to the same folly of normal radio.

No one wants to sit and listen to radio ads. If you're like me, you very well might switch stations to find something else to listen to in that time period when the ads may run. Or, if you're also like me, you very well might have purchased an FM transmitter so that these ads wouldn't bother you any more. And if you're like me, you have so much music (all legal, mind you) jammed onto your iPod that putting it on random is essentially the same experience as the radio without the annoyances. Internet radio has always been a good alternative for me to discover music that I wouldn't normally have found. It has the advantages of not being confined to music that you've purchased, and yet is unobtrusive and enjoyable.

The introduction of ads to the streams seems to produce more of a commercial aspect to music, which I have never appreciated. Sure, I believe artists and producers and the music industry as a whole, have a right to be commercial, but something about the introduction of a middle man, even in the respect, just doesn't seem right to me. I treat music as I would any other media, like, for example the news. I'd like there to be an unbiased intermediatary to allow me to form educated opinions on subjects. Similarily with music, I don't care if a song is popular if I, say like the beat, or the lyrics, or anything. I don't think that all stations will take this approach, but as long as they're introducing ads, they may as well benefit, right?

Sure, when internet radio becomes available for usage in cars, have a set-up/monthly fee that covers it, similar to that of XM, since in order for the vehicle to access it, it will require something similar to that of XM and Sirius right now. However, right now, with the state of the internet, when one can head over to Skreemr.com or even just search google with clever use of keywords to find just about any song you can imagine, why does it make sense to increase the royalty rate when if the user desires, he/she can not only listen to the song, but download it for their use whenever. Internet radio is not a business, nor will it be in the near future. It's just that simple.

Google Love

2008-08-21T08:24:00.004-05:00

Now, I'll be the first to discredit the idea of Cnet for any serious technical queries or even to search for software, but was directed to this via GoogleNews, and I must say that I believe it to be spot on.

The title contains the link, and is a slightly different way to think about search engines and their competitions for market share. It makes sense...

What makes HL so great?

2008-02-11T12:02:00.001-06:00

In my hiatus from this blog, as long as it has been, I have discovered a good number of things and have had more than my share of homework, tests, and quizes, but in the little free time I do have, I happen to manage a good amount of reading in both fields directly related to technology and computer science, but also in relation to games. This post is in direct relation to Half-Life 2 and also the entire Half-Life story arc and character arcs.

In the interest of time, I'll direct you to page two of the article to which I've linked under the third question:

GFW: [Half-Life series writer] Marc Laidlaw writes sci-fi novels, only none of them are Half-Life.related. It seems you're not so interested in selling the story outside of your games.

If you are a fan of the Half-Life series then the answer to "Why do they make good games?" is right there, and is something that I've claimed has made this series great. The makers of the games have a dedication not to pure capitalism, but to the creation of art.

Why hasn't there been a Half-Life movie? Because they like the median that they're in. They're already telling the story that they wanted to in a way that immerses the player into the story, which is the point of any good movie. Am I saying that every video game that has a movie in its name has "sold out" and therefore cannot be good? No. Although it should be obvious that some of these movies have been made with a purely capitalist goal in mind, the makers of the game just happened to find a reason to do produce it.

"Why is this somehow worth doing? There's no Half-Life movie because we could never figure that out." - Gabe Newell

This is a view that I whole-heartedly respect, and it is for this reason that I will continue to support Valve, or, at the very least, the Half-Life development team.

Well, I hope that someone found something worth reading in all that, and if not, oh well. This blog is getting these limited updates in an attempt to express my views, even if they are falling on deaf ears.

Thanks to 1Up.com and StumbleUpon for bringing me to such an interview. You've made my day.