Small Fish, Big Pond

Well the visuals look excellent and it looks full of geek porn (still loving the recognizers).
The clean smooth lines and dark locales may work very well in 3D and will hopefully not be a “Clash of the Titans” mess. Although I already see alot of 3D gimmicks in there which I don’t like.

The biggest question is if the story is compelling or this is just another piece of eye candy. Can’t be any worse than Unobtanium can it?

According to Scientology, when a person dies — or, in Scientology terms, when a thetan abandons its physical body — they go to a “landing station” on the planet Venus, where the thetan is re-implanted and told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, “capsule” it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California. Says Hubbard, “If you can get out of that, and through that, and wander around through the cities and find some girl who looks like she is going to get married or have a baby or something like that, you’re all set. And if you can find the maternity ward to a hospital or something, you’re OK. And you just eventually just pick up a baby.”

Wikipedia

Things just keep seeming to fall behind other countries. When compared to the rest of the world our speeds are pitiful and we have to pay a premium for what little we get. As of last year we ranked 28th in the world, averaging 5Mbps where South Korea is averaging 20Mbps. But what is pissing me off today is the fact that services online are restricted to specific ISPs due to business agreements.

I want to watch the US World Cup game online, BBC streams it but like all BBC stuff it’s UK only. But US isn’t exactly lacking for sports channels and websites, ESPN3 proudly advertises that they’re the home to the World Cup here.

So I goto the live streaming section of their page to watch. I’m willing to put up with all the BS commercials and advertising that I’d get on ESPN TV as well; I’m looking for an illegal download or anything. But ESPN only has deals with certain ISPs so unless you’re with a service provider that has a deal with them you don’t get the game.

When your ISP doesn’t show up or you choose one that isn’t supported they have the gall to tell you that if you want to watch the game to change to somebody that has a deal with them. However it’s not like opening the page in a different browser or going to a different access point, changing ISPs is like changing phone providers only worse. And what about when we’re on a corporate network that doesn’t go through a consumer ISP? Many businesses get their internet from AT&T or Verizon, but they get business connections so they don’t have “V-cast” logins to get to the streaming site.

It creates an environment hostile to small businesses that want to compete with the big players. If I start a small ISP and want to provide for my customers I can’t compete on the same level at AT&T, and if ESPN doesn’t work on my ISP customers will flock to the huge providers (local ISP Xmission wasn’t even listed as an ISP on ESPNs site). So users stay with the big players which consequently are the ones that charge awful rates and use deceptive business practices to bleed their customers dry.

There is a movement in the government to basically level the playing field of the internet by passing laws to guarantee Net Neutrality. The idea is that all traffic is equal for people who pay to be online. ISPs can’t restrict what or where people go online, just like if you have a car and a license you can drive to a different city; companies can’t say, “Sorry, you’re from New York. You can’t drive through Kansas, and if you go through Nebraska you have to stay under 10 MPH.”

Opponents to Net Neutrality say that by putting laws on how internet providers and businesses work will be putting restrictions on internet freedom. This is a red herring, America has freedoms but we need laws to guarantee those freedoms, it’s like saying that making a law that guarantees free speech you’re restricting freedom of speech.

But the ESPN3 issue proves that monopolistic businesses create an environment that restricts business and consumer freedoms when laws don’t exist to guarantee those freedoms. Our internet is getting more and more restricted because the big boys only play with the big boys, and then lobby congress to stop laws that would allow other companies to get a foot in the door.

Anyway I’m pissed that ESPN wouldn’t let me watch the game from their site, not only was I willing to put up with their commercials but the option to watch wasn’t even a possibility since none of the local ISPs had made a deal with them, even Qwest was cut out.

And they wonder why people go to illegal means to get stuff.

Google of course is recognizing the day with a custom header on www.google.com. The trick is that the google title is playable; open up google and hover over the title. It’s worth it for the nostalgia of the authentic sounds alone.

Pac-Man Facts:
Like most games of the time Pac-Man is Japanese, Paku Man. “Paku Paku” is a Japanese mimetic word for the sound of eating, like “Doki Doki” is the sound of a fast beating heart. So the name comes from the act of eating; converted to latin the Japanese name パックマン becomes Pakkuman, which we simplified to Pac-Man.

The ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde are of course American names. The ghosts original Japanese names describe their attack personalities; roughly translating to Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle and Stupid.

Pac-Man only has 255 levels, all are the same; but due to a programming issue the game won’t work past 255. Because computers at their core work on binary a certain number of bits is required to represent the data. In binary 8 bits has a maximum number of 255 (this is why IP addresses don’t go over 255 per octet). Pushing for that 9th bit to be able to count to 256 causes Pac-Mac to only render half the screen.
Perhaps this was a deliberate oversight by the programmers, after all who would ever play a game through 255 levels?

Along with the Atari ET game, the port of Pac Man to the Atari 2600 was one of the reasons for the video game crash of 1983. As good developers fled Atari due to publishing rights arguments games with known good potential like Pac Man were cranked out as pieces of garbage and the gamer market responded by abandoning systems. Nintendo would pick up the pieces 2 years later.

“Back in the day” it was common for a game to be produced by only one or two programmers who would get billing on the title screen. One of my favorites was “Floyd of the Jungle” by a certain Sid Meyer in 1982.

Atari wanted all their games to be “by Atari” on the title screen. Hard working programmers felt they didn’t get the recognition they deserved and fled starting up their own programming companies like Activision.

Dilbert is great.

But unfortunately news moves too fast for the comics to be too topical. So these comics will never see the light of day.

I’m sure coming up with hilarious comics every day is pretty taxing, so having a comic that writes itself has to feel great:

Take a moment to marvel at the fact that I didn’t need to add anything to the story as it has been told in the media. All it really needed was Wally. I don’t think any of us will ever know what really happened. I based the comic on the media’s speculation of events. Remember that I’m in the parody business and not the truth business.

Original iPhone story.

Sorry I’ve been so quiet. I’ve started my new job and all my attention has been directed at learning new equipment and how to do a job without making mistakes that crashing internet for thousands of users.

You can tell from the title I’m not getting one and don’t really care when it comes out. Still a funny flowchart for it.

The Next Web

I’m interested to see “what the future holds for publishing”, as tech commentators would say. I’m horribly afraid Mosspuppet will be right.

@victorchamp According to publishers, the iPad will revolutionize magazines by turning them into websites, or CD-ROMs from the 90’s.

Twitter

I have to say I’m really excited for this, Tron was a great movie even if it’s a bit dated now, and one of my favorite movies growing up. The new one looks excellent and makes good use of the movie technology today.

It also goes well with the plot in that the digital world has grown by leaps and bounds since the first movie and has become a dangerous place. I’m actually half way though writing a blog post about how this is happening in real life so a movie about it coming in December is fitting.

A few cool things from the trailer: of course the light cycles are upgraded (light car?) and the image of a guy wiping out in a light wall is excellent.

They also kept the Recognizers!!!! I was wondering because in TRON 2.0 the recognizers had been converted into packet transports. That had some excelent quotes for tech and network geeks like me.

“In the event of sudden archive decompression, a subnet mask will rez into your overhead memory. If you are accompanying any subprograms, please install your own mask before assisting them.”

“You would probably lose your header if it weren’t compiled on.”

“8 bits short of a byte.”

Grab the HD version here. Thanks Giz.

It’s also going to be 3D but I’m hoping it was filmed in 3D and not 2D->3D converted like Alice in Wonderland which I hear is a sub-par alternative.

Ars has an interesting article on the copyright legalities of Karaoke. Personally I think that anything that causes your customers to obsess over and promote your product for you would be a good thing but obviously I’m not running the big record labels.

I can see the legalities for when you hire a singer to sing songs that aren’t theirs in a bar or club if that’s what they exclusively do. But Casual covers or public singing should be allowed in my opinion.

I really noticed this as a problem in Japan at Karaoke bars, many songs couldn’t be played in the same version as broadcast so they had crummy midi versions that were nothing like the original. It really ruins the fun and makes me not want to listen to the song. Which seems like a bad thing for the people who are trying to promote it.

I hardly use twitter but it’s popular and easy to integrate so what little I do use it for is now mixed with the blog. See twitter updates on the right hand sidebar.

The blog is still hosted myself rather than being a “wordpress blog” but the technology is no longer nucleus.

Problem is that RSS import didn’t work so that the posts have to be moved by hand and have their dates changed to match the original posting date. Also the links that linked within the blog don’t work anymore, or until I fix them. Plus comments were lost but there weren’t many; I do read them and still remember and since most were messages to me the info is not lost.

That reminds me that tomorrow I’ll be doing more work on prepping next years hydroponic garden. I’ve been tracking this one from day one to make up a list of parts needed, how much they cost, and where I got them.

Anyway sorry about the mess, I hope the new look is an improvement.

I also might be testing out new features so if weird stuff appears and disappears it’s just me farting around with stuff on the back.

Damn this site is skinny.

I’m moving the blog over to wordpress. As soon as I can pretty it up I’ll make the switch.

Old internal links might not work so well, and images may be lost until I can fix them.

No this isn’t a retaliation post for taking down the page I made extolling my greatness to the world. Alot of the time I find myself being rubbed the wrong way by wikipedia content. The constant reminder that most of the internet’s content is made by petty nerds in their parents basement (although it’s not nearly as bad as the comments sections on youtube for for destroying my faith in man).

One is the overuse of the “citation needed”.
I understand the need for accuracy and that’s what that tag is for, however some people go on sprees throwing it at any sentence that doesn’t have a link to an external reference even when the comment itself is speculative. An example is a sentence like, “Some people even think the moon landings were faked by the government “.
Besides the fact this can be proven by reading the idiotic comments on youtube, how about the guy who made the edit? There citation made, no need to get equally unreliable proof linked off the internet.

But what got me riled up this time was how some people feel the need to see inferences and connections where none exist and then spew the nonsense online like having it on wikipedia somehow validates their idiotic ramblings. It’s those same people you see in a coffee shop spouting false pseudo-philosophy to an ignorant wide eyed freshman girl because he just watched “What the Bleep do we know?“. Although in the girl’s defense she’s probably just playing along because she knows the guy is a virgin desperate for attention and will be an easy lay.

Anyway in the entry for Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll left the following references to the field Mathematics:

In chapter 1, “Down the Rabbit-Hole,” in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes philosophic concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps “going out altogether, like a candle.”; this pondering reflects the concept of a limit.

Yeah it COULD be a mathematical reference to limits or just a simple comment that she doesn’t want to shrink to death.

In chapter 5, “Advice from a Caterpillar,” the Pigeon asserts that little girls are some kind of serpent, for both little girls and serpents eat eggs. This general concept of abstraction occurs widely in many fields of science; an example in mathematics of employing this reasoning would be in the substitution of variables.

I know that substitution of variables is common in math but it’s more common in real life, even by people (children) who have now idea of the mathematical concept of variables. Just like when how all mathematicians I know apply math to things that don’t warrant it, thus when I meet somebody making making more out of circumstances than there really is I ask, ” By chance are you a mathematician?”

The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin, suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. Deep abstraction of concepts (non-Euclidean geometry, abstract algebra, the beginnings of mathematical logic…) was taking over mathematics at the time Dodgson was writing. Dodgson’s delineation of the relationship between cat and grin can be taken to represent…

God, please just shut up!

Sometimes somebody slips in a math reference for the nerds out there and sometimes a story is just a story.

By the way did you know that the upcoming Tim Burton “Alice in Wonderland” movie with Johnny Depp is not a remake or an adaptation but a sequel to the books? I didn’t. In them alice is all grown up.