Droid Aeris

there's a materia for that!

Oh, I’m sorry, it’s “Droid Eris”.

A little over a week ago, Verizon launched their new line of smart phones, the “Droid” phones that will be running Google’s Android OS.  I’m actually very excited about these phones as it means Verizon is starting to get competitive with their smart phones.  I haven’t personally used one of these phones, but a friend of mine has it and seems to really like it.  That’s saying a lot considering he used to use a blackberry and owns an iPod Touch, ie all the smartphone OS’s (does anybody have a Palm? anybody?).  Reports from Engadget said that Android 2.0 interfaced weirdly with the actual phone aspect of the device, so I think I’ll wait for Android 2.1 before investing.  A part of me wonders why they chose the name “Eris”, for the phone which, btw, is actually the HTC Hero.  They could’ve picked something more robotic, like the “Droid Servo” or the “Droid T1000″.

Movie Review: The Informant

“The Informant!” is a comedy/drama film released earlier this month about an FBI informant, who doesn’t quite get it.  He’s supposed to be recording meetings and gathering evidence for the FBI to bust his bosses who have been doing some major price fixing.  Being an average joe, he keeps looking at cameras or narrating the recordings and quite nearly blows his cover several times.  You can get a good idea of what the film is about here.

My overall impression of the movie was that it was pretty average.  It wasn’t as funny as the trailers lead you to believe, and the humor it did have was a sort of dry humor.  As a drama, it was a mild success.  It had a good plot twist near the end, and was definitely an engaging story while it lasted.  I would rate this movie as a “rent it sometime if you’re free” type film, in that there was nothing explicitly bad about the film, but there was nothing outstanding about either.  There was a lot of good cameos in the movie (such as Arrested Development’s Tony Hale and that dude who played Bif in Back to the Future), but most of all it was fun to see Matt Damon play a character who isn’t an action hero.

Orientation Crashers

This comic was supposed to go up on Friday, but here it is now.

I is crashing your orientation! eating yo' bagels!

Not to be confused with Castle Crashers.  Very different genre.

So I’ve been using Chrome lately.  It’s Google’s web browser.  It’s changed a lot since the first version, which I didn’t really like that much.  The address bar is pretty good at predicting where you want to go, and the program loads up pretty quickly with a smooth interface.  My only gripes with the program is that it actually crashes fairly frequently (more so than many Microsoft applications) and doesn’t save your browsing session.

Zune 4.0

Microsoft recently released a new version of the Zune software, which is their solution to Apple’s iTunes.  This new version looks very clean, and I believe it is more visually compelling that iTunes and has comparable features.  Here is a rundown of the features made by a friend of mine, whom I must disclose does work  for Microsoft.

I’m curious to see if Google will try to hand their hand at a media player because I feel they have a knack for clean, friendly interfaces.  Anyways, you can download Zune 4.0 here.

Videogame Review: Dead Space

I know Dead Space is actually really old (almost a year), but I’m poor and don’t get video games until well after they hit the shelf (almost a year).  For those of you who are like me, and haven’t gotten Dead Space yet, allow me to introduce it:  Dead Space is a survival horror game set in the future.  The character you play has been sent to investigate a diralect starship only to find that its been infested with strange man eating creatures that you must defend yourself from as you struggle to get off the ship.

The first thing I really liked about the game was the HUD.  Dead Space is a third person shooter, so it can’t logically have the same HUD as Halo where you’re looking through the helmet of Master Chief.  Instead, Dead Spaces uses a sort of augmented reality where interact-able objects in the environment are highlighted, and video clips appear in boxes that tilt with the players movement.  I think it really helps immerse you in the environment.  HUD’s sometimes give off a reminder that you’re just playing a videogame, but Dead Space’s makes you feel like your seeing the world as your character does.  Also, the game doesn’t pause for video clips or anything so its possible for you to be attacked during dialogue, which really keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The game is organized well, where the different levels are the different parts of the ship.  They integrate the idea of “boss battles” well into the game so it doesn’t feel like the boss fight trappings of a typical videogame.  The game is linear for the most part.  You’ll be giving a task like “find three energy cells to power the elevator” and you could technically find the energy cells in any order, but the game has a built in compass for objectives that would lead you to them in a specific order.  My one gripe with the game is the upgrading feature.  As the game progresses, you collect “power nodes” that you can use to upgrade your armor or guns.  As it turns out, its very hard to find a power node.  I think I’ve found like 4 or 5 so far which has only allowed me small upgrades to my gun and hit points.  It would definitely seem that I’d need to play through the game a couple times before seeing any significant upgrades.

Overall, I was very impressed with the game.  It’s frightening without being gruesome.  Its challenging without being difficult.  And the story is solid enough to keep you interested.  I definitely recommend it.

Creative Exercises

New comic today.

Healthy and nutritious!

I really don’t know much about working out and exercising.  I just go there and lift things until I tired.  I’m not even sure if some of them are approved weights.  Like those things with the treads, not sure if that’s for lifting or what.  Surely, they’re not for running in place.  That’d be silly.

In other news, I went on a campaign to beat some old childhood games which led me to the independent game company, AGDI.  They did a remake of the original King’s Quest game.  They updated the graphics and added voice-overs to match the style of King’s Quest V.  The rest of the game (the puzzles and plot) remains in tact, so fear not.  I think they could’ve made the graphics more HD, like the Street Fighter HD Remix, but this was a free production so I can’t ask for much I suppose.  I’ve checked out a couple other old DOS games using DOSBox as an emulator platform.  Old games have a really different vibe.  Adventure games like King’s Quest have really died off since the advent of 3D gaming.  Those games were a lot of fun, and very story driven.  It saddens me that today’s games have amazing graphics, but gameplay boils down to shooting your way through to the end.  Even puzzles in modern games are basically finding keys and switches.  I admire AGDI for trying to make adventure games again.  I think a small developer could do well make cheap 2D games that are heavy on the storyline.

Edit: changed the font in the comic to make it easier to read

LINK-O-RAMA ONE

Damn it!  I knew we’d lose readership if we didn’t update often enough (every other day is my goal).  In order to stave off a drought of posts, I bring you:

SEHF’S LINK-O-RAMA ONE

Seriously.

lumenhaus – Virginia Tech’s entry into the DOE Solar Decathlon 2009.  It’s currently open for tours at the National Building Museum through September and can be seen at the National Mall along with other Decathlon entries from Oct. 9-18.  It’s a remarkable house; be sure to check out the documentary on the lumenhaus website.

Seriously?!

Chalk up one more use for women in the early 1900′s – bulltetrpoof glass test platform.

This is why you don’t bring children to sporting events.  Or anywhere for that matter.

I’m Super Cereal.

Too soon?  Stormtroopers Reflect on 9/11…or is it 0BY?

Now what to do for Friday…?

More Disney Crossovers

I went ahead and made a more detailed concept of what the Little Mermaid would be like in a more Marvel format,

I figure Ursula would be made more buff, and Ariel would have this spunky, teenage girl vibe going.   I keep meaning to do more, but I keep being beaten to the punch by other, better artists.  Perhaps I can still make just one more.

Hey, did any of you guys hear that PAX (Penny Arcade Expo: a videogame convention sponsored by the authors of Penny Arcade) got hit by swine flu?  Man, I thought that swine flu had gone out of style like a Black Eyed Peas song.  Don’t we have a vaccine for that now?  And, at this point, shouldn’t we be gearing up for next year’s flu season?

Memory Prowess Linked to Gaming

Sehf is out today.  He’s been working on the Lumenhaus, VT’s entry into the solar house competition.  Even though he’s not an official member, he’s been helping them set up at the National Building Museum in DC.  He’s spent the last several days doing 10hr days helping them, all for funsies. Anyways, I’m sure he’ll post on that himself later  in a much longer, more detailed post.

In other news, I found this article floating around the BBC and found it interesting.  The main conclusion of the article is that playing videogames (particularly strategy games) helps build memory and planning skills, while surfing youtube and twitter provide you with only quick bursts of information that provide no benefit as the information is already analyzed for you.  I’m glad to see science has begun to vindicate videogames.  This is quite the turn around from the days when videogames rotted your brain and shrunk your penis.  Although, one thing I disagree with this article on is that youtube and twitter are automatically brain killers.  I think a lot depends on what you use them for.  If you go on youtube to view SxePhil’s daily whine and twitter to read your friend post, “zomg, I just ate a sandwich #lunch” then you probably are wasting your time.  But youtube has really grown, and you can find clips from the discovery channel or lectures from professors on there that can help expand your knowledge base.  Similarly, if you subscribe to twitters like NPR’s (or, gasp, the BBC’s) you’ll find that they just post links to longer articles.  In that way, browsing twitter becomes browsing headlines for articles to read, much like you would a newspaper or a magazine.  Also, is it just me or has science really gone out of its way to say target twitter as bad?  I wonder when twitter will be vindicated as well…

Re-Imagineering

A quick comic based on my earlier post.

Re-imagineering

A quick note, I don’t hold the copyright to the Marvel symbol nor the Little Mermaid.  Those are held by Marvel Comics and Disney respectively.  The image presented here is for parody.  That said, I slightly changed the logos anyways just to be sure.  Meanwhile, Sehf and I have actually become mildly obsessed with the idea of Marvel/Disney crossovers.  So much so that we’re planning on making a short series of posters with “Marvel-ized” Disney characters.  Stay tuned!