Dear Apple
If you think any of this gibberish looks interesting, you should poke around and subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up with new content.
Dear Apple,
Please give my iphone a “mark all as read” button in the e-mail interface. Also, please give me a digest inbox, like I have in Mac Mail, so I can see e-mail from all my accounts at the same time.
Thanks,
- Jason
Free Download: Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die
When I got my most recent PC Gamer in the mail last week (the March issue already - WTF?), I thought for a bit that I really was cooler than everyone else because the demo disc came with a complete copy of Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die.
As some of you may remember I have meant to pick up one of the Sam & Max games multiple times, having always been thwarted by the fact that I don’t like to spend money. Imagine my delight when I realized that I was part of a select club of people who were selected—no, entitled—to a free copy of an actual computer game.
Well it turns out that I’m not so special. Anyone is welcome to purchase the full game for the high price of “Free” on the Telltale Games website.
I’ve played about half an hour of it so far and I’m already stuck. Granted, I was never the world’s greatest puzzle solver, and I give up too easily anyway, but I have extremely fond memories of the original game from way back when, so I owe it to myself to put in some good time with the new ones.
The off-beat, witty dialogue is there, of course. The strange characters, funky locations, and wack-o reality is exactly as it should be. I highly recommend picking it up, especially since it’s free.
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From Seth Godin. He speaks the truth.
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From The Buttonmasher on the movie Cloverfield. He tends to agree with me (although I’m in the twenty-something minority here).
Metroids is totally a word
Damn you Scrabulous! I should be able to play Metroids:
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There’s a reason Malcolm Gladwell is such a successful author. He has an eloquence that seems to be beyond most people:
From Is the Tipping Point Toast?
The state of music in videogames (for lack of a better title)
If “video games” were a widely recognized musical genre, it would be my favorite. My ringtone has been the original gameboy Tetris theme for years. I remember going into .WAD files to pull out music from Diablo (is there any better ambient music than the town music?), although I was really after the audio clips from Franham the Drunk.
Last Saturday I went to see the Seattle Symphony’s production of Play! A Video Games Concert. Yes, it was awesome. And that picture up in the corner? That fuzzy spotlight-spot? That is Martin O’Donnell.
I have a lot of respect for what composers do in general, and in some cases the specific challenges that composers* who work with video games face. As many other entries in this month’s round table have already pointed out, the biggest of these challenges is the non-linear format. When you start writing music for an interactive medium, a lot of the control you have in, say, movies, goes flying right out the door.
There are workarounds, of course, like scoring in-game cinematics, but I think the real accomplishments happen when music is hardwired into the right game.
The truth is that while music is an awesome addition to some games, it can really pull me out of the experience in others. I started to draw a line at First Person Shooters, and then I thought about Halo and realized that I’d have to say First Person Shooters on the computer. But then I thought about Deus Ex, and realized that I pretty much had to say just Half-Life.
For most video games, I think the music stands apart from the game itself. It’s still seen as a great way to accompany film-like portions of games or draw out emotions (FF VII anyone?) And I’m glad that video games have brought about such great music (which in turn, lead to an awesome concert). I’m not sure there’s any finer accomplishment than writing a theme that can be heard on endless loop for decades and not get old (hello there, Mario Bros.).
What I’d like to see going forward though, is more linkage between a game and the music. As a basic example, the original Deus Ex had two tracks for every location: they had an ambient track for cruising around, and an action track for fighting.
For those of you who don’t know much about Deus Ex, it was essentially a conspiracy-theory RPG built into a First Person Shooter engine. You spent a lot of time sneaking around and discovering things, and occasionally you got spotted, called out, or just decided to shoot some guys.
Whenever you did something that triggered the enemy AI, the music would jump into overdrive. Eventually it’s almost list hearing the skid before the crash. The music makes the adrenaline flow - where are they coming from?
In the end it’s really very simple, one-level integration. But even the subtle shift to situation-based music makes such a big difference over just having events or locations triggering a track. I’m not sure what the next step is, but I’m going to be excited when we figure it out.
And in closing, here are a few video game tracks I enjoy.
Myst III: Exile - Main Theme
Halo 2 - Peril
Deus Ex - The Illuminati (Ending Credits)
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* by composers, I mean to include everyone who writes the music. Doesn’t have to be a “score.” It can be trash80 for all I care.
How often do you finish reading newspaper articles?
I just finished reading a pretty long piece in The New Yorker, which took me about 40 minutes. This got me wondering about how often people actually finish reading magazine articles or newspaper articles.
So, for my own amusement, how often do you finish reading, completely, a newspaper or magazine article, either online or offline?
Loading …Ben Adlin you should be a journalist (because, seriously, read his post about Obama)
For those of you who don’t read Liberal College Kid (which is probably most of you), I’m going to do you a favor and link to a post that Ben Adlin wrote on the 8th about Obama.
To disclose my own political preferences, I (at the moment) support Obama in his bid for the Democratic nomination. I’m as tired of candidates throwing around the c-word as everyone else seems to be, but what frustrates me is the even more cliché stance that Obama “has no substance behind his rhetoric.” It seems a favorite among people who have already made up their mind about the election, driven more by laziness than critical thinking.
Is it difficult to sum up Obama’s platform in a handful of words? Yes, it certainly is. Jake [referenced earlier in the post - JP] illustrates that point splendidly by comparing Obama’s message to those trumpeted by other candidates. Hillary is about health care (I, the American voter, get that), and Obama is about… “Change”? What in the world does that mean?
I realize that I’m posting far more than usual about politics, but what the hell, it’s a political time of year, and I think (along with my friend and co-worker Teresa) that this is an election where we are presented with the chance make an important generational shift in our leadership.
Speaking as one of these upstart young 20-somethings that have suddently decided to screw up all these primary results, I think it’s important that we recognize that part of what good leadership means is an ability to inspire.
Inspiration has the power to grant a president long coat tails with which he (or she! let’s not be unduly unfair…) can protect his political allies. It can grant a president a measure of soft power and an ability to finesse areas of foreign relations that have for too long been met with blunt instruments and “tough” politics.
And it can go a long way towards interesting the American people in what Washington is doing. Far from wanting voters to be ignoring politics (so the government can do things like, oh, erase a bunch of civil liberties?), Obama wants people to be involved. That comes from inspiration, not fear.
Let’s put an intelligent person at the head of this country. Someone with the drive and the public, cross-party mandate to shake up the incumbent political machinery.
Obama has my vote. I hope he has yours, too.
Thoughts on Cloverfield
I saw Cloverfield this past Thursday with Mónica, and despite what you’ve heard from everyone, the movie is awesome.
Yes the camera is all over the place. Yes you see “the monster” relatively early in the movie. The problem is that most people are going into this movie expecting the wrong thing. It really isn’t a straight horror movie or a straight thriller movie.
It’s primarily a story about people. The plot is brillianty constructed, you get just enough info about the surroundings to figure out what might be going on, but not so much that you’re left without questions.
And the ending? Perfect. Structurally closed off. You have the emotional payoff without an “obligatory” situational payoff.
Well worth checkng out in the theater.
Posted from my iphone.
Barack Obama South Carolina Victory Speech: read it
I’ve posted before about why I support Obama. This is why.
It’s about getting rid of the over-influence of lobbyists. It’s about leading by inspiration instead of ruling with fear. It’s about building a coalition. Yes, it’s about change.
Read it:
Over two weeks ago, we saw the people of Iowa proclaim that our time for change has come. But there were those who doubted this country’s desire for something new – who said Iowa was a fluke not to be repeated again.
Well, tonight, the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina.
After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time.
They are young and old; rich and poor. They are black and white; Latino and Asian. They are Democrats from Des Moines and Independents from Concord; Republicans from rural Nevada and young people across this country who’ve never had a reason to participate until now. And in nine days, nearly half the nation will have the chance to join us in saying that we are tired of business-as-usual in Washington, we are hungry for change, and we are ready to believe again.
But if there’s anything we’ve been reminded of since Iowa, it’s that the kind of change we seek will not come easy. Partly because we have fine candidates in the field – fierce competitors, worthy of respect. And as contentious as this campaign may get, we have to remember that this is a contest for the Democratic nomination, and that all of us share an abiding desire to end the disastrous policies of the current administration.
But there are real differences between the candidates. We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington – a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. And right now, that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got; with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face, whether those problems are health care they can’t afford or a mortgage they cannot pay.
So this will not be easy. Make no mistake about what we’re up against.
We are up against the belief that it’s ok for lobbyists to dominate our government – that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem, and this election is our chance to say that we’re not going to let them stand in our way anymore.
We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose – a higher purpose.
We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea – even if it’s one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.
We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.
And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won’t cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don’t vote. The assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate; whites can’t support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can’t come together.
But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. I saw shuttered mills and homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from all walks of life, and men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be.
That is the country I see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.
So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. That change will take time. There will be setbacks, and false starts, and sometimes we will make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope. Because there are people all across this country who are counting us; who can’t afford another four years without health care or good schools or decent wages because our leaders couldn’t come together and get it done.
Theirs are the stories and voices we carry on from South Carolina.
The mother who can’t get Medicaid to cover all the needs of her sick child – she needs us to pass a health care plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American.
The teacher who works another shift at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet – she needs us to reform our education system so that she gets better pay, and more support, and her students get the resources they need to achieve their dreams.
The Maytag worker who is now competing with his own teenager for a $7-an-hour job at Wal-Mart because the factory he gave his life to shut its doors – he needs us to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship our jobs overseas and start putting them in the pockets of working Americans who deserve it. And struggling homeowners. And seniors who should retire with dignity and respect.
The woman who told me that she hasn’t been able to breathe since the day her nephew left for Iraq, or the soldier who doesn’t know his child because he’s on his third or fourth tour of duty – they need us to come together and put an end to a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.
The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.
It’s about the past versus the future.
It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
There are those who will continue to tell us we cannot do this. That we cannot have what we long for. That we are peddling false hopes.
But here’s what I know. I know that when people say we can’t overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of the elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day – an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside. So don’t tell us change isn’t possible.
When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with, and stood with, and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.
When I hear that we’ll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who’s now devoted to educating inner-city children and who went out onto the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don’t tell me we can’t change.
Yes we can change.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can seize our future.
And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:
Yes. We. Can.
iPhone vs Voyager site redesign
For the past two days I’ve been squirreled away in a little bunker of code, where I’ve been transforming our early alpha ugly prototype Sentimine site which looked like this:
Into a full-blown, gorgeous, ready to go dashboard that looks like this:
and this:
You call that an Xbox 360?
Come on, people, you’re running a tech site!
Viral Video Game Marketing
Video Games have always been hitched oddly to the internet and tech advances, sort of like the guy in a motorcycle sidecar.
The first reason I ever used a modem was to play Warcraft II with my friend (and current roommate) Loren. Now Steam lets you buy and play videogames without leaving your computer chair. Blogging and web 2.0 are happening all over the place, and the PCGamer web site still looks like the inside of the Hindenburg after it “landed.”
So now somebody in the mobile gaming space decided that this “viral marketing” might be for them too.
Yesterday’s GamesPress had a press release about it:
Viral marketing continues to grow in popularity as new services such as MoConDi’s MeYou platform continues to expand its worldwide reach in Europe and the U.S. MeYou allows and encourages content purchases to be shared with friends and social networks for incentives via mobile devices and is one to watch in 2008.
With MeYou, users are rewarded for purchases and recommendations, which result in a purchase with redeemable credits. Friends receive mobile message recommendations that contain a message from users, a download link for the content and a link to install the MeYouTM application.
To be honest, that sounds like a really good idea to me. If I played mobile games, I’d be all over a system like this, where I can recommend games to my friends and if games are recommended to me, I can choose to download it right there on my phone, no worries. I even get rewards for doing what I’d do normally.
I think more gaming companies and services should embrace the gamer recommendation system. I’m betting that nothing will drive your sales like making it really easy for gamers to pick up the games that their friends are playing.
The iPhone is an awesome gaming platform
I worry that, as with their past platforms, apple will decide to make it difficult for devlopers to make games foe the iPhone.
I’ve already heard rumors that the SDK they’re releasing in February isn’t going to open up the kind of functionality that would really let games succeed on the device. That’s a damn shame. Pretty much ever since I’ve had my hands on this thing I’ve been thinking about the hundreds of different ways it could be great for gaming.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure most of it out. That’s why there are so Manu games for jailbroken iphones. I hope that come February I hear about a lot of new games for my phone. Otherwise I’m going to have I seriously consider jailbreaking it.
Not to mention the battery lifeon this thing I’d nuts, I’ve been trying to run it down foe about 40 minutes by playing music and writing a post at the same time, but it’s still going strong. I charged it two days ago.
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