Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Darkside.

Okay, this is very weird. It’s the original Star Wars holiday special starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, et al…, which aired, just once, on November 17th, 1978. I was a shade under 5 years old.

“Why is it so weird?”, you may ask. This holiday special from hell has managed to embed itself in some sinister recurring dream I’ve had to endure over the course of my entire life. And honestly, seeing it again kind of freaks me out.

Enjoy!

Read the full story here.

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Cloud computing is rapidly becoming a household name. Not only that, it’s making my life a hell of a lot easier. Here is a quick list of my personal favorite cloud computing services and hybrids.

Google is the undisputed king of the cloud. If you spend any considerable amount of time on the Internet, you probably have made a Google account at some time or another. And if you’re like me, you use your Google account on a daily, scratch that, hourly basis. Whether I’m at home or at work, on my Mac or on my Blackberry, as long as I am connected to the Internet I can access Google search, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Maps (Latitude), Reader, Alerts, Analytics, and much, much more. That’s a boat load of cloud computing.

I can’t begin to tell you how much joy Dropbox brings to my life. So much so that Dropbox is now officially one of the first programs I install on any new computer I use. Here’s how it works — first you download and install Dropbox on all of your computers. This will create a folder on each computer called “My Dropbox”. Now, anything you put into your “My Dropbox” folder gets uploaded to your Dropbox web account and subsequently synced with all of your computers that are linked to that account. For me, this is a dream come true. I’m constantly bouncing back and forth between computers and operating systems. It’s cross platform, so it works with Windows, Linux, and OS X. No more emailing myself files or constantly pulling out my thumbdrive every time I need to move my data around. You can also access all of your files via a web browser, which can be super convenient when you’re on the go and don’t have access to your personal computers.

Lala does music, and they do it well. It’s especially nice if you spend a good chunk of your life in front of a computer. Here’s the scoop; after joining Lala, they will scan your entire computer(s) and upload (or match) all of your songs in your library to your Lala account. From that point on, you have access to all of your music anytime you want, as long as you’re on the cloud. But it gets even better. You can play any song that’s not in your library, once, for free. You can even put entire albums in your queue and listen to them in their entirety before you decide if you want to buy them or not. And here’s the beauty, if you like the song and want to purchase it (or them), you have two choices. You can buy the streaming version for only 10 cents per song, or a DRM free MP3 for 99 cents per song (89 cents if you previously bought the streaming version). This is great on so many levels. For one, 10 cents is cheap, and once you buy a streaming song you can listen to it as many times and as often as you’d like as long as your connected to the internet. You also get 50 free streaming songs just for joining Lala. Secondly, you may not need or want to download an entire album. You could buy an entire streaming album for $1.00, then hand pick the songs you want to download (DRM free) to put on your iPod, or your Zune, or your iPod. Lala has a nice wallet feature too that allows you to store a set amount of money for quick purchases. When your wallet runs dry, just add some more cash. $5.00 = 50 streaming songs. Not bad. If I could improve one feature of Lala, it would be their music discovery. Though it’s not all that bad, it’s still not on par with the likes of Pandora. Oh yes, and a Blackberry app — that would be fantastic.

Xmarks, formerly known as Foxmarks, is a browser plug-in for Firefox, IE, and Safari (hopefully soon for Chrome) that stores all of your bookmarks remotely and then syncs them to all of your browsers. Again, this is only handy if you spend a lot of time in multiple environments — but that’s sort of the whole point of cloud computing, not having to be locked down to one computer, one processor, one hard drive… Once installed, Xmarks does everything in the background — set it and forget it. Xmarks is also taking a stab at social bookmarking, similar to sites like Delicious, Stumble Upon, and Digg. Good luck with that one guys — the social bookmarking scene is getting a bit crowded. Personally, I would just stick with bookmark syncing. This is definitely one area where they know their stuff

Reqall is a virtual extension of my memory. The whole reason I started using Reqall was so that I could get thoughts out of my head quickly (GTD-like) and revisit them at a later time. For example, I always remember things while I’m driving. With Reqall, I can call and leave a message on my account. Reqall then transcribes the message and emails it back to me. Now my idea / thought / task / appointment is nice and safe in my email inbox for review at a more appropriate time. Reqall is also linked to my Google Calendar, so if I were to call and say “Dinner with Meg’s parents Sunday at 5 O’Clock”, Reqall would put that entry right on my calendar on the specified day and time. It can be a life saver. Their website is well designed and offers a variety of ways to organize your To-Dos and notes. However, they could work a bit on improving their lists management system which, according to them, is on their list of things to do — no comment. Voice isn’t the only way to add items to reqall. You can use instant messaging, a Firefox extension, email, text messages, or my personal favorite, their mobile app. I can’t speak for the iPhone app, but Reqall’s Blackberry app is probably the best, most well designed app on my phone. Reqall also offers a pro account for $20.00 a year which unlocks a few neat features. I think the free version is sufficient for most people though. At least until they fix some of the minor quirks and add a few more niceties.

A buddy of mine turned me on to this band. They are,…well, were really good before they split up in 2002. But I guess are is a better word since music is forever, right? Anyways, they have a really interesting bio you can check out over at Lala. Below is a paragraph describing their last concert affectionately called The Last Dispatch:

The band eventually scheduled a farewell concert to their fans, in order to get closure on the Dispatch portion of their lives. The free show was performed at the Hatch Shell in Boston on July 31, 2004. “The Last Dispatch,” as it was called, is said to be the largest concert in independent music history. The original prediction of the turnout was between 10,000 and 30,000. Fans flocked from Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia among others, making up an estimated total audience of 110,000.

I wish I was there.

What’s even more interesting than their bio, is their music. It’s in a genre of its very own. Now go grab a cocktail and have a listen.

The purpose of this post is partly to ponder the pure privation and perilous period of the Puritan’s past while promoting the prodigious presence of the Plimoth Plantation through pictures and praise.

Please proceed.

Sorry….. Anyways, Cam, Meg, and I spent the day at Plimoth Plantation last weekend and I wanted to give them a much deserved plug. For those of you who don’t know, Plimoth Plantation is sort of a living museum attempting to replicate the day to day life of the original Plymouth colony, circa 1627. It’s a semi-working plantation inhabited by actors and actresses role playing as pilgrims, who, I must say, they do a fantastic job. It’s not a guided tour, but a literal stroll down history lane where you are encouraged to explore the plantation, popping in and out of various houses and talking to the townsfolk. Every history buff at some time in their life has wished they could experience various eras in history for themselves. Well this may be as close as one might get to making that wish come true — short of a building time machine of course — which I’m working on.

My personal favorite part of the day was spent in a very authentic looking reproduction of a Wampanoag home site, just a quick walk from the village. The Wampanoags here are not role playing, but are actual descendants of Native People dressed in traditional clothing and showing off various crafts and skills. You can sit and chat with them as much as you like, and ask them all sorts of questions regarding their lineage and traditions. Fascinating is a word that comes to mind. If I were alone, I probably would have spent all day there, just listening to other people’s questions and soaking up the rich heritage of these people. Again, another “must visit” place for anyone who has a passion for history.

I just finished an interesting book called, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. I bought it almost immediately after listening to an interview with the book’s author [and neuroscience] David Eagleman on a segment of NPR’s On Point called Envisioning the Afterlife. The book is a blast; it’s a fun and thought-provoking exploration of the possibilities of the afterlife (and maybe even the after-afterlife).

The ideas that Eagleman puts forth in each of his forty essays are not to be taken too seriously, but are indeed, meant to stimulate a more pliable way of pondering the mysteries of life after death. It’s an approach that, for some, offers a bit more intellectual freedom than that of atheism (no God, no afterlife) and theism (one God, one afterlife). But don’t get too caught up with the topic of the hereafter. The vignettes presented in this little thought experiment are really more of a study of life than of death, albeit, cleverly disguised in varying incarnations of the great beyond.

One of the things that drew me to this book was Eagleman’s use of a term he invented called Possibilianism.

According to his definition, possibilianism rejects both the idiosyncratic claims of traditional theism and the certainty of atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.

He pretty much summed up my own personal philosophies on the subject of death and spirituality. And, although I don’t plan on running out and joining the church of possibilianism anytime soon, it is a refreshing alternative to the awkward and uncomfortable term of agnostic that people like me are so often labeled.

The possibilian perspective is distinguished from agnosticism in that it consists of an active exploration of novel possibilities and an emphasis on holding multiple hypotheses at once when no data is available to privilege one position over the others.

If you’re like me and love reading interesting perspectives on all kinds of interesting topics, I would put this little book on your reading list. It’s a short read and can be easily finished in one sitting. You’ll most likely enjoy it, but even if you don’t, just throw it on your coffee table — it’ll be sure to spark some interesting conversations.

There are many different genres which exist in the gaming world today, but my personal favorite has been, and most likely always will be, the First Person Shooter. This genre has been around for almost four decades and has always been predominately geared towards the PC. With the advent of next generation console gaming, however, a lot of FPS titles are being developed for console systems as well as for the PC. This, as one might expect, has sparked a debate over which platform offers the greatest gaming experience for this particular genre, i.e., console vs PC.

Before I get into why I think the PC is the obvious winner in this arena, let me make a few things clear. When I talk about First Person Shooters, I’m not talking about the singleplayer experience. This isn’t my forte; I’ll leave that debate to someone else. What I’m talking about is competitive, multiplayer gaming on a high-end gaming PC, that is, not your Grandmother’s old Gateway or that bargain eMachine you picked up for $299. I’d also like to state that I think for the casual gamer (or casual just in this genre), a console system would be fine, if not preferable. Consoles, such as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, have a ton of pros and very few cons. That being said, I think one of the limitations of the console is its inability to reach that next level of intensity and precision that one is so familiar with while playing this specific class of game on a PC. In other words, to experience the full potential of this competitive genre, one needs to play First Person Shooters as they were originally intended, on a PC.

From time to time, however, I will encounter that one rebellious console gamer that disagrees with this sentiment and defends the console’s supremacy over the feeble PC in every genre, including the aforementioned First Person Shooter. Though there are some compelling arguments which can be made for this stance, the one I hear most often goes something like this:

Have you ever played Halo? Or GoldenEye? or Halo 2? or Halo 3? Or Halo? Wait, did I say Halo already? Did you know that Halo is the number #1 selling game in the multiverse? And also halo…Halo…..HALO!

I’m not paraphrasing, I’m pretty sure that’s an actual quote. Here’s the thing, I’m not disputing the fact that Halo is a great game, and God knows I’ve logged an obscene amount of hours into GoldenEye back in the day, but these are just two games — now compare that with the hundreds of award winning PC shooters that exist on the market today.

Let’s look at the “Halo 3 is the #1 selling game ever” defense. That statement alone is debatable, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it’s true. Since when does the #1 selling anything translate into quality of experience? Does that mean that a Corolla offers a better driving experience than a Ferrari? Or that the Big Mac is the greatest cheeseburger of all time just because it outsells all of the others? What people tend to forget is that in the gaming industry, PC games consist of just a very tiny slice of the whole gaming pie. There is no arguing that console systems have a much higher saturation level in homes than high-end [gaming] PCs. That fact alone means that video game sales for consoles should be much greater than that of the PC, which they are. Now throw in a title like Halo which, realistically, has no other competition on its platform, and you have a recipe for success. Halo on the PC, however, fades into mediocrity when thrown into the mix with mammoth franchises such as Half-Life, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Crysis, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, etc… And let’s not forget the modding community’s ground breaking contributions to competitive gaming with creations like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, Red Orchestra, etc… I could go on and on forever. The point I’m trying to make is this; competition for First Person Shooter dominance on the PC is fierce. A mediocre game just wouldn’t cut it on this platform. Calling Halo a mediocre game may be a bit harsh, but ask yourself this; what does Halo have to offer that the above mentioned PC franchises do not have to offer? Saturation and virtual exclusivity. That’s really it.

Visual Appeal
As it is now, consoles can never look as good [graphically speaking] as a high-end gaming PC. It’s just not possible. A console’s hardware, for all intents and purposes, is static. You buy the console system, it goes through its 3 to 5 year cycle, and then you replace it. Unfortunately, for the console, technology evolves at a blistering rate. There can be, and usually are, significant advancements in technology in a 3 to 5 year span. A PC’s hardware, on the other hand, is dynamic; always taking full advantage of these technological breakthroughs. PCs are constantly being replaced, upgraded, tweaked, modded, optimized, overclocked, water-cooled, etc… Just one of my graphics cards alone cost more than an entire XBox 360.

Let’s talk resolution. Even the best hi-def T.V.s get outperformed by today’s modern LCD monitors with resolutions reaching 2560 x 1600. “What about size,” they ask. “My 52″ TV is better than your 24″ monitor,” they say. In this case, size doesn’t really matter — because it’s all relative to the location of the observer. When gaming on a PC, your face is about 2 feet away from the monitor. Try putting your face 2 feet away from a 52″ television; it’s not that fun. Now move to the couch 10 feet away and you’ve just narrowed your viewing angle to match that of a PC gamer. It’s the same concept as to why people are able to watch movies on their iPods without being bothered by the small size of the screen.

Pricey vs Practical
Price and practicality are two major advantages that consoles have in the gaming market, hence their greater saturation level. It’s very appealing to be able to buy something which is relatively inexpensive, works right out of the box, and requires almost no maintenance or technological know-how. Now try to convince that same person to buy something that is well over 10 times more expensive, needs constant monitoring and maintenance, and requires a black belt in Geek Fu just to get it to work. So why, then, do people still dish out thousands of dollars for Alienware machines, or Falcon Northwest machines, or Dell’s XPS line of gaming machines? It’s the same reason why there are people out there that still buy Ferraris: They thrive on speed, control, and precision… They’re longing for the ultimate experience.

Mouse & Keyboard vs the Analog Controller
And now we reach the crux of the argument. This, my friends, is really the heart of the the debate. The PC’s mouse & keyboard vs the console’s analog controller. The console camp’s argument goes something like this: “Anyone can point and click” or “it takes more skill to use a controller than it does a mouse“. Anything that is unintuitive or uncomfortable is going to require some extra skill to compensate, but it’s the wrong kind of skill. Like when trying to button your shirt while wearing socks on your hands. Simply put, a mouse is faster and far more precise than an analog thumbstick, which in turn makes the gaming experience faster, more intense, and far more challenging. I recently had someone tell me that using a mouse & keyboard was akin to cheating, claiming that it’s too easy to put your cursor (crosshair) onto another player. What this person fails to realize is that it’s just as easy for your opponents to do the same to you. You’ve just added a whole new level of intensity, urgency, and anxiety to the game. You better not miss your target because you can be damn sure they will not miss you. This is where the phrase twitch gaming comes from. It’s all about reaction time.

Now let’s talk precision. The movement of the mouse correlates precisely with the movement of the cursor on the screen. For example, if you move the mouse to the left, the cursor moves to the left. When you stop moving the mouse, the cursor stops. An analog controller, however, always has to return to center to stop (or switch directions). If you press the analog thumbstick to the left, the cursor goes left, but in order to stop the cursor from moving left, or to move it in another direction, you must bring the thumbstick back to center. It’s not much, but these are the subtle differences that make playing a First Person Shooter on a PC a more exhilarating experience than on a console.

Let’s not forget one of the most important facts, First Person Shooters were designed around the keyboard & the mouse and had to be modified to work with an analog controller. When things are modified to work with something they weren’t designed for, problems tend to arise. Take button placement for example. Most console gamers use the right analog thumbstick to control the movement of the cursor. This is fine until they have to take their thumb off that stick to press one of the four buttons on right side of the controller. This means there is a split second when they have to relinquish control over their movement. A competitive PC gamer wouldn’t dream of taking their hand off the mouse. That split second could mean the difference between victory and defeat. But again, as mentioned above, speed, precision, and reaction time are the name of the game while playing on a PC. In language, sometimes things can get lost in translation. In technology, they can get lost in conversion.

John Carmack of id Software is the creator of some of the most critically acclaimed games ever created. He is considered in most circles to be the father of the First Person Shooter. His games have been developed for the PC as well as all the major console systems. Back in November of 2008, Carmack was interviewed by PC Gamer and this is what he had to say:

“The keyboard/mouse interface is definitely still the superior interface for a competitive first-person shooter experience, much better than an analog joypad,”

Old School vs New Kids on the Block
When you think about it, this isn’t just a question of console vs PC, but a full blown discussion of the state of gaming and gaming culture in general. It’s old school vs new kids on the block. First Person Shooters are relatively new to console gamers, whereas most hardcore fans of the genre have been playing on their PCs for years, decades even. In fact, First Person Shooters were considered more of a niche than a mainstream attraction, reserved solely for the geekiest of geeks. But what typically happens when something unknown to the masses suddenly bursts onto the scene head first into popularity (not unlike the geek culture itself)? Its reality gets twisted to conform to the will of the public. All of a sudden, everyone and their mothers are experts. This is especially prevalent in technology. I used to have this exact same argument regarding web design eons ago, except back then it was Frontpage vs Dreamweaver. Now Frontpage is gone, because it sucked, and all those people moved over to Dreamweaver — and us Dreamweaver users have moved on to other things. Try this, ask any computer programmer what the term “hacker” means and they’ll surely give you a more positive definition than that of the mainstream media. And yet every script kiddie with a computer and malicious intent declares themselves a hacker. Meanwhile, the real experts, the veterans, all of whom know the actual truth, are sitting back silently grinning to themselves. When it comes to First Person Shooters, the console vs PC argument is another such example.

I know this is going to make a lot of console gamers upset, but I assure you that this is not my intent. Competitive as it may be, fun is still the overall goal of gaming. All that really matters is the amount of enjoyment you get from playing. If you get the most enjoyment while playing on a console, then by all means, play on a console. But don’t let emotions and preference blur reality.

The last thing I’ll say is this. The purpose of my writing this little exposition is not to disparage console systems, on the contrary, I thoroughly enjoy them. It’s not even to persuade you to go out and drop $3500 on a new gaming rig. In fact, the difference of experience between the two platforms being argued here are so subtle that most people won’t even notice — very similar to how most people wouldn’t notice the tiny nuances that distinguish the Canon XSi from the Canon 50D. The layperson may even prefer the XSi over its superior counterpart, and that’s fine. My point in writing this piece is simply to squash the console elitists false assumptions that consoles, like the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3, offer a more challenging, engaging, or overall superior gaming experience than that of a gaming PC in this particular genre. That’s just not the case. So I’ll say it agin, — and read this carefully — to experience the full potential of this competitive genre, one needs to play First Person Shooters as they were originally intended, on a PC.