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I came across this podcast by accident. It’s called Hardcore History, and I’m completely addicted.

The host, Dan Carlin, talks about all kinds of historical events and the impacts they had on the world, but he does so from unusual and thought provoking perspectives.

Unfortunately (and yet fortunately), the episodes are so in depth that only about one is produced a month. Believe me, they’re well worth the wait. Each episode runs about forty minutes (give or take ten minutes) and focus on topics ranging from Hitler to the Great Depression to the Bubonic plague. But again, these are not your typical history lessons. — I’ve listened to everyone.

Here is a list of the first fifteen episodes. I pulled these right from Dan Carlin’s site. I hope he doesn’t mind.

Show 15 - Desperate Times (.mp3 41:57, 30 Aug 2007)
The tough economic climate after the First World War fostered the growth of radicalism around the world. Did it also create tougher people? Dan looks at the connection between tough times and the “Greatest Generation”.

Show 14 - The Macedonian Soap Opera (.mp3 49:23, 18 Jul 2007)
When Alexander the Great bequeathed his empire “to the strongest” he set off a funeral contest that shook the world for decades. Murder, marriage, intrigue,and drama all feature prominently in the story.

Show 13 - Bubonic Nukes (.mp3 47:30, 13 Jun 2007)
What would happen if half the population died in a short period of time? Dan looks at the Black Death and other plagues that created almost apocalyptic conditions in the past…and maybe in the future.

Show 12 - Steppe Stories (.mp3 58:34, 8 May 2007)
Blood-sucking Scythian warriors, tattooed ice mummies, Amazons killing so they can mate, pot smoking head-hunters, scalp-taking, koumiss-drinking Mongols, Turks, Huns, and Aliens. What’s not to like?

Show 11 - Thoughts on Churchill (.mp3 53:45, 11 Apr 2007)
We almost called this show “Things about Churchill that have interested Dan”. Dan takes a look at various elements of the dramatic life and career of the great British leader.

Show 10 - The What-Ifs Of 1066 (.mp3 47:31, 13 Mar 2007)
How might history have been changed if the events of the momentous year 1066 had turned out differently? Dan examines Normans, Vikings, Saxons, Bastards, Conquerers, Confessors, Godwinsons and Hardratas.

Show 9 - Darkness Buries the Bronze Age (.mp3 33:43, 16 Feb 2007)
What was the cause of the collapse of the Bronze Age? War? Famine? Natural disaster? Sauron the Dark Lord? Dan looks at all the potential villains…except for Sauron.

Show 8 - Scars of the Great War (.mp3 40:34, 27 Jan 2007)
Dan looks at the shock and awe caused by the First World War and marvels at how connected we still are to the empire-shattering effects of the conflict contemporaries simply referred to as The Great War.

Show 7 - The X-History Files (.mp3 31:55, 27 Dec 2006)
Napoleon is supposed to have said that “History is a set of lies agreed upon”. With that in mind, Dan looks at some of the alternative and pseudo history ideas that many people embrace.

Show 6 - Shield of the West (.mp3 59:04, 08 Dec 2006)
Spartans, Athenians, Persians and references to Star Trek all make appearances in this look at the dramatic and extremely consequential Greek and Persian wars.

Show 5 - Meandering Through the Cold War (.mp3 48:29, 14 Nov 2006)
Dan meanders through a conversation about causes and effects of the Cold War without ever talking much about the actual events of the conflict.

Show 4 - Romancing The Tribes (.mp3 31:43, 24 Oct 2006)
Native American chief Tecumseh and Gallic king Vercingetorix both tried to unify their tribal peoples to face overwhelming foes. Dan examines the romance of their lost causes.

Show 3 - Organization of Peace (.mp3 42:09, 4 Oct 2006)
The early 20th century League of Nations stood for peace, cooperation, disarmament and international understanding. What happened?

Show 2 - Guns & Horses (.mp3 34:53, 12 Sep 2006)
The West is Mike Tyson and the East is Muhammad Ali in this episode as Dan mixes Art Bell, with Hans Delbruck in this look at a possible reason for the military decline of the near East.

Show 1 - Alexander versus Hitler (.mp3 16:45, 27 Jul 2006)
Dan compares the way the modern world sees Adolf Hitler with the way history views Alexander the Great and wonders if the two men weren’t more alike than different.

Filed under: Reviews, Zen Geekery
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Chaos……Mayhem……Carnage……..Fun!

OK, I’ve played for 8.2 hours so far according to my steam page and I’m having a freaking blast. At first I was a little worried that the game was too simplified, but my fears were quickly squashed as I started to learn all the nuances of the game. Tactics, strategy, diversity, and team work are key to fun and victory in TF2. A team of just soldiers, or just HW Guys would get their collective asses handed to them. You really need to utilize every class to win this game.

If you’re not already familiar with Team Fortress Classic, you may be better off waiting for an official review. These are just my personal observations and thoughts. Another thing to remember is that this game, as of right now, is still technically in beta. Things are liable to change when it is officially released.

Big Changes:

No grenades: This sucks, but it’s sort of understandable. TFC was infamous for grenade spam. (I’m going to miss the EMP grenade though )

Graphics: Obviously. After 7+ years one would expect it to have slightly better graphics, and it does. But the player models are what really separate this game from all others. They look absolutely fantastic.

Every class kicks ass equally: This is a pretty big deal. I’ll get into each class in detail below.

Subtle Changes:

No more capture points: Instead they use control points similar to Battlefield. The more teammates attacking a point, the quicker your team controls that point.

No flag in CTF: Instead it is a briefcase (CTB?). The briefcase will stay where ever the enemy drops it for two minutes. Defending team members are not able to simply touch the flag anymore to reset it. If the attacking team touches the briefcase again, moves only three feet, and drops the case, the timer is reset to two minutes again. This minor change adds a whole new element to the game.

Secondary weapons actually matter: A shotgun, in this game, is a shotgun. They will take down any class fast. A pistol, in this game, is a pistol. Not just a thing to hold when you’re sick of holding you primary weapon. They hurt.

Classes:

Pyro - Flamethrower, shotgun, axe. He is devastating up close, but very vulnerable when out in the open. When up close, the Pyro can light enemies on fire. They remain on fire, and continue to lose health over time until they jump into water, get healed, enough time lapses, or they die. A lot of Pyros seem use a fire / shotgun combo and it seems to be quite effective. Pyros are great for uncloaking spies too. (yes, uncloaking. I’ll get to that)

Scout - Scattergun, pistol, club. This guy used to be practically useless. Now, not only is he fun to play, but he is an asset to any team . First of all, he’s extremely fast. He also has the ability to double jump and change directions mid jump (if one so chooses). His scattergun is deadly at close range and can even take down a Heavy (assuming you can get close enough) Another very important roll of the Scout is capturing control points. A Scout captures control points faster that any other class. (1 Scout = 2 of any other class)

Soldier - Rocket launcher, shotgun, shovel. Not much has changed here, but nothing really needed to.

Heavy - Gatling gun, shotgun, fists. Again, no major changes, but one subtle one. When the Heavy wants to shoot his gatling gun, there is a slight delay while the barrel starts to spin. His special ability is to spin the barrel with out actually shooting, thus saving ammo. The downside is he walks brutally slooooow when he does this.

Engineer - Shotgun, wrench, toolbox, detonator (to detonate structures you have already built). The Engy is still as much fun to play now as he was in the original TFC. He can build upgradable turrets, teleports, and dispensers. The dispensers have been greatly improved. They offer infinite health and ammo to you and your teammates, and it regenerates metal over time for you and your fellow Engineers. (metal = material used for building)

Medic - Healing gun, syringe gun, bonesaw. The medic can heal players up to 150% of their base health and can fire the healing gun continuously. While healing, the Medic’s ubercharge is constantly charging up. When fully charged, he can make any player and himself invincible for ten seconds. (usually a Medic / Heavy combo), He is far more valuble a class than he was in the previous TFC. His syringe gun is a blast to use too.

Sniper - Sniper rifle, sub-machine gun, machete. Same old sniper with a few tweaks. When you first zoom in, your gun starts to charge. The more of a charge you have, the more powerful the shot. I believe it takes three seconds for a full charge. The sniper rifle still sports the same colored dot that warns your enemies that you are there. The machine, though not too powerful, is good enough to fend off the close combat intruders.

Demo - Grenade launcher, sticky bomb gun, a bottle of whiskey. This is my new favorite class. His grenade launcher acts a lot like the grenade launcher in the quake series, whereas you can bounce grenades around corners, but if you hit someone directly, the grenade will explode on impact. Delicious! The sticky bomb gun is extremely useful for defense too. You can lay up to 8 sticky bombs (on virtually any surface) and detonate them at a later time. The best thing is you can detonate them regardless of what weapon you currently have out.

Spy - Pistol, butterfly knife, cigarette case (where he keeps his disguises), elctro-sappers. So the role of the spy stays the same. He can disguise himself as any enemy class, and he can do it on the fly. No more standing still and waiting. He can also cloak himself for a short period of time. While cloaked, he cannot attack. He also has a new tool called the elctro-sapper (or something like that) that he puts on structures, i.e. turrets, teleports, and dispensers,… to sabotage them. And of course, the Spy still has the trademark one-shot-back-stab kill that we love so much.

Thoughts:

So far this game is a blast. Sometimes I even forget that it’s actually still in beta. My only real concern is that the game will burn out quickly. If TF2 were realeased as / is, I don’t think the game would have very long legs. Hopefully I’m wrong. And hopefully there will be a lot of support and new additions to keep people coming back for more.

The maps that we’re playing now are great too, but I won’t get into too much detail because hopefully there will be a ton of new maps at the final release.

Gameplay is very fast pace and almost feels Quake-ish at times. What doesn’t feel Quake-ish, however, is the need for strategy and tactics. You can’t rely on twitch alone in this game.

Valve has added stats tracking, as well as a variety of achievement goals that you can shoot for. It’s very similar to the way Battlefield 2 implemented the awards feature. You can keep track of your performance on your very own Steam Community page. Here’s mine. And here are my TF2 stats. Yes, I know, pathetic… But be warned! I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.

Frag you later.

Discuss it here…

Filed under: Reviews, Gaming
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I’m not gonna lie to you, I’ve been bored silly with my gaming options as of late. I’ve played all the major first-person-shooters to death, e.g., Call of Duty X, Battlefield X, Unreal Tournament X, CS:S, DoD, TFC, blah, bah, blah. I need something new!

Just when I was about to abandon all hope, two amazing mods grabbed my attention and they are both worth checking out.

Dystopia - This is a Half Life 2 mod that takes place in a cyberpunk environment. One thing is apparent, the developers put a whole lot of time and thought into this mod. You can choose from various weapons, armor types, and implants — each combination with it’s own strengths and weaknesses. What’s really cool is that it takes place in two separate worlds, cyberspace and meatspace. Meatspace is where the real action is, but if you equip yourself with certain types of implants, you can jack into cyberspace and help your team out from within. There is a pretty good preview of Dystopia over at Planet Half-Life explaining the game in more detail. Check it out if you get a chance.

Project Reality - This is a Battlefield 2 mod that focuses more on realistic gameplay and less on traditional run and gun tactics. I’m not usually a fan of this type of game because they tend tooo drrraaaaaag, but Project Reality really broke the mold. There are no cross hairs, no health meters, no little messages that tell you who you killed. In fact, the first hour I played I didn’t see a soul, but the bullets were flying by my head nonetheless. Sounds play an important role in this mod. You can easily tell the difference of an M16 and an AK-47 rattling of rounds in the distance. The developers of Project Reality are really trying to promote teamwork and caution. I spent more time in the prone position than actually walking. Squad members can be rewarded with specialized kits too, such as pilot kits, crewman kits, or sniper kits. Because of this, there are far less lone wolves roaming about. IGN wrote a very flattering write-up for Project Reality called “Why all BF2 players should download this mod“. Another good read if you have the time.

There you have it. I was going to post some screenshots of my fragging adventures, but I didn’t think you guys would want to see pictures of my corpse over and over and over again. Maybe I’ll post some when I can manage to stay alive for more than 30 seconds. Until then, hope to see you on a server.

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This past Sunday, my daughter and I went to see Seussical the Musical performed by Middleboro High School’s Speech and Theatre group. I was absolutely blown away and I thought it deserved a mention.

I had never heard of this musical before. Most likely because I generally don’t like musicals, never mind musicals that are performed by high school students. I really didn’t know what to expect. We arrived at the high school around one o’clock, went in, bought our tickets, and sat down. I want to mention that this was one of the nicest high school auditoriums I had ever been in. It had true stadium seating with tons of leg room. Lots of leg room is nice for someone who is 6′ 2″. And of course, the stadium seating is nice for the person who has to sit behind someone who is 6′ 2″. The acoustics and lighting were decent as well.

The actors, consisting of freshmans, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, were fantastic. They were confident, funny,… just fantastic. The music was so much fun too. You couldn’t help but tap your feet. And the voices that came out of these kids — American Idol quality. True, I may be a little more forgiving than Simon Cowell, but they were amazing just the same.

The musical itself is a mash-up of classic Dr. Seuss stories and characters, woven together to create a heartwarming and genuinely enjoyable experience. Okay, stop laughing at me, I know this is a bit out of character for me to be praising a musical starring characters like the Cat in the Hat and Horton the Elephant, but that just goes to show what a positive impact this play and its cast membershad on me. I stress cast members, because I honestly don’t know what my take would be on this musical if it were in the hands of another cast. Like I said, they were fantastic.

Great job guys!

Filed under: Life, Reviews, Random Bits
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joesgoals.com is website that allows you to create your own to do lists for anything you can think of. It’s a very simple, yet surprisingly useful little web app. Since this is the season for New Year’s resolutions, I thought I’d share this tool with you.

The website isn’t the most pleasing website to look at, but don’t let that deter you from trying it out. It’s well worth a look.

There’s tagging, tracking reports, logs, all sorts of goodies.

Filed under: Productivity, Life, Web 2.0, News, Mind, Body, Soul, Reviews, Internet
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Four of us were sitting at my friends house a about a week ago, when I brought up some interesting news stories I read about Apple’s OS X vs. Windows Vista. Now, when you’re sitting in a room full of avid Windows users, it’s interesting to see how instantly hostile they can get towards Apple, and how defensive they can be of Windows. This kind of boggles me. I’ve always used multiple operating systems side by side and have found that each of them offer things that the other can’t. Granted, I spend the vast majority of my time using Windows and have invested way, way, more time in that OS than in all of the others combined. It would definitely be a hard sell to get me to switch my primary operating system.

If there were such an operating system that could make me switch, however, it would most likely be OS X Tiger. I’ve been using OS X on a daily basis now for about five months and have loved every minute of it. This is a new frontier for me. I have no substantial experience with any of the other Apple operating systems, so I can’t form a valid opinion of them. Just OS X Tiger.

Here are some of my thoughts on OS X in comparison to Windows and Linux:

First of all, OS X is really just a pretty version of Unix, so we know right away that it’s far more secure than Windows. Having a background in Linux/Unix really helped me with the transition to OS X. In fact, the first time I booted up my Mac I was surprised at how much it looked like Kubuntu, menus and all.

Boot up and shutdown times are ridiculously quick. Noticeably faster than Windows and quite a bit faster than Ubuntu. Coming out of sleep mode is almost instantaneous too.

Installing programs couldn’t be easier. Drag the new program to the Applications folder and voila, it’s installed. Uninstalling couldn’t be easier either. Drag the program to the trash bin and voila, it’s uninstalled. No orphaned DLL files or abandoned registry entries to clutter up your system.

No viruses. The typical argument here is that it’s because the writers of such malicious programs don’t create viruses for Macs, because no one uses Macs. That’s partially true. It is possible to write a virus (or other malware) for OS X — and as the operating system becomes more popular you can bet we’ll see more of them. The simple fact is, however, it’s much harder to write this kind of software for a Unix based OS. One reason for this is because 99% of Windows users are going about their daily business logged onto their computers as administrator, also called a root. Ask any Linux user if he or she surfs the net as root and they’ll most likely laugh at you. OS X, for all intents and purposes, is Linux.

It’s very intuitive to use, but first, you have to clear your mind of all Windows. Only then will yo be able to accept the OS X interface. For example, the whole corners thing is genius. When I move my mouse to the top left corner (or whichever corner you choose), all my open applications are tiled in front of me. It’s like alt-tab times 100. It’s little things like that that make OS X shine.

OS X is a very powerful development platform which comes preloaded with languages such as Python, Perl, PHP, and Ruby, while still remaining incredibly user friendly to the computer novice.

Spotlight! By far the best search utility in any operating system. So good that Microsoft is putting a Spotlight clone in Vista.

Plenty of software applications. From what I used to hear about Macs, the main problem was that no one made software for them. Like I said, I don’t know anything about the older versions of Apple’s OS, so this may be true. I can tell you that with OS X, there is definitely no shortage of software. Because OS X is Unix based, you can essentially run any Linux program you want on it. For example, I don’t use Microsoft Office anymore, even on Windows. I use OpenOffice which is a free, cross-platform office suite. I don’t use Dreamweaver anymore. I use NVU, which is a free, cross-platform HTML editor. Software that is cross-platform is especially nice because no matter what OS you are using, your workspace remains familiar.

OS X is geared more towards the user. In the world of Web 2.0, content is king. In the world content creation, OS X is king. It’s hard for anyone to argue the fact that the Mac reigns supreme in the area of photo manipulation and audio / video production. With bundled apps like Garage Band, Photo Booth, iTunes, and iMovie, the average user can easily produce rich content, ripe for a new dynamic web.

These are just some of the examples of why I love OS X, and it’s only been 5 months. So if you are a Windows user and you haven’t looked at an Apple in a while, I recommend that you take another look, you may be surprised.

Or you can wait a bit. Apple and Microsoft both have new operating systems due out shortly, OS X Leopard and Windows Vista respectively. 2007 could turn out to be an interesting year.

Filed under: Apple, Microsoft, Software, Productivity, Reviews, Technology
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I have to say, Tracksy.com is a pretty slick website. I heard about it on an episode of commandN and they had had nothing but good things to say about it. At first glance, it seems to be very similar to Google Analytics in that they both offer free web statistics for you website (or multiple websites) and have a huge variety of reports that you can generate for your viewing pleasure. In fact the two sites almost compliment each other. Google’s site may be a little more robust than tracksy’s, but tracky’s interface is much more user friendly.

Installation is a breeze. When you sign up with Tracksy (or Google for that matter), they will generate a little javascript snippet that you place in the html of your website. It’s literally cut, paste, done. I’m currently running both on all my sites.

Here is a list of some of tracky’s user generated reports and features that they offer:

• Exclusion Cookies
• Exclude Selective I.P. Addresses
• Invisible or Visible Counter
• Detailed, Real-Time Reports
• Recent Visitor List
• Traffic Reports
• Traffic Per URL
• Traffic Per Year
• Traffic Per Month
• Traffic Per Weekday
• Traffic Per Day
• Traffic Per Hour
• New vs. Returning
• Referrers
• Referring Sites
• Search Engines
• Search Engine Keywords
• Visitor Computers
• Browser
• Operating System
• Language
• Screen Size
• Screen Color Depth
• Internet Service Provider
• Connection Speed
• Visitor Locations
• Country
• Region
• City
• Visits
• Pages Viewed
• Visits Per Month

Not bad for a free service. Give it a try and if you don’t like it, it’s as simple as deleting the javascript from your website. It can’t get much easier than that.

Filed under: Productivity, Reviews, Design / Development, Internet
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I just walked into my house after spending the last two and a half hours watching Superman Returns, and I still have goose bumps. A couple of weeks ago I went to see X-Man 3 assuming it was going to be the be-all, end-all of super hero movies. It wasn’t, not even close. Tonight I went to see a movie that I had no real desire to see and I left the theatre giddy as a school girl. Go figure.

I’ve never been a huge Superman fan. I have nothing against him personally, he seems like a nice enough guy. My brain just never really clicked with the concept of an all powerful super man, if you will. He’s like the swiss army knife of super heroes; laser eyes, freezo breath, super strength, gravity defying, x-ray vision, bullet proof, rocket proof, missile proof, umm, pretty much invincible. Where’s the fun in that?

But wait, I recall enjoying the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeves. In fact, I really enjoyed them. Then it dawned on me. It’s not Superman himself that everybody loves, it’s what he stands for; truth and justice. The fantasy that someone is watching over us no matter what. This is an important fantasy, especially in the world we live in today, and this movie did a great job in representing that fantasy. I’m getting a bit too philosophical though.

The bottom line is that Superman Returns did a great job stimulating multiple emotions and not just the ones that are typically associated with this sort of film. The cast was fantastic and the story grabs you right from the beginning and doesn’t let go until the closing credits start rolling. True, the movie could be slow at times, but slow doesn’t always translate into lack of intensity. I caught myself holding my breath quite a few times and not just during the action scenes. Louis and Superman had some unforgettable moments together.

I think you get the gist of this review. I would seriously recommend this movie to anyone, Superman fan or not. I think it’s that good.

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I bought a MacBook about a month ago. A nice shiny white one. I plan on writing a full hands on review, but first I must thoroughly acquaint myself with this fine piece of hardware. I don’t want to be too hasty.

But what I’m about to reveal to you just can’t wait! I found what could be the greatest program ever written! It’s called MacSaber. It essentially takes any MacBook and transforms it into a Jedi weapon of death.

In case you didn’t know, MacBooks, and I believe older Powerbooks and iBooks, have motion sensors built into them. The reason for this is quite simple. If you or someone accidentally hits the laptop or knocks it off the desk, the motion sensor detects this and immediately locks the hard drives to protect your data (more about this in my review).

Enter Ian ”isnoop” Anthony. This guy wrote a brilliant hack that takes complete advantage of the MackBooks motion sensor technology. Simply install this little program and start swinging your $1400 MacBook around the room to hear the melodious sounds of a Jedi’s lightsaber. It’s music to your ears.

And to think, a week ago I was carrying my MacBook around the room like it was a new born child. Not any more. My MacBook has been transformed into a finely tuned instrument of death that I flail around the room as if I was battling Emperor Palpatine himself. Not unlike this actually.

I think it’s fair to say that this little gem justifies the purchase of my new MacBook.

Filed under: Apple, Software, Reviews, Zen Geekery
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I saw Cars last night with my daughter, and I’d have to say I think it may be my favorite Pixar film yet. That’s not an easy thing to say considering Pixar’s arsenal of top notch movies (Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bugs Life, Monster’s Inc., The Incredibles, Finding Nemo). I also suspect that I will be in the minority here, but not by much.

The only two real contenders in Pixar’s line up are Finding Nemo and the original Toy story, and believe me when I say that I enjoyed Cars only half a hair more than the latter two. Cars was definitely the most visually appealing of them all, but what did it for me was the movie’s setting. It was very nostolgic and that was the clincher.

That’s all I’ll say though. I give Cars a 9.5 out of 10. Oh, and I highly recommend going to see this movie on a rainy Saturday night, with about 100 screaming children who are up way past their bedtimes, strung out on way too many Junior Mints. It really amplifies the expirience.

By the way, check out this unbelievable tidbit from Rottentomatoes.com.

“The addition of reflections in practically every shot of the film added tremendous render time to the project. The average time to render a single frame of film for “CARS” was 17 hours. Even with a sophisticated network of 3000 computers, and state-of-the-art lightning fast processors that operate up to four times faster than they did on “The Incredibles,” it still took many days to render a single second of finished film.”

Filed under: Reviews, Movies
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