Brainwaves of Sken

Hi folks!

I humbly ask if anyone with a strong back has a little time between now and Sunday to help Lucy and I move in?

Her truck will be here Friday, and it will be from a rather sparse apartment. Mine is less sparse, but it is merely across the parking lot. We might spend some time painting on Friday (that’s still under negotiation), but Saturday morning for sure is “get this furniture outta here and into our weddin’ home” day.

Even if you only have an hour to stop by the Plymouth area around Saturday, your help would be greatly appreciated!

*muah*

Posted in Uncategorized

Too busy to read LJ, twitter or Facebook ‘cept sporadically, so I’ve missed pretty much everything.

Haven’t posted about the bachelor party (which was excellent), or about the big move so far (might have two people to help Saturday morning, which is huge), but I am in progress on these things.

As some have noticed, I broke my blackberry storm at the bachelor party (that’s how you know it was good!), and since Lucy and I had been thinking of changing providers anyway, we talked to T-Mobile… and ultimately came out with two Motorola Cliqs. Between the Early Termination fees for our two phones, the discounts they gave us and the hefty price drop in plans, it evens out in the first year and we’re saving a few hundred dollars each year after, so, good deal.

Also, on the plan front, we can tether to wi-fi, have access to SIM cards like decent modern technologists, don’t pay extra for GPS access, and otherwise feel like our cell provider isn’t trying to nickel-and-dime us to death. I LOVE THAT. F*** you, Verizon, for making every single encounter over the past eight years feel like suffering an abusive relationship you can’t seem to leave.

MEANWHILE, I wanted to record what apps I’m currently trying out, and which apps my twitterfolk have recommended I look into.

Current
aTrackDog – Curse for apps – easily uninstall apps, version tracking, even version tracking of apps you’ve uninstalled (in case a later patch fixes).
Advanced Task Killer Free – save battery power and speed by killing applications you aren’t using
Armored – a very beta but fun WoW armory app
Barcode Scanner – awesome scanner that lets you scan both regular barcodes on products and look them up online and “QR” barcodes, those square things that look like static, which is a really quick way to give info. Some people use them for business cards, like Matt Arnold, but they’re most often used to give web links for cells so you don’t have to type it in. Keeps a history, good for bargain shopping.
c:geo – the unofficial “name” in geocaching software, it looks incredibly useful.
Dropbox – this is a pretty awesome piece of software that lets you share files in between computers, your cellphone, and even the public, depending on where you put things. If you use this, let me send you an email, we’ll both get an extra 250MB (for 1.25 GB of space). Free! Easy way to transfer music, too, if you don’t want to pull out the cable.
Foursquare – I haven’t started it, and I don’t plan on hooking it up to my twitter, but I wanted to see what it was all about. We’ll see, I don’t travel hugely these days. If it has a non-twitter place to keep track of stuff, I might use it – if it requires another social media to work, no.
GPS Test – a more basic GPS tool, gives you your coordinates and basic satellite info.
Handcent SMS – makes your SMS better, prettier, easier to work with. Note: have to disable notification on the regular messaging or you’ll get two notifications per. Not entirely sold on it yet.
Layar – Augmented reality for the win! I’ll have to show you this, it’s supposed to be really fun/interesting. ANd it’s the fuuuutuuuuuure. Haven’t been in public to try it yet.
Pandora – duh:)
Qik – for possible streaming live video feed for others to watch. Haven’t used it yet.
Twidroid – the main twitter app for android. Seems really good, but I’m not getting the behavior I want yet between it and the “Happenings” area. I almost never look there because between it and facebook, it has too much “happening”. heh.
WiFinder – Awesome self-explanatory wifi strength meter. The one that comes with the Cliq is pretty cool, but this seems better.
Yaaic – an IRC client for android. Haven’t used yet.
—————
Recommended:
3banana notes, dolphin browser, astrid, sleep now, photoshop mobile, repligo reader, documents2go, “I like Gentle Alarm, among other reasons because it has ‘flip to snooze'”, XiiaLive, Yelp, Meebo, and Google Listen, RingDroid, ShopShavvy, SugarSync, Time Tracker, Torrent-fu, TuneWiki, TwonkyServer, Ustream, Google Voice, Glympse, Google Translate, gsDroid, Kayak, KeePassDroid, Key Ring, Linda Manager, mobiletag, NetHack, PdaNet, Phoneflicks, Advanced Task Manager, Andrometer, AndroZip, BIC Concert Lighter, Fring (for Skype calls),Google apps! Latitude, Googles, Tracks, Shopper.

If you have any experience with these or any Android apps, good or bad, leave your reviews here pls and thx!

Posted in Uncategorized

Too busy to post to LJ, but my twitter will be spammed with @Penguicon awesomeness. JSYK. Trouble is already ensuing …

Posted in Uncategorized

To explain:

Posted in Uncategorized

When it comes to business, I want to be shown the money. I feel much more comfortable knowing how a business is making its profit than when it seems like they cannot.

So when a company offers me a product they simply can’t be making a profit on, or suggests they’re going to give me a “free iPad just for registering!” I am deeply suspicious. I am not going to get a free iPad, you see, and in exchange they want something valuable from me. Probably my demographic information for which, if I have to go through the trouble of providing for them, I’d like to actually be compensated, thanks.

In other words, don’t include me on email, facebook or twitter lists of people who would like to participate in something like that. In fact, I pretty much hate how apps work in facebook in the first place, and don’t use any. You can’t see what someone has sent without installing an app, you can’t expect an app to have the minimum access to your data possible to do its job, and most of them insist that you spam your friends in order to get any fun out of it.

In fact, I feel the same way about Cut-co knives, “door to door” sales, and all multi-level marketing. If you have your own personal business that you have started, by all means tell me and I will do my best to patronize it, but if you are selling not only someone else’s knives but also “the chance to start your own business!” I do not want to be involved. And I’m going to feel really shitty when I tell you why.

I’m not mad, mind you :) Get your kicks however you’d like! But I’m going to ignore it, and if I’m bombarded by it six times a day, I may stop reading you. Still love you, but I already have way, way way too much to read.

Posted in Uncategorized

I have something important happening on every weekend in May. Penguicon, Lucy’s graduation / my bachelor party thinger, our big move on the 15th, a wedding / our work weekend, and some wedding or another I have to go to with Lucy. Not sure what that’s all about.

Between my lengthy lease and Lucy’s lease, it just wasn’t making sense to rent a house right away. And buying a house is pretty much out due to our student loans, this year. While we were figuring that out, my landlady strong-armed us into looking at the other options in my complex… and frankly, there were some really good options.

Ultimately, we settled on moving into the building across the street. The layout is much more kind, 2 bedrooms, a study, a funky L-shaped 1.5 bath (so both bathrooms can share the shower), a non-galley-style kitchen… and what appears to be an identical view out the back porch doorwall to a nearly identical back yard.

Frankly, we’re still coping with the change in expectations – we were getting excited about really working on a place we could own. That said, the neighborhood is nice, my lease doesn’t have to be broken, and it is so, so very cheap per square foot.

Still requires quarters for laundry. I can’t tell you how much that chafes. Maybe I’ll buy 50 bucks in quarters and keep them in a dispenser.

It looks like we’ll be moving in on the weekend of the 15th, as that is literally the only free weekend we had left in May. Lucy doesn’t have very much in the way of heavy furniture to come from Lansing (a bed, a dresser, some bookshelves), and while I have the rest, the furniture is going all of 150 yards. I will be doing my best to get things moved without reprising The Great And Stupid Back Injury of 2009.

Both of us would be extremely grateful for any help we can get on that weekend (or perhaps leading up to it, if they’ll give us the keys early), I’m sure a thank-you dinner will happen, too! :)

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted in Uncategorized

Joystiq.com linked to his blog about the topic today. I am familiar with his previous comments on the subject. I wanted to mark my comments in Mr. Ebert’s blog:

Roger Ebert’s blog on the matter

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

Seriously? Because a movie certainly doesn’t have rules, points, objectives or a (predictable) outcome?

There are movies that you call art that I call a story on rails, where the “artists” have created nothing more than a pedantic trope that other movie makers have done before, and better, and will do again (See: Avatar).

Games allow you to explore a world, one point of view or many, and the viewpoint of someone trying to tell the story. It may be the story of a man fighting terrorists (Die Hard), it may be the sensual experience of riding the wind into an impressionistic landscape, or it may be an open world in which you are given the freedom to do whatever you desire, but that makes it no different from modern art exhibits that allow just that freedom – that insist that the person EXPERIENCING the art PARTICIPATE in the making of art.

Frankly, you may consider the actual stories being told by The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy to be simplistic and predictable. I think that hanging a giant red dot on the wall doesn’t make it art. It’s not art until you interpret it as such, and it remains art even if it was painted by a 4-year-old or a bitter old painter laughing at how desperate his audience is to prove they “get it”.

In other words, just because you’ve reached the end of the era you’ve come to understand doesn’t mean that another way of communicating, relating, and expressing emotion isn’t beginning.

I leave you with this comment about Talkies from 1930: British cinema pundit Paul Rotha declared, “A film in which the speech and sound effects are perfectly synchronised and coincide with their visual image on the screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true boundaries of the cinema.”

What I should have added was that you can break down any art as a “representation of a story” – it harms games none to say that you can reach an ending, nor that they say something you could perhaps represent in a book. You would lose that part of it that makes it a game just like a book is not a script is not a movie is not a game is not a story you told to your children one evening.

He’s hung up on this idea that a game has a winner. Even if a win isn’t really a “victory”. Even when you’ve made great sacrifices to make it there. Even when winning is losing. Even when the game has no end, no winner, no final victory.

I don’t need the equivalent of Beethoven in games to show me it is a worthy storytelling medium – I simply require that it touches me, that it expresses something about the experience of living, and that it captivate me in the expression that another human designed for me to experience. That’s more than the second Matrix ever did.

Posted in Uncategorized

Is this Mike Doughty on MC Frontalot’s new single? I think it is! Mostly because his part is super-repetitive. ;) I love Mike Doughty’s, but I want to stab a goat (not really, guys!) at his repetition. *clicks the little +* IT IS!

I’m listening to the teasers now, while I work (Zero Day, Charisma Potion, First World Problem so far) – I do believe I’m going to buy this. Ooh, a track named 80085? My favorite number!

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted in Uncategorized