tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61466872011-04-21T11:22:44.577-07:00Movies - Books - Games - Science & Science Fictionpatternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.comBlogger2221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-45705436456225820712008-05-03T11:26:00.000-07:002008-05-03T11:48:25.914-07:00

It could have been my eyes, tv, or the dvd transfer- but I could hardly see anything in this movie except when seeing the predator vision. It's very dark, and there are many shots of glistening predators or aliens, and most of the action is very abbreviated. It's so abbreviated it seems like movie is completely bored with itself- the only sustained action sequence comes at the end with the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-81225318541927555082008-04-30T07:19:00.000-07:002008-04-30T07:39:55.614-07:00

Before seeing this movie, I had a couple of guesses about what it was about: Blair Witch meets Godzilla (easy guess obviously, though they never clearly showed that there was a large creature in the previews), and that the monster was the head of the Statue of Liberty come to life (with the help of aliens and nanotechnology, or demons from hell).In the featurettes there are numerous clips of the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-53531581038731520132008-02-17T09:26:00.000-08:002008-02-17T10:07:37.551-08:00

Solid action for the first half and then the movie runs out of steam.The name is problematic- a 'pathfinder' is someone who keeps watch for enemy ships?The Vikings had very little motivation beyond wanting to kill people. Some kind of ulterior motive and characterization would helped greatly- why would they cross a mountain pass just to find some more villages? The obvious thing would be to

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-10782603173547539142008-01-24T20:07:00.000-08:002008-01-24T21:07:34.395-08:00

I missed the second episode, I can probably watch it on Fox's site or bittorrent it or something.This show is decent, I'll keep watching as long as it is on. You can't compare it to T2 of course, but hardly anything can be compared to T2.I think Sarah Connor can be compared to Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. The dissimilarities are both understandable but also disappointing. Sarah Connor

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-24530966440022013962008-01-13T11:44:00.000-08:002008-01-13T12:19:27.500-08:00

Many times better than the awful Resident Evil: Apocalypse in every respect, and maybe better than the first RE in a few areas but slightly inferior overall.The movie and actors look really good, the action is great, none of the really shitty blurry slow-motion from RE:A.I'd find Umbrella to be more believable if the men at the meetings were older. Iain Glen is the oldest of all of them and

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-275439288777588152008-01-06T13:53:00.000-08:002008-01-13T11:44:36.374-08:00

Paul Giamatti makes this movie decent. More depth would have helped a lot.The gun fights are too repetitive- and there are even gags that are repeated- why not add some brawling, or more extensive car chases to break it up? Another tactic to increase the action possibilities would be to give Clive Owen a gun-fighting ally or two. Regular police should have been involved in a scene or two.The

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-24153453869354250912008-01-06T13:21:00.000-08:002008-01-06T13:53:09.647-08:00

(spoilers)As a whole I think this might be a little better than Pirates 2, the ending is not as powerful in At World's End, but since it is not a very happy ending it deserves a lot of credit.The computer generated visuals seemed flawless (not that I was looking closely), there's a sharp and solid feeling to them that most movies lack. One scene that was odd was the one-on-one fight in the whirl

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-70649309888348190352007-12-28T19:11:00.000-08:002007-12-28T19:24:34.575-08:00

Google charts seem pretty cool, so I'll use them to make a chart of when I end up buying a game. Here's what happened for Command & Conquer Generals:Initially I played the demo near the release time of the game. It was fun but not overwhelmingly so, so maybe I would have bought the game for $25. Time passes and any hype surrounding the game goes down, so my willingness to buy the game goes

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-76728850648043248832007-12-26T17:00:00.000-08:002008-01-06T13:52:54.301-08:00

$6 from half-price books, played a demo when it was new- make a chart that shows three tracks: game price, desire, and availability- once price falls below desire, and availability is above both, then the game gets bought.Unskippable movies annoying.In one GLA level the purpose is to destroy buildings, then in other levels I wasn't able to target buildings the same way- why can't I level blocks

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-11643166401833116202007-12-26T16:48:00.000-08:002007-12-26T16:59:43.532-08:00

Very good read- finished the book quickly (1 week- that is quick for me) after starting it. Lots of interesting ideas.The 'gods' were the weakest element- what was god-like about them? Just their ability to think quickly? Or to interface with software around them and bend it to their will? The material capabilities don't seem all that great, it shouldn't be too hard to kill a human form one,

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-15698413374429465562007-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:002007-12-12T21:58:04.161-08:00

The amazon links says it is abridged, but my library says it is unabridged- Amazon doesn't say the number of CDs so I can't tell. And why I can't I download audiobooks from the Amazon mp3 store yet?The most provocative parts of this book are about a cover up of Saudi Arabian connections to the World Trade Center terrorists. There's not a lot to go on, but it does seem the truth is being

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-77338105088503369052007-12-08T11:39:00.000-08:002007-12-08T12:24:33.659-08:00

Has the TEA ever disciplined an employee for 'compromising the integrity of the TEKS development process' for making any statements or forwarding an email that supported teaching creationism or intelligent design in public schools?Is the TEA attempting to marginalize pro-science employees, by getting rid of them or creating an atmosphere of fear, in a effort to bias the TEKS process towards

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-64600624979666396552007-12-08T10:44:00.000-08:002007-12-12T21:40:56.891-08:00

I've gone through all the Die Hards starting a few months ago, in anticipation of the fourth one being released on DVD. It's interesting to see how they compare (spoilers for all 4 movies):All have villains that appear to be terrorists initially but are really pretending to be terrorists in order to steal a lot of money- except for Die Hard 2, whose villains apparently only cared about saving

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-13594396750506556212007-11-21T20:16:00.000-08:002007-11-21T20:58:47.938-08:00

Not a lot of detail into actual operations, but covers the high level people at the White House that presumably Woodward had the most access to. A much deeper book would probably dive into documents more rather than being more based on interviews, and it is possible that those documents hadn't yet been released since the congressional investigations into Iran-Contra were just starting.128 -

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-24629821198813250372007-11-19T18:56:00.000-08:002007-11-19T19:11:21.591-08:00

The book was unabridged on 46 CDs, but is missing the Fact and Fiction chapter- I'll have to check it out from the library. It was annoying to wonder what he fit into the cracks of history and what was counterfactual, or what was something real but slightly fictionalized.It took me from August to now- 4 months of listening while driving, it could have gone faster but at many times I was

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-76288956786028103542007-11-13T07:32:00.000-08:002007-11-13T07:46:54.411-08:00

I finally finished GTA San Andreas after starting it two years ago. I played it a lot initially, ran into some rough spots, picked it up about a year ago and quit again when I couldn't beat that mission where the Dodo has to intercept a business jet. A few months ago I bought a Logitech game pad but couldn't find the game dvd until a last weekend. Then I still couldn't beat the mission, had

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-57366616940366885512007-10-21T09:50:00.001-07:002007-10-21T10:24:04.403-07:00

Spoilers follow.For the amount of danger that the carriers represent, anyone who knows about them doesn't think it important to tell anyone else. You don't need a cure if you just kill the people most likely to spread the infection- and you can still analyze their blood etc. afterwards.Why don't the buildings catch on fire and burn down after being fire-bombed?I suppose the code red procedures

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-87666589441385454842007-10-19T19:52:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:24:17.368-07:00

The movie and jokes especially seemed very narrowly aimed at males under the age of 13 or so, I can imagine liking the movie a lot if it had come out when I was in that demographic.Techno babble (this is the signal that hacked our network) is too stupid to comment on, but I expect that and like to have that to laugh at when the other jokes aren't that funny.The little decepticon was too jittery,

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-64581790937044373682007-09-22T17:55:00.000-07:002007-09-22T18:11:08.547-07:00

The D-Day level was a little lackluster, the beach was empty and not a whole lot was going on.The best levels featured a lot of urban combat, what I didn't care for were the 'stealth' levels and others that were primarily just old-fashioned FPS room-clearing. The graphics are also best in the urban levels, it's too easy to detect the low-resolution of textures and flatness of rectangular rooms

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-78270740221119695832007-09-18T18:41:00.000-07:002007-09-22T17:55:42.100-07:00

I picked this book up from a Value Village a day after catching a bit of a rerun of Bill Moyers show about the 9/11 Commission. Richard Clarke had a couple of sound bites in it so reading the book seemed like the obvious thing. There was a much thicker book called 'Veil' covering some similar ground and another about the CIA in the 80's, but I thought I'd see if I read through this before

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-9417560943159478972007-09-06T06:46:00.000-07:002007-09-06T07:19:34.369-07:00

This was better than I expected, though I think it properly needs to be placed on a scale of other fighting video game movies. So it is better than Street Fighter, not as good as Mortal Kombat I, but better than MKII. Though I haven't seen any of those recently so repeat viewings might be necessary to set the scale.I was suspicious whenever an apparently creative fighting moment occurs- was it

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-65630867071608563412007-08-28T22:07:00.001-07:002007-08-28T22:11:18.993-07:00

I was expecting a little more from this, but it wasn't as good as Brick.I didn't really get a good understanding of protagonist's mental handicaps- his hands shake, he blurts things out- that's fine but doesn't have much bearing on the movie. He can't figure some things out and forgets things- but it's not clear what the rules are. A really excellent movie would make the viewer feel like they

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-77803859359328223022007-08-20T18:39:00.000-07:002007-08-20T19:12:35.996-07:00

(spoilers for both movies)I watched Shooter first, and thought at the time it was Mark Wahlberg's go at a Bourne Identity Identity type of movie: a highly trained super-competent military type ends up being hunted by the US government at the instigation of rogue elements within it. There's a mix of nominally good to just-following-orders to evil in the government agents. There's kind of a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-49553489763124661422007-08-13T18:47:00.000-07:002007-08-13T18:49:30.814-07:00

Style of movie was very good: the use of existing foreign places as 'the future' and the use of a lot of foreign language words was effective.Homage to Solaris with car being filmed from behind while traveling down freeways.Central plot device- the code 46, seems weak in comparison. Also the un-insurability of some of the people seems correctable given some of the advances hinted at. It would

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-69237150255602844422007-07-20T18:28:00.000-07:002007-07-20T18:45:39.994-07:00

I think it's unfortunate none of my guesses from reading The Sundering came to pass- there were no major revelations about the Shaa or the conquest of humanity etc. Instead in this concluding novel we get a murder mystery, an insurgency (no doubt inspired by current events), and a couple of space battles at the end to round things up. It's not bad, the characters are good and the story is

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-63216310636168974072007-07-20T17:25:00.001-07:002007-07-20T18:15:13.371-07:00

Most of Reynolds work has a strong adventure and visual component, but here it has been pushed to new levels- where before a certain visual element seemed more traditionally science fictional, now there is a more cinematic quality where the scale of things is not so frequently overwhelming but can be easily imagined fitting in a movie screen. And with the adventure we get serial scenes of

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-32550856080632154692007-06-15T07:03:00.000-07:002007-07-03T23:26:46.690-07:00

I haven't read any Warren Ellis before, but the constant attention he gets has finally resulted in me checking out a bunch of his stuff from the library.(spoilers all)JLA: New Maps of HellThe weakest of the bunch.Kind of Star Trek-esque plot of a faux-devil with simulated/imitation personal hells for all the super-heros.It's kind of weird when the story calls attention to incredibly long spans of

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-46062442105812248072007-06-10T18:34:00.000-07:002007-06-10T18:58:03.167-07:00

After a long time I finally decided to play through this again, after getting stuck on normal difficulty (see RE4 comments here).Combat in easy difficulty is pretty easy- only a few of the tougher creatures were able to kill me, ammunition is plentiful. Easy difficulty makes for more of a puzzle game than a conserve just the right kind of ammunition and don't screw up game- though it's still

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-77427614428636236812007-06-06T06:45:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:03:47.894-07:00

The cd I got from the library was very scratched so there were many many skips, and sometime entire portions of lectures missing.The overview of the planets good, up-to-date up to a couple of years ago- the planet status of Pluto is different now, and New Horizons has launched.Sometimes some of the descriptions of things go by too fast to actually visualize them. It would be good to have a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-37958348081135776922007-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:00:25.779-07:00

At first this novel feels much differently than Singularity Sky, as if the author has matured his style and has much more detail and deeper characters and story- it feels as if it might be big- not epic big, but big. The difference from the almost more cartoonish feel of Singularity Sky is jarring. There's much more violence and brutality and sex (a little) than I remember in SS. And it also

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-24866300029335547622007-06-02T08:49:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:05:20.370-07:00

I haven't seriously played any of the other Starfox games, though years ago I played the SNES version on a kiosk in a store.The obvious thing to comment on is how short the game is. I don't mind a short game in principle, but it is exaggerated by the varied levels- a good half of the missions are on foot/in the tank, and a couple of the levels are rail shooters with Fox standing on the wing of a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-43008078908294000182007-05-28T07:36:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:08:17.226-07:00

This was a pretty good game, but could have used a little bit more polish. I liked the short length, the graphics were pretty good (though some interior areas could have been more detailed). The level of violence seemed gratuitous- GTA seems like cartoony PG rated violence compared to this. There's no non-lethal bar fighting with fists and throws- you can only slice people open with a hatchet.

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-76946511898279202552007-05-24T19:43:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:10:02.349-07:00

(spoilers for this and other Baxter Xeelee books)I liked the book, but Exultant (guess I forgot to take any notes on that one) was better in the way that it fleshed out the existing Xeelee storyline that is summed up in Vacuum Diagrams. Coalescent was good in a different way, for the way it skirted around but hints at the future timeline and introduced the interesting human hive society. This

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-56727190877794105962007-05-18T08:24:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:11:52.488-07:00

This is the best game I've played since Resident Evil 4. It might even be more fun than RE4 with all the destruction and combo moves and much faster and intense action.It would be nice if the two main areas were a little more visually varied, more textures maybe- the city especially could use some additional detail, enough to the point where the player could develop a sense of direction without

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-64015988717964167512007-05-02T20:12:00.000-07:002007-06-07T07:13:17.175-07:00

(spoilers for all of the stories)The Blal:WWII whaling ship encounters a cylindrical object in the water that it assumes is a Japanese submarine. A creature emerges and they open fire, but have no effect. The creature comes aboard and actually gives the crew better whaling equipment, so that they can fight off a creature from space with a supposed IQ of 10 that disabled their spaceship. The

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-33278406079505007002007-05-02T20:03:00.000-07:002007-05-02T20:12:28.027-07:00

Completely ridiculous, but still readable. Characters, what they say and how they say it, their actions and depiction of the working of government is all unbelievable. You can tell Sterling did a bunch of research and perhaps interviewed relevant people but then transposed everything into his alternate reality where everything has to be framed in such a way to make the mundane exciting, and the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-5147498537513993262007-04-29T14:28:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:14:14.830-07:00

A starship is sent of to Alpha Centauri (or Centaurus?), use a sublight drive and crew of around a 100. Earth life may be destroyed in a few years by solar flare activity, so the ship is called the 'Hope of Mankind' (double check that, Hope of Something).The journey is expected to take a few decades, but the drive underperforms badly and the crew spends generations traveling, captain's son

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-16170214418845245052007-04-28T07:08:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:18:11.993-07:00

The preview sort of led me to believe this was a fast-paced almost all-action movie with little plot- there's a guy with a huge price on his head, and he encounters and barely survives a series of increasingly deadly hitmen or something. Also I thought there were no recognizable actors, otherwise the preview would have mentioned some of them. But it's an ensemble cast, the movie plods along,

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-28919716345328678992007-04-27T23:33:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:20:06.371-07:00

(all spoilers)Pretty straight-forward time travel, though it takes a long time to get to the time travel part. When it does get there, it doesn't explore much. I really wanted to see the movie suggested by the title and preview- maybe someone will make that movie: "Based on the preview for Deja Vu by such-and-such advertising company".The one brief part where they almost raise an interesting

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-39488484654285184842007-04-21T21:13:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:20:38.573-07:00

This edition had a short introductory note by the author, who mentions Damon Knight writing a highly critical letter to the magazine that serialized the novel, and the author offers some cursory explanations for the book and also mentions that he had revised the book for that current edition. Some of that amounted to spoilers but I didn't mind too much.Null-A is a future philosophy that has a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-68209797890986922172007-04-15T08:56:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:20:56.681-07:00

I picked up this book because instead of launching into the much longer 500 page novels (Transcendant, Blue Mars, Iron Sunrise, The Conventions of War), listening to the lecture series on SF has inspired me to go back to the roots, where the novels are much shorter and I can read them rapidly despite the lower quality of many of them.A.E. Van Vogt is one author I've been meaning to read for a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-20690124123704953092007-04-14T08:04:00.000-07:002007-07-20T18:18:33.434-07:00

I'd read this novella before in a Years Best Science Fiction anthology, but I reread because I had forgotten most of it. (spoilers)The story concerns two sisters living on Turquoise, an isolated Pattern Juggler world. One sister Mina is taken by the Jugglers the day a Ultra ship is spotted by astronomers. The surviving sister Naqi joins the moat project, which aims to cordon off a section of

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-92215821071450958602007-04-12T18:55:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:22:21.087-07:00

Literature, Drout quotes, exists to convince the reader other people exist. Or in the case of science fiction, that aliens or artificial intelligences or other beings also could be worthy of empathy and so forth.Most of the territory Drout covers is pretty familiar, I've read at least half of the books and stories he discusses. I haven't read much of the post Verne and Wells but pre-1940s stuff

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-25537009343906839252007-04-11T21:10:00.000-07:002007-07-20T18:18:05.265-07:00

One would think that having taken my name and the name of my blog from the works of a certain author I would immediately read everything new by that author and post my notes here. But I have a long reading list, and I think I've posted previously on why I can read longer works much more easily than novellas or short stories.Diamond Dogs is a 130 page novella, set in the same Galactic North

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-54369546406427809782007-03-24T07:28:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:23:36.044-07:00

This movie wasn't very good, but it had some interesting elements that could have made a more interesting movie. What if the wife had realized her husband was a alien agent, but also that her real husband was dead and that he was almost a perfect copy (Solaris territory I suppose)? She would then realize the best thing to do is for her husband to never meet his target and live out their

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-28503337977710807162007-03-24T07:04:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:23:50.340-07:00

Special effects are decent enough, and the subtitle effects are 'cute'.(spoilers)The gloom near the end seems inconsistent with the gloom in the beginning, in the beginning there was no urgency to get out of it.The Bear and Cat others are extremely stupid- they don't even tell the kid about 'the calling', then ignore him when he wanders off as if called.The ability to turn into animals seems

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1168400770447674352007-01-09T19:32:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:24:01.755-07:00

This move ran a little too long, it's a little bloated on the front end. It reminds me of the Star Trek movies where the beginning of every movie consists of 45 minutes of pulling together all the characters and getting them on a ship. I would have edited scenes out or found ways to combine elements from different scenes to move it along faster.Once the movie picks up it is very good. The

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1167542639999299512006-12-30T21:22:00.000-08:002006-12-30T21:24:00.893-08:00

This artist seems to qualify as an actual artist, unlike thedeceptive craftspeople who traced photographs with adobe illustrator that boingboing and the source blogged fawned over. She at least took the source photographs herself and comes right out and says that (but then she makes a big deal over not having directly traced the photographs- so what? If she said she had been standing on her head

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1163955479628483162006-11-19T08:54:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:24:38.122-07:00

I was really only interested in seeing The Wrath of Khan but I decided to watch all TOS movies from the beginning.TMP is very slow and lacking of plot and character development. The long flybys of the Enterprise are too much, as are the long flybys of V'ger and every other shot. Most of the main characters don't get to do much, Kirk and Spock have what little action and dialogue there is.The

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1163863974618679422006-11-18T07:12:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:24:51.231-07:00

I haven't seen the movie in many years, though it was one of my favorites. I'll rent it soon but I may be forgetting parts of it when I make the comparison to the movie.Switching from first person to second for the retelling of his youth is interesting- he feels really detached from the person he used to be, or the events are so painful they can only be said as if they happened to someone else?

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1162752162681620902006-11-05T10:42:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:25:16.595-07:00

This movie was okay, as was the rest of the half season of Firefly. I think they should have taken one compelling element and centered the movie completely on that, instead of making a season or so of unused material into a movie. Either make it all about River, or the Reavers, or even the battle of Serenity (I thought the end of the movie would somehow link back to that battle, but it didn't).

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1162571775010938942006-11-03T08:03:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:25:30.501-07:00

Interesting book about interstellar travel written by a non-specialist. There's not a whole lot of details on any of the proposed methods, on the physics or even speculative engineering details. The British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus study had been recently completed at the time this book was written and is mentioned repeatedly, but I would rather be reading that report (though

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1162569793158671662006-11-03T08:02:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:25:46.543-07:00

I can't say I didn't learn much from this book, but I feel it is missing a lot to give the battles and events it describes a greater sense of place in the entire war. The best parts of this books is that it has a lot of quotes and description of the British, particularly of opposition to the war in Britain. Other insightful sections tell how some British commanders made little or no attempt to

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1162569615538807872006-11-03T07:40:00.000-08:002007-04-29T15:26:20.777-07:00

Not sure why it took me so long to finally start this trilogy - probably the fact it's a huge trilogy. The book was excellent, the amount of detail about Mars and terraforming was great. Initially there seem to be too many characters to keep them distinct- it may be just me but most of the male and female characters I thought of as basically the same person until they acquired personalities and

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1161796613131268692006-10-25T10:16:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:27:09.097-07:00

Armor looks at first to be maybe above the top pulp military SF with Forever War and Starship Troopers as strong influences. Later on there seems to be the potential for a whole lot more, I was thinking Chasm City type twists and revelations, but the payoff isn't all that great.I read the book over a couple of days. It reads fast, I think because of the density is a little low- lots of pages on

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1161302606457690572006-10-19T16:58:00.000-07:002007-04-29T15:27:29.595-07:00

I almost bought Battlefield 1942 on the strength of the demo, but multiplayer only isn't really my thing.Then I tried the demo for 2003, and because I couldn't customize the keys the way every other FPS type game in history has allowed me, I never even thought about buying it.A couple days ago I tried the Battlefield 2142 demo. First it forces me to update directx, which is fine but after the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1161180491321983772006-10-18T07:07:00.000-07:002007-04-29T19:53:38.000-07:00

Translated by Willy LeyThis book has all the looks of a cheap pulp nazisploitation work, but surprisingly is an in-depth technical account of the V-2 program and related German rocket programs as told by Dornberger, who was in charge of the efforts.One interesting part is the dealing with the government bureaucracy and Nazi leadership in acquiring resources: on one hand it sounds similar to any

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1160962183997587342006-10-15T18:24:00.000-07:002007-04-29T19:55:56.450-07:00

I tried watching an episode of this when it was on the air, and I wasn't really interested. It may have been the particular episode. The literal space western concept wasn't that interesting.But since the Serenity movie came out I decided I might as well watch the series and movie in that order, and I just went through the first disc.The two hour premiere was surprisingly slow paced. But the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1160960531093925992006-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:002007-04-29T19:52:42.302-07:00

Narrator accent and voice is a little thick.Writing style of book seems old fashioned, definitely not written with a modern US audience in mind- context and jokes are not really explained.What is vittle?Hard to keep track of locations on east coast, or to distinguish colonization attempts.

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1160714316309564952006-10-12T21:31:00.000-07:002007-04-29T19:56:43.080-07:00

Read by Grover GardnerI think the book overall was a little to sympathetic to Ponzi and not at all to his investors. His rationalizations are presented without criticism- frequently he is said to think that he could quit now and his current investors would lose their money, or keep it going and perhaps with time come up with a legitimate business model to pay everyone. But this neglects the

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1160454037176051242006-10-09T21:20:00.000-07:002007-04-29T21:45:24.713-07:00

I picked this up along with Fagin the Jew and a short one about Vietnam from the library after getting inspired about comics and graphics novels because of Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics.It is an absorbing read, telling small stories that cover a great span of time all centered around Dropsie Avenue in New York. Racial conflict plays a large part in the story. I probably wouldn't read a

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1159979252163184892006-10-04T09:08:00.000-07:002006-10-04T09:27:35.960-07:00

There were probably a fair number of NASA history books published shortly after the Moon landing in 1969, this is one along with another on my bookshelf called 'We Reach For The Moon'. There's not a lot of insight in this book beyond what any reporter following project Apollo would have gained by attending a few public press events and reading all press releases and so on. I don't think any

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1157684722068684292006-09-07T19:53:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:25:19.087-07:00

This book covers all the 1990's US Mars missions (which is overspecifying, there weren't any 1980's Mars mission and there weren't any non-US missions in that period excepting the failed Russian Mars 96), with a focus on searching for life (which of course dovetails with a component of most/all the missions).The most interesting part of the book deals with a scientist who had flown a life

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1157385441372036782006-09-04T08:55:00.000-07:002006-09-04T08:57:21.483-07:00

I've become interested in wikis ever since reading about Charlie Stross describing how he creates very extensive wikis for himself while doing research for novels.I have contributed to wikipedia, but I like the idea of the wiki recording and organizing all my own stuff and not being subject to editorial decisions (though editorial services that tell me when I'm wrong are nice).Here's a test page

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1157207567045424252006-09-02T06:48:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:11.790-07:00

This is one of the stronger James Bond games to come out for this generation of consoles. I have played through a good portion of Goldeneye for N64, that game is far superior but I don't consider it useful to make too many comparisons there. I played through Agent Under Fire, I should next get Nightfire and see if any of the other N64 Bond games are easy to pick up.The most outstanding feature

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1156909671033167052006-08-29T20:47:00.000-07:002006-08-29T20:48:41.383-07:00

BoingBoing hasn't covered as much mash-ups as it used to, probably because they're falling in popularity. Why? They sound like garbage. The idea is neat, but the implementation is crap. Maybe when more artists release unmixed vocals and beats and so on will mash-ups actually turn into something worth listening to.

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1156827163795968892006-08-28T21:39:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:22.276-07:00

A friend lent me a copy of "Understanding Comics" years ago and I started reading with no expectations. I finished the book in one sitting. As good as that books was, I've become less and less interested in comics and graphics novels. Collecting comics is something I hate, I don't want to carry around a mental or written list of issue numbers to purchase. Trade paperback graphic novels is

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1155180241887997662006-08-09T20:23:00.000-07:002007-12-27T07:52:50.314-08:00

So people can trace with adobe illustrator:The above picture shows an overlayed comparison of unacknowledged source photo and vector art reproduction.The article boingboing points to shows a rendering by Paul Bush of Kiera Knightly claiming it to be "100% made from Adobe Illustrator", but a quick image google search shows this image as the number two result.I don't disagree that these works took

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1154322250762256592006-07-30T21:51:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:28.052-07:00

Like the last post about Greg Bear's first novel, this is very early Vernor Vinge. Despite the pulpy cover art and backcover text, it is really a good little book.Similar to bobbling technology in the Peacetime books, Vinge just makes up an interesting scientific/fantasy ability and then treats it fairly decently in a good SF way, thinking of all sorts of creative and 'realistic' implications.

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1154321505759862032006-07-30T19:54:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:34.273-07:00

Most books written early in a now much more successful and mature writer's career have something interesting about them, frequently there are ideas that have been developed over time into much better books there in their primordial form: Here the followup novel would be Deadlines, because they both have similar treatments of the afterlife. Similarly, Blood Music might be a weak precursor to

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1153095016689718462006-07-16T16:53:00.000-07:002007-06-03T07:28:16.515-07:00

Overall this is a great game. I think it was a little too long, I clocked in at 20 hours (on normal difficulty though I don't remember setting a difficulty originally) when closer to 15 would have seemed right. Through final level I was starting to feel tired, looking at the huge level maps and saying 'oh great' to myself. The game needs to give the player more cues on how close they are to

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1152474335332208042006-07-09T12:35:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:40.040-07:00

Overall the first half on the engineering portion of the MER Spirit and Opportunity program is pretty good, though as in most of the other books like this would really benefit from a few pictures and drawings to simply show what is being talking about (what is a 'rocker-bogie'?). The operations sections are good, but I was reading news reports covering most of the same material as it happened so

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1151881817408132382006-07-02T16:10:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:43:56.119-07:00

There are a couple of sequences early on (the delivery of the soldiers in the beginning was cool), and other wise single shots that might be considered cool later on- but for the most part as soon as the boy in the briefcase becomes a character the movie goes to crap. It's obvious that the people making the preview also realized this, because the preview I think only shows clips from those early

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1151416942073353412006-06-27T06:52:00.000-07:002007-06-03T07:28:47.656-07:00

This was a good rpg, although it was the first I've played for Gamecube- and the last rpg I played was probably FFIX for PS1. My main complaint was that it was too long- about 10-15 hours shorter and it would have been just right. Even if the designers want to make a long rpg, they need to realize they just don't have the same resources as Square-Enix and put quality over quantity/

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1148953290311221152006-05-29T18:28:00.000-07:002007-06-03T07:29:55.942-07:00

This movie is incomprehensible if you haven't played through FFVII, or even if you haven't played it recently (I've played through twice, but it was years ago so I didn't follow this that well). Having all the playable characters from the game show up is rediculous and pointless since they all only get a few lines of dialogue each.The animation is very good, the combat scenes are a little too

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1147235941740381932006-05-09T21:38:00.000-07:002007-10-21T10:44:03.822-07:00

Started 5/4, finished 5/915 - More on the JPL-Ames rivalry I first saw mentioned in the Depths of Space.18 - Cancellation of the Ulysses87 - Unanalyzed data from Galileo- Is this data freely available somewhere? Is there anyone to help interpret it? - Cassini is producing so much data it will be unanalyzed for years to come.This book was sort of interesting because it was about project

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1147139468716945892006-05-08T18:13:00.000-07:002007-06-03T07:30:11.636-07:00

I probably wouldn't have bought this game, not even for $4, had I not remembered that it was supposed to be short. I also remembered playing the demo and that it didn't seem bad. Short is a virtue for things that probably won't hold your interest that long anyway. I recall paying full new game price for Unreal I way back when, and that game was much too long. But of course having paid so much

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1146711026316578872006-05-03T19:50:00.001-07:002007-10-21T10:44:10.549-07:00

Intro - who is Eric Burgess, the name keeps coming up.47 - Large Antennas chosen vs. having to deliver more power to smaller antenna.- Non-solar power source avoid need to align solar panels with the sun.56 - Antennas conventionally should be on spin-axis of spin stabilized craft, but here they though the deviation from having the antenna spin a little would be too small to matter.61 - No onboard

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1143212217009474872006-03-24T06:54:00.000-08:002006-03-24T06:56:57.010-08:00

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1143211807364826782006-03-24T06:45:00.000-08:002006-03-24T06:50:07.366-08:00

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1143211511126540342006-03-24T06:43:00.000-08:002006-03-24T06:45:11.143-08:00

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1142911429227671652006-03-20T18:58:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:44:31.334-07:00

(Major spoilers all the way through)This is very easily the weakest season of 24. Everything I said about season 3 applies here, but even more so. Season 3 was pretty good in retrospect, compared to this one. There were long segments of season 3 where I forgave the stupid moments and got into the plot, the only period I really enjoyed in this one was where Jack and his girlfriend's husband are

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1142561370514448482006-03-16T18:06:00.000-08:002006-03-17T07:17:18.456-08:00

http://video.google.com

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1142483452356910842006-03-15T20:26:00.000-08:002006-03-15T20:30:52.366-08:00

Mie - lots of picturesms photo albumjust a few picsMore on flickr

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1142303451078493222006-03-13T18:25:00.000-08:002006-03-24T07:02:10.153-08:00

I wasn't able to take pictures and run at the same time and I didn't want to stop in the middle of the race, but I did get a bunch of photos from after the race:pics 2pics 3pics 4

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1140062082395273222006-02-15T19:36:00.000-08:002006-02-15T19:54:42.463-08:00

About three days ago I uploaded an old video of the 2004 fremont solstice parade to google to see how long it would take and if anyone searches for it and comes to this site. It's not that great of a video, but it's now the only search result for 'fremont solstice', but I hope that will change. The video was originally it DV straight from my camera, and then I converted to WMV with the Windows

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1139768633940625562006-02-12T10:18:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:44:35.520-07:00

This seems like a Greg Bear crack at the Dean Koontz market (or someone else, Dean Koontz is the only one nearly similar I've read any books by). It's got a couple of good ideas behind it, but in this type of book too much revealing information about the concepts usually is a bad thing, and I think Bear does go a little too far to explain things.***** Spoilers ******The people with no souls

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1138978521903939102006-02-03T06:51:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:44:44.598-07:00

Some of the comical and colorful flavor of David Brin's Uplift universe, and even a derogatory remark about the Algebraist equivalent of uplifting. One of the underlying setting ideas is that there is a very layered galactic society, with different layers only interacting at their fringes and largely unaware or unconcerned with other layers. Contrast with Vinge's Zones Of Thought, where large

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1137851742474542402006-01-21T05:55:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:44:52.367-07:00

The book supposedly has the subtitle "The Editors Strike Back", but that's not on my edition, my edition also doesn't list out who the editors are by name on the front cover.Coming from editor's of a SF magazine, this book is primarily about writing science fiction short stories and not longer works. Examples are given in the form of stories (presumably ones that were published in Asimov's).And

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1137351646119939832006-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:44:59.049-07:00

It's obviously nothing new to say that SNL still sucks, and has for years. There's a funny bit or two per episode, but it's just not worth the pain.This season, boingboing has been supportive of the hiring of the lonelyisland comedy group, and there's the already legendary Narnia rap, so the show will probably stay just minimally funny enough to keep viewers for a little while longer.I tried to

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1135921476655973762005-12-18T21:03:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:45:05.934-07:00

It's probably just that I've been reading too much of Macleod and his contemporaries lately, but the feeling this novel is that it is a cut and paste of elements from his two earlier series (Fall Revolution and the Engine City one), along with an infusion of Stross and a few new things of his own. That isn't a bad thing, that's just me being conscious of what kind of setting elements are in

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1134955753490143362005-12-18T16:12:00.000-08:002005-12-18T17:29:13.563-08:00

This is the second time I've restarted the tacticalSpace project, the first time was after the conversion from SDL to OSG, and this next one is because I'm feeling the last version is too bogged down by the relativistic effects.The new version will be a return to control systems exploration, at an even finer level than earlier.The first thing I'm working on is engines. I'm going to make a simple

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1134880388952010922005-12-17T20:09:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:45:26.457-07:00

The bottom line here is that a lot of the disaster scenes with characters introduced only to be pov characters for the scene should have been cut out, and other unnecesary bits cut out to shave out a couple hundred pages. Entire characters like Ishiguro maybe should have been cut. This book tries to hard to fill the disaster genre role (even the 'dramatis personae' at the beginning is

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1131924426431294642005-11-27T15:25:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:45:34.666-07:00

Started 11/5-20/2005, finished 11/26/2005I probably read a lot of usenet comments disparaging this book, which is why it has taken me so long to read it. There are a few things wrong with it, but it is still Baxter and still highly readable.The worst thing is an irritant - the made up word 'softscreen'. I believe he's used it in other novels and stories. And at least the middle 's' isn't

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1132588727826167572005-11-21T07:41:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:46:12.836-07:00

I was just reading about the Xbox 360 system of awarding up to credits to players who make achievements in games. Every game supposedly has 1000 credits to give out, probably a few for beating the game on normal and then the rest for doing things that normally would just result in unlocking more stuff. Your credit ranking is shared online to help with match-making for competitive play and also

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1131923781163349842005-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:002007-10-21T10:46:19.475-07:00

I'll probably buy this in softcover and reread it eventually, but since it was free for downloading I synthesized it into speech and listened to it on my commute over a couple of weeks. I have done this previously with Free Culture and a few books about NASA- Computers in Spaceflight, Computers Take Flight, and Stages to Saturn) - the reason only one of those has blog entries is that it is

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1131921892258653982005-11-13T14:34:00.000-08:002005-11-13T14:44:52.273-08:00

I first saw this camera in a Sunday paper ad and I thought it was an optical illusion or a Fark/Worth1000 photoshop job- my brain kept try to resolve the still camera part and the video part into two separate devices. It seems vaguely obscene or repulsive somehow- one unblinking eye with a telescoping cylinder below it. I guess it sort of makes sense to have two lenses and two ccds (?) to be

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1130562836551992322005-10-28T22:08:00.000-07:002007-06-03T07:30:53.040-07:00

Wierd floating enemies with their arms out- they come back this way after you shoot them.

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1130477750365630342005-10-27T22:08:00.000-07:002005-10-27T22:35:50.393-07:00

There's a comment on boingboing about the poor market for short stories:ultimately, the audience for short fiction is regrettably small.It's kind of interesting to think about. In theory a short story should be very easy to digest, not as easy as a few paragraphs of a blog post but still easier than a novel. The thing is, there's a sort of ramp-up time when beginning a new piece of fiction

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146687.post-1130476051150232152005-10-27T21:41:00.000-07:002005-10-27T22:07:31.183-07:00

Via boingboingInteresting site. The best part is that in comparison to google video or youtube is that you save the videos to disk. Though at the same time I kind of like the convenience of the embedded flash player, I wish a site did both. The quality of all the videos on all of these sites is pretty poor, purely in terms of video resolution.Why not bittorrent for file distribution?For

patternjugglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10144734011570706352noreply@blogger.com0