Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the season. Maybe it's just me. I've been in a bit of a funk and so I've dug deep into some comfort gaming rather than do the things I probably should be doing. The previous owner of our house chose to use these narrow rounded red brick 'fences' around the perimeter of the house and rounding the trees in the back and the longer they exist the more I don't like them. On one side they are actively channeling runoff and carving a small ravine down the hill. But I don't want to pull them up until I have an alternative. Which means choosing an alternative and buying it. Then storing it until it can be installed. Figuring out what needs to be installed to install it properly. Or just rough it in and deal with any potential consequences until we figure out what we need to do to 'nail' it down properly.
We're planning a vacation, but we've hit a bit of a snag where we're trying to figure out how ambitiously we can plan. Travel costs are still pretty outrageous and with both of us working flying is really the only option if we don't want to burn half of our days on just getting to the relaxation.
Then there has been the nagging knowledge that I need to call the dentist and reschedule the appointment I missed months ago. Part of me wants to say 'hold on' and just make the call now. That sounds like a better and better idea the more I think about it. "Hold on."
Done.
Earlier this month I was on a bit of a streak and forced myself to play and complete a few games. Max Payne 3, Psychonauts, and the main story of Costume Quest. Max Payne 3 was a little painful for me. Max is a flawed 'hero' that places himself or is drawn to situations where dishing out brute violence in life or death situations is the order of the day. The early game takes place in an alcoholic haze as Max medicates himself to suppress a painful past that was partially his fault and partially forced upon him... and then in a self-deluded mist as Max quits drinking and starts tugging at the situations he never questioned before... and then in a self-destructive rampage as he chooses to throw himself into the meat-grinder to dish out his version of justice in a system that would otherwise ignore those too powerful to prosecute. It's grim. It's dark. It's self-aware. Max narrates the story in a sort of hind-sight telling of his journey through the twisty maze that is his past. Until ultimately the story arrives back at the place you first met Max. The details don't really matter. The actors are caricatures of excess and manipulation. I 'enjoyed' it despite of myself. The 'game' is fun mechanically. An arcade third person shooter with trappings of score-chase (and I believe the multiplayer modes accentuate that, but I didn't play those). Max is a bullet sponge. A raging ball of fury that soaks up damage and refuses to die. As real and as gritty as the story wants to be, it all fades away when Max takes multiple AK47 bursts to the chest, leaps across the room and in slow motion caps a half-dozen assailants, ducking behind a counter, popping a pill, and then doing it again. And again. And again. Militant kidnappers. Gangs. Drug dealers. Human traffickers. Mercenaries. Crooked cops. More gangs. More mercenaries. Mercenaries in cars. Gangmembers on boats. The bodycount is obscene and in many places the gritty story being told felt at odds with the sections where I was given control of the player. Moments of high tension and drama were negated by the designers hiding collectible gun bits in odd places that you would never find without scouring every nook and cranny instead of chasing after the bad guys that will wait for you to cross the next magic threshold. The thresholds annoyed me early on because I wasn't prepared for them. I didn't realize that doors were locking behind me. The game funnels you along a preset path and there's no turning back. So you either check all the hallways and ledges before you open any doors or approach the flashing button... or you lock yourself away from something you missed and will have to play that level again in its entirety if you want to collect all the nuggets.
I learned to exploit that system and never ever worried about rushing through a level again. This broke many encounters (and is probably why the multiplayer modes have a 'fastest time' score). A bunch of enemies rushing towards cover is exciting if you're also rushing towards cover. But if you're approaching from a wide angle and have an accurate weapon (and years of hand-eye-mouse training) you can generally drop all of them with critical hits before they ever hunker down. Add to that Max's time-freeze ability that builds up as you play through and entire rooms devolve into headshot, headshot, knock the helmet off then headshot. Fun for me, but not how the gamedesigners probably intended that encounter to proceed. Any 'win' for Max Payne is one of hard attrition. He gets the 'bad' guy because the bad guy has no more goons to throw in front of Max. Wave after wave after wave have crashed against him and the relentless pain sponge just keeps rolling towards its goal. I can't recommend this game for the story except if you happen to enjoy these kinds of dark, darker, darkest descents into the pits of humanity to seek a form of vengeance or justice. The game-play was enjoyable enough, but the scripting and pathing was easily exploitable... but it seems to be almost by design. The game encourages you to find the most efficient route through the levels. To discover the sequence of ballet steps and hits that will let you speed through an encounter... but that trial and error stuff is not my bag and there are other games that place more focus on that and don't force you to sit through multiple minutes-long cutscenes to get to the action. If you know what to expect going in and go in anyway... it's fun. I can recommend it. If you're easily affected by realistic portrayals of the horrible things human beings are capable of doing to each other... stay far far away from this one. I paid less than three dollars for this game. I got my money's worth.
Psychonauts is a gem. It's an old game that I first played back on the Playstation 2, but, because it is also a flawed game, was never able to finish. There is a platforming element that was always a little sketchy, and in one of the final levels there was a sequence of jumps that were performed under duress and with a rotating point of reference. A large number of gamers were all stopped at more or less the same place. Google Meat Circus and you will find the majority of comments lamenting how terrible this level is. I've finally finished it. It took over a dozen attempts at the same jumping puzzle, but I finally sussed out the 'trick.' In case anyone here is wondering. I played on the PC with the Xbox controller. The trick is 1) Turn off all sound. The constant taunting and the ghostly moans are infuriating. Play it with sound once or twice, but after that just turn everything down. It's more of the same. Again and again. 2) Ignore what you think you see. If you were stuck in the section where you are climbing the burning circular mesh while your figment-father is floating in the middle throwing bombs at you... stop paying attention to the camera. The mesh is NOT curved. Repeat after me. The mesh is NOT curved. The camera will swing around as you move around the circular mesh and you will feel the need to compensate. Do not. The mesh is NOT curved. Press left to jump the gap, and then when you have cleared the gap press up to grab the mesh again. Do NOT compensate for the curve. Ignore what your eyes are telling you. The mesh is NOT curved. Good luck!
More later...
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
Counting Down
As per usual I've had a few false starts to this post. I'm struggling to focus. Too many distractions and the subtle suggestions from an achy head and body that I might be coming down with something. Also whoever made the coffee at the office didn't add enough coffee. A grumpy start to a busy morning.
My wife has been very good to me in the last few days. She brought home three boxes of cookies, so I'm not allowed to divorce her for a while. And I haven't received any grief over my self indulgent technology purchases. I've been chipping away at my computer, gearing up for a bit of an update to tide me over for another year or so. For the last... really long time I've been using Dell Ultrasharp monitors. I spent a ridiculous amount of money to get a 24 inch screen when they became available. And then an only slightly less ridiculous amount of money to get a newer 24 inch screen a few years later. (I decided to dig into my old e-mails and found the order confirmation for that second purchase. January of 2009. Only five years. And to be fair that monitor is still going strong. It predates the LED craze so it kicks out quite a bit of heat, but it hasn't given me any trouble. Dell Ultrasharps are expensive because they used LCD panels that are manufactured to provide better color reproduction than the panels made for most consumer devices. Crisp, clean, photo-realistic colors on a high definition display. Well worth all the money I spent. But now technology is going in different directions. On the one side we have super-high resolution displays. On the other side we have super-high refresh rate displays.
There was some controversy over picture quality when the first 3D TVs were released. Most 3D TVs rely on high refresh rates to create the illusion of depth, so when those higher refresh rates were used to display normal content the result was disconcerting to some people. The picture seemed too crisp. Too clear. People looked plastic and moved too smoothly. Many TVs now have an option to limit their refresh rates when displaying regular content. Well that's the kind of clarity I want when I'm playing video games. I now have a relatively 'cheap' Asus monitor that is capable of displaying images at 144hz. So far I'm pretty impressed. It definitely has a much narrower 'sweet spot' than my Dell IPS panels, and I'm still fiddling with the color temperatures, contrast, and backlight settings to mitigate some of the loss in color clarity... but wow. When playing a game that can take advantage of the higher frame-rate the other issues just fade into the background.
I tried a few games that I have spent quite a bit of time with... I saw things I've never seen before. In Borderlands, when fighting up close and personal I could make out individual details that were usually just a blur of motion. It's interesting to think about how much I was compensating for the input lag inherent in IPS displays. Slowing down my actions and delaying trigger pulls to make sure what I saw was actually where I was aiming/jumping, steering. It's the same issue gamers encounter when playing timed games like Rockband or high speed driving games. Most TVs use scaling circuitry to enhance and translate inputs so that they look better on the screen. That processing causes a delay. If you're lucky it's imperceptible. If you're unlucky it means that by the time you see the prompt to press the button on the screen you've already missed your cue and failed. An easy test is to connect speakers directly to the console instead of going through the TV audio. If the audio and video isn't synched up then your video signal is being delayed by the screen.
But I'm rambling. If multi-display setups were a little more friendly I would hook up two displays to my system. One for photos and static screens and one for rapid action.
More soon!
My wife has been very good to me in the last few days. She brought home three boxes of cookies, so I'm not allowed to divorce her for a while. And I haven't received any grief over my self indulgent technology purchases. I've been chipping away at my computer, gearing up for a bit of an update to tide me over for another year or so. For the last... really long time I've been using Dell Ultrasharp monitors. I spent a ridiculous amount of money to get a 24 inch screen when they became available. And then an only slightly less ridiculous amount of money to get a newer 24 inch screen a few years later. (I decided to dig into my old e-mails and found the order confirmation for that second purchase. January of 2009. Only five years. And to be fair that monitor is still going strong. It predates the LED craze so it kicks out quite a bit of heat, but it hasn't given me any trouble. Dell Ultrasharps are expensive because they used LCD panels that are manufactured to provide better color reproduction than the panels made for most consumer devices. Crisp, clean, photo-realistic colors on a high definition display. Well worth all the money I spent. But now technology is going in different directions. On the one side we have super-high resolution displays. On the other side we have super-high refresh rate displays.
There was some controversy over picture quality when the first 3D TVs were released. Most 3D TVs rely on high refresh rates to create the illusion of depth, so when those higher refresh rates were used to display normal content the result was disconcerting to some people. The picture seemed too crisp. Too clear. People looked plastic and moved too smoothly. Many TVs now have an option to limit their refresh rates when displaying regular content. Well that's the kind of clarity I want when I'm playing video games. I now have a relatively 'cheap' Asus monitor that is capable of displaying images at 144hz. So far I'm pretty impressed. It definitely has a much narrower 'sweet spot' than my Dell IPS panels, and I'm still fiddling with the color temperatures, contrast, and backlight settings to mitigate some of the loss in color clarity... but wow. When playing a game that can take advantage of the higher frame-rate the other issues just fade into the background.
I tried a few games that I have spent quite a bit of time with... I saw things I've never seen before. In Borderlands, when fighting up close and personal I could make out individual details that were usually just a blur of motion. It's interesting to think about how much I was compensating for the input lag inherent in IPS displays. Slowing down my actions and delaying trigger pulls to make sure what I saw was actually where I was aiming/jumping, steering. It's the same issue gamers encounter when playing timed games like Rockband or high speed driving games. Most TVs use scaling circuitry to enhance and translate inputs so that they look better on the screen. That processing causes a delay. If you're lucky it's imperceptible. If you're unlucky it means that by the time you see the prompt to press the button on the screen you've already missed your cue and failed. An easy test is to connect speakers directly to the console instead of going through the TV audio. If the audio and video isn't synched up then your video signal is being delayed by the screen.
But I'm rambling. If multi-display setups were a little more friendly I would hook up two displays to my system. One for photos and static screens and one for rapid action.
More soon!
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Fiscal Insanity
A year ago today I proposed to Tina.
"You proposed on April Fool's Day? That's stupid!" *shrug* She said 'Yes' so it kinda worked out. A marriage proposal from me required my brain to add a hook. With an April Fool's Day proposal I had several: 1) The tag line: "She would be a fool not to!" 2) The secure knowledge that 30 years from now I'll still remember the date I formalized my intention to link my future with hers in a contractual way. 3) Friends and Family would either realize immediately that I/We aren't the sort to kid about this sort of thing even on an auspicious day like April Fool's, or they wouldn't and that would be good to know about them. 4) There are more, but most of them involve improving April Fool's day in my head. I'm not very fond of it in general. But yesterday I searched online for cookie bouquets so that I could send one to her work with the note: "I want a divorce...
... or a cookie. Your choice." This amuses me. But not enough to actually follow through. They only let you write up to 25 characters on a cookie. I did share the thought with Tina and she laughed. Yup. A keeper.
On the 5th of this month will be our one year anniversary as Home Owners. It also signifies the beginning of a huge financial sinkhole that makes me appreciate better the stress and worry that this kind of commitment can introduce into a relationship. It is deceptively easy to overextend yourself when the numbers get big enough. Shopping for a mortgage shows you only a fraction of the costs you will ultimately pay. When we started the process we had a pretty firm handle on the costs. We made pessimistic guesstimates for utilities, services, repairs, added in some emergency expenses for good measure and then went shopping. It turns out we were STILL lowballing the costs as responsible adult homeowners. Insurance, taxes, maintenance, upkeep, furniture... Luckily both of us are pretty low maintenance (I said it before, I'll keep saying it. A keeper.) Our guesstimate for the monthly mortgage payment jumped by over 30%. A small part of that is mortgage insurance because we decided that we'd rather lose a few hours of work every month to that than drain our safety net further than necessary with a full down-payment. So far that financial buffer has eased the transition from tenant to 'property manager' and we haven't really felt any sting... yet. But we are trying this whole 'responsible adult' facade. Life insurance. Lawn care and fertilization. Blinds and shades in the windows instead of bed sheets. That stuff's expensive, yo! And they are all disguised in bite-sized little payments just nibbling away at our take-home pay.
So I bought a license for a program called You Need A Budget (YNAB). We are entering month three using this software and it has been an eye-opening experience. Our various debts and pools of resources all visualized and in neat columns and rows. I love data. I had been operating from gut feelings and impressions and a forced cautious pessimism and it is reassuring to see the chaos of two relatively irresponsible adult children resolve into a relatively stable image that is surprisingly sustainable. We've had a pretty indulgent start to our year. But all of our spending has been successfully off-set with self imposed austerity and unexpected incomes. We're even on-track for our super-ambitious plan for paying down our mortgage a bit every six months. Yay!
Why do I feel compelled to share all this? Probably because I feel guilty. I bought some stuff for my computer yesterday. And some new clothes a few days ago. And Tina bought me some computer stuff. And we're about to contact a guy that will do some weed-treatments and pest control and grub control and fertilize our lawn for the year if we give him money. A little less money than we just spent on my computer stuff and clothes. Guilt. Maybe I really should have sent a bouquet of something to Tina... but that would cost money again. It's a vicious circle!
I finally decided to play Starbound and promptly lost a few dozen hours to it. I hit a point where the systemic progression stopped and any further upgrades depended on exploration... that's a good cooling down point for me. I look forward to diving back in after the next update. While exploration can be fun I usually prefer to 'own' a territory. Building up defenses, harvesting resources, generating self sustaining industries to feed whatever engines I'm given access to. Sadly this part of Starbound is still lacking and short of skyrails and some basic circuits it seems more like this phase is all about sampling lots of different environments rather than building up infrastructure. So I booted up Terraria again since that gives me a little more of that systemic progression towards industry, but in that one you can't ever really be in full control. The environment will hunt you down one way or the other and it depends on boss battles to drive progression. My only real other alternative is Minecraft and unless I dive back into mods like Thaumcraft I will most likely need to play some of my more story driven games soon. Or I could play Carmageddon. Since I Kickstartered the reboot I have Pre-Alpha access to builds of the game and even as rough as it currently stands it is just as fun as the original games were. Irreverent. Silly. Over the top. A racing game for the chemically imbalanced.
More soon!
"You proposed on April Fool's Day? That's stupid!" *shrug* She said 'Yes' so it kinda worked out. A marriage proposal from me required my brain to add a hook. With an April Fool's Day proposal I had several: 1) The tag line: "She would be a fool not to!" 2) The secure knowledge that 30 years from now I'll still remember the date I formalized my intention to link my future with hers in a contractual way. 3) Friends and Family would either realize immediately that I/We aren't the sort to kid about this sort of thing even on an auspicious day like April Fool's, or they wouldn't and that would be good to know about them. 4) There are more, but most of them involve improving April Fool's day in my head. I'm not very fond of it in general. But yesterday I searched online for cookie bouquets so that I could send one to her work with the note: "I want a divorce...
... or a cookie. Your choice." This amuses me. But not enough to actually follow through. They only let you write up to 25 characters on a cookie. I did share the thought with Tina and she laughed. Yup. A keeper.
On the 5th of this month will be our one year anniversary as Home Owners. It also signifies the beginning of a huge financial sinkhole that makes me appreciate better the stress and worry that this kind of commitment can introduce into a relationship. It is deceptively easy to overextend yourself when the numbers get big enough. Shopping for a mortgage shows you only a fraction of the costs you will ultimately pay. When we started the process we had a pretty firm handle on the costs. We made pessimistic guesstimates for utilities, services, repairs, added in some emergency expenses for good measure and then went shopping. It turns out we were STILL lowballing the costs as responsible adult homeowners. Insurance, taxes, maintenance, upkeep, furniture... Luckily both of us are pretty low maintenance (I said it before, I'll keep saying it. A keeper.) Our guesstimate for the monthly mortgage payment jumped by over 30%. A small part of that is mortgage insurance because we decided that we'd rather lose a few hours of work every month to that than drain our safety net further than necessary with a full down-payment. So far that financial buffer has eased the transition from tenant to 'property manager' and we haven't really felt any sting... yet. But we are trying this whole 'responsible adult' facade. Life insurance. Lawn care and fertilization. Blinds and shades in the windows instead of bed sheets. That stuff's expensive, yo! And they are all disguised in bite-sized little payments just nibbling away at our take-home pay.
So I bought a license for a program called You Need A Budget (YNAB). We are entering month three using this software and it has been an eye-opening experience. Our various debts and pools of resources all visualized and in neat columns and rows. I love data. I had been operating from gut feelings and impressions and a forced cautious pessimism and it is reassuring to see the chaos of two relatively irresponsible adult children resolve into a relatively stable image that is surprisingly sustainable. We've had a pretty indulgent start to our year. But all of our spending has been successfully off-set with self imposed austerity and unexpected incomes. We're even on-track for our super-ambitious plan for paying down our mortgage a bit every six months. Yay!
Why do I feel compelled to share all this? Probably because I feel guilty. I bought some stuff for my computer yesterday. And some new clothes a few days ago. And Tina bought me some computer stuff. And we're about to contact a guy that will do some weed-treatments and pest control and grub control and fertilize our lawn for the year if we give him money. A little less money than we just spent on my computer stuff and clothes. Guilt. Maybe I really should have sent a bouquet of something to Tina... but that would cost money again. It's a vicious circle!
I finally decided to play Starbound and promptly lost a few dozen hours to it. I hit a point where the systemic progression stopped and any further upgrades depended on exploration... that's a good cooling down point for me. I look forward to diving back in after the next update. While exploration can be fun I usually prefer to 'own' a territory. Building up defenses, harvesting resources, generating self sustaining industries to feed whatever engines I'm given access to. Sadly this part of Starbound is still lacking and short of skyrails and some basic circuits it seems more like this phase is all about sampling lots of different environments rather than building up infrastructure. So I booted up Terraria again since that gives me a little more of that systemic progression towards industry, but in that one you can't ever really be in full control. The environment will hunt you down one way or the other and it depends on boss battles to drive progression. My only real other alternative is Minecraft and unless I dive back into mods like Thaumcraft I will most likely need to play some of my more story driven games soon. Or I could play Carmageddon. Since I Kickstartered the reboot I have Pre-Alpha access to builds of the game and even as rough as it currently stands it is just as fun as the original games were. Irreverent. Silly. Over the top. A racing game for the chemically imbalanced.
More soon!
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Indulgent
There are many ups and downs associated with my thought process. On the one hand I can usually distill a problem down to the core issue. Years of troubleshooting technology has given me lots of practice. On the other hand if the problem is intermittent, random, or seemingly unrelated to the visible variables then my mind tends to spend too much time weighing probabilities. There are some components so integral to the process that to properly diagnose them they need to be removed from the equation. If you cannot prove a problem you indulge the possibility of one and act accordingly.
This meandering point was made mostly because I felt I needed to create a consistent pattern of posts here, despite having no idea of what I should write here. It feels like a trust exercise. I've shared some things that are so deep in my convoluted awareness that I'm somewhat concerned that it may have consequences someday down the line. Like my introspective musings regarding my mental state may become evidence or form the basis of some benefit rejection many years down the road. "If you were aware of your disassociation with 'normality' why did you neglect to seek treatment?" Well, your honor, since for the many years before the incident that brought me before you I was essentially performing the Internet equivalent of muttering to myself on a bus, I felt that if no one was listening I may as well allow my insecurities a voice. And knowing that I feel most fragile under the scrutiny of others, a page open to the public, no matter how obscure, would be an interesting mental exercise. Can I force myself to inscribe an 'honest' representation of my internal dialog in a space that almost anyone could review. How many filters would I create? How much editing do I feel compelled to do? Can I look at the words a year from now and recognize the mind that selected them? "'Normal' people use a diary for the self-indulgent monologs in their life." Ah. Well. Shut up. And then I go to jail for contempt or something like that.
I guess what I'm saying is that good troubleshooting techniques don't really translate to human mind problems. Internal or external. There are very few instances where you get consistent false positives when testing technology. An unplugged monitor won't turn on sometimes. But we humans are all operating at arm's length. Different visual cues. Different 'tells.' Wildly variable emotional responses that color our reaction to input. Without extremely close interaction, or rigidly enforced social protocols, people problems are hard to troubleshoot. And yet we try. We seek answers in mental states. Body language. Read meaning into glances and expressions. Significant pauses. Double-language. There are countless 'experts' that will definitively proclaim the state of mind of world leaders from press-conference photos. That amuses me. A recent episode of The Daily Show mentioned body-language experts analyzing Putin and I have to wonder what those experts 'know' about the people in their lives. Or what they must assume about the strangers around them. Amusing.
In a few hours I will be standing in front of a group of people and trying to teach them about using Cloud based tools to their benefit. I suppose it goes without saying that I will be useless to them if I fixate on my body-language instead of the content. I pay very little attention to my posture, which probably explains why I am not more concerned with my general health. A lazy slouch does not impair my ability to do my work, but it probably speaks volumes about other aspects in my life. But it's hard. I indulge. Let's watch Netflix for the next two hours. Let's make Sloppy Joes for dinner. Breakfast? Coffee and PB+J. But we're idling up to our faults. Being sneaky. Sugar Free Jelly. Pitas and Wraps instead of bread. 93% lean meat and sugar-snap peas and carrots as the side. Reduced fat. Low sodium. Sugar free. Whole grain. Low carb. We're indulging our bad habits but changing the parameters a little. That's frustrating in those self-aware moments when the belt sits a little too tight or the back aches a bit hunched over a keyboard, or the face breaks out in an angry pimple or three.
Time to put the game-face on.
This meandering point was made mostly because I felt I needed to create a consistent pattern of posts here, despite having no idea of what I should write here. It feels like a trust exercise. I've shared some things that are so deep in my convoluted awareness that I'm somewhat concerned that it may have consequences someday down the line. Like my introspective musings regarding my mental state may become evidence or form the basis of some benefit rejection many years down the road. "If you were aware of your disassociation with 'normality' why did you neglect to seek treatment?" Well, your honor, since for the many years before the incident that brought me before you I was essentially performing the Internet equivalent of muttering to myself on a bus, I felt that if no one was listening I may as well allow my insecurities a voice. And knowing that I feel most fragile under the scrutiny of others, a page open to the public, no matter how obscure, would be an interesting mental exercise. Can I force myself to inscribe an 'honest' representation of my internal dialog in a space that almost anyone could review. How many filters would I create? How much editing do I feel compelled to do? Can I look at the words a year from now and recognize the mind that selected them? "'Normal' people use a diary for the self-indulgent monologs in their life." Ah. Well. Shut up. And then I go to jail for contempt or something like that.
I guess what I'm saying is that good troubleshooting techniques don't really translate to human mind problems. Internal or external. There are very few instances where you get consistent false positives when testing technology. An unplugged monitor won't turn on sometimes. But we humans are all operating at arm's length. Different visual cues. Different 'tells.' Wildly variable emotional responses that color our reaction to input. Without extremely close interaction, or rigidly enforced social protocols, people problems are hard to troubleshoot. And yet we try. We seek answers in mental states. Body language. Read meaning into glances and expressions. Significant pauses. Double-language. There are countless 'experts' that will definitively proclaim the state of mind of world leaders from press-conference photos. That amuses me. A recent episode of The Daily Show mentioned body-language experts analyzing Putin and I have to wonder what those experts 'know' about the people in their lives. Or what they must assume about the strangers around them. Amusing.
In a few hours I will be standing in front of a group of people and trying to teach them about using Cloud based tools to their benefit. I suppose it goes without saying that I will be useless to them if I fixate on my body-language instead of the content. I pay very little attention to my posture, which probably explains why I am not more concerned with my general health. A lazy slouch does not impair my ability to do my work, but it probably speaks volumes about other aspects in my life. But it's hard. I indulge. Let's watch Netflix for the next two hours. Let's make Sloppy Joes for dinner. Breakfast? Coffee and PB+J. But we're idling up to our faults. Being sneaky. Sugar Free Jelly. Pitas and Wraps instead of bread. 93% lean meat and sugar-snap peas and carrots as the side. Reduced fat. Low sodium. Sugar free. Whole grain. Low carb. We're indulging our bad habits but changing the parameters a little. That's frustrating in those self-aware moments when the belt sits a little too tight or the back aches a bit hunched over a keyboard, or the face breaks out in an angry pimple or three.
Time to put the game-face on.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Overwhelming
My parents visited us this weekend and brought a bunch of early birthday presents. Dad has been digging deep into his wood-turning hobby and came with a stack of show-and-tell pieces. It's really fantastic what he can coax out of a piece of 'trash' from a tree that fell ages ago. He also had some turned pen, stylus, carpentry pencils, etc that he put together from some kits and allowed us to pick through them. I have new pen/tablet stylus in my pocket! It's a lovely deep brown with a wobbly etched grain that gets more intricate the closer you look. Really pretty! Mom brought a stack of ARCs and gardening books and a cooking magazine and some ebook vouchers and an AudioBook (Red Shirts as read by Wil Wheaton) so basically more fantastic media than I have free waking hours to deal with.
Also, a couple of bottles of wine and I used the excuse to pick up some beer.
The first evening had a moment of tension when Tina and Mom ganged up on me because of my (dismissive) opinion of a series they enjoy. I tried reading the first book. Got to the point where the story started setting up for the second book and realized that I just didn't care. The characters didn't engage me. Their peril felt contrived, their conflicts conveniently introspective while not one of the surrounding characters did anything that would prevent channeling the story along its intended path.
I'm more than willing to concede that I gave the book short shrift, but it felt so reminiscent of any one of a dozen similar configurations... a character, the most powerful character, is locked away from their powers. But machinations were set into motion that ensure that at the appropriate time the powers would manifest. Oh and forbidden love. Clans and tribes. Traditional boundaries to lock groups into eternal struggles. At every turn I saw a trope of the genre and while they may have come together to form an elaborate tapestry... for me, once I had reached the point where the first book tried to lead into the second story I was done. I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last few page and force the decision to either stop there or slog through the next book.
But apparently that makes me a bad person. :)
All in all a good time was had.
An update was released for Carmageddon. Only a few days into the Early Access and already things are improving. The game runs much more consistently good for me now, and the damage model for fixed so some of the wonkiness of the really hard hits that would sometimes result in more damage to you than your target. I'm really looking forward to see how this will evolve with the input of a broader community.
I've been catching up on some podcasts recently. There are a few shows that I enjoy and many many more that I would probably enjoy, but I only have so much time that I can sit and listen without feeling that itch that I should be doing something... so I play a game. A surprisingly fun and relaxing 'game' that Tina bought for me. Euro Truck Simulator 2. That's right. A trucking simulator. It uses a compressed model of Europe, so it isn't real-time, and cities are really just a small cluster of intersections, but there's something enchanting about driving through the mountains at night during a thunderstorm. Catching glimpses of the landscape between thunderclaps and the rhythmic thwap-thwap of the wipers as your 750 hp motor drags a bulldozer to its destination in France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Britain, wherever they pay you to go. As you build up money you can buy garages, hire drivers and equip them with their own trucks... all fully customizable. I don't think there's a 'win' state, but you and your drivers earn experience that can be applied to unlocking specific cargo missions and boosting the pay for those missions. It's surprisingly fun.
Also, a couple of bottles of wine and I used the excuse to pick up some beer.
The first evening had a moment of tension when Tina and Mom ganged up on me because of my (dismissive) opinion of a series they enjoy. I tried reading the first book. Got to the point where the story started setting up for the second book and realized that I just didn't care. The characters didn't engage me. Their peril felt contrived, their conflicts conveniently introspective while not one of the surrounding characters did anything that would prevent channeling the story along its intended path.
I'm more than willing to concede that I gave the book short shrift, but it felt so reminiscent of any one of a dozen similar configurations... a character, the most powerful character, is locked away from their powers. But machinations were set into motion that ensure that at the appropriate time the powers would manifest. Oh and forbidden love. Clans and tribes. Traditional boundaries to lock groups into eternal struggles. At every turn I saw a trope of the genre and while they may have come together to form an elaborate tapestry... for me, once I had reached the point where the first book tried to lead into the second story I was done. I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last few page and force the decision to either stop there or slog through the next book.
But apparently that makes me a bad person. :)
All in all a good time was had.
An update was released for Carmageddon. Only a few days into the Early Access and already things are improving. The game runs much more consistently good for me now, and the damage model for fixed so some of the wonkiness of the really hard hits that would sometimes result in more damage to you than your target. I'm really looking forward to see how this will evolve with the input of a broader community.
I've been catching up on some podcasts recently. There are a few shows that I enjoy and many many more that I would probably enjoy, but I only have so much time that I can sit and listen without feeling that itch that I should be doing something... so I play a game. A surprisingly fun and relaxing 'game' that Tina bought for me. Euro Truck Simulator 2. That's right. A trucking simulator. It uses a compressed model of Europe, so it isn't real-time, and cities are really just a small cluster of intersections, but there's something enchanting about driving through the mountains at night during a thunderstorm. Catching glimpses of the landscape between thunderclaps and the rhythmic thwap-thwap of the wipers as your 750 hp motor drags a bulldozer to its destination in France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Britain, wherever they pay you to go. As you build up money you can buy garages, hire drivers and equip them with their own trucks... all fully customizable. I don't think there's a 'win' state, but you and your drivers earn experience that can be applied to unlocking specific cargo missions and boosting the pay for those missions. It's surprisingly fun.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Establishing a Pattern
Contextual shifts. They are tricky things to wrap your head around, especially when dealing with computers. Copy something from here, paste it into something over there. As I was passing an open office door earlier today I caught a glimpse of utter frustration bordering on anger. It looked like a Computer Problem in action. So I paused and waited for eye-contact. A few minutes later we had managed to resolve an issue that had been plaguing this person ever since we started using a different product to generate our publications. Apparently the tried and true method no longer worked because it involved a context shift. When you highlight and copy a piece of content from one program and paste it into another the results may not necessarily be what you expect. In this case links that worked fine pasted into every other context available resolved correctly, but when pasted into this new program they suddenly stopped working once the document was exported for publication.
The fix was a variation on the technique which I have just decided to call the "Old-School Bounce."
Many of us are familiar with methods for stripping out unwanted, often invisible, clutter around content.
Like keeping a link to Notepad handy to quickly strip out formatting marks, font flourishes, and other clutter from content copied from websites.
But in this instance the 'fix' was actually implemented in the context menu for the item. Right-Click, Copy Destination URL vs highlighting the interactive element and expecting the destination program to figure out which property of that element you actually wanted to paste.
And I just helped another person with a very similar issue. Linking a streaming web video into a PowerPoint presentation. Context, people! It's very important and Computers/Applications are currently really bad at communication their limitations to users. How would anyone suss out that a Web embed link won't work in a regular offline document if our regular offline documents now also live in the cloud? We live in interesting times.
As a Kickstarter backer of the new Carmageddon I was given access to the Pre-Alpha Early Access release of the game yesterday. It is good. Broken, rough edged, crashy (pun intended), but gloriously irreverent and ultimately a blast to play. I have spent countless hours with the games in that series and while it is most assuredly over the top violent, gory, obscene... it is also ridiculous and so obviously cartoony that it is also deliciously silly. In this newest iteration it is (currently) entirely possible to hit something hard enough to forcibly eject the driver (yourself) from the vehicle through the windshield. The game then completely ignores that you are no longer at the wheel and just lets you keep playing. Only one wheel left? Crumpled into a tiny ball? Flattened beyond recognition? Mere trifles. Mash the accelerator and have at them!
(I'm the 'car' underneath the officer. It's a fair cop.) Even in this early pre-alpha stage with only a single partially finished level (notice the checkerboard reference textures?) there is so much fun that I am giddy about what the future updates will add.
The fix was a variation on the technique which I have just decided to call the "Old-School Bounce."
Many of us are familiar with methods for stripping out unwanted, often invisible, clutter around content.
Like keeping a link to Notepad handy to quickly strip out formatting marks, font flourishes, and other clutter from content copied from websites.
But in this instance the 'fix' was actually implemented in the context menu for the item. Right-Click, Copy Destination URL vs highlighting the interactive element and expecting the destination program to figure out which property of that element you actually wanted to paste.
And I just helped another person with a very similar issue. Linking a streaming web video into a PowerPoint presentation. Context, people! It's very important and Computers/Applications are currently really bad at communication their limitations to users. How would anyone suss out that a Web embed link won't work in a regular offline document if our regular offline documents now also live in the cloud? We live in interesting times.
As a Kickstarter backer of the new Carmageddon I was given access to the Pre-Alpha Early Access release of the game yesterday. It is good. Broken, rough edged, crashy (pun intended), but gloriously irreverent and ultimately a blast to play. I have spent countless hours with the games in that series and while it is most assuredly over the top violent, gory, obscene... it is also ridiculous and so obviously cartoony that it is also deliciously silly. In this newest iteration it is (currently) entirely possible to hit something hard enough to forcibly eject the driver (yourself) from the vehicle through the windshield. The game then completely ignores that you are no longer at the wheel and just lets you keep playing. Only one wheel left? Crumpled into a tiny ball? Flattened beyond recognition? Mere trifles. Mash the accelerator and have at them!
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Why are you still here?
Seriously?
I took a few moments to orient myself. Many things have happened. It has been over three years since an actual update and that's a terrible amount of time to recap in this format.
My girlfriend is now my wife.
My apartment is now my house.
My job is still my job.
Her job is still her job (but she is slowly moving up the corporate ladder! For better or worse.)
I'm still a gamer, but the strains of Too Much Content and Not Enough Free Time have started showing. The Gaming space has exploded with each platform being a veritable treasure trove of experiences, and then Sony and Microsoft decided to launch their next versions of their consoles while their previous versions are still viable entertainment sources.
And that's not even looking at the Android and iOS gaming options. Too much. There's too much.
To retain a shred of sanity I have pruned a bit and limited my exposure to the latest and greatest. I no longer own dedicated portable gaming machines. No PSP. No Vita. No DS. My iPad and Nexus 7 have swallowed those roles. At this point I have not invested in a PS4 or XBox One and my 360 and PS3 are connected in different rooms of the house. 90% of my PS3 use in the last few years has been for Netflix and Amazon Prime videos. This forced austerity is partly an attempt at 'financial responsibility' and partly a realization that I have at my fingertips a hoard of gems to appreciate, and all I've done is throw them onto a pile. This was exacerbated by Sony and Microsoft deciding to add 'perks' to their paid memberships. For under $50 a year each Xbox Gold and PS+ give you access to 'free' content every month. PS+ picks newer titles but limits access to current memberships while Xbox Gold picks older titles but you actually own them even if your membership lapses. Between the two of them I have access to more quality gaming than time.
My only major 'gaming' spending concession was a recent upgrade of my graphics card. I have used dual cards in my last two machines but have grown tired of the issues that causes for certain older games and the noise of two sets of fans trying to keep the things from melting. I lucked into a comparable single-card purchase at a near impulse-buy price right before the Crypto-Currency explosion that has managed to drive up the prices of linkable GPUs.
Oh yeah, and I'm married now.
I'm usually not a big fan of jewelry... I have a tendency to fidget with it. Knowing this (and knowing that my mind was eventually going to let me propose to the woman that has been putting up with me for the past few years) I purchased a watch. For many years I didn't wear a watch. They tend to annoy me. I fidget with them. If it has modes I play with them. I time things. I watch the readout. I figure out how many clicks to cycle through the different modes and click through them... So I bought an analog watch. And I wear it. I've grown to like wearing it. It winds itself through motion so now there is a little wrist-flick I do from time to time so I can hear the mechanism ticking as it ratchets up the little spring that keeps it alive. I generally don't wear it around the house but if I'm heading out I feel kind of naked without it on. And then I added the ring. I have a few fidgets for this ring. I turn it. Sometimes I flick it. I've learned that I tap things with my palms a lot and now that I'm wearing a tungsten band that tapping produces new tones! But I like wearing the ring. I'm not sure that I necessarily needed to soften the tactile experience with a watchband first, but I also didn't want to be annoyed by the thing I'm wearing because I love my wife. I forgot to put my ring on one day and didn't 'notice.' When I went to lunch I was extra careful with the burrito I had because I didn't want it to drip sauce on my hand and get under the ring because the napkins at the place suck (but the burritos are pretty darned tasty). I remember thinking that. I actively adjusted my grip on the burrito to protect a ring that I wasn't wearing. When Tina pointed out that I wasn't wearing it later that day I was... I'm not sure what to call it. Dumbfounded. Shocked. Surprised. Confused. A mix of those. As I get older I seriously suspect that I have brain worms.
Among other things I'm slowly dealing with the realization that I have psychological issues. These are probably pretty common and other people deal with similar things all the time, but since I don't have a lot of extra-workular social contacts to even out the statistical averages of my social anxiety blips, they stand like pillars in the fog of my recollection. I missed a dental appointment. I meant to go, planned to leave work a little early, told my supervisor, had it on my calendar, and then shit blew up and it was past closing time before the dust settled enough for me to realize that even the time to call and explain had come and gone. I felt bad. I felt horrible. I felt that my 'work needed me to the point where I lost track of time' reason was inadequate. I felt that I couldn't explain myself adequately. A few days passed. They sent me a letter. The letter said that missing an appointment was unusual for me and asked if I was okay. Now it was a thing. I bring it up because we are now right around the time when my NEXT appointment would have been scheduled and I still haven't called them. I KNOW it isn't a major thing. I KNOW it needs doing. I actively dread the small talk. The questions. Sitting in a chair with those faces staring down at me while the assistant that doesn't stop talking and asks questions and has opinions all while elbows deep in my face actively suppresses the need to be short with me for missing an appointment. I don't deal well with that.
A restaurant I like has a new host. A really nice guy. He makes small talk. He has decided to like me. Asks me about my holidays, weekends, how I am, and one time when paying he offered me a VIP discount card. He is extremely pleasant and good at his job. I KNOW that it's his job. Identify the regular customers and make them feel welcome. But if you single me out that it's a thing. I dread it. I don't know small talk. I don't relate. And when I do I'm utterly unable to identify the protocol for where we cross idle chit-chat and into actually having dialog. I don't know the steps to that dance. Throw me a social curveball and I stumble. I give the wrong replies. I stare too long as I'm parsing the question. I stare way too long as I evaluate the sincerity of my reply with regard to the time allowed and attempt to gauge the sincerity of the initial comment all while wishing you would hand me back my change so I can say Thank you and head to my car that is parked as close as possible to my usual parking spot. After he gave me that discount card I stopped going to that restaurant for a few weeks. I couldn't bring myself to go. I knew it was stupid. I knew it was all in my head. I wasn't even quite sure what it was in my head, but the closest I could come was a sense of dread that I would screw up the protocol. That I would somehow fail to satisfy my end of that social exchange.
I have dozens of draft e-mails to my parents. To my grandmother. Just like my last post they are steeped in the guilt and shame of allowing too much time to pass. Of screwing up that social exchange and having no idea of how to properly pick up those threads. Of the protocol involved.
If I step far enough outside I realize that it's stupid to let those threads wither just because I might be afraid or too awkward to do it properly... but to feel sincere I have to step back into my head and fall right back into the trap.
I deactivated my Facebook account a few days ago. There has to be a better way.
I took a few moments to orient myself. Many things have happened. It has been over three years since an actual update and that's a terrible amount of time to recap in this format.
My girlfriend is now my wife.
My apartment is now my house.
My job is still my job.
Her job is still her job (but she is slowly moving up the corporate ladder! For better or worse.)
I'm still a gamer, but the strains of Too Much Content and Not Enough Free Time have started showing. The Gaming space has exploded with each platform being a veritable treasure trove of experiences, and then Sony and Microsoft decided to launch their next versions of their consoles while their previous versions are still viable entertainment sources.
And that's not even looking at the Android and iOS gaming options. Too much. There's too much.
To retain a shred of sanity I have pruned a bit and limited my exposure to the latest and greatest. I no longer own dedicated portable gaming machines. No PSP. No Vita. No DS. My iPad and Nexus 7 have swallowed those roles. At this point I have not invested in a PS4 or XBox One and my 360 and PS3 are connected in different rooms of the house. 90% of my PS3 use in the last few years has been for Netflix and Amazon Prime videos. This forced austerity is partly an attempt at 'financial responsibility' and partly a realization that I have at my fingertips a hoard of gems to appreciate, and all I've done is throw them onto a pile. This was exacerbated by Sony and Microsoft deciding to add 'perks' to their paid memberships. For under $50 a year each Xbox Gold and PS+ give you access to 'free' content every month. PS+ picks newer titles but limits access to current memberships while Xbox Gold picks older titles but you actually own them even if your membership lapses. Between the two of them I have access to more quality gaming than time.
My only major 'gaming' spending concession was a recent upgrade of my graphics card. I have used dual cards in my last two machines but have grown tired of the issues that causes for certain older games and the noise of two sets of fans trying to keep the things from melting. I lucked into a comparable single-card purchase at a near impulse-buy price right before the Crypto-Currency explosion that has managed to drive up the prices of linkable GPUs.
Oh yeah, and I'm married now.
I'm usually not a big fan of jewelry... I have a tendency to fidget with it. Knowing this (and knowing that my mind was eventually going to let me propose to the woman that has been putting up with me for the past few years) I purchased a watch. For many years I didn't wear a watch. They tend to annoy me. I fidget with them. If it has modes I play with them. I time things. I watch the readout. I figure out how many clicks to cycle through the different modes and click through them... So I bought an analog watch. And I wear it. I've grown to like wearing it. It winds itself through motion so now there is a little wrist-flick I do from time to time so I can hear the mechanism ticking as it ratchets up the little spring that keeps it alive. I generally don't wear it around the house but if I'm heading out I feel kind of naked without it on. And then I added the ring. I have a few fidgets for this ring. I turn it. Sometimes I flick it. I've learned that I tap things with my palms a lot and now that I'm wearing a tungsten band that tapping produces new tones! But I like wearing the ring. I'm not sure that I necessarily needed to soften the tactile experience with a watchband first, but I also didn't want to be annoyed by the thing I'm wearing because I love my wife. I forgot to put my ring on one day and didn't 'notice.' When I went to lunch I was extra careful with the burrito I had because I didn't want it to drip sauce on my hand and get under the ring because the napkins at the place suck (but the burritos are pretty darned tasty). I remember thinking that. I actively adjusted my grip on the burrito to protect a ring that I wasn't wearing. When Tina pointed out that I wasn't wearing it later that day I was... I'm not sure what to call it. Dumbfounded. Shocked. Surprised. Confused. A mix of those. As I get older I seriously suspect that I have brain worms.
Among other things I'm slowly dealing with the realization that I have psychological issues. These are probably pretty common and other people deal with similar things all the time, but since I don't have a lot of extra-workular social contacts to even out the statistical averages of my social anxiety blips, they stand like pillars in the fog of my recollection. I missed a dental appointment. I meant to go, planned to leave work a little early, told my supervisor, had it on my calendar, and then shit blew up and it was past closing time before the dust settled enough for me to realize that even the time to call and explain had come and gone. I felt bad. I felt horrible. I felt that my 'work needed me to the point where I lost track of time' reason was inadequate. I felt that I couldn't explain myself adequately. A few days passed. They sent me a letter. The letter said that missing an appointment was unusual for me and asked if I was okay. Now it was a thing. I bring it up because we are now right around the time when my NEXT appointment would have been scheduled and I still haven't called them. I KNOW it isn't a major thing. I KNOW it needs doing. I actively dread the small talk. The questions. Sitting in a chair with those faces staring down at me while the assistant that doesn't stop talking and asks questions and has opinions all while elbows deep in my face actively suppresses the need to be short with me for missing an appointment. I don't deal well with that.
A restaurant I like has a new host. A really nice guy. He makes small talk. He has decided to like me. Asks me about my holidays, weekends, how I am, and one time when paying he offered me a VIP discount card. He is extremely pleasant and good at his job. I KNOW that it's his job. Identify the regular customers and make them feel welcome. But if you single me out that it's a thing. I dread it. I don't know small talk. I don't relate. And when I do I'm utterly unable to identify the protocol for where we cross idle chit-chat and into actually having dialog. I don't know the steps to that dance. Throw me a social curveball and I stumble. I give the wrong replies. I stare too long as I'm parsing the question. I stare way too long as I evaluate the sincerity of my reply with regard to the time allowed and attempt to gauge the sincerity of the initial comment all while wishing you would hand me back my change so I can say Thank you and head to my car that is parked as close as possible to my usual parking spot. After he gave me that discount card I stopped going to that restaurant for a few weeks. I couldn't bring myself to go. I knew it was stupid. I knew it was all in my head. I wasn't even quite sure what it was in my head, but the closest I could come was a sense of dread that I would screw up the protocol. That I would somehow fail to satisfy my end of that social exchange.
I have dozens of draft e-mails to my parents. To my grandmother. Just like my last post they are steeped in the guilt and shame of allowing too much time to pass. Of screwing up that social exchange and having no idea of how to properly pick up those threads. Of the protocol involved.
If I step far enough outside I realize that it's stupid to let those threads wither just because I might be afraid or too awkward to do it properly... but to feel sincere I have to step back into my head and fall right back into the trap.
I deactivated my Facebook account a few days ago. There has to be a better way.
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