Monthly Archive for September, 2003

Things I missed last week.

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday September 28, 2003
in Concerts and Music
. Closed

Speaking of concerts, the more I hear about last week's Radiohead concert, the more I feel like I missed out. First I heard my roommate's tired version of the concert, and the next day I heard a co-worker's claims of "easily the best concert of my life," and it only went downhill from there. I had decided not to go because I'd be paying too much for too little ($45 for lawn seats at Shoreline), but now the regret sets in.

Also last week I missed seeing Neal Stephenson at Cody's Books due to a bit of miscommunication, but apparently he only talked for about 30 or 40 minutes, and it was probably incredibly crowded, so I probably didn't miss nearly as much there.

My entire concert budget for the next five years…

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday September 28, 2003
in Concerts and Music
. 1 Comment

I got my two pair of Simon & Garfunkel tickets in the mail yesterday. At nearly $150 each after rape fees, I'm pretty sure I just blew my entire concert budget for the next five years.

Of course, I'm going to be selling one of those pairs on either craigslist or ebay (After I bought the first pair, I came across a second pair that were better seats), so it's not actually as insane as it sounds... But still.

Those files are obviously identical, so why are you bothering me about it?

Published
by
Benjy
on Saturday September 27, 2003
in Ideas and Interface
. 1 Comment

Last night I was doing a lot of file management, so I wasn't terribly surprised that OS X asked me "A newer item named "filename" already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the older one you are moving?" more than a few times.

And every time, my reaction was the same: "Well, I don't know, hold on, let me check." And so I went to the terminal, and after figuring out where both files were I fired off a diff and then made my decision. But more often than not, the files were identical -- which is something a computer the computer is perfectly capable of telling me. So how come I have to go out of my way to figure it out every time?

Copies of the same file getting smeared all over your hard drive and network seems like a pretty common occurrence, based on both my personal experience and my experience with the "real world," and yet aside from the "newer" metric, your computer really doesn't go very far out of its way to help you with this problem.

What I want to know is, in this day and age of overkill computers, why hasn't any desktop OS implemented file diffing, or better yet, md5 sum checks, when a collision happens during an interactive file move or copy. "An item named "filename" already exists in this location, but the files are identical. Do you want replace it with the copy you are moving?"

Admittedly, computing md5 sums on large files can take a little while, but we're already putting a complete stop on the rest of the operation anyway, so it could just display a progress bar and message where it would otherwise display the difference information while it computes the md5 sum, and still give the user the decision buttons and the timestamp information in the meantime. Then, the user could either immediately make a decision based on the information, or wait for the md5 sums to finish before making the decision.

Stew Reviews Underworld

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday September 21, 2003
in Movies and Reviews
. 1 Comment

On a whim yesterday, I saw a matinee of Underworld with Mark. All I knew about the movie before seeing it was that there were an awful lot of billboards for the movie about -- most notably on BART, where I saw them every day on my commute for seemingly the last month.

Anyway. Vampires. Werewolves. Vampires versus Werewolves. Kinda confusing at times, no thanks to there being a lot going on (like, hundreds of years of history you're at least briefly acquainted with -- we are dealing with vampires, after all), and several fight scenes that are just shootouts where everyone is wearing black.

The first action scene of the movie, for example, was completely incomprehensible for quite awhile, because it was completely unclear who was who in the fight. We knew which side Kate Beckinsale was on, of course, but other than that it was just kinda a mess until all the extras in the subway station were either killed or had fled. Some simple color coding would have been awfully useful. And speaking of Kate Beckinsale, she was extra hot in this movie.

The action scenes seemed a little spottily edited at times, but that could just be because we're all spoiled by the matrices absurd digital effects. Hoss said he saw an interview with Underworld's director, where he claimed he tried to avoid digital effects as much as possible. The action really wasn't anything special -- lots of loud gunfire, and see above re confusing part.

Also as mentioned above, the story was highly convoluted, and assumptions about who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad guys" were frequently turned upside-down... That's not a bad thing, of course, and in the end, there really was no "good side," but there were a few characters you found yourself wanting to "win" -- unfortunately, not all of them do.

The movie was fairly stylish, and I guess that's a point in the + column. But I still think the original Crow did this style much better, way back in the day.

Spoiler: Finally, apparently bi-heading a vampire counts the same as be-heading one. Who knew?

In the end, it was entertaining, but it had a number of problems that kept me from fully enjoying it. The ending also left a hook for a sequel -- something that wouldn't actually mind much, as long as Kate Beckinsale reprised her role.

3/5.

Mario Kart 16 Players!

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday September 19, 2003
in Asides, Games and Nintendo: Gamecube
. Closed

Mario Kart 16 Players!

Well, if I convince my housemate to get a gamecube, and I get a second gamecube for my upstairs tv, and we get copies of the game and network adapters for all three consoles, *and* we buy 5 more gamecube controllers, then we can do 12 player... I think I'll just target 8 player with my housemate for now, though.

Reject Fake Free Billboards.

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday September 18, 2003
in Laugh and Media
. 11 Comments

At some point in the last month, the Washington Mutual billboards switched from saying

"Reject Fake Free Checking."

to saying

"If your bank has a direct deposit requirement, you have fake free checking."

What, did people not understand what "Fake Free Checking" was? I can't wait to see the next iteration of Washington Mutual billboards that say

"If your bank is Bank of America or Wells Fargo, you have fake free checking."

Impressions of recent game demos I’ve played.

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday September 17, 2003
in Games, Impressions, Nintendo: Gamecube and PlayStation 2
. 2 Comments

I recently played demos of several upcoming games, and here are my bullet point impressions of them:

  • GameCube
  • 1080: Avalanche - This amused me for a few minutes, and if I can get this for cheap after whatever unforeseeable point I get bored with SSX 3, I might pick this up.
  • Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike: Attack of the Colons - I don't think I'm going to get this unless I can get it for cheap. It just felt like more Rogue Squadron, without fixing some of the play control issues that have always bugged me about Rogue Squadron. There are other things I'd rather be playing, like...
  • Viewtiful Joe - Now this game was one I was unsure about before playing the demo, but after playing it I was totally sold. This games style is just too cool for words, and the fact that it's going to initially sell for $40 just seals the deal.

  • PlayStation 2
  • ESPN Hockey - It's been a long time since I've played a hockey video game (or any sports video game, for that matter), and I was surprised by how damn complicated it's gotten. The graphics were pretty, and I had fun playing for one period, but I just couldn't imagine playing for much longer than that.
  • Hulk - I was amused by this demo, but in the end it was way too short. Still entertaining enough to play the demo twice.
  • Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando - This was entertaining enough that I spent probably a half an hour playing with this demo, but it's not a game I'm going to buy. In particular, there was an entertaining racing mini-game, but in the long run it probably would lack depth.
  • Roadkill - Um, I did not enjoy this demo at all. The objective was entirely unclear, and the demo was sufficiently buggy that I got my car stuck against a mountain and couldn't move anymore, so I quit playing it.
  • True Crime: Streets of LA - This game also bored me silly, and again with the extremely unclear objective.
  • SSX 3 - Last but certainly not least... Unfortunately, this demo was really buggy, with me falling through the mountain at times, or getting stuck inside of a rock.... The controls just felt a little off throughout, and the board's interaction with the snow frequently seemed very strange. The demo showed a lot of promise, but considering this game is supposed to be released next month, it was kind of scary... But the latest SSX 3 trailer had much improved board/snow interaction, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This game has a lot to live up to -- I just hope it can deliver on all of its promises. The only real question will be what platform to buy this game for.

  • I also watched a video of XIII, and while I believe it's just a first person shooter, the graphics and style in the trailer were damned awesome. I only have a vague notion of what the story is supposed to be about, but I kind of want to play this just for the graphical/style experience alone... I'll wait and see what the reviews say, though.

So the results: I would buy SSX 3 unless the reviews completely denounced it; I was convinced to not buy Rebel Strike, and to hold off on 1080; And I was convinced to pre-order Viewtiful Joe.

Silly image for the morning:

Published
by
Benjy
on Tuesday September 16, 2003
in California, Politics and Trains
. Closed

Me, balanced on the edge of the north-bound San Antonio CalTrain platform, squinting across the tracks at the newspaper machines on the other side, trying to read the Chronicle headline of "Campaigns in turmoil -- immediate appeals vowed."

Country singing legend Johnny Cash dies…

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday September 12, 2003
in Asides and Music
. Closed

Country singing legend Johnny Cash dies...

This just serves as a very sad reminder that I've long been meaning to listen to more Johnny Cash, but just never got around to it.

If I could change one thing about HTML:

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday September 12, 2003
in HTML, JavaScript, Programming and Web
. 2 Comments

Today was a long hot day of trying to work around HTML's shortcomings using JavaScript, only to end up hating JavaScript even more and fixating on how useless HTML's form tag is.

"The form tag!?" you might ask.

Granted, there's an awful lot wrong with HTML, but as a web developer, the form tag (and the input tag) are the only things I really care about at the end of the day -- and unfortunately, the form tag sucks.

So, if I could change one thing about HTML, I'd move the "action" attribute from being an attribute of the form tag to being an attribute of a submit input tag. Then, it wouldn't matter that HTML can't deal with nested form tags, because I could just submit to different actions depending on which button was pressed.