Linkstew

Last Friday when I was in Bakersfield, Pi bought a Gamecube and a DVD player from WalMart for less than the cost of a PS2 or an Xbox. Admittedly, the DVD player was on sale for $75, but his total with sales tax was still only $294.22.

Let's do a quick comparison of each of the three contenders for equivalent configurations, shall we? We'll assume a non-sale price of $100 for an external DVD player, and I'll be nice to the PS2 and allow the Gran Turismo 3 bundle to be its entry, and we'll assume 7.5% sales tax as a compromise between Bakersfield's 7% and the Bay Area's BART subsidizing 8ish%.

Gamecube:

• Gamecube console: $199
• Extra controller: $34.99
• Game: $49.99
• Memory Card 59: $14.99
• External DVD Player: $99.99
• Total: $398.96 ($428.88 with tax)

PS2:

• PS2 Gran Turismo 3 bundle: $329.99
• Extra Controller: $34.99
• Memory Card: $34.99
• DVD Remote: $19.99
• Total: $419.96 ($451.457 with tax)

Xbox:

• Xbox console: $299.99
• Extra Controller: $39.99
• Game: $49.99
• DVD Remote: $29.99
• Total: $419.96 ($451.457 with tax)

Um, other fudge work in these numbers: Admittedly, the Xbox has a hard drive and network adapter, but at the moment all the Hard Drive is good for is storing custom music sound tracks and I'm assuming that it can store saved games. And on the assumption that the Xbox's hard drive can store saved games, I didn't add in the price of a memory card on the Xbox.

The Gamecube memory card is smaller than the PS2 memory card, so I probably should have added two Memory Card 59's to my Gamecube total to be more equitable.

I think I recall seeing that the Sony Hard Drive/Network Adapter Bundle will be $150 when it comes out this spring, so that puts the final price of the PS2 (even with the bundled GT3) way up above the Xbox.

I expect that the Gamecube Modem and Ethernet adapters will be $50 each when they come out. And a nice portable removable Gamecube Hard Drive is also a possibility.

But, for now, I'd argue that games aren't really taking advantage of the Xbox's network and hard drive features enough to really count them into the overall equation.

Oh, and as long as I'm on the subject, you can get a Dreamcast for $50, and find most of the games and accessories for $10 to $20. If you're really cheap.

If you bought every possible accessory for the Gamecube as they come out, you'd probably end up spending more on the Gamecube than the Xbox in the long run. But most people won't buy all the Gamecube accessories, and most probably already have a DVD player, and most people with an Xbox probably won't ever use the Hard Drive or Network Adapter, so I still say the Gamecube wins the price game.

Besides which, I think being able to pick and choose with the Gamecube is better than Microsoft's Model-TX.

I had my first classes today, and one of them was Anthro 160, "Forms of Folklore." And after just one lecture, I'm really looking forward to it. I feel an itching at the back of my brain telling me that this is something that I'm going to enjoy, and I haven't seen anything to disprove that yet.

I've heard three things about this class: Good professor, interesting material, bad bad evil term project. And yes, the project is a little insidious, but it doesn't seem that bad...

The project? Collect (at least) 40 pieces of folklore from friends and family and whoever you can find, and gather information about where the informant learned that lore, and what the informant (and others) thinks it means, and so on. Each item is a separate entity, and is supposed to be prepared individually. Analysis of one piece is not supposed to cross-reference the analysis of another piece. Basically, the project is collect 40 pieces of folklore, and then write 40 short reports about all that folklore. And for seven of those pieces, find a printed parallel of that piece of folklore, and examine the parallels and differences. And yes, there's a shear bulk of work to do there, but I think it will be interesting.

If I could get my ducks in a row and didn't have a project to finish for work, Fray Day would be the perfect place for me to start this project. But that's probably not going to happen. My folklore archive isn't due until December 7th, though, so I've got all kinds of time... so I say now.

For the curious, one of the most integral characteristics of folklore is apparently multiple realization. That is, different versions of the story are known all over the place. If someone says "The way I heard it...", you're dealing with folklore.

And in case you can't tell, I'm feeling very drawn in already, and I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I'm vaguely thinking about what a blog version of a folklore archive would be like, but I guess I should wait and see how my folklore archive itself turns out. Well, it would be kind of like In Passing, only more focused and with more detail and analysis and categorization.

My doubly former roommate Keith, and self proclaimed encyclopedia of Final Fantasy, took it upon himself to prove that everyone who claimed that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within had nothing to do with the Final Fantasy games are wrong. Here is his spoiler filled, point by point document showing the similarities between Final Fantasy: TSW and the games. Admittedly, these similarities don't at all warrant the name Final Fantasy, but they're there. If for no other reason, TSW shouldn't have been called Final Fantasy because there was no magic in it.

AI looked interesting, and so I saw it. I would have paid to see it, but I happened to see it for free, and that made it's flaws much easier for me to overlook. But for me to write this, I'm going to have spoil a few things -- so if you're planning on seeing the movie and don't want anything spoiled, then go see it: it's worth it, as long as you want a thoughtful movie.

The movie clocked in over two hours, but thanks to some really strange pacing, it actually seemed much longer. The movie has three distinct pieces, but the transitions between the pieces were a little weak, and the final piece felt really tacked on -- almost like an afterthought. The movie was a futuristic Pinnochio -- In fact, AI admits up front that it's carved from the same block of wood as Pinnochio, and it's almost too easy to map everything in AI to Pinnochio. But though it effectively told the story of Pinnochio, AI managed to offer a new perspective on what it is to be human just because the idea of David hits close to what your average viewer thinks is possible.

The dialogue was stilted in places, but the actors did their best with what they had. But for me, the dialogue was more than made up for by the amazing images and ideas that were the focus of the movie. Even now, thinking about David exploring a submerged Coney Island brings me a sense of wonder.

So what is it that I thought was so ridiculous about the movie right at the end? That David is (more or less) granted his wish because a mechanical Teddy Bear had picked up a lock of hair from the ground. This turned a glaring spotlight on many little bubbles that I'd overlooked earlier in the movie, and which generally left me irritated. Oh well.

I don't feel satisfied with what I've said here about this movie, because it's a complicated movie, and I haven't really talked about what the movie said, just how the movie said it... But I enjoyed the movie, and I wouldn't have minded paying to see it. For the last third of the movie, in that final sequence, the whole audience was fidgety, and some people were outright laughing at it. And when the last light went out, people burst into words -- "Worst movie I've seen in a long time" -- "Who wrote this thing?" -- "I wish I hadn't wasted my money on this" (Heh, if only he knew) -- and so on. And all of those negative opinions made me double check, to make sure that I actually had enjoyed it. And I had. It made me think. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it made me think. I wish more movies did that. 4/5.

My roommate works at one of the local theaters, which means he's got the hook up. So today we took advantage of that hook up and saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and AI. The strange thing about seeing a movie in the theater for free is that it makes it much easier to enjoy. I don't have to sit there feeling bitter that I blew $9 on a movie that I'm only marginally enjoying, and instead I can just marginally enjoy the movie. Which isn't to say that I only marginally enjoyed AI, but that it might explain why I seemed to enjoy it so much more than everyone else in the audience. But I'm planning on writing up a whole separate entry on AI, so for now I'll talk about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is back in theaters for some reason.

I like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I like it so much that I've probably seen it 30 times. I like it so much that I've seen it so much that I would have never seen it in the theater if it hadn't been free. The first thing I noticed was how crisp the picture on the big screen was compared to the VHS copy I've seen so often. And other than that, it was the same movie I knew inside and out, which meant I spent a lot of time feeling bored. You see, when we used to watch the movie, we would actively do other things, and only pay attention to the movie at certain favorite scenes -- Why watch captivated when you know the punchlines, and some scenes just seem to go on longer than they should? I hadn't seen it for about three years, so I enjoyed seeing it again, but it was still something I would have rather flipped through on DVD.

The one interesting thing about seeing it in the theater was the ending. As Pratchett pointed out, the Python's don't know how to write an ending, and the Holy Grail is the prime example of that. And once Arthur had been driven off in chains and the black screen with the silly music came on, no one laughed. Well, a few people, myself included, laughed, but I was laughing at all the people who weren't laughing. At all the people who apparently hadn't seen the movie before, and were waiting for.. something else. And so I laughed at their nervous shuffling, and their questioning murmuring, and I sat waiting and laughing to see how long they were going to wait and not laugh -- but I eventually got hungry and left.

I think the ending is a great joke in it's own right, but you can't get it the first time you see it.

Haha, I love The GIA. Their assessment of the upcoming console wars sums things up perfectly. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be enlightened! Well, you might not cry, but you'll definately laugh and/or be enlightened.

After a final, a vegetarian chili deluxe spud, and a rousing game of Mario Party 3, I set off for Cody's on Telegraph to see Terry Pratchett do a silly little dance. And while I was at it, I drug my roommates along with me, despite the fact that neither of them had ever read a lick of Pratchett. I figured it'd be cultural. Y'know, Ethnic or something. And thankfully, topics too closely tied to the books were avoided, and my roommates seemed to enjoy themselves well enough.

That said, there were some negative points to the evening. Notably, an adolescent girl threw a bit of a tantrum when Pratchett revealed the truth about Monty Python. Other than that, though, the problems were merely circumstantial. First, there's the matter of the british accent which, when combined with Cody's sound system which wasn't prepared for the crowd Pratchett drew, made him a little hard to understand at times. At the worst, though, the punchlines were still clear, and as the hour wore on, my mind got better at interpretting what he was saying.

And the final "problem" I had with Pratchett speaking was only when I compare this year to last year. You see, last year a whole ton of people were crammed into the little tiny store "The Other Change of Hobbit." In addition to this, last year Pratchett made stuff up to talk about as he went along, because a lot of the people in attendance had admitted to having also seen him in San Francisco the night before... This year, after immediately determining that no one had already heard his prepared presentation this year, he launched into that. And he delivered it well, and it didn't seem prepared, but... Well, it was less personal. Maybe it was because this year everyone had a chair to sit in, and room for limbs and the like. Or maybe it was because at some level I knew he was mentally reading from previously prepared material despite evidence to the contrary. But whatever it was, it was a less intimate experience than last year. For that matter, it seemed shorter this year, though my watch tells me that the same amount of time elapsed. This I directly blame on the seating arrangements... Last year, squished in like sardines, five minutes was an eternity.

So with the enjoyable bits out of the way, it was time for the unfortunate business of the book signing, and as there was no reason for them to wait with me, I told my roommates they could go home if they wanted to, which they did. Thus it was that I waited silently in line for half an hour, alternately eavesdropping on the webmistress of this site and playing with a little baby sitting on the shoulders of a nice couple in front of me.

Last year, I got my copy of The Fifth Elephant signed, because, well, everyone was doing it. Last year, Alert got a copy of The Last Continent signed that a friend of hers who had visited left behind accidentally. One of these things is meaningful, while the other is not.

I own a lot of Pratchett books. I own multiple copies of more than ten of the books (long story, I don't want to get into the details). I didn't have much interest in getting my copy of Thief of Time signed... What would be the point? I've got a copy of The Colour of Magic that was published in 1983, but what would be the point of getting that signed? So faced with this dilemma, I realized what I should get signed -- the book that got me into this whole mess... The copy of Guards! Guards! that I first picked up at Book Mark that fateful day while grocery shopping with my dad... The copy I devoured every word of... The copy I subsequently lent to all of my friends, getting two of them (and one of their moms) hooked on Pratchett... So I took that otherwise unassuming, battered book with me, and I got it signed. Other people had fancy imports of Thief of Time (the UK editions have different covers than the US editions), any of the books released in the last three years in hard back, and a few other random things. I was the only person I saw with such a worn and loved book. And after it was signed, it didn't magically transform... It's the same book, it just has another scribble in it now.

I've got a strange view on meeting people. Everyone in line around me had something to say to Pratchett, but I didn't say a thing. He asked me who it should be made out to, I told him, he signed it, and I was done. What was I going to say to him in a 30 second window? And whatever I did say, he's already heard, and isn't of interest to him. So why should I waste his time by telling him about the tattered book he signed? (This isn't about Pratchett in particular, it's just in general) Admittedly, the experience is not for for the signer, but the signed... But in my mind, I was doing it for him. He'd already signed a half an hour of books, and there was probably another half hour behind me, so why should I keep him waiting? And yes, I'm aware he probably didn't even notice it...

For me, the experience of the evening wasn't about the 30 seconds I had his attention, but what he had to say during the hour he had my attention. Others probably attend these events with opposite priorities, intending to tell Pratchett all about a flaw in his latest novel... But that's not... polite, I guess. I'll remember what he said, but he wouldn't have remembered what I'd said anyway... Terry Pratchett is a very funny man, full of great ideas, and if you even have the opportunity to hear him chat, you shouldn't pass it up. Even if you've never read the books, you'll probably still enjoy 90% of the experience.

update: As Kevin pointed out, Douglas Adams died yesterday. I read everything Adams before I ever got into Pratchett... Adams may have turned from writing to other media, but his few novels (relative to Pratchett, it's a few) have had an influence on a generation of geeks -- including me. And contrary to what Kevin suggests, it's not so much that I found Pratchett's Presentation lackluster, as I found Pratchett's Presentation lacking compared to last year. And yes, it would have better (though much sadder) had Pratchett known of Adams' passing. So long and thanks for all the books.

Here we have a "talk" about The Lies Your Professor Told You. Well, that's what it's called. That's not really what it's about.

First of all, the piece has two major flaws: It doesn't cite any references at all, and while it had a good point, it chose to argue that point by using very controversial exmamples. If you just skim the article, you'll probably get caught up in his examples and ignore his main point, and you'll end up agreeing with him if you agree with his stance on those controversial issues, or you'll disagree with him for any other reason.

The main thing he's attempting to show with the piece is that higher education isn't politically diverse, and a majority of the teachers are liberals. In and of itself, that's a fine thing to bring attention to.

Unfortunately, this guy did several things wrong. First of all, it was implicit in his talk that "so many liberals are bad, therefore we need less of them, and that will be better." That won't be better. It will just introduce another set of lies into the system. Second, he did nothing to address why there are so many liberals in education. I don't have an answer for that, but it's definately something that should have been examined. Finally, he didn't offer a solution to his problem.

In other words, this talk is very anti-liberal, and it points out a problem, but it does it in a very negative way and it doesn't talk about why the problem exists or what can be done about it. (He implied that "less liberals" should be the solution, but that doesn't count as "talking about a solution," because part of talking about a solution is talking about why it will be an effective solution.)

What should be the solution is that school should teach students how to be disciminating consumers of ideas, so that when faced with pieces like this, they can make up their own mind about his arguments. Learning isn't about the facts, because facts change. Learning is about thinking, and thinking intelligently.

So it's an interesting read presenting the side that I don't usually listen to. It does a mind good to take other opinions into consideration from time to time.

I saw The Mummy Returns this evening, and every commercial I saw made a big deal that The Rock (WWF star, I think) was in the movie. Okay, fine, whatever. So as the movie opens, there's the story of the Scorpian King (who is played by The Rock), and we see The Rock grimace and and groan and he has one line, not even in English, which he gets to say (scream?) twice. And then The Rock disappears from the movie for two hours.

And when he returns, we find the head of The Rock attached to a... Scorpian Centaur Crawfish-lookin' thing. But the head didn't look quite right. In fact, it occured to me that the head was computer animated, along with the rest of the creature. Sure, there was a lot of computer animation in the film, some good, some bad... But why did it occur to me that The Rock's face had been animated as well? Well, for starters, the animated face was a much better actor than the The Rock we saw in the beginning of the movie. The textures on the face were a little funny, but at least it had meaningful expressions.

And of course, a little more than a month from now, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within will be released. Now, whether this movie is good or bad, it is significant in that the whole show is going to be computer generated. The still shots have looked amazing, but we'll have to see how well two hours animated people look.

Well, everything in Final Fantasy except the voices are going to be computer generated. I wonder why all the emphasis has been on making realistic graphics while there has been no emphasis on creating realistic voices (or smells, or what have you). I'll be truly impressed when the whole thing is done with computers for real.

But that does bring up a question: Will the next generation even be able to tell the difference between computer-animated movies and the old fashion kind? Now, before you dismiss me as being insane, let me explain myself. I saw a preview for Pearl Harbor this evening, which featured some planes flying and a bomb falling, along with a lot of other details. All of these things were computer animated, but they were very well done. They were so well done, in fact, that it was only a vague sense of uneasiness and some impossible camerawork that clued me in to the animated aspect.

Things like flying planes happen, but how many people have actually seen a formation of planes up close? The point is, people won't be able to tell that these things aren't real because they haven't ever seen the real thing to compare it to. It's easy to decide that the fantastic world of Final Fantasy isn't real, but will anyone be able to tell that a World War II dogfight isn't real? Or for that matter, that a New York murder mystery isn't real? Now, before you suggest that the next generation will be able to compare the computer generated movies to today's movies and see what real movies looked like, remember how unreal black and white movies can seem, or even movies from a couple of decades ago.

Perception and Reality are fine lines which are influenced by familiarity, and it won't be long before even our generation will be believing a romantic comedy told with computer generated copies of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks (though they'll still have to pay the actors for their voices. I really don't want second rate voice actors -- believe me, I've heard them as bad as they come).

And despite what may sound like a lot of negative opinions, I'm very eager to see what's possible. Hopefully actors won't do the same thing to the computer animation as the RIAA did to the digital music.

When most people (in California) visualize going from California to Japan or China, etc, they probably imagine going straight across the Pacific, thanks to confusion caused by the inaccuracies of projecting a sphere onto a flat map. I know better, though, and know that the quickest route from here to Japan winds up going up north through Alaska and the like. Take a piece of string and a globe and measure it if you don't believe me. And yet, when I envision traveling to Australia, I visualize getting there via Europe. I likely make this mistake because in my head, Australia is associated with Europe and not Asia based on the people that (I assume) live there. In reality, though, there are a fair number of Asians in Australia (as I recall from studying Australia in Geography last semester), Australia deals a lot with the local Asian countries economically, and it would be really, really stupid to go to Australia via Europe. For reference, apparently it's standard to get to Australia via New Zealand.

You have no idea how long I could talk about mental maps... It's a very fascinating topic. I'll dig up some links after I play a quick game of Mario Party 2, in anticipation of the impending release of Mario Party 3.

later: Wow, I actually won a game of Mario Party!

Anyway, this about.com article is a good a place as any to start reading about mental maps, and it has a few good links. Basically, Mental Maps are how the world is represented inside of the head of a person. Familiar places are perceived as closer, while unfamiliar places are perceived as more distant. People frequently put their home at the center of their mental map of the world, which might be a cause of confusion when traveling abroad. Sometimes orientations vary, sometimes things get grouped based on broad boundaries, and frequently, they're very distorted and wrong. Thinking about how people think is so entertaining!

For all intents and purposes, classes are over. There are a couple of classes I'll attend tomorrow, but my heart won't really be in it. I think I'll mainly be going because I feel guilty about missing so many lectures this semester. Well, that's a lie. One of the classes tomorrow is really a final review.

For all intents and purposes, another semester is over, except for the finals. I have five days before my first final. It seems an eternity away. And it's only been three days since I turned in my last homework assignment. It seems an eternity away.

I'm in a long moment of transition. A limbo. I've been waiting for something to happen, but nothing has. Tomorrow I'll get out and go to class, and maybe that will help. It probably hasn't helped that I've been incapacitated by allergies for the last three days. Between allergy medicine and the allergies themselves, my head has been spinning, making the limbo seem even more significant.

It's just been a long weekend. I've just been sitting around doing nothing. It hasn't been an eternity, just three days. My sleeping schedule is a little off, and my nose is still stuffy, and my throat is still sore...

But tomorrow, I'll get up, go to a few classes, focus myself and commence with the studying. In eleven days, the semester will be over. It may seem like an eternity away, but it'll be here long before I'm ready for the finals, and two weeks from now, my linguistics final, three days past, will seem an eternity away.

We had a good guest lecture from a retired UC Davis professor in my History of Technology class today. He was the son of Japanese immigrants, and grew up on an Indian Reservation before being put in a concentration camp during World War II. After the war, his family moved to California where they picked Strawberries. His lecture was about California agriculture and the ethnicities behind it.

A very interesting thing brought to my attention during the lecture, though. In addition to the guest lecturer, there was a visiting professor from Japan in the audience. When the visiting professor would ask questions or try to make a statement, I could barely understand what he was saying. At first I thought to myself "Gee, that visiting professor must be glad the guest lecturer speaks english so well." But as I thought about the situation a little longer, I realized how very wrong I probably was. When I was learning Japanese, it was damn near impossible for me to understand most of what a practiced Japanese speaker said casually, and I better understood what my fellow students were saying. This is surely exactly the same for people who natively speak different languages, but because I speak English natively, I assumed that a good english speaker was as easy for a non-english speaker to understand as it was for me.