Well, that's that...

For regular readers, this should be the last time I feel the need to mention Sony and their unfortunate business decisions, so read or skip as you like.

The final hope I had for Sony getting told that their shenanigans with the PS3 firmware from April of last year were wrong is gone. The class action lawsuit brought against them (and which Sony has shielded themselves against with changes to their Terms & Conditions since then) has been dismissed. Basically, the judge says that, since the users have the option of not upgrading the firmware on their PS3s if they want to keep the functionality they want, there's no foul on Sony's part.

The only problem I have with that line of reasoning is that it doesn't apply strictly to Sony's online services... you can use the same line of reasoning for games on disc that include a mandatory firmware update if you want to play them solo on your own machine. Don't want to accept the update? Don't play the game. Never mind that the system you bought was specifically designed to play those games, it's not on Sony for requiring an update, it's on you for refusing an update that strips away features you paid for.

So, apparently, the state of the law now is that your right to use your game consoles (and what else?) in a feature-complete state as of the time of sale is strictly dependent on the goodwill and immediate business concerns of the seller. That said, I simply can't trust Sony, based on past behavior, so they're still off my purchase list... and the bar for every other console seller has been set that much higher.

70 years since Pearl Harbor

Today marks 70 years since the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese, starting our fight against a dedicated foe that lasted for years, and was only finally brought to an end with atomic bombs. Now, we get good-quality electronics and cars from them, eat sushi and teriyaki without batting an eye, and, in my case, I get to enjoy subtitled anime and translated manga on a regular basis. So, thanks to the veterans of that war for doing what needed to be done, first off... but, especially in troubling times like these, it's worth remembering that change is a constant, however slowly that change may happen.

Skyrim!

I've seen enough games hyped over the years, only to fall far short of their hype once they launch, that I consciously do my best to disregard the over-the-topness of such hype, and see if what's left is likely to be worthy of my time. Skyrim (or, more properly, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) certainly fell into that category, but, as the fifth entry in a decades-long series of games, which have (mostly) improved with each new version, I'll admit to having higher-than-usual hopes... and, now that I've got a solid day's worth of play under my belt, all I can say is... believe the hype.

If you like role-playing games, I think it's safe to say that you will like this game. It looks wonderful, even on XBox360, it plays smoothly, and, unusually for a Bethesda Softworks game, I was able to play it on day one without any major glitches or program lockups. It simulates a portion of its world down to a level of detail that's most games never approach, and lets you play the way you want to play. That's because, unlike most other RPGs, this game doesn't revolve around a concept of player "classes"... rather, the skills you use (or get trained in) determine how your character grows. Oh, and, unlike prior entries in the Elder Scrolls saga, it includes some truly massive opponents along with the run-of-the-mill people and animals... everything from bears, HUGE spiders, and mammoths, all the way up to dragons. You know, bigger than an elephant, flies, breathes fire, dragons... and hopefully, you've got a bunch of people with bows or other ranged attacks to help you out in taking one down.

For those of you that played Oblivion, here's what's changed, systems-wise. Like I said above, classes (or build-your own classes using "favored skills") are out. All skill advancement counts towards level advancement, and the magicka/health/stamina raises therefrom. Also, the "perks" are handled differently... instead of automatically picking up skill-related improvements every 25 skill points, you get a "perk point" to spend each level, to choose from a perk tree for each skill, limited by your actual skill level. Beyond that, the "automatic difficulty adjustment" from Oblivion is either gone or greatly reduced (got my ass handed to me by a bear I unintentionally provoked, for instance), armor/weapons repair is gone, and there are some subtle changes to skills, crafting skills in particular (smithing covers creation and enhancement of armor, weapons, and jewelry, while alchemy has some minor changes in how you work out what reagents deliver what effects). In fact, crafting is only done at fixed crafting stations now... sorry alchemists, even if you want to, you can't load yourself down with alchemical lab bits to craft potions and poisons on the road.

Long story short, Skyrim looks to be a wonderful RPG, that fixes the biggest issues from Oblivion without introducing new major issues, and what I've seen of the "main" storyline so far is quite good. I already paid full price for this game, and, if you like RPGs, I don't think you'll be sorry if you do likewise.

VIM turns twenty

It's fun, the things you run across on the 'net. As detailed by this Ars Technica article, today's the 20th anniversary of the release of VIM to the public. All I can say is hooray, and I hope it keeps going and getting better for another 20... I use this editor pretty much every day, whether for programming or systems administration, and it's a pleasure to have something that doesn't assume that you have a mouse handy, yet is still efficient to use. Didn't know that it started out on the Amiga (my first computers), and the article also points out to me that I've barely scratched the surface on this program... might just have to remedy that.

Death notices from computerland

Anybody who takes in almost any form of mass media these days knows that Steve Jobs died recently, and there have been enough "what a great CEO/computer pioneer he was" stories that I just don't see the need to link to them. Not that what he did was easy, or that it didn't have some impact on the world... but still, he did what he did pretty much for self-enrichment, and most of what he did was recognize the value of design and quality in consumer gear.

Contrast that with the recent death of another computer luminary that you won't hear much about in the mass media: Dennis Ritchie. He helped create an operating system still in use in various forms today, and created a little thing called C, a programming language still in use today, whose influence is felt in pretty much every programming language developed since. He is greatly responsible for much of the infrastructure the modern Internet uses to run, among other things (including the current foundation of Apple's software for their Macintosh computers). All that, and not a profit motive in sight, just pure intellectual curiosity.

All in all, well... I'm not one to put my heart on my sleeve and publicly mourn people I don't personally know... but I have to say, Ritchie is the greater loss in my book.

Qwikster - true to its name

So, right, forget about that "separating Netflix DVD rentals into a separate company" thing, says Netflix. They'll still do the separation/increase of billing, but at least you won't have to track what you've watched on two separate websites.

I can't imagine how loud the howls of indignation must have been to get them to reverse course... I mean, it's one thing for a company to screw up and hold course until the noise dies down (e.g. Sony and the PS3 silliness), but it's quite another to admit that you screwed up badly enough to say "You know what? Maybe we don't need another company after all". Still, now that I've used Sony as an example of the alternative, good on Netflix for recognizing and acting on their error... I just hope they're not too hobbled by shooting themselves in the foot like that.

Netflix and... Qwikster?

Boy, am I glad that I made the decision to drop DVDs when Netflix changed their pricing. If you somehow missed the news, Netflix is spinning off their DVD operation into a separate company and website. Netflix's CEO is saying that this was planned all along, but he never got around to telling the customers about it until now... personally, I think it's more like they planned to fully split things out eventually, but the rapid divide/drop of their customer base since their pricing announcement pushed them to take this step sooner than anticipated. I mean, really... Qwikster was the best name they could come up with? Sounds like something that Nestle might have come up with to promote their powdered milk-flavoring stuff... and, better still, they can't exactly do much "social network" marketing with that name either, since that Twitter account is already owned by a guy with a weed-smoking Elmo avatar.

So, Netflix is basically putting DVDs out to pasture, and maybe they think they can sell that side of the business (and its user data) to somebody else to make a quick buck in support of their streaming business. It will be interesting to see how this pans out... but I'm glad I chose one side, and the side that Netflix thinks is worthy to keep the company name, for now.

The new crack: Disgaea 4

Well, it's been almost a year and a half since I made a rule for myself about buying nothing Sony, but every rule has its exceptions... Disgaea 4 just came out, and I snagged a brand new copy on launch day. What can I say... an upgraded game in the same vein as one I managed to spend well over 300 hours playing is just irresistible, when I still own the hardware to run it.

This version has the same quirky humor and detailed, turn-based strategy engine... but now, it has improved graphics and animations (so it no longer looks like a transplanted PlayStation 2 game), plus additional combat options (like fusing some of your monsters into mega-monsters, temporarily of course) and Internet features, like the ability to have some of your crew cause grief in other players' games (not while you're controlling them, sad to say). All in all, I expect I'll get more than my money's worth of entertainment out of this game.

X-Men: First Class and the Garland Theater

Now that it's hit the bargain circuit, and looking hard for a reason to go someplace air-conditioned for a couple of hours, I went to see X-Men: First Class. It's a good little superhero flick, and doesn't try to do too much with too many characters... but it's not my favorite superhero movie of the summer (that would probably be Captain America). Still, I'd say it's generally worth bargain theater price, or DVD/streaming rental, when the time comes.

Of course, that depends on the bargain theater you have in mind. I've been a long-time fan of the Garland Theater in Spokane... sure, it's always been a little run-down, but, generally, it's been an enjoyable experience. This time, not so much... never mind the bits that they don't have much control over, like the genius parents who brought a fussy baby to an action film. The price has gone up since last I went, to $3.50, while the general quality of the theater has gone down even more than in years past. The seat I got, at least, was so swaybacked that I couldn't sit in one position through the whole movie, or else I would have damaged my back. The projector sync was off, so "still" scenes were all but unwatchable. Heck, even the popcorn (at full movie theater popcorn pricing, of course) was considerably south of fresh. All in all, in its current state, I couldn't recommend the Garland to anyone these days.

So, another nail set in the "going to the movie theater" coffin... I'm still in the market there for some good first-run movies (for all those are fewer and farther between than in recent memory), but, especially at the price, it just makes more sense to wait for something to hit a streaming service than bother with the bargain theater, in my book.

The (d)evolution of the mall

Since I had to wait for an inspector to check out my newly-installed sewer connection (all done but they paying, finally...), I took the morning off from work. It was a pleasant surprise when the inspector came relatively early, leaving me with a few hours of prime mid-workweek normal-business-hours time to burn. I decided to get a much-needed haircut, then hit the food court at Northtown Mall and have lunch like a normal human being (as opposed to my regular routine of snagging something at a drive-through to scarf down at my desk).

That done, I still had some time left, so I decided to meander the mall. Now, I know we've been in down times for a while, and I fully expected a number of vacant storefronts, as I've seen elsewhere. More interesting, though, were the odd "stores" that have taken root under these adverse conditions. Coffee-bars are barely worth mentioning, except how many there were. The gym was a bit odd, but suitably clean and "up-scale-looking" to not throw me too hard. The storefront that, I believe, serves as a staging area for indoor paintball games, that was more than a little odd. The strangest, though, had to be the convenience store right in the center of the mall.

Things have changed at Northtown, and are likely changing all over... what used to be a somewhat-exclusive locale for a shop, where shoppers were welcomed while loiterers (read: teenagers) were discouraged, is now desperate enough for foot traffic to set up an entire, manned soda-and-snacks convenience store in the heart of the mall to encourage loitering, on the off chance that somebody might decide to buy something. It's seems strange to me now, but I guess time will tell whether it's a strategy that pays off for the mall in the long term.

The great Netflix pricing kerfluffle

It's old news by now... but Netflix has decided to separate out their streaming service from their DVD rental service in September, and charge extra in the process (up to 60% more, for people with the current unlimited one-DVD-at-a-time service). This has, of course, set off much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Internet, because the old setup was a Good Thing for consumers... but, of course, all good things come to an end.

In my case... well, right now I'm on the two-DVD-at-a-time service level, with an extra charge for Blu-Ray discs on top. The thing is, most of my reason for having DVD service at all is to get at some older content (especially anime) that simply isn't available on anybody's streaming service legally, to the best of my knowledge. I toss in some more "normal" fare between those discs, and sometimes I stumble across something more than "just OK" that way, but few and far between... and, more and more, the old discs are slowly fading from the Netflix library, which can be really annoying if you've watched the first few discs of a multi-disc series.

So, barring a sudden reversal by Netflix, I think I'm going to go on an anime binge, and round out any disc-based series that I'm mid-way through. After that, I'll likely hold on to the streaming account for the time being... so long as the price on that doesn't start creeping up needlessly, and the available selection continues to work for me, and streaming quality through Comcast doesn't go back downhill again, it's a reasonable price. Of course, should Amazon improve their selection and give better queue-management tools, or some other service comes out that I can use my Roku box with and that I think I'll like better, I'll jump ship in a heartbeat.

More games to waste time you dont have

And here I thought it was going to be a fairly sedate, relaxed sort of weekend... instead, I find myself sleep-deprived and desperately wanting to play on the PC, but not daring to, lest I miss my regularly-scheduled Sunday afternoon activities.

First, it's worth mentioning that CivWorld has entered open beta on Facebook. It's nicely set up to let you either obsess over it throughout the day, or come back every so often for a longer play session... in my case, it comes out to about an hour a day to take care of things there. It's still not quite ready for prime time, but it's worth your while to check out, if you're into Civilization-style games with little mini-games attached.

Then, there's a little slice of evil called Terraria... I picked it up on sale from Steam the other day for $2.50, so my expectations weren't all that high. Next thing I know, it's after midnight, and I'm considering One More Trip into the depths... so, if exploration and crafting are up your alley, this game is for you, even at the regular $10 they usually charge. Most people think of it as a 2-d version of Minecraft, and they're right insofar as working out what to do to get started is pretty well impossible without referring to online help... but to me, it's more like that Miner Dig Deep game I blogged about earlier this year, with a huge world to play in, build in, and fight various monsters in to boot.

Suffice it to say, I'll be playing CivWorld most evenings, after I get home from work... while Terraria falls into the category of "early weekend only" games, so I can continue to be a somewhat-productive member of society.

Congresscritter sleaziness, as expected

In my last post, I laid out where I stand on this whole bombing-Libya-isn't-hostility line that the current administration is passing off. I can understand that some opinions might differ on that issue, wrong as I think they are. However, it should be a pretty straightforward decision, one way or the other... either the President is doing the right thing, and should have every means at his disposal to do it, or he's doing the wrong thing and should be reined in. The House of Representatives was given the opportunity to say where they stood with a pair of bills: pass one, what the President's doing is A-OK; pass the other, and he's in the wrong. Somehow, they managed to pass neither bill (link).

In order for neither bill to pass, there had to be a significant number of representatives that voted against both bills. On the face of the argument, I don't see how anybody, much less a significant number of anybodies, could say they have no opinion on this issue with a straight face, given the facts. Whether they chose this path on party-solidarity grounds, or with an eye towards re-election, these representatives have simply failed in their duty to their country on this issue.

Oh well, like I said in my last post, I wasn't really holding my breath that Congress would do the right thing as a whole, although I didn't expect something as blatant as this... rather, finding some way to distract attention and let the question die away from the spotlight seems to be the norm. I guess it's up to the Judiciary to do something... maybe... sometime...

Back on the government beat... bombings aren't hostilities?!?

Ever since the US started bombing Libya in defense of civilians (depending greatly on your definition of 'civilian'), and somebody brought up the Vietnam-era War Powers Act, which limits the President's ability to conduct hostilities without Congressional consent, I've been waiting to hear how the executive branch could possibly justify their seemingly blatant violation of said act. Now, under duress, they're releasing their rationale to Congress (link). Basically, it boils down to "it's not hostilities if the other guy can't fight back".

There are all sorts of reasons I could possibly stomach as the basis for a fight over the War Powers Act... top of the list, of course, being a challenge to its constitutionality, but nobody seems to want to go there. This excuse, on the other hand... it doesn't even pass a basic sniff test. It's the equivalent of a high-schooler hitting elementary school kids, then arguing that he shouldn't be suspended for fighting because they couldn't fight back.

For the meanings-of-words-challenged, let's cover "hostility" in a nation-state frame of reference. If you are using military force within the borders of another country without their government's consent, you are acting in a hostile manner to that country. I know, that may be inconvenient, what with all the fun we've had with unmanned drones and precision-guided munitions, but inconvenient doesn't equal wrong. Heck, I might even give you a pass on something like Pakistan, if the government there is giving the OK "under the table" while publicly denouncing your actions to save face with their people... but that's nowhere near Libya's situation, is it?

Well, maybe Congress will call bullshit on this pitiful excuse as a whole... I can only hope, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. At the very least, a few Congresscritters are filing suit (link)... maybe the Judiciary will decide to get involved and (hopefully) do the right thing.

OK, enough about Sony for a while

So, in theory, they finally got the store on PSN up and running today... haven't checked, since the free games promised aren't quite available yet. Best of all, they only missed their self-pronounced deadlines twice to do it. I'm sure I could beat this dead horse for a while, but, honestly, it's just sad... and sadder still, since this whole mess started, multiple Sony divisions have been hackerly-messed-with as well. Much as I don't care for Sony, I can't point and laugh at every little issue of theirs that crops up... barring some big, new, unexpected news (and at this point, another Sony property hacked doesn't count as unexpected), I'm swearing off Sony rants for now. I guess I'll have to come up with something semi-relevant to blog about, if I want to keep adding to this one... :)

Sony online PS3 systems back up... somewhat.

Here I was, kind of looking forward to being able to snark at Sony for their PlayStation Network being down for a full month... but the most important parts, account management and online play, are back up now, a few days shy of the mark. Yes, even though I don't use the PS3 much anymore beyond watching Blu-Ray movies, I've logged in, patched the machine, and gone through with the mandatory password replacement on the service... I don't need somebody trying to use my "dead" account to cause grief down the road.

Of course, their online storefront is still down for "maintenance", so maybe I'll get that snark in yet...

Government Corruption

Wow... some officials don't even seem to be trying to hide it any longer. Today's case in point... one of the FCC commissioners who strove mightily to prevent Internet network neutrality from getting traction there, and who, more recently, helped approve Comcast's merger with NBC, is leaving the commission to become a lobbyist for Comcast (link). Elapsed time from closing that deal as a government worker to starting a job with the corporation she was supposed to be regulating... four months.

Sony - PSN Hacked

Well, this is something I didn't expect to see, and it's rather unfortunate to see... but I can't help but feel a bit of the old schadenfreude just now. PSN (the PlayStation Network) is Sony's proprietary on-line gaming and digital content download system for the PS3... it's been down for the better part of a week, and now it appears that's because Sony shut it down in response to their systems getting hacked. It appears that personal info, including names, addresses, birthdates, usernames and passwords got accessed... and they're not ruling out credit card info being gotten either.

The odd bit in that list above is passwords... basic security practice is to never store passwords in plain-text, but, if they're saying passwords are "in the wild" now, that's exactly what they must have done. If I were still a Sony customer, or had given them my credit card info, or had any other important services that used the same username and password, I would be thoroughly torqued... but I could never justify handing over my credit card info when I could buy cards for the PSN elsewhere, so I certainly wasn't going to reuse a payment-related password there. It will be interesting to see what comes of this as time goes on, and it's unfortunate for all the active PS3 users out there... but it sure sounds like Sony had it coming, never mind their past transgressions.

Portal 2

OK, so, first, if you haven't played the original Portal, which I blogged about earlier, stop right now... play that game first (which is available on even more computer systems than it was back then, thanks to the growth of Steam onto other platforms). You'll get a good idea of the mechanics of the game and the sense of humor involved, and, should it appeal to you, will also be good background for some of the fun to be had in Portal 2... and for under $10 on Steam (and possibly cheaper elsewhere), it's the safer bet to start with.

Now, as far as Portal 2 goes... I wondered, when blogging about the original game, whether a longer game would be any better than the original. In this case, the answer is absolutely, unequivocally yes. The single-player game comes in at about twice as long as the original (in my case, something over 11 hours front-to-back). Much of the added length is due to additional puzzle mechanics based on various substances and technologies researched at Aperture Science, so, while it's still a Portal game, it's not just a rehash of the game play from the first game.

The rest of the added length has to do with the story of the game. While the original story (such as it was) was about you matching wits with the testing facility's governing AI, it was pretty minimal, just providing an outlet for the game's off-beat humor. In Portal 2, something more closely resembling a complete story gets told, thanks to additional characters, along with "time travel" of a sort... I'm not going to go into great detail on that, since it's such great fun to experience as you work your way through the game.

Add in some well-done graphics (especially considering the sheer scale of some of the environments, as compared to the original game) and sound work, and I have to say that Portal 2 is one of the best-made games I've seen in a long while. Yes, it's still short, compared to many titles out there, and doesn't have any real replay potential, but in terms of sheer fun-per-minute played, it's pretty well unmatched. Since I only paid about $35 for my copy, after discounts and deals, I think I got my money's worth out of this game... if I had paid $60, I might not be as well pleased, I suppose.

So, final verdict... if you've played and enjoyed Portal, watch for a deal on this game and get it. If you haven't played the original Portal, spend $10 there first... this game will still be waiting for you once you finish there.

Another Sony update

Earlier this week, Sony settled their lawsuit against on of the PS3 hackers... apparently, the terms are that the hacker won't further distribute the code he already made, won't make any more PS3-breaking code, and won't help anybody else to do so, either. In exchange, both parties avoid trial, which would be financially ruinous for the hacker and more bad PR for Sony. Of course, it's unfortunate that the basic issue of what a hardware owner is allowed to do with their own hardware won't get its day in court, but I can't fault the hacker for taking the bargain, either... after all, that's the very reason I'm not going anywhere near existing hacks until the question is settled.

More random bits

Once again, nothing worthy of its own post has cropped up recently... how much of that is due to the sudden influx of game-scavenging goodness I've had recently, I can't say for certain. Here's what I do know:

• I don't expect much out of either local morning news shows (which are mostly fluff) or local weekend news shows (which are mostly reruns), and local weekend morning news shows are the worst of both worlds. That said, KHQ set the bar to an all-new low over the weekend, with their anchor holding up a copy of the local paper to display the printed headline, then telling viewers to read the paper for details. I'm pretty sure both the station and the paper are owned by the same company, but still... that's just a bit too pathetic.
• If you own an XBox360, Full House Poker is a nice little Texas Hold 'Em game, which you can play online against others. Just be aware that the "Texas Heat" events, in particular... well, the servers are still a bit dodgy, for all they've improved from launch day.
• I think I can officially call myself a "manga addict" now... I've already pretty well filled a small "media storage" shelving unit with books, I'm partway through a couple of different series, including some that I know the release date of the next book in the series, and I even subscribed to Otaku USA, to help me sort through the vast quantities of material out there and weed out the craptastic and excessively pervy. Amazon Prime is going to be very handy for me for the foreseeable future.
  

Hey, news critters...

So, yeah, Japan's unfortunate nuclear issues continue... having been involved in nuclear power in the past myself, I had a pretty good guess as to where that situation would evolve over time, and, sadly, I was pretty well right. Of course, a fair deal of that guesswork was in spite of news coverage, not due to any great illumination it provided... which is why I felt the need to post something.

Now, I'm sure that many of you one-time journalism majors didn't fare especially well in your college science courses, and I didn't start ranting at you as soon as you started covering the story. I'm aware that the pressures of getting fresh news available to the public ahead of/in tandem with your competitors can cause you to lose focus on some of the details a bit. However, we're now in the realm of weeks of coverage time, and every major outlet has provided an animation or info graphic of what a boiling water reactor is and how it works... I think it's high time you took the time to get your terminology straight, so that you're handing out useful information to the news-consuming public.

For starters, if you're going to talk about "increased" radiation levels, you had best include actual measurements... we can detect radiation levels well below the level where they have any impact on humans. Also, get the difference between "radiation" and "radioactive contamination" straight in your heads... for example, the water leaking out of some of the reactors and fuel cell storage pools is likely contaminated, but isn't in and of itself radioactive. That means that it could, in theory at least, be purified, leading to much less radioactive waste to be cleaned up and kept track of later.

It would also be a good idea to get the names of the parts of a reactor down, as well. Whatever other problems they may be having, I'm quite certain that the "reactor core" isn't leaking on any of them... or, if it is, then it's leaking liquefied radioactive metals from the meltdown that's going on inside. The reactor vessel might be leaking... that's the large, pressurized metal enclosure that holds the reactor core and all that water that's been contaminated by radioactive materials from the core while trying to cool it down. While you're at it, you might want to look into "pressure relief valves"... those are the things that kept letting steam and hydrogen (and any entrained contamination) escape from the pressure vessel and/or the coolant loop. Since those have operated as intended (as evidenced by the hydrogen explosions at a few of the plants), it's fair to say that those reactors have lost "containment" of some of the materials that they were supposed to be keeping bottled up inside... mind you, it's not as bad as it could be, but it's still the source of all that contamination (NOT radiation!) that's cropping up in airborne samples, food, and water from the region.

I'm sure there's more that I could find to nitpick about, but those are the examples that I see Every Single Day that coverage of this tragedy continues. If it's too hard for you, maybe you can spend your time covering the earthquake and tsunami victims instead... that's much more photogenic and easier to understand anyways.

Still here!

Yeah, it's been almost a month since I posted anything... but that's mostly because the things I like to post about seem so banal compared to what's happening in the world around us. Just as a for example, yeah, Despicable Me was entertaining enough (especially the sequences dealing with the Bank of Evil), but stack that against either the current Libyan fighting or the earthquake/tsunami/nuke plant failures in Japan, and it doesn't even rate for distraction purposes.

One thing I will mention, on the off chance it passed under your radar... the last IPv4 Internet addresses were handed out to the regional authorities last month. Long story short, you can expect change to come to your Internet connection, one way or another, in the next few years.

DVD pick: Summer Wars

For once, it's a reasonably new release I'm talking about... Summer Wars just came out on DVD and Blu-Ray a couple of days back. It's a nice anime movie, concerning a high-school computer/math nerd and the popular girl that convinces him to accompany her to a family gathering in the countryside, where she expects him to pass himself off as her fiancee. Of course, the family turns out to be "landed" family from several hundred years back that, while no longer rich, still has influential contacts all over, which poses its own set of problems... and there's a standardized, worldwide computer architecture that covers everything from gaming to mission-critical systems (which, for any budding computer engineers out there, would be a Bad Thing)... and something gets let loose in that system, so additional chaos ensues.

Now, having read that, it would be fair to assume that the movie is an impenetrable mish-mash of story lines from a group that couldn't make up their mind as to what sort of film they really wanted to make. Nothing could be further from the truth... whether it's the mix of real life and online activity, or the ratio of funny to sad bits, the one word that best describes this movie is balanced. Yes, there are a few characters who stand out, but it's not in the sense of "here's the anointed hero coming to save the day" that is so common in anime... rather, there are a few necessary roles needed to give the story the gentle nudges it needs to get started or keep going, but, outside of those moments, it's really a case of everybody doing what they feel is the right thing. Sometimes, that "right thing" turns out to be terribly wrong... but, that's life, isn't it?

So, long story short, it's not a perfect film, but it's definitely worth your time to watch. I think the DVD version, at least, is available through Netflix... if you can get your hands on the Blu-Ray, all the better.

As always, caveat emptor

So, early last year I mentioned Comcast's bandwidth caps and measuring bandwidth usage... specifically, what their newly-released tool reported versus what my router reported. No, this isn't another anti-Comcast screed... the target of my ire (erm, mild disgust?) this time is the router manufacturer, Netgear.

You see, in order to get the bandwidth monitoring features I needed, I had to buy their then-top-of-the-line consumer router, the WNDR3700. It promised all sorts of bells and whistles beyond what I actually needed (wireless-N networking, expanded range wireless-G networking, and the ability to plug in a USB drive to serve up audio and video content on the network, to name a few). It worked... mostly. Sure, the bandwidth statistics collection wasn't bulletproof, and the USB connection was flaky, and you might need to reboot the router if the DHCP server locked up, but I figured all of that might be fixable in firmware.

Time passed, there was a firmware update or two, and things got better... but they never got right. Finally, once Comcast got their own metering solution in place, I went back to my old wireless-G router (another Netgear model, but version 9 of that product line... pretty well bulletproof). I figured I could check occasionally for a new firmware for the high-end router, and give it another go when that day came.

It's been roughly a year since that time. I saw a brief reference to an updated firmware file in my Google search, and started digging a little deeper. The Netgear website doesn't have any available firmware to download for my version of the WNDR3700, but does have for the next version up... the first time I've ever seen a router manufacturer pull that particular trick. Further searches on the Internet provided tales of tech-support woe, links to briefly-released beta firmwares, that sort of thing... in effect, it appears that Netgear has decided to abandon my router, while continuing to build and sell routers with the same model number, and hope nobody notices.

So, I'm not nearly so torqued with Netgear as I have been with the likes of Sony... they sold a product in seeming good faith that didn't live up to expectations. A better company might have issued a recall, or a trade-in program of some sort, but that sort of company is few and far between these days, especially in the realm of consumer electronics. I'm not blacklisting Netgear for future purchases... however, you can be certain that I'll be carefully weighing the pros and cons of buying any gear of theirs in the future before putting money down, supposing there isn't an equivalently priced/available piece of gear from a reputable competitor.

Psychonauts

OK, Psychonauts is a bit of an older title (released in 2005), but don't let that keep you from trying it out... it's one of those rare cases where it really holds up well over the years. I expect that's because of the art style of the game... since it doesn't take itself too seriously, they use an offbeat, not-quite-cartoony visual style that I wouldn't expect to change much if the game were remade for today's consoles.

As far as what the game is, it's a 3d platformer, following the exploits of the young protagonist Raz, a budding young psychic, starting with his break-in into a government-run summer camp for psychic children, and running from that odd starting point to progressively stranger encounters. All the while, Raz improves his powers and adds new ones along the way, which he can use however he wants thereafter to get past the challenges he faces.

Of course, a good platformer needs a variety of levels, if it doesn't want to bore the player through repetition. In the case of Psychonauts, this is accomplished by having Raz enter the minds of various people to meet his goals (well, mostly people at least... I guess it depends on how you view giant mutated lungfish, for example). Their personalities, histories, and, in some cases, mental health problems, shape the worlds you explore... and, if you care to look around hard enough, you might find out things that, while not strictly necessary to the overall story, make the individual characters more than the bare-bones stereotypes they play to move the story forward.

Overall, it's a unique little game, and I mean that in a good way. It's a solid platformer, a fun world that doesn't take itself too seriously, and mostly avoids the trap of send 'em back to the start if they don't do well (although, some of the final levels of the "meat circus" had me cursing the designers for not spacing their respawns to my liking). It's a $15 (1200 point) download on the Xbox360, probably less for one of the legal PC-version downloads, or you might even find the original disc floating around a used game store for Xbox or PS2. If you have the hardware to support, I think you'll find it worth your while... play time for me was about 15 hours front to back.

FCC ISP regulation battle part 2: Verizon joins in

Well, I'm mildly surprised it took a whole month... after the FCC put forth new restrictions on Internet providers, Verizon has gone to the courts seeking to have the FCC slapped down again (link). I'm sure Comcast would have been happy to jump in again, but they had that whole merger with NBC in front of the FCC already.

Oh well, no great skin off my back... I don't use Verizon, and had no plans of jumping to them with the disgruntled AT&T iPhone lemmings. I'll just sit back and watch the fun for now.

Time for a new toy: Kobo e-reader

When I was younger, I used to, almost literally, devour books. I was an avid enough reader, especially of fantasy and science fiction, that I routinely read while walking from place to place, during church services, and so forth. That changed a fair deal when I was able to afford my first computer, and my more obsessive qualities transferred to that medium, but I still read with great regularity. In recent years, though, I have definitely lost the drive to read... there are too many games, cartoons, movies, etc. to take up large chunks of time. The most "reading" I've done of late has been manga, usually in snippets here and there, occasionally getting sucked into a volume long enough to finish it at one reading... and even then, that takes about an hour, tops.

Over the weekend, Borders held a sale on their Kobo e-reader, bringing the price down to about $100 from its regular $140, which was enough to trigger some thought on my part... what kept me from reading at home? Paperbacks of the sort I tend to like have a fair degree of heft to them, and, while bookmarkable, require some manipulation to get back to where you left off... and, if you have a short reading window, remembering exactly where you left off in a couple of pages of text can take a bit as well. An e-reader takes care of most of those issues for you, plus you don't accumulate physical books all over the house... and the Kobo is a bare-bones device (which warms my engineer heart), supports standard publishing formats (so you're not locked into one store's goods), and comes pre-loaded with 100 books.

So, yeah, I bit... and so far, I'm not sad I did. Those pre-loaded books are "classics", of course, which works for me. I tried out the intended store mechanism to download another free book, which was straightforward enough... but, especially at first, I'm likely to take full advantage of some of the legal, free sources for books online. For example, Project Gutenberg, for some older titles like The Devil's Dictionary... or the Baen Free Library, when I'm looking for a new sci-fi series to get lured into. It may take me a bit longer to get through some of these titles than when I was younger, but even 5 or 10 minutes at a shot should get me some good entertainment value for the money.

Sony, digging their hole deeper

I haven't posted much about my ongoing displeasure with Sony's PS3 shenanigans, and nothing since August of last year... mostly because developments I've seen have had that icky "pirate aftertaste" about them, and I held out some sliver of hope, however small, that Sony might see (or be forced to see, thanks to the class-action lawsuit against them) the error of their ways. That hope is pretty well gone, since they seem to have lost even the basic concept of how the Internet works, now that they're trying to sue a group of hackers, including foreign nationals, in a California court... not for monetary damages, but just to get them to stop posting how to jailbreak your PS3 (link).

For those of you less-obsessed than I, here's a brief rundown of how we've gotten to where we are today: Sony's first-generation "fat" PS3 consoles came with an "Other OS" option, useful for hobbyists (such as myself) who wanted to play with things like Linux on their consoles... in part, at least, this option was likely included to help dodge tariffs on importing dedicated videogame consoles. Years down the road, Sony releases redesigned "slim" PS3 consoles that lack this feature. All fine and well, until April of last year, when Sony retroactively removes Other OS from the fat consoles, in response to a hacker working out how to access some hardware Sony didn't intend Other OS to have access to, alleging security concerns.

In removing Other OS, Sony managed to annoy some of the most technically-savvy customers they had, including people who don't like being told there are arbitrary limits on what they can do with hardware they purchased. First, somebody came up with a USB dongle that used, if I recall properly, a Sony-provided "service mode" to let you install programs on your PS3, bypassing their security checks that way... Sony made relatively quick work of that problem by getting the dongles seized by customs through court order. More recently, hackers have discovered a "master key" Sony uses to verify software as valid for install, posting video proof and key details on the Internet... details that Sony apparently can't fix without breaking their own systems.

So, for those of you so inclined, with PS3 systems of any age... the details are now out there to install whatever you want or can find on your PS3, and I don't expect that to change, no matter what legal tactics Sony employs, because the details are "in the wild" on the Internet. Myself, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to large corporations in US courts... since Sony started the legal ball rolling today, I'm willing to wait for a bit and verify that this does, in fact, fall under the jailbreaking exception of the DMCA. If it does, by that time, I'm sure the tools will be available to back up my current firmware and programs (just to be on the safe side), then wipe my PS3 clean and see what fun I can find in the way of operating systems, media center software, and the like. This should be fun to watch, from here on out.

Miner Dig Deep

If you own an Xbox360, and have a spare 80 points lying around your account, you could do much worse than to spend it on Miner Dig Deep. Yes, for $1, you can get a dirt-simple mining game, with graphics, sound, and gameplay much better than you might expect for that measly sum. Just be warned... it's an addictive little toy. For all you can do a trip down into the mine in 5-10 minutes, I've got one game I've been playing for about 5 hours or so, with no end in sight... it's got that nebulous "one more round" quality that only the best games bring up. I'd write more, but... I've got some digging to get back to... ;)