Technology that rocks

I posted below about technology that sucks. Now here some technology that rocks.

Apparently there has been some serious breakthroughs recently in the field of invisibility. Cloaking technology is much much closer then most people probably assume based on this article.

Although the cloaking would apply only to radar waves at first the concept could be applied to visible light once the proper materials are available. Very cool. Its a good time to be alive.

Worst technology ever

PC Magazine has released a list of top 25 worst pieces of technology ever. Most of them cover PC related topics but not all. Some of the ones that stand out to me are:

1. AOL as the single worst piece of technology ever. Yeah that one is easy to see.

2. Realnetworks. Real was bought out by AOL and ended up being nothing more then over glorified spyware. Yeah it sucks.

4. Windows ME. Yes I used it. Yes it sucked.

23. Free PC's. Luckily I stopped working at Circuit City just before the "free" PC craze hit the market. Places like Circuit City and Best Buy sold computers for "free" if you signed up for and ISP contract for a year or 18 months and paid 21 dollars per month. Total rip off because the computers sucked ass.

On the Honorable Mention List of worst technology was the Circuit City DIVX system. I did work as Circuit City when the DIVX was being introduced and it was a total flop. I remember going into meetings and the sales managers pushing the technology hardcore. It was a stupid idea and bombed. Good ridance if you ask me.

Check out the list for your self and see which one of these technologies you personally encountered; you might be surprised.

Armor-all on the Dashboard

Microsoft is releasing its first major update of its Xbox Live Dashboard and I couldnt be happier. Some of the new features include: play games while you download, que up 6 downloads at once and most importantly boot directly to the Dashboard instead of the disc in the drive.

Three cheers M$ you rock.

Ghost Rider Trailer

Eat it up, yum! I willingly profess ignorance when it comes to this character. All I know is that the character looks bad ass and Nicholas Cage is a huge fan of comics. He named himself after Luke Cage, for cripe's sake. His son is named Kal-El. Need I say more? My point, is that the guy takes comics seriously and if he knows anything about this character, I'm sure he'll try to play it accordingly.

Lost Season 2 finale (Spoiler Alert)

Well another season of Lost has come and gone. In case you missed it heres a quick recap of the events of the 2 hour finale last night (in no real order):

The boat which the survivors found was manned by Desmond who tried to sail off the island only to find himself back where he started.

Locke decided to stop pushing the button. Then he decided that Mr. Ecko should stop pushing the button too.

Michael, Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and Kate set off to the Others camp while Sayyid sailed around the island with Jin and Sun for a sneak attack. Along the way they find a GIANT statue of a foot with 4 toes.

Michael sold out the survivors to rescue his son and is given a boat and told how to get off the island. At the end he sails off into the sun set with Walt while Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are tied up surrounded by the Others. Hurley is let go so he can tell the remaining survivors never to return to the other side of the island.

Locke and Desmond seal Mr. Ecko out of the computer room and let the timer run down. Desmond realizes just in time what the machine does and decides to trip the fail safe after Locke smashes the computer.

In the Desmond’s flashbacks we find out that the machine is a giant electromagnet and pressing the button discharges. If it isn’t discharged it will do something BAD (we don’t know what but its bad). We also find out that the one time it wasn’t pressed is exactly the same time that flight 815 crashed. So by not pressing the button one time Desmond “shot down” flight 815.

When Desmond trips the fail safe a bright light and loud noise wash over the island. When it ends nothing seems to have changed, but the door from the hatch comes crashing into the camp as if a huge explosion threw it up into the air.

At the end of the episode, Jack, Kate and Sawyer are hostages; the status of the hatch (along with Locke, Mr. Ecko and Desmond) is unknown and the big cliff hanger is that somewhere in the Arctic a monitoring station picks up the electromagnetic disturbance from the hatch and it turns out its being monitored by Desmonds rich ex-fiancé who is looking for him.

Overall it was a decent episode, not nearly as good as the first season finale but the overall potential of next season I think is greater. There are many different storylines which can be explored from this point on.

The Wii Line at E3

Let's pretend for a moment that you were at E3. Naturally, you'd be interested in seeing what the big deal is with the Nintendo Wii. Well, you're not the only one. This 2 minute clip shows what the wait was like for people who wanted to get their hands on a Wii. That is determination my friends!

Pleas from Banned Gamers

Bungie recently put up an article showing some of the emails they get from Halo2 gamers that have been banned from playing online due to cheating, modding, etc. As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. After reading the article, I don't know what's worse. The fact that these people are so utterly clueless or the fact that they have butchered our language to such a degree that only "literary terrorism" can describe it. These people have declared jihad on the English language and should be treated accordingly.

Junk Drawer - #1

I've got some random stuff to throw around, so bear with me as I experiment with a little something I like to call "Junk Drawer".

• The past week was Hell on Earth in the Francis household. I managed to contract some kind of alien stomach virus, which knocked me flat on my ass for several days. Symptoms include projectile vomiting, intense stomach cramps, and explosive diarrhea. And that's just the first few hours. As you to start heal, headaches and back pain are common along with an enhanced sense of smell. No joke. But why suffer alone, when you can share the fun with your spouse or domestic life partner. Good times!

• I'm digging the recent changes to the blog. A new address and the addition of gamercards is a nice touch. As I'm sure you've noticed, my gamercard leaves a lot to be desired. Until I can get my hands on a HDTV and a 360, it will have to do. I can link you to my Halo2 stats, if that does anything for you. Anyway, if you all are interested in other ways to display your gamercards, check out this site.

• Paris Hilton has a game out and managed to get the name of it wrong at E3. Color me surprised. Read all about it.

• Gordon isn't the only one who has succumbed to the wily advances of one Steve Jobs. My wife got me an iPod Nano for our anniversary. Traditionally, the fourth anniversary is either books, fruit, or flowers. My wife decided to buy something from Apple. Isn't that cute? I'm pretty impressed with the little thing, and I'm sure you'll be seeing a review from me at some point in the near future. If you're looking for some killer skins or cases for your iPod, check out iStyles.com. They also have stuff for the GBA SP, PSP, Game Boy Micro, and Nintendo DS. The company is based out of Singapore, so don't order anything unless you have some degree of patience. I ordered the following skins and I'm super-psyched about their arrival:

Sports Games For Dorks

In regards to Gordon's post below: There's a dividing line between video gamers. We all know it. You have the sports gamers and then you have the rest of us dorks that play everything else. I think it's a direct projection of the high school experience for most kids. If you weren't on the illustrious Basketball team, then you did everything else: Chess Club, Debate Team, Band, Color Guard, etc. This dork exclusion has always made me a litte uneasy about sports games. Lets face it. I can whip anyone in Call of Duty or Burnout, but put a virtual basketball in my digital hands and I'm suddenly all thumbs, drooling on my controller blank-eyed and confused as my opponent demonstrates every dunk in the game over and over again.

But not any more.

I see a trend in 360 games. A trend that brings sports games to the rest of us. I have had an absolute BLAST playing Fight Night 3 and Top Spin 2 lately (and other than some social football use, I'm pretty much sports-free). I know tabletop tennis and boxing aren't traditional sports games, but at least I can actually say I'm dabbling with the genre.

Table Tennis is cool again?

The makers of the infamous Grand Theft Auto are coming out with another game which involves smashing an orb with a blunt object. No its not another round of beating up hookers in GTA its TABLE TENNIS!

Thats right the game everyone plays and most people suck at is coming to the Xbox 360. This game got a lot of hype at E3 and a lot of people are eager for it. Personally Im looking forward to this unique take on sports games. Check out the video, the graphics look amazing.

Welcome Sterling

We got a new contributing blogger today! WebEx welcomes one of my best virtual pals, Sterling. You might remember him as Kudo from the digital realms.

Who the hell is Boss Tempo?

I posted my gamertag info over there. At least you can see what I'm playing and it adds a little color to the site. If you guys get a 360 and want to share your tag, let me know and I'll get it over there no prob.

Stand aside Xmen, Move over Superman, Here comes....

BIBLEMAN!!!!

Faster then a speeding Jesus, more powerful then speeding Pope-mobile, able to leap past the theory of evolution in a single bound, its Bibleman.

Sent from a distant place (probably heaven, which doesnt really exist) to teach you about a mythical all-powerful being nobody has ever actually seen (who also doesnt exist) Bibleman has come to this world to teach you that if you dont believe in Americanized Evangilical Christian bible thumping he's going to whack you with his light saber.

Wait did I just say LIGHT SABER??? Thats right, the super hero of the all those whacky churchies whacks non-believers with a light saber.

I cant make this stuff up if I tried people. Watch the video in awe and then get your ass to church to repent your sins.

EDIT: I found this just to prove Im not making this up.

Must....buy....a...360

So one of the games which really has me wanting to buy an Xbox 360 is Chromehounds. Apparently a demo of the game will be coming out soon. Man Ive got to get a 360 ASAP. Too bad I just had to cough up a bunch of money to get my car serviced, Im sure that money just came out of my 360 fund (at least my wife probably seems to think it has).

Anyone Angry Yet?

Bush on phone call monitoring: "One end of the communication must be outside the United States"

Bullshit.

Ive gone to the dark side (or the light side depending on how you look at it)

So last month I severly screwed up my wifes birthday present. What did I get her you ask.....

Well nothing which is why it was so screwed up.

So after an extra month of contemplating what to get her I broke down and purchased my first product EVER from Apple Computers.

Thats right I bought my wife an Ipod. I got her the 4 gig black nano. Its pretty damn cool and she loves it. My wife has owned several MP3 players before but she always buys the cheap 256 meg versions and breaks or loses them in a week. So I figure this should hopefully keep her jamming out to her tunes for a while.

Of course I hope purchasing Apple stuff doesnt become a habit for me, Im just too die hard into PC stuff.

No internet for 6 days = the suck

Topic says enough.

The New Alliance Race in WoW Confirmed

Yep, it's the Dranei. I don't think this comes as a shock to anyone. Not that it matters to me anymore but maybe someone else can benefit from the news. Move along folks. Nothing more to see here.

Time Magazine Gets Their Hands On Nintendo's Wii

Read all about it. I hope Nintendo realizes what they're doing with that ridiculous name. That title just sounds wrong and it's not really my fault. Okay, I'll take maybe 10% of the blame. I couldn't resist. All dick jokes aside though, the article was very enlightening. I can see where Miyamoto and Iwata are coming from with this new console. They appear to be solely focused on the creative aspect of gaming and are really reaching out to non-gamers. The only thing I worry about though is whether or not Nintendo will burn a lot of bridges with current gamers, to achieve their goals. It's a fine line they walk.

Video Games Live Coming to Indianapolis - August 11 & 12

I bring good tidings of great joy! Indianapolis is totally within reasonable driving distance from Lexington. Tickets go on sale May 22. It looks like I'm finally going to be able to attend this thing and I'm pretty psyched right now. I'm sure my wife and I will be hitting the Saturday show, so if anyone's interested in doing a caravan let me know.

If you're still not sure about VGL, then check out this exclusive clip (wmv). It's almost 13 minutes of footage from the show and was intended for newsletter recipients only. So let's keep it on the DL, shall we?

Webcam Poker

The picture says it all.

Another Anti-Piracy Attempt Misses The Mark

Warner Brothers is on the move this week, claiming to embrace BitTorrent as a means to distribute their films. Anyone who thinks this through will soon come to the simple conclusion that this is a joke: Hey we're Warner Bros...lets charge users to BitTorrent movies (files riddled with copy-protection and hackware that only allows users to burn ONE copy of said downloaded movie)! It will cost as much as paying for a DVD and nevermind that we're not paying for booklets, packaging or bandwidth...lets do this awesome thing and flood the media with press releases that say how we're the first to embrace BitTorrent! If you want to read more of this ridiculous prattle, make with the clicking.

PS3 Onboard for POS Controller

Sony released loads of information related to the PS3 yesterday at E3. Although pricey, it sounds like a badass little console, except for the controller, which sounds like a rip-off of the upcoming Wii controller. But wait! Did they really rip that idea off Nintendo? Not exactly. Anyone remember LeStick? It was a motion sensing controller for the Atari 2600 and Atari 800 that dates back more than 20 years. It really sucked too. You'll see me on a Dance Dance Revolution platform before you see me foolishly swinging around a little gyroscope controller, thats for sure.

But lets get back to that PS3 thing. They're bragging it will be twice as fast the 360, which will be more than a year old by the time the PS3 hits the shelves. Considering Moore's Law: PS3 will sell for $499 (20g HD) or $599 (60g HD). European consumers will be paying a minimum of $633 for this thing! By the time this thing rolls out, the 360 expects to drop its price from the $299 (no HD) or $399 (20g HD) by $100 before Christmas. So on the low end you're talking $199 for a 360 or $499 for a PS3. 300 bucks better be worth it for those extra floating pixels, but I guess that's up to the game developers.

Speaking of developers, it's the general feeling in the industry that if developers don't make maximum use of these wacky controllers for the PS3 and Wii, they may not go over quite as well as they're anticipating.

Nintendo's Weewee Inadequate

Nintendo is already announcing that the Wii is probably going to suck. The good news is that due to its suckiness, it will be cheap (around $200). The PR spin from E3 this week sound like this: Hi we're Nintendo and although the Wii will NOT have hi-def capabilities and the graphics won't come close to par with Sony and MS, we're banking on our heavy influence on creative games (?) and the new, innovative joystick that you get to swing around to win over consumers. This sounds like the kiss of death to me. I mean, haven't they seen video games on hi-def sets that aren't in hi-def? The graphics are better on those all-in-one game controllers with Pitfall and Ms. Pacman built into them!

Farewell WoW

Dear World of Warcraft,

I'm sorry it had to end like this but we both know it's for the best. You're just SO needy and I have neither the time nor the energy to deal with you right now. If you had your way, I'd spend every waking moment with you until my identity was no longer my own. I would cease to be "John" and would simply become "Dagjager" 24-7. When we started this relationship, it was just about you and me....hanging out....having fun....getting to know one another. But now you tell me that I'll never live up to my full potential, unless I hang out in groups with 39 other people doing the same crap day in and day out. No thanks! I already have a job.

I may check in on you from time to time, but for now I think it's best if we just parted ways. Farewell WoW.

Sincerely,
John

Parkour In Action

Here's a clip from a French movie called Banlieue 13, that is sure to rock your world. The guy in this movie is obviously doing a lot (if not all) of the stunts himself, but there's more to it than that. From what I can tell, this clip is a good example of Parkour in action. I don't pretend to know much on the subject. I just know it's bad-ass and Penny-Arcade happened to be talking about it today. If you want to find out more about the "sport", then check out www.parkour.com.

Bootleg Video from "X-Men: The Last Stand"

Apparently, the movie is officially called "X-Men: The Last Stand" and not X3. That's news to me. For the sake of brevity, I shall continue to refer to it as X3. Anyway, I did a post on the X3 teaser back in December and pretty much gave a play-by-play on what was happening in the clip. One of the things I noticed was Wolverine sailing through the air via a "fastball special". Well this new clip (more than likely obtained via clandestine methods) shows that maneuver in action.

Now before I up and drop the link, let me warn you. The clip could be considered somewhat of a spoiler, since it pretty much highlights a NEW threat to the X-Men. Something we haven't seen in the movies yet. So without further ado....

HERE YOU GO

Superman Returns Trailer

This is not the teaser that I posted a while back. This is the full-blown trailer and it is very "delish". I'm definitely digging the cast especially Frank Langella as Perry White and Kevin Spacey as Luthor. The blockbuster movie season always makes me giddy, like a school girl being asked to the prom by the star quarterback. I just hope he will respect me and treat me like a lady though. I want to have a good time but I don't want to end up passed out in the back seat of his car wondering, "What happened?" and "Where are my pants?"

And that's what we call a metaphor folks! Sayonara.

End of the World

Gotta love apocalyptic flash animation.

Idiots

This article enraged me so much that I cant even think of funny things to say about it. Probably because there is nothing funny about the people in our country being so stupid.

Isn't My Monitor Pretty?

This is what happens when your wife buys you a pack of Rainbow Brite stickers for Easter and you work from home.

In case you're wondering, I had a major crush on Rainbow Brite growing up. Yes, I realize she's a fictional character but so are all the Night Elf females that all of the guys in WoW play. So let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

So yeah, I was a big fan of Ms. Brite back in the day. I don't know what the attraction was. Maybe it was the silky smooth skin or her golden locks. Maybe it was because she was just so earthy and had that girl-next-door quality. Who knows?

And that my friends is your daily dose of ghey.

Playstation 3 Not Quite What Was Promised

...which is about par for Sony. Here's a very technical article, riddled with PS3 stats and hype de-bunks. Not quite "twice the processing power" of the 360, but hey...as we all know I'm a wacky 360 fanboy so what do I know?