January 2006 Archives
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January 30, 2006
Fun Weekend
I haven't been posting much lately. Work has been crazy busy, of course.
This last weekend we had gaming Saturday, followed by a chocolate fountain to test it out for at our reception. Sunday was then a movie and lunch out. Lots of visiting with friends and such.
We played Metro, a subway game placed in Paris in 1898. This particular version was brought over directly from Germany and so we had to find English instructions online. Although the beginning of the game was a bit slow with 5 people and there appeared to be a lot of amiguity within the instructions, after the game got rolling it started playing much better and everything turned out fine with the assumptions we made. I think the 5 of us that played enjoyed it. After everyone left that night Laurie and I played it again alone. It played out quite a bit differently, and was fun although arguably much harder because you have more choices and more opportunities to miss stuff.
After that we almost started a game of Hoity Toity (sp?) but more people arrived and we had too many for it. Instead, I think we played RoboRally next a couple of times. I really enjoyed it, although I think it would turned from a random mess of confused robots with 8 people to a careful strategy game with only two players so I'm not sure if we'll try to pick it up at some point.
We played a game of Munchkin with Munchkin Fu mixed in. Something didn't sit well with me in the game, so I was happy to see it end when it did. :)
After that, we were up to about 10 people to play a fun game of Sabateur. Although it plays similar with 10 as it does with 3 or 4, each individual person has less say in the whole map and if you have two pieces you can play by the time you get to go again you may not be able to play the second piece due to changes. The limited number of cards and the small hands also mean it's more likely that one or two people can hardly help their side at all. Curiously, though, it also usually meant that after the first round everyone had a pretty good idea of where the gold was. Six of 9 of use learned that we had been playing a particular rule wrong (a "fix" card with two tools can only fix one of the two -- we'd all played where it could fix both of them -- a distinction that can help nearly guarantee that breaking two or three tools on someone in this size game would keep them out the rest of the game -- in fact, we found that true in many cases since the fewer plays meant you usually had less of an idea whoe the sabateurs were until the round was almost over).
The chocolate fountain distracted us for quite a while as well as gave us all sugar and caffein highs as well as the fall off not long after. We also demonstrated Fjords to a couple of people (well, they played). Again we realized we had been playing one particular rule wrong. Fjords is designed by the same designer as Carcassone (a game we've been enjoying a lot lately). You have to touch two sides and we had been playing where you could just touch one side when laying a tile. We played it Sunday with these rules and actually didn't like it nearly as much.
The last game for the group on Saturday night was Niagara. Again, our copy was directly from Germany, however it came with English instructions and we were playing with someone who had played it before. Interestingly, our box came with a DVD. It's PAL, so we haven't stuck it into our player yet to see what it is, but we are interested. This was actually a pretty fun game, but it can only be played with 3 people (although I'm not entirely sure why -- it seemed like it would play fine with only two). It was quite a bit different that other games and the whole river flowing thing was a bit odd (and our board needs to be broken in a little more for it to be smoother). The plastic inside the box is brilliant with individual slots for every single piece.
Sunday we went to see Underworld: Evolution. It was almost exactly what I would have expected. I think I liked the first one better, but it was more good story. The world they have created is pretty neat, although they seem to have killed off all of the big bad guys fairly easily. It is totally set for another sequel, though, which is cool.
Later on after getting home we picked up Settlers of Catan the Card Game from our mailbox -- it had been sitting there all day Saturday. It's only a two person game but it's really quite a good game. I'm not sure if it's better than the 2-player variant of Settlers of Catan, but it definitely captures the essence and flavor while having it's own, unique gameplay. It isn't published anymore, so we had to pick it up off of eBay.
There was almost no computer gaming or even computer usage for most of the weekend. I think I got maybe 45 minutes on the PSP -- all which I spent either playing Wipeout Pure or downloading stuff for it. I'm just borrowing it, but I may have to see how cheaply I can pick up a copy on eBay. :)
*yawn*
(To give an idea of how busy work is, I've had the 5 minutes of downtime I needed to write this spread out over the last 7 hours. )
January 20, 2006
Make And Mind: Magazine Madness
There are few tech publishers out there more respected than O'Reilly & Associates. Their funky yet witty animal covers have delighted me since I first picked up Unix in a Nutshell (still a personal favorite) at the age of 15. So when we heard that there was a new geeky magazine out there, aptly called Make, we were, of course, quite fascinated. Especially with O'Reilly's latest line of Hacks books, we thought that perhaps this magazine idea had some potential. But then, we're software engineers and so some new geeky magazine that talks about things like hacking your Gmail account and clever iPod tricks was right up our alley. But while this is a fun magazine to flip through in the store, I cannot seem to sign up for a subscription. Despite the fact that it's a quarterly magazine, the ticket price is as substantial as a Nutshell book at $15 an issue. Perhaps my husband likes the idea of modifying an old VHS player with a food chopper adapter, creating a programmable catfood dispenser like that out of Back To The Future, but I'd rather give the VCR to goodwill and get the tax write-off. Too many of the stories are just too... nerdy for my geekgirl interests. And yes, there is a difference between nerd and geek. But Make is trying to attract both audiences.
Funny enough, the other magazine we've had our eyes on is called Mind. My father works in the neurology field with a speciality in epilepsy. He also has a warped sense of humor. I remember once back in high school, when he picked me up after classes and placed a wooden box in my lap as we drove off. I asked, "What's this?" as I fingered the latch. "A human skull", he replied. Of course, I thought he was joking until I flipped the lid. His department Secret Santas are always interesting, one year he even got a brain-shaped jello mould. How cool is that? I don't understand why my mother refuses to use it... So when Scientific American spawned a periodical focusing on topics like consciousness, intelligence & cognition, we were excited to see what they'd share. Both Shane and I find such topics as how thought processes work and how people justify behaviors fascinating. But while we sometimes find interesting articles in Mind magazine that are easy to understand, often with clever illustrations, the majority of the topics read like some Time magazine article - too fluffy for me, but then I like reading quality science materials like Nature magazine. It seems to me that many of the Mind article authors report on findings that are often not even particularly recent, and while they may do a fantastic job in explaining the concept to the layman, they don't add anything new - they don't often make it clear how well established a concept is within the scientific community - is it a new idea? A theory, well-accepted or otherwise? What are the ramifications of this knowledge? What can we learn from it? How can we apply this knowledge? Mind articles excel when it comes to explaining these mind-concepts, but sadly lacking when it comes to drawing any new or interesting conclusions about them.
January 16, 2006
Yet Another Linux PDA For Sale
Here was have yet another Linux PDA that I'm selling off: the Agenda VR3. This one is the developers edition, which I think just means that it has 8MB of RAM rather than 16MB of the other ones (it does have 8MB, according to free and /proc/meminfo).
The Agenda VR3 has a bunch of simple games installed as well as your basic PIM applications. It also runs X-Windows like the Yopy. This may give some ability to run apps on it remotely (e.g. export the window to a local X-server) and have a keyboard and decent screen. With the serial port and (apparently) another port, it might be able to make an interesting microserver with some input available. LIke the other one, there is a fair amount of information still out and about on the 'net.
Sadly, like the other one, I never really had much time to really see what it could do.
eBay: Agenda VR3 Developer Edition 8MB Linux PDA (item 5855154378 end time Jan-22-06 17:34:52 PST)
January 15, 2006
Another Gadget For Sale (Yopy Linux PDA)
Well, the Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 Linux PDA with VGA screen didn't actually sell. I think I have a buyer for it, but if you're interested let me know in case the buyer decides not to buy it. I am trying to get at least $250 (plus any shipping fees and such) -- but let me know what it's worth to you.
This other Linux PDA only has a QVGA screen and no backlight. It's keyboard is most definitely the strangest out there. 
It's the G.Mate Yopy PDA. It has a different version of Linux that's called Linupy that runs some form of X-Windows which is very cool! Sadly, the battery is dead. It works great on the cradle still, though. In any case, check out more information at the eBay auction:
eBay: G.Mate Yopy 64MB 64k Color 206MHz Linux PDA (item 5854725064 end time Jan-21-06 12:51:14 PST)
January 13, 2006
Selling Gadgets!
So, the time has come where I have to start selling off some of my older gadgets to pay for my newer gadgets.
Right now, I only have one item on ebay: my wonderful Zaurus SL-C700 linux machine in a PDA with VGA screen and some other stuff. Check out the ebay auction for more details.
I really love this device, but I haven't used it in ages and with the PSP now I have a good enough browsing pad (though the screen on the C700 is SOOO much better).
Check it out here:
More will be coming over the next few weeks or so.
January 10, 2006
Apple News: My Own List
Hey, I'm not even there. However, I have been tracking Apple lately for personal reasons. I thought I'd list the things from the keynote (at least, that made it on to Engadget -- the only site that is staying up) that I thought were interesting.
iPods
Not much new, but apparently they sell over 100 a minute now. That's pretty impressive.
They have an attachment now that will serve as a remote and an FM tuner. Meh. That's not very interesting. With the way the track pad works, it can work through a case making a remote less needed. And the wire on the remote looks really long, so you have even more wires to deal with. Gimme Bluetooth stereo headset with controls and I'll bite.
Services
Photocasting. Oh, seriously. It's all just podcasting. Casting for broadcasting and pod for going to an mp3 player (with 83 percent market share, that's usually an iPod). No videocasting. No photocasting. Just podcasting. Or, more accurately, broadcasting over the 'net. Sony actually got it close with "RSS channel" -- if the whole universe of podcasts is like what's available via cable then each feed is just a channel -- the content could be audio, video, pictures, text, whatever.
Anyway...
Apparently this is just an RSS export from .Mac. It reminds me of Ceiva service, but without the need for a device. So, uhm, what? It must have an iPod component -- and I'm sure it just reads image enclosures in a feed. At least, I hope. There must be a new iTunes to support it -- and new iPod firmware? We'll see.
iLife and iMovie don't really interest me. They haven't given me a Mac for free yet. ;)
GarageBand is apparently getting better podcast support. Yeah, so where's GarageBand for Windows? And what about the enhanced AAC maker for Windows to be able to add slides, chaptering, etc.??
iWeb. Meh. A .mac thing, apparently.
Only just now hitting a million subscribers to .Mac? Odd. With iTunes music pulling in 850 million downloads. But then, I guess not many people actually own a Mac. ;) (You have to wonder -- how many of those downloads were promo, Pepsi or otherwise?)
The New Machines
Meh. iMac. Yep, Intel Core Duo. And he actually says they're faster than a G5. Wouldn't that kill the PowerMac line? There must be more good to come.
Yep. MacBook Pro Core Duo. That's a mouthful, but it's a fine machine. They've just joined every other laptop maker in announcing Intel Core Duo laptops. Go Intel.
At $2k, though, it's still not free so I'll stick with my XPS Gen 2.
So what's with the PowerMac's? The Pro software hasn't been upgraded to Intel yet and neither have the Dual PowerMac's. So are we going to see a PowerMac Dual Core Duo when they are? I'm sure they won't be selling many more of the current G5 ones... people know new ones will be coming and apparently with much better performance.
January 8, 2006
Catching Up and Other Things
I got back from the new year with a crazy full RSS aggregator and even more podcasts. Aside from a few sites, I decided to just mark everything as read and start fresh. Even so, with CES this week, that didn't help much. And there were a number of podcasts that I actually wanted to listen to from over the holidays. The net result is that after an update late Sunday I didn't start updating much until last night -- which meant another week to catch up on. Erf.
The holiday's were good. We went out to Vermont where there was nice food and drink (mmm, hot buttered rum is just the thing when it's 15 degrees F out) as well as some wonderful weather (at least until the temperature went above 30F -- then things started getting wet).
After Christmas, we returned from Vermont to some more family gatherings. First was with my Dad and then with my Grandmother as we'd missed her 80th birthday while we were out at Vermont.
After that we headed into the City (aka San Francisco in these parts) to spend two nights in a hotel to have a private room. We spent most of the time playing board games and the rest of the time either walking around in the rain, watching TV, or trying to figure out how "those shops" can get away with selling stuff that is clearly fake.
Returning from that meant returning to work and to all of the stuff I mentioned above. This meant some catching up since not only had the office been closed the last week of the year I was out most of the week before that. My work email was actually the easiest bit of it.
I'm now spending the weekend trying to catch up on the last week. CES presented quite a few interesting things this time. One of the more practical of which was the Intel Core Duo which Dell is already shipping in their Inspiron E1705 and Inspiron 9400 machines -- and it's not much more expensive than the Dothan processor it's replacing.
That's all for now -- time to go watch videos on my iPod or play games on my PSP (or new games I got for the GBA SP and N-Gage).
