Okay.  How big a computer nerd do you have to be before you are walking 0.8 miles, and you think, “Man, walking still works pretty reliably to get me around.  The old Biped Two-Step is still pretty easy.”

Granted, I’m not in my usual state of mind.  Why?  Try this:

1. Stay out late for beers and all-you-can-eat fish+chips at a local brewery, then stay up some more to play with the new PSP firmware
2. Wake up throughout the night due to restless stomach (oh, fish+chips, why must you be so SALTY and OILY)
3. Get out of bed unnaturally early (for a Saturday, 6:20 AM will do) to take your car into the mechanic before the 8:00 AM rush^[1]
4. ??? (I’m close to a breakthrough here.  I think “???” might actually be “nap”.)
5. Profit! (HAR HAR AS IF. I took my car to a mechanic.  I’m in for $188.83 before they even finish the diagnostics on my anti-lock braking system.)

P.S. - Re: “unnaturally early” – For those of you who get up every morning at 5:00 AM and go punch wallabees or whatever it is you do at 5:00 AM, you probably weren’t drowning fried cods in beers at 10:00 PM, so I think we work from different givens.  You can have your dark wake-up calls; I’ll take my dark at night when it seems more natural.  Besides, by working in shifts, we can oppress the wallabees at all hours.

P.P.S. – Also, if my wife – who is always awake before I am – is so sleepy that I’d rather leave her in bed than have her come pick me up in the 45 degree weather, it must be unnaturally early.

P.P.P.S. – Also, I have made claims that I like this weather, but those claims were necessarily based on memories that were at least a year old.  I can now substantiate those claims, though:  I enjoyed taking a chilly walk through dry leaves with my knit cap, fleece, jacket and gloves on.  My face was pleasantly cold, and the rest of me was not too hot. ^[2]

P.P.P.P.S. – Given that I program the thermostat at my house, you may now pity my wife.

P.P.P.P.P.S. – Small miracle: I dislike Halloween more every year, but my walk turned up just about zero crazy-zealous Halloween decorations.  Unless you count the costumed mannequins in the front window of the… um… “Adult Sleepwear” store down the street.  But they’re crazy-zealous year round.

1. The rush is not so brutal on a Saturday, but it’s nearly a guarantee that if you bring your car in that early, you will get it looked at before 10:00 AM instead of after lunch.
2. Note to future self: Hi!  I left some candy in the back of the cupboard, which you have probably totally forgotten about by now.  Check it for ants and staleness.  If it’s still okay, Enjoy!  Um… unless you already ate it, in which case, it wasn’t me!  Well, it wasn’t me me!  It was the me between me me and you me, so blame him (us).
   Oh.  Also, you can use this paragraph as substantiation for your weather claims in (me me) my future!  Yeah, totally awesome.

I love my domain registrar, I really do.  They’re inexpensive, they’re fast, their website is easy to use, and I have yet to discover any objectionable practices.  They even offer a feature called “Private Domains”, by which you can (for an additional fee) register domain names without publishing your name, telephone number and home address where anyone with a WHOIS client can harvest them.

And you have to love this confirmation email:

Greetings and Welcome to GKG! Thank you for choosing to register ANOTHERDOMAINNAME.COM with GKG. You have taken the first step to establishing yourself in the cyberworld of the Internet. Please review the following information for accuracy…

Mmm… I kind of like that romantic language.  Welcome to CYBERWORLD. (Does Cory Doctorow’s alarm clock say that when he wakes up?)

(And I really do like GKG.  Give them a look next time you have a good idea for a domain.)

Me:  I guess those videos I uploaded for our site are pretty popular, because a lot of people are subscribing to our YouTube channel now.  We should upload more for them to see.

S (My company’s webmaster):  81 subscribers!  And we didn’t ask them to subscribe, or tell them how.

Me:  They must just be people who are into YouTube.  Tubivores?

S:  Did you just make that up?  I’m using that.

I did, and Google reveals that two other people have used the word.  One of them is the title of a deviantART image that features tubes, and the other is a username.  There is also, apparently, a robot named “The Tubavore”.

So, I hereby claim “Tubivore” meaning a person who is a power user on YouTube:  one who views videos, maybe uploads them, and knows how to search and subscribe to videos and channels of interest.

This one has got to have more legs than “Racoomba“.

If you pay attention to “gaming news” at all, you probably already know about Braid.^[1]  And, if you’ve heard about Braid, you’ve also heard this:

Braid is a very important game, and everyone should be playing it.

I’m not sure what that means^[2], but here’s what I do know.  I started playing Braid with my wife – I handled the gameplay, and we brainstormed over the puzzles – and it was really cool.  I even had a dream that featured one of the more mind-bending time effects.  Then, as family and friends converged onto our couch for a weekend celebration, I showed it off to them, and instead of dismissing it as a shiny toy, most of them jumped in and joined the brainstorm.

So, I guess it’s a party game for brainiacs?  As long as you have one platform-enabled thumbster among you?  Could be.  $15 isn’t much to spend to entertain a room full of people.  ($20, if you add in the cost of a bottle of Advil for the ones that get a migraine.)

If you care for an overview of what makes Braid work so well, I’ve described some of what I noticed after the break.  Spoiler danger: low.

The Visuals: There is far more detail in the backgrounds and characters than necessary for a 2D platforming game.  The overall impression is that the game looks like a painting.  This has very little mechanical effect on the game, but it does make inhabiting its levels more pleasant.  This is handy, as players may have to spend some serious time contemplating and experimenting with each puzzle.

The Audio: Especially in the early worlds, peaceful ensemble pieces (think: classical music) make for a low-pressure gaming experience.  The music was probably also chosen for a more unusual reason – it sounds good backwards as well as forward.  Enemies use a believable sound effect pallette, groaning or crying out as they are dispatched, instead of emitting an unidentifiable, iconic sound.

The Gameplay: Besides solid platforming, Braid is famous for its time-manipulation gameplay.  I can’t go into this too much without risking a spoiler, but I will say that each world introduces or adds a new tool or rule for manipulating time.  Because of this, you may confront what seems like a repeated puzzle, but need to find a new solution.  Or, you will find a new puzzle, but have to choose carefully which tools to use or combine to solve it.

One tool you always have is the ability to move time backwards and forwards at will.  By holding down the X button, you can enter “-1X” time, and by tapping the LB and RB^[3], you can enter -8, -4, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 4, and 8X time, much as with a DVD player.  The obvious effect of this is the elimination of a “limited lives” scheme, since you can merely rewind time when you make a fatal error.  A less obvious – but much cooler, to my mind – effect is that you instantly become a Platform Gaming Rockstar.  If you need to jump on an enemy who’s flying through the air, or thread-the-needle between deadly obstacles^[4] during a fall, or avoid an off-screen enemy who’s just about to plummet into your face and kill you, you can rewind time to try over until you get it right.^[5]  So, don’t be discouraged just because your solution to a puzzle requires lightning-fast reflexes and lots of practice.  You have time.

The Level Design: Just as important as the time-manipulation is the level design, and this is really outstanding.

Firstly, the levels are simple and economical.  Getting from one end of each world to the other – one set of achievements^[6]- is really pretty easy, and all it takes to unlock subsequent worlds.  Also, collecting each puzzle piece – the second set of achievements, and necessary to unlocking the end of the game – is relatively straightforward.  You will know what obstacles, paths, enemies and tools are available to you in order to reach each puzzle piece almost immediately, which makes solving the puzzles more an excercise in managing these factors than flailing around in the level, hoping to find the necessary components.

Secondly, the levels are familiar.  They are almost derivative, but I think it’s safe to say that they are in fact homage.  The obvious and intentional parallels with the Super Mario series of games are unescapable, as well as nods to Donkey Kong, Megaman, to name a few other Ye Olde Platformeres.

Thirdly, the levels are clever.  To cite an earlier example, Braid is not ashamed to put you in front of the same puzzle twice, so that you go about your business solving it until – whoops! – you’ve been fooled, because the rules have changed, and the old solution no longer applies.

The Story: This is where my opinion falters a bit.  The story seems to be vaguely emotional, but also pretty abstract, at least as told through the textual narrative you encounter. ^[7]  This story takes on more depth as the game progresses, but it’s hard to say whether or not it resolves.  At one point, the story seems to be resolved, or at least clarified, but then additional text narrative is provided that once again makes everything abstract.  Then again, maybe it just hasn’t clicked for me yet, or I need to see it in light of…

The Backstory: And I’ll admit, I haven’t spent much time looking into this yet.  However, in the most recent Giant Bomb Podcast, Jeff Gerstmann made some references to how much Jonathan Blow committed to this game during its development, even going so far as to forego a salary while he was making it.  Maybe some of that story will show itself in the metaphor of Braid’s story as I look deeper into it?  Who knows, for now.

I will say this:  Do you remember Pulp Fiction?  Do you remember debating what – exactly – was going on in that film?  What was in the briefcase?  I have little doubt that the debate rages on in Internet forums at this exact moment.  Don’t go looking for yourself, unless you have already completed the Epilogue, because there will be spoilers – but there are similar debates going on right now about what Braid’s story actually means.  I don’t put much stock into the quality or scholarly rigor of the debates, but it is impressive to me that anyone cares about the events in the lives of two nearly-anonymous characters (”Tim” and “The Princess”) that exist only in the four-page long narrative and gameplay of a week-old game.

I guess that means Braid is pretty important, after all.

1. I won’t get into a lot of detail about it for that very reason, but you can check out Giant Bomb’s video review (WARNING: The “S” word is used) if you need some background.
2. Especially since it’s only out on XBLA right now!  PC to come later, though.
3. Until I got my own Xbox 360, I wondered what LB and RB are, so if you also wonder, know this!  These are the “bumpers”.  Instead of having two analog buttons by each trigger finger (as with the Playstation 2 controller), the Xbox 360 controller has a pair of triggers with a relatively long throw, and a pair of digital “bumper” buttons.
4. B and I noted that all of the deadly obstacles are “spikes, which are also on fire” just in case you thought you might survive them.
5. ”That’s why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It’s a Jedi trait.”
6. For non-Xbox-ers, “Achievements” are the point-bearing goals that each game sets for you, either in line with or outside of its regular goals.  For instance, Braid has achievements for traversing each world, which you must do to win the game, anyway.  It also has an achievement for completing a speed-run of the game, which is by no means necessary to win the game.
7. Although the concepts can be pretty cool when you can see them.  For instance, World 2 seems to me to indicate a platform game about forgiveness.

What did I dream about?

Troubleshooting Windows NT networking issues. Every time I woke up and went back to sleep, it was back to network troubleshooting.

When I woke up at 4:30 AM, I just stayed up, because all that troubleshooting left me exhausted.

All I have to do is move all of the data onto one machine, using my USB hard drive cable, and sort it all out. Hooray for long weekends!

Currently, I have my Jabber account rigged up to keep my presence alive on the “legacy” chat networks^[1]. However, so many of my friends and family have moved over to XMPP networks (Jabber and Google Talk) that it barely makes sense to keep these accounts around.

Once you factor in the constant “Log into your Hotmail account!” spam^[2] and “5489751621897@icq wants authorization to view your status” spam from miscellaneous chatbots, it really doesn’t make any sense at all… unless you factor in those people who might still use only the legacy networks.

So, a few questions for regular readers and members of “legacy” contacts. Are you just using a legacy network and none of the XMPP networks? Do you have a good reason why we should keep using those old networks? Tell us your point of view in a comment.

If you’ve got me set up on one of your legacy accounts, but not on your shiny new Jabber/Google Talk account, let me know! Both of us could use one less reason to hold on to old and spammy networks.

1. In my case, ICQ, AIM, MSN and Yahoo! – networks that I’m no longer using actively, and wouldn’t add a contact to, but just lurk on
2. I haven’t logged into my Hotmail account in years

I feel like a doofus.  It turns out that, for the past week, I have known the solution to Pedant’s DSL problem.  I assumed that he had to wait for some fix deep within the ISP.

That may have been the case, but by today, his issue was just like one I had a few years ago.  More importantly, I remembered the solution that Technical Support led me through^[1].

Him:  (On the phone)  Can you believe that their call volume is so high that they can’t keep me on hold?  I have to call back later.

Me: Man, that’s pretty busy.  I wonder what they have to do to fix your service.  If only your modem’s DSL light was lit, I could help you.

Him:  Actually, my DSL light has been lit for days.

Me:  …OK, buckle up.  We’re doing this.

I’m glad I was able to help a friend get back online, especially since being offline vexed him so.  I’m even glad to be able to ease the load on our provider’s overloaded call centers.  I just feel kind of dumb that I didn’t help to diagnose the problem sooner.

1. And I remembered at enough to be able to find the particulars of the solution.

It simultaneously emails everyone on the planet with a cheery message:

“Hello, World!”

and is then instantly crushed to dust under the weight of the “Message Could Not Be Delivered” notifications.

Atari user’s desk, circa 1983 – Boing Boing

I swear, we had pretty much this desk while we were growing up in Pennsylvania, during my COMPUTER NERD PUPA STAGE, but for a few details. Our media containers were different, we had it rigged for double-sided operation^[1] … and the glasses would have been Muppets instead of Star Wars.

Man, that brings back some good memories.

1. the Atari 800 with the disk drive, printer and speech synthesizer on one side, generally for homework, serious mucking about, and Dad; and the Atari 400 with the old minicassette drive on the opposite side for games and LOGO programming

It looks like Tiger Direct has now opened one of their retail outlets LESS THAN TWO MILES FROM MY APARTMENT.  Must stay calm… Must breathe… Must hide all the credit cards…

Note: This is an old post. I actually did the upgrades, and then I was too busy playing games to release the post… Oops! I’ll talk about the new computer later.

I’ve been looking at upgrading my gaming computer. Currently, it’s aging pretty badly. Without laying out too many boring details:

• 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon^[1]
• 1 GB DDR RAM
• AGP Video Card by ATI
• IDE Hard Drives

If you’re one of the people reading this who thinks, “That’s not bad at all! That will still run every application I use.” you may well be right. You have probably also never tried to run Bethesda’s Oblivion, or run Half-Life 2 Episode 1 with HDR turned on, or even considered BioShock or the other games coming into view. I won’t hold that against you. I even envy you a little bit. Your computing experience is a lot cheaper than mine, for starters.

I, on the other hand, have seen these things, and even last year’s video games are almost unplayable on my current gaming computer, and I want to keep playing games. That may seem like an obvious statement, but one of the options I considered was just to stop playing PC games altogether. I’m not a big Windows fan, practically no big-name Windows games run well in my Ubuntu install, and computers are expensive. In the end, though, I decided that Half-Life 2, Oblivion, some of the new hotness on GameTap, and some of the upcoming titles would make it really hard to walk away from the PC.

When upgrading my gaming PC^[2], my normal mode of operation is to identify the bottleneck component, then spend between $50 and $250 to upgrade that component. This is a relatively inexpensive fix. However, I’ve maxed out the computer’s current technology level, which backs me into a corner.

• I can’t upgrade the processor past 2.0 GHz without buying a new motherboard
• I can’t upgrade the motherboard without buying new RAM
• I won’t buy another AGP motherboard, so I’ll need a new graphics card
• I won’t buy another motherboard without SATA, so I’ll want at least one new hard drive

As for as my current case, power supply and peripherals, those are perfectly serviceable in the current generation of computer hardware. So, when I add everything up, I come to around $750 for a well-upgraded Athlon X2 system^[3].

$750 is a lot of money!

But, I’m pleased to say, while balancing my checking account, I found a clerical error. I had processed a substantial deposit as a withdrawal. The amount of the deposit was about half of the cost of the computer upgrades, so after rectifying the transaction, I had enough “hidden” money to cover them!

It’s like finding a new computer in your pockets when you put your jeans in the wash.

1. As in, a single-core processor.
2. The gaming machine has been named TIGGER since 1999, since some part of the existing TIGGER always makes it through the upgrade. By contrast, the communications machine, ROO, has long been retired.
3. I’ll have to read the reviews on my preliminary hardware selections to make sure that they’re The Right Stuff, and if they aren’t, The Right Stuff might cost more.

It will be awesome.

One way of achieving this result is found in replacing our current, rastered interfaces with vector-based interfaces.

Another way may be found in Text Rendering:

My short answer is while Microsoft uses their aggressive hinting there will be no higher than 100 DPI resolutions, period. With the Microsoft approach there is simply no way to break this vicious circle.

I’m not a big fan of ClearType, although in true Good Doggie fashion, I am trying to learn to love it.  It hasn’t turned me completely off subpixel rendering yet, and maybe there is hope.

As of today, I am a year from my own Lastday. But he’ll renew before me!

(By the way, if you’re not a huge dork, we’re talking about my 29th birthday today.)