Mattazuma's Revenge

On the Upcoming GTA IV Hysteria

As I mentioned yesterday, Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out shortly.  Wil Wheaton has a great post about the media backlash that will be hitting the airwaves starting tomorrow night.  Money quote:

[W]hat this usually comes down to: people who genuinely don't understand what's going on having their fears exploited by people with an authoritarian agenda, who really aren't as interested in protecting The Children as they are in expanding and strengthening their power. That offends me even more than the spineless cowards who are letting people like Jack Thompson set the agenda for the rest of us.

I remember the hand wringing about a game called Carmageddon that came out around 10 years ago.  It was a timed racing/demolition derby game where you got extra time for running over pedestrians or animals.  Running over cows was fun, they would moo a lot and run away from your car.  In some countries the pedestrians were turned into zombies and in Brazil it was banned completely.  Guess what, the game didn't turn children into driving maniacs, or anyone else for that matter.

Kids shouldn't be playing GTA IV, but I bet I'll end up playing online multiplayer with a bunch of 12 year olds before too long anyway.  Trust me, playing online with 12 year olds sucks.  They are annoying and make me feel really old.

Why Network TV is in trouble

Clay Shirky's speech at the Web 2.0 conference is a must read. 

The main gist of it is, society is coming to grips with the free time obtained by the 5 day work week that started after WWII.  Previously, television filled much of the free time void, but now people are starting to embrace other, more participatory, media or projects like Wikipedia.

I spend less time watching TV than I did 10 years ago.  Although I do spend time with the TV as background music.  Right now I am writing this with the Cubs game on in the background.  During the week I spend most of my evenings playing poker online with the same group of 50-75 people spread across North America.  My non-sports TV watching is mostly off of our DVR, other than "must see" water cooler discussion shows like 24 or Lost.

Right now the only network TV show I make sure I watch is 30 Rock.  Survivor is fun to watch, but I don't have to watch every week.  I watch stuff on the basic cable channels, History, Science, Food, Discovery, ESPN, etc., so I'm not a no-TV person.  BTW, all of those channels are really great in HD, go get DirecTV if you can, they are cheaper than cable generally and have 90 HD channels.

I am interested to see what the TV ratings are like next week.  Grand Theft Auto IV comes out on Tuesday, and lots of guys between 18-45 (including me) will spend much of the next few weeks playing.  There has been some buzz about GTA IV hurting Iron Man's box office take next weekend.  I agree with the EW article that it probably won't, but GTA sure could hurt TV ratings.  Once you get pulled into one of these games, it is really hard to keep track of what time it is.

Glasses - Day 2

Ok, my eyes are less red and don't any more.  But these glasses really suck.  When I look at something more than a foot below eye  level, it is all out of proportion.  It's like I'm looking through a fish-eye lens.

Only 5 more days until I get the license for my contacts back.  Just in time for GTA IV.

Angry Guy

Angry guy says - "Get a job!!!"  or "Get out of my yard you kids!!!"

No, I don't do angry very well.

 

Today is the first day in 10 years I've worn glasses.  I've been wearing contacts for the last 20 years or so.  My eyes have been a little goofed up lately and the eye doctor (ophthalmologist not optician) told me to not wear contacts for a week.  So I had to get a pair of glasses in a hurry.  It has been the weirdest thing, it seems like I am always walking downhill.

BTW - Adobe Lightroom does an amazing job fixing red eye.  All of the black in my eyes was added by Lightroom.

JoCo coming to Chicago!

Jonathon Coulton is coming to Chicago on May 3 & I have two tickets!

I never been to the Lakeshore Theater before, but I bet it will be a good place to see a concert.

Not sure who's going to come with, Jonnell may not be up for geek-pop.

Weekend in L.A. - At the Skunk Works

OK, I wasn't in the Skunk Works itself, there is a great outdoor airplane museum in Palmdale near the plant.  They made some of the coolest airplanes ever, including the U-2, the SR-71 and the F-117A.  Click on the pictures for much larger versions of the pictures.

This is their U-2.  These were designed back in the 1950s and are still being used today.

This isn't a landing gear.  These wheels are mounted under each wing during takeoff, and fall off after the plane leaves the ground.

Here is their SR-71 Blackbird.

This isn't an SR-71, this is the A-12.  It was a secret precursor to the SR-71 and was covertly used by the CIA while the Air Force publicly used the SR-71.  The only obvious difference I could see is the shape of the nose of the planes.

This is the business end of a SR-71 engine.

Here is their new F-117A Nighthawk.  It has only been in the airpark for a few weeks.

The area with the grating is the engine intake.  The grating keeps radar from reflecting off of the engine.

I like how they replaced the landing light bulb with a picture of a bulb.

This is a SR-71 model that was used for wind tunnel testing.  The level of detail is amazing.

I'll post some pictures of the other planes out there before too long.

Weekend in L.A. - At the Angel Game

Well, I have a bunch more good pictures but here's a fun sequence from the Angel game we went to on Saturday, April 6.  We upgraded to seats three rows off the field right behind the Angel's dugout.  It was really cool.  I took around 150 pictures, mostly in 3 or 4 shot bursts. 

Amazingly, the ump called him out.  The camera buffer ran out before he made the call.

I kind of goofed & didn't change the ISO from 100 to 200 or 400 after the sun went down.  That's why the players are blurry & the ump isn't.  I am still learning how to use my DSLR, so these things are going to happen.  I still think they came out pretty well.

More good stuff shortly...