John Scalzi has posted a chapter from a previous draft of The Last Colony that didn’t make it into the final print. Obviously it’s no longer canon, but it does give some interesting information about the Universe, most notably about General Gau.
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Badly Drawn Sonic
There’s a superb thread at my favorite forum, SelectButton, in which people post their terrible Sonic the Hedgehog drawings. Some of them are so terrible that they’re amazing. I really think there’s a lot of quality art here. It takes a devout Internetatarian to consider MS Paint art a viable style of art.
Fictitious Mario Game Box Art
Nintendo Wii Fanboy put a great gallery up of fan made box art for fictitious Mario games. Some of them are really great. Super Mario Streakers? Mario & Sonic Training for the Olympic Games? That game deserves a gold itself!
Space Invaders Attack WTC (a.k.a. Oh God Comments War)
Joystiq has a piece up about a game made as artistic commentary on the events of 9/11 and America’s response. The game is based on Space Invaders with the aliens attacking the World Trade Center buildings.
Taito has since responded by saying that the work was unauthorized and threatened legal action.
13-Hour Arena Match
God, more WoW news. Wowinsider also had an article today about a 13-hour arena match. That’s a long fucking time, but it doesn’t compare to that 18-hour long battle against a boss in FFXI that caused players to give up.
4G is a lot
Today Wowinsider talked about a dagger called Blade of Eternal Darkness. The article wasn’t terribly interesting, but it does mention that this weapon that requires a minimum level of 49 “[s]ells to vendors for 4g 67s 96c (which isn’t a lot at 70, but is a whole lot of money at level 49)”. Excuse me, but 4.68g is definitely not a lot at level 49. What the fuck? Has it just been so long since these fuckers have actually played the game (because they obviously spend more time on forums and blogs) that they thing 4.68 gold is a lot? And the excuse that they’re already at level 70 doesn’t hold. Level 70s need alts.
Alliance Symbol on Shirt
A shirt from a cruise ship was found in Croatia with an interesting symbol on it according to Wowinsider. I wonder if it’s a fake or not.
Hullo
Today I sliced an AT-ST in half
And it was so awesome!
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, September 16.
Palm Doing Badly
I recently read a Wired article titled Analyst: Palm Needs a Savior, and Treo Pro Won’t Cut It in which Palm’s demise is discussed. They go in to what makes a great handheld device and where Palm went wrong. In my article, I’ll discuss where Palm actually went wrong and why the Wired article is incorrect. Palm screwed up first by going to Windows Mobile, second by not making the Treo widescreen, and third by keeping prices too high.
In the article, Peter Hoddie, president of Kinoma, a software company that makes Palm applications, says “Operating systems don’t matter to most customers. What matters to them is what they can do. …Why do [people] love iPhone? They love the apps. Why don’t people love Windows Mobile? It’s in fact an amazing operating system … but the apps on top of it? Not so inspired.”
Sorry dude. Why did Palm lose me? Because they switched to Windows Mobile. He talks about Palms as running Windows Mobile, but they were much worse once they did. The iPhone is nice because of the big hard drive, wide screen, built in wifi and EDGE, great map program, and of course, iPod functionality. However, the Palm OS was great. In addition, the article mentions that people love the iPhone because it’s 320×480 while the Treos are only 320×320. Um, is the iPhone supposed to be my first 320×480 handheld device? I’ve had 320×480 devices before (Clie NR-70/U, Palm TX). I agree that the iPhone’s widescreen makes viewing the web great, but I did that with my Palm TX as well.
I’m not saying the iPhone operating system isn’t nice. It has Apple’s usual wonderful aesthetic to it. However, the Palm OS was full of features and very nice. What really brought me to the iPhone was the iPod/iTunes functionality and the wireless data access. Yes, I could have had wireless data access on a Treo, but Treos weren’t widescreen! On top of all that, data access was cheaper with the iPhone, I think because Apple was offsetting the cost. If Palm had made the Treo 320×480 and kept it using the Palm operating system, it would have been a much harder decision to choose between Treo and iPhone. Palm OS vs iPod? Close call. Windows Mobile, 320×320, expensive data access vs iPhone OS, iPod, 320×480, cheap data access? Good bye Palm.
SplashData coming aboard with their fine apps helped too. And Warfare Incorporated is being ported. Hell yes.