Here’s a fascinating video about modern prosthetic technology. Don’t be fooled - it’s actually not a viral ad for Deus Ex, unless it’s an amazingly convincing one. It’s a legitimate short documentary that tries to see if the kind of stuff in Deus Ex is actually possible in the year 2011. The blind man who can see, at least a little bit, because of the chip in his retina? CRAZY. Even crazier? Robert J. Sawyer wrote about something like this happening in his 2009 novel Wake. Though I admit the possibility that it had been done before he wrote about it, and I just wasn’t aware.

The HUD is pretty cool, as are the prosthetic arms. And the prosthetic legs. Ok, fine, it’s all cool. Technology is awesome.

James Portnow, the writer for Extra Credits, made a pretty personal episode about his own experience with game compulsion. It’s nearly half an hour long, so you’ll have to make some time for it. But I think it’s worth watching.

        In other Extra Credits news, there’s a semi-official forum community now, called Extra Curricular. Lots of really personal stories from people who’ve watched the episode. I haven’t read too many of them, because I might very well drown in my empathy for internet strangers. Far too many of them remind me of myself, except I kept working when they turned to games. A scary thought, but motivating, too. I have to make the best of what I’ve got, yeah?

        Oh, and I don’t think I’ve posted about this, but the artist for Extra Credits found out she had an arm injury and needed immediate surgery to continue her livelihood. They set up a fundraiser for $15,000; they got $100,00, $20 of which came from me. Now, they’re going to set up a small non-profit publishing fund. This is awesome. Bask in the good things the internet can do sometimes.

        If you’re confused by the “Coming soon to Penny Arcade TV” notice, Extra Credits basically wasn’t paid by The Escapist. They produced 52 episodes, and were paid for four of them. Then The Escapist wanted a cut of the money donated through Rockethub. Long story short, they went looking for someone who would actually pay them. This is good, ya?

        Anyway, there’s your update with what’s been going on with Extra Credits! Which you should be watching anyway. How often do I have to repost their videos here?!

My Schedule, Do You Want It?!4

Classes start again tomorrow, so I thought I’d post my class schedule. I’ve already posted about which classes I’m taking, so available/busy information should be good enough. This is a public link, indexed for Google searches (required in order to have a public calendar, sadly), but I guess I can give you - specifically, you, because you’re my favourite reader - the private link if you absolutely must know where I am and what I’m doing at all times.

If we ever want to organize group MMO playing or anything like that, Google Calendar is a good tool for it. It handles multiple calendars pretty well, and you just have to look for an open spot between everybody’s schedules.

Fix Your Wireless Internet Problems Yourself4

Dear various parents, grandparents, co-workers, and other “Not Computer People.” We don’t magically know how to fix everything.

First of all, this XKCD comic will make you just as good as I am at helping you figure out how to do things I have no idea how to do, like wrapping text in Photoshop. Second of all, the article this post’s title links to will actually make you better than I am (well, until I start consulting that chart) at correcting wireless internet problems.

Although you might want to download the .pdf version, available below the “Related Articles” section, so you can consult it when your internet isn’t working.

Do I trust Google? If it’s convenient

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, and have mentioned far too many times to my friends, I got an Android phone recently. It’s working beautifully, by the way - CyanogenMod 7 is far better than the version of Android 1.5 that came with the phone, and LauncherPro is a whole lot faster than CM’s default launcher ADW. Despite the pretty weak hardware, things run pretty well, though I can’t play many games beyond Game Dev Story. But do I really need anything else…?

        As I was setting up my new phone, I gleefully entered contact info to Google’s servers - allowing me to get everything back if I flash a new ROM, or even buy a new phone - I realized just how much data I was handing over. Am I ok with letting Google know who my friends and family are? For that matter, are my friends and family ok with it? Should I enter their addresses for my own convenience, or would that be a breach of their privacy? Would I start getting ads in Gmail for flights to New Brunswick around Christmas time to visit family, and to PEI in the spring to visit friends? I’m already telling Google which contacts send me e-mails important enough to notify me about. When I’m busy because of class or meetings, and for that matter, where they are. Between my phone’s GPS and cell phone tower information, they can categorize the places I spend most of my time as “Home.” When I post to Facebook from my phone, it’s probably going to say “Posted from Facebook Mobile near Carleton University.”

        A few days later, Lifehacker linked to an article declaring that “Google wants to own your online identity.” Eric Schmidt, formerly CEO of Google, declared that Google+ was built primarily as an “identity service,” and that they planned to build further services based on that information. The article quotes some guy who summed the situation up pretty well: who did Google build this for - you, or them? And maybe it’s worth asking that same question about everything else they do. After all, they certainly don’t make money by providing an awesome alternative to calendar software, or Google Analytics, or a web browser, or their Public DNS service. No, as the GigaOM article reminds us, Google makes money through advertising. And advertising gets easier and easier the more information they can get about their potential customers.

        And yet, this doesn’t really bother me. So long as they sell advertisements, but keep the data to themselves, I don’t really mind. Unless you’re a supar haxxor, nothing you do on the internet is ever completely hidden. Your ISP logs everything, if they’re ever inclined to take a look at your internet usage. Any web-based e-mail service you use will have access to your data that way, and every site you visit probably leaves three cookies in your browser’s cache. If Google collects that data from me and makes some money off of it, that’s more or less a fair trade for the services they offer. What would I do otherwise? Keep track of four different e-mail inboxes in Thunderbird? Use Rainlendar or a Thunderbird extension to manage my calendar, but be restricted to accessing it on one computer? Fact is, Google’s products are a whole lot better than similar software you might otherwise pay for, and somebody has to pay the engineers who create them.

        I guess some people might prefer to pay with money rather than personal information. I’m not that worried about my imagined sense of privacy, though. The day hackers do to Google what they did to Sony, I’ll start worrying.

You have [2] games remaining

(Although, 1.5 games might be more accurate, since I’m about to finished the second I’ve just finished the second - of three - worlds in FF V, and after that, FF VI - see my previous post from May)

Sorry for the lack of real updates recently! Here’s part of the reason why: I’ve spent the last couple of weeks playing through FF VIII. Final play time was just short of 70 hours. Couldn’t be bothered to level up the characters outside my main party, or track down a couple of Level 7 Boss Cards, but other than that I did everything there was to do. Except play a no-level game and maximize my base stats using Devour/Boost items, but that’s for craz… dedicated fans. Yeah.

        Anyway! I’m not 100% sure what I should say about it, seeing as the game is a dozen years old by now. I can say that I didn’t care in the slightest about Squall and Rinoa’s relationship - sorry, was there development there? Because it seemed like someone just flipped a switch, and off they went. The thing about the orphanage and the memory erosion of the GFs was pretty silly, but whatever. And what the hell is up with NORG…?

        I admit, though, I have to really look for things to dislike about the game. I definitely had a lot of fun playing it, and the section with Squall commanding Balamb Garden into battle was awesome. Even though I selected “prepare for attack” first, since the game hinted you should ambush them, and later scolded me for not attacking first. But yeah, I never really appreciated the direction of these action-movie-esque scenes (being chased by the robot in Dollet, the fight between Gardens, or the reactor sequences in FF VII) as a kid, but now I’m impressed that the game manages to create a real sense of tension in jaded ole me. Not to mention things like Quistis’s declaration that “Seifer’s sentence was carried out in Galbadia,” and following Sephiroth’s trail through Shinra - the music and everything else just come together for an intense feeling of dread and foreboding.

        I especially liked the way the game’s systems feed back into each other. If you’ve played Persona 3 and 4, much as I love the games, the social link stuff is more or less totally separated from the dungeon crawling stuff. But in FF VIII, everything has a useful purpose. I originally thought that Triple Triad would be dumb or a waste of time, but then I found out what you could get from the rare cards, and so I set out to collect them. The Cactus Thorns you collected a hundred of from hunting Cactuars turn into Hundred Thorns, which can teach some ability called “Return Damage” or be converted into other stuff. Point is, the game rewards you in a lot of ways, and that’s a smart decision. Also, super twinkable, delivering ultimate min/max joy. Final boss casts Meteor? Good thing I only take 20 damage from each hit!

        Oh, I do want to mention the weird as hell part of the ending that comes right after you beat the final boss. It goes on for way too long, and it’s just… weird. If you’re ok with spoilers, watch the first 5 minutes of this video. I think they’re trying to make you think Squall was erased from existence? Not really sure whose bright idea that was.

        To tell you the truth, I actually almost finished FF VIII when I was a kid (roughly age 7). I’d made my way to the fourth disc, and then… my dad saved over my file when he was playing later that night. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEEEEEEEEE?! I swore revenge, and retaliated by ripping up some of his old socks with scissors. And never touched FF VIII again, until now. Do you think I secretly have bonus nostalgia for the game, even though I’d forgotten everything about the game except the section with the robot in Dollet? It was like I was playing the game for the first time, but maybe somewhere in my mind I knew I’d been there before. Liek wif Squall and da GFs amirite? But yeah, now I’ve actually finished the game, and it only took me 70 hours to undo the effects of his save file confusion.

        Thanks, Dad.