I just did a system update on my PS3 in anticipation of Street Fighter IV. It took 45 minutes. If anything goes wrong while updating, you’re likely to have an unusable system. Does no one at Sony know about patches?
Category Archives: Technology
Street Fighter IV Fight Sticks (and X-Arcade Modding)
This past weekend I got to play Street Fighter IV on an Xbox 360. I only played two matches before deciding I must get this for my PS3. It also seemed like a good time get my X-Arcade stick out of hiding for this. For some ridiculous reason, though, I thought I’d see how the old stick stacks up against the new crop coming out. I learned a lot and I’m sharing it here before I forget it all.
The following is a summary of the sticks to buy for fighting games and the parts to use to mod/upgrade your X-Arcade stick for SF4. At the end, I’ll list any references that I don’t link in-line.
Continue reading Street Fighter IV Fight Sticks (and X-Arcade Modding)
Cell Phone Battery Tips
A friend complained about low battery life. Here are the tips I gave him:
- As batteries age, their max talk time begins to fade. You may just need a new one.
- Putting your phone on vibrate will kill your battery.
- Keeping your phone in an area with bad reception will kill your battery. When it loses contact with a tower, it goes to full power to search for a new signal. If you have to leave it in an area with bad reception, shut the phone off.
- The GPS radio will kill your battery. If you have a GPS on your phone, you have to fully exit from the GPS/navigation software to shut down the radio. In Sprint Navigation, I have to keep hitting the back button until it asks me if I want to exit navigation – sometimes twice. You’re not done until you’ve hit the home screen. You also have to exit from Google Maps, if you’ve installed that app.
BTW, I found that the Google Maps app works WAY faster than Sprint Navigation when showing you your current location and scrolling/zooming around the map. It also gives better routes. You can set route preferences with Sprint Nav., but they don’t seem to work well (or at all). Still, voice navigation is nice when you’re completely lost. Eventually, you do get home.
New MacBook Pro
So they released the new MacBook Pro, claiming it’s “engineered to standards that don’t even exist yet.” Really? Hey Apple, how about – gasp! – conforming to a standard that does exist? It’s called Blu-ray, and if you want to be taken at all seriously as a video editing and motion graphics platform (or even a purveyor of modern consumer electronics) you’ll get your hardware and OS developers working on it so you can add it to the 17″ model (whenever that gets updated…).
No Offshore Drilling; where’s my nuclear car??
Time to set the record straight: whatever, whichever politician said that gas prices are not coming down was right. Offshore drilling is a good idea, but it will not bring gas prices down.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for drilling for oil in our own backyards. When I first moved out to California, I was enchanted by all of those oil derricks pumping, pumping away in the beautiful hills of Huntington Beach, down along the beach paths and even on the beach dunes themselves. It made California look like the golden El Dorado that I had always imagined: golden roads lined with cool-looking cars and all of the oil we needed right under our feet. And yes, I was also expecting bikini-clad girls to pump my gas and sell me my milk from those roadside milk stands (I saw pictures of this put out by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce). I’m sure the girls and the pumping action of the derricks was some sort of Freudian juxtaposition that made me drive out to California all the faster.
So why don’t I support the drilling now?? Because once the oil is out of the ground, it is immediately put out on the international market where China can bid on it, along with every other gas-thirsty country that is finally making its way out of the Third World. We would be competing with them for our own gas. And make no mistake about it: it’s our gas. It is coming out on nationally-owned areas (offshore or the ANWR in Alaska) and the oil companies are getting a low-risk, fantastic return on investment. If that is the case, they can afford to lose a little bit of profit by selling that gas DOMESTICALLY, ONLY. Does that sound socialistic, the first hints of nationalized gas production?? You bet your sweet light-crude that it does!! But if you’re going to drill in my backyard, and I own the land and mineral rights, you have better pay me off by at least selling me the oil at a domestically-competitive price.
But I’m also realistic. Using oil to power our cars is a technological dead-end. With all of the Chinese, Indian, Polish, Russian, etc. etc. economies finally coming out of the Dark Ages and increasing the number of privately owned cars, we are going to be running out of oil soon (peak oil production). So where’s my nuclear-powered car?? If all of those Disney documentaries in the 1950’s promised plenty of energy in the future, how come I have to use my bicycle to go to the library and to the store??
The anwer of course is that we can’t trust the average person to drive a quarter of critical mass around in their engines, waiting for some terrorist to figure out that (4) times (1/4) equals (1). Boom. And I can hardly imagine the bad traffic created when the radioactive cleanup team cleans up the pieces from your average 4 accidents per freeway per day.
We need to use nuclear power to generate the electricity to provide the hydrogen to run the cars. Simple enough, please give me my new-model 2010 hydrogen-fueled SUV. In Earth-Friendly Green, of course. And feel free to stick as many oil-sucking straws in the California Offshore until then.
Wall-E in DLP
Yesterday I braved the crowds and the alarming number of children at the theatre, attending this movie. Kids at a children’s movie, what a concept. However, the movie was a real pleasure and definitely worth a viewing.
More importantly, I found myself in a DLP theatre, by mere circumstance. Wall-E in DLP is a real pleasure, and not to be missed. Couple that with a very generous admission price of 5.00 before 6PM and I had an all-around great experience. The theater is located in La Palma, Orange County. You can find it by going to the DLP website and searching your local area code. As always, my only gripe is that the theatre does not list the DLP theatre separately from its print counterparts, so you have to call ahead to find out where you need to be before the 6PM bell tolls. Try DLP, you’ll like it.
I also experienced that rarity: a breakdown in the DLP projector halfway through the movie. However, I can report that unlike the days of old, the system reboot only took a few seconds; no need to bring up the houselights while the white-clad team of repairmen descended on the clean room housing the projector. The movie continued and I can report that it’s worth your time.
I’ll let someone else with a good graphics background report on the movie itself. I am only an awe-struck theatre-goer that appreciates quality work.
TCT in Space!?!?
Well, I just submitted my application to the Astronaut Candidate Program at the Johnson Space Center! It’s unlikely that I would be the 1st TCT asset in space but I figure it will be a really damn cool rejection letter to have as a keepsake!
The PS3 Purchase Roller Coaster
As you might have read, I want a PS3 real bad. Well, I ordered one today, paying more than I wanted to. Here’s with how it happened:
- About a month ago I learn of the PS3 MGS4 bundle and verify it’s a good deal at $500. The guy at my local GameStop says the demand won’t be huge so I should have no problems picking one up when it comes out on 6/12. I didn’t detect any sarcasm.
- Shortly after this, I register with Amazon to notify me when they’ll be getting it. I really don’t want to get it from Amazon because of shipping and waiting, but I figure this couldn’t hurt.
- Amazon sends me an email yesterday stating that they’ll have limited quantities on 6/6 at 10am. Wow, I can get one early! I call up a few GameStops who unequivocally tell me they will not be getting any early, and hint that even if they did they wouldn’t sell it to me. Bastards. Clearly, they’ve bought them all and have them at home already.
- I get ready to buy from Amazon, setting up One Click to use standard shipping. I see there’s a notice on the product page that there will be limited quantities and great demand across the country, so it will sell out quickly. Huh. That’s not good. Still, I’m ready get buy it tomorrow and receive it 6/12 the latest.
- 9:30am. I’m online and ready to buy, refreshing every few minutes. Computer clock is synchronized with the government’s atomic clock. I see comments popping up in the review section and product forum. Somebody brags that he pre-ordered it from GameStop. Pre-order? What a fool! Doesn’t he know Amazon will have them on sale today?
- 10am. After a few more refreshes, the page changes. “You can preorder this item for $499 and get Super Saver shipping.” Preorder? You didn’t say preorder, you said order! WHAT THE FUCK?!?! HULK SMASH!!!
- 10:02am. I check GameStop. As the braggart noted, they have it for preorder, but it’s $560. Someone in the Amazon forum notes the free shipping gave him a ship date of 6/17. I don’t want it to take forever to get here, and I don’t want a markup. This sucks.
- 10:05am. On Amazon, I click preorder. “The item you have chosen is no longer available from that seller.” You’re that seller, asshole! Aaaagh! It’s sold out. From the forum posts, it looks like it took maybe 2 minutes.
- I check Circuit City, they don’t even have it listed. Time is running out and GS is my only option. I call up the local GS again: can I order it in store to avoid shipping charges (and ensure it isn’t stolen off my front steps)? No, online only. I bite the bullet.
So I went from paying $500 plus shipping and getting it before 6/12 to paying $630 and getting it on Friday the 13th. I thought GS was price gouging with the $60 difference, but it turns out they forced customers to also buy the MGS4 bluetooth headset. While I’ll soon need a bluetooth headset for the California hands-free law, I was not planning on getting one that looks like it belongs in some little kid’s playset:
While I would have gone with something from Jabra or Plantronics, this is made from some company I’ve never heard of. On the plus side, I’m all set to play Buck fucking Rogers with the neighborhood kids.
Free WiFi at Starbucks
Starbucks is now giving away 2 hours of free wifi per day. Yeah, there’s a catch. From USA Today:
The Wi-Fi freebie will be available starting Tuesday to customers who purchase a minimum $5 reloadable Starbucks Card, register online for the Starbucks Rewards Card program, and use the card at least once a month. The two hours must be consecutive. New members also receive a voucher for a free drink.
Also, if you register your gift card, you get perks:
Rewards program members who register online already receive free syrup and milk options with drinks as well as free refills of hot and iced brewed coffees and a free drink when they buy a pound of coffee beans.
Smart car my ass
Recently I started driving an electric car. I pay nothing for gas. It has a range of around 25 miles, but round trip to work and back is only 15 miles, so I charge it exclusively at work. It has a top speed of 35mph and is classified as a “neighborhood electric vehicle”, but I drive on the back roads to work anyways, so no big thing. It is far from roomy, probably not very safe in an accident, but short of a box full of puppies trained to hug kittens, it is probably the best way to meet chicks I can think of. Being so small, you don’t even need a “no fat chicks” bumper sticker, cuz they look at it and realize they would likely get stuck in the door if they were to even try to fit in the tiny little passenger seat. Funny thing is, the hotties that flock to it whenever I park it assume I am some sort of environmentalist dipshit who wants to talk to them about how Hitlery should drop out of the race or how much money we are wasting in Iraq. I don’t bother explaining to them that I agree completely, but that it would be best if Obama joined her, and that a few nukes would save us tons of money in Iraq. They also all assume it is a “smart car”… sigh.
See, my little electric car looks like a shrunk down smart car to people who haven’t seen either one in person before. That isn’t a bad thing, but seriously, what is the point of the “smart car”. Yes, it can drive at freeway speeds, but who would want to fight with semi for a lane in that thing? The real issue though is that the little coffin only gets a tad bit better milage than a normal sized car, and it isn’t exactly cheap. Really, the only reason to buy it in my book would be for the chick magnet appeal.
My plastic deathtrap uses no gas, and did I mention that I don’t pay to charge it! If you want a new vehicle to combat the crazy gas prices, wait until they at least get 60mpg, or buy a motorcylce, because if you are going to be unsafe and you insist on still using gas like a cave man, you can at least look cool doing it. Trust me, nobody looks cool in these micro cars. If you are normal sized, you will look huge in them. If you are above average in size you will look like Andre the Giant in them. If you are a tiny little person that is comfortably scaled to something that size, everyone will just assume you are far away and always yell to talk to you!