Mac Braintrust

For a long time, my digital life revolved around one computer (or another). It went from a Mac IIx, to a IIfx, to a Quadra 950, to a Powermac 6100/66, then a 7200/120, then for several years, 2002 Powermac G4. At some point in grad school, work got shifted to a IBM Thinkpad and personal stuff stayed on the mac. Things got bifurcated again when I graduated... The Thinkpad (and then the replacement Thinkpad) gets a lot of use at home because you can move them around and most of the time they're all the computer that's needed. However, a few things have kept the mac in regular usage: photography and email archiving. Of course, there are machines that are not really central tools: there is the gaming PC and a home server that lets us centrally backup files, print, and code.

It occurred to me that if I could move the email and the photography to the thinkpad, I could retire the mac. Having all these computers laying around doing highly specific jobs seems silly and redundant, especially since the mac uses massive amounts of electricity (300 watts) to do the same job that the Thinkpad (10-60 watts) can, at something like 1/8th the speed.

The problem is proving to be fairly difficult to overcome. My archive of photos is ~80 gigabyte, and carefully organized using Kavasoft's (mac only) Shoebox. Moving the archive and maintaining the browsability (Shoebox organizes into folders by date, but then assigns metadeta that lets photos be organized by catagory) is proving to be tricky.

Picasa happily indexed the archive, but navigating turned out to be tricky, as it refuses to recurse into folders to display photos. I downloaded the Lightroom 4.1 trial. I really liked using it on the mac, except for the sluggish speed on a comparatively outdated machine. It's better on the E-350 based Thinkpad, but browsing is still less than instantaneous, and I have not yet convinced it to read a Shoebox catalog file.

With no obvious way to move both photo and catagories en-mass, things to be pretty much locked in to the mac for the moment.

Book Review: Rise of the Videogame Zinesters

I recently finished read Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. I picked up it in Powells, an impluse based on being overwhelmed with selection, yet somehow compelled to walk out with something, since I had travelled the width of the country to be there.

The book appealed to me because it appeared to scratch an intellectual itch i've been having as of late: are video games a form of art? If so, why has there been so little diversity of tropes? In particular, there has been a huge focus on games that are rediculously violent, have shallow plot lines, low intellectual vigor, and amazing graphics that require fantastically expensive hardware. The concept had been simmering in my mind until I heard an interview with Ian Bogost (creator of Cow-Clicker) (http://www.bogost.com/) on NPR. That really blew the door open, and the concept had been running rampant in my mind, so I have been looking for some meaty literature to see what anyone else was thinking about it.

Rise of the Videogame Zinesters spends time exploring several aspects of videogame culture in depth, along with a passel of references. It doesn't make it as an all encompassing treatise on the topic.  A lot of the examples were from Anthropies own explorations in game creation. Thus the book caries a slightly despondent tone, and the recurring lesbian theme leaves the reader wondering what -other- audiences mainstream game creation has left behind. To be clear, there are other examples in the book, they do not recieve the same amount of attention and affection.

The books strengths are played out in the examination of the decidely technical and male foundations of video game culture,  and the tools available to people to make their own games, without needing to have extensive experience in computer science. It really pushes the idea that video games can be made by anyone with an idea and a little passion, along with the insinuation that are many unexplored orthogonal tropes that could be explored. The list of easy-to-use tools is a little short. I would have added Wiring and Quartz Composer, for instance.

In those areas, the books gives the reader some new tools to look at the video game world. I have found myself digging for more information about how small developers put together titles, and I am trying to see possibilities in new places. What kind of (worthwhile!) games can be made in HTML5, for instace? I have also started looking explicity for games that somehow break the mold in terms play and message. In spite of the sheer number of large, glitzy major production titles in the market, there are quite few games made by small teams and individuals. The potential is pretty exciting.

Derby Derby Derby Derby

Good news for those who need it, and knowing you, you need it like I need it.

There's a new Roller Derby league in Northern Virginia!

http://novarollerderby.com/home/

We went to the June 9th bout. It was fatasmic. Crashes, contact, tattoos, fishnets, and confusion.

I ground out 900 photos in less than 2 hours.

The Girly is incredibly stoked by this, and is eager to practice and try out.
(My wife is awesome.)

Speaking of awesome:

NoVa Rollerderby June 9 2012

Of course, I was able to reduce the 900 down to 49 photos that I thought had any retrospective or artistic value...

Code Brown

I am ready for this chapter of our doggy life to be over.

Dad was right, of course.

Putting the dog in the box does not discourage him as much as one would hope.

He missed again

The vet informs me that there is nothing obviously medically wrong with The Dog. We had a lovely conversation where she mentioned his white bloodcell count was slightly elevated, signalling slight allergies, or a parasite. I will pick up some de-worming medications today during lunch hour.

I have been worried that the problem is behavioral. Perhaps while he was at the kennel, he learned that any impervious surface will do, and thus finds the floor to be as good a drop zone as anywhere else. To head off this possibility, we tied walking him until he pooped, theory being he'd need to wait awhile before he was ready to go again. That seemed like it was working, but it wasn't.

Today was strike three. I found a stinking pile of mutt offal accompanied by a large yellow puddle, leading to another bathroom floor cleaning extravaganza. The floor isn't level, so liquids find all kinds of fun places to hide relative to the start point in the middle of the room.

Strike three also means escalation of the corrective procedures:
The Box is back.

It's been 18 months since you've seen it. You thought it was gone. It was collapsed, hiding in the basement, with the zip-lock baggy holding the small parts labeled "your loose screws." Now, it's back, it's in the living room, and it wants something.

I called The Dog.

"Box!" I yelled, and pointed to the door.

I don't like to believe the anthropomorphizations I create for him, but I'm pretty sure the his body language was expressing shock and disbelief. The Box is not the doggy happy-fun time. (That's the couch, for those who've been watching.) He did not want to go into The Box. He pretended to walk in, but started to veer around in the entrance. No missing this time! "IN!" I yelled, and nudged him towards the door. There he will spend free time until we get this sorted out.

 

Not Obvious

I walked up to the checkout counter.

There was 32 lb bag of charcoal under one arm and a 16 lb bag of ice under the other.

I bet you can guess which arm was most uncomfortable.

I slumped my load onto the counter. The cashier started to ring it up. She asked if I wanted paper or plastic.

I replied, "No bag please, I'm on a bicycle."

She glared at me like I was crazy or something.

The Phantom Shitter Strikes Again

My first encounter with the Phantom Shitter was at the Boy Scout National Jamboree in 1997. There may have even been several at work in unison. Regardless, there was someone who was pretty good at finding ways and places leave fresh corpulites that would not be considered acceptable by social norms in American Culture. There were collapsed lincoln log piles in the shower and behind tents and such. Good times. I was glad to leave that behind, hoping it was over.

Of course, it wasn't.

In high school, we discussed metaphysical manifestation of alienation, and the Phantom Shitter phenomenon was brought up as a common example. An academic premonition that would linger in my mind when our hero stuck the graduate dorm in the Spring of 2006. Hall meetings were held. Guards were posted in the bathroom. Fees were charged. Fetid piles periodically arrived. They threatened to take the doors off the stalls.

To my deep surprise, Phantom Shitter has struck again! In my own house! I got home Wednesday night, walked the dog, and then settled down on the porch to drink beer and waste my life surfing the internet. Then, The Girly came home, and called me into the house. "Have you been to the bathroom since you got home?"

I hadn't. Beer first, pee later. You know how it works. Order is critically important in that game.

She pointed into the bathroom.

There was a large stinking pile of poop.

She denied responsibility. I denied responsibility. The Dog denied responsibility.

Great. Someone broke into the house shit on the floor. Just like Baltimore.

-or-

Someone was lying.

We decided to let the matter stay. A few plastic bags and paper towels vanished the problem. Vanished, that is, until Friday, when The Girly texted me at work to tell me it happened again. She proposed to take The Dog to the vet for interrogation.

Just like East Germany. They have quite a file on him.

The vet wants a stool sample and a urine sample

Great.