Portal Gets a Mysterious Update

Also in the sur­prise-to-me-release cat­e­go­ry, Valve released a rather strange update to their 2007 hit Por­tal today. Though not much in terms of game­play was added, the ever-present radios placed through­out the game now seem to have some sort of sig­nif­i­cance. Car­ry­ing the radios to var­i­ous points with­in the lev­el unlock a new game achieve­ment.… Con­tin­ue read­ing Por­tal Gets a Mys­te­ri­ous Update

Whiskerino 2009

My friend Trey was part of this online beard-grow­ing con­test a cou­ple of years ago. In actu­al fact, it is real­ly a pho­tog­ra­phy con­test with grow­ing beards as a theme (and is thus­ly pret­ty much lim­it­ed to male con­tes­tants, though females cer­tain­ly jump in and con­tribute). For the past few years, I’ve been grow­ing out… Con­tin­ue read­ing Whiskeri­no 2009

Published
Categorized as General

Whiskerino — Day 90

Whiskerino - Day 90
Whiskeri­no — Day 90 (Clame­bute) - That’s Icewind Dale direct­ly North of my right shoul­der for you Driz­zt fans out there

This is my pho­to trib­ute to a pic­ture by Trey tak­en on Day 20 of Whiskeri­no. And if that map looks famil­iar to you (or, per­haps, not all if you’re not a D&D fan), that’s because:

Pandorum

I watched Pan­do­rum over the course of a cou­ple of days this past week1. I real­ly had­n’t seen or read a lot about the film, oth­er than a trail­er and a very short inter­view with Den­nis Quaid on Leno (or some evening talk show). I was­n’t real­ly sure what to expect; but what­ev­er I was… Con­tin­ue read­ing Pan­do­rum

Devices versus Technology

A cou­ple of months ago, Google announced that Android 2.0 (their mobile oper­at­ing sys­tem) will include a maps nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice which will pro­vide turn-by-turn dri­ving direc­tions. This news was cred­it­ed for dri­ving down the stock price of nav­i­ga­tion device man­u­fac­tur­ers Mag­ellen and Garmin. But real­ly, this should real­ly come as no sur­prise. GPS was once… Con­tin­ue read­ing Devices ver­sus Technology

Twenty Ought Nine — Goals in Review

Well, it has been a real­ly rough past cou­ple of months. We’ve been pass­ing around who-knows-how-many virus­es. We had sev­er­al hol­i­day get-togeth­­er with friends and fam­i­ly here at our house (not includ­ing tonight’s NYE par­ty1. Wyatt has learned to crawl, so our lives have only become that much more insane as we attempt to keep… Con­tin­ue read­ing Twen­ty Ought Nine — Goals in Review

Published
Categorized as Life

Ruining it for the Rest of Us

The Pew Research Cen­ter has put up a nice, inter­ac­tive graph­ic show­ing some mar­riage sta­tis­tics by state. So, based on what we’ve always been told, you might expect lib­er­al states — espe­cial­ly those which have allowed same sex mar­riages — to have some of the worst num­bers.  It does­n’t real­ly pan out that way, though.… Con­tin­ue read­ing Ruin­ing it for the Rest of Us

Clarity Trumps Brevity

Dan Sil­ver­man does­n’t like his Avaya desk­top phone1 very much. He explains how its cryp­tic but­tons don’t real­ly pro­vide enough infor­ma­tion to make sense of their func­tion. He also includes this gem on what hap­pens when indus­tri­al design fails (which is almost always, to some extent): Yes, in the case of elec­tron­ic devices, the design… Con­tin­ue read­ing Clar­i­ty Trumps Brevity

One Hundred Year FUD

Nate Ander­son at Ars Tech­ni­ca takes a trip down mem­o­ry lane for the con­tent indus­try’s cen­­tu­ry-long fight against tech­nol­o­gy. Every step is a fight against the con­ve­niences we enjoy every­day (and these fools lat­er learned to mon­e­tize): The anx­ious rhetoric around new tech­nol­o­gy is real­ly quite shock­ing in its vehe­mence, from claims that the play­er… Con­tin­ue read­ing One Hun­dred Year FUD