Other blog’s entries I like
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2 Big announcements recently from Valve. Exciting news for pretty much any Valve fan or MAC enthusiast. I only heard of them yesterday from Valve. (What is up with all you other bloggers? O.K. I am a bit behind in my reading, perhaps you are all way ahead of me.)
On March 5th Portal 2 was announced. <Warning the rest of this paragraph contains some hints, but not quite spoilers> I have to admit by this time I was getting suspicious that something was afoot as there have been a couple of surprise updates to the original portal with mysterious descriptions. Update1 did something to the radio in the game, and update2 changed the ending of the game a little. Then in the announcement on the 5th it was formatted a bit oddly… These are all a part of a puzzle that I will have to keep my eyes on to the progress of the solving. I did not catch on to this puzzle until the Portal 2 announcement, but it looks like fun!
Yesterday the announcement was made that Steam Games will be available on the Mac later this year! Games creates with the Source engine will also them be available on the Mac as well. Other developers will also have the option to make their games available on both platforms. This means that all you Mac people out there will be able to play the Half-Life series on your Mac without clumsy virtualization or emulation setups! Left for Dead, Team Fortress 2, and Portal will also be available on the Mac. In fact Portal 2 will be Valve’s first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.
If you have purchased the game already on windows you could then also play it on the Mac. If you play on the PC and then move to a MAC you could also pick up the game where you left off. (Of course it would work the other way around too.)
To me these announcements are quite exciting and I will be keeping and eye on how these progress. I may get a little slow in updating my blog again later this year 
I got a chance to do some exploring on 3/7/2010 and came upon the Skagit River Brewery (http://www.skagitbrew.com/). It is located at 404 S. 3rd St Mount Vernon, WA 98273.
We got there in the mid afternoon and the place was still busy, a good sign I think. The place had a nice feel to it, lots of old wood in the floors and supports. The place was well lit, but with the floors and furniture made from dark wood the place felt dark. It was not exactly intimate, but nice. In the back you could see people brewing through glass windows with the big stainless steel vats, tubes, gauges and other equipment.
There were 2 of us in my party. We walked in and was welcomed. We found a place to sit and by the time we were settled a waitress arrived with menus in hand ready to get us started. There were a lot of tasty looking items and it was hard to decide on what to get. While we were deciding a train went by. The tracks run right next to the building so close that you can feel the rumble of the train going by. The noise of the train was not too loud and actually served to enhance the ambiance.
We eventually decided on the Crabcake Sandwich with a side of Red Potato Salad. The sandwich was 2 crab cakes on a hamburger bun with lettuce, onions, and a delicious sauce with a little kick to it. It was moist but not soggy and very good. It is worth a try especially if you like crab. The red onions could have been a little strong, I liked it but the other person I was with took the onions off the sandwich. The potato salad serving was as big if not bigger that the sandwich. It to was pretty good and also had a good amount of onion. Again it was tasty, but not too spectacular.
Being a brewery I HAD to try some of the local brew. I has their Highwater Porter (7.2%A/V). It was dry, a little bitter, with a smoky, smooth, and not too strong flavor. It was perhaps not the best match for crab cakes, probably a better match for something with red meat. But I liked it. I am not a big porter fan, (I do like them, just not my favorites), but I tried this one anyway and enjoyed it.
There was another beer that I had wanted to try, but there was a long drive ahead. I did not want to get a whole glass but I did get a sample of the Dutch Girl Lager. I really liked that one! It came in a cute sample glass. The taste was subtle, well balanced, light, and refreshing. the even flavor would have been a great complement to the crab cakes if I had the for sight to order it with the meal instead. (And perhaps with less onion on the sandwich, so you could actually taste the beer better.)
The place was kid equipped, with the standard fare of a kids menu, crayons, things to color on, etc. There were not any kids there when I was there, but it looked like an O.K. place to take them. The space between tables was wide enough that you can get you, kids, bags, perhaps a stroller through without too much trouble.
Over the last couple of days I came across several websites that will track personal information and visualize it for you. I have not had the chance to check them all out for a proper review, but I wanted to get them out there if you have an interest. When I come up with a great idea to test them out with, I’ll probably give them the review they deserve. I am however working on another project which you may/may not see a post on in the near future.
Here they are:
1 DayLater – A tool that could be useful to track your time, mileage and cashflow. If you are a free lancer, or just want to know this may be the site for you.
DAYTUM – Could be used to track everyday things on a daily basis. (Hmm… I should check it out to see if there is an automated way to track and graph stuff…)
your.flowingdata – apparently a site that allows you to track and visualize your data via twitter.
And just for fun: Where do you use your mouse? With the tool reviewed here on the Flowing Data blog (a great blog to follow for your data geeks out there) you can get a visual picture of where your mouse goes.
Sorry I don’t have something more in-depth for you. I have been pretty busy lately with various things. Mostly looking for work…
As I am sure you are all aware of by now, Apple announced it’s new device called the iPad yesterday. I want to give my perspective on this.
Like many other people I was eagerly trying to find out the details from the announcement as live as possible. I could not go to the event, so I kept tabs on things via the web and reading what people who were at the announcement event had to say about what was going on. I found that even after everything was said, I kept refreshing the web pages thinking “Is that it?” Later I watched a recording of the keynote and confirmed that there really was not more to it than what I read earlier.
Basically the iPad is an iPod Touch about the size of a piece of paper. There are some enhancements to take advantage of the larger screen, and the option to have 3G and not just Wifi. So I think about this… It is too big to use easily as I am walking around, hmm…
There is GPS and a compass in the iPad but will that be useful? It is too big to use in a car as a driving aid, unless you have someone with you to run the device. I don’t see it as something I will likely be carrying around in my hand as I am walking out-side and trying to actively use. Where would it get the most use? I see it being used Indoors probably where there is not the best connection to GPS satellites. How would it be used in these situations? Looking for places in your area. For some time now there have been effective “search around here” from the IPaddress alone.
What do I think the iPad should have been? Basically a multi-touch MAC; a device more open and extensible than it is. Like the iPod touch, you can only get programs for it from the AppStore, after apple reviews and approves the programs. I think it needs a camera and microphone for conferencing. I am not sure it needs a USB port, but a memory card slot would be a useful addition. To be fair there is something you can buy to read memory cards with the iPad.
I would love to use the multi-touch/portable device to manage my media library. Listen to and organize my music, organize and modify my photographs, etc. However even at the largest capacity there is not enough memory to hold my music, let alone my photos. (That won’t be the case for everyone, but even I am not as hard core as many people are.) At the higher capacity the price starts getting close to a cheap PC or laptop that at least has a hope of handling what I want it to.
Without being able to have multiple programs running at the same time, I don’t see this as a device that you can be productive with. It really is more of an entertainment device. I am not sure it is even that compelling as a gaming platform, except for perhaps casual games. Multi touch is nice, but your hands get in the way of the action. The accelerometer is nice, but moving the whole device to me would lose some of the immersion and interfere with line of site. With the games I have tried on the iPhone, the accelerometer requires a whole new set of skills that I think would frustrate the casual gamer. Where I see this as the most compelling is as a portable video player and even more compelling as an ebook reader. Even as an ebook reader Apple has some stiff competition already.
I see this as going the way of the Apple TV. I don’t think it will go away, but I also don’t think it will perform as well as apples other devices. Without some significant changes I don’t see this gaining wide spread popularity. With as much time as Apple had to come out with this device, it still seems to me a bit rushed. I believe a LOT of engineering, testing, and effort went into this but it does not match my expectations.
I can think of many reasons why Apple may have wanted to go in the direction they did with the iPad, but not many of them really benefit the consumer. Almost all are more of a benefit to Apple. One area that could be a benefit to the consumer is that the iPad will have a very smooth and care free experience. But that is because Apple is locking out anything that could potentially be allowed to cause problems, and in doing so also limits the usefulness of the device.
I would be happy to be proved wrong in this. I think with some changes apple could really make this work and make the iPad a more compelling device for a larger set of users. Even drawing new people to Apple products, but for now, I am not that impressed.
What do you think? Will you be getting one? Waiting to see what the next iteration of the iPad brings? Is it perfect the way it is? How do you see the iPad being used? Let us know in the comments.
Is this a Meta-graph or just self-referential?
This comes from the web comic xkcd which often has comics worthy of sharing!
I wonder what Edward Tufte would think of this, I have read a few of his books, and I am not really sure? Thoughts?
How could I not post this? via DataViz
It’ got data and it’s got beer! Can you get much better than this? (well yes, but still…)
I came across this wonderful infographic today that outlines some of the arguments for and against Global warming. (click on it to see the whole thing.)
I do not pick a side, but I can’t help thinking that even if humans are having little or no effect on global warming, the steps we are taking to conserve, find alternate / creative energy sources, become more efficient, recycle, stop polluting, and in general be better stewards of our planet is a good thing regardless. Would we have strove to improve ourselves in these ways if it was not for an impending global disaster?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Wow, one of my most popular posts was on the game Epic Pet Wars. I wrote that post several game updates ago and that post is now out of date and inaccurate. I think it is about time I updated the information.
 Taztan - One of the critters available As I continue to play the game mostly on the iPhone, but also on the Epic Pet Wars website, I learn more about what is available. There are new items to equip your pet with and new investments to use to gain the “money” to pay for and maintain them. In order to support your pet in the manner it has been accustom to, or to “keep up with the Jones’s” this is an area you need to become familiar with.
Included below a table of the investment options as I have discovered them.
| Investment |
Pet Level |
Cost |
Income (every 60min) |
Cost to sell |
hours to break even |
hours to covercost of sell |
hours for profit
|
| Copper |
1 |
240 |
10 |
120 |
24.00 |
12 |
36 |
| Nickel |
7 |
1500 |
45 |
750 |
33.33 |
17 |
50 |
| Silver |
15 |
20000 |
525 |
10000 |
38.10 |
19 |
57 |
| Palladium |
23 |
80000 |
1180 |
40000 |
67.80 |
34 |
102 |
| Gold |
30 |
200000 |
2500 |
100000 |
80.00 |
40 |
120 |
| Platium Stock |
37 |
480000 |
5200 |
240000 |
92.31 |
46 |
138 |
| Dark Matter |
54 |
1040000 |
9600 |
520000 |
108.33 |
54 |
163 |
| Emerald Stock |
72 |
1900000 |
15000 |
950000 |
126.67 |
63 |
190 |
| Amber Gemstone |
90 |
3200000 |
20000 |
1600000 |
160.00 |
80 |
240 |
| Sapphire Gemstone |
115 |
4750000 |
25000 |
2375000 |
190.00 |
95 |
285 |
Here you can see that the cheapest investment pays for it’s self faster than the larger investments. However the larger ones have a greater potential for income. To maximize your income, you need to maximize your investment slots (200). If you are starting out, keep buying copper stock until you have maxed out at 200. Then as you gain in money, and you grow in levels, new investments options become available to you. See how much of the highest stock you can buy, and sell as many of the lowest one you have to free up the slots for the higher one. The important thing is to have maintain the maximum number of investments you have.
If you choose to play the game, We can hook up and be a part of each others “Posse”. Use friend code: oroqss
Let me know if you play the game and if you have any tips as well.
I want to be a better writer but there are some things I struggle with. Like where you place an apostrophe when you are indicating possessive of a name that ends in an “s”?
You too? Well this site not only has the answers but does so in an entertaining way.
apostrophe.me
I have had a MAC for around year now and really like the thing. Is it better than a PC? Not really. Is the PC better then the MAC? Again, not really. It really depend on your criteria.
Is the MAC easier to use? Well let me point out a few things and you decide.
As I have been learning about the MAC I am struck about a few things. It can pretty much do anything the Windows PC can do, and the Windows PC can do whatever a MAC can do. However with the MAC there does not appear to be as much choice as there is for the PC.
I keep reading about the MAC, magazines, forums, etc. To leant how to use the thing, to resolve problems, and to research the MAC way of doing things that I know so well on the PC. I am constantly finding that the MAC hides a lot from the user. Not sure it is because of a design decision for simplicity, or the thought that the users don’t really want know about the features that are hidden?
I am contently finding the words: “The secret feature”, “The hidden command”, or my favorite: “if you press and hold shift-option and then press…” Simple huh? After all MACs are all about simplicity. The ironic thing about this is I am finding these out because of people are frustrated with their MAC, asking for help, and the “experts” are the ones with these answers.
For example : Perhaps you think the volume control goes up to far when you press volume up key and down too far when you press the volume down key and you want something in the middle. You could use fine motor control to move your cursor to the top of the screen and click on the volume icon and then move the slider minute distances, or you can press and hold shift and option keys with your left hand and press the volume keys with your right hand.
My point is not that the PC is any easier; in fact in all honesty it can be much more complicated with input volume, speaker volume, right and left volume, aux-in volume, etc. But you at least know about all the things you can do. Where is it documented the secret volume handshake needed on the MAC for fine grain control?
There are some other things that could be potentially very useful too. Do you use iPhoto? Wouldn’t be nice to have one photo library for the pictures you took your self and another for the clip-art, or wallpaper pictures you downloaded from the internet? I think so. In order to create another library or load a different one you need to press and hold the Option key while clicking on the iPhoto icon. Why not put it in the file menu? There is another key-click combination that you can use to do some database repair on your iPholo library incase it becomes corrupted, but I can’t remember what that combination is.
Perhaps there is a book on MAC secrets like this. I’ll have to look. If you know of any good ones, let me know it the comments. If you know of some secret features that you are willing to share, put them in the comments as well. Perhaps we can write that book/web page together.
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