iPhone Killer

Well, Apple had what appeared to be a great product in the iPhone but now Nokia is preparing to one up them with their latest and greatest new development. Fortunately for me, I'm prepared to take advantage of this product in a way that will put a smile on Al Gore's face and put the carbon credit market into a tailspin.

Once Nokia's new product hits the market, every Nokia owner on the planet is going to want to ditch their old phones. When they do, I'll be there to take them off their hands and put them to good use. I'm betting if I strap enough of these old phones to a very long pole and engineer the proper circuits, capacitors, and stand far enough away, I'll be able to harness the tremendous power of mother nature. My new invention will generate so much electricity by attracting all those wayword watts that fly through the air that we may just be able get rid of coal, natural gas, wood, and propane powered unicycles. The utility companies will actually be paying me for power.

How great is that!?!

NOTE: Misleading topic at no extra charge.

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Game developers that actually listen

I have to give a big fat thank you to the guys at Gas Powered Games for being so dedicated to their art. Chris Taylor must be doing something right. The company produced a fantastic game called Supreme Commander and it really is the rightful heir to one of my all time favorites, Total Annihilation.

First, they seem to listen to the community and are actively improving an already released game. Do they have to do this, certainly not, but boy am I glad they did. If you play Supreme Commander, the latest patch that was released includes a feature that should have been in every RTS game ever released. The feature actually seems so obvious that it is amazing it hasn't been done before.

What I'm speaking about is the new ability to create a control group (basically, you assign a number to a group of units for easy recall) and include a factory in that control group. Doing this now causes every unit produced to automatically be assigned to this control group from there on. What a beautiful thing this is. Imagine, if you will, assigning a factory to produce bombers and making it part of control group 5 and never having to go seek out these new bombers ever again. Just press 5 on your keyboard and those new bombers are ready to fulfill your every command. Kudos to the SupCom development team!

Second, I commend Chris Taylor for actually giving the developers of his company a real life outside of game development. His philosophy is counter to all other game developers and many other companies in general. He actually wants his people to leave on time from work and spend time with their families! What a concept!

Oh, if you want to try another game from a company that listens better than any I've ever come across before, check out the guys at StarDock and the Galactic Civilizations line of games. If you've never played Galactic Civilizations II, you owe it to yourself to play it. Anyone who likes the Civilization style game or fondly remembers Master of Orion, just go buy it. You won't be disappointed. The best part is that patches and enhancements happen with regularity and they always listen to the comments of their customers. In fact, it isn't uncommon for them to have real conversations with those in the community. There are very few companies out there that do this anymore.

Oh, and the best part is they don't believe in copy protection either. GalCiv2 is not copy protected and neither is the expansion for it. Even without copy protection, when GalCiv2 was released it was on the best seller list at WalMart for quite some time. It just proves that if you give the public what they want, you'll be rewarded for it.

Transformers Movie Trailer

The new exclusive Transformers Movie Trailer on Yahoo! is very cool. If you have the time, make sure you download and watch the 1080P Exclusive version.

Too bad I'm boycotting the movie theaters otherwise this would definitely be one worth watching on the big screen.

Bummer!

C&C3 Comic

Having recently played C&C3 (Command & Conquer 3 for the noobies out there) I couldn't help but chuckle at this Penny Arcade comic I ran across. Funny, I'm always running out of Tiberium too.

Best Visual Illusions

Everyone must check this web site out:

Best Visual Illusions of the Year

The first place winner is absolutely unbelievable!

Apple TV Thoughts

I was looking at something about Apple TV and had to comment. (I know this is old news and it's been out for a while but I still had to say something.)

What was Apple thinking? Why did they hamper what could have been a spectacular box by doing the following:

• 40GB Hard Drive (even some iPod's have larger HD's)
• Component Video or above only - some people don't have HD sets
• No built-in iTunes - I'm sure this has the horsepower. Why couldn't they have put in an interface to iTunes in this box

For a company that is so innovative, what happened?

Honestly, they should also have an interface to NetFlix in this thing. Partnering with them and allowing streaming of video rentals through this box would have been a major win.

On a funnier note, I was watching this video from Keith Shaw and in the very beginning he says its got a huge hard drive. That was that hilarious!

MacBook Video Still Subpar

What happened? Apple released the new MacBook today and while the changes look great there is NO NEW VIDEO CHIPSET! What gives?

How can they do this to us? The Intel GMA chipset is one of the worst out there besides the S3 crap that is out on the market. Why must I spend another $1000 for a laptop with a decent video card. Give us something? Even a GForce Go7300 or a low end Radeon would be better than this garbage. Others seem to agree too.

You can check out the specs here and believe me, the video card is still crap.

I want so bad to get a MacBook but I'll never buy one until the fix they video card in it. A MacBook Pro is more than I need, larger than I need, and frankly more money than I want to spend. Please Apple, fix this and fix it soon!

Movie Theater Advertising

I'm sick of paying almost $9 per person (I'm sure it is more elsewhere) for the privilege to sit down in a theater and be bombarded with advertising. I'm personally boycotting the movie theater until they stop this incredibly annoying practice. It is bad enough that I have to skip ads on television and I'm paying for the cable system to bring it into my home.

I'm sure the theaters will argue that it offsets their cost and keeps the ticket prices down but please, I'm not stupid. Ticket prices have risen steadily for the past 20 years and I don't see it coming down anytime soon because of advertising.

I know Comcast is trying to get the rights to show movies in the home at the same time they are released in the theaters and at $30-$50 per pop, it seems expensive but if I can get several people together for a movie night, the cost per person is far less and I'm sure I'll enjoy it just as much. Of course, Comcast will screw that up too and put advertising that can't be skipped into the movie stream. How much do you want to bet?

I can't be the only one who finds these ads annoying? If you do, send a message to the movie studios and theaters by simply refusing to pay for advertising and let's force them to stop this practice.

One Year Anniversary

OK, this is really stupid but I had to put at least one post here to celebrate the one year anniversary of this essentially non-existent blog. Seeing how I've posted nothing to it this really isn't very interesting. I promise to do better this year.

Nothing to see here, move along...