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| September 2006
12 entries |
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 A few weeks ago I bought my first new* gaming system since 1997 - a first-gen Nintendo DS. I bought the first-gen model for the larger form factor, though it turns out that the Gameboy Advance slot on the second-gen DS leaves the carts sticking out a bit, which means that my "bigger is ergonomically better!!" attitude is correct for the hardware as well as my hands.
The DS has crazy-awesome battery life (it's Long, and Even Longer in GBA mode, as it's only using one screen), an excellent library of titles (which includes the entire GBA library sans multiplayer ability), and is just as portable as my iPod. At 130$ for the system and 15-40$ for games, it's extremely well-priced, and the availability of a string of SquEnix ports and updates for the GBA and DS makes for hundreds of hours of brain-sucking fun for less than the price of a new video card.
Hell, the fact that I don't have to spend 120$-600$ on upgrades every few months just to play games released six months ago makes it more than worth the price tag. The technology is still non-optical, which is further cause for a change of underwear - one of the things that really pissed me off about the Playstation was load time, and the fact that load times are only getting longer as games get more complex has done nothing to ingratiate me to them- the worst I've had to deal with on the DS is a tiny bit of slowdown on a couple of GBA games, and that's it.
Unfortunately for this post, I'm still waiting on an Amazon order containing a couple of DS games to show up. Once they're in, I'll be able to soak in the dual-screen goodness and formulate a more experienced opinion of the hardware - and after Pumpcon, I should have something to say about the system's WIFI abilities. Until now - and until then - I've been using the system as a big ol' GBA for buckets of Final Fantasy IV Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I've also run through New Super Mario Brothers in single player, which is something I intend to write up whenever my blogging chops start oozing back into the headmeats.
* Okay, so a few years back I bought a used SNES (which then Disappeared) and a second-gen Playstation, which is still banging around somewhere and gets used - rarely - for Puzzle Fighter. By "new" I mean, you know, a system I haven't owned before. |
 Sputnik III is a fifth generation player, 60 gig iPod video, black, slightly scuffed (a "refreshed" product from the Apple Store in Shadyside). It has enough capacity to be really really useful as a data transport, which was something I was never able to do with previous Sputniks. That's the good thing.
There's a few quirks, however. Some of it's adapting to a non-mini, some of it's probably "features" that all color/picture/album art capable iPods share - why the track options go volume -> placement -> album art -> rating instead of volume -> placement -> rating -> art is beyond me. Why some indication of track rating isn't given on the playback screen is also beyond me - there's plenty of space for some indication, even if it's just a few dots in the corner. It would be nice if the time would stay in the title bar, instead of switching to "iPod" when the interface is contacted - I think the mini did this, but my sister's got Sputnik II now so I can't do a quick side-by-side comparison. These two points are useage gripes - I use the iPod as a clock, and many's the time I've whipped it out to make a track rating only to find that I've already rated it at some point in the past.
Fact is, as functional as the interface is, there's more that can be done with it. And I don't mean turning the thing into a portable Atari, either. I mean things like picking up my system Appearance and Highlight settings - this thing is Aqua defaults with no apparent way to change to anything else. It's a really minor nit, but that sort of OS -> iPod integration is something Apple is definitely capable of, and it would be nice to see.
The only problem I have with video playback is that iTunes 7.0 (I'm updating to 7.0.1 as I write this, hopefully it gets fixed*) occasionally - irreproducibly - forgets that I have video on the iPod, and deletes it or renders it inaccessible or something. This has been cause for irritation on the few occasions I've wanted to use the video functionality - 99.9% of the time I'm using Sputnik for disk and music, so it's no big deal if this glitch never gets fixed.
Photo handling is nothing to write home about, as I almost always have larger, higher quality hardcopy of anything I want to show off stuffed in my notebook. It's basic, it's useable, and I found out the hard way that ATC's filenames and constant tweaks and revisions have made the jpeg pile a real mess.
The final bitch is that the thing doesn't come with a belt clip, which is a standard feature of the iPod mini. 30$ for an Agent 18 videoshield, and one of the clips broke right out of the box. Some Gorilla Glue, a clamp, and four hours later and I'm preferring the Video Shield and belt clip to the case protector and clip I was using with the mini - it rides lower on my hip and makes for a more comfortable - and more industrial** - experience.
The capacity is a handy upgrade. Sound quality is fine. Video and photo features may some day actually be useful. The biggest win - aside from the 10x increase in disk capacity - is that my sister has inherited Sputnik II. The mini and ipoddisk and she's an extremely happy camper.
* It didn't - I plugged Sputnik III in for sync on 20061002.14:09 and iTunes 7.0.1 decided I don't have any videos, again. :P
** What with the epoxy and all. |
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Cabaret Voltaire : Radiation (BBC Recordings 84-86)
[****.]
The sleeve says these recordings are from CV's "slightly more accessible"
period. Big emphasis on the slightly here, folks - you're either
into this sort of thing or you're not. A lot of the tracks are variants
on songs from Code and Micro Phonies. Overall, it's a good
listen : I bought it after DJ Imperium
spun the Peel Session version of The Operative at Ceremony, and I
consider it money well spent. |
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Techno Animal : Radio Hades
[*****]
I'm a Broadrick fan,
and Amazon has been a great source of non-Godflesh projects. Radio Hades
is a great dose of loop-heavy technoindustrial hell jazz, big on the thud,
thorough with the samples, and quite a bit more to my liking than The
Brotherhood Of The Bomb. While I dig the horns in Fistfunk, my
favorite track is Excavator, as it sounds a lot like Godflesh. Thud-thud
grind, thud-thud griiiind. |
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Techno Animal : Re-Entry
[*****]
I thought this was a bit pricey when I snagged it - it wasn't until the
package showed up in the mail that I realized Re-Entry is a double
disk. Silly of me not have actually read the description or the track
list :P. More ambient than Radio Hades, heavier on the loops, Re-Entry
is kickass techno-industrial-trance. Favorites include Mastadon Americanus,
The Mighty Atom Smasher, City Heathen Dub, Catatonia, and Cape Canaveral,
which is close to what I was expecting the recent Final release to sound
like. Excellent work music - my recent maintenance
interval was performed to this album. |
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Front Line Assembly : Artificial Soldier
[*****]
Unless you're one of the few rivetheads who happen to like Millenium,
Artificial Soldier is easily FLA's strongest release since Tactical
Neural Implant. Finally, an FLA album that doesn't sound like it's trying
to be Male Delerium, more accessible Noise Unit, Haujobb, or some sort of
industrial trip-hop. I haven't been shit-your-pants impressed by post-Millenium
FLA, so when I say AS is fucking good, I mean it. It's
not perfect - I find Humanity (World War 3) very annoying, for example
- but the guest appearances of Covenant and Front 242 vocalists more than
make up for it. The track that really stands out for me is Dopamine
- good programming, and (a true rarity for FLA) good lyrics. AS is
an exceptional FLA release, and I've gotten a lot of listening mileage out
of it. |
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Killing Joke : Hosannas From the Basement of Hell
[****.]
All the earth-shattering thud of Killing Joke (2003), though the
lyrics are closer to Pandemonium. Piles of catchy riffs, some great
intros (the title track, for example), intelligent lyrics, long songs,
and a solid groove throughout: it's a good release, but it doesn't knock
their previous salvo out of first place. |
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Ministry : Rantology
[***..]
It's easier to justify the purchase if you're into live recordings (I'm
not) or if you don't have much of Ministry's back catalogue (I do). The
hook here is the "update" mixes, none of which are better than
the originals (Jesus Built My Hotrod has suffered, Bad Blood is
pretty good but doesn't replace the original, NWO could have been
a lot tighter, and Wrong, while pretty good, feels like it could
have been a bit tighter). Standout tracks are The Great Satan and
Animosity, both of which feature Ministry's signature whack-whack-whack-whack
drums and Wall Of Guitars. Rantology is a listenable release with
some high points, but it feels unpolished in some places and rushed in others.
Ministry fans will dig it, casual listeners would be better served by A
Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste or Psalm 69. |
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Old kit:
Left to right : A 15" Trinitron at 1024x768, clear but slightly dim and very sepia, VGA. A 20" Apple-branded Trinitron at 1280x1024, slightly dim and slightly fuzzy, DB-25 to VGA to KVM, which is plugged into VGA to DVI adapters. A 15" Apple-branded Shadowmask (?- non-Trinitron for sure) at 1024x768, excruciatingly fuzzy but very bright with excellent color, DB-25 to VGA.
New kit:
Two 19" Hanns-G 1440x900 DVI monitors and one 20" 1680x1050 VGA Acer.
The Acer is great for the price, but the KVM doesn't like it - in order to run it at the correct rez, it has to be plugged directly into the machine. So the KVM is now a KM, which is a bit meh. Color is great, contrast is good, viewing angle is sweet, and the brightness came factory default at Supernova - fine after toning it down a bit.
The Hanns-Gs are a slightly different story - the viewing angle isn't nearly as good, color had to be adjusted somewhat, and the righthand display has one dead pixel. DVI works fine, though I can't get full framerate fullscreen video using the PCI bus (probably because I'm running the OS off of a SATA PCI card). For the price, the Hanns-G is pretty good - but the next time I'm in the market for monitors, I'll be sampling a different model or manufacturer.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the new gear. Massive improvements in contrast, color, and overall clarity.
Other, off-screen upgrades:
Replaced the dead 160g SATA drive in maniac with a brand-new 320, replaced minerva's optical with the same model drive and moved the replacement into maniac (so both machines have 16x dvd burners). Mucked up the configuration of a Linksys WRT54GL - I'd be irritated about that if my low roll on the nerd d20 wasn't overshadowed by my sister's iBook dying the same night. |
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| Final Fantasy Tactics Advance linkdump
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18:36 <@esch> solios: What do you use to make beats for PPAC?
18:39 <@solios> Garageband.
18:39 <@solios> >_>
18:40 <@esch> Huh.
18:40 <@esch> I always forget about that.
Since he asked:
- Garageband 2* for beats
and a lot of tracks, as well as general MIDI editing, etc.
- Final Cut Pro
for silly-putty style time stretching. It speeds up and slows down
the track with almost no limits, as opposed to the half/quarter Autechre-esque beat distortion that Soundtrack
does. Not sure why the rest of the Apple audio apps can't do this kind of
distortion, but it doesn't matter - FCP does a great job of it. Almost all
of Crooner was done in FCP.
- Metasynth for basic audio
mangling. I have no idea how to actually use the application, so I
just kick it until it squawks. Hasn't been used since BADISTHEGOAL.
- Wiretap Pro to
pull audio out of Metasynth and VLC.
- Soundtrack
for everything else.
* I need GB3's OMFGPODCASTING!!!! feejurz about as much as I need a spare uterus.
22:24 <@ejp> solios: imagine what you could do with a spare uterus *and* teeth in your asshole.
22:26 <@solios> hm!
22:26 <@ejp> yes.
22:26 <@ejp> the universe positively *quivvers* with possibilies.
22:27 <@solios> quivers like jello.
22:27 <@ejp> or fat man ass.
22:27 <@solios> :|
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Mercury had a Viz section - one that's horribly outdated. There were some desktops and stuff on the Secret About Box, which has gone blooey. It was always the plan to eventually jam all of that stuff in here. Now that The Big Huge Work Project is over with, and we're in the pre-Next Big Huge Work Project lull, I might actually get around to it.
Of course, I might also cut more PPAC tracks, get back to DCR, etc.
You know how it goes. |
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| SAB salvage : Duo Dock floppy drive
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| SAB salvage : SSHkeychain
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SAB went blooey (which explains why the spam at my metaserver account has all but stopped). Even though this article is a bit off, it's something I reference every time I set up a new box. So it's being dumped here for posterity, etc. |
Angel : A darker, more adult Buffy - same universe, same rules, some overlapping characters (Angel, Spike, and a couple of Andrew and Willow cameos). Enjoyable, though Season 4 does get a bit thick on the drama at times. Picture a modern day Shadowrun stripped of the overblown Gibson and Tolkien references and you're getting the picture. Rating : A
Samurai Champloo : I watched the english dub, which is just as bad as every other anime dub - it's not exceptionally bad, but it sounds like the same ten voices that dub everything else, which is a bit jarring. The music is great, the anachronistic feel is pretty sweet, the overall theme of "we're starving, we need money" is something the creator needs to stop flogging - it worked with Cowboy Bebop, but here it feels formula. It works, but it feels contrived somehow. Mugen's foul mouth is a refreshing change of pace, and the overall attitude is enjoyable. Ten points off for a recap/flashback episode. Rating : B+*
Hex : Boarding School Buffy on bonghits and ketamine. The production values are great, the show itself looks pretty good, and the slow (read : geological) pacing works well while waiting for work renders to finish processing. Despite the overall goodness, Hex sports some of the WORST hairstyles I've seen in years, and the theme music is a really sloppy edit of a Garbage track. Points off on both fronts. Like Ultraviolet, the other BBC supernatural thingy I've watched, Hex gets seriously hung up on priests, angels, and biblical whatever - another reason I enjoy Buffy and Angel, as both series are above crutching around on a mythos developed by somebody else. Points for the John Dee reference, points off for his daughter having the worst haircut, ever. Rating : C+
Battlestar Galactica : In the midst of a rewatch as a gearing-up for the beginning of Season 3 in October. Still the best TV-format Sci-Fi, ever. Rating : A+
* Would have been an A but Cowboy Bebop set the bar pretty damned high. While Samurai Champloo is pretty good, it doesn't come close to the awesome goodness of Bebop. |
Wearing the same clothes for three days straight == gross.
Fortunately the Big Project wraps on Friday - after that I can decompress and start prioritizing the toys I'll be getting with the overtime monies.
Two weeks of this was fine. A bit of a drag, but fine - partway into week number three and I'm all DEAR GID MAKE IT STOP.
Which is why, I suppose, I don't work in the video game industry. |
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As mentioned in the most recent ATC News post, DCR is inching back on deck. A Chapter framework - somewhat similar to ATC's - is beginning to evolve. Like ATC, I won't be implementing it in the archives until I'm into the second segment, which is where the ATC crossover/prequel elements begin.
For the record, the first chapter is "Whitehouse" (after the band and the character) and the second is most likely going to be "The Operative" (after a Cabaret Voltaire song). I'd like to get the first chapter closed before the year is out, which means cleaning up the writing, the role of one of the characters, and determining a delivery schedule that works inside of ATC production pacing.
It should be possible to juggle ATC and DCR in parallel with other types of work, as opposed to the historical "ATC and $project" juggling.
As usual, DCR production will be announced with a new strip. |
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