My all-time favorite fighting game is the classic 2D fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
The game pits characters from Marvel Comics and Capcom’s video games against each other in crazy three-on-three battles. Some of the characters are popular favorites, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Dr. Doom, the Hulk, and Wolverine among other X-Men come to mind from the Marvel side. Mega Man, Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and a ton of Street Fighter characters are all part of the Capcom character gallery.
The game isn’t particularly balanced, some characters are dreadful, and some are way overpowered, but there are so many characters, and even more combination of characters that the game is endless fun (Over 10 years later, and I do play it on a fairly regular basis).
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is officially coming to XBox Live and the PlayStation Network. You will be able to download it for $15.00 sometime in the near future.
Swine flu, it’s everywhere… in the news I mean, but it is spreading in real life.
I don’t like it when I get the flu. I don’t like when you get the flu.
Let’s face it, I don’t like any flavor of the flu (swine, bird, or original blend).
With that sentiment in mind, here are some tips to keep the flu away from you (and me).
Wash your hands.
Cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze.
Don’t your any of the sensory organs on your face (unless you are covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze).
Wash your damn hands!
If you feel like you have the flu, STAY HOME!!!
I’m serious about that last one. When someone walks into work “toughing it” through the flu, I don’t look at that person and think, “Wow… what an inspiring person.” I think to myself, “WTF are you doing here you self-important jerk! Go home before you get everyone else sick.”
I have a pretty impressive collection of influenza antibodies but I don’t really care to add to it. Keep your flu to yourself.
Two things that I love about technology are when it is used to help people, and when it is used to positive results in a manner that the creators didn’t think of, or intend.
While this isn’t exactly the happiest story, it is a story of people using Google Earth in a novel manner, to find a plane that crashed two years ago.
I love it when people from high school that I never communicated with in any capacity friend me on Facebook. It’s totally awesome to get a friend request, look at the name and think, “I have no idea who this person is…” but I accept anyway out of some stupid sense of politeness. Plus, my life rocks and my Facebook profile reflects that!
What I love even more than hearing from people who were barely connected to me in the past, is getting messages like this from them:
Hey David! How r u doing? This is a shot in the dark but i was just wondering if u knew anyone who is looking to make some extra money. My business team is aggressively expanding right now despite the economic time and I know a lot of people are in the process of looking for other ways of making money. If u know anyone that would be really helpful.
Hope all is well and thanks a lot!!
Unfriend!
She was right about one thing in that message, it was “a shot in the dark.” It was a really poorly written shot in the dark. Seriously, that was the first time that this person has ever communicated with me at all. Ever.
That’s the third message along those lines that I have received from former high school classmates who I didn’t really know. One of them began with the words”
David, you are smart guy with good business sense…
Then he proceeded to ask me if I wanted to “invest” in his real estate scheme.
Unfriend!
The other message was an invite to become part of an “exciting business opportunity.” Of course it was a pyramid scheme.
Unfriend!
If you were thinking about trying to get me to become part of some get rich quick scheme, please take your business opportunity and shove it.
If Craigslist was used in a murder, it only means that it has become extremely mainstream. People kill. They will use lots of tools in the process, and most of them are innocent tools. Cars, cellphones, computer, a hotel room… come to think of it, these people were attacked by the murderer in a hotel room. Why don’t we hold the hotel accountable? Aren’t a lot of dead people found in hotel rooms? (they are on TV)
People kill other people, it’s a tragedy. However this is not the fault of Craigslist any more than it is the fault of the murderer’s internet service provider, the manufacturer of his computer, the company who made the car with which he used to get to the hotel, or the hotel itself… all of these things didn’t cause the murders, they were used by the murderer.
This is both funny and a sad reflection of reality… AND it’s set to the tune of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, the single most awesome song of the 1980s!
I don’t recommend watching this at work.
Thanks to CollegeHumor for making it and Josh for pointing it out.
Google has been quietly competing with Facebook since December 2007 with Google Profiles. Google Profiles links back to Google Reader, Google Maps, Picasa, and Flickr among a few other applications. Plus, I have no doubt that they will further integrate Profiles into other applications.
Google has amped up the competition with Facebook by promoting Google Profiles as a person finder. Google is essentially saying to all of us, “If you want to come up when people search your name and look for you, build a Profile (and use all of our other applications).” (If you don’t have a Google Profile you will still come up in Google search).
If Facebook is primarily being used to connect with friends, maintain those connections, and share information and photographs, Google Profiles can do all of that too.
I am interested to see how this growing competition plays out.
If you care, you can see my fairly bare-bones profile here.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the first of what has become a series of PC “Laptop Hunters” ads. I’m continuing to stand being my original analysis of the “Lauren” ad. The two subsequent PC Hunters ads weren’t quite the train wreck that Lauren was, but I still found the people in the ads obnoxious and ill-informed; shouting off random computer parts and claiming to be tech savvy doesn’t appeal to me at all.
The biggest problem with these ads is that they completely ignore the user experience. Microsoft doesn’t sell Blu-ray drives, monitors, or graphics cards. They sell software. They sell a user experience, and that experience is lacking but it isn’t unsellable. These ads were pretty damn good:
These two ads are simple and elegant. They address the user experience in a clear and friendly manner. Plus, how can you get have a problem with those little girls? They seem far more intelligent than the tools that appear in the PC Hunters ads. The four year-old came across as more authoritative and likable than Lauren, Giampalolo, Lisa, or Jackson.
In response, Apple is using the same old formula to continue point out the flawed Windows user experience, and why not? These ads have been working wonders. Here are two of the new ones:
Another problem that Microsoft has is that Apple has had an active and preachy community for decades. There wasn’t a completely devoted community of PC users in the same way that there was a Mac community. Tight knit communities form around minority views. Additionally, many of the devoted PC users of the past (like myself) jumped ship to Apple over the past few years.
If Microsoft want’s to plug the holes, the answer isn’t poking holes at Apple; Microsoft doesn’t have the credibility to pull it off. They need to prop up their product and make it as cute, pretty, and above all, as likable as possible. They need to highlight the virtues of their own user experience, even if there aren’t many of them.
Basically people submit things that they overheard in… you guessed it, New York City.
This stuff is a riot and even if a lot of them are made up, they at least sound like they were spoken in NYC.
Here are a couple of my favorites from my brief perusal of the site:
Trafalgar Square?
Tourist #1: Oh, I think this is that famous intersection. Tourist #2: Is it? Tourist #1: Yeah, this is it.
–Times Square
Being Friends with a Cyborg Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Friend #1: My friend told me that in Wisconsin they deep-fry cheese curds. Friend #2: What’s “cheese curds”? Friend #3: Kurds are a perennially oppressed ethnic minority group found in parts of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.
–East Village
And my favorite:
The Grammatical Correctness Capital Of America
Cashier: Wow, you speak really good English. Where are you from? Hipster Asian dude: I’m from Tokyo and I’ve been taking classes since I was three so I’m really articulate and speak great English. Cashier: Really? Hipster Asian dude: Fuck no. I’m from Queens.
–Deer Park
It has been a busy day, I’ll be back tomorrow with something a little more on topic.
Across the United States analog television will go away for good as of June 12, 2009, so long as it isn’t pushed back again like it was in February (I sincerely doubt that the digital conversion will be delayed again).
If you are reading this site you probably know about the conversion, but this is one of those tech issues where I ask that you keep an eye out for people who don’t know; the elderly in particular.
If you are receiving your television from a cable, phone, or satellite provider you should be fine even if you don’t have a digital television. The box does the conversion for you.
You will need a converter if you are using a television that has an antenna or you are using a roof-based antenna to receive your television signal.
With over six months and 238 posts behind us, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on what this is and what it will be in the future.
I’m truly happy with what this site has become. I’m a little surprised and very encouraged by the fairly high and constantly growing level of readership. For that I say thank you to all of you.
Over the next few weeks I will be finishing my thesis and coursework… I cannot wait to have my masters completed . I will also be intensifying my job hunt (as my current job is tied to my masters program) and then taking a vacation. As a consequence I probably won’t be posting more than once a day for the next month or so.
When all of this is said and done, you can expect some more positive changes to the site. I’m looking into independent hosting so that I will have greater control over the layout and functionality of the blog. Once I have that, the sky is the limit in terms of augmentations to the user-experience.
If you have any thoughts about what you would like to see in terms of functionality or content on this site, please leave a comment.
In the mean time, thank you for your time and readership. These past six months have been a delight and I will do my very best to continue to provide you with quality content in the future.
Have a great weekend,
David
P.S. Backup your computer if you haven’t done so in the past few weeks!
I need to get this off my chest because I feel like I am being inundated with “news” about this garbage and I can’t get away from it.
Over the last month the non-geek world discovered Twitter, and it has been nonstop nonsense ever since.
If the mainstream news coverage wasn’t dreadful enough, two of the biggest self-promoting celebrities on the planet have decided to invade the Internet 140 characters at a time.
Ashton Kutcher is apparently the “King of Twitter” and Oprah will probably anoint herself Queen as soon as her seemingly endless legion of fans crash the micro-blogging party.
Not all celebrities on Twitter are bad, Shaq has been using it in an honest way… but the followers numbers game that Kutcher is playing, and whatever the hell Oprah is doing is just a waste.
Fail
Kutcher talks about how his voice can be just as powerful as CNN’s… Sure it can, but what the hell are you going to do with that voice you tool shed (That was directed at Kutcher, not you)?
What on Earth will Ashton Kutcher provide for his now 1,000,000+ followers that will justify his claims to democratizing media? Is he going to report on real world issues? Is he going to raise money to feed starving babies? What is the point?
Is this going to usher in a new ear of celebrity created content (More likely ghostwritten content)? I think it should because we clearly don’t get enough celebrity news on TV, in magazines, or on news sites and blogs.
We Didn’t Start the Flame War
Tags: Billy Joel, CollegeHumor, Comments, Flaming, Message Boards, We Didn't Start the Fire, We Didn't Start the Flame War, YouTube
This is both funny and a sad reflection of reality… AND it’s set to the tune of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, the single most awesome song of the 1980s!
I don’t recommend watching this at work.
Thanks to CollegeHumor for making it and Josh for pointing it out.