by Matt | Jun 17, 2011 | Photo of the Day, Work
Having done a quick photographic favor for a friend, they felt the need to repay me. I had told them that actual money was out of the question and that I wouldn’t accept it. I had helped out a friend and that was good enough for me. They felt the need to repay my kindness in Single Malts. This I find to be a completely acceptable form of currency. So, all future clients take note: Scotch, single malt and over 15 years old, is reasonable payment for services rendered. That is all.
PS: In case you’re interested in the Scotch itself, it’s a Glen Moray, 16yr. There’s a pretty accurate review on DrinkHacker, who gives it an A-. They’re also correct in that it’s not widely available in the US. Personal review once I crack it open 🙂
by Matt | Jun 17, 2011 | Personal
I had already mentioned this to a few people, but I just completed an update to my portfolio and photography website liquidillusions.net. It had been a little while since I added any new work and I hadn’t updated the design of the site for a while and it just felt like the right time to do both. I had actually done quite a bit of new freelance work since I had last updated it as well, so all that got added. There’s a couple projects I can’t add yet that are pretty cool but still in production. The new site, using the custom post types in WordPress should make it considerably easier to update going forward. So, yeah. Check it out, let me know what you think, take a look at the new work, all that good stuff. Enjoy.
www.liquidillusions.net
by Matt | Jun 7, 2011 | Culture, Featured, Games, Personal
With E3 still in full swing this week, I’m conflicted about calling it so early, but unless someone unveils something huge in the next 24hrs, I’m going to call this one of the most disappointing E3’s in recent memory.
Since it’s the closest to my wheelhouse, I’m going to start with Microsoft. Right off the bat I was completely floored by the amount of Kinect bullshit being peddled during the keynote. Let me be clear, the keynote speech, at 11:30 on a Monday morning, it not for casual gamers. Your Mom is not sitting at home waiting to hear about the next Dance Revolution game, I promise. No, that keynote is for the media and the hard core fans. The most hard of the core. Every single fucking game, whether it needed it or not, now includes some form of asinine Kinect integration. I will not play Ghost Recon by waving my hands around like a dumbass. I will not play Mass Effect by talking to it. I will not make big giant air circles to cast spells in Fable. There is ZERO desire in my gaming heart to do any of those things. I can’t believe that Microsoft is so completely ignoring it’s base.
Let’s look at it by the numbers, and just to show that I’m not making these up, you can check both the VGCharts and ESA for these. On estimate, worldwide, in this console generation, there have been 190 million units sold. 86 million Wii, 56 million 360’s and 50 million PS3s. That’s a fact. Also a fact is that in an ESA survey, 42% of gamers own 2 or more consoles. Seeing at how the Wii nearly doubles the sales of the other two, it’s a safe bet to assume that most people own either a PS3 OR a 360 AND a Wii. That means that half the “hardcore base” already has a device that does motion. Add to that the fact that Microsoft has sold 10 million Kinect devices (stand alones and bundles) and you get slightly less than 1/5 of the Xbox community embracing the technology. That’s 20%. That leaves 80% of the market filled with people who already own a system AND don’t want to jump around the living room like ADHD sufferers without their meds. As far as I can tell, that 80% just got completely fucking ignored this week.
Also aggravating is that most “Kinect support” fells tacked on and pointless. Why on earth do I need a Kinect to do voice recognition in Mass Effect 3? Doesn’t the console already come with a headset? If there’s no motion being captured, why is Kinect a requirement? Isn’t it just software at that point? Also, why make a menu system for Ghost Recon that takes LONGER to select a gun from than just using the controller. It would give me tennis elbow just to customize my weapons. And adding in the feature to tell the game to “randomize” my gun choice? What the hell? I’m in a menu, SELECTING a gun. If I wanted to randomly select one, I wouldn’t be in a fucking menu in the first place! The worst example is Fable, a series I’ve now completely given up on. I finished the first two, struggled half way through the third and I have no desire to play the fourth. With the nature of that game and the number of enemies that spawn in dungeons (because, according to Lionhead studios, quantity of enemies clearly equals quality), you’d have to endure full-on gymnastic routines just to get to the next village if you played it with the Kinect. Drawing huge circle in the air and “throwing” spells is the fastest way to get me to turn the game off, or to have Tommy John surgery, either one. Lastly, show me ONE hardcore football guy that’s going to sit in his living room, with his guy friends, and take fake snaps of the football while everyone watches. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Thank goodness Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 have stayed true to their roots. If I had to hold my hands in a mock steering wheel position to drive a tank I would have gone mental. A couple other titles did squeak into the corner of my periphery, and not from the MS keynote either. EA released a new game play trailer for SSX which looks ridiculously perfect. Also Overstrike from Insomniac looks promising, although I would have liked to see some gameplay footage. Mass Effect 3 is still in the running for a quality release, despite a poor voice acting bullshit audition on stage. I can’t wait to play the game… with my microphone unplugged.
Everything else looks completely bland and uninteresting, including Gears of War 3 which managed, somehow, to make me really not give a crap. Minecraft for the 360 is quite possibly the biggest sell-out I’ve ever seen, the Star Wars demo was so terrible even the 40yr old virgins were unimpressed, Tomb Raider was nothing but heavy breathing and claustrophobia, Fable was incredibly weak and Halo is now officially a cash grab. The entire thing was a weak attempt to either woo a demographic that wasn’t watching or a desperate attempt to win over the hardcore demographic that might have been on the fence about Kinect. It really did neither.
The Nintendo presentation was equally troublesome. After all these years, after all the wonderful childhood memories, the best they can come up with is a controller the size of a iPad and the 134th version of the same Legend of Zelda game. Oh, but wait, now you can play buy MarioKart, again, for the other new console your kids are going to make you buy. Because, let’s face it, as an adult, there’s really only so much Mario one person can play. It’s really just gotten sad at this point. Seriously, all Nintendo is offering and a terribly named (even worse logo’ed) console that they should have made 3 years ago, 12 Zelda titles, Mario, Luigi, MarioKart, Smash Brothers and Star Fox. Their line up hasn’t changed since 1999. Even the games they “teased” were Mario Party, Ninja Gaiden and Kirby. Everything else isn’t a console exclusive. Dirt, Ghost Recon, Tekken, Batman.
I’m glad they actually solidified the release of non-kid games for their console, but the fact that half their current audience already has a system that they prefer to play those games certainly won’t make them just ship. What’s my motivation for playing Batman on the LimpDick Wii:U instead of the Xbox? Or why would I play a weird downgraded Ghost Recon on the Nintendo instead of Xbox Live or PSN, where my friends already are? Also, can we talk about the name. Really? You followed up the console named for a penis with, literally, a logo that looks like a dick. No one in the marketing department thought this was a bad idea? Wow.
I hate to say it gamers, but we’ve got to start demanding better or else they’re going to keep getting away with this. Every time you hear someone say it’s “ground breaking” or “revolutionary” or “the next step/stage of gaming”, you have my full permission to call them on their bullshit. The only things that are revolutionary in gaming are brand new IPs, which we saw very few of, and major console launches which only happen once a decade. Until we get there, it’s the same old crap, just with higher numbers on the boxes.
Matt out
by Matt | Jun 6, 2011 | Music
All this talk about music reminded me that I was going to mention that the new Flogging Molly CD is simply fantastic. There are a few bands that still I religiously pick up the CDs for every album. Flogging Molly is one of those. The new CD “Speed of Darkness” is an entire battle hymn for American revolution. Tracks 2, 4 and 5 are a call for all out war. Recorded and emotionally brewed in Detroit, the album’s theme is generally economic in nature and speaks to the troublesome times we find ourselves in. Being poor, out of work and tired of the continuous bullshit from the government and the rich weaves it’s way across all 12 tracks. Gone are the old sea chanties and traditional Irish backing. The entire CD is as raw and American as you can get.
Musically, the sounds is unique, especially within the FM catalog. I can say that the departure from acoustic guitar and mandolin for the gritty sounds of electric and bass are compatible to Dylan going electric in 1965. It’s a huge artistic statement for the band. A few tracks are even reminiscent of other bands take on social-political topics. “Don’t Shut’em Down” sounds eerily similar to a few tracks off GreenDay’s “21st Century Breakdown”, which is actually a good thing.
It’s not all new sounds however. A good number of the songs still feature the same poignant Dave King warble and raw lyrical power, including a fantastic duet with his wife (and the bands fiddle player) on Track 11, “A Prayer for Me in Silence”.
As a huge fan of the band in general, I’m clearly biased when I say that you should really pick this up, but the impartial music lover in me easily agrees. I found it at Target for $7.99, it’s the same on Amazon as well. I highly recommend it. It’s already the soundtrack to my summer. If you care to purchase it via Amazon, you could always do so via my affiliate link. In full disclosure, I think I get like $0.50 or something if you actually do.
by Matt | Jun 6, 2011 | Music, Personal, Tech, Web
I would send a trackback to Chris’ post on the subject, but since I can’t (and will continue to raz him for it) a link will have to do. I can’t help being perplexed by the concept of “the cloud” as it pertains to music. I can see documents, I can almost see photos, and I can easily see email and online services. Music is a tougher sell, at least to me. Most of that may be due to my usage of the medium. The vast quantities of music, both legally obtained and, well, not, that I consume simply wouldn’t fit into a cloud. At least not a cloud with limited space. I’ve mentioned my vast music collection in the past and in fact it was Chris who actually witnessed the majority of it being purchased. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have purchased nearly as many Global Underground collections if it weren’t for him, for which I am eternally grateful.
Part of me agrees with the concept of having things available to me, any time I want it. Being able to pull up a song from some vast sky based storage labyrinth with a couple buttons has great appeal when I want to have someone listen to something I’ve found. The other part of me cringes that the concept of sharing or physically handing someone the same content would be lost forever. Being able to access my music is inviting, but not having the physical item (file, CD, etc) with me or at least accessible in the end, is a deal breaker. That cage has always been a part of iTunes and Apple’s attitude towards music, but we won’t get into that.
What do you do if you put everything on the cloud, then want it back, and it says no?
From a technical standpoint, I would have to invest countless hours to upload and sync the collection initially and as Chris pointed out, there’s still quite a bit missing. While a “Search & Sync” feature is nice in theory, what about things it can’t find? The sheer number of “Essential Mix” mp3s I have is staggering. I also don’t cherish the idea of Apple/Amazon/Google knowing exactly what I’m listening to. If you think for a second that any of those services wouldn’t turn over information about what they’re storing if faced with legal action, you have far too much faith in them. I hate to be the paranoid type, but if I uploaded the music I had, through iTunes, into the Apple cloud, the flags it would raise in the legal department would rivial a semaphore competition.
I also lack the number of devices it would really take to make a service like that useful. I don’t have an iPod that I can plug into a stereo system. I don’t have a HTPC to stream music to. I don’t have an iPhone to listen to music on the go. In fact, I actually don’t have any music loaded into my Android smart phone at all except the few tunes I use as ringtones. The vast majority of my music listening is done in the comfort of my own home, where all the music current resides. If I’m 10ft from the music in the first place, I don’t really suppose it needs to be “in the cloud” to begin with. I do a lot more listening at home/work than I do on the go.
That actually brings me to an idea. Since the concept of the cloud is completely valid, and having things accessible on the go is nice, my only real objection to it is the services/companies running it in the first place. What if you could combine the old and the new? What I’m talking about is a personal cloud. A home server, or a home device, that synced and fed content on demand. Your own personal cloud, probably with a web interface. We’d most certainly need a few prerequisites: cheaper home high speed connections, IPv6, cheap physical storage media in large sizes. Just imagine the possibilities of having music.yourname.whatever and simply having the gateway to it on your portable devices. That would be magical.
Apple does a great job of taking ideas, refining them, making them great and then putting them in an iron cage with a fence around it. Your information is YOUR information. You should manage it. Having your stuff, on the go, without the need to pay someone else to manage it for you should be the end goal. Apple wants to hold your hand and help you make your things easily accessible, and that’s an admirable goal, especially for the less technical of us, but their failing has been in never recognizing that some of us simply want the mechanism, and not the hand holding that comes with it. Give me the concept, give me the tools to create it, then stay out of my way. Everyone should have a cloud. Everyone. It should be a concept that’s embraced, not bottled and sold by a single company.
Also, and maybe this shows my age, there’s something to be said about the “collection” in the first place. I want my daughter to SEE the music that her Dad has. I want to have her listen to everything from Miles Davis to the Beastie Boys to John Digweed and not have to buy the music a 5th and 6th time to do it. I have it all on CDs and tapes and vinyl, and whether or not the medium still exists is besides the point. It’s real. It’s in a box. It can be shared. The vast amounts of it speak to the diversity of it. If I had a bigger house I would literally have a room that housed nothing but music and movies. Something about digitizing it all into a 3×4″ device with a headphone jack seems to cheapen the experience, and removing even that device from the equation all together completely destroys it. I’m not suggesting that we all sit around our living rooms listening to phonographs, but there’s certainly something that was gained by doing so that we seem to have lost over the years.
In the end, perhaps it’s just my media lifestyle choices that define the way I listen to music. I have sympathy for the old ways. While I embraced digital photography, I still have a love for paper and chemicals and the darkroom. In the same way, I embraced the MP3, the software and eventually I’ll embrace the cloud, but I still have a love for record players, the fuzz and the pops, and listening to jazz on rainy Sunday mornings. I can’t wait to share that with my daughter.
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