All posts by Armand

Gaming, Technology

Xbox360

Played on one at The Hospital. Now have absolutely no desire to buy one until they sort out some decent titles. Bring on GTA4 & Halo 3 and I’ll think about it.

Few reasons.

    It’s good but its not that much better graphics-wise
    The library of games just isn’t good enough
    The ‘extras’ – media library, etc – are only useful if you don’t already have a solution for that (and if you have < 20 gb of music)

So; although it is a great console it just doesn’t make sense for me at its current price point.

Also: whilst I’m on the topic of gaming, RIP Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds – a great game on on the original Xbox, it now has approximately zero players on Xbox live and has no further use as a game. :(

Music

Music reviews

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Pompous writing makes me angry, guilty as I am of doing it myself de temps en temps.

Compare the review of RHCP’s new album Stadium Arcadium on Amazon.com with the review on Rolling Stone. You’d think that Rolling Stone, with its wealthier heritage of music criticism, would be the one guilty of tipping into verbose up-its-own-assness.

Bizarrely, the RS review actually describes what’s on the album relatively straightforwardly – whereas the Amazon.com one is the one that tells you that:

There’s perhaps too much mid-tempo simmering and reflection going on

And that the new album is

an unlikely record to kick back to, and one that both challenges assumptions and eases the band into middle age with an oft languorous, if undeniably savory groove.

Ok, that does convey something – but, seriously, does that strike anyone else as wrong? What the hell happened to rock and roll? And no, I don’t equate rock music with illiteracy, but there’s something all too… institutional about reviews that read like that.

I don’t know, maybe its irrational. After all, a review that said ‘It rocks, man,’ wouldn’t be terribly helpful. But I’d have thought there was a middle ground that didn’t cross over from simply articulate into verbose, pompous tosh. And it’s hard to believe that RCHP would be something you’d listen to in the library with your afternoon sherry with Colonel Mustard as you discussed the affairs of state (and where the bloody candlestick was).

Or maybe I just disagree that RHCP have gotten ‘middle-aged’ and am taking the assertion that they have badly… Am going to have to get the album and find out.

Miscellany, Personal, Technology

Debateamongous

Was involved in a debate at work a couple of days ago. Idea was to get people thinking about tech issues, and it worked. The content of my argument – justifying Google’s self-censorship in order to gain access to the Chinese market – was fairly unoriginal, but had fun piecing it together nonetheless. Cheers to Rach for organising.

I really thought I’d had it when SK popped out with “The Great Firewall of China” to close his case – a good pun always impresses me.

But the rhythm of the thing reminded me v. much of my debating days (before I was completely put off the notion of intellectual debates by the Cambridge Union) at school under good old PASF. Peter (who is one of many Mr Miyagis I’ve had the good fortune to encounter), he taught me well – even though in my debating history at school I never once convinced the audience that my case was worth voting for.

Technology

Tagging vs. Categories

I’m beginning to really hate categories. I have too many, and yet there are never enough. On the other hand, I’m loving the Flickr/Delicious model of tagging – and want to adopt it here. Haven’t found a plugin I like yet. If there are any recommendations out there, or if there is a strong reason to stick with categories, I’d like to hear it.

Meme, Personal, Technology

Should I, or shouldn’t I?

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I need to be saving for a house, really, but there’s a few goodies I want and being the materialo-centric person I am I feel like I really should satisfy this craving. Here’s the list, and some pros and cons. Help me out.

PSP

Probably the device I want least. But it is *damn* cool, and I hear there’s a way you can read comics on it. Which is exciting to me. So, pros…

    It’s sexy looking
    It reads comics

And cons…?

    The only game I want to play on it is Lemmings… oh, and maybe Worms
    It costs too much money
    I don’t really have the time for it

Next up, Xbox 360

Very tempting.

Pros:

    Looks a damn sight better than my gen1 Xbox
    Damn sight cheaper than the PS3
    Available *now*
    Oblivion

Cons:

    I barely play on my current Xbox
    Can’t think of any game other than Oblivion I’m hungry for
    GTA4 and Halo3 aren’t out for a long while
    The price will go down when the PS3 launches, just to spite them
    My TV’s not HD-compatible
    The time thing
    It’s also too expensive
    I have more productive things I should be doing with my life

That last one probably applies to quite a few of the things I’m talking about.

Batter up, Pocket PC

It’s possible these have been branded ‘Windows Mobile PDAs’ now…

Pros

    Gil’s lent me his and it’s really cool
    I have bought a Bluetooth keyboard which will let me use it for writing my novel (if I can ever get it started…)
    They let me log on to free Wifi everywhere…
    I’ll look like someone on Star Trek tapping on one
    I get to fly the flag for Windows Mobile, which I really do like

Cons

    It really is expensive – £250-£300 ish for a decent one
    I’ll look like someone off Star trek tapping on one
    Do I *really* need one?

Ooh. This one is winning so far. What’s next?

New PC

Ok, I’m not even going to argue the case for this one. Can’t afford it, or at least one that would be significantly better than this beast. But Oblivion will not run on my PC and the demo of HOMM V was just rubbish. I can’t face swapping out the graphics card, either, it just seems purposeless.

What else could I possibly want, being the greedy greedy man I am?

Well, a ukelele. And a banjo. And a 12-string guitar. But given that I have barely strummed a tune on my other instruments of late… hard to justify.

So I probably shouldn’t buy any of these things. I might keep playing with Gil’s PocketPC until I really have to give it back and then think about buying one, if I can get the keyboard set up. I’ll let you know how it goes…

I wonder if this material craving is worth a meme? I’ll tag some people and see if they play: Tom, Chris, Ben, Simon B (come on, you know you want to ;) – list four things you want and talk yourself into/out of buying them).

Software, Technology

Firefox issues

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Does anyone else find that Firefox occasionally decides to suck up 100 meg of RAM and 95% of your CPU? Is this a known bug? Is there anyway to fix it other than restarting FF a couple of times a day?

Come on, my fave browser!

Also (and a long shot) – anyone know if Firefox will be made Sharepoint compliant?

And who am I talking to, exactly?

Software, Technology

Feels like bloatware

Just installed the public beta of Windows Live Messenger after reading about it on Pocket Lint.

It has been reskinned, and sure there are other cute features, but the install package is up to 16 meg. COME ON! People use it to send instant messages, it is an instant message client. Plain, simple, text messages.

The ‘collaboration’ machine it seems to be turning into resembles the kind of software bloating that killed ICQ (well, it was either that or the AOL acquisition, but I think the bloating came first). Who knows, though? Maybe this whole ‘Live’ strategy will pay off.

But it seems a step in the wrong direction: I’m enjoying thin client web-apps that leave my machine stable (well, within reason. I’m no (shudder) Mac User). Case in point: Google Talk is 900k and does nearly everything I want it to (if it did multi-way chat, that would be it). And it has a web interface that doesn’t require 10 minutes to load…

So, will Office 12 be bloated? Or slimmed up? If anyone at MS is reading and wants to give me a beta to try I’ll be happy to blog my opinion ;).

Media & Marketing, Travel

Return of the Hack

Damo’s back in La Paz, and has started writing about it. Skyped him tonight and sounds like the adventures have already started, including at least one run-in with the local law enforcement agencies (dramatic but inconsequential, from the sound of things). Recommend signing up to the relevant RSS feeds to keep tabs on the adventures of the BBC’s man on the ground… in Bolivia.

More on http://ourmaninbolivia.com.