Spore: the lost opportunity

I bought Spore. Despite the fact that is has DRM in it. Despite the fact that I usually wait for reviews before buying anything. I got exited. And I didn't just buy the game, I bought the "galactic edition" with all the bells and whittles...

What a disappointment. I somehow feel this game had so much potential, yet was somehow redesigned from scratch several times and then rush to market. The game try to be 5 games, yet fails in everyone of them. The more "polished" and incredible part of the game, is the designer. The rest, in my opinion, is an environment to try-out your creature, get bored, go back to the creature designer and do it again. Repeat ad nauseum.

But all is not lost for Maxis / EA. They obviously spent a lot of time on the editor and the creatures themselves. A lot of people have bought the game or just the creature creator. They "seeded" the spore-o-pedia database with a lot of creatures, vehicles, buildings,and spaceships from all the players. A MASSIVE amount of content.

I think the analogy with UT2003/ UT2004 is the best example of was I'm trying to get at. UT2003 was more a tech demo trying to sell the engine behind it. UT2004 had the same engine, yet was much more popular and more polished . Now place Spore in the place of UT2003. Most of what Spore need to be a good game is already there: it just need more polish... and, maybe a complete redesign of every phase...

For a complete (and good) review, see the Zero Punctuation one

At least the National Geographic documentary that came with the Galactic edition was entertaining...

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Culture en Péril

Culture in Danger (Culture en Péril, with subtitles)

I know it's a political message. I know it's full of stereotypes. You might even disagree completetly with the message in the video... But I still think it's interesting because it says more in 3min, that I could write in a 10000 words...

Taken from Micheal Geist's Blog

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Water on Flick...

Nice Water picture on on Flickr
Boom! :)

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The Oh-My-God Particle

The end is coming... Yeah right.

First off, the end of the world has been predicted around 12000 times already. There is even a web site for future catastrophic scenarios:  Exit Mundi.

The immediate concern now is on the LHC, the Large Hardron Collider. The thing that is supposed to create black holes that can eat the earth whole.

These concerns have been raised before, during the construction of Fermilab. Fermilab put up the most interesting piece on how Nature itself id far more violent than anything we can build.
Laidies and Gentlemans, let me introduce to you The Oh-My-God Particle.

Keep in mind that the new Large Hardron Collider will collide 2808 particules at 7Tev...

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The Bid for the The Last Lecture

I had not realized Disney-owned Hyperion Publisher did a 6.7 Million Bid for the book! I don't know how it was split between Randy, his agent, and co-author Jeff, but I guess his family won't be in trouble for quite some time.

Of course, Randy would have probably traded the money, the fame and everything for the chance to be with his kids...

Go buy the book, it's a good read. Here is the Amazon Link, the Chapters.ca and the ISBN: 978-1-4013-2325-7

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paralympic.org -> Alpine_Skiing

The 2008 Olympic are over, but the 2008 Paralympic Competition is just starting.

If you want to see something really impressive, check Goalball and Judo. Both these competitions are open to completely blind people.

Of course, it does not come close to this winter sport: Alpine Skiing Calssification B1 - Completelty blind. Yet Alpine Skiing by completely blind skiiers, guided by another skier that gives them directions. I watch the competitions in disbelief: Theses guys are simply amazing!

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The last tree

I want this image as background. It is simple, yet powerful ...

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My Apps

I lost a couple of hours looking at the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr Pool. It got me thinking about what I use on a daily basis and how my desktop should reflect my current productivity push (I'm basically cleaning up my life, and trying to be more productive. It's not perfect, but I'm slowly getting there)

So, in case my computer exploded, or in case I bought a new machine and had to redo everything from scratch, here is a list of the things I use the most:

On Windows:

• Launchy: Must have. Good alternatives includes Executor and Dash Command. Quicksilver on Mac.
  
• ClipX: I can finaly get a bigger clipboard (Linux had that for ages)
  
• allSnap: Snap app to edges of desktop
  
• Snarl: Notification system for Windows.  Like Growl on Mac
  
• AppSnap: Install free apps. Sort of like a package manager.
  
• Mp3tag: I don't have that big of a MP3 collection, but I like my stuff consistent
  
• Picasa: Manages pictures from my camera.
  
• PuTTY: I use Linux-based servers, sort this is a must-have
• Xming: To get Linux/Unix X-Windows system on MS Windows. Run graphical application remotly!
  
• WinSCP: Copy files. Ftp is too old and too insecure.
  
• Flock: The Social-based browser: I'm typing this blog entry in it. Also integrated Facebook, twitter, Youtube, etc...
  
• Adobe Air with:
• twhirl: I twitter. This helps. A lot.
  
• TWiT Live AIR App: Watch Leo Laporte live :)
  

Ironicly, I can get most of this functionality on my Linux desktop (again with the right applications installed), but it's not third party. The only reason I'm not 100% Linux right now is gaming. (TES: Oblivion these days, with a bit of Simcity 4)

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R.I.P. Randy Pausch

Randy Paucsh died on july 25. I feel like I should say something about it but since I can't think of anything that would do him justice, I'll let his own talk speak for itself:

The "Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

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Business faces challenges under copyright legislation

Business faces challenges under copyright legislation

I like this quote from the article: "The consumer marketplace is increasingly going beyond that apathy to a type of lawlessness. They'll just ignore the government because it's so irrelevant."

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