Monday, June 27, 2011

Star Wars The Old Republic CG Backstory

A few very nice CG videos have been released in the runup to the release of SWTOR and some kind YouTuber has put them together into a fifteen minute compilation. Best watched full screen in HD to be sure.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Smart Clothing

This is a set of cufflinks that blink in time with a Macbook's sleep blinking. Interesting, but only if you are in meetings a lot with a Macsbook is sleep mode.

iCufflinks by Adafruit from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

More Windows 7 Backgrounds

You can find more nice official Windows 7 backgrounds in C:\Windows\winsxs.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The Undead Mod

For a while now people have been playing games about the zombie uprising (or outbreak depending on the cause of the apocalypse), the best zombie game at the moment is probably Left 4 Dead 2 and there has been some attempts at making Zombie Apocalypse Simulations, but a love child of both would be Arma2's The Undead Mod.

Arma 2 is a very complicated military simulation game and The Undead Mod adds zombies. Why a large developer hasn't worked on something similar I don't know. There is clearly a market for this.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

The Pledge Of Allegiance Is Brainwashing

Ever since I discovered the American Pledge Of Allegiance I have been bothered by the idea of very young kids daily oathing themselves to their flag, when they are too young to understand what they are doing. In recent years I have seen The Pledge, in my view, as more of a brain washing mechanism. The Whitest Kids U' Know, a show on IFC, demonstrates this.



In 1892 when The Pledge was first used in schools it was accompanied with a Bellamy Salute named after the writer of The Pledge. Most people seeing this today would describe it as a Nazi Salute. And so while at war with Germany the salute for The Pledge was changed to a hand over heart gesture. I find this interesting because the parallels of blind nationalism is still there, even with the adapted salute.

The pledge was originally designed to promote national equality for immigrants so everybody saying The Pledge could be seen as American. However I don't see The Pledge as symbolizing national pride, but an attempt to hold onto national pride in an age where America is a declining superpower.

Friday, June 03, 2011

Call Of Duty Elite and Pay Monthly Multiplayer

It happened, Activation will soon be charging a monthly fee for a higher tier multilayer experience in Call Of Duty. What you get is clan play, Facebook integration and gameplay stats. I would like to first pointout that clan play and stats was first supported in ye' olde Unreal Tournament from 1999. And people will pay for it.



The hardcore will stick it's nose in the air and say no, but the casual gamer, the gamer who is the primary demographic for Call Of Duty will pay for it because it will be sold as a premium multilayer experience. If it gets enough people playing it might even become a great multilayer game with, no screaming kids, always play with friends, competitive/comparative micro stats, great servers and continued developer support.

You might be saying 'no no no no no no', but it's here to stay. Just remember to cancel your account if yo try it for a bit and then stop playing.