Update

Random Fact

The Human body sheds 1.5 Grams of skin every day which under ideal conditions is enough skin to feed 1 million Dustmites.

All is Right With The World When

The Human mind has quite an interesting ability to always be concerned with something and incessantly worry about whatever that concern is. Wither it is a mortgage, test, relationship concerns or just plain anxiety about work, being a Human means that you will always have something that is your top concern and needs sorting as it is preventing you from being happy or content.

So if your first concern of the day is how deep the layer of cheese is on your double cheese pizza, then you should remind yourself that things are good.

In Mordeth's case however he just seems to be angry at everything.

Lots of Transformers Movie Pictures

Via Digg. Lost of Transformers Movie Pictures.

Random Fact

Deer can swim upto 13 miles per hour.

Virtual Surround Sound

It is popular belief that the best Home Cinema Sound Systems are the ones with the most speakers. Indeed the move from Mono to Stereo and Stereo to Tweeters/Subwoofers has indeed increased sound quality and this has all been very beneficial to consumers. I personally believe the advent of the Subwoofer is directly responsible for a radical change in rock music as many classic rock tracks including heavy metal from the 80's is mostly without base. Where as modern rock is mostly about thumping base and many genres like Trance wouldn't exist without the mighty base sound of a good sub. Surround sound has benefited films for many years now and as a result there is this thing called 3D or Virtual Surround Sound that has reared it's head that says you can get the same Surround Sound experience through two standard speakers as you can through five or six.

The idea of invisible speakers has intrigued me for a few years now. Our brains only receive sound in stereo, so it should be possible to have a surround sound cinema experience with just two speakers and there are systems out there that do this. Yet I have previously lacked anykind of 3D Speaker setup and haven't been able to play around with one. But have been eagerly awaiting the day when I could experience a Virtual Surround Sound Experience, until now.

So let me just step back a second and cover this a little. Most 3D Sound systems work by way of Head-Related Transfer Function which is a fancy way of saying that your Brain knows where some sounds are coming from because of the way the soundwaves hit your ear-drum. This is best heard for yourself and you can do that with This Dolby Flash Demo.

So anyway to explain this in english:
What the Virtual Surround systems are doing is taking a 5.1 surround output from a DVD player (or whatever device) and applying different sound altering algorithms to the different audio channels so that when all the speaker channels are played thought just two speakers the background sounds still sound like they are being playing behind the listener. The soundwave distortion effects that happen to the soundwaves as they travel from rear-speakers to the listener's ear-drum have been applied by the Virtual 3D Sound System's sound altering algorithms. So no the sound doesn't come from an invisible rear speaker, but it sounds like it does.

So that brings me to today and to cut a long story short yesterday I got a copy of PowerDVD7 that supports several types of Virtual 3D Surround Sound. I have played with it, and this now allows me to conclude some finding.

Virtual Surround Systems supported by PowerDVD7:

• TruSurroundXT with TruSurround, Digital Clarity Enhancement and TruBass
• Dolby Virtual Speaker
  
• CyberLink Virtual Speaker

To test this out I used the opening sequences from Lost In Space (talking followed by lots of deep explosions and general space ship dogfighting), Akira (musical sequence with bike racing) and I watched the entire Animatrix (just to check my findings). I tested with my 2.1 Creative set of speakers and a set of old Earbuds.

TruSurroundXT
All SRS Labs does is virtual sound technology and was the first company setup to specifically do this stuff so I was expecting this system to be the best. But it butchers the audio to an unacceptable extent. If I just talk about the individual features for a second. TruBass applies base to stuff that shouldn't have it, DCE which is supposed to make voices easier to hear dampens some background sounds and TruSurround's Base doesn't stand on it's own because it relies on TruBass. TruSurroundXT makes for a much better cinematic experience through the crappy Earbuds, but I would rather have the system turned off and listen to the standard Stereo audio than have the films audio track bastardised like it is with TruSurroundXT.

Dolby Virtual Speaker
The best system, I get that 'more sound' feeling when contrasting it with standard Stereo and the sound envelops me like when I am listening to a true 5.1 system.

CyberLink Virtual Speaker
Very good, similar to the Dolby, but some frontal sounds have more base applied to them than what is necessary.

Virtual Speakers aren't yet as good as having a true 5.1 surround system, the sweet spot from a 2 speaker setup is much smaller and somepeople will hear 3D sounds from strange places as everybody's ear channels are different with the 3D Sound Systems only mimicking the most common shaped ear canals and there are a few other things that the brain uses to locate where sounds is coming from that we don't understand yet. So all that is probably why DVD Stereo tracks don't come with 3D sound pre-applied. But for me I am going to leave my settings firmly on Dolby Virtual Speaker as I don't have the space required or the money for a 5.1 Surround setup. Also when I am watching a film at night I can now get a surround sound feeling, with just my earbuds!!!

Zelda Timeline

Joystiq just finished featuring a series of GameTrailers.com videos on The Legend of Zelda franchise. There are links to the other parts on Part Six's Page (I would link to the GameTrailers.com site, but the site sucks). Part six is separate to all the other parts so there is no spoilers in viewing Part Six first. And yes Part Six it solely concerns itself with The Legend of Zelda timeline as suggested by this post's subject line.

The proposed timeline sounds like it makes sense (not that I have ever played a Zelda game from start to finish), but Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages released on the GameBoy in 2001 where originally going to be representative of the Triforce and be three games, not just two.
I don't think Miyamoto has a grand scheme for all of this so I don't think any of this matters. What everybody should do is start asking real questions like, why does Twilight Princess still have MIDI music and why hasn't Nintendo moved to replacing the tedious text with voice acting!?

Told You So

I have previously talked about Damages Caused by Wii-motes and the possible business opportunities for for Nintendo to offer somekind of insurance package. And the first casualty has Been Dolled in the form of a 60" TV.

Wii UK Pre-Ordering

If you don't want to be left out queueing for a Wii come launch day in the UK. Get over to This Amazon Page at 9AM tomorrow (21st) and they will post one to you.

To me this is the intelligent way of buying a console, or maybe all those thousands of people who will be waiting outside in the old for hours on end not knowing if they will get one or not know something that I don't.

MIT Triforce Hack

Kotaku has information on an MIT Triforce Hack. If you want to know more about MIT Hacks then checkout This Presentation on the MIT World site which runs you thought when they started and a few of the cool ones.

The videos on the MIT World site requires Real Player, so I suggest you download Real Alternative instead.

Smash My Wii

Just like the other day with the PS3 launch the twats over at SmashMyWii.com have smashed a Wii for not other reason than to act like four year olds who have just rubbed shit on their fact and running around shouting "look at me look at me".

Wa!?

Been playing Gears of War, it is one of the top three best action games I have ever played and the best game I have played on an XBox platform. But whoever chose the end credit music deserves a good knee to the stomach. I happen to know that Megadeth after hearing about the game changed the name to one of their songs and called it 'Gears of War'. They even gave Epic permission to use it in the game.

So without any more of my subjective commentary I present the two YouTube links below. The first is Gears of War by Megadeth, and the second is the Gears of War end credits as it is (contains no spoilers).

Nintendo PowerGlove

The PowerGlove came out at a time where I wasn't concerned with gaming and I haven't really ever had much experience with the NES even. So the PowerGlove has remained a bit of a mystery to me. About how it operated, why Nintendo released it and why everybody hated it.

I have tried finding out information periodically about the PowerGlove, but always failed. Well Kotaku Came Through linking to a video that gave me all the information I was looking for and I am very surprised at how similar the glove is to the Wii-mote.

PC Vs PS3

I seen this earlier on a few news sites, but now a Video is up on the PC Gamer Videocast Site. And this whole thing kind of validates for me what I was saying earlier about the PS3 buying line waiter not being hardcore gamers.

Essentially what happened is PC Gamer went to a PS3 launch event (Phil Harrison was there, have met him, he is extremely tall) and asked everybody who was in line positions guaranteed to get a PS3, if they would step out of line, sign a contract saying they would not own a PS3 and all in return receive a $7,500 kick ass computer for free.

The spec on this monster:
CPU: ?? (must have been a Dual or Intel Quad Extreme)
RAM: 2GB
Video Card: Two SLI'ed Nvidia 8800GTX's with 768MB RAM (this is the worlds first retail DirectX10 compatible card, only came out a few days ago and only currently available in the US)
Case: Custom green flame design (I think this is a plus)

None of the people they talked to seemed to understand the enormity of what they where being offered and certainly none of them looked like PC gamers. None of them even bat an eyelid when the guy told them that the system had 2GB of RAM over the PS3's 256MB. Maybe he should have said 2,048MB Vs 256MB or eight times more memory. Well ok the PS3 shares it's memory between the CPU and GPU so technically the system has 2,816MB RAM in total, but needless to say anybody who turned the offer down was a fool or didn't understand what was being offered.

Personally I would be like "Hell yes, my system is four years old and I need an upgrade". Which is downplaying the whole thing because this is the most powerful personal computer money can buy, and you can't even build this thing without importing parts from the US. Plus it's 100% vista compatible and should run Crysis at a very high framerate with everything turned on.

Smash My PlayStation 3

There are some jerks that run SmashMyPS3.com who essentially setup a page asking for donations for them to buy a PS3 and smash it infront of people who can't have one or are waiting in line, just to be jerks. They will only smash said unit if they get enough money for two. Thus even thought they smash one, the hordes of detonators still pay for the guys to run away laughing.

Anyway their initial video of the act is up, expect another one with more of a documentary style in a few days.

A Series of Unrated Films

LionsGate has partnered with After Dark Films who do horror films, and they have both signed up a few cinemas that have agreed to show some unrated horror films. Normally cinemas as policy refuse to show unrated films as they normally upset people or don't comply with legal restrictions.

The big film fest is this weekend in the US and you can findout more at HorrorFestOnline.com. I am sure it is only a matter of time before something similar comes to the UK.

So anyway Apple is hosting six trailers of the eight films that will be shown and here are some links to them:

• Dark Ride
• Grave Dancer
• Penny Dreadful
• Reincarnation
• The Hamiltons
• Unrest

PlayStation 3 Launches in the US for MAXIMUM DANAGE!

I like the way Panney Arcade has put the US launch. But the idea of being left-out in the cold I think, is very symbolic of how Sony is treating the hardcore gamer in general. Although I do not believe that most of the people waiting in line are hardcore gamers, but instead normal consumer whores who will buy into any hyped product. I think most hardcore gamers going going to wait until early 2007 to get one or have already bought one off of Amazon months ago.

Gamasutra asked a shit load of developers Are You Buying a Wii or PS3, needless to say the vast majority say Wii and then give a slight jab at Sony's PS3 strategy/attitude.

Here is just one of the launch line interview videos:


And to be a bit more optimistic here is a launch that did go well:

Backflips

I wish I could do backflips.

Police Brutality

In the University of California Library students are asked to produce ID cards after 11pm.

Tabatabainejad was walking with his backpack toward the door when he was approached by two UCPD officers, one of whom grabbed the student's arm. In response, Tabatabainejad yelled at the officers to "get off me." Following this demand, Tabatabainejad was stunned with a Taser.

I think this is a clear cut case of police brutality, Here is the University Article on the Incident and below is the video:

Random Thought

Everybody has bad dreams where they are dieing or in a situation where they could die. These dreams are terribly unpleasant and I wonder wither it is the memory of these experiences from our dreams which create the so called survival instinct for when we are awake.

I justify this by the very fact that survival situations are very rare and that means experience with such situations and the knowledge to handle them is not given through day to day life. So to instill experience in us, our minds create dreams which forces us into those situations. Thus giving us the experience and it is in fact the memory of these dreams that gives us a survival instinct.