Windows Media Player 11

I have just been playing around with Windows Media Player 11 which was released today and I can report that it is an improvement. The UI is much better and it has support for external subtitling files. So if you play a video file with subtitles, but subtitles that the author of the video has thoughtfully provided in a separate subtitle file, WMP11 will now play those subtitles with the film. I cannot find the option for this in WMP11, but when the subtitle file is moved to a separate folder WMP11 does not play them.

Because I cannot find any options for subtitles I do not know how WMP11 will handle video files with multiple sets of subtitles or files with multiple audio streams. And that being said WMP11 refuses to play any OGM or MKV files so I cannot even see how it will handle video files with multiple audio streams. But that being said WMP10 didn't support any of this so even a little improvement in the right direction is good.

XBox360 Fall Halloween Update

The latest XBox360 Dashboard Update should appear sometime tomorrow (yes Halloween) and there is a full list of changes Here, but below is 17 changes that I believe are interesting:

• 1080p output over VGA and component cables.
  
• HD-DVD Player support (UK release date 24th of November).
  
• Streaming WMV video from PCs running Media Player 11 (Download)
  
• Video playback from CD, DVD and USB Memory Units.
  
• Support for the new Wirless Headset and Wireless Racing Wheel (Both Released in the UK on 24th of November).
  
• An option to Automatically download new Arcade Titles as they become available.
  
• Faster loading of the list of Arcade games present on the system.
  
• View Leaderboard data from the Dashboard.
  
• 'Tell A Friend' option for arcade titles.
  
• Option to disable 360 notifications while watching films.
  
• Improved handling of unreadable DVDs (I thought this was already amazing).
  
• Added parental support to block unrated DVDs.
  
• Improved video playback from fragmented drives and playback while downloading from XBox Live (I haven't had that problem, but somepeople have had an issue with stuttery playback).
  
• Improved voice chat quality.
  
• Added ability to clear space from storage devices in download areas.
  
• Improved look and feel in XBox Live Marketplace and XBox Live Arcade areas.
  
• Removed system message at the start of new downloads. Messages will only be displayed for completed items.

Additional: Apparently the update will be seen sometime after 2AM PST (10AM GMT).

Cook Egg with a XBox360

So I was reading Evil Avatar and they posted to this video (below) where some guy actually cooks an egg on his 360 heatsink. I know it gets hot, but I wasn't expecting the egg to cook so quickly.

Warterboarding

Some comments have been made and Dick Cheney implied that the US was involved in Warterboarding which is a method of torture where the subject believes they are drowning but without permanent physical damage being left. If you want to know more about it watch This Video which has someone volunteer to be waterboarded.

The US is conducting this at detention centres. Now to put this into historical context in 1606 when Guy Fawks was found in a basement under the Houses of Parliament with loads of gunpowder after a tipoff. He refused to name his co-conspirators. The information was eventually given by him after he was tortured, but for that to happen in 1606 the King had to sign a special decree. In the US however this is going on right now without the president giving an express order. This is wrong and barbaric how superior the US claims to be and how low the reality is.

Huge Metal Gear Solid 4 News Maybe

XBoxic is reporting that MGS4 Might Come to The 360. Which is great because MGS4 represents the only excuse I have to get a PS3.

UNO! GDragons Vs NipponHam

This is one of thoes odd culteral things where to one person it's nothing special, but to someone else it's slightly amusing.

So I am watchign this Japanese GDragons Vs NipponHam baseball game (don't ask long story) and I see UNO written on a players back. Wasn't exspecting that, I thought.



Ye you can so tell I need a job. My god it's like 5am.
Will be applying for a Deli Counter job tomorrow because I need something to do instead of just looking for a job all the time. Which, would you believe in three months I haven't even had a single interview, yet plenty of praise from recruiters when I have asked them if there is anything wrong with my CV. But more on that and how to dramatically increase job prospects once completing an education stint once I get a job.

As Much JPOP Music as You can Afford

JPOP or Japanese Pop Music is difficult to get in the west. You might try inporting CDs or illegally download it using evil P2P programs like eDonkey, but it isn't easy to get hold of.

Apple has an iTunes service running in Japan with loads of JPOP music on, but you can only download from that if you have a Japanese account and to get registered in a region you need a credit card and no Japanese bank is going to give you a credit card if you don't live n Japan. But it turns out that iTunes Music Cards are region specific. So you might be able to top-up a US iTunes account with a UK iTunes music card, but by using a Japanese iTunes Music Card you can register a Japanese account and download as much JPOP as you like from anywhere in the world.

And it just so turns out that jBox sells them. WOW so that's at least one of life's frustrations sorted then.

Life is Better than Fiction

I think it's safe to say that I am a YouTube addict and it's not like I have anything better to do (hay I got out of bed at 4pm today). And one of the people who I subscribe to is RatFuckScrew who just posted a video response to all of the Lonelygirl15 videos. All her videos are all produced by some production company so it's all fiction, but RatFuckScrew's response had me chuckling because I subscribe to a lot of people's videos who just talk about what they have been doing or what they are feeling, but I haven't subscribed to Lonelygirl15 for the very thing RFS talks about in his video.

Six Million XBox360s Sold, Good or Bad?

Microsoft has said in it's Quarterly Sales Figures Press Release that they have sold six million XBox360 consoles to date. But then there is a lot of debate on forums as to wither this is a good or bad thing, so I did a bit of research and compiled a list of all the home console generations since 1972.

Please note that the list below covers all consoles that I could find sales numbers for. There are many other consoles that have not been included on the list because I could not find sales figures for them. And portable systems have also been excluded because they are a different market and do not compete directly with home consoles.

Console Generation One
Odyssey - Units Sold ??
Winner of generation Magnavox Odyssey.

Console Generation Two
Atari 2600 - Units Sold 25 Million
ColecoVision - Units Sold 6 Million
Winner of generation Atari 2600.

Console Generation Three
Master System - Units Sold 13 Million
Nintendo Entertainment System - Units Sold 60 million
Winner of generation Nintendo Entertainment System.

Console Generation Four
Mega Drive - Units Sold 35 Million
Neo Geo - Units Sold 1 Million
Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Units Sold 49 Million
TurboGrafx-16 - Units Sold 5 Million
Winner of generation Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Console Generation Five
3DO - Units Sold 6 Million
Jaguar - Units Sold 4.41 Million
N64 - Units Sold 32.93 Million
PlayStation - Units Sold 102.49 Million
Saturn - Units Sold 10 Million
Winner of generation Sony PlayStation.

Console Generation Six
Dreamcast - Units Sold 10.2 Million
GameCube - Units Sold 21.2 Million
PlayStation2 - Units Sold 111.25 Million
XBox - Units Sold 24 Million
Winner of generation Sony PlayStation2.

Console Generation Seven
PlayStation3 - Units Sold so far 0 Million
Wii - Units Sold so far 0 Million
XBox360 - Units Sold so far 6 Million
Winner of generation ??

Microsoft said that they would sell 10 million 360s by now, but have only sold 6 million. This suggests that things are bad, but the average console sales unit of all the generations is between 24 (discounting Sony) and 30 million. And if Microsoft sells six million 360 units per year for the next five years they will have done ok and much better than the XBox did.

I believe that unlike when the PS2 launched early, a lot of people have held back buying a console this generation because of the big question marks surrounding the Wii and PS3. Who both have fairly weak launch lineups (who doesn't). So to answer the question as to wither 6 million is good or bad, well it's average as long as Microsoft doesn't sell more or less than they did this year in future years. But while doing this research I have learned that people don't like buying games consoles. Instead they seem to see it as a necessary evil in order to play the games they want.
Good games = good console sales.

Additional: Microsoft have said that they are still on track to sell 10 million by the end of the year. I think it's possible, but they still have a way to go.

Video The Vote (US Election)

It is no secret that the last two elections in the US for president haven't gone smoothly with lots of allegations flying around calling for re-counts and people saying that they where prevented from voting.

Well today I seen this (Below) video on YouTube promoting VideoTheVote.org which aims to get anybody with a camera involved in covering voting incidents. No need to stand filming all day, just register on the website and they will call if they want you to film something or interview someone at a local polling station.



I think it's an excellent idea, and this almost feels like open source documentary making.

Artistic Expression on Consumer Culture

This is a Video of a robot that searches for pools of coke on the ground, sucks them up and then sprays it onto itself causing it's own eventual destruction.

I would say this is an accurate description of a drug addict, but with the artists use of Coca Cola it's expression on Consumer Culture is clear. And then that begs the question as to wither drug addiction is so dissimilar to modern consumerism.

XNA UK Academic Events

If you are an Academic or Research Student (whatever that is) belonging to a UK University then you are eligible to attend:

Warwick Conference Centre for an overview of XNA studio featuring Chris Satchell, Peter Molyneux and Nick Burton.

Or Rare Studios, Twycross for a hands on workshop with XNA Studio.

It is first come first served so sign up early. I would love to attend these, but I am no-longer with a university.

Scott Adams Regains Voice

The guy who draws Dilbert, Scott Adams gets his voice back. I didn't know that he had lost it, but His Story is quite interesting.

Two New PlayStation 3 Adverts

Wouldn't you just know it. After months of mouthing off, having to admit to weak bloated/false claims and this recent thing with Li-Sang. Sony comes through with a good advert. Not sure if this will be on TV because the HD capacity claim is false so would invoke a lawsuit, but these are good adverts.

Advert 1


Advert 2

Sun's Project Blackbox (contains video)

So imagine you are an evil genius (maybe you are) and you have a lot of computing power and virtual storage that you use to coordinate your evil deeds, but the pesky secret services of the world keep finding your hidden lairs and forcing you to move. And everytime that happens you have to get into your escape pod and auto-destruct all your stuff including all your evil plans contained in your data centre.

Well that's precisely why Sun has created project Blackbox. It is a server room in a shipping container so can easily be hidden, moved and more importantly setup quickly because you know you got more money than you can possibly spend, but server rooms take three years from planning to completion to build.

Rainbow Six Vegas Demo on XBoxLive Marketplace

This demo for some strange voodoo reason isn't available in the US, but it is a lot of fun. I have always felt that the Rainbow Six games have had soulless level design, crappy graphics and too many tools for me to know what to do with. Vagas simplifies all that, has some cracking level design and makes it so easy to issue orders to teammates that I find myself firing very few bullets myself.

I would be seriously considering pre-ordering it if I had the money, but more than that I think this really does require a HD TV to do the game justice.

Blog Code Updated

Have updated the blog code so that ClearType in IE7 works. All I have done is remove the code which tells the browser what font to display and specified a font size so that the text doesn't look all tiny. And as well as looking a lot better in IE7 now, for some reason the font looks a lot better in FireFox too, so bonus!

I still have that problem where the sidebar on the right gets pushed down to the bottom of the page in FireFox, but it doesn't make the page less functional and I am hoping to fix that when Blogger releases the new version of Blogger because that has a new layout engine and a load of new templates, although I do like the one I have.

Michael J. Fox Has Parkinson's!!!

I didn't know, but Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's.

So anyway there is this video on YouTube (Below) of him talking about the need for America to stop banning research into Stem Cells which could offer a cure to Parkinson's.


And then there is this guy (Below) who is against Stem Cell research because it is taking away human dignity. For some reason he doesn't say it's a sin or killing, but he does seem to think that banning research will save Human dignity. And that makes me wonder if he has ever met anybody with Parkinson's or wither he is just some guy who is opposed, but unaffected by the issue.


At the moment the leaders in Stem Cell research is Europe and Asia, but America has a lot of well funded Universities who are the ones that make a lot of those first discoveries that then in later years are picked up by big pharmaceutical companies and turned into cures. So America can and they should do this research. Those embryos are human embryos, but are not yet people. I understand that by using them for experimentation they will never become people and it is probably somekind of crime for depriving them of that, but this research can benefit so many people it seems unethical not to try.

Musical Tesla Coil

This is a YouTube video of something that could only be dreamt up by an evil genius. It is also one of the best videos I have seen on the internet, right up there with Mentoes & Cola, Tony Hawks 900 and anything featuring Rodney Mullen or Karl Pilkington.

The First 10 Minutes of Tony Hawk Project 8 Demo

Maybe in my last post I didn't convey accurately how good the new Tony Hawks game is. So to try and rectify that Here is a Video of someone much better than me, playing for ten minuets. And yes it does seem o be the best Tony Hawks game thus far.

Tony Hawks Project 8 Demo

Tis very good. Would preorder now if I had the money.

CS:S Hitboxes Suck

I seen this video (above) earlier and was a littlebit shocked because it seems like a stupid thing for a game to do, but this would explain all those occasions where I have been shooting at someone and they haven't gotten injured. You know those occasions where you unload three shotgun shells at them, then they unload one at you and YOU die.

Anyway I just booted up SC:S and had a look for myself. Sure enough what I have just seen in the game for myself is exactly what is shown in the video. But the author says things have been fixed now and looking at the video comments suggest that this currently only effects offline botplay, so I am going to have a go at a few multiplayer matches, right now.

Additional: So I just finished playing a real multiplayer game instead of one against bots and ye the problem seems sorted, I fire directly at someone and blood spurts out of them. Still something that has always bothered me is the scoring, as I killed a few people and didn't have any points added to my score, but whatever.

Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft just released IE7 and it's great. Have been trying to crash it, but performance is excellent. Lots of nice stuff and everything just seems better. It even has truetype so all the text looks nice and squishy on CRT Monitors, but on LDCs it should look brilliant.



You can download IE7 from Microsoft Here, but to install it they first want to verify your copy of XP (this is built into the installer) so that takes a little while.

Podsafe Music Network Exclusives

The Podsafe Music Network has been running for a while now and it is essentially for sourcing free music for use on Podcasts. Just create an account, tell them you played it on your podcast and it's free. Personally I use it just to find random music when I am in a random kind of mood. Recently the network has been getting more commercial James Brown is on there. And Lacuna Coil has put their new single on their page so you can hear it online before anybody hears it on radio.

Incidentally I seen them last week, although I didn't manage to take any good photographs.


The photo I took of the queue to the car park ticket machine came out well though.

YouTube Posting is Working

Looks like YouTube has been fixed and I can blog videos from inside YouTube now. So instead of giving you a link to a video, the video will be included on the post page. Will check the RSS after I have posted this test post to see what happens there.

Random Fact

One Block of memory on the original XBox was 16KB.

Not Learning C# (I gave up)

I have had this C# book sitting next to me for the last few weeks and I haven't read any of it. The only reason why I want to learn C# is not because I want to learn C#, but because I want to use the XNA Framework. Last week I herd some rumblings that VB is coming to XNA and that the XNA Team chose C# has their initial supported language because of it's potential commercial adoption rate and the design changes that would need to be worked out in order to achieve C#'s unmanaged data types. I might still learn C# in the future or read the first two chapters of this book out of interest, but I am just not interested in writing programs in C#. I write code much slower in C# and not just because I am new to the language, the code doesn't flow from my hands to the screen like I would want it to. And that is mainly because of the weaker Intellisense support, poor code auto-formatting, curly braces and explicit data conversion.

So anyway this is a trait of mine that shows I am very selfish with my learning because unless I can actually use and see applications of me using something, I won't learn it. Another example of this is that I don't know how to connect to a database because I find storing data in text files to be sufficient. So sorry C# lovers, but i find VB to me more than sufficient for anything I wish to write today, tomorrow and probably for many years to come.

Star Wars Episode 1 - Balance of the Force

There has been a few fan edits of 'Star Wars Episode One The Phantom Menace', most notably 'The Phantom Re-Edit' which removed Jar Jar Binks. This resulted in twenty minuets of footage being cut from the film, but has resulted in much praise from fans and directors alike. Today I watched an edit called 'Balance of the Force' which dubs a lot of the alien dialogue with subtitles and includes the full pod-race sequence from the DVD. There is a mention and list of edits on the Wikipedia Page. It has been well over a year since I last watched The Phantom Menace so I thought I would watch it and see how I felt about it subjectively.

My control opinion of The Phone Menace was that Jar Jar is an unnecessary character and that the film isn't hard hitting enough. I agreed with Lucas's decision to shorten the pod-race sequence as it would have been a long dominating scene in the middle of the film. I thought Anakin was a very happy confidant kid and I didn't understand how the hell he would ever turn to the darkside.

After watching the edit I think Lucas's decision to cut the pod-race sequence was dumb as most of the scenes on Tatooine builds up the the pod-race so having a full length race actually makes it feel worth waiting for. With the edits to Jar Jar Binks he becomes an opportunistic selfish waster, but that is better than the goofy clown he was before. The conflict between the Trade Federation and Naboo is no over the outlawing of slavery instead of taxation. This is a brilliant edit as it makes me feel the Republic was moving towards a brighter more civilised future. Anakin comes across now as a confident, yet tense kid willing to fight as shown with a fight scene between him and another kid named Greedo. Put simply I loved this edit of the film far more than the original theatrical release. It adds depth to the story throughout and corrects a lot of story holes that was left by the original release. The glowing orb-thing that was given to the Gungans at the end of the film which was a mystery in the original edit, is now a Gungan artifact that the Humans stole and rather than them being simple neighbours it feel like the Humans and Gungans could have been on the verge of war. There are a few things about the edit which I haven't mentioned because I don't want to spoil it, but it is much much better edit than the theatrical release of the film.

The Best Game Nobody Played Now On STEAM

Psychonauts the best game that nobody played is Now Available on STEAM. I don't like forwarding you to Valve, but Psychonauts should have done much better commercially than it did. Apart from having excellent voice acting and characters, it has spectacular level design that will delight you from start to finish. Well worth purchasing if you haven't played it. I am not saying the game is perfect, but it should have done much better at retail than it did.

When I first finished playing through the game I wanted to write a review, but didn't want to spoil anything for anybody who hadn't already played it. So instead of a review I posted This Quote which sums up perfectly what I felt at the time and still do now for the game.

The Laughing Man

A few months ago I watched Ghost in The Shell Stand Alone Complex which is an exceptional prequel to Ghost In The Shell the film based on the Manga and the first Japanese Anime to be digitally produced (a combination of scanned cells and digital effects). The series explores the possibilities of terrorism and the phenomenon of Stand Alone Complex, I don't want to go into details and spoil the plot, but it is brilliant.

Anyway the series has a master hacker in it known as The Laughing Man who once assassinated someone is broad daylight by covering his escape and his identity by hacking every piece of digital equipment with his image on, including the cybereyes of the people witnessing the event firsthand. The story has a few noted references to Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger which just like John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is yet another great American novel that takes it's title from a poem, but that is going off on a tangent.

I read Catcher in the Rye purely because of the reference to the book form the series and it is a good book. Not quite a page turner, but that would explain why the book didn't enjoy an immediate commercial success. It is instead one of thoes works of fiction that lingers at the back of the mind and is difficult to forget. After finishing the book I was doing some research on J.D. Salinger and discovered that he had written a short story called 'The Laughing Man' the same name as the hacker in Stand Alone Complex.

Well it turns out that the story is freely available on the internet from various websites like This One. It is about a group of kids and the adventures of The Laughing Man as told by their baseball coach. The story follows a similar theme to Catcher in the Rye in that they are both retrospective views of childhood events concluding in the loss of innocence and the transition from childhood to manhood. Catcher in the Rye does this with a declined invitation of a ride on a Carousel, and The Laughing Man does this with the death of The Laughing Man, a fictional character with "a hairless, pecan-shaped head and a face that featured, instead of a mouth, an enormous oval cavity below the nose".

I have completely forgotten where I was going to go with this, but all three fictions are very good, I might have been wanting to make a declaration that Ghost In The Shell is a better work of fiction. But the written isn't comparable to the visual, so to say one is better than the other is immature as eyecandy is always more immediately delectable than any book whoes true value is never rearlised until a retrospective viewpoint on the story is reached.

Regional Advertising

When the XBox360 was launched in Japan Microsoft had the Rolling Stones do a few commercials for them, but that didn't seem to connect with the Japanese Gamers. After learning their lesson they launched the DODODO AD Campaign which certainly has the WTF! factor from a western point of view so for the Japanese that is probably a good thing. The ADs uses some pop band that is supposedly very popular in Japan at the mo and is certainly seems centred for a Japanese audience which is what was missing from their first round of advertisements.

Microsoft has now done a similar thing with other regions like France with their Without Wires AD Campaign which reminds me of a few Jean-Pierre Jeunet's films who is also French so that is probably a good thing.

And the WTF! factor is also present in the Indian AD Campaign which just like Indian cinema is full of singing, dancing and not much else. Maybe they should add a love story to the ADs.

I hope to see more regional advertisement in the future because these are funny.

Whorecraft (NOT work safe)

I have heared of Warcaft porn, but to actually see it is kind of funny.
Whorecraft
BareMaidens

I don't know what's funnier, the fact it exists or the fact that it is actually good porn.

Totem Ball

Totem Ball the first 360 camera game that requires the camera to play because it uses somekind of hand recognition technology to move a totem around a level, is currently free. Not sure if that is going to be it's permanent price, but I have downloaded it. I can't play it because I don't have a camera for my 360 yet. And I won't until (A) I get a job and (B) I see value in having a camera.

On the job front I am still not finding much. My expectations have now dropped to an amber coloured 'get job' level, where I apply to any job which I believe I can tolerate. So telemarketing is a no, but everything else is ok. Still trying to get an IT job though and one that actually pays me in real money and not food token. Will have a nice writeup once I actually get a job on my experiences of being a graduate and finding a job, but not right now.

Designing the Wii and Future Battles

ArsTechnica has an article called How the Wii was born which talks about the design considerations the engineers had when designing the Wii.

The reason why I am linking to this article is because of the sales graph on the first page. I have seen this before, but I always failed to find it again when I wanted to talk to someone about it.

Just incase it gets pulled in the future here are the numbers:
NES 60 million sold
SNES 49 million sold
N64 32 million sold
GC 24 million sold

Sales with each new generation declines at an averages of 26% meaning that if the Wii follows this trend it will only sell approximately 18 million units over five years. As far as I can tell from searching Google not even the DS has achieved that number yet, so it's still a lot of machines. And even selling very well at the start of a lifecycle wont be enough to grantee that number of unit sales by the end of the lifecycle.

To get that number up consoles need Killer Apps which are traditionally made by first party developers. An easy way to think of the first part and third party developer model is that the first party development teams make games for people who don't own the console yet, where as third party developers make games for people who already own the console.

--Subjective opinions follow---

My problem here is that Nintendo is once again trying to get fans of their products to part with cash by buying games that they already own and none of the future games comming to the console that I have seen have interested me. If you pardon my very subjective opinion at this point I do not believe even that they have any Killer Apps in the works. Where as the 360 has had several titles this year like Saints Row, Dead Rising and coming titles like Gears of War, Viva Pinata that will act as a catalyst for gamers and none gamers to suddenly desire the console, run to the nearest shop and tell the shop owner that they desire to part with cash for a unit. I do not see this happening with the Wii as the most tantalising title Nintendo seems to have in the works at the moment is Rayman Raving Rabbids which from what I can tell is simply a party game. The new Zelda will probably be enough for Nintendo to sell 5 million Wii units without anybody first evaluating what they are buying, but I don't think it's looking good.

Then I have a big concern with the controller's need to be setup correctly. I know everybody keeps saying everything will be ok when you get one at home, but I haven't yet seen anybody demo a Wii console that has been properly configured, not at a presentation, behind the scenes looks at any titles or at presentations on the new controller to journalists that shows them how it works.
On the surface it simply seems very amateurish to demo a future product without taking the time to set it up properly, but that is what has been happening and I can't help but think there is a limitation with the controller that isn't being talked about, but yet will limit the designs of games that developers will make for the Wii.

Nintendo Fucks Themselves

Nintendo's new business strategy is to get non-gamers to enjoy their new console by creating original titles that don't follow the traditional genres. Nintendo's promotional videos of the Wii have all involved lots of people playing in a party atmosphere. And I agree that Nintendo could be going in a direction that could create many new gamers. And this is why I agree 100% with Kim Pallister's Latest Post on how Nintendo is missing a golden opportunity and in my mind, fucking themselves and this new strategy of theirs.

I would recap what Kim said, but I think he puts the argument across much better than I could.

Random Fact

When a country joins the European Union the first thing they do is resurface and upgrade all their highways.

Burning Down the House 2005 GDC Rant

I don't know why I haven't posted this yet, but there is a very good rant from last year's GDC over at GDC Radio.

The whole thing is a venting of the frustration developers where feeling and are largely still feeling with the games industry. Things have gotten better with the wider acceptance of digital distribution, but it is still upto developers to make change happen and for them to stop allowing themselves to be exploited by publishers.

The third speaker is Greg Costikyan. He has given me the best ringtone ever with his heart of a gamer quote and I recently bought his book even though it has probably cost me a days worth of food.



I only wanted to know what his book was about. The description I heard goes something like this: Some guy who is the CEO of a big technology has everything and things are going great with the company's new products, but then the worst thing in the world happens.. Aliens Make Contact! They start selling superior products to the world and this stock is worth nothing overnight. He looses everything and ends up on the streets. But there is hope, to get back that he has lost, he must create a product that he can sell back to the aliens!

After hearing that I had to buy it. It isn't still in print so I had to get it second hand, but I am looking forward to it.

Undecided (Defcon)

Still undecided as to wither I think it was worth buying or not. There are a lot of things (networking, functional display and game mechanics wise) which need fixing and should be fixed. So I guess time will tell.