Digiterms

The Wonderful World of Science

2009-10-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, there's a picture on the web. You may have seen it. It depicts a hammer, hung on a string from a ruler, seemingly floating off the edge of a table. It looks like this:

Like many, I assumed it a hoax, and brushed it of with a small laugh.

But I come to you now with an amazing discovery.

It isn't a hoax. Due to physics -- how I am not sure, but it must have to do with balance -- the hammer will actually float with the ruler of the edge of the table. If anyone has a clue as to how this works, tell me in the comments.

My Brush with Game Addiction

2009-10-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in a while. Since the last post, my life has changed drastically, and I thought you deserved to know why. So, today I bring you my story of internet addiction, mixed priorities, and the damage they can cause.

I joined Facebook last June, after months of my friends asking me to. I wasn't very into it, but it slowly grew on me. It was a fun way to connect, and it helped us organize events, so all was well. It also helped because it let me get back in touch with some friends who had been transferred to a different school.

A few weeks after getting on Facebook, a friends suggested I start playing a game called Farmville. Farmville is an app on Facebook, free to play, in which you manage a virtual farm to earn XP and coins, which can be used to buy more things for your farm. Simple enough. I took him up on the offer, and after a few days had established my self as a good farmer. In a few weeks, I had compiled an excel chart of all the crops you could "plant", and had worked out which were the best. Using this as a guide, I quickly pushed my way through many levels, eventually controlling a huge farm and holding the highest XP rating of any of my friends.

But at that point, things changed. Before, Farmville had been a fun diversion, a game. But now, it had become a competition -- I had to stay ahead of my friends. Given the size of my farm it could take almost 40 minutes to harvest and plant new crops. And given my schedule, I had to harvest them everyday to stay ahead of my friends -- which meant that I had less and less time to do my homework.

Soon, I was on an even stricter schedule, harvesting when I got home from school, then again four hours later, then again in the morning before school. My time was disappearing. I was ignoring some assignments, only reading summaries when I should have read a whole chapter.

Predictably, my grades took a turn for the worse. For the first 2 years of high school, I had been straight A student. By the first report card in August, I was averaging B's. By the next, in early October, I was doing even worse. My papers would often come back with comments such as "where's the effort", and tests would have "I know you know this!" scribbled in red ink, just below a dismal grade.

More importantly, however, my social life collapsed. As a geek, it had always been tenuous, but by october I was actively opting to play Farmville instead of spending time with friends. I began to distance my self from them. I almost never left my house after school, and while I was in school I would spend whole classes thinking about what new strategies I could try on my farm. I started viewing my friends as distractions from my time online, instead of the other way around.

Finally, I fell too low. I stopped studying for tests. I stopped doing homework. I was devoted to Farmville.

And I blew my one good chance at the life I'd always dreamed of.

Thankfully, my friends stepped in. Although I don't think they knew how far I'd fallen, they pushed hard enough that I abandoned Farmville. After a week of "withdrawal", it was out of my system. I didn't need to play anymore.

And, almost instantly, things started working again. My grades went back up -- now averaging a solid A-. I started doing stuff with my friends again. Last weekend, I made a duct tape coat. I got my life back under control.

But I can never get those wasted months back. All the chances I blew, will stay blown. Nothing I do can change that. Because of my obsession, I have ruined my first chance at my dream life. And I will never forgive myself for that.

So I ask you, if you spend more time online that in the real world, If you favor dragons and farming to talking and playing, please, please remember: the game will always be there, but your friends won't. It has never mattered what level you are in a game, or how much fake money you have, or how big your stash is, or what your title online is. What matters are your friends and family. They are the ones who get hurt by your addiction, and they don't go away even if you kick the addiction. So please, please don't do what I did. Don't throw you life away. You friends care about you, and if you reach out, they will help you.

The Lost Art

2009-10-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

Much hype is made today of a game's physics engine, and how well it can simulate reality. But what if I told you there was a fun, engaging game with perfect physics... that you could play right now?
I'm talking about pinball. A staple of arcades for over 100 years, pinball has slowly faded into obscurity in the face of the digital revolution. But yesterday, I got the amazing opportunity to visit a sneak peak of the 3rd Annual Pacific Pinball Expo -- and it blew my mind.

The Pacific Pinball Expo is the largest pinball show in the world, featuring over 400 fully functional pinball machines dating back almost 80 years. The expo also serves as a makeshift museum, with signs telling the story of many of the machines. Some are simple, with only a few obstacles between the top of the board and the flippers, while other games are spectacular feats of engineering featuring hundreds of complicated and interlocking moving parts.

I spent about 2 hours on the floor of the expo, a huge cavern of flashing lights and quirky sound effects. It wasn't very crowded -- the show didn't actually start until today -- so there wasn't any wait for the games. Also, they were set on free play, which I can only assume was a gift from heaven. As I wandered through the hall, 3 games in particular caught my eye.

Fireball

Fireball, a 1972 machine with a spinning a disk in the middle, was one of the first machines with a Sci-Fi theme. It was a blast to play. The spinning disk complicates the game tremendously: if the ball touches it, it can come out at a completely different trajectory then you think it will. The whole board is well designed, and the artwork is spectacular.

Orbitor One

Orbitor 1 was by far the strangest game there (the placard above it actually described it as "the strangest machine ever made"), and intrigued me for hours after I played it. The playing field is curved slightly, making the ball move in strange and unexpected ways. In addition, the game featured good sound - a rarity for a game from 1982.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

I'll admit it right now: I spent 2 hours playing this one. It was by far the newest of the games I played, and thus had the most advanced playing field. Once you launch the ball, you can spend hours on a single ball and not get bored. There are missions, activated by hitting the ball dead center to the back of the board. The game also features "roller coasters" -- rails that ball can ride across the board -- which add a lot to the game. The game even features the voices of the original cast, which make you feel much more involved in the game. People who don't know the show will be entertained, and those who consider themselves fans will be able to pull a entire new dimension out of the small conversations that take place while you hit the ball.

Oh, and to give you an idea of how complicated these games are, here's one without the top:

Remember: you can't test the game before you build it. There's no code to tweak if something messes up. Pinball machines are real things, which take months to design and test. And when it comes right down to it, Pinball beats Halo any day.

The Pacific Pinball Expo is October 2-4, at the Marin County Civic Center. Directions can be found on the Pacific Pinball Museum website. Special thanks to all the people who make this amazing show possible!

Jump Breaks!

2009-09-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Blogger just added the ability to put a jump break in your post, which can make your blog look much more professional. More after the break.
Most large blogs or blogs which post often use jump breaks to keep their home pages clean. They also allow you to fit a lot of posts on one page, which means less "see older posts".

Blogger also updated their user interface (UI) to make it easier to make professional, good looking blogs. Keep it coming, Blogger!

How to do some crazy stuff in Photoshop (Part 1)

2009-09-09T11:03:00.001-07:00

Say you were bored, and wanted to do something on your computer. Internet? Already read the good stuff. Games? Beat 'em all. So, nothing to do?

Wrong. You could create planets.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to photoshop any 360 degree-ish panorama into a planet. Like so:

If you need a panorama, head over to Wikimedia Commons. There are a ton of good, 360 degree panoramas there to choose from.
There are a few things to look for:

Your picture should be 360 degrees, or should match at the sides. Otherwise, your planet will have a big cliff in it.
The high the quality, the better.
Try to find a panorama with an empty top and bottom, like sky and ground. These parts of your picture will become very distorted.

Once you've found a panorama that fits these standards, like this one: You only have 4 things to do.

In Photoshop, make the image square. It will be distorted, but don't worry. So, the image above now looks like this:
Now, rotate the image 180 degrees. It should look like this:
Lastly, go to Filters > Distort and apply the "Polar Coordinates" filter. In the pop up, set it to "Rectangular to Polar". It should now look like this:
This step is optional, but if you want to clean up any breaks, just use the clone tool and blur. Now you're done!

With these 4 simple steps, you can create planets. Here are some more samples:

New Look for Wikipedia?

2009-09-02T23:04:00.001-07:00

We're all used to the staid, New York Times-ish look of Wikipedia. Crisp whites, dark blacks, and a no-nonsense layout separate it from the many other wikis that populate the internet. It is a site built for functionality, with little extra added in.

But things might be changing.

Just minutes ago, we stumbled onto a new, more stylized looking page. It may be unique -- no other pages linking to it, including its own discussion page, share its looks -- but it may be a hint of things to come.

If the link is broken, here is a low quality picture:

The search bar has moved, from the left hand column to the top right; the old black and white tables are now stylized blue outlines, and the old background -- an open encyclopedia -- is now gone. Is this a random fluke? Or is this the future of Wikipedia?

Also, how do you feel about it? I personally dislike the new layout -- I think it pulls things apart and makes Wikipedia look techy and unprofesional, two thing it most definetly is not -- but that's me. What do you think? Tell us in the comments!

Avatar Day

2009-08-27T22:49:00.001-07:00

The hallway was dark, unnaturally lit by abrasive swirling neons. A man could easily have lost himself in the never ending series of doors and vending machines, swallowed by the inky blackness. I sat low, cross-legged on the floor, watching the endless river of legs flow by. All were tense, looking up occasionally to check a watch or a phone, throwing a longing glance toward the towering doors. No one knew what lay beyond those doors, but everyone present wanted to see it very, very badly.
Avatar day had been introduced back in June, when director James Cameron had announced special "extended trailers" for his new film Avatar. The hype had been considerable, and when the tickets had become available online, the website had crashed under the weight of number of visitors. But now, the mood had relaxed, and all anyone wanted was to get into the IMAX theater, at the Metreon in San Francisco. We had arrived early, along with several hundred other people, but I had managed to find places near the door. Others, farther back in the snaking line, watched us longingly. Everyone wanted a good spot, and no one wanted to be turned away for lack of seats.
But it was quickly beginning to appear as if we were waiting for nothing. 2 hours we had sat, with no hint of activity from behind the ominous doors. Some were sleeping, perched against walls or boyfriends, while others sat with headphones firmly pressed against their ears. My friends were playing poker with a set of cards they’d won at the arcade downstairs. A pair of Jacks was revealed, only to be outdone by a full house. The cards were collected and shuffled, the jarring hiss pulling me back to reality. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness.
The doors suddenly swung open, brilliant light spilling forth like water from a burst dam. The crowd stirred, and began to rise from the ground, where some of them had been since early morning. I checked my watch: 6:00PM. Right on time.
We shuffled through the doors, edging down a gently sloping corridor to another set of doors. A friendly woman stood there with a clipboard, verifying tickets. There was a feeling of nervousness is the corridor, made exponentially worse by the confined space. No one wanted to be rejected, told to leave. My stomach clenched involuntarily. I was afraid. Everyone was.
Finally, I reached the second set of doors. The woman, a short brunette with a midwesterners charm, was wearing standard red theater garb, and seemed uncomfortable. She looked back, to make sure the last person had entered the theater, and then looked me in the eyes.
“Name?”
I responded quickly, almost slurring the words. “Alex Allen-Hyma.” After several seconds of futile searching, she looked back up at me. “I’m not seeing a Mr. Hyman…”
I twitched. For a moment the world seemed to collapse. Then I noticed the mistake.
“Allen-Hyma,” I pronunciated, stressing the open “a” at the end. “It’s hyphenated.”
“Oh, sorry…” She trailed off in thought for a moment, then found my name at the top of the list. “Your guest?”
“This guy.” I said, pointing toward a friend. She checked my ID, and, handing me two 3D glasses, gestured for us to enter. My gut loosened instantly. All my worries flew away.
After regrouping with my team, we made our way to our seats. Our dedication had paid off, and we excitedly filed to the middle of the 7th row. As we finally sat down, all my unease left, and my mind finally started to wander.
Predictably, it wandered to the immensity of the room we were sitting in.
70 feet tall, and twice as wide, dominated by a screen that was almost as big as downtown Fairfax, the IMAX theater dwarfed everyone and everything within it. Seats seemed to stretch out forever on either side, gently curving toward steep stairs. The darkness of the room was abbreviated by sharp red lights on the ground, which looked for all the world like miniscule fires from our lofty seats. Other people were getting in through other doors now, and as the room filled, chatter filled the air. People talked about the movie, people talked about weather, people told jokes, people told stories. It was just the type of atmosphere you would expect for this sort of thing: Light, but with the ever present danger of suddenly erupting into a storm of applause.
Which is exactly what happened when the lights dimmed.
A huge face appeared on the screen, bellowing words which were barely audible over the cacophony of claps. “Welcome” and “Hope you enjoy” were discernable, and then the face disappeared, and the cheers died down. This is what everyone had come for, the great unknown that some had camped for hours to see. Everyone – and I mean everyone – was on the edge of their seats, craning foreword as if they were trying to make out some small detail on the huge and now defiantly black screen.
Without warning, the speakers erupted in with sound, louder than any theater I had been in before. Feet in black army boots walked across the screen, almost popping off because of the 3D, and a voice, raspy and dry, echoed through the great hall. “My job is to keep you alive. I will fail.”
16 minutes pass, a blur of explosions, yelling, and dragons. The special effects are very, very good, although some of the characters seem too real. They are plunging into the uncanny valley, a place where fake things look so real our brains start judging them as real things. Because they are not real, they fail miserably, and our brains find fault with everything. This is an issue which plagues the trailer, and will definitely be the films largest hurdle. There are mutters, even some shouts, of “what?” when the “avatar” is revealed to us. It doesn’t quite look right, and everyone is trying to find an excuse.
And then, too early, it is done. The last image flicks across the screen, and then the lights come on, pulling us back to the real world. Some get up quickly and leave, while others stay seated, trying to understand what they have seen. After a few moments of awkward silence, a man 2 rows back yells “awesome!”, and then the applause starts. It is loud, continuous, and delivered straight from the heart. Yelling, cheering, shouts and screams fill the room, and soon all 300 of us are giving a standing ovation to a blank screen. But it doesn’t matter. We all got something out of this, whether it was a peak at a film we’re interested in, or just a day in the city. That guy was right: it was awesome.

Inglourious Basterds and Top 5 movies of '09

2009-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I saw Inglourious Basterds yesterday and I went in thinking it was gonna be an action comedy. It had its funny moments and its action scenes, but I went into it thinking it was something it was not. I'll write a review after I see it a second time. You can find the trailerhere.

On another note I have a list of my top 5 favorite movies of 2009 so far:

1. The Hangover

2. District 9

3. Star Trek

4. Watchmen

5. (500) Days of Summer

Taken - Unrated

2009-08-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I rented the unrated version of Taken on blu-ray. I saw the movie in theatres in January, but I never got around to reviewing it, so I decided I would review the unrated version on DVD. The movie is directed by Pierre Morel and was actually a french film. The film was released in France in February of 2008, but was released in the US in January of 2009.

Taken is the story of Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson, Batman Begins) a former spec-ops agent who, after allowing his 17-year old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, LOST) to go to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy, Harper's Island), learns that his daughter and her friend have been kidnapped. This leads Mills on a hunt around Paris, France in search of his daughter.

Taken has some great acting and cinematography going on in it and the action is very fast-paced and intense. Though this is he Unrated version, I didn't see a difference between this and the theatrical version. There were no new scenes or blood of what I could tell. The movie is definitely on my top 5 movies of the year list so far and is one of the most satisfying movies I've seen in awhile. If you like action and don't get disturbed by blood incredibly easy you will definitely leave this film satisfied. You can find the trailer here.

Avatar Day

2009-08-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

So I went to Avatar Day yesterday with The Durka. Well, we arrived in line about an hour and a half early. The theatre only ended up being about half full and the two rows for the press were pretty much empty. As the showing started we put on our 3-D glasses and watched as James Cameron came on the screen in 3-D and told us that, "If there was a hell then we might want to go there to get some R & R before we set foot on Pandora." Pandora is the Planet in the Movie Avatar. For those who Don't already know, Avatar has nothing to do with the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. That series is being made into a movie by M. Night Shyamalan called The Last Airbender.

Avatar is about a crippled war Veteran named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Terminator 4) who enlists in the Avatar program. The avatar program was created in the 22ND century when humans discovered the planet Pandora abundant with natural resources. Pandora is a very hostile planet filled with many creatures of which include Dragon-like beasts that perch in the skies on floating rock formations, Giant rhinoceros-like creatures with hammerhead shark heads, and the main creatures called the Na'vi. The Na'vi are 10-foot tall blue humanoid creatures with long tails, stripes, and pointy ears. Humans can't breath on Pandora so the avatar program was created so scientists could create Na'vi-Human hybrids that humans could place their consciousness' in them to control them and move around the planet in their bodies with the ability to breath and make contact with the Na'vi. So Jake Sully becomes one of the first to be placed in one of these avatars and soon makes contact with the Na'vi and falls for one of the female Na'vi. As the humans attempt to exploit the planet of its natural resources a war breaks out between them and the Na'vi and Sully has to choose between helping the humans or the Na'vi.

The preview of the movie was about 16 minutes long and included scenes from only the first half of the movie, so as not to release any spoilers. These scenes were of Jake Sully in his human form attending a meeting of some soldiers at the military base on Pandora. The next scene was of Sully being placed in a machine and his mind is sent into the body of his Avatar. The next scene was of Sully, Sigourney Weaver's character, and another soldier in their avatar forms encountering some of the dangerous creatures of Pandora. The next scene was of Sully (Avatar) fighting of a bunch of dog creatures while being aided by the female Na'vi. The next scene seemed to be in the same area of the previous scene and had Sully (Avatar) speaking with the female Na'vi. The final scene shown was of Sully (Avatar) along with several other Na'vi attempting to tame one of the Dragon-like creatures.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the scenes we watched and I was especially amazed by the CGI. The CGI in this movie has reached a point where it is almost realistic. I thought Sigourney Weaver looked the most real in her Avatar form for some reason. Maybe she moved her face with more emotion in the motion capture so the CGI picked up on it better, while Sam Worthington has more subtle expressions that weren't picked up as well by the motion capture. Out of all the creatures we saw I felt the Dragon-like creatures looked the most realistic. Especially when Sully (Avatar) was holding its face to the ground you could tell the detail that was put into such a beautiful creature. All the CGI was beautiful. The 3-D was blurry and took away from the scenes, but the iMax detail definitely made up for it. I am definitely going to see this movie when it is released in four month on December 18th. I recommend everybody to do the same. Definitely in iMax, not necessarily in 3-D. If any of you want to see the trailer you can find it here or if that that doesn't work try here.

District 9

2009-08-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

I saw District 9 on Saturday. Part of me wants to say it's the best sci-fi film in the last 10 years.

The other part of me still has no idea what the hell just happened.

District 9, the alien thriller where we're the bad guys and the aliens are trying to escape, is distinctive to say the least. Alternating between mock documentary (complete with shaky cam and low quality) and action packed CGI thrill ride, it pulls you in and immerses you in a future where aliens get stuck in South Africa. The movie feels very real — most of the lines are improvised — and the CGI is groundbreakingly advanced. The scenes with aliens are so real you don't remember they're not real until after the movie ends.
The plot itself is fantastic as well. In an age where most films are just bad guy shoot-em ups, District 9 offers a troubling moral dilemma: if a million aliens who don't care about our laws showed up, what would we do? The film is certainly an allegory to Apartheid, and racism (or specieism?) is a major plot point. They film never beats you over the head with messages, but when you leave the theater, you'll have lots to think about.
However, District 9 did earn an R rating. People explode. Like, actually explode and end up all over the walls. There are graphic scenes of butchering and murder. This is not a film for the kiddies. But the violence is never gratuitous, and it all goes to show a point — when people encounter people they don't understand, they're gut reaction is to get rid of it. And as the credits role, your going to be thinking hard about your own issues.

Why does Twitter still exist?

2009-07-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

I joined Facebook a few weeks ago. You may have noticed by the lack of posts. Immersed in the wondrous array of converesations, photosharing, games, and microblogging, I forgot the real world existed.

But my experiences raised a question: Why is Twitter still around?

I used to use Twitter. A lot. I'd post 4-9 tweets a day. Since I joined Facebook, I've visited it once. That visit was to delete my profile.

Facebook offers everything Twitter does, in addition to hundreds of other things like photo hosting, games, scheduling, and friends. It also offers it better: while posts are still constrained in length, they are nowhere near as short as Twitter, allowing intelligent posts which are impossable to convey in 140 characters. After posting for the first time on Facebook, I felt how Winston Smith would have felt had he been plucked out of 1984 and dropped into New Atlantis. I felt freedom in a way that was never present on Twitter. I could actually speak my mind.

Facebook also offers so much more then Twitter: An excellent photo sharing system, a way to embed photos and video into posts, games and quizzes, and most importantly, social interaction. It's all optional; in fact it is quite easy to use Facebook like Twitter. But the opportunity to make friends and have fun are still there with Facebook, in a way they weren't with Twitter.

The social interaction is the biggest thing for me, as it is for most who use Facebook. I can post saying "I'm going to the movies. Anyone want to come?" and others can comment directly on the message. No more digging through hundreds of tweets. All the things that have to do with my post are grouped with it. Also, Facebook offers a good IM system built into the site, with no download needed. When you want to talk privately and immediately, you can.

The photo hosting is good too. Although the images are only moderate quality (you'll have to use Picassa or something like it for high quality), the get the job done. Also, they're easily viewable to your friends, with the added bonus of friends being able to tag themselves in your photos. All in all, it's really good for something that's free.

Also, no porn. No spam. On Twitter there is a constant stream of spamalicius drivel friending you, and there's nothing you can do about it. Yes, you can manually remove friends, but the damage is already done. Even if only for half an hour, you were listed, for everyone to see, as friends with "sexnow1234". Have fun explaining that to a college admissions board.

Speaking of which, the privacy on Facebook is amazing. On Twitter, even if you set your account to "private", everyone can still see your posts. On facebook, if you're not a friend, you can't see anything. No info for stalkers, no ammo for haters. It's your decision who you trust with permission to your page.

So, let's review. Facebook, is more useful, less constrained, more private, safer, and much easier to use then Twitter. Why does Twitter still exist?

How Fireworks Work

2009-07-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

The following article was written by a friend of the blog, Danny S. He will most likely be writing more articles in the future. - Alex

There's a good chance that this Independence Day you saw fireworks, whether up-close or from a distance, and there's a good chance that you also asked in varying degrees, "How?" Well Digiterms has the answer! In Short: Hard work and perfect timing. That was the short answer, but the long answer is just as easy to understand. Computers operated by pyrotechnicians (fire or explosive experts) coordinate the launch of fireworks from individual tubes, each firework having specific amount of chemicals in individual compartments. The different chemicals determine the color and brightness, and the parts of each firework in-between each compartment slows or speeds up the fuse according to what the pyrotechnicians want. Hundreds upon hundreds of tubes are put on those barges you sometimes see, with the pyrotechnicians inspecting each and every tube before the show starts.

What makes up those fireworks? Cardboard tubes filled with explosive material fitted into rockets. "What, that simple?" you ask. Yes, that's basically all fireworks are. Strontium produces an intense red while Lithium produces a medium red, Calcium for orange, Sodium for yellow, Barium for green, Copper Halides (certain type of copper) for blue, Potassium (or sometimes Strontium and Copper) for Purple, Charcoal, Iron or Lampblack (soot) for Gold, and Titanium, Aluminum or Magnesium for white. So really it was the use of computers that significantly changed fireworks to allow Pyrotechnicians to create all those patterns with them (such as a happy-face or a star). Otherwise, they're the same stuff people have been using for thousands of years.

4th of July

2009-06-28T11:17:00.001-07:00

So, the Day of Fire is approaching. I speak, of course, of the 4th of July, a day when millions of under trained and ill-equipped youngsters march out to their backyards to blow stuff up.Yea, like that.

The 4th is our most enthusiastic holiday, as we are celebrating our independence, our freedom, and the very things that make us American, but mostly because around 9,000 people blow themselves up every year. In some places, fireworks are banned altogether because of the risk of injury, not to mention the numerous house fires caused by falling mortars (the big explosions in the sky) and people to stupid to realize setting off fireworks inside is not the "most awesome thing EVER".

You can't win that bet if you're dead. Just saying.

So, here is today's question: Is this:

Worth this:

Tell us in the comments.

PS: To all those who say this post has nothing to do with technology, think about this: until quite recently, fireworks were to advanced and dangerous to be sold commercially like they are now. Our decisions on fireworks may very well influence our policy toward dangerous technologies for years to come. Also, it's the 4th of July. Come on.

BREAKING NEWS: Michael Jackson dies at 50

2009-06-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

The LA Times has coverage here. The ramifications of this -- he owned the rights to the Beatles, and was over 400 million dollars in debt -- will certainly play out for a long time. Our condolences go out to his relatives.

Palm Pre: Why the hype?

2009-06-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

So I got to demo Pre today. It's gotten a lot of good reviews, so I was looking forward to trying one out. What happened was... horrible. Here's how it went.

I took the phone from the associates hand, and it felt right in my hand. It just fit. It wasn't inconvenient like an iPhone, but more like a pebble. It was looking good.

Then, I opened it, and things went downhill.

The keyboard is tiny. I had to use my fingernails. Of course, I didn't use the keyboard right away, because it took a full 2 minutes for the touchscreen to start working. Even after it started "working", it was incredibly unresponsive. You have to use your whole finger, which is an issue given the size of the screen. For the whole time I used it, the phone was laggy. Even after I got online and started to type in google in the URL bar, the phone kept trying to refocus my typing elsewhere, making it almost impossible to type in the URL. After I finally got the phone to go to google, it took another minute to get to Twitter, my test site. So far, so bad.

When the phone rolled into twitter, traveling about the speed of a 1800's carriage with president Taft inside, the phone refused to show me the login page. I couldn't get there. It kept redirecting me to random feeds. I had to manually type in the URL just to get to the main page. Even then, I ran into trouble (although this is not really Palms fault). My Password includes uppercase numbers (Like $ and so forth), which are imposable to figure out on the Pre's keyboard. So, I headed over to Wikipedia to get a picture of a keyboard.

But Wikipedia doesn't work on the Pre. It literally doesn't display. the letters are randomly splayed across the screen, and there is a large link to a "mobile version" in large font. Clicking that link froze the phone, to the point that the associate told me to just use a display phone off the shelf. After waiting another few minutes for the phone to start, I decided to look at the phone itself, instead of the internet. It wouldn't be to hard, given the Palm OS's easy to use interface, right?

It took me 5 minutes to find the apps.

All the pictures are non-descript; I clicked on one that looked like a music note, I got volume control. I finally found just a memo pad, and tried typing. It took another 2 minutes just to type "Hello World!". I tried to like it, I really did. But in the end, when it came right down to it, I told them I wasn't interested. I walked out of the store. and never looked back.

Maybe I'm just an idiot. Maybe the phones I used were broken. Maybe my standards are to high. But from my perspective, the Palm Pre is not a good investment.

Something which needs to end

2009-06-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

You may have experienced this. You buy a game. It's great. In particular, the music is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that you want to listen to it all the time.
So, you ask your geek friend, and he tells you to look in "program files." you meander your way through several levels of poorly conceived folder layout, until you find the game folder. You can feel the music it's so close. You open the folder.

And you get this.

Files are randomly named. Folders with names like "Fa34RKT" dot the screen. You back away from your screen, fearful of what you have done. You cannot win. The music is locked away forever, in an unplayable codec, in an unfindable folder. Being studied by top men.

Except, didn't you pay, like, 50 bucks for this game? That's a lot of money, given that you apparently don't even own the individual parts of your game.
Now, some companies are pretty good with this. Bethesda studios has simple folders and playable codecs, which are really nice. But other game studios seem stuck on the idea that a good game requires unplayable codecs, that they require completely backward folder layout. Why not give us all the game?

Where to get good free images

2009-06-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

Choosing a new desktop background? Need pictures for a report? Just want beautiful photos? I've got 2 words: Wikimedia Commons.

Their "Featured Pictures" category contain some of the best images on the web, and they're all free. As part of the Wikimedia Foundation (of which Wikipedia is part), 99.99% of the images in Commons are open source. And if you think "free" means "low quality", here are some examples.

And of course, the best:

Just click for higher resolutions (although Blogger seems to downgrade them quite a bit). I'm currently using the second one as my desktop, and it works for 1920 by 1200 resolution perfectly. For more, check out Wikimedia Commons Featured Pictures.

What do you call the red dot?

2009-06-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

Most of us are aware of the red dot that Lenovo uses for a mouse on their laptops. They look like this:

From the IBM site

But here's the question: what to call it? Some call it a "Pointing stick", others have many names for it. What do you call it? Tell us in the comments.

Coming Soon!

2009-06-11T13:03:00.001-07:00

Hi. We here at Digiterms now have a lot of free time on our hands, so we're going to step up the posting. Some things to look forward to include:

A reveiw of Pre (likely)
Some breakdowns on what to look for in a good computer
Explanations of some basic but often misunderstood technology essential to gamers
An idea contest (more details to come)
A guide on how to survive in a post apocalyptic wasteland (in case some goes wrong with the digital TV transition)

Hope to post more soon!

Pixars Up

2009-06-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Wow. Pixar has never messed up before, and they sure didn't this time. As a man, it is rare that I publicly admit to crying, but if the first 15 minutes don't make you, there is something seriously wrong with you mind. I went and saw it with 3 friends, and all but one of us cried at the beginning and the end. The middle? Amazing. It was like an animated Planet Earth combined with some of the most exciting, moving, and hilarious moments in film. The most important thing about Up, however, is that is not mainly a kid movie. It is also a complex adult drama that will leave you thinking about some of the most important questions in life. The 3D was also amazing, mostly because there were no pointless gimmicks. It just added to the film, making it easier to care for all the people. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

New iPhone 3gs...... is it worth it?

2009-06-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

The question that holds the key is: "Do you have an iPhone?" if you don't than you should no doubt join in (unless you want a Pre review coming soon). The iPhones (3g and 3gs) are both really great pieces of technology. The question is do you want one. Perhaps this breakdown will assist you:

If you don't own an iPhone (and are free of contract):
- If you are in the market for an iPhone then you should definitely go ahead and buy yourself one. Even though you may be enticed into getting the $99 dollar iPhone 3g (without the s) DON'T! You will be paying over a thousand dollars throughout your 2 year contract, why skimp out now when you can pay simply $100 more for better battery life, a video camera, compass, better performance etc.
-You should be searching your soul to decide whether you want 16 gigs or 32 gigs. Throughout the 3g version.

If you own an iPhone then you are in for some trouble:
- Your upgrade price is up to $399 and $499 for the 3gs (when in mid-contract). This is just simply not worth it.
- The first iPhone was released June 29, 2007. So if you were a day one adopter your 2 year contract is coming to a close soon. This means that it is conceivable that you could get a $199/299 priced iPhone 3gs.
- The iPhone 3g was released Released July 11, 2008. Sadly this translates to: if you have an iPhone 3g you are not eligible for a $199/299 3gs and won't be for some time. Chances are Apple will release a new iPhone next year by the time you are eligible to upgrade (that is almost a safe bet).

The best part about project Natal

2009-06-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

So, you may of heard about Natal. You know, the thing Microsoft unveiled at E3 that will, most likely, change video games forever. If you don't know the details, you can read about them here.
But it gets better. Remember that incredible video of VR on the Wii?

Well, he's involved with project Natal. So, it's very possible that Natal will not only have awesome body control, but it might also have simulated 3D, a massive step forward in immersion. We can only hope.

New website coming soon!

2009-06-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's Alex. Although this blog seems to be our only outlet, we want you to know that very soon, we'll be bigger, better, and more in depth. We're starting Digiterms.com, an online encyclopedia of all things tech (and some things that aren't). We also (might) have a huge collection of open source images and media, a podcast (maybe), and even some how-to's. We look foreward to being a trustworthy (possably) source for tech news, info, and instructions. See ya there!

New iPhone?

2009-06-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Rumors are flying around about the new iPhone that will be unveiled on Monday. If this were to happen it would somewhat cement the "iPhone a year" format that some speculate Apple is shooting for. What will be included? This is still yet to be determined but a wrap up of some of the rumors are:
1) A compass (This would help the already available gps)
2) An improved camera (With video support and auto focus)
3) An improvement in storage (They do this every time)
4) An improved CPU (Means that it will be faster)
5) More RAM (it will be able to do more things at once)

What I want:
1) Flash (Remember that? Yeah, still ain't here)
2)Better battery life (I understand that the iPhone's battery is good when you consider what it has to do but really, it needs to last longer. If you for whatever reason miss charging it one day than you are in for a treat)

The key is that it is rumored to be an evolution rather than an revolution. It will be the iPhone 3g.5 if you will. All this speculation aside, we will find out on monday. I half want a reason to upgrade from my 3g. But like everyone I don't really want to be buying an iPhone a year so maybe a small evolution won't warrant a purchase.

Motion Control for PS3 better than Wii?

2009-06-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

In short, yes.

The first thing to understand about this new technology from sony (Shown at E3) is that we haven't had our hands on it yet. No one outside the tight nit devoloper circle at sony has. But from what they showed at E3, it is impressive, to say the least. I am not sure that I should say that I like it, but I will say, I am very hopeful. If it actaully performs the way it did, and trust me that is alot to ask for, it could open up a new realm of oppurtunity for games.