GTA: Chinatown Wars

This is a fun game. It reminds me of the good ol' days when I used to play GTA2. This game, however, is much more sophisticated. For example, I was walking through the city when I came across a porno actor. He wanted me to drive him to the porno audition. While I'm trying to drive there, he was getting ready by having sex with tons of women in the back seat. I'm trying to concentrate on my driving but the limo is rocking back and forth with sounds of women moaning. It was tough. Fortunately, I was able to get the guy to his audition but unfortunately, he decided not to go because he was now flaccid.

Classy.

Week of Pain

Let us hope that this week will be a good week.

UPDATE: Step 1 is complete... Now, on to Thursday...

Amazon strikes back! Battle of Kindlepid.py

Amazon figured out that people are starting to take apart/hack the Kindle so that we can increase the functionality. Amazon doesn't like that because that would mean we could read books from other sources. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Amazon went on the offensive.

I believe this is great news. Amazon pulling the DMCA card and the subsequent press coverage are great. Forum users from various sites have already expressed their outrage. They do not like what Amazon is doing. How dare they protect their IP? hehe.

It's only a matter of time before the "people" fight back. Soon, more and more hacks will be available and the Kindle will get better and better...for me. Just to spite Amazon, hackers that didn't care before are joining the ranks to take apart the Kindle. Huzzay!

Public Transportation: Part 1 - A Bummer of an Experience

Tonight, I decided to take the bus home. I felt that I should do my part in helping the environment. Also, I wanted to save a little money and avoid paying the cab fare.

In retrospect, I should have taken the fucking cab.


It was 9pm and it was freezing cold. As I got out of the train station, I thought, maybe I should save this experiment for another time. However, I really wanted to know how to get home using the bus rather than paying the ridiculous cab fees so I figured, what the hell.

First, it was a pain in the ass figuring out what bus I was supposed to take. The bus station had 12 stops to choose from, all going to different destinations. The problem, of course, was that they all eventually went by the neighborhood that I was trying to go to. But depending on the bus, I could be home in 20 minutes or 2.5 hours.

After asking 7 people, I eventually found the bus stop. I had to ask 7 different people because each person sent me to the wrong place. When I went to one bus stop, the person told me I was in the wrong line and that I should go to another one. When I got there, they told me to go elsewhere, and so on and so on.

When I got to the appropriate stop, I looked at the bus schedule and found that the bus was on a 1 hour schedule; that is, the bus comes to the stop in one hour intervals. The reason for this was because after 9pm, there were very few buses operating the route.

I looked at the watch and it was 9:15. The next bus would arrive at 9:30. I thought to myself, "that's not too bad, I think I'll be a good Christian and wait this out without cursing out everyone". I texted my friend and told him of my little experiment and waited.

At 9:16, the wind started to pick up. It was freezing. The temperature dropped to 26 degrees (acoording to weather.com) and with wind chill, it was 16. Still, I figured I would wait it out.

9:30 had come and gone and now it was 9:40. There were no buses. I started to get pissed off and I was contemplating the cab option again. Just then, 3 buses simultaneously came into the bus terminal.

The bus I had to take was the 40. The three buses that came into the terminal were 60, 20, and "Main St. via Camberden". I didn't know what the fuck the third bus was but all three pulled up to my bus stop. I was very confused. None of the buses had the magic number 40 written on it. All three buses stopped and all three buses opened the doors. I decided I would ask the bus driver on the number 20 bus what the fuck was going on. I waited until the passengers boarded and I asked the driver, "is this the bus going to my destination?"

The bus driver smiled and said, "No, the bus you want is the one in front of me...leaving the station."

I thought, WHAT THE FUCK?!? I told him, "But that was the number 60. I thought I was supposed to look for the 40."

He replied, "That was the 40. He changed the sign right now."

Sure enough, when I looked up, the bus had changed the sign while I was walking up to the driver to ask my question. My number 40 drove away into the night.

I was really bummed and freezing. So, I hailed a cab and went home.


To be continued with concluding thoughts (Public Transportation: Part 2 - Smelly Conclusion)

Gotham Pizza

It was alright. Nothing special.

* Sent via BlackBerry *

My Kindle 2 Review

I didn't tell anyone but I preordered the Kindle on the first day is was made available and received the device on Februrary 25th. All of those posts before about the kindle was my way of coping with buyer's remorse...or rather preorder remorse. I had to convince myself that my purchase of the device was justified. I have been using it every day since launch.

Here is my review.

Form Factor


There is an issue here. The keyboard layout is wrong. I don't care what anyone says because I'm right and you're fucking wrong. The Z needs to be under the S and all the other letters need to be moved to the right accordingly. The last row is fucked up. They displaced the bottom row to the left by one letter and made the whole thing annoying. WTF is wrong with you Amazon? Go take a look at Smartphone keyboards and get a clue.

Also, the home key on the right side should be another PREV PAGE button. Amazon claims that this thing can be read with both hands and yet the PREV PAGE button is only available on the left hand side. Lame. They should have symmetrical NEXT PAGE/PREV PAGE buttons on both sides and add a separate HOME button. I'm annoyed. FIX IT!

Other than that, I don't mind everything else. The 4 way navigation toggle that all of these fuckers are whining about is fine. It's not the best but I don't see a huge problem here. If your fingers are too fat for it, maybe you should either lose some weight or just kill yourself for having fat fingers. The problem lies with refresh and "processor" speed. It's just too damn slow. E-ink's refresh isn't great and moving the cursor can be a chore because there is a half of a second delay after every cursor movement. You can imagine how frustrating it can be when you're trying to move the cursor from near the top to near the bottom of the page. Because of this, highlighting a bunch of stuff on a page can be difficult at times.

I really like the way the NEXT/PREV buttons push inward. I think this is much better than what they had for Kindle 1.

Reading E-Books

It's like reading a book on Etch-a-sketch. Remember that toy? This is not necessarily bad though. The words are clear (for the most part) and I have no problems reading on the device for hours on end. However, if you look closer, you can sometimes find some "pixel" abnormalities. Someone mentioned that reading on the Kindle is like reading a dirty newspaper. I would describe it as a brand new newspaper printed on recycled paper.

So everyone is probably wondering, are E-Books the way to go? That's a tough question.

For novels with very few pictures, Kindle performs very well.

Example of something you can read

However, if you're reading a text book, it's definitely a hit or miss. I purchased this device so I don't have to carry huge text books while I'm on the road. I quickly found that depending on how the ebook was put together, the quality can be hit or miss when it comes to diagrams and pictures. I can provide an example:

Example of something you CANNOT read

As you can see, it's pretty fucking blurry. In fact, I cannot make out most of the stuff on this table. A few words are legible but this is completely unacceptable. My camera was focused. This book was purchased from Amazon Kindle store. What you see there is the completely zoomed picture of the table. I can't zoom in any more. Actually, Kindle can't zoom at all. It will attempt to fit the picture as best as it can on the screen like you see above.

See the difference between legible text and illegible table

File Support

Poor. Amazon has decided to go with the Sony bullshit route and utilize proprietary formats (although it is a version of Mobi). The reader natively supports very few file formats which is a HUGE bummer. So what does this mean for people who want to pirate books and then read it on the Kindle? It means that you should wait because it's not that great on the Kindle. PDF conversion can be a chore and some PDFs come out really badly. I've tried most of the suggestions on the web with regards to PDF files but none of them work perfectly.

Highlighting

It's okay. If you are a student going through a text book, you may want to highlight key facts, etc. It's not too bad but the navigation can be a problem when you have a lot of text and you want to highlight something at the bottom.

Taking notes

I tried to show how the cursor and letters always lag behind when typing but the picture didn't come out well.

Typing is sluggish because "refresh" is slow and sometimes the processor can't keep up with my mad typing skillz. I'll sum it up in one word: frustrating.

Battery Life

"Read on a single charge for up to 4 days with wireless on." -Amazon.com

This is really pushing it. With the wireless on and minimal web surfing, I was able to get 3 days out of the device (this is with ~4+ hours of reading every day). On a fully charged battery, I was able to get about 5 hours out of it when I was reading and surfing the web intermittently. I haven't tried the device with wireless off.

Ordering books

Although you can narrow the search by choosing various subcategories, sorting titles in the Kindle Online store is limited. I wish they would allow you to sort titles according to user reviews, price, popularity, etc after a search. They have "most popular" category on the main page but if i want to find the "most popular star wars books", I'm out of luck.

Kindle storefront

Also, the one click purchase option can be "dangerous". I have accidentally purchased books while navigating toward a different part of the screen. Because of the refresh delay, your cursor can end up in the wrong place and you may click the wrong option...if you're impatient like me. Fortunately, there is an option right after you purchase your product to negate the order.

The one thing I would like to see added is pricing information on the "Purchase now" page after you read through a sample chapter. One nice thing about the Kindle is that you can sample books. They send you a chapter or two and you can "try it out" before buying it. One the last page of the "sample", you have an option to purchase the entire book. However, the pricing is not listed. So the only way you can see what the fucking book costs, you have to navigate the Kindle Store and find the damn thing again. It's a chore.

Browser

Browser in advanced mode

Slow. It also displays websites like my cellphone. Navigation in a website can be painful. Amazon needs to update the browser or pay Google to have their Chrome modified for the Kindle. Where is the 3G speed? I'm definitely in a 3G area but the speeds are slower than my EDGE cellphone. There is no flash support. Javascript is "supported", although I must say it's like javascript on mediocre smartphones. The browser is under their "experimental" category so I guess we're supposed to give Amazon a break. Well, I won't. Amazon needs to makes this browser better. And I want it done NOW.

Browser in basic mode (same web page as the picture above)

Resolution

Problem. Properly formatted books (ie. commercial books purchased from Amazon) look great on the device. The text is clear and the pictures can look really nice. However, if you have non-Amazon-sactioned reading material, the text can be hit or miss. I was hoping for clearer text but then again, my standards are high.

For the most part, it feels like reading a paperback edition of a book printed on gray paper. Not terrible. Not amazing (although I'm not sure what AMAZING text would really look like...it's just fucking text). Converted PDFs are an issue. If the PDF has two columns like in many textbooks, it's a big issue. If the PDF was scanned in a subpar manner, conversion to Kindle accepted formats are a pain and the results are not great. I would say that the lack of good PDF support is the real negative aspect of this device and because of this, the device should receive less than stellar review.

Text to Speech

The publishers and writers that were pissed off about this feature should SHUT THE FUCK UP. If they had purchased a Kindle and checked out the feature, they would realize that they have nothing to fear. Listening to this damn thing is like listening to Stephen Hawking with a broken voice synthesizer. It's not that great. It's like having one of those AT&T text to voice bots or your text to voice GPS navigation device read to you. It's robotic and they pronounce words incorrectly. Stephen Fry will be able to keep his day job.

Weight

Heavier than I expected. As a supporter of ultralight backpacking, this kindle will not be accompanying me into the canyons.

Value

This is a tough one. At $360, I do not think an E-reader is worth this much money at this point for most people. As an E-reader + mediocre internet browser device, it barely makes the device worth the investment. However, as a student, this device might be worth it. If you have many text books like me and you want to read 1500 page text books while walking down the hallway, Kindle can be a great way to take that shit on the road. (Of course, you won't be able to see many pictures or read many of the charts/graphs/tables.)

Cover

One concern I have with the cover is shown in the picture. Although it's secure, the device lifts up. I'm afraid that my Kindle will break off at the attachments.




Conclusion

Kindle is interesting. Although this thing could have improved my life by lightening the load on my back, the device fell short. The reason is that the super thick books i need to read have pictures and diagrams that the kindle does not display very well. Even the commercial Amazon sanctioned books have really bad quality diagrams and many of the tables and charts that are important to me are completely illegible. It's like looking at a blur. This really pisses me off and I feel like I've been ripped off. I'll have to buy the paperback just to take a look again, which in the end doesn't save me any money.

Having said that, I still like the damn thing because it's a new toy. I'm hoping that my letters to the editors get through and they fix some of this stuff. I'm also hoping that amazon will fix some of these bugs and give us a OS upgrade. I think that if you enjoy electronic toys, this is a cool one to buy. Also, if you commute a lot, I think reading novels on the thing is pretty cool. But beyond that, I would wait for Kindle 3.0.

Ditching Work...and the people who suck at it

There is an art to ditching work. What separates a ninja from a n00b is the attention to detail. For example, if you're coming in to work late and you're about to sign in, you should already be in work clothes instead of having all of your crap that you brought from home in your hand or on your body. Your coat, your bags, and shit should be safely stowed in a discrete location so you can blend in with the environment. You don't want to show everyone that you just came into work. You want to make it seem like you've been there all along.


This kind of detail seems like common sense but some people forget about these things and get busted.

I consider myself a pretty decent ninja. I like the challenge of getting away with things that you're not supposed to get away with. By myself, I could probably leave for 8 hours and still get credit for it. I also have some experience in ninja-like behavior since I used to engage in petty theft back in the day. However, I consider myself like Jean Valjean than like a common thief.

The problem I have is this: I'm paired up with a novice. This novice is slowing me down. This person means well but can't seem to understand that you need to be quick and can't be weighed down by extraneous crap. This person carries their entire apt with them and it takes them forever to get ready. Timing is important and I hate the fact that this person is dragging me down.

Last week, I was with another ninja. We made a great team. This week, I'm with a FNG and i think this person is going to get me killed.

Rant: Hulu and the rest...

Hulu is pretty good. I like the fact that we have access to full episodes of many tv shows and I don't even mind the intermittent commercials. I recognize the need for revenue and I think the 15-30 second interruptions are reasonable.

However, hulu, as well as other sites dedicated to specific shows are doing something that really annoys the shit out of me. They are pulling full episodes after a certain amount of time and they only keep around the recent 3-5 episodes. I believe this is a mistake.

The great aspect of these online video sites is that we, the consumer, have the ability to watch episodes whenever we want. However, when they pull the episode, we're back to the situation where the consumer has no legitimate way of watching the episode until the iTunes video, DVD or Bluray comes out. So, in the interim, how can we watch the videos?

We pirate it. That's how.

So here are my suggestions:
1) Keep the fucking episodes online until the day before the iTunes/DVD/Bluray comes out. That way, the consumer has, at all times, an option to enjoy your product legitimately.
2) Stop increasing the commercial length. As soon as these "tolerable" commercials begin to annoy, pirating will be the option once again.
3) Stop fucking us over.

No Comment Part 2

* Sent via BlackBerry *

Watup Yo?

Excerpt from the book I'm reading:

"Providers should refrain from using slang themselves to appear "hip" because the person may be offended and unclear about the provider's intent. A basic knowledge of current slang phrases may be useful, however, when communicating with young people."

Word to your mother

I thought it was funny because it reminded me of this:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

* Sent via BlackBerry *

I can't hear you.

No Comment

2/25/09

Hellz Yes!

* Sent via BlackBerry *

E-reader

Morons are writing on the internetz that there are many alternatives to the Kindle. They are wrong. There are very few. At the top of my head, I could name two or three other major players that provide good quality consumer e-readers.

These same morons continue to cite the Iphone as a great alternative to the Amazon or Sony e-reader. They also state that most multimedia phones including the blackberry, treo, etc. are other ways people can read books without getting a device like the Kindle.

Let me tell you that these devices are NOT great alternatives to a Kindle or the Sony E-reader because of eye strain. These fuckfaces can't seem to understand that one of the reasons E-ink was created was because people had difficult time reading novels for hours and hours on a display like the Iphone. Sure, iphones are great for reading emails, surfing the web, etc but if you try to read for 2-3 hours on the iphone everyday like you would a paper novel, I guarantee your eyes will be fucked.

I have a blackberry. I love the damn thing. I read and write pages and pages of email everyday. I also surf the web constantly. However, I would never use the fucking thing to read my stories. It's too painful. I have tried to do it but it really messed me up. I was on the plane reading a book for 5 hours on my blackberry and at the end of that trip, I thought I was going to go blind.

One can use almost any type of display for reading E-books. That doesn't mean that they're all great alternatives to the Kindle or Sony. And just because the iphone e-reader has "cool"/douche effects like "page turning animation", it doesn't mean that it rocks the shiznit.

So suck on it.

Coming soon: My Blog Post on Why I Hate Everyone.

GOP: Attack of the Revenge of the Sith Demon

MORON

I posted this awhile back so I don't want to repeat my message again.

But come on. Seriously?!?! Putting these token minority reps in the spotlight as a way to fool people into thinking they are relevant in this day and age is really stupid. Instead of changing their failed social and economic policies to adapt to the modern age, they just replace the facade of the party with token minorities.

GOP is scum.

Oh, and you know the GOP is up to date with the realities of the modern world by using the phrase "coming out party" for this event. Way to go.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone.

Cash Cab

Picture from www.tompreuss.com

I've noticed that the questions are much harder for passengers who admit they watch the show. I think the best strategy is to feign incredulity if you get picked up by Ben Bailey.

Also, from Wikipedia:
"Near the end of the game player's destination Ben Bailey appears to present the cash won. In reality, this cash is a prop and used for on-air purposes only. The winnings must be taxed and are sent via check.^"

I'm so disillusioned...

Kindle has left the building.

Kindle has shipped for many people. I hope to see some in depth reviews soon.

Success!

Eureka, I Found It!

The internetz is indeed great.

New York Post Strikes Again

New York Post

Love Failblog

Fail blog never disappoints. This is one of my favorites.

It's Snowing Again!

Ah nuts. It's snowing again. My car must be covered in that crap. I thought winter was over.

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