Computer memory 1980 vs 2010

TECHNOLOGY - Yeah baby. Show me your 32 GB of space.

Star Trek's Nurse Chapel dies of leukemia

ENTERTAINMENT - Majel Barrett Roddenberry has been in more Star Trek episodes and Star Trek movies than any other Star Trek actor, for over four decades. She played the dark-haired Number One in the original Star Trek pilot but metamorphosed into the blond, miniskirted Nurse Christine Chapel in the original 1966-69 show.

She played the role of the ship's computer voice during all 5 sequel TV shows and many of the Star Trek movie incarnations, and Betazoid Ambassador Lwaxana Troi in 6 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and 3 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Roddenberry died of leukemia Thursday morning (December 18th) at her home in Bel-Air. She was 76.

Just two weeks ago she completed the voice of the ship's computer for the upcoming J.J. Abrams movie "Star Trek", which focuses on Kirk and Spock's first adventures together.

As Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's widow she nurtured the legacy of the seminal science fiction TV series after his death. Roddenberry helped keep the franchise alive by inspiring fans and attended a major Star Trek convention each year. She was also the executive producer for two other Gene Roddenberry series, Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict.

She also appeared in a Babylon 5 episode "Point of No Return", as Lady Morella, the psychic widow of the Centauri emperor, and parodied her voice work as a guest voice on Family Guy as the voice of Stewie Griffin's ship's computer in the episode "Emission Impossible".

Star Trek and its successors often focused on political and philosophical issues of the day. Roddenberry and her husband Gene, who died in 1991, believed in creating "thoughtful entertainment" and were proud of the show and the passionate devotion of its fans.

Born Majel Lee Hudec on February 23rd 1932, in Cleveland, she began taking acting classes as a child. She had some stage roles, then in the late 1950s and 1960s had bit parts in a few movies and small roles in TV series, including "Leave It to Beaver" and "Bonanza".

She met her husband in 1964 during a guest role for a Marine Corps drama he produced called "The Lieutenant". That same year, she was cast in the pilot for the Star Trek series as the no-nonsense second-in-command. The pilot did not appeal to NBC executives and a second pilot was made, although parts of the original later showed up in a two-part episode called "The Menagerie".

The couple married in Japan in 1969 after Star Trek (TOS) was cancelled.

4th Edition D&D: Not for me...

By Charles Moffat - 2008.

Based on a Google search there is a surprising number of hits for the words 4th edition D&D and boycott. Almost 28,000. Quite a few of the complaints are on blogs or forums.

For those not familiar with Dungeons & Dragons the game was first published in 1974 and has gone through a number of changes over the past 34 years with new editions, including some radical changes like 3rd edition.

The problem however is the new 4th edition game has pissed off many of the game's fans. 28,000 posts talking about boycotting 4th edition D&D suggests there is hundreds of thousands more roleplayers out there who are likewise pissed off by the new game and will avoid playing it.

Granted, there are those who say the new game is an improvement... but I will point out these players tend to also play Magic the Gathering, miniatures games or computer games... the new 4th edition game complicates the game to the point that players print or make "Power Cards" that they use during the game... and the new complicated rules for movement makes miniatures mandatory.

This however reduces the game to a card game/miniatures game and roleplaying, actual roleplaying TIME is reduced. The rules governing movement, powers, etc. end up wasting a lot of game time.

Time is a very relevant thing when playing RPGs. Games are only so many hours long and typically only one session every week or two. Time is therefore very precious and the more time wasted discussing rules, powers, etc. is less time doing actual character roleplaying. And it is the roleplaying that people enjoy the most.

Here's an example of what 4th edition does:

A player moves his Paladin miniature so that its beside an orc on the table. The player lifts up a card and says "I move 1 square and I Divine Challenge this orc" and points at the orc miniature on the table. He then lifts up a 2nd card and says "and then I use Holy Strike on him." The player then rolls his d20 to see if he hits or not.

The use of the power cards thus reduces roleplaying... the same player in 3rd edition could have simply moved the miniature and said "Hello foul orc! I am going to smite you so hard you are going to wish you were never born!", thus indicating to the DM that he is both challenging the orc to fight him, and intending to use a smite attack. A 4th edition player could have done the same thing in theory, but because of the power card system players tend to forget they have the option to roleplay out their powers instead of just reading off the cards.

You could try running a 4th edition game without the power cards, but it would be a lot of stuff to remember in your head and you'd be flipping through the rulebook constantly to check the different powers and the precise wording of each.

I personally have boycotted 4th edition D&D. I tried the game out for several months but eventually got bored of the lack of character development in the face of a party more interested in powers, bickering over movement rules, etc. My review of the game was 0 stars out of 5. I viewed it as a complete waste of time.

I currently am DMing a 3.0 game and I'm also an avid member of a 1st edition game and a 2nd edition Dark Sun game. I also play Dungeons & Dragons Online, which most closely resembles 3.5 D&D.

I will note that a game's roleplaying success largely depends on the players and their willingness to roleplay out situations. 4th Edition seems to discourage this however with too much emphasis on the various powers/rules. The previous editions allow players to customize their characters more statistically, but also gives them a lot more room to roleplay out their situations.

In the aforementioned 1st edition game I am currently playing a cleric and I roleplay out every undead turn check ("Begone foul undead! Back to the graves with thee!"), every spell I cast ("Goddess, heal my friend in this time of need!") and even my pathetic attempts to hit the enemy ("I swing wildly at the kobold with my hammer {rolls dice} and hit the tree standing next to him!")

There's also the regular roleplaying where you're just talking to the NPCs, trying to solve a mystery, puzzle or whatever or threatening the barkeep that if he doesn't keep pouring the ale you're going to burn down his tavern...

Some of the players in my game had never experienced this style of gaming, but once you get into it you realize its much more satisfying to cut off the bad guy's head while shouting "Thats for killing my sister and burning my town down you bastard!"

Sure the neighbours may wonder whats going on with all the noise, but that is the way roleplaying games are meant to be. Loud and fun.

Its certainly not supposed to be a bunch of geeks playing power cards and bickering. Thats not even D&D any more. Its something else and the makers of 4th edition should be ashamed of themselves.

Serenity DVD double dip

"I'll let you have it this time but if a three disc comes out before 2009, I'm gonna shoot ya."

Do you love Firefly/Serenity. Course you do because I don't believe that mentally insane retards are allowed access to computers and those are the only people who don't like Firefly/Serenity.

Well the dvd double dip has finally arrived. I saw this on www.dvdactive.com

Universal Home Video has sent over early details on a new two-disc collector's edition of Serenity which stars Nathan Fillion, and Alan Tudyk. This Joss Whedon directed sci-fi will be available to own from the 21st August, and should retail at around $26.98. The film itself will be presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with English Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS 5.1 Surround tracks. Universal has yet to reveal the extra material I'm afraid, but we'll bring you further details very shortly. Stay tuned.

Now while Universal hasn't said much on the extras I imagine it's goning to carry the extras that we already got and probably the rest of the extras that have been available to other parts of the world for a while. This for instance is the R4 (Australia) version of the dvd set available from February 2006.

Acclaimed cult writer Joss Whedon’s feature length follow up to his excellent Firefly series, Serenity, is due for a February 8th region four release. Unlike the R1, it will be housed inside a lovely tin that features the original theatrical artwork. The film will be presented in an anamorphic widescreen format with English audio in Dolby Digital 5.1. The disc will also contain supplementary materials exclusive to the region four disc including A Filmmakers Journey - Journey with Joss from Script to Screen, Joss Whedon Q&A Session - Filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney, Extended Scenes, Take a Walk on Serenity - Cast and Crew take us on a special tour of the Serenity ship and The Green Clan - Expose on Cinematographer Jack Green and his team. Additional extras include deleted scenes, outtakes, Future History - The Story of Earth That Was, What's In A Firefly, Re-lighting The Firefly, Joss Whedon Introduction, Feature Commentary and Easter Egg - We'll Have A Fruity Oaty Good Time.

Not to mention it came with better artwork then our region and in one of those neat tins.

Machinma or Fan-Fiction?

Hi there, I haven't posted much to this blog, well actually not at all, but I did finally want to bring something up. Just recently, I saw the above Halo - Metroid crossover video and though I do like it alot, I wonder what does it represent? Lots of sites were calling it Machinima, but I question that because the video was created directly from 3D models rendered on a personal computer. This differs from other popular Machinima like Red vs Blue or Sims2 Movies, because they actually use the existing video game system and re-edit the material to fit the new story.

If anyone out there is reading this, what do you think, is this really Machinima or just a very well done fan-fiction tribute?

Firefox is burning out my computer

My computer has been hiccuping a lot lately-suffering from lock up, because it keeps running out f system resources. Now, my computer is a P4 at about 2 GHz and over 256mb of ram to spare; usually the most I ever run is firefox, a messenger program, maybe windows media player, and sometimes limewire.

I've tried everything- checking if I have a virus or adware, checking if I'm being hacked; but today, ultimately, when I was running nothing but MSN messenger and Firefox, and I checked my task manager I resigned to one conclusion, and one conclusion only- Firefox is a system hog.

I would seem I'm not the only one who's noticed. And here.

Just when we thought it was safe to stop worrying about our browsers, we have to put up with poor old XP coming to a crashing halt, and all because the browser is sucking all the memory. :(

Dear old Firefox, I hate to lose you, but if I find another non-IE browser that uses less memory, I'm sorry to say I'm going straight to my "Add/Remove Programs" box and bidding you adieu.

"Floppy disks? I've heard the elders speak of those..."

So I sent in my article to Cait.... I got up bright and early today and started editing it again, and then I went back to bed with the intention of merely taking a short nap, and I ended up sleeping until 4pm.... I raced downstairs, got the new version on my flash drive, and then raced upstairs to the internet-capable computer (Phil and I are at his parents' house right now), only to find that their Windows 98 didn't have the right driver. So THEN I downloaded one, and that didn't work, so I hauled out the floppy I had used to get some stuff off my old laptop, and that worked rather nicely.

So this means that when I work on my online portfolio, I have to make sure I can fit the damn thing onto a 1.5mb floppy disk. Joyess. I think I'm becoming one the "Make-shift May"s. ;)

"I'm ready for my close-up Mr. Deville..."

Well, this has certainly been a month for acting.

Remember I said I appeared in a shooting of "Daily Planet"? Well, here it is. I'm the girl looking at pantyhose "A". Man, I now believe what they say about the camera putting on ten pounds. Or maybe I just need to lose a little weight. ;)

In other news, the slideshow/film I helped my friend, the talented Mr. Charles Alexander Moffat with, entitled "Nuclear Winter" is now available on his website. He's been doing a lot of video art lately, so it should be pretty neat (I haven't watched it yet- it's a whopping 44 mb, which my computer is still downloading). It's supposed to be reminscent of the famous "La Jetee", except it's a comedy.

Anyway, it's always fun to get involved in this stuff.

RDRR

Hmmn...what to say. Well, I moved my computer into the living room, which I had planned to do for a while. I bought a big plastic shelf from Canadian Tire for only $20, and then piled my computer and my monitor on it. I'm still figuring out if I can fit my stereo on there.

Played Halo 2 the other night at Mark's...it's different but not TOTALLY different. It's a painful reminder to how much I want an Xbox. But lemme tell ya, I'm missing my 256 of RAM a whole lot more. My computer's a slug right now.

Bah! It's been too long...

A couple of things to examine...

My computer is STILL having problems. It won't make it through a full boot, with the 256mb card in it. It works fine with the 128mb card, for some reason. The only thing I can think of is that one of the components is damaged. Phil thinks it might be the forward bus.

Lastnight we went over to Maggie's and we painted some Warhammer figures. Well, I TRIED to paint a couple. I don't think I have the patience for it (though Phil could do it for hours- he loves it). I base-coated a couple and touched up one that Phil had abandoned. I didn't really finish any of them- I still need Phil to show me how to ink and dry brush and all that stuff. I wouldn't mind practicing it- it's a good talent, and when the figures are done well they look AWESOME. Some of the ones that Phil has are gorgeous. Also, I remembered that Dave H. used to make lead figures from molds in his basement. Phil said he made a really nice one in shop class once and it got stolen. If I make a hobby from painting them, rather than playing the game, I doubt I would want to pay the ridiculous amounts that G.W. charges for the damn things.

Other stuff...

We got our landline today. Bell emailed us and told us what our new number would be, so we excitedly told it to Phil's parents, and Chuck, who just happened to call when we were finding it out. Chuck called, and it didin't ring unfortunately- at first I thought he copied it wrong, and then we realized that we had the wrong number.

So we called the cell from the landline and ended up with some other number. Okay, we said, so THAT'S our number. Phil then called Bell to tell them there had been a mix-up. Bell apologized and said they'd look into it.

I joked that some poor sap somewhere else in Toronto had our phone number.

Suddenly our landline rang. But it wasn't Bell, it was some guy named Tony, who apparently had lost access to the phone line he had had for twenty years, and was calling his own number, only to find it routed somewhere else. Phil told him to call Bell, which he did.

Ten minutes later, we called the original number that Bell gave us, and our own phone rang. I guess they made short work of it. Phil called back Tony and informed him that he had his phone number back.

End result: We have a landline, and I THINK I know what the number is. For anyone that wants to know it, email me (unless you're somebody I don't know, in which case, I may not give it to you).

Retro Gaming Pt. 2

Well, I tried the Wayne's World game, and I couldn't get it to install- I think the first floppy has a flaw on it or something, since it keeps coming back with errors.

The Indiana Jones game IS a side-scroller. Well, sort of- you go in and out of doors and up ladders and swing his whip across open spaces (that was the coolest part). You have to collect stuff like keys and what not- tell you the truth, it sort of reminded me of "Below the Root", except not as, er, spiritual.

My computer is still non-functional, and Phil's has been shut down for now, pending the full installation of an AV. I bought a new cartridge for the printer today. Funny story:

I go in to Staples, and before I have a chance to seriously search on my own, an employee accosts me and asks me what I need. So I tell him (rather unenthusiastically) that I want a cartridge for an i320 printer. So he bipasses the rack of cheap, crappy Staples brand cartridges and finds the Canon brand one for me. It's only like $9.97, so I think sure, okay. He tries to talk me into buying a two-pack for $17, but I refuse. All the time that this is going on, I'm peeking around the general area because I was POSITIVE that Staples used to sell the Ko-Rec brand, which is always cheaper. The Ko-Rec rack is no where to be found.

So instead I start poking around the bargain bins, because they often have good stuff, and, lo and behold, there's and entire BIN of Ko-Rec black ink printer cartridges that fit my printer. And all of them were marked down to $5.97. So I bought two. And it only cost me like $12. If they have honestly discontinued the Ko-Rec cartridges at Staples, that would suck, because they're my favourite brand.

Okay, so it was a boring story. But I found it slightly amusing.

Thoughts on the future

Paul asked me where I want to have my placement, and then I remembered what a lazy-ass I was being about looking for one, so I started to poke around. One of the things I found was this:

http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?postid=59459

I've never been inclined to go to Ad Astra before, even though I know that Dave Clink and other people go every year (Dave sometimes does panels, and he knows a bunch of the people anyway). But now my interest is definetely piqued...

Trapeze isn't the only fish in the sea, but it's a start. W007!

PS- I'm using Phil's computer because mine is on the fritz. It won't make it all the way through a full boot; it either freezes or reboots itself over and over again. Once or twice it spewed a bunch of random characters across the screen. One of the last times that XP booted properly, it got me to make a disk to run a scan, which I did, and it came up with nothing. Occasionally the screen goes an almost opaque bright blue, in which the desktop can barely be made out. I'm thinking it's either the new video card or the additional RAM stick that Phil put in there, which was a bit old anyway. I'm almost positive it's a hardware issue, which is why I'm leaving my computer off- if something's overheating, I don't want to play with it too much.

Technify the Old

First of all, I managed to find some drivers for my TV card, from the company website, since I can't find the disc that came with it. I don't get the program that it's supposed to run with it, but that's okay too since it's a generic card.

This time around, I actually have Windows Movie-Maker,(and a better computer) so I hooked up the VCR and gave some VHS capture a shot- it worked. I had to fool with the audio to get it to come through- I don't think the audio on the card is set right, so I used my sound card instead.

Anyway, when I get some more time I can capture all of my favourite home-movies to digital format and burn them to DVD. This also means that I could make little music videos and such.

In other news, my computer clock keeps losing time...it's very disconcerting.

Video cards and such

Well, luck is with me! I was in staples the other day grabbing a binder and some transparency sheets for my mass of marketing handouts, when I happened by the discount table....

I found an NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX, 64mb video card for thirty dollars. It's probably about two years old, but even older cards usually sell for about a hundred bucks (the 128 version was also at the same table for about ninety, and there were two Radeon cards there with the same specs, for almost twice the price) since the new ones are upwards of two to three hundred.

I took my chances and bought it (I don't really have much perspective in terms of video cards) but it turns out that it's a good card, and Phil installed it for me, and now Halo works wonderfully, and Armed and Dangerous will actually run (though it doesn't have controller options- damnit!). Phil also gave me some spare RAM that he had, so now I have about 380mb of RAM, and I won't have my in-built video card leeching off of it anymore. W007!

The downside is, I can't run games at the highest resolution and such because my monitor goes all screwy and the picture messes up. Another indication I need a new monitor.

*sigh* Owning a computer is like owning a car.

Adventures in Hardware

Windows XP...it looks like I'll have to buy it (the home edition), but it still pisses me off that after you use the serial code once, the disc is essentially useless except for support. I can never install it on another machine, if I ever buy another one.

The other thing is, I want to buy a game console. For the most part, I haven't been able to justify buying one, but now that I'm looking at Interactive Storytelling as a feasible endeavor, I'm seriously considering it. Since I'm going to buy Windows XP, I should probably nix buying the Xbox, since it's too expensive. I'm thinking Gamecube...ya, I know, but aside from games that are made especially for specific consoles, a lot of the major games are for all three (or four, if you're counting Dreamcast, and going back a few years). Besides which, my computer is fast enough now that I can get the PC version of some of my favs, and the Gamecube is the cheapest one. In any case, I'll do my research first, and then we'll see.

This could all be just cloud-talk, after all.

Steer Madness

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has just handed an award to a vegetarian-friendly video game called "Steer Madness". Described as "Grand Theft Auto meets Chicken Run" the game is about a steer named Bryce who narrowly escapes slaughter and then sets out around the city to save his animal friends and do other animal rights related things.

I went to the webpage (which is pretty basic) and looked at some of the screenshots- this game actually looks mildly entertaining! The main character walks on two legs and does human-like things like talking or driving sports cars. I haven't watched the trailer yet (I'm on a computer with no sound), but I'll watch it later and blog if there is anything about it that really strikes my fancy.

First New Year's Resolution....

To update this blog more. I feel bad for leaving it like this.

Anyway, technologically-related stuff in my life:

• Got my marks back- not too shabby. Haven't seen my new schedule yet
• Yahoo! has a couple of new features of the MyYahoo! part of their site- this includes RSS feeds, and which I figured includes Blogger. The engine for setting them up is still really finicky, but I've managed to get a few on there
• Bought myself a Nexxtech 128mb mp3 player that doubles as a USB flash drive, on boxing day. I didn't get a deal or anything; I just really, really wanted one
• Got a bunch of cool stuff for christmas, including a book called "Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling" (which I asked for, specifically) and a couple of DVDs- one of them was the Last Unicorn, which was recently re-released, with absolutely no excitement, on disc

• Phil parents bought us a brand-new washer-spinner to replace the one that was eating our clothes
• I couldn't find "The Sims" for mac- it did not occur to me how many of the major chains that sell computer games are entirely slaves to the PC realm. Michelle will just have to wait 'til later or until somebody else finds it for her, since I have a lot to learn about shopping for Macintosh hardware and software (and yes, I thought of "Data Integrity" at York)

New mantra for the year: "I said it, I did it."

Just like Sam. ;)

Considering XP

I know, I know, I swore I would go purely Linux on my uber little machine, but with the number of drivers actually available for the hardware I have, it would be more efficient to use Windows (and I will not have wasted my money on that DVD-RAM drive or that TV card). To practice my Linux, I will do what Arthur did and just use Knoppix (Linux of the bootable CD variety) and maybe put Linux on my crappy little laptop as an alternative way to practice my command-line Linux skills (which are terrible right now, another reason why Linspire is not panning out for me). I also have some software that I am dying to use, but can't, because it's meant for Windows. I have all this damn stuff that's been given to me since I switched to Linux, and it's pissing me off.

Could be...so....uber....

Well, it was an interesting experiment, anyway. But I don't think I'm ready for it. I just don't have the computer skills to harness the power of open-source.

And I didn't accumulate much in the way of files, so burning those will be no problem.

This is purely a software thing, really. If I get Windows I'll be able to watch DVDs and TV on my computer again.

Woot.

JFK Reloaded

A Company called Traffic has released a computer game on the anniversary of JFK's death which recreates the assassination and puts the player behind the gun. The game is an attempt to dispel conspiracy theories by proving how easily all three shots could have been fired from Oswald himself.

Add to this, they're offering a $100, 000 contest to see who can most closely replicate Oswald's shots. Their site offers various 'tips and hints' on how to do this.

That being said, although I would have the temptation to download the game (which actually costs money- go figure) and examine it on a purely technical basis, there is no way in hell I would be able to point that gun. I can't even begin to describe the sort of sick, sick feeling such an image would give me.

And it gives pause for thought that although we have games about war, games about actual events that took place where people died; everybody has their limits. We can either look at this as a few developers that got a little carried away, or we can look at this as an example of how identification and sensitivity can have a huge effect on how we view these sort of video games.

This sort of simulation can be viewed as educational from an objective standpoint, and possibly an inventive way of putting to rest old suspicions and conspiracies; and it might even make people stop and seriously consider the people in the real world who aim those guns; but, I really don't think the developers seriously considered the people who would be 'playing' it. Who exactly is their audience?

Not me.

You may remember me from such posts as...

Well, today was an exciting day. Sam took us on a field trip to the CBC building, where we got a good look at the press room, and learning lots of wonderful things, like why we would never work there, because we're not journalists :( (well, Rafiq is) But that's okay, because it was still incredibly exciting, and we got to see the mail-bot jet back and forth across the room.

Sam also clued me in on IGDA and their monthly meetings, which apparently anyone can go to. I have to say, his input has been rather encouraging, and it makes the industry seem just a little bit more real. It's a shame the class he's teaching is ending soon. I kind of like having a teacher who's successful at his job, but also has nerdish interests...gives me hope for the world. *wipes away a dramatic tear*

For the latter part of the day we departed for Jarek's house, which is very beautiful. He showed us some camera tricks, and a little bit of editing on his computer. We all found out that our filming schedule isn't as hectic as we thought (everyone took a breather on that one) and he put our minds a little more at ease about the cameras. My group has worked out a pretty good way to get this thing done, we just need a lead actor. Are there any asian men in the GTA who are between 18 and 25 and would like to be in a short film? Anybody? I'm willing to settle for just somebody that can speak fluently in another language (but not french). I'm currently trying to get ahold of good 'ol Mike (not the one in my class), and see if he'll do it. Failing that, I'll try to call Nirshan (heaven forbid). Failing that, I'll just have to kidnap someone off the street.

I realize now that when I'm awake and positive, I can actually get my brain to work. No shit, eh? I remember very little of last weeks classes, but I think I'm absorbing more this week. And when my brain is working, all these ideas just keep pouring out like my subconscious was saving them up or something. Boo-ya! I'm in a good mood, even though I'm a little bit behind on my homework.

I've also been reading "Fortress America: on the frontlines of Homeland Security" by Matthew Brzezinski. I'm only about two chapters in, but it's pretty good so far. He's a good writer. Well, he a journalist, so this is what he does; but I still think he's good.

Anyway, that's all for now

Oh, and I still can't wait to try those DDR pads.