T w e n t y S i d e d
A humorous morning diversion: Gizoolgle. Check it out: Twenty Sided Shizzle.
And one more: Mirror Universe Steven Den Beste.
Hat tip: Ragged Thots
Incoming!
Steven Den Beste (who shuns the use of permalinks, making the preceeding link of little use) talks about how his thing on The Matrix that I linked to the other day is getting major traffic.
I can’t believe this. My TMW about the Matrix has gotten loaded more than 37,000 times in the last three days. That’s about half the number of times my “Strategic Overview of the War” was loaded in two and a half years.
I know this feeling. Back in 2003 I maintained The Lemon, an Onion-ish political site. I got several Instapundit links, as well as many links from other big-name bloggers. The site enjoyed a lot of positive traffic from political bloggers, but all of it was a drop in the bucket compared to the day when Slashdot and FARK both linked to this non-political bit I did on the history of the internet. It was a soul-crushing avalanche of traffic that eclipsed all previous links.
While Political blogs top the Technorati charts and the term “blogosphere” is often used to mean the political blogs, I think the above proves that political blogs are just a small but very active part of the ‘net. The political blogosphere (both left and right) is quite prolific and inbred. (By inbred I mean they have lots of links going to each other. I’m not saying anything about their families, which I’m sure are all fine, fine people.) It generates an incredible volume of traffic amongst itself, but for the most part I think they are ignored by non-political junkies.
Some other notes on the political bloggers vs. “everyone else”:
- Political bloggers are fairly generous. I had a tip jar, and I found that many people donated freely and regularly (usually between one and five dollars), netting me a tidy sum of less than a hundred bucks a month. On the other hand, while bringing me more than ten times the number of visitors of your average “Instalink”, the massive influx of traffic from FARK and Slashdot did not garner a single brass farthing in the ‘ol tipjar.
- The non-political types were far more rude than your average political type. They used harsher language when compelled to email me and let me know I’m stupid / racist / uninformed / a neocon / a brainwashed shill for group X, or othwise let me know that they did not appreciate what I had to say.
- Very few checked out the main site after reading my article, and fewer still hung around and became regular readers. The traffic for the other parts of my site didn’t go up very much, and after a couple of days (when the links to me were pushed off the front pages) my traffic had almost returned to normal. By contrast, visitors from (say) Jeff Jarvis or Cox & Forkum would usually read the site, dig through the archives, and come back later for more.
Now that I’m thinking about it: I should update that timeline, there is about 3 more years of history to add.
New Computer
My new computer arrived today. For the curious, I got this machine. Not top-of-the-line by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a good machine for the price, IMO.
Last time I got a computer it was an HP, and the avalanche of popup windows and pre-installed nonsense was so infuriating that I swore I’d never buy a big-brand machine again. This time I ALMOST got a no OS machine and a seperate license of XP as some people suggested. Then I got lazy and just ordered one with XP already installed. Later I got worried: What if this turned into a repeat of last time? I couldn’t bear the thought of going through that again.
Luckily, the annoyware was minimal. I didn’t need to un-install a single thing. No stupid toolbars, no system tray lunacy, no surprises. Only one program was pushy, and it behaved once I put it in its place. Everything else worked perfectly and was sensibly configured.
Note to the people who make CyberLink Power Starter: Do not make your program pop up when the computer boots for the first time. If the user really does want your software, they will click on the icon when they need it. Trust me. A desktop-sized window saying “Welcome to CyberLink Power Starter” and prompting me to enter my name and email is not at all appropriate at that point, since I have no idea what the heck your software is yet. Get over yourselves. Jeeze.
Also, why would you name DVD software “CyberLink”? The name is very misleading, as it sounds like it has something to do with being, you know, linked to something.
When I was younger and poorer, I used to hang onto my computers for as long as I could. They hung around for ages, and I upgraded them as needed to keep them useable. I didn’t have nice furniture or a lot of space, so the box usually sat on the floor at my feet, and was moved around frequently. The upshot is that usually when I retired an old computer the thing looked like it had (just barely) survived combat. When I finally moved to a new machine the old one was usually so obsolete and abused that it was rarely fit for any kind of service. However, this most recent computer has only been in service for two years, and I think I’ve only opened the case once. It still looks brand new. It runs fine (well, it runs as well as it did when it was new, which means nothing else has broken since then) and there are only a couple of games out there that it won’t run.
I’d post pictures of the new machine, but who cares? Aside from the pimped-out gaming computers, they all look alike these days. See that computer you’re using? Yeah, mine looks like that only it’s a different shade of grey.
Grown-up baby toy
Of all my puzzles, this is the only one I’ve never solved. In my defense, it’s hard to work with. It’s stiff and difficult to turn, and after a few minutes my fingers hurt from the effort. Not a very fun puzzle to experiment with.
On the other hand, it is very visually appealing. Lots of bright primary colors and a surface with just the right texture make it hard to resist picking the thing up.
Let’s be honest here: For anyone who’s been around bright and colorful infant toys, you know that many of them are attractive and amusing. It’s fun to pick them up and make them spin or beep or rotate or whatever it is the toy does. It isn’t any less fun to hold for an adult (although it’s not nearly as amazing or mysterious for us) but sensible adults (read: not me) shun them because you don’t want to get caught playing with a baby toy.
So a lot of the attraction of these puzzles is the same visual and tactile experience of the baby toy, along with the more cerebral process of solving a difficult puzzle. If you don’t believe me, just imagine how much less fun a Rubik’s Cube would be if it was made of wood and the sides were shades of grey, or simply numbered. The puzzle would still be there, but the “baby toy” appeal would be gone, and it would be much easier to put the thing down.
In a government far, far away…
Via Eidelblog I find this post, which in turn led me to a bit from Robert Hayes, where he makes the case that the Rebellion in Star Wars is evil, and the Empire is flawed but not nearly as bad. It makes for an interesting read.
Which got me thinking about some other recent sci-fi movies. Take, for example:
- Serenity, where the characters struggle to escape the power of an overly-meddlesome government.
- The Matrix, where a small group of rebels struggle to overthrow a system which cares for their every need, because it also denies them free will.
- Equilibrium, which is a bit like the Matrix in that the state takes your free will and in return makes sure that there are no shortages or inequality.
- Demolition Man, which had a world where the only people who were poor were the ones who refused to live in the overly-PC world of regulated safety and enforced politeness.
- Aeon Flux and Ultraviolet, which I have not seen but which seem to be along the lines of “individual vs. the state”.
- The upcoming V for Vendetta, which has a theme that should sound pretty familiar by now.
So my point: What is up with these lefty Hollywood statists (read: commies) and their libertarian / individualist themed movies? Outside of the movies, they gaze up at the massive edifice of government power and lament that it isn’t nearly big enough. Then they go back to making their stories about overthrowing the state and freeing the individual. How do they reconcile these two?
 LEFT: Palpatine (who looks like Lieberman to me) favors a large and highly centralized government. RIGHT: Smash the state! Now, who would Clooney normally vote for? |
I wouldn’t expect the Cato Institute to bankroll a movie where the heroes defeat a band of rebellious capitalists and bring about an egalitarian utopia, and I don’t expect the Hollywood types to keep dry-humping individualisim and limited government onscreen while pursuing (ahem) other goals.
What’s up with that?
GTA: Decafinated
 |
So what DID happen inside of Rockstar studios during the development of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? In an earlier post I talked about why the Hot Coffee minigame ended up on the final disc. But what made them abandon it in the first place? They put some development (and thus money) time into it, and even successful game studios like Rockstar are going to be reluctant to throw away money. What happened?
Some possible explanations:
- They realized they were going too far. Maybe the feature sounded amusing on paper, but once they saw the animated characters going at it they realized it was a lot more risqué than they had imagined.
- Maybe they were trying to be sexy. Perhaps they thought adding this would spice the game up, but once they saw the animated characters going at it they realized how stupid it looked, and that this was about as titillating as playing with naked Barbie and Ken dolls.
- Maybe it just wasn’t fun, or didn’t add much to the overall game. The weightlifting minigame is a lot like this. Carl picks up some weights in the gym, and then you tap two keys in alteration as quickly as you can to make him pump iron. The faster you tap, the faster he will lift weights and bulk up. It’s not very interesting. Adding another minigame that used this same system was only going to make matters worse.
- Perhaps they did this out of business concerns. Going from Rated M to Rated A is a major step that gets you kicked out of Target and Wal-Mart, which is a big chunk of sales. This ended up happeneing anyway, though.
- It might have been due to scheduling concerns. If they were worried about making their projected shipping date, then the embarasing and dull pornographic button-mashing minigame was no doubt high on the list of features to cut.
Of course, there is no way to know for sure, but these are my guesses.
Shields Up
This morning was a new record: Ninety (90!!!) spam comments from one “person”. Amazing. His bot left comments on over half the posts on this site. My spam-filter caught them all and held them for moderation, but I still had to go through the list and make sure no real comments got caught in the net.
This is crazy. I’ve rejected every spam he’s fired at my site, and he (his bot) seems to respond by sending MORE. It seems like it would be in a spammer’s best interest to detect where their spam gets through and where it doesn’t, and to skip sites that block it. Wouldn’t this guy prefer to save his time and bandwidth for sites that are vulnerable?
Den Beste was nice enough to suggest .htaccess files as a way to deal with this, which is a very arcane form of black magic used to control Apache webservers. He warned that the config could be a little tricky. He was a not kidding. Even if Steve Wozniak and Harry Potter teamed up to help me, I don’t think I could get this working right. Sigh.
I said before that my web hosting service doesn’t let me block IP addresses. Look closely at the following image and see if you can spot the tool that might help me with this:
 |
I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Particularly since I WAS LOOKING FOR IT. I can’t believe I’ve been manually sorting spam with this tool sitting there, unused.
So I blocked the offending IP’s, and I expect that will take a big, big bite out of the spam I have to look at every morning.
Jerks.
UPDATE: Looks like it really works. In the last 24 hours I’ve had to deal with 4 spam comments. So, about 98% of my spam was coming from the small group of IP’s I banned. Very satisfying.
From The Archives:
Autoblography
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
Crash Dot Com
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
Black Desert Online
This Korean title would be the greatest MMO ever made if not for the horrendous monetization system. And the embarrassing translation. And the terrible progression. And the developer's general apathy towards its western audience.
Push the Button!
Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.
Final Fantasy X
A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.
Charging More for a Worse Product
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
The Disappointment Engine
No Man's Sky is a game seemingly engineered to create a cycle of anticipation and disappointment.
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
The Gameplay is the Story
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
Grand Theft Railroad
Grand Theft Auto is a lousy, cheating jerk of a game.