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Really Matlab

Really, Matlab? I need to have Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator on my Macbook to run you?

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The Asian Spanish Teacher - Community

Community has a lot of energy. The best I can characterize it as is a funny version of How I Met Your Mother. Like, my eyes don't bleed what I watch it. There are no pretenses of reality, they are all characters and they're all obviously dysfunctional.

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TBK - Dune

Man, this comic brought me back. Came across it will reading Truck Bearing Kibble on the bus - trying to hide it so other passengers don't think I'm some sort of sexual deviant.

Dune's one of those awesome franchises that never really got a chance to come into it's own. It's unfortunate really. I'd say that it's on the same level of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. That's right Ryang! I admit, Star Trek doesn't have as compelling a story as Star Wars. But what we lack in story we make up in pewpew and Captain Picard.

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In the office...

It's been about a year since I've been back in the Bay. Weekends and the occasional 3 day holiday don't count since I neither have to commute nor am I ever in the office for any extended period of time. But coming back really puts some things in perspective

Commuting
Since I don't have a car, and I don't have my bike, I stood around waiting for the bus. I forgot how bad traffic is during rush hour. Long lines of cars going all the way down to the BART station. The ~20 miles from Fremont to Palo Alto really isn't that long. I'd probably bike it nowadays if I had my bike. But, alas, I could only stand there. I wonder how people do it, I'm pretty sure I'd go mad if I had to stick around in there nowadays.

Weather
It's funny that 85F around here is considered warm. After being in 110F Davis, things out here are pretty damn nice by comparison.

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Rain.

It's mid September, and it's already raining. Not just sprinkles, full on downpour. It's timing couldn't be any more apt, right at the end of Summer Session II. And right at the doorstep of a new 'year'. What do they say? The rain cleanses, and cleans and rejuvenates all?

After 4 months of Davis summer heat, it's nice to just sit out on the deck and enjoy the rain. Enjoy the cool breeze and the humid air. There's lightning too, but no thunder, sort of sad.

It's nice now, but I doubt I'll be so enamored with the rain once December swings around. Then we get into 5 months of biking in the cold and the rain. Is it raining in the Bay?

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How nice!

Oh dear! Sent to me by Kevin

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5secondFilms

Thomas introduced me to these. Awesome.

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Dust514: Eve Online....with guns?

It's an MMOFPS. Will it be successful? Sadly, there isn't a good track record for games of this genre. But CCP may be able to pull one off...after all, they did make a space fighter game when fighting in space was no longer in vogue.

Other MMOFPS
I used to play Planetside pretty religiously in high school. If it wasn't the first of it's genre, it's definitely the genre's best example. It promised epic battles and it delivered. Thousands of players around a single hotly contested base. Tanks, artillery, soldiers, snipers, heavy armor...personnel carriers, dropships, fighters...all working together to create a truly novel game.

In CS, Halo, and Battlefield - probably the best known FPS, organized assault is the exception. You'll only end up participating if you delve in really deep into the game. There's an incredibly high barrier to entrance, and even when you're in, it's a pain in the ass because victories and losses have so much riding on the - emotions, pride. Things that end up determining whether the match was fun or was dismal.

But Planetside democratized the field. Made it so anyone could participate in large battlefield maneuvers. In essence, everyone was in a clan, and anyone could do anything. Those who played long enough got to direct the armies and coordinate the battle. Those too green still got the feeling of accomplishment when a base was captured. Large battles were the norm. Large outfits coordinate the assaults. Every night there was some operation to take over the world, and maybe we'd get 40% of the way there before we encountered the enemy in full force. Like I said, they delivered.

EVE and CPP
Okay, 2009. Eve online declares a MMOFPS. Whoop de doo. I'm sure some of you remember Huxley and how it was supposed to be released some 3 years ago. Huxley, the new Planetside. All shiny, new, and improved. The fact that it's been in closed beta for 3 years now is a testament to the difficulty in creating a game in this genre. That Planetside ended up spiraling to its demise within a few shorts years speaks wonders for how fragile such a game can be, even if it is successful.

CCP's community of gamers is still drawfed by that of WoW. But they've managed to corner the SciFi genre quite well. EVE succeeds because there is nothing like it. Other scifi MMOs simply fail. The community touts itself as being mature and worldly - not a friendly place for the high school kid, and people are drawn to that idea. With good execution, EVE's success is natural. Even if Blizzard were to come out with a Starcraft MMO, it would have a hard time taking the market from CCP. The best they could do is possibly make a WoW clone, but then they'd just be getting more of the same users they already have in the end.

And a single MMO is bad enough, but two? Man, that's a lot of time in front of a computer.

I am, however, pretty sure that at the very least it'll be just as beautiful as the current EVE game.

Issues?
So an MMOFPS? I'm curious to see how CCP will avoid the same problems that EVE has. If we shed all the arguments about balancing (which mean nothing, the game is already fairly balances as it is), what's left are some real issues about gameplay and the community. If, as Hilmar says, the new MMOFPS will be linked to EVE, then at the very least the community issues will carry over.

There's definitely the clannishness you find in Halo, or CS - that is that corporations are an exclusive group, not an inclusive one as they were in Planetside. The best corporations are those that end up excluding people, not inviting everyone. Not especially friendly for the newbie - to whom a sense of community is incredibly important. But it's an unfortunate outcome of gameplay and politics.

There's also the issue of scale. There are thousands upon thousands of planets. The EVE universe is massive. Most systems are completely empty. In an MMORPG this is acceptable, but in a MMOFPS it's not. How will they alleviate this issue, and will it be done well?

And what about the EVE online connection? As a subscriber to EVE online, I'll want to somehow relate my FPS character with my EVE character. I mean, they're both essentially me. And whether or not it makes sense from a story perspective is irrelevant. Why would I pay two subscriptions on two different systems, for two different games? If I pay for EVE, I want to play the FPS, and I want to have my two characters interact. I made a lot of progress in EVE, why would I throw it all away for an FPS?

I mean, that's just a few of my thoughts scribbled away in a few minutes. I don't forsee this game making new inroads into FPS mechanics themselves. It'll still play like Halo or Battlefield mostly. Maybe Quake3 a little. Who knows. What this new game will add is an extension of the current universe and the current game.

I only hope that CCP isn't overreaching on this one. It's a big gamble, and could mark the beginning of the end for CCP, or it could breathe new life into the genre.

/ramble off, moar studying now.

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mid-August, Summer Ruminations

On Kids
I'm a strong believer in group think. I'm pretty confident that when you stick around the same group of people long enough, you'll pick up their mannerisms and thought processes unconsciously. Being a college student, I've taken up after other college students. Even graduate students out here are still mostly like undergrads, at least in some respects.

So it's rare for me to be around anyone not involved with the university, even rarer for me to be around children. It goes without saying that I am not a kid person in any capacity.

But I will say, my first cousins once removed (yes, I looked it up, that is my actual relationship - slightly more descriptive than 'uncle') are pretty damn adorable as far as kids go. And from being enamored with my cousins, for a moment, I felt a little understanding for what it means to be an adult as opposed to a 20 year old kid.

On Bike Culture
First and foremost, the following notes. You people...grr....you people who lack the commonest of sense are the most infuriating of all. I don't care about you, honestly. If you feel the deep desire to go get yourself killed, go ahead. BUT, when you endanger cyclists around you, that's when this behavior is unacceptable.

IT IS NOT OKAY TO BIKE WITHOUT A LIGHT AT NIGHT
IT IS NOT OKAY TO BIKE WITH HEADPHONES ON
IT IS NOT OKAY TO BIKE WITHOUT HANDS ON BUMPY ROADS IN BUSY INTERSECTIONS
IT IS NOT OKAY TO TAKE A PHONE CALL ON YOUR BIKE

It's a bad omen when you see people on cruisers (mostly guys I might add) trying to get into an aero position on their handlebars. There's too much worship going on.

A cruiser is a perfectly valid mode of transportation. It is no less and no more valid than a road bike or a fixie. Same goes for a mountain bike. To subscribe to the idea that a road bike is king is a dangerous one because it doesn't show proper respect for the very real hazard of commuting on one. Faster is not necessarily better when safety is concerned.

I mention safety just because I find it interesting that the greatest safety concerns I have about my commute are not with cars but are with other cyclists on campus. It's somewhat dangerous for a cruiser or mountain biker to not be paying attention while they ride around...but it's especially dangerous when it's someone on a road bike or fixie not paying attention.

But I guess if I really cared about safety I'd wear a helmet and I'd do a complete stop at intersections instead of faux-trackstanding or coasting through them. Ouch.

On Exercise
I've let myself go a little. I went from a comfortable 175 to 190 in just under two months. Yes, I have put weight on that quickly. I hadn't gone to the gym in over a month, but I started again, and it felt good. It's interesting that a year of commuting has changed me from a distance guy to a sprinting guy.

I also had a lot of back problems in the last few weeks. Problems with posture. My kneeling chair came it, it's alright but I see a number of areas where it can improve. But again, exercising has been a great alleviation of back pain. Something about getting the muscles back there into shape again.

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"Performance" - roadie parody video

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