D0dN

A few things about working for The Man:

• The right job, the wrong tool

  You spend two hours removing 12 screws from a plotter because you only have a pair of pliers to work with.

• Shred before reading

  You spend half an hour arguing with a co-worker over the use of encryption, the meaning of security, and the need to send information to people who are building the things you plan on using.

Needless to say, my hands are sore, my nerves are frayed, and my phone has been ringing off the hook. Huzzah!

Is this game worth your $15?

Last week, the game Braid was released on the XBox Live service for about $15. The price point started off a mild rant storm on portions of the internets that are very geeky, somewhat cheap and populated by people who spend more time bitching about the price of games than they do bathing or actually spending time with other human beings.

Okay, I’m being a bit harsh, but debating the cost of a game before actually playing it is a tad naif… Which is why I decided to stay out of that “debate” until I’d actually purchased the damn game and given in a full go.

That time has come and gone, and I can safely say that this is a game that strives for greatness with its call backs to the very roots of platform gaming, the stunning soundtrack, the imaginative graphics and the quirky new gameplay mechanics. But is that enough? Read the rest of this entry →

The Synapses are Firing

This just just pure win.

Things to do In Vegas This Week

This looks like it’s a fairly busy week, geek wise, here in Sin City: We’ve got the Black Hat convention, followed by DefCon (the hacker convention), and the Official Star Trek convention.

I do wonder about the timing – it seems a bit fortuitous that the hackers would schedule their con for the same weekend as the Trekkies. Probably killing two birds with one stone.

I’m going to be attending at least one day of the Trek con – Sunday. Gonna check out the Voyager reunion panel (I’m sorry, but Voyager was my favorite series), as well as The Two Spocks and Star Trek Online, the big reveal for the MMO that’ll be eating my spare monies next year.

I’m also considering hitting up DefCon, if only for the badge: It looks super sweet, having an IR port and an SD card slot, and… Stuff that I don’t fully understand. Even if I don’t go, though, you can bet your ass I’m going to lock my wireless down the fuck tight, or at least as tight as I can.

And BlackHat? Yeah – I’ll just read about it in the journals.