News from Great Castle Wilson

Author: adminmcq

  • Of course I got an iPad

    I’m sure no one is surprised that I did, indeed, go and pick up an iPad the first day that they were available in Ottawa. As I had been telling people, I didn’t pre-order one, since I wanted to use one first, to make sure that it was going to work well for my most important usecase (i.e. eBook reading) before I leapt onto the bandwagon.

    So, Friday morning, I went down to Carbon Computing and spent some time playing with the ones they had on display.

    [Aside: The iPad release to retail in Canada was odd. I have no inside information about this, but it’s pretty clear that the only outlet that was allowed to say they would have stock on the first day was the Apple Store. As a result, there were hundreds of people waiting in line when the Rideau Apple Store opened that morning, which is I guess the effect they were going for. By contrast, I just walked into Carbon Computing, wandered over to the display machines, played with one for a while, and then said “I’d like the 32Gig, non-3G model” — in and out in about 20 minutes. Having been in the line when the Rideau store opened a few months back, I can tell you that this was a much more pleasant experience.]

    In any case, the iPad does make a perfectly acceptable e-reader. It does not have as high a pixel density as the Kindle, and the glossy screen might get tiring in some lighting conditions, but overall it’s excellent. The screen is bright, and the colors pop.

    One clear win over the Kindle et al. is the availability of multiple book stores. Although Apple’s iBooks store currently only has the public domain books from Gutenberg Press in Canada, you can also get all of the books available for the Kindle, and all those for Kobo. This feature alone seems like it will doom the dedicated readers.

    As of writing this, there are no iPad versions of the eReader or Stanza apps. I can tell you that using the iPod versions in “2x” mode is simply not a viable way to read, so hopefully they will come out with updates. Unfortunately, it may just be that these “old school” readers will fade away in the face of the new players. This would be a shame, in both cases; I have a lot of eReader content that I’d like to be able to re-read on the iPad, and Stanza has been also very useful for reading my current ePub formatted content.

    Anyway, this is also the traditional “post done on the new device”. I used the WordPress app [Warning: iTunes link], which runs on both iPod and iPad. It’s an excellent way to manage your blog on either device, but the iPad layout is significantly better for entering new content.

  • Forest Fires (Updated)

    Most of Ottawa awoke this morning to the smell of smoke. The source, according to CBC, is forest fires from Quebec. I’m not happy about the lack of certainty in their description, particularly since they also indicated that firetrucks are driving around the city to see if there was something else going on. Hm…

    As Kim Horne said, “Is Ottawa on fire?”

    Smoke haze visible through the front window of my car

    Smoke haze visible through the front window of my car

    Update: The air quality index for Ottawa was 132 (== very poor) today. Normally, at this time of the year, it’s around 30. Today is not a good day to be doing outdoor excercise.

  • Prince of Persia

    Deb and I went to see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on Sunday. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was great art, but it was everything it needed to be in a summer blockbuster: action, sexual tension, comedic relief, and a happy-but-not-trite ending.

    The two main thoughts I had about this flick were:

    1. This was the best live action fantasy movie I’ve seen in quite a while. The lines were delivered with a seriousness that overcame their silliness, even if the lead couple did struggle with some of them. The special effects generally worked, and did homage to the game. Speaking of which…
    2. They really did an excellent job of capturing the gameplay. The Prince of Persia games are action platformers, with much climbing of walls, swinging from conveniently placed poles, and running along walls. This happened often enough in the movie to be strongly evocative, without getting tedious.

    Capsule summary: Not a must see, but definitely fun.

    Rating: 3.5/5

  • Blogging is important

    I was chastised yesterday (by my niece(!)) for going so long without updating my blog, so I’m going to take advantage of the Memorial Day holiday in the US (== no meetings) to try to make amends.

    I really do appreciate that there are people out there who read this site, so I have to apologize for the extended drought. I will try to get back to a more regular (or at least more frequent) writing schedule.

    I particularly want to apologize to the commenters who posted while I wasn’t looking. You’re content *is* my reward, and leaving it sitting in the “pending” queue for months in unconscionable.

  • Classic arcade games aren’t.

    At CES, Microsoft announced “Game Room for XBOX 360”, which is purported to “recreate the old school arcade experience for you (and your avatar)”.

    (Image no longer available from Engadget)

    For Pete’s sake people, can we please stop finding yet another way to re-deliver games that we got bored of twenty years ago. If we ever want the world at large to treat games like a valid art form, we’ve got to stop glorifying trivial gameplay and graphics so stupid-ugly that they can be implemented by emulating the whole bloody machine in JavaScript.

  • Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

    Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the sequel to the 2007 game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. At it’s core, Uncharted 2 is an “action adventure” game — think Tomb Raider — with all the standard features: run and gun levels, platforming, environmental puzzles, etc., but what really sets this game apart is the cinematic quality of the ultimate experience.

    To give you some idea of what I mean, I can tell you that I happened to be watching the latest Indiana Jones movie on the day after I finished Uncharted 2. Hands down, the game beat the movie at every level — action, story, characters, even emotional impact.

    This is a good game. It’s definitely the best PS3 game I’ve played in 2009, and I’d put it up with the “greats” like System Shock and Mass Effect in terms of how much I enjoyed the experience. If I had to complain about anything, I’d say that the strength of the story ultimately limits the replayability, but even at that, I suspect that I will play it again at some point.

    Click the picture above to get to the official game site. If it doesn’t start automatically, check out the “E3 Trailer” to see what you are getting yourself into.

    Summary: Get it.
    Rating: 9.5/10

  • E-book Readers

    Here’s a quick link-of-the-day with MacWorld’s take on an a number of the currently available e-book readers:

    Review roundup: E-book readers

    Personally, I’ve tried all of the Sony’s, the Kindle 2, and a couple of other e-ink based ones. In all cases, I found the screen flash on page turns quite frustrating. Ken tells me that you get used to it, but for me the iPhone still bests all of the other devices, as long as you aren’t trying to read PDFs. (And that’s not just because I’ve always got it with me.)

    What I really want is an Apple tablet with a Pixel Qi-like display.

  • Avatar

    Ok, so the story isn’t deep — seriously, the guy beside me in the theatre brought a four year old and a six year old and despite the disturbing parenting choice they both “got it” just fine.

    And even though the er… avatars didn’t quite make it out the other side of the uncanny valley, they were close, oh so very close. I can honestly say that there were many scenes where it never even occurred to me to think about how long it would have taken to render.

    You owe it to yourself to go see this in 3D. Even if it doesn’t seem like your kind of movie, the sheer artfulness of it is enough. Afterwards, leave a comment. There are things worth discussing.

    Update: There are likely to be spoilers in the comment stream, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t click through.

  • Afghanada

    I continue to be thankful that we are lucky enough, as Canadians, to have access to the best-of-breed, thought provoking, genuinely compelling content from CBC Radio One. I have talked about their shows both positively (e.g. Ideas) and negatively (e.g. Wiretap) before, and now I’d like to draw another excellent program to your attention: Afghanada.

    Afghanada is a radio drama series about the day-to-day life of a small group of Canadian soldiers stationed in Kandahar Province. The writing is strong, with a cast of characters that truly feel like living, breathing individuals put in frequently hellish situations. Having never been a soldier, I cannot say whether the portrayal of these people’s lives is accurate, but I can say that the power of this show has made me feel more compassion for the individuals in our armed forces than all of the traditional news reporting put together.

    I am particularly pleased that you can now get all three seasons worth of Episodes of Afghanada via iTunes. Season one is an awesome deal, at $12 for 22(!) half hour episodes.

    I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys well acted, radio programming.

    (and say “Hi” to Coach for me)

  • Spammer creativity

    It’s fascinating.

    I was reviewing the comment spam for this blog, or rather I was reviewing the ones that didn’t get automatically caught — there’s always a couple. This time, there was one reply that genuinely looked like it could have been legitimate. The content was apropos of the original post, if not directly focused on it; it was clearly not machine generated (i.e. no “dissociated press” style errors); and the tone was heartfelt.

    The only things that seemed out of whack were:

    1. The text was written in a way that it could apply to a fairly wide range of original posts.
    2. There was a website link attached to it that seemed a bit dubious.

    I really couldn’t definitively cast it as spam. But, for those that don’t know, I loath spammers. To give you some idea of how much, on one of my other sites you can find this:

    I formally curse all spammers as follows:

    Your children will die of a disease that would have been curable, except that you put such a drain on the internet that the communication needed to discover the cure did not happen.

    You get the idea.

    In any case, this time the particular comment in question didn’t make it. So, if you’re out there thinking that you legitimately replied to this site, and you don’t see your response, and you’d like to have a discussion about it, feel free to send me a note.