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Archive for ‘Prose’

Portal 2 — Back For The First Time

Posted by Allan in Games, Prose on May 1, 2011 1:24 am

Valve and Sony, “I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster.”

Even after all the accolades bestowed upon Portal, I still hadn’t played the game for no good reason. It was all because of a sort of grudge I had against Valve for neglecting the PS3 version of The Orange Box. This time around, Valve gave equal attention to my gaming platform of choice instead of farming the port out to a third party. Even better, they threw in a free PC version via Steam.

To prepare myself for the sequel to a game I hadn’t played, I raided Youtube for Portal videos and played Jonathan Coulton’s “Still Alive” over and over to understand the “villain” GLaDOS. Now after playing through some of Portal 2, I’m actually liking GLaDOS in a sort of masochistic sort of way. The put-downs are funny with varying subtlety. Add that to various semi-hidden areas with human scribbles on the walls and contraband “radio” music and you have yourself an uncomfortable dark-humor that is only bound to get more interesting as the game moves along. I do still have a few questions about the plot that I haven’t gotten answered yet but am hoping that it’ll come in time.

Then there’s the gameplay, which is a series of puzzle rooms solved by using portals. It took a little bit of time to get into the Portal mindset, but when it finally clicked, the puzzles became less cumbersome and more enjoyable. The game forced me to think in space-bending ways that I hadn’t done before. I can only imagine that the sensation of the “eureka!” moment is very similar to the epiphany had by the many who loved the first game.

I haven’t tried any of the multiplayer since PSN is still down (grumble). I’d like to give split-screen co-op a try with the wife, though, but am not sure how she would handle the First-Person element. She’s good with the platformers and I’m almost sure she’d enjoy the puzzle-solving, but it may take her a little longer to get used to the controls.

I’ve tried not to give any plot elements away (as I’m still trying to understand it myself) and my only advice for the moment is to hang around for the voice acting. Some of the early memorable quotes happened only when I decided to exhaust all of Stephen Merchant’s recorded lines for each given situation.

This is not God of War, this is not Killzone, this is not LittleBigPlanet. It’s not like anything I’ve played before. I didn’t think I would enjoy being a robot’s lab mouse but it’s a lot of fun. According to GLaDOS, I am a dumb, overweight, horrible person who was rightly abandoned by my birth-mother at someone’s doorstep. I’m not sure I like all of that, but if that’s what the collected data says, it must be right. I can’t argue with science.

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A song dedicated to Sony

Posted by Allan in Games, Internet, Prose on April 27, 2011 1:04 pm

Courtesy of Cee Lo Green:

“I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough…”

Let’s step back for a minute here and recall this wonderful gem from last year: from the playstation blog:

“The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.”

With that, Sony took away my ability to run Linux on the PS3. Granted, I didn’t run Linux on my PS3 — I had a 40Gig version which didn’t have enough space to house all the installs and saved games I wanted let alone the space I’d have liked to devote to running a copy of Ubuntu. It was one of the expensive gaming console’s actual selling points: it was Linux-friendly, and I thought that was cool.

As quoted from that blog post from last year, the option to install Linux was stripped from the gaming console in the name of security. Although I was upset that the company took away features from a product I had already bought, I thought hey, if I wanted to “securely” play online, I needed the firmware upgrade. I patched and went on my merry way fragging and platforming as I had always done.

Fast forward to present time. A week after news of the Playstation Network service being disrupted broke out, I receive a note from Sony saying that

“Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for you dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.”

To recap, Sony crippled the Playstation 3 in order to secure it, insinuating that I can’t be trusted to install and run another OS on my hardware. Sony then miserably fails to secure my personal information stored seemingly unencrypted in their databases from identity thieves. [4/28/11 -- Sony notes today that some of the data was indeed encrypted] With the intrusion cleanup, the network has also been down for some time now with no set date for getting back online. I guess the PS3 doesn’t do everything after all.

Sing it, Cee Lo.

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The Garden [RTS] Revolutions

Posted by Allan in Prose, The Garden [RTS] on April 9, 2011 6:41 pm

My brave and loyal soldiers, children of The Garden, the Marigolds are dead. The Tomatoes have been slain. Zucchini is no more. We had been overrun and the battle had been lost. During the fight, an assassin sent by Gaia herself had struck, and while I was fortunate to escape with my life, I sustained a crippling injury and was unable to lead you in battle. In the end, Operation Pluck and Awe did not succeed.

This failure, MY failure should in no way diminish the glory of our winter warriors. Brave Broccoli and Communist Cabbage fought valiantly against weeds and clovers, cold winds and freezing rain. Their humble contributions to the altar of sacrifice will be remembered even as their bodies decay in the battlefield. Injured and unable to fight, I helplessly watched as Gaia’s minions reclaimed territory. I was forced to bear the sight as my soldiers were one by one claimed by death.

My brave warriors, THIS is Gaia’s folly. Her soldiers should have slaughtered us all when given the opportunity. Instead, they gave us time. They gave us time to grieve, time to heal. Their prideful mockery has only fueled our disdain. Their victory had only strengthened our resolve. This past Wednesday, a day that shall forever be remembered in The Garden, a knight named Mago, Vanquisher of Possums, single-handedly conquered Gaia’s forces. In the wake of this destruction and carnage, we have been given back what is rightfully ours.

With the land once again under our control, we will recover for I, your leader, have returned to the throne of power. In memory of the glorious dead, those who have come before, those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice, we shall rebuild. For honor, glory, and righteous vengeance we shall rebuild. For ourselves and for our brothers and sisters who stand beside us in this dark time, we shall rebuild. The dawn of a new season favors us. My fellow warriors, let us rise triumphantly from the ground and claim the victory that fate has promised for ourselves and for The Garden!

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How To Peel An Object-Oriented Orange

Posted by Allan in Prose on March 28, 2011 6:38 pm

First you instantiate a Person class which in turn extends a Primate class which implements, among other methods, MoveThumb(). Assuming that this instance of Person we’ll call bob successfully tries procuring a fruit object of type Orange by passing an Intent to another Person class whose Occupation property is defined as “fruit vendor” along with the necessary funds (and since bob used a debit card, required interaction with an instance of a Bank object which returned an Authorization object to the fruit vendor’s Cash Register Object which for the purposes of this explanation was dynamically created as the need for it arose) — anyway, assume we have procured a fruit object of type Orange…

Implementing the Peel method: To peel this fruit object of type Orange we’ll call orange, we need to first try grasping orange. Here we need to make sure we handle a few exceptions like LIMBS_MISSING or INSUFFICIENT_GRIP which could put an unceremonious halt to this exercise. We then check bob.thumbnail.length and compare it to orange.peel.thickness to see if he has sufficient nail length in order to pierce said orange. To be thorough, we should test for this case and appropriately handle with a knife object, but that’s beyond the scope of this simple tutorial. If we determine that bob.thumbnail.length is sufficient, we create a while loop: while (orange.peelExists) { bob.digNail(orange); bob.detachPeel(orange) }

Once you have successfully implemented the Peel method, you could try it with other fruit object types! As an additional exercise, try the same method on the following fruit types: Grapefruit, Lemon, Blood Orange, Pineapple, and Coconut!

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Lenten Dining Guide

Posted by Allan in Cultures, Prose on March 9, 2011 12:26 pm

A happy start of the Lenten season to all you ash-faces out there! It’s that time of year again when Catholics all over the world take one more day out of the week to remember El Salvador himself by refraining from eating meat. With a desire to spread accurate misinformation and the urge to provide a great disservice to the Catholic community, I present a few food suggestions for the pious.

For the Fast-Foodies, there are quite a few fish sandwiches that come to market around this time of year to cater to America’s under-represented Christian community. There’s also fish and chips served at the FF joints with my convenient favorite being the one from Everest. If you’re only getting one fish meal for the day, the serving size truly makes it count!

For the out-of-box experience, there’s Stouffer’s Vegetable Lasagna. Thawed and cooked in the oven for a couple of hours, it provides a wholesome, if carb-laden meal.

For soups, my personal favorite is clam chowder. Catholics should watch out, however, as some chowder is flavored with tiny bits of bacon which could render the meal unkosher and land you in the box for 5 Hail Mary’s and a game misconduct.

Then there’s the classic Shrimp and Tofu which when prepared well, is quite divine even when served outside Church-mandated seafood days. Other preferred choices include salmon, lobster, scallops, and calamari, which can make a person forget about the perceived suffering of not eating Cow for a day. Nothing says reflection and personal sacrifice quite like baked salmon.

For the more adventurous and borderline heretics among us, one can enjoy a serving of SPAM fried rice all the while arguing the definition of “meat” as it relates to the canned product. At this point, some readers may say “but Allan, what about us culinary-challenged borderline heretics?” I’ve got you covered. Order a few regular soft tacos from Taco Bell. Until a jury decides the difference between “ground beef” and “taco filling,” I don’t think it should count.

If all else fails and none of these suggestions work for you, do what many good Catholics do during lent — wait until midnight and pig out. Literally. Until next time, remember that today, nothing says Catholic like a smearing of ash on your forehead dutifully dispensed by trained ministers of ash. Ash masters, really. Happy Lenten Dining!

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