Homestuck Notifier - Spades Slick

 If you've been following me on Tumblr, you know that lately I've gotten interested in a webcomic called Homestuck. It's made up to feel like an old school text-based video game, and it incorporates a lot of audio, flash animation, and even a few flash mini-games (making it a sort of multi-media webcomic). I wont bother trying to summarize the plot, as it's a bit complicated, but it's a really intriguing storyline and I'm hooked.

The comic updates regularly, generally on a daily basis, so sometimes fans have to constantly check the site to see if there's a new page. Luckily, one such fan developed a program called the Homestuck Notifier, which checks the Homestuck RSS feed regularly, and when there's a new update, a sound will play and an image will pop up above the computer's taskbar.

The Notifier cycles through a bunch of preset fanart, but the READ ME explained that you could upload your own image or sound to the program's macro folder. Obviously I had to do this, because the preset images didn't include one of Spades Slick, one of my favorite characters.

Phil the Flying Shark

I'm not a huge bragger; I don't find joy in bragging about things that I have or so on. In fact, despite being a generally happy person, I feel a bit awkward whenever I talk about things that make me happy.

I'm going to break that habit for a moment, however, to explain how incredibly stoked I am about my new pet flying shark.

Sorry for the low quality - cell phone cameras, y'know.

Week One with Skyward Sword

I don't think I'm going to be blogging this entire game, but I definitely wanted to give you all my week one reactions, especially since, a) I've been waiting and saving over two years for this game, and b) I know quite a few people who haven't been able to play it yet, and have been asking me what I think. This'll be long, and I apologize in advance - but there are many pretty pictures to look at!

Tumblr and TV Intros

A couple short things today.

First, I signed up with Tumblr (here's a link to my page there), after much insistence from friends of mine who use the site. Actually, I did this back in July, before I left on my summer vacation. I intended to write an introductory post back then, but I totally forgot about it until just recently.

In all honesty, I still don't really 'get' Tumblr. It's a micro-blogging service, which means it's like a mix of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger all rolled in one. Most people, it appears, just post funny pictures or gifs that they want to share with friends, which is cute but not enough to make me join up. There are a lot of people who do post short written pieces, however, so it seems like that's what I'll be doing.

Social Media Changes

Those of you who use Facebook regularly are probably aware of the new User Interface changes just released. Facebook has gone through a series of almost constant changes since its inception, and it seems like once the users finally get used to the last change, another one rolls around.

My language on Facebook is currently set to "English (Leet Speak)," so I actually have no clue what the new Facebook changes look like. If you've seen the changes and hate them, like most people seem to, I may sound like I'm bragging. I am. Of course I am.

Computer Troubles

I like to write blogs reviewing things I've seen and talking about stuff going on in the world that I think you guys would be interested in, but every so often I have to talk about things going on with myself, so you'll understand where I'm coming from (actually, I've been doing this a lot recently). Today I wanted to take some time out from your regularly schedule broadcast and talk about my computer troubles.

Lately, computers and I have been having a strained relationship.

Everything Bad is Good for You

A while back, I wrote a review on a book titled Reality is Broken (by Jane McGonigal). If you didn't read it or don't remember, the book is about video games, and how they can positively impact the people who play them. Jane McGonigal's goal in writing the book was to help dispel the negative image associated with video games and to try to get people to incorporate the positive aspects of gaming into their everyday lives.

While writing that review, I discovered a similar book, called Everything Bad is Good for You (by Steven Johnson), and the idea intrigued me so much, I decided to buy it and read it as well. Johnson's book, which was written a few years ago, is about Pop Culture in general, and how it's actually making people smarter.

Subcultures and the Internet

Last Wednesday, in my Myth and Legend class, I gave an extremely well-thought-out, well-prepared presentation on the mythical perspective of Subcultures, and how the internet is changing them.

It was an interesting class; we didn't take the approach I thought we were going to take on the subject matter, but I wont even attempt to explain everything we did talk about (though, if you're interested, practically everything we did came out of this Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell), because there's so much. The goal of our finals presentations was to find some sort of 'modern myth' - not 'myth' as in an untrue thing we all believe in, but 'myth' as in the way we align ourselves with the world at large.

Joseph Campbell

The obvious choice to me seemed to be the internet. It's huge, it's vast, no one quite understands it, and we all believe in it and take part of it anyways. I narrowed my topic down to Subcultures, as a way to approach this vast idea of 'the internet', and then did a bunch of research to decide what exactly I was going to hit upon during my allotted 10-20 minutes.

When it came to making the visuals for my presentation, I decided, instead of making a PowerPoint presentation and hoping the school computer would read it correctly, to make a Google Docs file. I was introduced to Google Docs only a month or so ago, when a brother announced he was getting married. Google Docs lets you create Microsoft-esque files online, like word documents, or in my case powerpoint presentations, so you can access the file form any computer. I felt this was only fitting, with my chosen topic.

Here is a link to my final Google Docs presentation. I don't have a transcript of everything I said that day (and honestly, why would I?), but I'll go over basically everything I said, and you can follow along with the visual presentation.

Escala

A couple years ago, a certain car company ran an ad for their newest line, using an orchestral piece that seemed unnecessarily epic. I can't find the video online, otherwise I would link you to it, but I remember the music from that commercial. A friend of mine found the track and downloaded it onto her iPod, because it truly was amazing.

Sometime later, one of my brothers took me and our mom out in his car, and in his car stereo he had a CD of music by the all-female string quartet named Escala. I only realized sometime later, after my brother bought our mom the CD because we both loved it so much, that it was their signature piece 'Palladio' that I'd first heard in that car commercial.

Heavy Noire

In mid-May, the highly anticipated video game L.A. Noire was released around the world by Team Bondi and Rockstar Games (most famous for their Grand Theft Auto series). The production studio used a special new state-of-the-art motion capture system called MotionScan to record real actors' faces from 32 different angles, which they used to animate realistic facial expressions for the in-game characters, each voiced and portrayed by their respective motion capture actor. The resulting graphics were astonishingly realistic for a video game, and gamers couldn't wait to get their hands on it.

John Noble, recording motion capture for one of
the game's antagonists.

Hearing all the buzz about this new game, however, I was reminded of another game that was released a year prior, called Heavy Rain. I heard about Heavy Rain last summer when I was looking for some video games that had emotional storylines. The Heavy Rain producers were praised for their use of motion capture technology, but mostly for their involving plot, about a man whose son is kidnapped by a serial killer and must go to great lengths to save him before he's drowned.

High-Level Art

I've recently come to realize that most of the comics I enjoy are directed towards demographics that I'm not a part of. I'm not quite sure how this happened.

"Wikipedian Protestor" by XKCD

For most of my life, the only comics that I knew existed were the color "Funnies" that were printed with the newspaper on Sundays. Later, I realized that those same comic strips came out every day in the newspaper in a black-and-white format, which meant more humor throughout the week for me. I've never really read the newspaper, but there was a time in my life when I'd come home from school and read the comics page as part of my daily routine (which meant I always missed Saturdays and government holidays).

Super 8

  Friday evening, my mom and I went out to see the new Spielberg/Abrams movie Super 8. I first saw the poster for Super 8 about a year ago (I think) coming out of one of our local theaters. All I really noticed about the poster was that it was strange, and had both J. J. Abrams' and Steven Spielberg's names, and I was hooked.

Anyone under 30-years old (myself included) might not immediately understand the title reference; my mom had to explain to me that Super 8mm cameras were what she used to make home movies with when she was young. That makes the title of the movie seem a bit more cheery or homey than the poster or trailer would suggest, but after seeing the movie, I completely understand why Abrams choose that as his title.

What's up with...?

...the Diving Bell Spider?
The tiny Diving Bell Spider lives underwater. Seriously. They build bubble-shaped webs that are condensed enough to trap oxygen but malleable enough for them to be able to poke in or out and grab water insects to feed off of. I'm not making this up; here's the Wikipedia article, an article from Discovery News, LiveScience, and the New York Times.

And a picture!

Not only that, but their webs work the same way fish gills do - the oxygen from the surrounding water leeches into the web-bubble while the carbon dioxide leeches out into the water. Over time the spiders have to rise to the surface to restock their air supply, but they're able to live completely in the water.

Discovering that this spider exists was the single-most disturbing news I'd had in a good long while. Spiders are bad enough as it is; their long legs are creepy, and while I don't mind looking at them (preferable in a container), I can't help imagining them crawling over me, sucking my blood dry. Imagining that happen unbeknownst to me while I'm peacefully swimming around at the beach, thinking all is right? I know, logically, that this spider is tiny and would be hiding from me, but I can't help thinking nature has some cruel, evil trick in mind with these things.

...James Tate and the Prom ordeal?

The Cake is Magic!

There is a certain dessert dish made in my house; one of the ingredients is magic. My mom puts the rest of the necessary ingredients together, then applies some magic and a few micro waves, and a magic cake appears.

If you've never tasted a magic cake, it might not look particularly appealing, but fresh magic cake, warm and gooey and chocolaty, is delicious. The magic essence fills your soul and gives you powers you didn't know you had, like the ability to fly, or control things with your mind. Regular old chocolate cake is fine, but I don't think anyone would disagree that the magic cake reign supreme.

I can not disclose the full secrets of the magi cake, though I can promise you there are no mood-enhancing drugs, beyond the already admitted chocolate. The magic cake, in all honesty, is magic. It cooks up in eight minutes, and can be ready ten minutes after pulling the magic cake dish out of the cupboard. Years ago, when Marie Antoinette supposedly said "let them eat cake," no one could have imagined that in 2011, the cake would be magical.

Of course, trying to survive on just magic cake is probably a bad idea. As powerful as it is, the magic cake doesn't include all the necessary daily nutrients, and it doesn't help with my pretend diet. I forget that all, however, when I bite into a delicious scoop of magic cake, unorthodox, mysterious, wonderful, magic.

Manual Entertainment

I really need to start writing some more blog rough drafts in advance. I only have one semi-ready, and it would require me to download some pictures off my camera (which of course requires me to find my camera, first).

Today's the third day of Summer Semester at Generic Local Community College. I take the bus there and back (about a 20 minute ride), so I get to experience the great desert outdoors, something that never happens during break, or the days I happen to not have class. I don't have a car, nor do I have my driving license yet (we were all very late with it, in my family), so I'm also getting my exercise, walking home from the bus stop - almost two miles away - while my parents and their vehicles are at work.

The first day of the semester, I left my keys at home. I was in such a rush to get out the door, making sure I had all my books and knew where my classes were, that I decided I wouldn't lock the door behind (left Dad to do that for me) and didn't even realize I'd need the keys to unlock the door later. Luckily, my mom works at an elementary school between our house and the bus stop, and she just happened to be heading out for recess duty when I called her cell phone to ask if she had hers.

When I got home and recovered my complexion (my face gets a bit red when I'm exhausted from exercise), I posted on Facebook:

"Not that I'm complaining, but why isn't it 100 degrees outside? Stupid global climate change means I no longer know what to expect from anything! Next, they'll tell us we don't have to pay taxes anymore, and we'll have a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!"

In the Southern Californian desert, in June, it's kind of expected to be really hot. I know I've mentioned this in a blog before, but it's been unseasonably cool this year. I figured, if a hot summer is no longer guaranteed, who's to say that anything in life is certain anymore, even death and taxes!? Of course, it's still in the 90s here, with a cool breeze, so elsewhere in the world they'd say it's pretty hot, but in a bona fide desert, we're used to 100 to 110 degrees (Fahrenheit) and hot air blowing.

It was hotter on Tuesday, and I remembered my key. Today, I forgot my key again. I got all the way to the house before I realized I needed to turn back and get mom's from the school. This blog is a bit later than I expected because of how tired and annoyed I was when I finally got into the 82 degree house.

Along with the start of Summer Semester, this week is also E3 - Electronic Entertainment Expo! It's an annual trade show of video game related technology and hardware, and a major geek fest! All the major companies give presentations on the work they'll be doing and releasing in the next year, and tech companies show off some of the newest, highest quality technology for people in the industry to see and get ideas from. Only people in the gaming industry are allowed to attend, so normal geeks who want to go have to get engineering degrees and get hired by a developing company.

Last year was the first year I actually watched one of the presentations; namely, Nintendo's. I was surprised by how fun it was - these aren't boring, 'here's some numbers and things to expect in the future' presentations, they're exciting, humorous, of geeks for geeks by geeks. Yesterday was this year's presentation by Nintendo, where they unveiled their new Wii successor system. Unfortunately, I had a ton of homework to do, so I wasn't able to watch it live.

As soon as I finish this blog, however, I'm going to go over the the E3 website and watch the tape. In case anyone's interested, I'll write my feelings on what happens as a blog post for either tomorrow or Saturday. I may also watch Sony's presentation, depending on how I feel.

The Contributor-Lurker Ratio

Also known as the 90-9-1 principle, the Contributor-Lurker Ratio is an internet-based statistical number which suggests that, for every one major contributor on an online group (who may seem to dominate the discussion, or post very often), there are nine minor contributors, who post every so often to make an appearance, and ninety-nine 'lurkers', or people who contribute very rarely, if ever. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did try to use as many big words as possible.

Like Godwin's Law, the Contributor-Lurker Ratio was proposed for online application, but it applies to real life as well. Depending on what communicative platform it is applied to, of course, the ratio numbers would change. For example, in a discussion between people who know each other very well, the 'lurker' number all but disappears, whereas in certain anonymous groups (like Wikipedia), the middle group is what disappears, and you're left with an extremely large group of lurkers and a small, tight-knit group of contributors.

Average Joe off the street isn't editing
Wikipedia, he doesn't have time for that.

The reason this ratio is good to remember is because everyone who uses the internet is on it. If you've ever read a news article online, you'll notice that you, along with the thousands of other people who only read that article, are lurkers. The people who commented on the article would be considered minor contributors, while the one person who wrote that article (or team, if it's for a major publication) is the major contributor.

Another reason you need to remember this is because websites don't like having lurkers. I don't think anyone does - lurkers are people who aren't giving you their opinion. In a debate, they're the people not telling you what side they're on. In retail, they're the people not telling you how they liked your product, or advising you how to be better. In class, they're the kids who never raise their hand, or never have an answer when called on. Websites in particular try to increase their user count by modifying content to please their users, but the 10% of users who have any opinion on the matter might not accurately reflect the feelings of the 90% silent majority.

When I was younger, I was a very active member of some smaller online forum communities. It wasn't until I was older that I started holding my tongue more online, lurking through discussions instead of giving my own input. Part of that may have to do with the sizes of the communities I visited; when I was younger, my online activity was limited to smaller groups with people I knew. As I got older, I joined larger websites with more anonymous members, and, hoping not the 'give myself away', I didn't say much when I didn't need to. About a year ago, I was to the point where the only content I contributed online was my own Facebook posts, and the occasional comment on a Youtube video.

Same idea as the pyramid above, but in reverse.

It was when I realized I was a lurker that I decided to start this blog. Within this blog itself, I am the #1 top contributor. I have the feeling of creating meaningful content again. I don't comment much on other blogs, rendering me still a lurker to the blogosphere-at-large, but as I get used to the feeling of contributing my opinions to the anonymous internet, and can start shifting those opinions to locations that will have a more major impact on reality.

Of course the real reason I started this blog was to increase my writing platform (y'know, trick a bunch of people on the internet into liking me and my writing, so when I publish a book someone'll buy it), but it was also a part of my own fear of becoming a nobody. Not that there's anything wrong with being part of the 90 - in fact, I'd hate to be really famous. Thinking in fiction terms, I'd rather be the side character who helps the protagonist than the actual protagonist. But I want to at least be in the story.

I think everyone, at some point in their life, does something meaningful, whether they realize it or not. Selfishly, I want to make sure I realize it. Doesn't everyone?
(Also, I'll stop being sappy now. Did you see my new Profile picture?)

It's Magic!

I've long been fascinated with science, even if I haven't shown much interest in intense study in the field(s). Being a layman, I'm particularly interested in fields of new study, such as microbiology, astronomy, and Quantum Mechanics. Scientists are breaking grounds in these areas of study that could only have been speculated about some time ago. In my opinion, Scientific discovery is like magic.

Magic, for thousands of years, has been a supernatural power, a fictional or mythical art of special people doing impossible things. But a lot of the things described in old legends are now possible. We can open doors and 'magic tomes' by speaking to them, we can watch moving pictures in our local newspapers, we can create and hold fires in the palms of our hands - we can even fill a room with light just by clapping.

I think I remember those commercials mentioning magic explicitly.

Broadcasted Visual Images

About two years ago, I wrote and published a blog post about my television, and the fact that we owned rabbit ears in an age where everyone else seemed to be buying high definition TVs with 500 gazillion channels. I stressed that I found nothing wrong with this - I don't watch TV, not generally, and I don't see any point in spending every hour of my life doing so (which is the only way I would get anything out of all those channels). However, at that time, broadcasting companies had just switched over to digital signals, and we had to buy a digital converter box for our rabbit ears to work.

The actual Rabbit Ears we used to use.

I was amazed, because, as I explained in that blog, we used to get horrible white-noise under all our TV programs, and with the converter box, live TV sounded just as good as shows on Hulu.

A couple months back, Mom signed our house up for FiOS TV. I'm not quite sure why she did it. We now have about 100 channels, (before, we had three or four), and we don't use 95% of them. Along with our weekly TV shows, my mom occasionally watches stuff on the Home and Garden channel, and my dad listens to people shouting at each other on some political channel, and if anything, we've cut down on movie-watching, so the TV's on just as often as it usually was.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. We can now set our TV to record shows if we're going to miss them, and watch them later without having to set the low-quality laptop up to the TV and such. I've been setting our DVR to record movies on various channels if I know Netflix doesn't have them on Instant, and it's been nice. Also, the thing automatically resets the time for Daylight Savings, so we can change all the rest of the clocks to match it. That's always handy.

We still don't have an HD TV, which I still see nothing wrong with - the picture on our screen looks just fine, especially when compared with the picture I grew up with. It's cool to see that, even in the time of High Definition Everything, my friends and I can sit down to an older movie and not be bothered by the boxy, pixelated images. The difference between HD picture and normal modern TV picture is slight enough for me not to notice unless I had the two side-by-side (which is, of course, how the electronic stores get you to pay all that money).

I'm sure one day in the future, I'll own an HD TV, and I'll be blogging about how silly everyone is for needing a 3D TV (or whatever else is popular at that time) to get by. That's the way technology goes, and I don't really see any problem in it, as long as we don't get too dependent on our shiny screens.

(Now I'm afraid of sounding like one of those old persons, warning you that TV's going to melt your brain. Don't worry, it wont - unless you watch TV in the car. I know "everyone" does it nowadays, but it drives me crazy. How are kids supposed to get any downtime if they're constantly stimulated everywhere they go?)

Are Wii There Yet?

Just before last Christmas, Mom bought a Wii for our house. She may not be aware of this, but I had been leaving her subliminal messages encouraging her to by a Wii a month or so before she finally did so. I spent several weeks of the summer leaving positive comments about Netflix on my Facebook to convince Mom to sign up with them, so I figured I could do something similar (though my efforts were more covert this time) so I wouldn't have to borrow my brother's Wii when the next Zelda game comes out (I've been saving up for it for quite a while now).

When she finally bought one, I was just a bit surprised - I hadn't expected her to go for it before Christmas, and I hadn't expected Dad to agree so easily. Turns out, he hadn't - she bought it on the fly while she was at Target, and we were going to hide it in the guest room so he wouldn't see it.

After a few weeks, when Dad was out one night, Mom told me to pull it out and set it up. She got one of the new sleek black ones (I really liked the original white, but I don't see anything wrong with black either), and I set it up right next to our black TV where my brother's had been when he still lived with us, and where my other brother's PS3 had been when he lived with us. We figured out the Netflix channel for the Wii and got all the packaging put away before Dad came home. And then, for about a month or so, we said nothing about it. We didn't draw attention to the Wii, or mention it, and we made sure the controller was always tucked away where Dad didn't see it.

We weren't trying to be mean to him or anything - if we had just told him, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded much, since it ended up not being very expensive. But by not talking about it, hiding the Wii became a sort of game; how long could we go before Dad noticed the Wii? He never said anything about it, and when he wanted to watch an old movie on Netflix he would turn on his old laptop (which we have hooked up to use the TV as a 2nd monitor), so we were pretty sure he hadn't noticed yet, or at least wasn't sure what to make of it.

Which means that, for the most part, we didn't use the Wii for the first few months after getting it. Well, I did, when I was home alone, but we couldn't use it to watch Netflix when Dad was home or he'd figure us out.

Finally, a few weeks back, Mom decided we needed to get Verizon FiOS (I think, with all her kids moving out, she's decided she wants to finally conform to social/technological norms. One day, she might get an HD TV, or maybe even a flat screen!). I don't care much for cable TV - anything I really want to watch can be found on Hulu - but cable has a few channels she can access whenever she wants, so on a Saturday, a Verizon cable guy came in and set out whole system up, which included figuring out wiring for everything plugged into the TV. Like our single rarely-used game system.

So Dad found out - I guess. He never really did say anything, but afterward he started using the Wii. Nonchalantly, Mom asked him when he had started using it, and he vaguely replied "when you got it," because of course he expected us to know what that meant. Mom didn't push the subject.

So I fully expect Dad some day to find this blog and discover that we utterly deceived him - but I hope he can find it a good laugh. We weren't trying to deceive you, we were trying to get more amusement out of the Wii than we could otherwise. We own no games for it (Expect for Wii Fit, which we just bought a month ago), so what else are we going to do with the thing? I'm happy we managed to get some entertainment from it; I always hated getting the toys I always wanted for Christmas only to discover a week later that I didn't care for them anymore. Now, this Wii will never get old (Until, of course, the newer thing comes out).

(In retrospect, I wonder if Mom and Dad were playing me, seeing how long I'd go along with the gig. Not to be rude, however, but I wouldn't give them that much credit.)

The Decision Engine

Microsoft started a war that they had no business sticking their noses in, but which just might have an unexpected, positive outcome. I'm not talking about Microsoft versus Macintosh (now known as Mac or Apple), because in that case I'm not too sure who really started the war, and I prefer Microsoft anyways. No, I'm talking about the search engine war between Microsoft's Bing and Google.

Google wasn't the first major search engine - I'm sure everyone remembers Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. Google, I believe, was the first major engine after Yahoo, however, and it achieved greater success than all the previous search engines for one simple reason: even the slowest browser will load the Google page in just one second. Yahoo became littered with facts and news and email applications, but the page you get after typing google.com into the URL box consists of a simple logo on a white backdrop, a text box, and a few links to advanced options. When looking something up, Google users don't get distracted by flashy text or gifs or roll-over images.

Microsoft launched Bing in June, 2009, riding a bit on the popularity of Google (Much like how Microsoft jumped on the video game bandwagon with their Xbox after Sony and Nintendo and Sega). They advertised themselves as a 'decision engine', helping users make decisions fast and easy without the distractions other search engines had. Microsoft's previous search engine, Live Search, had been released two years earlier, so Bing is more of a glorified update than anything. Google had existed by this time for ten years, but had only recently become popular enough to get their name (A misspelling of the word googol) in the dictionary, and the timing to me seems to suggest that Microsoft, at this point, realized the monetary possibilities of a well-working search engine.