Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Zune's Virtual Trackball

I've had my 80GB Zune for just over a week now, and so far I'm pleased with my purchase. Not all is perfect, of course, but it's filling its role as a worthy successor to Gigabutt. One thing I like about it is what I personally call the "virtual trackball" that's used for navigation. The Zune uses a four-way directional click-pad that looks like a square with very, very rounded corners, almost to the point of it being a circle. To select a choice, you click down on the center of the pad. You can scroll through lists of songs by holding up or down on the pad, with the scroll-speed accelerating the longer you hold it down. Initially, there's nothing really extraordinary about this; it's the same mechanic used by many devices, including the Creative Zen and my old Gigabutt.



The fun comes in when you actually discover its touch-pad nature. The pad responds to the motion of your finger in the four cardinal directions. So, if you're navigating a list of songs and you slide your thumb down slightly, you'll scroll down a few songs. If you start your thumb at the top of the pad and briskly swipe it downwards, the list starts scrolling at a high velocity before grinding to a slow halt after a second or two. This feels remarkably like a trackball, so if you then start thinking about the pad as if it were a trackball (limited to four directions, of course), you'll begin to understand intuitively how to scroll through your lists.

For instance, if you roll a trackball downwards multiple times in succession, the ball will end up rolling for a good while without your assistance as a result of the momentum. These "physics" are applied to the touch-scrolling too: Swipe your thumb from top to bottom multiple times, and your song list will start scrolling incredibly fast -- with quick, subsequent swipes adding momentum -- before slowly stopping. So how do you keep yourself from overshooting where you want to be? Well, how would you stop a trackball? That's right -- put your hand on it. Likewise, as your songs are scrolling happily on their own, you can stop the scrolling just by laying your thumb on the pad. This is great, mostly "thumbs-off" approach for people scrolling through a small chunk who don't want to hold their thumb down or keep twirling it in a circle (a la the iPod's clickwheel) the entire time.

The flipside to this is that once in awhile, when you mean to click down on the center of the pad, your thumb ever-so-slightly moves in a direction. The pad could pick this up and inadvertently scroll to and select the item above or below the one you actually meant to click. It takes a little getting used to in order to over come this little snare.

It also would have been nice if the touch-pad registered diagonal directions for browsing photographs. When browsing by folder, the Zune spits out thumbnails of every picture in the folder in a grid format where you're free to navigate and choose. If you swipe in a diagonal direction, though, the cursor does this clumsy two-step -- "down, then right" -- instead of skipping diagonally to the picture. While this is functionally the same thing, it doesn't even always do that; it'll soemtimes stop after the first vertical or horizontal direction. Not a big deal by any means at all -- just a minor quibble, given how cool the "trackball" feel of the pad is.

Finally, I know some people like scrolling with the iPod's wheel. For those who don't mind keeping their thumb in constant motion, it offers the best control over your scroll speed. You can scroll precisely as fast as you want, and stop exactly when you want to. Seeing as the touch-pad on the Zune is so rounded, wouldn't it be cool if it emulated the scroll wheel -- for those who wanted such an option -- by responding accordingly to thumb movement around the perimeter (or circumference, if you please) of the pad? That might make it the most versatile input device for an MP3 player yet. As it is, however, it's still a lot of fun to use.

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Dark Knight belongs to Aaron Eckhart [SPOILER-FILLED discussion]

READER BEWARE: THIS DARK KNIGHT DISCUSSION (NOT A REVIEW!!!) IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS.

The Dark Knight is Harvey Dent's movie.

We can ballyhoo about the magnificence of the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. We can continue to heap praises on Christian Bale being the best Batman-slash-Bruce Wayne since Michael Keaton. Neither of these actions would be inappropriate. But in watching The Dark Knight to its conclusion, eyes glued to action, ass on edge of seat, mouth slightly agape, it became startlingly clear that Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent -- briefly known as Two Face -- was the the big message, the key idea, behind this film.

It all starts with what is actually the bottom of Gotham City's food chain. Joe Chill was part of the lowest of the low, a mere mugger partially created by Gotham's depression. In murdering Bruce Wayne's parents, he was partially responsible for the savage vigilante -- Batman -- that the young heir would soon become. In Batman's crusade to stamp out crime, however, he unwittingly unleashes the fury of the psychotic -- no -- bat-shit insane Joker who sneers, "[Gotham] deserves a better class of criminal." Alfred makes this clear as Wayne contends that the mob -- in enlisting The Joker's help -- crossed the line: "You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand." This is no less than the escalation -- the arms race -- that Jim Gordon spoke of at the conclusion of Batman Begins. "We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds." And so it follows: Batman assails crime with destructive resolve, and crime turns to The Joker.

Enter the hero -- the "White Knight" -- whom Wayne, whom Batman, contends is the key to Gotham's ascension from its criminal rubble. Harvey Dent, District Attorney, is a bold figure who can put guilty men behind bars without breaking laws and disrupting order. He doesn't fear an assassin's bullet, and he's determined to bring the dawn -- "It's always darkest before the dawn" he implores his desperate, angry citizens to realize -- to a city that's been mired in darkness.

It's Dent, not the imposter Batmen who put on hockey pads and try to play vigilante along with their inspiration, who represents Bruce Wayne's original goal when he donned the mask. Wayne's father, Thomas Wayne, "believed his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city." And yes, Wayne believes that as a man he can't do the same as his father did, hence his need for the Batman persona -- but in Dent, perhaps he has actually found the man to do this. We even see him contemplating the retirement of the bat suit. Such is his confidence in the D.A.

Dent foreshadows his own demise, however, when he claims that, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." And in his own demise, we see how very little hope Gotham City has, and -- reminiscent of Jack Bauer's (of TV's 24) tragic existence -- how wretched Batman's life must continue to be in order for there to be some modicum of decency and order. Harvey Dent, after all, is only a man. He's not a symbol, and as such he is not, as Wayne put it in Batman Begins, "incorruptible."

The vile waste that is The Joker succeeds in corrupting Dent, taking away the love of his life (and coincidentally of Batman's life), indirectly burning the left half of his face (is it coincidence that the burnt flesh leans Lucifer's way?) and sending the once pure man, Gotham's only law-abiding hope, into a vengeful fit of rage. In becoming Two Face, in seeing his soul corrupted and destroyed, Harvey Dent represents the singular driving idea behind Gotham City and The Dark Knight (both the film and the character): the depressing thought that in light of the progress and the good that is being done, everything is destined to be hopelessly torn to absolute shit. (See what I mean by Jack Bauer?) From Chill to Batman to The Joker, the lowest of the low in Gotham City ultimately creates and destroys the monster that is Two Face -- in effect, Gotham City has just swallowed its own hope for a brighter future.

The only White Knight Gotham had left was snuffed out without mercy, and Dent's apparent death came too late for him to avoid becoming the villain he foreshadowed. It's this rise and fall of a true hero -- this descent into madness -- that most powerfully symbolizes Gotham City's everlasting struggle, and it's his tragedy that simultaneously emphasizes Batman's own personal tragedy to us. Wayne's desire to hang up the mask was fueled by the possibility that Dent could lead the crusade, and subsequently the hope that Rachel Dawes would return to his loving arms. In one fell swoop, these two flickering lights are both eradicated, and Batman's only hope for a normal life is just... plain... gone. Worse, Batman must take the fall for Dent's crimes in order to keep any glimmer of hope alive; what would Gotham think if it found that its White Knight bowed to The Joker's level? From nadir to apogee and back to nadir: The stories of Dent, Wayne and Gotham City are perfect mirror images of each other, with Dent's metamorphosis into Two Face -- so poignant, so condensed -- the most tangible and evident tragedies of them all.

If you want to understand the misery and despair of the film The Dark Knight, all you need do is follow Harvey Dent. After all, it's his movie.

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Website Is Down.

Web Dude: [playing Halo] C'mon you little bitches, let's go... That's right. Oh snap.
[Skype phone rings]
Web Dude: Ulch, not now! [Halo: "Red team is winning."] Oh, you so suck. Ohhh... c'mon. Ohhh..... FUCK. [Picks up the call] Hello? [Alt-tabs back to Halo]
Chip: Web dude it's Chip in sales, what's up man?
Web Dude: Nothing, I'm working. What's... um. What's going on?
Chip: Hey are you ah, you here in Building 3?
Web Dude: Yeah I'm in Building 3.
Chip: Well why do I have to call an outside number to get to your desk?
Web Dude: Wha. Look uhhh, I don't want to get into an IP Telephony conversation with you right now.
Chip: You pee telephony? Haha. I pee *urine*. Heh heh... he totally fell for it.
Nancy and others giggle.
Web Dude: ...that's a... that's a good one.
Chip: Alright so web dude, we got a problem. The website's down.
Web Dude: ...I'm sorry what??
Chip: The Web Site Is Down. It's a black hole, can't get to anything.
Web Dude: [gets killed in Halo] FUCK.
Chip: Yeah.
Web Dude: Hold on. [alt-tabs out of Halo into web browser, showing monster.com, brings up the company website] Looks like it's up to me.
Chip: Wellp... I rebooted my PC and it's still that way.
Web Dude: [alt-tabbing back to Halo] How many times d'you reboot?
Chip: Three man, you always tell me to do three.
Web Dude: Well, uhmmm... hold on. [alt-tabs back to the site] It's up, I mean, I can check to see if Apache's running. [typing commands] Apache is running.
Chip: I don't know what this Patchie is, but ah, either way? I'm still not able to ge-
Web Dude: Oh look, I can telnet to the core, you can get HTML, like, it's running.
Chip: Ok well I'm st- I'm still not able to get what I'm looking for, uh... Nancy said that you guys rebooted last time- I dunno.
Web Dude: Do you want me to reboot... the web server? Even though it's running.
Chip: I'm just saying that's what Nancy said you did last time. Okay?
[long awkward pause]
Web Dude: Well... I can reboot it now? It doesn't make any sense to reboot something that's running-
Chip: Okay well I'm just, I'm just telling you what Nancy said, that y'guys just ah, you know, you guys rebooted last time.
Web Dude: Ummm...
Chip: Y'know I'm not saying anything about YOU guys, you know, I don't, I don't --
Web Dude: Sure. Why not...
Chip: -- I mean, you know, I dunno anything about ah...
Web Dude: ...let's reboot it I mean. It's fun to reboot a web server. I mean that'll take fifteen minutes [alt-tabs back to Halo] so I can get back to what I was d-
Chip: Wait... something just happened. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I - I can't get to the homepage.
Web Dude: Whaddaya mean you can't get to the homepage? I just took it down.
Chip: I just -- I just tried to get to the homepage and I can't get in-
Web Dude: You could get to the homepage before?
Chip: Yeah I was gettin' to the homepage and now I can't get to the homepage.
Web Dude: You told me the website was down. ....gehhh FUCK. So the website WASN'T down.
Chip: Well... eh. Well maybe that's not what I meant okay, uh...
Web Dude: Well it's down *now*.
Chip: Well, what. Whatever it's called. Uh, the world wide web, was dow-
Web Dude: The *internet*????
Chip: It's slow, everything is just slow-
Web Dude: You don't know the difference between the internet and our web site?
Chip: Hey Nancy, is your, is your, is your web working?
Nancy: I told you it wasn-
Chip: Nonono, I know, I know. He rebooted the website.
Nancy: What!?
[incoming call]
Chip: He rebooted it.
Nancy: Waaaaaaaat.
Web Dude: Hold on. [transfers to Line 2] Hello?
Trevor: Uhh yeah, this is Trevor... I work for the city of Arvada, population ten thousand... and I was just looking at our website -- www.arvada.org/arvadaharvestfestival -- and. Ah. I get this error message, page cannot be displayed.
Web Dude: Well it's because the web site's down.
Trevor: Hunhhh?
Web Dude: Oh my god. Look, the sales guys upstairs took down the website so we're waiting for it to come back. [Shooting teammate in the balls in Halo]
Trevor: Whooo?
Web Dude: I guess it was Trevor.
Trevor: And then I tried Arvadaharvestfestival/pumpkinpatch and that wasn't on there and then I tried harvestfestival/beanbagrace and nothing's coming up and I LITERALLY... have the Mayor breathing down my neck right now so we need to get this back up, uh --
Web Dude: Well it should be up by now honestly -- [continues to shoot teammate in the elbow in Halo]
Trevor: They call it On Line. We gotta get this page online.
Web Dude: Uh, alright Trevor, well let me, you know, can I call you back when it's up? [Halo: "Blue team has the lead"]
Trevor: You know what, call me back, at this number... LITERALLY. Have the Mayor. Breathing down my neck. Arvadapumpkinpatch.org.
Web Dude: Mkay. Check.
Trevor: Hunhhh?
Web Dude: See you later. [Hangs up on Trevor, transfers back to Chip] Okay --
Chip: ...down because he rebooted it. I--
Nancy: What an idiot.
Chip: I dunno why he did it -- ahhmmm, say that again?
Web Dude: Listen -- oh. What was your name again? Chip?
Chip: Chip-hhh.
[incoming call]
Chip: I didn't ask for it to go down...
Web Dude: Can you hold on a second? [transfers to Line 2] Hello?
Boss: D'you take down the website?
web Dude: ...no...
Boss: Well Nancy says ya did.
[pause]
Web Dude: Oh I mean. Yeah!
Boss: Well why the hell didja do that???
Web Dude: Well the sales guys... were...
Boss: Didn't you get my email about not taking down the web server?
Web Dude: Uhhmm... nnn... [alt-tabs to Outlook, showing an email: DO NOT REBOOT THE WEB SERVER!!!!!!!!!!!] ...no?
Boss: Well I sent it to you.
Web Dude: ... ... ... ... [click, click, click] well... [click]... [removes all traces of the email from Exchange Server] Hold on. Cuz I don't see it.
Boss: Well... ahh, this is weird. I don't see it here. Okay. Well maybe I didn't send it to you.
Web Dude: Well yeah cuz uh seriously, you know, I didn't get it.
Boss: Well the email said don't take it down because it won't come back up without being powered off.
Web Dude: Oh. Crap.
Boss: Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Web Dude: Uhh -- [Boss hangs up] -- I'm sorry? *sigh* Fucking... look. [transfers back to Chip] Chip?
Chip: Yeap.
Web Dude: Look, okwebserversnotcomingupnowbecauseyoumademetakeitdowninthe- in the wrong way.
Chip: Ahh, okay?
Web Dude: I'm gonna have to get Lazlo to power it off. C- ...can you hold on a minute?
Chip: Alright.
[Puts chip on hold, dials Lazlo's cellphone... rings, rings, rings...]
Chip: Fuckin' Lazlo, c'mon.
Lazlo: Hello Derek, you fucking idiot. [loud hiss of servers in the background] What rack is this in?
Web Dude: I'm sorry what?
Lazlo: What rack is the system in?
Web Dude: It's in Rack Five.
Lazlo: [distant, over the din] Five?
Web Dude: Yes.
Lazlo: Rack Five?
Web Dude: Rack Five.
Lazlo: ...told me that you took down the system.
Web Dude: Yes. It was an accident.
Lazlo: What'd he tell me?
Web Dude: Just reboot it.
Lazlo: You need the system rebooted?
Web Dude: Yes.
Lazlo: Which one is it?
Web Dude: It's gray, it's on the, it's like third down.
Lazlo: The one... they- they're all gray.
Web Dude: It's third down. You can see the gray on the bottom.
Lazlo: You mean which... from the top or the bottom?
Web Dude: From the top...
Lazlo: ...you tell me...
Web Dude: ...it's. Jesus-
Lazlo: You tell me. I can't...
Web Dude: It's gray.
Lazlo: I can't hear anything.
Web Dude: I know -- shut up! It's gray on the bottom!
Lazlo: From the bottom.
Web Dude: It's GRAY on the bottom. It's not in the bottom of the rack? [computer dings]
Lazlo: From the top?
Web Dude: YES!
Lazlo: Ah.
Web Dude: You just powered off the Exchange server!
Lazlo: I'll do the top one now.
Web Dude: Oh my fucking god. [computer dings]
Lazlo: 'Kay, yeah, I did both of them so you should be good.
Web Dude: No!
Lazlo: Mkay, later.
Web Dude: THANKS A LOT.
Lazlo: ...idiot...
[click, call ends]
Web Dude: *sigh*... [alt-tabs back to Halo] Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaau[proceeds to fire at teammate incessantly]uauuauuuuuuuggghhghhhhhhhh-
Msg from Halo: ATTENTION. The Server Operator has kicked you from this server.
Web Dude: Aagghh. [transfers to line 1]
Chip: Yeah I dunno, guess he didn't take it down right.
Web Dude: Chip.
Nancy: ...I swear...
Chip: Hey.
Web Dude: Well, ya managed to take the email system down as well.
Chip: R'heally? the email server?
Web Dude: Well it doesn't-
Chip: He just-
Web Dude: -have anything to do with the web server-
Chip: - shut off all our email.
Nancy: That's what he fucking did last time!
Web Dude: Look -- [reboots Halo]
Chip: Ahh, okay.
Web Dude: Lazlo at the data center rebooted it when he was trying to fix the web server that *you* asked me to take down, so...
Chip: How many times?
Web Dude: ............... how many times *what*?
Chip: How many times did he reboot it?
Web Dude: Once.
Chip: Well I think ya need to try a few more times.
Nancy chortles in the background
Web Dude: Lookit-
Chip: Web dude, we're having a quarterly sales call in two minutes, I need to get on the website, or the internet, or whatever, that's why I called you in the first place. Help a brother out.
Web Dude: What's your asset tag, Chip?
Chip: Ahh, the asset tag is 287jpc, and the number 2.
Web Dude: Is that P as in Paul?
Chip: That's P as in Paul.
Web Dude: Mkay. [Remote Desktops into Chip's computer, where an old Windows 95 screen saver is running] Where'd you get this wh...unnhhh... is this your desktop??? ...is the mouse mo-
Chip: WHHOOAAA my mouse just moved!!!!
Web Dude: Okay. Yeah why d-
Chip: Do that again! Oh my god you're moving my mouse...
Web Dude: It's remote desktop. What is your password?
Chip: It's just the letter A.
Web Dude: Just the letter A. Alright. [opens up a screen with a gajilliondy windows open]
Chip: Like Apple. ...are you looking at my desktop right now?
Web Dude: Dude, how many programs do you have running?
Chip: This is so awesome.
Web Dude: You g- you're totally overloading your box. That's probably part of the reason.
Chip: Well I use all these programs... but -- you know I gotta lotta work to do during the day.
Web Dude: Can I... can I close this [closing Explorer window]
Chip: Whoa whoa hey- [Web Dude closes email draft] -nonono!
Web Dude: ...save this? [Web Dude closes IE browser window showing "Utterpants -- sex with Vegetables"]
Chip: Wait wai-
Web Dude: Chip -
Chip: You cannot, no... I need to save this! This is all my work!
Web Dude: Look, you don't need this stuff.
Chip: I've got some research that I'm doing, okay, you-
Web Dude: [closing a game of Hearts] I mean all these things take up memor-
Chip: You can't close all of my windows! Okay!?!?
Web Dude: [closes a game of Solitaire] Closin' that.
Chip: Web dude, web dude, ya gotta slow down-
Web Dude: [comes to a window of AOL before 3.0] Dude, AOL???? Don't use AOL! It's dial-up networking.
Chip: Well how am I going to get to the internet without AOL?
Web Dude: I... It's... it's broadband.
Chip: But I got like 4000 hours for free.
Web Dude: It's -- ughh. We have a corporate OC3 -- it costs like $1000 a month, so don't use AOL. [closes AOL, only to find...] Whoa.
Chip: Can you carry over my hours?
Web Dude: What -- what is *this*??? [mousing over desktop] "Fuk u..."
Chip: It's... my desktop?
Web Dude: What... there're icons, they spell "Fuk u!" and there's a picture of a penis.
Chip: Ahh, Patricia did that when I took over her computer. She wasn't very happy.
Web Dude: Holy crap. ...how long's it been like that?
Chip: Eight or nine years.
Web Dude: Oh my god.
Chip: You know I just got so used to it. I didn't want to change it.
Web Dude: That's fuckin' awesome... hold on. Alright, I'm taking a picture of this, hold on just a sec.
Chip: Ok, just so you know I got a meeting in like five minutes, so whatever we gotta do to get my PC back.
Web Dude: This is going right onto BoingBoing.
Chip: Uh what's BoingBoing?
Web Dude: Here's the thing. This? Is a problem. You can't have people looking at this, okay? Arrange your icons -- [sorts desktop by Name] -- by Name or something...
Chip: Whoa nonono! I can't find anything!
Web Dude: Whaddaya mean? It's alphabetical!
Chip: Aww man. I -- ugh -- I had everything exactly where I knew where it was. I knew th- that th- that our website? Our website? Wasattheverytipofthe penis!
[pause]
Chip: And now I don't know where anything is! How am I go- no, it's not that one, it's not that one anymore!
Web Dude: Well... ulch...
Chip: MySalesForce.com was on the right testicle -- I'm not gonna be able to find anything. I gotta meeting in two minutes and I need the icons back the way they were.
Web Dude: Well I can't go back. There's no way to go back. You can't arrange 'em by penis.
Chip: Omigod... I tell ya, every time I've called you tech support people, every fucking time, you guys do something entirely different you know? You don't fix the problem that I call about! You know all I wanted was to get the website back! That's all that, that's all I needed! Can you restore it -- you said you took a picture of it. Restore it.
Web Dude: Well.... yeah, I guess. I mean I can just make that the background for your desktop.
Chip: I don't care what you have to do, whatever you gotta do to get this thing back.
Web Dude: ...honestly that probably won't, won't solve the problem completely but...
Chip: Well if the icons're in the same spot I'll be able to get to them. [Web dude restores penis background; meshing in with the grid of arranged icons, it creates a jumbled mess] ...alright, so this is worse. [Web Dude Selects All icons, drags them completely off the screen, leaving the penis background on display crystal clear] Oh wait-
Web Dude: I mean this is just a picture on the desktop...
Chip: That's great, this is perfect, this is perfect. Hey I gotta get into my meeting, so, you know, I'm, I yeah, this is great.
Web Dude: You good with it? [dragging selection box around, not able to select any actual icons since it's only a background] Because...
Chip: No no, this is, this is fine, I can find everything! I can find everything, this is fine.
Web Dude: Mkay.
Chip: Ok so, I gotta go to the meeting, ahhhhh you know, thanks a lot web dude, I'm outta here!
Web Dude: Mkay.
Chip: Alright, bye.
Web Dude: Jesus. What a fuckin' day. [alt-tabs to Halo, plasma grenades a dude and melee's him out, with the grenade exploding a second after.] Hehehehe...

Monday, July 14, 2008

Broken Tech Sucks

So, almost exactly a week ago, my 60GB Toshiba MP3 player -- a Toshiba Gigabeat S60, to be exact, a great device with a great interface and nearly-effortless Windows Media Player compatibility -- died on me.

Last Friday, the day after I landed back in New York City from my weekly Pittsburgh commute, I went looking for my digital camera only to find out that I couldn't find it. I likely left it at my friend Scott's house the week before, where I had gone to enjoy burgers on the Fourth of July, but I couldn't be sure. Text-message inquiries resulted in no responses.

Well, on the same Friday, I went to Circuit City. The night before, I won the Guitar Hero tournament that my friends and I participate in weekly and Triggy (the grand puba of the McAleer's Pub GH Tournament and all-around awesome hostess) was giving away a $50 gift certificate. I put this $50 to a new 80GB Zune. Problem 1 solved.

On Sunday, I was cleaning up my room -- which was long overdue for a good "put your crap away" session. Among the rubble I found my digital camera, safe and intact. Scott then called me literally minutes after to apologize for not getting back to me sooner -- he had been stricken with a nasty case of the E. Coli that was spreading around, and he had trewn upz on the subway. But he was better now, and even though I had already found my camera I thanked him for getting back to me. Problem 2 solved.

There exists, sadly, a problem 3: The laptop I was given by the company I work for is now brain-dead. The issue began Thursday, when I was waiting for my flight back to New York City in the Pittsburgh airport. Somehow, I got a BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen of death. A reboot solved it, but then it happened again. Putting the laptop on the floor -- instead of my lap, where it wasn't completely lying flat -- seemed to do the trick for a moment, and I had noticed that whenever the laptop tilted more than slightly due to my very fast and very harsh typing, it would blip. The tilt was in the direction of where the hard drive sits in the laptop, and BAD_POOL_HEADER is -- I think -- a symptom of a few hard-drive or otherwise memory-related issues.

Getting home, the thing seemed to run fine and on Saturday, it withstood over 90 minutes of podcast recording.

Problem was, the podcast was longer than 90 minutes. That's right -- our backup 100th Episode recording was cut due to a Blue Screen of Death. That damned BAD_POOL_HEADER issue again.

Thankfully, as I hinted above, the laptop is ONLY used as backup: All participants record their own voice files on their own computer. In the event that one or more of our voice files gets corrupted somehow, the laptop is there recording a stream of every participant coming in through Skype. It's not as flexible, of course -- I don't get to tweak out someone farting or coughing or saying something to their pets -- but it's a sufficient backup, and this weekend, the backup is all that was lost. IF everyone's voice file is stable, which it usually is, then I should be fine to edit.

Except I can't edit it. That laptop that's used to record our backup recording; that laptop that I use courtesy of my firm; that laptop that blue-screened constantly -- is the laptop I also used to edit our podcasts when I was on the road at work. So why don't I just edit a little, save, edit a little, save, edit a little, save?

BECAUSE THE BLASTED THING WON'T EVEN BOOT INTO WINDOWS ANYMORE. Right after I enter my password and it starts loading up stuff, and yes I've tried it in Safe Mode both with and without Networking, it BSOD's -- only this time only with a STOP error code and no descriptive (but still ultimately useless) words like BAD_POOL_HEADER. Just STOP ERROR X0000B3 (9823498234 2398423984792834789 239842973569729625). Those numbers were made up, of course, but it might as well have been those.

But wait -- that's not the final state it's in. After multiple tries of rebooting, and getting kicked out again, and then trying to run the Hard Disk Drive test from the BIOS (it passed the first "quick test"), it froze. Now, when I press the power button, the fan turns on. But the hard drive activity light stays dormant, and the screen stays pitch black. It's done this 10 times in a row now, and I've given up. It's dead. I have to go into the office on Friday and turn it in for repairs. Along with it MIGHT disappear ALL of my files -- work-related files.

Not only that, but it was my window to the outside world. The client site I work at does not allow access to personal webmail and blocks 90% of the sites I visit on a daily basis (thank god ESPN and Ars Technica are still allowed). So that laptop was my only recourse. You know where I'm friggin' typing this post from? The PC that sits at the bell stand in the hotel I'm staying at. Soon some rotten little kids will want to come by -- and yes I know it's 11:15PM, but it's summer vacation for them -- and look up Sponge Bob or the latest Digimon or maybe even some terrible pornography that no kid their age should be looking at.

So I just left this rant to you, gentle readers and those who don't give a ratt's butt about me but find my ranting halfway-semi-quasi-entertaining, so that you know how annoying dead laptops are. For those who listen to the podcast, well, it'll probably be coming sometime next week or this weekend. For those who don't, well, if I don't answer your emails until I'm just about due for sleep (like right now), this is why. Because I have to play bellhop in order to communicate with the outside world.

Oh yeah -- and Wii MotionPlus: w00t ... that is, of course, until it's revealed that they'll sell it to us for $34.99 apiece and don't standardize it into the Wii's technology as they did the Dual Shock and Dual Shock 3, leaving developers to wonder whether or not it'll be worth their time to actually put the effort into it if no one's going to use it because it's not standardized. (Oh hey Xbox 360 hard drive! Do you think people are learning yet about how not standardizing things can bite you in the left buttock? No? Me neither.) /cynical (I actually love the idea, but I'll be pissed if they -- as I facetiously suggested -- don't standardize it. They HAVE to... even though you know Nintendo will make buttloads of $ even if they don't. Ok, they HAVE to for MY sake. :P)

Friday, July 11, 2008

Eulogy for Gigabutt

It was around 7PM on Tuesday, July 8th, when I was walking back from work in Pittsburgh across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to my hotel. Scattered Pirates fans walked along with me, trudging towards PNC Park to make it in time for the upcoming baseball game. I was listening to the July 4th edition of the 1up Yours podcast at the time.

When I was about 30 feet from the other end of the bridge, the podcast just stopped completely. Thinking I had pressed a button, I took out my MP3 player -- a Toshiba Gigabeat S60, with 60GB of hard drive space for music and video, using the ultra slick Windows Mobile platform for its interface -- and pressed the ON button. No dice. Maybe it was time for a hard reboot. So, I took out a pen from my bag and flicked the tiny little "battery" switch on the bottom to turn the battery completely off, then on again. Usually this did the trick when the MP3 player froze.

When Gigabutt* (that's its name) came back to life, I was greeted with a nasty message scolding me to update the firmware. Well, I didn't have any firmware on me. I was walking across a fucking bridge. Nor did I have a USB cable with which to connect Gigabutt to a PC when I finally reached my hotel. So, I shut the battery off and resolved to turn it back on in the hotel room to see if a second reboot did the trick.

Enter me, into el hotel room-o. On goes the battery. Instead of getting a firmware request, though, I get a, "Please send back to manufacturer."

Shit.

The next day, I ask my team lead if she has a mini-USB cable I can use. She does, and that night I plug Gigabutt in, search the web for some tips and tricks on how to handle this garbage, find out that Toshiba really doesn't have any support options for the Gigabeat S line anymore, and almost cry. But hark -- Googling leads me to a site where people have found hacked firmware for another Gigabeat model, modified to work seamlessly with the S series. I download it, follow the instructions, say a little nerd prayer (sounds something like "100111001, omfg... pls help kthxbye"), and wait for the device to spring back to live.

Ultimate victory, Chamillionaire style. Now, all my music is gone at this point -- but that's ok; I have a USB cable, and I can transfer a podcast or two into the thing that'll tide me over until I make it home to my full library of music. So the next day I walk to work, listening to Gigabutt as usual, enjoying the fruits of some hacker's labor and thanking the digital gods that my MP3 player is not dead after all.

Oh too soon do we speak. I put the unit down on my desk and charged it up when I got to work, and just left it to be. I gave the USB cable back to my supervisor and went about work. I looked at Gigabutt again a few hours later and decided to set my device settings (screen brightness, etc.) again, since the firmware re-install undoubtedly changed it. One click of d-pad sent the "loading..." animation to the screen. So I waited.

It never went away. For minutes. I let it sit, thinking that this was probably it but who knows maybe just MAYBE it would come back to life but no. Minutes became an hour.

I did the battery reboot again, and it threw the firmware warning at me. Another one threw a "connect to PC" request. The last one threw the "Contact Manufacturer" nastygram. It was throwing different errors at me and I figured that this really was the end, given how inconsistently it was behaving. I tried one last time... and the OS came up! Yippee, I guess? Well, not really. I tried to see if I could set the FM radio to a local Pittsburgh hip hop station. I hit RADIO, clicked OK, and... nothing happened. It didn't crash, but nothing happened. So basically the radio functionality was DESTROYED.

It was over. It IS over. I have to bury Gigabutt. I went out during lunch today and dropped a $50 gift certificate on an 80GB Zune to replace Gigabutt, and I might as well just give it a proper goodbye.

Let me take a few moments to speak about what Gigabutt was able to do in life that Zune-butt, despite its current-day glory, cannot do. Nor can an iPod.

Gigabutt, you played oh so nicely with Windows Media Player without batting an eye. Anything I wanted to sync, I just needed to drag and drop it into a window. No need to add to its library, no need for other proprietary software like the Zune software or iTunes.

Gigabutt, I could change the volume on a particularly loud song or reverse/fast-forward/skip tracks, without ever having to remove you from my pocket holster, thanks to your dedicated volume, play/pause and track buttons on the side of your body.

Gigabutt, if ever I forgot your USB cable, chances are that someone else would have one because it takes the same USB cable that many Canon cameras take, the same USB cable that Sony's PSP and SIXAXIS and Dual Shock 3 controllers take -- not a proprietary shitty iPod or Zune or Creative connector.

Gigabutt, that AC adapter that CAME WITH YOUR PACKAGING was a godsend. Because, hey, having to shell out $35 for an external adapter -- you listening Microsoft and Apple? -- is just plain shitty, right?

Gigabutt, even when I had to send you back to Toshiba after the first 11 months I owned you, even after the techs RIPPED you open to fix you and didn't bother to do a good job sewing you up, you held up for another 10 months like a champ. Your battery life stumbled a bit, perhaps due to the surgery, but you were always there for me. As I tried to finagle some MP3 goodness out of my cell phone on the plane ride home yesterday, I knew that it would never hold a candle to your greatness. As I stare at this admittedly pretty Zune, knowing that any time I have to do ANYTHING -- even as simple as skipping a track -- I'll have to take it out, I'll remember how you comforted me with words like, "". Well, of course there were no words because you couldn't speak. BUT, if you COULD speak, you would have said, "No, don't worry about taking me out and possibly dropping me -- I have handy-dandy accessible buttons on my right side."

Gigabutt, you were truly a friend. Not like those assholes who expect you to actually converse with them or do stuff with them. You will be sorely missed.

...now let's open you up and have a look at your insides!

... ... ... what? Why are you staring at me? Oh come on. Any self-respecting tech-nerd has to do an electronics dissection when given the chance.

*To be honest, Gigabutt was given its name 17 minutes before the writing of this piece...

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Wanted - Check Your Brain at the Door

Well, well. Summer begins, and it looks like James McAvoy wants to get away from the heavy-handedness that was "The Last King of Scotland" and "Atonement". Just watch first ten minutes of "Wanted" -- and then the remaining 102 of them -- and it becomes obvious.

"Wanted", from director Timur Bekmambetov, starts off by introducing you to Wesley Gibson, an "account manager" and the most vaginal of pussies getting walked on like a treadmill by everyone around him -- including his girlfriend. Here we see him desperately try to tolerate the birthday celebration of his whale-sized supervisor, listening to his internal monologue telling us about this monstrous event for this monstrous woman (which includes such descriptive gems as "anorexic"). Not much later thereafter, we're transported to a seemingly entirely different world where people can fly (well, not really, but close enough), gunmen can curveball bullets, and "The Matrix's" slow-mo is all the rage again. Oh yeah: It's also brain-burstingly bloody.

Back and forth "Wanted" goes, between cynical "I hate my life" comedy and over-the-top, stylistic gunplay as dear old Wesley is recruited into "The Fraternity" (of assassins) and eventually stops hating his life. Finding out "who he is," so to speak, Gibson now feels he has some sort of purpose in his life -- though of course, he has to come to grips with his new "occupation" as an assassin... you know, killing people and mean shit like that.

I'm going to skip over the "acting" in this movie, as it's entirely moot. The real stars of the show here, ignoring the randomly inserted sarcastic comedy for a minute, are the rampant, overdone but still enjoyable stunts and gimmicks. Watching Gibson fend off an oncoming bullet with one of his own never gets old, and Fox (played by a suddenly-super-skinny Angelina Jolie -- I mean Christ, I'm surprised her lips don't make her top-heavy) atop a speeding train car under doing a limboto fit under a low-hanging tunnel ceiling is pretty hot.

When I say overdone, though, I really mean it. You've absolutely got to make sure to check your brain at the entrance, grabbing that claim ticket before proceeding to drool into a cup. Watching an assassin shoot bullets around corners, or hang out of a speeding car where the front windshield used to be while firing behind the car at an assailant, is one thing. Seeing assassins complete a hundred-foot long jump out of a high-rise office into another building or sniping a target's forehead from miles away, in between moving train cars and through a fucking doughnut hole, is quite another.

The story does throw a common though still slightly surprising twist our way, and the mystique of this assassin's guild (as it were) along with its lore are pretty fun to sit through, but since we just have to get back to the crazy bullet-time action, the little things are fleshed-out only just enough for us to have the necessary "facts" for the plot. Those of you who might have wanted ten extra minutes to explore how "the loom of fate" works (yeah, brain at the door) or more about the The Fraternity's past, or just any lore or mythos you might want, will be out of luck. In terms of lots of backstory, the movie version of Assassin's Creed this is not. It certainly doesn't get any brownie points for throwing in a very brief discussion -- if you can even call it that -- on fate and destiny, on a totally superficial level without any meaningful expansion or impact. Though perhaps it's for the best -- no one wants to sit through another pace-destroying treatise on causality; one Merovingian was enough.

So yeah, "Wanted" gets hokey and stupid. However, it also packs every minute with either comedy, style, or intensity, and even all of the above. The performances are fine and never detract from the dumb fun, and rarely do any lines ever feel forced or contrived -- two things I can't say about horseshit like "The Fast And The Furious". If films like "300" make you giddy (though I should say that "300" is much, much better), you'll very likely have a good time with "Wanted". I certainly did.

(Bonus points for you if you enjoyed Bekmambetov's "Nightwatch"; you'll definitely see some stylistic similarities here. And if you end up enjoying "Wanted" but didn't see "Nightwatch" then mosey on down to your video store or web browser and queue up a copy of the latter.)