Category: Useless knowledge

Information you have no need for. Ever. Usually about me, but possibly about other trivial crap in the world.

Gizmonda, a history

(via Joystiq)

I’m just going to steal Joystiq’s write-up. I actually haven’t followed this much more closely than watching the headlines at a few gaming sites and skimming articles at Joystiq and Kotaku, but this flow chart sure helps…

gamerevolution_gizmondo_flowchart.jpg

Been trying to follow the Gizmondo Ferrari story but can’t seem to keep the facts straight? Well we don’t personally see how a simple little story about an illegally imported excusive Italian sportscar, a video game exec for handheld has been Gizmondo, the Swedish Uppsala mafia, Homeland Security, a mysterious ammunition clip, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and a transportation service for old people run out of an auto repair shop is the least bit confusing at all, but some of you apparently required some visual aids.

Enter Game Revolution’s fun-for-all-ages flow chart, the piece de resistance of their extensive Gizmondo coverage aptly called “Gizmondo Bizarro.” It’s only a matter of time before they turn this into a made-for-TV movie featuring Eric Roberts as Stefan Ericksson in what will be heralded as “a gripping performance.” They’ll call it Crash and Burn: The Real Life Story of the Gizmondo Saga.

[tags]Gizmondo[/tags]

Love for zombies, MMO style

Finally, a game we can get in to where we get to be the zombie.  And it’s an MMO!

Exanimus is an online massively multiplayer game created in a world where the dead live and roam the earth eating the flesh of the living. While most of the world is dead, there are small pockets of survivors that exist in barricaded cities across the globe. Players of Exanimus will have the option of playing as a living survivor or as one of the dead roaming the earth. Exanimus will allow players to experience a MMO based in a horror genre by creating a dark and visually “intense” environment.
Exanimus is expected to be rated “Mature” and not intended for anyone under the age of 18.

[tags]MMO, MMORPG, Zombies[/tags]

A 19 inch laptop sighting

(via Engadget)

Here’s my first 19 inch laptop sighting.  Has anyone got any other links to different ones?

CALGARY, Alberta–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 9, 2006–VoodooPC, the world’s leading architect of highly personalized, one-of-a-kind high performance PCs, today announced it has expanded its award-winning notebook line with the introduction of the Voodoo ENVY Heavyweight u:909 Notebook, the world’s largest and fastest mobile gamebook. Measuring 17.5″ x 12.5″ x 1.75″ and weighing in at 16 pounds, the Voodoo ENVY Heavyweight u:909 Notebook is powered by the AMD Turion 64 processor and is THE ideal alternative for anyone looking to replace their desktop without sacrificing performance.

And if you are wondering, it costs around $5000, comes with a dual-layer DVD burner, runs at 1680×1050, and offers dual nVidia or dual ATI video cards.   I’m guessing lap shield and nuclear power plant are extra cost items.

[tags]VoodooPC, 19 inch laptop[/tags]

Wall of Quake 3

(via TechEBlog)

Have you ever thought you just really needed to play Quake 3 on a wall sized display? Well, that’s just what the folks over at plastk did. They used their 24 monitor wall display (run by 12 linux nodes – i.e. 2 monitors per node) to play some.

wallofquake.jpg

The end result is Quake 3 running at 10240×3072 resolution at 15-30 FPS.  What gamer wouldn’t want to try that out?
[tags]Quake 3[/tags]

Bang! Howdy

From the folks that did YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates is the hopefully soon to be detailed Bang! Howdy. From the web site:

Howdy pardner! Thanks fer moseyin’ on over to check out our mighty fine game. We’re still hard at work out on the ranch, but I reckon we can rustle up a bit of info fer a prospective cowhand like yerself.

Have a gander at these here excitin’ features:

  • Multiplayer online tactical strategy game in a 3D Wild West setting, yee haw!
  • Fast-paced hybrid of turn-based and realtime strategy gameplay with a healthy helpin’ of rootin’ tootin’ antics!
  • Dozens of unique units, hundreds of special playfields and over ten wild and crazy gameplay scenarios!Customizable avatars and collectable badges let you show them city folk that you know how to handle yer dogies!
  • Collect and customize Big Shot units that complement your play style whether ya like to take yer sweet time or go in guns ablazin’!

This company seems to be good at deliviring fun gaming in an easy to pick up format. And who wouldn’t love gaming in an old west setting?

[tags]Wild West gaming, Bang! Howdy[/tags]

Wil Wheaton: Don’t watch cable news with a fever

This is a few days old, but I enjoyed this post by Wil Wheaton so much, I just had to link to it.  I’ll go ahead and quote the part that particularly made me pay attention to the post:

This means that I’ve done a ton of reading today, and I’ve subjected myself to a few hours of CNN. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. No wonder so many Americans are misinformed, if they are getting their information from cable news. These douchebags do everything they can to create controversy where there is none, and they don’t even try to hide it.

Example: Wolf Blitzer, on The Situation Room (which is only watchable because of Jack Cafferty), just teased a segment on Jon Stewart thusly: “He says it will be the most controversial Academy Awards, ever . . .”

Read on for the reality of what Jon Stewart actually said.

[tags]Wil Wheaton, CNN[/tags]

Experience with socialized medicine

One of the editors over at The Consumerist writes some about his experience with socialized medicine.  The article is in response to an article about California’s plan to institute socialized medicine.  In the end, he seems to prefer paying more for medicine in exchange for better care.  I have no experience with socialized medicine, but folks I know who have had socialized and privatized medicine have all preferred privatized.

I’m torn on this. Ireland has socialized medicine, and it sucks. When I first moved to Dublin, I took my Yamaha Superscooter out for a rush-hour drive and took a spill off it going around 55, breaking both my arms and one of my legs. Luckily, I was right around the corner from the hospital, so I got up from the mangled wreck of my bike, flagged down a taxi, and had him bring me here. When I got to the emergency ward, a scrolling sign chipperly announced that average waiting time was 8 hours. It was 9am on a Tuesday morning.

. . .

The bottom line is that money talks. Whether we’re talking about health care, cars or cellular phone coverage, you get better service the more money you pay. When no one’s paying any money, you as an individual become a statistic and receive the base minimum of care, competence and attention to maintain the aggregate. So making private health care out-and-out illegal seems like a disastrous move for the consumers of health care.

[tags]Socialized medicine[/tags]

RIAA kills WKRP on DVD hopes

This is old news, but I just read this tonight.  Apparently, the high cost of licensing music for TV shows is making the release of WKRP on DVD unlikely.  I wonder why so many people feel the RIAA as an organization is just a big greed monster?

For many TV shows, costs to license the original music for DVD are prohibitively high, so rights owners replace the music with cheaper tunes, much to the irritation of avid fans. And some shows, like WKRP, which is full of music, will probably never make it to DVD because of high licensing costs.

[tags]WKRP, RIAA, greed, DVD[/tags]

Cat abuse is entertainment?

A cat piano designed in the 17th century makes “music” by poking trapped cats in the rear.  And why would one create such a device (aside from the desire to be cruel to cats, of course)?

In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy.

For more on the inventor, Athanasius Kircher, check out this article.  (via boingboing)

[tags]Cat piano,  Athanasius Kircher, cat abuse[/tags]