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FLAC or Mp3?
28
July
othersna

Well like a lot of similar “this or that” type of questions, it’s a matter of preference. I’m going to go over them and then discuss why I have my particular preference. This article is aimed towards the casual digital music listener, and will be much too basic for you music enthusiasts who know music encoding like the back of your hand. However I would hope you music pros choose FLAC.

First, some basics for the beginner. Music on a commercial CD is stored as a large, uncompressed WAV file, a format way too large to be used for digital storage. Therefore, the files need to be compressed for practical storage purposes. FLAC stands for “Free Lossless Audio Compression.” Therefore the software to compress a WAV file to FLAC is open-source and free for use by the public. Lossless means that the converted FLAC file is smaller than the original WAV file, but contains all of the digital information that was originally there, and one can transcode the file back to WAV without losing any information. Think of a FLAC file as a ZIP file for audio files, but specifically geared towards audio such that programs can play them with the same quality as a WAV file. FLAC files will generally be approximately 6 MB/minute of music.

MP3 files, the most commonly used files for music compression, are lossy files. Therefore, when music is encoded from a CD to an MP3 file, digital information is lost forever. If you transcode that file back to a WAV, the file will not be the same as what you started with. Its quality will be lower. The other thing beginners need to know is that there are various qualities of MP3. The early MP3 files were at a much lower quality than the original WAV file. Recently, MP3 files can be encoded at a much higher bitrate (amount of digital information sent per unit time). For example, a higher quality MP3 file would be encoded as V0, a variable bitrate which roughly averages 245 kbs. A V0 music file will vary in size depending upon the complexity of the song, but it is roughly 1/4 the size of the equivalent FLAC file.

OK, so now for the pros and cons. The average music listener, using low to average quality sound equipment, will usually not be able to tell the difference between a FLAC or a V0 file. Using my “decent but not high-end” audio equipment, I can easily tell the difference between a FLAC and a V2 (approx 192 kbs) mp3 file, especially with a piece of music which has a lot of instruments with a large range of frequencies. The sound of a V2 file will sound less “rich” (musicians call this quality “timbre”). However I have not done a blinded test of V0 vs. FLAC for myself.  Also in favor of MP3 files is the fact that most music players (including the iPod) will play MP3 files but cannot play FLAC. I recently bought a SanDisk Fuze, which does play FLAC and $89 for a 8 GB player is a good price.  Those who have limitations of storage space will prefer the smaller MP3 files as well but with the rapidly lowering price of external hard drives, the cost of storing a lot of FLAC files will progressively decrease.

Now here is why I prefer FLAC. Some of my arguments are based on emotion and are somewhat irrational, but like I said, there is no correct answer to the original question. First, keeping a collection of 100% “Perfect Rip” FLAC albums, complete with CUE files and gap information is like having the digital equivalent of having an archive of the original CD disks. You can burn these files back onto a CD and it should be digitally equivalent to the original CD. If you need a MP3 version, you can always convert the FLAC to MP3, but converting MP3 back to a CD will give you a lesser quality disk, and you should never transcode an MP3 file back to FLAC or to another MP3 file. You really get a degradation of quality when you transcode lossy to lossy.  Now I may be irrational when it comes to this, but I’ve always wanted to get the “best” of everything, so part of why I want to collect FLAC albums is because they represent the very best of music encodes. Even if I do convert them to MP3 to play on my iPod,  at least I have the FLAC album for archival purposes. However, my obsession/compulsion to collect the best FLAC has cost me money (external hard drives, seedbox rentals) and time(diligence to freeleech opportunities on my music trackers to build buffer). Those who are satisfied with their MP3 files probably think I’m wasting my money, but my situation isn’t much different from the guy who wants the best in golf clubs, fishing rods, or high-definition TVs. (But my hobby is less expensive.)

Did I answer the question?

Reference:  HydrogenAudio Wiki

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Category: Music, Tech  One Comment
Tech Newbie to the Internet World, Computer Genius to My Friends
08
May
othersna

My generation is known as the “Cuspers.” We are too young to be “Baby Boomers,” but too old to be “Generation X.” I’ve read that a big difference between a Boomer and a Cusper is that a Cusper is not as afraid of embracing technology. Well for me that’s pretty much true. From childhood to my college years, I enjoyed playing with computers. Now mind you, my first experience on a computer was playing a game called “Star Trek ‘73″ on a teletypewriter. I actually took a few computer programming classes in high school and college, but they were in Basic and Fortran. (don’t laugh). On the horizon, the real computer geniuses at my college were using the new Unix computer and programming with a new language called “C.” I then forgot about computers until I discovered the internet in 1993. I didn’t get into a lot of the tech issues, but rather enjoyed the social aspects of using e-mail, message boards, and websites.

Fast forward to 2008 when I discovered the world of Bittorrent. Again, I had little interest in the details of how it all worked, and was really more interested in the end result, which is having the content I wanted on my hard drive. But torrenting is a hobby which forces you to have some technical knowledge, especially if you want to get the most out of it. For example, I had never used IRC before until I started torrenting, but I realized it is a necessity if you need support fast, or need to communicate with someone in real time on the internet. The very first time I used IRC was when I took the what.cd interview.

Now using a torrent client like uTorrent is fairly straightforward, but I did need to spend some time learning how to forward ports and get “connectible.” When dealing with music files, I needed to rapidly learn the basics of sound files, and how to obtain them from original sources without losing quality. I learned how to master EAC, and learned the purpose of  .log, .cue, and .m3u files as well. With video files, there was even more to learn. There are all sorts of formats and I needed to know not just the differences between them, but also how to play the various formats (VLC is FTW). Then came learning how to do screenshots, how to obtain rip specs, and how to convert a video so that it plays on my iPod. Some issues are still way over my head, like setting up AVIsynth scripts for MEGui. (So far I’ll stick with HandBrake and DVDFab.)

Again, I thank my fellow members at TPS for all their help with learning how to not only survive but thrive in the torrent world. In some ways, I still feel like a newbie compared to the knowledgeable people there. A very special thanks goes to the seedbox team at TPS since I have no clue on the technical aspects of using a seedbox and relied on their tutorials and one-on-one help when I had questions or problems. Note that one year ago I did not even know what a seedbox was. Now I have enough basic seedbox knowledge to  use one  efficiently.

But I have some solace in knowing that in real life, people think of me as some sort of computer genius. (Believe me, I am not.) There are people out there who are grateful that I know how to fix their relatively simple computer problems, like removing a virus from their computer. Or that I impressed someone by telling them I set up a local area network at my office (including a wi-fi connection). But sometimes the biggest thanks I get is from those rare people in real life that I trust enough to share my “pirate booty” with. They don’t ask a lot of details on how I got what I have, but they think I’m a genius for figuring out how to get it!

Category: BitTorrent, Filesharing, Tech  One Comment
iDisappointed – My introduction to the Apple Tablet
10
February
ryedawg

I was a little anxious when I went to bed that night because tomorrow was going to be a dig day. I set an alarm for really early to make sure I wouldn’t miss a thing. When I woke up I was pretty groggy because it was a lot earlier than I’d normally get up. I didn’t care though. The moment was here! It was finally going to happen! The years and years of rumors and gossip, it was all about to come to an end. Or maybe it wasn’t?? Just like the day before Christmas, part of the fun of today was trying to guess whether or not you were going to get EXACTLY what you wanted! Well, after all of my anticipation, it seemed I was finally going to find out! Was there really going to be an Apple tablet??

Now, after that build up, you’re probably doing one of two things. Either you’re hating me for being one of those rabid Apple fanboys or your thinking to yourself, “I was doing the same thing!” Whatever camp you belong to, you couldn’t ignore the fact that it was a big day in the world of tech. The Apple tablet had been talked about for so long that it was almost mythical in status. A huge Apple branded unicorn that the world hoped to find one day, even though we all knew it pretty much didn’t exist. Was it going to be announced? Well, me and the rest of the world were about to know in a few minutes because Steve was about to take the stage and do his thing. I got my MacBook (the best machine to follow one of Steve’s presentations on) and climbed back into bed ready to press refresh repeatedly so that I could follow the live blogcast of the event. It wasn’t as good as being there or watching a live feed, but it was the next best thing! Hint to Apple: stream the video of your event live from now on please!

So Steve took the stage and in his normal style, started off slow by giving the crowd a recap on where things currently stood on planet Apple. The numbers all looked good, but I was hoping he’d be done with this part quickly and get to the freaking’ announcement! Luckily he did and guess what?? There was actually an Apple tablet! How cool was this thing? It was totally flat, had a gorgeous display and, like my wife, was fully touch sensitive! Heck, I even nudged her awake and started frantically pointing to the screen and saying “look, look, there it is!!” I immediately started thinking about how this puppy would look in my hands and all the cool stuff I’d be able to do with it. I was guarded though and as the presentation went on I kept hoping that they’d announce the one key piece of functionality that would truly make this my dream gadget. Cue Mel Gibson in Braveheart, “Freeeeeeeedom!” That’s what I wanted. That’s my killer app. Give me the freedom to install whatever I want and let me use my hardware the way I want to use it.

If you haven’t already guessed by now, I’m a completely dyed in the wool, certifiable Apple fanboy. I love the reality distortion field and I totally succumb to it every chance I get, but It does wear off eventually and there are things that bug me. You could make a pretty good comparison between Apple and democracy. They’re not perfect, but they’re easily the best option out there and I wouldn’t want it any other way. The main thing that really gets to me though is the amount of control that they exert over the iPhone and the app store. The rules are quite draconian and at times, they really limit the usefulness of their gadgets. I was hoping and praying that the tablet would be free from these restrictions. But as things wore on Steve made no mention of multitasking, and after the presentation was over, all the interwebs kept bitching about was how crippled this thing seemed to be. And, you know what? I agreed. I didn’t want to, but I did. This gadget that could have been my baby, the one that I had waited years for was…..a let down.

It could have been so great, but instead, it’s a giant iPod touch. That’s not groundbreaking or original or revolutionary. That’s just a bigger screen. I wanted this so much to be my bitchin’ mobile torrent device. It was going to run a full desktop operating system. I was going to be able to remote desktop into my seedbox from it, grab my files with a full version FTP client and take a full-screen, compromise-free version of TPS with me wherever I went. And that gorgeous display, it was going to make all of my HD x264 content absolutely shine! And all instantly, without having to convert it or load it into itunes first and deal with all of that drama. Finally I’d be able to listen to internet radio AND check my email at the same time, all while slapping around a n00b or two in #TPS. It was going to be perfect. Beautiful, powerful, incredible and a bunch of other really positive adjectives were supposed to describe it. But, they don’t. And, it wasn’t.

I still want one. I mean, it is pretty cool and as an Apple zealot I’m required to get one. Despite the restrictions, I’ll still probably be able to do some pretty cool stuff with it. What I’m really waiting for though, is for the jailbreak community to go nuts with this thing, because it could be so much more. Hopefully they can make the tablet worthy of it’s previously mythic status. Or maybe, JUST maybe, Apple relinquishes some of the control and allows people the ability develop for this device and distribute outside the walled garden that is the app store. One can hope right?

Category: Tech  One Comment
Rambling thoughts about Machine Learning, Quantum Computing and the Singularity.
18
October
McHoodlum

Earlier this week, physicists Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli at the Boston University of Massachusetts put a fundamental limit on the speed at which quantum computers could process information. In their paper, published in the Physical Review Letters journal, they proposed an equation for the minimum sliver of time it takes for a quantum operation to occur. From this, they concluded that “for every unit of energy, a perfect quantum computer spits out ten quadrillion more operations each second than today’s fastest processors.”. This got me thinking about machine learning and the singularity.

Often in film and literature, the singularity brings about the destruction of the human race. To quote The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance;

“In the beginning, there was man. And for a time, it was good. But humanity’s so-called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption. Then man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise”.

The time in which this revelation occurs is often over many decades, and I feel this is a gross unjust to the power of a technological singularity. If a technological singularity, or the recently coined “Quantum singularity” were to come about, a machine that was sentient, and able to improve upon itself, we could effectively class Moore’s Law as a relic of an inferior and primitive past. The exponential curve in technological advancement would be unfathomable, and rather than a machine taking decades to learn, I foresee a quantum computer, able to reach a mere fraction of it’s fundamental limit, breaking this stigma into a matter of days, or hours. Whether this will have a good outcome, or it decides to call itself VIKI or Skynet our of sheer irony, has yet to be foreseen.

The theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is a fanatic in the promotion of the Kardashev scale, commonly referred to as the three levels of civilization (Type I, Type II and Type III). Humans don’t register on this scale, we are a meager type 0. If a singularity were to come about, and a machine was able to reason and learn, who’s to say it wouldn’t be utterly disgusted, albeit a human emotion, at a race calling itself advanced yet continually destroying both the planet, and each other? And short of coercion through simply “hacking”, why would such a system willingly help and divulge knowledge that could potentially fuel our own destructive nature? The equivalent of giving ants fire, or more accurately, an atomic bomb. Would it first teach humans compassion, or will it itself be the next stage in human evolution and intelligence? This is the same reasoning given for why, if there is such an advanced series of civilizations out they who may be aware of our existence, have never come to Earth giving us their technology, and rightfully so.

The terminator scenario comes to mind. Machines endowed with the essence of man, carrying a deep seeded malevolence for an inferior species. Juxtaposed with the great advancements such an event could bring- Medical research; Solving ever increasing and complex physics problems; Mind uploading; Advanced prosthetics; Augmented and virtual reality; Nuclear fusion; Almost perfectly efficient systems; Dyson Rings/Spheres; Transportation; New, awe inspiring methods of data transfer; The advancement of fields still in their infancy, such as teleportation, and ultimately a definitive theory for everything, currently the most prolific being string theory. The possibilities of such an event are unfathomable. Limitless. It would pave the way for a new way of life, something only a fraction of has been expressed through film and literature.

An event like this would almost guarantee a population split. Conservative opinion over artificial life not being life at all, as opposed to AI apologists who believe a life, no matter how it was created, or its inability to fit contemporary terms, still being life. A term with no uniform meaning, argued both philosophically and scientifically. If the authorities on such matters cannot agree on a definitive definition, who’s to say that an artificial life that arguably has more sentience and sense of self than any animal, or human, shouldn’t be treated like one of us?

Would an infinitely smart system mirror that of The Borg? A system that has only one sense of self working as a single whole, coming to one ultimate conclusion, or would experience and interaction bring about different ideology’s and emotions like a child is molded into an adult through life experience. I often think that an infinitely smart being wouldn’t hold a need for such emotions as jealousy or a murderous nature, but if the latter is true, would we see an uprising of ever prominent and dangerous machines that have fundamental disagreements with the human race as a species fit to live?

Many theories revolve around the fact that an artificial intelligent life wouldn’t have a need for love or compassion as it didn’t evolve in a such a way, through evolutionary reproduction. It is software. Software that could simply copy itself as it see’s fit, a primitive but efficient form of reproduction still prominent with simpler life-forms, but drives no diversity. This would mean the AI would be free from all emotion, but what would a driving force be for something without emotion? If this was to escalate, and it did have a driving force, who’s to say that it would be to eradicate human life rather than help?

These potential dangers have been somewhat addressed with an ever increasingly popular field termed “Friendly Artificial Intelligence” or FAI, promoted by The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (est. 2000). The goal of FAI is to develop AI that as opposed with the previous, ‘lifeless’ model, will be programmed to feel sympathetic towards humanity, and all life. This ideology should be inherent, and the desire to pass on the friendliness trait should be present throughout all offspring of. Others believe the idea to be less simple, and guaranteed Friendliness not being possible.

I think a more worrying scenario would be those guys who like tearing clocks apart, or turning their XBox’s into laptops, or PS3’s into George Foreman Grills. If personal AI comes about, we all know people are going to pick them apart to see how they tick, and make their own modifications as they see fit, which probably isn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. Goes without saying that governments will no doubt be interested in super soldiers who don’t sleep and are almost impervious to bullets, were already seeing warfare turn to the unmanned sector…

We do always have Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with either the First or Second Law.
… That’s if they interpret the rules the way we want them to…

Category: Abstract, Concepts, Tech  Leave a Comment
ISP Download Caps, a rant!
20
August
akramh

Access
So we have been hearing this year that a major move in the US for enforcing download caps or fair use policies. Now you have to wonder why are ISPs doing that, is it really to give internet users a more quality experience or is there a more hidden agenda? And how do we fight this? This is not just a US problem too, here in the middle east it’s also an issue, and other parts of the world such as Australia.

So what’s the new hidden Agenda? Well just think about it, consider some of the really large ISPs like Warner, what other services do they provide? Cable TV… could it be that after the financial wows that happened last year with people loousing their jobs, they started to cancel Cable TV services and don’t want to buy as much DVD/Music as they did before? So they turn to legal streaming which is cheaper, but it reduces the fat profit margians for these corporations. offcourse add to that the ilegal p2p, so what’s the solution for them? you got it, download caps…

Look what people in egypt are doing here , the goverment wanted to put download caps but the people protested, not just in the streets but in facebook and twitter and finnaly the goverment canceled that idea. sadly in jordan these download caps have existed for over 5 years now and nobody protested, some just rant in blogs, we have only 1 unlimited internet ISP but they are not able to cover the whole capital at the moment, we wait for them to expand their services to other areas but it will take some time, but there is hope. I just hope by the time they get to my area the goverment won’t force them to put download caps in order to regulate the ISP market.

For me I have a 10GB Limit and my father likes to watch Youtube. I just downloaded 2 movies and moslty surfed with the daily antivirus updates I am now near the limit already on the 18th of the month. If I was downloading freely I would be over the limit usually by the 10th. but at least they don’t limit the upload for now, I uploaded over 20GB already this month I have so many torrents that I am putting on hold, when I reach the download cap I start download freely as then it does not matter how much I download.

Category: Filesharing, Tech  5 Comments
The concept of evaluation for Microsoft
14
August
bubbl3

TechNetPlus
I bet all of us are used to the term evaluation applied to software, pretty much all the commercial software has an evaluation version with a feature or time limit.
As usual Microsoft decided to reinvent the wheel with Technet: they make you pay to evaluate their software. I even don’t know when Technet was born, since I’m interested in IT it was there, all the resources were restricted to the paid customers, then they made many resources available to the public and kept exclusive features like software evaluation to the subscribers.
In the US a Technet Plus Direct (direct download only, no physical media shipped, but who needs them in 2009 ) yearly subscription will cost you 349$ for the first year and 249$ if you decide to renew.
Let’s focus on the evaluation part, on the main subscriptions page they let you know that “A TechNet Plus subscription includes premium resources to help you evaluate Microsoft technologies, plan deployments and support your current IT environment” also they specify in a dedicated box that you can “Evaluate full-version commercial software products like Windows 7 without time or feature limits”.
Those statements probably made you curious and now you want to know more, with a little effort you can reach the “Buy” page with a link named “What are TechNet Plus subscriptions…” that states: “A TechNet Plus subscription is the ultimate resource for IT professionals. TechNet Plus provides convenient access to full-version Microsoft evaluation software—without time limits! The annual subscription also includes Professional Support incidents, a technical information library, and many other resources for evaluating, deploying, and maintaining Microsoft software.” and later down in the benefits descriptions: “Microsoft software licensed for evaluation purposes. Evaluate full-version commercial products without time limits or feature limits, including Microsoft operating systems, servers, and Office System software. With full-version software, you can make informed decisions about new technologies and deployments at your own pace.”
But all those statements say the same things over and over, we still don’t know what exactly “evaluation” means for Microsoft, so I searched more and in the Technet support section I found the “Getting Started” page that is just a conventional FAQ. There I found two interesting informations:

What is the general nature of the terms of the TechNet Plus Subscription End User License Agreement?
The subscription terms vary based on your subscription level and license type. Each subscription license type entitles only the designated subscriber to use evaluation software, support incidents and access the TechNet Benefits Portal – no other users are entitled to use these resources. A single-server subscription allows a workgroup to share the technical information library content only with others in their organization. For full details on use rights, see the TechNet Plus License Terms.

Can I use evaluation software received in my TechNet Plus subscription at home?
The license grants installation and use rights to one user only, for evaluation purposes, on any of the user’s devices, this may include devices at home. Keep in mind that you may use the evaluation software only to evaluate it. You may not use it in a live operating environment, a staging environment, or with data that has not been sufficiently backed up. You may not use the evaluation software for software development or in an application development environment.

So finally what we know about Technet subscriptions is:

• It costs 349$ for the first year and 249$ for a 1 year renew.

• You can evaluate with no time limits or feature limits commercial versions of Microsoft software including Microsoft operating systems, servers, and Office System software.

• You, the subscriber, are the only one entitled to use the licensed software.

• You, the subscriber, can install the licensed software on all of your devices, included the ones at home but you can’t install it on a live (read production) environment, staging (live events) environment and you can’t use it for development (there is the more pricey MSDN for that).

Very interesting isn’t it? I would like to add some things that I know from my experience with Tehcnet:

• Even if your subscription expires the licensed software you got from Technet will still work, so there’s totally no time limits.

• The software you get is the same as what you get with a purchased retail version, for example a Windows CD-KEY can be used 10 times for activation and after that you can just phone Microsoft and tell them you had to format your PC and need a phone activation.

• You don’t have to provide any proof you’re an IT Professional when you buy a Technet subscription.

I’m sure you got the feeling that the concept of “evaluation” Microsoft expressed is not that clear, they don’t ask you a proof you’re working in IT, they don’t really say what you can’t do with the software you get, I mean, yes you can’t develop with it and you can’t host a stage presentation but they don’t say you can’t use it for a media center at home or for gaming, also it never expires.
I had any sort of discussion about the “misuse” of Technet subscriptions, some people even said that get one for home use is like pirating, probably the subject will never stop to be a matter of discussion.
What I think is that it depends on how you morally see the situation and how you define “evaluate” in the limits of the Technet license.
Microsoft states you can “evaluate” it at home so I guess you could say you’re evaluating it at home to see how applicable it is in a working environment, even a future one because you’re planning to have a career in IT. The terms only really explicitly state it can’t be used for development or live environments which I don’t think really falls under home use. The fact the wording has been somewhat confusing and vague for some time and hasn’t really being addressed pretty much says to me that Microsoft is happy enough for home users to subscribe and pay for it.
As I said others will see it differently and some will say it’s same as pirating. I personally think it’s one big grey area thanks in part to how Microsoft designed it and something which they seem happy to leave unclear as far as home use is concerned despite being pretty clear on how the software is to be applied for work purposes.

What you think about it?

Category: Tech  5 Comments
.NET Coding Review
11
August
SunSpyda

Microsoft

So I grudgingly decided to dive into Microsoft’s “Big New Incompatible Thing”, .NET, after realizing that I’m a bit behind atm.

Hmmmm, OK, so it’s hardly new, but it recently has been getting so far integrated into Windows that I saw it as a necessity.

So, I DLed VS ‘08 Pro (With all the languages), and the entire MSDN documentation onto my HDD, and here are my thoughts…

The .NET Framework my .NET apps were using was 3.5, so I was using the new stuff. As well as learning the “Three NETs”, I read about it’s architecture and how it basically works. I also read about how to write the .NET CLS IL (Equivalent of ASM in native code). My god, it’s so much clearer than ASM!

The first thing to understand is that .NET apps are 100% portable, as long as you don’t tie yourself in down with non-portable libs. All .NET incarnations seemingly support the same small base, so across .NET apps, there is portability for all the basic functions. The small base seems the same across MS .NET, Mono and the rest of them.

more…

Category: Learning, Tech  Tags: , ,  5 Comments
The Power of 1s and 0s
06
August
Trrrundle

You’ve just bought you’re shiny, new, top of the range laptop that cost you an absolute fortune. Hurrah! You think that it will easily fulfill your computing needs for a few years. Then a year and a half later you’re friend buys a laptop that is twice as powerful as yours, for the same price you paid. Unfair? Well, it’s not! It’s the law.

It’s not just any law either. It’s Moore’s Law; something that I expect most of you reading this will be aware of. Just in case you aren’t (where have you been for the last 40 years?!), Moore’s Law states that “every 18 to 24 months, the density of transistors on integrated circuits and, therefore, the speed of the chips will double.”

Moore’s Law has held true for the last 40-odd years and it’s predicted that it should continue to hold true for at least another two decades. Simply put, the theory implies that processors should keep on getting twice as fast every 18-24 months until transistors (the basic component of processors) are down to the size of atoms, or as small as is physically possible. Does progress have to end there though?

more…

Category: Concepts, Tech  2 Comments
Clean Slates Ain’t So Great
16
July
hypnotoad

My friends, I gambled and I lost. I rediscovered that drinking nonstop for two days does nothing to heal the wounds that cut so deep. Unfortunately, sobering up only left me a little less endowed in the wallet and just as utterly empty inside as before.

The cause of my broken heart? My aches and pains? more…

Category: Offbeat, Tech  7 Comments
The Epic Battle: RPG vs. FPS
13
July
achillbreeze

It seems this is a never ending affair.    The stereotypical four-eyed, dice-chucking lover of the, up until recently, text heavy, role playing game defending the honor of the thinking man’s (or woman’s) game from the aggressive numb-skull that is the fan of fast-paced killing in first person shooters.  I’m a big fan of both and love when a company tries to mesh the two.  This guy does not.

more…

Category: Gaming, Tech  Tags: , , , , ,  9 Comments