The Internet Says the Darndest Things

Recently I've been working through the tutorials over at Google's App Inventor with the hopes that eventually I'll use it to make my own quick Android application [although I still have no idea what that app will be].

The App Inventor is really simple to use and in some ways reminds me of MIT's Scratch program due to it's use of puzzle pieces to make programming easier.

When I first heard about App Inventor I thought it could only be used to create pretty simple formulaic applications, much like Google Sites, however as I continued through the tutorials I discovered that you can create some very dynamic and complex applications using their tool suite. App Inventor even allows you to create applications that interact with an online database.

And that's where it gets fun, or at least funny. For the purpose of the tutorials Google created a web DB for use by everyone, that means that anyone can add information to this DB, presumably doing so when the tutorials call for it. However, it being the Internet more than just "hello world" was submitted. Here are some of my favorites:

key: yourcousinstwiceremovedmomma
value: SAD SAD MONKEY TINKERING WITH INTERWEBS
Someone needs to learn that just adding "momma" to something doesn't make it a "your mother" joke.

key: words
value: sex
What does it say about me when my biggest problem with this is that he shouldn't have used a plural if he was only going to write one word?

key:  steven

value: I am not hard but you can make me

Wow, just wow. 

key: white

value: poop

I'm kind of hoping that "white" is a name because otherwise this person should see a doctor. 

key: testnotetw

value: Not now have a headache

Me too buddy, me too.

Now the first time in the tutorial you have to use this DB is when you write a short quiz making application. These are some of the quizes that were made:

questions: "name","age","land","country","alias","girlfriend","job","daddy","power 1","power 2","power 3"

answers: "superman","133","iceberg","north-pole","charles","lois lane","newspaper","jor-l","flying","laser eye","can break any material"

Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Superman's alias Clark? 

questions:  "Is Rose beautiful? ","Is Jim nice?","Is Jack black?","Is Stella sweet?","Does it rain in southern California?","Is our house grey?","Am I cool?"
This didn't have answers, which is a shame because I really wanted to know if Jack was black.  

questions: "Who is the Savior?","Who is the Dragon?","Favorite Food","Who is the Savior?"

answers: "Jesus Christ","Satan","Shabu Shabu","Jesus Christ"

Halfway through they forgot who the savior was 

That's only a tiny sample of the 1000 entries which are on the test DB, so until next time I'll leave you with one last pondering from the DB:

questions: "how old am I?","what is my favorite Pokemon? "
answers: "18","ditto "

Gender Differences on Craigslist

Out of boredom, and geek curiosity to see whether I could do it, I decided I wanted to make a visualization to compare the different words used in Craigslist personal ads by men and women. I also wanted to see whether the words used would be different if they were posted on the "seeking" section or the "casual encounters" section.

The first challenge was to write a script that would be able to take all the text from every personal ad on the front page of the four different sections: w4m, m4w, casual encounters w4m, and casual encounters m4w. Surprisingly, I was able to accomplish all this with 22 lines of python code.

relevant xkcd

More surprisingly I didn't really hardcode too much in there, which means you could reuse the script to analyze a different regions craigslist and only have to change three lines [I think]. This is possibly because craigslist has a pattern for their urls:

http://singapore.craigslist.com.sg/stp/2463324417.html

As you can see the general pattern goes:

city.[language.]craigslist.com.[country.]/ad-section/post-id.html

So from this I was able to write a general expression to read through the front page of each ad section and gather all the post URLs.

Each post page is also pretty standard, and very nicely puts the ad text within set sections:

<div id="userbody">Here is the ad text. <!-- START CLTAGS -->

Which meant that I could write another regular expression to extract only the text of the ad and write it to a text file. I then used TextWrangler to remove any extra HTML tags.

To make the different word clouds I used IBM's Many Eyes web service because it's free, helps further clean up the data by removing common words [I also decided to remove the word "looking" from all the data sets], and gives you a lot of different options. After tinkering around with all the settings I was left with my four visualizations [click on the picture to view full size].

w4m

m4w

casual encounters - w4m

casual encounters - m4w

So there you have it. Geek victory and possible conversation starter. Now, as I said at the beginning of this post, I started this more for the tech challenge than analysis of the results so I'm not going to have a Jerry's Thought on this, although I will explain that one of the reasons why the word "nine" is so prominent in the women's casual encounters section is because mobile numbers in Singapore all start with 9, I think.

Review: L.A. Noire

This game is old school

After about a year of hype regarding the revolutionary new facial capture software, Rockstar's newest game, L.A. Noire, is finally upon us. Featuring a main character of Mad Men fame, and more classic cars than you can shake a stick at, I actually pre-ordered this game out of the hype.

Story

You play as Cole Phelps, returning WWII war hero and patrolman. Or at least you start off as a patrolman, but you don't stay dressed in blues for long as you rise up LAPD's ranks and work vice, homicide, and arson. 

The LAPD's tactics haven't changed much in 70 years

The storyline is developed through cases, newspapers you can find in the game, and flashbacks to Phelps' time in the war. Compared to other games, L.A. Noire puts a lot of emphasis on the story and while it's not exactly worthy of an award it's a lot better than the usual "save the world by ______" story, plus it does have a few good twists. 

Gameplay

This is not your typical Rockstar game, or at least not like GTA or Red Dead Redemption. For one, you can only wield your weapon when the game lets you, and you can't run over pedestrians, as they always find a way to move out of harm's way. 

The game is broken up into different cases that involve finding clues, interrogating witnesses, and sometimes shooting or fighting scenes. At the end of each case you are ranked and then moved on to the next case. The game tries to make the biggest point about it's interrogation sequences in which you're supposed to take advantage of the magical face capture to "read" whether a witness is lying. You are given three options after each statement and have to decide whether a witness is telling the truth, lying, or just doubt their statement. 

These choices feel like they are mislabeled sometimes and it seems that Phelps' can only ever be angry when he doubts someone, which is funny sometimes. 

Finding clues is probably the least fun part of the game, as it mostly involves walking around a scene until your controller vibrates and then hitting a button to make Phelps look at something nearby. Although you can disable this "hint" there's no real other way to tell if you've found all the clues for a case. 

Apart from the cases, the game also has "street crimes" side missions which almost always involve chasing down a suspect either on foot or in a car. All of the games actions reward you with experience points which level you up and can offer rewards in the form of intuition points which can help reveal clues or remove answers during an interrogation, new outfits, and rare car locations. 

Presentation

The game looks good, really, really good. 

I recognize this guy from somewhere...

However, it doesn't look good all the time. It is possible to drive so fast that you can beat the textures and one more than one occasion I crashed into a hydrant that hadn't spawned. But the game still does look good enough to be able to pick out specific actors who make an appearance in the game. For example you'll be able to spot half the male cast from Mad Men. 

Sadly, they left the women of Mad Men out

The voice acting also benefits from having actors, although sometimes there are pauses between characters that break up the immersion, however, as these are usually happening during a driving sequence I like to pretend that Phelps is so focused on driving that it takes him a while to respond to his partner. 

Speaking of sounds, the soundtrack, and radio commercials are excellent. You really do feel like you're in L.A. during the late 40s, I was so nostalgic I even drove out to Olvera Street to see if they had the Aztec Dancers performing, sadly they did not. 

Recommendation

This game is tough to judge, there was a big attempt to go the Heavy Rain way and make something different from the tons and tons of war FPS, and in some ways it succeeded doing this as the game was even honored at the Tribeca Film Festival. However, this is a game that feels like it forgets it's supposed to be a game sometimes and feels like a huge quick time event. Still, the pacing is good, the storyline is better than most, and the game play is fluid most of the time. 

I don't think the face software will revolutionize gaming but hopefully it'll encourage more storytelling in gaming. I recommend this game as a break from cover based shooting and constant re-spawning, although if you're expecting to be able to go on some GTA rampage in 40s L.A. you will be disappointed.  You will also be disappointed if you're expecting the female cast of Mad Men. 

maybe DLC?

Don Squeaky

he's watching, always watching

After successfully moving our TV out of the dining table and onto a proper TV shelf thing, we decided the next step to make our flat a home was a pet. Now, since we really aren't the most responsible guys, and we don't really do much in the way of chores, theres an empty beer box in the fridge right now and it's anyone's guess how long it'll be there for, we had to get something low maintenance. 

My first thought was a cat, since they're pretty low maintenance, as in they'll use you as a B&B and scratch you if you try to pull of that whole, "I'm your owner and I want to pet you" noise. However, since some people can be allergic to cats, we decided that it probably isn't a good idea. So then we started thinking small, fish was one option but you have to clean tanks and they don't really feel like a pet as much as a decoration, so we eventually decided on a hamster. 

that's where he does his business

We bought our little hamster, I forgot what type he is, and named him Don Squeaky. We bought the hamster starter pack at the same time which is: cage, a bathroom, bathroom sand [didn't know they used sand], bedding, wheel, food, stone thing for his teeth, water bottle, and of course a hamster ball. It took Don Squeaky a while to get used to the place, a process which was marked by him making noises and running away from us like we were a really big cat or something, but eventually we kind of all settled in and got used to living with each other. It probably also helped that we hooked his house up. 

his house has two floors, that's pretty cool

Don Squeaky is actually pretty smart, when he wants us to take him out of the cage and run around he goes to his little observation ball [which is where we usually let him out of] and he'll begin to pound on the plastic, which I imagine is his way of saying "yo, let me out son", so that's cool. 

He also has a pretty funny habit of storing food in his cheeks and then setting up little food stashes everywhere. We suspect this is because we forgot to fill his bowl once so he knows better than to depend on us. Besides getting a kick out of him running around in the hamster ball like an American Gladiator, his house is another source of entertainment, and a place to throw money at. From the initial house we've added an observation tower and recently, a labyrinth, all pretty cool things. We keep saying that we're going to have his tube things run all along the house, but we realized that this will mean having to disassemble, clean, and re-assemble said pipes so not sure this will actually happen. 

freedom!

So far Don Squeaky has been a pretty good flatmate. He doesn't complain about the noise, stays up late, and is generally as clean as we are [not sure if this is a compliment to him or a put down on myself], now if we can just get him to pay some rent we'd be golden. 

MG XXXG-01D2 Deathscythe Hell

Picture from the Gundam Wikia

I've had a pretty long hiatus from Gundam assembling so this month I picked up two different models, the XXXG-01D2 Deathscythe Hell is the first of the two that I decided to build. I picked this one up from looks alone, because I mean the whole demon-wings thing looks pretty intimidating right?

This model is from the "Endless Waltz"anime from 1997, that's all I really know about it but apparently it is "both a sequel and prequel to the Gundam Wing series"whatever that means. Seriously though, at some point I'll actually watch these things.

he has a really small head for some reason 

Of the two I bought I decided to build this one first because it's mostly dark which means I can mess up on the cutting and and it won't be too noticeable. Also, I usually don't do much lining on darker models since you can't tell, so this one was a nice model to build to get me back on the proverbial horse.

nothing says profesional like a bunch of toys on your desk

Although I wanted an easier model to help me get my groove back, I'm a bit let down by the Deathscythe. It has very little movement compared to the others, the hands don't move independently instead you select one of three separate hands and snap it on, and there's only one real weapon for it, compared to the four or five that come with the other models. Still, the Deathscythe got it's revenge and drew blood from me, so there's that.

there should be a bunch of decals there, but there isn't

Although the build was mediocre I still think the finished product looks nice, although I messed up some of the decals and so I didn't add them to the wings. 

Review: Portal 2

Portal 2 is Valve's sequel to their Orange Box hit, Portal. The game is a platform puzzler that uses portals to create some pretty unique chin scratchers.

Having played and enjoyed the original, and not having bought a game for some time, I figured I'd give Portal 2 a shot. [That was a pun because in the game you have a portal gun that shoots portals, get it?]

Gameplay

The game is a first person platformer. You control... well actually I don't really know her name. You control her as she goes around the testing facility after the events of the first game. I don't really want to give too much away, although the story in this game isn't really that riveting or necessary for the enjoyment. Even if you didn't play the first game you won't feel too lost.

thinking with portals

As the title would suggest it, you use portals to solve your way through a set of testing chambers. The portal mechanics are pretty easy, you shoot two different ACME-like holes that are connected. Go in through one, get out the other, simple. The sequel also introduces gels, and that blue thing you can see in the picture above.

The original game was on the PC and controlled by mouse and keyboard, while I played Portal 2 on the PS3. The game controls pretty similarly and given the choice I think I like the console version better, each portal gets assigned a separate shoulder button and you use the normal one joystick to move one joystick to look setup.

The puzzles range from pretty simple to "I'll try again tomorrow" and overall the game doesn't feel as short as the original did. Plus with the addition of co-op multiplayer, although I only tried it on split screen because Sony has decided that it's Asian customers don't deserve PSN even though they themselves are an Asian company but I digress, a full retail price feels justified.

Presentation

the game does look pretty

The game looks very well made, it supports HD output and the on screen action takes advantage. There's plenty to see beyond a cold testing chamber and even a couple of different venues that had me surprised.

The voice acting is well done, with a return from GLaDOS, although the character you control is very much the silent type. The humor from the original carries through, and there's plenty hidden around the world to make you stop and smell the roses instead of just running for the exit.

Recommendation

Overall the game is good, although like other sequels fails to live up to the shadow of the original. If you didn't play the first Portal you should definitely get the sequel, and if you did play the first Portal then you should definitely get the sequel.

these are actually the good guys

With more and more FPS releases, Portal 2 is a refreshing change of pace from the typical run and gun of other games. It's well made, funny at times, and with the co-op multiplayer it's a good way to match brainwaves with a friend.

Tales From Jakarta: The One Shoed Man

Local Beer

On our first night in Jakarta we visited Stadium, having read so many good things online about the place. We stumbled out of the club at four a.m., discussing philosophy for some reason, and looked for a cab to take us back to the hotel. Now we knew that in Jakarta we had to be careful, which is why we wanted to take a cab as quickly as possible, so as to avoid staggering around at night. We figured once we were in a cab we were home free, wrong.

Out of the club and walking along the main road we were sort of shepherded into a cab. The cab driver paid some money to our shepherd, which we all thought was weird, and we were off to our hotel. Now for some reason the topic of the night seemed to be philosophy so we were all engrossed in a discussion about our own mortality and the meaning of things as we drove back. Halfway through my explanation of Indra's Net we realized that things started looking less and less familiar and that we had been in the cab for longer than felt right. 

There was a real language barrier for us in Jakarta and trying to communicate with our very local cab driver seemed futile. Still as we asked if we were going the right way and if he knew the hotel he reassured us by making an approving grunt and pointing forward. This kept on for a couple more minutes, by this time discussion had stopped as we watched the road intently, until we got onto a bridge. Here the whole car seemed to shake and then shut off. "Out of gas."

The car slowly rolled to a stop on the bridge, the driver repeating "taxi dead, no gas" before going out to the front of the cab to pop the hood and verify that there indeed is no gas, how you are able to determine this by looking in the front of the car is beyond me. 

So we got out of the cab, noticed we were on a bridge over a landfill of some sort, and had no idea whatsoever about where we were. As the cabbie came over to the sidewalk with us I made an important observation whose implications would reverberate throughout the rest of the trip [not really], the cab driver had one shoe! 

As we stood there dumb struck, and still a bit drunk, we were debating about whether it would be good to try and walk to the hotel, the driver had assured us we were close and it was "this way", or to try and hail another cab. It was about this point that we all noticed something else, it was prayer time in Jakarta. The sounds of  the prayer mixed with the ridiculousness of the man having one shoe and the slight danger in all of this made the event ridiculous. 

Eventually another cab came over and picked us up, we had to pay off the one shoed driver something and ended up giving him less than half of the metered price. Turns out we were going in the opposite direction although we were pretty close to our hotel. As our new fully shoed driver made a U-turn we noticed that the last cab had magically created gas and was now off the road. Less than five minutes later we were back at the hotel and could laugh at the whole ordeal. 

The moral of the story: only take blue bird group cabs in Jakarta. 

Review: Nexus S

Nexus S

After owning my new Nexus S for about a week or so I thought it would be good to compare it to the iPhone since that seems to be a popular thing now-a-days.

Note: I will be comparing the Nexus S with my old phone which was the iPhone 3GS except when I reference specs acquired from Phone Arena.

Phone Features

One of the big news items about the Nexus S and the new Android OS is NFC support, which is a new technology that Google seems to be trying to push in the US. Another huge advantage that the Nexus S has is the ability to create wi-fi hotspots, which is a bigger feature if you consider apple's reluctance to allow tethering. Also, the fact that you can use the Nexus S as an external hard drive, and do more than just get photos off the phone.

Another feature of android phones are the search, menu, back, and home buttons. Although I wasn't used to having all these buttons at first, they are very helpful. The menu button especially, because it frees up more of the screen for the applications. The iPhone has only the single home button.

The iPhone does, however, have an external vibrate button, which I found useful.

Winner: Nexus S

Camera

The Nexus S has a 5 megapixel rear camera and a .3 megapixel front camera. In addition the rear camera has an LED flash. Although, my old 3GS only had a rear camera the iPhone 4 has the same camera specs as the Nexus S.

Also, while both the Nexus S and the iPhone 4 can record video, only the iPhone 4 records in 720p.

Winner: iPhone

Battery Life

According to the specs the Nexus S has a better stand-by battery life compared to the iPhone 4, however, in practice I've found that the battery life on my Nexus S is comparatively worse to my old 3GS. This could be due to how the phone handles background tasks, which might be my fault for not managing correctly but it still translates into worse battery life.

I use my mobile phone as an alarm and therefore leave the phone unplugged on my bed. Upon waking up I've found that the Nexus S has lost more battery life through the night than the iPhone did.

Winner: iPhone

This time, it's personal

Apps

I know that Steve Jobs has made a huge deal about the number of applications available for iOS devices, however, I've found that this number is heavily padded by games and other fun apps like sound boards. With the exception of my mobile banking application, I haven't been missing any application.

Also, I've found that the Android applications do much more than iPhone applications. While apple made a big fuss about allowing the Opera mini web browser through their secretive approval process there's no less than five web browsers for Android. These alternative "stock" apps don't stop at web browsers, don't like your sms app? Download another. Don't like the phone dialer? Download another.

Additionally, although there's been a lot of news about malaware applications on the Android marketplace, Android also allows you to see exactly what parts of your phone any application accesses. This way you can see whether a game application wants to see your contact list. I've found that it's not necessarily true that the iOS apps are safer, it's just that Android apps expect more from the user.

Another big advantage of Android applications are widgets, which you can add to your home screens. Widgets can provide application functionality without having to launch the application, so you can have your twitter feed on the home screen without having to launch the twitter app.

Winner: Nexus S

Text Entry

This is one area in which the iPhone winds hands down. The iPhone not only offers inline spellchecker, which the Nexus S doesn't, but handles text manipulation better. Controls for copy, paste, and text selection on the Nexus S are intuitive but it requires popup screens which should not be the case. Also, the text selector on the Android gets in the way more often than not.

Winner: iPhone

Voice Control

Although both phones offer voice control, the Android has more robust support. The Android voice control is incorporated into the keyboard which lets you use voice text entry across different applications, which means you can do a voice email entry, voice web search, or even voice enter your name for a game. In addition to this there are more stock actions [call, play song, next, etc] on the Android.

Winner: Nexus S

Customization

On a normal iPhone the customization is limited to changing wallpapers, contact photos, and ringtones to some extent. In the case of making ringtones I had to edit a file in Audacity, send it to GarageBand, and finally share it as a ringtone. Choice of notification tones can only be made from a list of included ones.

On the Nexus S adding different sounds for ringtone, alarm, and notifications is as easy as copying files to the correct folder, that's it. No worries about proper file format, iPhone ringtones have their own proprietary format, or which application to use.

Winner: Nexus S

Jailbreaking/Rooting

The iPhone can be jailbroken which allows you to take more control of your iPhone and do things like customize icons, home screen appearances, add support for different application launchers, etc. When I had my iPhone I thought of jailbreaking as a necessity to truly get the most of your phone, I'm noticing that jailbreaking your iPhone gives you access to features and functionality that you get on an Android without having to modify the OS.

Although I have not rooted my Android, yet, it seems to give you more functionality than a jailbroken iPhone has. I see the two different processes as this: jailbreaking an iPhone allows you to become the admin of your system, rooting an Android allows you to change the system.

Winner: Nexus S

Sync

One of the benefits of smartphones is the ability to sync information like contacts, calendar events, and music with your computer. On the iPhone this is handled by the apple suite: iCal, Address Book, iTunes, etc. although there is some support for other sources. However, it still seems that you are tied to a single computer, for example the address book that my phone syncs with is the one on my personal laptop.

Android phones aren't as tied to a single computer because most of the sync features are done with a google account. This means that the address book, calendar, and applications are synched with your google account, the same google account that you can access through any computer. For example, if your phone dies and you need to get a number from your address book you can log in to google and check from there. Also, I could never really get my email to push to my iPhone which isn't a problem on the Nexus S. 

The one clear sync advantage the iPhone has is music, the iTunes + iPhone combo beats anything I've been able to find on the Android and as a matter of fact trying to get my Nexus S to sync to my music collection caused me to delete all my music from my laptop, by accident, seriously. 

Winner: Nexus S

Conclusion

Comparing the scores the iPhone won three categories [text entry, battery life, camera] while the Nexus S won the remaining six [phone features, apps, voice control, customization, rooting, and sync]. Overall I feel like the Nexus S is more of a computer than a phone, which for me is a huge geek advantage. With my old iPhone if there was something I couldn't do [let's say download big apps over 3G] I felt as if it was the phone's fault and felt stuck, with the Nexus S if I can't do something I feel like it's only because I haven't found it yet, because of all the flexibility the phone gives you. 

So I know there's a bunch of hype for the iPhone and I know if Jobs mentioned that the white iPhone 4 would be coming out tomorrow there'd be a line forming everywhere before he finished his sentence, but don't believe the hype, do the right thing, get an Android. 

My New Nexus S

The Box

In February I qualified for a new phone upgrade and so I started to think about which phone I wanted to get. There were only two real options: iPhone 4 or some Android. My iPhone 3GS was still in good condition, and no I din't really need a new phone but I figured I was due for a new toy, so why not.

I decided against the iPhone 4 and go for an android, mostly because I felt that I had done everything that could be done with the iPhone and if I was going to get a new phone it might as well be actually new. 

This was my iPhone battery image  

At the time I had decided that the best android phone available was the HTC Desire HD, and so I enquired as to how much it would cost me to upgrade. However, as luck would have it, on my way to buy the HTC phone I saw the Samsung Nexus S in a random store, and I was reminded of its existence. The phone hadn't officially come to Singapore but it could still be bought, for about an arm and a leg, and so seeing as this phone was superior to the HTC [in my opinion] I decided to do some searching. I found on the google that there were rumors that the Nexus S would come to Singapore in the first quarter of the new financial year, so I figured I would wait out these rumors and hang on to my money, which isn't too easy for me.

One day a colleague of mine casually mentioned that the Nexus S had arrived in Singapore with all three mobile operators, after making sure he wasn't playing with my emotions I decided to check the closest store to see if it was in stock.

The plan was simple, wait after work, ask if they had the phone in stock, nod approvingly if they did, go back home, transfer all the stuff out of my iPhone, and then purchase the phone to following day. So after work I showed up the store, but was met with news that they were out of stock, I asked if there was a nearby store that still had stock and they told me that there was one not too far away, and so I went.

The plan was still the same, although I was a bit rattled by news that the phone was out of stock, I didn't expect there to be that much demand for the Nexus S, especially given the amount of iPhone users I saw every day. With these thoughts running through my head I made it to store #2 fairly quickly. I looked around the store and noticed no display models, not a good sign. However, this was possibly done on purpose to test fair-weather buyers because after asking the cashier he told me that they did have the Nexus S in stock.

I asked how much it would cost me to get the phone given my eligibility for a new contract and the fact that I could trade in my iPhone 3GS. I was informed that the phone would normally cost me $348 but after inspecting my phone and assessing the value at $300 [not too bad for a one year old phone] all I would have to pay would be $48.

"Very well good sir, I shall return tomorrow to acquire the device," is what I wanted to say. However, what came out of my mouth was something a bit different.

This is closer to what I said

I asked the cashier if he could start all the paperwork as I frantically emailed myself all my notes and made evernote notes containing screenshots from soundhound and pictures I had taken with the phone. After all the paperwork was done they took my iPhone and factory reset it in front of me, which was very comforting, not that I had anything to hide.

So I left the store with a new phone in my pocket, a big smile on my face, and only a small dent in my wallet.

It may be cheap but I'm squeezing two posts from this event, the next will be an actual review of the phone.

Box Car 2D

The newest geekery for me is Box Car 2D a game you don't really play. Actually more than a game it's a demonstration of pretty good coding. The site describes the game as a "Genetic Algorithm Car Evolution Using Box2D Physics". The objective is simple, have you car travel as far as possible. However, you don't drive the car, instead you watch it evolve and can influence it in a number of ways.

The game uses is an example of a genetic algorithm to create the cars. The body of the car is made up of eight different vectors with differing magnitudes and angles. These vectors are then joined by triangles to make the car. You can decide whether your car should have anywhere from one to eight wheels of differing radii, each of which can be attached to one of the vectors that makes up the body. Each of these variables [the magnitude and angle for each of the vectors, the number of wheels, and the wheel radius and what vector it's attached to] becomes a "gene" and all together it makes up the chromosome. After a generation, which consists of X number of cars all running the course, parents are paired up and produce offspring. This passing on of genes is made helpful through color coding, therefore if one parent is all red and the other is all blue, you can see which parts come from which parent in the child. Lastly there is also a mutation rate you can control, this mutation will represents the likelihood that one of the genes gets a random value rather than being inherited from a parent.

There is a car designer that will allow you to create a car you can then use as the starting parent if you don't want to start with a random population. The designer is a bit hard to use because all the toggles are in terms of their values so the design isn't achieved by drawing our your car but by selecting magnitudes and angles.

There are different tracks for your car offspring to tackle. Some have a clear goal, like speedway, while others have a specific track feature, like the peak. The basic track doesn't seem to have any goal or specific feature and is the most frustrating to "beat".

During the week I tried to beat the normal track by inputting what I thought would be the best initial car, letting it run for some time and then taking the best performing car once performance plateaus and tweaking it in the designer.

My Best Initial Design

The initial design was based on the observation that cars with a big wheel in front and a small wheel behind tend to do pretty good at both taking a high fall and getting over peaks. In the higher distances of the default track [yes I played this thing enough to know the features of the track] you need good torque to climb up inclines so starting off with 91 torque seemed like a good start. After some number of generations the best I could get out of this initial design was a car that had a high score of 1033.8.

Best Car

Review: NBA Jam

It's Back

Recently I've been buying old games that I missed out on because I didn't have a PS3 so I haven't really played a current game, mostly because there hasn't been a release that has interested me all that much. However, when I heard that NBA Jam was coming out for modern consoles it warranted it's own entry into my calendar.

Originally the game was only going to come to Wii, which sucked. Then there was news that the game was going to be bundled as free DLC with EA's NBA Live 11, but then it seemed that EA realized they couldn't compete with 2K's basketball franchise, I mean they had Jordan on the cover, and they scrapped NBA Live.

However, seeing as there was enough fan demand and companies generally like making money, news came out that NBA Jam would be it's own stand alone title for PS3 and Xbox 360. Fans weren't too happy about this at first, mainly because they didn't want to pay full price for a game that was originally intended to be DLC, and they thought it should be offered through PSN for less than full price.

Either way, the game was released for PS3 at full price and I went and bought it because I needed a new multiplayer game and when they announced that the game would have the same announcer from the original game, it was a foregone conclusion that EA would get my money.

Gameplay

The game is simple enough to play. There are very few functions on either offense or defense so it's very easy to pick up and play. The controls are smooth and responsive, although with such a short action set I'm surprised you don't have the option to map your own control scheme.

The game features different modes, but at it's core it's 2v2 basketball. You select a team and then choose two players from that team to take to the court. One big annoyance is the fact that there is no "tag" mode which means that you are locked to one player, unlike the old SNES version where you controlled whoever had the ball. This is especially frustrating since the iPhone version does have a tag mode. However, unlike the iPhone version you can pay with three other friends.

The Remix mode is a normal game with power-ups, you can get an increase in strength, speed, or shooting ability, and there are power-ups that make you tiny, or invulnerable to shoves. This mode is fun although doesn't feel too different from a normal game.

There are other modes that feel like different games such as: smash, 21, elimination, and domination. These are all varied enough that you don't feel like you're playing the same game. However, the one true stand out is "Boss Battle" in this mode you take on a NBA superstar that has some special power in a half court game. My favorite so far was playing against Dwayne "Flash" Wade, this was the most fun for me because there are no breaks in the game, which means that after scoring, you don't have to clear the ball so you must be careful not to let Wade camp under the net and score basket after basket.

Presentation

The presentation doesn't seem to have changed much from the original game. While it does support HD, without vast landscapes or intricate characters it's not really an advantage.

As I mentioned before the voice of NBA Jam is back and every "boom shakalaka" takes you back, although apparently EA realized this because the announcer uses it so frequently you'd think it was a punctuation mark. The other sounds in the game can get repetitive as it seems there are only four music tracks.

The dunks look spectacular and getting on fire and dunking is especially nice as you elevate to ridiculous heights and you hear the click of the camera shutters as the photographers capture your flight. There is also a "camera hog" mode that will zoom in on your face at the peak of a fire dunk.

Recommendation

As a whole NBA Jam is a good game to have, especially if you have a human opponent. Although the game does support online play, there's nothing sweeter than blocking a dunk and talking trash to someone next to you on the couch. The dunks feel rewarding, the character roster is solid, although lacking some key players [no MJ], and with great one liners like "no hoop for you" it makes for good entertainment.

Bacon-wrapped Hot Dogs

Not Quite Epic Meal Time

After finally making it out to the store for some grocery shopping over the weekend and making a call to the management to get a tank of gas, it was finally time to do some cooking. While we were at the store doing the shopping it became clear how hard it is to start a kitchen from scratch. I mean we had nothing, no salt, no oil, no knives, no cutting board, nothing.

So after we bough a lot of cooking basics, plus some other flat basics: toilet brush, broom, surface cleaner, etc. We had run up a big bill and still didn't have enough ingredients to make an actual meal, so while we were waiting at the checkout I decided to make a run and grab enough things to make some hot dogs, bacon-wrapped hot dogs. They're simple to make but hardy enough to fill you up, so I decided it would be a good first meal to make.

Ingredients
• Beef franks
• Hot dog buns
• Bell pepper
• Onion
• Avocado

The first step is to wrap the hot dogs in the bacon. There isn't really a technique or style just try to cover as much of the hot dog with the bacon as you can. Once the hot dogs are wrapped up, place them on a skillet and cook them until the bacon and the hot dogs are cooked.

The Veggies Make it Healthy

After that's done slice the bell pepper and onions into strips. Cook the bell peppers first and once they start losing their firmness add the onions. Season the veggies with salt and peper and remove from the pan once the onions get a bit caramelized.

Once the veggies are done assemble it all together and add the fresh avocado on top.

Home Cooked Goodness

MG MS-06J Zaku II

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Booklet Cover

Well this model took me longer to complete than any of the others so far, mostly because I took a big Europe break in between construction but also because of the number of decals that this model has. The MS-06J Zaku II is a variation of the wider MS-06 Zaku II line which apparently is one of the most enduringly popular mecha designs in anime history.

The model is another 30th anniversary model like my RX-78-2. So far the only special feature I can see in these 30th anniversary models is more articulate hands, which end up being annoying to assemble. The Zaku also has some unique build features, mostly around the hoses, which are made from springs and plastic rings. The assembly of these was pretty unique while not being overly difficult.

Booklet Back Cover

Like I've said before, I haven't really seen any of the Gundam anime or manga so I'm not too sure about the storyline but I think the Zaku is one of the bad guys, although I could be wrong. The only reason I bring this "bad guy" possible fact up is because with the other models I would end up with one or two cuts from the detailing, however, with this model I cut myself at least four times, and while it could be due to me being clumsy I'd like to think it's because this model is evil.

Back View

The number of decals on this model was bordering on ridiculous and all it did was help me realize that I need to find out some way to make sure I apply them straight because I'm sure one or two are crooked, which bothers me. Also, there are a number of decals that you can't see in it's final assembled form. There is one radioactive sign decal that you can only see if you separate the top and bottom halves of the model, seriously, it's there.

Completed Model

Zaku looks a lot more different than the other models I've assembled. It might be due to the fact that the head isn't square and there are a lot more curves but it might have some storyline explanation so who knows.

Difficulty

As the gang leader decimated my party for the third time in "Dragon Age Origins" I was faced with a tough choice, go off and grind out some levels or drop the difficulty. Seeing as I was already playing on "normal" this meant going down to the dreaded "easy" not usually a high point for gamers.

However, the more I thought of it the more I realized that my inherent shame in dropping down in difficulty level was absurd. The real reason I was playing Dragon Age was because I had heard so much about the game world, the cannon of the story. In review after review they raved about the storyline, the level of detail paid to the characters, the breadth of choices you could make. So in stopping to think about it, I realized none of these things really had much to do with how good I was at the fighting part of the game, I wasn't really trying to "play" the game as much as work my way through the story.

I also discovered that there is no "easy" mode in Dragon Age, the level below normal is called "casual". This lead me to believe that the developers themselves knew there'd be different types of gamers playing their game and that they would be looking to get different things out of the game. While some gamers play an RPG in order to complete the game under "hardcore" difficulty; others, like me, are picking up an old game to see what they've missed, to see what the hype is about and don't really want to be bothered with grinding a character to twenty levels before being able to fight a minor boss.

This isn't the case in other games where the fighting is the point. I can remember trying to pass the airplane level in Modern Warfare under the hardest difficulty solely for the achievement it granted you. In most FPS shooters, the satisfaction of the game comes in beating the levels, doing the actual grunt work, therefore it doesn't make sense to lower the difficulty unless you're a continue away from throwing your controller away through your television.

So I guess what I'm saying is, yes I'm playing Dragon Age on casual but it's okay because I don't care that I leveled up my character and got him enough skill points to be able to defeat the evil uncle. I'm more interested with what's going on with the blight and to see whether the party will ever make it to the lair of the archdemon, oh and also with hooking up with the witch from the wilds.

BRB

I'm writing this from the free internet kiosk at the airport as I wait to board my flight to Amsterdam. Never in my little Inglewood street days did I ever imagine I'd actually be going to Amsterdam and less so to the other destinations on my trip: Dublin, Paris, Germany.

I won't be blogging much during my trip [and I haven't been doing much of it before the trip either] but whenever I can I'll try to upload pictures or short snippers to my twitter account @ramosisms.

See you in February.

Xmas in January

I've won at xmas

Shortly after arriving in Singapore I discovered reddit, a site that has since taken over most of my free time and even some of my non-free time. It would possibly take a whole post to descrive why reddit is so awesome but let me just share one of its awesomenesses, secret santa...

Yes, worldwide secret santa. You sign up for the exchange, get paired up with another user [you can specify that you want to be matched with someone from within the country too] and then the fun starts. After I received my own match, I scoured his user profile taking notes on posts, comments, weather patterns, anything. I made a profile of the person I believed my giftee to be, then I gave him a marijuana cook book, because I care.

In order to be timely with everything the reddit gift system sets up datelines to try to ensure that everyone gets their gift on time. I managed to mail my gift on the last day of the deadline and having done that all I could do was play the waiting game.

A day or two passed and I didn't get notification that my present was on it's way to me, no biggie I thought. More time passed and still, nothing. A little disheartened about the reddit community I continued to live my life, gaining solace in the fact that my gift had reached my giftee and he seemed to enjoy it.

But then, an orangered [reddit-speak for message]. It seems my secret santa hadn't realized he had a giftee, apologies where issued and a promise that a gift would be sent was made. I was content. Shortly before christmas I finally got the notification that my gift was on its way, hooray! However, the timing was tight and I wasn't sure I'd get it before the 25th. No biggie, I had bought myself a gift just in case [yes I realize how sad that might sound]. After xmas I checked the tracking information and found out that there was an attempt to deliver my package on the 23rd while I was at work, d'oh.

I checked at home and there was no "sorry we missed you" note, so I was at a loss for what to do and was saddened by the thought of my gift sitting in a cold warehouse, cold, alone. But then, just as I was ready to march into the central post office branch and demand action, I got my note. Better yet I could forward the package for re-delivery, having the benefit of experience I decided to have the package delivered to me at work.

The day of the delivery came, I glanced at my phone every 31 seconds hoping for a call from the delivery man, nothing. I occupied myself with work, still keeping one eye on my phone hoping I'd get a call from the mail room, nothing. The end of work neared and I checked first with the mail room and then the fron lobby, still nothing.

Sad, broken, wet from the rain, and a little hungry I went home.

Waiting outside my door was a box, could it be? As I approached it, out of the corner of my eye I noticed there was an alien in a box printed on the package...

This also is reddit goodness

I rushed the box to my room where I cut it open like Han Solo cut open that ton-ton on Hoth [clearly the excitement was making me hyper-geek-ventilate]. Inside said box I found win, pure unadulterated, uncut, Colombian win, and lots of it:

Budweiser Serving Tray and Grilling Sauces
18pc iWork tool set
2011 Zombie Pin-Ups Calendar
Classic Sport Table Top Tennis Set
Man vs Wild DVD
Flask/Funnel Set
Coleman Campers Utensil Set

And a note that read:

I didn't have much to go on from your description of "I'm a guy." So, here are a few "guy" things. Enjoy and go do some "guy" stuff!!!

This gift was so good it retroactively turned my "pretty good" xmas into "awesome" xmas, that's how powerful this gift was, it has time travel capabilities.

And that is why reddit and my secret santa are awesome. so. awesome.

Casa Latina

Carnitas

I went to Casa Latina a while ago, shortly after visiting "Señor Burrito" which left me with a craving for more Mexican food. I had heard of this place before but it was only after a friend went and sent me the picture above that I decided it was time I tried the food for myself.

After sitting down and looking at the menu I realized two things. One, the place was a bit pricey; two, they serve real Mexican food. The menu read like things my mom would suggest for dinner: carnitas, chile relleno, pozole, flautas, milanesa, etc.

There was so much I wanted to try I decided before I even got my food that I would be coming back to try most of the menu. However, for my first time I went with the carnitas and a bucket of coronas. I was there with my roommate so I'm not a drunk.

The carnitas came on a skillet and were served with tortilals, limon, and two salsas. The amount of carnitas you get in an order justifies the price, and you will most certainly be full. The carnitas were well done [although they could of used a little more manteca] and the tortillas were soft warm, and made me happier than food should. As I was eating my food, I was informed that although that unlike the rest of the staff the chef was Mexican.

The one disappointing of Casa Latina was the drink choice, especially after I'd had jamaica at Señor Burrito. They didn't have any aguas frescas, jarritos, or even a lot of Mexican beer. They did have the regular cocktails, margaritas, and the Coronas.

However, my disappointment as the lack of horchata in Casa Latina was short lived as I looked at the dessert  menu. They had flan, and if that wasn't enough they had tres leches cake. We ordered both and shared, mostly due to my insistence that my roommate try tres leches. Both desserts were good, and the tres leches was a pretty big portion.

Casa Latina is now my serious Mexican restaurant and I will definitely be going back, next time probably for the pozole.