Here’s a brand spankin’ new dj mix for those of you that have requested. Recorded in one shot, July 2nd between 5:08 and 6:08 pm, this gem runs the gamut from deep house, takes you a bit deeper close to the techno border, and lands you softly. If this don’t make yo’ booty move, yo’ booty must be dead. Enjoy!
It’s official. The Chinese government has now outlawed trading virtual currency for real world goods and/or services. In this joint statement released by the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce, the government clearly defines virtual currency, including ‘prepaid cards of cyber-games’.
“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services,” the Ministries said.
Sadly, it took some personal investigation to discover the topic of Urban Renewal (I truly do not remember covering this topic in High School). And from what I’ve learned, both from reading, watching, and talking to those that lived through it, I’ve come to a personal conclusion that the ‘Urban Renewal’ projects that took place across this country should be considered a crime against not only architecture, but art, and therefore the human spirit as well.
This crime spread far and wide across the US, beginning just after the second world war, and stretching well into the 1970’s. While in theory, the project sounded like a massive modernization of America, and again, on paper, that’s exactly what happened. Don’t get me wrong, there where a number of positives that occurred under the Urban Renewal program, but at the same time, an incredible amount of American architectural history was demolished at the same time. And let’s not forget about that wonderful rip-off known as ‘Eminent Domain’, as was popularly used to further Urban Renewal projects.
I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the first single released off Phish’s upcoming album, Joy. At least I wasn’t until I heard this gorgious acoustic version Trey’s people posted over at Vimeo 20 days ago.
Certainly not a statement you’d normally hear from a top executive of one of the worlds’ largest games publishers, and certainly not from the man at the top, CEO John Riccitiello. But low and behold, that’s exactly what he’s done. “By the way, if there are any pirates you’re writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes…” he revealed in a recent interview with IndustryGamers. “If they would just pirate lots of it I’d love them. [laughs] Because what’s in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff.” In other words, what Riccitiello’s saying here is that the pirated disc is now more like the gravy and silverware, whereas the meat and potatoes of the title are contained online.
Now certified as a genuine success for EA, the Sims 3 was leaked weeks before the game saw store shelves, and included a note inside the file not to connect the game online. The same note encouraged people to buy the game if they liked it. Now call me cynical, but there’s something in the back of my mind that just screams ‘guerilla marketing’. If that is in fact the case, I stand and salute you EA. Well played. Even Riccitiello is willing to give a comical nod to the concept, stating, “You identified our secret marketing campaign! That was a very large scale – concentrated on Poland and China – demo program.” Demo or not, it put the new title in a lot of hands, and generated one heckuva buzz that couldn’t be bought.
You may recognize Hodgman from his Daily Show appearances, of perhaps more so from his “…and I’m a PC” line from Apple’s popular advertising campaign. Yes, this clip is 15 minutes long, but worth every moment, so go grab a fresh cup, sit back, and enjoy Hodgman’s vetting of President Barack Obama’s nerd credentials.
I caught this video the other day via a mention on twitter. Naturally, I had a good laugh and that moment of ‘that’s awesome!’-ness, but then filed it and moved on to the regular day’s activities. Later that night I sent it over to a few friends, and watched it again. Again a smile came to my face, but something else happened. I started thinking about group dynamics, and how this example could apply to the marketplace.
Every once in a while, someone brings a product to market that just makes me think – why? Naturally, my second reaction is – ooo…can I get one? Such is the case with NEC’s CRV43 ultra-widescreen curved monitor. Essentially, what we’ve got here Bob (watch This Old House, and insert Norm Abram’s accent here), is four DLP (digital light processing) screens stitched together with some fancy LED backlighting to deliver a whopping 2880×900 double WXGA native resolution, 0.02 second response time, 200 cd/m2 brightness and 10,000:1 contrast ratio.
Now settle down there Skippy. I know what you’re thinking…I thought the same thing – OMGZ!! games are gonna be unbelieveable with this thing. Not so much. This Enterprise bridge like display has a highly unusual 32:10 aspect ratio (standard widescreen is 16:9 or 16:10). Rather, NEC says that this monolith is targeted at high end users in the simulation, digital imaging as well as the command and control industries, which require lightning-fast response times, a broad field of view, greater dynamic range, wide color gamut and employ multiple monitor set-ups. In other words, not your typical home office setup.
One of the primary reasons that I switched to mac just over a year ago was the stability of the Operating System. While my mac’s been fine, and would most probably have kept on working just fine, I guess there’s still a bit of my windows mentality lurking around, as when I started noticing some, ‘huh? what’s that all about?’ errors over the past few weeks, I guess I naturally reverted to the be all, end all solution – reinstall the OS. Fine and dandy, I’m quite familiar with the process via windows, so how hard could redoing the Mac OS X really be?
It’s quite easy – provided your DVD optical drive still works.
Since neither of these three topics could really deserve an entire post of their own (at least not with a heavy does of over embellishmen, which eventually leads to, STFU), I’m gonna lump perhaps the three most random topics together in one here. First up: Bacon.
Who doesn’t love bacon? Ok, vegans and vegitarians aside. Let me rephrase, what omnivor doesn’t love bacon? Smell it yet? Let me say it one more time: Bacon. Yum. I’m not even sure where my affinity for bacon comes from, or any one else’s for that matter. If you actually have a think about what bacon is, and what gives it it’s flavor. Well, umm….yeah, it’s kinda disgusting. Perhaps the reason bacon brings a smile to just about everyone’s face is what bacon signifies. I believe bacon to be one of the very true, core, roots comfort foods. Think about all your associations with bacon. Got a bad one? Me neither. Bacon is what mom made on sunday mornings. Bacon is what you have on the side at that greasy spoon diner where the waitress comes by every 10 minutes and doesn’t ask, she just refills your coffee. Now that’s good ol’ fashioned Americana. Bacon. Alternatively, as my friend Mr. Winemaker reminds me, bacon can also be enjoyed best on fresh ass (do NOT click here if you’re at work or easily offended).
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