The Stewart/Colbert D.C. Rally: My Thoughts

So there I was. Lying in bed last night. My wife already asleep. I was surfing the net and twitter on my iPad, winding down for the night after watching Futurama when The Daily Show comes on. I do typically watch The Daily Show for its entertainment factor if not for some insight on what sort of news folks my age are getting these days (it still boggles my mind to think that for many of my peers The Daily Show is one of if not the only news source they listen to).


The show started out as usual. The greeting, announcement of that night's guest, ect. From there, Stewart moved into the news of the Pope's visit in Europe. I thought, "here he goes." Almost completely tuning him out, I nearly missed the announcement of the night. Watch for yourself:
That is right. Jon Stewart is holding a rally in DC. A rally to "restore sanity" with a march of a "million moderates". I'll admit. I was intrigued. Normally, Stewart forgets about the insanity of the Left. His coverage of the anti-war rallies during the Bush presidency was pretty slim if present at all, while he seemed to enjoy covering the Tea Party rallies of last year. But this time, he seemed to be honest in wanting to expose the insanity on both sides. To offer a voice to those who would rather find solutions to problems and drop the conspiracy nonsense.

That was until his counter part made his own announcement:
So... On the same day that Jon Stewart holds a rally that is meant to attract moderates, Steven Colbert is going to hold a march to keep fear alive? My attitude quickly went from intrigued to feeling victim of a prank.

What does Stewart expect of this rally? Am I to understand that Jon Stewart is trying to be fair and balanced by sharing the mall with a rally that is diametrically opposed to his own? Does he actually expect moderates to attend a rally (I could end the sentence there and it still be a valid question) that sharing the stage with non-moderate overtones?

What about Steven Colbert? Well... never mind. I don't see how anyone could take anything Steven Colbert seriously. Colbert is so over the top that he has actually evolved into a parity of himself.

So what can we expect from this rally? I am going to say nothing. Only those that are interested in the schtick offered by these two shows will turn up. Me? I'd rather be at home watching football.

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Alien Swarm Free on Steam



If you were playing PC games in the early 2000's, you probably remember a little game called Unreal Tournament 2004. If you were like me, while you weren't scoring Headshots or Monster Kills on as many noobs as possible, you were trying out as many mods as possible. Single player mods. Multiplayer mods. They were all fun, and it was nice to partake in what had become a thriving community of creative and innovative game developers both in and out of the industry.

One of my favorite single player mods was a little top-down shooter made in the obvious spirit of Starship Troopers. It became so popular that the mod mades it onto the Editors Choice edition of the game. The game was very fun and introduced coop play into the Unreal world by introducing classes that worked together and possessed unique abilities. And with enemy being the everyone's favorite target (bugs), it was fun for hours.

Well, the folks at Value hired that original team of modders and have rereleased the game on Steam. The best part.... its free!!



The keeps all the same stuff I loved from the original game. The top down POV, the bugs, and the classes. Here is a class break down:

Officer
Grants a passive bonus to damage and damage resistance to nearby allies. He has access to a class-restricted shotgun with an incendiary grenade launcher and has general all-around abilities. They are also capable of throwing extra amounts of explosive ordnance, and may find class-restricted ammo caches on the field for his Vindicator shotgun. The two playable characters are Sarge and Jaeger.
Carries a motion sensor, can set up sentry guns faster, welds doors faster, and is the only class capable of unlocking certain door panels or completing certain objectives by means of a hacking minigame. They also have access to a prototype assault rifle with auto aiming capabilities and the ability to fire stun grenades. The two playable characters are Crash and Vegas.
Special Weapons
Brings raw damage to the table and starts out with a customized autogun with superior parameters, high magazine capacity, and auto aiming ability. The Special Weapons gains access to a powerful minigun at a high enough level, and can pick up class-restricted ammo caches on the field. The two playable characters are Wildcat and Wolfe.
Medic
Is able to equip and deploy temporary healing beacons, and at a high enough level can use a "healing gun" to selectively heal teammates and themselves. The two playable characters are Faith and Bastille.
Tech
Carries a motion sensor, can set up sentry guns faster, welds doors faster, and is the only class capable of unlocking certain door panels or completing certain objectives by means of a hacking minigame. They also have access to a prototype assault rifle with auto aiming capabilities and the ability to fire stun grenades. The two playable characters are Crash and Vegas.

So why the free release? Well, it doesn't look like there is much "game" behind the game. From what I have seen and read, the story and levels are pretty simplistic. G4 TV (where I first heard about this, sorry I don't have a link) gave me the impression that when Value hired these guys, they main took the previous code and game assets, did a little bit of retooling and tweaking and released the game. Accompanying the game is an SDK allowing players create their own levels and possibly story-lines.

So the idea I am getting it this: Value is just floating the concept around. If it catches momentum and gets really popular, perhaps they will retool the entire thing and make an actual game out of it. Otherwise, they will let it evaporate and put the newly employed modders onto other Value projects.

Regardless of the intent or plans, we should all be thanking Value for the opportunity to play this awesome, bug-shoot-em-up game. And for free?? Who can pass that up?

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HTML5 Tweets: Getting Started and Things to Know

As a lazy developer, I think I have put it off as long as I can, and I don't think I can put it off anymore. It seems to me that HTML5 is getting closer and closer to being the ready to take it's place as the standard for web layout, design, and coding. Time to take the plunge I guess.

If you are like me, you have been following what cool things Safari and Chrome have been doing with HTML5, but you might not know where to start. It might seem odd, but I have found a good place to start is Twitter. If you do not have or follow Twitter trends, now might be a good time to do so. Here are some of the most informative tweets I have found in the #html5 trend.

arcadian: Go play! #js #html5 #css3 http://playground.html5rocks.com

guerrier: Building a custom #HTML5 video player with #CSS3 and #jQuery http://bit.ly/bNyfVk #WebDesign

fmontes: 25 HTML5 Features, Tips, and Techniques you Must Know - http://goo.gl/CI49 - #html #html5 #css #css3 #webdesign (via @rafaels76)


I know it is not too much, but it is a good place to get started.

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Zack Snyder's New Movie Summed Up In One Word: Nerdgasm!

Many artists have them, though most of them will not place such limitations on themselves. Niches. It might be a certain medium, mode of expression, or a certain audience they are trying to reach. Directors are no different. You can see blanket similarities in the works of the masters from James Cameron to Quentin Tarantino, and unfortunate for the artist, it can take decades of perfecting their craft to find where they fit. Good thing for Zack Snyder that he found his so early in his career.

As the director of Watchmen and 300, Zack Snyder knows what his audience wants and knows how to present it to him. And showing that he is here to please his based, take a look at his next--sure to be a success--flick Sucker Punch. It is sure to be the talk around the Dungeons and Dragons table. A movie will dragons, giant robots, and hot girls carrying swords and gatling guns? I can hear the asthmatic moans of ecstasy now.

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Apple's Innovation Comes to a Halt: Introduces "Magic Trackpad" as Replacement for Mouse



Look, I love Apple. It is true. Just as the cartoon of my enthusiasm in my logo depicts, I really do use (and love I might add) a Macbook Pro, but this made me laugh out loud. Really Apple? Really?

Not that a trackpad is not a good replacement for a mouse when you are using a laptop, but the idea that when given the choice, customers would use a trackpad over a mouse is beyond me. I would rather have a trackBALL than a trackpad when doing many of the tasks I use a computer for. Gaming, developing, photo or video editing. The mouse is vastly superior to my Macbook's trackpad, which is the reason why I always carry a mouse with me.

One of the few selling points is finger navigation motions you can make that mimic those on the Macbook pro. But Apple already has another product that can do the same thing. And this one is an actual mouse!

Don't get me wrong. I think Apple makes some great products, but this one is a step in the opposite direction.

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G4 Comic-Con Announcement: Will Run Four New Marvel Animes

Set your DVR's kiddos (I know I will)! This week G4 announced that it will be airing four brand new Marvel based animes on their network. Details are scarce at the moment, but we do know that they will be airing in 2011 and they will include Iron Man, X-men, Wolverine, and Blade.

Here is a video of the announcement and a preview. Enjoy:

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YouTube Changes Embedded Video Tag

YouTube announced Thursday that the will be changing their embedded techniques. They will be changing from the <object> tag to the <iframe> tag. Why?

If you use the new embed code style, your viewers will be able to view your embedded video in one of our Flash or HTML5 players, depending on their viewing environment and preferences.

Simply put, if a visitor to your site is on their IPhone or IPad, YouTube will default the player to an HTML5 player rather than a Flash player.

Currently, this is really the only instance in which a person will need to default to an HTML5 player. But I am sure that as the technology becomes more wildly used, browsers will come with options to use HTML5 players over Flash and vice versa. I am sure this is just YouTube (owned by the same company that developed the Chrome browser) getting ahead of the game that is sure to be around the corner.

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A prolific writer who loves his country and its people. I love my wife, my family, my friends, and my God. I love and write about anything from video games to deep theological questions.

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