I'm a writer!

Woo HA! I'm officially a writer!

Welcome to Radio Free Illuin!

Just a quick update as I float around Illuin gathering goodies to melt down into money. Eve Online does come pre-packaged with a nice soundtrack, but for some reason it doesn't seem to be playing correctly as I run around the universe. The tracks are good ambient pieces which add to the majesty of the vast reaches the players go through. However my jukebox is stuck.

It plays a piece, and then falls silent.

I'll be the first to say that the soundtrack or music is normally the first to go when I'm playing an epic game. As good as the music is, it's never something that I want to hear a few dozen times in a row. Heck, even Uriah Heep isn't that good.

But there's a nice little feature in Eve which addresses that issue. The jukebox allows players to create their own playlists as they plumb the inky black. So while I'm skating the warp through Illuin, I'm blasting The Pretenders.

Sweet!

Even More Tripwire

I caught the last Tripwire performance on Saturday, and once again loved the entire performance. There's no doubt that they can ROCK!




Yeah, it's a crappy image. But I'll say it again: I was taking this with my phone and so the quality is poor. Also, I was dancing at the time, so a little blur is to be expected.

I loved the fact that there is a giant garage door in the background behind the drummer. Yes, they look like a garage band! But they sound like pros!

It helped that the crowd was really into the music, and there was an energetic aura in the place that made each song seem new. I still have to get my hands on some Jefferson Airplane. Yeah, it's an old group. But they do some songs that are timeless, and lots of fun to blast!

A Lurker In The Dark

Eve Online Avatar = FadingSuns

Give me a shout if you're in my neck of the universe!

It's an unusual experience to see how Eve Online handles leveling a character. They really don't go into the grinding-for-mats approach. Other posts will give much more detail about the leveling system for EVE, so I'm not going to bother repeating anything here. But the method they use means that you don't have to do all night grinding sessions to level quickly. Essentially, everyone levels at the same time, although it might be more accurate to say that it takes the same amount of time to level a character.

That doesn't mean that grinding has gone away completely! There is still the resources to mind from asteroids. Yeah, lots of mining. Lots of asteroids.

Ted Puffer Reviews Eve Online

Ted Puffer Review = 3 1/2 stars, so far.

I'm withholding judgement on this MMORPG because it's slow to start, which I'm glad I knew about when I decided to give it a shot. All reviews I read mentioned that there is a learning curve, but also a pacing issue surrounding the game. It doesn't exactly hit the ground running.

But the most impressive thing about the game is simple: I'm updating this blog right now while playing it.

Remember the ghastly flight times in Warcraft? Well, Eve takes place in a massive, single shard universe. So you can only imagine the travel times there! However, Eve includes an in game browser, which strikes the perfect balance for play.

Warcraft has a warning sign that few people talk about. It's so common to have players buy gold or achievements that it is (and has been) a huge industry. Now when you are actually PAYING someone else to play your game for you, so you don't have to, that's a warning sign.

Eve realizes that there is some down time specifically because the universe is huge, and ALL players are on the same server. So to counteract this, it includes management tools to make it easy to have the game running in the background, while you work. So instead of bouncing between windows, you can actually browse and use your system tools within the game, and then moke and prod your spacecraft when it needs it.

And you don't suddenly come back to your game and find yourself ganked. Which is nice.

Blogger Teams Up

This morning I just got word from Blogspot that they are adding new tools to make it easier to customize the look of individual blogs. This means that anyone who makes a blog can now add style and glitz to their site with little effort.

I don't think this is a good thing because I love the sparce feel of Blogspot! Here's the deal. I've been desigining websites for awhile now and it's easy to make a site that has a ton of stuff on it and a million pictures. Check out ATALENTFORRAW for goodness sakes! Notice anything when you get there? How about the fact that every little bit of the screen has a texture, style or theme associated with it.

Now sure it's fun to make something that just leaps off the monitor, but in the back of my mind I can't get past the fact that the best site in the world has none of it.

Google.

Heck, even Fark.

Or if I'm going to push the issue, look at Drudge. Buzzflash was awesome, until they updated the site and hid half of their content.

So ease of access is important. Not just the ability to throw stuff into another template.

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad wrote "The Heart of Darkness".

It's worth reading.

It's also worth thinking about.

This isn't the easiest story to read, and only partially because of the style in which it's written. I'm not stumped by heavy writing styles, and actually enjoy them as long as they serve the purpose of making the story more powerful, or fitting the genre better. Conrad wrote this story in what looks like broken English, almost a stream of consciousness manner. It works well, but I don't think it's the only way the story could have been presented.
But that's only a minor point. As far as the story itself, it's good. Damn good.
And "Amy Foster" is even better.

A week without information

There's been some discussion online about the effect that Google's withdrawl (sort of) from the Chinese market will have for the company and for that country. Much of it is speculation because at the end of the day it doesn't effect us at all. But there are some interesting ideas that have arisen which bare some consideration.
In a recent article, one Chinese citizen said that Google's actions make it hard for the population to get the information in needs for daily living, which is an unusual statement to make.

Necessary information for daily living?
What is that?

Sure, it's handy to know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, or if there are any events happening on the weekend. But how much information are we given that is actually necessary for living? I'm thinking it's not that much.
Actually, I'm hoping it's not much! Yet another article found that over 60% of articles published in print media are actually PR releases for products or services. These pre-made articles are presented as journalism, but amount for little more than ad pitches.

Which leads me to two cool ideas. First off, we might not see vital information when it's presented to us. If I wasn't aware of the volume of ads disguised as news, and advertisements are essentially worthless to day-to-day living, then most of the information I get online and from print is actually filler. Fun to read, but not necessary.
Secondly, there has to be an easy way to find out what information is necessary for living, and what isn't.

I read a blog the other day where someone did a quick experiment of going a week without using a Google product. For this, he did without the search engine, but also gmail, Google maps, etc. A neat idea, but I didn't like the story he presented. It seems to me he just skimmed the surface of something larger. For him, he was more interested in seeing how hard it would be to do without Google for a week.

I'd like to cast my net further. How about a week without information?

So I'm going to go a week without any news at all. No Yahoo, MSNBC, Talkingpointsmemo, buzzflash. Heck, I'll even skip The Guardian.

From this I should be able to determine what information is actually necessary for living. And if I need a guess on the weather, I'll just look out the window.

Health Care Reform? Really?

Really. I have to admit that I didn't see this happening.
Oh, I knew that there would be SOMETHING that passed, but couldn't imaging the final form that it would take. For example, I knew that there would have to be some law passed that the Democratic party could point to as a sign of success, and that they'd be able to get something through Congress. But as far as to the effectiveness of such a law it would have been impossible to say.
So I'm very surprised, and happily so, that there appears to be a new law in the land which does protect a persons health and well being to some extent. Sure it isn't pretty, and not as effective as it could be. But goodness knows it could have been far worse.

Such feint praise is usually the sign that the greater good wasn't served and that real change or progress hasn't taken place, and I won't argue that point. Did America listen to it's angels? Not really. But they didn't shout them down in a fit of ignorance or cowardliness, and that counts for something.

So it is a great day after all.

Ted Puffer Quote #1

"One should often spend an evening with a reproving book"

Steampunk is Steamy!

Heh. There's a story that goes along with this, but my fingers are about to give out with all the typing I've done today so I'll just post this pic and get back to the explanation later.

Up? Really? For sure this time?

Actually, I think so.

It turns out that the problem I had with the site earlier wasn't that unique, but I'm still not sure how the 'proper' fix would have looked. Long story short, I had turned on the "Search Engine Friendly URL" function, which would allow search engines like Google to easily crawl the site and display content properly. As an added bonus, it's generally recognized that the SEF URLs help your Google ranking, which I wouldn't mind at all.

However, Joomla has a bit of an issue with that. It does have the ability for those friendly URLs, but more often than not it will make your site a giant furball of broken links. So there IS a fix, but it involves coding, and I'm not up for coding this weekend. I'm up for making a website.

Yes, I know that they sound like the same things, but they are different. One has lots of intense concentration with not a lot to show for it at the end. The other results in colorful stuff splashed across the screen by this evening. So I'm going for the one that has more immediate gratification associated with it.

So right now the site is up and looks pretty darn good. There's still lots of articles to put up, but I'll just work on those as time permits. What I'm really happy with is now nicely the site is linked together and how good the paintings look on it. So for the time being, there are pictures online, but no accompanying text to go with them. Maybe a little lopsided, but once I put some text in, the site should be fine. Also, it's got more space for additional content. So those Hardwar images will finally see the light of day!

More Articles?

The site is down. I have no idea what happened, but it wasn't pretty and I had to completely reinstall everything. Long story short, I lost some writing to the aeather of which the Internet is comprised. Even shorter story, I'm tired of typing for the evening.

The Good and Ugly of Steampunk

Steampunk is cool. Right? Right!
Renaissance Fair is sad. It is. Yes, it is.

So where do the two collide? From what I can tell, they collide at steampunk conventions. Now keep in mind that steampunk is very cool and more than able to take on the additional load of displaced Ren folks. But still, it's a hard thing to encounter. In the middle of some of the greatest works of ironmongery and creative brasswork are the typical pasty-pudgy matrons looking for attention where little is deserved. So while being at the convention rocks, there are hazards one should be aware of.

Just a little friendly advice:

1) Avoid eye contact with anyone wearing a kilt
2) Never look too long at someone's leather mug
3) Anyone trying to create a 'Dickensian Accent' by meshing Cockny and Brogue should be immediately punched in the mouth. Sad but true, and you'll be doing them a favor.
4) Any women wearing a bustle should be bustled off do the nearest Victorian Christmas knitting circle where they belong.

Other than that, the people are awesome and a great time is sure to be had for the brave.

They Like Me! They Really, Really Like Me!

The Redlands Art Association accepted my submission into their Multi Media Mini Show that runs from March 14 to April 8. Very cool!

The piece that I entered was an Analog Great Robotic Threat Detector, along with instruction sheet and package. So it's a nice little piece that will work well into the 14 1/2" space limit for the show.

I'd originally planned on doing a deconstructed Moby Dick painting, but that wasn't to be. I just ran out of time for that one, but I'm sure it won't be gone forever. I WILL make that painting! I WILL PAINT IT IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!

Actually, I will paint it. It's too good of an idea to just let go. But I won't bring myself to ruin if it doesn't happen.

New Site is UP! ...um... wait a sec...

Yeah, so I put up the new site just to take it down again. But it's up now.

I'm waiting for the time when this starts becoming fun... :)

Red Line

This is my first submission for The Lab's Dark Art show. I've texturized this image in Photoshop a bit, but just to bring out some of the detail which is lost from the picture. This image is from Pathologic. Is there anything in that game which doesn't lend itself to art? If so, I haven't run across it yet.
The virtual painting is sort of strange, and very 'flat'. The virtual painting looks like it's been sketched on clay slate with chalk, which isn't an effect that I go for, but really did like and wanted to capture as much as possible. Since this painting has lots of hurried brush strokes, as well as dark spatters of paint, I couldn't do an exact copy of the image. Knowing that would be impossible, I tried to capture the feel of the painting as much as possible. I think I did pretty well!

Joomla

I know Joomla. This is pretty cool stuff.

www.atalentforraw.com will be undergoing a major change over the weekend. I'll give some post updates here.

As a quick side note; playing the guitar is fricking hard to do.