Monthly Archives: May 2008

May 31 2008
Uncategorized

Cosmic Osmo's Hex Isle


Cosmic Osmo's Hex Isle

I just received Cosmic Osmo’s Hex Isle, the latest game from Myst creator Cyan Worlds. It has a very different feel than the Myst games, a lot more dialogue and bright colors and a lot less exploration and puzzle-solving. The game is very pretty, using the newest version of Cyan’s Plasma engine, and (unsurprisingly, due to a faster dual-core processor and four times the memory) runs better on my Mac than on my PC.

The gameplay is much more similar to a ‘casual’ game than a normal video game, in that the story is extremely simple, and the game mechanic is very straightforward. Touch all 6 blue ‘hexes’ (hexagonal tiles) to complete the level. Of course, it gets more complicated as the levels go on, with moving hexes, hexes that disappear after you step on them, etc.

The game is very fun, and for a game of its caliber, it’s very pretty. Unfortunately, the only website it’s available from is Fanista, which I think is possibly the worst online retailer I have ever had the misfortune to be forced to use. Maybe you can find it on eBay?

Having played Cosmic Osmo’s Hex Isle, the only remaining Cyan game I have not played yet is the original Cosmic Osmo, which will be on Gametap next month. Can’t wait!



Tagged , ,
May 26 2008
Life in general

New Theme, Sandpress

I installed a new theme yesterday, called Sandpress. It’s by Arpit Jacob, and I think it’s very pretty. I noticed that the search box on K2 (my old theme) was no longer working, and I was also just kind of bored of the way the whole site looked, so I spent most of yesterday shopping around for new themes, and came across this one.

However, it seems to have a problem with the sidebars, at least on my computer.

Here’s how it’s supposed to look:
How it's supposed to look

But sometimes it looks like this:
How it actually looks, sometimes

And if you scroll all the way down, the second sidebar is at the bottom:
The other sidebar, at the bottom

Does anyone else see this? For some reason it only seems to happen to me, and only when using Firefox. And even then, only sporadically. If the site looks broken to you, e-mail me or drop a comment here.

Tagged , ,
May 26 2008
Life in general

New Theme, Sandpress

I installed a new theme yesterday, called Sandpress. It’s by Arpit Jacob, and I think it’s very pretty. I noticed that the search box on K2 (my old theme) was no longer working, and I was also just kind of bored of the way the whole site looked, so I spent most of yesterday shopping around for new themes, and came across this one.

However, it seems to have a problem with the sidebars, at least on my computer.

Here’s how it’s supposed to look:
How it's supposed to look

But sometimes it looks like this:
How it actually looks, sometimes

And if you scroll all the way down, the second sidebar is at the bottom:
The other sidebar, at the bottom

Does anyone else see this? For some reason it only seems to happen to me, and only when using Firefox. And even then, only sporadically. If the site looks broken to you, e-mail me or drop a comment here.

Tagged , ,
May 26 2008
Uncategorized

On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1 (Demo)


I downloaded and played through the demo of Penny Arcade‘s new game, On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1. It’s pretty fun, and easy to get into. It has the comedy of a Penny Arcade comic, and the look of one, too. The graphics are not impressive, but they work. They’re very similar to the Sam and Max games, if anyone has played them.

The gameplay is very easy to understand. The exploring portion is point-and-click, while the battle screens work by selecting your attack and then the enemy to attack. Sounds simple, but it’s real-time. You have to manage up to 4 characters at once (maybe more?), while the enemy is also attacking you. It can get pretty hectic, but it wasn’t bad.

I would recommend downloading the demo to anybody, and buying the game if you like it, since it’s only $20 and available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, as well as on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Tagged , , ,
May 26 2008
6 Comments
Uncategorized

Ubuntu 8.04 and the Realtek 8185 (Update)

Ok, my last post actually was not completely flawless, that method has been giving me some issues, so I found these instructions instead:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
  3. Download the Windows drivers (I’ve only tested it with the XP drivers)
  4. Open System>Administration>Windows Wireless Drivers
  5. Select the .inf file from the unzipped folder you downloaded in step 3

That method worked perfectly for me, and has lasted through numerous reboots, unlike the previous way. I’ve only tested it with a WPA Personal network, no idea if it works with WEP or WPA2. If it doesn’t work, try rebooting…And you might want to install wpa_supplicant if you’re going to use WPA, but I’m not sure if that’s necessary.

Tagged ,
May 22 2008
3 Comments
Life in general

Ubuntu 8.04 and the Realtek 8185

I have Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) running on Artemis (my desktop), but until a few minutes ago, it had no internet connection, due to lack of drivers for the wifi card in the machine, the Realtek 8185.

I’m used to not knowing how to do anything on Linux, and usually my attempts to make things work on the open source OS end in failure, so it’s pretty cool that I figured out how to get this to work.

First, I found this tutorial [link dead], which I followed word-for-word, with no results at all. Then I checked my chipset on the wifi card, and realized that the article is for the 8187, not the 8185. So I decided to take a leap of faith, and downloaded the Win98 drivers for the 8185 (Win98 because they are the version of the 8187 drivers the tutorial uses), and then followed the tutorial again, but with the new drivers instead of the original ones.

Guess what? It worked. Flawlessly. Artemis now has wifi under Hardy Heron, and I couldn’t be happier. Now for the graphics card and my mouse…

Edit: If this doesn’t work, try this method instead!

Tagged , , ,
May 16 2008
Life in general

Boston Apple Store Opens!

The New Apple Store

I went to the opening of the Boylston Street Apple Store yesterday, and got a free shirt! It’s green and resembles the teaser signs that were covering the windows a week ago. Also received a free red iPod Sock, with the date embroidered on the tag. It’s actually larger than the old socks I was using, my iPod Touch can actually fit in it.

Red iPod sock

The line was about a 2 hour wait, but very much worth it. The inside of the store is beautiful, lots of glass and steel. Very Apple. The entire staff (hundreds of people, way more than one would expect, even for the second largest Apple Store in the world) ran by us at one point while we were in line and got people to cheer and clap for them, and then they returned the favor for us when we got inside. The staff was literally lining the stairs and surrounding the door, clapping and cheering everyone who came in the store on.

Apple staff cheers on the guests

The store itself is extremely large. The first floor is all laptops (with at least 3 tables of MacBook Airs alone), the second is desktops, iPods, and iPhones, and the third floor is entirely customer service (with multiple demo stands for classes and other events, and a gigantic genius bar, spanning the entire wall). The centerpiece, the glass stairs, is extremely cool, with frosted steps with some sort of rubberized grip to stop people from slipping, I guess.

The glass stairs

The best thing about this Apple Store is that it’s the first one that I can actually walk to. It’s right around the corner from the Hynes T stop, whereas all the other Massachusetts stores are in malls.

As always, more pictures can be found in my gallery…

Tagged , , ,
May 12 2008
2 Comments
Life in general

Spore/MassEffect to Use SecuROM DRM Scheme, EA Descends to Ninth Level of Hell

Apparently, Electronic Arts is planning on releasing two of their biggest PC titles this year, MassEffect and Spore, with the SecuROM DRM Scheme. For those of you who don’t know, the SecuROM DRM was included with BioShock, gave owners of the game living hell. For example, should you have to reinstall the game, you would have to call SecuROM to get a new registration code. There was also a lot of fear that it was installing a RootKit on systems (which would allow it to execute commands under the root, or administrator, user account without requiring any passwords or notifications).

Obviously, the announcement that SecuROM was once again going to be used as the copyright protection in popular pc games sparked an outcry from pc gamers. Originally, EA said that SecuROM would check with its servers every 10 days to re-authenticate the game, but they recently took back that statement, and are now saying that it will only re-authenticate the game when you download additional content off the internet, meaning fewer unwanted internet connections.

Tagged , , ,
May 12 2008
2 Comments
Life in general

Au Sol (French Project)

Over the past 2-3 weeks, I’ve been working on a project for my French class with a friend of mine. The assignment was to do a research project on some aspect of Islam, particularly Islam in the former African French colonies (and even more specifically, Algeria). We elected to research the abuse of women in Muslim culture, and for the visual part of our presentation, we made this movie using a lot of clay, my computer, and iStopMotion 2:

The class absolutely loved it, and compared to the powerpoints everyone else was giving, I’d say our project was probably the most entertaining.

Tagged , ,
May 03 2008
Life in general

Iron Man Released

The Iron Man movie came out yesterday, and it is quite possibly the best superhero movie I have ever seen. The only competition it might have would be Batman Begins, but even that seems cheesy and weird in comparison to the highly polished, well-built Iron Man movie. Any nerd will greatly appreciate the amount of gadgets in the film, and even if you get completely lost in the steady stream of geekspeak, the movie is really enjoyable. The action is awesome, without being too unbelievable, and the special effects are unbelievable. It really is completely seamless, as one would expect it to be. Even the comic relief provided by Tony Stark’s assistant robots is acceptable, given the sheer awesome of the movie.

There were two moments in the movie which made the fanboy in me flip out, because they were references to aspects of the Iron Man comics I had completely forgotten about. I haven’t read many Iron Man comics, so I’m not that well-versed in Iron Man lore, but I knew enough to recognize how awesome the references were.

Protip: Stay through the credits.

Tagged , , , ,