Not Your Average Geeks
Archive for July, 2010
30K In the Air
Jul 30th
Technology is pretty amazing. I remember when I first experienced in flight entertainment. It was amazing. Now, I will write this post and publish it all while sipping on a diet coke 30000 feet in the air.
I’m not sure exactly how they do it, but I assume they are using cell towers. I could probably figure it out by searching the internet (yea, we get everything up here!), but I’d like to see if I can get WoW to work.
<Turbulence>
The only down side to flying on the Boeing 737 or Airbus 319/320 class of planes is that they don’t have power outlets. I believe the 757 and 747 have power outlets. That would be amazing!
The reason I’m writing at the moment, is that weather in Atlanta caused around half of the flights out of LGA (Laguardia, NY) to be canceled yesterday. Some negotiations with Delta representatives got me on an 11:30am out of EWR (Newark, NJ). The upside is that I am now flying first class. I would like to add that if you are ever in Jersey City, the Westin there is a fantastic hotel. Very comfortable and fairly spacious amenities. The shower is a dual headed shower, which was also amazing.
Ok, battery life is precious on this monster of a computer. I may have to switch over to my work computer depending on how fast WoW drains the battery life.
These have been random thoughts from 30k In the Air.
Holy stop-motion/time-lapse!
Jul 27th
Your week in Lego
Jul 26th
I had a crazily busy weekend, so I’ll make it short and very sweet! Some awesome creations came out this week, and here’s a few.
Larry Lars put together this compilation of his Star Wars cubedudes. The creative use of various parts for the details on these guys just blows me away! CubeDudes also made an appearance at ComicCon last week, although these were limited edition sets sold by creator Angus McClane.
Game Master Roundtable – Intro
Jul 22nd
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who build and those who play. This is the Game Master’s Roundtable; a gathering place for those of the former and those with the desire to rise above mere content ingestion.
For those unfamiliar with the role, a Game Master (a.k.a. GM, Dungeon Master, DM, referee, etc.) operates as the manager and guide for a group of players. Most often, the GM is responsible for constructing the game world and adventure that the players will experience. There are thousands of tools available to a Game Master to assist in creating these worlds. For game settings that are much more popular, there can be a plethora of pre-made content. A Game Master can use this content to alleviate some of the work required in constructing an enjoyable experience. A more experienced GM will often forgo the use of pre-made content in an effort to create a truly unique and custom tailored experience for the players.
It takes a variety of skills along with a healthy dose of time and dedication to create an enjoyable end product. While we all must ultimately figure out our own approach, it can be extremely helpful to learn from the experiences of others. Through this column, myself and other GMs will share our advice, tools, ideas and general thoughts with the hopes that something we have to offer can enrich your gaming experience.
Stay tuned each and every Thursday for more thoughts from the GM’s Roundtable.
-Sim
Stream your music library anywhere with Subsonic
Jul 22nd
I’ve stopped carrying my old 80gb iPod classic ever since I got my new phone (HTC Hero on Sprint). Between Pandora, Slacker Radio, podcasts on Google Listen, and the 8gb MicroSD I installed, I was never really hurting for music, so carrying that extra gadget and it’s associated USB cable just seemed like a waste.
Things were great like this, but every so often I’d have a craving for a particular song. I was also annoyed by the roughly 50gb of hard drive space my music took up on my laptop’s hard drive. I could always just copy it all to my desktop’s larger drives, but I wanted to have my music library available while I was on the road, so I just tolerated it. That was until I learned about Subsonic…
Our heroes take a page out of BP’s book
Jul 21st
The Charnel Lord
After a peaceful night’s sleep in their fortified room, the adventurers of the Epic Fail adventuring group set off deeper into the halls of the Pyramid of Shadows. All was well until they entered a non-descript hallway, and suddenly two of their party were catapulted down a steep ramp and into a charnel pit inhabited by a very hungry tentacled beast. While it might not have been so bad if the party’s paladin had been thrown down the chute, in this case it was the Wizard and Ranger that ended up in a pit full of blood and rotting meat, being chewed on.
As the rest of the group attempted to figure out what had triggered the trap, the cleric of Pelor used his magic boots to leap over the dangerous area to inspect the rest of the hall. However, this led Splug the goblin to assume that he too could make the jump, which led to him joining the Ranger and Wizard in between a rock and a hard place. Two NPCs that were traveling with us (members of a criminal gang that were also trapped in the pyramid soon joined them. More >
Penguin Mafia – Weekly Update – Season 42 Week 13
Jul 20th
The Penguin Mafia survived their match against Mons last week. This was a must win if they had any hope of promotion. That set them up for this week which was a match against a bot team. Unfortunately, as seems to be the case around any match with Mons, both the starting and backup goal keeper ended up being injured before this weeks game. That meant that once again the Penguin Mafia would have to put aside their dreams of a stadium upgrade to acquire a new goalie.
The bright side is that the PM now have 2 decent goalies, rather than one decent one and one garbage goalie.
Needless to say the match against the bot was a rout. They stood absolutely no chance and the Penguin Mafia series goal differential took another giant leap into the positive direction. Tor Ahndahl was able to cement his location as the top scorer for the series, baring some freak triple hattrick by another player in next weeks final game of the season. Luckily, there were no further injuries to result from this game.
While I was expecting to have to fight in a relegation match, it would seem that the fates have been kind. As long as the PM win next weeks match, they will be able to auto-promote. However, next weeks match is no push over. A human player has stepped in to take over the team that the PM play in the final season match. They haven’t had a significant amount of time to build a quality team, but they will certainly be more difficult than a bot based team.
The Penguin Mafia won’t count their chickens before they hatch. Expect them to play all 90 minutes. See you next week for another update. Same time, same place.
-Sim
Giant Robots set to duel to determine the fate of the far East.
Jul 20th
Mat Cat
Japan’s recently constructed RX-78-2 Gundam mobile suit, which is standing guard over Shizuoka, Japan has some competition in Beijing. The Chinese have built a 6 ton, 40 foot tall Optimus Prime, taking the massive robot arms race to a new level. I’m hoping the United States will respond to this escalation by constructing a 100ft tall Mad Cat battlemech to ensure we remain the world’s foremost superpower for years to come. Listen up Congress, stop wasting our tax dollars on tanks and airplanes! They’ll be no use against towering mecha like these!
Optimus Prime
- Gundam Mobile Suit
Inception = Incredible
Jul 19th
Pancho and I, on an impulse, decided to catch Inception early (9:40am early!) Saturday morning. I have to admit that I was incredibly surprised the theater had an IMAX showing that early; and I was even more surprised at the number of people in the theater. Settled in my seat, it was time for the movie.
We showed up a bit late, meaning we missed the previews (sad face) and I think the first 5 minutes of the film. I don’t think either were super important as we were able to get up to speed very fast. Spoiler free review after the jump. More >
Last week in LEGO
Jul 19th
This is the first of (hopefully) many Monday afternoon posts summing up some of the best LEGO creations built in the last week. Use them for inspiration, motivation, or just something neat to look at.
First up we’ve got an awesome Space Shuttle model by TWINLUG member Tom Anderson. It’s scaled to be half the size of the new official LEGO 10213 Shuttle Adventure
Our second model of the week is this shot of the 2010 lineup of custom building kits from Brickmania (Daniel Siskind). Siskind designs and sells custom kits for many WWII and modern military vehicles, which are all available for purchase on his website. I’ve never bought one myself, but his skill at making accurate models of vehicles with so many complex angles and shapes has always interested me. Check out his website for dozens of other awesome builds.
2010 WWII Battle Pack by Brickmania