The Godfather: The Game [godfather, godfatherwiivideo, godfather360, godfatherlegacy] is out for the Xbox 360 ![[B0009WPZM2]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
. If you've played it on the PS2, you'll find a bunch of new features in the 360 version, including some new missions, a new ability to hire crew members, and my personal favorite, the ability to bribe cops and have them fight on your side. If you haven't played it yet, well, what are you waiting for? Go get it!
I know, I'm about 6 years late, but I finally got around to reading Cryptonomicon , by Neal Stephenson. Other than the underwhelming ending, this was my favorite Stephenson book yet (compared to Zodiac, which I hated, and Snowcrash and The Diamond Age, which I loved).
Enough has been written about this book, so I won't bother to describe the story. Rather, I'll mention what I liked the most, which was how easy it was to pick up and read. Even though the book is a monster at 900+ pages, the story moves along briskly in chapters that span only about 10 pages or so. That makes it very convenient to pick up the book whenever you have a few minutes and gulp down a quick chapter without worrying about reaching a stopping point to bookmark. I wish more books were organized this way.
But still, it'll be a while before I start reading Stephenson's Baroque Cycle Trilogy, with the three books totaling a hefty 2700 pages.
(sigh...) Yet another new awesome iPod, yet another flurry of "reviews" [ipodnanoreviews, ipodnanomachrone] where not a single reviewer actually measures the audio performance.
This time, Apple has released the second generation of the iPod nano . With an 8GB capacity for the top model, this is nearly a perfect portable audio player, particularly if you care enough about audio quality to use lossless compression. I would assume that the sound quality is good, but Apple has replaced some significant components compared to the previous model.
Alas, I'm stuck with reviews like the one on Ars Technica, where page after page, they take it apart, count and identify the chips, stick it in a bag with nickels and keys to check scratches, drop it on an asphalt street, and even stick it in a washing machine. Great, I plan on doing none of that. Their thoughts on audio quality? "The sound quality seems the same."
Thanks guys.
I brought my Treo [treotoiphone, treoinhawaii, treoweekone, treofirstimpressions] with me to Hawaii last week, as it has been rock solid for me over the past several months. I figured that I might use it like I do normally on a daily basis, taking notes about things, checking the stock market, ignoring emails, etc.
But the trip for the Treo began ominously, when the guy sitting next to me on the plane whipped out his Blackberry and said, "I see you have a Treo. I went through four of those things before I threw the last one in a garbage can and got this thing. Blackberry is awesome." Odd, my Treo seems to work fine.
When I awoke the next day in Hawaii, I tried to check the news on Yahoo. In the Bay Area, web access on the Treo is pretty zippy, but I was bummed to see how slow the wireless network is on the Big Island. Looks like checking the net wasn't going to be as convenient as I hoped.
The next day, I tried checking Yahoo again, and the Treo reset on me. When I tried to launch Xiino [xiino3.4, xiinodead, xiinooffline] after the reset, it "forgot" that it was a registered copy, and refused to load any URLs. Luckily, I keep the registration info in SplashID, so I grabbed the codes, updated Xiino, and tried to access My Yahoo again. I apparently lost the Cookies during the reset/re-reg, and needed to re-login to My Yahoo. But every time I entered my login info and licked "submit", Xiino and the Treo would hang and I would need to do a soft reset. Ah well, I can live without the news while on vacation.
Another morning, a little time to kill, another try with the Treo. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts with the My Yahoo login screen, I reset the Treo again and it started rebooting itself endlessly. Uh oh. I couldn't remember how to do a Warm Reset, so I did a Cold Reset. And there was the warning dialog: Warning! All of your data will be erased!
Shit.
I went ahead and Cold Reset the thing, so at least it would stop resetting itself. At home, this would be a non-issue. I would just hotsync with my PC and bingo, the Treo is back with all of my apps and data intact. But I'm not at home. I'm in Hawaii with a virgin Treo. And I suddenly realized that…
And I need cash.
Shit.
How am I going to get cash without my PIN? I ordered a drink immediately. And in my mind, began to rummage through all of the 4 digit numbers I've used in the past couple of months. I decided that it had to be one of two numbers (I hoped), and went to a local ATM machine. The first number I tried worked! Wow, the human brain is a weird thing when it comes to remembering numbers. Or else it was the Mai Tai. And fortunately, the Treo includes decent email and web apps by default, so I was able to use both for checking email and getting web updates, so I knew I could at least email someone if I needed a phone number.
Whew!
When we finally got back home, we picked up the luggage at the carousel, and headed out to the parking lot. Hmmm, where did we park the car. No prob! I wrote it down in DayNotez, on the Treo.
Shit.
Wow, the album cover browser in iTunes 7 is a superb feature. Windows Media Player has had album art for some time, but iTunes delivers it in a much better way. Finally, for the first time, playing music on a computer almost feels like the old days as a teenager, when I would sit on the floor of my bedroom, flipping through 12" album covers while spinning a disk on the turntable. I sure hope iTunes 7 leads to a renaissance of the appreciation of album cover art. Now we just need inside covers and liner notes!
BTW, with Apple's announcement of 8GB iPod nanos and 80GB iPods, you're not still listening to compressed audio, are you?
Until now, I hadn't used Sketchup, the 3D design software, since they were bought by Google. The last time I tried to use it, I didn't quite grok the "shaping" metaphors they use. But I recently needed to use some easy CAD software, and I after seeing some nice diagrams, decided to give Sketchup another shot.
Wow, once you let go of the polygon metaphor and start thinking in terms of sculpting shapes, Sketchup becomes much more intuitive. This simple drawing of a workbench for my garage took me only about 15 minutes or so to create.
I have a lot more to learn about using Sketchup, but I'm having fun using it so far. Hopefully, Google's investment will make this a more Windows-friendly app. And hey, how about a Linux version?
One of the coolest things I ever saw on my Commodore 64 was a Mac-like graphical OS environment called GEOS . OSNews is running a really nice article about the history of GEOS, and if you're are old C64 hack like me, it is a must read.
In a couple of weeks, I'm going to buy the Star Wars trilogy for the fourth time, as Lucasfilm is finally releasing DVDs of the movies as they were originally seen in theaters.
StarWars.com is showing a cool slideshow of the differences between the original 1977 film and the 2004 "Special Edition." Under each scene, there is a caption that extolls how much better the Special Edition looks, but to me, the slideshow actually shows just how much they screwed up the film with all of the CG "enchancements".
I can't wait to see the original film again as I saw it in theaters in '77. Han shot first!
