Avatar: Most Awesome Movie Ever
My 2 cents worth December 18th, 2009
So James Cameron’s long awaited film Avatar finally hit my local cinemas yesterday and in my opinion, it lives up to all the hype that had been buzzing around long before the movie was released. For so many reasons.
For those who don’t know what Avatar is, I highly suggest you go wiki it and read up on it. It’s definitely one for the books.
So why is it so awesome? First and foremost is probably the world of Pandora itself.
After watching the movie, it struck me that Avatar in 2009 is similar to what Star Wars was to 1977, except on a much smaller scale. Both universes were the brainchilds of 2 indviduals, James Cameron and George Lucas respectively of course. However, Avatar’s new universe is on a much smaller scale than Star Wars, because while Star Wars literally creates an entire universe, Avatar only depicts a single fictional planet. However, what this movie lacks in breadth, it more than makes up for in it’s depth.
In Star Wars, the universe isn’t very closely explored. Much of what the world is like is left to the audience’s imagination (hence the Extended Universe of books/comics/games/etc.). On the other hand, the world of Pandora is completely fleshed out, every single detail is explored and there are so many little touches that makes Pandora feel like a real place. It’s amazing how much painstaking work the graphics artists had to go through to create each and every frame of the movie, because there’s so much detail in each and every frame of the movie that I kept wishing I could pause the movie in between just to admire a particular scene. Everything from the colours of the jungle, to the creatures to the flora all around is just stunning to look at. Words really can’t describe the beauty of the world of Pandora and you really have to see it to understand the feeling that anyone who watches this movie will get.
Now the 3D technology is just amazing. It’s partly due to the way each frame is designed I guess, because everything just pops in 3D. There’re ambient particles in certain scenes that truly do seem to be floating around right in front of your face, and every time there’s a rear shot of one of the Na’vi, I felt like tugging at their tails. I never thought it’d be possible to create a movie that uses 3D technology that isn’t in the style of a Pixar film, but Cameron really managed to pull it off spectacularly.
Is this the greatest movie ever made? Not really. To me there are pacing issues and the story isn’t that great. The third act of the movie seemed to drag on for ages and I kept wanting the plot to just move along. Yet, even when it was getting slow, I was still in awe the entire time I was watching the screen. The story on the other hand is pretty ‘meh’.
Go see this movie while you have the chance to. Go watch it in the cinemas because that’s the only way to experience it properly, and watch it in 3D. You won’t regret it this one time.
Tags: avatar, james cameron, pandora
Review of Rising Card (iPhone App)
My 2 cents worth, Random Musings, Reviews October 8th, 2009
So I saw the app Rising Card make it to the “What’s Hot” list on the iTunes App Store and thought the description of the application sounded pretty cool. For those who don’t know, Rising Card is a magic application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, created by magician Chris Kenner. For those who dabble a little into magic, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this guy invented Threefly (coin trick) and the Sybil cut (card flourish). For those who don’t give a crap about magic, meaning the only name you know in magic is David Copperfield, well this guy has been David Copperfield’s executive producer for the last 16 years. Seriously.
Obviously, this guy is no small-time magician. But I still wanted a few opinions on what the app was like or at least a hint as to how it worked (set-up time, difficulty, etc.) but I couldn’t find a single thing about it. Just official video demonstrations about the app which aren’t exactly the most reliable source. Besides, they didn’t even provide much useful information. Regardless, I eventually got it, hoping that it’d be good. Boy was I not disappointed.
For those of you who’re hear searching for the secret to Rising Card app, you’re in the wrong place. I’m not going to give out the secret. I hope no one does. This blog post is more for people who are thinking about getting this app but aren’t quite sure yet.
Anyway, on to the app. For those who don’t know the effect, I’ll briefly describe it here. Spectator thinks of any card (or chooses a card out of a deck, etc.) and tells you. You then take out your iPhone (or iPod Touch), unlock it, open the Rising Card app upon which you should see a hand holding a deck of cards face up. From here, you can either shake it yourself or hand it over to the spectator and tell him to shake your device. Either way, the named card will rise out of the deck.
It’s a really simple effect, but still pretty mind blowing. I’ve been pretty busy with school stuff recently, so I haven’t used this app with a particular routine or with any form of presentation yet (my bad, I know). But I’ve been getting pretty good reactions. Just to be clear, all I do is tell someone to name any card, I then take out my iPod Touch, open the app and hand it to them, tell them to shake it, and they’ll see their card rise out. Simple as that. I’ve gotten all kinds of reaction. A few of them smirked or sat there in (stunned) silence before asking how it was done. Most of them were completely shocked when they saw it rise out of the deck (I did not tell them what to expect beforehand), their jaws just dropped and they stared at me with huge eyes asking how the hell I did it. Then there are those who just freak out when they see the card. One of my friends almost tossed my iPod onto the table as if it were burning him. Not to mention he enquired as to how I did it with a significant number of expletives. All in all, I’ve gotten really good reactions for a trick that I never practiced beforehand and didn’t even bother to add ANY presentation whatsoever to the effect itself (please don’t do that 
)
Anyway there are certain limitations that anyone considering purchasing this application might want to know. First, you have to know the card (either they tell you, or force, or they pick a card and show you, etc. you get my point). One more thing is that really observant spectators might notice something amiss, but whether that happens really comes down to how well you’re able to present the trick. Other than that, I can’t really think of other limitations.
The trick itself is really easy learn and requires little practice to master the moves themselves. How you present it is obviously a different thing altogether. Even if people spot the secret move you’re making, they can take your iPhone and try it out for themselves and even if they copy your actions it won’t work for them (that happened to me once, it’s when I realised how awesome this app is). The sacred rule of magic that states “never do the same trick twice” can actually be bent slightly, at least from my experience. I’ve done this trick five to ten times on one of my friends and she never could figure out how I did it even when I did it in slow motion without any patter. Even for say groups of five people I can do this trick at least twice without them realising how I did it. In fact I’d think doing this trick at least two or more times makes it more effective because then spectators will stop thinking that you somehow set it up the first time. Yes, this trick is that strong.
The unfortunate thing about a magic app on the iPhone is that people automatically think you’re cheating the moment you pull out something that has a computer in it. Even if they don’t figure out the secret to the Rising Card app they’ll just chalk it up as you doing something fishy with a device. Unlike sleight of hand or even gimmicks where their brains just can’t think of any logical explanation for a trick. However, as far as iPhone magic apps go, this is most probably the best one out there right now.
Tags: iphone, review, rising card, secret
Kanye West ain’t too bright
My 2 cents worth, Random Musings September 15th, 2009
So he interrupts Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV awards, being completely disrespectful to her. I’d like to thank him for that. He has created one of the most popular catch phrases/memes for the rest of us to use. I mean, just take for example some of the stuff that’s been coming up:
Pure genius.
Well, now even Obama thinks he’s a jackass. I’m not kidding, he made an off-the-record comment calling Kanye West a jackass. You gotta be pretty screwed up to have the President of the United States think you’re a jackass. And this is just a celebrity we’re talking about here. The President deals with things like terrorists, but he chooses to call Kanye West a jackass. 
“It was just very rude, period,” West added. “I’d like to apologize to her in person.”
So far so good.
Leno brought back the subject of West’s late mother and asked him what she would have thought about the incident. West gave a good 20 seconds of pause before saying “Obviously, I deal with hurt, and so many celebrities, they never take the time off, and I never took the time off, really. I’ve really never taken the time off. It’s been music after music and tour after tour. And I’m just ashamed my hurt caused someone else hurt.”
Wait whut???
“Obviously, I deal with hurt, and so many celebrities, they never take the time off, and I never took the time off, really. I’ve really never taken the time off. It’s been music after music and tour after tour. And I’m just ashamed my hurt caused someone else hurt.”
What in the world is he trying to say?
“I deal with hurt” – err, do you always get stabbed or something?
“and so many celebrities, they never take the time off” – what does that have got to do with this “hurt” you speak of?
“I never took the time off… tour after tour” – therefore… you need to interrupt her speech?
“I’m just ashamed my hurt caused someone else hurt” – WHAT IS THIS “HURT”? Is it a code word?
Video of the interview below:
Tags: kanye west, mtv awards, obama, taylor swift
On the USA Healthcare Reform
My 2 cents worth August 21st, 2009
I’m going to admit I don’t know ALL the details about the new Obama bill. However, I’m getting increasingly furious as I continue to listen to those who oppose this bill even though I’m not even from the USA. Most of the arguments they give are downright ridiculous and in some ways insulting.
Obama VS. Hitler – cutting healthcare expenditure VS Holocaust
First, they compare Obama to Hitler.
I am absolutely appalled by this. Do they have ANY IDEA what Hitler stands for? In case you haven’t heard of people like Anne Frank, Jews back then had to hide in secrecy, for if they were found by the Nazis, THEY WOULD BE KILLED. Many of the people who are against this bill claim that Obama’s cutting of Medicare expenditure by $500 billion over 10 years is the same as him employing Hitler’s “Final Solution” to purge all Jews.
Are they out of their minds?
First, part of this $500 billion that is going to be cut is going to come from reducing inefficiencies within Medicare itself, for example switching to electronic medical records which would facilitate easy sharing of patients’ information. Of course, doing stuff like that isn’t going to save $500 billion, and the funds for medicare will definitely be lesser than previously. BUT, does that mean having lesser funds for healthcare makes Obama another Hitler?
For those who don’t know, back during the 1930s and 1940s, Jews were all thrown into ghettos in Germany where they literally rotted to death. Later, Hitler’s Nazi party went around rounding up Jews as if they were sheep, after which they were separated into two groups of people: those who would go to labour camps, and those who would go to the gas chambers to be “exterminated”. For those who went to the labour camp, nobody cared when they would die. For those who were immediately sent to the gas chambers, they would all be packed into a room until there was absolutely no space in the room, after which the doors were closed and toxic gases were fed into the room. After awhile, the doors would be opened, and all of them would still be in their original standing positions, all packed together.
Only difference? They weren’t breathing anymore.
People are comparing THIS to Obama cutting $500 billion dollars from Medicare.
And let’s not forget the Holocaust isn’t Hitler’s only claim to fame, this following quote not from myself, and I’m not exactly sure whose story it is:
My mom was born in Germany in 1941. When she was 4, a group of SS officers showed up at the front door of a two-story flat where she lived. Two of them went downstairs, and two of them went upstairs where she and her parents were. She watched while an SS officer put a gun to her father’s head and threatened to shoot him on the spot if he didn’t drop everything he was doing, leave his wife, leave his family, leave his job, and “volunteer” to fight in the German army. (Near the end of the war, they were becoming desperate to keep the ranks filled, ultimately making children and old people fight..)
The two SS officers that went into the apartment below theirs did the same thing. In that case, the father in the apartment below theirs was shot in the head, probably for begging not to be taken away from his family.
And to think people dare to show up at protests with a picture of their President photoshopped to look like Adolf Hitler, a man whose atrocities can never be put down in words.
Coming Between Doctor and Patient
Second, there is to be medical review boards that will provide guidelines for doctors on what type of treatment would be appropriate for their patient. Now some people argue that this would prevent doctors from fulfilling the Hipprocratic Oath – putting their patient’s well-being before anything else, because they will have to choose between doing what’s best for their patient and being sued or getting in trouble with the law somehow.
Bulls**t.
First, the guidelines provided are only SUGGESTIONS as to how the doctor COULD go about treating his or her patient. It is NOT a mandate of any sort. There is nothing that is going to come in between the doctor and his or her patient.
Second, are people that naive to think that ALL doctors are doing the best for their patients?
The fact of the matter is that due to the private nature of many pharmaceutical firms and thus their profit driven nature, coupled with certain irresponsible doctors, the patient’s needs are often neglected for profit’s sake. There NEEDS to be something that oversees healthcare in the USA in order to ensure proper healthcare for all its people.
End-of-life planning = “death panels”
Third the whole idea of there being “death panels” which is apparently a panel of “bureaucrats can decide who dies” according to Sarah Palin. In essence , it encourages senior citizens to kick the bucket earlier?
People who suggest this have got to be illiterate, or they are willing to take Sarah Palin’s words for it (which is probably even worse than being illiterate).
What the bill actually does is pay doctors for voluntary consulting sessions with older patients to discuss end-of-life issues which include stuff like living wills, learning about hospices as an option for the terminally ill, facilitating emotional expression, allow doctors to appreciate the psychological state and the suffering which their patient is going through, etc. Because let’s face it, we’re all eventually going to die, and this bill incentivises doctors to assist patients in making plans for this eventuality.
Where in the world does it promote stuff like mercy killing or euthanasia? In fact, it would block funds for counselling that presents assisted suicide as an option for patients.
Oh and let’s not forget to mention that back in 2003 or 2004, the Republicans were in favour of a similar proposal which would help senior citizens pay for end-of-life counselling. But now that the same thing is being proposed, it suddenly becomes “death panels”.
Sheesh…
Start Being Rational… PLEASE
In my opinion, people who are busy shouting and screaming at those town hall meetings really need to start educating themselves about what everything here really means. Also, they should probably learn to not have the patience of a 10 year old, because they’re screaming questions at Representatives and Senators without even giving them the chance to answer their questions before continuing to shout. There are times when the speaker will simply tell them that they are misinformed about a certain portion of the bill, explain to them what that part of the bill is really about, and they just continue shouting.
I do wonder how this whole fiasco is going to end…
Tags: bill, death panel, healthcare, obama, reform
Why I love Project Natal
My 2 cents worth June 15th, 2009
Honestly, there’s been so much hate going around about Natal, Microsoft’s 3D motion capturing system. Gamers are dismissing it as being gimmicky again, calling the Milo demonstration fake, etc. Before I go on to why I actually really love Natal, let me first discuss some of the criticism levelled against Natal.
Rebuttals
Gamers complain it’ll be too gimmicky. Fine, don’t use it then. It’s not like anyone’s forcing you to drop your controllers and get off your lazy ass to move about. But besides that, let me throw this question at you: Which motion controller isn’t going to seem “gimmicky”? The Wii’s been viewed as a gimmick since… forever, but it’s still pwning the other 2 consoles in terms of number of units moved. The kinds of stuff possible with Natal (at least the kind of stuff Mircosoft promises in its promo video) completely changes the landscape of games development.
Yes I know it isn’t true 1-to-1 motion capture as compared to the Playstation’s Blue Ball thingy, but come on, this thing hasn’t even hit the market yet. It’s still very much in development, and as technology improves we’ll (hopefully) one day see Natal have true 1-to-1 motion capture without you having to hold a single thing in your hand.
Also, let’s face it. Microsoft can throw a controller in if ever necessary for a particular game to have buttons, it’s not like Microsoft is going to restrict the gamer to ONLY using their body. The difference is that a controller won’t be compulsory for gaming like it always has been since… forever.
Now for the biggest argument against Project Natal: IT’S FAKE.
First, we’ve got an article claiming that the Milo demonstration video was fake because of the awkward positioning of “Claire’s” hands on screen as well as the fact that a ripple started in the virtual water before Claire started moving her hands. I’ve honestly re-watched that same exact few seconds at least 10 times over and honestly can’t notice that fact. To me, that article was just trying to diss Natal for the sake of it.
But besides that, has anyone bothered to consider WHY IN THE WORLD MICROSOFT WOULD BOTHER TO FAKE THE MILO DEMONSTRATION VIDEO? Here’re a few rebuttals:
- The part of the Milo video that was supposedly fake had to do with the motion capture. But there was NO other point in the “playing with water” scene where there were problems. But oh no, that split second couldn’t have been a glitch or a slight bug seeing as how the entire thing’s still a prototype, the entire video HAD to be fake.
- Besides, Microsoft demo-ed the motion capturing part of Natal live on stage with Ricochet, so why would they fake it in a video?!
- The most important point: THEY DEMO-ED IT TO A SELECT NUMBER OF PEOPLE. Why would they want to fake something, then open it up to others to come try it out?!
Not to mention Natal has actually received really positive feedback from some reputable gaming sites like IGN which simply said that Natal “works”. IGN even praised the build of Burnout that was developed to work with Natal and how it actually worked pretty smoothly. Oh and Milo isn’t fake at all according to them, he actually managed to make Milo laugh after telling him a joke. The only really negative feedback I’ve read about was from a PS3 site… need I say more?
RPG full of Milo-like NPCs
Now let me sidetrack here and fantasise for a moment. If we can have a character as realistic as Milo now whom you can interact with simply by talking. Imagine, less than 10 years down the road we could actually have an entire RPG game full of millions of characters as interactive as Milo whom you could walk around and talk to instead of simply going up to them and hitting “A”.
But let’s all assume Natal actually sucks for games, there’s a whole area people aren’t thinking about:
What if Natal was implemented as a system.
There’re 3 parts in the Natal promo video I’m referring to:
- the part where 2 girls have a video conference over a dress
- the part where the dude scans in his skateboard
- the final part where a girl waves her hands in the air to choose the movie to watch.
Now…
- facial recognition, video conferencing, selecting the dress and being able to try it on a virtual model of yourself?
- That not enough? How about scanning virtually anything in and having it become an interactive object?
- The last part is so simple in itself yet so mind blowing that I don’t even know what to say about it… you control your TV by waving your hands. That’s like having magical powers for crying out loud.
Virtual butler at your service
We are THIS close to having Tony Stark’s computer “butler” Jarvis in our homes with such technology. All you gotta do is install speakers and sensors all around your home and make use of Natal accordingly and there you go. Jarvis can recognise each and every person in the house, for example by using cameras to judge the outline of your body and the silhouette it casts depending on the angle of the camera.
You can ask him practically anything with Milo’s “AI”. For example simple stuff like “What time is it?” or “Lock the door please”. You could even go “Help pass the message to Mom that I’m doing my school project up here please.” and Jarvis could search through the entire house with the cameras to find where Mom is and play back the message only using the speakers in that vicinity. Oh and Natal also has voice recognition (not just the words, but who the voice belongs to) so Jarvis will know who’s saying what at all times.
If you’re alone at home, you could make a phone call while walking around the entire house since there’ll be microphones everywhere and the opposite party’s voice will just play out of the speakers in the vicinity of wherever you’re walking since Jarvis can keep track of your movements.
Oh if you’re too lazy to open your mouth to switch on the lights, how bout just waving your hands in a certain gesture or something? Switching TV channels or radio stations by flicking your wrist. Maybe adjusting your fan speed by raising or lowering your hand? In fact, if you bother to install motors around your house, you could wave your hand and have ANYTHING happen. Close your door, draw the curtains, open drawers, etc. The possibilities are pretty much endless.
If only…
Of course, all this Jarvis stuff is pretty far off. It all depends on whether Microsoft actually delivers everything it has promised in the promo video for Natal. Some of the stuff probably isn’t even possible just with Natal’s technology. There’s also the problem of security of course, that someone could somehow hack into Jarvis and track your every movement. But as long as Jarvis is not connected to the internet at all times it helps quite a bit, then someone would have to hack into the internal network of Jarvis (eg. the signals a camera sends to the CPU), but IF everything was completely hardwired this probably wouldn’t be a problem at all.
As you can see, right now everything is an IF. But let me just say that I never expected to see a system like this in place in my lifetime, and I’m only 17. Now, with Natal, this might just be possible within the next 10 years.
Here’s hoping for a Jarvis system in my house.
I’ve begun to realise that it’s becoming some sort of trend for sites that require registration to access to have really annoying rules for what your password should be like. I mean the usual rule is something along the lines of “between 6 – 15 characters” and they just leave it at that. But it seems that in recent times, it’s becoming more and more often that I’m met with a site that has this on their registration page:
Seriously? Is it really necessary to have such a secure password? I mean of course it depends on the context of when you apply such rules. If you’re a webhost and want your customers to make sure they have a secure enough password so that someone else won’t simply brute-force their way into the server and mess around inside, go right on ahead. You obviously need security for services like these. But for crying out loud I encountered that rule above when trying to register for a forum. Seriously? Is hacking into other people’s accounts such a big threat that such stringent rules are necessary? For such cases a simple ban/IP ban will do the job.
I know it seems like I’m making a big fuss over nothing, but my real question here is: What’s the point? You’re just unnecessarily adding another obstacle for users who want to get into your site and contribute to it. I’ve lost countless accounts in the past because I can’t remember what weird rule the site implemented for my password, and plenty of their “Recover Your Password” services don’t even work properly.
So please, site admins, if your site doesn’t require such a high level of security, don’t bother doing stupid stuff like this. Thanks.
FYI, the forum I was trying to register for was Quake-Live TV, the site which provides video with commentary of all the latest Quake Live Tournament matches. Anyone who’s interested in the game, please check it out!
Tags: password, quake live, rules
So Susan Boyle Lost… Surprise much?
My 2 cents worth May 31st, 2009
So the finals of Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) just aired last night and I finally finished watching all the finals performance videos. I must say, Britain’s certainly gotten it right this time. This is the exact order of the winners I would have chosen, namely,
1. Diversity
2. Susan Boyle
3. Julian Smith
Alas, in my opinion Julian Smith’s in there only because everyone wants him to win. He’s nowhere near as entertaining as the others are when it comes to performing on a big stage, especially when you come up to play an instrument just after everyone else has wowed the crowd with their singing and dancing and whatnot. However, there’s no doubt he’s good, and definitely deserving of the top 3.
Diversity’s biggest rivals in this competition have undoubtedly been Flawless, but they definitely saved the best for last. Amanda was right when she said Ashley’s (group leader) choreography is second to none. It’s probably the most entertaining choreography I’ve personally witnessed. While technically Flawless is way better than Diversity, overall Diversity just has that extra special something that makes them much more endearing and entertaining.
Now Susan Boyle on the other hand to me was way overrated. Don’t get me wrong, she’s an amazingly talented singer. But the kid, Jaheen Jafargholi, is as good a singer in my books. Yet Susan Boyle received so much more attention because her audition was aired in the first episode of Britain’s Got Talent with an amazing act and story. To me it played a huge part, and of course YouTube did its thing as it did when the net exploded with Signature’s performance during last year’s BGT.
Anyway, congrats to Diversity for a well deserved win.
And really, it’s funny how I’m a Singaporean yet thoroughly enjoy BGT. The hidden talent there is just pretty amazing, especially compared to Singapore’s population of 4 million, there’s barely any artistic talent here.
I’m serious… you should see what a joke Singapore Idol is…
Tags: BGT, Britain's Got Talent, Diversity, Julian Smith, Susan Boyle
What It’s Like To Be An Asian Gamer – Part 1
Interesting developments, My 2 cents worth March 26th, 2009
So, I’ve recently started writing for DarkZero, a site about video games that covers news, reviews as well as articles. I stumbled upon it through N4G and really liked the setup, so after emailing them, I (surprisingly) got into the team over there. Really excited to be part of the staff.
Anyway, as my first piece over there, I decided to rant about how annoying gaming can get when you’re located in Asia. I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time, but never really wanted to do so on a personal blog of mine since very few people would read it anyway. However, hopefully by writing about it over at DarkZero, it’ll gain a little more exposure.
Of course, the annoyances of being Asian in the online world hardly stops at gaming, there are a whole ton of other annoying things I’ve encountered throughout the years. But that’s a story for another time, for now, here’s a short excerpt from my post as well as a link to it.
Read more @ http://darkzero.co.uk/blog/what-its-like-to-be-an-asian-gamer-part-1/
Problems Playing Online
The biggest example? Game servers. Every single time I refresh my server browser in practically any game, I’ll see dozens, if not hundreds, of USA servers available. Of course, living on the opposite side of the world means it’s impossible for me to play on those servers, seeing as how I’ll definitely have a ridiculously high ping. Of course, the same applies to UK servers as well, though there are probably slightly fewer servers available, but it’s still a substantial amount.
In contrast to Singapore, it’s a pain to search for game servers that give me a reasonable enough ping. And it’s not just small games that have insufficient Asian servers, I’m talking about the major, so called Triple-A titles that don’t have enough Asian servers as well. When Left 4 Dead was first released last year, I almost always had to host games locally just so that I could play without any latency. But then again, my computer itself then proceeds to lag because I’m hosting the game. It wasn’t until roughly a month later that a group of Singaporeans managed to sponsor a couple of servers for us to play properly. However, the demand for local servers was so high that they were almost always full as well and I had a hard time trying to play online.
For Team Fortress 2, I can count the number of servers available on 2 hands. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare? I can count the number of servers available on just 1 hand.
This problem isn’t just present in Singapore. For example if you went over to Game Tracker and searched for Call Of Duty: World at War servers:
Country
Population
Number of Servers
USA 303 million 1375 UK 60 million 505 In comparison:
Country
Population
Number of Servers
China 1.3 BILLION 8 Japan 127 million 5 Korea 47 million 4 Malaysia 25 million 1 Not to mention Japan and Korea are probably the two Asian countries with the most active gaming communities. Oh and at the time of this writing, only 1 out of the 8 Chinese servers have 29/38 people playing, the other 7 are completely empty.
Thus, you can see how frustrating it is for us to come online and see people discussing about how great the multiplayer aspect of a certain game is, yet we’re simply unable to enjoy them in the same way.
The Power of Social News Sites
My 2 cents worth March 20th, 2009
Like any other blogger, I’ve always been searching for ways to drive more traffic to my blog, be it through SEO or whatnot. However, in almost every article I’ve seen providing tips on how to drive more traffic to your blog, almost all of them suggest using social bookmarking websites, whereby you submit your stories to a site such as Digg or Reddit and hope it reaches the front page by sheer popularity. Very few articles will eventually reach the front page, and it’s not easy to get there. But if you do, the rewards are pretty substantial.
Luckily for me, I got lucky a few weeks ago and my post on “Why Quake Live Will Be the Best FPS Ever” got to the front page of N4G, a social news site for gamers. You have no idea how excited I was as I watched my view count shoot to more than a thousand on that day. Previously, I was averaging 5 to 10 posts a day at best. I was elated no doubt, but afterwards, in retrospect, there are a few lessons to learn from this about such sites.
- Sensationalism – I never noticed it when first submitting the post, but a sensational and outrageous title was definitely the primary reason why my story managed to reach the front page. Some people probably couldn’t wait to read the article so that they could argue with me about how Killzone 2 was tons better. Others on the other hand were glad someone shared their taste.
- Don’t expect to get loyal readers – My view count only shot up for that day to more than a thousand, the next day it was a few hundred, by the third day my stats were back to previous levels, only slightly higher. And they’ve been like that all the way. I’m doing a little better now, averaging 10+ views a day, but nowhere near good yet.
- Most people don’t bother reading the entire article – I know this because I actually wanted to test if people bother to click on those “For more information, read this post” links. So when I realised my story had hit the front page, I hurriedly wrote up another short post and linked to it at the end of my main story. In the end, I had 1250 views for the main story and only 70 views for that short post at the end of the day. Sure, some of them probably saw the link but didn’t bother clicking it, but the fact that only 5.6% of the original readers bothered to read on for more information shows how people don’t really bother much.
- Quality doesn’t matter – Seriously, when it comes to getting traffic from social news sites, the quality of your post itself doesn’t matter. People have no idea what to expect from your post except from your title. No matter how good your post is, it is highly unlikely that people are going to add your site to their RSS reader just because they liked your one post. So, you’re going to get traffic regardless of whether you can spell simple words.
- People can get A-N-A-L – So, after I found out how useful social news sites could be to gain traffic, I submitted another one of my posts, which in my opinion is much more informative and interesting, and is a post which I really want people to read. However, it got rejected by someone because “article is a month old”. Here’s the thing, my post on Quake Live was almost equally old, yet no one bothered to report it. Yet for some strange reason they decided to do so with this post, and I have no idea why, nor do I have any control over what they want to do.
In conclusion…
Are social news sites the best way to gain traffic? Definitely not. You have no control over how your story does, and even if you are successful, you’re not going to gain any loyal RSS subscribers from that. However, it definitely does help with your SEO in my opinion, because after that day, more people have reached my blog from random search terms than before. And I’ve definitely seen more people visit my blog on a daily basis, though it’s still pretty inconsistent, and I have a very small reader base. Most of them probably reached via search engines and only bothered to read that one post.
In conclusion: trying to drive traffic to your blog can be a pain in the ****.
Tags: blog, digg, frontpage, reddit, seo, social news sites, tips, traffic
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, STUPID Apple (iPod Shuffle)
Interesting developments, My 2 cents worth March 12th, 2009
So my exams are finally over, (hurrah) but I come back to find Apple introducing a new iPod shuffle.
To me, this is Apple’s stupidest/dumbest/lousiest/crappiest/most idiotic product in its 32 years of existence.
No controls = only Apple’s earbuds
This, to me, is the epitome of stupidity. You don’t allow your consumers to use their own preferred earphones because you decide to take away ALL THE CONTROLS, COMPLETELY.
The very fact that the iPod Shuffle is lacking this “feature” makes it completely inferior to every single other MP3 player on the market, both past and present.
Do they really think customers will be attracted to buying something which has no controls and which you can only use with Apple’s earbuds? For people like me whose ears just won’t earbuds to stick to them without falling out every 5 seconds, it’s impossible for me to use the new iPod shuffle. The fact that they’re probably going to release an adapter that adds a remote doesn’t help things because
- I hate using remotes, they’re just clumsy and gimmicky
- I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT
Think about it, I have to pay to be able to control my MP3 player, and not to mention in a way which I detest.
It’s smaller… WTF?
Seriously, did they think the previous iPod Shuffle was not small enough? To me the previous iPod Shuffle was pretty darn good, it was just the right size, felt solid enough, and had a clip. All you could ask for was more capacity, which Apple could add over time.
But come on, was there really a need to make it smaller? What’s the point, are people really going to get all excited over it because it’s like 1 or 2 cm smaller? I certainly don’t need it.
I don’t want someone talking in my ear
Basically, Apple came up with this “brilliant” idea that a robotic voice would read to you the title of your song. I used to own a shuffle and l-o-v-e-d it, and it never had this feature, because it’s completely unnecessary. The original tagline for the iPod Shuffle was “Life is Random”, which was perfect. The whole point was that you didn’t know/bother about what the title of the song was, you just enjoyed whatever music that started randomly playing.
There was never the thought going through my head that “damn, I wish I knew what this song was”, more often than not I already did because the songs I put in my Shuffle were all my top-rated songs which I listened to constantly.
All in all, I really don’t see the point in this new “VoiceOver” feature.
Imagine this conversation…
Customer: Oh this is interesting, what’s this?
Apple guy: This is our new iPod Shuffle!
Customer: Oh I see… wait there aren’t any buttons?
Apple guy: Yup, that’s right!
Customer: So it has a touch screen or something?
Apple guy: Nope!
Customer: Then how do you control it?
Apple guy: Using Apple’s earphones!
Customer: Oh, then what if I want to use it with my own headphones? How do I control it then?
Apple guy: You can’t!
Customer: You’re joking right?
Apple guy: No! What’s wrong?! Look! It’s SMALLER!
All in all…
Apple’s going down the drain if they continue to produce products like this. Honestly, when I first saw the story about how the new iPod Shuffle has no buttons, I thought it was an Onion article.
Oh the horror when I found out it wasn’t…
Tags: apple, fanboys, ipod shuffle, sucks
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