Tag Archives: geek

NDS Shout Out

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“Something is not right.”

“What? That ROM isn’t working? The emulator?”

I got a CycloDS Evolution for a friend for her birthday (and general holiday gift). Since she visited only recently, it wasn’t until now that I got to play with it. Of course, I said “Yea- I get to play with it,” while she actually had the idea in mind that I would spend a couple hours making it bend to her will. Since I’m the resident ‘knows-how-to-do-technical-stuff” person, being the actual day of her birthday, I complied. If scouring the web is what she wants, it’s what I’ll do.

“You did something. It’s not right. When it boots up it’s not supposed to make that noise,” she turned the Nintendo DS off again and on again.

“What noise?” I asked not really understanding what she meant, and of course annoyed at the accusation. The only worse thing than being the, “Can you fix my computer?” recipient is being the, “I asked you to fix it and you broke it!” recipient.

She turned it off and on again, and the chimes rang. I don’t own a Nintendo DS, so I have no idea what the chimes normally sound like when it turns on, so I say, “Okay, is there any other sound that’s messed up? When you open a ROM or use a game, is the sound different?”

“No, just when I turn it on.”

“Maybe you or I accidentally changed a setting so it has different music on boot up?”

“No, I checked that.”

Now I’m giving her the ‘you’re crazy’ look as she’s obsessively booting it, and turning it off, and booting again, and becomingly increasingly upset. Finally she has to go to the bathroom, so I figure I’ll search the internet and come up with the setting that must’ve been changed, or I can tell her she’s nuts with confidence.

I search Google and am surprised to find the issue is not a setting.

A similarly upset and worried fellow posted about this on a forum who had the exact same issue. Actually there were several hits as it is a common issue. I read further and find out the big problem, what was broken:

The Nintendo DS gives you a special chime on your birthday. It also gives you a rainbow “Happy Birthday” message in PictoChat.

I laughed my ass off. As she came out of the bathroom I continued to laugh. I wanted to look grim when I gave her the news, play it up, and tell her something was seriously wrong with her game system. I couldn’t do it, though.

And after all, it was her birthday.

Nintendo- making people everywhere think that their DS has broken on their birthday. Happy Birthday indeed.

Blue is for Boys

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…and a man asked, “Why are girl geeks so rare?”

…and all the women in IT and other geek fields raised their heads just far enough to roll their eyes, give the ‘for real?’ look, blink, sigh, giggle, give the evil eye, laugh, rant about feminism, turn it into a ‘your mom’ joke (“…because we were all too busy with your mom for her to have a daughter after giving birth to you”), etc.

A similar question could be asked about a LOT of things if you just missed the fact that all kinds of sexism is still out there.

Some of the hottest topics in the U.S. right now are womens’ rights over their own bodies and whether people who don’t want to have and guy-girl marriage have a right to do so. Some of the hottest topics in the world are whether or not women have the right to even make their own decisions and live if they try to.

It is always surprising, yet not surprising, that people miss what gender identities other than strait male, go through. They want to know why they don’t see it, and my easiest answer is that it isn’t happening to you or you’re so conditioned to accept it, that it is no longer an issue.

Women accept that they are no good with technology, or cars, or sports, or other ‘guy things’ from a young age. And then there are people like me that you wonder if we’re into it just because it was implied that we weren’t supposed to be.

Not all sexism really bothers me. It’s not worth my life, my energy, being negative to get worked up about even little thing. Some people do that, and in doing so miss the real stuff. They are too busy concentrating on the small symptoms rather than the real disease. I’m not talking about a ‘your mom’ joke or ‘that’s what she said’, though those sorts of things exist instead of ‘your dad’ or ‘that’s what he said’ and one wonders why even if just a little.

Just like homosexuals are more concerned with having equal rights, getting and keeping jobs, and feeling safe than whether or not they say ‘gay’ in a certain way at purepwnge.com, I am not going to care if you hold the door for me or not.

I’m talking about the sorts of things that allow the initial question to be asked. How does it happen that women have an extreme less of a chance to have certain careers, that are well within their abilities, in their future?

I could fill this post with stories of my own experiences. Explain I’ve seen sexism and sexism be enabled by guys and gals alike. Yes, many women help sexism along plenty. But I think really what I am trying to say is…

Really? You don’t know that sexism is alive and well?

If that’s the case, open your eyes a bit wider, read a little, listen a little harder. Even if it is not happening to you, you should be able to see it and empathize and even help stop it in some small way.

Since you’ve asked the question, I guess you’ve decided for some reason to care. Asking this question has likely lead you to see it (or marked your really seeing it for the first time). You don’t need to look far to get some whys.

However, there is no real satisfactory answer to why are world is filled with prejudice. Why don’t people don’t treat people as just people? I don’t know.

Why do we have to arbitrarily label, categorize, and judge each other as being inferior?

I don’t know. I wish we’d stop, or at least try. I think that’s where I get mad and pick my battles is when people don’t even care enough to give a sincere effort to be more sensitive to what fills someones shoes. Take a moment to think about what it takes to walk their mile, especially since we have the power to make that easier for everyone with so little effort.

And with that, I will vacate my soapbox for the time being.

To change gears into something more silly while maybe getting a glimpse of walking even a tiny bit in a woman’s shoes, check out this Smartest Man in the World podcast. It’s one of my favorites. That Rory is one funny guy. :)

Worst Controller, Best Controller

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I can still remember when the Nintendo64 came out after so many Nintendo Power magazines of anticipation. What was once code named the “Ultra 64”, which I though was a cooler title at the time, was finally released. Sure, it was supposed to be a CD system, and turns out it was cartridges instead. Being a steadfast Nintendo loyalist I didn’t question this.

I didn’t question this until I played the system.

Worst controller ever.

I felt so completely let down. All of my willpower tried to enjoy the Nintendo 64 the way I did my Nintendos before it. Alas, I found myself wanting to go home to play some Super Nintendo or a PC game.

I have small hands, so I rationalized several minutes of trying to figure out the best way to get my hands around the damned thing to control Mario by blaming myself at first. How many buttons are on this thing? Do most of these even do anything?

Controllers should be comfortable. I did end up playing 007 and Super Smash Brothers with people who had the system and my fingers and palms ached more than the blisters from playing Street Fighter II with the Sega Genesis controllers (Why did they put a ridge around the buttons? No, I don’t know either.). The controller was too wide, had too many buttons, for no reason had some like phallic symbol in the middle. Don’t get me started on the d-pad and analogue. Making characters move has been effortless since the invention of the joystick. It’s pretty hard to screw that one up and, yeah, they managed it.

Controllers should be intuitive. There are buttons on that thing that I never bothered to reach and I’m not sure what were for. I don’t think the game designers knew either.

I know I’m not the only one who was left feeling unsatisfied with this system. Many people put them on the shelf or tried to sell in to get a Playstation.

Me? I got a Playstation. Their controllers were essentially a next generation version of the Super Nintendo controllers. Also it sported the disc media that Nintendo had promised and then backed out on. Nintendo so completely dropped the ball, I never thought to look back to see if they were throwing it again.

Best Controller Ever

Years later, there is a Nintendo product sitting next to my old, old SNES. This next generation of consoles has a lot to offer. Not one of the systems sucks… well, the PS3 is too expensive for anyone’s tastes, but people would probably say it was a good system if that weren’t the case (likely doomed to be clumped with the Atari Jagar, 3D0, and Dream Cast before it- all good systems, but overpriced- but since it’s a blue ray player too, maybe not). The Xbox360 is probably the first true online gaming console to even take a chip off of what PCs have been doing for years, and its hardware is nothing short of sweet (with the exception of a very noisy fan and lower end version).

And the Wii is just something else.

The original Nintendo was revolutionary not because of its hardware. Few people realize this, but it was actually a step back for its time. Look at any game that was a port to the system (and most of them were) and you’d see what I mean. It was graphically inferior to an Atari or Commodore of the times. And yet, it stole the heart of the average household.

The Wii is in that category, but it’s more than that. The Wii came out at a time when it seemed like the only place for console technology left to go was to become more similar to a mini, cheap, gaming PC.

Nintendo proved us wrong.

The Wii reminds me of another console that Nintendo tried and bombed. Did anyone else have a Virtual Boy? I think my parents threw ours away (after buying it for us for $30 with several games). It was awkward, clunky, very red (no color), and kind of dangerous to the eyes and body. Video games do not make me dizzy the slightest, but this thing made me light headed and wobbly after playing. The warning in the manual said not to play for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I think that’s why it mysteriously disappeared into the closet and then from the closet to video game heaven. By then, we had kind of stopped using it anyways. It was like a novelty item, extremely cool for a limited time only.

The reason why the Wii reminds me of this is because that’s the attitude I cautiously approached the system with. I played it over people’s houses many times before I was convinced it was more than a novelty item. I’m still a bit worried that game developers will fail to step up and make games for it that take advantage of the power of rethinking video games it’s put in my hand and head.

I admit, I gawked at the price of the Wiimote and Nunchuck as much as I gawked at their names. Since then, I keep finding out what else this controller can do.

It’s just a controller… or maybe it’s a ball of potential masked as a controller.

Look at me, I’m a Nintendo controller. I’m a laser pointer. I’m a sword. Woah, it just talked, is there a speaker in there? Pull my trigger. Punch me out like I’m brass knuckles. Put me up to your ear, twist me to control this, bump into you, and perform the most fluid fighting moves ever.

This controller is the most intuitive yet complex thing of it’s class I’ve ever seen, a true marvel of design. The intuitiveness carries over to the point where one game and another have very different controls and uses for it, yet I can pick them up in a few minutes. And the ways I’m controlling and number of controls are learning I’m realizing are more than for any other console I have in the past. Without thinking I’m switching the thing around, and using all of the buttons. There are 9 buttons (including the home button) and 2 d-pads. It doesn’t feel like it when I use them all. I was surprised when I counted.

This is what they were maybe thinking about when they made the Nintendo 64 controller, arguably the worst controller of all time.

And here it is my beam katana, my master sword, my light saber, my platforming controller, my boxing gloves, my steering wheel, my phone, and whatever else the game designers will think up.

The phone was the latest ‘woah didn’t see that coming’. But, with the built in speaker, makes sense. Way to add that much more game flavor.

You taste that? That’s a win.

I’m No BOFH

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Like many tech support people (and geeks in general), I regret that I am not the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell). I have to resort to internal sarcasm, the mute button, and jabber to keep all of the crap at bay. The truth is that every one of us have a BOFH living inside of us that just wants to be let out, but we like to eat, so we keep it to ourselves or put it on our blog. We do this while changing the names and events enough to keep us from becoming hungry later on.

The results are funny. The results help us when we are in the midst of those stressful moments. “The website is down.” someone says. And besides going, “Aw, fuck.” we can post the link and quasi-quote, “Dude, I can’t arrange the icons by penis”.

The rest of you can laugh… pause… and wonder if you are the type of person to say the funny, yet dumb thing.

Over these months I’ve heard a lot and it’s time to share some with the rest of you. Things have been changed to protect people, namely myself.

7:01 P.M. – beep
“This won’t even install.”
“What version of the software do you have?”
Names a version from the late ninties.
“And what operating system are you running on your computer?”
“Vista.”
“That, unfortunately, isn’t going to run even if we can get it to install.”
“It’s not even supported on Vista?”
Well, Vista kinda didn’t exist when the software was written, buddy. It’s hard to support something when it doesn’t exist.
“If you’d like I can send you a link to the system requirements for that version.”
“Well, is there a newer version that is supported?”
“Yes there is.”
“Can you send that to me?”
Oh, yeah, we give out software for free here. It’s what we do, make newer versions so people with the old one can get it for free. Winning business model right there…
“Unfortunately, no. You’d need to buy it.”
“But I paid for this!!”
“I’d be more than happy to help you install that on a computer running a compatible operating system.”
“This is wrong! I bought this and now I can’t even use it! I upgraded to Vista. I don’t have a computer running anything else.”
Can I get a FAIL?

7:15 P.M. – beep
“Thank you for calling.”
“Hi, uh, I can’t get my student software to work.”
“Are you getting an error message?”
“I fill out the form with my information: my name, uh, my school, my address-”
I let this continue for awhile.
“…and it’s telling me I need to enter my year of graduation and no where do I see a year box, I see: my name, um, my school-”
I feel like I’ve let him go on long enough.
“Are you on a Mac?”
“Uh, yeah. How’d you-”
“Try using the scroll bar or resizing the window.”
“Oh- hey, there it is. Thanks.”
“No problem. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“Uh, no. Wow, I feel stupid.”
You and the half a dozen people who call with the exact same issue every week.
“Oh, no, don’t. It’s what we’re here for. You have a great evening.”
“Um, yah, you too. Thanks!”

7:23 P.M.
“What operating system are you on?
“Um, I’m on Windows.”
“Is that XP?”
“No, Vista.”
“Okay, could you please go to your start menu-”
“I don’t have a start menu.”
Riiight
“Okay, sure. Please go to the start bubble on the bottom left hand side of the screen. In the search box there type c-m-d. That’s charlie, mary, delta. Hit enter.”
“…”
“Just let me know when you’ve done that. A command prompt window should come up.”
“.. …okay.”
“Now could you please type the command for me i-p-c-o-n-f-i-g, ipconfig, slash, a-l-l, all… and hit enter.”
“It’s not working.”
“Did you type cmd first and hit enter.”
“Yeah, it didn’t do anything.”
“Try it again.”
“Oh. Ooooh. I must not have hit enter.”
“Sure. Could you please type the command i-p-c-o-n-f-i-g, slash, a-l-l?”
“…”
“Just let me know when you’ve done that.”

7:44 P. M.
“This doesn’t work.”
“Have you installed and activated? Is there a particular error message you are getting.”
“I click on it and it goes away.”
“What operating system are you on?”
“Mac.”
“What version of Mac OSX do you have?”
“…”
“Panther,Tiger, Leopard…?”
“Um, how do I find out?”
“Go to the apple icon in the top left and click on it. Click on ‘about this Mac’.”
“Okay. I have 10.4.-”
“Alright. Then can you please get your Tiger DVD?”
“I don’t have it with me. It’s at my other house.”
“Okay, then I can send you some instructions on what to do when you do have your DVD to get this to work.”
“Um, that’s going to be like, not for a very long time and I need this now. Can’t I download it?”
“The Apple website only has updates, it does not have the actual program that you need installed.”
“What if I don’t have that dvd anymore.”
“Then you should probably go to the Apple store and get a new one. It’s pretty important to have your operating system disk.”
…even when you’re pirating it, you should probably have a copy.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

7:55 P.M.
“So, I’m getting a message about a missing lib or something.”
“It sounds like you’re missing that library.”
“How do I get it?”
“Well, if you have the yum installer, you can use that.”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s try it. Type yum install..”
…the missing library. Making sure he’s typing it in with the correct case. How to spell yum.
“It didn’t work. How do I get a yum install thing?”
“Well, you can download the yum installer for your distribution of Linux.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just Google it by what distro you have.”
“…okay..?”

7:59 P.M.
“So, I got that thing you told me to install from the Tiger disk.”
“Great.”
“It’s still not working.”
“Okay, well let’s walk through together and install the package.”
“Um, I don’t have the DVD here with me.”
A few minutes to make sure he doesn’t have the right thing installed
“It sounds like you have the Leopard version of this installed.”
“…”
“You need to install this from a Tiger dvd.”
“Oh. Well, okay. I downloaded the right thing.”
“You need to install this from a Tiger dvd.”

…and time to go home.

Yuvi: “Tech Support work is harder than Superman’s. Usually.”
Me: “Superman saves people from villains. In tech support we have to save people from their own ignorance and stupidity. That’s damn near impossible.”

You Can’t Pwn At Pong

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Mario Bros Atari
I’m only twenty-something, but I still am not sure I feel right saying ‘pwned’.

It feels a bit unreal to have gaming be the younger cool. It seems like just yesterday, I was my little brother’s age and getting flack for the same reason he’s considered awesome. I feel like the same people who will wear Mario Bros. shirts now might be the same ones who poked at me in school for video gaming. Part of me wants to reveal the poser they are. I would ask them:

In the first level, do you go down the pipe for the coins? You do? Now why would you do that? There’s a barely hidden one-up that you miss if you go down the pipe. 100 coins equal a one-up. Do the math.

They look at me blankly, thinking, “Up-whats?”.

Am I still allowed to use the word poser?

Across the room, nestled between cd video games and Super Nintendo cartridges are little rectangle bricks that belong to no Nintendo. One of them even says “Mario Bros.” on it.

People think Mario, they think Nintendo. It’s hilarious how many games people remember as being exclusive classics for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System originated for the Atari, early PC, and even old Macs.

You just can’t pwn at old video games. There was no typing to other players in a multiplayer environment. Even when doors and muds came about in BBS land, I don’t know about you guys, but I remember there usually being 1 node for one person to play at one time. In Legend of the Red Dragon, when you killed someone in the field and were interviewed for what you said after kicking ass, no one ever uttered “Pwned!”. They would have looked at the screen, backspaced a few times, and totally “Owned!” you.

Legend of the Red Dragon

I also feel I don’t really pwn, because I don’t play Halo. To me, Halo is just MIDI Maze, Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Heretic, Hexen, or GoldenEye 007(etc.) all over again… in space… with more jumping. Wait, System Shock was in space (with zombies even). So yeah, just with more jumping. I know people will raise their fists at me, but to me Halo has been repeated so many times that I shrug.

I watch my little bro in his headset screaming ‘Dude! Let’s super jump.’ and just ask, “Why is there so much jumping?” and feel kind of old.

I don’t mind feeling out of touch with pwnage. What is kind of sad is that I’ve stopped being as excited by new video games. I’ll say, “That’s kind of cool.” or “That’s pretty neat.”, but for the most part, I just feel like I’ll never be as excited as I was when video games were still new with leaps and bounds in their advancement. I didn’t even have the money for them, but I had plenty of time and an obsessed uncle.

Don’t get me wrong, I roll up my Katamaris and I play my voice acted RPGs, RTSs, and TBSs. So, maybe I’m just not a shoot ’em up kinda gamer.

This is not the case, because I’m not all about the MMORPGs. Instead they horrify me. The amount of time (or cheating) you have to invest to have a good time just boggles my mind. In addition, it’s kind of like I say when I see someone play Halo and I say, “Why is there so much jumping?”, with these it’s, “Wow, why is there so much running around?” Sure, there’s always been world map trekking, but this is insane. It used to be a few steps to the next town or a few random fights, now the random fights *ARE* the game. The intimacy of you, the characters, and the plot has been sacrificed to hack and slash with a subscription fee.

If you are reading this and like Halo or your MMORPG of choice, good for you. I mean, I’m obviously old and not so cool, so don’t listen to granny here.

I will keep saying “In my day…”, but that’s okay too. The best part about it is that now I have the resources to find all the old games I missed and try them out with the PC and emulator. Then I’ll snap shot the screen shots that amuse me and put them away for future posts. I know old games are not without flaws, but their flaws were lack of budget and technology to back them. I am floored by the mediocrity of today’s games. We have the tech and budget now, but where is all the fun game play and awesome writing? Creativity used to outpace the ability to convey it, now that the money and tech are there… where has it gone?

I am glad that there are exceptions. I just wish they were more the rule than the exception. At some point I’m hoping I’ll see it come back around and people will learn that eye-candy and hack and slash just isn’t enough.

Pure pwnage needs something more to back it up.

Left CSS Empathy

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The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the more awesome guilty. The text has been edited down to avoid total confusion so you may sift through and amuse yourself with the more amusing general confusion.

Bob: The girl to Henrietta’s left is Mary.

Celes: Do you mean the “other” left?

Bob: No, I mean HENRIETTA’S left, not the viewer’s left.

Celes: Oh! I was thinking “Henrietta’s left” as in to the left of Henrietta, not as in to the left of Henrietta by way of her left, not your left. Left, right, left, right, there’s none of the enemy left right? Right. No, left.

Fred: So isn’t that the other left, then?

Celes: Yes. I guess. It depends on how we define “other”. I mean, it does work, but I was totally off in my thinking when I said it- even if I sound right- but thanks for making me sound like I knew what I meant. In my defense, I’ve been programming web stuff a bunch, and in doing so, the viewer of the screen is always what defines left and right.

.mary {
float: right;
}

Henrietta’s left could have easily meant to the left of Henrietta or to the left of Henrietta according to her left.

Um, Holy crap. Just. Blarg.

Fred: Well, your problem is you’re looking at the couch as the only relevant div, when clearly it has nested .cushion divs with a width of 1/3 .couch. So .mary can be float:left like you thought because #cushion3 that contains her is float:right compared to the one Henrietta is on. Assuming that the viewer’s screen resolution is wider than the couch in pixels, they’ll stack horizontally- but anyone who has that problem probably doesn’t have a compatible browser anyway, and the couch would render as a futon or something.

Celes: …add the hacks that make the couch sort of not be a futon, or at least not be a very bad looking one… Um, will you marry me? *shakes head* Sorry. I don’t know when CSS empathy started to be a turn on for me, but apparently it is.

Bob: I love that you are my friends. May I just say that?