Mike Sheas Lifefeed

Why you should be buying stocks now

(author unknown) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:30:59 -0800

mshea: This holiday season remember that gift cards are the work of Satan.

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:23:55 -0800

mshea: This holiday season remember that gift cards are the work of Satan.

Pope Benedict: teh internets are teh suck

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:41:03 -0800

AKMA sez, "Benedict XVI, whom I actually admire a lot as popes go, has lapsed into the tedious reflex of blaming digital technology for the decadence of youth. Vatican Radio reports that Benedict met with professors and students in Parma, and warned them that because of digital technology, 'students' capacity for concentration and mental application on a personal level are reduced; on the other hand there is a danger that the students isolate themselves in an increasingly virtual reality.' I can understand, to some extent, his resistance to the change in mode-of-attention that accompanies online activity, but it's disappointing to see him falling for the bugaboo of replacement panic."

Pope Benedict on the Nature of University Reform (Thanks, AKMA!)

mshea: is listening to Loreena McKennett and editing Seven Swords. Marilyn let "cyclopean" pass!

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:08:19 -0800

mshea: is listening to Loreena McKennett and editing Seven Swords. Marilyn let "cyclopean" pass!

mshea: @davidaarsenault I've used Lulu to publish my own stuff and it works great. Dirt cheap, great quality. I highly recommend it.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:57:23 -0800

mshea: @davidaarsenault I've used Lulu to publish my own stuff and it works great. Dirt cheap, great quality. I highly recommend it.

mshea: Watching Michael Moore's "Sicko". Man, I hope I never get sick.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:24:01 -0800

mshea: Watching Michael Moore's "Sicko". Man, I hope I never get sick.

mshea: I'm thinking that while Twilight is horrifying on the surface, it's getting everyone a step closer to playing D&D in public.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:21:55 -0800

mshea: I'm thinking that while Twilight is horrifying on the surface, it's getting everyone a step closer to playing D&D in public.

mshea: can't wait for this stupid holiday weekend to be over so he can get to his 8:30am group leader's meeting!....sob

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:26:16 -0800

mshea: can't wait for this stupid holiday weekend to be over so he can get to his 8:30am group leader's meeting!....*sob*

mshea: Is seriously considering playing more Fallout 3. Man that game rocked.

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:09:00 -0800

mshea: Is seriously considering playing more Fallout 3. Man that game rocked.

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mshea — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:49:03 -0800

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mshea — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:42:24 -0800

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mshea — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:41:28 -0800

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Classic Dungeon Crawler ‘Rogue’ Comes to the iPhone

Blake Patterson — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:38:02 -0800

In late 1986 I spent a great deal of time gaming on my Atari 520ST. I received a number of games for it that Christmas, but one in particular stole weeks and months of my life away. It was Rogue, the famed dungeon crawling adventure published by Epyx and dating back to 1980. A nice thing about Rogue is that it and its variants have been ported to most every computing platform in existence. And ever since my first taste of that classic, I’ve gone out of my way to secure a copy for basically every machine I’ve owned. That said, it’s with a heavy heart that I’ve carried around a Rogueless iPhone 2.0 these four and a half months.

And now, thanks to Gandreas Software, my plight is resolved. Rogue for the iPhone just hit the App Store [link]. And it’s free.

Wikipedia describes Rogue’s gameplay.

In Rogue, the player assumes the typical role of an adventurer of early fantasy role-playing games. The game starts at the uppermost level of an unmapped dungeon with myriad monsters and treasure. The goal is to fight one’s way to the bottom, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, then ascend to the surface. Until the Amulet is retrieved, the player cannot return to earlier levels. Monsters in the levels become progressively more difficult to defeat. Rare is the adventurer who will again see the light of day.

Features as listed by the developer:

Playable in either “ASCII” mode, or graphics mode (just rotate the device to switch)
Obscure keyboard commands replaced with a simple taps for movement, or a handy command picker.
Commands can also be activated by a unique gesture based command - want to search for a secret door? Swipe across the top of the play area (all the gestures are shown on the command picker for easy reference)
Graphics can be zoomed in/out via pinch
Completely faithful Rogue experience (all the levels, monsters, potions, scrolls, etc…)

If you’re an adventure fan or a retro fan…or both, you won’t want to let this classic pass you by.

App Store Link: Rogue, Free

mshea: editing his one-shot D&D adventure for his wife and folks - Cave of Frostwynd.

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:09:15 -0800

mshea: editing his one-shot D&D adventure for his wife and folks - Cave of Frostwynd.

mshea01 is playing SuperStreetFighter2THD

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:06:41 -0800

SuperStreetFighter2THD - score: 0 of 200, achievements: 0 of 12

mshea: Too Human for $19 on Amazon tomorrow. It got shitty reviews but for $20, I'll buy any Diablo clone.

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:11:07 -0800

mshea: Too Human for $19 on Amazon tomorrow. It got shitty reviews but for $20, I'll buy any Diablo clone.

MUD Designer Unhappy About WoW Torture Quest [WoW]

Stuart Houghton — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:30:00 -0800

Creation Kit, DLC Hits Fallout 3 [Fallout 3]

Brian Crecente — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:20:00 -0800

mshea: is going to hammer out a quest or two before bed.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:30:57 -0800

mshea: is going to hammer out a quest or two before bed.

mshea: Ding, level 73!

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:42:19 -0800

mshea: Ding, level 73!

mshea: Waiting in a queue. I just want to level my hunter. Is that so wrong?

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:15:35 -0800

mshea: Waiting in a queue. I just want to level my hunter. Is that so wrong?

Suck at Guitar Hero? Buy this Robot [Cheater]

Owen Good — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:00:00 -0800

Tabula Rasa Shut Down, Team Hit by Lay Offs [Disturbance In The Workforce]

Brian Crecente — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:30:00 -0800

Large Hadron Collider Guys Get Theatrical With Half-Life Street Theatre [Half-life]

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:00:00 -0800

Warcraft Identity of Obama's FCC Transition Team Co-Chair Revealed, Analyzed

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:46:54 -0800

Earlier on Boing Boing, Cory blogged that President-elect Barack Obama has appointed Net Neutrality advocates and "virtual worlds nuts" Kevin Werbach and Susan Crawford to co-chair his FCC transition team. Okay, so we might know the guy as Kevin Werbach out here in meatspace, but to his Terror Nova Guild buddies, he's better known as Supernovan Jenkins (the first name presumably a reference to Werbach's Supernova tech conference series), and he's a Level 70 Tauren Shaman. Livejournaler Waltermonkey opines on the deeper meaning of Werbach's WoW identity:

What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.
1. - CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as "the good guys", but students of history (both ours and Azeroth's) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.

Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.

Read the whole thing: victory or death! yes we can! (Waltermonkey; thanks Drew Coombs of Project Lore! Recompense of phat lewt, reagents, and pizza await thee.)

mshea: My review of Netflix on 360: Hey look! 10,000 movies I don't want to see! Thanks Hollywood!

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:04:56 -0800

mshea: My review of Netflix on 360: Hey look! 10,000 movies I don't want to see! Thanks Hollywood!

mshea: invested $1000 in the market and $150 into his Dwarven Forge collection.

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:26:23 -0800

mshea: invested $1000 in the market and $150 into his Dwarven Forge collection.

Apple to Mac owners: throw away your monitor if Hollywood says so

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:15:29 -0800

Buying an Apple computer? Get ready to throw away your monitor, over and over again. New Apple hardware is shipping with "HDCP" anti-copying technology that prevents showing some video on "non-compliant" monitors. Best part: the list of "compliant" monitors will change over time: the monitor you buy today can be "revoked" tomorrow and stop working.

Slashdot says that Apple's added "copyright protection" to its video. But copyright law isn't violated when you watch a movie on an "unapproved" monitor. This isn't about enforcing copyright law, it's about giving a small handful of movie companies a veto over hardware designs.

Yesterday, our buddy David Chartier at Ars and Sam Oliver at AppleInsider both publicized an issue that's been burning up the support boards for a while now: iTunes video rentals and purchases in HD are flagged for HDCP control, and in cooperation with the new Mini DisplayPort connector on the MacBook and MacBook Pro unibody models, those movies and TV shows are refusing to play back on non-compliant external displays.
In this case, 'compliant' means HDMI or recent-vintage DVI, but even monitors or TVs that support HDCP may not properly negotiate with the DisplayPort connector to give iTunes and QuickTime the all-clear signal (if so, quitting and relaunching iTunes once the display is hooked up may clear the playback hold).
Equally annoying: HDCP is only supposed to apply to 'high-value' digital streams, meaning standard-def purchases and rentals on the iTunes store should be out of scope... but some reports indicate that both the HD and SD instances are flagged, blocking playback on anything but the laptop's internal display or a straight-thru HDMI connection. Argh!

MacBook Pro users getting bitten by HDCP (Thanks, Denver Jewelry Guy!)

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mshea — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:02:08 -0800

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mshea — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:59:39 -0800

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