Maker Faire ‘09
June 14th, 2009 by Harry Sachz
This post would have been sooner, but when we came home I was greeted with a Mac that wouldn’t turn on (raid array fail), a car that wouldn’t lock (key fob fail), and an exercise regiment to begin. However, I have time now, so there is plenty of time to bore all you.
We love our trips to San Francisco. Every time we go there’s something new and cool. We did the usual and visited Lombard Street on our way to a Tweetup with @veronica (which was crowded by all the fans) and @jollyroger which we actually had time to talk to.
Maker’s Faire was rad as always. We had an opportunity to meet and listen to a talk with Adam Savage, met Bre Pettis at a bus stop, @magaragazza sat in a Tesla, we listened to a talk about open source hardware with Ladyada, 
and had the opportunity to play with gadgets like a light that gets brighter when you tweet it.
Our last evening there, Cali Lewis (host of GeekBrief) tweet’d that she was setting up a 
meeting at In ‘n Out at the wharf, so we jumped on the Muni and head down there from our hotel. We had the opportunity to meet Neal Campbell (GeekBrief), Dave Curlee (editor of GeekBrief), as well as really cool tech fans Ryan (Revision3
intern), Mike (amazing photographer), Suki, Keane and more…
When we were leaving, we had an opportunity to stop by Samovar Tea Lounge and Moscone West 
(2 days before they started putting up Apple stuff).
I also noticed that the SFO airport monorail looks a lot like a stage from Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. For fans of the game, this is as close I could find for a picture. 
Felt like deja vu.
I have a ton more pictures, but looking at other people’s pictures is boring unless you’re in them. So for your sake, I’ll stop here. It was fun, and
we’re looking forward to visiting (possibly moving) 
San Francisco many more times…
My apologies for the crappy pictures. Was taken with a 3G iPhone and not the new, shiny and expensive 3GS.
Tags: apple, GeekBrief, Makers Faire, San Francisco, Tesla, twitter
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Fable 2 — The Epic Battle Continues…
May 23rd, 2009 by Harry Sachz
I had recently come into possession a buddy’s XBOX 360 temporarily for a little experiment. He wants to see if it is possible to convert a long standing PC Gamer over to playing just on consoles. I was hesitant at first, but after much debate, its now hooked up in my living room with quite a few games at my disposal.
A few things had crossed my mind when taking on this task. Most importantly, there are many games that are XBOX exclusive and I would never get the ability to play them on the PC. For instance, I missed the opportunity to play the sequel to Fable when the game was released and since I absolutely loved the original on the 1st XBOX, buying a 360 just for games like this was always on the back of my mind. 
Sadly after playing it, the anticipation wasn’t equal to the gameplay experience.
From what I remember in the first game, you can die. For some reason I remember dying a lot. It was hard. Challenges are supposed to make your palms sweaty and your heart race. The possibility of losing all that you have built in an instant is supposed to make you wonder if the next move you make could be your last. Of course you get to start over again, but not after some hassle of starting from some far away map or at the beginning of the challenge. In Fable 2 its impossible to die. If you get “knocked down”, your character waits a bit then gets back up with a few experience points lost. This fact alone makes the game mundane and anti-climatic.
In the original, finding a treasure chest meant something. I remember being excited about finding some dead pirate’s bad ass sword on some far away hidden coast. It took a collection of 10 or more hidden keys that were scattered around the gigantic map that made up the first game. 
It was something that was randomly stumbled upon and the conditions were just good enough to attain what treasure was inside. The sword ended up being my primary sword and was with me through most of the game. Now of course, I’m recalling what had happened in a game played many years and many brain cells ago, but the game achieved the coveted ranks of “Playing All the Way Through”, which few have earned.
In the sequel to Fable, treasure chests are everywhere. In fact, they’re so abundant that your dog companion becomes incredibly annoying with all his treasure findings. When you get to the treasure chest or dig up a treasure spot, its usually just a rusty necklace or some life potion. It makes you wonder why in game where you can’t die, they give you so much life potion. By the end of the game I had so much life potion, resurrection vials, and healing food just sitting there and filling up my inventory.
Now, the only other severe disappointment was the end of the game. I won’t spoil any portion of the story because it and visuals are actually pretty cool. At the end of the first Fable, you have an epic (I rarely use that word) battle with an enormous fire-breathing dragon that really kicks the shit out of you. There’s fire everywhere. 
By the end of the mission, you’re engulfed in flames, your palms are sweaty, your eyes are twitching back and forth on the life meter to make sure that you have enough vials of life-potion left, and you’re wondering what surprises are going to pop up next. The visuals are what you could expect for the original XBOX, but the gameplay was incredible. I pretty much felt drained and excited to beat the final boss. It was actually pretty cool to sit through the story afterwards.
Here’s the scene for the “epic battle” for the final fight in Fable 2:
BAM! The End.
I shit you not. After a lot of talking and lame flashback scenes, you walk up to the final boss and shoot him. He dies after one shot. Then, more talking and storyline.
This game was a complete let down and I’m sad to say that I had dedicated so much time into playing it. Granted, these are just a few of the downsides to this game. I didn’t even mention how Microsoft sucks your money with add-on micro payments, the forced online multiplayer additions, the way that your clothing was more The Sims than useful armor, the lack of a map, the tacked on family life stuff, the lack of depth when making positive / negative decisions, or how your character didn’t show any real changes through his journey — mostly age with scarring and a halo / horns.
Again, very disappointed. Highly recommend the original, can’t recommend the sequel.
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Stickers
May 8th, 2009 by Harry Sachz
Listening to me must get to real boring when all I do is talk about my iPhone. So, I’ll try and be brief.
When @magaragazza and I had taken our little ‘tech trip’ up to San Francisco last year, my iPhone was just starting to run the original jailbroken 1.x software. Since I’m such a f’n geek, the bulk of the trip was spent with my face buried in the phone trying to discover everything the mod’d software had to offer. If it wasn’t for pictures taken with the built in camera, I probably would have never seen the city. The reason I brought this up is because it was the most fun that I have had in a long time and I often dream of that vacation when my days seem endless.
The theme I had on my phone was released on the day that we had arrived to our hotel room. As soon as we got settled in, I fired up my phone’s Edge connection and spent 20 minutes downloading the theme’s three Megabytes of bulk. That theme was with me while we were in the audience of Diggnation, while we had toured the city’s tourist attractions, and when we had attended Maker’s Faire. I know that it may seem silly, but when I look at my phone’s screen, its just a little reminder of our trip together.
When the iPhone’s new 2.0 software was released, I was hesitant to upgrade because I knew that all the new backend changes would break my theme. Again, since I’m an F’n nerd, I chose new and shiny and lost that memory for good. Recently, however, I found a forum post full of people that share my love of “Stickers”. Since its been back on my phone, I feel like an old friend has returned and the excitement has even compelled me to develop new icons for it.
The icons I made are: RSS (Google Reader), Twitter bird (Tweetie), Tools (yellow tools), Apps (red Metal Gear power button), my home network camera (black camera), and GV Mobile (blue phone icon on bottom left). There are more, but they’re hidden under the different categories. Anyhow, not all that important, but this is my blog and I wanted to post it..
(I’d link to the theme, but I’m unsure of how Apple will respond. No one reads this blog anyhow, so what am I worried about?)
Tags: iphone, San Francisco, stickers, theme
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iNeeded a Change
April 19th, 2009 by Harry Sachz
There is a new series of iPhone themes going around that are aiming to make the typical phone experience more “elegant”. I had just stumbled across “iNav” last night while browsing Cydia, and spent hours afterward trying to decide which one would best fit the ’simple’ characteristics that I’m looking for. I decided on one called “iNav Aluminum”, or something of the sort. As by the the screenshots, you can see that it has a series of oversized icons that almost take up the entire page. When you scroll left or right, there are more oversized icons that are titled Tools, Music, Photos, and Games, each with their own functions.
As I had posted previously, ‘Categories’ is easily one of the best applications available for the iPhone. It is what allows the Tools and Games sections to work as they do. When you click tools, the folder will open up with all the rest of the applications you have installed.
This is not by any means a simple task to setup; but overall, I think this is an incredibly beautiful way to organize your phone’s interface.
Tags: apps, Categories, Cydia, iNav, iphone, Themes, Winterboard
Posted in Personal, Pictures, Tech | Comments (0)