I'm a Developer at Master of Malt, a University of Brighton graduate, a 1st Kyu in Kyokushinkai Karate, a video gamer and technology enthusiast. Read more about me over here.
On the subject of video games, today I completed day 4 of 18 in the Tales of Symphonia Challenge, where I attempt to complete this lengthy JRPG before I graduate for money. You can see daily updates on the twitters, but so far I'm fourteen hours in, having done the fire, water and wind seals. I'm enjoying the game a lot, especially as it's been a long time since I played an RPG this hardcore. I should almost do this more often, as forcing myself to play 3.5+ hours of the game a day really gets you engaged in it quickly. So far I'm loving the combat and exploration of the world, but I'm not entirely feeling the story. In particular the voice acting (which is inconsistent in when it is used) and dialogue can be cringeworthy at points.
So far I'm making good progress, but then I haven't had to go to work since starting the challenge. Next week I have to work five days to make up hours, which could make keeping up the pace difficult.
So this Friday everyone at the office went out for lunch (we ate delicious pizza) to welcome the new employees we have, including new placement students (remember when I was one of those?). The following picture, taken as we returned from lunch, demonstrates the continued professionalism of the operation as much of the office walked down the street eating ice creams.
I approve of everything about this image.
Today I received the fabled results letter from University that would declare whether I had succeeded in becoming a real boy or if I had just wasted four years of my life. The good news is I passed! The more shocking news is I got a 1st, which this wikipedia article will tell you is the highest level of degree I could have got. How I managed that, I have no idea. Here are my actual results my module:
- Placement Learning: A- - Individual Project: A - Advanced Internet Application Development: A - Internet Gaming Design and Development: A - Data Management: C- - Managing the E-Enterprise: A-
As this picture shows, I got a honours degree in internet computing with sandwich (means I took a placement year). I sure hope its delicious!
I was also reminded today that I have a long running bet (for about a year now) that I can't complete Tales of Symphonia before I graduate. If I achieve this goal I will win back a delightful £40 that I lost in a previous bet. Something about not being able to complete games or something. Fortunately I have a whole eighteen days left before graduation, unfortunately I'm informed the game is over seventy hours long, so I better get my finger out.
I will keep this blog updated with how I progress in the Symphonia Challenge (TM). So far I'm about three hours into it and the game seems pretty cool. Wish me luck!
So on Tuesday Google took the covers off their new social endeavour, Google+. Anyone not looking very hard would simply dismiss it as a clone of Facebook, and admittedly parts of it are, however I feel that Google+ may just be what the social and communication space needs to move forward and that people shouldn't ignore its possibilities.
Saying that, it still worries me that Google is running this product. Innovation and great technology are their bread and butter, but understanding people is something they have yet to fully wrap their heads around. Just look at Buzz, an ill-conceived twitter clone, Wave, a communication product that no one understood what its purpose in life was and Android, incredibly sophisticated and customisable, but a mess for the non-techy to understand.
With plus Google is off to a good start, and the general UI improvements rolling out across all of Google's services gives me much hope. So what is Google+ and why is it worth moving from the Facebooks? In a nutshell, its because (amazingly) Google has understood how social interaction works better than Facebook and it all comes down to circles.
Facebook achieved mass acceptance when everyones mum started joining it. The problem with this is not that I don't want my mum there, but that I don't want to tell her everything about my life. As much as I lover her, she is not my "friend" as Facebook so elegantly characterises everyone. My University lecturer is also not my friend, but there are certainly reasons I would want to communicate and share things online with both of them. In Mark Zuckerberg's world everyone is a friend or a stranger, and I have the option to send status updates to all my friends or everyone on the Internet. There is no granularity.
What Google has created is an elegant UI for creating groups of people I know known as circles. Whenever I post a status update, share a link or upload a photo, I can choose which social circles I share this information with. This is much closer to how the world actually works. The human mind segments people into groups and in life you deliberately change how you behave and what you say with these groups. While I would be more than happy to show pictures of my graduation with everyone I know, I would be much less comfortable with my parents seeing pictures from the nights drinking that followed it. In the same fashion, I might want to rant about a bad day at work with friends, but if my boss or other employees are my friends on Facebook, I would be much less eager to do so. Google has solved this problem in the geekiest way possible; venn diagrams.
We're "hanging" outWhile launching a competitor to Facebook they simultaneously created a Skype killer on the same day. One of the best features of Google+ is "hangouts", the ability to launch a live video chat in the browser window (no desktop client required) and invite different circles to join. This allows you to have interactive video chat in the browser with multiple people for free, and it even has some great technology behind it, like focus switching to the person currently talking and the ability to share YouTube videos and scrub to the same location for everyone watching. To use Skype I had to instal and teach my mum how to use it. Now when I move out my whole extended family could have a group video call, and I wouldn't have to teach them how to get it working.
They also integrated Twitter functionality at the same time, allowing you to follow anyones public updates without a "friend request". Its up to me who I show data to, and my friends if they share with me. This is much more natural than the incredibly formal "request" of friendship.
I think Google is onto a real winner here. They have fixed the major flaw in Facebook's design and introduced socially revolutionary technology to people of all skills. And thats not forgetting that it doesn't have a lot of the cruft that Facebook has, such as application spam and is inherently open about the data it collects where Facebook is closed. Facebook could (and may) integrate Skype and create friend lists tomorrow, but Google has put their stake in the ground and isn't likely to give up easily.
The problem will be in convincing everyone to move over. And if everyone doesn't, how people handle a fractured landscape where some people are on Facebook, others on Google+ and others on both. Its certainly going to be very interesting.
This was actually my third appearance on the show, but the first released as Brian records a bunch of episodes and then releases them over time. This episode cut the queue to keep it relevant and timely, so expect a few more of my appearances in the coming weeks. I had a lot of fun and hope to be on again.
As you may have heard, the US Supreme Court struck down a proposed California law today that would have made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. You can read a much deep analysis of the decision over here, but it basically boils down to the government not being allowed to regulate violence in media as it is protected by the first amendment, aka free speech. If this law had been about sexual video games it would have likely passed, as the government does restrict the sale of porn to young minds.
The gaming press and enthusiasts at large are heralding this as a great victory; David defeating Goliath and little ol' video games getting their due. And to be clear, as a gamer I am all for this. As part of the ruling the court noted that there's never been a conclusive link between exposure to violet video games and harmful effects on children, which is great as I think the whole notion of violent games creating violent children is nonsense. My issue, conflicted as it may be, with the parading of this victory is that this may not have been a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong, I am inherently against what this law was proposing. This law wanted to single out violent video games as something that should be restricted from minors, while excluding violent movies, TV shows and music. Now that we all agree that violent video games don't create inhuman monsters that want to eat our brains (the zombie apocalypse will do that), all these forms of media should be treated equally and thus if you want to regulate one you should regulate them all.
Which as it happens is what we do here in the United Kingdom, where apparently we don't have free speech according to todays ruling. In the UK we still have an advisor system that is non-legally binding and rates games similar to the US, however content rated for 15 or 18 year olds is passed onto the same folk who rate films and DVDs; the BBFC. Media rated by the BBFC may not be sold or rented (or watched in a cinema) to anyone younger than the age rating and this restriction is enforced by making it illegal to do so. With the exception of restricting it only to video games, this is the exact thing that was struck down by the US court.
While I haven't had first hand experience ever being denied the purchase of a game (as a kid it was almost always my parents who purchased my games), I did witness a school friend on his fifteenth birthday being denied a 15 rated game. The store even went to the lengths of phoning his mother to confirm his age before they would sell him some crappy Lord of the Rings title. And what has the enforcement of this law done to the games industry in the UK? Has there been child riots perhaps, walkouts in class rooms or maybe GTA didn't sell as well here because kids can't play it? Um, no.
All the restriction have done is put more pressure on parents to make decisions about how they bring up their kids. The biggest argument I've seen against this law has been the idea that its the parents job to decide what their kids should be experiencing at what age, and they are totally right, however in this day and age sometimes that can be difficult. If a kid has some money whose to says they wont try to purchase an extremely violent game behind their parents back? Of course there's the other side of the argument which says parents are stupid and will give their kids GTA even when warned by the store employees that its not suitable for kids, but then it's their decision, not the kids.
Parents can also give their kids knives...
While this is a great victory for the video game industry as a whole, and kicking the notion that violent video games creates violent kids down a deep hole is good, I feel the industry (and gamers) jumped on the concept of regulation as an evil thing without really considering what it actually is and what its effects on the average gamer will be. Which if your anything like me, will be none. Leland Yee, the guy pushing this bill, said today that "the U.S. Supreme Court has decided it's going to side with corporate America and Wal-Mart against our children," and while that comes of as sounding like political bullshit, he might not be far off. The people defending the gamers in this battle were the game publishers, the people who want to sell GTA to twelve year olds. Of course they were against this idea.
Gamers just sided with them without really considering the ramifications. And because they like to blow shit up.
A couple posts ago I mentioned that this blog was getting a lot of referrers from folks trying to find out how to do some stuff I mentioned in my final year project and that I might write a couple blog posts explaining what I learned. I am in no way an expert on the subject, but with any luck what I contribute will at least point people in the right direction.
Rather than write a lengthy post however, I decided to produce a video using the newly released Final Cut Pro X. A lot of professional video editors are complaining that the software has lost a lot of features and has changes they disagree with, and I'm sure they are right, but as a casual video editor who was relegated to using iMovie (which didn't do enough) because I didn't understand the complexities of Final Cut Express, I love the power and freedom the new editing software has given me. The new price also did a lot to sell me on the purchase.
So here it is, my first stab at a video tutorial; a guide to creating a simple iPhone application that displays a UITableViewController using Core Data as the data source. This is my first attempt, so I'm sure there are improvements to be made. If folk like it, maybe I will do more. Or perhaps I will make a video on something completely different. Who knows.
In other news, I watched the complete first season of Game of Thrones, which was absolutely incredible. Its certainly up there with one of my favourite TV shows, and even got me back into reading books, as I can't wait an entire year for the next season to arrive. I would recommend the book(s) and the show to anyone who isn't squeamish about a little blood and unnecessary nudity and sex.
On Monday and Tuesday I had two exams, both three hours in length, involving questions about .NET architecture (three tiers, web services and AJAX) and database theory (transaction processing, object-relational databases, business intelligence and data warehousing). The best part of the whole thing was having to hand write the answers (on this antiquated technology called paper) which has the delightful result of making the exams much more difficult to do for someone (like the kind of person that would take a computing course…) who types all day. It also makes life much more difficult for the examiner, as my hand writing is teeeeerrible. I felt the .NET exam went pretty well, but I left the database one feeling my attempt at answering questions about business intelligence and data warehousing didn't go down so well, so we will have to wait and see what sort of final grade I get.
These exams mark the completion of my university degree. After twelve years in compulsory education, two years at college and four years at university I'm officially out of the education system. A real boy you might say. It's kinda scary to think I won't have to do pointless coursework, listen to lectures about subjects I really don't give a shit about or take exams ever again. At the same time its very awesome the freedom that provides. I'm now completely free to work on the projects I want, as long as I have some sort of income at the same time. I do have to pay of that student loan at some point…
Happening at the same time as my exams was WWDC and E3. Apples announcements at WWDC were interesting, with the improvements in Lion and iOS 5 being very much desired, even if most of the later were lifted from Android, Windows Phone 7, third party apps and jailbreaks. Whatever the source of these ideas, as an iOS user I don't really have any complaints. Companies should always be matching features at the same time as innovating, and much of the feature set of iOS 5 seems designed to remove a lot of the arguments (beyond the whole open debate) Android fan boys have. For me personally, wireless sync, better notifications and tabbed browsing are the primary features I'm excited for. Its also nice to see them finally allow you to set the thing up on the device, as requiring a computer to activate an iPad kinda destroys the whole "post pc" spiel they are trying to sell you.
The iCloud stuff is also interesting, as if nothing else it makes MobileMe free. It also adds universal syncing between your devices, so if I download a song, app or book on one device, it syncs to the others. The same is true for documents made in iWork and photos taken with an iPhone camera, which will automatically sync with iPhoto on my mac. The iTunes portion of it is what everyone is making the biggest deal out of, and they certainly have an interesting offering (for $25 any song in your library will be upgraded to a high quality iTunes version and they will upload anything they don't have), particularly because they are basically providing an amnesty for any pirated music as long as you pay the yearly fee. What sucks is no streaming option, and the fact it wont be coming to the UK any time soon. That makes all three cloud music solutions (Google, Amazon and Apple) US only for now…
Of the E3 presentations, Nintendo was certainly the most interesting. They have Kid Icarus, Luigi's Mansion 2, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart and Super Mario coming to 3DS, which alongside the soon to be released Zelda remake almost makes me want to get a 3DS. Unfortunately the machine is kinda bulky and the battery lasts four hours, so I think I will hold out for a revision, as I was pretty badly burnt by the DS Lite (which came out a couple months after I purchased a DS Phat).
The Wii U announcement obviously gained the most attention and aside from its horrific name the concept is interesting. I played Zelda Four Swords and Crystal Chronicles on GameCube using GBA's and the experience was actually pretty fun, so I can see how the new controller could be used. Its just a shame Nintendo once again opted for a cheap single touch capacitive screen. I think the Wii U will have a pretty successful launch, and will use the fact its in line with current hardware specs to its advantage to get 3rd party support, but I can see problems one or two years in when Sony and Microsoft's next machines are released and leave the Wii U behind. You have to give Nintendo credit though, for once again trying to innovate while Microsoft and Sony are still demoing their wiimote ripoffs. Motion control is so last year dude.
Speaking of Sony, aside from some impressive looking PS3 games (Uncharted 3, Resistance 3, inFamous 2, Dust 514 and Starhawk), multi platform titles (BioShock Infinite) and some terrible move games (NBA on the Move and Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest), their big announcement was the PlayStation Vita, another God awful product name. The Vita looked nice and all and the price point was right for once, but I feel Sony is really making a mistake here. Everything they showed for the PSV was a big, epic, cinematic, console experience on a handheld platform. They sold this exact concept when the PSP was released six years ago and guess what, no one (outside of the Japanese who love monster hunter) play their PSP. Why? Because you can't play epic console experiences on the bus. The end result of this is you play these portable games at home, on a tiny screen, with shitty controls, when your TV and console is sitting right next to you. Some of these games even let you transfer the experience between the console and handheld, which kinda proves my entire point.
Speaking of transferring, perhaps my favourite part of E3 was this video from Konami (starts 35 minutes 10 seconds in)…
The PSP was released before the iPhone and Android devices took over the handheld market. These days if you want a quick, portable game you buy one for a very low price on your smart phone. Nintendo may still have some chance because they make unique games that will never come to smart phones and because they actually make games suited for portable play. Sony however, is trying to sell you a portable PS3, and no one wants that…
As for Microsoft, their presentation was probably the most disappointing. Beyond another dashboard update, Gears of War 3, Halos and some multi platform franchise like Call of Duty and Tomb Raider, all they showed was Kinect bullshit. This demo of Ubisoft playing a Tom Clancy game where you shoot by doing jazz hands describes how I feel about the whole thing (starts 1 minutes 30 seconds in).
And while we're on the subject of Ubisoft, their press conference is probably the winner of the most bizarre award. The guys at Giant Bomb probably explain it best (starts 8 minutes 35 seconds in).
So yeah, a week of highs and lows to say the least.
Instead of doing the sensible thing and actually revise for my exams, I've been working on my little side project the last couple days. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the imaginatively named "my e-penis.com" is a database for tracking game collections and progression. As it stands a user can register for an account, login, search for games and provide basic information about the status of each game, such as ownership (whether you have the game, had the game or want the game), completion progress (if you completed it, gave up on it or if the game is uncompletable in the case of an MMO or puzzle game), completion date and how many hours have been played.
Technology wise, I'm using a combination of PHP and jQuery on the front end and a MySQL database on the back end. I've had very little practical experience with jQuery despite being aware of it for a while now, so the whole thing has been a learning experience. Its also been quite a while since I last designed a site from scratch, so I've had to come up with a fresh design that feels more modern than the last site I built. And yes, I'm making a green website. You have a problem with that?
The internet doesn't have enough green if you ask me.
The site uses Giant Bomb's API (which was a nice crash course in JSON) to provide the game database. Back in the FWXD days one of the major issues with the site was trying to get users to enter game information into the database. Using an external wiki that is always growing and correcting itself is certainly the better solution, especially as the site is really only designed for myself. I would love for others to get some use out of it, however I don't really intend for it to gain traction. If I did, I would have chosen a more politically correct name...
The site is currently in alpha, but if you want to play with it and give me feedback, you can check it out here.
In other news, on Thursday I was offered full time employmentat my day job. This July will mark two years with the company. I joined them for my placement year and stayed on part time (currently only a day a week) during my final year of University. This offer marks the first time I will be "employed for reals", and includes the obvious benefit of a pay rise, as well as the promise of 20% time to work on personal side projects that can benefit the company.
I had done a lot of thinking leading up to this week as to what I wanted to do once I graduated. Should I do a masters degree? Look at what other job opportunities are available? Or maybe live up to my threat and go back to college and do an art degree? After the last year it didn't take me long to decide that I had had enough of the education system, and frankly I don't know how well I would fit in with a more "professional" company.
Despite the fact they claim to be getting more "proper" (with a real office and everything), you gotta love the idea that your company is making its millions on porn star rum.
So I accepted. If nothing else, I feel more comfortable graduating with a secure job, which will allow me to more casually monitor other opportunities than if I had graduated unemployed. Not that I expect to be leaving them any time soon. They tried and failed to find a replacement for me, so I must be doing something right.
I wont be joining them full time until after graduation at the end of July, so I have some time before then.
On another topic entirely, SEO is a funny thing. I use quotes from TV shows and video games for the title of all my posts. This has resulted in my blog ranking highly in a Google search for "Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down", which is just wonderful. I found this out when looking at the referrals this site has been getting. Some of the more interesting (and non-SEO abusing) referrals have been for searches such as "nsurl asynchronous download image progress", "uisearchdisplaycontroller coredata" and "iphone development sqlite or core data". I don't claim to be an expert in any of these subjects, but I'm thinking of writing a few posts on how I did a few things in my project to help people searching for these subjects. There was a lot of work involved in understanding some of this stuff, so maybe I can give developers taking on the insane task of learning object-c in the future a hand.
My second appearance on the Downloadable Content podcast is online, in which you can hear us discuss the PlayStation network hack and outage at length. It was recorded a month and a half ago, so please excuse it not being the most timely discussion. As before, you can subscribe to the show in iTunes or download the episode directly over yonder.
podcast, 
;)
;)
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