i.justrealized

Amazon users have spoken, one out of five stars for Spore.

It’s funny how so many people just goes in and rates a one to the game. Most people are displeased with the digital rights management (DRM). Some claim of rootkits being installs, some call it malware. As far as I know, there are no rootkits planted. Others claim of registration woes.

But what really annoyed people is the limitions of the DRM where you can only install in 3 computers. I am rather certain most people won’t be installing it in more than 2 computers. Using such limitations to curb piracy only pisses buyers. An Amazon user described aptly EA renting the software rather then selling it.

Anyway, I tried the game. It was fun in the beginning but gets tiring later on. The visuals and audios are great. And the game loads pretty quickly too. What I like about Spore is the concept, unfortunately it may be only the concept that I enjoy.

I think of Spore as a toy, less of a game. Reaching the end stages, there is this space stage, that really annoyed me. I hate:

• motioning my ship from planet to planet.
• hovering my mouse all around to find one stupid space system.
• that radar thing that leads you to the item of importance tests my patience.
• the fact that you never die in the game, you just get ressurected. I never wanted to die so badly in games. I miss my opponents killing me.
• finding animals in the planet is just darn annoying.

I give the game 3/5 for breaking new grounds, nice audio and visuals. Each stage felt like a different game. It’s multigenred. I am not used to this style but it’s an interesting concept. I’m tired of the game after half of the space stage. Spore could do better with more online elements than just sharing your artwork.

And yeah, it wasn’t all that good. I got the invite some time back. I was preoccupied that time and I didn’t really explore well till today. Pogo is another one of those browser that does the 3D thingy (not that we actually need another more of those).

I wish the browser makers could wake up one day and understand that 3D browser is not something humans want - maybe cyborgs could’ve totally drool all over - but not humans.

Pogo does a few things wrongly, they tried to reinvent the way people bookmark without a strong social element. They put all the 3D engine into this collections thing that look really cool if not for my 770 delicious link that basically hung the browser for a couple of minutes ’cause it’s generating screenies for the bookmarks. The 3D uses JavaScript which tends to give warnings due to script running too slowly.

And what’s with different names to the word ‘bookmark’. Internet Explorer calls it ‘Favorites’. Firefox calls it ‘Bookmarks’. Pogo calls it ‘Collections’. If I wrote a browser, I’ll call it - let me think, okay - ‘Elephants’. Whatever.

Another cool thing is the history browser, also uses screenshots of web sites. Pogo, unfortunately, is not intelligent enough to know how to give the appropriate screenshots, the offset is usually wrong and the screenies are either too big or too small never just right.

To worsen what already is bad enough, it uses Firefox 2 instead of 3 as the back end. Firefox 3 sorts out lots of memory issues and it’s amazing that I can now open 50 tabs and till smile. By the way, in Firefox 2, I used to open 50 tabs and chat with my friends on MSN just ’cause the browser is taking eons to respond. In Pogo, opening 12 tabs makes me cry.

On the lighter note, Pogo does have a nice logo. (Somehow reminds me of string theory.) I felt it could’ve been packaged into a Firefox plugin instead of compiling a whole browser out of it. Associating a web site with a screenshot is not enough, the screenshot is just too small to allow me to know what I am clicking on.

My impression of the browser wasn’t good, it’s trying too hard to be different but has not necessarily succeeded in the usability department. Good try on aesthetics. The social element is missing too and there is no way to way any Firefox Add-ons which is just a deal breaker. Stars! Yea, 2 stars out of 5.

[Pogo is just a project name and would probably be called AT&T Freestyle, AT&T Lenz or AT&T Bezel.]

Just watched Kataude mashin gâru. It is disgusting to the max. Sadistic humor. The whole film is sadistic. Even the gore is sadistic. Oh… Gore supposed to be sadistic anyway.

If you totally dig pure bloody fun. Go ahead to watch this film. Rated NC-17 in US. I had to skip several parts before I puke out my food. Here’s the trailer:

I sort of laugh a little at the English dialogues actually. For the crazy sadistic bloody humor and the ridiculous amount the gore… Well, I think I’d give this 6/10.

Amazon user Jed reviews the Holy Bible (Boldtext Pew Bible: King James Version).

118 of 123 people found the following review helpful:

This book doesn’t work. I’ve tried the “praying” method to get a new Porsche 996 delivered but to no avail. There’s nothing in the instructions about not wanting German sports cars but I tried praying for less ambitious things. I gave up when it didn’t even get me a Big Mac. In the early part there’s a bit about people crossing the desert and being sustained by manna from heaven, so you’d think that it would be able to manage at least a hamburger.

I’m disappointed and will contact the publisher. In the meantime I can’t recommend this book as it is clearly faulty.

Got one star out of five. Hope he gets a refund even though books in generally don’t come with a money-back-guarantee.

I just watched the film Appleseed (アップルシード) by Shinji Aramaki (荒牧 伸志 Aramaki Shinji) who does design related stuff for Fullmetal Alchemist and one of those Naruto movies. Appleseed or Appurushîdo is a Japanese anime movie. It’s mainly 3D with character arts looking 2D to retain some sort of anime styling.

As usual, the poster:

Appleseed is a film about…

Well… It’s an action anime film. The plot is a little… fuzzy. I think it’s about some alternate-human race that can’t reproduce because one scientist didn’t let them. Yeah, shit happens. But anyway, this alternate race and the human race sort of coexist together in one faction. At the more selfish faction, humans did not want this alternate race.

Humans are portrayed as selfish humans in this film (as with many other Japanese science fiction). But ultimate, the protagonist manages (of course) to overturn the situation and peace was eventually restored. This is not a spoiler, it’s one of those things you can deduce once you look at the poster and read the first two lines of the plot summary at the back of the DVD cover. (more…)