Today is the 112th anniversary of Frank Zamboni’s birth. Frank Zamboni is the Italian-American inventor of the much-beloved machine that resurfaces the ice of skating rinks around the world.
To celebrate, Google has produced a “doodle” – one of their customized Google logos – that’s actually a playable mini-game, in which you drive a resurfacer around a skating rink to remove the marks made by skaters. You can pick up fuel along the way to fill your gas tank, but avoid the banana peels they leave behind, or you’ll go spinning.
This isn’t Google’s first playable doodle. In the past, they’ve done playable musical instrument doodles, sports doodles, and, perhaps most famously, a playable homage to Pac-Man.
So when tragedies happen, our response must be galling to those who don’t “get” games. Instead of explaining the merits of what we do, we throw up discussion-ending roadblocks of First Amendment rights and scientific research (ignoring that parent watchdog groups also claim to have the weight of scientific research on their side). It’s not unlike what the National Rifle Association does when the issue of gun control comes up. They say it doesn’t work, namecheck the Second Amendment, and change the subject.
Sinclair is absolutely right – the video game industry has an unfortunate tendency to go the First Amendment whenever anyone in government questions what they’re selling or how they’re selling it much the same way the NRA goes to the Second Amendment.
I really wish both industries would stop rubbing our noses in their respective constitutional rights to exist.
Sinclair also talks about the backdoor marketing of violent video game content to children, despite ESRB ratings:
They put Kratos in Little Big Planet and Hot Shots Golf, Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the cast of Army of Two, Dead Space, and Medal of Honor in MySims: Sky Heroes. Oh, and who could forget the Mortal Kombat animated series?
Sinclair talks about broadcast television’s requirement to serve the public interest with a portion of their programming, and suggests the video game industry do the same.
The problem as I see it with that approach is that left to their own devices, consumers will choose shit over gold almost every time. Otherwise the cable broadcaster once known as “The Learning Channel” wouldn’t be shoveling crap like “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” I don’t think the answer is as facile as “make better quality stuff,” otherwise PBS would be the most-watched channel on television.
iRig HD features superior digital audio quality, and offers a premium 24-bit A/D converter for a crystal clear digital signal that’s free from noise and crosstalk. Plus, its ultra-low-draw power-consumption circuitry eliminates the need for batteries – it’s powered by your mobile device or computer. An onboard gain control allows you to dial in the perfect signal level for your instrument and apps, and a multicolor LED lets you know what’s going on with your interface and signal.
IK Multimedia is taking the Apogee Jam approach. A much better idea in my opinion.
“Apple needs to adapt to a very different world,” Sculley said. “As we go from $500 smartphones to even as low, for some companies, as $100 for a smartphone, you’ve got to dramatically rethink the supply chain and how you can make these products and do it profitably.”
Seriously? The guy that kicked Steve Jobs out of Apple and then ran the company into the ground is giving advice to Tim Cook, a supply chain guru. What’s Bloomberg got on tap for tomorrow to give Apple advice, an interview with a car full of clowns and a skateboarding dog?
Astronauts can, certainly, tear up — they’re human, after all. But in zero gravity, the tears themselves can’t flow downward in the way they do on Earth. The moisture generated has nowhere to go. Tears, astronaut Andrew Feustel put it, “don’t fall off of your eye … they kind of stay there.” NASA spacewalk officer Allison Bollinger, who oversaw Feustel’s EVA, confirmed this assessment. “They actually kind of conglomerate around your eyeball,” she said.
In other words, yep: There’s no crying in space.
Even worse? According to the article, “space tears” actually can hurt.
Over the weekend we brought you word that an online petition asking the U.S. government to build a Death Star had elicited an official response.
The whole thing was tongue-in-cheek, of course. The White House’s Chief of the Science and Space Branch penned a response shooting it down based on cost, design issues (the Death Star can be destroyed “by a one-man starship”) and the administration’s policy on “not blowing up planets.”
Now the administration’s position has evoked a response from the Galactic Empire itself. The bloggers at the official Star Wars Web site, posting as “Galactic Empire Public Relations,” painted the Obama administration’s position as confirming “the overwhelming military superiority of the Galactic Empire” and discounted the administration’s cost projections as not taking into account the Empire’s own massive economy of scale. An Empire spokesman also dismissed any attack attempting to exploit an alleged weakness in the Death Star’s design as “a useless gesture.”
We look forward to the inevitable counterpoint response from the Rebel Alliance.
Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called “Graph Search.” It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.
I’ve spent the last month or so with the Jackson 7-string Soloist — my first 7-string guitar. I must admit to being a bit nervous about picking up a 7-string for the first time, but this guitar lived up to everything I’ve come to expect from Jackson.
I have 20 guitars in my collection, four of them are Jacksons that I’ve purchased over the years. I continue to buy Jacksons1 because of the quality, tone and most important for me, the feel.
Anytime someone asks me which guitar they should buy, I tell them to sit down and play everything they can get their hands on. Start with the one that feels most comfortable and go from there.
The Jackson 7-string did feel a bit odd at first because the neck was wider than I was used to, but I expected that. Instead of putting off incorporating that seventh string into my playing, I jumped right in and started using it.
I’m actually glad I did that because it got the thing I was worried about the most out of the way and allowed me to focus on the guitar. By the way, playing with an extra string wasn’t at all as difficult as I thought it would. After a few days I was playing as easily as any of my 6-strings.
This Jackson has a mahogany body and rosewood fretboard with 24 frets. The neck is very comfortable to play, and like many of the Jacksons I own, is pretty flat. This is what Jackson calls its Speed Neck.
This Jackson Soloist also has a Floyd Rose, something I really like.
The Soloist uses EMG 707 Humbucking pickups at the neck and bridge. EMGs are my favorite pickups, so I was thrilled to see them in this guitar. The 707 was built specifically for 7-string guitars, so they really excel in bringing that hard crunchy tone to your music.
Of course, since this is a Jackson, you expect to be able to get a solid metal tone without much effort, and you can. I plugged into my Marshall JCM800 half stack and my 5150 half stack and the guitar screamed. Of course, depending on the settings, I had everything from a nice chunky rhythm to a piercing lead.
I was also able to clean up the tone quite a bit when rolling down the volume knob. I had to take it down almost half way to really get a cleaner tone, but it worked well. The dynamics of the JCM800 helped a lot with that too.
Since a lot of people are using their guitars with software amp simulators these days, I also tried the Jackson with a number of those. I didn’t have any issues with AmpliTube, Guitar Rig 5 or Pod Farm 2. Of course, the variety of tones you can get in software are almost endless, so I had a good time playing around with that.
The bottom line is very simple. If you want a quality, versatile guitar at a great price2, look no further than the Jackson Soloist.
All of the Jacksons I own are the Dinky model. Two have Floyd Rose tremolos and two are through body. ↩
The MSRP for the Soloist is $933.32, but you can find it at some retailers for $699.99. ↩
Both iOS devices and Macs seem to be impervious to the discount game. In fact it’s so rare to find a significant price variance between retailers that, when it does happen, the event usually draws considerable press coverage.
Many times over the years I’ve had discussions with friends and family about why you can’t find the same “deals” on Apple hardware that you can from other computer companies. Tabini does a good job of breaking down why, exactly, Apple is different, through more stringent control of its distribution network and incentives to retailers to maintain certain prices.
His approach uses a novel technique in which the target app itself is built with customized screen-capturing code compiled right in. Then the app can be driven through the iOS Simulator with WaxSim, a command-line tool for launching the simulator with various options.
I never really considered how Apple’s recent change would affect developers who had an app available in many languages. This would certainly cut down on the amount of work that needed to be done to get the app ready for the App Store.
The seven finalists creatively incorporate or feature musical instruments and music-making. The finalists’ ads feature everything from custom guitars and a car rigged to play musical notes to a human-body-powered one-man band.
Apple today announced the Wi-Fi + Cellular versions of iPad mini and the new fourth generation iPad with Retina display will be available in China on Friday, January 18. iPad mini and the fourth generation iPad are currently available in more than 100 countries worldwide including the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan and the UK.
With the proliferation of powerful and cheap microprocessors and sensors for mobile devices, along with wireless technologies and the web, we have the potential to completely re-create what a computer is. Let’s do so in such a way that makes our lives better, and not just filled with more glowing screens.
I’ve been asked a lot today why Apple hasn’t responded to the Wall Street Journal article saying that there have been massive cuts to iPhone 5 orders. The simple fact is, they can’t.
SEC rules prohibit Apple from talking publicly about the company. This is known as a quiet period and all publicly traded companies must adhere to these rules.
The Wall Street Journal can publish more of its “according to a person familiar with the matter” and there isn’t a lot Apple can say.
Apple is scheduled to release its Q1 2013 earnings on January 23, 2013 — next Wednesday.
…we were told that we must use the official statement and that we must follow corporate policy to defer all press requests to corporate communications.
We were in an impossible situation as journalists. I could have quit right then. Maybe I should have. I decided that the best thing for my team was to get through the day as best we could and to fight the fight from the other side.
Going forward, I will do everything within my power to prevent this situation from happening again.
Anyone else want to join me in calling bullshit on her statement? She didn’t do “everything within my power” to stop it this time. What makes us believe that she will next time?
Perhaps the weirdness of the math is why the current version of the WSJ article no longer cites the 65 million unit figure. Sometime between Sunday at 8:00 p.m. EST and Monday at 7:00 a.m., the Journal decided to drop the number from its article. But if the 65 million number is not right, is the estimate for halving March orders correct, either?
This is a great article and asks some good questions. The one that stuck out for me is the specific question asked of the Wall Street Journal. Why did they cite and then remove the 65 million figure? I think WSJ has some answering to do.
In exchange for the series hybrid get-up that drives the [Fisker] Karma, the Destino received a supercharged V8 — more specifically, the LS9 that powers the Corvette ZR1.
