All Things Geek on YouTube

A few months ago YouTube tested the waters with Comedy Week, featuring the comedy talents of notable YouTube channels. Needless to say, it was a hilarious romp that kept the laughs coming (one of my favorites: What kind of Asian are you?). How do you follow this up? With a week dedicated to geeks, of course! It began yesterday and isn't exactly a secret (as those who found the easter egg would know), but I'm slow to post as always.



And YouTube's pulled out all the stops it seems. They have each day set aside for different geeky celebrations. For instance, yesterday was "Blockbuster Sunday", today is "Global Geekery Monday", followed up all week long with the likes of "Braniac Tuesday", "Super Wednesday", "Gaming Thursday", and "Fan Friday". Meanwhile, this leaves Saturday to be a full day of the best of the best.

Highlights so far:

• Blockbusters hosted by Red Dwarf's Kryten:

• The latest Doctor Who news:

• Top animations from around the world:

There are other treats too such as being able to test your geekery, and it's been reported that many other easter eggs are on their way. After all the hectic geeking out at San Diego Comic Con a few weeks ago, it's nice to slide right back into full geekitude with this. While I don't fully know where the week will take us, I look forward to sitting back and enjoying the ride.

You can stay up to date with all week long at YouTube's own channel.

Meanwhile I've decided to post a couple extra small, nostalgiac, geekish posts this week (with videos!), so stay tuned. And if you have any geekery you'd like to share with me, please do! I'm always on the lookout for something new.

Chromecast: Google + TV = Win

Full disclosure: I'm a Google employee. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to be late to the game and talk about the new Chromecast.

So, what if I told you that you no longer have to buy a Smart TV to have the capabilities of a SmartTV? You'd say "Well duh! We've all already heard about the Chromecast! It launched a week ago!" And you'd get angry at me for being behind the times and whatnot. And I wouldn't listen because that's not something I do.

But think about it: SmartTVs have been around for a while now but they still aren't supplying good user experiences. All of the last generation of game consoles had some SmartTV features and they've been around since 2006-2007. Samsung introduced its initial line of "Internet TV"s in 2007. AppleTV is originally from 2007 as well. Heck, TiVo's existed since 1999 and even the GoogleTV itself has had 3 years to get better. Given all this time and all these people vying for the market, you'd hope something really wonderful would come out of it. But nothing so far has been all that great of an experience. Yes, they're usable, but they're not fun to use.

Let's talk about the Google TV. I think it was a good thing, but I feel it wasn't taken far enough. It was expensive and bulky, yet it still managed to be slow and clunky. Setting it up took forever: sign in, adjust for overscan, figure out the audio, yada yada yada. The users had to navigate it with a keyboard and touchpad mouse, either using a decent Logitech keyboard or the dreaded Sony label maker. But it was still a good thing; it was Google trying out the TV space, making mistakes and learning.

And look at that, now we have the Chromecast! Instead yet-another-set-top-box or TV itself, here's a small and simple dongle usable with any TV with HDMI. How do you set it up? Just quickly tell it your wifi network and bam, you're ready. How do you interact with it? Use your phone, tablet, or desktop, a.k.a. things you know how to use. I got mine in the mail the other day and it was ready to go within literally two minutes after plugging it up. And it's cheap! Just $35! This will sell insanely well at the holidays assuming the supply will hold out.

I've had plenty of time to play with it and there's something great about quickly finding some video on YouTube or Netflix and instantly watching it on your TV. While you're watching YouTube, find some more and queue them up. Or feel like just working around the house and need a soundtrack? Send music to the TV instead.

But wait, there's more! Google's already published the Cast SDK used to get the content to the TV, so now anyone can make their website or app work with it. Imagine playing Scrabble where the TV's the board and your phone/tablet is your tile rack. Or how about some asymmetrical gameplay like the Wii U has with its gamepad? Or something simpler like a killer photo share app or getting webcam to work with it as well and use Google Hangouts or Skype with your TV? There are so many awesome possibilities. I, for one, welcome our new multi-device experience overlords.

Long story short? Get  a Chromecast, or find a friend with one and play with theirs. You're gonna like the way it works, I guarantee it.

Grump grump grump

[caption id="attachment_1182" align="alignright" width="321"] Separated at Birth?[/caption]

I've been called many things in my life, but the most enduring is likely the adjective "surly". So obviously when Grumpy Cat came to the internet's doorstep (reddit.com) last year, I knew that the comparisons to myself would begin soon enough. For instance, the picture comparing my young, handsome self to Tardar Sauce was taken around 7 years ago, and quickly labeled "Grump grump grump".

Things haven't changed much since though. I've recently been told that Grumpy Cat is my spirit animal. I think I can live with that... somehow. I almost feel like this is a paradox in the making though, as if I admit I like being compared to Grumpy Cat, then I'm also admitting that I'm in no way grumpy enough to be worthy of that comparison! Oh how my mind boggles...

Maybe I'll just have to go full Grumpy Cat for Comic Con this year. Hrmmmmmm?

Full disclosure: Grumpy Cat is one of my favorite memes today. Surely this is due in no small part how well the meme relates to me. But as such, I guess I can't complain for once.

Also, for those of you with a PS3, Wii U, internet-connected set top-box or television, check out YouTube on it today. You might find something apropos...
You can also see it at www.youtube.com/tv.

EDIT: Welp, nevermind. Looks like we're not doing that... so yeah, that's less cool >_>

The Gateway

I can't believe that it took me nearly a year to do more than just drive across the Golden Gate Bridge...

Last summer, I walked across it instead!

Some of you might've heard of the Golden Gate Bridge before. For most of us, it's only recognizable because of Full House:

[caption id="attachment_1136" align="aligncenter" width="983" caption="Whatever happened to predictability..."][/caption]

Wait a second, that's not the right picture... Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies are not the Golden Gate Bridge. Why I'm so certain: do you see any water in that picture?

Sidenote: I dare you to not have the Full House theme stuck in your head right now.  Mwahahahahaha.

Yeah, let's try this again...

Nope. Nope nope nope. I can sorta get it, this is the Japanese Tea Gardens. As you can see, there's a gate, so we got one word right this time. And it's in Golden Gate Park, so that's sorta close. Otherwise, again, it's the completely wrong picture.

Maybe the 3rd time's the charm?

Wow. We went from being slightly related to the bridge to not at all. That can't be good.

So, this is the Palace of Fine Arts. It's a nice little park/place to get wedding pictures (seriously, everyone does).

At least we're moving in the right direction though: North.

[caption id="attachment_1137" align="aligncenter" width="983" caption="That's more like it!"][/caption]

There we go! That definitely looks more bridge-like! And yes, the picture does no justice to its great and mighty orange-ness.

In case you're wondering, the name "Golden Gate" refers to the entrance to San Francisco Bay itself. That's why there's so much named after it: the bridge, the park, the university, the cemetary, and even the casino.

[caption id="attachment_1142" align="alignleft" width="179" caption="Me, happy(ish)"][/caption]

Anyway, it was a good walk. Chilly, windy, and deafening, but good. The bridge is just over one and a half miles in span, so it's a decent walk to get down to one end and back. Also, you don't realize just how giant it is until you're crossing it. Sure there's the Bay Bridge too, and it's longer and has more traffic. But there's something just majestic and awesome about the Golden Gate Bridge. It has the kind of style the Bay Bridge will never have.

Did I say earlier it was windy? That's an understatement. Everyone's seen those old movies where it's so windy the guy is walking backwards right? If you want to experience that, cross the Golden Gate Bridge on foot. It's definitely a fun experience, and I was enjoying myself. It was as if nothing could go wrong.

Or at least, that's just what they wanted me to think!

[caption id="attachment_1139" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Me, sad..."][/caption]

We were nearing the north end of the bridge. Before I knew it, blam came a gust and knocked my hat away! Straight over the side! To be lost forever!

That hat had been a close and dear friend. I'd had it since I was a freshman at Georgia Tech. It was my band cap, coming with me for every football game, helping cheer on the Yellow Jackets. There were so many things that cap accompanied me through, whether my yearly Get-A-Clue excursions or even my last trip to Greece. It was with me through good times and bad, and it was always there when I needed it!

But no! That bridge (a.k.a. evil incarnate) decided to take from me something I held dear! How dare it?!

Well, I guess I got sidetracked. This was supposed to be about the bridge, and how it's really pretty dang cool. It's definitely a marvel, and walking along it gets you to think how much has gone into it. To think it's 75 years old makes it even more amazing. I'd definitely suggest taking the time to visit it yourself if you make it out to the Bay Area.

But just remember, it's a harsh mistress. If you decide to take the journey, make sure everything you wear is tied down. Who knows what the bridge will decide to take next? A baby? I wouldn't put it past that orange devil!

Epilogue:

While I miss my hat, I was able to procure a new band cap last fall. Right now it's just a replacement, but maybe, given time, we can build a solid rapport and it will graduate into being my dear friend like its predecessor. I'm sure we'll have many adventures together, I just have to hold onto this one. I'll tell you now though, the one place it will never be allowed to go is across any bridge, especially giant orange ones.

Also, I guess it's now been another year since I moved out here. Maybe I should finally make my way to Muir Woods...

Look! Up in the Sky! It's Supermoon!

You might want to take a look outside tonight. The Moon will be strutting its stuff as today it's no moon, it's a Supermoon! Obviously something called a "supermoon" must be supernatural in some form or another. I mean it's lining up with the peak of an annual meteor shower (Eta Aquariids) and Cinco de Mayo. Coincidences like this simply don't happen!  Other than today of course, when they do.

If you want to know what it means for your horoscopes, I'd suggest going to speak with a licensed astrologer. You might also need to stock up on some homeopathic medicines while you're at it, as you never know where the day will take you.

Ok, back to the point at hand. So "supermoon" is actually a colloquial term and is not accepted astronomer jargon. Astronomers would tell you tonight is the perigee-syzygy of the Moon in the Earth-Sun-Moon system. Yeah, that's not very helpful is it? I'll explain.

The Moon orbits the Earth in an elliptical orbit. On an ellipse, the perigee and apogee are the closest and farthest points from the center respectively. So the first part of a supermoon is that the Moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. For the Moon specifically, the orbit is around 405,000km away at its apogee and around 360,000 km away at its perigee. It's basically 50,000 km closer at perigee than at apogee! The orbital period of the Moon, the time it takes to make one full revolution from perigee back to perigee, is called the anomalistic month and averages out to around 27.5 days.

Now syzygy should be a more familiar term, however we tend to use other names for it. To clear things up, no, I do not mean that episode of The X-Files where the two high school girls go crazy with mind powers and kill Ryan Reynolds. Syzygy is the term for when the positions of three astronomical bodies make a straight line. A true syzygy with the Earth, Moon, and Sun would be in times of solar and lunar eclipses, as either the Earth is directly between the Sun and Moon or the Moon is directly between the Sun and Earth. The term is also used more generically however to denote new moons and full moons. These aren't times when the three bodies are aligned, but they do represent a specific alignment of the Sun and Moon in relationship to the Earth. A lunation, or synodic month, is the time it takes the Moon to complete one lunar phase cycle; it averages around 29.5 days.

So really a perigee-syzygy in this sense could mean we're experiencing a new moon or a full moon while the Moon is at its perigee. Of course, why would we care about a new moon, we can't see it! So "supermoon" is really just a full moon at its closest point in orbit. Due to it being closer, it will actually be noticeably larger than average (the reported number is 12%). If the Moon were at it's apogee instead, it'd only be three-quarters as large and bright as you can see it today (it turns out 50,000 km can make quite a difference).

[caption id="attachment_1117" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The periods of the anachromal and syndochal months are above, with the lower graph representing the period of their interference."][/caption]

Now, as I mentioned, the Moon completes a revolution in about 27.5 days, but the lunar phase cycle takes 29.5 days. This causes a beat period between the two as they go in and out of phase together (shown above). This entire cycle is called the full moon cycle and occurs once about every 14 lunations (just under 14 months).  In fact, the last supermoon was in March 2011. So don't worry too much if you miss this one, the next one should be around July 2013. And if you miss the Eta Aquariids, they'll be back next year the same time as always.

The point of the story? It's just a big moon, spiraling around us at a kilometer a second, as we go spiraling around the Sun at 30 kilometers a second. Same as always, no big deal. But go out and enjoy it, because it'll be cool. If you're lucky, you'll see some shooting stars as well. And if you're really lucky, you won't party too hard for Cinco de Mayo and actually be able to remember your evening under the supermoon.

Re: Sound and Fury

Sorry, I'm going to delay your regularly scheduled post in order to respond to !Blogger's comments.

1) Per my belief that the ending is not happy

I think it’s a bit harsh saying that there was no way the Synthesis ending was “happy”. Yeah, the Quarians get totally screwed, as do all the other survivors now stuck without Mass Relays, but the fact that the cycle of organic destruction gets broken via everyone becoming half and half synthetic/organic is a happy ending, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a fresh new start for the ENTIRE galaxy. That should be exciting!

I simply don't buy it. I too chose Synthesis in my game, and I see the ending as being just as unhappy as I initially said. The relays are gone, and as such so is the supply chain of the galaxy. Everyone left in the Sol System will now be fighting for scraps, with the same occurring in every other system.

To be honest, I was happier when I was under the impression everyone would die when the relays blew. I thought "that sucks, but it's sacrificing everyone so the cycle can finally end once and for all". That seemed like the best choice. I was much more disappointed with it when I realized the horrible truth of the situation: I had just caused the inevitable, painful death of everyone as they slowly ran out of food and supplies. But hey, at least Joker and EDI will have robo-babies, right?

2) Per the Extended Cut

Additionally to be clear – the Extended Cut DLC isn’t re-writing the ending; in fact BioWare said specifically that it’s not. The purpose is to create a bit of closure and answer a lot of the questions people had when the game finished up. The way they described it in their blog post actually has me very excited; I feel like they’re really trying to make people happy.

Yes, in my ranting haste I didn't handle the Extended Cut DLC paragraph well. The offending line is:

Now I don’t follow the crowd with their “rewrite the ending” gusto, as you can’t just change the ending to make fans happy; that’s one of the worst ideas out there.

Basically, that line needs to be moved/removed. It was not my intention to imply that BioWare was changing the ending. This line was my response to those fans who believe BioWare should change the ending. In other words, I think they're idiots.

3) Per the PA Report

Also, unrelated to your post specifically, you should check out the PAReport’s editorial on the ME3 panel at PAX; apparently everybody seemed to come away happy. That should mean something, right?
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mass-effect-retaken-bioware-described-extra-ending-content-at-surprisingly-

What I notice most in that:

The panel pointed out that this content wasn’t in the game because they didn’t know fans wanted it. “The dev team stands by what was released in the core product, and we’re very proud of it. It was important though for us to listen to the community, and a lot of that feedback didn’t come until the game came out. Once we were listening we decided to include the extended cut. It wasn’t in the game because we didn’t know there was such a huge demand for it, to be honest with you.”

What content did they not realize the fans wanted?

“We want to give more closure about some of the questions you have,” Gamble explained, “and in general we wanted to give the players a sense of personalization with the endings. Many people mentioned that some of the choices they made in the game are not necessarily reflected in the ending scenes. We’re definitely going to focus on things like that. We want to make sure that when you see the ending of Mass Effect, you now have the information and context to be satisfied.”

So, the content they didn't know fans would want was specifically the content which showed the audience how their choices mattered. In addition, more information and context as to what exactly is going on at the end. I'm sorry BioWare, I don't buy it. You want me to believe that you created a game where personal choice is at the core of gameplay and story, and then decide the fans don't want to know how their choices are reflected in the ending scenes? That load of bullshit would dwarf anything you'd come across in Pamplona.

What I hear from that: BioWare didn't want to delay the game to deliver a solid ending. So instead they delivered an incomplete game initially, planning on adding the ending the audience wants (or even needs) a few months later. That makes me mildly sick, simply because I didn't think BioWare would pull such nonsense. Oh wait, that's right, EA's the publisher. Suddenly the world makes a little more sense.

Sound and Fury

Avast, ye mateys! Thar be SPOILERS ahead!

Mass Effect 3 is a great game. Or so I keep telling myself.

Why wouldn't it be great? It's improved the combat system again. Equippable weapon upgrades returned, but without the inventory nightmare of Mass Effect. The AI was intelligent and challenging; I'd just breezed through the last two on Veteran and this one, on Normal, was at least an order of magnitude more difficult.

I enjoyed the game, really I did. Right?

There was so much good to it. It starts off a lot darker than the other two. Don't get me wrong, none of them have been happy games. But this time the beginning is impressively powerful simply in how quickly everything goes to hell. You start fighting for Earth almost immediately, being overrun by abominations created by the Reapers. Not to mention that cheap shot of a scene, when you're watching the kid get rescued, only for his shuttle to get blown to smithereens as it tries to escape.

Then in the first mission you find out that Cerberus, the people you spent the entirety of Mass Effect 2 helping, have gone off the deep end and are now abominations of their own. And again what a cheap shot, having you reconnect with Ashley (or Kaiden if you kept him alive instead), only to "kill" her at the end of the first mission. Of course, she wasn't killed, but I actually thought the developers did her in. Toying with us: uncool, but it worked to pull me straight into the game.

Again, I liked it. So why do I feel like I have to convince myself of that?

I mean the entire game you come across someone new fighting off the Reapers (and normally losing). Yet you spend the majority of your own time bringing people and species together. You come across each and every one of your old teammates from the first two games and help them out. Those who survive the meeting will join you directly or help you indirectly. Even if they die though, each one does so honorably and without regret (unless you've been Renegading it up, tsk tsk tsk).

Mass Effect 3  manages to effectively tie up each storyline and give an ending to each character's subplot across the three games; that's a lot more than you normally get from a standard JRPG, whose subplots often meander to a random and unimportant end.

Working your way through, you finally cure the Krogan and bring peace between them, the Turians, and the Salarians. And hell, if you play your cards right, you not only stop the war between the Quarians and Geth, but even unite them with a common goal. You can even give the Quarians their homeworld back after spending 300 years in exile. Sure the galaxy's being destroyed, but for once in these games things seem to be going your way! You're bringing all the races of the galaxy together to fight as a united whole! This is a word I try not to use, but this time it fits: Mass Effect 3 is simply epic.

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Legion! NOOOOOOO!"][/caption]

So seriously, what's not to like? Oh yeah... that's right...

Remember how I mentioned that Mass Effect's biggest trick to being immersive was that you weren't just playing as Shepard, but rather Shepard was an extension of yourself? And Mass Effect 2 continued it by having clear ramifications for the choices you made in Mass Effect? That's something Mass Effect 3 tended to stumble over.

Remember choosing between Anderson and Udina for who'd serve on the Council? Doesn't matter, Mass Effect 3 has Udina on the Council. To be fair, Mass Effect 2 more-or-less ignores the possible-destruction of the Council in Mass Effect; however even then at least your Anderson/Udina choice stuck.

And remember saving the Rachni Queen? Well too bad, no matter your decision you'll still have to fight your way her again as she's been enslaved by the Reapers. The difference: in one case she's real and will help you when you save her; in the other case she's a fake Queen that'll turn on you. Of course, you could just kill her either way. Not a real big payoff for that choice, is there?

Oh yeah, and the Geth Heretics? Did you rewrite them in Mass Effect 2? Too bad, the Quarians and Geth go to war anyways, and the Geth accept the Reapers help.

Seriously, is there any major difference from any choice you made in the previous games? The majority of decisions only affected how many "points" you get to put toward the endgame. Everything comes down to a number, and it feels like game-changers were little more than a number to add up. Karma's a bitch, especially when she doesn't seem to exist.

The worst offender of this was the ending of the game. Not even the choices you made in the current game seemed to matter. It came down to a single decision between 2, possibly 3, choices. Now, I wasn't surprised Shepard would die; it was pretty obvious from the beginning. But having everything you did come down to this one choice? That's just lame.

Another reason not to like it? The dialogue of the ending was a huge problem; it was clunky and did an awful job of explaining what was happening.

For instance, Mass Effect 2: Arrival taught us that destroying a Mass Relay wipes the star system that contains it. In fact, that's exactly why Shepard was imprisoned in the beginning: his decision to destroy the Mass Relay had killed 300,000 Batarians. And then the "Catalyst" tells you that each choice has the added bonus of destroying all the Mass Relays? I took that to mean the galaxy's screwed no matter what I do; Earth and all the other major systems will be wiped out in the explosion. Apparently, that's not what it meant. But wait, in that case why was the Normandy running away from the blast? It's mind boggling.

Worse than that, think of how screwed all the fleets around Earth are. When it dawned on me that my character destroyed the Mass Relays, thus cutting off a huge portion of the Quarians from the homeworld they just reclaimed, I was damned near heartbroken. That is not a happy ending in any sense of the word.

On that note: there'll supposedly be a free "Extended Cut" DLC to explain this better. Now I don't follow the crowd with their "rewrite the ending" gusto, as you can't just change the ending to make fans happy; that's one of the worst ideas out there. However, I also don't see how this extension will help. I see it doing one of two things; it will either add confusion to an already insane ending, or it will oversimplify the ending and prove that it is just as stupid as the audience has assumed. Neither of these will improve the situation. It's like nervously explaining a bad joke; they should just move on and act like it never happened, we'd all be better off.

Unfortunately, I'm not nearly done. I was also disappointed at the number of missed opportunities that felt foreshadowed. The Keepers could've easily have been important again; hell, there's that one that keeps getting in your way at the docking bay. The writers completely dropped all the dark matter foreshadowing in Mass Effect 2. There's the matter of Shepard's dreams which could've had a lot more done with them. And even a bit of foreshadowing about how dead Shepard actually was between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. All of these could've really easily been taken advantage of, but none were. Instead, we were given a random ending. I had seen nothing in any of the games leading to that point which fell in line with the Catalyst's nature or reasoning. As such, since they ignored their own foreshadowing, they left it with an ending that felt completely out of place and painfully absurd. Sure, that's an easy way to have a twist, but it'll also immediately alienate those following the story.

[caption id="attachment_1056" align="alignleft" width="288" caption="The writers told me I had to let you win. But I'll make sure you don't like it!"][/caption]

And to top it off, here's a quandary for you: the entire point of Mass Effect is to prevent Sovereign from activating the Citadel as a Mass Relay from dark space. So, if the Catalyst controls the Reapers, and it was in the Citadel the entire time, why couldn't it have just activated the Mass Relay when Sovereign attacked the Citadel?

It's insane to think there was this super-intelligent older-than-dirt AI living in the Citadel and yet it somehow didn't win? This is almost a subversion of the Gambit Roulette, as the apparent trilogy Bigger Bad implies it's so intelligent to be damn near omniscient, and yet it can't stop a single human. If it's really done this for millions (perhaps billions) of years, why does it let Shepard stop it? Everything that happened should've been playing directly into the Catalyst's hands (so-to-speak), and yet it seemed to have no control over anything. At the very least, it's decision to simply give up when Shepard reaches it makes zero sense. Can we say "boss fight"?

Speaking of which, and this is more of a non-storyline gripe, but where was the freaking final boss fight? Why didn't the Catalyst fight me? It should've at least tried to stop me, right? Hell, I took down a Reaper earlier, but I don't even get to do that again? We all know Harbinger deserves it! Even Mass Effect 2 had the shitty Human Reaper fight. Did they just forget about it? And no, shooting the Illusive Man after 15 painstaking minutes of TRYING TO WALK 5 FEET is not a "boss fight". Though I will admit it was nice to make Martin Sheen shut up.

So this was an epic game that fell apart amazingly at the end. Up to that point, I was loving the game. It had everything. Sure, it didn't play nice with the decisions I'd previously made, but I didn't care, I was saving the universe!

And then came the end, after which I only had one thought:

...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

But I'll still tell myself it was an awesome game as maybe, with the right amount of willpower, I can forget everything else and simply remember the following: I honestly enjoyed the game.