Breaking Windows

No celebrity death in the past decade has affected me as much as that of Kurt Vonnegut, yesterday in his sleep at age 84. Ronald Reagan, John Paul II or Anna Nicole Smith? No, none of them were as intimately real to me, as comfortingly cynical, as this modern day Mark Twain.

Full story at Washington Post.

It's no surprise that massively multiplayer online (MMO) games have caught on. They're unique to the video game industry in how they portray social interactions. In fact, they rely on that element to draw players into their worlds. And, beyond the capabilities of one's avatar, whether it be orc, human or goblin, there's a lot more to MMOs than people realize. Author T. L. Taylor's goal in Play Between Worlds is to make sense of it all.

Months after the release of Sony's first handheld, people still found new features built into it they didn't even know were there. Those a little more inclined dug deeper and broke open the world of PSP homebrew. Whether you're playing it safe and using it as intended or breaking it open to find things to play with, PSP Hacks covers everything.

"Book Club" author's best-selling nonfiction memoir filled with fabrications, falsehoods, other fakery, TSG probe finds

Oprah Winfrey's been had.

Three months ago, in what the talk show host termed a "radical departure," Winfrey announced that "A Million Little Pieces," author James Frey's nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, was her latest selection for the world's most powerful book club.

I am posting this for my Step Mom Melodye. She watches Oprah and I am sure she has read this book by now. It is still #1 on Amazon.com as it is. And this news will sell even more copies! Oddly enough, he was first shopping it around as fiction - though no one would publish that.

Blogcritics also has an opinion piece on the mess.

Setting a new standard for characters, The Simpsons is a TV show that can barely be followed anymore by someone who hasn't been around from the start. It also makes it one of the deepest shows on TV, and with only a half hour of airtime, it's not always easy to learn the basics for each character. That makes these small Library of Wisdom Books invaluable.

Catching The Simpsons on a Sunday night is a religious experience for some. The new episodes bringing with them a new set of laughs, most of which are easy to miss. That's what makes these guides so necessary for the die-hard fan. In fact, you probably shouldn't even consider yourself a fan unless you have them for each season.

Now is the time for something like Halo 2 Hacks. The fans have ripped it apart inside and out, and this book goes deeper. While it starts somewhat like a strategy guide, it quickly dives into actual hacking of the game's code. This is where you can have the most fun with the game, creating textures, maps, and new features for weapons.

If you've been on eBay for any amount of time, you've surely dealt with someone we'll call "the idiot." This person can be either a buyer or a seller, but the stubbornness of some people is what makes the otherwise necessary online auction site a pain for some people. The eBay Survival Guide will get new people started, providing far more information on "the idiot" than the actual site does. Veterans know everything in here though.

Until I picked up a copy of the paperback the other day, my familiarity with Max Barry's ubercorporate dystopian Jennifer Goverment came only through its corresponding web site, Nation States. The site, where you can design your own little government and shape its fate, was meant to generate interest in the young Australian novelist's 2003 book, which was much applauded by critics, named a notable book by New York Times and a Campbell Award finalist for best sci-fi of the year. And even before publication, Soderbergh and Clooney's Section 8 films optioned the rights, which they and Warner Bros. recently renewed.

Unlike a lot of recent set of game design books, Start Your Engines has a focus, and it's a good one on top of that. A dominant genre, racing titles take up a large market share, and this is a book that will get you moving on designing one. That's assuming of course you know what you're doing.

Clickers is one of those great throwbacks to classic sci-fi, just with a hard, brutal, gory edge. It's not one for the weak stomached, and that's the books strongest asset. It does lose itself as the final act starts in, but that doesn't mean getting there isn't fun enough to make it worthwhile.

There is no entertainer whose career spanned the 20th century and who can elicit so many different feelings than Frank Sinatra.

His first recording came 60 years before his last, Duets, in the late 1990s.

He saw Las Vegas through its infancy as a party town, and came back when odds were stacked against him (no voice, no job, and a wife who got more attention than he did).

Continue reading "Sinatra: The Life Book Review"

Game characters are probably under-valued due to the glut of character-based platformers in the 16-bit era. Remember Rocky Rodent? There's a reason you don't. Now we have fully realized 3-D worlds and of course, characters need to populate them. The Art of Game Characters tries to make sense of it all, explaining the basic process, interviewing those who have created them, and showcasing both rendered and hand drawn art to show off the process.

The mainstream media takes a shot at pop culture every chance it gets. Politicians join crusades to ban video games. Reality TV is brain-dead entertainment. Steven Johnson says it all makes us smarter, a gutsy cry for people to use common sense when dealing with these things, and he pulls it off.

The Steve Jobs "iCon" book got early attention, even before it was published, because Jobs pulled all the publishers books from the Apple Store. So I earmarked the book on Amazon. But after reading Deutschman's review, I think I will pass. It seems that "iCon" is not only a rehash of "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs." - Deutschman's book - but a rehash of a number of previously printed books about Steve Jobs.

Deutschman gives a number of side by side examples of the text from his book, and that from "iCon." What a joke, and a con.

Chances are you don't know who Ralph Baer is. It might help if you knew that he started a multi-billion dollar industry, but if that's not enough to jog your memory, nothing will. What he's credited with is creating the home video game, working alongside Magnavox to create the first home console, the Odyssey. He would of course go on to create much more, setting standards and creating ideas still in use. "Videogames in the Beginning" tells his side of the story from the start back in the early 1960s up until the early 1980s.

Lots to choose from. Take your pick.

This is not print, but I've heard this is a decent magazine. Covers gaming and computers.

Editors Note: This is a Zinio subscription. If you don't have an account, you can get one for free (I think). I have an account as half my magazines I get via Zinio. PC Magazine's ExtremeTech web site is pretty cool, and from flipping through this magazine has info on all kinds of mods and in depth technical stuff. Just like the web site.

With a title like "Opening the Xbox," you should likely assume it's one of many hacker type books geared towards Microsoft's game console. It's not. There's not a single line even mentioning the hobby. What author Dean Takahashi has written is an excellent history on the console and how it came to be. It's a great companion to other books like "The Ultimate History of Video Games" which don't have the space to discuss the latest systems at length.

Clicky clicky.

Out of the three major consoles vying for dominance, the Xbox is easily the most confusing. With it's built in hard drive, Xbox Live, DVD playback, and variety of connections, this is the system you'll spend the most time with. "The Xbox Fan Book" tries to make owning the system less of a trial, but most of the information can be found in the user manual included with the system.

"Gaming Hacks" is yet another in a recent string of books on the topic. What's different is that author Simon Carless approaches it from a unique viewpoint that varies wildly from that onslaught. It's a book that is probably wildly different from what you would expect when you first pick it up, but contains enough pertinent information to make it a worthwhile purchase.

Hacking video game consoles is a popular pastime for many gamers. It's amazing what some of these people have discovered by opening their systems and looking around. "Game Console Hacking" puts all the information you need in one convenient place. It's not just a great source for those who have already taken their systems apart either. The basics are all here too.

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Yet another free mag subscription.

CE Lifestyles Magazine targets digital electronics enthusiasts and avid computer users who like all things digital. Each issue of CE Lifestyles includes hardware reviews, buying advise, and tutorials for getting started on a broad range of devices. CE Lifestyles provides all-around gadget hounds with the latest advancements in computer electronics.

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This is for the "Essential Guide to the Digital Home" as well as one (digital) copy of the current issue, dated October 19th. So you get two issues for free. The Guide to the Digital Home comes out 10/08/04. So I have not seen it yet.

These are mainly trade magazines, but some I have found are not bad at all. (Computer Shopper, Dr. Dobb's, and an assortment of others.)

Thanks to Matt for the links.