Japan in English, Investor Style

The CMOS Battery in my IBM 600x Died

I know it is an utterly ancient laptop, but I figure that I could use it via wi-fi for looking up diagrams, etc when I am in the garage working on my cars and would prefer not to tramp filthy through the house and use my iMactown. The internal battery that keeps the CMOS memory has finally given up the ghost. After a bit of searching I found a page on the Lenovo site that gave instructions for removal and replacement of the battery. I am now gonna run down to Fry's electronics in hope that they carry the battery that I need. If that fails, I guess I will try to find it online somewhere.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&...

Pissed off pandemic fans, The Behemoth does not

The board over at mercs2.com as well as the comment sections of YouTube and the board on Evil Avatar have a lot of angry voices complaining about what they consider a dupe from EA on the anticipated "Total Payback" patch that was expected today. Not even 24 hours late and people are already furious at Pandemic.

Lets compare this to the hotly anticipated update for the online crippled Castle Crashers. It is nearing two months since the games release and I find myself patch free, and still unable to crash with three others via Internets.

What's the difference? Both games suffer from a spattering of terrible bugs and crippled online functionality, but only Pandemic draws the wrath or irate gamers. Both game spent nearly 4 years in development. Both games are decently fun to play.

The difference is that Castle Crashers is a small game made by just a few guys that may not have had the proper resources to fully test their online functionality before releasing the game. They have also worked to keep their community in the loop with progress updates on the patch. Customers can tolerate a lot if you keep them informed.

It is true that once in a while you look bad when you have to admit that you came up short, but in the long run you keep more customers happy because they understand that Devs are humans too.

Cats Flushing Toilets

Old wounds

It’s hard to forgive someone who hurts your child. Last Sunday’s article in the Los Angeles Times (“Criminal Past No Bar to Nursing”) brought back painful memories of our own experiences with a particular nurse and the California Board of Registered Nursing.

The point of the Times article, researched by Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of Pro Publica ( www.propublica.org), is that however serious the complaint, the state nursing board is slow to investigate, slow to act and prone to grant “probation,” thereby allowing the nurse to keep his or her license.

Our brush with the agency began in la te March 2004, when our 23-year-old son was admitted to the Norris Cancer Hospital while undergoing chemotherapy. Part of his story is now public record, available online at the California Board of Registered Nursing at www.rn.ca.gov/, under nursing license 489403. (Also here and here in .pdf) See full story at Around Town: Article on nursing issue reopens wound from The La Cañada Valley Sun: La Cañada Flintridge, California October 9, 2008

Turns out Hugh Hefner is a PlayBoy, Frankly I'm shocked.

My wife is a fan of Hefner's show, "The Girls Next Door," which chronicles the adventures of Hugh and his three live in girlfriends. I use the term girlfriends lightly, and something like roommates or female dead-air fillers might be more appropriate term. Recently, head girlfriend Holly Madison and Hugh Haefner announced their split, via TMZ and it was confirmed by Hefner. A gunning gag on the show, I guess if you are Holly it's not a gag, is that Holly wants to marry Hugh and bear his children. Whenever she is shown talking about her future with Hefner, I giggle, because it's so obvious to the audience that the 83 year old father of 4 (Christie (born 11/08/1952) and David (08/30/1955) with Mildred Williams, and Marston (04/09/1990) and Cooper (09/04/1991) with Kimberley Conrad) is not interested in having more children, and that he does not keep Holly around because he believes that she would make a good wife and mother for a third batch of children.

Just think, it Hef had more kids now, he would turn 100 before they graduated High School. Maybe he should do it for some sort of Guinness Record, if they track that sort of thing.

Besides, at 29 I think Holly is getting a bit mature for Hef.

Of course the show need not end, just because the relationship is over. Fans can expect a sixth season of the girls next door. And I'm sure if it does well, we may see Hef and a new set of ladies in future spin offs.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0580711/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Hefner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Madison

Vehicle suspension

Nudity

The DSi has a strategic advantage over the iPhone as a gaming platform

Over the last couple of days/weeks I have come across a number of articles touting the iPhone as the next killer portable gaming platform and that it poses a threat to Nintendo's long reign of dominance. While it is true that the iPhone is enjoying phenomenal success and from a developer perspective, it much more accessible then the Nintendo unit, I don't believe that it will significantly degrade Nintendo's portable business. The iPhone has yet to come into its' own with quality games that play to the systems strengths. At this point most of the games on the app store are either ports of basic puzzle games, poorly put together, or poorly suited to the hardware. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone, and believe it does have a future as an entertainment platform, but I think calling it competition to Nintendo is a few years pre-mature.

Nintendo's Hardware Advantage

The DS and the recently announced DSi are built from the ground to be gaming machines. Compared to the iPhone, the DS can be held easily with two hands for an extended period of time, does not heat up significantly with prolonged use, has fantastic battery life, its speakers face the player, its sold at a lower price point, and it is kid proof. With the addition of faster wi-fi, a larger screen, and two cameras, I am predicting that Nintendo has plans to give the DSi the ability to connect people to each other via wi-fi with video and audio chat. (The current DS only allows for text and picture chat via pictochat.) Imagine a $200 portable device that provides video conferencing similar to iChat or Skype. I could envision people purchasing the new DSi for this purpose alone. I don't expect much competition from iPhone in the wi-fi chat area, at least not for another year or two, as allowing wi-fi communication is in direct competition with the phone features of the device, and not popular with cellular carriers. Lastly, although this is pure speculation at this point, if Nintendo gives reasonable access to the new downloadable content "DS Ware" store to developers, it will open up DS development to a whole new bunch of games.

Growing up Nintendo

The last point I want to make is to never underestimate the number of Nintendo fanboys and fangirls. Most young adults grew up in an era when Nintendo was synonymous with video games. My wife, brother, sister, and friends all enjoy using my Wii and DS when they visit. You are not going to see Mario, Zelda, Samus, Kid Icarus, Luigi, or King Koopa on the iPhone anytime soon, nor will you see the amazing pool of talented game developers that comprise Nintendo first party making games for iPhone. People remember quality and come back for it again and again and Nintendo has consistently delivered quality.

Apple has some Work Ahead of them

Like Nintendo, Apple is also known for quality, but has never been known for games. In fact quite the opposite is true, Apple has had poor support of game developers ever since the Macintosh replaced the Apple 2. Just go ask any hardcore Mac gamer what he thinks. He will probably tell you that BootCamp is the best thing that ever happened to Mac gaming. Apple has a bit of history to overcome before it is able to attract top shelf development talent (with the exception of Blizzard) to its' platforms. Since I know you have it on the tip of your tongue, I do not consider EA or THQ to be top shelf, just look at the last few years worth of metacritic scores to see why.

To wrap this all up, Apple is making good moves by offering a 70/30 revenue model, helping with distribution, and providing solid SDK tools. The ever growing installed base of iPhone users doesn't hurt either, but the Nintendo DS already has a huge installed base and has hardware that was purpose built for games.

Homework:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08122007/business/nintendo_and_apple_platfor...

http://kotaku.com/gaming/let.s-have-a-war/nintendo-vs-apple-288567.php

http://www.macworld.com/article/132509/2008/03/gameloft.html

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/20/iphone-20-sdk-video-games-to-ri...

  • By Geoffrey Chandler at 10/03/2008 - 04:59
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