connected to star wars?

The flash map Wired has produced on the links into and around Star Wars movies is illuminating, especially as you start thinking about all the connections (e.g. games) they have not included in it. Seems we are all connected to SW, and is that just reflection on the overall 'condition of connectedness' we all live in? Story: How Star Wars Changed the World.

hi-quality mobile photography?

The future of mobile blogging is dependent on the quality of keyboard (do I want to type anything with this?), the quality of visual technology (do I want to photograph anything with this?), as well as on the speed and reliability of networks and overall ease-of-use of the service. There are many things current generations of gadgets and services can do, but none can yet do all necessary things right at the same time. My inspiration? Reading and looking at the direction Nokia is going with their latest N90 model. Story: New Nokia boasts Carl Zeiss lens: Digital Photography Review.

nintendogs review

More at the cute little (toy) animals front: Gamespot has published a Nintendogs preview.

kookos & co

Having fun in Helsinki. Kookos-cat hugs his lit'l friends tonight. They do enjoy it, don't they?

Moblog with PicoBlogger

virtual property, the next phase?

While I am debating with my calendar about the time games and virtual worlds can take, on top of all professional time spent thinking about concepts like 'game contract' or 'immersion', I notice that some actually find time to debate them, too. The Terra Nova bunch recently went berserk with the announcement of Sony Station Exchange, sort of "Sony eBay" for player-created content. Just look.

elegy to consoles of the past

gamegrrl advance had this link to funny and touching video, lovingly designed to pay homage to the consoles of the past, fighting against the rising dominion of PSP-type 'convergence device'. Oh dear... Someone can really love these old pieces of plastic. (Choose: New Game in the start.)

no sleep until vancouver

I feel slightly drunk. The consequence of chronic lack of sleep in this case, rather than merry life, it nevertheless has some uplifting potentials. Last days and nights have been marked by the proximity of DiGRA 2005 full paper deadline, which was finally passed last night. Despite all advance planning, there is always rush and hurry at the final hours. In this case there was also the coincidence with the reviews of ACE 2005 coming within the same hours, people puzzling over where to submit and where to withdraw. Seven people from our lab will fly over the Atlantic for several days, which is a sizable investment of course, but I trust it will be worth it. Not everything will be on everyone's key interests, but I am looking forward to several sessions, already.

There has been something wrong with Bloglines today. I can see in my Notifier over hundred new posts, but I cannot access them. The service won't accept my password, and while I tried 'recover password' function I get two messages, the first one saying that I had entered incorrect email address, and the second one claiming that the password has been emailed to my email address. Huh??

bye bye ftp

Ok, I finally got around to leave the world of FTP (mostly because of security concerns). Now, lets just hope that the new file transfer standard will work with this Blogger, too...

animal crossing and spring potatoes

This weekend has proved finally to me too the addictive powers of Animal Crossing by Nintendo. Discussing with cute (or irritating, depending on your view) little animals in a colourful little town that you learn to know and which learns to know you, decidedly carries much charm. In terms of addiction creating qualities, AC:

• is easily accessible, yet immediately rewarding
• provides a form of personalised content and characters which you form personal relationships with
• is endless in offering new upgrades or extensions into your house, clothing, fashion designs, insect & fossil collections and so on.

This last part got me thinking about the similarities of this game with so-called real life. You all have seen how people spend their free times acquiring, fixing and maintaining their houses, cars, clothes and other belongings, while their working days are providing money to get more of those things. AC is one of those games that nicely captures the endless and addictive character of our lives as consumers: running around in our little errands, trying to get the new parasol with the design of this summer's fashion. There is something deeply rewarding and even instinctual in all this; maybe some kind of echo from our hunter-gatherer days?

Btw - Nikon has been promising a late April release of an upgrade for D70, as well as an entry level digital SLR (D50?) So, I might wait until May to see the situation before getting my new system.

Tried to shoot some extra-close details shots of earth, sand etc. today, but Ixus and its optics just cannot handle so close macro work. Particularly the auto-focus did not work at that range. Well, here are some Easter-time pictures instead: the first spring potatoes and the first spring beers in a (freezing!) terrace by our merry hyperlab group.

on wheels again

There was an accident in 1994, after which I did not drive bicycle for a decade (bike vs bus kind). Last summer I finally invested into a new bike: Nakamura Xrider. Going round Tohloppi lake, I saw a wedge in the sky. Cranes? Too far to see, really.

Moblog with PicoBlogger

games for a change, too?

There seems little genuinely exciting at the games front, currently. Recently I have been testing out mainly Xbox games (with an idea that the fixed system might offer starting points for game studies use, too), but not really so much has come across my path that would seem to have lasting value. There were in an Official Xbox Magazine cover disc (#40) these samples: Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (Xbox Live multiplayer mayhem), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (this actually appeared rather interesting spy-action, but I got stuck to the seashore), Area 51 (were they serious? no...), TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (actually I did find this rather fun, even if the in-out-phasing alien FPS does not deliver so much originality after a while), Constantine (I love demonic gothic, cannot help it, but the screen was too dark to play-test this during daylight hours), SNK Vs Capcom: SVC Chaos (oh boy does this arcade translation seem old - nostalgia value for some, no doubt), Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (the colourful graphics really made you want to explore the world, but the little gaming skills I have are from mouse & keyboard era, kids' games are just too damned hard) and Star Wars: Republic Commando (original Halo somehow succeeded in making Sci-Fi action more interesting). After some hours with these, I was left with lots of pretty images, but feeling that I have seen these games, albeit in slightly different guises, many times before.

Actually, some of the Nintendo DS games might be offering fresh touches: I am looking forward to at least the DS version of Animal Crossing and "NintenDogs", whatever will finally come out of it.

Took a nice walk in the sun during Sunday afternoon; then went for dip into avanto (hole in the ice) at the Kauppi winterswimmers' sauna. Took also some pictures, but the limitations of Ixus are more clear than ever, as compared to the cameras and lenses I have been considering lately. Doh.

camera comparison aches

In Saturday I took a quick check-out of the Canon EOS 350D in a local warehouse in order to get a better idea of how it actually feels and behaves. And to check that my old EF lenses work with it. Oh damn. The first I tested was my old Tokina AF tele-zoom, and then it happened: the lens jammed. It just did not get off from the 350D body! There were several of the shop personnel trying their best, but it started to look like they would break it, so I agreed to leave my lens there. Lets see; they promised to contact a Canon service, and I have their phone number.

The incident really got me rethinking about the whole deal; if my old lenses do not work, I might as well got something different than the EOS. So this weekend I have spend way too much time looking at several sites and hunting for more information particularly on Nikon D70, which couple of people I know own and are happy with. For more, read Phil Askey's review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/

The comparisons are really interesting, and when put to side-to-side, with real money involved, this is not an easy decision:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_eos350d%2Cnikon_d70&show=all
http://www.digitalreview.ca/cams/NikonD70versusRebelXT.shtml

There are many differences, but both are clearly good cameras, so it really comes down to the possible future uses. Whether to emphasise the light weight (Canon), or more extensive range of functions (Nikon)? The decision of which lens(es) to take adds even more elements into the equation. Created an Excel sheet already to keep track of the options, oh dear...