Jake

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This episode is somehow both meandering and rapid-fire at the same time. Dunno what's up with that. E3 happened, though, and we're talkin about it! "Idle Thumbs E30" We're back from E3, filled with hands-on impressions, tales of awkward industry encounters, and an important question: Who needs a motion wand when you have a ten year old boy trapped in your TV? Games Discussed: Project Natal, Unnamed Sony PS3 Wand, Milo, Explodemon!, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Left 4 Dead 2, APB: All Points Bulletin, God of War III, Heavy Rain, Brink, Scribblenauts, the Beatles Rock Band, Mafia 2

Fidelity. Immersive.

Because a logo is a logo. If you've seen the rock band logo as it is now a few times, you probably simply recognize the shape on sight as "Rock Band" without even reading it. If they change the shape of it around, they'll lose that, even if a cursory glance would reveal. Not saying it wouldn't potentially be cool if they did that. I like when companies screw with their logos and branding from product to product -- it makes it feel a bit more like they care, to me -- but I can understand why they don't all the time. Also in this particular case, I don't mind if there is some aesthetic clash between the Beatles logo and the Rock Band logo.

Emoticons will be restored soon, that's just down to laziness. Hopefully the RSS stuff is alive and well again.

Hopefully I didn't miss this one earlier in the thread (like I am wont to do). It grosses me out. crfGXmxJ1vM Also as Chuck Jordan points out on Twitter, I wonder what the huge innovation in toilet paper in the 1880's was that they refer to...

Video games are all grown up! Fuck, that commercial is gross.

It is closer to "you-bee-soft," as the "ubi" is lifted from "ubiquitous."

I know. I'm just an turning into an untrusting asshole as I age, apparently, but also Arnold's track record with California's schools has been extraordinarily subpar, which is amazing given that California's public school system was already low ranking and shit before he got here.

Crazy fucking old man ramble goin on here. Ignore this probably. I have no actual insight into how this is actually going to work, but on the surface this sounds like the sort of great deal the State gets for itself, only to realize that they've been entirely boondoggled. (heh) The state never buys a textbook for every student -- they buy new textbooks what seems like every three to ten years (depending on the school's budget and how often the subject goes out of date) and pass them down used, one year to the next. I doubt the manufacturers of a digital PDF book would let a school "re-use" a file like that. Surely they would have to "issue a new license" with every new student. Would schools with lower budgets be able to say "we can't afford that, so we're going to have to extend the digital rights to this PDF document another year and give it to another student?" Digital documents, especially ones which are paid for and signed with some sort of rights management, are almost never transferrable, and I don't think any digital rights system purchased on a government contract would have that degree of user friendliness to it. So, let's do a word problem! Let's say a school in a poor part of the state keeps their math textbooks for 8 years, and a school in a great, affluent part of the state keeps their math textbooks for 2 years. If the digital copies were four times cheaper than the print ones (but had to be purchased once a year, a new license per student), the rich school would be saving money -- they'd be paying half as much as their previous Math textbook budget! -- but the poor school would be losing money, having to pay twice as much for textbooks over that 8 year cycle. That is admittedly assuming a lot about how a system like that would work, so I am surely 1000% full of shit here. I'm just mashing together the base information I know about textbook purchasing, and the base information I know about purchasing digital goods (more specifically audiobooks and ebooks from places like iTunes, Audible, and Amazon), and then assuming that it will work slightly worse than it does in the private sector, because.... If there's one thing the government is complete balls at, it's contracting goods and services at an affordable price, and if there's one thing governments are confused and easily hoodwinked by, it's modern technology. These two things are unlikely to go together in any way that saves money. I've had the state charge me $5.00 for credit card processing before, for instance. Who on earth agreed to sign up with that payment processing service? No private business (no non profit organization even!) would be retarded enough to accept that type of gouging, but the state eats that shit up. I think I'm just generally a little wary of the State digitizing itself, because so much of how a big government operates is (maybe unfortunately) based on the fact that it is a little creaky, and has a little leeway to flub things or let things take time to work their way through the system. Once everything is digital, any time allowed for just sort of... winging it... it is wholly removed by technology, but the rest of the system doesn't get adjusted to go along with it. That said, I might be a crazy person. I live in fear of a near future where your vehicle registration status and the validity of your drivers license are tied to the computer which controls the ignition of your car, preventing someone from driving to the DMV to renew their expired license and registration. It's probably an irrational overly spun-out fear, but I like that in the world of analog bureaucracy there is a fair amount of implied gray area and wiggle room, at least for the minor shit. I worry that the more rigid and instantaneous enforcement of existing laws and procedures will cut that "by humans, for humans" wiggle room out, and will start seriously fucking over people who don't have the income or communication skills or life-togetherness to deal with it, which at the end of the day will do the opposite of what its supposed to. It sucks that schools in poor areas have to stretch the use of their textbooks a year or two beyond their intended shelf life, but if that's the only thing they can do to stay afloat until a better, real long-term solution comes to pass, then that's what they should do. Taking that away from them without fixing anything else won't fix anything, it'll just effectively throw them out on the street. If you want to "phase out textbooks," you need more solutions in place than "this plan is cheaper because it uses technology instead of paper." Also, unrelated to all of that, I don't think Schwarzenegger has ever been right with his ideas for how to manage California's schools, so maybe I'm not giving this particular issue a fair shake, but I have generally found him to be full of shit when it comes to public services (especially schools and hospitals/medical care).

I am a bit disappointed that they're not supporting mixing and matching old and new elements. I was looking forward to playing new art withough voice, or even more importantly, playing with the old art but with new voice, music, and sound turned on. Sounds like it's just a one switch toggle between full classic mode and full new stuff, though.

Sorry, fixed! Disappointing about Abbey Road, if true, though I guess I can cope!

There was a little bit of a mix-up with a few episodes' unique IDs, which made google reader shit itself a little. I don't know how permanent that will be, but the new episode juggled to the top, at least.

Episodes! "Dreaming of Gillen" Sometimes the past is just as good as you remember it. Sometimes it's better. Nick turns back the clock ten years to explore the less traveled branching paths of adventure gaming, Jake is revamped and thrown back by Nintendo's latest offerings, and Chris? Chris dares to dream. Games Discussed: The Last Express, Blade Runner, PiCTOBiTS, Punch-Out!!, Team Fortress 2, Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Nintendo DSi Sound Bonus sad-note: We won't be doing a cast next week due to two of us (Nick and Chris) being at E3, while one of us (me) stays home, with the recording equipment sitting unused in Chris' apartment.

There's very little typography involved but fucking fuck fuck the intro to the Beatles Rock Band is fuck fuck jesus.

Or did he??? See? Solved. Continuity is easier to deal with than one might think.

I'd love it if Ron made a new Monkey Island game, but I sort of hope that if he ever does he keeps it in continuity. Not that much has really changed between Monkey 2 and today, except for a wedding ring.

PayPal was freakin out this morning but it appears to have been sorted.

My solution was to stop writing, and it was a shit solution. While previously I was mediocre, I could at least churn out the words and publish something. Now I have trouble forming a cohesive, interesting paragraph. Heed my words!

I think there are very few people who would say that the TF2 unlock system isn't broken. I have a strong preference towards not tying them to achievements, but I don't think the 100% random drops are the right solution either. I don't want to have to grind achievements for unlocks, but I want them to be intelligent in some way. Having them just fall from space into my inventory completely at random, unaware of what I already have or even if I'm actually playing or just standing still, is not an exciting solution.

We talk about attempting video again pretty often, but it's a lot of work to do right (as evidenced by us not doing it right the first time). Hopefully someday. Bonus also fact, "Far From Over" is used as the theme to the occasional UK Thumbcast, so there's that.

Sorry, you're right about that. I couldn't remember which Windows-esque solutions were Wine based and which were visualization, took the gamble, and lost on CrossOver. I made a reference to some being virtualization and some using bottles, so does that count?

Completely not-game-related, but here are some cool pieces of motion graphic/typograhy work from OFFF http://www.vimeo.com/4558827 http://www.vimeo.com/4673875 http://www.vimeo.com/1904363 PS: Super crazy great/fun sound design here, especially in the first one. With headphones on, my brain can't figure out what's happening and thinks its in a small metal room.

"This game will blow you away." -IGN.com