Heading home!

okay, officially done working for the YEAR.

Headed home for the holidays. A few days in P'burgh, then to good ole' e'ville:


Happy Holidays all!

Hamilton Mtn. Hike

This weekend Marty, Jodi, Stacey, and myself headed out to the gorge to do a little hike on Hamilton Mtn. The winds were crazy. We've had about a week of very cool (~30 degree weather) but very sunny weather, so we took advantage of it to take this hike, one of the best in the gorge and of perfect length. Took a few pix along the way and wanted to post a couple from the summit.

Two of the images above are from the summit ~2500 ft. Right as we were summiting a crazy intense storm was blowing in so we only spent a few very cold minutes at the top. was a great great time, and i got to try out my new uber xmas present jacket. the image at the top is a pix of 3 of us trying to stand up in the wind and not get blown off the side of the moutain. great way to spend a sunday afternoon!

New videogame designed to have no influence on kids behavior"

Scott sent me a link to this bit of entertainment:

"Tetris suggestively twisting and turning blocks, violent falling motions, and increasingly frenzied suspense are a potential influence on children," said video-game ethicist Steve Contreras. "By contrast, after playing Stacker, with its eternally unchanging shapes and gentle lowering actions, I doubt a child would ever want to arrange any sort of virtual block again. This is exactly what this controversial industry needed to rescue its reputation."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43441

The last console generation is here...yippee skippie!

This is the last console generation. Microsoft will spend billions smartly turf-fighting with Sony, and it is important for them to do so. I realize they expect to make money this time around, but its more important to minimize Sony influence before they provide a more profitable solution. Not that this is some nefarious plan, its just how I’m expecting things to play out. over the next 5 years very compelling horizontal solutions will emerge that are feature rich in the living room that minimizes the value of the console. The cycle is around 5 years (peak at 3-5, tail off for another 3-5, total lifecycle 10 year max). Dell is selling a reasonably equipped PC for $299 on their web site. The features are numerous: wireless controller, internet access, USB slots, hard drive, great graphics...is that the PC or the console I’m talking about? You can’t tell, can you? This new consumer device will emerge and dominate the living room.

And what pops out the other side? new machines…see…lots of people think games want to be in the living room so we can use that big ass TV…but that TV is actually a limitation of the display capabilities we have that are cheap enough to build with a $300 device. nothing is cheaper than free, and you already have a display, so they don't have to provide one...that changes soon.

So…the market goes horizontal in 2010-2012, then what? well, if you think your PSP rocks, wait until you don the goggles running tiny LCDs at high resolution from a device the same size and you can look around you with that light saber in your hands (ala the new Nintendo Revolution controller is a primitive realization). head mounted displays limitations have primarly been: latency, weight, and resolution. These will be overcome in our lifetimes.

and with that introduction...welcome the next revolution in gaming :)