PAX 2009

I managed to attend PAX 2009 this year for the first time.   I say managed because it actually sold out completely, the first time it has ever happened too.   Luckily someone at work was selling a three day pass and I got lucky enough to get it.  score.

I really had no idea what to expect.  I knew it was somehow based around Penny Arcade, and had "video game stuff", some presenters, and other "stuff".   It seemed likely to at least be an interesting experience so I wasn't much worried, and it was only $50.

I won't boringly enumerate everything here, but I will say the main stay is the expo.  I'm kind of quite surprised it actually fit in the convention center, it is simply massive.   I didn't actually play many games due to lines and well nothing really grabbed me, but it was quite amazing to see all the different set ups as well simply the number of people.

So instead of being boring I'll just point out some specific things I learned about attending PAX:

Pax is mostly about video games

I know Penny Arcade is a lot about games too, but I really was expecting it all to me somehow mostly about the comic, but it is not.   The main focus is video games, console and computer alike, including even hardware vendors showing up.   There was actually a stand in the expo just pushing 3D setups, which apparently will work with any 120Hz display.   It makes HUDs a little more life like.

It wasn't just video games though.  There were table top vendors and CCG vendors in the expo area too, as well a whole floor was just for pick up board gaming.

Pax is for and by gamers

Pax is pretty much made by gamers for gamers and not by the gaming industry for better or wose.  I don't think there'll be a ton of surprise announcements like E3.

Pax is pretty cool

During the 3 days the Omegathon occures.  This is a 5-6 stage elimination gaming competition.   The games however are quite random, and the final game is secret and done during the final closing show of PAX.  This year it was Skee ball :o)

Also, they even Pax 10 awesome small games and both feature them in the printed program, but also let them demo.   One of GAMBIT's games, CarnieVale, was there and I got to meet some of the Singapore co-workers of Marleigh's.   As well there was a new game called Machinarium from the makers of Samorost.  If you haven't played Samorost you should go now.

Wil Wheaton gets to do whatever he wants

Wil Wheaton isn't known for gaming, but he is a gamer and therefor I think he gets to do whatever he wants.   He was on the Pitch Your Game panel, he got his own Talk, and was just in general wandering around on stages and with other guests doing stuff.

There are smarts at Pax

Pax isn't just about playing games, there are also several rooms in which talks, movies, etc are going on.   There were a few on interesting subjects like: Female gamers; sex, drugs, murder in games; designing for failure, etc.   You can still see the schedule online with descriptions.

Seattle is a good place to be for such geeky things

I learned there are a lot of geeky things in the area I didn't know about.  First, Penny Arcade is homed up in Capitol Hill ( Mike and Jerry live here ).   I hear Scott Kurtz of PvP is thinking of moving here, I can only imagine Wil is next.   Bungie is in Kirkland, Valve is in Bellevue, and apparantly 5th Cell, the makers of Scribblenauts, are in Bellevue too, who knew.

The Seattle Convention Center is huge

PAX had complete use of the convention center from what I saw, well floors 2-6.  The convention center looks big from the outside, I mean it's a convention center, but it doesn't feel like the insides should fit.   The expo and main hall areas were simply massive and I think they were on the same floors.

Games

Since there are games at PAX so here's some I ran across that caught me.

Uncharted 2:  Looks neat, nothing special but that should be quite fine.

BioShock 2:  Only a teaser walk through but pretty awesome, can't wait.

Scribblenauts: This personally isn't doing a lot for me, but I like the idea and I'm glad everyone else is jazzed.

Dante's Inferno:  Looked pretty cool and the game play with fighting big monsters was somewhat Prince of Persia like which is good.  I'm told it looks pretty much like God of War, so I'll have to check that out too.

WET: At first it looked a bit typical but I think some of the game play will be pretty neat.  The parts where you were riding a moving vehicle down a highway and attacking others looked well done.

Diablo 2/Star Craft 2:  More of the same with somewhat newer graphics.

Batman Arkham Asylum: I saw this in the free play room since it's already out, but it made me want to give it a try.  After playing the demo today it's on my gamefly queue.

---

I'm glad I went to PAX, and more so I could go for the three days.   I'll likely go next year and make sure I go to the Saturday night stuff which I skipped this year ( no Jonathan Coulton for me ).

Things of our Children's Fathers

We remember people in various ways, but when they've left us it is their things we have left. These things give us a physical hold on them through time, and through this we can maintain a grasp on our emotional ties too. This is perhaps even more so with our parents. We spend the most pivotal years of our lives with our parents and they ingrain themselves in us ways even lovers can not. Most of these things will be new from parent to child, we don't plan on our children making these connections to something specific, it just happens. The things that do persist from generation to generation become heirlooms, some even forced down through history; the jade statue perched on the corner of the mantel waiting to be set free.

The things children cling on to will be of their own choosing, for reasons we likely will never realize, especially at the time. However we will certainly try to influence them. Give them things we think they'll like, hopefully cherish, and even better if it's something we have an interest in. Heirlooms persist themselves, some as sand worms, through history but what about when we want to pass things down, and what about when those things may not exist when they're old enough to care?

This all comes to me from one of my interests. I'd almost call it a hobby though that seems wrong, a hobby feels like you should necessarily be creating something. I play board games on a somewhat weekly bases. These aren't typical American board games, but  derived from Europe and somewhat dominated by Germany. They feature interesting game play, unique physical pieces, and usually nice artistic images. Carcassonne is a decent though perhaps simplistic example. One problem I have though is that most games I'm interested in are already owned by other members of the group I play with, and I don't tend to play with other people, so there is really little reason in me owning any games myself.

This is where we come back to the first bit. I realize however that some of these games I'll still want to play years from now, and some I will distinctly want my children to play; they're kind of like the Montessori of children's games, but furthermore they're so unique to what we usually experience. However, if and when I do ever have kids, some of these may not exist anymore. Games like these have fairly small markets and are to a large degree necessarily physical. While they do exist digitally and mostly online, they loose a lot in it, and there's nothing to say the electronic version will persist even then. The internet is fickle. So what do we do with things like this?

I certainly can't buy everything, but I've decided to actually buy games I think I'll still want to play in 15 years, even if I never punch the pieces from their cardboard holders until then. I'll have to lug them around until then, but I think it's worth it. The first one I'm buying is Thebes, a fun Archeology type game. It's got some interesting game play around how it handles digging over two simulated years, and I think it's probably pretty educational. My kids probably won't remember it, and I hear they tend not to like what you think they will or should, but all you can really do is try right?


I do wonder where else this kind of issue might lie; the niche market that doesn't lend itself well to digitization.

Pay Me Less, More Often

With my not so recent job change came a change in how I was paid. At my last job we got paid at the end of the month, all at once. It was nice and made my accounting easy. Same amount of money every month on the last day of the month. When I tell people in "the industry" about this they actually chuckle a little. I'm told monthly pay checks are a sign of an unsecure company as they could potentially get a month of work out of you, close up shop, and not have to pay out; also I imagine it's a little more trouble for a small company to do irregular pay periods. I like to turn this around and say that companies that pay bi-weekly are basically saying they only have enough certainty that they'll be open for two weeks, but I digress.

I got used to the odd pay periods pretty quickly, I still get the same amount each month by the end of the month, it just comes in in smaller amount and more often, but the same amount. However I then started to notice some benefits from this.

I usually do all my money changing at the end of the month, pay bills, transfer to savings, done. But now that I get a pay check in the first half of the month I realized I could transfer money to savings earlier and earn a bit more savings on it. If I know I can put a minimum of $500 in savings at the end of the month then, on average, I can put that money in savings 3 weeks earlier. It's not a huge extra amount of interest, but it's an extra 5.7% of your interest rate. At the end of the month I just then put in whatever extra money is left over into savings as I would normally do.

The other thing is that if you look at paydays on the calendar you'll notice there's two months with three of them! That's right, twice a year you "make" 150% your normal pay! These occur during May and October. What this means is that you make "less" most months than you would if you just divided your salary by 12. This is effectively making you save 8% a month. This has two very nice side effects.

1. This 8% less you make means you must tighten your belt in general and therefor spend a little more wiser than you might. Most people may realize they should do this anyway, but this is actually making it a reality.

2. You have effectively been forced to save a months worth of money. This mimics setting aside money each month for a particular purpose, say a vacation, or a new HD TV without the headache of actually doing it and having to account for it in your monthly budget, which is a big barrier to entry.

So go out and find a job that pays bi-weekly and enjoy the benefits.

Magellan Maestro 3100 GPS: $250

he Maestro 3100 is the entry level unit offered by Magellan, which is exactly why I chose it.  This is my first GPS and as I've learned when entering a new technology area, start on the low end and learn what you like about it and what you want in your next one.  I may have taken this a little too much to heart with this unit, as I've certainly found many things that are lacking, but in general I think it's a good device for what it does.  My review follows.

The Basics
This system does it's job well, it just doesn't do a whole lot more.  If you give it an address, it'll find you a way to that location.   Its nice feminine voice will guide you with with helpful voice prompts and should you stray from your path it will auto reroute.  The system has a decent 750,000 entry Points of Interest database though not as large as the Tom Tom's > 1M.  It tends to know big chains, but don't expect it to find you many coffee shops other than Starbucks.  It comes with a suction cup mount that works nicely on my windshield and a battery that lasts a few hours on a recharge.

The Good
The Maestro 3100 is the cheapest name brand system I found.  It's $250 retail but at the time Amazon offered it for $200, ( however it is currently listed at $250 ) this made it $60 cheaper than the cheapest Tom Tom and it was sold from Amazon directly, always a bonus in my book.  It performs it's basic task of knowing where you are and getting to elsewhere well.

The menu system is flat and fairly discoverable in general.  The Address book is the deepest of the menus, but I quickly was able to navigate to a saved location in just 2 or 3 seconds.  The system is responsive for the average case and tends to only slow down when it's acquiring a GPS signal which usually only happens when you first start up the system.

The system automatically changes it's color scheme to reduce the brightness of the unit at night.  This is a must have, you'd be blinded otherwise.

The Bad
The main bad items are in what this unit is lacking, which I'm sure more expensive units cover.  So I will be specific to this units offerings

2D is the new 3D
The map offers both 3D and 2D views.  The 3D view is nice to look at, however it is impossible to do anything interactive in it; moving the map around is simply slow and it's usually not possible to actually navigate enough to see what you want.  The 2D view is almost preferred in all cases just for ease.  Another sorely missing feature is the inability to see an entire route easily, there really should be.

Wasted Space
The Maestro offers a 'Plan a Trip' feature, however this amounts to nothing more than a list of way points.  There is no special navigation, or hand off between points.  You could easily just put each point in the Address Book and just choose the next one to navigate to on your trip.


Nagging Features
This unit comes with a 'preview' option that you can turn on where, when you start a route, it will ask if you want to preview it with a fly over.  The problem with this feature is, any time it recalculates the route it prompts you if you want to see a preview before you can get actual directions.  So any time you take an access road instead of the highway, or turn earlier or later than it wants, or take a slightly different route, you gotta fiddle with the box.  That is just annoying and simply unsafe.

Also, the preview fly-by feature is useless.  It doesn't go fast enough, and is a poor substitute for a full route view.


The Review
This unit is a good buy overall; you can get it with a warranty for less than a Tom Tom.  It'll get you where you're going for the cheapest you'll find a name brand unit.  The mount is very useful and aside from a few initial drops from my windshield it's held fast.  The battery should last long enough to get you around the city for the day if you use it to get your bearing when your lost.  As well, it even fit in my blue jean's pocket.  Maybe not the most comfortable, but it works.


Amazon.com Links
This Item:
    Magellan Maestro 3100
    2 Year Warranty

Other Units:

Magellan Maestro 3140 - "SayWhere" functionality says street names in addition to directions, Bluetooth, 4.5 Million Points of Interest

Magellan Maestro 4000 - 1.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook integration

Magellan Maestro 4040 - "SayWhere" functionality, 4.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook.  Additional Costs: Voice command, Traffic aware

Magellan Maestro 4050 - 4.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook.  Additional Costs: Voice command, Traffic aware

The Memory of Things

There was a recent Radio Lab about memory and one of the ideas in it really stuck with me as being very interesting, equally very sensical, almost in an obvious way.   Not obvious in the 'I could have thought of that' way, but in that 'ah that explains a lot' way.

The bit of information was about what happens when we remember something.  The basic idea is that, when you remember a memory, you destroy it, gone, poof!   The only way to be able to remember it again is to resave it.  So there you go, read from memory bank A, experience, write to memory bank B.  Only, you didn't write it exactly the same, you've changed it a little, you have just lived inside your head a little bit.

The ahhhh part of this for me, is that this is very powerful, and affects us in very powerful ways.   The more you think about something, the more you change it to the way you perceive it.  Every little thought about it is a little more oomph behind it.  This I believe is the power behind wishful thinking, behind downward spirals, perhaps behind fear and eternity.

The more we really really want something the more thinking about it justifies the thought to us.  The more we worry about something, the more the fear it drives builds.  This is what makes Joel in Eternal Sunshine want to forget.   The flip side though is, the more we remember pleasantness, the more pleasant it becomes.  The more pleasant the memories we make about something, the more it becomes eternal.  This, is what makes Joel want it all back.