by Jérôme ~ February 17, 2010
While waiting for Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect 2 sounded like a suitable alternative. Looking at all the post on Mass Effect forum comparing Fallout 3 versus Mass Effect 2, ME2 was supposed to be a “better F3″.
As I bought a new copy of the game at GameStop, I had access right away to the Cerberus Network and the Terminus Armor. The armor is just an equipment only available to those who purchase the game at GameStop. But the Cerberus network is something that EA integrated into the game. If you want to have access to the DLCs you need the Cerberus network and the code to activate it works only once. You got it! When you borrow the game from a friend, or rent it, or buy it used, you need to buy a new code for $7.50 to have access to the DLCs. Some say it is to kill the used and rental market, I say it is a smart move to gain some extra bucks for the same game.
If you have not played the first Mass Effect, you might get lost during a couple of discussions (more than a couple). The main story is good maybe too short, even at the end of the game, you ask yourself: “And?”, something is missing, some questions have not been answered. Probably to let the door open for a ME3. Fortunately, the side stories add lots of deep into the game.
Something amazing in ME2 are the dialogues, the wheel of answers during the dialogues make the interactions within the dialogues more real and give the player more control. The cameras angles during those dialogues as well are a good example how producers can learn from Hollywood. Even if there are more dialogues than action in this game, it makes the game more like a movie. The graphics are eyes blowing, details on the face, the hand, impressive.
Do not expect ME2 to be Fallout 3 in space, I would classify this Game as a RPG-Arcade game. Arcade because after playing 3 hours you notice the pattern in the game: Find the you future teammate, he or she can join you only if you do something dangerous, go from point A to point B by fighting non-stop, find the data, he or she accept to come. Sure, this is a simplify version of what happens, but as soon as you noticed that, you are less enjoying the game. Do not try to analyse how it works, just play, listen to the dialogues and enjoy the game.
My main concern is the lack of real open-world-ness. You have a ship, a crew, access to the entire Milk-Way, and you are limited to half-dozen of worlds, the rest of the planets, you cannot lands, you cannot find new systems, no news planets. I felt the void was too… empty. No exploration, no discovery, no random encounters.
I did the game twice, and the second time, of course, I tried to do everything, buy everything, every upgrades, do every side missions, explore every planets, and even after that I was running short on cash. You cannot trade, sell armors or weapons, minerals you collect. The economic system has an issue, hope they will fix it in the next installment.
Pros:
- FPS-like combat system
- Dialogues
- Side stories, all of them
- Team creation
- Detail graphics
Cons:
- Economy
- Not a real open world
Conclusion: I might have bashed the game, but I liked every minutes I played it. It’s graphically a beauty, a pleasure during the combat phases, a perfect balance between story and combat. My advise, buy it!
PS: Between F3 and ME2, I’ll choose F3. But I’m biased, I like the post-apocalyptic story and decors of the Fallout universe.
by Jérôme ~ February 15, 2010
After HBO killed Rome, I felt I needed to fill up the void left by the disappearance of one of my favorite TV series. I looked for some TV drama with some strong historical background and I found Spartacus – Blood and Sand on Starz.
HBO always sets the standard pretty high in term of violence, sex, and plot; Oz and Rome are the perfect example. So when I watched the first episode of Spartacus, I have to admit, my expectations were pretty low. I was ready to watch some kind of average TV show with some average acting performance.
The results was clearly not what I was expecting.
First of all the plot is pretty basic, nothing exceptional, no side story, background limited, well it was the first episode. When the show moves forward – the 4th episode has been released – the background becomes a little deeper and the story line shakes from the original line. This is more promising than after watching the first episode alone.
Compared to Rome the characters are less appealing, not because of the acting but because they do not ring any bell to the average watcher. Everybody knows Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, or Brutus, but less people know the city of Capua or Batiatus. Spartacus character is a little flat, weak background, obvious motivations, and too much stubborn.
Graphically, it’s a pure pleasure to watch; Spartacus is a smart mix between 300, Gladiator, and Rome: 300 for the slow motion and bloody fights, and the carton board background, and Gladiator and Rome for the buildings, costumes, and decorations. The action is so that your attention focuses on the images rather than the music – even if at first the music during the fights recalls 300.
As a mix of 300 and Rome, the show is really graphic and the pace is done at the first episode. The sex scenes are in the pure tradition of Rome and the fights are really bloody and might be disturbing some times, especially the first fight in the Pit.
If you decide to watch Spartacus, do not set your mind like you are about to watch some action drama like Sons of Anarchy, the story needs to build up and it is in motion to be a great one. The historical period is heavy in events and promises a lot of deepness into the story. This show has a good potential to become the next Rome if the writers do it right. Fights are sick, 300-like but it is part of the story: slavery and gladiators.
Watch, do not judge by the first episodes.
by Jérôme ~ January 28, 2010
News, blogs, they all behave the same way, they need to focus their attention on something so they can write on a daily basis. The last excitement was yesterday Apple event. Apple announced they will present their “latest creation”. The news people, and most of the bloggers took this announcement and, of course, guesses, rumors, gossips, and some leaks amplified the unknown content of the event. Some even compiled a to-do list of what Apple should do on the next installment of the iPhone OS. Dude! Do you think, two weeks prior an event Apple will read your blog and implements what you are looking for right away? People went crazy even stupid about all of this. The Apple tablet information was already leaked (thanks to France Telecom). The title of the event was “latest creation” not latest creations. Even a 5th grader can notice the difference, it was only about the Tablet.
With all the big Apple fans, I watched the Apple event on engadget yesterday when Lord Steve Jobs, presented Apple’s newest gadget: the iPad. When I first read the name of the tablet, my head went crazy, filled up with bad jokes about the name… iPad/iPod confusion will be common now. Is that a smart name for an oversized iPod? Time will tell. The time I recover from the name, Steve was sitting showing how cool it is to surf the web with the iPad and (argh… it still hurts!) no Flash. No Flash! What the hell is wrong with Apple, three major iPhone OS releases, constant request for Flash support, and no Flash on the “latest creation”? My eyes started to get wet, I was about to cry.
The following points of the presentation were nice, great display, user friendly, pretty much what you expect from Apple. Then comes the interesting parts, iPhone Apps will work on the iPad, iTunes (of course), new games. Playing FPS without a mouse or a controller remind me back in the day when I had to play with the keyboard keys W, S, A, and D. The iPad introduces the iBooks, I think, regarding the device it was necessary to add this functionality. Can it compete with Amazon Kindle, it might, there are pros and cons and my feeling is that it will not work. I am pessimistic by nature. Phil took the spotlights for the iWork integration, I loved it, shinny and looked usable. But the most important part was the pricing. $499 for a useless iPad and $729 for a decent one. $499 for a giant iPod Touch or $729 for giant iPhone.
All of this remind me the launch of the MacBookAir. Pricy, technologically advanced, and absolutely useless.
Would I want to spend $729 for a downgraded version of a laptop, where, and here is the best part, I cannot install anything I want, it has to go through the App Store process for approval. I will not be able to watch videos because, it supports only H.264 and no Flash. At least the iPhone is a phone. The iPad will end up in the next 15 years top-10 of commercial failure with its distant cousin, the MacBookAir. This show was not a presentation of a new product, it was a show for Wall Street, just to present the engineering potential and boldness of Apple to create, implement, and stand by cutting edge technology to the public. In the next two years, no one will talk about the iPad, the same way the MacBookAir have been forgotten.
by Jérôme ~ October 21, 2009
A friend of mine pointed me out a great deal on eBay today. I’m not a compulsive buyer, but it sounded too good to pass it. I did it, I click the Buy It Now button. I had the eBay Bucks, well, almost nothing, just 19¢. At the check out on PayPal, I did what everybody is doing, change the founding source from my checking account to my credit card. No way, I want to buy something with my bank account, that’s why credit cards are, aren’t they?
When I applied the coupon eBay gave me to redeemed my 19¢, the fouding source came back to my checking and impossible to change it. I tried to find in the eBay website why I couldn’t use other source than my checking account and, as expected, I couldn’t find anything.
Be sure that either the eBay Bucks certificates cover the price when you use them or you will have to use your PayPal balance or your checking account to use the eBay Bucks.
by Jérôme ~ October 17, 2009
I’ve been a Mac addicted since late Tiger – when it was stable enough to work with. I have also been bias regarding some aspect of Mac OSes. Some people might say I have bad faith and bias all the time. I would say: not all the time. But when something is not right, I can go crazy on it. Most of the time Apple does a great job on the OS level, making it very well user oriented, and trying to correct issues, in a correct amount of time.
When I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, experience was great, smooth transaction; like a kid, I discovered new things in the OS, all my applications I relied on were compatible right away. Leopard was stable, well, starting to be stable after the third patch (10.5.3).
I can admit it now, all the craziness around the new OS in the Mac community convinced me. It’s just an OS update with no real new feature, new core, new wonderful under the hood improvement, 64bits means faster, etc. So, with full confidence, I upgraded to Snow Leopard.
At first, nothing new, nothing really sexy, nothing that will wake me up at night and stare at my desktop and play with new shortcuts; I already knew that. The upgrade took longer than expected, it was fine, week-end, friends, family, let the iMac work on his own. Then first indexing, slow the machine, I couldn’t see the “awesome” core improvement. Finally after a couple of hours, I had a brand new OS, so all exited like a 2 years old, I could play with my new toy.
Deception, were is the speed improvement, half of my applications is taking the same amount of time to load, and the other half is not compatible. So I waited, putting faith on the developers and Apple to correct that. A couple of updates after, either of the OS side and the applications side, I cannot see any improvement. Snow Leopard, is just Leopard, but with a extra annoyance: it freezes. I can believe that, I freezes. I have to hard reboot it at least twice a week. I’m getting tired of the spinning wheel, I almost have to be careful with which applications I open in the same time to avoid those constant freezes.
As of today, Snow Leopard is just Leopard with freezes and less working applications.
With all of this, why am I still using Mac? Because I know how Apple works: they release an OS to quickly polished for your eyes but buggy in the core, then release a first patch within the first weeks and the next the month after, and so on; I hope the 10.6.3 will be stable. Patience and let’s wait for the next two patches. I stay also because, at least, they fixed one annoyance in Leopard, the external drive I am using with Time Machine is not disconnecting all the time at least they did something right on this OS.
Snow Leopard could have been something great but it didn’t meet my expectation. Let see what will happen in the future and how Apple will improve their OS. A couple of people asked me if it is worst to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Just after my upgrade I said yes because it fixed the disconnecting issue I had and for a couple of GUI improvements. Today I would answer, yes but don’t expect too much of it, just do the update as if it was a usual Software Update patch to your OS.
by Jérôme ~ August 12, 2008
Last months I received an email from HostGator saying that I had more than 50,000 iNodes and it was above the limit stated on the TOS.Those emails started complains at HostGator and client started to get out of the WebHost. The only options HG left to the clients was either reduce the number of iNodes or migrate to a dedicated server.
The first option implies that you need to delete files, most of the time emails and cache files. Deleting cache files is one thing, emails, it’s another. Most of the users do not want to do that.
The second option was out of question for most of all the clients: switching from a shared hosting at $8/month to a dedicated server at $150/month. No way, so client started to complains.
In response, HG issued a post asking their clients to ignore the email, saying that it was a bug in their cron. Was it a bug, well, I don’t think so, with my experience in HG, when there is a bug, they try to fix it right away and certainly not waiting one month to adknowledge this. I do think, it was their intention to enforce their TOS and when they realized their clients’ reactions, HG backed up to their previous internal policy which was just monitoring the iNodes counts and inform those who clearly are above the limit: 500,000 and silently stopping backups for the account above the TOS iNodes limit.
Why having an iNode limit? Well, it is pretty clear, they are performing a weekly backup of all the accounts and lots of small files are slow to backup and also increase the server load, on CPU usage and hard drive. Those raised few questions: are those backups needed when you do your own backups? Yes they are, for one sigle reason: what happen if the server crashes and some hardware fails, the account needs to be moved to another location. To do that, HG needs the backup. But the main question is, I have the smallest package: 350GB, and I am above the limit by just using 1% of the space, why offering so must space when you cannot use it. I think at this level, HG marketing department wanted to show how great HG packages can be and the Tech department, said yes but. And these buts did not appear on the packages descriptions.
Back to my problem. Even if HG backed up and will let my account alive, I’d rather follow the rules as a good Web citizen for them to backup my accounts as long as I don’t have to delete important data.
After futher investigation, I found out that Gallery2 creates resized and thumbnails on-the-fly and stores them on its cache directory, I had more than 28,000 iNodes in there.
Deleting G2 cache files by hand is not a problem because Gallery2 recreates the files when requested. So I needed a script that I could set on a cron job to monitor the iNode counts and delete the cache files when it’s above.
I have created this script. It will find all your gallery installations, cleanup the caches and progressively delete the derivatives (based on the last time it have been accessed, the less accessed will be deleted first) until it reaches the given threshold. Feel free to modify it regarding your needs. I distribute this script AS IT with no Warranty. And remember to always backup you files.
by Jérôme ~ July 16, 2007
Voila un superbe titre extrait d’un article du Monde d’aujourd’hui (16 juillet). Un peu accrocheur, ce titre mais je trouve qu’il sublime tout ce que représente la CGT et al. de nos jours.
Pour ceux qui ne suivent pas trop l’actualité, le gouvernement Sarkozy a décidé de mettre en place un service minimum dans les transports; magnifique initiative, permettant à tous les usages d’aller travailler, à l’école ou à l’université. Basique vous me direz, et bien non pas pour tout le monde: certains syndicats, ne le voient pas de la même façon.
Avant tout, il faut se demander pourquoi un étudiant prend le train puis le bus, pourquoi un salarie prend les transports en commun; et bien pour une seule et bonne raison: la plupart du temps, il n’a pas le choix. Pour lui son travail et ses études en dépendent, un jour en moins c’est un jour de boulot à rattraper.
Pour un syndicaliste, c’est autre chose, ses motivations sont différentes. Comprenons-le, mettre du charbon dans la locomotive du TGV, c’est d’actualité, ça mérite une grève pour avoir sa retraite à 50 ans, un jour de grève, ce n’est qu’un jour en moins, pas besoin de rattraper. Bref une bonne réaction bien égoïste de la part de ses pauvres travailleurs grévistes.
Revenons a nos moutons, M. Sarkozy a été élu sur un programme proposant un service minimum. Pour ce faire, cela doit passer par une loi (pour faire travailler les grévistes, il faut une loi, leur contrat de travail, leur salaire, pension et retraite ne suffit plus). Comme de bien entendu, quand il s’agit de toucher à leur précieux droit de grève, ça ne va plus, et on commence à entendre des slogans philosophiques proche de la stupidité. “Le projet de loi ne répond ni à l’amélioration du service pour les usagers ni à une meilleure prévention des conflits.”, le fait de donner un service minimum aux usagers n’améliorera pas le service? Il est certain que l’absence de service va l’améliorer… Mais ma citation préférée est quand même: “[...] essayer de rendre impossible la grève dans les transports est contre-productif, dangereux.” Empêcher la grève implique que les salaries pourront aller travailler donc aura une meilleure productivité pour l’entreprise et l’économie nationale. Est-ce moins productif que de ne pas aller travailler?
Encore des superbes exemples de réflexion syndicale limitée à leur propre nombril.
by Jérôme ~ July 12, 2007
by Jérôme ~ June 13, 2007
by Jérôme ~ June 6, 2007
Make your own opinion but I loved this one.
