Life

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Netflix, iOS4, iPhone 3G… and Nerd Rage

Life, Rants

So yesterday the Netflix app came out for the iPhone and iPod touch. What a red letter day in the history of science this was. As if my life with an iPhone 3G and iOS4 isn’t a fucking pit of despair already, now I have this taunting me on my phone. You’re supposed to be able to use Netflix Watch Instantly ( the greatest thing in the history of entertainment) on the phone over 3G or WiFi.

Oh please can I Mr. Jobs, can I haz entertainments?

So I download the app, start it up. It responds in the same sluggish way that everything does not on my iCrapped 4 device. I get to the gleaming red Netflix log-in screen, enter my email address, enter my password. then watch the spinning wheel of sloth for a few seconds. Then a dialog pops up…

Sorry Login Timed out, Try Again!

What a happy cheerful message that was, I’d really like to try again… But then the screen refreshes and I have to enter my email and password again. Which is annoying when I have to type it on a regular keyboard, when it’s on a tiny touchscreen it’s more that maddening. So after 4 or 5 tries I give up.

I understand that this may be a first day problem with everyone trying to reach the servers all at once. But I tried it again later on my WiFi and it still didn’t work.  This morning too and NOTHING.  This should be the number one rule of web form design…

DON’T MAKE THE USER RE-ENTER THE INFORMATION WHEN THEY HAVE TO RESUBMIT THE FORM.

Actually that should be just about the only rule of web form design. I would like to use the Netflix App… I REALLY REALLY would.

*UPDATE*

So it turns out that I wasn’t entering the right password into Netflix… So my frustration was partially self inflicted. The message that came back says “Login Timeout, please check your user name and password and try again.”  Last time I checked that wasn’t called a login timeout, that was called “Password incorrect” or “Username/Password combination not recognized” I think Netflix has a serious problem with UI design. I can’t figure out why they never seem to address the problems that are on various platforms. Maybe they are designed by different teams that do not communicate with each other.

So my impressions of the actual service are pretty good.  I was able to stream a movie over WiFi without it stopping, buffered for about 30 seconds in the beginning and then smooth sailing after that. On 3G it was a little slower, but after pausing it for about 2 minutes to let it buffer I was able to stream Monsters Inc almost completely through in the car.  But for no apparent reason you can’t add movies to the physical media que… why? I have another application on the Iphone (phoneflix) that will manage my queues on the  device. It looks like they just forgot it. For a company that is trying to have its service on as many devices as possible I’d think that they’d have someone to make sure that all the features are included on all devices.

and while we’re at it can I have a search for all streaming movies? Not just show me the top 50 in each category.

Bejeweled Blitz Boosts : Welcome to the grind

Life, Rants

I want to start off by saying that I love playing Bejeweled 2 on my Iphone. I had the game on my Treo before that and it’s really the only game that I keep coming back to on a regular basis on the Iphone.  Some would say that I’m addicted. When I saw that there was a version on Facebook that you could play against your friends I was excited. But it turns out that I NEED a stylus or a finger to play the game, I’m no good with a mouse. It’s the opposite of what Microsoft just found out with console vs pc gamers.

So I waited patently and eventually the Iphone version got the coveted Blitz mode that was only available on Facebook and you could compare scores against your Facebook friends. There was much rejoicing. So I’ve been playing it almost everyday on the Metro annoying people that I knew in high school with my high scores. These were the salad days. I didn’t even mind that there was one guy that kept pushing me back to number two on my list. But then I found out that he was playing on Facebook and that version had added bonus multipliers called boosts. I really didn’t know much about them other than they seemed to make higher scoring easier. It’s like I was in a wood bat league and he came in with a composite bat filled with argon gas. I tried to play on Facebook again, but I still stink with a mouse. So I decided to wait until the Iphone version got the boosts. A little message taunted me on the top of the screen “We’re working on bring boosts to the Iphone”. So the other day it happened…

At first I was excited about the boosts, you get free multipliers, random gems, an extra 5 seconds. Since you only get 3 uses out of each boost it made the games that you were using the boosts extra intense. But then I realized something. Because the boosts make high scores so much easier, you HAVE to use them if you’re interested in the high score list. I think maybe what they were trying to do is give the weaker players a chance at beating the people above them in their lists. That’s exactly what they’ve done, increased chance. Blitz is a game much like poker, you need to have skill, but it’s mostly determined by how the cards (jewels) fall. The fun of playing Blitz for me is that in any game you could get the right gems and you could set the high score for the week. You have to buy the boosts at a cost of about 6000 coins, you earn about 650 coins in a average game. What that does is effectively neuter 90% of the games you play. You’ll have fun, you’ll earn coins, but you’ll never beat someone having a pretty good game while using 3 boosts at once. So the addicting quality that the next game could be the one that you break that big score. My previous high score in about a year of playing is 545,000 in about an hour with boosts I hit 615,000. They’ve essentially introduced grinding into the puzzle genre. You need to do boring repetitive tasks to achieve higher scores.

You could say that I’m just jealous that I won’t be #1 or maybe #2 when everyone learns to use the boosts and starts getting higher scores. But I really wish other people would challenge my scores, the only reason I became friends with the guy who keeps beating me is to compare bejeweled scores. 2 things I like best in video games are short repeatable game play and challenging high scores. Maybe I’m making too big of a deal about the scores, but the only reason boosts exist is to make your high score bigger. They are saying that getting a higher score and beating your friends is the only way to have fun in the game. What they’ve done is make everyone’s high scores 20% higher, but make them play 90% more games to get those higher scores. What they could do to fix this is either make a separate high score list for non-boost games or make the boosts cheaper to ‘buy’ so you didn’t have to spend so much time playing ‘meaningless’ games.

Stafford Cardboard Boat Regatta 2010

Interests, Life

This Saturday was the 7th annual Stafford Cardboard Boat regatta. Run by the North Stafford/Rockhill Ruritan club and held at Aquia Landing in Stafford. As a member of the Stafford Cardboard Yacht Club I was required to build a boat for the race. In past years our semi unofficial group has built pirate ships, viking ships, battleships, aircraft carriers, and Gilligan’s Island… (the whole island). But those projects involve weeks of work, hundreds of pounds of cardboard, and gallons of expensive glue. So this year we decided that it would be better if we all made separate boats. SCYC members Bill Schlotter and his son Jason constructed a replica of the civil war ship “Monitor”. My dad, John Schumaker, along with some basic boats for kids, made a sea monster paddle wheeler and a fishing boat that could be hooked together. Wade and I, knowing that we didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the boat, spent two nights making a sleek speedboat.

I would say that for me this years race was the most fun I’ve had at the races. It could be because I hadn’t spent 4 weekends in a sweaty garage huffing contact cement.  But I’d like to think it’s because the Ruritan Club is getting really good at running the race. They had a good sound system with music and an announcer that was really good at calling the races. Especially for the kids.  The registration and judging went by quickly and they added 2nd place ribbons so everyone could be involved.  All the kids looked like they had a great time and everyone was talking about what they were going to do next year. I even recruited some friends to do the race next year, we may participate in the Lake Accotink race in Fairfax also.

North Stafford/Rock Hill Ruritans

Potomac Local article about the race

Official Stafford Cardboard Boat Race Website

Jam Packed Summer Weekend finally over

Interests, Life


This weekend was jam packed with summer fun. Friday night we went out for the worlds longest happy hour at Dogfishhead Brew pub in Greenbriar for Laurel’s Birthday. We ate and drank in shifts with about 10 other people, but never more than 6 at once. We stayed up till 3am talking with friends at our place while I made the helmets for the next day’s activity: The Cardboard Boat Race.

Then I got up at 7am to finish painting the helmets, drove to Wades house. Loaded up the boat on top of his car, then drove 45 minutes down to Stafford for the race. The race was the funnest it has been in years. That’s probably because we didn’t burn our selves out working 4 weeks on some cardboard monstrosity. We built a solid speed boat and put more of out energy into costumes and positive attitudes. I think that made it more fun for everyone, but that will get it’s own blog post when I get all the pictures and videos.

The race ended around 230 and we fought 95 summertime traffic to get back to Oakton so I could get ready for the Jack Johnson concert at Merriweather at 7pm. Got back with just enough time for a quick shower and then threw everything in the car and got on our way. We got there just in time to claim the last good spot on the lawn. Jack Johnson is apparently very popular now. (again, I’ll elaborate later in another blog post). The concert was fun and we had decided before to get a hotel room near the venue because we had to be back in Maryland the next day anyway.

But the fun doesn’t stop there!

Easy like Sunday morning as we slept in and then ate breakfast at the friendliest Bob Evans restaurant ever. Then it was off to Laurel’s Birthday lunch at her Grandmothers apartment in Silver Spring. A casual lunch of turkey sandwiches, Salmon, and fruit salad while we discussed how a new Draft would speed opposition to the current wars and why American politicians don’t care about the millions of dead Iraqis. Later Laurel and her cousin looked on the internet for wedding dresses while we all looked on.

Then around 6 we headed back to our house. Got there just in time to leave for the 7:50 showing of Inception (awesome, but now blog post because I can’t discuss it without giving spoilers.) We got back around 11:30 with just enough time to get ready for bed before the weekend officially ended.

phew!

I can’t do every weekend like this, but it was fun!

Abandoned Teenage Wasteland – Part 1

Interests, Life


In an undisclosed location in Fairfax County there exists an abandoned land. At one point it was a home to a family and a thriving business. But because of ignorance or contempt for zoning laws the family and business were forced to move. What was left behind has become much more interesting for me. I’ve always been interested in abandoned houses and buildings. I’ve spent many hours online looking through pictures of old hotels, houses, and hospitals that were left, for one reason or another, to rot. I find it interesting when nature reclaims its’ land.  Here are some of the galleries I’ve bookmarked on delicious, I tagged them Abandonia.

On this plot of land there are 2 houses and one large office/garage area. The houses were once in pretty good shape but are now succumbing to the forces of rain, snow, and teenage aggression. The office building is another story, it’s pretty industrial so there’s not much to fall apart anyway. I went back there last week and took some pictures of graffiti left there by what I can only assume are local teenagers. It’s such a strange mix of things, Nature wearing down on the roofs and then teenagers helping it along by breaking all the windows and smashing the walls. It’s also an interesting mix of symbols on the wall. Clearly drug fueled, they have hippie flowers, mixed with rap lyrics and money signs. I find it hard to believe that these two groups run in the same circles, but they apparently shop at the same spray paint section.

There are some strange sights. The wood floor from the entry of one of the houses has been carried from the house and laid out on the floor of the garage, in a pattern that was clearly intentional. Somebody must have been really really high.

I found this dollar bill attached to the pole in the middle of the room in what is clearly some sort of trap for bourgeouis capitalists. That’ll show em!

It’s semi unsettling atmosphere. It’s not unlike coming in to a house after a party the night before and wondering what has gone on here. it’s interesting to me to imagine what it was like. I know it seems silly to read this much into a bunch of stupid drawings by some stoned teenagers. But I think we can learn from anything. When archaeologists look back at ruins they are mostly looking at the broken pottery and trash left behind. What were they thinking when they wrote, imagine… shit.

What was once clearly a thriving business has become a party zone for stoned teenagers.

Picture gallery after the break.

Continue reading →

R.I.P. – Ryan August

Life


I was reading OMG Posters! today and the first story on the page today was the news that the founder of I Want Your Skull was killed in a car accident this weekend. His son Declan was in the car with him and was thankfully unhurt.

I never met Ryan. But inadvertently he may be one of the reasons that I met Laurel. It’s one of those chicken and the egg moments. I don’t remember if I was aware of his website before I made the first skull door knocker or if I already had the idea when I found his site. But he was an inspiration for me to get off of my butt and make some kind of art. I made the skull door knocker. It was featured on his blog sometime in 2006 (the archives were corrupted in 2009). I used the door knocker image as my profile picture on MySpace. It was one of the reasons that Laurel sent me a message. We’re getting married in October.

Through being his friend on Facebook I could tell that he was a very devoted father. I’m so sad that his son will grow up without him. My heart goes out to his wife Sarah, his son Declan, and all those he left behind. I would like to thank him for just being himself and motivating countless people everywhere.

R.I.P.

Paypal Donations for Sarah and Declan can be sent to ryanaugustdonation[at]gmail.com.