“Microsoft spent the better part of the last decade in a legal battle against the continent of Europe. At the same time they were mired in that international legal dispute, they were fighting a case brought against them by the United States of America. Basically, western civilization itself was battling against Microsoft in the courts for the better part of a decade and Bill Gates is still toweling himself off each night with the silky hides of endangered baby seals. Threatening Microsoft with legal action as a single human being is like trying to attack a hive of Africanized murder bees with a piece of gum you found in a urinal. That’s not to say one person couldn’t conceivably rout Microsoft in a legal dispute; after all it was a single, well-placed torpedo that brought down the entire Death Star. But the difference is the Death Star was fiction and Luke wasn’t demonstrably guilty of severe violations of XBL’s terms of service.”  — Seth, “The Village of the Banned”, 1up.com

This article talked about the Xbox Live banned forum, which is essentially to Xbox Live as the cornfield is to Kotaku, except people don’t end up there on a whim.   

This is pretty high on the gimmick factor. It could be hard to accurately control without a physical mouse and keyboard. If you were considering a tablet, this would be a clunky and expensive alternative. But if you ever wanted linked tablets, or are a sucker for versatility (that would be me) there are some clever abilities that raise this laptop, or dual tablet, to an impressive level of usefulness. These are the reasons I am filling my coin jar:

DUAL SCREENS
Nintendo’s handhelds have proven the effectiveness of two screens, and now at least one phone is following suit. You can put most anything on either screen, and the screens can be independent or connected. Two screens lets you do some basic functions on the go, like watching tv while web browsing or viewing pictures on one screen while compiling a photo album on another. I have often wished my laptop screen was a little bigger, but that just means a bigger laptop to lug around.

KEYBOARD
When you rest ten fingers on the bottom screen, a keyboard automatically appears. Being completely a touch screen means that it’s somewhat difficult to type on since you can’t feel the individual keys. However, you can easily load other types of keyboards.This is impractical for most, but would be amazing for typing in Japanese. I always have to mess around on windows to type in Japanese with my keyboard, and that’s still a bit odd because you have to type everything in romanji. I think this is why there are so many Japanese instruction books that exclusively use romanji. You can also choose to write on the bottom screen, and their recognition software will turn it into type.

DESIGN
Sure, you can write on tablets, and buy these to use a pen on your computer, but with the iconica you can use the programs you cant get on a tablet and write on the screen like you can’t on (most) desktops. I previously wanted the Dell Inspiron duo. The idea is basically the same, except with a rotating screen creating a tablet to write on. However, I am concerned about the hinges that spin the screen. I am not claiming they are flimsy or would break easy… But if they did break, I think you would be screwed. And, if I could write directly on the screen, that may eliminate my need for sketchbooks altogether. Not that I will stop buying them.

BOOKS
This video is for a different device called “Kno” and is specifically designed for text books and note taking. I have no seen any use of the Iconia sideways as a book reader, but I hope that it has this functionality, or could add this functionality. Sure, it would be a bit clunky to hold it sideways, but carting around books, sketchbooks, and a computer is a bit clunky too.

I was looking at Destructiod’s Buy and sell games powered by Glyde, and I occurred to me that I could buy a lot more games for my dollar. I prefer brick and mortar stores, but we have all known for a long time that GameStop tries to squeeze every last ounce of profit from their used games. Here’s a quick Shakedown for a randomly selected group of games:

GameStop:
Black Ops: 54.99
Portal 2: 34.99 (sale price)
Crysis 2: 34.99 (sale price)
Total: $124.97 or 89.98 B2G1 (with edge card, $112.47 or $80.98)

That’s actually a little better than GameStop’s average, but only because two of the randomly selected games were on sale. $90 looks like a good deal until you check at Destructiod and Amazon:
Destructoid (with Glyde):
Black ops: $28.25
Crysis 2: $26.00
Portal 2: 
shipping: $4 – $12
Total: $87 – $95

Amazon:
Black Ops: from $29.99
Crysis 2: from $29.95
Portal 2: from $32.00
Total: $91.94 (before shipping)

So, Destructoid is very close to Amazon in price, but is like a B2G1 sale at Gamestop. I have considered trying Gamefly, but I like building my collection. I like that Destructoid gets a share of the profits, because I feel that they are what Kotaku used to be.

This is just precious.

I don’t know how to extract the video, but here is the link :
Step one: LA Step two: Rethink game collection.
It’s not the article that I disagree with, but the video. Something seems excessively extreme about it, yes? For a while I have only been reading Kotaku when there is news, so maybe this is what they do when there is no news. Now that E3 is winding down, maybe this will be the type of thing they do. I hope it isn’t, because this story was so strange to me, and so out of place, because the premise itself seemed… false.

Gamers always game all the time because they can’t stop the constant gaming? Maybe I’m just annoyed by collective speak. I can understand that writing for Kotaku and having your own gaming blog would lead you to say something like that. But from my understanding of gaming, and the reflection of Kotaku itself… that’s not what “we” do. So its contradicting for someone to say “All we do is game” when people who comment on the site and run it don’t conform to that.

They are my favorite candy, and I can’t even say that they are the best candy, I just happen to find them particularly addictive. Many people don’t like them, and that’s understandable, as they explain here, here, and here.

Its sort of like eating the pop rock dust and skittles at the same time. It only fizzes a little, but it’s just enough for me. Some people find the sodium bicarbonate disgusting, but I don’t mind it. The salty sweetness reminds me of trail mix, in a way. Every time I see them in a store (which is rare) I grab about seven bags.

I bought them absent-mindedly one day at Walgreens before a road trip, loved them, and then couldn’t find them anywhere for over three months. I finally found some at Fry’s Electronics, then again at Jungle Jims. The ones at Jungle Jims even had a contest on them, so I hope this means they intend to keep making them.

I went to think crazy place called Jungle Jims in Fairfield, OH, which is a grocery store that would like to be a Disney Land attraction. It was pretty kooky, but one of the more astonishing things was this:

An entire isle freezer case of Japanese food, something I have never seen before in my life. I ended up getting Ume gum, Ramune soda and some strawberry milk candy. Oh, and Fizzl’d Fruits Skittles

Save

I stopped writing about Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep because I lost my charger and stopped playing it. That means I played through the story twice, saving the most interesting character for last only to not play him at all. So, I intend to get back to that as part of the calling of my games. I might start a series called “Unfinished Business” where I go back to complete games I never completed. There are a few I can think of, including some racing games and (embarrassingly) both deBlobs

I found something of interest while reading jalopnik, following old links and such: the website decided to take a turn for the better about a year ago, pledging to become more than just an advertising extension. They stated that this meant allowing the not so informed car enthusiast to find their site welcoming, aka me. I rarely look at the site, so I don’t know if they are succeeding, but one thing I think is crucial is education.

This is what I think Top Gear UK is so good at, mixing enthusiasm with education, fanaticism with light-heated fun. I wish that I know of a website that also reflected this. For example, Lifehacker offered an instructional series called “night class” or something like that, and gave the basics to different programs. i09 does some random stories about advanced science. Kotaku does some nearly educational retro articles.

The great thing about the internet is that if you don’t readily see what it is you want, you can rather quickly create it yourself, or wait five minutes for someone else to do so.

Alright, I think it’s great that they bought everything to help out a nice old man, but they are just reselling it for a ton of money… and it’s just a $2 pack of gum in a plastic box, for $65? Seriously? Clip art style images as prints for $200? This is the business I need to be in, because some of this stuff has actually sold.

If they had bought out the store, then threw a nice big party, that would be nice. But they bought it so they could resell it through their own pretentious “art”… it’s capitalism at its finest, I suppose.

But good for Hercules. I guess it’s not unlike extreme home makeover, where they build the house for some destitute family, but really just to advertise different products and the home receivers often leave the home due to property taxes, bills, etc. When you build a gigantic house in an otherwise normal neighborhood, it can cause some issues, which you can see here, here, and here

No, it is unlike that because advertisers who pay for the home are at least selling a product at a mostly reasonable price, whereas these kids are reselling it for hundreds. And that looked like so little money in the suitcase too… I hope they gave some of the resale profits back to the shop owner.