The New Face of the Modern Gamer

Posted by OCEntertainment | Posted in , , | Posted on 12:14 AM

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According to CTA this is it. Nevermind the crappy Photoshop job. And nevermind the mildly attractive/intimidating model CTA used to demo the Wii Weighted Gloves. And yes, she is intimidating. But not because she's physically fit or apparently enjoys a good boxing match. But rather because she has the cojones to be photographed wearing the gloves. A fashion statement that simultaneously says "I am a person who enjoys being physically active" and "I am allergic to sunlight."


Then there's the Wings for Wii. An accessory that you can attach to your arms while playing games like Bird's Eye Bull's Eye, for the Wii Fit. A game that requires you to flap your arms to maintain lift while you, a man in a chicken suit, flies from one precarious inexplicable ledge in the middle of an ocean to another.

In their defense, adding wings would increase your drag, making it more difficult to flap, and thus giving you an ever-so-slightly better work out than without the wings. On the other hand, you look retarded.

But if you look at this woman and think "Man, I hope I can be that cool when I grow up," then may I interest you in the Wii Rowing Machine, the Wii Football Controller, the Wii Bowling Ball, or the Wii Therapist.

*Note: Wii sports are not an acceptable substitute for physical activity, Dr. Phil is not an acceptable substitute for real counseling.

Pixel Zombies: I Take Back Everything I Said, Stick With the iPhone

Posted by OCEntertainment | Posted in , , | Posted on 6:02 PM

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Oh, what's that? You're surprised? After all my Android talk. After positively drooling over the Evo, why would I tell you to stick with the iPhone? One word: Zombies.


I thought that Android's open market was a welcome reprieve from Apple's walled garden of the App Store. With no rules on content and minimal technical restrictions, it ought to be a utopia of innovation, right? Wrong. What you're seeing to your left is a screen grab of a live wallpaper (introduced in Android 2.1, currently available for most major Android handsets) demonstrating a zombie invasion. Red dots represent zombies, green dots represent civilians, and blue dots represent zombie hunters. Madness!

I've learned my lesson. I thought that I wanted openness. But now, my home screen has become invaded by starving-mad meat sacks feasting on the flesh of mortals. Now I have to fear that handing my phone to a friend or family member may get them bit and turn them into a seething, bleeding, ravenous monster.

Now I hear what you're saying at this point. "Well, gee golly gosh, Mr. Disdain. That sure sounds like an awful lot of trouble to get into. I sure don't wanna go gettin' Ma or Pop bit with my telephone device." To which I will respond with a.) what the heck is Theodore Cleaver doing shopping for a smartphone? But more importantly: I'm just getting started.

If you drop an icon on to your home screen, this acts as a nuclear bomb. That's right. A nuclear bomb. Governments all over the world are attempting to limit the use of such weapons of terrifying power, and Google, per their custom, wants to give that kind of power to the average user. For free*. No sir. Not me. I do not accept the responsibility!

Unfortunately, I've already pre-ordered my Evo, so I have no choice but to receive my 2.1 Android device that contains a security hole so big, you could drive a zombie invasion through it.

*-- Well, technically, the wallpaper is $1 in the Market. And technically Google didn't make the zombie app. Though supporting the nuclear weapons API in the OS was a hugely irresponsible move on their part so they are just as much to blame.

On Piracy and Theft

Posted by OCEntertainment | Posted in , , , , , | Posted on 1:39 PM

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[Editor's Note: Normally, we don't post stuff this serious. Trifling about with morality and right and wrong? Pshaw. We much prefer to sit back and make fun of people and companies that do silly things, make silly things, say silly things, or are silly things. But Offical-As-Of-Now Guest Writer Odin asked to be reposted. And his article has a picture of a nun with an eye patch. And if you think about it, the old lady with a scarf analogy is kind of funny. I mean imagine her face when some punk runs up and steals her scarf but, WHOAAA! It's still in her hand too! Whahahaha! *ahem* But I digress. Anyways, here's his post, originally published here.]


Lets get this straight. Piracy is not theft and theft is not piracy.

Sure enough the two are related concepts but it's wholly inaccurate to classify one as the other. While in the eyes of the law they are both crimes, piracy is one that average people are more ready to commit. Why is that? Namely it's because they don't see the harm in it. If you steal an old ladies purse then that old lady no longer has her purse. Where is she going to put her knitting now? Reasonable people feel guilt over performing such actions and often go crazy from the clickaty-clack of the knitting needles echoing throughout their conscience.

However, if you were to take an exact copy of her purse then she still has somewhere to put her knitting and you'd have half a scarf. Everybody wins. Except of course now you'll never buy her scarves at the weekly jumble sale and she won't be able to afford that trip to Florida any more. Of course most people don't think that far ahead so they'll live quite happily with their ill-gotten gains free from guilt and those pesky haunting knitting needles.

Theft basically boils down to the removal of value. You take something valuable and someone else no longer has that value. It has been irrecoverably (unless they arrest your thieving ass) removed from the system. With piracy though the original value is never removed. What changes is the potential levels of value. And unlike theft piracy can actually result in a gain of value for the victim of the piracy. This I believe is the biggest factor that differentiates piracy from theft, it can actually have a positive effect on value.

Lets revisit our old friend the old knitting lady for some scarf themed examples of the three potential effects of piracy:

1. Negative potential value

This sadly is likely the most common form of piracy and is generally why it's considered theft as well as an all round bad thing. Take Mr Bastard now. Mr Bastard would normally purchase a scarf from the dear old lady but upon finding out he can receive a magical scarf duplicate ends up not doing so. In this case a potential sale existed but then was lost due to piracy. The old lady has lost potential value. And she is sad.

2. Neutral potential value

Probably the second most common form. Take Mr Apathetic. Mr Apathetic would never consider purchasing a scarf from the dear old lady. However he will take a copied one for free. If he couldn't get it for free though he wouldn't purchase one. Here no potential sale existed in the first place so there is nothing lost, nothing gained. It's still not morally correct but the victim has technically lost nothing. The old lady has lost nothing, gained nothing. She is knitting.

3. Positive potential value

What's this? Positive piracy? Surely not! Piracy is a bad dirty crime for thieving bastards I hear you cry. But consider the case of Mr Unconvinced. Like Mr Apathetic he never considered a scarf purchase. However upon trying a free copy of it he comes to the realisation that he really likes it and pays the old lady her due. Here this is a sale that previously didn't exist in potentia but was created through piracy. The old lady has actually gained value from this. She is off to Florida.

This isn't an endorsement of piracy nor is it showing that it's morally acceptable. It's merely an illustration that it's more complicated than simple theft and how the two actions should be considered independently of each other. It's not such a black and white concept.

Unlike this Jolly Roger I'm knitting.

The iPhone is Dead, Baby, the iPhone is Dead

Posted by OCEntertainment | Posted in , , , , | Posted on 7:46 PM

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Compiled to the left is a totally in-context, not at all disingenuous chart of data that shows, definitively, that the iPhone is dead.

Compare. Between October 2009 and January of 2010. The iPhone experienced only a 0.3% increase, while the Android platform experienced a 4.3% increase. Whoa! Then, between November and February, a whole month later, the span is now that the iPhone saw -0.1% increase (that's negative), while Android saw 5.2% increase.

Nevermind that "increase" is poorly defined, that the time frames are disingenuous, and that the source method is obscure or unreliable. Here's the point. If you were to draw a line from the right corner of the green column to the right corner of the purple column for the iPhone, the line goes downhill. But if you do that for the Android columns, they go uphill. Clearly, Android is the winner!

This is in line with what NDP recently posted, stating that Android sales, according to customer surveys because that's how you measure sales, for the first time exceeded iPhone sales. According to the Diazian Growth Principle, slow growth, approaching zero, means that a product is dead. If that is not enough proof, look at the third column. The iPhone's "Aliveness" column is currently at 0, indicating a ton of deadness. While Androids' alive level is over 9000!

The only logical conclusion that we can come to is that the iPhone is dead. Nevermind that, even if Android is currently accelerating at a rate faster than the iPhone, the iPhone OS still has a larger install base. Nevermind that the Android app market, yet another way for mobile OSes to measure their epeen, still lags behind Apples. And nevermind that the two, though bitter rivals, compete for almost entirely different customers since the iPhone is limited to exclusively AT&T, and any halfway decent Android handset is limited to almost anything but AT&T. Nevermind all of that. Listen. The iPhone is dead.

One might tend to think that it would be reasonable to assume that Android has a chance of overtaking the iPhone in terms of market share in the future, though not presently. And that same one might believe that both are good mobile OSes and that the competition coming up in the year to come is exciting for both sides and that neither is showing any sign of calling it quits any time soon.

That "one" can tell it to Morgan Stanley. Let go.

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