Newsreader news

Posted on by Nimgimli

Because I’m nothing if not fickle, I’ve stopped using AmphetaDesk as my newsreader. Yes, I know I raved about it, and I still think its pretty sweet software, and works across operating systems to boot.

But now I’ve become a NewNewsWire Lite fan. Its Mac OS X only though. But its still free, and it offers both a traditional 3-pane view of your feeds as well as a ‘pop-up’ listing from the dock, a la Slashdock (which is also a great free OS X newsreader, but isn’t really conducive to casual browsing of feeds).

Actually this isn’t as strange a reversal as it might seem, as I liked NetNewsWire a lot when I first tried it, but it costs a fair amount of coin ($40). I never noticed the free “lite” version before (scroll all the way down the page). Thanks to Elaine for pointing it out…

NetNewsWire Lite
(Click for full-sized image)

Probation officers fired after ‘XBox killings’

Posted on by Nimgimli

Probation officers fired after ‘XBox killings’

So the ring-leader beat up a friend of his a few days before the killings, his probation officer knew about it, could have had him back in jail but didn’t bother to file the paperwork on time, it seems… yet they still call them “XBox Killings.”

Why not “Probation Officer Killings?”

At least the next story, telling that the judge has these psychos in jail with no bond, left the game system out of the title Judge denies slaying suspects bond but the link to the article on other CNN pages says Bond denied in ‘XBox killings’.

Funniest line I read all day: The father of one of the vile creatures that murdered these sleeping people says of his spawn “He was a good kid, he just got with the wrong crowd.”

No, I’m sorry pal. No one that joined in on this kind of pyschotic, evil behavior could be in any way construed as “a good kid” and I have to wonder what kind of man raises such a son…

Why The Press sucks

Posted on by Nimgimli

Here we go again. Check the headline:
Sheriff: 4 charged in Florida killings over Xbox

Killings over Xbox…well that says it all, right? Once again, these hyper violent videogamers go apeshit on each other. And I mean, this is CNN. Aren’t they supposed to be respectable?

Here’s another take on it. The headline isn’t much better:
Police: Xbox Theft Spurred Fla. Slayings

But if you read this story, you’ll learn that the Xbox in question was just one small factor in an on-going dispute. Which, I should add, the local police were aware of. The ‘ringleader’ has spent 8 of the last 11 years in jail for a variety of crimes. They’d been squatting in a vacation home and got pissed off for being thrown out of it.

Sick individuals? Absolutely. I hope to hell they fry for what they’ve done. But c’mon, is it really accurate reporting to call this the “Xbox slaying?” Isn’t 6 people being beaten to death, one so severely that they can’t even ID the body from dental records, sensational enough for the blood-thirsty press? Do we have to drag the ‘gaming angle’ into it?

Hell, CBS News ran a picture of an Xbox in their coverage:
Squatter Accused Of Xbox Slayings

Doom 3

Posted on by Nimgimli

I have to retract what I said about Doom 3 being a mediocre game. Once I’d upgraded my video card so it ran well, I started to really get into it. Now, the game mechanics are same as they’ve ever been in FPSers. In fact, the game has really no ‘modern enhancements’ like leaning out around corners or cover moves or anything. Very basic controls.

But they’ve used the nifty graphics engine, and great sound as well, to craft an experience that becomes genuinely creepy the farther in you get (well, at least as far as I’ve gotten). The storyline is pretty thin and the whole motif has been done a zillion times (heavily armed marines on another planet fighting evil invaders) but now that I can see everything clearly (due to a decent framerate) it just kinda works.

I *strongly* recommend you get one of the flashlight mods, though. I suggest Pistol Flashlight Mod. It lets you see and still shoot without totally changing the balance of the game (since as often as not the pistol is a last ditch weapon). I just find switch flashlight to weapon and back constantly really got tiresome.

Anyway, I kinda dissed Doom 3 the other day and now I can’t stop playing it, so credit where credit is due, and all that.

Halo 3 marketing puzzle

Posted on by Nimgimli

I dunno if you folks have been following this rather fun viral campaign. At the end of the E3 Halo 2 trailer, were the odd words ilovebees. Well Halo fans immediately ran off to http://www.ilovebees.com/ which is a “hacked” site of some girl beekeeper. There’s all kinds of detective work being done on this, and folks have decided the hack message is an anagram saying there is a Halo 2 demo coming, and there’s a counter counting down to August 24th.

Linked to from the site is the blog of the owner of the site who is trying to figure out why someone hacked her site. And it gets better. Someone did a domain lookup for the owner of the site (not sure how..I’ve not managed it) and got a phone number. Calling this number gets an answering machine of the girl writing the blog talking about how she’s going far far away, and “mom, I know you call just to hear my voice…I love you too.” and so on.

Suffice to say that the mystery is gaining real traction. I lot of what I just told you I found out from G4TV.Com’s coverage of it. Soon enough the mainstream press will get wind of it…

Brilliant marketing, if you ask me.

And btw, in a somewhat related note, Doom 3 has puzzles in it that you have to go onto the web to solve, too. You’ll find urls in the game that are ‘real’ on the web, and that hold clues. Pretty neat stuff.