much less than 00000011

Video + Photo = Video evolved

This [washington.edu] is incredible, assuming that effects like this are actually possible using only the software as they claim.

Sadly I’ve been burned too many times by promises of seemingly ‘too good to be true’ technologies - I’ve learned to be very skeptical until I’ve gotten my hands on said technology and given it a test. It seems that often, creators of new tech like this spend a lot of time manually scrubbing the presentation footage, giving it a better appearance through a lot of manual editing than their tech will actually provide the average user.

Also very awesome tech, but not strictly related:

I’m similarly skeptical about how ‘automated’ this process will turn out to be.

Harmonix, take note

As mentioned by the premiere opinion leaders of our hobby [penny-arcade.com], the recent Xbox Live Arcade title Geometry War: Retro Evolved 2 does something very clever:

It does something else that is really smart. In the menu where you choose the gametype, each entry has its own arcade-style “hi-score” portion that only lists you and your friends. I really don’t go in for this kind of thing usually, especially if I have to go digging around for it, but showing where I fit in the hierarchy automatically lends my friends list heft and presence.

Here’s what Tycho is talking about (click to enlarge):

I found this totally engrossing from the first time I played: right there next to where you choose which mode of the game you want to play is a list of the top 5 scores of your friends, with your score (should you fall in the top five) clearly highlighted. I spent my first night demolishing my friend’s scores, making sure I got to the top in every leaderboard. I kept playing modes over and over again until I saw my name at the top. And you know what I plan to do when I get home tonight? Check and see if anyone’s challenged me. If they have, I’m going to do my best to knock them down a peg, again.

Harmonix, you need to leverage this. Stat.

Rock Band 2, the update to last year’s absolute best music game [rockband.com] is coming soon, and they’ve already stated that the song selection screen is getting an overhaul. In fact, it’s supposed to look very similar to the current Rock Band Music Store (click to enlarge):

There’s clearly enough screen real estate left here for them to have some leaderboard data displayed. I would suggest putting the top score (with the scorer’s name, naturally) for each song out to the right of the song title. This way, you can see at a glance the songs where you’re not number one with a bullet. Highlighting a song in the list would display the top five or ten scores for that song out on the left (perhaps below the song metadata), with yours highlighted if you fall in this range. This needs to happen. Although this leaderboard information is present already in Rock Band, it’s buried under a deluge of menus. It’s so far removed from the actual song selection process, that when I do feel ambitious/competitive enough to go looking for a song where I’m not top dog, I’ve forgotten what the song was by the time I get back to the song selection screen.

Harmonix, take note!

Japan in May, 2008, Part Final

Japan in May, 2008, Part 3

Japan in May, 2008, Part 2

In the silence, it became so very clear /
That you had long ago disappeared /
I cursed myself for being surprised /
That this didn’t play like it did in my mind

He’s a Secret Dance Freak, Too

It’s true: I’m a Secret Dance Freak [muchlessthanthree.com]. He’s a Secret Dance Freak too [vimeo.com]. Courtesy of the latest blog I can’t stop reading [blogspot.com].

Be sure to check this one out, folks. It’s worth the four and a half minutes of your time.

Don’t care so much about the past
Nothing like feelin’ my love
Baby, baby, dance with me tonight
Tonight, the night

Perspective

Raph Koster’s latest post [raphkoster.com] really does an excellent job of putting the various American entertainment industries into perspective. I’d really like to see these same figures ordered according to the price per good. Clearly price affects it greatly - you’ll notice that the only things in the tens of millions (outside of movie tickets) are the items which cost the least.

* Number of users in Habbo Hotel worldwide: 20,000,000
* Best-selling book in the US last year: 1,500,000+. (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
* Best-selling graphic novel in the US last year: 80,000. (Naruto)
* Digital sales of a hit song: 2,100,000 (Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”)
* Average downloads of a downloadable Rock Band track: 100,000
* Viewers of the #1 show on US TV (including DVR): 28,800,000 (American Idol)
* Viewers of the #150 show on US TV: 2,400,000 (Gossip Girl)
* Users of World of Warcraft in North America: 2,500,000
* Monthly uniques for Gaia Online: 2,000,000+
* Total number of movie tickets sold in the US in one year: 1,400,000,000
* Estimated tickets sold to the new Indiana Jones movie in five weeks: 42,290,849 (using 2007 average US ticket price and grosses to date).

Everybody scream!
意味ないけど、
コンビニが好き