Hot Shit Of The Week - So it is December Now 2009 Edition

With November, NaNoWriMo, and a heck of a lot of Turkey out of the way it is time to look towards the holiday season. While you're busy running around present shopping, or dealing with the other nuts out there present shopping please keep in mind that studies have shown materialism results in very poor satisfaction and quality of life. What does to lead to satisfaction? Research shows activities that generate life experiences are a significant contributor to feelings of satisfaction. That is what Hot Shit Of the Week is about, helping you find things that will help you create positive life experiences on a shoe string budget.

First Up: Print and Play Games

Board games are fun, and while a thoroughly tested and professional produced game can be great there is something to be said about free. Board game geek has a great collection of downloadable "print and play" games. They range from simple to involved, and players can simply use black and white print outs on cheap paper stock for some of these games. Others require a little more time investment. Any of the games using cards work better if placed in a plastic card sleeve (you can get hundreds of these sleeves for less than a couple of bucks from some merchants) and enforce with a playing card, or some other thick paper stock.

The boards might require glue, and for the more die-hard fans a color print out is nice. The nice thing about this return to home-made gaming is that players can put as little or as much investment into their playing sets as they want. Long live the days of house rules and creativity.

Next Up: Know Your Meme

I get told a lot by friends and coworkers that follow me on Twitter or that I'm connected to on Facebook that they often have no clue what the hell I am talking about. Sometimes it is just because I'm being random. Other times it is because I'm talking about something technical. More often than not however I'm talking in a totaly different language that looks like English, but isn't.

It's Inglish, the language spoken by leets all over the world that know a lot more about what is going on than most of you sorry people. Unfortunately there are no books on learning Inglish, it is a living and very fast moving language. Some sites like "urban dictionary" and "encyclopedia dramatica" are a good way to brush up on your Inglish but they are not for the faint of heart. Fortunately there is now a work safe site with quality controlled content to help you get ahead in life: Know Your Meme.

Now, I will say that no single web site is going to get you well versed in Inglish. You'd have to read the whole Internet to do that, and there are some pretty damned scary places out there. You can however significantly improve your cool factor, no caps lock required, and this is one site that will help you do that without permanently scarring your retinas.

And Before I Forget: Old School Shit - Fun

I have to say that things were starting to look bleak back in 2008. It was a horrible year for the economy, but it was an even worse year for gaming. 2009 has started looking up a bit. Still a lot of games with high-profiles  have had one critical flaw: they lack fun.

Graphics are important, I'm not going to lie and pretend I don't totally spaz out when I see an awesome looking game. Graphics and sound play a very important role in keeping players engaged in a game. They are important. What is more important however is a sense of novelty and fun, and that can only be maintained if you properly apply challenge. With game companies laying staff off left and right, and the utter crap that has infested the game industry in the past few years one really has to wonder: "are these companies really getting rid of and hiring the right people?"

The differentiation of games by challenge level has become a bit of a theme in 2009, the most blatant example of which was Demon's Souls which touted a ridiculous difficulty level. A lot of other casual games, with either low challenge levels or a variety of challenge options have surged. It isn't enough for gamers to be fragmented by genre, they now apparently need to be divided by factors like time investment and willingness to hit their head against a wall.

The key factor here is enjoyment. Even my spouse, who really isn't a gamer, will play Farmville, Cafe World, and now Island Paradise for hours on end. Game makers are finding new ways to bring in non-gamers. That is great. I suspect we will see more of the same for years to come. NC Soft has a very exciting looking MMO in the works, Squeenix is working on their next big MMO, and pretty much every genre of game is making a come back as developers rediscover new avenues for old niches. The lines are blurring, this is an exciting time.

The biggest thing that I can't stress enough is stick to your guns when it comes to games. If it isn't fun, don't be suckered by anything else. Try games out before you buy them  if you're not absolutely sure it'll be worth it. Don't reward game companies for delivering a polished turd unless that is what you really wanted.

Finally: Pattern Cooler

One of the nice things about slacking off (about posting to this blog anyway) for a whole month is that it gave me time to generate a nice backlog of links to work from. Some of the sites, especially ones that are aggregation of hot shit, cause my anti-virus software to be not too happy. Instead of sharing those directly I may start generating my own resources, but that is a project that goes a bit beyond simple blogging. Don't get me wrong, blogger is nice and all, but it isn't really the best tool for heavy duty finesse.

This week's final resource is one that didn't make my virus protection throw a fit, and it is a neat little resource for generating background images: Pattern Cooler. You can choose from a wide variety of starting patterns (166 currently) and alter the colors, alter the colors and zoom, and then generate your own custom background. Not as cool as being able to use desktop image applications to generate your own background, but some of the designs are neat none-the-less.

Hot Shit of The Week - Cold, Wet, Dreary November 2009 Edition

With the holiday season fast approaching, it warrants note that for the most part HSOTW does not focus on commercialistic products. Sure, we will plug a really good deal from time to time, but "cheap/free" is one of our main criteria for hot shit.


Also, there won't (likely) be a HSOTW next weekend. I'll be at MACE, and you can bet at least one of the entries for the following week will be a board/card/non-electronic game of some kind.


A final note, we're going to drop one item from the weekly regiment. Five hot shits every week is just a little much considering all the disappointments out there. Some weeks will have an "Old School Shit" and others will have a "Moving Along" segment.

First Up: Library Thing

If you don't love books, there is something wrong with you. Sure, Kindles are fine. Ebooks... OK, but when it comes to books there is a clear distinction between the physical item and the electronic. Video media in its many forms illustrates this distinction quite well. It makes significantly less difference to many if they own the DVD, or get it through Netflix. If the content is available ownership often seems secondary. While it is sometimes the case that people will signify with their video collection, it is still quite a bit more common to see books performing this role.


Out of all of the options for online management of books, Library Thing has a number of features that put it a cut above the rest. It is highly portable and inter-operable, has tons of community features, and is the place-to-be for book lovers. The main reason one might pick a different locale to catalog their collections is the limitation on the free account. 200 titles is a bit of a show-stopper, but fortunately the site offers lifetime memberships and at really reasonable rates. 

Next Up: Picture Is Unrelated

Of all the blogs that I frequent, few pick-up or ruin my day quite as much as Picture Is Unrelated. This site regularly features irregular images ranging from mildly perturbing to majorly disturbing. There does seem to be a little less emphasis at this site on "genuine" images, meaning those that are un-photoshopped, but the vast majority are either sincere or well done enough that they allow for at least a few seconds of mental breakdown.


For the most part these are singular rips in space a time, but some can be tracked via other sources to actual real world phenomena, such as the "telephone sheep" of this past week. Quick, easy, and usually painless: it is sites like Picture Is Unrelated that truly embody the New Internet.


Moving Along: Rather Good Stuff

On the subject of WTF, there are a number of rather good YouTube videos out there by Rather Good Stuff. When I say "out there", I mean it literally. These are the folks you may remember from a few years back with the oddly irritating Quiznos Commercials. Really, many of their videos are hit or miss and the content appropriateness is also all over the radar. Still, there are a number of videos they have released that are cute and broadly age appropriate. There are also a number of very un-funny duds.


If you need a few random videos to round out a party playlist (as I did) then you might just find what you're looking for here.


Finally: EyeMaze

It should be no secret I like indie games. EyeMaze however takes this love to a whole new level, and in part because the designer was doing it way before it was "cool". The Grow series of games at this site has been a shining example of simple game design. Always a welcome distraction, it is a happy day when a new game is released at EyeMaze. Fun knows no barriers here, not even language. Perhaps game publishers could learn a thing or two and stop trying to artificially divide players into locked regions.

Hot Shit of The Week - Unseasonably Hot October 2009 Edition

It's been a great month and the hot shit just keeps on coming. To start out this week's post I thought it might be good to explain the process used to determine what constitutes hot shit. There are three simple rules:

1. No hype. To be hot shit worthy, something has to be substantially available.
2. Cool, Useful, Hilarious, Cheap/Free, or Entertaining: pick two.
3. It's only geeky if you're ashamed of it. It's only a fad if you stop caring about it.

Now with that little bit of administrivia out of the way I'm very excited to get started with this week's Hot Shit.

First Up: Hey Ash Whacha Playin'?

Love'em or hate'em, Destructiod has some pretty good content. If it wasn't such a chaotic site, Destructiod might even be a good alternative to the game-site-I-hate-to-use-but-pretty-much-have-to, IGN. Excessive poop humor and findability aside, Hey Ash Whacha Playin'? is a great video series starring an oppositionally defiant female gamer and her brother. If I thought my parents would buy me something from online, this would definitely be on my Christmas list.

As with most web series the episodes are short and of variable length. Comedy is spotty, but they do a great job of building on the gags. Poop humor gradually becomes actually funny. There is an occasional dud, but my harshest criticism is over use of foul language which doesn't really do much to add to the comedic effect. Hey Ash is a charming and clearly an indie production unlike a number of other semi-/para-/quasi-professional web series out there.

The biggest challenge in being a fan of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin' is finding episodes and figuring out what order they are best watched in. Eighteen dollars seems highly reasonable for their DVD release, but not having purchased it yet I can't say that with any certainty.

Next Up: Fat Princess

While you might never see an Xbox exclusive game make it onto the Hot Shit list, that is not because there are no such titles that deserve it. It is because I don't own an Xbox, I'll never own one (unless someone is feeling generous), and I very rarely have the opportunity to play on someone else's. Techno-political issues and politically correct game concepts aside it is great to see developers that work really hard to provide a good online multi-player experience like the kids at Titan Studios.

Earlier this week details for the 1.03 patch were announced. This update comes almost three months after the US release and includes a number of attempts to fix social and technical issues with the online multi-player.  Designing games with online competitive ranking is hard. There are always going to be rude-ocd-wankers out there that will use every cheap-ass bug in the game and play the system to boost their score while sucking the fun out of it for the rest of us. It is the kind of thing that impossible to eliminate, but Titian is doing a really good job of addressing it and some of their solutions are down right creative.

To boot the official word is that the 1.03 update will include, for free, the New Pork map which has set the Fat Princess community a buzz. There is still no word on when for-pay content will be added to Fat Princess, but this is a case where free is infinitely more fun than paid.

Fat Princess is currently one of the more expensive PSN download only titles at $14.99 US. It is however worth it. The solo play is very fun and disappointingly short, but provided you have a good Internet connection the online play can make it well worth it.

Moving Along: Passive Aggressive Notes

First oppositional defiance and now passive aggressiveness? This week's hot shit sure is chocked full of social disorders. Passive Aggressive Notes is another in a long line of recommended blogs you'll see here in Hot Shit of The Week. Some of the material there is weak, but it is a lot harder to prove a fake passive aggressive note (PAN) than a photo shopped image. The humor also often requires some shared social experience.

Passive aggressive behavior is much more funny if it relates to something one has dealt with personally. Most of the notes follow common situations: retail stores, roommates, dating. The real gems are the ones that make you wonder just how pathological people can be before they are labeled insane.

And Before I Forget: Old School Shit - Timing

It is critical in comedy, in business, in life: It's Timing. Don't be too early or you're wasting time and likely resources, but don't be too late because that is just a missed opportunity. Timing is also about appropriateness. If you start a slow clap at the wrong time, you're going to look like an idiot. You can't bring back old fads too early either.

Here are some things everyone can brush up on to improve their timing skills:

The running head start - People that try to go from zero to sixty instantly often wind up flat on their face. If you want to look like a pro, practice. The clever thing to do is find ways to practice in a value added way, without looking like a fool.

Know your windows - With timing there is a window of opportunity. Sometimes it is like Rock Band: the closer to optimum the better. Other times it is like Blackjack and you either hedge our bets or play it safe with good enough. More often than not however it is just better to make it somewhere in the window while balancing other commitments. Avoid sweating the details whenever possible.

Under commit, over deliver  - It can be hard to sell a course of action that looks padded, but a good start is to hold your cards close. Don't give away all of the aces. Who ever it is you're trying to impress, they will be more pleased with a pleasant surprise than slipping deadlines. Without slack, there is no control over timing.

Finally: More Indies, Indies, Indies, Indies

There are commercial games, indies, and then Real Indies. Don't get me wrong. I am very exicted that full-scale indie-feeling games are being released commercially. It is like bread and butter: commercial games are the bread and indie games are the butter. When the two come together it is SOOOOO GOOD.

On the other hand, sometimes you just want butter. Free games are not indie games. Some of them are just commercial games that lacked that certain something or were made for the sole purpose of pushing paid advertising and drawing potential convertible customers. Real indies are a whole-nother innovative breed. Today I Die, and the other games at Daniel Benmergui's Ludomancy are a great example of really-really indie.

To add to this, it really feels like we are on the creative cusp where more people will be empowered to go from entertainment consumers to entertainment producers. It is a really exciting place to be.

Hot Shit Of The Week - Kicking Off October 2009 Edition

Each week, Stuff White Mages Like endeavors to link you the hottest things you may not know about, but probably should. These discoveries run the gamut of geekdom: games, trends, merchants, and intertainment (internet/entertainment). We tend to focus on things that are free or significantly under hyped. If you find something that is Hot Shit, we'd like to hear about it.

First Up: Downloadpedia

Need to find a particular piece of FREE software, but don't want to stare at a billion ads for sponsored commercial software you definitely DO NOT WANT? Downloadpedia is one such source. They have a large repository of links to genuinely free software and include good commercial software, but don't push it.

As with any *pedia you have to consider the legitimacy of any community submitted information, and as with any software downloading anti-virus is a must. For those that want a quick searching experience, there is always Google. For everyone else wanting a little more certainty and third party opinion in their initial result set, there is Downloadpedia.

Next Up: Cloud

No, we are not talking about cloud computing. This is the spiritual predecessor to the PS3 hit Flower, developed by the same core team prior to their contract with Sony. Cloud is a free windows game download that takes you on a short adventure up into the sky. It is pretty easy to see where Flower got a lot of its style and ambient feel from. The cut-scene visuals and music are highly reminiscent (or technically preminiscent) of the more well known title.

Cloud does have its quirks, namely the mechanics and control scheme are not as smooth as Flower. It is also quite short with only four story mode levels. The games mechanics are more involved than Flower, but not completely explained to sufficient clarity within the game. There is a lot of potential in the mechanics, but they are not as rich as one might expect from a commercial game and not a simple as in Flower. It does have an edit mode, and the level data saves to a reasonably clear XML file format, so there is definitely cult community potential (though admittedly low due to the aforementioned shallowness of mechanics).

Moving Along: Ubuntu

So, I do apologize to the multitudes of people out there that know of or use Linux. This isn't exactly news to many of you. Sadly there are too many people out there who have only vaguely heard of this "Ubuntu" thing, so please allow me to enlighten. Ubuntu is a free operating system that includes a wide variety of free software packages to do all the things many people just assume you have to pay for. It is not the only free solution, it is quite simply the solution that I have found to most consistently work for me out of the box or with the least troubleshooting. Out of all of the flavors of Linux, Ubuntu has caused me the least frustration.

That having been said, free is not for everyone. I also have a (1) Windows computer because there are just some things a guy needs Windows for these days, unfortunately, such as gaming. Sure, I could fight endlessly with emulation to play games made for Windows on Linux, but that is a level of obsession I'm just not at. I also have an (1) Intel Mac because I have yet to find that single piece of software that can do what Omnigraffle does as well for Linux. Rest assured, the day will come when those computers too will be formatted to install Linux, hardware life-span permitting. The real strength of Linux is it gives new life to old hardware. If you bought a computer for Windows XP and you're frustrated because it runs Windows 7 ridiculously slow, you might want to consider: a new computer for Windows 7, installing Ubuntu on the old computer, or both. The computer will likely feel faster on Ubuntu than it ever did with any Windows product.

There is a new version of Ubuntu coming out this month. I would personally recommend not downloading it the first day, or week, or even month later. Get the current (9.04) version if this is your first Linux experience. For many of the things most people want to do, Ubuntu has very easy GUI interfaces: Installing additional free and community supported software, system configuration, and security updates to name a few. Ubuntu can dual-boot, but there is always the risk that it will hose an existing boot configuration or will be hosed by something Windows or Mac OS does.

Linux has long been lumped in with DOS and Unix as a technical person's operating system. To a waning degree, it still is. Modern Linux is highly graphical in nature and it is increasingly becoming user friendly. I know people that have run screaming from Linux back into the folds of commercial software, but I've heard many more success stories than failures. It is mostly about finding the arrangement that is right for you. Likely, quitting commercial software cold-turkey isn't a reasonable expectation for most.

And Before I Forget: Old School Hot Shit - Plays Well With Others


One of the things that gets deemphasized a little too much these days is Multi-player. This is true in video games, but I'm also speaking metaphorically. Now it is also the case that relying on multi-player too much is equally lame. MMOs where you can't solo are a prime example. There is something to be said for self-sufficiency.


It is important not to lose touch with multi-player in everyday life. There are some really bad technologies and social constructs out there that try to force people into solo play. Don't let it happen, LFG (look for a group). When people are not cooperating, someone is going to have to take the initiative to start a group effort. Game Theory shows that these acts of leadership, which can be costly to the individual, are essential to improving long term success.


Finally: Face Your Manga

This one certainly isn't new, but I have yet to find a better source for an online face-proxy avatar. Sometimes you just don't want to use your real face. You could 'fair-use' someone's copyrighted image. If you're talented enough you could even come up with your image. For everyone else, there is Face Your Manga. This quick and easy Flash application will produce an anime looking face for you in no time, and send it to you in e-mail. I'd certainly recommend having it sent to an e-mule account since there is no telling what they do with the e-mail addresses people give them.


Face Your Manga is built on real proven technology. People respond better to cartoon images than most semi-realistic 3D renderings of the human face *cough second losers*. If you want to avoid that uncomfortable uncanny valley, a cartoon image is what you want.