James Andrews

Since I was a child I have loved the drums. Whether it be pots and pans from under the cupboards, beach pales and other odds and ends out in the yard. It is an instrument that I always wanted to play. When I was in the 4th grade, when we had the ability to join “band” my parents wouldn’t let me get a drum. Instead they allowed me to get the trumpet. When I became interested in playing rock music, I didn’t have the money to afford a kit, and as an adult I really have never had a place to keep a kit.

Fastfoward to New Years Even 2008. I went over to my friend Bridget’s house for a NYE party. Much of the night was spent playing Rock Band on the Xbox 360. Though I was enthralled with their drums. They don’t have the crappy plastic that easily breaks piece of garbage that comes with the game. Instead her husband had purchased an “ION Drum Kit”. The ION Drum Kit is pretty incredible. It is designed and sold by Alesis, a manufacturer of high end electronic drum equipment. It was designed to give you flexibility, but more importantly it was designed to allow you to disconnect your game system, plug in one of their drum brains, and PLAY the drums. Allowing a potential drummer to start with a basic kit, and move up as he/she outgrows the game. The best part is it’s a reasonable price. $200 for the core system. A little bit more for the electronic symbols. When the game is outgrown you can buy a basic brain for $150, or a more advanced brain for $350.

I want one badly….

Tonight I made a post on twitter about rewatching some of the snapfactory videos on Youtube. For those of you who don’t know snapfactory offers online videos showing photography techniques. While I was at it I added a #photography to it so that others interested in photography could find out about snapfactory if they didn’t know anything about it. A few moments later one of the bots that scours twitter or photography related posts; this one is called “hashphoto”, and retweets them, retweeted my post. Not a bad thing, it’ what helps drive twitter along and helps people find things without having to use Twitters search feature manually. I’ve not minded, but what I do mind is that this one particular bot links to an intermediary page that gives you an advertisement. It’s really obnoxious. I will not be subscribing to #hasphoto. You shouldn’t either.

Kicking players from a game is often a common feature in console and PC based games. Usually in games where teams are involved. The biggest reason for this is that there are a lot of jerks out there who come into a game room and decide to kill or interfere with their teammates making the game less enjoyable for those involved. This is the reason the feature was made to be.

I have come to LOATHE this feature. While I understand the original intent of the feature is to remove problem players from a game. It has become much more than that. People use because they are waiting for their friend to come join their team. If you want to play with your friends create a private lobby. People will kick you because you aren’t using your mic. 1) not everyone likes talking in a game. 2) Not everyone has a mic. 3) Even if you have a mic and you do like talking the mic doesn’t always work depending on your bandwidth, or the game just messing up. Neither are a good reason to kick someone from the server.

I’ve had friends say. “Well why don’t you just play with people you actually know.” I would, if more of the people I knew a) had the game I was playing or, b) came on often enough to play the game. One game I have 4 actual friends that I have met physically that have this game. 2 of them played it often enough that I could get in a game with them. The other only plays games rarely, so playing only with people I know isn’t really feasible.

It is my opinion that a better system needs to be found for removing problem players. Something that the AI of the game should be able to figure out. For example if player A has headshot his teammate 5 times in 2 minutes, he’s probably TKing and should be removed. It should not be left up to the individuals playing the game, because it seems that people will just kick any random player who joins a game for no good reason, and that spoils the fun for people who are legitimately trying to enjoy the game.

This has been something that has been kicking my ass for a very long time. I have probably about 300-400GB of digital photos I have taken over the years, and one of the things that I have yet to find is a way of organizing them that makes me happy. None of the applications that I have used allow me to manage them the way I want too.

First off I am looking for Mac OS X solutions, I have no intention of moving over to windows. I have tried iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom. I want IPTC access, and while Aperture and Lightroom offer IPTC they both fail in their execution. The thing that really keeps me from using either of these applications is the inability to batch change image IPTC data after importation. The last thing I want to do is have to go through and separate my images before I import them, and editing each images IPTC data post importation SUCKS ASS! iPhoto is pretty lack luster in my opinion. I tried Shoebox Pro, which is lame lame lame. Total resource hog, and the interface sucks. I don’t want to just throw them in folders either because many would fit more than one category. Also, please do not suggest online solutions, I want something local.

It’s driving me crazy. I just want to spend a day organizing photos and be done with it.

In a separate note, I am also really hoping the next Macbooks have USB3.0 USB 2.0 is too slow!