My Day Will Come

Stuff To Read After Seeing The Social Network

– Posted on October 15, 2010Posted in: Features, Movies, Reviews, Technology

A hallmark of a good movie is that feeling of wanting to go home and googling everything you can about it because it was that riveting that you want to learn more stuff about it. The Social Network is definitely one of those films. Before we get into some informative articles for you to read, though, humor me for a quick review on the movie.

I went into the movie expecting it to be a dramatized film with a loose basis on actual events. In other words, I expected to see more untruths than truths. You know what? I’m glad I wasn’t an expert historian on Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg because I might have had fits trying to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. Don’t go in trying to be that guy. Aaron Sorkin’s script flows naturally and is entirely believable within the context of the film.

Sorkin does a great job of making the viewer feel smart and involved with the events leading up to the creation of Facebook. You could know nothing about technology and still feel like you have an insider’s view in Silicon Valley. I’m no accomplished server administrator or web developer, but even I know what Emacs or Apache servers are used for. You won’t see any techno-babble in this film that’s on the level of 24‘s “Chloe! Open up a socket!”

As for the directing and acting? Well, I’m pretty sure David Fincher has reached Christopher Nolan status for me in that I will see any of his films no questions asked. Did you remember that the dude directed not only Fight Club and Se7en, but also The Game, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Zodiac? Not a stinker among them. Jesse Eisenberg establishes that he possesses far more acting range than Michael Cera. Justin Timberlake did his job in his portrayal of a fairly one-dimesional Sean Parker. Andrew Garfield did his part in incepting us with feelings of sympathy for his role as betrayed partner, Eduardo Saverin. I imagine we won’t have trouble getting along with his Peter Parker role in the upcoming Spider-Man franchise reboot.

I’m sure many of you have seen The Social Network by now, but if you haven’t, I heartily recommend you do so. It’s a great film, fun yet intellectually engaging as well. Your post-movie dinner conversation will be fun, I guarantee it.

Now, let’s say you’ve just seen the movie and you want to know more about everything that went down. Here’s some extracurricular reading material to satisfy your cravings:

The New Yorker’s profile on Mark Zuckerberg. It may have been done with the intention of “deflecting the negative portrayal” of the movie, but honestly I saw a lot of parallels. He’s clearly a hard worker, though.
Vanity Fair’s Sean Parker profile. This is a must read piece on one of Silicon Valley’s brightest people. If it’s one thing the film disappointed on, it’s the one dimensional portrayal of Sean Parker as a greedy, manipulative party animal. He’s so much more.
Nathan Heller’s defense of Harvard for Slate Magazine. Personally, I’m a little annoyed by his hoity-toity writing style, but the film does dramatize the Ivy League experience heavily.
Wired Magazine has some nice material on how the movie came to be. If you didn’t know, Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay was based on Ben Mezrich’s novel The Accidental Billionaires.
Trent Reznor’s interview with KCRW’s Jason Bentley. One of the best parts of the movie is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s soundtrack. It’s got that sense of technological unease that fits the film to a T.
Slashfilm’s film FAQ. Some questions you may have for the film after watching it are answered here. Plus, a picture of Mark Zuckerberg’s real life girlfriend!
*Update* Aaron Sorkin responds to concerns over his portrayal of women in the movie. I buy it. No need to blow the misogyny out of proportion.

Tags: links, movie, Movies, recommendation, review, stuff to read, tech, Technology, the social network

Bootlegged: Arcade Fire – Intervention @ Shrine Auditorium, LA 10/8/2010

Andy Yen

– Posted on October 14, 2010Posted in: Bootlegged, Music

Arcade Fire has quickly built a reputation for being one of the best live touring acts, and for good reason. The very nature of the band being comprised of 7-9 members crammed onto a stage can often lead to the sensation that their sound can’t be contained by the stage or venue. While this had been the case in the previous times I’ve seen the band, something felt a little off with this gig. It just felt a little… sterile. Like the band was still playing the notes accurately and dynamically, but was somehow devoid of the passion that burned in performances past.

Judge for yourself in the recording of “Intervention” above. Even the black and white stage lighting seemed to accentuate the fact that, ironically, perhaps “every sparkle of friendship and love will die…” when you go number 1 on the Billboard charts.

Note on the semi-crappy recording: I wanted to record at least one song from night two of Arcade Fire at the Shrine last week to post, but there was a tall bro in front of me who kept swaying back and forth at the worst times to block my camera. Eventually I just said screw it and kept filming, so if you’re annoyed by the swaying head in this video, you know why.

Tags: arcade fire, bootlegged, concert, intervention, live, Music, video

Game Recommendation: Shibuya (iPhone)

Andy Yen

– Posted on October 14, 2010Posted in: Recommendations, Reviews, Video Games

Even though I’ve yet to visit Shibuya, its name will always have a positive mental association in my head with visions of bright neon colors, modern architecture, large crowds of fashionably modern people, and upbeat music. Yes, my mental picture of Shibuya is comprised entirely of the arcade/karaoke scenes from the movie Lost In Translation and the general eccentric awesomeness of the Nintendo DS game, The World Ends With You, but so what? It works for me.

Nevertheless, that positive vibe got me interested in a recently released iPhone game unsurprisingly titled Shibuya. It’s a puzzle game inspired by the aesthetics of the real-life place in Tokyo. Think Tetris meets your favorite color matching game with some delicious special sauce that you haven’t quite tasted before. Oh, and it was also named a finalist of Penny Arcade’s PAX 10 indie games.

It’s got the “easy to learn; hard to master” learning curve going for it. Plus, developer Never Center has structured game progression utilizing achievements in a manner I can get behind. You can ignore the achievements completely if you just want a quick game. But if you’re a goal-oriented person like me, you’ll appreciate the bite-sized checklists of achievements to accomplish. Basically, there are 11 “levels” in the game broken up into groups of 4 achievements. Complete the current 4 achievements and you’ll get the next set of achievements. These can range from surviving Endless mode for a certain amount of time or for completing a 2 minute Quickplay game on a certain difficulty level. It’s simple, but effective way to motivate players to play an otherwise endless puzzle game.

“How do I play this wonderful game?” you may ask. Well, you know what they say about pictures and videos and words.

Here’s the president of Never Center explaining how the game is played:

Shibuya is currently available on the iTunes App Store for $1.99 and it’s totally worth it if you like puzzle games. An Android version is supposedly in the works.

Tags: iphone, ipod touch, never center, recommendation, shibuya, Video Games

Bootlegged: Local Natives – Sun Hands @ Henry Fonda Theater Hollywood 9/17/10

Andy Yen

– Posted on October 4, 2010Posted in: Bootlegged, Music, Show Reports

From time to time, I like to whip out the ‘ol iPhone 4 HD video camera and capture some highlights from the shows I go to. Sometimes they don’t even end up half-bad.

This is one of those times.

Here’s a live video bootleg of one of my favorite singles of 2010 so far, “Sun Hands,” by Local Natives. I was a bit surprised that the band sold out the ~1,500 person capacity Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood two nights in a row, but they are “local natives” of Los Angeles, after all. More dynamic than the droning buzz of “Chillwave” indie rock, yet less conventional than your meat and potatoes Rock – you’ll find yourself head bobbing, air drumming, and possibly singing along to this track.

Tags: bootlegged, concert, live, local natives, Music, sun hands, video

Let’s Hold Off On The Ping Hyperboles, Please

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 26, 2010Posted in: Music, Music Industry, Technology

Over the weekend, Apple released an update for iTunes (10.0.1). In addition to various bug fixes, Apple made a couple of changes to Ping that make the service a bit more usable.

Users can now “Like” or “Post” about any song in their iTunes music library that’s available for sale in the iTunes music store. There’s also a Ping sidebar on the right hand side of your music library that displays recent activity from your friends.

Apparently, tech pundits and bloggers are rejoicing that Ping is finally a viable music social network. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler declared Ping as “A Thousand Times Better.” CNN’s article headline read, “Let Us Now Praise Ping 10.0.1.”

I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware of the rule that making your product marginally usable by its intended audience deserves effluent praise. It’d be like heaping hallelujahs onto your new bank for finally allowing you to deposit money. Next thing you know, these guys are going to be sending gift baskets to Toyota for putting functional brakes in their cars now.

Dave Winer was a little more reserved in his praise, but still decreed that “Ping now is beginning to actually be a social network for music.”

Really? Well I guess that’s kinda true. Maybe like how Antoine Dodson is beginning to actually be a musician with his Gregory Brothers produced song.

Sure, these are improvements to the experience, but they should have been there at launch. Apple’s made some other improvements since launch, such as improving the spam filtering and adding back and forward navigation buttons for Ping – but again, these “upgrades” should have been in place from day one.

Apple’s made no improvements to Ping that warrant another look at the service as an useful music discovery tool. You still can’t listen to full songs that other people are talking about. You still can’t access Ping from a web browser. Hell, you still can’t even import your friends from Facebook or any other source yet.

I’d say call me when Apple starts remedying the ten issues I called to attention at launch, but you know what? Don’t even do that. Don’t mention anything about Ping to me again unless it demonstrably shows value equal to or greater than last.fm or Pandora as a tool for discovering and sharing music.

Tags: 10.0.1, apple, itunes, mg siegler, Music, Music Industry, ping, social networks, tech, techcrunch

Watch Ten Minutes Of Bioshock Infinite Gameplay

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 23, 2010Posted in: Video Games

Alright, I’m officially onboard the Sky-o-Shock Bioshock Infinite train after watching this enthralling gameplay video.

Seriously, if you have or had any interest in Bioshock whatsoever, you need to see this video.

I admit to being a bit nonplussed by the announcement last month, but seeing the game in action goes a long way to mollifying my concerns with the game. Frankly, I just needed some space between this and Bioshock 2. By the time Infinite comes out, I bet people will be frothing at the mouth if this video is any indication of the finished game.

The floating city of Columbia looks to have just as much, if not more character than the underwater city of Rapture did. The interactions with Elizabeth add a little more human drama to the proceedings. As great a device the voice communiques in the original Bioshock were, I’m looking forward to actually getting more face time with my allies in Infinite.

Oh, and apparently some people on the internet are complaining about the linearity of the gameplay in the video. To which i say ptooey. I couldn’t care less if a dramatic and story driven game leans toward the more linear side. As entertaining as you, the player, are, there’s a reason why we pay Irrational $60 to play their game.

But if you lose sleep over that sort of thing, check out this tasty quote from Ken Levine from his interview with The EU Playstation Blog:

“You might choose to take on enemies at extremely long range while traveling on Sky-Lines, or you might engage in close combat,” he says. “You might do both in quick succession. You can jump between criss-crossing Sky-Line routes, allowing you to instantly change direction and evade or outflank enemies. Sky-Lines are there to expand your tactical options, not dictate them.”

(One final suggestion: If you can wait until you get in front of an Xbox 360 to watch it, I recommend grabbing the video from the Xbox Live Marketplace. It’s in hi-def and will look the same on your TV as if you were playing the game itself.)

Tags: bioshock infinite, gameplay, ken levine, video, Video Games

A Pictoral Overview Of New Twitter

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 16, 2010Posted in: Features, impressions, Technology

new twitter

There it is, my friends, the new Twitter.com page. It’s quite a departure from the old Twitter.com page, wouldn’t you say?

old twitter

Alright, so “quite a departure” might be a slight exaggeration based on the photos, but rest assured, it certainly feels that way. It may not look like the difference between Myspace and Facebook, but there’s some fairly significant changes to the site. I’ve spent the last day or so playing with it and I’ve gotta say, it’s a lot more enjoyable for me to use.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: impressions, new twitter, pictures, review, screenshots, social media, tech, Technology, twitter

Microsoft Brings Big Name Japanese Developers To Kinect

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 16, 2010Posted in: Video Games

Tokyo Game Show is this week and that invariably means tons of wacky game announcements from creative Japanese game developers. Microsoft’s keynote at the event yesterday was comprised almost solely of Kinect titles and I have to say, they’ve trotted out some talented developers.

Here’s a short list of exclusive titles announced at TGS via Major Nelson’s blog:

codename D (Grasshopper Manufacture, Microsoft Game Studios). From the famed markers of “killer7” and the “NO MORE HEROES” series comes “codename D” from SUDA 51 for Microsoft Game Studios. You must fight for your life to survive an evil amusement park filled with twisted and eerie creatures. With “codename D” for Kinect for Xbox 360, you are the controller as you unleash devastating effects to destroy enemies and objects.

Project Draco (Grounding, Microsoft Game Studios). The director of the cult hits “Phantom Dust” and “Panzer Dragoon,” game director Yukio Futatsugi, brings you an epic 3-D flying shooter. With the magic of Kinect for Xbox 360, you will be able to nurture and learn to communicate with your dragon as you develop its skills and train it as a partner in combat. Then join friends on Xbox LIVE to feel the rush of flight as you take to the skies together and experience breathtaking vistas and engage in thrilling battles.

Haunt (NanaOn-Sha, Microsoft Game Studios). Gather friends and family to delve deep into a haunted house dripping with mystery — you’ll need every ounce of your wit and cunning if you hope to unravel the veil of rumors that hide its darkest secret. Dodge traps and outwit ghosts, ghouls and frights that lurk with glee around each and every corner. Take a deep breath and immerse yourself in “Haunt,” spooky fun for Kinect for Xbox 360. (FYI: NanaOn-Sha was the creator of Parappa The Rapper)

Steel Battalion Heavy Armor (Capcom, From Software). This all-new game revives the fan-favorite “Steel Battalion” series. With the support of Microsoft, Capcom and From Software join forces to bring this groundbreaking collaborative project to Xbox 360. Manhattan, 2082: In a world where computers and almost all modern technology have been lost, the greatest nations of the world continue to battle for supremacy. The American army lands in New York to begin its first big offensive of a long ground war. Soldiers fire from the trenches as scorched bunkers belch black smoke. As comrades continually fall to the unrelenting crossfire of bullets, the Vertical Tanks make their relentless advance. Experience the battlefield as never before with Kinect for Xbox 360.

Rise of Nightmares (SEGA). “Rise of Nightmares” offers a spine-tingling horror experience that uses the innovative new controls of Kinect for Xbox 360 to give players the ultimate fright. Using their whole body, players will experience fear and tension as never before in this exclusive Kinect horror adventure.

While these were all just announcements (They’re all supposed to come out in 2011), I have to admit that every single one of these games at least sounds intriguing. Plus, with the track record these developers have, gaming connoisseurs can’t dismiss these titles (and by extension, the Kinect) outright. Combined with Mizuguchi’s upcoming Child of Eden, I’d say there’s a bunch of reasons to give a long hard look at motion gaming.

I’ll reserve judgment until I’m actually playing some awesome games with the Kinect, but Microsoft has made a big step forward in showing that the Kinect is not just a useless $149 addon to play Wii Sports knockoffs.

Tags: codename d, draco, haunt, kinect, Microsoft, rise of nightmares, steal battalion, suda 51, tgs, tokyo game show, xbox 360

Left 4 Dead Comic “The Sacrifice” Part 1 Released, Michael Avon Oeming On Art Duties

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 15, 2010Posted in: Comics, Video Games

Heads up Left 4 Dead/Zombie/Comics fans – Valve just put up part 1 (of 4) of the Left 4 Dead comic, entitled “The Sacrifice.” (Which is unsurprisingly what the next Left 4 Dead 2 DLC campaign will be called)

Normally, I wouldn’t give a crap about some ancillary fan-fiction comic, but I noticed that the co-creator and artist of Powers, Michael Avon Oeming is involved with it. (Powers, if you didn’t know, is one of the best current comics, written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Oeming. It’s a gritty cop story set in a world where super-powered people exist.) Doing a little more digging on Oeming’s site revealed that the game writers over at Valve handled the scripting while he handled the art for this project.

“The Sacrifice” starts right after the end of the original Left 4 Dead and tells the story of what happened to that crew. We even get some flashback sequences from before the outbreak really hit the fan and learn a bit more about Louis’s life before he became a “survivor.” It’s actually a pretty compelling story and a recommended one if you’ve played the games or like zombies.

Read Part 1 of “The Sacrifice”

Tags: Comics, left 4 dead, michael avon oeming, the sacrifice, valve

Just Bring Spotify To The US Already

Andy Yen

– Posted on September 9, 2010Posted in: Features, Music, Music Industry, Technology

It’s been almost two years since Spotify launched in Europe – why in the hell isn’t it out in the US yet?

Yeah, yeah, the question is rhetorical because what other reason is there for blocking the domestic release of what Lifehacker calls “the best desktop music player we’ve ever used?”

Raise your hand if you guessed right – The reason why Spotify isn’t out yet is because of our old bumbling nemesis, the major record labels!

Before we dig in, I want to reiterate why Spotify is so compelling a product. The excitement of what Spotify offers isn’t so much the actual product it peddles. There are already a handful of music services that offer unlimited music playback for a monthly fee. Its main draw is that it employs a ad-supported freemium model where anyone can listen to music without charge initially. If you like the service you can pay for other compelling perks such as mobile device playback or higher quality playback.

I think the music monetization problem is twofold. The first is finding a means in delivering music to people that isn’t cumbersome and cost-prohibitive to the consumer. This is a problem that is more or less solved by Spotify. It’s easy to use, delivers accurate results, is the right price, and even incorporates innovative features like playlist collaboration/browser based sharing. The service itself appears to be a great product, worthy of people’s time. It’s not a trivial accomplishment, as most other “legitimate” music services have failed miserably at this throughout the years, including the vaunted iTunes.

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Tags: Music, music industry bullshit, riaa, spotify, streaming services

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