Creeva’s blog

It seems that beating a franchise to death isn't enough.   Killing off a subscriber base by completely changing the game doesn't quite put a cherry on top.   Flogging subscribers to death with the hatred you have of them doesn't quite have the same ring it used to.

So what is a company to do to further humiliate it's fan base.   Why it makes a trading card game based on a dying MMO - flog that dead horse Sony - flog it.

What am I talking about?  From this thread:

Sony Online Entertainment is proud to announce the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game! This brand new online TCG is the first ever card game based on the Star Wars® Galaxies universe! Subscribers to Star Wars Galaxies will be able to:

• Choose between the light and dark sides of the Force and fight virtual matches for the Rebel or Imperial factions,




• Challenge their skills in story-based solo play or against other players in epic one-on-one battles,




• Find more then 20 "loot" cards in the first release, Champions of the Force, that can be redeemed for fantastic virtual items for use in the Star Wars Galaxies massively multiplayer game!

In addition, Star Wars Galaxies subscribers will receive five free Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game booster packs every month as part of their regular subscription to the game.

More information on the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game and its first release, Champions of the Force, can be found at www.StarWarsGalaxies.com/tradingcardgame.


I may no longer have an SWG account - but to SOE I have this to say - I wish I could unsubscribe twice.

Full press release for those who wish to be tortured here

---

Original From: Star Wars Galaxies - Meet Shark - Now Jump

Picture from here

Sunday night I was bored, so like all bored geeks I updated my device to the bleeding edge.   The N810 feels peppier, but then again that could be my imagination or just the fact of cleaning out all the programs.   Either way it feels faster.

My biggest heartbreak is Canola2 is not fully updated and I can use the old installtion but it only half works.   I've read the most common reason for applications has to do with the supported version of python has changed, but who knows.   Until I can use Canola2 as a podcatcher and video player again, it's dead to me.

I also lost alot of my network security tools, my solitaire game, and the program that synced my Google calendar with my local GPE calender.   Writing this all out I'm not sure what exactly works.  The new built in mail client works better (yet still crashes), Pidgin seems to work, and browsing is fine.

The applications will get ported, I'm just on the bleeding edge and now need to wait.   That doesn't mean I can't throw a hissy fit.

---

Original From: Upgraded My N810 to Diablo

Picture from here

To document the pregnancy and to keep everyone informed Xie and I have launched a new blog called Parent Phobia located at http://www.parentphobia.com.  We thought we would share what we are going through and our parenting thoughts to all involved and hopefully offer up something useful to the community.

---

Original From: Launched a New Blog - Parent Phobia

In the picture above is my maternal grandfather and my great grandfather, it seems I am going to be joining on them on the ability to reproduce and pass down genetic material to the next generation.  Yes I am going to be a father, Xie want and annouced the pregnancy on Twitter just a few hours ago with the following message:

As of yesterday I am 7 weeks pregnant - coming from the person who would never in a million years want kids, I am very excited & happy :D

I sent the follow up:

@xielanthia congratulations who is the father......nm :P

Then I sent this:

As of yesterday @xielanthia is 7 weeks pregnant and I'm going to be a father - wish us luck - we'll need it.

So we have announced to the Web 2.0 World (WTW? W2W?) that we are having a baby and doing it in true web fashion.  We have known for about 3 weeks and over that time eeked the information out to family and friends.  The first person I told was the IPS guys I played SWG with that I have constant e-mail communication with.  The first family that knew was my in-laws and followed by Xie's grandmother (I wish she had a blog i could link to).   Then it was ghoulishcharm.  From there I told my father and my brother who was also there.  I went and told my grandparents last Sunday and drove over to tell my sister, but she already knew it seems that she found out from my father who knew the week before.

I did find out from my sisters that my grandparents had already known about the pregnancy (having heard it through her) but yet they acted like they didn't know anything.   Welcome to my family, we can act surprise even if we have known something for months.   I know I used to unwrap my Christmas presents before hand and rewrap them - I got that trick from my godmother.

---

Original From: I'm Going to Be A Father

Picture from here

There is always a new health craze that will make us live longer, be smarter, procreate faster, etc. etc.   The question I have is this truly the right thing to do.   It seems kind of selfish to me.  For example pregnant women these days can't smoke, can't drink alcohol, can't drink caffeine, can't change litter boxes and that's just the tip of the icebergs.   They also must take vitamin after vitamin to ensure a healthy pregnancy.   I'm not saying it's wrong.  I am also not saying it's something that should be change.  I am saying however it's selfish.

We may be enhancing and increasing our own lives and the lives of our immediate offspring, but what about a few more generations down the road?  While the old saying goes "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" isn't the opposite also true then "What ever makes it easier makes us weaker"?  As a species evolution, hardship, and adversity is somethign that gets passed along genetically and our children hopefully evolve because of it.   If every mother was a crack addict doesn't logic tell us that generations down the line that eventually babies would be immune to crack, all we need is that mutant gene to crop up and bang no more crack addiction 2000 years from now.

Caffeine itself used to have teh effects of a harsh drug.  We have so much caffeine in our systems these days it's considered nothing to our bodies, we've built up an immunity to it's effect for the most part.   I know that a few months of no-doz and vivarin inspired nights got me to the point that I needed a whole box to even effect me at one point (no I don't do caffeine pills anymore mostly since it's a wast of cash over the last decade).  Bodies build up immunities and we pass those along to our children.

There is one point in time where we can become selfish however,  this is after procreation.  After we have passed along our damaged genes to our children and they learn how to deal with them, they in turn can hopefully gain strength from them and turn them around, then they pass them on to their children and the cycle begins anew.  When we have our kids and get past the age where we can have children, then we can become selfish.   This is where the evolution cycle is a moot point, unless of course your donating sperm, eggs, or DNA to be passed down to future generations.   Once we are no longer passing down genetic material there will be no evolution happening and it will stagnant.  Since we don't need to necessarily die sooner, it then is allowable from an evolutionary stand point to extend our lives with whatever health craze is in existence.

I may come off as cold and not caring because of this post, and I know I hold the same selfish for my child as does everyone else.   It is selfish though, it holds back our species from evolving against these problems.   So I may say that this is part of the solution, but in the end I'm just as much of the problem.

I swear hearing what my parents endured with toys that their generation must be immune to lead poisoning - only their generation didn't pass it down to ours.

---

Original From: Are We Slowing Evolution With Our Health Crazes?

Picture from here

Starbucks is closing 600 stores and laying off 12,000 people according to Reuters reporting.  Is this really a problem?   From the unemployment we may notice it, but from an access to upper class yuppie coffee will we?  I read yesterday someone in Portland, OR had 23 stores within 2 miles of of their house.  This guy has 43 within 5 miles, and reports the highest density they have found is 170 stores around Broadway Ave in New York City?

When I was growing up I though a Mcdonalds every other exit on the highway was dense growth for a store or business.  Now that may as well be freaking no man's land as far as Starbucks is concerned.  If you cut down half of all the stores around the three locations I mentioned earlier - that is 110 stores right there, so 1/6 of the amount of stores to close and that will still leave an insane amount of density for those residents.   Don't expect me to pity you if you have to walk another 100 yards because the Starbucks closest to you closed.  It does mean however you are a bad person that didn't frequent your closest Starbucks enough to they decided you weren't worth sticking around for to deliver coffee goodness to - remember that when you walking that extra 3 minutes.

I once read that they could build a Wal-Mart five miles from another Wal-Mart and both wuold still be profitable.   I think in the old Starbucks regime is that they could build a new Starbucks five feet from another Starbucks and still be profitiable.  It seems that old thinking was wrong and now all Starbucks muct be a minimum 15.3 feet from one another.

---

Original From: Starbucks to Close 600 Stores - Will Anyone Notice?

The other day I had my rant on Google Docs, you would think I would end my Google criticsm there, but I have a few more complaints.  Picasa is a utility I would love to be in love with.  Unfortunately for online photo sharing Flickr still has my heart.

Problems I have with Picasa:

1.  Space limits, with my paid Flickr I get unlimited space - for another 20.00 (though 5 dollars less then flickr) I get 10 GB - I'm pushing close to that already which wuold cost me 75.00 to jump up to the next price point which is 40GB.   After two years Flickr has significant savings.

2. Number of items in an album, an album in Picasa is the equivalent to a set in Flickr.   I was trying to sync some pictures from Flickr to Picasa with Gnome Conduit, I discovered that an album can only have 500 pictures in it (yes this is an issue for me).  The main reason this is an issue is that pictures HAVE to be in an album, so I am forced to organized my photos (that's fine) but I don't need parameters telling me how I have to organize them.

3.  Editing and manipulation tools, Flickr may not have the best photo manipulation tools but they beat Google hands down for function.

Ok I had my little Picasa rant, I'll let it go now.

---

Original From: Rant on Google's Picasa

Picture from here

In the last year I've started rolling in more of my high school, college, and for lack fo a better description "real life mundane" friends into my online social profiles.   Mostly in the past I've kept it down to current co-workers and friends I was an actively engaged with and friends from the online video games I used to play.  On the surface there is a simple reason for this, most people from high school I didn't like.  I don't need to play the "hey great to see you, what are you up to, why have we never talked since high school discussion".  They seem to forget that we didn't talk when we were in high school.

Now I have friends from elementary school in my Myspace and Facebook friends list.   Last night my college room mate (and other college friends) showed up on facebook finally.   My college room mate had managed to stay very quiet for well over a decade online and I hadn't been able to track him down.  I'm still waiting for him to actually accept my friend invitation, but as far as I know we didn't leave on bad terms.

I wrote the other day about being grown up, everyone is now old married, has kids...the whole gambit.   I wonder if they all feel as young as I do and still feel the same as I did in my early twenties.  Maybe they do.

---

Original From: Finding Friends From School

Picture from here

I was wondering today what the car market will be like in 10 years once hybrids as used cars become more common then they are today.  I'm sure by that time the foundation technology that hybrids are built on will be rock solid, but what about from the used car perspective?

We are used to checking the brakes, transmission, and even how the engine sounds (I'm assuming if an all electric car is making any noise that's a bad sign), but hybrids have some unique issues that need to be addressed.   The first being the computer.  The computer in a hybrid is much more complex then even the most advanced consumer sports car.  Regulating battery charges with the use of gasoline isn't rocket science, but you can't figure it out on an abacus either.   What sort of diagnostic tools will the average consumer need to check out the hybrid the guy is selling on the side of the road?

The other issue that is a larger problem then the computer that the consumer may or may not have input into, it's the problem of the batteries.   How will consumers be able to verify the battery age?  How will they be able to verify that the battery are actually completely operational?  What if the batteries take charge but your total usage of them is about 10 miles per tank of gas?  If you are getting poor mileage because of the latter scenario would it even be a savings in gas?   Hybrids running off a gasoline only aren't necessarily the efficient side of the equation, they receive their benefits from the batteries, the batteries aren't up to snuff you will be using more gasoline then buying a normal gasoline powered small car (batteries aren't light...yet).

I also would like to see batteries at Auto Zone or some such store so we can actually do maintenance and change the batteries ourselves.   Once this becomes the norm, maybe we'll see User settings such as change the batteries every 60000 miles for optimum performance.   Until all the things are in place and the tools exist for a user to do a complete diagnostic (we need something similar to a checksum to verify that there has been no tampering or custom mods done to the car which may or may not cause issues) I'm not going to trust used hybrids.

Aren't we suppose to make new technology more reliable and efficient?   There is still some gaping holes in the hybid deployment.

---

Original From: Will We Ever Buy Used Hybrid's With The Same Assurances As Gasoline Cars?

Picture from here

I'm a twitter addict.  I'm not going to be apologetic about it.  I love twitter.  I'll be happier when the rewrite occurs and it becomes a stable messaging platform.   The problem I have is balancing the amount of tweets I do with the number my real life friends are willing to read.

I really want to tweet every song I'm listening to, every image I upload, and every piece of digital property I touch and interact with.  I don't though since that could generate hundreds of tweets on some days.   My friends won't stand for it.   So I use things like a filtered RSS feed to alert my followers of new blog posts, and I actually do interact with it (unlike some services).

I'm not asking for a cookie, I'm just having a random rant.

See you all on Twitter....tweet...tweet

---

Original From: The Twitter Spam Battle In Myself