Steve

Thought I'd remind/inform folks that Halo Waypoint is now available on Xbox Live for everyone, and not just participants of the Dashboard beta, for the low-low price of Free. You'll need to download the app (~100MB) for it, link for which should be in with the other "what's new" stuff. Once downloaded, you can launch it out of your Games library.

Waypoint acts as an "Achievement" aggregator, looking at all the 360-based Halo games (so far Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars) and showing what Achievements you've attained so far in all of them; then, based upon the number of Gamerscore points you've gotten from them, will unlock Avatar awards. (Again, for no charge.) My Avvie is sporting an ODST t-shirt and has a pet Monitor now.

Waypoint also acts as a news aggregator of sorts for Halo stuff, though that's still in the early stages.

Most urgently, though, Waypoint will also grant free viewings of some of the episodes from the upcoming Halo Legends anime collection DVD/BR... but only for 24 hours each Saturday. Today the short "Babysitter" is running, in which an ODST team acts as support for a SPARTAN-II on a mission behind enemy lines. Next Saturday, a "behind the scenes" documentary on "Babysitter" will run. Saturday after that, another short, then another "making of" doc, and so on.

So if you want to see the video you'll have to download Waypoint really soon.

-- Steve's looking forward to seeing the vid when he gets back from work.

This 14' shark was caught "smiling" for the camera in the waters off of Mexico last Autumn.

-- Steve just thought he'd share.

Photo cribbed from the Daily Mail website.

Well, I just saw the first episode of the "V"-make. It didn't outright suck.

It did, however, seem to be rather rushed and the reveals as a result were less surprising/shocking than they could've been. The previous miniseries profited from moving a lot slower (albeit throwing in some Contras at the start to help the action-hounds stick through the hour of stage-setting and character development that followed) to build tension; this show's going to have trouble in future episodes because they pushed 9 months of in-story chronology into the first 44 minutes in order to get to the action-y stuff.

-- Steve also gets a whiff of BSG-isation of this version, which isn't bad in itself but does warn that this may not be the freshest of takes on the series' themes. Also, though he can't fault the writers for sniping at Neo-Cons, doing so does cheapen the script.

Well, I paid for yesterday's indolance by putting on the house-mouse big-time today. A big grocery run, the monthly bills paid (including sacrifice to the Gods of Credit), two loads of laundry done, some long-delayed recycling put out, and now a pot of beef stew bubbling away on the stove, to which I'm going to have to add the diced vegetables in about fifteen minutes.

It's long-past due to make that stew, too, as given my plague-month my freezer reserves have dropped to basically nil. In truth, I should've made the stew yesterday and be making some other large meal today to portion out and freeze... but yesterday it was all I could do to order in some BBQ chicken. Oh well, I'll just have to make up that pork tenderloin in BBQ sauce tomorrow or Wednesday.

-- Steve'll now return to catching up on the LJ (and his Guiness) until the timer beeps again.

Interesting. The upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 was almost a no-brainer installation... save that immediately after reloading and setting itself up the video driver pooped out and left me staring at a black screen until I decided that enough was enough. Rebooting into "safe" mode and reinstalling the Catalyst utilities solved that problem. I'm wondering if the installer choked on my CrossfireX setup, though it's running beautifully now.

The system does feel snappier under Windows 7, and the memory footprint is down by about a quarter. I'm also noticing a lot more multi-core activity in routine work, though I'll admit that may be from me watching for it.

Oddly, though, upgrading means a demotion in my Windows Experience ranking... not because my hardware's running slower (it's most decidedly not) but because MS raised the bar on their rankings. Overall the system rates a 5.9 out of 8... but only because I didn't RAID the hard drive or use an SSD or something. Ignoring the drive read/write speed the system would be a 7.3 out of 8. For reference, Vista also rated my system a 5.9... out of 6.

The taskbar previews are very handy, and fast too. I'm definitely going to enjoy the "pin to taskbar" feature. IE8 renders extremely quickly, as well.

-- Steve's off to explore the Internet a bit more now with this thing to see what surprises await.

I'm about to take the plunge and upgrade to Windows 7.

Firstly I have to uninstall some software; two Catalyst utilities from ATI, and OneCare. (The latter is the biggie, as that's my antivirus at the moment. I'll have to download Security Essentials after the upgrade.)

Then insert Win7 disc into drive and faithfully obey all directions.

Then reinstall the Catalyst utilities and download new antivirus software.

And then check this sucker out.

-- Steve'll triumphantly post back when the upgrade is complete... or will post with wailing and gnashing of teeth if it duds outs.

Again thanks to Wikipedia, I am reminded that today is the 48th anniversary of the largest human-generated explosion in history over Novaya Zemlya. The fireball was 8km across, and the resulting ground shock wave was the equivalent of a 5-5.2 (Richter scale) earthquake.

-- Steve's glad we don't monkey with our atmosphere so badly now, but man that would've been a sight to see.

In a discussion on james_nicoll's blog the subject of radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) came up, and a little Wikipediaing caused me to stumble upon an absolute marvel: the Stirling radioisotope generator.

Think of it as a closed-loop steam engine, but instead of using boiling water heated by burning coal it's using compressed helium heated by radioactive decay. Apparently that model generates 55-60W initially from it's 1.4kg (3lb) fuel bundle, though that'll drop off over time; plutonium-238's half-life is 87 years. NASA wants it to power deep space probes.

-- Steve just wants it.

Desire Munyaneza got twenty-five to life in Montreal today for his role as mastermind behind the Rwanda genocide of '94. Munyaneza attempted to immigrate to Canada in 2004 as, ironically, a refugee claimant and was arrested under Canada's new war crimes statute. He is the first of hopefully many to be sentenced under the statute.

-- Steve doesn't think that Canada should be the world's policeman, but certainly thinks we should bust the crooks we do find.

I arrived home to find my upgrade copy of Windows 7 in the mailbox. I won't fire it up tonight, but I'm firing up the backup now and pushing the files off to my external hard drive.

Tomorrow night I'll do a full virus sweep and clean up... and then I think I'll wait until the weekend to do the upgrade itself.

-- Steve wants plenty of time as the upgrade advisor recommended uninstalling some pretty important utilities (including my ATI control utility) before upgrading.

There's a miniature figure out for Sergeant Schlock of the Schlock Mercenaries webcomic. The linked figure comes painted, but you can also get it unpainted or in an antiqued pewter finish.

-- Steve's brain is still pondering what game system would support fielding the good Sergeant.

One of the guilty pleasures in which I endulged yesterday was testing the Zune Marketplace function on the 360 by downloading and/or streaming episodes of The Deadliest Warrior. It's a rather silly show, really, attempting to combine Mythbusters with alternate history to figure out which of two combattants in an ahistorical duel would win.

One pairing, though, was intriguing; a match-up between a Viking raider and a Samurai warrior. Their mathematical modeling gave the Samurai slender edge, something like a 60/40 split IIRC, from his more advanced armour and the accuracy of the yumi bow. (The katana proved highly disadvantaged, though, as it couldn't defeat even a modest coat of ring mail... a problem the Danish great axe didn't face.)

A pity that there isn't an historical way to get these two to face off... a Viking raid on Hokkaido Island would make for a fascinating story setting. (Or is there a scenario I'm not seeing?)

-- Steve'd love it as an explanation for the Ainu, though that doesn't seem to be borne out by DNA evidence.

Ontario's new law banning handheld cellphone use while driving comes into effect tomorrow. And it's about bloody time.

In my opinion, when in a vehicle you are either driving or you are not driving; driving consists of having both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road. If you are doing anything else, such as drinking coffee or gabbing on a cellphone or adjusting the radio or whatever, then you are not driving... and either someone else should be driving or the vehicle is without a driver and should be at a complete halt.

(Don't talk to me about multitasking; studies show that most people who think they're good at multitasking, particularly behind the wheel, are examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect and that matches by my personal observations on the roads.)

So I welcome this new law, and hope that the roads will become ever so slightly safer as a result.

-- Steve has barely escaped disaster caused by distracted drivers more than once. This is a serious issue.

PS: It would've been nice to nuke hands-free devices too, but I gather that'd be all-but unenforceable.

I just got notified that I'm now part of the Xbox Live Update Preview... I put in for that on Monday, and thought I was perhaps too late when other folks started being added yesterday. It's downloading to my console now as we speak.

-- Steve'll have to give it a thorough testing tomorrow; the movies-on-demand feature particularly tempt.

... but in this case I'll make an exception. Canada's National Film Board has released a free iPhone app to stream the NFB film library of documentaries, dramas, and its famous animation collection. If you are already a slave to the Turtlenecked One, then you really should take a look.

-- Steve'll stick to the desktop version, himself. He's just not a smartphone type.

Lousy night's sleep last night, to the point that I'm dragging my tail right now and am going to bust out some Emergency Coffee to reinforce the mug I've already drunk, but I did get something to grin about in my inbox this morning.

Microsoft just shipped my Windows 7 disc and sent me my tracking numbers. The estimated delivery time is in 10 days.

-- Steve'll be glad when it arrives.

The sum total of my plans for this evening;

- Leave the office in 15 minutes.
- Catch my buss in 30 minutes.
- Ride to White Oaks.
- Stop in at the liquor store to pick up some more wine.
- Catch supper at the food court in the mall.
- Ride the bus home.
- Curl up in bed and re-read Komarr until I lose consciousness.

-- Steve's ambitions have pretty much run dry for anything else, dammit.

Today's London Free Press has an interview with the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local here, Pat Hunniford, who claimed that ATU members "plan to come to work every day." They might decline to work overtime, which may reduce service in some cases, but according to the ATU they do not want to shut down bus service in London during the dispute.

-- Steve's hoping they honour this pledge, and that LTC doesn't resort to a lock-out.

You already know that I have not had the healthiest month this month, having burned 3 days of sick leave (unpaid) and lost five days of vacation (paid) to iterations of the 'flu already and still not feeling healthy.

Now the local news informs me that as early as this Thursday our transit system could be going on strike.

Gimme a frickin' break.

-- Steve wants a do-over. (Can you take a month as a Mulligan?)

Argh. So tired... and this is after 10 hours' deep sleep last night, too. However, the overt symptoms of this whatever seem to be waning at last. I suspect that I'll be tired for a good long while, maybe even the rest of the week, considering how poorly I've slept over the past two weeks.

That my cubicle is terribly overheated at the moment isn't helping my awareness. Nor my job performance, for that matter.

-- Steve has another five hours to tough out in Koobikal Hel before withdrawing to his lair, alas. Maybe more coffee would help?