21 Years of Hubble
Hubble has been in orbit for 21 years. Well 21 years on April 24th. Seeing the images over the past 20 years that hubble has managed to capture makes this a very remarkable anniversary. From Hubble we were able to light up the view into the universe. It has shown use things that are close to home like Jupiter after an impact or that in the universe there is a cosmic city of galaxies out there allowing us to view undiscovered countries in the night. Read more 
Of Tablets and PDFs
I have recently begun my quest for tablet that will quench my desire for digital books. Now the books I want to display on a tablet are far different than the books I read on my Kindle. These books are full color PDFs for a tabletop wargame called BattleTech. I already own a large portion of the dead tree books in my library. I am looking to par that down but to also be able to do searches through the books when I need to look something up during our regular play sessions.
I have tested out the the Motorola Xoom a couple of times and they have no dedicated pdf viewer in the system. The pdf viewers you can get for android are not the best. They don’t render the pdfs properly. You also can’t get the Adobe PDF reader for tablets. You can side load the adobe reader apk file to the tablet. Adobe reader is really the best PDF reader for android tablets the bad part is you have to find the apk to download and install. It does have issues with searching but that may be processor related on my phone as I haven’t loaded the Adobe Reader apk to the Xoom Tablet yet.
I was able to barrow one of my co-workers new iPads. I was very impressed with the way it was able to handle the game PDFs. It was able to search and very the PDFs as thought they were dead tree books. The iPad was very good for what I want in a tablet pc to help my game group. Now only if the Android tablets can catch up.
3DS Impressions from PAX East
At PAX East I got a chance to test out the Nintendo 3DS. The hardware looks very nice and sleek. The system can output a very nice HD image. The problem for me comes with the 3D effects. I was playing with the 3D slider to find a good 3D mix and I could not find it unless I had it all the way up to full 3D or near that position. I played two games in 3D, they were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. I feel that Street fighter gave a better idea of 3D than Zelda did. In Zelda I noticed if look at the center of the 3D screen I could see with my peripheral vision the distorted image on the sides of the screen. I didn’t notice that in Street Fighter because you are mostly focusing on you fighter and following him with your eyes. I think this problem with be come apparent in more slower paced games as Street Fighter is a very fast paced game.
Another issue I have with the 3DS is the way 3D is done. You have to be at a certain distance away from the screen to get the effect. If you move out of this sweet spot you have to readjust the 3D settings. I noticed it also took me a bit to find the sweet spot when I was playing with 3D on. When I play my handhelds I can usually be in a couple of different positions to be comfortable.
Battery Life is another huge issue. I am used to my DS getting about 15 to 20 hours of play time. To go down to only 3 hours at max with 3D on is very bad. Even if you turn the 3D off you can only get about 5 hours. I like having the longer battery life because I can take it with me and not worry about having to charge it when I want to play. It’s like my kindle a long battery life that’s ready to go when needed.
I have decided to pass on the 3DS right now and revisit the system when it gets a revision like the DS Lite. If you would like to try the 3DS out check the 3DS Kiosk finder to find a demo location (via gonintendo)
Convention prepping
Next week I’ll be going to PAX East 2011. I went to last years PAX East (link) and had a really good time. This year is going to be larger and filled with more adventures. In preping for the convention I am made sure I am ready to go early.
I am 95% packed for the trip. I figured instead of my usualy pack the night before I would be ready to go ahead of time and not trying to get everything packed in a crazed rush. I will make a list so that I know I have everything for my trip. This way I can double check everything. The only thing I haven’t packed is my messenger bag or backpack to take with my as I use them on a daily basis and I haven’t figured out which one I will bring with me.
Most likely I will bring my messenger bag because it’s the Bag of Holding (ThinkGeek). I just need to finish up on packing my camera and I’ll be all set.
Game Mastering for the first time
This past Thursday I got to run a game with my local BattleTech group. Game Mastering is hard. It takes some practice to come up with a good scenario that won’t overwhelm the players and is fun. I had some mishaps in the game like when I forgot one unit had a special ability, but overall I had a good time and it was a learning experience for me. Going from player to game master is very doable you just need to understand that you can make mistakes.
