Reviews
Microsoft is too stupid to be malevolent
Sun, 2010-11-28 17:23 — Pat HeymanIt's supposed to be an online account that allows users to save their game progress online, purchase games, play online with friends, etc. It was announced five years ago, but MicroSoft has never developed it properly. It started out as XboxLive, and embarrassingly, five years later, when you actually sign up for Games of Windows Live, it takes you to XboxLive. Does Microsoft have any idea what message they are sending?
Hot off the heels of my story about Google's incompetence comes a display of Microsoft's ineptitude. One of the great joys of Thanksgiving time are the fabulous discounts for computer games offered by Steam. Discounts from 50% - 90% are common. So naturally, when Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition went on sale for 75%, I snapped it up. Unfortunately, the good folks at Eidos have saddled, Batman: AA with Windows Live.
You can't save your progress unless you use Games for Windows Xbox Live. Okay, so sign up for an account. But you have to do an e-mail verification...wait a little longer...ask it to resend the confirmation...check to make sure the e-mail address is correct...check the e-mail server...send a test message to yourself...20 minutes later, still no e-mail...sign up again with a different e-mail.
Okay, it worked. Let's play...no, there's an update for Games for Windows Xbox Live, and I can't continue unless I let it install...wait five minutes, it looks like it finished, let's play!. Wait, no...it wants to install the update again! After two more cycles of this, I'm beginning to wonder if Steam will give me refund. Finally, I close all windows including Steam and try to run Games for Windows Xbox Live by itself, and it takes me to Windows Update. I have to patch Windows before I can update Games for Windows Xbox Live...why didn't it tell me this earlier?? I'm now installing the patch, which will hopefully allow me to update Games for Windows Xbox Live, which will hopefully allow me to play Batman: AA. Now reboot...Wait! Logan's up from his nap. I'm beginning to wonder if Eidos really wants me to play this game or not.
Calculus for the Common Man
Fri, 2010-07-23 08:54 — Pat HeymanIt's no secret that most kids today are scared to death of math and calculus. But they're actually quite easy...as long as you don't let modern school teachers "teach" you any of that "new math" nonsense. If you want to kick it old school, there's no better way than to teach yourself calculus with Thompson's Calculus for the Practical Man.
This book was catapulted to world renown when Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman, recounted using it to teach himself calculus when he was 13. Feynman credited his success in calculus to having taught himself and to some of the unorthodox methods presented in this book. Sometimes, when others couldn't even approach a problem, a method he had learned here made the problem almost trivial.
If you are at all interested in Calculus, don't let your first experience be in a classroom setting. You owe it to yourself to teach it to yourself. This book was "old" when Feynman read it, so it's a bona fide classic today. Rest assured, there is no new math here.
(One word of warning: Calculus is a perishable skill. I passed the AP Calculus BC exam with a 5 and then taught myself multivariate calculus while at the Air Force Academy. Within a year of leaving the Academy, I had already forgotten many of the more advanced techniques, simply from not using them. I do remember the basics, but I would have to put in some serious study to replicate that 5 now.)
