Video Game Review: Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare

I have to do this... I know most people aren't gamers and the fact that I even used that word subjects me into the chasm of loserdom, but I played Call of Duty 4 this weekend and it is epic. Usually video games are just a casual mind-break in the same vein that someone might use marijuana, but every once in a while, the game strikes a sentimental chord that is hard to let go the next day.

The earlier Call of duty 2 was such a game. I remember distinctly, playing the Point du Hoc scene, which recreated the seizure of several German artillery casements in anticipation of the Normandy invasion. After securing the casements, you are unwittingly pushed back by a German offensive to the cliffs that you had originally scaled. You can't help but feel that you had failed the mission, but as you approach the cliffs, President Ronald Reagan's speech in commemoration of the Boys of Point du Hoc crescendos to drown out the gunfire and you realize that all the aggravation and retreat had provided just enough time for the Allied invasion into Normandy to begin. Rarely do books fully capture what it must have been like to stand against all odds.

I realize I digress but it is the emotion that captures these games and Call of Duty 4 has picked up the mantle and brought feeling to an otherwise confusing and conflicted US operation in the Middle East. Urban warfare has been done to death in today's video games but never before has a game allowed you to play the Ranger incursion team and then provide the coverfire from C-130 gunship as the same Ranger team maneuvers through a Middle Eastern village (graphically, the C-130 scene was just like the IR I used in the military and there is nothing like shooting a 105 mm cannon at some poor bastard who has no idea where you are). From there, you begin to understand the utter confusion that can come from urban guerrilla warfare and give up a strategic point to advance on another, and realize that your previous position is now overrun and you are taking fire on all sides. Gameplay is brilliant, story is expertly crafted and the graphics what you would expect from a next generation game.

I will venture forward enough to say that the day will come when video games will be a respectable form of media and storytelling and it is games like Call of Duty that are going to add respectability to this relatively new medium.

The Revolution is here...

I have long believed that we are moving toward the idea of home servers to hold our DVD, music, and picture albums and that such equipment will be fully integrated into our family room TV sets and accessible at the touch of a button. My other notion is that cable TV will be reduced to just local news and all other content will be on-demand access through company websites either through streaming video or downloads.

The problem with my utopia, is searchability. As most of you have experienced, Google does not do video search that well and though many are trying to offer a solution, going to a website and typing in your desired video and then sifting through endless hits is not the idea I have in mind when sitting on my couch with a remote in my hand.

Enter Miro. Miro is an all inclusive HD player (that's right, it handles High Def video). It can take control of all your video files and render Windows Media Player (even VLC or GOM, neither one does HD very well) worthless. The first thing it does on install is index all your videos and provide an easy management system for all your illegally obtained South Park video.

It also has RSS video subscription that it handles in the form of channels. For those of you that dont understand this... it means that you subscribe to say the ESPN channel and as new video is posted (I noticed that Around the Horn is there, even though nobody watches it) the channel will let you know that there is content. This is as close as anyone has come to online TV that I know and Miro boasts over 2000 of these channels.

So maybe you dont want to just watch TV shows... Miro also handles your Bittorrent files. You will still have to go to your favorite bit torrent site but once you click on your download, Miro takes over.

Miro does all this and it looks sleek as hell while it does it... but thats not the best part. It is completely open source. That means that user add-ons will shortly be on their way (bittorrent searching for example). For those of you who have made the jump to Firefox, you know what open source means. It means functionability. Tabs? Weather? Music controls inside your browser? I got news for you, they were in Firefox long before Internet Explorer even thought about it. Fact is, the general populous will play with Miro and decide what it lacks and 14 year old geeks will script that little something that will make this player all the more kickass.

Long story short (too late, I guess) Miro 1.0 is going to do for online video watching what Netscape did for internet browsing, which means it will become the rally cry for millions of attention-deficit adults who want to watch Sportscenter and The Extras on their schedule, not on the Networks. Mark my words... Link to the download

TASER-Proof Gear is Great for Students, Political Activists, Criminals

taken straight from gizmodo

This patent for an "energy weapon protection device" is the perfect accessory for your next anti-war march. It also might be a good idea to just have one handy for other occasions, too, as you never know when the 5-0 might get a little TASER-happy on you for failing to fully stop at a stop sign or something. These are strange days we live in, my friends.

Scams Use Striptease to Break Web Traps

You know those wavy letters that you have to try to decipher in order to join some chatrooms or register for anything? Apparently some hackers are trying to figure a way to enter the correct combination mechanically but still look human and they need to aquire a whole lot of realistic input in order to do so.

So how do you get humans to voluntarily enter inane codes over and over? Put up a picture of a scantily clad woman and have them enter the right code for each article of clothing that comes off. The best part is, she never fully undresses but starts over and people play the game again, because afterall most of us have no clue whether that letter is a p q or g and we just end up guessing anyways, so why not assume we f'ed up.

The whole article is here http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/T/TECHBIT_STRIPTEASE_SCAM?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-11-01-06-31-55

my favorite line is

Paul Ferguson, network architect at Trend Micro, speculated that spammers might be using the results to write a program to automatically bypass CAPTCHA systems.

"I have to hand it to them," Ferguson said, laughing. "The social engineering aspect here is pretty clever."