Author: Tommy

I've seen this spring up on several different internet sites like Digg and Reddit. They've been listed and shouted down by droves of discontents, they're the "Big Ten", the "Media Mafia", the 10 leading news outlets that control 95% of "big media". You're familiar with most of them, I'm sure. They control the vast majority of print media, movie, music and television. You know, "the media".

This list got me thinking. Ten isn't all that bad of a number of competitors in a US marketplace. I can't list 10 leading PC manufacturers, 10 leading US auto manufacturers, 10 US telecom companies or even 10 leading gunmakers. Ten's not that bad of a number.

Sure there should be more diversity in the drive-by journalism outlets, but what about all of the other markets in the US. Why isn't anyone speaking out against the few companies that control the vast majority of the secret recipes behind the junk food we shovel into our faces. Why aren't the few main telecom companies controlling long distance and the internet at fault? Are just 10 really all that bad - how many competitors should there be?

*sigh* That's it. I finally got it. Almost 10 years of waiting has come to an end. I think they did a smash up job on TF2. And I've only played 2fort so far! It took me a bit to recapture my feel for the map - what with all the pretty textures and all. I was more used to seeing blocky, cut-and-dry gothic tiles everywhere from Quake 1. The graphics are awesome. I truly love the cell animation feel of it. Much more of a "fun" feel to it. I do miss the various grenades that different players have, but I guess removing them is for the best.

For those of you that still have not bought "The Orange Box", it's a great buy. I found that Circuit City has it for $39.99 while everyone else is releasing it at $49.99. If you take a Circuit City ad to Walmart they'll price match. So will Best Buy if you're nearby, plus you'll get an addition 10% off --- that's another whole $1.00! You can print off this page for price verification (possibly photoshop for addition discount, but I wouldn't ever suggest that.) I played it safe and got mine at Walmart for $39.99.

Oh yeah, did I mention Portal is a blast too? I hear there's a couple of other game bundled with it, but who cares? TF2 Baby!

Grendel sez: If you are flat broke or just don't want it, you can check out the 2D Flash version of Portal.

Kiva.org is a website that allows lenders to connect with those seeking loans to get their fledgling businesses up and running in developing countries. The mission of Kiva is to empower the motivated entrepreneurs in foreign countries as well as helping fellow man. It's mostly humanitarian with a business focus.

Lenders, like you and me, can donate as little as $25 to Kiva to be loaned out to those seeking funds to help grow their businesses. Kiva has field agents overseas to ensure the parties involved are honestly in need of the money, are good for the money and have some for of collateral. The business end is handled by Kiva agents and they seem to be doing their homework when it comes to loaning money - 100% of the money loaned out through Kiva has been repaid with no one defaulting on their loan.

The people seeking the loans benefit from Kiva's generosity by having a 0% interest loan. A huge blessing when you consider local loan sharks might charge as much as 300%! So, for me to part with $25 for a few months is no hard task - especially when I'm almost guaranteed to get the money back into my PayPal account, at which point I can turn around and re-loan the money to another person or wire the money back into my bank account.

If you're interested, check out Kiva.org for more info. There's also this informational video done by PBS' Frontline showing how Kiva works both at home and abroad. Others are talking about Kiva as well, which are all linked from Kiva's press page.

Well, it's official (in my eyes at least) Comcast sucks. Time Warner Houston recently sold their internet operations (aka RoadRunner) to Comcast. In doing so they migrated user email accounts to a @comcast.net address, rather than the long @houston.rr.com. Cool, it's shorter, easier for newbs to remember, etc.

I migrated my family (me, jenn, parents) over to Comcast a few weeks ago, problem is, there's no easy web interface to manager user accounts. There very well could be some awesome, ground breaking webapp to do just this, but Comcast doesn't make it easy to find - not like RoadRunner used to. So now, everyone's converted over, but I can't set/change my parents' email passwd so they're more or less locked out of their email until they (or I) call Comcast. Ok, fine. I can call sometime, no problem. For me it's no problem migrating over. I just changed the MX redirect on my neodux.com email address and the mail is routed appropriately - for a while. You see, Comcast has this thing called a blacklist. Lots of people are unhappy with Comcast's blacklist. If your mail server isn't AOL, MSN or some other commercial service, chances are you'll get blacklisted. Guess what happened to mail from neodux.com?

I called Comcast and was on the phone with 2 different technicians for about 45 minutes (not including hold time) trying to A) convey to them the problem and B) how it's their problem and not my "internet security settings". I even had one technician tell me repeatedly and in a condescending tone that there is absolutely no blacklist and that my emails are bouncing due to my mail server. (No way buddy, not when the header tells me your mail server is rejecting it!)

Long story short: Neodux email is now hosted on Dreamhost who, despite my problems with them in the past, is 110,000% better at not screwing up stuff for no reason. Thanks Dreamhost!

It's been a long time coming and it's almost here. I've been waiting years for Team Fortress 2 to make it's debut. Team Fortress 1 (the Quake mod) was a blast to play. Team Fortress Classic was a mediocre attempt to capture TF1 into a new engine and since then there's been a buzz about TF2 being released one day or another. It's been touted alongside Duke Nukem Forever as "vaporware" - but the release is nigh.

Alot of people don't like the game styling of cell animation, but I think it will make for a great game. So far, most of what we've been given glimpses of are animation shorts - but they're holding me over and whetting my appetite. So here's a few for you to watch too.

Team Fortress 2 : Meet the Heavy Weapon Guy

Team Fortress 2 : Meet the Soldier

Team Fortress 2 : Meet the Engineer

Team Fortress 2 : Meet the Demoman

So there you have it 3 of the handful of classes available to play in TF2. Maybe if you don't know anything about TF2, here's one more video for you.

Grendel sez: Don't forget Portal is in the Orange Box too!
update: Added "Meet the Demoman" link. "Aye!"