XBox Kinect -- Well Done, Microsoft!

Nintendo's success with the Wii console shocked the video game industry.  Nintendo had been relegated to a second rate also-ran by the time the PS3 and XBox 360 came out.  Their new console, the Wii, was considered a hail Mary.

And then a huge success, one that revolutionized the console industry.  Sony and Microsoft soon found themselves scrambling to imitate the Wii's innovative motion controls.  Being a skeptic, I expected Microsoft and Sony to produce derivative "me too" versions of this technology, Microsoft's effort being dubbed the "Kinect".

This weekend I got my first experience with the Kinect at my brother's house.  Microsoft really knocked this one out of the park.

The Kinect doesn't work by tracking controllers in your hand.  Rather, it takes pictures of the play area and picks out the people, in effect turning YOU into the controller, and your on-screen avatar follows your physical movement -- swat your hand, duck, jump, etc -- virtually any movement you make is mimicked by your avatar. 

So the hardware is great, but what about the games?  Here is where I have to give Microsoft (or more appropriately the software house that designed the game) credit -- "Kinect Adventures" is very analogous to the Wii's bundled "Wii Sports" but in many ways it's a lot more fun and, crucially, the games are focused on teamwork and cooperation rather than competition.  For example, in one of the mini-games the players are, quite literally, stuck on the same boat as it travels down the rapids and both players must cooperate to get the boat downstream and accomplish tasks.  Watching my two young nieces play, I realized how in the video game world, including the Wii they got last Christmas, they are forced into competition with each other -- something that happens all too much in real life too.  But in Kinect Adventures, they were cooperating with each other to accomplish shared goals and it was a treat to watch.

Right now there are only a few games available for the system and I am skeptical about its mass acceptance (while the 360 has a massive installed base, the Kinect is a new peripheral and the market is far smaller, which may discourage game development).  However, by all appearances Microsoft got this one right.

Aside from the bit where it takes pictures of you during gameplay and uploads them to your Facebook page.  That I can do without.

NAS Update

Things have largely settled down now, but not all the news is good.

• RAM -- upgraded from 256mb to 1gb.  Successful and helps.
• DRIVES -- mixed news.  I tried putting in 5 2TB drives and I seemed to be hitting a wall at 8TB.  The NAS would say it was formatting but nothing was actually happening.  I even tried tricking it with 4 drives and then expanding into the 5th.  So I bought 5 1.5TB drives and that seems to be working.
• EXTERNAL DRIVES -- here's where I'm really frustrated.  My plan was to get an external RAID chassis to get additional storages.  Either external interface only seems to work with one external drive at a time, not a RAID array.  Grrr, I might have hit the wall.

Unless I can get the NAS to recognize an external drive array, either through eSATA or USB, I may have to just abandon the NAS where it is.  Of course I can still use it but it won't be able to handle my future plans which will require an additional 10-16 TB.

I may have to bite the bullet and build a cheap PC to be a new fileserver. 

Porsche Cayman R

The dilemma of liking Porsche.

The flagship model is a beetle designed by Hitler with its engine in the wrong place.  Everything else is held back.

Case in point is the Cayman -- also known as a Boxster with a roof.  It's a simpler, more basic car with its engine in the right place.  Unfortunately, Porsche holds it back.  Until the Cayman R, they didn't even fit it with a limited slip differential.

The Cayman is a great design that is held back by Porsche.  They don't fit the top engine from a 911 into it, let alone the turbo.  They don't give it the 911's AWD system.  And there's a reason for it.

Back in the mid 70s, Porsche wanted to move on from the 911 design -- which was based on the Volkswagen Beetle, which was designed by Hitler.  It has the distinction of having its engine in the wrong place -- all the way in the rear, behind the rear axle.  This makes the 911 handle like a pendulum.

When people design a car, the ultimate place to position the engine is in the middle -- between the driver and rear axle.  High end sports cars (such as the Ferrari 458, Lamborghinis since the Miura, etc.) use this configuration.  The next best solution is a front engine with a rear transaxle (the engine and transmission are split so one is over the front axle and the other is over the rear) -- cars like Corvettes and Aston Martins use this configuration.  Common cars have the engine and transmission all in the front.  The rear is just about the worst place to put an engine because it makes the front end light and makes the car susceptible to terrifying snap oversteer (spinning out).

Porsche originally intended to replace the 911 with the V8 grand tourer 928.  The evolution of the 944 into the 944 Turbo a few years later saw another Porsche finally challenge the 911 Turbo at the top of Porsche's range, for half the price.  It's a widely known secret that Porsche makes a hefty profit on the 911 and the fact that another Porsche at half the price could match its performance laid it out for all to see -- that Porsche had the 911 on a pedestal.

Porsche learned the lesson well -- don't threaten the 911's supremacy at the top of the lineup.  Even if that means making other models worse than they could be.

That's the lament I have with the Cayman.  It has a proper mid-engine design and is a simpler, back-to-basics sports car design.  But Porsche holds it back.

 "...the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw. " -- The Trees, Rush

That time of year -- KOSHER PEPSI!!!

The best version of Pepsi, IMO, is Kosher for Passover Pepsi.  Only at this time of year, Pepsi makes special bottles for the Passover holiday that contain cane sugar and eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Forgive me if I get this wrong, but the gist is that during Passover you aren't allowed to have any forbidden grains that the Israelites didn't have during their exile in the desert, and luckily for soda lovers, corn would be something they didn't have because it's a new-world crop.

Only available for a few weeks leading up to Passover, you can tell by reading the ingredients label and verifying there is no HFCS and the only sweetener is sugar.  The telltale giveaway is the white bottle cap with Kosher symbols/writing on it and the KP (Kosher for Passover) mark. 

I've had all kinds of Pepsi -- all four runs of Pepsi Throwback, Mexican Pepsi, et al, and this is my favorite version.  Mexican Pepsi is also very good but very mellow, to the point of reminding me of RC Cola.

While Pepsi Throwback has been on the market (and appears to be here to stay), it is missing one crucial ingredient that regular Pepsi has -- citric acid.  No idea why.  But KfP Pepsi still has it, and that, in my opinion, pushes it over the top.  It's also possible that Pepsi Throwback uses cheaper beet sugar and not pure cane sugar.

NAS Update

Some bumps in the road.  Updating to 1GB RAM worked fine.  Sticking in 5 2TB drives was a problem, however.  The NAS would create the RAID array (RAID 0, in this case; no redundancy; later I may switch to RAID 5) but formatting would hang.  Or more appropriately, act like it's happening but the drive lights were not blinking.

After several failed attempts, I created a 3 drive RAID 0 array and that succeeded, and I'm now adding one drive at a time and migrating.  Surprisingly, migrating from a 3 disk RAID 0 array to a 4 disk RAID 0 array is taking a very long time, especially considering there is no data on the array.  At this rate it looks like it will take 6 days.

NAS update

5 2TB drives are on the way.  In the mean time, the NAS had a memory DIMM with a mere 256mb of memory, which I've upgraded to 1GB.  This should help speed things up a little. 

Upgrading my old crusty NAS

So I have a NAS that's about 4-5 years old, a Thecus N5200 5-bay RAID NAS.  The problem with old technology is that even if something works, the manufacturer starts to neglect it.  I originally stocked the NAS with 5 750gb drives in RAID 5 for 3TB total storage.  When I started collecting vinyl and other high res audio, I ran out of space and added a 2TB external drive to it.  It's almost full, and that's without the DVD rips I'm working on.

Today you can get a 2TB drive for $80, so it's time to upgrade (which would give me 8TB in a 5 drive array).  The problem is the drives are not "officially" supported -- but the reality of what that means is that Thecus can't be bothered to test them.  They should work.  Gulp.

I took the NAS apart to dust it out.  I've cleaned it externally a few times, but when I cracked the case open, good god was it filthy.  Inches of caked on crap in places.  I'm amazed it didn't short out.

While I was in there, I noticed the old 184-pin DIMM was only 256MB and I'm going to upgrade it to 1GB.  Time to back up and prepare for NAS 2.0 (and pray it works).