No Respect for Tampa Sports

By Tom Chang

Note: This is the full unedited version of the article that appeared in the Ray Area.

I have no aspirations of die-hard fandom, but I know the national sports media does their best to hire the personalities to “analyze” all things sports. One pattern I’m seeing that has to stop is the lack of any perceived respect for “all-things” Tampa.

The Rays, Bucs and Lightning, the primary forces of Tampa’s pro-sports, have all seen their share of futility and successes.

The recent decades have been kinder than most considering the relative short history. The oldest franchise is the Buccaneers which started in 1976. Of course, who could forget the inaugural winless 0-14 season which stood as the record until the 2008 Lions surpassed them going 0-16, but enough about the history lesson.

In the past decade, Tampa has seen the most success from its franchises (aside from the lesser Arena Bowl titles from the Storm) with the Bucs winning the Lombardi Trophy in 2003, the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup the following year and the Rays making it to the World Series in 2008. Winning was relatively rare in prior decades. When they won it all though, there was no attention from the president. Not even a phone call. The story is always the same (except for the Rays who fell to the Phillies), “loveable losers finally win it all.”

Whenever I go on ESPN, SI or Fox Sports within their influential spheres, a central focus of attention goes on the lack of attendance, especially when it comes to the Rays and more recently, the Bucs. I see the Jim Romes and Ken Rosenthals alike continuously comment on the struggling attendance as if Tampa is being singled out and the “only city in America” having these sorts of problems. The glaring economic problems they often ignore mask their profound ignorance as if they’re trying to criticize Tampa as somehow being a second-rate sports market.

At last I checked, the Lightning had no problems selling out their playoff games. Do the national media do their diligence to report that? Hell no!

Nowadays when you see the recent success of the Lightning, I see analysts like the former Lightning coach, Barry Melrose who seems to always pick against them, which of course is his right. The analysts are focusing on what went wrong with the Capitals and the Bruins instead of focusing on what the Lighting are DOING RIGHT.

Now the Rays have seen an improvement nowadays when the analysts are not focusing on the attendance, but the question remains the same, “can they keep up with the Big Boys?” I don’t know has two division titles in three years not answer that question? Even in their slow start, Boston still garnered the attention as to “what the heck happened?” Now that everything is leveling off, maybe instead of the Rays success all the attention is gone to Jorge and his drama along with the “what is going wrong with the Yankees” debacle with their losing streak.

Now I understand that it is kind of hard to be taken seriously when you have a major league franchise named the Tampa Bay Rays located in St. Petersburg and you have the spring training home of the New York Yankees in Tampa across the bay. I mean I understand all sides what it would mean for Tampa’s economy should they lose the Yankees, but they should have thought of that when the major league baseball came knocking on their door with a new team. With the Yankees’ presence, you’re far less likely to ever ween those Yankee fans over to the Rays.

I also resigned to the fact aside from traditional college football diehards (i.e.: UF, FSU, UM), most of Florida is comprised of transplants. Even the Marlins have trouble drawing despite winning two pennants and a love-hate relationship with the owners. The Bucs have had a loyal following with the house of players that Tony Dungy built. The goodwill quickly ran out with the economy and jaded feelings with the Glazers as Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik have the uphill task of re-winning the fans over.

To fix this problem will take time and dedication. We have to realize that Tampa, as much as it has a reputation of being fair-weather, just have to put up with it. Tampa teams seem to strive when they’re placed in the “underdog” role. Yes, I know the 2004 Lightning won the Stanley Cup as a no. 1 seed. Yet, somehow that was so long ago comparatively. I noticed the slight increase on fanfare recent days as more attention comes slowly but surely to the likes of Stephen Stamkos, Simon Gagne and unsung playoff hero Marc-Andre “the other” Bergeron.

If Tampa is to get the respect it needs to get from the national media, we need to build on those very same traditions that made our rivals (i.e.: Boston, NY) so prevalent in their history to steal a line from Raiders owner Al Davis, “Just win, Baby!”

Has the Stargate franchise reached its “destiny?”

When SyFy decided to cancel Stargate: Universe in December, many Stargate fans were left wondering, “Is this it?” While there a wide range of science fiction franchises have had their share of longevity, but there comes a time when they have to learn how to “reinvent the wheel.” Even long standing franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek experienced their share of creative dry spells.

The Star Wars franchise remained relevant from the time of the trilogy primarily through novels and video games until the saga reinvigorated the surge and interest. Star Wars is continuing to be relevant through the Cartoon Network series, the Clone Wars.

Star Trek became a staple of American sci-fi culture for a good chunk of the 20th century. Following the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, fans wondered if the franchise was on its last legs. As talk geared towards revisiting the original series characters as young cadets, many wondered if the formula would work especially since the pre-Kirk Captain Archer failed to win enough of an audience to keep the show alive to sustain the usual seven seasons its contemporaries had (TNG, DS9 and Voyager). When the J.J. Abrams reboot of Kirk and crew became reality in 2009, Star Trek became a resounding success. While fans were stuck again with the “heavy on action, lack of exploration” that ultimately doomed The Next Generation movie franchise, the execution, character depth and nostalgia overshadowed any problems the movie had. The next Star Trek movie is set to be released in 2012.

Even though the Clone Wars is Star Wars only episodic foray into TV and Star Trek has yet made its return to TV, the two franchises offer Stargate fans some hope. Hell, even Doctor Who fans went through a collective dry spell after the series went off the air in 1989 (after its debut in 1963) and only to see a minor presence in 1996 before coming back in full force starting in 2005.

Without delving into they why SGU was cancelled, one has to ask if there is any place for Stargate left on SyFy. Caprica, prequel to the modern version of Battlestar Galactica, was also canceled around the same time putting the future of that franchise in jeopardy. With recent programming decisions (*cough* wrestling *cough*) and the pressure for sustainability, maybe serious co-creator Brad Wright and executive producer Joseph Mallozzi might want to consider a new home for the franchise. Perhaps FX, Spike, G4 or even USA could be potential destinations. After all, Spike and G4 have aired TNG before.

SGU’s cancellation also puts the question of the status of the SG-1 and Atlantis movies in progress (tentatively titled Stargate: Revolution and Stargate: Extinction). Will they get completed? Will it get shelved? Does it depend on the progress of a fourth television series?

I'm back

Well, I've neglected this long enough. Since my new venture is taking me to Sci-Fi Vanguard, I figure I can start sharing articles I do among other projects I'm working on. Enjoy.

Ron Jeremy on violence vs sex

"At the CES show in Las Vegas in January, I was debating Craig Gross, a pastor at the XXX Church, about the merits of porn.

One point I made was that violent video games are much worse for kids than porn. And then here at Kotaku you guys put up a similar article about the "adult" video game BoneTown where I play a starring role as an avatar who gets laid a lot, but doesn't kill anyone at all. Why do things like this make people so aggravated?

Sex is a natural, beautiful thing and a huge part of life. Medical and psychological experts agree that the act of intercourse and the associated hormones released actually improve happiness and well-being, but American culture shies away from celebrating or even mentioning it. Sex is treated in most of mainstream media like a dirty, evil thing.

In contrast, there is nothing natural or beautiful about violence. Unlike sex, the average person will likely not kill anyone in their lifetime, thank God. And yet the American public glorifies violence on television and in video games.

In most of the popular video games out there today, your character runs around blowing people's heads off or stabbing people to death as sprays of blood cover the screen. Would you really rather have your kids watching this than watching sex?

Many other societies around the world are much more open about sex. And many of them are so anti-violence that they ban video games in which the player can kill other human beings. And these countries, year after year, have much lower rates of violent crime than we have here in the US where minors are playing violent video games and watching violent movies (Dr. Phil did an entire special on this). I am not trying to knock the the video game industry, I am just standing up for the porn industry.

As for those who say porn causes sexual deviancy, according to research there has never been a correlation or a cause and effect of viewing porn and committing sexual deviant behavior. This is evident as far back as the Danish committee of 1978, and much later in the Williams committee of England, the Fraser committee of Canada, and the Nixon/Johnson committee right here in America, which have all shown that watching porn does not lead to deviant behavior. Many similar studies, though, have shown that watching violence can make one's thoughts and behavior more violent.

Two of the most popular industries in America are video games and porn. No one bats an eye at murdering an old woman in a video game, but covering up nipple is every parents group's crusade. Even a game like BoneTown, that is a combination of video games and sex, gets treated like it is a porno movie rather than a video game just because it shows some consensual sex between avatars. They have no blood and no killing, but the game can't even be played on consoles because of its sexual content.

My avatar in the game, as I mentioned earlier, does all manner of…well, you'll just have to play the game for that. But my avatar doesn't kill anyone in the game. Just like in real life, the BoneTown Ron Jeremy is a lover, not a fighter. And is that really so bad?

Ron Jeremy is one of the most prolific and well known adult film stars of all time, having appeared in more than 2,000 adult movies. He is also one of the very few adult film stars to make the jump into mainstream entertainment, with appearances in movies such as Orgazmo, Reindeer Games, Detroit Rock City and The Boondock Saints. He has made his mark on the music industry as well, where, besides appearing in music videos for numerous artists, he released a rap single of his own which stayed on the Billboard charts for 27 weeks. Ron has been a guest star on various television shows, written a memoir entitled The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz, and has appeared in multiple video games, including the aforementioned BoneTown."

Honestly, how can you not agree with him? I mean as far as influential behavior goes, violence should be abhorred, yet it's praised. Who do we kill in the realm of fantasy? Most often, not those who have always wronged us. It's usually some basis of the physical or psychological discrimination. I'm talking about mainly those who are of different skin or maybe just share a slightly different opinion on the issues.

Why is it so noble to live a life of violence? I mean I guess it's the psychological need to vent through bloodshed since gladatorial combat's been outlawed and execution is no longer a spectator's event. I'm not just talking about video games.

If picking between the two, I'd rather have my child caught learning sex than just learning how to eviscerate someone who doesn't agree with him. These family groups need to stop and think for a moment as parents, would they rather have their kid being caught having sex or seriously injuring/killing somebody? I mean I love my games and movies but this need to "censor" sex compared to violence is quite hypocritical in nature and needs to stop.

Red Letter Media Looks at Avatar

From the same guy who spent 70 min ripping George Lucas' Phantom Menace, here he demonstrates to you all, the diabolical genius whose name is James Cameron.

The A-Team Trailer

Another iconic, classic TV show gets the modern movie update. Joe Carnahan brings this 80s action show to the big screen starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper(the Hangover), Sharlto Copley(District 9), and UFC/MMA fighter Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson as BA Baracus.

Bioware Announces Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening

I'm totally psyched at this. Dragon Age: Origins is one of the most engaging and quality RPGs out there. Certainly deserves the top of the class honors as top RPG of 2009 from IGN and Spike.

PS3 - Michael Jackson edition

So Sony is releasing a PS3 bundle featuring Michael Jackson's "This is It" in Japan. If it were anyone but the "gloved" one, would we even be having this discussion? This is probably the sorriest excuse to get a game console. Then again, guess this society is just continuing to treat Michael Jackson in death as he lived in life, milking his "franchise" for all its worth. With all the discovered unreleased material discovered at his estate, "This is (far from) it."

Klingon Christmas Carol

Epic Ripping of Phantom Menace

Then again, this is probably the funniest educational film ever.

Iron Man 2 Trailer

It's finally here.

Worth it just for the final few seconds with War Machine

Student Orchestra Performs Music with iPhones

You could get skilled with the piano after years of practice, but imagine how good you’d be at playing an instrument you invented.

A college course and the iPhone are making that possible for computer-science students at the University of Michigan.

Now, at the end of the course, the class ensemble of 11 students are preparing to put on a live concert — one where every musician’s instrument is an iPhone.

Taught by Georg Essl, an assistant professor of computer science and music, the course (titled “Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble“) trains students to code their own musical instruments for the iPhone, using the Apple-provided software-development kit.

“What’s interesting is we blend the whole process,” Essl said in a phone interview with Wired.com. “We start from nothing. We teach the programming of iPhones for multimedia stuff, and then we teach students to build their own instruments.”

“We don’t stop there,” he continued. “We don’t just see this as an engineering exercise. We want to do the whole process where we start from nothing, and then we go to performance next week in a live concert, where people can come and listen to the outcome of what students have learned in the course.”

The advantage of digital music can be seen in instruments as far back as the electric guitar: the flexibility to manipulate bits of code to create different sounds, superseding the limitations of a traditional analog instrument. Naturally, technological advancement keeps raising electronic sound to new heights. In recent years, musicians have been experimenting with gadgets ranging from laptops to high-tech cellos, and from cellphones to bent circuits.

Essl said he’s been playing music with mobile phones since 2005, but the iPhone is unique because it starts out as a highly sophisticated blank slate with multiple sensors: a full touchscreen, a microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer.

Using the iPhone SDK and some supplemental audio tools provided by Essl, students in the course learn to program the device to play different sounds, based on the information it receives from one of its multitude of sensors. Tapping the display, shaking the phone or blowing air into the mic, for example, can all translate into different sounds.

Students in the class are experimenting with the iPhone in a wild variety of ways, Essl said. One student’s instrument uses the iPhone’s video-savvy screen and microphone to synesthetically work the relationship between color and sound. Another student is exploring what the iPhone can do with feedback and distortion.

“I think it’s an interesting spread,” Essl said. “People come to it not with a literal sense of, ‘I know piano. I want to build a mobile phone piano.’ They have a concept.”

The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble will perform Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. in the university’s Britton Recital Hall.

Source: Wired.

Shatner's Written Scene in J.J. Abram's Star Trek

What would have been like if William Shatner made his "cameo."

Star Trek: Generations

"Rock Band" Yoko Ono

Does Cold Weather Injure Cell Phones? Abusive Lab Test

 You know that cold weather can make your cell phone sluggish, or make a fully charged one read low battery. But can cold weather do serious damage to your phone? We decided to find out, subjecting six phones to progressively lower temperatures until they stopped working. Then, for good measure, we dunked some of them in liquid nitrogen. What happens when normal gadgets meet extreme cold? Read on to find out.

By Seth Porges

Illustrations by Dogo

Published in the December 2009 issue. 

We tend to assume that extreme cold and mobile devices just don’t mix. After all, cold temperatures can freeze liquid-crystal displays and slow the chemical reaction that gives lithium-ion batteries their charge.

But bringing phones into the cold is unavoidable—if you’ve ever gone skiing, or you simply live in Chicago, you’ve certainly spent hours in a freezing environment with nothing more than a layer of denim or a jacket pocket to shield your phone from the chill.

Exactly how cold can a phone get before it stops working? We decided to find out. For help, we called up our friends at Environ Laboratories, an environmental testing facility in Minneapolis used by the defense, aerospace and technology industries to simulate extreme conditions. We gave Environ a sample of six phones from various manufacturers. These models were the type of commodity phones that service providers often give away for free with new contracts—none was billed as “ruggedized” or designed to withstand extreme temperatures. Environ’s job was to freeze the gadgets in a temperature-controlled chamber (lowest possible setting: minus 100 F) until all six phones stopped working—no matter how much cold that required.  

In other words, we decided to push these phones way beyond the limits of their design parameters and warranties. Beginning at 40 F (the equivalent of a brisk autumn evening in New England), we let each phone run for 30 minutes before bringing the temperature down by 10 degrees. We repeated this incremental temperature drop every half-hour until the phones stopped working. Once a phone died, we gave it one last dash of mercy by bringing it back to room temperature to see if warmth could revive it.

Other than minor hiccups (slight screen dimming, slow key response), none of the phones had any real problems down to minus 10 F, when the low-battery indicator popped up on one Samsung, despite the fact that it had recently been charged. At minus 20, the same phone shut off (plugging it in and turning it on quickly revived it), and the displays of some of the other phones were difficult to read.

Thirty below is where the real fun began, with five of the six phones experiencing serious battery or LCD problems—the display on a Nokia became an unreadable block of blue, while bizarre bars polluted another phone’s screen.

Another 10 degrees, down to minus 40, and all but one of the phones was rendered inoperable. The last phone standing, an old Motorola Krzr belonging to a PM staffer, actually remained functional until about minus 55 F, when its battery died.

Remarkably, none of the damage appeared to be permanent—all it took was a return to room temperature to bring all of the phones back to life.

Still, we’re electronic sadists, and we weren’t going to let our access to Environ’s environmental testing facility—and its vats of liquid nitrogen—go to waste. Sure, the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was just minus 128.6 F (and the continental U.S. has never dropped below minus 70) but we couldn’t resist finding out how our toughest competitor could handle a dunk in a minus 314.7 F bucket of liquid nitrogen. 

  

Amazingly, the Motorola phone survived multiple dips in the coolant. The sub-sub-sub-zero swims caused its battery to shut down, but once the phone was warmed up, it came back to life with no visible damage. We even dropped the frozen phone to the floor from hip height. And although we expected it to shatter, the fall barely caused any damage. In fact, it wasn’t until we dunked the Krzr in the liquid nitrogen four times, and then forcibly threw it to the ground, that it finally called it quits. Even then, the screen still turned on when the phone was plugged in (although it was unreadable), and, amazingly, the audio still worked. Some keys even appeared to produce a response.

The results were reassuring, if not astonishing. The bottom line: Alaska residents might endure some screen problems or short-lived batteries on cold days, but nothing a warm room couldn’t cure. And if our phone can handle repeated swims in one of the coldest liquids on earth, yours can surely survive a day on the slopes without worry.  

Source: Popular Mechanics

HAL's bells: IBM makes 'thinking computer' breakthrough

All your Cheezburgers belong to us!

Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain - an effort that tests the limits of technology.

Even the world's most powerful supercomputers can't replicate basic aspects of the human mind. The machines can't imagine a wall painted a different colour, for instance, or picture a person's face and connect that to an emotion.

If researchers can make computers operate more like a brain thinks - by reasoning and dealing with abstractions, among other things - they could unleash tremendous insights in such diverse fields as medicine and economics.

A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near.

But this week researchers from IBM are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer.

The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 per cent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 per cent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Oregon, doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats.

The simulation, which runs 100 times slower than an actual cat's brain, is more about watching how thoughts are formed in the brain and how the roughly one billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses in a cat's brain work together.

The researchers created a program that told the supercomputer, which is in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to behave how a brain is believed to behave.

The computer was shown images of corporate logos, including IBM's, and scientists watched as different parts of the simulated brain worked together to figure out what the image was.

Dharmendra Modha, manager of cognitive computing for IBM Research and senior author of the paper, called it a "truly unprecedented scale of simulation."

Researchers at Stanford University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were also part of the project.

Modha says the research could lead to computers that rely less on "structured" data, such the input 2 plus 2 equals 4, and can handle ambiguity better, like identifying the corporate logo even if the image is blurry.

Or such computers could incorporate senses like sight, touch and hearing into the decisions they make.

One reason that development would be significant to IBM: The company is selling "smarter planet" services that use digital sensors to monitor things like weather and traffic and feed that data into computers that are asked to do something with the information, like predicting a tsunami or detecting freeway accidents.

Other companies could use "cognitive computing" to make better sense of large volumes of information.

Jim Olds, a neuroscientist and director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, called the new research a "tremendous step."

Olds, who was not involved in IBM's work, said neuroscientists have been amassing data about how the brain works much like "stamp collectors," without a way to tie it together.

"We've made tremendous advances in collecting data, but we don't have a collective theory yet for how this complex organ called the brain produces things like Shakespeare's sonnets and Mozart's symphonies," he said.

"The holy grail for neuroscientists is to map activity from single nerve cells, which they know about, into how billions of nerve cells act in concert."

Modha says a simulation of a human cortex could come within the next decade if Moore's Law holds. That's the rule of thumb that the number of transistors on a computer chip tends to double every two years.

Yet Olds cautioned that simulating the human brain is "such a complex problem that we may not be able to get to an answer, even with supercomputing."

"There are no guarantees in this game because the sheer complexity of the problem really dwarfs anything we've tried to do," he said.

Source: AP

Crysis goes Back to the Future

Crysis mod allows you to drive the DeLorean with flux capacitor, time circuits and all.



At least it's not this, from Mr. Cinemassacre, James Wolfe:

Controller Ornaments for the Holidays.

Source:  Ponoko.com

My only regrets is that there seemingly is no love for the Super Nintendo or hand-helds.

Banned PSN player sues Nintendo and Microsoft

The judge should just sentence him for wasting the court's time and resources instead of just throwing it out.  Any lawyer who takes this should have his license revoked.  I didn't think in the world of games it could get more embarrassing than Jack Thompson, but here comes this guy.  Picture about sums it up.

 
After being banned from the PlayStation Network for hateful comments stated in Resistance's online community, Erik Estavillo launched not one, but two, lawsuits against Sony for infringing on his "first amendment rights" -- an argument that was shot down by Judge Ronald Whyte simply because "Sony is not part of the government."

However, what Estavillo lacks in civil online discourse, he makes up for with sheer determination and persistence. In addition to Sony, he now has both Microsoft and Nintendo in his sights. Estavillo is seeking $75,000 from Microsoft for the "undue stress" and "sadness" caused by his Xbox 360's RROD. "Microsoft should have to bear the burden that is now put on the shoulders of this disabled plaintiff," his claim states -- a burden that is equivalent to the sum of 375 Xbox 360 systems, apparently. Nintendo is being sued for interfering with Estavillo's "pursuit of happiness." And how exactly is Nintendo doing that? "Deleting, blocking or prohibiting the Homebrew Channel and Ocarina applications" via a system update.

We're hoping you can see the sheer brilliance of Estavillo's strategy. He's offering the perfect opportunity for PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo fans to agree on something for once.


Source: Joystiq

Law Firm Sniffing Around Xbox Live Class Action Suit

A law firm that specializes in consumer class action lawsuits is probing the recent purging of Xbox Live accounts in what may be a setup for future litigation.

Inc Gamers noticed that AbingtonIP currently has a form on its website asking those affected by the ban—and who were not refunded a prorated sum for their time remaining on Xbox Live—to send in pertinent information. The law firm writes, “Microsoft has chosen to use one of the most indiscriminate 'weapons' in its arsenal in an effort to combat piracy -- as a result, use of this 'weapon' has resulted in a great deal of collateral damage -- many people were affected who had nothing to do with piracy.”

AbingtonIP calls the timing of the widespread ban “convenient,” in light of the pending, post-ban release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and thinks the ban may have resulted in a boost to Xbox Live subscription revenues. If the ban had been enacted before the release of MW2 and Halo 3: ODST, the law firm supposes that sales of both games would likely have been “greatly diminished.”

Source: Game Politics