DJI Phantom Vision+ First Footage

Another sabbatical is in the can

Six months since I last "punched in" to my day job.  And tomorrow, I'll punch in again.  I thought I should write down my thoughts on what I did with my skin during that time.  Mostly for my own reference, but do read away if you're curious, and comment, if you want.

PAX East

First stop was PAX East as an honorary member of the Space Team along with Henry, Sara and Philippe.  It was my first consumer-centric games con (been to GDC a few times).  Boy is the crowd dense.  Already making plans to attend PAX East next year.  I'll be there as long as I can get tickets, which unfortunately usually sell out within 12 hours.

North-East Asia

Next up was all about planning my first-ever big trip.  First time out of the continent, first time out of my home for more than 2 weeks.  Being a complete noob when it comes to trip planning, I made a number of mistakes in the planning and execution of that trip, here are a few takeaways.

- The Government of Canada's website for Canadians travelling or living abroad contains a wealth of useful information.  The page for each country has many tabs, make sure you consult them all.  Especially the Entry/Exit requirements.  Ahem.

- If you're going to do a multiple-stop trip, try not to return anywhere you've already been.  For example, I went Montreal>Vancouver>Beijing>Tokyo>Kyoto>Tokyo>Montreal.  The second stop in Tokyo was just a day, plus a day of travel, so sort of a waste.  If I had to do it again, I would probably do Montreal>Vancouver>Beijing>Shanghai>Kyoto>Tokyo.

- This one's for me: Don't make a travelling vlog.  It's too much investment :)  Had fun doing it for a while.  But it's too much work.

Aside from a few minor hiccups, the trip went exceptionally well.  I enjoyed it very much.  The Great Wall was probably the most breathtaking sight.  Japan was awesome and I really want to go back.  I would live there, if I didn't have to work there.

Gettysburg

After my lonely trip to Asia, it was time to go on a bromantic getaway with Francis and Jean-Luc.  And nothing spells bromance like a trip around old battlefields to see where men killed other men in huge numbers!

Manassas/Bull Run, Sharpsburg/Antietam and Gettysburg.  With a day in Washington to start off.  The battlefields are well maintained and very interesting to visit.  The tour guide, 'specially the artillery expert at Antietam, were entertaining and resourceful.  Gettysburg has the most to offer, but also is the biggest tourist-trap of the three.  Complete with Ghost Walks and other nonsense.

Back to Zulula

Those trips (PAX excluded) were meant to disconnect me from my omnipresent thoughts on game development.  And they did.  When I came back I had to decide whether or not I would make one last push to bring Heroes of Zulula to Unity and therefore iOS, or if I was just calling it a day and moving on.  Either to another game or away from indie dev permanently.

I chose to give the Heroes a final push and a proper send off.  They will land on iOS and Android (in their new form) in late October/early November.  Look forward to it!  Dammit.

Ingram

So in Japan I bought this Ingram model kit.  For those who don't know what an Ingram is.  Shame.  Anyways, assembling it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.  Did I discover some sort of future hobby of mine?  Time will tell!

Ottawa road trip!

Fascinating one-day stop at Ottawa for the Diefenbunker and Mosaika with Jean-François and Shelley.  The Diefenbuker is a great cold-war-era underground bunker.  Felt like I was in the Canuck version of Fallout.  Mosaika was great!  Only 30 minutes but worth it!  I noticed Ottawa has ghost walks as well.  What the eff?

Weight and health

I gained about 5 pounds during the that whole period.  Not a lot considering the 15 or so I had gained the last time I did such a thing.  Since that time I had lost 35 or so, so it's not like these 5 make me any closer to being back to where I was (close to 300 pounds, ugh!).

I did notice I gained the bulk of that weight while doing work on Heroes.  During the last sabbatical I worked on a game 100% of the time, and I gained weight 100% of the time.  As I get older I am establishing a correlation between working on indie games and doing everything wrong when it comes to my health.  I don't know how that observation will inform what I will do after Heroes ship, but it's there.

It's a wrap

I'm quite happy with this sabbatical.  Didn't spend it all in front of a computer, but instead with good friends travelling to cool places!  So, it's a win!  Back to work tomorrow.  Looking forward to seeing the whole gang.  Having lunch with the G-Man, going up the stairs with Robert, telling Vincent why he's wrong, again.  Arguing, being right, being wrong, making hard and easy recommendations, living with the consequences.  Hopefully making things better.  Time to saddle up.

Fantasia 2013 Recap

(Missing from this picture: Lesson of the Evil, The Grand Heist)

Another awesome lineup this year, and I think I've only seen the best!  Here they are, more-or-less in order of preference.

Let's start with the bottom movies.  Still very good, but in that company, some have to find themselves on the bottom.  I would have to place Black Out and Secretly Greatly at the bottom.  The former was a confusing crime/amnesia thriller that was good but didn't leave me much of a lasting impression.  Secretly Greatly was a bit too long for its own good.  Again, these movies only pale because of the company they're keeping on this list.

After School Midnighters was a weird kids' movie.  Completely crazy and nonsensical.  But with musical numbers.  So it balanced itself out, I guess?

Commando was great, but it was no Singham.  Lack of moustache, belt whipping and face-palming attack didn't stop the main character from being one of those ultimate badass, though.

I'll give it my all...tomorrow was an excellent albeit the most depressing movie I've seen this year.  As someone who sees his own midlife crisis coming (unless I'm already deep in it) I can see this movie as a warning, an example not to follow.  Sweet and brutal, with a sort of anti-lesson endgame that left me a bit bitter about the protagonist.

Big Ass Spider! was certainly one of the better low-budget monster movies I've seen.  No doubt due to the chemistry between the hero and his security guard sidekick.

Just remembered I skipped over Gatchaman.  Gatchaman was good because it reminded me of watching the cartoon version of it (Battle of the Planets/La Force G) when I was young.  It was spectacular in SFX but had a few annoying continuity error.

I was expecting a lot less from Bounty Killer, but you can definitely feel the passion covering up the low budget in this.  Stylized, anti-corporation, violent, and overall awesome.

Saving General Yang was a great Chinese epic with a cool twist.

The Grand Heist was hilarious, well-made comedy about ice thieves.  An "Ocean's 11" taking place in 18th century Korea.  Loved it.

Takashi Miike is turning into an industry of his own, putting his name behind 2 movies this year.  Both Lesson of the Evil and Shield of Straw were pretty solid, and certainly find themselves in my top 5 of the year, but they don't compete for the top spot, in my mind (the best Miike, or the best of Fantasia 2013).  

Library Wars was very good, and gave me my fix of Chiaki Kuriyama.

Best of show has to go to Hentai Kamen: The Forbidden Superhero.  Although I seriously hesitated between this and the overall sweeter, better acted and more professional-looking Machi Action, the raw energy of HK and the powerful resonance it created with the audience created an experience unlike any I've ever lived, even at Fantasia.  So HK wins.

** EDIT: I added Gatchaman, which I had forgotten

EA is the worst company in America, and the waitress putting 2 sugars in my coffee instead of 1 is the worst thing that ever happened to any human being, ever.

The first time I felt deeply, truly ashamed of being a gamer is when I witnessed the Mass Effect 3 ending backlash.  Having just finished it and believing the ending was "not the greatest thing but ok anyway", I thought the level of backlash was just unbelievable.

There is something that's becoming the norm, and I find quite upsetting: flash mob mentality.  An issue doesn't exist, then it's the most important issue in the history of mankind and the person the mob points to as evil must be destroyed, then the issue disappears almost completely.  Usually we're talking 2 weeks for the whole process.

So the Ocean Marketting guy was a fucking dick, the Pycon gal was a stupid cunt.  EA is a bad company (they even named one of their battlefield game after that fact *badum tish*).  Is the backlash received warranted?  Nope.

Guys and gals receive death threats, threats of violence, phone calls in the middle of the night (Ocean Marketting guy's private home address and phone was divulged to the mob, for fuck's sake).  Now EA is voted worst company in America by consumerist users.

Banking and telecommunications oligopolies, have no fear.  The mobs of the internet will save you from being exposed, by pointing fingers to faulty and annoying DRM schemes.  I'm sure a lot of jokes are being told in a lot of corridors of a lot of actually bad companies about them being "not so bad".

I leave you with this fake response from EA, which as far as I'm concerned could be a real one, and I would admire their balls (although it would be corporate suicide): http://www.dorkly.com/article/51363/eas-reponse-to-being-named-the-worst-company-in-america

Game of Thrones Ascent: Why do I care about this?

So every facebook/social/web game is pretty much the same.  You click something, a timer starts, you wait a certain amount of time, you click something else.  Never saw the point.  Never played any of them.

When Game of Thrones Ascent launched, being a somewhat excessive GoT series fan, I thought I would give it a go.

Being one of the Lords of Westeros had a certain appeal, so I went in.  Although it was fine in the beginning, I quickly found out I was sort of fly on the wall for every single scene of the series.  Turns out, in this game, you're not a Lord of Westeros with your own set of problems and issues.  You're just a side character to the series, popping into every scene, even those that wouldn't concern you at all, and you make calls that can't possibly change the story (because it's the main arc).

So Catelyn Starke captured Tyrion Lannister.  What do I care?  Viserys was butchered by the Dothraki hordes.  So what?  I'm neither a Lannister, or a Targaryen.  I'm a Baratheon bannerman.

They clearly went though a lot of trouble researching and writing all of this.  But why?  I'm still playing.  But I'm also starting to wonder why.  Where's my story in all of this?

Yearly weight "loss" recap

Let's get this over with, just because I do it every year and well, that's it.

After managing to remain stable for 2011 with 0 net loss or gain, 2012 was a bit harder, and I ended up on the growth side of things with a positive 12.8 pounds gain.

On to the next post.

Amazon, UPS, the pits.

Conversation with an amazon rep about UPS.  Trying not to give that guy too much grief, but at the same time, this is so irritating.

You are now connected to Devi Priyanka from Amazon.ca.
Me:I've been a long-time customer of Amazon, but seriously if you keep using UPS to ship your stuff, I'll have to stop ordering from you. They can't deliver anything without it turning into a fight for my stuff. Ordering online is supposed to be simple, but as soon as a package falls into their hand it's a guaranteed struggle. Go back to Canada Post. Please.
Devi Priyanka:Hello, my name is Devi . I'll be happy to help you.
I'm really sorry for the experience you had with the carrier.
Just to confirm, are you referring to the order ######### ?
Me:Yes. Take a look at the manifest from the carrier: ############
On 12/11/2012:20:53 I requested an address change. Yet today they attempted a delivery at the exact same address
Devi Priyanka:Please give me a minute, I'm checking that for you, Christian.
Me:And now they claim that "as requested by the customer, the receiver will pickup at a UPS facility". This is false, I never requested anything like that.
Devi Priyanka:I'm so sorry for that.
In this case let me check with the carrier if they can make the next delivery attempt.
Me:Ok
Devi Priyanka:I'll check with them and I;ll send you the confirmatuion email within 1-2 hours.
In case, if the carrier is unable to do so, would it be possible for you to pick it up from thee carrier location?
Me:Their location so far out of the way that it's pretty much unthinkable
Devi Priyanka:I'm really sorry for that.
In that case, if they're unable to redeliver the package, I'll create a replacement for this order.
Would that be fine for you, Christian/
Me:It used to be Amazon shipped via Canada Post. Canada Post has facilities all over town and it's super easy and convenient to get your stuff when they can't reach you. UPS doesn't respond properly to exceptions, they can't process simple requests like address changes.
And most important they can't deliver
If you file a replacement order the same thing will happen.
They'll mess it up again.
Devi Priyanka:I completely understand your concern. Unfortunately, we do not have an option to refer a specific carrier, however, I'll pass it on to the right people in our company for taken in to consideration.
Me:I'm tired of talking to them on the phone every order I place. Their job is to get your stuff to me. They can't do their job.
Devi Priyanka:I'll certainly pass this on to our shipping department to make necessary action against this carrier.
Me:As long as the replacement order is free, in a way I don't care, it'll just bounce back if they can't be bothered to do their job
Devi Priyanka:Also, If you won't be home when you expect the delivery, you might want to leave a note asking the driver to leave the package with a neighbor or building manager. Otherwise, it may be easier to have the package delivered to your business address instead.
Sure thing.
Me:The address change was to tell them to deliver to my work instead. But now there's a new policy at work about no personal deliveries, so everytime I do that I get in trouble.
Devi Priyanka:I will create a replacement at free of cost for you. Also, I noticed that Logitech USB Headset H390 is Temporarily out of stock with us.
Me:Yeah I ordered the last one.
Devi Priyanka:In case, if they are unable to make the delivery, I will issue refund for the item which is unavailable and create the replacement for the available items.
I will try our best to ask the carrier to redeliver the package.
I will check with them and send you the confirmation e-mail within 1 - 2 hours,
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Me:It's annoying to me because I ordered that set, you had it in stock and because of these idiots I won't have it.
I'll only conclude with reiterating that UPS is poisoning your business. I used to love shopping at Amazon, now it's just painful.
Devi Priyanka:I completely understand your concern, Christian. We will certainly take necessary action against this carrier.
Me:And whenever I complain about UPS on my social network, I always get supporting comments.
So, I'll be waiting for your mail.
Devi Priyanka:yes, you can expect my e-mail within 1 - 2 hours.
Me:Thank you.
Devi Priyanka:Thank you for contacting Amazon.ca. We hope to see you again soon! Please click the end chat link to close this window.

Kickstart your health?

I recently donated to indiegogo's Let's build a God Damned Tesla Museum campaign.  But that's not what this post is about.  When I started to browse the different campaigns on indiegogo, I was struck by a bunch of them that are about helping someone recover from an accident or illness, paying for medical bills and so on.

I'm sort of sad and revolted that these things exist.  In my book, internet fundraising campaigns are often a sort of lottery, where if you push the right button of the right person at the right time and they make the right tweet about it, you make a million dollars.  If not, you make next to squat.

I'm fine with that when the projects are things like videogames or books or bands or even museums.  But are we looking at a healthcare lottery?  These campaigns have videos and pictures and such.  So as a "consumer of good feelings" you can pick and choose who gets cured and who doesn't based on how photogenic these people were prior to their horrible accident and/or illness.  Maybe add how they voted at the last election?  Their favourite bands?  How about a reality show?  Vote who gets to keep that kidney.  10 cents per call!

I do not harbour hard feelings toward the people who launch these campaigns (as long as they're legitimate).  Some of them are genuinely in need of money to get their loved ones back on track.  But I could never donate to any one of them.  Health care is a basic, fundamental right.

2011 Weight Loss Recap

Quick weight recap.  As some of you know I note my weight more or less every morning and I crunch this data in Libra, a very nice Android app.  Every year I do a recap.  This year I've included all three years in the chart, with little green dots when something significantly positive (for my weight loss) takes place and a red dot for something negative.  I'll write this year's main events after the break.

This year hasn't gone as planned.  In fact, for a while it looked like I was going to go off tracks completely.  But I steered back at the last minute, and ended up with a glorious 1lb loss for 2011.

2011 started well enough.  Despite the expected holiday bump, I kept the course and kept losing the weight.  Then in late February I made a fateful decision.  My game development schedule was beginning to slide, my motivation to complete it and the growing competition on Android meant I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible.  For that I needed more time.  And working out takes time.  So I took a break from exercising to crunch for the game.  Turned out not to be a great decision.  If we isolate the crunch time alone it's not so bad, but going off course for so long meant it would be that much harder to get back on it.

When the game was released I did my best to get back on track, and succeeded in a way.  But a few moments later I went to Disney World for a vacation, and when I returned I completely failed to return to my good habits.

For the next few months I would take it really easy.  Step on the bike only once in a while, eat like crap and overall returning to a lifestyle that had made me into the near-300 lbs man I hated.  But the slide was so slow that I always believed (correctly it turned out) I could steer it back.  In November I saw my trend going up, and decided it would not be acceptable to finish 2011 with a higher trend than I began.  So I cut back on desserts, returned to the bike on a regular basis and restarted Dance Central, now Dance Central 2, with increased dedication.

And so I end 2011 with 1 lost pound over 2010.  Considering I was aiming at losing 40, it's a rather colossal failure.  But considering I'm still going "the right way", I dare say it could've been worst.  Now aiming for a 30 pounds loss for 2012.  I think it's reasonable, or to put it in a way more fitting for 2012, it's not the end of the world.

2011 Personal Twitter Hall of Fame Inductees

I consider twitter my hive-mind.  Basically, if I need to know something, odds are it will show up on my twitter feed.  If not, either I didn't need to know, or my twitter feed is broken and I need to add people.

This year I decided to give a special mention to those twitter peeps who keep me well informed, who give good insight and provide me with such a great twitter experience.  I've made 2 Top Fives, one Anglo and one Franco, plus a Top Three read-only feeds.  Here we go:

Top 5 Anglo contacts:  These are awesome people I follow, and I'm quite honoured that they follow me back.  I put them in alphabetical order because I don't want to have to sort them out.

EmilyClaireAfan: I was lucky enough to meet with her at this year's MIGS. Recently became director of development and communications for the Canadian Interactive Alliance. Go Emily and looking forward to meeting you again at the 2012 GDC.

mike_acton: When I went to the GDC of 2008, I hadn't heard of Mike Acton.  I left his speak as his new biggest fan.  It's hard to hold a certain belief and be convinced that you're pretty much alone, and then see someone like Mike Acton confidently tell it like it is in front of an audience that's probably (maybe) going full steam against that, or at least has always been told things should be completely opposite.  Since then I've been following his tweets, his speeches and his awesome http://altdevblogaday.com/ initiative.

psychicparrot: My #1 twitter pal, cool dude and maker of all http://psychicparrotgames.com/. Embodies the enthusiastic spirit of indie dev! Continued success through 2012 mate, looking forward reading your tweets.

stevestreeting: The mastermind behind Ogre for 10 years, Steve has positively influence so many people, free of charge, that it's hard to imagine him not deserving whatever good he gets.  Dissecting the Ogre source code is probably the single most important factor in me properly learning OOP, which is critical to understand in today's world.  His insight on technology, business and politics are generally spot-on.

VillageGamer: Deeply connected to two of the most awesome things there ever was: Canada and Technology.  Tami of Village Gamer has been nothing but great towards me and I look forward to seeing more Canada-centric tech articles from her!  Thank you for your coverage of Heroes of Zulula, Con Sonar! and Slash!

Honourable mentions (hope to hear more, see more, and maybe work with you in 2012) : SamColes, MasterBlud and stevewhitemusic

Top 3 Read-only feeds: They don't follow me back, but they provide me with great information, and you might not know about them.

MobileSyrup - If you're interested in the mobile industry, and are Canadian, Mobile Syrup can be your first and last stop.

theMapleTap - Canadian history factoids, because you can never know enough, eh?

RealTimeWWII - Interesting concept, RealTimeWWII is a twitter feed broadcasting from 72 years into the past.  You can relive World War II through

Top 5 Franco:  Mon top 5 franco pour les gens familiers avec la langue de molière.

MarieLuneHB - C'est difficile de pas vouloir suivre Marie-Lune, une geek totale qui s'assume et qui tweet plein de tranches de vie de manière directe et franchement pissante.  À noter qu'elle tire comme un Stormtrooper.  C'est à considérer avant de l'ajouter à votre squad d'Halo.

mcbernard - Impératrice du MIGS et connectée comme peu sur l'industrie du jeu vidéo à Montréal.  Je l'ai croisé au MIGS et je peux dire qu'elle est totalement awesome!  Elle tweet dans les 2 langues.

BenDaGeek - Collaborateur à M. Net 

MelBChartier - Podcasteuse sur les jeux vidéos.  Habite ma région natale et partage mon nom de famille.  Suivez-la.

Zomby2D - Vieux pote du secondaire.  Fan d'Android.  C'est déja bein en masse!

Mentions honorables (à suivre pour 2012) :

Kamelot78, Scalazormo

Velvet Assassin Review

I'm done with Velvet Assassin, which contrary to what that usually entails, doesn't mean I've finished it.  A bit of context: I bought it off Steam for 5$ a few weeks back.  I had usually heard not-so-good things about it but I decided to give it a go.  I fell in love with the story of the real character that inspired this game, so I started with a positive predisposition.

Took me a while to get used to it.  Although the concept of crawling in the shadows and stabbing an unsuspecting Nazi in the spleen is oddly satisfying, the game completely collapses onto itself as soon as you are spotted and suddenly need to be a competent fighter.

As such, the game suffers from three major flaws:

First, the "slit a dude's major artery" button is the "A" button.  Whenever you're close enough to a bad guy who hasn't seen you, pressing "A" instant-kills the bastard, one-shot.  But what does the "A" button does if you've been spotted?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing at all.  So if you're a fraction of a second away from bringing down a Nazi, and you're spotted, "A" will not do pull out your knife and at least attempt a slash, it'll do nothing.  To use a brain-wiring analogy, it would be as though you were an expert knife fighter, but only with your right hand, and if you wanted to assassinate someone, you had to do it with your left hand.  Makes no sense.  This is made even worst by the fact that what triggers the shutdown of the "A" button is the beginning of the enemy's surprise.  So you can be one centimeter away from his throat, and 1/100th of a second away from ending his life, suddenly your attack button does nothing.  In real life, the dude would still die, he would just die a bit more surprised.

Second, once surprise is gone, you have to activate the horribly clunky trigger-based fighting controls.  This joke-of-a-system turns your expert assassin into a bumbling, drunken, marksmanship-deprived idiot.  Throughout their evolution console-based shooters have evolved several compensation mechanisms to counter the fact that controllers are awful when it comes to precision and aiming.  Velvet Assassin ignores all of that and gives you raw unassisted aiming.  The argument for making manual aiming/fighting clunky and bad in stealth action games is generally based upon the fact that if you play your game well, you're never supposed to resort to that.  You're an expert stealth killer, not front line grunt.  In a way I could forgive this if not for the third and final flaw : no stealth in the final battle.

For the final battle, the designers decided to throw out everything that was good in their game and focus exclusively on what sucked: the no-stealth battles.  Made artificially difficult, not by its design but by the horridness of the controls, the final waves of enemies produce an endless exercise in frustration.  Oh and you can't go back and grind to level up your stats.

Velvet Assassin isn't such a bad game, and I would've left with a better experience had the ending just been sneaking up to a dude and slitting his throat, one-shot, rather than this.  It's so annoying to give up on a game at the end.  I find myself doing that more and more.  But that's going to be part of an upcoming rant entitled "Games are too long".

Until then, rant-off.

2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss - Quarter 4: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If there was one way to describe my behaviour in the third quarter, it would be this: Asleep at the wheel. I failed to recognize the changing landscape and I just kept on course, even though that course was headed straight for a cliff. Fortunately, I woke up and managed to steer clear of the abyss.

October started with the progressive implementation of two new rules that would set myself up to reach my first major milestone. The first one, which was implemented on day 1, was to go up the stairs, 20 floors, four times a week. I was extremely lucky for this one, because a group of cool motivated people at work were already doing this on a daily basis. All I had to do is attach myself to that group. Motivation is always easier in a group. And it's also much more interesting to talk your way up, than to do it alone, in silence.

The second one was the complete boycott of everything related to bloody machine. This means the machine itself, the coffee machine next to it (instant ain't so bad) and any activity benefiting from the revenues of either. I cannot force them to fix the problem, but I can make bloody sure I don't support them until they do. But control is a hard thing, when faced with these options everyday. So I applied control where I could: No change. I empty my pockets of loose change every morning. And I try to never create a situation where I will have spare change in my pocket.

A very wise friend once said to me: The best way to win in life is to pit your weaknesses against one-another. Instead of trying to fix your weaknesses, find out if another one of your weakness would be able to deal with this one. The original weakness being gluttony, the ones used against it would be sloth and pride.

Sure every time I go for a glass of water in the kitchen I am stared down at by the machine and its contents. But will I step on my pride and ask for change? Not really. Will I break a 20 by making the effort of going down the elevator to buy some from the dépanneur? Meh. Maybe I don't want this crap so much, now.

The results of these two rather draconian measures was instantaneously felt, and my weight started to drop rapidly and consistently. I lost a bit more than 2lbs, and reached a huge milestone (marked with A).

What's that? A rapid climb? A giant bump on the road? Are my new measures failing. No they are not. The point marked A in October signalled my passing from a Class II Obese BMI-rated person to a Class I. Huzzah! And as it was planned since the beginning, this called for a week-long binge and a break from any and all exercise.

Considering the circumstances leading up to the achievement, I could've decided to postpone the binge. But what good is a reward system if you deprive yourself of it when the time comes?

So I crossed the line back up again, but rapidly crossed it a third time. This time, hopefully, for good.

November was a great month. It saw the arrival of a new and important piece in the puzzle: The Kinect. Just as Dance Dance Revolution helped me in the past, Microsoft's motion-detecting gizmo would play a huge role in the upcoming month.

There are two ways to look at November. One could say I lost only three pounds in a full month. I prefer to consider I lost four pounds in under three weeks. December would show that the second way to look at it was a better indication of the future.

With a winning combination of the morning bike routine, the almost daily 20 floors stair climb, Kinect Dance Central, and the boycott of the machine, December became my best month on the record. With close to seven pounds lost and almost an 100% trend dropping metrics. There was one exception, marked A, when a convergence of Christmas and Birthday-related obligations led to four restaurant meals in a row, and a very tiny bump. But other than that, even the Christmas Eve party (marked B) didn't managed to bump my actual weight above my trend line.

An so my 2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss ends on an very positive note. Although the road through it was bumpy, inconsistent and often doubtful, I managed, at the very last moment, to get back on track and deliver acceptable results.

Lesson learned: Find weaknesses to deal with your other weaknesses. Apply control where it is easiest.

I would conclude with this bit of advice: Find the proper tools to help you. You can succeed with willpower alone, but if you have proper tools you'll have an easier time, and a lower chance of failing. Who knows what these are in your case, but in my case, those were:

1. Prioritisation. Your weight-loss process must be #1 or close to #1 in your order of priority. In my case it started to work when I replaced my game development project (which can be an endless time sink) with this as a top priority in my life. Of course, people with families might not be able to bring this to #1, but keep it as high as possible.
2. My strategically positioned stationary bike along with an endless array of 30-minutes TV shows to watch on it.
3. The "Libra" app on Android.
4. Proper Metrics. I can't stress this enough. Being able to properly quantify the consequences of your actions is an absolute key.
5. The stair-climbing posse (Michelle, Carole and Françoise).
6. Pride (Trumps Sloth and Gluttony).
7. Coffee (haven't mentioned that, but it helped a lot. I used to not drink coffee at all. Now I have 1 coffee after lunch and it does wonder to eliminate the need for a mid-afternoon snack).
8. Sloth (Trumps Gluttony).
9. Kinect Dance Central (with special thanks to Nelly Furtado, Lady Gaga, Cascada and the Quad City DJ's, all of whose music I would never listen to in any other circumstances).

Considering my current trend, I have every reason to believe 2011 will see my ongoing weight problem as something of the past. I'll come back to this blog in a year, and tell you all about it. Happy New Year!

2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss - Quarter 3: The Fucking Machine

I deliberately left a piece of the story out of the last entry, because this quarter will be devoted almost exclusively to it. Even though it entered into (dis)service in June, its full effect became quite obvious in the third quarter.

A company that prides itself into offering its employees classes on health and fitness, a company that has been exclusively offering fresh fruit as snacks to its employees. That same company started offering candy bars and chips in the kitchen, inside a dark gray monstrosity of a vending machine. Right next to the water cooler. But these blog entries are about the numbers, so let's start with July:

With a -0.4lbs (I usually round monthly results, not this time). July was very hard. My rhythm was the same, except for that blasted machine. Compulsion works rather sneakily. You slip once, you slip twice, pretty soon you just give up on that week, and then on the month. Although there are healthy options in the machine, what power do these wield? Not much. I was still, strangely, unable to pinpoint the machine as the source of my failure. I failed to see just how much money I was pouring in it. It would take another two months for the wake-up call.

August started much as July ended. In a complete stand-still. Despite sweating my ass off on my bike and rationing my food intake at home, there appeared to be no way of breaking off that stalemate. Until the final weeks of the month came. Then all of a sudden my weight started to drop, in an abrupt fashion. I was relieved. August would salvage my efforts with a striking -4lbs, most of which took place in the final two weeks. It was only a few weeks later, after isolating this drop, that it became clear. My weight dropped while I was on vacations (Marked A).

There is a reason why my first entry dealt with 2009. It is clear that staying home was a huge problem when it came to sweets and fat accessibility. If, from my home workstation, I only needed to walk five feet to get some crap food, then there is a problem. My workplace environment provided a sanctuary, a place where in order to get crap food, I needed to make an effort for it.

The machine turned that reality upside down. My workplace environment became much more hostile than my home environment. Even though the latter remained as poisonous as ever. That new reality would now lead to the complete failure that is September.

Late August's drop misled me. I really thought things were under control. As September began, my weight zigzagged around my trend line. I was unable to make any progress. By the middle of the month and an endless array of quarters swallowed by the machine, it became obvious that I was losing this battle. Protests against the machine's presence or its content were quickly dismissed or laughed away.

The third quarter was certainly the hardest, with a grand total of four pounds lost. Although my resolve was strong, and my efforts as far as biking and controlling my home food intake remained, it was obviously not enough. When September ended with a positive +0.8 lbs, it became obvious that drastic measures were necessary.

Lesson learned: Never think things are under control, and don't expect or rely on outside support.

More to come in the fourth and final quarter of 2010: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss - Quarter 2: Rhythm Found

I began the second quarter reeling from what appeared to be a failure in finding a maintaining a good rhythm. Post GDC con crud was over but I had somehow lost motivation. For a long period (marked A) I even stopped weighting myself. I kept on doing little things but I really had trouble finding my rhythm.

Had I kept weighting myself I would've found out the small steps and attempts I was making were actually working. Something I found out when I stepped on the scale after a while. I only lost a bit more than a pound, but it was still positive.

May marked the discovery of the exercise rhythm that more or less holds up to this day. It goes like this: 1x20 minutes of bike, four weekdays out of five, first thing after breakfast. 1x40 minutes of bike Saturdays and Sundays, anytime between breakfast and lunch.

In May I also managed to strike a sustainable calorie/sweets intake regime. I've tried to simply pull the plug on sweets. But that never worked. It always led to a binge or two, generally in such rapid successions that any gain I made would be instantly lost. Going for granola bars or tiny fun-sized treats also never worked. I would simply eat more because they weren't satisfying.

My own personal favourite: M&M's Tiger Brownies. These have the lowest calories of all their dessert offerings. Even though they recommend cutting it in 12, I managed to cut it in 16 and still get a decent amount of satisfaction from them. They don't taste so good that you can't resist having more, or so bad that they don't give you any satisfaction.

This recipe led to an awesome month of May, with a loss of more than 4 pounds. A pound a week is 52 pounds a year, which would be enough, really. So as long as nothing changed, everything would be fine.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't be. Some people at work had a brilliant idea, and it led to the bumps and slides of June.

Still, 3 pounds lost in June is honorable. Not great, not even that good. But it's still in the right direction.

The second quarter of 2010 saw me go from 279lbs to 271lbs, so only 8 pounds. Having lost 11 pounds in the first quarter, it meant things were not progressing as they should. But they still were. 20 pounds for half a year means 40 pounds for a full year. Not too bad right? Unfortunately, things would go from bad to worst in the third quarter.

Lesson learned: Numbers are you best friend. Never stop inputting numbers in the machine. Even if they don't speak to you at first, looking back at them might give you more information than you'd think.

More to come in Quarter 3: The Fucking Machine.

Giftless Christmas

This year, for the first time ever, the family tried an experiment: no gifts between adults of the family. We got together for the food, and there were still gifts under the tree, but they were for the two children. Whatever couples decided to give each-other wouldn't happen at this event, but in private. We tried several things over the years, secret santa (I hated that), everyone gives to everyone else (strain on the budget of some). And so on. But Christmas was always stressful. There are two reasons gifting didn't work.

The first is that, as a family, none of us are really on the same planet. We all love each-other but have our separate fields of interest. Quite frankly, I wouldn't know where to begin in order to buy my sister a gift. Nor her a gift for me. We fixed that with an exchange of wishlists. And then we decided on a relative budget. But as I explained to them, this more or less equated to all of us putting a 50$ bill in a hat, then each of us picking a random 50$ bill from that hat. I often tried to go outside the list, with mixed results. Exchanging gift cards is even closer to that. So meh.

Above that though, I think the primary reason goes more along the line of: We all have more than enough crap as it is. We're lucky to all be relatively well-off. Whatever we really need, we can get. We all hear that the essential thing on Christmas is to spend time with loved ones. Wasn't it time to focus on that?

Yesterday was the big Christmas Eve party. Here are the results:

Result #1: the pile of gifts was much less obsece and shameful than that of years past. It was still there, and it was still a lot, but it didn't make me want to go out of the house and scream apologies to the less fortunate.

Result #2: More time. The time spend unwrapping my gifts, I instead spend with my nephews building up their new Star Wars lego sets and other gifts. We also managed to play cards, something we always think we'll do but always end up skipping. Wii fit was also part of it. More quality time, less crap.

Result #3: Although a few family members (3 out of 5, actually) proclaimed that it was very hard for them not to buy gifts for people, all of them agreed after the unwrapping that it was for the best.

Result #4: It started and ended way earlier. Less preparations means we could get together at about 6ish. And I was home by midnight. None of us are getting any younger, and none(?) of us try to pretend we're still young. So getting to bed at 3am isn't a requirement any longer.

Conclusions: It was a very good decision overall. And I'm sure we'll stick with that. For me, it means that the forced Christmas consumerist drive is at an end. For mom, it means the stress of "getting the right thing" is gone. For sis it means focusing on getting gifts for her sons. For bro, it means his budget isn't as strained as it was before. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.

2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss - Quarter 1: Enter the Bike

January's trend can be attributed to two main elements: A return to work, and the arrival of my stationary bike.

Return to work didn't only mean that I had two imposed 10-minutes walks (to the subway and back), but mostly a slightly more active lifestyle with much less access to crap food like cake or chocolate, which strangely always managed to find their way into my cupboard.

As far as biking went, things were a bit awkward. The tool is one thing, the routine is another. Still fixated on finishing my game, even a few minutes a day appeared a lot. I started with 40 minutes routines during the evening. I couldn't manage to do them more than twice or so a week. It always felt like wasted time, and was unsustainable.

I still wonder how I managed to lose the 4.2 pounds I did. I attribute it to the fact that the first pounds are the easiest to lose.

Note that the big "A" zone in this image marks a time when I did not weight myself or did not enter the data in the spreadsheet. I just had a starting value (290) and an ending value (285.5).

Across January and February, different food rationing attempts and exercise routines were made. None of them were particularly effective. Either because they didn't achieve much, or were untenable. Finding a balance between "not enough result" and "so much effort it can't be sustained" would become the most difficult part of this effort. Still, another 5 pounds gone. It appeared that even though my rhythm was erratic, the effort was paying off.

March marked the very first bump. There would be more, but this one was the first, and it hit pretty hard. I was fully expecting my trip to San Francisco and the GDC (marked with A) to cause an upturn. But strangely, it was far otherwise. However, I caught a very bad case of the "con crud", a month-long cold, and went into a complete exercise shutdown just following the GDC. That prolonged period of idleness whose beginning is shown here, would see its effects continue in April. (Note that I did not weight myself during the period of the GDC).

As a first quarter go, this one wasn't so bad. From a 290 to a 279 trend 12 weeks. In three short months I had lost everything I had gained during the last year, so I had every reason to look up.

I had no clue that in a few more months, one of the main reasons why I managed to lose that weight would disappear.

Lesson learned: Finding a rhythm that's sustainable and delivers results is of the utmost importance. Accept that your first attempts may not be well-adjusted, be ready to readjust.

More to come in Quarter 2: Rhythm Found.

2010 Odyssey in Weight Loss - Prelude

2010 will have been a great year for my weight, as the data you will be presented with will attest. During the next few weeks you will be presented with 4 quarterly graphs showing my progress, each of which will be accompanied by a blog post like the one you're reading now.

Before I get started, a quick note on the process. I used to enter my weight everyday in an openoffice calc spreadsheet, and have it calculate my trend and so on. A very clunky process. In April I got the "libra" app for Android. More on it later, but it's absolutely awesome.

I cannot stress this enough: For me at least, having as much metric as possible is essential for many reasons. The more obvious one is to know where I am and where I'm going, but it's also awesome to link cause and effect. Again, more on that later.

Let's start with a quick recap of 2009:

Note that the red line represents the calculated trend, the white lines with red dots at the end represents the actual weight of the day. Anything in green was added later, and is referenced in the blog post.

2009 saw huge variations in my weight, mostly on the wrong side. The green line is an estimate based on the times I weighted myself during that period. I do remember starting 2009 in a downward trend. That wasn't the result of any effort on my part, as much as the result of a rather difficult breakup. The following climb also entered into that. First I lost my appetite, then I overcompensated. Wish I knew how I should've dealt with this better, but I consider it the same as getting into a tailspin: you do your best, but you accept you'll lose a lot of altitude.

Point A marks the beginning of a six-months off work sabbatical. Those weren't vacations by any means, but were really meant for me to finish this huge video game project I had been working on for 3 years. Considering I would be off work, I also assumed I would have plenty of time to exercise and so I bought a Dance Dance Revolution hard mat to help me out. Needless to say, that didn't do much.

One thing I will say about weight loss is that it's all in your head. But I don't mean it in a holistic bullshitty sort of way. I mean it in the sense that if you don't really absolutely commit to it, you'll fail. The "B" circle is a prime example of that. Notice how every time I get above the 290 pounds mark, I immediately take a downward turn, but as soon as I'm comfortably below, I climb back up?

This ping pong effect is the result of a great and absolute commitment that has always been with me. It simply is: I will never go over 300lbs. As soon as the threat looms, I adjust my behaviour, I change what I eat, and what I do, and I get results. As soon as the threat is gone, then eating right and exercising play second fiddle to working on my game project. If my brain could rework my behaviour around that commitment, then changing the nature of the commitment would be what's needed to get my weight lower.

Point C marks my return to my job after that sabbatical. I think the fact that I had utterly failed to achieve my project objectives did put things into perspective. I realized that had I focused on weight loss as a primary, and the project as a secondary, instead of the other way around, I still would have failed the project, but maybe I would have succeeded with weight loss.

So I went with the clichéd new year resolution. In 2010 I would take the necessary measures to drop the weight. Starting with buying equipment. Considering the space I had to deal with, I went with a stationary bike. And considering my weight, I went with a rather expensive one. Those kinds of decisions are always hard, because we all know where home exercise equipment usually end up, and that bike was more than a thousand bucks. How would that work out for me? More to come in the first entry of 2010: Enters the Bike.

Why I hate American Dramas

Yesterday I watched the first episode of "The Walking Dead". I have always been a fan of zombies (although they are getting quite overused these days) but I'm also very wary of recent American dramas. When I watched "The Walking Dead", and suddenly found myself hurling heavy and sharp objects at my TV, screaming at the writers and cursing the series to hell, I finally realized why: It's inconceivable for any American Series, be it period-piece, modern drama, science fiction or fantasy, to be centered around ANYTHING except people cheating on their spouse.

They can't help it. It has to come to the forefront. "I am a high-ranked publicity firm director in the '50s? Of course I cheat on my wife." "Cylons everywhere? Well I'll cheat on my super hot wife and/or husband." "Zombie apocalypse? Let's blow my husband's best friend. After all, I haven't seen my husband in a few days, so fuck it." Is it even remotely possible for them to not have this as the main plot point? Is it a marketing thing? "The female demographic we try to reach needs this gossip/cheating mechanism to get hooked. You have to throw this in. Also, it has to be in the first episode. Chop! chop!".

It sucks, because if used properly, it can become a very powerful element of a well thought-out series. Captain Sheridan's wife in Babylon 5, for example. How that works out. Very mature, very human.

Now it's just part of a marketing checklist. These current-generation characters are supposed to be more real because they're flawed. But once the way flaws are inserted becomes so obvious, they become as fake as the over-the-top heroes of the golden days.

And don't get me started on how this pattern is poisonous for real life human relations. Because if all TV characters cheat on their spouse, what do you think YOUR mate is doing when he or she spends more than 5 minutes away from your sight?

Fuck it. I'll just watch Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes or Fullmetal Alchemist again.

Flash on Android. The End?

This morning I woke up to a popup screen on my Motorola Droid. It was a system update that would (finally?) allow me to install the Flash plugin on my device. At long last I was going to be able to test out this "full web experience on mobile".

I'll start out with my conclusions: Flash is most likely dead. The "full web experience on mobile" marketing scheme is a total bungle, one from which Flash will have a nearly impossible task of recovering from.

Here's a conversation that probably took place at some point:

Marketing Guy: "Can we get Flash applications to run on portable devices"
Tech Guy: "Of course, a computer is a computer. Code is code. It can be done"
MG: "So we could advertise the full web experience on mobile right?"
TG: "Well, I wouldn't go that far, the technical specifications of mobile dev..."
MG: "You're saying we can't get Flash applications to run on portable devices?"
TG: "We can, technically, but current Flash applications are not optimized to run on low-end equip..."
MG: "FULL WEB EXPERIENCE! We'll definitely kill Apple with that. Forever. We rule. Marketing FTW!"
TG: "But..."
MG: "No time for arguments, get coding, I take care of the press releases!"

So they've spend the last year overselling Flash. And now the smokes and mirrors are gone, and the end result pretty much sucks. People were expecting the full web experience on their mobile (wonder who put THAT in their heads) and they're experiencing what they would if they pulled out a 7 year old computer out of the closet, installed Vista on it and started browsing.

The backlash is violent, and based on what people have been sold, justified. But is Flash truly over?

First of all, I think it's fair to separate Flash development into 2 categories: website design/navigation and visually heavier web applications (such as games and movies).

As a website design and navigation tool, Flash is dead. Finished. Over. Its hardware requirements are too steep and the added value vs. HTML5 is becoming non-existent. You used to need Flash for things as simple as decent rollovers and any form of movement. Not anymore. Is it worth it for a website to maintain both an HTML5 version for mobile and a Flash version for laptops and desktops? I don't think so.

And since HTML5 now embeds videos, that too is over for the little plugin that could. Sorry Adobe, time to move on.

Here is, I think, the last thing that could both save Flash and also tremendously help Android as a platform: Flash games.

Flash is a unique and incredibly well-crafted integrated development environment. One that has been in heavy use for the past decade. You have legions of Flash developers out there ready to make new or port old Flash games. There are thousands of Flash games spread throughout the Internet at the moment. Many of these games exceed in quality the current Android offerings. Offer Android Application as a target platform for Flash. Of course developers will have to optimize their code, test their games against the actual hardware it will run on. (Meaning Flash applications would suddenly run well on mobile devices). You could then boost the catalog of good Android games. As a developer, the cost-benefits of porting existing code and assets on the platform with just a few adjustments would suddenly make more sense.

Android wins by getting more content, and Flash wins for staying a pertinent development environment (for a few more years). For Flash, that's kind of a last hope. For Android, although the platform did lose face and credibility for not really being able to offer that "full web experience" it promised, its current adoption rate makes this issue a non-threat.

Supreme Commander II: Final Thoughts

So despite my previous post I ended up finishing Supreme Commander II. The thing about modern RTS is that they assume you're playing the campaign as a sort of training for your eventual online multiplayer annihilation. A completely false assumption in many cases, but nonetheless it means the single-player campaign is relatively short. So I played through it.

I don't hate Supreme Commander II as much as I did originally. It still has some of the ingredients that made Total Annihilation a classic and Supreme Commander I the last great RTS.

The physics-based movement and combat of Total, which even in 1997 made Starcraft look completely obsolete and even puts the as-of-yet-unreleased Starcraft II to shame, is still present.

The story is another positive. Although not as deep and intriguing as Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, is still leagues beyond the previous Supreme and Total before them.

Still, so many efforts were put to dumb down this series. Efforts like unit type reduction and the removal of the crucial factory automation process. Efforts that do nothing to deepen or streamline the experience, but just serve to increase the clicks-per-minute numbers to a pathetic Starcraftesque level.

Final thoughts? You can't win against Starcraft, as bad as that game was and as bad as the second one will be. The crowds will flock to it, buy it, love it. So why change course to match this mundane-magnet? You want their endless supply of money? You ain't getting it. And you're turning your niche against you.