I have recently been entering a drawing for a Canon 5D Mark III and thought I would post this up for an extra 100 entries
Courtesy of: SnapKnot
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A drive to win a new camera
ADHD and Me!
Growing up with ADHD is something I got to do and this video really does accurately describe what it can be like. A lot of people grow out of it as they get older but it’s still there, your attention is easily drawn away and things are very quickly forgotten. You’ll have random bouts of energy where you act like an insane person who just smoked a bunch of crack and will usually make a fool of yourself. Eventually, you learn that you can still learn something without your full attention on it. This doesn’t work in schools. Most people with ADHD are the kind who learn by doing what they’re being taught not being told what to do.
There are people that say ADHD/ADD are just parents trying to control kids, the difference between a kid who has a lot of energy and one with ADHD can be night and day. The one with a lot of energy may be able to focus for hours on end on one subject, while the kid with ADHD will maybe get a good five minutes at a time before something draws them away. I’ve even seen ADHD compared to bipolar or manic depression without the severe depression.
Being able to control ADHD without medication is not something you do easily. I still struggle with focus issues, I forget things I have been told minutes prior because either something caught my attention while I was told about it or something right after being told took my interest very quickly after. It’s a constant frustration in mine and my family life. Try as I might though there is that little bug that is always looking to the next thing. Sometimes, like with this video, something just grabs hard onto your attention though. It drives you, it gives you a hyper focus, makes you need to complete whatever it is that drove you to start. It borders on a brief obsession and then quickly begins to fizzle. If you’ve read any of my longer posts you may realize where this happens for me. Even now after writing this for the past 20 or so minutes I can feel my interest for it waning but since I can recognize that feeling I push myself to finish even at the detriment of the quality.
PAX Prime 2013 Recap
Well, another PAX has come and gone and this one was longer than any before it at 4 days. I was lucky enough to attend all of them.
I thought of doing a full run down of my activities for each day but even I wouldn’t want to read all of that so we’ll just go over the highlights. Friday included a few panels and meandering about the show floor getting our bearings. Normally we would be rushing around trying to get as much done as possible but that fourth day added a sense of time and let us relax and explore a bit more getting a better feel for this year’s layout.
This year I attended a lot more panels. Including the Penny Arcade Q&A, Rooster Teeth Panel, Assassin’s Creed 4 and the Major Nelson Podcast panel (which comes out this coming Friday and you will be able to hear me ask the first ridiculous question) just to name a few.
Now, the games. With such a big year with the launch of the new Xbox One and PS4 there was an insane amount of things to get your hands on for the first time. Just a quick thing, I didn’t play any PS4 games, not because the lines were insane but nothing there really interested me. That being said, Titanfall, this is definitely a game to believe the hype about. It’s incredibly fun and dynamic but doesn’t really feel like a “Next Gen” game but more like a super polished end of a generation game. Which in all honesty we will probably be seeing for the next year and half to two years until developers have time to really delve into the hardware.
While in line for Titanfall Microsoft was running a demo of the new Kinect where they were taking people out of line to play some Kinect Rivals and I was more than happy to volunteer. I played a jet ski game which involved opening and closing your right hand, stomping your foot for a boost, leaning for turning, and pulling your arms back getting a boost off of a jump. Being an owner of the original Kinect it’s safe to say that this new iteration is a huge step up. The sensor recognized quickly when my hand opened and closed,which to me is the biggest test as it is focusing on such a small target than the original did.
There was so much to see this weekend that I really can’t go over everything without making this post super immense so I’m going to go ahead and end it. Sorry for the massive break in writing but I will be trying to write more now that the Next Gen is coming.
Zach
A Year
I can’t believe it’s been a year already. A year ago today, at 2:06 am my wonderful wife, Kyla, gave birth to our beautiful daughter Lilly Faye. It’s been an incredible year and I couldn’t be happier.
Being able to watch this little person grow has been absolutely amazing. Watching her go from this little ball of baby goo, to this rambunctious little girl has been a blast. Lilly keeps on amazing me with how quickly she learns. For her entire life there has been a coffee table in the middle of the living room which she has walked around hundreds of times and just the other day, she decided that she no longer wanted to just walk around it and decided “I’m getting on this” and she was able to pull herself up onto the coffee table without ever attempting it before…Needless to say it was stopped quickly.
I can’t wait to see what this little purse loving, thrill seeking, sassy girl becomes in the next few years. She is amazing and I can’t find the words to express how happy I am that Kyla was able to bring into this world.
I love my girls.
The Near Future of the Gaming Industry
So with the Next Generation of consoles looming very near I have been thinking more and more about what should be in the Next Gen Xbox and Playstation. No, I am not including the Wii U as a Next Gen console because it’s not, adding HD functionality and a tablet controller does not necessarily make your console Next Gen.
With the Xbox and PS, NOTHING has been announced at all, the respective companies haven’t even confirmed that they are building new consoles so this is all speculation and personal desires.
That being said I wanna start with the biggest thing I need from both consoles, multitasking capabilities. With as many media services that are on the 360 and to a lesser extent the PS3 I feel it would be awesome to be able to stream music as well as using the browser or play a game simultaneously. The fact that the consoles are still single task systems is dating them to me. I know that you can use the internal storage and music players on the consoles but with all of the music streaming options that can be utilized now there shouldn’t be any reason that a Next Gen system wouldn’t be able to do two things at once.
Another thing I would need is more On Demand games. I do like purchasing games in stores at times, especially for Limited Editions, but in all honesty if I am on the fence about a game I am more likely to buy the game if it is available as a downloadable title. If games could be released in line with the retail copies at a slightly lower price, like $5-$10 less, I think the sales of games that aren’t necessarily AAA titles would actually increase. By cutting out the cost of manufacturing discs, shipping cases of games, paying for the space on a shelf and possibly having the games sit and go to the clearance bin publishers and developers would be able to direct more money towards the development of the games creating better quality games than some of the AAA titles that make money but have some serious problems out of the gate.
Recently I have been hearing rumors about consoles not having a disc tray at all. While I think this is where we will be going eventually I don’t see this as a feature on Next Gen consoles. There are still a surprising amount of Americans that do not use high speed internet services but own consoles. Taking away the physical media of the disc is going to severely limit the sales of a system. Not only would the console require a constant internet connection to get games and content, you would also be asking people who may not be completely competent with the internal menus of a console to now navigate and make purchases exclusively through a UI. Being a former Customer Service Rep for a gaming company even the simplest of menus will confuse quite a few people.
Regarding the graphics quality of the consoles, a lot of people use the PC debate saying that consoles will never look as PC’s which is true. A console is a fixed set of hardware while PC’s are constantly evolving. That being said I would LOVE to see modular graphics options in a new console. It won’t happen but it’d be awesome.
In all honesty I would love to see a more refined version of today’s consoles. The wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented anymore and expecting a jump from Xbox to Xbox 360 or PS2 to PS3 shouldn’t be expected. What I think we will see is basically a hardware refresh. Upping the processors to multicore processors and upping the graphics chips to chips that are about 2-3 years old in the PC world. This may even be the last true console update. With technology not having any major advances in PC hardware the last few years we may start to see things taper off in terms of hardware advancements in consoles.
Halo Love Letter
Dearest John,
It’s been almost five years since we have seen you last, finishing the fight against the Covenant. I’ve missed you John, sure there was another while you were gone but that was a losing fight. Nothing can replace the best Spartan II ever. Now as I wait patiently for the tale of your newest journey I can’t help but reminisce about the days of old.
Nearly 11 years ago we started this fight together. Landing on that first ring and battling through to rescue Commander Keyes and preventing the spread of the Flood. I can’t believe that after everything we went through there losing Keyes to the flood, having to manually detonate the Pillar of Autumns fusion reactors that little bastard 343 Guilty Spark survived. I always knew there was something wrong with that guy.
Remember when we returned home? You and Sergeant Johnson were supposed to be getting commendations for the acts on Halo, you even got some new better looking armor the Mark VI but all of that was cut short when the Covenant showed up and started attacking New Mombasa. Those guys are persistent but we were together again John, we could stop them from destroying Earth. And we did. We chased them away and followed through slip space to only discover another Halo. Again we fought against Covenant and Flood together but this time it was different, there seemed to be some tension within the Covenant ranks. The Brutes seemed to be getting more and more of the higher priority missions when that was previously the Elites job. Something had definitely happened.
I won’t ever forget meeting with Gravemind and the Arbiter, discovering that the Covenant’s “prophets” no longer favored the Elites and had begun wiping them out of the Covenant. The Arbiter was now on our side wanting to destroy the corrupted Covenant. We did need a bit of help.
Now we’re pretty much to when we last met John, finishing the fight. I remember these words so clearly. WE were going to end this. Landing in that damn jungle with snipers and Brutes everywhere was hell. Finally getting ourselves to The Ark where that damn Guilty Spark was, ready to not only fire Installation 05 but all of the remaining Halo. We both knew that couldn’t happen. But first there was a more pressing issue, we needed to find Cortana. I could tell you were having a tough time constantly stopping and holding your head like something tearing into your psyche. But we did it, we found her and of course she was prepared and led us to The Ark where Guilty Spark very nearly activated the rings. But with the help of Sergeant Johnson (what does it take to kill this guy!?) and the Arbiter we were able to finally get rid of that damn floating asshole and activate the self destruct sequence on the Ark. After making our harrowing escape to the Forward Unto Dawn the explosion of the ring caused the slip space portal to destabilize and rip the ship in half. With the Arbiter safely returning to earth and us floating near a dark planet.
Now after 5 long years we begin again, on Requiem. This mysterious forerunner planet. I have no idea what trials stand before us now, John. But I am ready and I am happy to fight alongside you once again.
See you on the other side Spartan
Zach
Welding Glass Filter
So recently I have been posting pictures that I have been taking through a piece of #12 Welding Glass on my Facebook and Flickr. You may be wondering what sort of effect would that have if you have never seen pictures through a very dense filter. What I am doing is replacing another filter called a Neutral Density Filter that allows you to leave your shutter open for extended periods of time while in bright light, this can create motion blur in your images.
Bridge in Snohomish WA shot around 11am with shutter open 322 seconds
Now it’s also not just as simple as hooking up a remote and locking the shutter open. You actually need to do a bit of color correcting to get the shots to look right. Most welding glass is tinted a green or purple giving your shots the tint of your glass.
This is the same image as above as it came off of my camera
Using Adobe Lightroom I am able to use the tint slider to adjust the color of the image giving it a more natural color.
I am no expert in this method of photography but I know that when I posted this image people were asking about so I thought I would give a bit of a walk through on how I put the filter together for less than $20.
#12 Welding Glass
I started off by ordering a very cheap wired remote from Amazon that was able to get the job done that I needed which was just opening and locking the shutter open. I was able to pick one up for just under $5 with free shipping. Then I also had to pick up the glass, which I honestly thought was going to be the most expensive part which definitely was not the case. I went to a local welding shop and asked for #12 welding glass which is one of the darker shades. I picked up the glass for only $6. You may notice in the picture above a small piece of tape, well you’d be correct I used electrical tape to attach a clear UV filter to one side of the glass.
Filter side
Now I did use a lot of tape, which is somewhat necessary. Since the shutter is going to be open for such a long time you don’t want any light leaking through the seal between the filter and the glass that can ruin your minutes long exposure. When putting the electrical tape on you want to be careful not to go too far over the edges of the filter as not to prevent the filter from screwing onto the lens once you have your shot set up.
So that is how I was able to replace a $90+ Neutral Density Filter with a $10 filter, $6 piece of welding glass and $5 remote.
Profile view
PAX Card
Welcome to my blog! I see you were brave enough to scan the QR Code on the otherwise blank business card. As a reward for your bravery here is a kitten.
I understand this is a weird way to get views on my blog but hey, you scanned the code. If you feel like it, check out my other posts! May I suggest my Xbox 360: A Love Story post or maybe my How-To Make a Welding Glass Filter for Your DSLR?
Anyways, I hope you have an awesome rest of PAX!
Zach
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Time For An Update
Hey Internet! Sorry it’s been awhile since an update things have been kinda busy and honestly I haven’t had much to write about.
In family stuff, today Lilly is 6 months old. The cliche “kids grow up so fast” is extremely apparent to me now. It’s incredible watching her get to different milestones. She is trying hard to be mobile as well, if left to her own devices for a few minutes she can turn her way across a room.
In tech news there have been quite a few big announcements over the passed week and a half with the introduction of the new Surface tablets, the RT and the Pro, which look more functional than an iPad to me. They have a built in kickstand and the cases have a built in keyboard so not only do you have the functionality of a touch screen device but you can also have the convenience of a full keyboard.
(Tangent: Why are these devices, iPad, Surface, and the android tablets, even called tablets? Tablets already existed
and were shit. I understand the vernacular is already ingrained into the culture but I preferred the term Slate that was originally coined when the iPad was initially introduced.)
Also Google has made some announcements at their I/O conference, they are going to be providing their Project Glass glasses to Devs for $1500 and they currently don’t have the capabilities previously demoed when they were originally announced which doesn’t really surprise me since it’s a first gen product.
This was just a quick update of things going on, I’m hoping to have a bit more next week and possibly shots from the 4th and a homemade lens filter that I put together recently.
E3 “Live” Blog
What’s up guys. I am going to be doing a “Live” blog so I will be updating this page quite often as things come up. I put Live in quotes because I am not there, I’m streaming as many of the press conferences as possible starting with the Microsoft conference at 9:30 PST so keep an eye on this page for updates!
My desktop for the day!
8:58 am – Larry Hryb (Xbox’s Major Nelson) tweeted that if you are streaming the event from your console, Xbox.com/e3 or Facebook there will be a special 15 minute preshow.
9:11am – About 3 minutes until the special preshow that Major Nelson tweeted about.
9:16 am – Preshow begins!
9:17 am – Showing from the new Tomb Raider game, looks very dark and rainy.
9:19 am – Now showing the already released CoD: BLOPS 2 trailer. Expect to see more of this in the main show.
9:21 am – Discussing the BLOPS 2 Trailer.
9:22 am – Looking at highlights from old E3’s, Bill Gates announcing first Xbox.
9:26 am – Amping up Halo 4 news. Halo 4 is going to be opening the show for Microsoft this year.
9:27 am – First Halo 4 trailer ran, now talking to Josh Holmes from 343.
9:30 am – Pre show is over time for the big show!
931: am – Opening with an ad similar to the ODST Hell Jumper ads. Shows a UNSC ship being ripped apart.
9:32 am – Giant sphere chases after crashing UNSC ship while Cortana tells Chief where to go.
9:33 am – Campaign gameplay being shown. Wlaking through a forest, finding a group of Covenant that get zapped by a mysterious orange laser.
9:35 am – Attacked by different robots “definitely not Covenant”
9:36 am – Picked up weapon, designed by Forerunners
9:37 am – More robots attacking, new weapon takes care of them very easily.
9:37 am – New visor mode shows enemies through trees
9:38 am – Mysterious voice ” I have long dreamt of this day, Reclaimer.” End of trailer.
9:39 am – Don Matrick is on stage welcoming everyone. Feed is a little glitchy
9:40 am – Xbox went from #1 selling console in North America to #1 world wide
9:41 am – Trailer for what looks like a CoD game, man carrying an injured man in a Middle Eastern desert. into a tent
9:42 am – Turns out it was actually a new Splinter Cell game.
9:43 Explaining that a new terrorist organization has taken over the Black List
9:44 am – Showing gameplay of Sam Fisher using some pretty fancy moves to take out insurgents. Named killing in motion
9:44 am – Showing Kinect integration, hiding and calling over a target to kill them.
9:45 am – Oh look another way to see people through walls.
9:45 am – More kinect calls in an airstrike.
9:46 am – Sam finds his target and gets all physical.
9:47 am – Splinter Cell Blacklist is shipping Spring 2013
9:48 am – Head of EA Sports talking about how the Kinect will be used with Fifa and Madden in the 2013 titles.
9:49 am – Showing how to change players and plays in Fifa using voice commands for the Kinect. also calling for passes and shots.
9:50 am – the player gets a yellow card for yelling at the ref through the Kinect, kinda interesting.
9:50 am – Joe Montana on stage to show off Madden’s voice commands.
9:51 am – Calling audibles on the line
9:52 am – Calling passes and telling players where to go.
9:53 am – Joe Montana seemed to enjoy it. Thinks it will give him an edge while playing.
9:53 am – Now showing more for Fable: Journey which was shown last year. Now with more Kinect integration!
9:54 am – Phil Spencer on stage
9:54 am – “Only the best games are on Xbox.”
9:55 am – Giving a lot of praise to the devs exclusive to Xbox.
9:56 am – Trailer for the new Gears game.
9:56 am – Seemed more like a teaser lots of flashes and then Baird.
9:56 am – Now showing the trailer for Forza: horizon the Forza open world game.
9:57 am – Showing different environments, lots of dubstep. Different races being ran through all sort of different setttins.
9:58 am – Usuf Mehdi on stage talking about the future of the entertainment side of the Xbox and the different apps.
9:58 am – Using the bing feature to find different genres of movies.
9:59 am – Bing voice search is being expanded to 12 different countries.
10:00 am – Showing the bing features in Spanish
10:01 am – Plans to double the entertainment apps. 35 being announced. Nickelodeon, Paramount, Machinima, and Univision (spanish) are highlighted.
10:02 am – Sports streaming apps are going to be growing with the NBA
10:03 am – NHL Gamecenter as well (Ihasexcite)
10:03 am – ESPN app is going to be 24 hours of ESPN content .
10:04 am – Showign a demo of all of the Sports apps that will be coming to Xbox,
10:05 am – Lots of bros watching sports.
10:06 am – high fives all around
10:06 am – Xbox Music announced, going to have over 30million tracks. sounds like it is going to be a Pandora-esque service. Across Xbox, Windows 8, and Windows Phone.
10:07 am – Welcoming the “Future of Fitness” with Kinect.
10:08 am – Nike VP is on stage.
10:09 am – “If you have a body, you’re an athlete”
10:10 am – Nike+ Kinect Training is being added to the Xbox for those who use the Nike+ training feedback tools.
10:11 am – Showing how Nike+ Kinect Training is perfect for you! Honestly, not too impressed with this.
10:13 am – Mark Whitten is on stage
10:13 am – time to hear about Microsoft’s new Smart Glass which connections Xbox, Tablet, PC and Phone.
10:14 am – Will work with WindowsPhone and Android devices.
10:14 am – Can transfer film from device to TV, device becomes a info tablet about the film.
10:15 am – Watching Game of Thrones on stage now giving info about the episode on phone and tablet.
10:15 am – A map of what is happening in the show appears on his tablet.
10:16 am – Showing how SmartGlass is going to make games better. specifically Madden and a on the fly playmaker.
10:17 am – Now showing how Halo 4 is going to give you information about waypoints and what you are looking for. Also allows you see game invites and join without actually leaving the game you are in.
10:17 am – Your phone is now able to work as a touch device for your Xbox, which I find awesome.
10:18 am – Web browser is finally coming to the Xbox using Smartglass as well. will be here this year, most likely in the fall Dashboard update.
10:19 am – Checking out the Prometheus website to watch a trailer.
10:20 am – checking out the Aston Martin website now. The smarthphone acts as a touchpad for your TV
10:21 am – SmartGlass and IE for Xbox coming this fall.
10:22 am – Talking about integration between Xbox, Windows 8 and SmartGlass
10:23 am – More Tomb Raider, this time gameplay Lara has a bow shooting at some drunks
10:24 am – Game is looking beautiful.
10:25 am – A few zip lines, some big jumps, flaming arrows
10:26: am – Lara stabs a guy in throat. She’s grown up even though this is a prequel.
10:27 am – Falling down a waterfall with some quick time events.
10:28 am – Parachuting through trees and getting pretty banged up.
10:28 am – DLC is going to be released first on the 360
10:29 am – Talking of this generation makes it sound like they are going to be talking about the future. AKA the next gen.
10:30 am – Ascend New Gods is being shown and looks gorgeous.
10:31 am – check it out at http://www.ascendgame.com
10:32 am – Another game, futuristic assassin game.
10:32 am – nope futuristic motorcycle racing.
10:33 am – another futuristic game made for Kinect called Matter
10:33 am – showing RE6.
10:34 am – Oh no, lots of zombies, Leon ditches his comanion and goes into a buildin.
10:35 am – Takes out a couple of zombies and then a huge mass of zombies comes running up some stairs. Nothing a little grenade can’t solve.
10:36 am – Being attacked by more zombies, plane crashes into a building nearly crushing Leon as it falls down.
10:36 am – Thought they were safe on that helicopter, not so much.
10:38 am – Leon “Not my lucky day” tons of zombies.
10:38 am – Now showing Wreckateer. Which is an XBLA Kinect game for destroying castles
10:39 am – Angry Birds type game where you fire a crossbow with different types of shots to destroy castles.
10:40 am – Showing the trailer for South Park The Stick of Truth. Looks incredible and hilarious.
10:42 am – Matt and Trey poking fun at SmartGlass and the Kinect.
10:43 am – They explain how they make the game look crappy to make it look like South Park.
10:44 am – Still working on the game .
10:45 am – Oh look Dance Central 3.
10:46 am – Usher teaches us how to dance. Is now performing on stage.
10:47 am – Lots of Ooh Baby baby’s (brief finger break while this performance is happening.)
10:49 am – Ok song is over. Showed him dancing with the Dance Central in the background
10:50 am – Don is back wrapping up. talking about ushering in new entertainment.
10:51 am – Closing with another blockbuster game, Call of Duty Black ops 2
10:52 am – New trailer, looks like some gameplay footage. On a bus in LA with the President.
10:53 am – Unmanned vehicles take down a helicopter and even more hell breaks loose in LA
10:53 am – You come to on the bridge and almost instantly fall off of it. Hop into an AA gun start shooting at the UAV’s
10:54 am – F38 is now your overwatch providing airsupport as you guide the president to your safe location.
10:55 am – Showing off the futuristic weapon that, shockingly, let’s you see through walls. This seems to be a common theme with these shooters.
10:56 am – Smash cut for the interest of time into a mall. Being shot at by a quadcopter.
10:58 am – fighting through the mall being attacked by all sorts of little UAV’s
10:59 am – Trying to get to a SAM to get rid of the larger enemy air.
11:00 am – Control your own quadcopters with a fancy wrist band.
11:01 am – Uh oh a building almost fell on you.
11:02 am – You are now piloting an FA38
11:02 am – This is definitely on rails. Just point the reticle and pull the triggers.
11:03 am – That’s it!
Time to give my fingers a break!
