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Doctor Who – A Good Man Goes to War

Recreation, Reviews, Television No Responses »

Jun 052011

Here’s a quick mini, no spoilers, review…

Steven Moffat had said that we were going to be getting some answers this year… And he’s come through.

I won’t be going into any details, until our next Viewing Next (5/12/2011), but we learn the answers to some of River Song’s mysteries. We learn more about the baby, and that Rory has a reputation now…

Overall, my only complaints were the spitfires in space. True, the were only there for 10-15 seconds, but I didn’t like them the first time. Why would I like them the second time around…

Overall, out of 10, I give this episode an 8….

I don’t believe this episode is a “game-changer”, at least, I would have to see the second part of the season before I can make this decision.

But, we may see The Doctor trying some different tactics in the future. As we kept mentioning during Torchwood. For an highly secretive and unknown agency, Torchwood is quite well-known.

Torchwood 2-01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

EXT NIGHT Cardiff streets, for once from the ground
(Starts with the cute sequence with the old lady, the crossing lights, and the fish.)
(SUV pulls up)
GWEN: Scuse me, have you seen a blowfish, driving a sports car?
(Old lady points)
GWEN: Thank you!
(SUV drives off)
OLD LADY: Bloody Torchwood!

The Classic Doctor, used to be very secretive and either disappeared quietly into the night, or asked for no one to acknowledge he was there…

I think that this episode might be a attempt to direct the Doctor back to this “Quiet Hero”, of old. But only time will tell.

Engadget reviews the Dell XPS 15z

Hardware, Reviews No Responses »

May 252011

For about $200 less, you can get a fast machine, but with a cheap case and little battery life.

We’d mentioned that Dell’s previous attempts at premium systems failed price, power and battery life tests. With the XPS 15z, well… two out of three ain’t bad. Despite the fact that the NVIDIA Optimus GPU turns off when not fully taxed (powering the laptop’s display with integrated Intel HD 3000 Graphics instead), we weren’t able to get much more than three and a half hours of regular use out of our review unit. Turning to our standard battery drain test (where we loop a standard-definition video with the screen at roughly 65 percent brightness, and with WiFi on), we saw much the same thing — 3 hours, 41 minutes of use from the sealed 8-cell, 2.6Ah battery. It occurred to us that perhaps Optimus wasn’t actually switching off the discrete GPU at the most appropriate intervals, and sure enough, we were able to eke out a little more runtime by completely disabling it, but you’re still looking at 4 hours, 26 minutes of use. That’s not bad, all things considered, but it’s a good sight worse than the 8 hours of life that Dell’s advertising here, and if the company wants to make a dent in the MacBook Pro’s armor, it’ll have to do better than that.

Read the full review at Dell XPS 15z — Engadget.

Taser introduces shock and awe with a Grenade…

Reviews No Responses »

Apr 282011

Watch The Daily’s Justin Rocket Silverman test the new ‘Taser Grenade’ — all 50,000 volts of it. Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/fHtdxe

BlackBerry PlayBook’s Poor First Impression

Hardware, Reviews No Responses »

Apr 192011

Clayton Morris, from the Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe podcast, and FoxNews, reviews the BlackBerry Playbook…

Over the last week or so, several reviews have surfaced on the Playbook, and most of them seem to be negative…

What frustrates me the most is that the user experience doesn’t match the hardware. The PlayBook boasts a nice rubberized design, a beautiful screen, dual high-quality speakers on the front for stereo sound, and two nice cameras (one on the front one on the back). It’s fast, powerful, and sturdy, but the experience is half-baked.
The operating system feels like a cross between Palm’s Web OS and Apple’s iOS, thanks to a sprinkling of features here and there like pinch-to-zoom, card stack, and the ability to hold your finger down on an icon to remove or rearrange an application.

My viewpoint is that, overall the Playbook might have been a good first attempt before the introduction of the first generation iPad… But, certainly after the 2nd generation iPad’s launch, RIM will have to work extremely hard at making the Playbook a viable competitor.

BlackBerry PlayBook’s Poor First Impression.

Worst cell phones of 2010

Reviews No Responses »

Dec 042010

Cnet takes a pictorial look at the Worst cell phones of 2010.

Worst gadget ever? Ars reviews a $99 Android tablet

Computers, Hardware, Reviews, SAN Loss No Responses »

Nov 222010

It really says something when some of your customers ask the Internet whether they got the right thing when they received your product, or whether it got switched out with some joke Chinese knockoff that’s not really supposed to work.
The Maylong M-150 TabletPC is an Android-based device sold by Walgreens for a mere $99 a pop. The obvious purpose for this tablet’s existence is to appeal to bargain basement shoppers—grandmas, poor college kids, those on a tight budget—by claiming to offer a full tablet experience for cheap. I mean, it runs Android, right? That’s a legit operating system nowadays. Unfortunately, the Maylong M-150 is the very epitome of “race to the bottom,” and anyone looking to buy one would get more bang for the buck by setting it on fire for warmth.

It also says something that this was the most positive statement in the entire review. Really, the M-150 has a 2-3 hour STANDBY time for the battery… WTF? Read the review yourself at Worst gadget ever? Ars reviews a $99 Android tablet.

Review: Out of the Dark by David Weber

Misc, Reviews No Responses »

Oct 242010

Out of the Dark is a tough book to write a review for, especially if your not trying to give out spoilers…

I seriously think that Alien invasion books were perfected by John Ringo, but it seems like David Weber wanted to touch this genre. Out of the Dark is a good book, definitely a well crafted, and written book. It offers some new twists, mainly with the the Interstellar Hegemony, but I was disappointed with the revelation about 30 or so pages from the end.

It would not have been so annoying, except for the fact that it really wasn’t foreshadowed. If you haven’t already heard, this serious military-sf book takes a major twist at the end and moves to horror fantasy. While this shift isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there is almost no foreshadowing of this, nor any serious examination of it in the book.

[Spoiler Warning]

For 90% of the book, we have a relatively Hard Science Fiction / Invasion book, with no hints of the supernatural, and then all of a sudden we have Vampires helping defend the Earth. Please note, these Vlad Drakula style vampires, pure supernatural vampires.

[Not so Spoilerish]

While I would love to see a sequel, since the Supernatural elements are now out in the open, and we can see their interaction with the Hegemony, and the Shongari… And then See how Earth rebuilds itself, etc… It almost feels like Mr. Weber just didn’t have a Hard Science Fiction way to prevent the Shongari from destroying the Earth, and then decided what could defeat them? I know Vampires!

As I mentioned this doesn’t make the book bad, I just found this to be a jarring change to the book. Overall, it’s a decent read, but I’d prefer a more consistent (eg. Honor Harrington) universe…

Savage Worlds – Test Drive v6

Recreation, Reviews, Role Playing Related No Responses »

Oct 162010

Savage World’s is a semi-generic Role Playing system, but similar to D&D and many other games, they release “Savage Settings” which are settings designed to be used with Savage Worlds…. For example:

SlipStream – Pulp era, Sci-Fi
Wizards & Warriors – D&D style epic fantasy
DeadLands Reloaded – Horror / Western
The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane – Solomon Kane
Pirates of the Spanish Main – Pirates!

The system is designed to be “Fun! Fast! and Furious!”, and is some what rules lite. It’s not as number crunchy as some systems, and character creation can be extremely fast…

Give it a try, here’s a link to the Test Drive edition, which is only 16 pages… But it contains enough to create your own characters, and actually play the game. It’s a lite version of the explorer’s edition of the system. The Explorer’s edition is the core book, and is only $10 last time I checked…

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