…one of the players clearly indicated suicidal thoughts and showed “obvious” signs of severe depression. When this communication was shown to the audience the presenter, along with part of the audience of players and CCP representatives present all had a good laugh. The presenter went on to encourage other players of Eve Online to harass this player in the hope that he would eventually be compelled to act on his suicidal thoughts.

Eve Online is a “sandbox” environment, which allows characters to develop their skills without artificial restrictions like character class. As part of this philosophy, pretty much anything goes in terms of in game activity (with the notable exception of real life fraud). The end result was the fact that the more advanced a players skillset became, the more likely that the player would become a target of in game scams and setups. While most MMOs would label such behavior harassment or griefing, most of these kinds of shenanigans are allowable in Eve Online.

Unfortunately, such a relaxed game environment only encourages the antagonistic tendencies already present in MMOs that allow or feature player vs. player interactions, and further increase the gamers sense of entitlement. Honestly, what makes Eve Online appealing to some is the wild west mentality, so there isn’t much to be done about the overall game environment. But people (and specifically CCP) should discourage panel speakers from openly mocking and encouraging this kind of behavior, otherwise others will hear about it through secondary sources.

Bioware took a proactive and supportive stance behind one of their employees last month. Jennifer Hepler could have been thrown to the wolves not because she was necessarily wrong her opinions about the value of action vs. narrative in but because Bioware could have chosen to minimize the potential downside of negative press and image coming from one of it’s writers. +1 for Bioware for being supportive and not leaving Ms. Hepler to swing freely in the wind.

Bioware has also taken the latest “cries” from their hardcore Mass Effect fans seriously. Instead of telling their Mass Effect fans to pound sand and deal with the ending, Bioware has agreed to make some modifications in the storyline to appease fans. While the cynical crowd might see this as a suck up move by a spineless game developer, I’d prefer to think of it as a game developer listening and responding to fan concerned. +1 for Bioware taking an interest in what their customers want and for trying to make that happen.

Companies should look at what Bioware is doing. Sure, the content is great and very addictive, but the company seems genuinely interested in providing the best product possible while simultaneously being supportive of their employees. Those facts can only improve customer loyalty and make it easier for their customer base to purchase future products.

While 343 wants to forge its own way going forward, they risk abandoning things that Halo players expect from their game in terms of style and tone. Abandoning too much might make the game unrecognizable, or worse yet, uninteresting and predictable.

The development team has indicated that they are interested in producing a title that delves more deeply into the background of the returning Master Chief. Part of what made that character so intriguing is that so little was known about him. 343 needs to be careful that they don’t turn the Master Chief into another boring video game protagonist.

If 343 can find the precarious balance between mystery and knowledge necessary to keep its core players interested, the fleshing out of character backgrounds will provide an additional foundation from which to build future story-lines and perhaps even increase its player base. If they get it wrong, all the shiny new graphics won’t help it from sinking.

The interesting part of this story isn’t that they are doing it by themselves, but how they are doing it. Facebook has taken the unusual step of not only mandating production of the storage units, but also of how they work. As Facebook did with their data center and their server design, unnecessary components are being eliminated from deployed storage components potentially reducing operating costs while simultaneously increasing reliability. Additionally, the storage units are being designed to remove bothersome mechanisms. As Frank Franovsky, the man that oversees hardware design at Facebook states:

I’ve never understood why hot-plug drive carriers have to come with these plastic handles on them… And if you’ve actually mounted a drive inside one of those drive carriers, there are these little bitty screws that you inevitably lose — and you’ll likely lose one onto a board that’s live and powered. That’s not a good thing.

Frank is right, poorly designed components represent future cost and reliability liabilities. By taking control of the hardware design associated with the storage system and overall infrastructure, Facebook is allowing itself to increase its efficiency while simultaneously reducing costs. An additional side benefit of all this hardware re-engineering is that these designs will be released to the public at tech specific summits and could be improved upon, thereby improving the designs even further.

The fundamental shift in philosophy from utilization of deluxe infrastructure elements to a stripped down, bare-bones approach allow Facebook unprecedented flexibility in terms of hardware maintenance, facilities planning, and hardware redundancy. In a real sense, Facebook infrastructure initiatives translate into a significant competitive business advantage over others in the social networking arena.

This kind of intense hatred from a community I sometimes associate myself with is embarrassing. The attack by the hyper-vocal minority also reinforces the perception that non-gamers have of the gaming community at large. Namely, that *all* such members are misfits and behavioral trolls unable to interact with society at large.

While the personal nature of this attack is nothing short of abhorrent, it is not surprising to me given factors associated with gaming culture. And it’s not the first time it has happened. During my time as an Eve Online player, one of the top players in the game was banned for telling a customer service representative to DIAF (look it up) while having an argument over game matters via Twitter.

“Hardcore” members of the gaming community have a false sense of entitlement when it comes to interacting with game designers. Some players have an intense and sometimes unnatural amount of brand loyalty to their designer/publisher of choice and are upset when they perceive a threat to their vision of perfection. Other players feel like the amount of time they invest in playing specific titles entitles them to a voice directly proportional to time played. And players are often quick to remind designers and publishers that as a paid customer, they expect value even if their vision of value differs from others involved in the game.

The very nature of Twitter also contributes to these kinds of personal tirades. Twitter is anonymous, and therefore largely devoid of consequences for those on the attack. The very nature of Twitter as a distributed platform also means that messages can be sent quickly and associated via hashtag to allow a trend to snowball to national (and international) visibility quickly.

Instead of personally attacking game designers, writers, and employees, those gamers upset with the direction of a game company would do well to let their wallets do the talking. Withholding financial support by not purchasing games or cancelling monthly subscriptions will do more to change a publisher’s general direction then directly attacking one of their employees.

After discussing my care with my endocrinologist, I recently received a Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) after having the unit approved by my insurance company. After initially charging the unit, following the directions for applying the sensor, and installing the software, I am pleased to report that this system works extremely well.

The use of a GGM is really a fundamental shift for how I view blood glucose (BG) readings. While testing 3-4 times a day was a useful measure of how my BG readings were at specific times of the day, it wasn’t possible to accurately analyze trending. I now have a fairly reliable read on my BG readings, and can view BG trends measured every 5 minutes in graphs on the device over 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 hour periods. And the software grabs that data and can store it in multiple formats.

The GCM really is a game changer, I fully expect to have much better results on my long term BG numbers.

1990 was a very rough year for me in terms of health, career, and academics. Instead of dealing with events head on, I distracted myself through a campaign of unneeded purchases that fueled or at least helped enable my denial. Those financial indiscretions would follow me for years, requiring the assistance of an understanding wife to finally shed 15 or so years later.

One of the purchases I made during the 1990 spending spree was a Tag Heuer divers watch (pictured). I was almost afraid to see if the watch needed to be overhauled as I had not worn it in several years. I was also cognizant of the fact that it was all the rage to etch ones SSN onto precious jewelry in order to identify it in case of theft. Not currently such a bright idea given the threat of identity theft.

With a sense of dread, I hauled my watch into the place where I purchased it those many years ago knowing that I will set it aside for a while if it required expensive repairs. After discussing the situation with the salesperson, he agreed to take a look at it to see if there were any signs of corrosion or other wear requiring a thorough service. I was happy that a battery was all that was necessary, and it was free as a benefit of me being a loyal customer. He also recommended a jeweler that he trusted to remove the SSN. After getting the watch back today, it looks great.

While many of my indiscreet purchases didn’t stand the test of time, my Tag Heuer divers watch did. It serves as a reminder of where I’ve been and how far I have come.

One of the MP3 discs that I recorded for October’s Pacific-Northwest trip of last year contained a greatest hits collection from Roxy Music. I honestly can’t get into much of the music but one of the tracks is spectacular. The 1975 track Love is the Drug has some great elements including the intro walking/driving sequence taken from the movie Duel, a fantastic bass line, simplistic yet effective guitar, and Bryan Ferry’s vocals. The elements are interesting individually but are even stronger when combined.

As a bonus, the official video for the song is a spotlight on excesses of the past, not one of them looks completely sober or drug free.

Lytro’s technology relies on capturing far more information about a scene than a fixed grid of colored pixels. Using high resolution sensors combined with a specially designed micro lens array, the sensor captures the intensity, color, and direction of light rays entering a camera through a lens. That data can then be processed into the kind of flat, two-dimensional image that many of us are accustomed to.

However, that data can be mathematically manipulated to change various aspects of the image, including focus point, focal length, depth of field, and even perspective shift. All these details can be recalculated after the image is captured, removing the need to think about them while shooting.

What I find interesting about such technology is that it would potentially both simplify both the iPhone physical lens mechanism and make taking pictures easier at the same time. Such a combination would be a tough act to follow.

When I wanted a smartphone, AT&T still had exclusive rights to iPhone in the U.S. so I went with an HTC Incredible.  While the device worked well enough for many things, it did have some problems with my complex data desires.  I wanted to be able to grab mail from both my work account and my gmail account, but only wanted to grab contacts from my gmail.  While it was probably possible for some, I couldn’t figure out how to do it with native apps, and even after buying a dedicated client for my work account.  Then I ended up with multiple copies of my contacts in my device address book which I had to manually link per contact.

I ran my HTC through the washing machine and dryer after getting back from vacation (no not intentionally), and my wife authorized a purchase of an iPhone 4S.  After having the phone for a few weeks, I’m amazed at how easy things seem to be with it compared to hoops that needed to be jumped through with the Incredible.  Multiple ActiveSync accounts natively?  Check.  Easy selection of where to draw contacts from?  Check.  Stable Gui and OS?  Check.

People may argue over which phone OS is better based on the software model and companies behind the technologies.   I’ve bantered on in the past about how unnecessarily restrictive Apple’s software approval model is, and how maintaining flexibility in terms of phone features and GUI implementations will ultimately give people what they want.  But I’ve come to see that, at least in my case, that flexibility means little if none can master it to the point of making it usable or stable.

I can’t say I am a complete Apple convert, but I am a satisfied Apple 4S customer.  The technology just works.