Monday, April 29, 2013

And here I thought I was finally at peak fitness.

Oh silly man, you know that takes 6 months, not 3 and a half months. But I usually have a high opinion of myself (I know, I know, how could such a humble man say that? heh.), and I posted the fastest time on my hour course this year, so that had to be top 3-4 of my 2010 monster days, right? Oh hohoho, I love having data, because then I can totally destroy such foolish notions.

Today's time was barely top 20. Yeah, I'm ahead of schedule compared to when I first posted comparable times, but seeing the numbers was a good reminder not to get cocky. So, at least my ego has something to salvage in reaching this level of fitness 6 weeks ahead of the 2010 schedule.

However, now I'm curious about where my plateau will end up. Back in March, I took note that my median times on my hour course were similar to numbers recorded after 6 months of training. For today's result, a similar number was first recorded after just 5 months. As you get closer to peak fitness, you can sometimes have really good days and then just have average performance the next day. That's nothing to get demoralized about, just something to look forward to. I didn't consistently throw down these top 20 numbers until after 6 months. Also, a couple of those fast times were because I was able to sprint and catch a parade of motorcycle cops practicing maneuvers and ride their slipstream. Good times, good times. But anyway, the trend line of being ahead of schedule compared to 2010 is going down, and should match my 2010 fitness results in 9 weeks, or exactly 6 months.

So, which trend line should I be paying attention to? My hard numbers progress, which if I follow linearly, means I'm 6 weeks ahead of schedule, and that at the end of 6 months, I'll be even faster than I was in 2010? Or my comparison trend line, which says that I'll be exactly the same speed that I was in 2010, but faster on the hills and slower on the flats? I don't know now, but I will know in about 2 weeks.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Friday, April 26, 2013

Having a bee in your bonnet is stressful.

Literally. As I passed a flowering bush near the Huntington Library this morning, a bee got snagged in one of the air holes in my helmet. I felt her crawling around for a little bit before she stopped, and that's when I got nervous. Was she hanging out? Looking for a good piece of skin to sting? Already gone?

Well, she wasn't gone, because I saw her jump out in front of me about a half mile later, keeping up with my pace for a short while before the wind took her away.

Also, San Marino needs to put their road works schedule on turbo, because the pavement all round the Huntington is chewed up, cracked, potholed, and dangerous. Just saying.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Capcom has heard enough from you retrogamers, and said, "Fine, give us your money."

Tired of all those dodgy emulators claiming to play arcade video games from the 80's? Well, some of the old school publishers have decided, yes, we'll take your filthy lucre to play those tiny pieces of code on modern gaming consoles. And these aren't expensive remakes or "reimaginings" like the movie industry is doing these days, just straight up arcade games on your new-fangled flat screen.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Bethesda doesn't like adding on to Elder Scrolls games.

I read that the Skyrim team was closing up shop, and thought, "What? After only two add-ons?" So I looked up how many expansions Oblivion got: also two - Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. Then I had to look at how much loving attention the Fallout series got from Bethesda after they took it over. Fallout 3 got 5 add-ons and Fallout New Vegas (puh, puh, wipes taste out of mouth) got 4. So now I know where Bethesda's priorities lie, and I will adjust accordingly.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Plasmas are dead. Long live the OLED. Until they die too...

Panasonic finally confirming that plasma TVs are going the way of betamax. While technologically superior to LCD's, they were power hogs, ran hot, and were just too expensive. They were able to hang on a little longer with bundled 3D features, but since the general public saw that you still needed glasses, they shrugged their shoulders and said, "meh." Unless OLED comes down in price, they'll just market those screens to the high end market, before that just disappears too.

Monday, April 08, 2013

Skyrim is getting that legendary patch today for consoles. How does it work? Here's a quick answer.

I wondered what the ramifications were for rolling back your 100 level skills back to 15. Was it like paragon levels in Diablo 3? Did you actually lose skill buffs so it was a pure reset? What else happened to your character? A commenter at Joystiq laid it out pretty well:
LeCaptain: I just figured it out!  When you roll back your skills back to 15 from 100, you essentially start over again, having to work them back up.  The benefit to all that is you keep your stats, meaning your HP, MP, and Stamina stay where they are and aren't reverted back to whatever they were at level 15; all of this basically means that you can continue to build up those stats well beyond what you originally could before the patch.  I believe that the level cap was 80 or so, but now with patch, you can essentially go up waaaaaay higher than before.  A word of warning though, you do lose all skills that you acquired, but on the flip side, you get back all of your skill points, which also means that as you level up, you get even more skill points until you can essentially unlock, and max out, all the skills in all the skill trees.
No word yet if the Oghma Infinium exploit would still work on these Legendary levels.

Friday, April 05, 2013

Wait. Are you telling me the lame name of the apprentice in The Force Unleashed came from Star Wars' first draft?

I must have known this at one point, but it makes me realize how the team of the first trilogy actually got to make Lucas' ideas better, instead of what happened with the sycophantic team of the prequels trilogy.
As first drafted in 1974, “The Star Wars!” told the story of Jedi Annikin Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker, an alien named Han Solo and evil Sith Knights.

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

NBC still doesn't admit that sticking Leno at 10 pm every night killed Conan's ratings.

If they really don't want history to repeat itself, the NBC brass will make sure Leno's contract with NBC ends at the same time as his contract with the Tonight Show. Otherwise, Fallon won't have a chance at 11:35 either. NBC confirms Jimmy Fallon will replace Jay Leno in 2014


Noooo! That's not true! That's impossible! Disney closed down LucasArts!

Well, it's not that surprising, since all the fun titles from the 1990's have been licensed to other gaming companies, and their more recent Star Wars games for consoles and an MMORPG, let's say tactfully, sucked. I hoped we could get another Indiana Jones game out of Disney/LucasArts, but I guess we'll be set up for some more lame sequels and prequels.

Okay Telltale Games, you've had your fun with the Walking Dead, it's time to get back to Sam and Max and Monkey Island.

Added: via Engadget