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Waiting for Lion: On your mark, get set, geek out
Waiting for Lion to show up in App Store? We are too. Here's how we are checking. When you want to pull a URL from Mac App Store, you need to emulate its user agent. curl -silent -A "iMacAppStore/1.0.1 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6.7; en) AppleWebKit/533.20.25" will do that for you. Want to search the store? Same idea, but give it a query like this: curl -A "iMacAppStore/1.0.1 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6.7; en) AppleWebKit/533.20.25" -H "X-Apple-Store-Front: 143441-1,13" 'http://ax.search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?q=SEARCH_PHRASE_HERE' The search phrase must be URL-escaped, e.g. "OS X Lion" is "OS%20X%20Lion". Then do a little grep-fu, namely grep -iv 'killer' | grep 'mt=12' | grep 'class=.name' These steps search for app listings only whose name does not include "killer", as in "Killer Guide for OS X Lion". Who knew? I threw together a few utilities to help with this. Lionscanner is a command line app that performs this search (or, if you give it an argument searches for that instead of "OS X Lion") and then processes the results to kill everything but in-line text, i.e. no XML tags, following the greps I mentioned above. If you run it without arguments it hunts for "OS X Lion". If it finds nothing, there's no "OS X Lion" product in App Store. Presumably. That's why I've also included the basic how-to. So you can create your own tools that are a little more flexible in case Apple doesn't name it quite "OS X Lion". Second, I have my handy-dandy-age-of-the-dinosaurs-csh-script as always, the one you readers always mock me for. Still works, still csh, you still need to run it with something like repeat 5000 ./doLionCheck: #! /bin/csh ./lionscanner | grep -i "lion" > /dev/null if ($? == 0) then echo "Available" say "LION MAY BE AVAILABLE" else echo "Nada" endif sleep 600 Okay, that's everything you need. Don't forget to make stuff executable (chmod 755). Now go forth and build some better tools for us.
The Road to Mordor: A talk with the crew of The Fellows Hip: Rise of the Gamers
Buzz has been increasing about an intriguing independent film that looks to blend Tolkien love, geek pride, and Lord of the Rings Online fandom into one epic adventure. Called The Fellows Hip: Rise of the Gamers, this movie is about a group of friends who undertake a journey to a convention in order to participate in a LotRO gaming competition (and stick it to some bullies while they're at it). Many blogs, such as LOTRO Reporter and A Casual Stroll to Mordor, have promoted this up-and-coming film, and after seeing the trailer, we too became fascinated with what could be a fun movie that puts MMO gaming front and center. One may not simply walk into Mordor, but with the right connections, one could phone the folks up there. We got on the line with three crew members for The Fellows Hip -- Ron Newcomb (producer, director and writer), Scott Mathais (producer and writer), and Shane McClung (producer) -- to see just what type of lovable insanity would cause a group of people to throw together such a movie.
Growing up Geek: Ross Rubin
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. This week, we have our long-time Switched On columnist Ross Rubin. In the wide-collared world of the 1970s, it wasn't yet clear whether the future of interactive technology would rest in the hands of the PC or video game companies (I attribute this confusion to excessive exposure to ABBA combined with the well-documented brain-melting effects of Three's Company plots). But most of my early exposure to electronics certainly came from the latter camp. We had the original Pong game and the triangular, holster-housing Telstar Arcade. I stared with mouth agape as my adult cousin received an Atari 2600 for his birthday (no fair!). For my birthday a few years later, my parents got me an Intellivision. The flame wars between Intellivision and Atari were the Mac vs. PC arguments of their day, and George Plimpton was the closest thing the Intellivision fans had to Steve Jobs. I would take pictures of the screen for some Astrosmash contest Mattel Electronics ran as well, to obtain different rainbow-adorned badges from Activision for games like Kaboom!, Freeway! and River Raid! In any case, video game consoles weren't the only extra box that graced our TVs. One day, a beige box showed up with a simple switch that transitioned between the broadcast channels we received and a new service delivered via microwave transmission. It was called Home Box Office.
Growing Up Geek: Paul Miller
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a new feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. This week, we have our very own Senior Associate Editor, Paul Miller. I remember my family's first computer vividly: it was an Apple Macintosh IIci. My dad was at work when we took the delivery, so my brothers and I ripped open the box and set it up the best we could. I'm not sure exactly what we actually did to mess up the machine, but I remember believing at that age that we had "deleted the hard drive," and it took a visit from my dad's IT guy before we were back up and running. The very first thing we did once we had a working machine was plug in the color scanner and suck an image of a bright red magazine Ferrari bit by bit over the SCSI connection. Sure, there's very little "cred" to the experience -- my first computing experience was in full color, with a windowed GUI and the imaging tools of a professional -- but it was also an incredible way to start a digital life in its own right.
Shocker: Geeks more likely to be bullied
Sadly, a review of scientific literature shows things don't quite play out as per the picture above. Analyzing 153 studies, researchers at two universities noted that bullies and their victims actually have a few things in common -- namely, poor social coping skills and negative attitudes -- it was the children with poor academic performance who were more likely to beat up on their nerdy brethren down the road. Still, we suppose it never hurts to double-check your firewall, eh?
Growing Up Geek: Veronica Belmont
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a new feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. We're happy to kick off the series with Veronica Belmont. I was born in the year of the ColecoVision. This isn't that unusual or interesting until you factor in that my mother was a VP at Coleco at that time. OK, well, it's still probably not that interesting unless you're me and trying to figure out the defining moments that turned you into a "geeky" adult. An abundance of video games, toys, puzzles, board games... it's a pretty awesome environment to grow up in, especially for a kid whose father also happened to work in the toy industry (he was an engineer for Hasbro in those days). For me, it was just totally normal to walk into the living room and see a pile of toys on the floor, in varying states of production and disarray. I'd take them apart, put them back together, and spend hours trying to find different ways to destroy them. Things haven't changed too much.
Rocking the Objective-C[ountry]
What happens when you tweet a silly off-the-cuff remark about wanting a Country/Objective-C song called "Retain My Heart (Or you might point to an invalid memory reference)"? Magic. That's what happens. Absolute weekend-ready magic! Italian Mac aficionado and brilliant songsmith Andrea "Camillo Miller" Nepori jumped into my e-mail in-box and delivered exactly what I had asked for: a heartfelt country rendition of what has got to be one of the lamest geekiest puns I've ever made. Nepori tells me that he recorded the music on his iPhone, adding a little reverb and compression in GarageBand before sending it on over to TUAW. A big round of public acclaim for the next biggest geek hit! Bravo! Download your own copy here (mp3) or listen to the embedded version in the continuation of this post. The little Objective-Country pun? Thanks to Neil Twist.
DWTS Week 2 is kinder to Woz
You think a pulled hamstring, judges' scorn, and general lack of grace or terpsichorial skill are drawbacks? Fuggedabout it. You cannot stop the Woz, you can only hope to contain him: the second-week results from Dancing With The Stars were a surprise for Steve Wozniak and his partner Karina Smirnoff, as they avoided the bottom two slots and another dance-off. For a while there it looked like Woz' injury might knock him out of the competition, but he stuck it out and delivered a performance that the panel hated but the Internet and phone voters cherished. If the power of Apple fandom can keep Woz twirling and dipping long enough to, you know, actually learn to dance without hurting himself or others, perhaps we will see the King of All Geeks on the winner's podium by season's end. Perhaps. [via CNN]
World of Warcraft, as seen on television
Our favorite game made not one but two big appearances on TV this past week. First up, looks like the writer of TNT's Leverage (that Dan already interviewed a while back) is wasting no time getting his characters to fly the Horde flag, as you can see in the clip above (thanks to Massively for digging that up for us). The writer, John Rogers, told Dan that Blizzard actually vetted the dialogue above, which makes us wonder why they were ok with saying Burning Crusade, but didn't want to mention the second expansion by name. Maybe the episode was filmed so long ago that the name hadn't quite been confirmed yet.And in other television news, we're told World of Warcraft made an appearance as a category on Jeopardy this week. We don't have video of that one (yet), but you can see a quick teaser over on Jeopardy's webpage that mentions the game as a category. World of Warcraft has of course appeared in the game show before as an answer, but this time around, there was a whole column of questions about it. If you see video anywhere online, let us know, and we'll add it here to the post.
Fischer regrets 'geeks and otaku' comment, Jaffe sticks oar in
The internet, as it tends to do on occasions, went and got itself in a great big tizzy last week, after Nintendo of Europe's Laurent Fischer suggested that only "geeks and otaku" cared about the Wii's storage issue. It wasn't the smartest move of Fischer's career, and it attracted considerable bile -- and not just from Nintendo fans.God of War creator David Jaffe, as he tends to do on occasions, got narked, and expressed his annoyance over the comment in a colorful entry on his blog. After dedicating a hefty part of his amusing rant to comparing Fischer's remarks with 1987 film Can't Buy Me Love, Jaffe accused Nintendo of "arrogance [...] that should make the company very ashamed," and suggests that Fischer "has no real clue" about games -- all while getting Fischer's gender wrong (" ... she really needs someone to sit her down and explain to her ... "). Brilliant.Anyway, just as Jaffe was about to hoisted onto the shoulders of Nintendo fans everywhere, Fischer went and spoiled all the fun by apologizing ... sort of. "I have huge respect for those who, like me, share a common passion for Nintendo and want to make it clear that I would never use and I didn't use this terminology in such a context or way to cause offence," Fischer blubbed. "I regret that this misunderstanding has created such offence and disappointment within the community."It's not the most heartfelt apology we've ever heard, but we'll take it. Now give us a hard drive, Fischer.[Via Eurogamer]
Nintendo exec. apologizes for 'geeks and otaku' remark
Nintendo Europe's senior marketing director, Laurent Fischer, has apparently apologized for comments made earlier in the week, in which he said that the only people interested in a Wii hard drive would be "geeks and otaku." Fisher tells videogaming247 that he didn't mean to use those terms in a way to cause offense. He regrets any "misunderstanding" that was created by his comments within the community.What say ye Nintendo legions, forgive Fisher or should his penance be more profound?
Wii storage for 'geeks and otaku', says Nintendo marketing director
As Nintendo's WiiWare service ramps up with new content added every week, avid Wii users are finding themselves burning through the console's paltry 512MB of internal memory quite quickly. So we find it a bit odd that Nintendo's European Marketing Director not only considers the issue unimportant, but thinks it wise to berate those concerned with it by calling them names.Speaking to Edge Magazine, NOE Marketing Director Laurent Fischer was surprisingly dismissive of the growing space demands of WiiWare titles. According to him, only "geeks and otaku" want the issue actually addressed. Which just hurts.If by "geeks and otaku," Mr. Fischer, you mean Nintendo's loyal fanbase who download every game released, then there may some truth in that. But calling them names certainly won't keep those "geeks and otaku" loyal for much longer.
WoW Insider at Dragon*Con - Wrap-up
This year, Elizabeth and I headed off to Atlanta, GA to cover Dragon*Con. In its 20th year, Dragon*Con is the United States' largest Pop Culture themed 4-day geek-fest, to put it mildly. While you won't get official numbers from the organizers past 20,000 participants, we heard whispers of numbers well over 40k in attendance if you counted each membership separately as opposed to combining the single-day passes like they do.For our first year, we primarily set out to spread the WoW Insider love and get to know the community. That said, the reception and excitement we got from the Dragon*Con community at seeing us there overwhelmed both Elizabeth and I. It has ensured that we'll both be back in 2008 to cover all the myriad World of Warcraft goings on for WoW Insider! (As well as ensuring that we'll be back to help run the First Annual Dragon*Con MMO Costume Contest, slated for 2008!)To check out a condensed recap of this year's various events, as well as the two (enormous) photo galleries chock full of various sights from D*C 2007, join me after the jump!%Gallery-6768%%Gallery-6901%
