Steam Sales, My secret addiction

Well, everybody knows my love/hate of Steam, I think they are going in a wrong direct with all the consoles and Gaben’s strict support of Linux, which even though he is a large partner to Linux, I think he needs to back off with all his pushing with it. But within steam hides my secret addiction. Holiday sales, there I said it, I am addicted to steam sales but trust me, if you had a love of games and have a large backlog of games i have to play like i have you would get addicted too.

Now what are this Steam Holiday sales you ask, if you are a total causal who has never touched a PC game. While for every major holiday Steam has a major sale, for 2 weeks they put games on crazy sales and when I say crazy i mean crazy. Major games that just came out, like AAA titles that just came off the shelves that are 60$ dollars every where else, are on sale for 50% to 90% off. All types of games and every games goes on sale for at least 50% off. But the main hook of my addiction are the flash sales and daily sales. All kinds of popular games go on sale for crazy cheap but the catch is its limited. I own Skyrim on my Xbox 360 and I have beat several times, but game was 85% off for the complete box on sale, so obviously I had to buy them and it was only for 8 hours. I would routinely check my computer to see what games I could vote for to go on sale or what games were on sale. I will spend around 75$ dollars on every sale but I will get like 10 games which is crazy, normally would cost you over 200 dollars. Plus their trading cards. They are only available during sales and you get them voting 3 times and every time you spend 10 increments. I would then go and sale to other people because you can totally rip off some suckers but if you collect them all you can get crazy good specially items for games you play.

My addiction is a common one though because Steam sales crazy amounts of games, and they make enough money to almost give some games away. Plus just the enticement of the ability to buy a 30$ game for 5 dollars but my favorite is the super cheap indies games. I can get games for nickels and dimes. Who could pass up the value of a 25 cent or 50 cent games that normally cost 5 to 10 dollars. I mean I am getting game for the amount of money that if I dropped it on the ground, I probably would not even bother to pick it up. I hope one day I can pass up a Steam sale with having to empty out my pockets but if you have a stronger will than m, I suggest you go check out the next steam sale.

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Is Gaming Addictive?

Is playing video games really addictive, because that's what i am looking to find out today. Now every gamer's parents have nagged  them to stop playing and that they need to go outside or get a job and that they are addicted to gaming, but is it a real thing? Now going into this i will be a little biased because the only way I can see it being addicting is the competitive side or the way that people can get addicted to just about anything.

Now the definition of addiction varies over time and what the subject is on, because being addicted to opium is different than being different than being addicted  exercising. Video game addict would fall under “behavioral addictions” and has not been scientifically proven as a disorder. Its still being treated in some people mainly in places like South Korea where gaming is a bigger thing and part of their culture. But that have been a few reported cases and there are several clinics treating video game addicting in the United States.

But there is a big difference in the types of Video game addiction cases. There are certain cases where the person is addicted and unable to quit and in my opinion they need counseling and therapy and should stop playing. This is only a small percent of reported cases but gets all the coverage. If you look up cases you get things like boy dies after playing 36 hours of video games or woman kills baby for interrupting game or even man commits suicide after losing in game.  Now this all real cases but this people need help, this things would never happen to regular people but it gets all the media attention and parents see this things and thinks “wow video games are terrible” but that's not true. People die to random addiction cases like this to ever disorder like someone gambling all their money away and killing themselves or someone overdosing on a drug. But most cases when looked at are not actually the video games, what psychiatrists have found is that “video game addicts” aren't actually addicted to the game, its the ability to escape reality they can find in the game. People with terrible home lives like abusive parents or they grow up and are bullied go to video games to ‘get a new start” so its not the game that is addictive, its the fact that its just better than the life them have outside the game and they find video games better. I play video games mainly with friends or if the game is really fun or has a great story, but i can’t ever see it coming to the point where I would not be able to turn the game off.

Steam Os: The Newest Competitor

This new Steam OS that was just announced is going to be a game changer. It is the console that was just announced by the PC game Juggernaut Valve and is going to a major threat to Microsoft and Sony. Now I have talked about Steam and Valve on one of my older blogs so if you don't know what it is just go look at that one or look it up. This is a bold new move considered Steam is heavy PC based and PC only but what they have done here was predicted by many for a while. Steam has announced that they are making a console of their own to compete with Microsoft's and their Xbox One plus Sony’s PS4. They have only released some of the OS’s main features but here are my thoughts on this new console coming out.

Now you can't really say one console because they say that they are making a bunch of different versions of the Steam console. They will be divided by price, performance, size and sound. Now i don't know about you but this seems a lot like a regular PC. I mean that's all the characteristics of different PCs. But Valve also said that they would highly customizable as well as at they even encourage you to mod them and create them as you wish, which sounds a lot like a PC. Basically this console was created to put a PC in people’s living rooms as well as their offices and rooms. I mean the main focus points are that you can stream on it games on it from your PC. So if you're tired of playing your game on your PC just go out to your living room and play it there.

Another key feature is sharing games with your family which sounds like what the Xbox One was going to do before it got canceled but now they added the fact that you can play music on your Steam OS which you can do on your PC as well as stream TV and music. I like the idea if what Valve is going for with this announcement but in my opinion its just getting someone who does not own a gaming PC the ability to play PC games which is fine because all consoles are is simplified PC’s but come on. It seems silly that they would make so many different versions of the console because its seems like money grabbing. Just release one console that plays all the games coming out for PC’s and maybe one that plays most games but not all the high end games perfectly. But because that Valve is such a driving force behind PC gaming I think this release would be great for closing the gap between console gamer's and the PC gamer's and in the end I believe competition is always a good thing for driving advancement in the new consoles and I am looking forward to how Microsoft and Sony respond.  

Valve: the Gabe Newell Empire

Valve is a company that every PC gamer knows but is generally unknown among other gamer's but that is about to change when they release the new steam OS they have advertised. Valve first started out as a company by Gabe Newell who originally worked at Microsoft  and became a “Microsoft millionaire”. He left Microsoft claiming he was the producer of Microsoft 1,2 and 3 which were big claims at the time. He then went on to create Valve and develop  Half-life which was a game made on the quake engine and they also went on to make Team fortress.

For they’re sequel to half-life they created they own engine the source engine which will go on to be one of their biggest creations and they still use it to day to make their games. Half-life 2 came out and was considered one of the best PC games ever made but Valve has not made the sequel to that or even announced it. But probably the biggest thing they have done in their career is create Steam.

Steam is either a love or hate relationship because of what they have achieved of Steam.I personally love it because Steam is the major place to buy games on PC and for many people the only place to buy PC games. They were one of the first companies to create a game platform for PC only.  But what puts them ahead of their competitors so much is the outrageous prices and the nonstop crazy sales  they put up. If you show up for one of their seasonal sales you are in for a treat because you can find games, new games old games and brand new games for extremely low prices. You can be games for only a quarter or some new games from anywhere from 50% to 90% off. Now you think that they would not make any money for sales like these but what happens is they trick people. I have fallen for this many a times with Steam, seeing a game on sale that you are not really interested in but because it is priced so low you just have to buy it. Because of the successes of just about every game Valve makes plus the fact that they are the main powerhouse behind Steam makes Valve one of the biggest companies in PC gaming and one of the most powerful.

Nano Computing is Here

A giant leap forward has been made at Stanford University recently when a group of graduate students created the first carbon nano tube computer. Now to most people this does not seem to be that  important but its a amazing leap forward in terms of computers. Now silicon is the main part of making a computer these days but silicon has limits, because computer parts are coming out smaller, cheaper and better people wonder what the draw back is. It’s because that when you condense the part and make it work better it uses more energy and less efficiently. But carbon nano tube brings a whole new look on it. Inside of silicon you can use nano tubes which are only a atom thick and 1 nano millimeter. Now instead of using silicon to make computer parts they can cram a lot of nano tubes into a box and it will work just as good.

Nanotechnology is not the only place where people are searching for a better way to make and advance computers though. There is Quantum computing which is the theory that particles of sound and light can being happening at the same time, which means that the computer could be truly doing to things at the exact same time, and they have also been studying making computers out of DNA, which stores data of double helix DNA strands.  

Now nano computing is a long ways off to being sold at your local store because the they have only created a computer that can do simple math equations but it’s a start. They have overcome a lot of problems already and the students said that all the lab work done now its time to move it into a company's hands. Hopefully they can keep making advances so that one day we can all have carbon nanotube powered computers. But even though nano computing is the future experts predict that nanotechnology won’t take over silicon anytime soon.

Razer Blade

Howdy folks and welcome back to diddling technology with Jake, today we will be reviewing the next big thing in gaming laptops the Razer Blade. No its not for shaving, its the new ultra thin, ultra light laptop from Razer. Now Razer is known to be the “Leet” company for manufacturing gaming computers and accessories, and while they come with a steep price tag they are generally good machines and they make the best gaming mice and headsets that are great. I had a Razer headset and i mouse but i broke them both being the rager i am but they were quality devices while they worked.

The Razer Blade is a gaming Laptop that will run you away where form about $1700 to $2300 which is a lot of dough to put down on a laptop. Now gaming laptops are known to be expensive and not work the best and i would have to agree with that statement generally. Now it has good hardware inside of it that make it so expensive, here is a list of the insides, Intel Core i7-4702HQ Quad Core Processor with Hyper Threading 2.2GHz / 3.2GHz (Base/Turbo), a Mobile Intel PCHM 8 series chipset, 8GB of DDR3L RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765m graphics card with 2GB of GDDR5 dedicated RAM. This is a lot of power inside this tiny machine and it will run games at max settings for a while to come but with all that power inside a little machine will cause major overheating and NVIDIA graphic cards can run extremely hot. You are going to have to have some sort of external cooling system or you will overheat. This kind of defeats the purpose of having a mobile device when you have to been close to a external cooling device. I overclock my home made PC and am aware that monitoring temp can be really boring.

So in my opinion this is not the best buy someone could get, i believe that getting a gaming laptop is silly because you are paying a lot for the fact that you can walk around with it. I would not pay this much for a device that could have this big of a problem. If you are thinking of getting a Razer Blade or a gaming laptop in general i would advise against against it and look into making your own computer or buying a pre-made one.

GTA V

Welcome back to Diddling with technology with Jake. Today I will be talking about GTA 5 which might not seem like technology news but i have been waiting too long for this game. This is a mature game that always draws a lot of attention from the media. This is a extremely adult game that people say is too violent but they don’t see it for the chaotic fun that its is. Yes it is not a game for kids but a kid under 17 can’t get it without their parent’s permission.

Published by Rockstar Games its the 5th edition of their grand theft auto series. I have been waiting for this game for a long time and this game feels like a master piece. I got it on the day it came out and have probably put 40 hours into it already. I am not even that far into the story line because the side activates and all the mindless fun you can have in it is amazing. I feel like this has been a culmination of past works like taking the facial mapping of expressions from LA Noire and the hunting for Red Dead Redemption.

The last GTA looking pretty bad graphically but it was a huge map so people were ok with it but GTA 5 uses the RAGE engine (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) so it looks beautiful and the physics are amazing. They have improved the weak points in the older games like the driving and shooting. Plus a huge thing for me was customization, in the other games you playing as one main character and you could change your clothes, nothing else because you had to fit that character, but in GTA 5 there are 3 main characters and you can change their haircut, clothes, tattoos, upgrade weapons, customize weapons and your cars.  It seems that the long time it took to make was worth it.

Now i won’t spoil any of the main story points and i am not done with the story mode by a long shot, its seems like the story for this game is more dramatic and more story driven it still is a lot of fun and the out world part is fantastic. The story itself is really good and i like all the characters, at first they seem really basic but you begin to learn back story and start liking Michael and Franklin. Trevor, the third character is one of the strongest points of the game but probably one of people least favorites at first but they captured his character perfectly. His is a crazy psycho meth head, but they nailed him brilliantly, his voice acting is great and his dialogue is spot on. But because they nailed him so well he is not the character i wanted to spend a lot of time on because he is so evil and cunning but explosive and violent. I give GTA 5 11/10 stars but it is not for everyone especially young kids.

Apple

Welcome to Diddling with Technology, today we are going to talk about the innovative giant that is Apple and if they are really as innovative and superior as they make themselves out to be. Now Steve Jobs the founder of Apple, died about 2 years, on October 5, 2011. He was the head of the company and was an iconic figure as well. He was the man behind their first product the “Apple I” which was designed to be a easy to use cheap home computer costing only $666 dollars. He was the thought to be the driving force behind Apple and with his death they have they have lost a lot of money and they stocks dropped considerably.

Apple has earned themselves a reputation of high end electronics that are new and bold. But they have began a cycle where there is a new iPhone every year for a while.  Now with the unveiling of the new iPhone the 5S people are wondering how much of a upgrade it is and if Steve Jobs not being there to help  make this one if it is going to be any good. My personal beliefs is that Apple is just riding on the fact that they had a successful product that was new and bold which was the iPhone. Now that was a new and innovative piece of tech and one of a kind. But now every company has their own smartphone to compete with the iPhone, but people still think iPhone is the way to go. This is why i think that Apple is riding on just name and not the actual product in their smartphone branch. Lets look at the newest IPhone compared to its biggest competitor. The Samsung Galaxy S4, which came out March 14 2013, now the stats, Screen size the Galaxy has a 4 -inch screen while the iPhone has a 3-inch, ok the Galaxy is bigger and that could be a turnoff for some people but for most its better. Now for the CPU which is like the Phones brain, the Galaxy has a octa-core processor while the iPhone has a dual-core processor the winner here once again goes to the Galaxy again. I will run over the rest of the stats quickly, RAM the Galaxy has a extra GB, which is a lot more and GPU as well as battery size goes to the Galaxy. All in all the Iphone 5S is just an inferior device right out of the gate, so why would anyone buy it over the new Galaxy or the new Windows smartphone? I don’t even know, the name i guess? its just a bad device that is a small upgrade compared to the iPhone 5. This is what Apple makes a lot of money on, customers following them ignorantly. I believe that Apple will begin to fall off as a smartphone producer and should go back to computers because that's where they started off at and what they are good at doing. 

All in all I hope Apple does not fail as a company because they do have a past of original products and great ideas, but now is seems they are just pumping out new smartphones and tablets every year with small improvements that can’t really compete with their competitors, they just make it look like they can. So at the moment I think Apple is better at selling inferior products then making superior technological advances.