Apples empire

Everyone has or knows someone with an apple product. They are everywhere, one of the most popular smartphones are iphones, the iPod and itouch control the mp3 market, and Mac book pro’s are a major player in the laptop market and their desktop’s top’s are very popular among people. But if you take a look at the power behind all their device’s you will see lackluster spec’s and underwhelming performance numbers. If you compare prices with other machines at the same price point and you will be scratching your head wondering why is this popular. Many people think that apple products are better, so they cost more but thats not true. They’re amazing “retina display” is just HD under another name. The main argument that I could believe was “all my stuff is on itunes” and people don’t want to change. But as time has gone things have gotten worse, so now is the time to change. The new Iphone is about as good as last generation smartphones from other companies. The new Iphone 5c is such a waste, costing more than most smartphones and is has just way too old technology. And the only thing new about the Iphone 5s is just the same with a fingerprint scanner. Apple computers are way more expensive than PC’s that are worse than them. The only remarkably about Mac’s are the software, which is the only thing they have patented but it is just a front, Apple has nothing new but how it’s laid out with the individual bubbles and the create of “Apps”. It seems all their effort goes into making their products look futuristic, I mean come on the Mac Pro is just a cylinder. Mac’s have their place, because the computers are designed completely for video editing and creating animations, but there is no reason for someone who does not need it for those things to have one. People are sucked into the fact that, hey it costs the most so it must be the best. But that fact is not true. The software has the looks but nothing else of value backing it up. Learning to use a regular PC is just as hard as using a Mac, I would say Mac’s are harder just because using programs and accessing things are harder on a Mac.

Why is Technology changing so fast?

It amazes me how fast technology has changed over the last century. People were astounded when handheld calculators came out. What would those people say if they saw that people today carry around these super advanced devices that act as computer as well as a phone.  Computers just started showing up in people’s homes in the 90’s, and even then they were mostly glorified typewriters. Today, just 2 decades later everyone has access to computer’s that are way more advanced and most people carry around smartphones like they are no big deal. In the last 60 years technology has changed and evolved at an incredibly fast state. Most people agree that each advancement speeds the rate of advancing, like a small snowball rolling down a hill builds up speed and size as it gathers more snow. But what was the big advancement  that lead to such a rapid increase of speed in advancement?  I think it was the invention of computers. If you think about it before computers life was a lot harder, everything had to be done by hand, you could not “save” a paper, you not just look things up if you did not know something you had to go find a book with the answer. Information in general had to be saved on paper, so business had to have archives of their work. Even things like cartoons, there was no computer animation, so each slide was hand drew. Live action films had to shot and stored on tapes, so to go back and look at footage you had to go through reels of film. In general things had to be organized perfectly or finding information and what you want would be impossible. There was no e-mail or messaging so you had to call people. If you went to the library and could not find the book, there was no check to see if it was checked out unless it was written down somewhere. Computers are everywhere nowadays. All new cars have computers in them, some factories are powered by computers,  when grocery stores had no computers in the check out every single thing had to be counted out and added up. Bar codes did not exist, shipping companies had to kept in consistent contact through phones.  Simple tasks were harder and took more time. But with the invention of computers, everything got faster. Keeping track of things was some much easier. New things were invented that helped computers move everything fast, scientist could spread research and do things more advanced, engineers could make and create things they had never even dreamed of. Life in general got easier and faster. Computers changed the world than any other device has.      

Titan Fall

The guys at Respawn Entertainment must be geniuses in the fps genre. Many of the artists and engineers have worked on the past fps giants. Some of them have been working on games for a long time. A few of the guys worked on the old Medal of Honor games that came out on the gamecube and Golden Eye, games considered to be way ahead of their time and classic’s from their time. They later went on to create their own study call Infinity Ward and from there they went on to create the Modern Warfare series, some of the best selling and considered the greats fps’s ever created. Well, after some falling out some of them left Infinity Ward and created Respawn Entertainment and Titan Fall is going to be their first release, and it’s looking to be great one. Titan Fall is considered one of the first next gen titles to come out and it has been show off quite a lot. Somehow  they created magic again, this game takes many things that other games have done and failed at and they have succeeded at almost all of them. It is extremely vertical with things like wall running, parkour, jump jets and ledge grabs. Just about everywhere is accessible to you. They get mechs right which is hard enough when the game is only about mechs but they managed to fit mechs in beautifully. The titans as the mechs are called, are powerful, strong and can easily change the tide of a battle for a objective but they can also be easily taken out by soldiers on the ground, they can jump on the back of the titan and shot a bunch of important looking parts to take out the titan or ever player has a weapon designed to take out titan’s. Other titans are a huge threat to you if you are walking around in your titan and you have to keep your eyes open for threats. The system they use to get you your titan is great as well, it is not based on killstreaks or performing certain actions, your titan is on a timer and you can do things to shorten that time, like killing the bots running around, taking objectives, killing titans and taking out other players. I thinking Titan Fall is going to be a great game and very popular and I can’t wait to play it.   

Games done quick

What is Games Done Quick?

Games Done Quick is a very popular live stream on Twitch that raises money for charity. But the hook that the live stream is a congregation of the best speed runners in the U.S. and runs for a week non-stop. They have one in the summer called summer games done quick and one in the winter called awesome games done quick. Despite being extremely popular its following is almost a cult because its not mainstream.  There are tons of inside jokes and memes surrounding it and if most people who have never seen it before will be thoroughly confused by the twitch chat where it erupts whenever the fabled Based YSG opens his mouth to do his legendary laugh or Tri Hex and Spiked Vegeta doing their fusion dance to combine their Afros into one mega afro.

This years AGDQ was by far the largest where they raised over 1million dollars for the prevent cancer fund and broke 100,000 watchers at once. I thought last years summer games done quick was better but thats my opinion, nonetheless AGDQ was no push over this year and it was a good time. The biggest problem is how much it affects my sleep schedule. Because it never stops you can never sleep because I do that thing where i tell myself, ‘Ohhhh just one more game and then I will go to bed” then three games later its 5 in the morning and the next five games all look fun and exciting to watch so you have to tell yourself “Ohhhh what's one night without sleep this ends up costing you. SGDQ is during the summer so its not a big deal but AGDQ is during a school week, this year Based YSG granted us 2 snow days and a half day during AGDQ which was good but the days we had school I still stayed up to see the Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden that happened to bro at 3 in the morning so school the next day was a little hard.

So you might be asking what kind of games do they speed run? Well the answer is any kind of game, old, new old classics and random games you never heard of. They speed ran over 120 games this year. But the main attraction is not only the games but also the commentator and the runners, my favorite is Tri-hex, Spiked Vegeta, Bonesaw, and Toufool and YSG.  Now you might be wondering who is great YSG and what does YSG stand for? Well it means yellow shirt guy, his runner name is Blueglass though and he is a Internet meme. He is known because the first GDQ he never the audience and his odd sounding voice and laugh plus the fact that he never seemed to sleep made him a crowd favorite. I hope I have interested you in maybe watching the next SGDQ coming up this year.