Minneapolis maker Michael Krumpus, who also sells the EZ-Expander in the Maker's Market, created this lovely mood lamp made out of LEDs, an Arduino Duemilanove, and glass vials he bought from the Twin Cities' legendary Ax-Man surplus store.

More:

• Arduino-powered mood meter
• HOW TO - Make a RGB mood lamp
• DIY mood lamp
• DIY Easy mood light
• HOW TO - Make a DIY LED Mood lamp

At the RSA Keynote a few weeks back, Amazon's Security Lead, Steve Riley participated on a panel with other security leaders of the industry. We were impressed with the openness of all of the participants, and particularly excited with the new concepts coming from at Amazon. Riley used a term that is being used within his part of Amazon, the "Think Cloud".

As we understand it from the discussion on stage, a Think Cloud is a "body of knowledge" that is a real-time information base of Amazon cloud that can be pivoted all the way down to the threads and individual data concurrency. It would be an index that acts like a control point that helps define movement of data through a servers and compute tasks. Looking at the journey from the data point of view, including data about the environment itself and how to repair itself when damaged and keep data concurrency in tact.

Sponsor

Here's the RSA cloud security keynote to get a bit of inspiration to benefits of portable (cloud) computing.

In this 30 minute discussion, there are several notable considerations from the contributors on how cloud security challenge can be thought of as a big opportunity and that perhaps now is time to debunk the myth that security is not a part of the cloud.

We picked out a few of Riley's comments that we believe are leading towards the idea of the Think Cloud and why Amazon may be there first.

Amazon knows it is critical to be able to have good inputs and outputs. And emphasizes ease of use even more than data portability standards themselves.

Riley described a great use case where an un-named customer used Amazon for compute, another cloud provider for data processing, SalesForce for crunching, and then pushed the results to Facebook. Interconnection is happening and applications are already "using all the clouds out there". In this case, all the way down to the consumer.

When we look at this pattern, it we see parts that mimic the history of web in the enterprise. Back-end systems moving data around, optimizing, and passing it to the a web portal. And, the portal demanding "real time" updates for key pieces of data, while relying on batch for others.

We can see that idea of a Think Cloud may come into this pattern to help set boundaries and checks so that when a piece of data passes through an Amazon, it is returned reliably, ever time. Perhaps a Think Cloud is a registry that does part of what a smart Enterprise Services Bus does when registered new applications for master data, that is keeps track of activity.

In a way, we need to solve the cloud-equivalent "floating point" problem in the CPU of generations past in the computer itself.

On the CPU math co-processor, the question was, "Does it know how to do math correctly every-time under all conditions?".

Perhaps the question in the cloud may be "Are all my customers still in the database even though that thread died?", or "Do we have encryption set on every cpu that this user's information is stored in memory or on disk". Solving that problem of interchange the role the concept of Think Cloud might lead.

At least, not as-is. Riley comments that "servers are disposable horsepower, they come, they go".

In other words, Since applications sit on top of servers, and servers are sinking into the cloud, applications will sink or swim based on how they migrate to this model. So, the first movers are "the rats" that have jump ship as it started to sink. Follow the rats, or drown.

The tear-down of the server into the n-resource cloud breaks-or-suboptimizes server based applications in a fundamental way.

Thinking back, this is very similar to web services revolution in the enterprise, where just because an application can export its data model, doesn't mean it is optimized for web services, or API level interaction.

We find this almost a reverse-trend to server virtualization, which has expanded the physical compute space. Perhaps we are finding that there is some new turf to be claimed on where the cloud reaches and virtualization ends.

We like to think of it as "smart service bus" meets "smart application" on infinite resources. Infinite, or course, equaling the credit in your PayPal (or other) form of payment collection required by either, or both parties.

As reported by The Register's Cade Metz, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer recently pointed out that this is a potential opportunity with Microsoft and Azure. Where, instead of "only" focusing on infrastructure clouds, the company is working towards a new programming model, Steve said on March 4, 2010.

When we look at the services recently in our post, Is Amazon's Computing Fabric a New Economy, we noted a series of services outside of core computing that start evolving Amazon quickly down the path of a new development paradigm. Abstracting storage, network, monitoring, and perhaps in future security, in raw terms gives rise to new opportunities to bind them back together.

Security is the topic for RSA. Compliance is the reason to get it right. If the computing model wants to be secure, it needs to know the assets and their relationships. As reported by Search Cloud Computing, Amazon's Riley also tipped the audience at RSA that Amazon is weighing in on encryption as a service offerings. This is another example, where that now Amazon is supporting a new services such as Virtual Private Cloud, it moves one step closer the knowledge point for all the key assets, including their peers within the corporate network.

We find this area, as well as certificate management, to be an area ripe for the type of thinking we see at Amazon. The problem to be solved isn't a better routine, but is how to apply it tandem with the moving assets and data that is ever changing in demand.

We wonder if Amazon's Think Cloud is something new, and if so, is a path towards solving the collision of the major parties in the network. If it joins network, storage, person, and server resources together, perhaps it is the brains of the next generation Internet.

The winner will be the one that makes it simple, because as Devo on Chatroulette is proving, demand is asymmetric, and access control is from the eighties.

Photo credit: RSA, Devo, Inc.

Fox News' Marc Siegel said he believed the findings of a 3-month-old email survey which found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care reform passes despite the survey's questionable methodology because its findings were similar to a September 2009 Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll. However, Fox News previously acknowledged that the IDB/TIPP poll was also "not scientific," and statistician Nate Silver stated that the poll was "simply not credible."

From the March 17 edition of Fox News' America Live:

MEGYN KELLY (ANCHOR): Well, the health care survey conducted back in December is getting some new attention today. It shed some light on how some medical professionals feel about the president's plan to reform the health care system. According to the survey which was conducted by The Medicus Firm, which is a national physician search firm, almost half of doctors who participated say they will either be forced to leave or will want to quit the medical profession if this bill actually passes. Joining us now for a fair debate, Dr. Kathleen London, a family practician, and Dr. Marc Siegel, a member of our Fox news medical a-team. Good afternoon, doctors.

[...]

So this, we're just being told that actually the New England Journal of Medicine, which was originally responsible for posting, not publishing, not conducting the survey, but for posting it on its web site later removed it. It's not a scientific poll, it's a survey, but does it bear any truth in your experience?

[...]

KELLY: Dr. Siegel, do you accept -- do you agree that this survey probably doesn't represent how most doctors feel about this overhaul?

DR. MARC SIEGEL: No, Megyn I don't agree. First of all, there were 1,200 physicians that were surveyed here, and it also reflected what was found in an IBS/TIPP poll that was done back in September where Investors Business Daily also surveyed over a thousand physicians.

Siegel was referring to a September 2009 IBD/TIPP poll which found that 45 percent of practicing physicians would consider leaving their practice if health care reform were passed.

Nate Silver: Poll is "simply not credible." In a September 16 post to his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver listed five reasons why the IBD poll should be "completely ignore[d]":

1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I'm aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an average error of about 7 percentage points -- the highest of any pollster that we tested.

2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.

3. As we learned during the Presidntial campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.

4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.

5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.

Silver added: "There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions."

Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll is "not scientific." During Neil Cavuto's discussion of the IBD/TIPP poll on the September 16 edition of Fox News' Your World, the on-screen graphic indicated that the poll was "not scientific":

The Medicus Firm - a medical recruiting firm -- conducted the survey in December 2009. The Medicus Firm, a Dallas- and Atlanta-based firm that recruits and places physicians in jobs, was responsible for conducting the survey. It issued a press release about the results on December 17, 2009. A report written by the Medicus Firm subsequently appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, an employment newsletter produced by Massachusetts Medical Society, "the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine." The report also appeared on the NEJM "CareerCenter" website, but was taken down on March 17.

Methodology consisted of emailing doctors in the Medicus Firm's database. The NEJM CareerCenter article indicated that "[t]he survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to physicians."

Survey write-up was essentially a promotional document for the firm. After discussing the results of its survey, Medicus touted the importance of physician recruitment firms "[a]fter health reform is passed and implemented":

What does this mean for physician recruiting? It's difficult to predict with absolute certainty, but one consequence is inevitable. After health reform is passed and implemented, physicians will be more in demand than ever before. Shortages could be exacerbated further beyond the predictions of industry analysts. Therefore, the strongest physician recruiters and firms will be in demand. Additionally, hospitals and practices may be forced to rely on unprecedented recruitment methods to attract and retain physicians. "Health reform, even if it's passed in a most diluted form, could be a game-changer for physician recruitment," said Bob Collins, managing partner of The Medicus Firm in Texas. "As competitive as the market is now, we may not even be able to comprehend how challenging it will become after health reform takes effect."

Fox pushed Medicus survey, falsely attributed it to New England Journal of Medicine. Several Fox News personalities highlighted the dubious survey and falsely attributed it to the credible New England Journal of Medicine. 

Fox ran wild with "not scientific" IBD poll.  Numerous Fox News media figures highlighted the IBD/TIPP poll, even after Fox News had described it as "not scientific."

[In a column originally published in Game Developer magazine, former lead designer on Firaxis' Civilization IV and current EA 2D staffer Soren Johnson examines the role of luck in games, which he describes as "a social lubricant – the alcohol of gaming, so to speak."]

One of the most powerful tools a designer can use when developing games is probability, using random chance to determine the outcome of player actions or to build the environment in which play occurs. The use of luck, however, is not without its pitfalls, and designers should be aware of the trade-offs involved – what chance can add to the experience and when it can be counterproductive.

Failing at Probability

One challenge with using randomness is that humans are notoriously poor at accurately evaluating probability. A common example is the Gambler’s Fallacy, which is the belief that odds will even out over time. If the Roulette wheel comes up black five times in a row, players often believe that the odds of coming up black again are quite small, even though clearly the streak makes no difference whatsoever.

Conversely, people also see streaks where none actually exist – the shooter with a ‘hot hand’ in basketball, for example, is a myth. Studies show that, if anything, a successful shot actually predicts a subsequent miss.

Also, as designers of slot machines and MMO’s are quite aware, setting odds unevenly between each progressive reward level makes players think that the game is more generous than it really is. One commercial slot machine had its payout odds published by www.wizardofodds.com in 2008:

* 1:1 per 8 plays
* 2:1 per 600 plays
* 5:1 per 33 plays
* 20:1 per 2,320 plays
* 80:1 per 219 plays
* 150:1 per 6,241 plays

The 80:1 payoff is common enough to give players the thrill of beating the odds for a a big win but still rare enough that the casino is in no risk of losing money. Furthermore, humans have a hard time estimating extreme odds – a 1% chance is anticipated too often and 99% odds are considered to be as safe as 100%.

Leveling the Field

These difficulties in accurately estimating odds actually work in the favor of the game designer. Simple game design systems, such as the dice-based resource generation system in Settlers of Catan, can be tantalizingly difficult to master with a dash of probability.

In fact, luck makes a game more accessible because it shrinks the gap – whether in perception or in reality – between experts and novices. In a game with a strong luck element, beginners believe that, no matter what, they have a chance to win. Few people would be willing to play a chess Grandmaster, but playing a backgammon expert is much more appealing – a few lucky throws can give anyone a chance.

In the words of designer Dani Bunten, "Although most players hate the idea of random events that will destroy their nice safe predictable strategies, nothing keeps a game alive like a wrench in the works. Do not allow players to decide this issue. They don’t know it but we’re offering them an excuse for when they lose ('It was that damn random event that did me in!') and an opportunity to ‘beat the odds’ when they win.”

Thus, luck serves as a social lubricant – the alcohol of gaming, so to speak – that increases the appeal of multiplayer gaming to audiences which would not normally be suited for cutthroat head-to-head competition.

Where Luck Fails

Nonetheless, randomness is not appropriate for all situations or even all games. The "nasty surprise" mechanic is never a good idea. If a crate provides ammo and other bonuses when opened but explodes 1% of the time, the player has no chance to learn the probabilities in a safe manner. If the explosion occurs early enough, the player will immediately stop opening crates. If it happens much later, the player will feel unprepared and cheated.

Also, when randomness becomes just noise, the luck simply detracts from the player’s understanding of the game. If a die roll is made every time a StarCraft Marine shoots at a target, the rate of fire will simply appear uneven. Over time, the effect of luck on the game’s outcome will be negligible, but the player will have a harder time grasping how strong a Marine’s attack actually is with all the extra random noise.

Further, luck can slow down a game unnecessarily. The board games History of the World and Small World have a very similar conquest mechanic, except that the former uses dice and the latter does not (until the final attack). Making a die roll with each attack causes a History of the World turn to last at least three or four times as long as a turn in Small World.

The reason is not just the logistical issues of rolling so many dice – knowing that the results of one’s decisions are completely predictable allows one to plan out all the steps at once without worrying about contingencies. Often, handling contingencies are a core part of the game design, but game speed is an important factor too, so designers should be sure that the trade-off is worthwhile.

Finally, luck is very inappropriate for calculations to determine victory. Unlucky rolls feel the fairest the longer players are given to react to them before the game’s end. Thus, the earlier luck plays a role, the better for the perception of game balance. Many classic card games – pinochle, bridge, hearts – follow a standard model of an initial random distribution of cards that establishes the game’s ‘terrain’ followed by a luck-free series of tricks which determines the winners and losers.

Probability is Content

Indeed, the idea that randomness can provide an initial challenge to be overcome plays an important role in many classic games, from simple games like Minesweeper to deeper ones like NetHack and Age of Empires. At their core, solitaire and Diablo are not so different – both present a randomly-generated environment that the player needs to navigate intelligently for success.

An interesting recent use of randomness was Spelunky, which is indie developer Derek Yu’s combination of the random level generation of NetHack with the game mechanics of 2D platformers like Lode Runner. The addictiveness of the game comes from the unlimited number of new caverns to explore, but frustration can emerge from the wild difficulty of certain, unplanned combinations of monsters and tunnels.

In fact, pure randomness can be an untamed beast, creating game dynamics that throw an otherwise solid design out of balance. For example, Civilization 3 introduced the concept of strategic resources which were required to construct certain units – Chariots need Horses, Tanks need Oil, and so on. These resources were sprinkled randomly across the world, which inevitably led to large continents with only one cluster of Iron controlled by a single AI opponent. Complaints of being unable to field armies for lack of resources were common among the community.

For Civilization IV, the problem was solved by adding a minimum amount of space between certain important resources, so that two sources of Iron could never be within seven tiles of each other. The result was a still unpredictable arrangement of resources around the globe but without the clustering that could doom an unfortunate player. On the other hand, the game actively encouraged clustering for less important luxury resources – Incense, Gems, Spices – to promote interesting trade dynamics.

Showing the Odds

Ultimately, when considering the role of probability, designers need to ask themselves "how is luck helping or hurting the game?" Is randomness keeping the players pleasantly off-balance so that they can’t solve the game trivially? Or is it making the experience frustratingly unpredictable so that players are not invested in their decisions?

One factor which helps ensure the former is making the probability as explicit as possible. The strategy game Armageddon Empires based combat on a few simple die rolls and then showed the dice directly on-screen. Allowing the players to peer into the game’s calculations increases their comfort level with the mechanics, which makes chance a tool for the player instead of a mystery.

Similarly, with Civilization IV, we introduced a help mode which showed the exact probability of success in combat, which drastically increased player satisfaction with the underlying mechanics. Because humans have such a hard time estimating probability accurately, helping them make a smart decision can improve the experience immensely.

Some deck-building card games, such as Magic: The Gathering or Dominion, put probability in the foreground by centering the game experience on the likelihood of drawing cards in the player’s carefully constructed deck. These games are won by players who understand the proper ratio of rares to commons, knowing that each card will be drawn exactly once each time through the deck. This concept can be extended to other games of chance by providing, for example, a virtual “deck of dice” that ensures the distribution of die rolls is exactly even.

Another interesting – and perhaps underused – idea from the distant past of gaming history is the “Element of Chance” game option from the turn-based strategy game Lords of Conquest. The three options available – Low, Medium, and High – determined whether luck was only used to break ties or to play a larger role in resolving combat.

The appropriate role of chance in a game is ultimately a subjective question, and giving players the ability to adjust the knobs themselves can open up the game to a larger audience with a greater variety of tastes.

Good news iPhone users, Proporta has agreed to give away some of their extremely high quality iPhone pouches to 4 lucky readers!

I managed to get my hands on one of these excellent pouches for review, and was very pleased with the quality.  When I got the pouch the first thing that surprised me was that it was incredibly soft, unlike most of the stiffer leather pouches I’m used to.  It felt a bit snug, but after a few uses, it stretched to the perfect fit.  If you have any doubt about the quality – you can also rest easy knowing that it comes with a lifetime warranty :)

4 awesome Maya II iPhone leather-like pouches worth USD23 each shipped directly to you.

Drop a comment saying you want the pouch, and after a week, I’ll pick 4 random comments and these lucky folks will walk away with the goodies!

Proporta is a proud contributor to the 33 trees project and is not only giving away awesome stuff but is helping to make the world a better place. Do also check out this montour other contributor this month.

ps.  Do shop around in my affiliate store if you want to buy accessories for all types of phones :)

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With the burning intensity of a thousand suns.

That’s how much I hate DRM.  My thoughts are that if you buy the rights to a song or a movie, you should also have the right to play it on whatever medium you currently own. 

Daniusoft Media Converter is an all-in-one toolbox which deals with DRM in a swift fashion and focuses on these key features.

• Removes DRM copy protection
• Rips DVDs
• Converts music/movies
• Burns move files to DVDs
• Directly transfers songs and videos to portable players

Easy to use, and pretty speedy when I tested it out, this is a tool worth having if you have lots of digital content.

10 licenses of Media Converter Ultimate worth USD59.90 EACH.

Drop a comment saying you want a copy of this cool software, and after a week, I’ll pick 10 random comments and these lucky folks will walk away with the goodies!

DaniuSoft is a proud contributor to the 33 trees project and is not only giving away awesome stuff but is helping to make the world a better place.

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Random Thought! A special edition of random thoughts this week, people! It's random thoughts time! Get excited!

Link Thought! Quickie Reviews (Mar 10 2010) (The Unwritten makes a small comeback!). Is it Just Children? (or is it okay to kill everyone?). High Road/Low Road on Chris Jericho/Edge at WrestleMania (I really love this, but still have to argue against it... dammit). Wrestling 4Rs featuring my review of the first edition of TNA Impact in its new semi-live Monday night timespot (spoiler: I thought it was shit). Fuck Me? (people who comment on wrestling sites are much funnier than those who comment on comics sites). Wrestler of the Week (only two weeks left...). Art Discussion Month 2010 (it passes the halfway mark today... I'm mostly done! Also, check out Frank Teran's comment in my discussion of the Hellblazer issue he drew... it's all gossipy and fun!). The Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.1 (Tim swears, but I had to bleep it out to keep the podcast clean). The Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.2 (I swear, but I had to bleep it out to keep the podcast clean). An interview with Keith Champagne on WWE Heroes (yes, it's on this blog, but people miss things...).

Random Thought! I'm oddly comforted by the thought that, if I lived in Russia, comics would be reviewing me... (Taken from my Twitter feed on Sunday.)

Random Thought! I have no interest in that Young Allies book beyond how awesome the name Bastards of Evil is. That's not just a good bad guy team name, it's a Joe Casey-esque bad guy team name, and no one does supervillains who revel in their villainy as well as Casey these days, so nicely done, Mr. McKeever.

Random Thought! Because it gives me focus, the rest of the column will be my "I'ds of March" to follow-up on Brian's annual posting. Sure, that was yesterday, but I don't want to step on his toes, let him do his thing and I'll keep mine in this column. If I remember next year, the 15th will be on a Tuesday and mine will actually go up on the day. I did this previously, on my blog, two years ago. (Linking to that so I won't repeat myself...)

I'd... have ended Secret Invasion with Noh-Varr helping to turn the tide against the Skrulls and, then, turning on the heroes, because he intends to take over the planet himself and remake it in Hala's image. Not taking over then, Norman Osborn could still be in charge and Dark Reign happens mostly as planned, but Noh-Varr is set up as a threat, someone who isn't working for the same goals as anyone.

I'd... have brought Steve Rogers back in Captain America as a regular arc with Butch Guice as the artist, kicking off his run on the book. Not necessarily as smart a sales/business move, but I think it would have worked artistically better.

I'd... have not marketed Joe Casey's tenure on Superman/Batman as a follow-up to "Our Worlds at War" and would have also let people know that was writing the book when the first issue came out in October and made it clear what was going on.

I'd... hire Jim Starlin to take over one of the Marvel cosmic books. With Thanos coming back, all we need is Starlin. It would lighten the load for Abnett and Lanning a bit and also give the line a little bit more diversity in writing. I've enjoyed the unified vision, but, come on, DnA and Starlin writing those characters? That would be amazing.

I'd... have hired J.M. DeMatteis to write Spider-Man: The Clone Saga. Or, at least, a back-up strip to give the series a little more flavour and breathing room. I'd have also included some extra material like one-page interviews on the story throughout the series. Small things to make it a better experience.

I'd... have not made Wednesday Comics exclusively 12-part serialised stories. Do some one-offs and short serials, mix things up a bit, play with the newspaper format.

I'd... have released the "Final Crisis Aftermath" book in a different manner, maybe not all at the same time nor with such similar titles. They all sort of blended together that way when they might have done better by making their differences more obvious and trying to target each book's specific audience more directly.

I'd... release Paul Jenkins's Hellblazer run in trades. Plus, I do a trade or two of the remaining uncollected issues from that series. The one- and two-parters that popped up over the years.

I'd... have hired almost any other artist than Philip Tan for the second Batman & Robin arc. That arc sticks out like a sore thumb and DC could have found someone much better suited to Morrison's writing -- and someone whose work doesn't look ten times worse in the middle of Frank Quitely- and Cameron Stewart-drawn arcs.

I'd... have hounded Chip Zdarsky to contribute to Strange Tales... because he's great.

I'd... hire Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk to do a second Dark X-Men mini-series later in 2010 to explore what happens to the characters without Norman Osborn in charge. That could be very interesting and act as a nice sequel to the recently-concluded mini.

I'd... have hired a writer with sensibilities much more in common with Grant Morrison than Keith Giffen to write The Authority: The Lost Year. A cool idea for a book that went wrong by hiring the wrong writer to do it. That needed someone much more in tune with the way Morrison writes.

I'd... have chosen more Spider-Woman over the motion comics animated thing.

I'd... have made those Dark Reign: The List issues actually... you know... mean something...? Like, made them count for something lasting and important within the "Dark Reign" story rather than just coming out and... not really doing much of anything.

I'd... hound and pester Craig Ferguson until he agrees to write an Aquaman comic, dammit!

Random Thought! That was fun.

***

Random Comments! Your comments. My replies. Rather obvious. Trying something new by replying to portions of comments directly. If it's confusing or people don't like it, let me know.

Bill Reed said: People actually watched Corner Gas? Really? Did they enjoy it? Does one have to be Canadian to enjoy it? Some station or another here in God's United States aired it for a bit there, and I stumbled upon it one day... it's like some kind of terrifying black hole of quality.

Corner Gas is a decent, middle-of-the-road sitcom. It only produces a couple of chuckles in an episode, but gets the odd big laugh. Or, it did when it was on. I don't think it's a uniquely Canadian thing, but who knows with you Americans?

I'm tired of this shtick already. Deadpool isn't that overexposed. I proved it with maths. Still, he does have a surprising amount of solo titles, more than I think the market will be able to support. In a year's time, he'll probably be back to one, unless the movie comes out.

Just because other characters appear in more books, doesn't mean Deadpool isn't overexposed. Something like that is relative to the character and how much exposure is too much. Spider-Man and Batman appear in more books? Fine, but we're also used to them appearing in a lot of books. There's a longtime demand for them to appear in numerous books. As of yet, there's an apparent shortterm demand for Deadpool that could easily turn against the character like happened to Punisher and Ghost Rider. Your math, while interesting, doesn't tell the whole story.

CW said: The whole 'Deadpool overexposure' thing is really weird for me. Not because I hate the character, or I'm offended by the character being rammed down my throat, but I guess I'm from the time when Joe Kelly and Ed McGuness couldn't buy readers for his solo series. I grew up with Deadpool as a third-rate Wolverine knock-off (violent guy with an attitude) fighting second-rate characters (Black Tom?) from a second rate X-book (Leifeld-era X-Force, you suck!). That Joe Kelly was able to take the character and make something truely moving and halarious is nothing short of miraculous. The book was constantly fighting cancelation, and although it never really recovered after McGuness left the book, it was still one of the best books Marvel was publishing at the time.

Everything being published today featuring the character is a pale shadow of what was done in that first series. I don't believe that later work of any creator or of any character can diminish the original work, but what's being published as Deadpool comics these days makes me almost say he's been ruined. As it is, I see those books as being the one shining gem in a big pile of turd. And it makes me realize just how funny and vindictive the fates must be to make *now* be when Deadpool is at his most popular among the hoi poi. It's almost like something... Deadpool would come up with.

Agreed. Having read Deadpool books for reviewing purposes at CBR, I can vouch for the lack of funny. They're cute. There's maybe one funny moment per issue. Then again, humour is relative, so maybe lots of people are finding the current books very funny. I did enjoy Deadpool's recent guest-spot in Amazing Spider-Man by Joe Kelly and Eric Canete. That was great.

Mecha-Shiva said: Frisky Dingo, man... what a great show. I ran into Adam Reed at my mechanic's (I had no idea what he looked like, but he started talking to someone at the counter and I'm wondering why this guy sounds like Xander Crews then he said his name and it made sense) but lacked the balls to say hello or anything. I don't understand why Frisky Dingo (or the all-too-brief Xtacles spinoff) never got the same kind of attention as the Venture Bros. Not to take anything away from the Venture Bros., which is great, but... other than the crappy animation, I see nothing not to like about Frisky Dingo. Ka-kow.

I can understand why: The Venture Bros. do self-contained episodes. Frisky Dingo opted for episodes that told one big story, much like a comics storyarc written for the trade. That doesn't make it less good, it just makes it harder for people to get into it. That, and The Venture Bros. is better. Sorry.

Mario said: People who don't like Deadpool or constantly whine about his overexposure are simply in denial of their desire to read a comic that will have no "serious" long term effect. Deadpool comics are all about enjoyment (in the best and worse ways possible).

No, I'm all for those books. I've read recent Deadpool books and they're just not good. Not funny or entertaining.

Jason Arron's Wolvering doesn't suck.

No, Jason Aaron's Wolverine book doesn't suck. That's what made me realise that I just don't care for the character. I'd read an issue here and there and enjoy what I've read, and, yet, I felt no desire to read another issue.

FunkyGreenJerusalem said: That's because it's by an Australian director Gregor Jordan, who makes the most empty and souless films of all time. He won a big short film competition in Australia with a clever short... although apparently it's VERY similar to another short, or scene from an old film. He then made a crime film which wouldn't have gone anywhere, except it had Bryan Brown swearing a lot, and was the breakthrough (in Australia, which led to US work) of Heath Ledger. That got him signed up to a five picture film, and it's been a slow and steady output of dribble ever since. (I know his career because I keep thinking every film will be his last, and am just shocked at watching his mediocrity continue to live). Having seen The Informers the other week, don't stress Chad, just about every character in it will die of AIDS soon after the credits. (Although I think we're supposed to ignore that by combining the stories, and making them all happen at once, nearly every character had, presumably, unprotected sex with someone who had slept with another character, all leading back to the girl who dies of AIDS at the end... AIDS of course being added in, as it's not in the novel, to give the film some kind of ending).

I haven't read the collection in a while, but, yeah, I don't remember AIDS being in any of the stories. Hell, the girl doesn't even die necessarily in the book. Thanks for the background info. From what I read, the director really fucked with the script and cut it down considerably.

I loved when that book hinted that Xavier was in their heads and manipulating the X-Men the whole time. That never went anywhere.

That was very frustrating. Xavier was perfectly happy to alter Magneto's memories and mind, but wouldn't act on a larger scale to solve the problems with mutants and humanity -- or, at least, influence the minds of the right people to move things along. Again, small-scale, status quo-feeding bullshit.

So you're praising Ellis for writing a nice outline of a story, and then publishing it as a story? From memory, the book has a scene where the main characters - all of whom have nothing original or distinguishing about them - are standing in a warehouse. The police are intercut with the heroes talking, surrounding a warehouse, and they kick down the door... but they have the wrong warehouse. That's Chuck Austen level of writing.

No, Ellis wrote a conclusion to his story, but part of it was introducing ideas that could be more fully explored in the future. And that scene happened, but it, you know, made sense in context and wasn't bad. But, I'm not going to change your mind.

Willie Everstop said: Random Thought! What the hell is up with comic characters leaving the word what out of the phrase "What the hell" lately? Is it a creator quirk or just some weird way to avoid censorship? It always seems out of place to me.

I say 'the hell?' or 'the fuck?' Just a variation on the phrase that some people use.

TimCallahan said: Hey, I was an English major and I read ALL the assigned books. (Problem was: I usually didn't read them until the day before the final, and Chaucer isn't really all that great when you read him like that. He may not be great for other reasons -- the jury is still out on that.)

I did that with Moby-Dick since it was the one book in my American lit class in undergrad that we had to discuss in an essay on the final exam. By the halfway mark, I was skipping the chapters on whales, sticking to the narrative. Good times.

Rome said: BTW, did you like the new Iron Man 2 trailer? Any thoughts on the Suitcase Armor?

Looks decent. No real thoughts or judgements since the first movie was good enough to earn the sequel a viewing. So, I'm trying not to care too much, preferring to leave my thoughts until I see the finished product with everything in its proper context.

Jack Norris said: As soon as the words "hero's journey" pop up in an argument, I automatically feel less obligated to read on in a respectful manner. It's become the fans & critics (oh, and let's not forget some creators as well) version of "because, uh... because Jesus, God and the Bible, that's why!" in the way that it's just an empty appeal to authority.

Agreed. But, the endpoint of Peter's progression into adulthood is leaving Spider-Man behind and learning about real responsibility. Just the way it is.

Mike Loughlin said: My problem with JMS' better comics (Midnight Nation, Rising Stars, Supreme Power) is that he spent an awful lot of time on set-up, and very little on delivery. I read all 18 issues of Supreme Power, but got the impression that the story JMS wanted to tell would have taken at least 50 more. Rising Stars started out great (although the art was sub-par), but ended limply. Midnight Nation is a self-contained story, at least, but they seemed to spend most of the issues lurching toward a rather predictable conclusion (I liked it, despite its flaws). I think JMS is good at world-building, but falters when it comes to structuring.

Yeah, that's why Babylon 5 was so great: he had the room to set up plots and characters and world build without it cutting short the eventual payoffs. Comics are limited by page-count and the speed at which they come out and JMS seems to need more room to work. He hasn't adapted to the medium as much as he should have by this point.

That's it. Thanks for reading. Later.

This book came out two months ago, but I waited until I had some other stuff to review so I could do a few days of "reviews a day." I don't mind waiting a while with standalone long-form novels, though, because it's not like the Next Big Event will be spoiled if you don't read this right away! And there's some minor nudity below. You can handle it!

Naomi Nowak's latest book, Graylight, is published by NBM and costs a mere $12.95. I'm extremely torn about this book. I don't love it, but I do think it's a work that can be enjoyable. Allow me to explain!

On the recommendable side, Nowak's art is astonishing (uh-oh, I just gave away what's not recommendable about it). A quoted review on the back calls it "Pre-Raphaelite," which isn't a bad description (it's actually the coloring of the book that's called that, but it does apply to the design of the book as well, or at least what I know of the Pre-Raphaelites seems to apply) - Nowak's art is lush, almost Edenic, with a bold color palette that I hesitate to call "girlie," but I'm sorry - that's the word I thought of. Nowak uses lots of deep greens and blues and purples, and she puts her characters deep into nature, so that flowers and butterflies threaten to overwhelm the pages. She designs the book so that each page (or double-page spread) is a complete drawing, eschewing panels quite often to build a page in which the separate drawings bleed into each other, highlighting the riotousness of nature even more. She does use panels, but lays them out on the page so that they crash into each other at jagged angles, overlap each other, and generally look "sloppy" - it's not sloppy, because Nowak is going for a deliberate effect, but it's not a "traditional" design or even a frenetic design like we often see in "edgy" comics. It's much more of a melding of the panels, as Nowak uses the panels like she does the larger splashes - as ways to create a holistically pleasing scene. Nowak's attention to detail is tremendous, even though it doesn't, surprisingly, extend too much to her characters. With a few exceptions on a few pages, the characters remain inexpressive, which is rather odd. Occasionally we can see that Nowak can do more with faces, so the fact that she doesn't is a bit perplexing. Nowak is Swedish, and this book apparently takes place during a northern summer, meaning the daylight lasts most of the day - we get a sense of dreaminess from the endless light, which is a nice trick. Because we get a sense that these people just aren't getting enough sleep, we get a feel that they are somehow dreaming while they're awake, and it heightens the sense of strangeness that is pervasive in the book. Nowak's art is a true treat.

However ... the writing doesn't keep up. Nowak is going for a very impressionistic kind of comic here, which is fine, but she does have a story to tell, and she doesn't do a great job. She's telling the story of a young lady named Sasha and the unusual love triangle in which she finds herself. But Nowak, in trying to avoid overexplaining, gives us hardly any narrative whatsoever. What we get is a lot of dreamy scenes where people say things that often have no connection with what anyone else is saying. It's a tough go. It begins on the first few pages. We see a woman holding a baby, and then we see the father leaving. She then tells the baby that she'll never let a woman "capable of this devastation" come into the baby's life, and that he'll "never end up" like his father. The father then committed suicide. It's obvious that the father cheated on the mother and she threw him out, which is not a bad way to start the story, but we can already see that Nowak is going more for a mood than anything else. This becomes problematic as we move along.

In the present, we meet a girl named Sasha, who's a thief. In the woods one day, she meets a man she's seen hanging around town named Erik, who is off to interview a reclusive author for his newspaper. He invites Sasha to come along as his "photographer," but the author - the same woman we saw in the beginning - doesn't like this, and Sasha has to leave ... but not before she steals a book from a shelf in the house. The woman's son, Edmund - the same baby we saw in the beginning - then tries to track down the book, with less-than-desirable results. Sasha is romantically involved with Erik, but Edmund desires her as well. His mother, Aurora, who promised to protect him from women like Sasha, takes some extreme measures. And that's all I really want to say of the general plot, because I don't want to spoil it.

Nowak makes us work too much, however. Sasha doesn't seem to be that evil, despite her thievery. She doesn't really "act" upon Edmund too much, and Edmund doesn't seem to fall too far under her spell, such as it is. Sasha's relationship with Erik comes completely out of nowhere - on one page, they seem to have no connection whatsoever, and the next, they're naked together, and a few pages later, they're arguing about whether Sasha should tell her friends she's in a relationship. This makes the "love triangle" that forms with Edmund even more enervating, because not only do Sasha and Edmund not have much of a relationship, neither do Sasha and Erik. So when Aurora decides to take action, we not only don't completely understand her motivation (as much as we can figure it out; and Edmund is still a grown man, so maybe she should let go a bit), but we don't understand why this random girl has raised her ire. There's a vague explanation, but it doesn't help too much. This weakens the climax of the book.

Nowak, as I wrote, is counting on us to do a lot of the lifting. That's fine - more comic writers should do that. She leaves it up to us to make connections, and for the most part we can, but where the writing really fails is with the characterization. If we're going to infer major plot points, we need to have a clearer grasp of the characters. If Nowak wants Aurora to be seen not as an overbearing mother or a martyr for her child's happiness but some of both, she needs to do a better job with Aurora herself. If she wants us to care about Sasha and her odd kleptomania, Sasha needs to be more compelling. The love triangle falls apart because all three characters are ciphers, and therefore we don't feel anything for any of them. It gets back to the Nordic setting - if Nowak is matching the aloofness of the characters with the dreamlike and slightly surreal surroundings, well I guess she succeeded, but it doesn't necessarily make the book worth reading.

As I always feel when I read a comic by someone who is clearly talented and is also working outside the superhero mainstream, I hate that I don't like this more. If you're interested in Nowak's art, I would recommend it highly. If you're looking for that art to work in conjunction with a solid story, you'll probably be disappointed. Nowak has done two other graphic novels, and I'm actually interested in getting at least one to see how her writing is in those. That's how cool her art is. But on the whole, Graylight falls a bit short. It's too bad.

Filed under: Features, Social Software, web 2.0, Microblogging

Twitter Tuesday - this week's Twitter news, apps and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

USA Today – “He had been one of publishing’s major holdouts. But best-selling author John Grisham is finally joining the e-book bandwagon. Random House announced today that all 23 Grisham titles are now available for purchase in the U.S, and Canada, “wherever e-books are sold.” That includes Amazon’s Kindle Store, the Sony Reader store and Barnes & Noble.com.”

Okay, so ChatRoulette is all the rage right now (although, admittedly, I have yet to give it a try,) and we think we found someone that you’ll want to be on the lookout for when you are randomly talking to um, random, individuals. If you come across Merton, the improvising piano player, give him a moment. Hit up the video above to see why. He definitely had us laughing with some of his classic lines.

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"...I sit down with Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher for Microsoft Research and Albert Shum, Director of Mobile Experience Design for Windows Phone 7 Series to talk about creating compelling user experiences, how developers and designers can work together in harmony and random Canadian trivia."

Bill Buxton is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft, and Albert Shum is a Mobile Design Partner - curious titles, but if you want to understand some of the background behind the user experience of Windows phone 7, this video is a must-watch.