Bus error: Jake Billo’s weblog

Just caught this item in my Google Reader feed from Joystiq:

Although GHIII is fine and you could probably survive being in Hot Topic, playing Guitar Hero III within the walls of a Hot Topic actual [sic] conscripts you into an emo band. It’s true: A spectral version of Morrissey appears and eats all but .5 percent of your body fat, tears pre-caked in eyeliner spurt from your eyes and members of Jimmy Eat World chloroform you and force you to play bass. It’s a nightmare.

If it’s worth the risk to you you can see all the details here. But we think we’ll stay at home and put our eyeliner on by ourselves, thank you very much.

In an effort to be regular with my content - considering this week has not been kind to my posting schedule - I’ll continue with “Random Links of Interest Friday”. Here’s what I’ve stumbled across this week:

• A List Apart: Sliding Doors CSS. This article provides examples of how to implement rounded tabs by styling an unordered list element.
• CBC News: Digg dumps Google for Microsoft as ad partner. Facebook already has had the Microsoft contract for a while now, and I’m fairly certain Microsoft’s ad business is operated outside of the MSN/Windows Live norms.
• ColorSchemer Online. I’ve been doing a few web designs this week and sites like this one have been immensely helpful in selecting complimentary colours for links, active elements, etc…
• O2Networks Blog: A friend of mine, Dave Aldwinckle, has joined the weasel community of people who write things nobody else wants to hear online. He’s already got some great content online, such as this uTorrent technical manual for new users to the world of BitTorrent. (Disclaimer: EdgeLink Consulting indirectly hosts and helps with the IT dirty work for Dave’s site.
• Wall Street Journal: Hide the Button: Steve Jobs Has His Finger on It. A discussion of everyone’s favourite CEO and his hatred for buttons in user interfaces.
• McAfee Site Advisor Phishing Quiz. See if you can spot the scam sites from the real ones. Most of the problems, though, stem from incredibly poor English. If any of these scammers paid a technical writer to proofread their content, it would start getting really challenging to separate the real from the imitation sites.
• ScoreHero gets new Guitar Hero III information. While I’m probably not picking up this game (waiting for Rock Band personally), it’s neat to hear about the improvements coming in the next version of the game. The forum thread is full of fanboys, though - as would be expected if your favourite game developer paid for a trip to you to see their next product.
• The Math Moron. A Slate columnist, frustrated with her own mathematical ineptitude, decides to enroll in Kumon to be better able to help her daughter with homework. Also check out her latest piece about being a standardized patient and the following chat transcript.
• RewriteRule examples for Apache. While the actual rules themselves are regular expressions (regex), the formatting of them can be slightly different. This site has a few good examples for your webserver configuration.
• TOBlog: Your Rights as a Photographer in Toronto. A former coworker of mine wrote this post about what you’re legally allowed to do when taking pictures. Good advice for anyone who’s gotten a digital camera and is starting out into photography.

As per Major Nelson’s post:

The free update will introduce several significant features, bug fixes and updates based on user feedback, including Xbox LIVE Vision Camera support (player bankrolls will not be reset with this update).

Now with live video, players can put on their best poker face and scrutinize the faces of their opponent’s in true poker fashion. Using the Xbox LIVE Vision Camera also allows players to use a series of game faces using the snapshot mode for all-ins, wins, losses, folds and more. Other features of the update include the following:

· Improved usability such as the addition of Custom Match Lists, which allows gamers to view and select which available Custom Match game they would like to join.

· Improved rich presence in the game, allowing players to not only see what their friends are up to, but also if they just won that big pot!

· Improved matchmaking and user results.

· Scoring and screens are more readable than before.

· Multi-language support including English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

New premium downloadable content allows players to customize the in-game environment, and access new gamerpics and themes

This update being free almost makes up for the travesty of the Guitar Hero II song pack costing $6.25US for three songs. Didn’t they hear the massive outrage last time? It was even worse than the horse armor scandal with Oblivion.