Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Anyone who has spent any length of time using a dial-up modem remembers their first taste of the sweet nectar called "Broadband".

I can remember downloading the original Doom shareware demo from a BBS back in Lansing, I think it was the Abacus. I had myself a 2400 baud modem. Someone had taken the time to break up the install program into about 5 or 6 chunks I think. I remember that it took me a couple of days to download it all, the Abacus only gave you so many hours a day to be connected and well the file size to download speed meant that it was going to take all of my allotted time.

But when I went to MSU I got my first taste of broadband. Not during the summer program, SUPER, they had us out in Sny-Phi (Snyder-Phillips) and older dorm, I had a 28.8 modem at this point (pretty sure it wasn't a 56k yet, I think those had just hit the market).

But when I got into the Holden dorm, I had an Ethernet outlet in my room. It was unbelievable. I could download game demos quicker than I ever imagined. That was my first real taste of broadband.

When I first moved down to Austin (TX) I was on dial-up again, with a 56k modem this time. I remember playing online games and bitching about the lag or having to download patches in the 1MB range and how long it took to do so.

Broadband for the home was still in the form of T1 and ISDN lines. Both of which were well outside my pay scale. I mean a T1 would easily be about $2k/month and a 128K ISDN line was I think like $400 or $500 dollars.

I don't remember which came first to town. But I think it was cable modem. I signed up for the RoadRunner cable modem service from Time Warner as soon as I could. It was great. It was like being back at MSU.

Not to mention it was nice to be able to be on the phone and the Internet at the same time (I didn't really use my cell phone much back then.)

I had heard horror stories about DSL. The wait times, the constant failures (for days, not hours or minutes). So I stuck with cable modem for quite a while.

I think it was around August of last year that I made the switch to Yahoo!-SBC DSL. I figured that they had to have it stable by now. Plus by bundling the DSL, Phone and Sattelite together I was spending about as much as I was for just the cable portion of my bill to TimeWarner.

So I made the switch. The DSL has proven to be fairly stable. There were some moments where I would have to reboot the modem and router. But I figured out that this was some sort of strange session conflict between my modem and router, so I made the router login to the DSL network and told the modem not to. No more problems since.

What made me think of all of this.

My Mother did.

Last night she finished hooking up her DSL modem and got her first taste of Broadband. Now, she had an Ethernet connection on her computer when she worked for the State of Michigan, but being as it was the State, not supposed to be downloading music or pictures or what not.

I congratulate my Mom on her problem solving skills. Stand up and take a bow Mom, you earned it.

The DSL modem was not working correctly it was intermittently flashing red and green. I was afraid I was going to have to call tech support, not a fun thing, AT&T (formerly SBC) outsources it to India.

However, she made the keen observation that one of the phones in the house didn't have the DSL filter attachments they provide. She installed the filter and the light when to a steady green.

She completed the registration process and was able to pull up my blog.

I ordered them the slowest speed DSL of 768 Kbps download vs what would occasionally be a 56 kbps modem connection (usually I think I connected in the 40 Kbps range). So I expect her to have at least 10 times the speed. If they really get into photo sharing or what not, it is only $5 more a month for the 1.5 Mbps speed.

Again, Mom take a bow. You were able to handle a fairly technical setup without any real help from me. And also, I think ATT-Yahoo DSL deserves a round of applause for being able to provide a decent set of instructions and a relatively pain free product.

And I am sure my Mom will always remember her first taste of Broadband. Because you will miss it when your without it.

Back to the grind, Laterz.

It was selected "America's Best" back in 1893 and last night it was my beer of choice.

I went to a meet & greet for SXSW, Jaduka will be exhibiting at the SXSW Interactive show this year.

The event was held at the Beauty Bar, an interesting little place.

I met some new folks, possibly made a friend or two.

And in an another six-degrees of separation, I talked with David (Webmaster for SXSW) and I brought up UnWired Buyer (formerly known as gNumber). He didn't know UnWired Buyer, but he did know gNumber. He said that he went to high school with Eric Smith and has known Stacey for a long time too.

I had sort of hoped to run into anyone from UnWired Buyer at the shindig. Stacey often volunteers for SXSW as an upper level coordinator.

Anyway, I am a bit hungover. I didn't have too many (considering it was downtown and I had to drive myself home), but cheap beer seems to hit me harder.

Gina wants me to go and buy lunch, she is on a conference call at the moment.

Duty calls, Laterz.

I spent a good part of this weekend playing one of my all time favorite games.

Nope, not killing zombies. I was arming my cruisers with phasors and trying to keep Bothans from stealing the plans to my Doomstars.

What game was I playing?

Master of Orion II, aka MOOII

This game is one of my all-time favorites for primarily these reasons:

1. Turn-based combat with granular control of my ships.
2. Turn-based management of the colony.
3. The ability to design ships with the weapons and special gadgets I want.
4. Phasors (that when enough you have done enough research can be shield piercing)
5. Stellar Converter

I would have been playing Dead Rising or maybe some Gears of War, but Gina was watching movies on the big screen so I locked myself in the office and duked it out with the Psilons and Bulrathi.

I think another reason that I like MOOII so much is that it ties in the sci-fi elements of many different stories. You have your Star Wars elements, like the Ion Cannon (which was badass before they nerfed it in one of the patches), and the Doomstar (think Deathstar).

You get your Babylon 5 elements (in my opinion) with the elements of an ancient race that pops in and blow the place up their ultra advanced ships and weapons.

You get your Star Trek feel with Anti-Matter drives, Phasors, Anti-Matter Torpedoes, shields, disrupters, cloaking and phase cloaking, transporters and tractor beams.

Then there is the "Stellar Converter". This was a weapon featured in a movie that most sci-fi junkies know about but never really made it to the mainstream (again my opinion, since I was only two years of age when it was released) , Battle Beyond the Stars.

I would attribute the interceptors, bombers, and heavy fighters that Battlestar Galactica, though I am sure they can be equally attributed to Star Wars (x-wings, a-wings, y-wings, etc).

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares was released in 1996. I think I bought it shortly after it came out. I think it was at the Tower Records (now gone) on Michigan Ave, across from the MSU campus.

I would like to think it is all Microprose's fault for developing such an addictive game that cost me many an hour that I should have been studying, sleeping, or going to class while I was at MSU. However, ultimately that is my fault, poor judgement, etc.

I can say honestly that I can play and beat a game of MOOII on Hard without a problem. I used to be able to beat it without much issue on Impossible, but lately I guess I am a little rusty.

I think I will probably play MOOII from time-to-time until the disc breaks and I cannot find a replacement.

They made a MOO3 and I waited with the anticipation of a kid waiting for x-mas morning. However, it sucked. They took away most of what I loved about the game. Namely, the turned based combat. MOO3 focused on the politics and empire building and not didn't provide as satisfying graphics or play control for the battles. The battles were all more or less automated and you just watch the outcome.

MOO3 was a huge disappointment for me. I would like to think that they will make a MOO4, but it too will probably suck. There was once a game that was being developed called Alien Intelligence from the specs I read about online at the time (like 8 years ago) it was going to be the contender to replace MOOII. It was turned based, it has great graphics, and the standard space based strategy empire building game.

It however, never got released. Not much on the 'net about the game anymore since it was bough by Interplay and now Interplay is no more. And in a six degrees of separation type of thing, I know one of the former higher-ups of Flatline Studios, the company developing the game, his name is Eric Smith. He is one of the founders of Unwired Buyer, an Austin based start-up that does some cool stuff with eBay, enabling you to bid via your cellphone right before the auction ends.

I tagged along with the UnWired Buyer guys at the eBay Developer Conference last year and he and I chatted about the whole Alien Intelligence thing. Now that I have a 360, I will have to see if he has Gears of War.

Back to the grind, Laterz.