Meepers Reborn After 10 Years

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Back in my early teen years I learned about this programming thing called BASIC, and from there borrowed/bought a bunch of books to learn how to make a video game (amongst VB 6.0 apps). The game I decided to make is reminiscent of one of my favorite games, The Legend of Zelda for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It is meant to only be the dungeons of the game, and thus currently has no design for an overworld. The game was created in the mid-1990s. I created it as a result of my learning how to program in C. It was developed through the reading of the book Teach Yourself Game Programming In 21 Days by Andre LaMothe. I am now going to recreated the game using C# and XNA Game Studio 2.0 in order to get the game up and running as quick as possible. This way I might even be able to play it on my XBox360.

Weight Loss Simple Theory Calls for Focus and Perseverance

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I have tried to reach my ideal body weight for my build and height for the past few years, actually since just before college started almost a decade ago. I have slowly gained weight, but have been pretty steady with slight fluctuations. Much of this is due to being eating on an American diet, where one eats until not hungry. Of course people can decide for themselves what is a good weight to be at and I am not saying that anyone else needs to change. However this post is for anyone who does want to lose (or gain) those 10-30 pounds. I’m not saying they’ll have an easy time reaching it either. Leaving all notions of normality, social acceptance, and any other bias including hollywood, I will continue with a discussion of my attempt at reaching my goal.

It’s all just calories
There is a basic fact of life that we burn so many calories, kilo-calories (kcals or Calories) to be precise, in a day. Also, every 3500 kcals in deficit or excess is a pound lost or gained, respectively. This allows me to calculate my Calories my body burns by just living. I used The Daily Plate online tool to calculate that at my current body weight of 215, and being lightly active throughout the day, my body burns about 2650 Calories a day. So without getting to technical, I need to get around 1700 net calories to lose 2 pounds each week, this accounts for burned Calories from exercise as well).

Now focus and perseverance comes into play, once the “diet” starts. 1700 Calories worth of food is not very much, especially if eating unhealthy food. So focus is needed in order to not eat too much during the day, and perseverance is needed to not give up if you do have one day where you consume too many Calories.

Here are some tips I have come up with to help me remember, and maybe help someone else out there!

My 5 Tips (for weight loss)

  1. QualityH2O – Drink water, and lots of it, well don’t go overboard. Your body can get confused between hunger and thirst, so you might as well make it much easier for you to know when you’re actually hungry. Weigh yourself at the same time with as close to the same circumstances as possible. Water weight definitely affects how much you weight, so the best time to weigh would be in the morning as it’s probably the most consistent in terms of amount of water in your system.
  2. OverUnder – Over estimate the amount you eat, and underestimate your exercise. I find that by putting 2 servings down instead of 1.75 or even 1.5 I am better off when I eat the small handful of peanuts or a couple chips that I don’t count or forget about. Same goes with exercise, forget the bike ride to the gym, or the walking or stair climbing done while out shopping. This tip is to help you lose slightly faster.
  3. LessButMore – Instead of doing 45+ minutes of exercise 3 times a week, try doing 30 minutes or less daily. I find that I can burn about 400 kcals in about 30 min, depending on your weight and type of exercise your numbers will differ. That 400 cals will help me to burn almost an extra pound a week, or allow me that weekend dessert.
  4. KeepFocus -  Have reminders of your goal weight, motivational quotes, photos, or any other thing that will help  you stay focused. It might even help to put something on the refrigerator. It also helps to have a partner, for motivation, and to help keep you accountable. You might notice differences in the first few weeks, but it will take at least a month before any significant measurements will change.
  5. Clog – Keep a daily calorie blog. Use whatever works for you, I prefer online tools. I really enjoy using The Daily Plate (TDP) as it has a rich database of foods and exercises. It allows you to track calories, body measurements, weight, and more. YOU MUST keep track of your progress so you know when you are succeeding, faultering. It will also serve as a device to keep you motivated to stay at your new weight, as you know how much work you did to get there.

I hope this helps; I’m only 5 days into my journey, and already I’m feeling better and more confident that the weight will come off and stay off. I’m already at 212 pounds. Remember that there is water-based fluctuations of +- 2.5 pounds (on average), and also muscle weighs more than fat, so don’t be alarmed if you gain a few pounds first (due to exercise) before you start losing it.

The last thing I’ll leave is that this is a good way to slowly lose those pounds as you can only lose a couple pounds a week without changing too many habits. Just eat less, or exercise a little more. You will have days where you go way over your alloted calories, but just hang in there and rest assured if you stick to this guide and use these tips you should have a better chance at succeeding in the long run, it is all about the long-term.

MIT Busting Vegas Wide Open

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I finished a book a few weeks ago called Busting Vega$ which is basically a story of a small group of MIT students who took down casinos around the world by playing skilled blackjack.  They visited Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and even the Monte Cristo.  Well a movie is coming out in late March (the 28th to be specific) entitled “21″ which is based on the true story, which the book is based on. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anyone who has been to Vegas, gambled, played cards, or is a Math geek!  Everything about the book was entertaining, thrilling, dramatic, and most of all fun! It has it all: Science, Math, Gambling, Money, Sex, and Violence.

Gears of War

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Gears of War is a very good looking game, with some of the best graphics of the current 360/PS3 generation of games (at its release). It is a 3rd-person shooter, and revolves around trying to destroy an infestation of alien life. The game-play is decent though very repetitive, allowing you to use a variety of weapons along with grenades. The main style of play is to utilize the “hug-and-cover” motion where the player gets out of the line-of-fire. Then you can either show yourself for a moment that allows precise aiming, or use the blind fire option to remain under cover while firing your weapon.

I haven’t played either of the multiplayer variations, but it supports 2 player Co-op, as well as 4v4 death matches, and I hear both are quite good and enhance the game experience not to mention increases the replayability. The game has its moments, and is an overall fun and exciting game, and despite being a little repetitive I highly recommend it.

Resources: Game Website | IGN Review

Bioshock

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I thoroughly enjoyed this game from start to finish, and while there was a bit of repetitiveness overall the game play and story were very original. The game starts out with a bang and doesn’t let up from the beginning, and it is beautiful to say the least. You find yourself stranded in a city and soon figure out that it is under the ocean or some body of water.  The game has a small twist that allows you to choose a path of good or evil, however I only chose one during my interactive adventure all the way through the end (and thus getting an achievment to boot), and I’m not so sure choosing the other side would change the game any.

The game is a little on the creepy side of things, and uses lighting as part of the story telling, so it is not for the faint of heart. However, it is very intriguing and fun to play through both the environment as well as the different types and styles of weapons that you are able to choose from. One thing that was a little boring after the first few times was “hacking” where you had to play the old-school game “pipes” where you have to piece together a functional pipe to allow water to flow from the start to the finish. This game is supposed to have a decent amount of replay value, though I’m not so certain that will be true as I attempt a second run through to try out different weapons/decisions.  As a last note I would say this game is definitely a buy, not a try (rent), but could be sold after finishing.

For more info:

Game Website | IGN’s Review | and of course Zero Punctuation’s take on the game!

The Zune Tune is Getting Louder

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The Zune is a very easy to use and capable portable media player. The second generation brings some nice hardware design changes, however I currently own a first generation and was glad to get the firmware and software upgrade that all the Zune2 models had. I would say that I prefer being able to click through menus as the way to manage and use the device. I have yet to get used to the sliding interface that the iPod and other players use. It plays music, video, photos, and now podcasts ;-) iTunes still has a one up on the software and marketplace that the Zune has, however Microsoft has definitely stepped up their game and now the device/software combination gives a pretty slick experience to the user. The Marketplace uses the Microsoft point system that XBox 360 owners will know and it is indeed the same system. Each song is 79 points, which is about $0.99 same as iTunes. It also offers a subscription service at $15/month, which if I might think about getting in the future when I have a steady job as I hear it works very well (as long as the song you want is in the 3 million song library). Well lets get on to some of the nitty-gritty details.

Under the Hood (Wikipedia Specs)
The Zune 80 and Zune 30 each have a nice display featuring 320×240. The Zune30 is the older model with a click pad, where the Zune 2.0 models have a new Zune Pad ™. It has built-in wireless. Supports MP3, AAC, Zune Marketplace DRM, and WMA for audio;JPEG for photos and WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 for videos. Also supports US and Japan radio. Supports video out @ 320×240, as well as 640×480 on the Zune 80 only.

Note: that with a standard video out cable I had to plug the Red audio plug into the Yellow jack on the TV – basically the Zune switched the wires to make you buy a Zune accessory.

My Experience
I have been playing with and using my Zune for about 4 months now. It is the Zune 30 model which is the first generation Zune. I have found the Zune 30 to be easy to use and I enjoy the clicking sensation when scrolling through the menus and content instead of the dreaded iPod scroll wheel I never could get used to, though the ZunePad does offer a similar touch experience in the 2nd gen models. I have found the battery life to be excellent for music and audio giving me a full 2 skiing days worth of listening (approx 16 hours), with video it’s about 6 hours.

The audio quality is great, the video and photo viewing is good. I have found the size of the Zune 30 to be acceptable, though the newer versions are smaller and more sleek. Finding songs is fairly quick even in long lists as it uses an accelerated scrolling speed where it scrolls quicker the longer you hold the button down. It also shows a big letter which signifies where you are at in the list. This is of course only necessary when scrolling through all artists or albums or songs when the list is very long. The integrated radio seems to work very well and is very clear, haven’t noticed any static at all really. I could see the smaller Zunes being more useful at the gym especially if they support listening to TV over radio, however I have watched video while I’m on the elliptical machine ;D

The podcast support is nice, but it could be slightly better, though it works fine for me. The video support is also a little lacking, but that is hopefully improved over time with customer feedback, again it’s fine for my needs as I have a Xbox 360 which I have already had to convert video for watching on the television. The Zune also allows wireless sharing of music, photos, and podcasts which is a neat feature if all your friends own one too. It does lock the media with DRM which allows you to play it 3 times, this restriction is not enforced on podcasts or photos however. It’s sort of fun, but for me is limited to only testing purposes as I know only one friend with a Zune and they only use it for testing at work.

Quick Tips for first time Zuners
- Make Playlists: you can create a quick list from within the Zune and it works well, but to get the full experience make playlists so you can just take it with you and start playing music right away without having to search for songs.  This is how to best use the iPod as well.
- Turn off wireless: Unless you are going to use it for sharing songs, or for wireless syncing, I recommend saving the battery by turning wireless off.
- Be sure to setup how you want your content to sync up, do you want all content, or do you want to choose what to put on the device like have the most recent 2 episodes of a podcast synced up. That way you won’t sync everything right away. The default settings here are probably fine for most users.
- Try out the neat tip to: Share music w/out DRM
- Enjoy your new Zune experience

Overall I would rate the Zune a very comparable player to the iPod Nano and iPod Video. The content sounds and looks great on the device, and the software goes well with the device. I have to give Microsoft a big round of applause for getting this one right!

2008 new years resolutions and goals

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I have been thinking about this upcoming year of 2008 and what I would like to accomplish. Similar to a list of resolutions, I have some goals I thought I’d share to make it more real and give me a sense of accountability I’d otherwise not have. Unfortunately most of my goals are really 1st half of 2008 since I can’t comprehend next fall yet. And I’m sure these lists will only continue to grow.

2008 Overall Goals (ie: Resolutions):

  • Determine my career focus
  • Ski 30+ days Jan-May
  • Reduce Balance on Credit Cards to zero by June (Loan payments kick in then!)
  • Lose weight to achieve goal weight of 185 lbs (~30lbs to go – Christmas did not help)
  • Attend a Video Games Live concert.
  • Continue keeping Inbox @ zero.
  • Get rid of anything I don’t need (give to goodwill or auction off on ebay)
  • Vox once a week or 50 times (these include only substantive posts with real content)
  • Complete first professional version of tranbonium.us, and my personal site stevetranby.com
  • Finally for once and for all determine and organize my online identities (merge and split where necessary)
  • Enjoy each and every day!

2008 Development Goals:

  • 1st Iteration of my development operating system. Create a VMWare image to share.
  • Finish OmniStatus for the sake of finishing it, then create a version in flash and silverlight for testing.
  • Develop or further development of 5 open source project of my own
  • Get involved with an open source project like Drupal or CakePHP, etc.
  • Develop a web service based business

I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing with these goals through limited Vox posts, twittering, and info on my actual websites.

What are you all going to do for this upcoming year of 2008?

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!!

Software to Reduce Time and Emissions for UPS

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A recent article in the New York Times talks about how UPS is using software to automate the routes that the trucks take. Doesn’t sound like anything new, however the routes that are selected eliminate as many left turns a possible. Eliminating left turns saves on gas and thus money as well as emissions for the company as the trucks must sit and idle while waiting for traffic to clear before turning. This is fairly ingenious, as long as they make sure to keep those left hand turns that would otherwise cause the route to increase the distance enough to negate any savings that they had by eliminating them in the first place.  Anyway, I just enjoy seeing software being put to good use.