Goozex

Goozex is a video game trading site I discovered recently after yet another frustrating craigslist experience had me down on the whole idea of trading video games with people... Seems interesting. I've signed up and put my "library" of games (actually just three games I don't really want anymore anyway) out for trading. But I don't need to explain how it works. You can read it for yourself.

My kid's online... I have no idea how that works.

So I was talking to someone and they mentioned their 9 year old's DS and how he had lost a piece to it. I asked if he lost the stylus, intending to suggest a good replacement brand.

"The what?" she replied.

"The little pen thing," I explained.

"Oh, I don't know what it does. I have no idea how it works." And the conversation ended.

And that's kinda okay, I guess, but then later on I overheard the same person talking about their son to someone else. "Oh, yeah, he connects it to the computer and plays games on there with his friends."

Wow, so you don't know how your 9 year old's game works, yet he's going online to play Pokemon with strangers? Awesome.

Link to my early post about buying a Nintendo DS

Sony XD Cams and proxy video possibilities

So we got our new Sony XD cameras in at work (HD, woo-hoo!), along with new decks and lots of other fun new gear. Looking at the gear and thinking about what other bits 'n' pieces we might need, I suggested we get some big flash drives.

The idea that I had was that we could shoot on the XD cams and use the proxy video to do some cuts-only editing with the free Sony software that comes with the cameras (and is available online). The proxy video (low-res versions of the video files that are stored on the Blu-Ray discs that the camera records to) would fit nicely on a big drive, and then we could do some editing at home on our personal computers.

I was thinking specifically about some of our simpler programs and promo stuff, like the Adopt-A-Pet show. That show is mostly cuts-only, with a layer of graphics put on top for lower thirds and transitions. It'd be easy to do the first edit at home, bring in the EDL (edit decision list) and the proxy video, and then have our AVIDs at work reconcile the full-res video and build out the HD timeline. Basically, I'm hoping we'll have some tele-commuting capability as a result of having these new cameras. Not so much consumer technology, which is more the topic for this blog, but it's cutting-edge stuff just the same. Cool!

Hacking the Nintendo DS

My buddy Dave came by last night and we started talking about my wife's new DS.

Anyway, he reminded me about how I had asked about getting cards for a Nintendo DS that is pre-loaded with games and we set to work together to discover exactly what and how that was possible. Within a couple of searches we found out most of what we would need to do: Get the R4 file transfer card. Then go to a site like NDS-Roms and download whatever game you want.

Very interesting indeed. But are ROMs legal? How does that side of things work? They are so prevalent and easily available (just type in Super Mario Bros. into Google and you can play it online) so could they really be "wrong?"