Thoughts/Rants Archive

Interview with GraphicsGale developer Tomoya Kikuchi

GraphicsGale, my favorite tool for pixel art animation has been around since 2004. As it was recently released as freeware, I was curious to find out who is behind this software. Tomoya Kikuchi, who has developed GraphicsGale all by himself, was so kind as to exchange some emails with me for this article.

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Posted by Hapiel @ 6/30/2017 04:31 | 16

Are Video Games Art?

This is a very interesting article written by Aaron Smuts.
In this article Aaron argues that by any major definition of art many modern video games should be considered art. Rather than defining art and defending video games based on a single contentious definition, Aaron offers reasons for thinking that video games can be art according to historical, aesthetic, institutional, representational and expressive theories of art. Overall, the argument is that while many video games probably should not be considered art, there are good reasons to think that some video games should be classified as art, and that the debates concerning the artistic status of chess and sports offer some insights into the status of video games.

Read the whole thing here

http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=299

Posted by jalonso @ 9/12/2009 20:21 | 15

Avatar Changing

Ok people, I am getting VERY sick of repeating myself. So I am making a post, and this is EVERYONE's one and only warning.

DO NOT post the link changing URL. Period. It is not funny, it is not a prank... It is immature and idiotic.

This is not debatable. If you post it, you will be suspended from Pixel Joint.

Posted by Ensellitis @ 1/31/2008 15:03 | 68

Surviving A Pixel Art Forum - The 9-step program

written by Aleiav

Pixel art is a considerably new art-form, which tends to attract people who are considerably new to art. People fall into art through dolls, making icons, making sprites, etc. and are often unaware of the artistic atmosphere that goes on in many communities. While some communities don't have this type of artistic atmosphere, Pixel Joint is one of the forums that do. And for those of you who are new to it, it may require a little adjustment. But with this program, hopefully you can transition into the art world easily.

Read the full post...

Posted by pixelblink @ 9/6/2007 11:14 | 26

Obesity Makes You Healthy!

According to a groundbreaking article by Annemarie Colbin, being overweight is unavoidable. Luckily for us, being obese is good for you! In fact, it results in decreased incidence of cancer, respiratory disease, tuberculosis, heart disease, and osteoporosis. And being merely overweight is key to success in maintaining a healthy body: some benefits of overweightness include lower suicide rates, less type I diabetes, and others. So let's all go out there and stuff our faces while reaping the massive health benefits!

Article by Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D in "Wholistic" Nutrition

Posted by Monkey 'o Doom @ 2/9/2007 15:51 | 13 | Source

John Warner is a jerk

I don't think this story needs much more than a quote:

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

Read more about it here... Hey Canada, still have any vacancy?

Posted by Ensellitis @ 11/2/2006 22:48 | 13

Bush Signs Controversial Detainee Bill

Has anyone seen my rights?

Bush has just signed a bill that may make habeus corpus obsolete. This means he will be able to detain, torture and punish citizens and non-citizens without a fair trial.

Check it out here.

Posted by Faktablad @ 10/19/2006 20:25 | 27

Please Be Sure to Vote!

Not sure if you guys are, but I'm a ONE member. If you're not you can always go to the site listed here and check it out. Although this says Americans, ANYONE can submit a pledge. The most important thing you can do this year to end extreme poverty is vote on November 7th.

Read the full post...

Posted by Aleiav @ 9/22/2006 10:42 | 3

5 years since 9/11

Today is the 5yr anniversary of 9/11, one of the largest terrorist attacks ever, and the largest to ever hit the USA. That day, 2,948 were confirmed dead and 24 are still reported missing. Even though this tragedy happened in the USA, it effected the entire world, whether it be International Policy, trade, or so on.

I am sure everyone knows where they were when this happened, it is one of those times that stick in your mind.

I will be using this time to remember people whom I knew who perished at the Pentagon; Lt. JG Darin Howard and Sgt Tamara Thurman.

Here is a complete list of all the victims (warning, it may be down from time to time due to heavy traffic today)

Posted by Ensellitis @ 9/11/2006 09:01 | 35

Kim Beazley "No porn or violence on Australia's nets"

In Australia, internet service providers will be forced to block violent and pornographic material before it reaches home computers if Labor wins the next federal election.

Under the policy, announced by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, international websites would be banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority if they contained graphic sexual or violent material, rated R or higher.

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Posted by NobleClock @ 7/22/2006 00:52 | 17

Irrepressible

The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.

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Posted by Lawrence @ 7/20/2006 13:03 | 7

Vote NO on Federal Marriage Amendment

The Federal Marriage Amendment was defeated in the Senate, but the work is not over. The House of Representatives will vote on the discriminatory FMA later this summer. Your members of Congress need to hear from you!

The Human Rights Campaign has offered to send postcards to representivies of Congress in your area for you and all you have to do is simply fill out a form.

Each postcard will contain the following information:

Read the full post...

Posted by Aleiav @ 7/3/2006 11:55 | 70

ONE campaign

One year ago, America and the world's richest countries, the "G8", made historic promises on debt, aid and trade for Africa and the world's poorest countries. On July 15th, 2006, the G8 meets again in Russia. It is important to me that America's life-saving G8 commitments are kept, both at this year's G8 and back at home where it's up to Congress to keep those promises.

The ONE campaign put together a petition asking Congress and the President to keep the promises America made a year ago. I think you should sign it (anyone from any country can, btw).

Click here to sign the petition

Posted by Aleiav @ 6/29/2006 09:40 | 15

Time to Bring Down the System

Two recent articles on MSN really crystalize just how out of whack our society is. It would take a minimum wage worker 21,600 years to match one year's salary of Capital One Financial's CEO.

"It should be a source of great national shame that the United States ranks No. 1 in the world in the size of the pay gap between executives and workers," says John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies, based in Washington, D.C. "And that the gap keeps growing wider."

Sorry for the soapbox, but this type of stuff tears me up and misery loves company!

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 6/27/2006 17:02 | 12

Java Earthquake

Luckily, a response has been made to the earthquake in Indonesia which has now killed more than 5,000 people (last I heard it was only 2,500), more than 20,000 injured and left 130,000 homeless (40% of those homeless are children) according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

Survivors are going to be given, by the government, $21 each for clothes and household items, while families will get 26.4 pounds of rice. Those with damaged homes will be compensated, all this according to Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

I'm glad efforts are being made to counteract this disaster. The American Red Cross is also helping with the disaster so, if you can I'd give at least $5.00 to the American Red Cross. And since it's a nonprofit organization, your donation is tax exempt. :) It may not seem like much but if... say 10,000 of us donate just 5 dollars, that's a $50,000 dollars already. Maybe that's not millions, but it's a lot more if say... 10,000 people in every large city donated that much. It'd raise at least a million, and all each individual would have to do is just skip buying maybe a diet coke and a sandwich for that day and instead open up a can of soup they probably have lying around in their house somewhere. It's a small price to pay for a good cause.

So donate.

Posted by Aleiav @ 5/29/2006 19:12 | 2

Favorite Cancelled TV Shows

I just watched Serenity last night to wrap up my Firefly journey and I happened to stumble upon this MSN list of the top 10 cancelled TV shows (here's E! Online's list.). It got me thinking... a lot of my favorite shows seem to get cancelled right quick. In fact, I have enough favorite dead shows to make my own top 10 list. How sad.

10) Playmakers - Way too melodramatic and I'm not really a football fan, but entertaining nonetheless.
9) Action - Jay Mohr always comes off as a colossal prick so watching him play a super-sleaze producer (thx Manko Jinko) exposing the seamy underbelly of Hollywood seemed perfectly natural.
8) The State - The 90s MTV sketch comedy show had an unbelievably funny cast. The excellent Reno 911 is loaded with State alum.
7) Twin Peaks - Weird, sad, funny and just freaking creepy. Good stuff.
6) Firefly - Genuinely funny and fun Sci-Fi with a great cast and a unique take on the future.

Read the full post...

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 5/12/2006 10:25 | 22

The Worst President in History?

OK, I try to avoid politics and religion whenever possible in the news section, but George W. Bush's abysmal approval ratings in the US (33%) and abroad seems to be reaching new lows. The new Rolling Stone cover with a caricature of a dunce George Dubya really poses an interesting question:

Is George W. Bush the worst President in United States history or just the worst President anyone can remember? Discuss.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 4/20/2006 15:22 | 47 | Source

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is getting fat on their holiday turkey and other holiday goodies. Pixel Joint wishes everybody a Merry Christmas, not to mention a Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Ramadhan

In the spirit of giving, Blueberry Pie has created a holiday-themed game for you all to try out. It's a penguin-killing good time! Try Xmess today!

And, in case I don't hear from you all before, have yourselves a very safe and happy New Year as well

Posted by pixelblink @ 12/25/2005 19:36 | 6

Happy Anniversary!

Today marks the one year anniversary of Pixel Joint opening to the public. I suggest you all take the time to give Sedgemonkey some honor in building and organizing the largest online gallery/community of pixel artists ever. What started out as a blog/icon site has grown into an ever-changing collaborative community. Props go out to my main man Sedge!

Posted by pixelblink @ 11/11/2005 21:01 | 21

Netflix vs Blockbuster: Which One Sucks?

I am gearing up to switch back to Netflix after a long hard trip with Blockbuster. Since I've used both the Netflix and Blockbuster online rental services recently I thought I'd help potential customers make an informed decision on which service to go for. The pricing for Netflix and Blockbuster is nearly identical so it really comes down to features...

Read the full post...

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 10/11/2005 09:46 | 7

Guinness De-Evolution Ad

Intelligent design my ass. Guinness proves once and for all that evolution is the bomb.

Note: Sorry to bring up religion (a taboo subject here), but in my opinion Guinness should be served in schools before that "intelligent design" hogwash makes it in.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 10/10/2005 12:20 | 3 | Source

What's next? Barcodes on our foreheads?

Brainsur at slashdot.org writes "Today Bill Gates visited Belgium to talk about the Electronic ID card introduced last year in Belgium as experiment. Microsoft announced that they will integrate the electronic identification into the Windows Software so they can deliver more security and privacy on the internet. The register has more news."

Click here for the Register article

A good time to switch to Linux, my Belgium friends.

Posted by Dejital @ 2/1/2005 20:20 | 7

Happy 2005!

No real point to this news item (yeah, I know most of the news items are pretty pointless). Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year. Stick to your resolutions! Or don't.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 1/1/2005 18:19 | 1

Nader wins Presidential Election in a landslide!

I didn't catch the polls last night, but I assume Nader smashed the competition.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 11/3/2004 15:43 | 1

Ashcroft declares war on your ass

Once again fair use and privacy are being cast aside spearheaded by another dick politician.

Wanna make backups of your movies or music? Maybe you would like to transfer digital media easily between your various electronic devices? Forget it jerkass!

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 10/14/2004 07:29 | 0

Counter-Strike: Source

After buying the "Silver" package of Half-Life 2 on Friday night I jumped in to play a little bit of the new Counter-Strike: Source. And by "little bit" I mean the whole weekend.

The new engine looks amazing and the interactivity with the environment (physics, lighting, detail, etc) takes the realism to a whole new level. It's been over a year since I last played Counter-Strike, but most of the gameplay pros/cons are all fully intact in this new version. Overall I couldn't be more pleased with this great v2 upgrade of Counter-Strike, but since I'm such a negative person let me just point out all the issues I ran into...

1) After downloading the game through Steam (smooth sailing so far) I was unable to browse for game servers. Several hours of browsing forums later I realized that my router was the issue. Even with all the HL2 related UDP/TCP ports wide open I couldn't get it going. Since I'm lazy and I'm a quitter I decided to just yank the DSL modem connection and stick it directly into my computer (much to the chagrin of my connection sharing girlfriend). Unfortunately I have never had any other Internet game/app fail like this so it did taint my experience a bit.

2) Once in the game I noticed a few choice maps were missing like Militia, Assault and "that skyscraper one". I'm sure they'll be added soon so I'm not too worried.

3) Another minor annoyance is the lack of character models. Right now there is only one for Terrorists and one for Counter Terrorists.

4) OK, I know Valve and no one else in the Universe has any control over this, but CS players never stop with the bitching and moaning. So the guy is a "n00b", get over it already!

Note: I see the irony of me complaining about complainers, but these knuckleheads have elevated whining to a whole new level

5) And the last gripe... there are no chickens in Italy (wtf!)

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 10/11/2004 11:50 | 2

Left high and dry by Hotmail

My love affair with Hotmail has come to an end. After years of Outlook Express access to Hotmail, the free email service, without warning, terminated the connection. Kicked to the curb. I was not able to file away my emails in Outlook Express and was forced to forward every email one by one to another email account so I wouldn't lose access to them in my mail client. With tons of emails this takes a looooong time to do.

I'm not one for mindless Microsoft bashing, but I just have to say that I am extremely disappointed with this. How can I complain about a free service you say? If you have plans to move a free service to a pay service, be reasonable and allow the people who are not interested in paying for the service a way out. If they had given even a few days notice this would be a non-issue.

Farewell Hotmail and thanks for the memories.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 9/30/2004 00:38 | 0

Call of Duty: United Offensive Multiplayer

CoD: United Offensive multiplayer was eating up all my time this weekend. The new weapons and game modes along with the addition of vehicles, ranking and sprinting are really well thought out.

The deployable machine guns, rapid fire rifles, satchel charges, flamethrowers and additional rocket launchers add a much needed "class" feel to the game. If you are going to mount an mg you need a homie to cover your butt while you deploy.

If you like to work as a team Domination and Assault modes are the only way to go. A steady mix of vehicles, weapons and tactics can dominate a collection of "lone wolf" type players.

Vehicles (tanks and jeeps) are quite intuitive and they're a blast to tear around in. One of the problems with the new vehicles is that there are usually too many tanks on each map and not enough room for the jeeps to roam so it can become a clunky tank war.

One of the coolest additions to the multiplayer game is definitely the ranking system. You go up in rank during a match for kills and completing objectives and with each rank up you get access to additional weapons and ammo. When you reach the highest rank you can unleash artillery. As you can imagine... watching artillery rain down on a tank column is like nerd heroine.

Good times.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 9/20/2004 11:42 | 2

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault impressions

Electronic Art's "Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault" single player demo was a mixed bag for me. Being a huge fan of the WWII shooter genre I couldn't wait to fire this baby up, but the single player gameplay didn't grab me like previous MoH titles or the superb "Call of Duty".

I love that they've taken the WWII shooter to the Pacific and the swarming banzai Japanese troopers really make the initial gameplay hectic. The brutal face to face combat is really quite a change from previous entries and it works well in a jungle setting. It was a kick watching a screaming Japanese soldier charging with his samurai sword drawn.

The main flaw with this demo is that once again your buddies seem to be nothing more than cannon fodder. This issue is most likely because of a lousy showcase level and not a reflection of what the retail game will be like. There are several intuitive controls for interaction with your squad and you can even call for a medic to patch you up. Hopefully the retail game will give you a little breathing room to get a handle on utilizing the squad interactions.

On a side note... I'm suprised that none of the WWII games coming out support a multiplayer co-op mode. The developers put so much effort into squadmate AI... why not make it so you can have your homies fill in? Get on it ya bums.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 9/7/2004 13:44 | 1

Should corporations be allowed to teach our children?

A choice quote from a National Education Association spokeswoman (Melinda Anderson) speaking about the MPAA's blatant attempts to sway children regarding copyright issues using prizes and freebies:

"We want to teach children to be thinking human beings. Not a parrot for some corporate agenda."

Amen sister.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 8/13/2004 11:46 | 2

Doom 3 impressions

Even though I'm no real fan of the twitchy variety of first person shooters which accounts for most every game in id history (the Quake series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Doom 1 and 2) I just had to grab Doom 3.

Doom 3 is a superb horror game with an insane amount of detail. The graphics and sound effects are top notch and the story moves along nicely. Although the weapons are pretty standard fare, they all have a good feel and they look fantastic. I'm only about halfway through the game and I already feel I've gotten my money's worth.

After playing Half-Life mods (a Quake II engine game) and Quake III powered games like "Call of Duty" for the last few years I'm excited to see what games id's new technology will help produce.

Doom 3 isn't all roses... I know the focus of Doom 3 is the excellent single player game, but I can honestly say the multiplayer gameplay hasn't advanced much since the original Doom. I'm sure Quake IV will be the big multiplayer powerhouse for id - I just wish Doom 3 multiplayer had something to offer beyond 1995 era gaming.

One other minor speed bump... Even with the newest video card drivers installed and having a system that far exceeds the minimum hardware specs, I did have quite a few game crashes and actually lost a couple of quick saves. I understand these types of problems are fairly common for cutting edge games like Doom 3 - it just would have been nice if the bugs weren't there.

Posted by sedgemonkey @ 8/9/2004 08:43 | 1

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