Month: September 2004

9/9/99 – Never Forget!

9-9-99

Today is the fifth anniversary of the launch of Segas Dreamcast video game console. In many ways it was a very innovative and powerful piece of hardware, but unfortunately not successful enough to keep the company that had competed with Nintendo for our console dollars for years in the hardware business.

The Dreamcast was the last of Segas consoles, something that saddens the long-time fans. While the company took a number of missteps, from the SegaCD to the Sega 32X, they also brought a certain energy to the console market that left the day the Dreamcast was officially declared dead.

In tribute, Ive been spending the day playing some of the classics, from Jet Grind Radio, which successfully brought cel-shaded animation in games to the attention of the masses, to Skies of Arcadia, one of the better RPGs around.

The Dreamcast is dead, long live the Dreamcast.

Black box blues …

There’s another article up about insurance companies wanting to use automobile black boxes in an effort to identify high-risk drivers.

The companies suggest, of course, that in giving up your privacy to a device that monitors your speed and braking patterns, you would make it possible to obtain cheaper rates provided you drive safely.

Unfornately, this device probably won’t lower rates overall, and instead simply be a means for the insurance companies to drop drivers with a higher risk of getting into an accident. That sounds like it should be something the rest of us would be unconcerned with, but remember that those drivers will still be driving, except now they’ll be uninsured, increasing your chances of being hit by someone with no insurance.

Additionally, the devices won’t detect some of the less safe and more annoying driving habits, such as driving below the speed limit, say 25 in a 35 MPH zone, backing up traffic. Nor would it detect people who never use their turn signals, or stop in the right-hand turn lane despite intending to go straight, or any other number of annoying habits.

120 days left in the year …

It’s September already, which means that the 2004 summer-that-never-was is nearly over and the weather here in northeast Ohio will soon start providing us not-so-subtle reminders that winter is on its way.

It’s also time for my annual format and reinstall of Windows XP. At least once a year I find myself wanting to completely blow away everything in my system directory and reload the operating system just to remove all that cruft from applications that didn’t uninstall every last bit of themselves, hardware drivers that didn’t perfectly update themselves on top of older versions and simply to clear out the start menu that I find myself not keeping as ordered as I should.

Things are better than in the past, with the Windows 9x family, in which a format and re-install was needed at least every three months if you wanted to keep your system in top performance form. Windows XP itself would probably last for years without needing a re-install, provided I didn’t upgrade video drivers as soon as new betas were available and didn’t install and delete as many applications as I do.

Still, it keeps things interesting, providing I can find all the CDs for those programs I now have to reload. Otherwise, it simply becomes frustrating.