Jared Newman's Web Work

The End of This Blog

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:40:00 -0800

For years, I’ve tried to maintain a blog outside of my professional work, first through Wordpress, and then through Tumblr. Except when I’m not busy with work, which is basically never, I haven’t been able to make the commitment. The fact that I last posted here 11 months ago is proof enough.

Fortunately, now’s a great time to not have a personal blog. Twitter allows me to converse with colleagues, readers, friends and family, and lately I’ve been using Google+ to express longer thoughts. In both cases, I get more interaction than I ever did through personal blogging. Maybe that would be different if wrote more posts here, but I doubt it. Besides, using social networks gives me the opportunity to comment on what other people are saying, instead of starting every conversation myself. I do enough top-down blogging at Time, PCWorld and Technologizer. I don’t need another platform for that.

All of which is a long-winded way to say that I’m abandoning this particular blog. Tiny thoughts will remain on Twitter, and slightly longer thoughts will end up on Google+. Everything else will become a blog post at the sites I write for.

Originally, this blog was supposed to be a continuously updated feed for my articles, but I was trying to do it manually instead of setting up something with RSS, so that too fell apart. Now, I’m bringing it back with help from some automatic feeds. Only not here, because Tumblr doesn’t allow it.

If you want to keep up with all my articles, head to feed.jarednewman.com. You can add it to your bookmarks, or subscribe by RSS. I’m also experimenting with auto-posting to Facebook, where I’m also less active, but where friends and family have asked to see more of my work.

Chances are, no one’s reading this. I’ve already removed the link from my homepage. But if you’ve stumbled here by accident, I hope to see you around elsewhere.

Great moments in misleading PR headlines

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:50:00 -0800

The story: Sprint jacks up its data pricing by $10 per month.

The press release’s headline: “Smartphones Drive Wireless Data Explosion”

Did they think we wouldn’t notice?

Growing Up Gamer

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:48:20 -0700

A few weeks ago, fellow games writer Daniel Lipscombe sent out a call for participants in “Gamers Speak.” It’s a blog where he throws the same 13 questions at gamers (mostly game writers, so far — we have big egos and love to talk about ourselves) and publishes the responses in whole. Here’s mine.

Lest that blog ever go away, I’ll repost my favorite anecdote here:

Q7. Now the tough stuff… Favourite gaming platform ever… and why?

Oh, that’s easy. When I was in college, I lit some incense in my room before a house party, then I went downstairs to play beer pong, and forgot about the whole thing. I didn’t have a proper incense burner, so my stupid solution was to stick the incense in a chunk of Styrofoam, perched atop my television. A few minutes later, my housemate’s girlfriend informed me that my room was on fire. I got up there and discovered flames coming from my television and my Gamecube.

Fortunately, I was able to blow out the fire without any help, but now the room was dense with black smoke and the stench of burnt plastic. I didn’t care. Priority one was to fire up the TV and test the Gamecube, whose front side was melted to the point that the second memory card slot and a couple of controller jacks were inaccessible. Imagine my surprise when Metroid Prime’s title screen popped up on the television.

I like a lot of game consoles for a lot of reasons, but there’s always a special place in my heart for the one that didn’t quit after becoming a fireball. Hell, the Xbox 360 craps out when you stare at it the wrong way.

One Battles Axes, the Other Adds Death

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:02:00 -0700

Yesterday I beat Ax Battler: The Legend of Golden Axe. My urge to play was brought on by hacking the Wii and installing a Game Gear emulator on it, which in turn was brought on by Sunday boredom.

Ax Battler is a leading candidate for my all-time favorite completely terrible game. The core platform swordplay is a chunkier, laggier version of Zelda 2, and there’s an overworld map that’s a Dragon Warrior/Quest ripoff, with less interesting people, and more annoying random enemy encounters. I actually like the action RPG set-up, which is why I probably have fond memories of playing Ax Battler as a kid. (Yes, I was one of the spoiled ones who had a Game Gear.)

There’s no boss fight in Ax Battler. At the end of the final level, the entire last battle is conducted by non-interactive text narration on a plain, black screen, “ARRRs” and “GAAAHs” galore. It’s as if the developers ran out of time and reckoned they found a clever way to omit the final showdown. Or maybe they knew the whole game was a stinker and were happy to lazily walk away from an unfinished product.

In any case, the point of this whole anecdote is to say that game developers can’t get away with those kinds of shenanigans anymore. I guess that’s a good thing, but I am bit nostalgic for the days when professional game development could still seem like amateur hour.

Writing for the New York Times, I think, is kind of like becoming a made man, at least in the way...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:16:44 -0700

Writing for the New York Times, I think, is kind of like becoming a made man, at least in the way movies portray it. Suddenly a lot of people want to meet you. Respect is commanded by association. Friends and family no longer question your career path. It’s a rush.

Here’s my story on the current state of 3-D television, which appeared in the Business section on Monday. I’ve also been writing some posts for the website’s Gadgetwise blog.

I hope this isn’t the part of Scarface when everything goes downhill.

He Gives Great Quotes?

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:03:37 -0700

Jerry Seinfeld once said that being friends with a former romantic partner is like two magicians trying to entertain each other. “Because, you know each other so well, you know all of each others tricks … The one goes, ‘Look, a rabbit.’ The other goes, ‘So? … I believe this is your card.’” I’ve always thought the same thing could be said about one journalist interviewing another.

Incidentally, Bridget Carey, the Miami Herald’s tech reporter, called me a few days ago for some remarks on Sezmi, a cable alternative that I recently reviewed for PCWorld. Here’s her story, in which I appear to really like South Park.

Actually, I do really like South Park.

Oh hi!

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:43:41 -0700

Looks like I’ve neglected the old personal blog again. Some random observations:

Finally got to play Red Dead Redemption, and quickly formed the dissenting opinion that it’s boring. High production values are worth something, but once you realize the scope of the actual action entails dead-simple shooting and listless horse riding, there’s just not much to do but run around and gamble. I will say that I enjoyed schooling everyone in Five-Finger Fillet. I also enjoy saying “Five Finger Fillet” in a country-western accent.

Got a strange urge to buy Fight Night Round 3 for $8 at GameStop. Like always, my rise to glory was halted by freakin’ Sugar Ray Leonard. I can’t explain this game’s ability to sway me psychologically, to the highest highs and lowest lows. I don’t even like sports games.

Someone sent me a really nice complement about my article on the Dell Streak’s sloppy non-launch.

Then I made a short list of my favorite video game music, making it public record that I have a weird taste in video game music.

I saw some interesting apps this week at the LA App Show. I’d maybe download Moe’s Notes if I was in more casual multimedia note-taking situations. I would not download Glee for iPad, but that has nothing to do with the app’s quality.

Waka Waka, or, the Google Pac-Man Debate

Mon, 24 May 2010 21:08:40 -0700

At Daring Fireball, John Gruber takes issue with a wonky piece that I wrote for Technologizer about Google Pac-Man. The game was created with HTML and Javascript, which I read as a subtle jab at Apple. Here’s the quote Gruber pulls:

“So, you can look at Google Pac-Man for iPhone two ways: The more benign explanation is that Google on some level agrees with Apple, and wanted to create a version of Pac-Man that was as widely accessible as possible and not as resource-intensive as Flash. I prefer to think that Google’s beating Apple at its own game by creating a version of Pac-Man that runs nicely on the iPhone without App Store approval.”

And his response:

“If using real web technologies instead of Flash is a “jab at Jobs” and “beating Apple at its own game”, then what would it have been if Google had instead created the whole thing using Flash? Does Newman think Apple is opposed to web-based software in general?”

Since Gruber left the door open, I say “not yet.” Native apps rule now, and Gruber himself notes that controlling the native app ecosystem is what keeps the iPhone OS unique from other platforms.

But what if Web apps become just as capable as native apps using the standards Apple supports? That’s a threat to Apple’s ecosystem too, and I believe we’ll see Google exploit this more with time. It started with Google Voice, continues with Google Pac-Man and will probably happen again with Google Editions.

This is what I mean by “beating Apple at its own game”. HTML and JavaScript, endorsed by Apple, give Google unrestricted access to iPhone OS users. Flash would give Google no access at all.

Halo Be Dead?

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:07:25 -0700

I’m happy with this punchy little post on Technologizer that ponders the fate of Halo in the wake of Bungie’s exclusive development deal with Activision. Personally, I’m thrilled to see Bungie shake things up — a little wary given Activision’s tendency to milk franchises dry, but optimistic — as it’s about time the developer rejuvenated itself with some new IP. Here’s hoping it’s not Marathon, which isn’t new at all.

A Real Conversation About Fake Games

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:45:00 -0700

Jared: “what is the point of this game if there is no consequence for dying?”
Teammate: “idk lol”
Teammate: “to level up”
Jared: “sigh”

-Chat during Pocket Legends, a free to play MMO for iPad. I’m deleting the game and playing Progress Wars instead.

Duh, iPhone Game Center

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:31:00 -0700

It’s been all about Apple lately, and I’m just about ready for it to stop. Not necessarily because there isn’t more to be said about the company and what it’s trying to do, but because it’s discouraging to see the vast amounts of people that only read commentary to have their preconceptions validated. And Apple, for whatever reason, brings out the worst feelings in a lot of people.

In the meantime, here’s an article I wrote for Technologizer about iPhone Game Center. Kind of puzzling that no other phone or mobile game console is doing this kind of social networking layer already.

On the iPad

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:03:00 -0700

Like every other tech blogger out there, I wrote way too many articles about the iPad. It is a beast that cannot be satisfied, as one editor put it. Here are a few of my favorite posts: For MyCE, a brief review. It’s more of a statement on why I, or anyone, would buy the thing, and why it’s an important product. For Technologizer, some thoughts about how the big touchscreen saves the idea of the touchscreen as a legitimate input device for gaming. For PCWorld, an observation that the iPad App Store is notably missing crap apps like iFart and iBeer, going to the more general point that the iPad’s most popular apps are more serious compared to the iPhone. Oh, I wrote this blog post on the iPad. Tumblr, props to you for a wonderfully designed mobile site.

Changes

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:01:00 -0700

Obviously, I let the Newmanfeed fall by the wayside. When you write roughly 10 articles a day, you want to relax, not link dump. So I’m going to abandon that practice, along with my old blog, from which I’ve drifted away for similar reasons.

Here, I hope to post a smaller running sample of work. Not necessarily the best of the best, just whatever strikes me as worth sharing. Perhaps I’ll also get a chance to open up a bit more on the process, on the occasion that Twitter’s character limits don’t cut it. Why now? Because I just redesigned my Web site.

So let’s start with something light: Horse Gaga. I was a little late to the party on this (two days in the gaming blogosphere are like two years for the mainstream press, as evidenced by the renewed controversy over Rapelay, but I digress) which meant I had to put in a little extra effort to make GamerCrave’s story special. And that meant I had to fuse Lady Gaga’s head to a horse’s body in Pixlr. Yes, 21st century journalism requires a new skill set. Unfortunately, Lady HorseGa Photoshop is not it.