Brian Dunaway » Thoughts

Wheelchair Accessible?

Brian Dunaway — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:18:16 +0000

Wheelchair people. This way!

Good luck!

Banking Some Food

Brian Dunaway — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:00:14 +0000

About a week ago, a plea went out from one of our church members that our local food bank was running out of supplies. Although the community always donates around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., donations were currently down and the food bank was suffering due to the shortage. While we donated at church, I felt there was more we could be doing to help.

After speaking to my wife Suzanne about what our family could do, I came up with an idea. If we were the ones needing help and we didn’t have any extras such as milk, butter or any other perishable foods, what would we want to receive? What could we donate that would be a complete meal for a needy family, not just a can of this or a box of that?

Then I took it a step further. Could we take our weekly food budget, split it in half and purchase a week’s worth of groceries for our family and give duplicates to the food bank? Things we would actually eat ourselves, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At first, my family wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea. But the more we discussed it, we all began to get excited and the ideas started flowing. The initial problem was trying to come up with complete non-perishable meals. No spaghetti since we couldn’t donate hamburger meat. No mashed potatoes since we couldn’t donate milk and butter.

Our creativity kicked in, and we found new ways to solve problems. Breakfast was easy – Pop tarts or oatmeal. Lunches weren’t so hard – tuna, rice, Chef Boyardee or ramen noodles. After school snacks for the boys – applesauce or pudding cups. We even purchased chips and cookies, along with olive oil and salt & pepper.

Dinners were a little harder. We came across some canned chili that looks as good as homemade. Pair that up with cornbread mix that only needs water added and you have your first meal. Fettuccine and alfredo sauce with canned white meat chicken and cheesy parmesan biscuits for our next meal. We decided on three complete boxed meals for our last meals of the week – chicken and potatoes, Asian stir fry and pizza pasta.

By this point, even the boys were ready to give. They used their allowance to purchase a big bag of gummy bears and candy bars – one for them and one for the food bank. I’m so proud of them. I think they are starting to get the hang of it. They are excitingly awaiting donation day.

By the way, we came in .98 cent under budget. So buy a stick of gum.

NoTube

Brian Dunaway — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:43:27 +0000

On the podcast The Final Score I do a gameplay review segment called The Odd Mod. Each week I pick a weird modification of a game and I review it during the show. On show 25 of The Final Score I chose the mod QuickFlip for Quake 1. I recorded my gameplay and posted it on YouTube and linked to it for everyone to see. This has worked great in the past.

However, this time after I uploaded my gameplay I noticed that the audio was missing from my video and I received this email from YouTube shortly thereafter:

Dear thebriandunaway,

Your video, output, may have content that is owned or licensed by WMG.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team

It is true that the Quake mod has embedded the song “Hit The Road Jack” performed by Ray Charles which you can obviously hear in my gameplay review.

The video is a little over 1 minute long and contains a mix of the song in question, Quake audio effects and KickFlip audio effects. So my question is this: Technically speaking this is a review of gameplay. The song is embedded in the game. Legally shouldn’t I be able to post such a review without getting permission from the creators?

Once again, I am asking legally. I’m not asking whether youtube has the right to refuse service to anyone.

Also, this seemed to be pretty automated. The audio was cut almost immediately. I wonder what kind of AI they are running over there to catch all this or if there is some guy there watching all the videos. Weirdo.

By the way, you can hear the audio if you go to my page on YouTube http://youtube.com/thebriandunaway but not on the direct link for the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZKJW1ccuf0

UPDATE: Thanks for the heads up from Aaron Spain in the comments about contesting the ruling on YouTube. I dug a little further and was able to fill out a form for contesting that the video was Fair Use and YouTube turned the audio back on. Now let’s see if it stays on.

OCD overload

Brian Dunaway — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:05:08 +0000

Hmmm…I started drafting a blog post back in May 2010 about my OCD. I stopped for some reason and can’t remember where I was going with it…now I’m concerned about my ADD.

Here is where I started:

When most people hear the words Obsessive Compulsive Disorder they most likely think of the physical compulsion of doing repetitive rituals, such as checking that the doors of your home are locked 12 times before going to bed. To varying degrees this can be quite debilitating in someone’s life. But that’s just one side of the coin. I have OCD and the primary source of my troubles are the obsessive thoughts or desires to understand, to completion, the answers to questions.

I think it might have had to do with the creative process. Your guess is as good as mine.

Brian D.

Dragon Con 2010

Brian Dunaway — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:48:11 +0000

It’s that time again. Time to pack up my stuff and head out to Atlanta, GA and hang out with my people. A pasty bunch overall but some of the smartest most obsessed people I have ever known.

Where Will I Be:

I will be milling around the con and attending events as usual but if you really want to know an exact place and time…I’ll be at the TWIT/Sword & Laser table at some designated times. The table will be in the Hilton near the podcasting, space, science, and skeptics stuff. It is also RIGHT outside the Walk of Fame.

I will be there at these times*

Friday: 3pm-5pm
Saturday: 1pm-2pm
Sunday: 10am-Noon

*Things happen and things change. If I’m not there during those times just check with someone at the table and they will let you know what time I may be there if other than the listed.

Stop by the TWiT/Sword & Laser table even when I’m not there. In addition to Tom Merritt, Veronica Belmont and TWiT alums, there will be rotating guests from the podcasting and blogging community. Such as Nicole Spag, Kim (@randysmolly), Brian Ibbott, Len Peralta, Jonathan Strickland and many more.

-Brian D

MacBook Air Keyboard Problem

Brian Dunaway — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:14:31 +0000

I have a Macbook Air (1st gen) in my possession with a keyboard layout problem.

When I get to the login screen I can select the user I would like to log in as but can not type anything into the password box. I can hit the caps lock and the icon for the uppercase comes up in the login box.

Same thing when I go into safe mode (holding down the shift button after the startup chime.)

I added a usb keyboard. Same results.

I was able to log into single user mode by holding down Command+S. While in single user mode the keyboard works fine.

So I tried removing /var/db/.AppleSetupDone to go through the setup steps like a new user. I was able to reboot and start the setup process. When it came to setting my Keyboard Type the list was blank. I chose to show all and I had other languages (Chinese and the such) but no English. I also tried telling setup my location was United Kingdom and Canada and I still had blank entries.

Any other guesses? I’ve googled my butt off.

Specs:

Macbook Air 1,1
OS: 10.5.8
Kernel: 9.8.0

CPU: 1.6 ghz
Memory: 2gb

Life (not the game)

Brian Dunaway — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:44:53 +0000

Life is full of ups and downs. It’s not just a cliche…old saying…whatever. It can be a lifestyle.

My wife often accuses me of waiting for the other shoe to drop…there is another one of them old sayings…because if things are going well I start to brace myself for the bad. Then when the bad does come I say “I told you.” Even if it takes the bad a year to get here.

Well, the bad has already been around me lately. Don’t get me wrong. I live a charmed life. But things have been kind of tough lately. I’m having to deal with things I have never had to deal with. So now I am waiting on someone to pick up the other shoe. It’s time for some ups.

Uncharted 2: My personal struggle

Brian Dunaway — Mon, 03 May 2010 02:20:11 +0000

This past year I received a game for the PS3 from my wonderful wife. That game was Uncharted 2. I was very excited about this gift because it was on my list of games that I really, really wanted. My wife is very attentive to these types of things.

I hopped right into the game. I whizzed through the first chapter in pretty short order. The story in this game is amazing. It’s so rich. The graphics are what you would expect. Awesome. However, the game play in this game is not what I consider a true first person shooter. Which is what I thought it was going to be. The game is more on the lines of a first person puzzle game. I know this is not news to anybody who has played the game.

Here is the struggle. I get easily deterred when I have to play a single level about 20 times to figure out the “trick” to solving the puzzle. So what happens? I end up just going to You Tube and watching walk throughs to get past the tough parts. Then I feel guilty or just plain stupid.

What a silly thing for me to frustrate myself over. Ugh.

The Final Score #4

Brian Dunaway — Sun, 02 May 2010 04:27:41 +0000

Recently I have been playing a lot of casual games such as Plants Vs. Zombies on the iPod Touch and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom on the PC (Steam.) While I love casual games, sometimes I need something that only a full blown game title can give you. However, full blown titles cost full blown cash and as a result I have to make a decision on what game I will pursue.

I do not buy games unless they are part of a franchise I am already familiar with or I have already played a demo of the game. So this past week was mostly about me trying out demos. The first demo I grabbed was Split/Second (xbox 360), a racing game. I’ve been flirting with the idea of a good racer. I haven’t been dipping into that genre much lately so I spent some time focused on Split/Second and Blur. Both of which are coming to the Xbox 360 in the coming weeks. I won’t say much here about the games as I have already said my piece on The Final Score podcast. Let’s just say I prefer Split/Second.

I was all ready to preorder Split/Second before the recording of the show. However, Steam (PC) had other ideas. They are/were running a special on a Codemasters Racing Pack. The pack includes Dirt, Dirt 2, Fuel, Grid and Toca Race Driver 3 for only $17.95. Well, that sealed that deal. I’m cheap and these race games are going to keep me busy for a while. Especially Dirt 2. I still want Split/Second but I can probably wait a little while longer now.

Listen To The Final Score #4

Joe Murray Kaboing TV

Brian Dunaway — Sat, 01 May 2010 03:28:19 +0000

I have the honor of talking to Joe Murray this next week about his new project he is trying to get off the ground. KaboingTV. Joe is the creator of Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo.

KaboingTV will be a place for Joe to host his animation bits as well as episodes by other artists. If you are interesting in helping out please go to this projects Kickstart page.