All posts by randallw

Halo Infinite: Is multiplayer really coming on Nov 15th?

So it’s been 6 years since Halo 5 came out. October 27, 2015. That was the last release of a new Halo FPS game (Note: there were some releases of Halo FPS games on PC from the Master Chief Collection over the years).

Six…

long…

years…

The gaming community has been clamoring for something new in the Halo franchise. Ever since the game was announced back at the E3 2018 Xbox event and we got a glimpse of Master Chief and what was next in his journey without Cortana (you’ll have to go play Halo 4 & 5 for what happened there).

About 2 days ago, I woke to rumors that Halo Infinite’s multiplayer would potentially be made available on November 15th, following Xbox’s 20th Anniversary (and coincidently Halo’s 20th Anniversary) event/live stream. The first source that I saw early on Thursday morning was a video from Danny GG.

In this video, he makes several points and has some evidence which looks pretty convincing. Now because I’ve been on the developer side of things for about 7 years now, there are definitely some things that could be true, and somethings that could be just an error on someone’s part in updating.

Continue reading Halo Infinite: Is multiplayer really coming on Nov 15th?

Oh TiVo, how you’ve failed me, but that’s okay.

my_tivo_failed_me

Oh TiVo, how you’ve failed me…

I’ve been a pretty loyal TiVo customer for over 10 years. I originally got a Direct TV TiVo back in 2003-ish days, then later got a Series 3 TiVo HD in 2008 when I got married. My wife also became a big fan of TiVo, and we ended up being filmed for some commercials for TiVo in 2009 (just talking about different features. The videos were originally used internally and on YouTube).

When TiVo decided to release a new “Series 4” box, the TiVo Premiere (aka “The One Box”), we were asked again to see if we would be able to help out and do another shoot. Working with the same group as before (and the ever awesome, Shanan Carney), we had to go back through or own wardrobe to find what we wore as it was sort of a “continuation” shoot with some of the same families. We got to know
about the great new features of the TiVo Premiere, and how they were really looking for it to be an all-in-one box for consuming media.

As a thanks and a great parting gift from Shanan as she left TiVo, she was able to get us participants a TiVo Premiere with the coveted Lifetime Subscription service (a $499.99 value in just the subscription). We used this TiVo as we moved into our new place, and it’s been a staple of our TV watching lives most evenings.

Fast forward 3 years, and it appears that the hard drive on this little guy went out.
Continue reading Oh TiVo, how you’ve failed me, but that’s okay.

Bookmarks, Journeying Back Through Time

So bookmarks are nothing new. We as readers have been using them for quite some time in physical, tangible books to hold the place of where we stopped reading so that we can easily resume where we left off in the book. Maybe we had several bookmarks laid out in a book to keep the place of a specific story or passage of our favorite book.

Technology has worked along side of this notion with Web Browsers for years. You could bookmark a specific webpage that you liked, so that you didn’t have to remember a long URL to get back to it. Over the years of the World Wide Web, whole sites and communities have come up like delicious.com (formerly del.icio.us which was a way cooler URL). They allow users to share their bookmarks in the cloud and even for others around the world to see what they’re bookmarking.

I typically think of myself as a pretty highly organized person (or at least if there is some clutter, it’s an organized clutter). This organization has all fallen apart in terms of my web browser. For typical work things, I have setup folders to access the sites I need to function, but for the most general websites of my personal life, the list just grows and grows. While I could have organized these into specific categories (much like my blog categories), I’ve found that it gives a sneak peek into what life circumstances I was going through.

Here’s my (somewhat long) list of bookmarks. I believe these were only saved from March 2011 onward. I really wish I had a list of all my old bookmarks from past computers, as that would have been a real trip going back and seeing what sites I saved.

Continue reading Bookmarks, Journeying Back Through Time

Social Justice: Invisible Children / How I got involved in the IC Movement

So I originally heard of “Invisible Children” way back in late 2005. A worship band that I was friends with had produced a video which was dedicated to the Invisible Children organization and used video footage of African children from a visit the band took to Africa. It was also a night where several organizations were highlighted and talked about, and they had one of the filmmakers there to talk about the documentary they produced and the plight of these children who were being abducted to fight in a war that was not their own.

My wife and I were just dating at the time, but I distinct remember watching the Invisible Children Rough Cut DVD together in her apartment living room and just being moved to action. At this point, Invisible Children had been set up as a 501©3 non-profit, and had just been raising funds through their rough cut DVD and apparel. Invisible Children had begun a movement of gathering young people and having them spread the word and hosting playing parties and starting clubs and organizations.

Continue reading Social Justice: Invisible Children / How I got involved in the IC Movement