Foldin’, Foldin’, Foldin’, Get Them Proteins Foldin’…

Up until recently, whenever I felt the need to take the PS3 online, I would unplug the LAN cable from my computer and plug it into the PS3, a necessity to do things like surf the net on the TV, check out the Playstation Store for neat new stuff, and download things.

Now, however, the PS3 finally has its own dedicated cable and as a result, I’ve been taking advantage of one of the more unique features of the system. It’s called “Folding@Home” and what it does is… calculate possible configurations for folding proteins.

It’s actually a project by the Stanford University Chemistry Department, and it’s a fiendishly elegant solution to using a supercomputer to get your work done. They call it distributed computing. Rather than simply get a whole boatload of proteins that need calculation and piling it onto one super computer and say “Call me when you’re done,” Folding@Home actually distributes “work units” (which is to say, a particular protein molecule) to PS3 owners that have activated the program. The PS3 then quietly goes through all the calculations required for its assigned work unit and when it’s done, it sends the information back up to Stanford U, and gets another to work on.

The cool bit about this is that the “screen saver” that gives you something to look at when those numbers are being crunched shows you the particular protein you are helping to demystify, as well as globe with points of light. Every point of light on the globe is another PS3 owner that is “donating computation” time to the cause, helping scientists to figure out much, MUCH faster a better understanding of the protein molecules that are involved in things like Alzheimer’s disease and certain forms of cancer.

To me, if this is going to help fight off hideous diseases one day, seems like its worth it to leave the console on for a few hours a day…

Breaking The Karmic Cycle

Persona 3 has finally arrived. I will not talk about it. Instead tonight’s meditation is on the completion of the very weird, very dark, very Buddhist Digital Devil Saga 2.

The game is a direct continuation of DDS1, and while I like the game a lot, it is far from perfect. This is the sort of game that I played largely for the story, because mechanically, as typical Japanese Role Playing Game, it didn’t do anything particularly new or innovative. Often it fell into the usual trap that many JRPGs do, of turning into a seemingly never-ending “grind fest” towards the ends if you were really serious about maximizing everything in the game, which I, quite obsessively, do. The first game was about a group (or “tribe”) of warriors that found themselves battling other groups in a city. They were there for one reason and one reason alone; kill all opposition to ascend a central tower in the city and enter the state of nirvana. Through a series of extremely complicated turns of plot, the group finds themselves on Earth in DDS2, except that it’s not our Earth of today, it is a wasteland, where the sun itself now turns people to stone if they are exposed to its rays, and the survivors live in a shielded dome city, trying to figure out how to keep humanity from the verge of extinction. From the story gets into some very dark and apocalyptic themes, looking at what happens when people are just waiting for the end of the world, and what that does to the psyche.

As per usual with an Atlus game, religious and philosophical references/iconography abound, and the spells and unique, turn-based combat system of exploiting elemental weaknesses have all carried over from previous games like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Devil Summoner. But this game was meant to be played by people who played DDS1, and if you haven’t, DDS2 will make very little sense as it continues almost directly after the events of the first. What I like a lot about the game is that it goes into some very uncomfortable places with regard to its characterization. In a world of RPGs where the stereotype is “orphan/amnesiac with good heart and special destiny saves the world and gets the girl” DDS2 shows us that sometimes even good people can do horrible things, and not because they thought they were doing the right thing, so much as they had a moment of weakness and acted out of selfishness, which is something that they NEED to take responsibility for and make amends. If not in this life, then the next, since the game is surprisingly Buddhist in its themes.

The ending of game, much like 2001: A Space Odyssey is cryptic and mystical in nature, but since this game is about the dilemma of the soul and how that can impact the world at large, you kind’a have to expect that. All in all, while the mechanics of the game aren’t new, the pacing of it–especially towards the end–can be a bit off, the story itself is still very strong if you’re willing to break away from the usual tropes of the genre. If I were reviewing the game for a magazine, I’d probably give it a 7.3 or something to that effect. The gameplay isn’t rock solid, but the story goes a long way towards making it a worthwhile game. Perhaps not a game you NEED to play, but, like certain movies, books and comics, it has a unique, acquired taste for those that can break away from the mainstream.

More Comics

We were kind of on the fence about whether to descend to the Toronto Comic Art Festival site again, but in the end we decided it was worth it after all and made a second visit. This time we made a much more appreciable dent in the wallet.

If you click on the picture to the left, you’ll get a bigger shot of it. It’s a panel from NextWave: Agents of H.A.T.E. written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Suart Immonen. This time around, we actually brought our hardcover trade paperback (and picked up volume 2 while we were there ) and got both of them signed with a little doodle courtesy of Stuart. I am very happy about this as I can’t remember the last time a comic made me laugh out loud so much… and for whatever reason, Warren Ellis hates French Canadians. Go figure. Strangely enough, when I asked Stuart about how much input he has into the creation of the comic, he seemed kind of torn about it. It would seem that during the entire run so far, he and Warren Ellis have exchanged maybe a total of 20 e-mails, and whenever he asked Ellis about how to approach a particular page or panel, the usual answer was “whatever way you think is best,” and after a while, since that was the only answer he was getting, he stopped writing e-mails and just concentrated on doing the book.

I really have no words to describe just how hilariously psychotic this series is. Ellis has taken the Marvel universe and just attacked with a Great Sword Of Snark (+5 against Avengers Fans) that digs into every single thing about the Marvel universe that comic fans may have ever debated. The fact that makes extra-dimensional beings from the darkest reaches of pain and nightmare big fans of the Suicide Girls website is also so unbelievably awesome that if you punch the very concept itself, it explodes, which is par for course with NextWave.

This is the cover to one of my favorite Vertigo series, Fables, the revisionist, post-modern update to fair tale characters by Bill Willingham. James Jean is the cover artist and work is absolutely gorgeous. We were determined to get something signed by him this time, and so showed up good and early to a) be the first ones to actually form the line for his table and b) choose which table he was to sit at when we asked the Beguiling folks where he was to sit and they said, “You tell us, we’ll put the sign up.”

James Jean surprised the hell out of us by… not being white. At first I thought maybe some kind of volunteer or assistant was getting the table ready for him when an Asian guy showed up. But when he sat down, looked at us expectantly and said “Hi!” I had to reorder my reality for a brief moment from James Jean=White Anglosaxon Protestant type to James Jean=Asian guy with glasses. The confusion got settled when he explained that he was from Taiwan, and decided to change his last name to something that would be a little more palatable to Western ears. Still, my first volume of Fables is now signed by him, and I am a happy camper.

Our next bit of loot was a surprise purchase by the Wife. A local artist by the name of Jeff LeMire had created a comic in 2005 called Lost Dogs which won a Xeric award, which is something put out by the Xeric Foundation, a group composed of, amongst other people, Peter Laird, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The award goes out to promising new artists to help them publish their work and get into the industry. Our friend, Sonny Liew, was one such winner a few years back. Jeff ended up being a VERY personable, humble and friendly guy, and it was nice that the slower Sunday vibe allowed to just stand around and talk to him about various things. Unsurprisingly, he showed an interest in the Wife’s artwork when she mentioned she was “in the biz” and encouraged her to keep pursuing it and self-publish if necessary, contrary to her own opinion that because she is a) a girl and b) wholly devoid of talent, she stands no chance in the industry. With any luck we’ll be able to see the guy around more often, and perhaps within a year or two, it will the Wife sitting at one of these tables, signing and doodling for others.

The other acquisition, which was not signed, was Wimbledon Green, by Seth, Yet Another Canadian Artist, who has been winning awards and making a lot of waves in the Literati crowd that deign to read “graphic novels,” but not comics.

I have to admit, aside from having seen his work on more recent compilations of the Peanuts strip, I haven’t delved too deeply into his work, but he’s another the artist The Wife has been aware of for some time, so hopefully this will give me an excuse to get a better grip on the kinds of stories he tells.

All in all TCAF has been a pretty big hit with us; the more laid back, “it’s all about the artists and not the merchandise” vibe of the event made it enormously fun. And it’s just a blast to be surrounded by so many comics creators. I have a feeling now that even if we ever do get a chance to go to the San Diego Comic Con, somehow, the cozier, more intimate feel of TCAF is going to keep this event at the top of our list. As far as Paradise ComicCon and others go, this is definitely the event to beat in our books. Although I still can’t quite believe that James Jean isn’t white. That’ll take me a few years to digest.

Tomorrow, either my thoughts on Digital Devil Saga 2 (which I don’t feel like writing today after writing this) or thoughts on "font-style: italic;">Persona 3 which should be delivered to us by Monday afternoon.

Of Comics & Cowboys

Today ended up being a long but pleasant day.

The afternoon was spent cruising down over to the University of Toronto campus where one of the old and currently under renovation halls was taken over by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. While we did not achieve everything that we set out to do, it was for the most part a success. Our failures come in the form of completely forgetting that Stuart Immonen (penciller for the utterly hilarious Next Wave: Agents of H.A.T.E.) was there and bringing anything for him to sign. The other failure was missing out on James Jean (cover artist for Fables) who was in the middle of a panel discussion when we showed up, and the other miss was Paul Pope (creator of 100%) who we spectacularly failed to locate.

On the other hand, we managed to meet with Evan Dorkin, who has done completely psychotic Milk & Cheese comic (“When dairy products go bad!”) and got him to not only sign our trade paperback, we came away with a Milk & Cheese fridge magnet. This is, of course, awesome. The other success was meeting Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of local comic sensation Scott Pilgrim, and I finally got to ask him whether he liked moving from Toronto to Nova Scotia, since we were contemplating a Halifax move ourselves last year. It turns out he doesn’t and will probably be leaving the province, so maybe we made the right choice after all in settling down here. I picked up the third book in the Scott Pilgrim series and got him to sign my first. We also ran into the Old Friend who was hanging out with her girlfriend, who, in turn was dating a guy that does a webcomic called Butternut Squash and seduced his lady love with a heart full of love and plastic guitar. The song? Freebird. The level? Medium. I give him credit for trying, but dude, Medium… Come on…

After that, we went to another part of the Annex to attend the Wife’s Friend’s 30th birthday party which had, wait for it… A COWBOY THEME! People were dressed as desperadoes and there was pinata in the shape of a cactus. Being the big Party Animal that I am, I immediately ran from the crowd in the backyard and retreated to the basement, there, to find (what in retrospect should been obvious) that someone had brought Guitar Hero II to the party.

As you may expect, it was all over for me at that point.

I am once again amazed at the continuing hesitation of people to play at Expert. I think I may have also accidentally killed the more innocent, “Hey, let’s just have fun” buzz that the other party-goers were enjoying with GH2. I strapped on the guitar, warmed up with Sweet Child O’ Mine and noted that the buttons were a bit stiffer than my hugely worn out Gibson SG at home, but got into it after a bad start and then after that went through a few favorites like Messenger In A Bottle, Carry on my Wayward Son and Monkeywrench at which point there were a lot of “Holy shit…”s, “What the hell level is he playing?!” and “HOW THE FUCK DID HE DO THAT?!”

Once I was done, fewer people were willing to approach the game, and some folks did attempt Expert, usually getting shut out within 2-4% of the song’s beginning. I told them I wasn’t that good. They told me to shut the hell up. One guy, upon leaving the party, put his hand on my shoulder and said “Dude… YOU are my Guitar Hero.”

As befits the basement, this is where we found the Nerd/Geek contingent and immediately scored Respect Points with whole “She draws comics, he reviews videogames” thing. It is still baffling to me that people would now actually consider this cool, and that so, by extension, are we. Much talk of games, anime, illustration and comics ensued and I think these guys now have a far more heavily distorted and favorable view of our lives than we actually deserve.

Also we finally finished Digital Devil Saga 2, today, but I’ll write more about that properly tomorrow.

New Neighbor, More Writing

It would appear that it will once again become necessary to make the distinction between Downstairs Neighbors and Upstairs Neighbor as we get another tenant moving into the house. This one is a mortal threat to anyone that’s not a geek however, as not only is he a graduate student studying film, he also studies games.

Needless to say, when he accepted an invitation to a cup of coffee, the nerd quotient in the room rose to dangerously high, fission-worthy levels as the conversation turned towards everything from the bolder use of philosophy in recent first person shooters to the merits of full motion videogames such as Night Trap and Sewer Shark in the Sega Genesis era.

And… He has a Playstation 2 with Guitar Hero and a guitar.

The Wife now finds herself in the uncomfortable position of either having to scream at me, “YOU SUUUUUUUUUUCK!” when I screw up Hanger 18 for the umpteenth time, or tromping upstairs, knocking on the door and saying “YOU SUUUUUUUUUCK!” when the Uptairs Neighbor does similar, just directly overhead and muffled by the floorboards.

Or she can simply shout it at the both of us when he brings his plastic toy guitar down, which is pretty much a given at this point.

Tomorrow. Comics! The Toronto Comic Arts Festival begins just a few blocks down south at the University of Toronto campus and we go to prostrate ourselves before our ink fingered gods.

And now, back to writing an article about the Wii making the “hardcore gamer” an endangered species…

Thursday Is Playstation Store Day

That meaning the virtual store available to PS3 users with an internet connection gets updated with shiny new toys. So apart from checking out the new additions, doing a bit of prep work for the second season of the animated series I once wrote in Singapore, and a little bit more grinding away in preparation for the penultimate confrontation in Digital Devil Saga 2.

Ho Hum

Did some shopping around the neighborhood, hung out with neighbor, played some Digital Devil Saga 2. That is all.

Quiet, Boring

Many e-mails were sent, a little bit of article research was done, and more DDS2 was played.

Just a few more days now and this thing will be done…

No More Sweating To Death

A nice, relatively cooler day led to finishing up a comic script, and grinding the hell out of Digital Devil Saga 2. Level 99 has been achieved, seeking out Real Ultimate Power in terms of final skills/abilities to follow.

Also, I’ve been notified that The Essay is just about ready to be unleashed on the world. More on that soon-ish.

Sunday Is For Grinding

As Digital Devil Saga 2 continues to approach levels of near omnipotence. Such is the innate appeal of the RPG; you put in the time, you are guaranteed success.